The Irish Westerns Boxed Set

by C. H. Admirand

  Mick moaned when she brushed her fingers near the edge of the gash. He was coming round. He’d be all right.

  “Emma, who did this?”

  The little girl’s eyes rounded in fear, and Bridget was afraid she wouldn’t speak. But Emma surprised her by answering, “The bad man who hit you.”

  It was the last straw. She’d find a way to bring him in herself, and come hell or high water, Michael O’Toole would pay for laying a hand on her son! She’d see to it that he spent the next twenty years behind bars.

  The distant sound of horses rapidly approaching alerted her to the fact that it was far too quiet. “Emma where did everyone go?”

  The little girl looked up at her with complete trust in her eyes. “The bad men went outside.”

  “Did they say where they were going?”

  “Uh-huh,” she nodded.

  “Where, Emma,” she insisted, reaching down to tear a strip off her petticoat. It wasn’t as clean as she’d like, but it was all she had at the moment. She gently blotted the bloody gash on Mick’s forehead, breathing easier when it stopped bleeding. She tore off another strip and wrapped it around his head.

  “To play in the trap.”

  Bridget shook her head, wondering just what that was supposed to mean. “What were they going to play?” she asked, hoping Emma would eventually say something that made sense.

  Emma put a finger to her little rosebud-shaped mouth and whispered, “Shoot the lawmen.”

  Bridget shot to her feet and ran to the open door. The sun was nearly gone now, only a thin line of red-orange colored the horizon. There was no movement nearby that she could detect, but the sound of approaching horses was unmistakable. It had to be the marshal riding to their rescue. Was James with him? Was Joshua?

  She had to do something to protect the children before she tried to warn the marshal and his men. She turned around and saw the bed, the big brass bed. She dragged the still-groggy Mick over and helped him slide underneath the bed; coaxing Emma to lie beside him might be a little harder. She placed a finger to her lips. “You must be quiet as a mouse, Emma.”

  “Are we playing a game, too?”

  Bridget kissed Emma’s forehead. “That’s right, sweetie. You and Mick hide under the bed, and don’t come out. Even if you hear gunshots.” Bridget watched the child’s face for a sign of understanding. “All right?”

  Emma nodded, getting down on her belly, scrambling closer to Mick. “All right. I’ll hide Mickey. I won’t let him get scared or nothing,” she promised with a definite nod that had her blond curls dancing about her little head.

  Bridget quickly kissed the both of them again, and scooted back out from under the bed. Though still shaky, she ran out the front door. She didn’t have a clue what to do. How could she possibly warn the men she hoped were headed their way? How could she be sure she wouldn’t be running into the outlaws’ crossfire?

  She stopped and gasped for breath, nearly missing the answer to her silent prayers. The horse she rode in on stood a few feet away, still saddled, poor thing. As she walked over, intending to remove the saddle, she noticed the long leather scabbard attached to the saddle. She ran her fingers across the tooled leather and settled them on the butt end of the repeating rifle that somehow someone had forgotten.

  Not caring who was close enough to observe what she was doing, or what they would do to her if she was caught, Bridget withdrew the rifle from its leather holder, and cocked it. Pointing it straight up into the air above her, she fired three times.

  The sound of twigs snapping behind her had her spinning around to face her enemy: the man whom she had loved so long ago. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw a flicker of that feeling echoing in his eyes. All at once it disappeared, leaving only cold gray ice behind. Too late she realized that he held a gun, and pointed it at her heart. What would happen to Mick and Emma if she died? She had to do something to save them. She raised the rifle to her shoulder and fired again. The startled expression on Michael’s face showed disbelief, then anger.

  She had winged him! Blood trickled down his sleeve. Her arms started shaking; she couldn’t hold the rifle still enough to fire again. This time when he raised the gun, pointing it at her heart, she stared right back at him, silently daring him to fire it.

  “Don’t think I won’t shoot you, Bridget. I’ve come too far to give it all up now!”

