Love on the Line (35 page)

A huge explosion sounded by her ear.

Ragston froze. The men dove for cover.

Georgie opened her eyes.

The long barrel of a rifle now rested against Ragston’s temple.

At its other end, a very furious Lucious Landrum. “Get off him, Georgie.”

Joy burst inside her, despite his strident tone. She decided now wasn’t the time to express it, though. Sliding off the man, she waited for her feet to touch the ground, then raced to Bettina and dropped to her knees. She scooped the girl onto her lap, rocking and petting her. Hugging and cooing to her. Her little body trembled with a delayed reaction.

“Put the gun down, Duane.” Luke’s voice shook.

The boy immediately acquiesced.

Shoving Ragston forward, Luke secured him to the back of the wagon instead of inside it. “You can walk, Clem, and your pace will be set by Miss Gail. It is my deepest hope she wishes to return as quickly as possible, at which point you’ll have to step lively or be dragged.”

Skirting to the other side, he picked up the gun sitting beside Duane and tucked it in his waistband. Then he grabbed Duane’s arm, his chest lifting and falling like bellows, his nostrils flared.

He opened his mouth, but instead of saying whatever he’d planned, he clamped it shut again, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

Duane gave him an understanding smile. “Yer welcome, Palmer.”

Luke gave a nod, then whirled to face her, his eyes holding a suspicious sheen. He took one step after another, punctuating each with his words. “If you ever,
ever,
do such a fool thing again, I will skin you alive and feed your carcass to the buzzards.”

Though he was talking to Georgie, Bettina curled into a ball.

Georgie frowned. “Stop it, Bettina thinks you’re serious.”

“I am deadly serious.” His entire body shook.

She smiled at the telltale sign and placed her mouth next to Bettina’s ear. “He’s not serious. It’s nothing but male bluster. He’d never lay a hand on me with anything but the sweetest, most gentlest of touches.” She looked up through her lashes. “Isn’t that right, Lucious?”

He didn’t answer.

“Tell Bettina it’s bluster. She needs to be soothed.”

“
She
does, does she?”

“Yes.”

“It’s not bluster.” He handed her the pistol, then strode back toward the bend in the road.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“To get . . . Comer. He’s waiting for me down by the house.”

Kissing Bettina on the top of her head, she helped the girl to her feet. “Come on. Let’s drive the hack down so Luke won’t have to walk back.”

By the time they were settled and on their way, Luke and Comer were hiking up the hill. She tilted her head, noting Comer walked as if he’d had a bit too much to drink. When they were within a couple of yards, she pulled to a stop.

Instead of taking Comer round back, Luke stopped next to her. “Georgie, I’d like you to meet—”

“Comer,” the man slurred, his face swollen, his eyes heavy. “Name’s Comer.”

Sorrow etched Luke’s features; then he nodded. “Frank, this is Georgie Gail. She’s . . .”

She smiled. “I believe we’ve met, Mr. Comer. You robbed a train I was on.”

He nodded. Though his eyes were glazed with pain, their color was so much like Luke’s she drew an unconscious breath.

“I ’member,” he said. “The tel’fen operator. The boys here ’bout died when they saw ya step outta the car.”

Eyes widening, she turned around. “Y’all were there?”

The men tucked their chins, mumbling indecipherable answers.

“Well, for heaven’s sake.” But when she turned back around, Luke was leading a weaving Comer to the wagon bed to join the others.

“What happened ta him?” Duane asked, indicating Comer.

“He ran into the butt of my rifle.”

Duane grimaced.

Luke secured Comer, jostling Necker in the process.

Necker gripped his knees, leaning against them. “What happened while I was out?”

Blesinger propped him up, while Duane filled him in on all he’d missed.

Georgie kept their pace leisurely so Mr. Ragston could keep up and had Bettina use her lap as a pillow. Stroking the girl’s hair, she scanned the trees for birds, listening to every song and puzzling out its owner.

Luke nudged his horse close to her. “I was thinking.”

She turned to him. “Yes?”

“Well, I was wondering, I mean.”

When he said no more, she gave him a strange look. “Wondering what?”

He pulled at his collar. “I was, um, wondering if you’d like to be my partner?”

She lifted her brows. “Why on earth would you want a partner who can’t shoot and who makes you so mad you want to feed her to the buzzards?”

The men in the back quieted.

Luke rubbed his forehead.

Sniggering, Duane leaned forward. “I don’t think he meant that kinda pardner, Miss Georgie.”

“Oh.” Her lips parted. “What kind of partner did you mean?”

Luke scratched underneath his chin. “Same kind as the cardinals?”

