Marrying Miss Marshal (16 page)

“You was jest in her room. Saw you twist yer ankle comin' out the winder.”

Even better. It sounded like her husband was hurt on top of being caught. She should have tried to do this on her own.

“Earl!” A voice drifted down from the open window above Danna's head. “We're trapped in here. Come let us out.”

“Cain't. I got a dep'ty down here. I'm trying to find out where the marshal is. Unless you know where she keeps the keys to them jail cells.”

“Sorry, no.”

Light brightened the night, coming from the window above. Danna tucked even closer to the ground, going to her knees and supporting her upper body with her left hand so she still had her gun available.

“Jest conk him in the head if ya need to.”

“So what're we s'posed to do?”

This time two voices came down from the window at the same time.

Exasperation began to leak from the man named Earl's voice. “I dunno. Bang the door down, why don'cha?”

A guttural growl was the response. The thumping started up again, this time louder than before.

Danna began to crawl toward the horses, hoping Earl and Chas were the only men there. Would Chas be able to get himself out of this?

“I'm gonna ask ya one more time. Where's the marshal? I aim to get my colleague outta jail. Tonight.”

He'd come for the injured outlaw? He must not know the other man was shot, was located at the doctor's office. Not if they'd come
here
looking for him.

Danna's grip on her pistol wavered and the gun thumped against the boardwalk. She cringed and stopped moving, praying this Earl character hadn't heard.

“What was that?”

Danna rolled, coming close to the hooves of the nearest horse, but she should be out of sight, as long as the outlaw was looking over the backs of the horses.

Through the horses' legs, Danna could make out one pair of feet and shins. She didn't remember O'Grady wearing spurs, so this must be Earl.

The sound of wood splintering followed by a loud
whoop
came, and Danna bit down on her lower lip to hold in the exclamation that wanted to escape. She'd have had those two hog-tied or locked in a jail cell by now, if she hadn't been wasting time trying to rescue her husband.

So what should she do now? She could intercept the two men as they came downstairs and rounded the corner. She knew she could get the jump on them, but where would that leave Chas?

Her thoughts circled frantically, and she knew she needed to take action soon, or risk the two men from upstairs coming upon her from behind.

Earl's patience seemed to be running out. His feet shifted restlessly. She couldn't tell if he had a weapon pointed at Chas, but if he did, the chance he'd miss from this range was slim indeed.

“Where's. The. Marshal?” Earl's voice was clipped and Danna knew Chas's time was running out.

So she made the decision. She couldn't leave him to the outlaw's mercy.

Tucking her gun in its holster, she crept beneath the hooves of the first horse, moving as slowly as possible. She prayed nothing would spook the horses. If they startled, they would crush her.

She groaned when she realized the other two horses weren't lined up; one of them stood slightly behind the other, which would put her more out in the open.

She could also see her husband's booted feet near the corner of the boardwalk by the clothing store. He stood with all his weight on one foot; the other was raised off the ground. Her view was blocked by the horses, so she couldn't determine if he had other injuries.

A shot rang out and she jumped, but somehow managed not to startle the horses. Was Chas hit? When she looked, he was still standing. Relief threatened to send her to her belly, so weak were her limbs.

“Tell me what ya know or the next one won't be a warnin'.”

She willed Chas to start talking. The shot would have alerted those in the buildings close by—Henry Shannon at the leather goods store and the Quinns at the dress shop—that something was happening. She could count on them to protect their own property, not
necessarily to help her. Maybe these outlaws would turn tail and run if enough people started stirring.

If she and Chas could make it through the next few minutes without getting killed, they had a real shot at capturing these guys.

“Last I knew, she was on the roof.”

Yes! Finally, he was using his head.

Knowing the two other outlaws could be coming up behind her anytime, Danna made her move. She sprang up between the horses, vaulted over the nearest one and used her foot on its saddle as a springboard to launch herself across the back of the second one. Her momentum took the outlaw to the ground, and she pinned his gun arm with her weight and both hands.

The horses shied at the unexpected movement and trotted out into the middle of the street. “Danna!”

Chas's exclamation was immediately followed by his presence behind her. He kicked away the outlaw's gun and knelt next to her, stuffing the other man's hat against the lower part of his face as a gag.