  “Give what up?” her voice sounded far away. She was getting dizzy again, and her jaw ached abominably.

  “The money! It was always the money!”

  “Tell her about the Bible, Father,” Mick called out from behind her, startling her.

  She wanted to turn around and demand that Mick hide again, but didn’t dare take her eyes off Michael. Besides, Mick was an honorable young man, and he would die to protect her, just as she had been prepared to do for him. Maybe she hadn’t done such a bad job of raising Mick on her own. One thing she did know: she would not let her son get in the way trying to protect her. She had to stall them. “What Bible?”

  “The O’Toole family Bible, Ma,” Mick answered, coming to stand by her side. He took the rifle from her hands, cocked it, and leveled it to a point right between his father’s eyes. “Tell her,” he ground out between clenched teeth. Blood seeped through the makeshift bandage she had wrapped around his forehead, but Mick’s eyes looked clear.

  “Mick brought me the Bible.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” Mick spat out, “just ask him what was inside the back cover.”

  A growing sense of unease flowed through her; she didn’t want to know. She looked at Mick’s tight jaw and hard eyes and knew she had to ask, for his sake. “What was inside, Michael?”

  He grabbed at his wounded arm, as if it had started to pain him. She thought he wouldn’t answer her, but then he shrugged. “The key to a safe deposit box back in Denver. The box number was written beneath the words I wrote on the inside back flap.”

  “But I thought—”

  “What? That I’d written those words just to you?” He laughed aloud. “You always were so naïve.”

  The words he’d written echoed in her aching head: The key to happiness is in the hands of the one who holds my heart. M. O’T. 3* 3* 1 8 5 0.

  “I wanted you to think I’d written the words to you,” Michael said slowly, as if remembering, “but the main reason was to hide the fact that it also contained the number to the safe deposit box.”

  Bridget drew in a ragged breath. “What is in the box?”

  His slow smile was triumphant. “A mine payroll and the profits from two or three bank jobs.” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger under his chin. “Thought I’d lost the money altogether—that is, until Mick mentioned you still had the Bible.”

  “You’d been robbing banks back then, too?” Bridget couldn’t get her thoughts to work properly. She had misjudged him so completely. He had never loved her. “Have you no conscience?”

  “None at all,” he said with a smile.

  “I guess I shouldn’t bother to ask if you ever planned to come home.”

  “I don’t think you really want me to answer that, do you, Bridget?”

  Shots being fired in the distance startled her. She had forgotten their dire situation for a short time as she remembered all she had given to their brief marriage.

  As the sound of gunfire echoed, closer now, she asked one more question. “Did you steal my father’s gold pocket watch and my mother’s cameo?”

  His eyes narrowed, slid to a point off behind Mick, and then back again. Apparently whatever he saw there gave him no reason to worry. “I sold them for twice what they were worth. I needed the money to start over. Aren’t you going to ask me about our marriage license?”

  His words sliced her to the bone. She didn’t think she could take any more truths just now. She didn’t feel at all well. The stunning revelations her husband brought to light were more than she wanted to deal with. But she would, because she had t
o in order to get past them and move on to her future. She intended to have a future, and as God was her witness, Michael O’Toole would never be a part of it!

  “You no good sidewinder!” Mick spat out, then startled her further by letting loose a string of swear words that curled her toes. Her boy had learned a few new words since they had last shared supper together.

  He raised the rifle, but before he could squeeze off a shot, Bridget heard Emma call out from behind her. She didn’t pause to think; she shoved Mick hard to the ground, spun around, and dove for Emma. Gunfire zinged overhead, and something sharp pierced her shoulder. As she lay there, listening as the shooting continued, she desperately hoped Mick had not been hit. Emma squirmed beneath her, but until the sounds of gunfire died out, she dared not move a muscle.

  “Bridget!”

  The welcome sound of James’s voice had her opening her eyes, daring to confront what she had not been brave enough to do until he arrived. “Mick?” She couldn’t put to words what she feared.

