A Worthy Pursuit (37 page)

“All right. Give me the blasted paper.”

Stone handed it to him. When Dorchester’s eyes went wide and his ruddy face lost its color, Stone’s chest expanded in satisfaction.

“How . . . how did you get this?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Stone eyed him with a hard stare. “What does matter is that you understand I am in possession of the entire book of which that page is only a sample. A book safely stashed away with an associate. A book that will be turned over to the Texas Rangers as evidence of your . . . shall we say . . . less than savory business dealings unless you turn Lily over to Miss Atherton’s custody as the child’s rightful guardian and cease your pursuit of her. If you agree to these terms, the book will remain in my possession under lock and key, and your secrets will remain hidden.”

“And if I do give up custody of my granddaughter, what’s to keep you from turning my ledger over to the authorities anyway? I’d be a fool to agree to such a deal!”

“I have as much motivation to hold to the agreement as you,” Stone assured him. “If I break the deal, there’s nothing to stop
you from coming after Lily. Besides, unlike some businessmen, I actually have a reputation for keeping my word.” He narrowed his gaze, and Dorchester’s face turned almost purple.

“Let Lily go, Dorchester. Honor your daughter-in-law’s wishes. If you don’t, I’ll see to it that book of yours goes straight to the authorities. The authorities
and
the press. All they would have to do is interview a handful of the names on that list, find one or two willing to testify against the man who blackmailed or swindled them. The press will run with the story even if you persuade the prosecutors not to try your case. I’m sure the public will find it vastly entertaining to see one of Houston’s elite brought low. Your credibility will be ruined. Respectable men will stop doing business with you, and your blackmail accounts will dry up because the men you’ve had in your pocket will turn their backs on you. They’ll want to put as much distance between themselves and you as possible to save their own skin. And once your power is gone, so is your ability to keep your blackmail victims in line. Shoot, one or more of them might even try to get a little revenge. A bullet in the back is a bad way to go.” He shook his head,
tsk
ing.

Dorchester fumed, yet he made no denial of Stone’s allegations, verifying the truth that Stone and Ashe had only theorized when they’d examined the book’s contents that afternoon at the Ranger office. Names and itemized accounts of repetitive payments, some going on for years. Nothing in particular proved blackmail in the book itself, but it provided a lengthy list of names from which to seek witnesses and testimony.

“Give up the girl, Dorchester, and the additional income she might bring you in the future,” Stone pressed, “or lose everything you have now. Your choice.”

“Lily’s my granddaughter. She belongs with her family.”

Stone had had enough of the circular argument. “The girl
belongs with the guardian her mother selected for her.” He bent down until he was mere inches from Dorchester’s face. The man shrank back against the headboard, a decided tremble in his shoulders. “Make no mistake,” Stone growled. “I’m taking Lily with me tonight, no matter which option you choose. All you get to decide is whether or not you keep your business interests.”

Dorchester’s gaze darted from Stone to the door and back again. Looking for escape? Help? Stone tightened his grip on his pistol.

Then all at once, Dorchester sucked in a huge breath and screamed. “Fraaaanklin!”

Stone didn’t hesitate. He clocked the old man on the chin with his fist and ran from the room. Getting Lily out safely was all that mattered now.

A door slammed against a wall somewhere behind him as he raced down the hall. A shot rang out. Wood splintered from the railing beside him.

“Ashe!”

“Got him.” The ranger knelt in the opening to Lily’s room and laid down cover fire as Stone dove through the doorway. Shrieks from awakening servants filled the air.

Trusting Ashe to watch his back, Stone holstered his gun, scooped up a half-dressed, wide-eyed Lily, and shoved her through the window onto the balcony.

The girl started crying, covering her ears when another shot rang out.

Stone leaned out the window and gently pulled her hands away from her ears. He pointed toward the front of the house. “Run down to the tree. I’ll be right there.”

Tears rolling down her cheeks, she nodded and scampered away on stockinged feet that hadn’t had time to find shoes. Stone turned back to Ashe, who had just closed the door. With a
grunt, Stone shoved the bureau in front of the portal. Then the two men ran for the window. It wouldn’t take long for Franklin to figure out where they were headed. And since stairs were much faster to descend than trees, any lead they had would vanish in a flash.

