Wild Burn (19 page)

“So?”

“So, there were only six in Cloud Rider’s band. That is small, and they likely felt threatened. The smaller the animal, the more clever it must be to survive.”

A puzzle piece clicked into place in Del’s mind. “You think they had a deal of some sort.”

“With someone, yes. The question then becomes with whom.”

“Hm.” They were walking their mounts down the main street of Red Creek, and the rowdy sounds of encroaching evening festivities drifted over the swinging doors of the Ruby Saloon. As they approached the livery, Del’s brain switched tracks and he dug in his coat, still draped across the saddle, for his battered pocket watch. “Damn it,” he muttered when he saw the time.

John hopped nimbly from the back of his horse. “What?”

Del dismounted as well, and led his horse into the stable. “I’m late.” So late. It was ten past seven, and he had told Moira he’d collect her for supper at six. He hadn’t honestly expected to find Cloud Rider that afternoon, thinking he’d have time to clean himself up before their meal, but that precious time had slipped away from him.

“To see Miss Tully?” John’s voice was knowing, but thankfully not resentful.

“Yeah,” Del wanted to kick himself.

“Go. I’ll see to your horse.”

Del shot the Indian a surprised glance. “You don’t—”

But John’s expression was unyielding. “Did you know, Miss Tully never smiled much before you arrived in Red Creek. When she did, it was always a sad smile. You have been here a week, but already she seems happier than she has been in months. Even if you do infuriate her a bit.” Not waiting for Del to answer, John gathered the reins of Del’s mount. “Go apologize for your lateness.”

“Thanks.” Not planning to question a turn of events that would see him more quickly to Moira, Del grabbed his coat and marched out the livery doors, heading for the cabins.

No light shone from inside Moira’s cabin, and the dark was settling in fast. He wondered if she had gone searching for him at the boardinghouse. Or was she already in bed, having given up on him? Concern had him lengthening his stride, until he was practically running by the time he reached the bottom step leading up to her door.

A door which stood slightly ajar.

In a flash, he tossed his coat to the ground and drew his gun. The deepening shadows of twilight made everything hazy and one-dimensional, and he couldn’t see much into the cabin beyond the few inches of open door. “Moira?” he called as he shouldered the panel the rest of the way open.

Stepping inside, his weight making the floorboards creak ominously, he scanned the room, his gaze finding her instantly. “Moira.” He holstered the gun and hurried to where she sat at her small table, her head propped between her hands. He knelt next to her and placed a tentative hand on her knee.

She screamed.

She fell off the chair in her rush to scramble away from him, her chilling scream giving way to harsh, sobbing breaths as she stared up at him, her eyes wide and unseeing. She crawled frantically backward using her hands and heels, her head whipping from side to side, as if searching for escape.

His heart seized. “Moira, it’s me,” he said softly, remaining crouched and trying to appear unthreatening. Slowly, he removed his hat so she could better see his face, then held his hands lifted on either side of his head. “It’s Del, honey.” He realized he was barely breathing, couldn’t breathe at the sight of the sheer terror on her face.

Her back hit the bedframe, and that jolt seemed to jar her back into awareness. “Del.” Her broken whisper fisted around his already pained heart and yanked it hard and to the left.

“Yeah, honey, it’s me.” He rose smoothly and skirted the overturned chair until he was next to her. “Can I…?” When she nodded jerkily, he carefully, cautiously, picked her up with one arm beneath her knees and the other around her rib cage, and he sat on the edge of the bed with her in his lap. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

She trembled in his arms but didn’t say a word as she buried her face in his neck.

So he sat there with her in the growing darkness, watching the shadows settle inside the cabin. The room wasn’t large, but she’d made good use of the space at her disposal. A table and two chairs sat before the hearth and stove, a small pantry in the corner, and someone had built her a nice set of shelves that held an impressive number of books. A trunk sat at the foot of the bed—a much bigger bed than the one he slept on at the boardinghouse—and a painted screen stood on the far side of the room, next to a dark-stained set of dresser drawers and a matching washstand and mirror. It was cozy, and for the first time in years, he felt a pang of homesickness, though his own home before the war had been much grander than this.

