Beauty and the Bounty Hunter (34 page)

“I…uh…” Sam might be a gossiping, jealous busybody, but he wasn’t stupid. One look into Ethan’s eyes and anyone could see that he hadn’t always been a mild-mannered healer. There’d been a time when he’d been something much more dangerous. He’d had to be.

“You’re right,” Sam agreed. “I was confused. I only saw the big guy.”

From now on everyone else would have only seen the “big guy” too. A trick of his former trade—show people
something or someone too large, too loud, too lurid to miss and they would miss everything and everyone else.

“Could have sworn I saw folks in the room after the sheriff fell down,” Jeb murmured.

“The big fellow run up here,” Sadie shouted. “Doctor done said so.”

Jeb frowned, chewing on whatever he kept in his mouth these days—it certainly wasn’t his teeth—then nodded. “Ayah. Guess so.”

Ethan urged them toward the door. “I should examine the sheriff.”

“Dead’s dead, Doc!” Jeb took Sadie’s arm. “And he’s a doornail.”

Ethan had no argument for that. However, he’d use any excuse to get these people out. There were things up here he wanted revealed even less than the true identity of his recent guests.

“I need to make certain.” The townsfolk he’d managed to herd from his bedroom now milled aimlessly on the landing and in the hall. “Perhaps one of you could fetch the undertaker?”

Those near the stairs took them. The group began to thin. Then a door opened to Ethan’s right, and he turned in that direction so fast, he got a pain in his neck that would rival the sheriff’s. If he weren’t dead.

Jeb and Sadie had moved out of the way so folks more spry than they—namely anyone with a pulse—wouldn’t rush them down the steps. Sam stood at their side, not because of any chivalry on his part, but because he wanted to see and hear all there was to see and hear before leaving.

“Samuel Kent Gifford!” Sadie snapped at the man with his hand still on the wide open door. “Manners!”

Sam jerked his fingers away as if the knob had suddenly
blazed like fire. The gaze Sadie cast upon him caused Sam to flush, then flee. Jeb followed.

Sadie slammed the door. “You should get rid of that, Doc. It ain’t healthy.” She patted him a few times and followed the rest.

If anyone saw what Ethan did beyond that closed door in the middle of the night, they’d understand he was already half past sick and a quarter to insane.

Annabeth Phelan rode into Freedom, Kansas, on a clear August eve. The stars sparkled so brightly, they made her eyes water. Or at least that’s what she told herself.

The last time she’d been in Freedom, all she’d done was cry. When she’d left, she’d sworn she was done with that. Done with this place. Done with—

Annabeth’s lips tightened. If she was done, then what was she doing back?

She pulled her hat lower. At this time of night, very few of the townsfolk should be out and about. Still, her hair would give her away if it slipped free of the crown.

No one had hair like a Phelan.

A curse since childhood, that bright red hair. The freckles too, though both had faded with age. Nevertheless, they marked her, made her memorable in ways and places she would rather not be.

Like here.

Annabeth dismounted, thankful she’d donned men’s trousers rather than her split riding skirt. The yards of material could billow in the wind and spook a horse, not to mention how difficult they made it to walk. In some towns, she might be threatened with jail for dressing as a man, though it hadn’t happened yet.

Perhaps the recent escapades of the legendary bounty hunter Cat O’Banyon, who was rumored to be a woman beneath the men’s clothes, had put a stop to such threats. Annabeth doubted any lawman would have the salt to put Cat behind bars.

There’d been a lot of rumors about Cat of late. She’d been seen in Abilene, then in St. Louis. She’d been killed in Indian Territory. Then she’d just plain disappeared.

Annabeth paused outside the livery. Sometimes she wished
she
could disappear. Instead, she tossed a coin to the boy who’d been sleeping inside the door, handed him the reins and moved on.

At the head of an alley that ran behind the structures on Main Street, she drew her daddy’s Navy Colt. The town was asleep; she was certain of it. But she’d been certain of a few things in the past that had turned out to be lies. Which had taught her to trust no one, believe nothing.