Stone’s boots pounded against the veranda as he closed the distance to Lily. He lost sight of Ashe, but he had no time to worry about his friend. The man could take care of himself. Lily couldn’t.

He grabbed Lily to his chest. Her legs automatically wrapped around his waist. “That’s it, squirt. Hold tight. Like a monkey. I’ll take you down the tree.”

She clasped his neck, closed her eyes, and burrowed her face into his chest. Stone swallowed hard and launched himself over the railing.
God, see us through.

He latched onto a head-high branch and planted his feet on the one right below the balcony. Hand over hand, he climbed down, making sure to keep his back facing the house at all times so Lily would be out of the line of fire if Franklin showed up again.

Charlotte’s pale face stared up at him from below. No tears. No screaming. Just determined grit etched into her features and outstretched arms ready to take possession of her child.

Ten feet from the ground, a gunshot cut through the night and rattled the leaves near Stone’s head.

“Stop!” a voice shouted. “You’ll hit the girl.”

Dorchester? Did the man actually care about what happened to Lily or just to his investment?

Stone didn’t have time to ponder the answer.

“I’m not letting him win!” Franklin yelled, even as he fired another shot from somewhere around the corner, out of sight.

Charlotte’s assessment had been right. Stone could hear the
twisted resolve in the tight tone of Franklin’s voice. All he cared about was proving himself the better enforcer.

Stone dropped down two more branches. Then another. Almost there.

A third shot rang out.

Time slowed.

His gut vibrated a warning.

He knew. Knew the bullet would strike its mark.

“Lottie!”

He thrust Lily away from him with all his strength, tearing her short limbs from around his neck and waist. As the bullet pierced his back, he saw Charlotte catch her daughter and tumble backward.

Thank you, God!

Then his leaden body fell from the tree. He slammed into the ground, and everything went black.

37

Charlotte immediately rolled her body on top of Lily’s. Scant seconds after the gunshot that felled Stone, a second one blasted from somewhere near the roof.

Oh, Stone.
She’d felt the earth vibrate when he hit the ground. She prayed he’d get up. Come to them. Wrap his strong, sturdy arms around her and Lily and reassure them he was all right. That he’d only lost his balance and toppled. The fall hadn’t been too high. Surely only the wind had been knocked out of him. That’s why he hadn’t gotten up. That’s why she felt nothing more than cool night air blowing against her back when she longed for his warmth.

Even as she rationalized, hot tears scalded her cheeks.
Please, God. Don’t take him from
me. Please don’t—

Footsteps thumped overhead as a man ran across the roof, cutting off her prayer. Charlotte lunged awkwardly to her feet, her skirt a tangled mess around her legs. Lily’s clinging weight threw off her equilibrium. Stone’s unmoving body tugged at the corner of her vision, but she forced her gaze upward. Was it friend or foe advancing on them?

A familiar hitch in the man’s running stride soothed her fear a moment before he dropped from the overhang onto the front veranda. A scuffle ensued. Charlotte clutched Lily to her chest and dragged her behind the tree.

Should she wait on Ashe or make a run for the horses while he battled with Franklin? And where was Dorchester?

“Give me the girl,” a voice rasped from behind her. Charlotte whirled, instinctively shoving Lily behind her. Dorchester stood on the lawn in his nightshirt, his hair standing on end, his eyes wild, and a pistol clutched in his hand.

“Never,” she vowed.

“I need her. Just for a month or two, then you can have her back.”

Was he actually bargaining with her? Charlotte was so astonished, she could think of nothing to say.

“I lost another ship. Right before Rebekah died. That’s why I bribed Sullivan to close the school. Why I sent men looking for you. I needed Lily back to help me recoup my losses.” He advanced a step. Charlotte retreated, shielding Lily. “But you hid, and no one could find you. Not even Hammond. For months! Do you know how much money that cost me?” He advanced another step. And another.

Charlotte backed away, careful to do so at an angle that would take her closer to the horses. If all else failed, she could send Lily running in that direction while she lunged for Dorchester.