Her hand came up then to push at his chest. “You can let me go now.”

His hold on her tightened briefly. He’d just gotten her in his arms, and he wasn’t feeling all that steady himself after her fright, but if she wanted her freedom… “I’ll get a fire going.” He lifted her to situate her next to him on the bed, then rose to settle wood from the bin into the hearth.

When the cabin glowed with warm, comfortable light, he righted the fallen chair, unhooked his gun belt to drape it across the chair back and turned it to face her. Sitting, he leaned forward, elbows to knees, and clasped his hands. “Wanna tell me what happened?”

She’d tucked her legs beneath her on the bed and stared down at her hands in her lap, picking absently at her thumbnail. “I’d fallen asleep sitting up. You startled me.”

He didn’t buy her explanation. “There’s more to it than that, Moira.” He hesitated a moment, then reached out to lay a hand on her knee again.

This time, she didn’t flinch. After a beat of heavy silence, she laid one of her hands atop his. Her thumb stroked gently over his knuckles. “You wanted to know why I left Boston.” The way she said it made her words a statement, not a question.

“You don’t have to tell me.” It was fairly obvious she didn’t like talking about Boston, or being a nun, and the last thing he wanted right now was to make her uncomfortable. Especially if whatever she’d left behind in Boston made her scream like she had.

He’d have nightmares about that helpless, desperate sound for weeks.

Her chin lifted, and she met his gaze with stark eyes turned indigo in the firelight. Huffing out a wry laugh, her vocal cords raw from her scream and her sobs, she patted his hand. “I think I
do
have to, Del. Because I need your help.”

“I’ll help you, no matter what.” He fought against the urge to return to the bed and pull her into his lap once more. She just looked so delicate, as he’d yet to see her look, including when she’d faced down Matthews and the sheriff, and after he himself had shot her. That delicacy made him want to hold her, comfort her. Protect her.

It wasn’t a new feeling, the protectiveness. But its instinctual nature in regards to this particular woman was beating him over the head with a message he’d been resisting for days—whether for her good or his own—and he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

He was falling in love with Moira Tully.

Acknowledging it eased some of the tumultuous tension inside him, even as it added a host of other concerns. The most important of which, right now, was making certain she knew he would be there for her, always. “You should know, we found the remaining dog soldiers today. Red Creek is safe.”

“Safe.” She breathed the word.

“And I…I’m not leaving.” A decision he’d made this very second, knowing he couldn’t possibly leave her. Not when she was vulnerable. Not when
he
was vulnerable. He swallowed hard as he turned his hand over atop her knee, putting them palm to palm. His fingers curled around her wrist. “I’m staying here.”

Her eyes flicked over his face searchingly. “There’s a letter on the table behind you. You should read it.”

With a questioning frown, he turned to pick up a letter he hadn’t noticed from the tabletop, glancing back at her when he faced her again, crumpled paper in hand. “What is it?”

She shrugged unevenly and drew away from his touch to wrap both arms over her torso. Her freckles seemed to fade in the golden glow from the hearth as her features grew devoid of emotion. “It’s why I left Boston.”

“But—”

“Just…read it. Please.”

Feeling uncertain, he cleared his throat. “
My dear Verity—
”

“To yourself. Read it to yourself,” she interrupted tersely.

He stared at her for a long moment before returning to the letter written in a neat, elegant hand.

My dear Verity,

It is with no little regret that I write to inform you of the arrest of Sergeant Vernon Flock, the soldier who assaulted you this past April. I have found that the regret is not for him but for you, as this turn of events will require you to revisit that night. The U.S. Marshals have requested your presence in Denver on Tuesday, September the twenty-sixth, at the Black Rose Hotel, in order to depose you for your testimony against Sergeant Flock.

As we were your most recent address, and the report of your rape was filed under the name of Sister Verity, I was tasked with informing you of this matter. When they contacted me, I was told yours was not the only assault committed by this man, but that the other victims were disinclined to testify, which is why they are so eager to hear from you.