“What were you thinking? You could've been killed!” he railed at her.

At this close proximity, she could see the anger in his drawn brows and clenched jaw.

“So could you!” she returned. She took one of the rawhide strips she'd tucked into her pocket and tied the man's wrists together. “Were you
waiting
for him to shoot you?”

The man continued to struggle and was getting louder, so she conked him in the head with the butt of her gun. He stilled.

“I can't believe you hopped—”

“What's going on?” A voice and flickering light
emanated from the saloon. It illuminated Chas's face, showing an emotion she couldn't identify. It looked a lot like whatever had been on his face while he'd been dreaming, before he'd called out another woman's name.

Ruthlessly, Danna pushed down the emotions rising in her throat.

Shouts from farther down the street alerted Danna that the other two robbers had seen the horses in the open. She ducked behind the corner of the building, yelling “Watch out!” to Mr. McCabe and simultaneously pulling her deputy along with her.

Multiple shots rang out, and fire ripped through the inside of her upper left arm. She was hit!

Stifling a cry, she turned to check on Chas. “You okay?”

“Yes'm. What do we do now?”

“I doubt they've figured out that the kid was at Doc's office, so we're good there. But if they start shooting, innocents are liable to get hurt.”

“What should we do?”

“Let's herd them toward the railroad tracks. Hopefully, one of us can cut them off in front. If they manage to escape, I can track them down as long as the weather holds.”

“C
an we please stop now?”

Chas pushed his hat off his forehead to get a glimpse of Danna, and the action dumped icy water from the brim down the back of his neck.

He may not know much about tracking, but surely the driving rain had erased any tracks that might have been left from the two men who'd disappeared after making it out of town last night.

Danna wheeled her mount toward town without speaking. She'd been silent since they'd mounted up outside the livery.

At least they had one outlaw in custody. This one uninjured. He was one of the men Chas had spoken to in the café on his first day in town. If they could just get him to talk.

Chas was the first to admit he didn't know much about women, but he gathered her silence meant she was upset. But what was she upset about? Losing track of the two other outlaws? He counted it a blessing that she hadn't been hurt.

Still wrapped in his thoughts, he barely noticed
when they arrived in town and dropped their horses off with the boy in the livery. He did notice when Danna stomped off down the boardwalk without him.

“She's sure got a bee in her bonnet this mornin', huh?” the livery hand asked, as he took the bridles of both horses. “I'm guessin' ya'll didn't catch up to them robbers.” He seemed disappointed. Was he one of her admirers?

Chas frowned. Danna hated people in town talking about her. “That's the marshal's business.”

“Well, I reckon everyone's going to be in the marshal's business if she came back to town without them.”

That's what he was afraid of. He hurried off after Danna.

“Danna. Danna!” He shouted her name the last time, his frustration making his temper spike.

She spat her next words over her shoulder, her eyes inscrutable under the brim of her hat. “Please refrain from spreading my business all over town.”

He caught up to her in front of the jail building, and grabbed her arm to force her to face him. Something flared in her eyes and she jerked her arm away. “Don't.”

“Are you angry with me? Why?”

“Who is Julia?”

He looked down, unable to contain the surprise and pain he knew would show in his face.

With his face turned down, he noticed the pink stain on her white shirt inside the flap of her jacket. “Are you—hurt?” He could barely force the words out, so sudden was the sensation of the breath being squeezed from his lungs.

She shrugged off his hand, and it was only then he realized he was clutching her shoulder. He forced
himself to focus, deny the roaring in his head. Danna was injured and needed his help.

“Let's get you to the doctor.” He tried to steer her toward Main Street, where the doctor's office was, but she continued on the way she'd been walking.

“It's just a scratch. I'll take care of it myself.”

He didn't believe her, but she left him no choice other than follow her up the stairs to her room. Was she angry enough to deny him entrance? Apparently not, because she left the door ajar.

Danna turned her back and took off her long coat, revealing a bloodstain along her left side. Judging by the location of the crimson mark, the wound seemed to be on the inside of her upper arm.

Chas bit off a curse and strode over to her. He gripped her shoulders and spun her so she faced him. He wanted to see her eyes, needed to gauge how bad it really was.

The sight of her blood did things to his insides that he hadn't felt since Julia. But having tender emotions for Danna was impossible, wasn't it? He'd promised himself he was never going to fall in love again.