  “Right here, Ma.”

  The sound of her son’s voice, so strong and sure, was a balm to her aching head and troubled heart. Before she could rise up off her knees, she was lifted high into James’s arms. She wanted to tell him that Emma needed her, but the words died in her throat as she looked up into the eyes of the man she would love for the rest of her life.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, it registered that Emma was talking excitedly to Mick. But her focus was centered on the man who held her close to his heart. “Bridget! I thought you were dead!” he murmured.

  “Your face. Jamie, you’ve been hurt!”

  ‘Never mind that now, what about you?”

  “I’m fine,” she started to say, but Ryan pressed against her shoulder and she couldn’t stop the sharply indrawn breath that told him more than her words ever could. James demanded to know where she had been injured.

  She ignored the demand, drew him closer, and kissed the hollow at the base of his throat and along the edge of the injured side of his face. She watched his pulse quicken. Bridget smoothed her fingertips across his warm, firm lips and sighed. There was so much she wanted to tell him, so much of their lives—

  His hand reached up and squeezed hers, and she noticed the bandana wrapped about it. “James—” she began, but he shook his head. “What about, Michael, is he—”

  “He’s dead.” Mick answered her before she even finished forming the question. She asked James to set her down. When he did, she turned toward her son. “Did you kill him?”

  She wanted to know, although she would never hold it against Mick. How could she, when Michael had threatened to do the same to the both of them?

  “Actually, he was caught in the crossfire. As soon as you pushed Mick out of the way, Justiss and I opened fire,” a new voice answered.

  “Joshua!” Bridget realized all at once that they were surrounded by men, but not one of them was a part of O’Toole’s gang of outlaws. “Where are the rest of them?” She shuddered as her voice broke.

  “The lying bastards are all dead,” Mick answered with a grunt of satisfaction.

  “Mick, you should never speak ill of the dead,” she chastised.

  “Even when they wouldn’t have blinked an eye when their leader shot you or Emma down in cold blood?”

  Bridget’s heart fluttered, but she remained steadfast in her beliefs. “It isn’t our place to judge others.”

  “You’ve a forgiving heart, Bridget O’Toole,” Ryan said softly, drawing her back into his arms. She leaned against him, trying to ignore the throbbing in her jaw and the pain in her shoulder.

  “Too bad it’s wasted on you, Flaherty!” O’Toole hissed as he lifted himself up on his elbow and leveled his Colt at Ryan.

  The impact of the bullet propelled him backward a few steps, but Ryan did not fall. Before he could draw his gun, Marshal Justiss fired off two quick shots. Bridget didn’t have to look at her husband to know that, this time, he was truly dead. She was finally a widow! She would have her future, and she would thank the Lord for every day she spent of it in James Ryan’s arms.

  But something nagged at her tired brain and aching body. “Why did he call you Flaherty?” she demanded of James. “Isn’t that Maggie’s maiden name? But you don’t look alike. I thought she was your step-sister.”

  “Nay, lass,” he answered. The look of longing in his deep blue eyes had her taking a step closer. He shook his head at her, holding onto his shoulder to staunch the flow of blood where O’Toole’s bullet had nicked him.

  “But—”

  “I’m ready to go back to Amarillo with you, Marshal.”

  “What’s in Amarillo?” she demanded, walking right up to him, ignoring the way he shook his head at her.

  He didn’t answer her quickly enough; she turned to Joshua and asked him. “What do you know about all of this?”

  Ryan’s sigh was heartfelt and loud enough to have her turning back toward him, waiting expectantly. “No one knew anything, until Marshal Justiss put the facts all together. He recognized my face from an old wanted poster.”

  “Wanted—”

  “Hush, now lass,” he ordered. “Let me get it said, while I still have the strength.”

  She nodded, standing a breath away from him, hoping he would look at her and see that she trusted him and believed in him. No matter what he was about to tell her.

