Cherished (34 page)

The Apache’s eyes gleamed at her. There was a
not unkind amusement in his face as he watched the fair-haired
sister of his companions blush prettily.

“Tommy, don’t tease Juliana,” Wade said
sharply. “She’s been gently raised and it’s only natural she’d be
shocked by what happened to Gray Feather.”

Tommy sank down on one knee beside her.
“Juliana, you don’t mind my teasing, do you?”

His tone was light, but she could see that in
the depths of his eyes he was searching to see if he had really
offended her.

She reached out and ruffled his hair, her
heart tightening with a rush of love. “Not in the least—but I hope
you won’t mind if I tease
you
about a certain lady—Josie,
isn’t it?” She raised her slim brows at the hot color that rushed
into his cheeks.

“Who told you about her?” Tommy jumped up,
all six lanky feet of him, and glared about the room, his big fists
clenched. “Skunk, it was you.” He yanked the cook out of his chair.
“I reckon I’ll roast you over that soup pot, damned if I won’t
...”

“ ‘Twas me, boy.” Yancy, the fifth and most
unobtrusive member of the gang spoke up from the bench at the end
of the long pine table. He was a barrel-chested, round-jawed
Irishman, older than the others, with pale ghostlike wisps of hair
and sad eyes the faded color of an old blue shirt.

“That lassie needs a friend, and I was
thinking that your sister here might be a good one for her. If that
troubles you, lad, we can always step outdoors and settle the
matter, now can’t we?”

But there was a smile in his eyes as he said
these words and Tommy quickly grinned and shook his head. “You know
I’m no match for you, Sergeant, but why’d you have to blabber about
her
? Josie isn’t like the others, and you know it.”

“That’s what he says each and every time,”
Skunk whispered in Juliana’s ear.

“And as for needing a friend, I’m her friend
and I’ll take care of her. She doesn’t need
anyone
else
.”

This last remark seemed pointed not at Yancy
or even Juliana, listening in keen silence, but at Gil Keedy, who
rose from his place on the pine bench and bestowed on Tommy another
one of those glowering, all-too-ready-to-fight looks.

“Yancy’s right,” Gil said, evenly enough. “I
reckon Josie does need a ladyfriend to talk to her. If you weren’t
such a peacock-headed fool, prancing around feeding her a lot of
sweet talk, you’d see that she needs another woman to guide her and
help her. Someone fine and sensible like Juliana. What she doesn’t
need is you hanging around bothering her all day long....”

“You’re the one always hanging around her
like some damned lovestruck calf, with that pitiful expression on
your face ...”

Both men sprang toward each other, fists
swinging, and Juliana cried out in alarm, but Wade jumped between
them and shoved Tommy back. Yancy grabbed ahold of Gil’s shirt and
pulled him into a far corner, while Skunk and Gray Feather watched
in wry amusement. Juliana was horrified.

“I won’t have violence under this roof!” she
stormed. “Look at the two of you—acting like a couple of tomcats,
not grown men! Tommy Montgomery, I’m ashamed of you! And Gil, why,
you know better than to behave like this! Whatever happened to
those gracious Texas manners?”

Gil, beet red, mumbled profuse apologies, and
after being released by Yancy, came forward to press Juliana’s
hand. Tommy had the grace to hang his head.

Wade said, “I think it’s time we all sat down
and talked. Juliana must have a lot of questions, and so do we.
Let’s get ‘em answered. And then tomorrow we can take Juliana to
meet Josie and the baby.”

Juliana felt herself being drawn into
something that grew more mystifying by the second, but before she
could interrupt with a question, Wade had taken charge of the
group. She found herself seated on the battered hardback sofa
before the stove, with Wade beside her and the other men pulling up
chairs and benches and crates, all except for Tommy, who sprawled
comfortably on the floor with his head propped on his hand. There
was still an angry, defiant glint in his beautiful eyes, but he
waited patiently enough while Wade launched into a concise
explanation of the brothers’ past, from the time they’d left
Independence up until the present. Juliana listened in wonder and
amazement, forgetting everything else, hearing only the smooth,
pleasant tones of Wade’s deep voice, seeing only the picture his
well-chosen words conjured up. And what a picture it was.

