The Dove

by Kristy McCaffrey

  “Then I’ll take you with us,” Logan said.

  “You think you’re so clever,” Griffin said. “I wonder if you even have bullets in that little pistol you had hidden.”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  A vision of Logan lying in a bloody heap seized Claire. “Give him the money,” she whispered. “It isn’t worth it.”

  “Wait.” The woman beside Harry Myers spoke from atop her horse. “There’s something you should know, Frank.”

  Claire looked at her—she was the woman she’d seen in the house outside of Cimarron. It was Frank’s sister, Dee. She should have recognized her sooner.

  “I’ve never spoken of this because there seemed no point,” Dee said, her voice faltering. “When you forced me to marry Luttrell, I was already with child.”

  Claire sensed the woman’s hesitancy, noticed Dee’s horse snort and shift from leg to leg in agitation.

  “Logan and I were engaged in Virginia City,” she said, her gaze unfocused.

  Engaged? Claire went cold. Logan had almost married Griffin’s sister? A sickening realization sank into her bones.

  “Dylan isn’t Luttrell’s son,” Dee said flatly. “He’s Logan’s.”

  No one spoke.

  Claire stood behind Logan, his broad shoulders shielding her from Dee, blocking the woman from his past. He was so dear to her—she even thought she might love him—but a bitter taste of betrayal began to take root and she felt hope drain from her heart. She’d been so foolish to believe he might be different.

  “What?!” Logan exclaimed in shock.

  “I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.” Dee turned toward her brother. “It doesn’t make sense to hurt him, Frank. We can still get what we need.”

  “You’re lying,” Logan said.

  Dee shook her head, grief clouding her pretty face. “No,” she whispered. “I never thought I would see you again, Logan. But don’t you see? We can work this out, we can all gain something. Don’t you want this for Dylan, Frank?”

  Claire’s mind latched on to the boy’s name—the youngster she’d treated at Belle’s.

  She wondered what else she didn’t know, what Logan had never told her. He obviously had good reason not to share the details of his past with her, and she didn’t want to acknowledge what that reason might have been. If it was as deceptive as her mind leaned toward, then Logan wasn’t who she believed him to be. Had she been so wrong about everything?

  “If I’m understanding all of this, then the most obvious plan of action would be to kill Claire,” Frank said.

  Claire jerked her eyes to him.

  “Like hell,” Logan growled.

  Frank spoke of her murder as if he were putting down a horse that had outlived its usefulness. He smiled grimly. “You want them both? That figures.” His eyes shifted to Maggie. “None of this’ll be settled until you cough up the location of the loot, dearest. I’m even inclined to let The Dove be a wash between us.”

  Suddenly Jimmy ran. In horror, Claire saw Harry Myers draw his gun and fire. “Jimmy! No!” She threw herself forward, trying to shield him, but Logan grabbed her arm and pain lanced through her shoulder as he dragged her upright.

  More gunfire ricocheted through the trees and in a split second Logan changed his mind. “Run!” He shoved her away from him.

  She struggled to move as she whipped her gaze to where her mama and Jimmy had been standing seconds ago. Both were gone.

  “Run, Claire!” Logan bellowed as he pressed against her, crowding her, pushing her deeper into the forest. Despite the confusion, she noticed he didn’t fire his gun.

  Reality hit her. He didn’t want to shoot Dee.

  In the darkness everyone scattered, the air filled with shouting, gunfire, and the responses of unsettled horses.

  Claire ran.

  Her body moved in the direction she hoped Maggie and Jimmy had taken. The coat she wore weighed her down as she traversed a downhill route, moonlight guiding her in the eerie darkness. To her left, she saw her mama farther up the hill. Claire shifted direction to follow.

  A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed she was alone; no one trailed her. Not even Logan. She looked again, upward then behind her. Should she double-back for him?

  He probably went to help Dee. Maybe the woman was hurt, needed help, anything could have happened. She fought back tears. What a fool I’ve been. She went after her mama.