The court martial of Sergeant Flock will likely result in his execution. I would ask, dear Verity, that you consider the consequences of testimony against this man. Be thoughtful. Be forgiving.

I hope this missive finds you well in the wilds of the mountainous frontier. I can only imagine witnessing the majesty of God’s creation upon waking every morning. I wish I were young enough to travel so far west, that I could see your untamed world.

Should this wilderness prove too wild, remember that you always have a place here, with your sisters in Christ.

M.S.

By the time he finished reading, his stomach churned and his body had gone cold. “Oh, Moira,” he rasped.

“This is why I need your help. You have to take me to Denver on Tuesday.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“Damn right I’m taking you to Denver.”

Moira blinked, at a momentary loss. She hadn’t expected him to agree right away. Honestly, she hadn’t expected him to remain in her cabin, not after reading the letter from Mother Superior. “Um. Thank you.”

Del glared down at the letter in his hands so prodigiously she was surprised his gaze hadn’t incinerated the paper. “This is why you left?”

“Yes.” She didn’t know what else to say, didn’t know how to say anything more than, “Yes, that’s why.”

Still he didn’t look at her. “And this is why you’re no longer a nun.”

She shrugged, even though he couldn’t see the movement. “That’s part of it. But I wasn’t lying when I said it was never a calling. The war, the…my assault—it just clarified things for me.”

“Clarified.”

She shifted until she sat cross-legged beneath her skirts. “What kind of God destroys families and allows hatred to spread like a plague? What kind of God demands I forgive a man who…” she swallowed uncomfortably, “…who raped me? Not a God I choose to serve.”

He folded the letter with careful hands, then set it behind him on the table before turning to face her again. His features were granite hard, new lines she hadn’t noticed digging deeper at the corners of his eyes. “So do you believe in God?”

She frowned. “Why does it matter?”

“It’s something else I can learn about you. That matters to me.”

“I… No. No, I don’t.” She straightened her shoulders. “Do you believe in God?”

His head dropped to stare at the floor, at his clasped hands dangling between his spread knees. “I believe there’ll be a Judgment Day for me and men like me, and that I’m headin’ for hell. But I figure most folks need to believe in something bigger than themselves, and it might as well be God.”

“I see.”

He lifted his head to spear her with his pale green gaze, as intent as ever. “I’ll tell you what I believe in, more than that Judgment Day, though.”

Her chest grew tight. “What’s that?”

“I believe in you. And I believe that the rotten bastard who hurt you needs to get to hell a lot sooner than you or I. So we’re going to Denver, and don’t let anyone, or any God, try to convince you to do otherwise.”

“Oh.” He’d left her floundering for words again, awkward and unsure as she sat on her bed. This was a strange situation, her level of ease with a man—this particular man—a sign of either great stupidity or great trust, probably both. “Thank you,” she murmured, unable to think of anything better to say.

“That’s the second time you’ve thanked me in as many minutes. What did you expect me to do—tell you you’re on your own?”

“Yes.”

He made a low noise in his throat, one that spoke volumes as to his displeasure. “What a high opinion you’ve got of me.”

Her whole body felt stiff, her limbs locked in place though she longed to reach out and touch him. But she didn’t know if he’d welcome her touch, not after what he had just learned about her past, so she fidgeted in place, restlessly picking at the edge of her thumbnail.

“I think very highly of you. I…I trust you, more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.” It was nothing less than the truth, and the worry in her tripled, quadrupled, until she was tearing at the loosened white of her nail. What would she do if Delaney had changed his mind about leaving Red Creek after reading the letter? She wouldn’t blame him for running, but it would wound her, potentially a more lasting hurt than any she’d experienced before.

He said he believed in her. Well, she believed in him too, and she would tell him that…as soon as she knew how things stood between them.

A large sun-browned hand appeared in her line of sight, stilling her manic fingers with the steady touch of his. It was as though he’d wrapped an invisible blanket around her chilled body, and she relaxed, releasing a panicky breath she hadn’t known she’d been withholding. She found herself babbling uncontrollably.