Danna half turned away from him, shaking loose of his grasp. “I'll undress and take care of this, if you don't mind.” She motioned with her head and hands and he understood he was to turn around, so he did.

Staring at the broken latch on the door made him angry, so Chas began methodically taking off his coat, boots, vest. He left the rest of his clothes on, even though his pants were soaked through and his shirt nearly so.

“How did it happen?” he asked, not sure he wanted the answer. It seemed everything had gone wrong last night. How much of it was his fault?

A drawer opened and closed somewhere behind him, and then something—cloth?—rustled and a soft tinkling noise came. What was she doing?

Her voice sounded muffled. “When that first volley of shots came…” now clearer “…the bullet grazed me. It's not that bad.” But her voice was tight, as if she might be fudging the truth a bit. He couldn't read her well enough to tell.

She said something else, but her voice was too low to make out the words. It sounded like “I can't afford it to be bad.”

“Not that bad,” he repeated. Not that bad. Only shot a little.
A scratch.
He felt as if the top of his head floated away from the rest of him as his temper ignited. “How do I get myself into these situations?”

No answer came, either from above or from Danna.

Perhaps he could ask Danna to give up her quest to apprehend the robbers. Instinctively, it sounded like a bad idea. But what if he put her on a train to Boston? Just because he hadn't talked to his parents in years, they probably wouldn't turn away his wife.

Too bad Danna would never agree to go. He
did
know her well enough to know that.

Another part of him wanted to hunt down Lewis's gang himself, and show them as much pain as they'd caused Danna. His feelings now superseded the desire for revenge he'd felt after Julia's death. Lewis needed to pay.

“I can't quite—” Danna's voice interrupted the roaring tempest of his thoughts.

“Do you need help?” He waited for her answer before he turned around.

Danna sighed, a little huff of air to let him know
she wasn't happy about it. “Yes. It's difficult for me to reach the wound.”

He faced her, and had to swallow hard. She wore an undershirt and had the quilt from the bed wrapped around her; only her shoulder and injured arm emerged. It was her hair that unmanned him, the dark locks falling in waves down her back. She must've loosed them from the braid so they would dry.

His knees threatened to knock together as he approached her. She flushed under his gaze and averted her face, pointing to the array of doctoring supplies she'd laid out across the bed.

“You'll need to clean it out first,” she said. “The wound isn't bad, but if infection sets in…”

“Yes, I know.” And he
did
know how bad infection could get. He'd met plenty of men missing limbs or on the brink of dying because of infection from injuries. “I can't believe you went all morning with a
bullet wound
and didn't tell me.”

He located an antiseptic and some clean cloths and moved in front of Danna so her crown was at his chin. He began by wiping the blood off the inside of her arm. He was entirely too conscious of how soft her skin felt against his palm, and how she smelled sweet, even though the rain must've washed away any scent of soap or perfume.

“There wasn't anything you could do, even if I did tell you.”

“You would've told your first husband.”

“Fred—” She bit out the one word. That was it.

He kept his gaze on what he was doing, but he could see her jaw flex from the corner of his eye, as if she'd chomped down on what she really wanted to say.

He leaned away so he could look her in the face. He didn't release his hold on her upper arm. “Say it.”

Her gaze didn't waver from his. “Fred would've known without me telling him.”

Well. Chas looked down to apply the antiseptic to a rag, pretending her words didn't sting. He dabbed the rag against the bloody furrow in her skin—she was lucky the bullet hadn't entered her flesh—and heard her soft intake of breath.

He hated that she was injured. Hated that they hadn't been able to capture the outlaws. Hated that he had no control over any of this.

He moved to stand behind Danna, in order to get a better look at the other side of her wound.

“This was my fault,” he muttered. Maybe he never should have come to Calvin in the first place.

“No, it's not.”

Danna's soft but firm words startled him. He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud. Their eyes met in the small looking glass hanging above her desk. “What?”

“It's not your fault I got shot,” she said, and the look in her dark eyes confirmed her words. “That was my own incompetence.”

“You're not incompetent.” Now it was his turn to reveal his confidence. And he
was
confident in her ability. He just wasn't sure she could take on Hank Lewis and come out of it alive.