  Chapter Eighteen

  With Claire off to safety, Logan circled back to deal with Frank Griffin and Harry Myers. There’d been a third gunman hidden in the woods, and he didn’t doubt it was Sandoval. Logan hadn’t discharged his weapon since Dee had been in the middle of the gunfight. Despite his misgivings, and the questions that filled his head, he never would have forgiven himself if he shot the mother of his child.

  Dylan. The boy at Southern Charm. A son he never knew existed.

  There was a good chance Dee lied, but the timeframe of their affair played out right, as did the boy’s age.

  Rage and confusion consumed him, and a searing protectiveness burned in his heart. Logan didn’t share what was his. The boy would not carry the Luttrell name all the days of his life. Dee is lying. Damn her. She has to be. But the seed of doubt had been planted, and he’d never be able to ignore it.

  Logan skirted the area where the confrontation and revelations had occurred. No one there. Everyone had disappeared.

  He found Dee’s horse caught in a cluster of pines, untangled the animal’s reins, and set him loose. Then he continued to stalk the perimeter. Finally, he sighted a smattering of blood across a boulder, as if someone had rubbed against it with his—or her—shoulder. From that he made out a faint trail, and started after the men who would take everything from him.

  * * *

  Claire crested the hilltop and glimpsed the shadow of her mama weaving through the pines. She trailed behind, anxious not to lose her, and struggled to quiet her breathing as sweat broke out on her skin.

  A small structure came into view, and she recognized it as the one Jimmy had called a chapel. It didn’t appear to be a place of worship, but rather a simply made, rectangular dwelling with one window covered with wood. At the back of the building, Maggie slipped inside. Claire hurried to the door, carefully pushed it open and was met with the musty smell of wet earth and moldy wood. Large, fully stuffed burlap bags covered the dirt floor.

  Claire raised her eyes and looked directly into her mama’s face. From a darkened corner emerged Dee.

  * * *

  Logan followed the bloody trail—difficult under the cover of night but not impossible—and at the end found Harry Myers….dead. The man had been shot on the right side of his chest and had bled to death.

  Logan stripped Harry’s body of weapons—finding his own gun and two knives—but was unable to locate Myers’ gun. He checked the readiness of the firearm and started off, but his further search of the woods turned up nothing.

  * * *

  “Where’s Jimmy?” Claire asked, speaking in a hushed tone.

  “He’s run off again,” Maggie answered. “But we’ll find him. I didn’t realize you were behind me.”

  Dee and Maggie appeared uncomfortable, the atmosphere charged with an awkward silence.

  “What’s going on?” Claire asked. She glanced at the bags. “Is that Luttrell’s treasure?”

  Maggie nodded.

  “Tell me what’s going on, Mama,” Claire demanded.

  “All we knew was that Luttrell had stashed some treasure in a chapel.” Maggie’s gaze flashed with purpose. “Of course, I expected something a bit more…ornate.” She indicated their surroundings, then glanced at Dee. “That was my first setback, not realizing right off that this was the building he referred to.”

  “I described it to you,” Dee said, an edge to her voice. “The chapel in the mountains, he’d called it.”

  “But you’d only been here once before, Dee,” Maggie whispered in frustration. “You try l
iving out here alone for a while. I’m the first to admit, I made some bad decisions during my search.”

  “Like the spiders?” Claire asked, trying to absorb the idea that her mama and Griffin’s sister—Logan’s ex-lover—were somehow working together.

  “Yeah, well, Jimmy lost it when I started looking there,” Maggie said. “The money wasn’t in the chapel like Dee had said, so I started searching elsewhere. Remember Spider Hole, where I took you years ago?”

  A vague memory surfaced of an abandoned mine shaft with wooden timbers perched unsteadily at the entrance. Claire had been a young girl at the time and hadn’t liked the dank smell or the feeling of entrapment that permeated the atmosphere. “I don’t recall any spiders.”

  “There really weren’t that many. I think Jimmy’s imagination was working overtime. It was the last place I thought to look, but it finally dawned on me that Teddy would hide the money someplace difficult. And I was right. I was so damn excited that I didn’t notice Jimmy was gone at first, but I started looking for him as soon as I got all the money back to the chapel before Dee arrived.” She turned to the woman beside her. “And why the hell did you bring Frank with you?”

