The Bride Wore Blue (31 page)

“We all saw how he had to rip himself from your side.” Kat tapped the toe of her shoe on the wooden floor. “There’s more to that story, and you did say you wanted to tell us all of it.”

“Well, like my sisters, Carter Alwyn understands grace.”

Nell raised a thin eyebrow. “And?”

“And … I love him. Not just because he rescued me, either.” She paused. “But because he believes I’m worth rescuing. Something I didn’t even believe of myself.”

Nell clasped her hands. “I love a happy ending … or should I say beginning?”

“I hope so.”
Oh, Lord, may it be so
.

“Hello, my dear Sinclair sisters.” Miss Hattie’s singsong voice wafted into the room. “The fatted calf is ready.”

Vivian felt a big smile overtaking her face and led the way to the staircase. She was nearly to the bottom step when the doorbell rang. Her heartbeat stuttered. “It could be the police. Carter said they may come to ask me questions.”

“Oh, I hope not. We need to get some food into you.” Miss Hattie rushed past her and opened the door.

The oldest Zanzucchi sister stood on the porch, holding a lantern and panting as if she’d just run a race.

“Jocelyn?” Nell rushed toward the girl.

“Eleanor said to come fetch you. To tell you it’s her time.”

“Oh my. Oh my. The baby’s coming.” Nell looked at Vivian.

“I’m fine.” Vivian squeezed Nell’s arm. “Go.”

“Miss Naomi’s with her now.” Jocelyn’s breathing had evened.

Nell smoothed the ruffles on her pinafore and pulled her shawl from the hall tree. “This could be the day I meet my son or daughter.”

Vivian gave her sister a quick hug and watched her float down the steps toward motherhood.

The Lord’s day.

Perfect day for a birth.

Perfect day for a rebirth.

Vivian had asked him not to go after Leon by himself. Carter preferred to honor that request. In fact, company on such a mission was personal policy, one that might have saved his father’s life. Carter had been out twice with a posse, but today there wasn’t time to gather one. If he had any hope of catching up to the outlaw and capturing him, he had to act quickly.

Did Leon know Vivian had escaped, that his cousin and son had been captured? Carter doubted the police department would have been able to keep the capture under their hats. It also seemed unlikely that Leon could have managed to spend time in town and not hear the gossip.
Jesse had seen the bandit ride north, out of town. He had to be headed back to the hideout. Would he return to the cabin if he knew? Why?

As daylight bowed to shadows, Carter urged the stallion up the rocky path toward Ute Pass. Vivian had shown him the place where she and Leon had camped Friday night. With any luck, Carter would find the outlaw camped in the midst of the same boulders.

Every scuff of Reno’s horseshoes on the rocky path reminded Carter of the growing list of Leon’s injustices, strengthening his resolve to pursue the outlaw and hold him accountable no matter the cost. Carter now knew how his father had felt that August night when he rode out after a drunken miner and the saloon girl he’d taken at gunpoint. He knew what drove his father to buck the city council and strike out on his own. No one was above the law, and no one was below its protection.

Once Carter reached his target area, he nudged the stallion through the scrub brush at a quieter pace. He didn’t see any smoke from a campfire, but that didn’t mean the outlaw wasn’t here. Carter tied Reno about a hundred yards from the rock formations, which weren’t easy to approach without being spotted.

As he made his way toward the boulders, he heard faint whistling and recognized the tune, “Goodbye, Little Girl, Goodbye.” It had to be Leon.

The whistling stopped before the end of the song. An owl hooted. A chorus of coyotes howled in the distance. Then a twig snapped twenty feet away.

Carter’s stomach clenched. Leon knew he wasn’t alone, and he was on the move.

Carter crouched against a wall of granite behind the scrub brush, knowing that if he was spotted, he had no protection. Heart pounding,
he lifted his revolver, his finger poised on the trigger as he listened. All he heard was the rising rhythm of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Shades of gray shrouded the earth and sky. Squinting, he strained to make out any shadows on the rocks. Where was Leon?

“Show yourself.” The Ozark accent came from above him, off to the left. “We’ve got you covered.”

A bluff. Three men had been involved in their gang, and Leon was down two. Carter guessed Leon already knew where he was and just needed a clear shot. But Carter needed to see his opponent as well.

“We?” he called back.

The sound of boots scraping rocks and snapping twigs tightened Carter’s throat. He scrambled on hands and knees to the shelter of a stand of rocks and squeezed between them.

“Guess you haven’t heard the news,” Carter said.

Silence.

“Bound to be real quiet at your place tonight,” he continued. “Your son and cousin are doing their talking in jail.”

Leon’s laugh sounded more like a growl. “You’re dreaming, deputy. One’s got a pistol aimed at you, the other a rifle.”

“The girl who heard you arguing with Pearl, the girl you dragged up to the cabin is gone too.”

“She killed Pearl.”

“Self-administered laudanum killed Pearl.” More crunching and snapping. Leon was below him. “Fancy belt buckle—that racehorse. You get that back home in Kentucky?”

“I’ll soon be tending a ranch full of racehorses while you’re fertilizing wildflowers.”