She looked as if she wanted to refute his words, but instead she took a deep breath and said, “What about Julia? Who is she?”

Chas closed his eyes. He should have known Danna wouldn't forget about her earlier question. But what should he tell her?

The truth.
The simple words reverberated in his head.

“She was a childhood friend.” The words stuck in his throat like molasses, gummy, in a way that meant he had to push each one out. “Our parents traveled in the same social circles. When we got older, we became sweethearts.”

Danna had been still before, but now went completely motionless. Chas tried to control the bitterness he knew was seeping into his voice. She'd asked, after all.

“And then…and then our parents arranged a marriage.”

She nodded. But he wasn't finished.

“For Julia and my brother.”

Now her spine went rigid beneath the hand he'd placed there as he doctored her arm.

“She was my brother's wife.”

“But you loved her.”

Yes, he had. It had been his downfall. “Yes, and I killed her, too.”

 

Chas's words, so casually spoken, turned Danna's world topsy-turvy.

She spun and pushed away from him, creating distance between them while he watched her with stormy eyes.

Where had she put her gun? There it was, on the other side of the bed, beneath the coat and shirt she'd shed when she'd come inside. Could she reach it without arousing his suspicions?

He set the rag he'd been using to doctor her scratch on the table, turning his shoulders so she couldn't see his face. She edged closer to her weapon.

“Julia and Joseph hadn't been married for six months
before he came up with some hare-brained idea to head west and make his own fortune, even though he was in line to take over our father's empire.” He looked up for a moment. “In Boston.”

Danna sat down on the bed, stretching one leg out to try and reach the gun.

“Julia received a couple of letters, and then all correspondence stopped. She was sure my brother was caught up in something immoral or illegal, or both.”

He paused. Ran a hand through his damp hair.

“She asked me to find him for her.”

“And you said yes?” She needed to keep him talking. He wasn't looking at her, not really, and she almost had her gun in hand.

“Of course. At the time, I thought it would be a better choice. It was too hard to be near her in Boston, and know that I couldn't be with her. At least not in the way I'd dreamed about since my eighteenth birthday.”

He went silent, now staring at the wall. Lost in the past?

She couldn't imagine him hurting a woman. Not one that he claimed to love.

“So you came west looking for your brother. Did you find him?”

He turned back to her, his expression revealing he'd forgotten she was even in the room. His eyes had gone from stormy turquoise to darkened sapphire.

“I made the mistake of telling Julia what train I was taking out of Boston. She showed up, sat down right next to me a few minutes after the train left the station.”

“What? She traveled with you?”

He nodded, a small smile quirking the corners of his lips. “I didn't know she had that much gumption. She'd always done what her parents wanted.”

Even marry Chas's brother,
came the unspoken emphasis.

“I tried to put her off at the next station, but she would have none of it. She insisted she could handle the travel, the long hours. She said she'd stay in the hotels and let me find Joseph. That she just wanted to be there when we found him.”

“And you gave in.” Danna forgot all about her pistol and allowed her shoulders to relax beneath the quilt. She had a suspicion about the direction his story was taking. And she began to ache for him.

“I was stupid,” Chas spat, his brows slashing downward. “I should've known she was fibbing.”

“Most women have certain…wiles they can use to get men to do what they want.”

Chas looked up at her, as if surprised she was defending him. She was a little surprised herself. She motioned for him to go on, but he continued to stare at her. She prompted him, “So when you found Joseph…”

He shook his head, eyes again going to the floor, to the past. “I found him in a saloon, in the middle of a poker game, surrounded by—”

He cut himself off and flushed a little. As if she didn't know what sort his brother would have been surrounded by in a saloon. She nodded for him to go on.

“He didn't even look like Joseph. The Joseph I knew was always overly conscious of his clothing, always neat and groomed. This Joseph had a scraggly beard and unkempt clothes—his shirt was torn in two places—and he smelled like he hadn't bathed in weeks. I barely recognized him. It was obvious he'd fallen in with some unsavory characters.”

Danna knew that feeling, knew how it burned inside. Like when the person you thought would always take
care of you suddenly didn't want you anymore. You couldn't help loving them, but
oh,
it hurt.

“Before I even spoke to him, the man sitting across the table accused Joseph of cheating. He probably was.”