  “It wasn’t my choice.” Dee’s anger filled the small space. “I was doing the best I could to lead them away from you.”

  “You told Jimmy it was gold,” Claire said absently, dread building inside over the circumstances of Luttrell’s death.

  “It sounds more exciting to a little boy if he thinks he’s going after some glitter.” Maggie focused her gaze onto Claire. Her eyes gleamed with pride. “Before you go all proper on me Claire, just think for a minute. We can take our share and leave this place. We can go to San Francisco. You can finally study to be a real doctor, like you’ve always wanted.”

  “Our share?” Claire questioned.

  “Dee and I split it fifty-fifty.”

  Claire wondered how far they’d taken this partnership. “Luttrell’s death…what have you done, Mama?”

  “Whatever I did, I did for us.”

  “You thought I was dead.” Claire’s voice shook. “You let Sandoval terrorize me, not once but twice. And what about you?” She faced Dee. “What about your son? If you both go to jail, how will that help Dylan or Jimmy?”

  “I’m not without regret,” Dee said with a fierce undertone. “But Luttrell was a bastard. He beat me every chance he got.”

  “Why didn’t you leave him?” Claire asked, but she already knew the answer. It was the same reason she’d never left The White Dove—not making a decision was a decision in itself.

  “It wasn’t that simple,” Dee said. “I owed Frank. He always looked out for me. There were things that happened, when I was younger, that I’m not proud of. He said he wouldn’t protect me if I didn’t charm the pants off Teddy, and he told me Logan didn’t have enough money.”

  “He does now,” Maggie said. “How ironic is that.”

  “Luttrell deserved to die,” Dee whispered. “He was determined to give me nothing. Maggie helped me get what was rightfully mine and my son’s.”

  “No one’s going to get it if we stand around here talking about it,” Maggie said.

  “You’re going to drag all this money back to Las Vegas?” Claire asked.

  “Is The Dove truly gone?” Maggie asked.

  Claire nodded.

  “Then I say we head straight-away to San Francisco. Dee, you can come with us.”

  “I plan to go back to Virginia City. I have friends who will help me hide there, but first I have to find Dylan.”

  “You don’t know where he is?” Claire asked.

  “Frank took him from me to force me to help him.”

  “He did the same damn thing to me,” Maggie said. “After Sandoval attacked you and I thought you dead, I was ready to go to the county sheriff since the town marshal would’ve been a complete waste of time, but Frank threatened Jimmy—his own son, for God’s sake.”

  “Frank and Raul argued in Cimarron,” Dee interjected. “Something about a shipment of stolen cattle and how Frank was fed up with all of Sandoval’s skimming of the profits. God knows what else the two of them are involved in. When Sandoval left, I was scared. He’s a man who holds a grudge and obviously he came up here to even the score.”

  Claire began to understand what the two women had been up against. “Dylan is with Belle Mason. She’s got him at Southern Charm.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Dee’s face showed the first spark of emotion since Claire had entered the so-called chapel. “How is he?”

  “Fine.”

  Dee closed her eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Instead of running, why don’t you let Logan take care of all of this,” Claire said. “He can present it to the circuit judge. Why not do all of this fair and square?”

  “You don’t understand,” Maggie said. “Frank’s influence is wide, and there’s nothing fair about what happened to Luttrell. Truth was, it was an accident. The fool was sick and drank too much of that wild cherry bark you made for coughs. And before you accuse me of doing it, you should know neither of us overdosed him. I’ll bet my bottom dollar it was Frank, though.”

  “If you knew he’d consumed too much, you could have helped him,” Claire said, relieved her mama wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer but still sickened by the fact she and Dee had done nothing to help him. “You could have given him ipecac,” she said numbly.

  “No, Claire.” Maggie’s tone was final, her expression resolute. “You’ll just have to trust me on this.” She changed the subject. “How much do either of you know about this Logan Ryan? Do you trust him?”