And draw her weapon for any old reason at all.

Pausing outside the third door on the right, she glanced within. Darkness met her searching gaze. She pressed her ear to the wood. She heard nothing but crickets singing to the night.

Placing her hand on the knob, she took a breath, then turned, nearly stumbling inside when the thing swung wide. Why was she surprised? A good doctor never locked his door.

Annabeth slipped quietly through the lower level, which housed a waiting and examining room—deserted but for the instruments and bandages. Clean and neat, the place would sparkle when the sun shone through the large front window.

Her gaze wandered over the cabinets, the operating
table, several chairs, a desk. Everything appeared exactly the same, even though hardly anything was.

Annabeth faced the staircase. She could slink and skulk a while longer, or she could do what she’d come here to do. Tightening her grip on the gun, Annabeth began to climb.

She reached the landing and glanced through the open doorway. Moonlight filtered across the empty bed. She swallowed, the sound loud and thick in a pulsing silence broken only by those damnable crickets. Why were they so loud?

Her gaze went to the window, which was nothing but a gaping hole where glass had once been. Her heart, which had already been beating far too fast, beat faster.

She backed out of the room, glanced toward the next, tensed. He wasn’t in there. There was no reason for her to be. Nevertheless, Annabeth headed in that direction.

The first door had been open; the second was closed. She stood for several seconds, staring at the knob, unable to make herself reach for it.

It’s only a room, she told herself. Probably empty. Gathering dust. The doctor’s not even here. He’s gone to help some poor soul. Or maybe just gone.

But she didn’t believe it. She wasn’t that lucky.

Annabeth ignored the tremble of her fingers as they wrapped around the knob and pushed.

The moon cast across another bed. Empty—achingly so—then pooled around the man slouched against the wall at its foot.

His black hair was overly long, tumbling over his brow, curling around his neck. Several days’ beard darkened his jaw, making his olive-toned skin appear pale.

Long legs stretched in her direction; the bottoms of his bare feet were filthy. He smelled like a saloon the
morning after any night. Ethan Walsh was still one of the handsomest men Annabeth had ever seen.

His eyes opened; light gray, they caught the gleam of the moon and shone silver.

“Ah hell,” he muttered. “It’s the wife.”

S
eth awoke to a din reminiscent of the Battle at the Wilderness. He leaped from the bed, knocked his beleaguered knee against his new nightstand and stumbled into the hallway. A bucket of icy water hit him full in the face.

As he stood there sputtering, drowning, trying to get his breath, the noise stopped. When he opened his eyes he found the four eldest Elliot children staring at him. Predictably, Cal held the empty bucket.

“What—what—what was that for?” he managed.

“Cat fight,” Cal said simply. “Only way to get ’em to stop is to toss some water on ’em.”

“Cats?” Seth glanced around the hall. “What cats?”

Cal shrugged. “They were here a minute ago. Weren’t they?”

Joshua, Elizabeth and Delia all nodded, but none of them spoke. Seth narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth, and then the baby began to cry.

“Never mind,” he said. “Where’s Ella?”

“Makin’ bekfast,” Elizabeth said.

“All right. Run along and eat. Tell her I’ll bring Gaby.”

He hurried into the baby’s room, dripping all the way. As he quickly crossed to the crib, first one foot, then the other, came down on something hard, round and mobile.
He scrambled for purchase, lost and landed on his butt—hard. Gaby’s crying stopped and she giggled.

Marbles were strewn across the scarred wood planks. Seth tightened his lips, got to his feet and rubbed his bruised behind.

Ten minutes later he and Gaby entered the kitchen. Ella glanced over her shoulder. The mere sight of her brought back everything he’d felt last night—awareness, tenderness, desire.

She appeared as beautiful in the sunlight as she had by the light of the moon. As she worked, the skirt of her dress swayed provocatively, drawing his gaze to her soft curves. The hem played hide-and-seek with her ankles. She wore no shoes, as usual. And while his mother would think this made her common, Seth only thought it made her Ella.