A tiny germ of excitement began to bubble inside her stomach. “Cardinals mate for life.”

He turned an intense gaze onto her. “Yes.”

She pulled the hack to a stop. “Are you proposing to me, Lucious? Right here in the middle of nowhere with a group of men in the bed of the wagon?”

Scowling, he straightened. “I’m not sure when I’ll see you next. I have to take them down to headquarters and talk to my captain. Your answer will determine what it is my captain and I discuss.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, if you agree, I’ll be turning in my badge. If you don’t, well . . . I don’t know.”

She stared at him. “But you love your job. You told me you did.”

Resting his wrists on the pommel, he scanned the horizon. “Not as much as I love you.”

She bit her lip. “Can’t you have both?”

“No.” He shook his head. “My job keeps me on the trail too much. I’m going to want something closer to home.”

“What would you do?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?” He looked at her then, his vulnerability apparent.

Smiling, she reached out a hand. “No, it doesn’t matter, and yes, I’ll marry you.”

He grasped her hand and released a pent-up breath. “You mean it?”

“I mean it.”

He glanced at the men in the back, then her.

“Go ahead,” Duane said, covering his eyes with his hand, then spreading two fingers so he could peek through.

Smiling, Luke raised her palm to his lips and kissed it, then mouthed,
Later.

She nodded, faced forward, then gasped. A pair of eagles screeched as they flapped over the prairie, their heads and tails white, their wingspans as wide as Luke was tall.

The men shaded their eyes. Bettina stirred. Luke threaded his hand with Georgie’s.

The male and female birds ascended high into the sky, then in a heart-stopping ritual, clasped talons and spun head over tail like a whirligig. Over and over they went, dropping altitude while picking up speed.

The farther they plummeted, the harder Georgie squeezed Luke’s hand. At the last moment, the eagles released their hold and spun back up into flight.

Long after they’d flown out of sight, the group sat silent and awed. So beautiful the courtship dance. So close it had come to disaster.

She looked at Luke. “I’m glad I’m a woman and you’re a man. And there are some things I do well, and some things you do well. And together, we know when to hold tight and when to let go.”

Lifting a corner of his mouth, he gave her hand a squeeze. “I love you, Georgie Gail.”

She smiled
.
“And I love you, Lucious Landrum. Name and all.”

Twisting around, he looked at Ragston. “Hop on up, Clem. I’m anxious to get my gal home.”

The men closest to him helped him up onto the flat of the bed.

Once he’d settled and his legs were dangling off the end, Georgie flicked the reins, just as anxious as Luke to return to the home that would one day soon be not only hers, but also his.

“Everybody off the train.”

Georgie and Lucious exchanged a glance, then corralled the children and shuffled past the man brandishing a gun. At the door, a man with a neckerchief about his face waved them off.

Jumping to the ground, Lucious turned and assisted her and their five daughters. He gave her waist a squeeze of reassurance, but it did little to comfort her. Would he try to disarm the man?

His job as general manager for SWT&T kept him serving the company in many capacities and occasionally filling in for their lineman and new operator. But it didn’t provide much opportunity for disarming outlaws.

Still, he’d kept up his membership in the Gun Club. Had taken the girls hunting every chance he could. And still went everywhere with Odysseus—having retired Penelope the day they were married, for Georgie was now closest to his heart.

He’d just taken little Julia into his arms when the bandit stationed at the car door stopped him. “Hand over yer gun, mister.”

Georgie tensed. Lucious would never willingly give up Odysseus.

He handed Julia to her. “You and the girls go on. I’ll be right there.”

Swallowing, she took the child. “Here we go, girls. You heard your father.”

When they were out of harm’s way, he turned back to the man. “You can have my bullets. The gun, however, is mine.”

“The only thing what’s yers is whatever I say is yers. Now, hand over the gun, real slow-like.”

Jaw ticking, Lucious lifted the Colt with two fingers.

The man glanced at it, then took a quick step back and placed both hands on the grip of his pistol. “Where’d ya get that?”

The gun still dangled in Lucious’s fingers. “It’s mine.”

“That there gun belongs to Lucious Landrum. Is part of a pair.”

“Yes.”

“Well, what’re you doin’ with it?”

He gave the man a look full of promises. “I own it. Have owned it for nigh on fifteen years. And I don’t plan on parting with it anytime soon. The question is, how do you want the bullets? Poured out into your hand, or shot clean through your heart?”

The bandit’s pistol began to shake. “Boss!” he shouted.

A man taking goods from the lined-up passengers looked over his shoulder, then jogged to them.

“Take a gander o’ that,” the one covering Lucious said. “Claims it’s his and he’ll let us have the bullets but not the pistol.”