  Claire didn’t know how to respond because she wasn’t sure about anything anymore.

  “How do we know he didn’t scheme to marry Claire?” Maggie asked. “Did he know about the deed beforehand?”

  Reluctantly, Claire answered. “Yes.”

  Had Logan used her? A part of her found the idea incomprehensible, which undoubtedly was a sign of her ultimate gullibility. What a silly, romantic fool she was, hoping he’d love her and remain devoted to her all the days of her life.

  “That solves it then,” Maggie said. “We take the money and run. I’ve three mules nearby. We’ll need to get these bags tied to them.”

  A gunshot pierced the wood of the cabin. Claire covered her ears and dropped to the floor as Dee screamed and did the same.

  Maggie crawled around her and cracked open the door.

  “No!” Claire grabbed her mama’s arm.

  More gunshots struck the exterior of the building.

  “I’ve guns, too,” Maggie said. “I’ll be back.” She crept from the building.

  The gunfire ceased. For a brief second, Claire hesitated then took off at a dead run after her mother.

  She raced with fear in her veins, praying she wouldn’t be shot. They traversed through the trees, around the hillside, and quickly came upon the mules. Claire took the revolver Maggie handed her. With trembling hands, she checked it for bullets—the cylinder was full. Maggie carried a rifle and led two of the mules while Claire grabbed the third one.

  “Stay alert,” Maggie said quietly.

  Within minutes, Claire lost sight of her. She tugged at her mule, but the creature balked at moving forward; she could hardly blame him. It was sheer lunacy to head back to the chapel, to risk being killed, all for a big pile of money that everyone thought would solve their problems.

  Where is Jimmy?

  Panic welled up in Claire’s chest, and she glanced around. There had been no additional gunfire once she chased after her mama, and it was odd they hadn’t been followed. The click of a gun hammer made her jump.

  “Alright puta, where’s the money?”

  She jerked to where Sandoval pointed a gun at her. She held her own weapon in her right hand, out of his line of sight. Gripping the handle more firmly, she hoped he didn’t notice it.

  “I grow weary of chasing the cats,” he sneered. “I grow wear
y of you.”

  She would get one chance. Her heart pounded in her ears as she gazed into the barrel of his gun. She wouldn’t be afraid. She didn’t want to be afraid anymore.

  She swung her arm around, but a rush of movement pushed her to the ground with a jarring thud. Her mama screamed, landing on top of her, and gunfire blasted the air with explosive bursts.

  In seconds it was over. Claire’s ears rang.

  “Mama?” she whispered. Claire rolled her to the side and struggled to sit up.

  Sandoval lay in a contorted position, his face plastered with the surprise of his death. Logan approached the dead man, and stripped him of his weapons.

  “Claire…He didn’t get you, did he?” Maggie asked in a hoarse whisper

  Claire leaned over her mama as she lay on the ground. “No. Why did you come back?”

  “To make up for all the other times, when I didn’t watch out for you like I should’ve.”

  Maggie’s sharp intake of breath chilled Claire. A quick inspection threw her into denial. “No, no, no.” She shook her head.

  “Well, I’m guessing it’s bad, is it.” Maggie’s mouth trembled as she took several quick breaths. “There now, Claire. Be strong. You always were, you know. So strong, everything I always wished I could be.”

  “Shhh, don’t talk,” Claire said, trying to speak through her panic. “I’ll help you. I can help you.” She sobbed in helplessness.

  “I don’t think so.” Maggie’s eyes became glassy and she moaned. “I know you always tried. You’ve been a miracle since the day you were born. I thought you were dead, stillborn. I was so young and scared, I didn’t know what to do. And then you breathed.” She stared at the stars as a smile played across her pale lips. Her body released a shuddering sigh, and her limbs sank farther into the ground. “You breathed and the room filled with light, and I felt such joy as I’ve never known.”

  Claire shook her head, crying. She grasped her mama’s hand and desperately wished to turn back time.

  Maggie gazed at her. “Tell Jimmy I love him.”