“I was counting on the funds from that cargo,” he rambled on. “Had moved ahead with other investments—investments made with powerful men who don’t take kindly to a partner who can’t fulfill his monetary obligations. I’ve held them off with paltry payments, but they’ve grown impatient. The girl is my ticket out. All I need is a little leverage on one of the men in the investment pool. She can ferret out a secret for me, and
I can broker a trade. My silence in exchange for the remaining funds to cover what I owe. It’s simple.”

“It’s sinful.” Charlotte ceased backing away and glared at Dorchester, heedless of the pistol aimed at her chest. “For pity’s sake. If you’re short on funds, sell your house. Don’t endanger your granddaughter. What kind of man are you?”

Suddenly a dark shape loomed behind Dorchester. “An unconscious one,” Ashe announced as he brought the butt of his own pistol down on the man’s head.

Dorchester crumpled to the ground. Lily whimpered. Charlotte immediately turned to gather the girl in her arms.

“Franklin?” Charlotte asked Ashe as he bent to retrieve Dorchester’s weapon.

“Tied up and waitin’ for the cavalry. Got a bullet in his shoulder and a few bruises for his trouble. Stone’s the one I’m worried about, though.” His face clouded. “Took me a few seconds too long to find the right vantage point to take Franklin out. The rat was protected by the overhang of the porch. Got to Stone before I could get to him.”

Before Ashe could even finish his explanation, Charlotte had spun and hurried around the tree to the spot where she had seen Stone fall. She found him. Still facedown. Unmoving. She wasn’t even sure he was breathing. The utter stillness pierced her soul.

I’ll pursue you until a parson either joins
us in marriage or speaks words over my grave.

The vow he’d spoken in love rushed through her memory with the strength of a hurricane. No! There’d be no speaking words over his grave. Not when he didn’t even know how much she loved him in return. Oh, why had she ever let fear still her tongue? She shouldn’t have whispered the words to his retreating back when he went to confront Dorchester. She
should have shouted it from the rooftops until the neighbors all came out to gawk.

With arms gone limp, she lowered Lily to the ground then knelt by Stone’s side. Holding her breath, she lightly placed her hand atop his back. It rose and fell beneath her touch, the movement shallow, but it was there.

“He’s alive.”
Praise God!

Lily knelt beside her and stared down at her hero. “Is Mr. Hammond gonna be all right?” her voice sounded so small and scared, nothing like the brave adventurer she’d been just that morning.

“I’ve seen him take bullets before and pull through.” Ashe had come up behind them, leaving Dorchester to rot where he’d fallen. “The ruckus is bound to have woken the neighbors.” He hunkered down by his friend’s head, scanning Stone’s body, lingering over the blood-soaked spot where the bullet had entered his back. He reached for a handkerchief then pressed the folded square atop the wound. “I’ll have to stay to give an accounting to the lawmen that show up. But Stone can’t wait that long. You need to get him to Lindy as fast as possible. She’s as good a sawbones as her old man. She’ll pull him through.”

“We’ll need a wagon,” Charlotte said without glancing up, her mind spinning with all the details of what needed to be done. “And clean cloths from the house.” What other injuries might he have sustained that she couldn’t see? Broken ribs from his fall? Internal damage from the bullet? They needed to get him to Belinda as quickly as possible. “And servants to help us move him.”

“I’ll be right down with a batch of clean towels, miss,” a feminine voice called from somewhere overhead. “And I’ll send Oliver to fetch the carriage.”

Charlotte glanced up. “Mrs. Johnson?”

The housekeeper held a lantern aloft and leaned over the railing. She nodded. “Saw the whole thing from my window, I did. When the shooting was done, I came out to take a look. Heard what the master said. Tell that Ranger down there with you that I’m willing to testify against the man. Not just about tonight but about a host of other things as well. Any man that would put his own welfare ahead of his grandchild deserves no loyalty. As of this moment, I’m turning in my resignation.”

Charlotte’s eyes misted. “Thank you.”

A weight lifted from her shoulders, but another remained. One that grew heavier with each moment that passed without Stone reviving.

Charlotte pressed down on the handkerchief, trying to staunch the flow. He’d lost so much blood already. He couldn’t afford to keep leaking the vital fluid.