Meeting her, knowing her, touching her had brought color and sound and light back to his life. The inertia that had plagued him in Boston was no more.

“What was all the racket up there?” she asked, her voice brisk, all business, as if they’d never stood half naked in the night.

Seth looked at each child. They stared back with brown-eyed innocence. “Nothing I can’t handle,” he answered.

Three children glanced away. Only Cal held his gaze. But then Seth had known Cal was the one to watch all along. He’d invaded the boy’s territory, just as the North had invaded the South.

Which was why the war had dragged on for four long years, despite the Union’s far superior resources of money, munitions and men. When a country was invaded, the citizens were honor-bound to fight back and fight back hard.

But Seth had begun to think of this as his place, and
these kids, despite their hostility, as his, too. He hadn’t lost a fight yet. He didn’t plan to lose this one.

He took his chair. Something squalled and struggled beneath him. Seth jumped up as a huge black cat shot across the room and out the open back door.

“Told you there was a cat,” Cal muttered.

R
yan watched Julia as she slept, and he forgot every argument he’d ever had for not marrying her and making her his forever. Even in sleep her inner strength was visible, from the determined set of her mouth, to the slight line between her brows that showed her serious bent. Still, he could as easily see her smile, hear her laughter. If he did not take her for his wife, he might never see that smile nor hear that laughter again.

He would not let her go. He would not let her marry any other man, especially a man who would crush her spirit and take her will. The things about Julia that he loved the most were her courage and her determination. She might easily have given in to the demands of a hard life, to the hatred preached by her father and the viciousness practiced by her brothers to become a completely different woman. But she’d fought on, with her dreams and her will, to remain strong and gentle and kind.

He did love her, mistake though it might be, and he always would.

She opened her eyes then, stared straight into his. He tensed, expecting her to run, or shout or spit at him. Instead, she smiled, a sleepy smile that made his throat close and his loins harden. He went still, afraid if he moved he would make time march on, and he wanted this moment to last forever.

But nothing lasts forever, and as she came completely awake, he could see the memories tumble forward, dulling her smile, shadowing her eyes. She sat up, fumbled with the buttons of her gown, an embarrassed flush spreading from her chest up her cheeks.

“I thought you’d go away.”

“If you hid long enough, you mean?”

“Yes.” She finished the last button, but her blush still heated her face. She kept her eyes averted.

“No. I wasn’t going until I talked to you about us.”

She made a derisive sound and continued to contemplate the plank floor. “There isn’t any us.”

“There can be.”

“No.” She sighed, deep and sad, and traced a fingernail across a flaw in the wood. “I know I dream too much. I didn’t have much else but work and dreams. Silly things, dreams. My mama always told me I’d fall in a hole someday while dreaming and never know it till I starved to death down there.”

He didn’t want her to stop dreaming, become beaten down and despairing like other women. “Dreams aren’t silly. Sometimes they might be frightening, but never silly.”

She flicked a glance and a frown his way. “Frightening?”

“I’ve had some whoppers.”

“Nightmares.” He nodded. “I’m sorry. I don’t have nightmares. None that I can recollect anyway.”

He smiled. “I’m glad.”

They remained silent for a long while. Ryan didn’t know how to begin, what to say, if he should say anything. The silence moved from companionable to awkward. Julia bent her legs as if to stand.

“Wait,” he blurted, putting his hand out to stop her.

She hesitated, her green gaze reminding him of a cat
that had just been kicked but was too stubborn to run away, instead waiting to see if an apology would follow, but expecting another kick just the same. “A minute,” she allowed.

“I made a mess of things.”

“You don’t have to explain, Ryan. You owe me nothing. I can take care of myself.”

“I’m sure you can. But—”

He stopped, uncertain again. Would she be angry if he said he wanted to take care of her? That wasn’t what he wanted from her—her devotion, her dependence. He wanted her to remain just as she was, except with a different name.