  The shocked look that flitted across his handsome face told her he had understood the love and trust in her eyes. “You don’t understand, Bridget.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Marshal Justiss had finished draping the dead men over their saddles, leaving it to Turner to tie the horse’s reins to their saddles and then to one another. It would be slow going, but easier to get them all back to town that way.

  “Before you tell Bridget about Rebecca Lynn, why don’t I tell you the end of the story.”

  Ryan shook his head. “I’ve already told you I’d go with you. What more do you want from me?”

  “I want you to listen,” the marshal said through clenched teeth.

  Ryan struggled with the need to go to Bridget. She looked so lost and alone, bravely standing there with blood trickling down the sleeve of her dress from a dark red hole. Blood!

  “Bridget! You’ve been shot!”

  “I have?” Bridget sounded surprised. Then all at once, what little color had been in her face drained. Before he could pull her back into his arms, her legs buckled beneath her.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Bridget woke to the familiar sight of lace-edged curtains and sunlight streaming in through the bedroom window. She breathed deeply. The scent of honeysuckle and roses welcomed her, and she smiled, knowing she was back in the guestroom at the Ryan ranch. When she tried to sit up, she found her arm had been bandaged and had absolutely no strength in it. Struggling to get her backside up against the headboard, using her good arm, she scooted back until she was sitting up straight.

  A thin sheen of sweat beaded her forehead by the time she accomplished that much. She could hear voices from downstairs and wondered what James would be doing.

  Everything came back to her in a rush of feeling. Anguish tore at her heart. James had loved another woman, and that woman had something to do with James having to go back to Amarillo—wherever that was—and serve the rest of his jail sentence. She did not know what he had done, or been accused of, but she intended to let him know she would wait for him right here at his ranch. Let him try to send her away!

  Bridget gathered her strength and pushed herself up off the bed onto shaky legs.

  * * *

  Ryan looked up at the sound of footfalls lightly touching the steps. Bridget stood hesitantly on the bottom step with her hair tangled on her shoulders. She wore one of the robes Maggie had left behind before she moved out to marry Turner. It was made of thin, soft cotton, the color a dewy rose, the same shade that graced Bridget’s flushed cheeks.

  She looked around. “Wher
e is everyone?”

  Ryan cleared his throat. He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her, but he couldn’t. She needed to hear the truth and judge for herself whom to believe. Bridget would have to make the decision without any pressure from him. He desperately hoped she’d make one he could live with.

  “Joshua headed on home to check on Maggie, Mrs. Swenson, and the girls.”

  She nodded.

  “Marshal Justiss is waiting for me.”

  Pain, swift and sharp, speared through her, hollowing out what was left of her heart. “Tell me what happened, James.”

  He gently placed his hand to her good elbow and steered her to the chair he had pulled out for her. She sat and waited for him to begin. Nerves dancing along his spine had him getting to his feet and fetching the pot of tea he had set to steeping once he heard her feet touch the floor overhead.

  “I don’t know where to start.”

  Bridget placed her hand over his and squeezed it gently. “Why don’t you tell me about Amarillo?. Did you have a job there?”

  In the end it was easier than he had thought it would be to sit down across from Bridget and tell her about his life back then. He told her of the fears he had conquered to cross the Atlantic, and how his roundabout journey led him to Texas. He continued telling her how, along the way, he befriended Reilly and Flynn, then the others. Somewhere in the middle of the story, he realized that they were no longer alone. One by one, his men had slipped quietly into the kitchen to listen to the tale he had never fully shared with any of them.

  The part about being betrayed by Rebecca Lynn still stung, but the trust and love in Bridget’s gaze made it easier to bear.

  “So you have to go back to serve out the last two years of your sentence?” she asked, after a long stretch of silence.

  “Aye.”

  “Well, then,” she said briskly, brushing the hair out of her eyes, “I’m sure Mick and I can keep busy tending the gardens here and cooking for your men while you’re gone.”