Liz Ireland (6 page)

Numb, Emma accepted the embrace, though she felt conflicted as always around Rose Ellen. She had genuine affection for her sister, who after all had been the companion of her youth; then again, why did she always feel like a barn wren next to Rose Ellen’s swanlike glory?

“I’m so glad you came to greet me!” Rose Ellen said,
as if this meeting could have possibly been planned. Why hadn’t Rose Ellen given her some warning?

“Rose Ellen, what on earth are you doing here?”

Rose Ellen laughed. “Why, I would think it would be obvious! I’ve come for a visit!”

Clammy panic stole over her. “V-visit?”

“Of course! You never wrote me back, not for weeks and weeks, and I was so-o-o worried that you were rattling around that old house just dying of loneliness that I entered into a little correspondence with my old friend Janine Littlefield.”

And Janine, who was Joe Spears’s niece by marriage, would know everything that happened in Midday.

Rose Ellen’s expression turned mournful. “Emma, Janine said you’d taken in a…well, some wretched girl so insignificant I’d never even heard of her!”

To cover her anger, Emma turned to her niece and smiled. “Hello, Annalise. Do you remember me?”

The little girl lifted her chin and frowned gravely. Deep dimples appeared in her chubby cheeks. “Of course, you’re Aunt Emma. Mama says I’m supposed to try hard to be nice to you.”

Emma laughed. “The effort won’t be too prodigious, I hope.”

The little girl’s lips turned into a pout. “What’s prodigious?”

Rose Ellen tapped her foot impatiently at the distraction her daughter posed. “We’ll explain later, honey.” She turned back to her sister. “Emma, aren’t you even going to tell me who this strange woman is living in the house Daddy left to you?”

Emma swung little Annalise up into her arms. The girl didn’t look pleased. With Rose Ellen and her daughter both glaring at her unsmilingly, Emma felt as if she were seeing
double. “Her name’s Lorna McCrae. You’ve heard of the McCraes, Rose Ellen. The family’s been here for years.”

“Where?”

“Out toward Little Sandy.”

Rose Ellen’s big blue eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Little Sandy!” she exclaimed in horror. Little Sandy was where many poor farmers lived, trying to scrape a living off land that was not the best quality. “Oh, Emma! How could you?”

“She’s a very nice person, Rose Ellen.”

From Rose Ellen’s expression, Emma could tell that being a nice person held as little weight as ever. “That’s all fine and good, but what right does that give her to impose on your kindness?”

“I enjoy having her company.”

“I knew your living in that big empty house was going to have a harmful effect on you! You’re lonely, and now you’re behaving foolishly!”

Emma managed a sickly half smile and clutched her whiskey bottle so tightly she feared it would shatter.
The big empty house?
Empty except for a sick boy, a pregnant girl and an outlaw…

“Maybe this isn’t the best time and place to be having a private discussion.” More than anything, Emma wished she could put Rose Ellen and Annalise on the next stage south out of town, but that wouldn’t be till tomorrow. And she doubted she could force her sister to leave that quickly.

“We won’t be able to have any privacy at home, now that woman is there,” Rose Ellen grumbled as they started toward the wagon. She carried her own bags only reluctantly, when she noticed that Emma’s arms were already full with Annalise and the large bag. She clucked her tongue at Emma’s continued silence. “Although I suppose our house—excuse me,
your
house—is sufficiently large
for four people to rattle around in without being too much of a bother.”

Emma smiled, in spite of the barb. “I might as well tell you now, Rose Ellen, that there won’t just be four of us.”

Rose Ellen blinked in dismay. “Oh?”

“I’m taking care of a little boy. He’s sick.”

Rose Ellen shot her a dubious look. “Who are his family?”

Emma swallowed. “Do you remember Cal Winters, the farmer?”

Her sister dropped her bags and planted her hands on her hips. “Emma, have you lost your mind?”

“And you might as well know, there’s someone else.”

“Someone else!” By this time, Rose Ellen almost seemed to relish the enormity of her sister’s folly. “Who?”

Emma sucked in a deep breath and gathered her courage. “You see, I’ve taken in a…” The word
stranger
seemed insufficient; it raised more questions than it answered. Naturally,
outlaw
was unthinkable. It would send Rose Ellen running to the sheriff lickety-split. “A boarder.”