She saw not two savage, violent criminals, as
Aunt Katharine and Uncle Edward would have had her think of them,
but two young men searching for adventure, whose high principles
and basic decency had ensnared them in a way of life as dangerous
and exciting as it was illegal. Bandits, yes, Wade and Tommy were
indeed outlaws, but according to her brother, they stole only from
those who cheated and connived to get their wealth, and never
touched a penny belonging to an honest man.

It was an incredible tale—a tale of
adventure, daring, and sheer steel-edged nerve. Wade and Tommy had
reached Texas all those years ago, but along the way to their dream
of a horse ranch they had found a town called Skye. A town where a
greedy man rustled cattle without anyone being able to catch him at
it, a town where that same man grew rich and bought up business
after business, cheating the townspeople, raising prices, milking
the citizens dry. Where a female saloonkeeper had begged their help
because the greedy man, one Amos Long, was trying to force her out
of business, and if she couldn’t come up with a hefty sum of money
to pay the mortgage on her saloon—a mortgage he held—he would close
her down and take over the place himself.

It was Wade who had come up with their first
plan. Tommy had been only too willing, for he’d been head over
heels in love with the voluptuous saloonkeeper from the first
moment he laid eyes on her. The brothers had donned masks and held
up a stagecoach carrying Amos Long’s payroll gold. They’d split the
loot fifty-fifty with the saloonkeeper, enabling her to buy off her
mortgage and thrive, despite Amos Long. For their trouble, they’d
gotten five sizable sacks of gold all to themselves, and the
excitement of surviving the chase of their lives. Long had
organized a posse to track them down—they’d had to flee Skye, flee
Texas, but eventually they moved on down through Arizona and New
Mexico, and “situations,” as Tommy called them, always seemed to
find them.

It didn’t really surprise Juliana, once she
started to think about it. The West was filled with lawless,
corrupt men who would run over everyone and everything in their
paths to get what they wanted. John Breen was such a man, and
so—from what she had heard—was Line McCray. Wade and Tommy had
moved from town to town, and when they found one where greed and
ruthlessness had made one man rich at the expense of others, they
took their time finding out enough information about him and the
operation of his business to make their holdup successful. Such as
when the payment was coming through, how many guards there would
be, where the likely trouble was expected. Then they would do the
unexpected—attack at a surprise point, when the horses were most
tired, when the guards were least alert. Patience and the passage
of time, Wade told her with a grim smile, revealed all things. One
of the things they learned while spending time in the various
towns, was who had suffered most at the greedy man’s expense, who
was most in need of aid, and who would help them by supplying
information. These people all received a share of the haul from
whatever job was pulled, while the brothers kept the rest for the
risk and effort involved. Along the way, and through the
intervening years, they had allied themselves with Skunk, Gray
Feather, and Yancy, all of whom possessed unique abilities. Gray
Feather knew the land as well as he knew every line and knuckle of
his own hand. He was an expert guide to the most secluded
hideouts—and famous for covering every vestige of their tracks in
such a way that even the most skilled trackers couldn’t detect
them. Skunk, in addition to being an excellent cook, was a skilled
rider and marksman, with aim almost as good as Tommy, who was
considered the best shot in the gang, and was able to ride hard and
fast for days on end over the most savage country without tiring.
Yancy, a former sergeant with the Union army, was a munitions
expert, with dynamite his specialty, a skill that had come in handy
many times for the Montgomery gang. Wade’s area of expertise was
his cool head for planning and a genius for organization, while
Tommy brought enthusiasm, unequaled quickness with a gun, and more
daring than most ten men put together. One time, cornered in Lost
Creek Canyon, surrounded by a posse large enough to kill or capture
them all, Tommy had managed to sneak away, shoot a round of rifle
fire that startled the daylights out of the posse, and then lured
them all in hot pursuit of him, enabling the others to get away.
He’d led the posse a wild chase, over ravine, hill, and valley,
down into the brakes beneath the Mogollon Rim and up steep
escarpments, and finally lost them deep within the forests of
ponderosa pine, while Wade led the others to the hideout. Tommy
joined them several days later, exhilarated, triumphant, and
unscathed. It was only one adventure of many, Wade told her, where
his younger brother had saved the day.