A stone bounded off the boulders to Carter’s right, causing him to jerk toward it. A crack rang out, and a sharp shove on his left shoulder
spun him toward the rocks. Fresh, dark blood streaked the boulder. His chest was sticky with the stuff, but there was no pain. All he felt was warmth.

Was it like this for his father? Carter took comfort in that.

The sound of calculated footsteps drew closer, and Carter slumped to the ground. Leon was coming to finish him off.

Carter lay still, the hand that gripped his revolver hidden under a branch. While the steps drew closer, he asked God for the chance to stop this man. If it was his time to die, he aimed to make his death worthwhile.

“You never should’ve come looking for me alone,” Leon said. A sinister laugh sent a shiver up Carter’s spine. The man who had been terrorizing his state and county stood within a few feet of him. A dark silhouette against the setting sun, Leon held his revolver at arm’s length, pointed squarely at Carter.

Carter heaved his shoulder in an attempt to raise his weapon. The arm responded but couldn’t muster any speed.

Before he could pull back the hammer, a powerless click echoed off the rocks. His adversary’s gun had misfired. Leon hadn’t counted on God’s intervention.

Carter summoned all his remaining strength, and some he didn’t possess, to raise his gun. The report filled the space between the rocks and echoed across the canyon.

Leon took a step back and dropped his weapon in the dirt. He looked down at the black spot spreading across the bib of his shirt, then at Carter. His eyes closed, and he slumped to the ground.

When Leon didn’t move again, Carter gave in to the blackness.

V
ivian pulled a large sketch pad from her trunk. After savoring the plate of pot roast together, Kat and Ida had left to join their husbands at the parsonage. From there, Kat and Morgan took Judson down to Poverty Gulch to check on Nell. Less than thirty minutes ago, they’d called Auntie Vivian to let her know she had a noisy nephew.

Seated in her rocker, Vivian glanced from the hobnail lamp on the side table up to the corniced ceiling above her, then to the quilt on her feather bed. Nearly as steady as her breaths, the prayers of thanksgiving just kept coming. Now that she had time alone this evening, time to reflect on the happenings of the past several days, she could see that God’s hand was there guiding her, protecting her, providing for her. One man had been her downfall. Another, her salvation.

Breathing a prayer for Carter, Vivian leaned back in the cushioned chair. She flipped open the book of what she called her dream drawings, sketches of women’s costumes for all seasons. She knew exactly where her favorite page lay in her portfolio of fashion designs, but saving the best for last, she trailed her finger over the lines of the ball gown on the first page. She revisited her sketches of skirts, capes, shirtwaists, even women’s riding trousers before turning to the dog-eared page.

The wedding gown displayed there was the dress she’d designed while Gregory was courting her. But it wasn’t Gregory she saw waiting for her at the end of the aisle now. Instead, a brown-eyed deputy with a smile that could melt midwinter icicles dwelt in her daydreams. He possessed a caring touch that comforted her and a heart so full of grace that it spilled out onto those around him.

She’d thought her gown would be accented with a dandelion yellow sash—Gregory’s favorite color. But not Carter Alwyn’s favorite.

Vivian gripped both sides of the pad and lifted it off her lap. Standing, she clutched the sketch to her breast and twirled across the room, lost in a silent dance.

Wagon wheels churned the street below, then suddenly stopped. Anxious voices drew Vivian to the window. In the darkness, all she could see was the silhouette of a wagon and the glow from the lantern a woman carried up the walk.

Tucker and Ida.

Vivian set the sketch pad on the bed and grabbed her dressing gown from the wardrobe. It was ten o’clock. Miss Hattie had retired for the night.

Fear knotted Vivian’s stomach while she secured the tie at her waist. Her sister’s presence this time of night could mean only one thing—trouble. She quickly lit her lantern and hurried down the stairs to open the door. Ida and Tucker’s solemn faces only served to tighten the knots in Vivian’s stomach.

Tucker ushered Ida inside and removed his hat. “Vivian, Morgan called us.”

“Kat? Is something wrong with her? The baby?”

“It’s Carter.”

Vivian’s breath caught in her throat.

Ida grasped Vivian’s hands. “Jesse and Boney found him. He’s been shot.”

Vivian’s heart pounded in her chest. “Is he alive?”

Lips pressed together, Ida nodded.

“He’s at the hospital,” Tucker said. “He’s asking for you.”

Carter watched Morgan Cutshaw walk toward his hospital bed. He struggled to draw in the breath to speak. “Is she coming?”

“Tucker and Ida went to get her, but we can’t wait.”

Carter couldn’t say for sure that his mother would marry his father all over again, knowing he’d be killed, but he did know her greatest regret. They’d taken her husband to surgery before she could see him, and he’d died on the operating table.

His breathing shallow and labored, Carter gasped in a lungful of air. “I have to wait.”

Morgan sighed. “Five minutes, and that’s more than I should give you.”

Carter closed his eyes. Hopefully God would give him longer. Vivian was the woman he’d been waiting for, even if he hadn’t been looking.

“Carter?”

He opened his eyes to a glorious vision. His girl peered down at him, apprehension and tears brimming in her eyes.