“A boarder!” Rose Ellen repeated, thunderstruck. “Then it’s worse than Janine had the courage to tell me!” Clearly, she considered a single woman taking in strangers for pay to be the height of bad taste. Pity and disgust mixed in her expression. “A boarder—oh, Emma! Whatever possessed you?”

Faced with the prospect of having an outlaw in the same house with her sister, Emma was beginning to wonder that herself.

The gun wasn’t in the kitchen, or the parlor, or anywhere that he could see. Lang hobbled over to the little secretary in the corner of the dining room and shamelessly began searching through drawers that weren’t his to open—something
he never would have dreamed of doing a month ago. But now was different. He was a wanted man.

He was pretty sure he’d had the gun when he arrived at the Colby house. He’d had it when he’d stolen the horse to make his getaway, and he doubted he would have let it go in his flight. He especially wouldn’t have let it get away from him if he’d known what he was wanted for.

Murder
.

The word rang again and again in his mind. Wanted for murder. Not just robbery, or horse thieving, which could cost him his life anyway; but murder. Lawmen, bounty hunters and just ordinary folks would be looking for him. There was probably a price on his head. Nowhere would be safe—maybe not even here, if Emma Colby finally got some sense and decided to kick him out or to bring the sheriff back with her.

He prayed that wouldn’t happen. But if it did, he wanted to be ready. And he wanted to be armed. His first instinct had been to surrender to the authorities. But on second thought he decided he should wait. He was innocent, but innocent men had been hanged before.

Collapsing into the dainty chair to partially relieve the sharp pains shooting through his leg and his side, he took a deep breath and realized the little nooks and drawers in front of him were far too small to conceal a weapon. He would have to drag himself into another room, maybe even outside, if he wanted to discover where Emma had hidden that blasted gun.

He buried his head in his hands, dreading the pain and effort that endeavor would cost him, when his gaze was caught by loopy, large script on paper. “But we all know in Midday there are no men who want to marry you, or it would have happened years ago.” He skimmed the rest of
the insulting missive and let out a disbelieving grunt when he read the closing. “Your loving sister, Rose Ellen.”

Loving! It struck him then that as different as he and Emma Colby were in so many ways, they had one misfortune in common—sibling problems!

Absorbed, he read through the entire offensive letter this time, forgetting that Emma Colby’s correspondence was absolutely none of his business. He didn’t understand it. This sister of hers treated Emma like a lackey—Emma, who was coolheaded and competent and didn’t look eager to take direction from anyone. And not only that, but the sore-footed Rose Ellen seemed to imply that Emma was a hopeless old dowd.

He looked up, but didn’t see the room in front of him. Instead, he envisioned Emma’s green eyes, her wide mouth, which usually was turned up in either a friendly smile…or a skeptical smirk. True, she wasn’t outrageously beautiful; her looks were more understated, more subdued than striking. But she had certain features other women would envy. Her lithe frame, for one, which at times seemed too delicate, and yet was deceptively strong. And her pale skin was something other women would douse themselves in oils and buttermilk and who knows what all to replicate. Her hair was straight and light brown—there was no denying its plainness, yet it created a perfect frame for those green eyes.

Her eyes were what had first caught his attention. The intelligence in them, the caring. No other woman he’d known had eyes like Emma’s; but then, no woman he’d ever known could sew up a man’s wounds and nurse him back from the brink of oblivion. He owed his life to Emma. Maybe that’s why she seemed beautiful to him, and why he couldn’t stop thinking about her. Maybe that’s why he would have gladly strangled Rose Ellen on Emma’s behalf.

“Mr. Archibald!” Lorna’s screech from the stairway startled him guiltily to his feet. “What are you doing out of bed?”

He opened his mouth, but no answer came. He’d almost forgotten about the other woman living in the house.

“You shouldn’t be up and about for a week, at least!”

“A week!” How could he stay in a damned bed for a week when the area was probably crawling with people looking for him? “I can’t stay in bed for a week.”

“Not even for a day, apparently.” Lorna bustled her bulk over to him with surprising ease and tugged him out of the chair as if he were a child. “You must give yourself time to recover.”

“I was restless,” he said in his own defense, as the pert, bulky blonde began dragging him back toward the staircase.