The boss’s gaze went from the bone-handle carvings to Lucious’s face. “What’s yer name?”

“Lucious Landrum.” He smiled. “Would you like me to prove it?”

The question hung in the air, right alongside Luke’s pistol.

The boss stilled. “Who’s he with?”

“That gal over yonder. The pretty one with the five little girls.”

The boss glanced at Georgie, then back at Lucious. “Where’s the other pistol that goes with this one?”

“You never know,” Lucious answered, his voice dropping. “But he doesn’t like to be far from his woman and will go to any lengths—
any
—to protect her.”

The boss paled and exchanged a worried glance with his comrade. Neither made a move toward Luke’s pistol.

Georgie could see he was losing his patience. He’d come a long way from the man who charged in first and thought later. But he did have his limits.

“Why’re the robbers staring at Pa?” Tina asked.

Georgie looked down at their oldest, not far from the age of the girl who’d been at Georgie’s side that long-ago day she’d first laid eyes on the man who would become her husband. “They recognize your father and fear for their lives.”

“But there’s two of them and only one of Pa.”

“Yes.”

From the opposite end of the train, a group of men on horseback burst from the forest. “
Get down!
”

The command sailed above their heads and broached no argument.

Spreading her arms, Georgie brought the girls down with her. “Cover your heads,” she shouted, then glanced to the side.

The men who’d been with Lucious were without pistols, their hands in the air while he held them at gunpoint.

Good heavens, that was fast. She was sorry she’d missed it. It had been a long time since she’d seen him disarm a man.

Gunshots cracked above them like firecrackers.

“Mama,” Christine cried.

“Shhhh.” She reached over and squeezed one of the twins’ arms. “I’m right here, girls. Don’t worry, help has arrived. Just stay on the ground until they tell us we can get up.”

“Where’s Pa?” Jessamine sobbed, flinching after each shot.

“He’s part of the help. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”

As quickly as it started, the clash between the outlaws and the charging lawmen stopped.

“Can we get up?” Tina whispered.

“Not yet, but soon.” The girls scooted closer, their backsides lifting like inchworms. Georgie stretched her arms as far as she could reach.

“It’s okay, folks,” a young man shouted, his spurs clinking as he walked the line. “You can get on up now. Danger’s over.”

The dusty pair of boots stopped beside her. The jinglebobs dangling from the spur’s shank still swayed, though the man had quit walking. A thin, youthful hand came into her line of vision. “Ma’am.”

Grasping it, she rose, then shook the dust from her skirts. “Thank you.”

The girls bounced up beside her like jack-in-the-boxes.

Pushing the brim of his hat back, the young man grinned. “Hey. I recognize you. You’re that bird lady.”

She scanned the area, then saw Lucious shaking hands with some of the Rangers, clapping others on the shoulders. Once she’d ascertained he was hale and whole, she returned her attention to the lad. “How do you do, I’m Georgie Landrum.”

“Yeah. I know.” He touched his brim. “I’m Benito von Hiller. But ever’body calls me Hyena.”

She stilled, examining the eyes of . . . No, it couldn’t be. “Bett—”

“Benito. I’m part of the posse these Rangers put together this morning.” Benito’s gaze traveled over the girls. “Are all these yours?”

Joy at seeing Bettina filled her. Try as they had, no one in town had been able to tame the young girl or keep her from her tomboyish ways. Her father had died the year Georgie carried her first child. Shortly after von Schiller’s death, Bettina had stopped by the cottage to bid Georgie and Lucious good-bye.

“It’s time I moved on,” she’d said. “There’s a whole world out there and I have me a hankerin’ ta see it.”

“But you’re only eleven. Where will you go? What will you do? How will you eat? Wouldn’t you rather stay here and live with me and Mr. Lucious?”

“No, ma’am. I like y’all just fine, but I got me some wanderlust what cain’t be ignored.”

Wanderlust. At the time, Georgie assumed the girl had picked the word up in a saloon of one sort or another. Now she quickly did the math. Ten years of wanderlust. She was twenty-one years old and pretending to be a man?

Good heavens. The Rangers would be horrified, aghast to discover she was a female. Georgie couldn’t imagine the rough talk she must have put up with this day.

“I hear tell they just passed a tariff act banning the importation of wild bird feathers.” Bettina took out a pouch of Honey Dew chewing tobacco and stuck a wad in her lower lip. “Called it the Georgie Gail Landrum Act.”

Ignoring the tobacco, Georgie smiled. “Yes. That’s where we were. We’re on our way home from Austin right now.”