“But you still look like something’s gnawing
at you, little sister.” Gently, Wade tugged one gold curl. “What’s
wrong?”

Juliana gazed up into her eldest brother’s
face. She bit her lip. “I understand how it all got started, Wade.
I also understand why you felt you couldn’t drag me into all of it
or even keep much in contact with me. I don’t like it, but I
understand. But whatever your reasons, it’s still stealing, Wade.
No matter how you explain it, it doesn’t change that fact. It’s
still wrong.”

Wade stared at her a long time. The other
members of the gang did not meet her eyes. Then Tommy sat up,
drawing his long legs before him, and spoke, his voice low.

“We know that, peanut. Sort of. I guess you
could say that deep inside we know it’s wrong, but ... we help
people ... and ourselves. The only ones who get hurt are the men
growing rich from rustling, or land schemes or cheating—stealing in
other ways, just not outright holdups.”

“And lots of ‘em do worse things than we ever
do,” Yancy added in a somber tone.

“But we’ve been planning on quitting—all of
us,” Tommy assured her earnestly. “It’s time. Matter of fact, we
were having a look-see around by Cooper Creek to find us a neat
little spread where we could start raising horses—or maybe
cattle—when Keedy found us and told us you were in trouble.”

“Which brings us up to the present,” Wade
finished for him, placing a hand over Juliana’s as it rested on the
faded cushion of the old sofa. “A friend—actually a fellow we pay
handsomely to let us know when someone’s asking questions about
us—told us that some hombre named Gil Keedy was hot on our trail.
He wasn’t a known bounty hunter, and he didn’t look like any
Pinkerton detective we ever saw—so we arranged a little meeting
with him. And,” he finished, flashing Gil his calm, steady smile,
“that’s how we first heard about this marriage with John Breen that
Aunt Katharine and Uncle Edward were forcing you into.”

“Yeah,” Tommy broke in, jumping up to squeeze
beside Juliana on the sofa, “so we started toward Colorado and we’d
only gone halfway across Arizona when we heard that there was a
bounty on your head—two thousand dollars.” He whistled through his
teeth. “That’s a whole lot more than anyone ever paid to find us.
So what’d you do, peanut, rob the First National Bank of
Denver?”

“All I took was John Breen’s horse and his
pride, I suppose. I ran away from Denver the night before our
wedding.”

Wade chuckled appreciatively, Yancy and Skunk
and Gil laughed aloud, but Tommy lifted her in the air and whirled
her about yet again. “I’m damned if this sister of ours isn’t the
pluckiest filly I ever did meet—along with Josie,” he amended
quickly. “But,” he told her, setting her down gently on the floor,
“it’s your turn now. We’ve been searching high and low for you ever
since we heard about the bounty, but we couldn’t find any trace.
Not until Keedy heard some word about you a few days ago in
Plattsville. McCray’s men are searching for you—and us—like crazy,
but we figured Gray Feather could find you before they did.”

Then it was Juliana’s turn to relate her own
experiences since she had left Twin Oaks. When she reached the part
where Cash Hogan and his companions had grabbed her in Cedar Gulch,
only to be shot by Cole Rawdon, Tommy interrupted her.

“Rawdon! He’s more dangerous than any of ‘em.
We heard he brought you in to the sheriff in Plattsville. Was that
true? How’d you manage to break away?”

And here Juliana froze. The entire room
blurred. The plain shuttered windows, the rag rug on the floor, the
still-warm stove, the men all leaning forward eagerly waiting for
her to continue, all of it swam before her eyes. Even the flies
buzzing through the air seemed strange, unreal, moving in slow
motion. The sharp, sweet tangy scent of elderberry wine and Yancy’s
pipe tobacco became forever engraved together in her brain.

Rawdon.

Her gaze flew to the window. Darkness. The
sun had set long ago.

What had she done? What in the name of heaven
had she been thinking of?

Stupid, idiotic ... she cursed herself even
as she jumped up from the sofa. How she had managed to forget all
about Cole, all about the cabin where he would be returning by
sunset, expecting to find her, she didn’t know. Her hands turned
ice cold. She started to shake. Yes, she had been overjoyed to see
Wade and Tommy, and yes, there had been much to tell and learn, but
how on earth could she have forgotten about Cole?