“Emma would have a fit if she knew you were out of your room.”

Emma. “Does she boss you around, too?”

Lorna looked at him as if he’d just uttered a sacrilege. “I’m happy to be here, and I’m grateful to Emma. She took me in when even my own folks wouldn’t have me.”

He tried not to look at her swollen belly, though it was hard to avoid it. So that’s the way it was. They were both of them Emma’s outcasts.

“If Emma says jump, I’ll jump,” Lorna continued, “and you’d be wise to, also.”

Lang wasn’t accustomed to taking orders unless he was paid to—and sometimes even then it rankled. That’s why he’d been scrimping and saving for so long to buy his own spread. Because he yearned to be his own boss, to take orders from no one, to answer only to himself. But now look at him. Hunted like a rabbit. Hiding out in the most unlikely of places. And taking orders from women.

He sighed and started the nearly impossible climb up the stairs. Descending had been a slow, painful process, but nothing like getting back up. Shards of white-hot pain shot through him, and his skin felt clammy and hot all at the same time. It was hard to breathe, even. If it weren’t for leaning half his weight on the banister and the other half on Lorna, he wasn’t positive he would have made it. Maybe he did need to recuperate a little longer, much as it annoyed him to wait it out. At any rate, it would take something pretty damn important to make him tackle these steps again any time soon.

When they got to the top, Lorna exclaimed brightly, “There! That wasn’t so bad!”

As soon as the spots cleared from his eyes, he nodded numbly, still trying to catch his breath. “Not so…bad.”

“Can you make it the rest of the way on your own?” she asked him. “I’m busy in the kitchen.”

He swallowed and leaned against the newel post for support. “Of course.”

Lang watched in awe as she bustled back down the stairs. Never again would he take simple mobility for granted—even Lorna was an object of envy, although she hobbled along with her weight thrown back to counterbalance the bundle her body was carrying.

He turned and shuffled along the landing. While he was up, he decided he might as well search a little longer for his gun. He opened the first door he came to, and was stunned to find a rifle pointed straight at him.

“Put ’em up, mister!”

Actually, it was a broom doubling as a rifle.

After the first wave of surprise left him, Lang bit back a smile and did as ordered, ignoring the stitch that sent fire shooting through his gut. He’d almost forgotten about the
boy with chicken pox Emma had told him about. His fellow invalid.

Only when his arms were straight up did the little boy relax the broom and lean back against his pillows in the bed. “What’s your business here, mister?”

Lang limped forward. “I’m on the run from a notorious female duo.”

The little boy giggled, and Lang noted that he was missing one front tooth. “Did you get wounded?”

Lang nodded, then, grinning, he lifted his shirt to show the massive bandage that slashed across his chest.

The boy’s round eyes bugged in awe. “Holy smokes! They must have got you good!”

He grinned. “You’d better do exactly what Emma says.”

The kid sized him up, as if trying to see whether to believe him. “Does Miss Emma make you stay in bed, too?” he asked, rubbing his arm.

Lang nodded. “And I’m not allowed to scratch.”

The boy dropped his hand. “I’m not supposed to, either, but I itch something awful!”

Lang came closer and dropped down on the side of the bed. “I guess we’re in the same boat. Bossed by women.”

The boy shrugged. “I don’t mind. Yesterday I got three cookies, and I got a bed all to myself—do you?”

Lang nodded.

“This house is so big—it’s like a castle. Have you ever seen a castle?”

He shook his head.

“I intend to see a castle and all sorts of things when I grow up,” the boy announced. “I’m gonna be a Texas Ranger!”

A future lawman! Just what he needed. “Your name’s Davy, isn’t it?”

“Sure is! Like Davy Crockett. Did you know him?”

That question brought a laugh. He felt old, but luckily he didn’t predate the battle at the Alamo. “We never met.”

Davy frowned. “There’s lots of people still alive who knew him, I bet. If I’m a Ranger, I’ll bet I’ll meet up with some. I’ll bet I’ll meet up with all sorts of people—Indians and outlaws, even!”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” How pleased the kid would be to know how close he was to a genuine outlaw already.

“What’s your name?”

“Johann Archibald,” he said.

The boy wrinkled his nose. “What are you, a schoolteacher or something?”