“Congratulations. That’ll shore put a crimp in the plume trade.”

“Yes. Yes, it will.”

“Heard the boys were released a couple o’ years back. You ever see any of ’em? Duane?”

Georgie’s smile widened. “Duane was released much earlier than the others. He’s so respectable you’d hardly recognize him. He married Mattieleene Honnkernamp and preaches at the German Methodist Church over on Quitman.”

“He don’t, neither.”

“He does. And his sermon illustrations are vastly amusing.”

Bettina chuckled. “I can just imagine. Mattieleene.” She shook her head. “I wonder if he wishes he were back in the calaboose rather than being saddled with that gal.”

“They seem to be very happy.”

“Well, what do ya know about that? And the rest of ’em?”

“Well, let’s see. Lulie Necker ran off with another man while Arnold was in jail. He’s back on his farm now but has turned awfully bitter. Mr. Finkel and Blesinger are both home and staying on the straight and narrow. The Ragstons moved to Kansas or some such place. We have no news on that front.”

Bettina nodded. “Well, I’ve always a’wondered.”

Fingering a button on her jacket, Georgie hesitated. Luke had told her of Comer’s true identity the moment they’d had some privacy that long-ago day of the man’s arrest. But while incarcerated, Alec had refused to speak to Luke or interact with him in any way. “You ever hear anything about Frank Comer?”

Bettina shook her head. “Nothin’. After he escaped from jail, it was like he plumb disappeared into thin air.”

Georgie’s shoulders slumped. “Well, if you ever hear anything, we’d sure appreciate a quick note or telegram.”

“You bet.” She spit out a wad of tobacco juice, swiping her lower lip with her cuff. “It shore is good ta see ya.”

“Same here.” Reaching out, she gave Bettina’s hand a squeeze. “What are you doing, dressed like this?”

“Seein’ the world. Pickin’ up jobs here and there.”

Georgie shook her head. “Clothes do not make the man, B-Benito.”

The girl grinned. “They’re sure mighty comfortable, though. Now, ya gonna introduce me ta all these lovely ladies?”

Sighing, Georgie nodded. “Of course.” She started with Julia, the youngest, and ended with their oldest. “And this is Tina. She’s ten.” Georgie placed her hands on Tina’s shoulders. “Her name is short for Bettina.”

The young woman whipped her head up, surprise and wonder filling her gaze. “Well, if that don’t beat all. I . . . I . . .” She looked again at Tina.

“Hyena,” one of the men called. “You gonna jaw all day or give us a hand?”

Lucious whipped his head around at the nickname, his gaze landing on Bettina.

She turned back to Georgie. “I gotta go.”

“I understand. If you’re ever in Brenham . . .”

The girl shook her head. “Don’t know as that would be a real good i-deer.” Squatting down to Tina’s eye level, she took her by the arms. “I want ya to remember somethin’, Miss Tina. Ain’t nothing a man can do that a woman cain’t do better. Ya hear?”

The girl nodded, her blond curls bouncing. Lucious stepped up next to them. Though he no longer wore overalls on a regular basis, neither did he dress in fancy clothes. Just a string tie, chambray shirt, vest, and denim trousers, with a single holstered gun belt strapped across his hips. He’d never looked better.

Bettina rose, winked at Georgie, then tipped her hat at Luke. “Ma’am. Sir. If you’ll excuse me.”

They watched her swagger off to assist her fellow posse members.

“Was that . . . ?”

“Yes,” Georgie said.

“But she’s a—”

Squeezing his hand, she shook her head.

“Mama?”

Georgie looked down. “Yes, Tina?”

“Is that true? What that man said?”

“What’d sh—he say?” Lucious asked.

“That there isn’t anything a man can do that a woman can’t do better.”

Lucious’s eyebrows shot up.

“No, dear,” Georgie answered. “There’s a big difference in reaching for the best we can be and in trying to be something we are not and never will be.”

“So women can’t do everything men can?” Tina clarified.

“I’m afraid not.” A slow grin began to form. “Women can do more.”

“Georgie,” Lucious admonished.

Laughter bubbled up within her. “Some things are just different, that’s all.”

He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her close. “I think, Bettina Landrum, your mama is full of sass from getting that piece of legislation named after her.”

“She is?” Tina asked.

“She is.” He looked over his brood of girls. “But the truth is, your mama can do anything she sets her mind to.”

Georgie gave him a playful push. “Don’t tease, Lucious. They’ll believe you.”

“And well they should.” Leaning over, he gave her a kiss flush on the lips.

In a cry of protest, their daughters covered their eyes and expressed their disgust at such a display from people so old they didn’t even have telephones when they were little.