Blood & Dust (Lonesome Ridge Book 2) (10 page)

“What’s that about?” Jeremiah sauntered over with a smug look on his face.

“Shut up, Jeremiah,” she said for the millionth time that day.

He smirked at her and crossed his arms as they waited for the undead to return.

It was another hour before they got all of the undead out of the stream and back into their clothes. Losing most of their mental faculties not only took away their ability to think logically, it also took away their ability to figure out how to put one leg in each pant hole and Norma and Bill ended up dressing most of them together.

Per Charity’s instructions, they lined up and she inspected them. For most, a bath didn’t seem to make much difference. The clothes were still tattered, torn, and stained and there weren’t enough in the house to go around.

“We need a seamstress,” Jeremiah observed.

Charity spun as heated anger rose to her face. “What did you say?”

His eyes grew wide and he reeled back. “Uh, we need a seamstress?”

She glared at him as if she could melt his face in the fire of her stare. “Why would you say something like that?”

He pointed toward the line of undead. “So someone could sew clothes for them?”

She snarled and spun around again. “We don’t need a seamstress.”

“Oookay…” Jeremiah raised his eyebrows at Norma and shrugged.

“We just need to find better places to attack. Let’s go.” Charity stomped off away from the homestead. The others wavered momentarily before following behind. Norma and Jeremiah were the last to follow.

Charity glanced back. The young woman and the scruffy outlaw were having a hushed conversation well away from her. They kept glancing her way and she didn’t like it. Not one bit. Norma was starting to grow on her, but if the girl switched sides, that would be the end of it. Charity had no qualms about taking her out if she had to. Jeremiah was growing soft and Charity didn’t want the girl to grow soft with him.

“Norma,” she shouted to the back of the pack.

The girl perked up. “Yes, your majesty?” she shouted back.

Was there a touch of sarcasm in the girl’s voice? Or was it just because she was shouting? Charity couldn’t tell. “Get up here. Now.”

Charity turned back and started walking forward once more. In short time, the girl came trotting up behind her. “Yes, your majesty?” she said again.

“Walk with me awhile.” Charity did her best to keep her voice soft and she gave the girl a small smile. Charity was high society, after all. She may not have been high class when she was growing up, but she married into it and she had seen enough from her mother-in-law to know that honey worked better than vinegar to catch stupid flies. If she needed to fake it for a bit to win the girl over, so be it.

Norma beamed at her. “Yes, your majesty.”

Charity leaned over so they were very close. “When it’s just you and I, you can call me Charity. Just not around the others, all right?” She gave the girl a conspiratorial grin, like she was sharing something special with her that she didn’t share with anyone else.

The girl’s smile blossomed. “Okay,” she whispered back as she glanced back at the others behind her. “Charity,” she said with a giggle.

Rage threatened to bubble up inside, but Charity pushed it back and covered it with an even bigger smile. “Very good, my dear Norma. Very good.” She hooked her arm into the girl’s and they walked together into the darkness with the horde of undead following behind them.

CHAPTER 14

Sparks snapped and floated into the darkening sky as Connor McClane poked at the embers in the fire pit. They flared to life and he tossed more sticks onto the dancing flames.

Abby stared through the fire, her gaze locked somewhere in the middle distance between reality and her own thoughts.

“All right, Abs?” Connor asked as he used a stick to spear a couple of potatoes that were cooking on flat rocks at the edge of the heat.

Abby inhaled sharply and blinked several times. “Yeah, fine” she mumbled, but she refused to meet his eyes. Her own were red and watery, though she had yet to allow the tears to fall from the dam her lashes created. Connor told himself the tears were because of the smoke, but his chest throbbed with a dull ache as he felt her pain.

“I never shoulda brought you out here,” he said as he handed her a steaming potato. “I shoulda let you stay in town, safe with your sister.”

Abby’s eyes finally met his. They narrowed to slits and her lips puckered. “Don’t you dare, Connor McClane. Don’t you dare do this again. We’ve had this discussion already. I’m not some scared little girl anymore. I’m not a child who has to hide with the other weaklings. I’m a grown woman and it is my choice what I want to do with my life. Don’t you dare try to lock me away in that walled off town like some precious little princess afraid of getting hurt.”

Connor raised his hands in defeat and tried unsuccessfully to force the grin from his face. “All right, all right. I’m just worried about you, ya know. You just seemed to take it pretty hard back there with… ya know.” His voice trailed off and his eyes fell to the fire as his grin fade. He mentally kicked himself when Abby’s face drooped and she lowered her own gaze to the ground again.

An apology was on his lips when she spoke once more. “He was so little,” she whispered. “He couldn’t have been more than three.” She was silent a few more minutes and spent the time picking at her potato. Connor followed suit but his mind was no longer on his meal.

“He reminded me of Wyatt,” Abby said as she pulled a piece of burnt skin from the mealy flesh inside. “With his blond hair. I bet he had the same grin, too.”

Connor looked up at her. “Really? I thought Wyatt’s hair was a lot darker than that.” Not at all helpful, but it was all he could think to say.

A lock of Abby’s dark hair fell into her eyes when she shook her head. “No,” she said, pushing it back behind her ear. “When he was young, really young, he was blond as blond could be. Ma said the sun bleached his hair, he was so blond. He was outside all the time even when he wasn’t supposed to be, always getting himself into mischief of one sort or another.”

She paused and a smile pulled at her lips. “I remember this one time, he was maybe five at most, I think. I was outside helpin’ pa with one thing or another, like I always was. We may have been repairing a wheel on the wagon.” She thought for a second as she stared at the memory in her mind. “Yeah, I think that’s what we were doing. It was on our old wagon, the smaller one that Pa sold to Adam Powers. Anyway, we hear Ma shout. It wasn’t so much of a shout as a screech, like something horrible had happened. We both jumped to our feet as the door slammed open so loud I thought it broke. I looked up and here comes little Wyatt, just a’bookin’ it as fast as his short little legs could carry him. Ma stood on the porch screamin’ and cursin’ like I never heard before.”

Her smile was a full blown grin by that point and she beamed at Connor with eyes full of laughter. “He’d stolen her pie,” she explained. “Right as soon as she put it up on the window sill to cool, he scooted in and grabbed it. I’ll never forget that look on his face. What a mixture of pride and sheer horror. He didn’t think before he did it. He just took it. Only after she began to shout did he realize what a whoopin’ he’d be in for. But you know Pa. He herded us both into the barn before Ma could figure out where Wyatt had gone. We sat in one of the empty stalls and ate the whole thing with our bare hands right then and there. Burned ourselves pretty good, especially Wyatt, and Ma was so mad, but it was so much fun. Best pie I ever had, too.”

Connor found himself laughing right along with Abby as she told her tale. Weeks and months and years of stress and fear melted away in moments, if only for just a little while. He found himself more relaxed than he could remember ever being. At least, ever since Lydia’s death all those years ago.

“Your turn,” Abby said.

Connor raised his eyebrows. “My turn?”

Abby leaned back. “Yes, your turn. Tell me a fun story about Cora. Something you’ll never forget.” The shiny coating was back in her eyes, but the smile was still on her face. He didn’t want that to fade.

He snorted and grinned at her. “Oh, you know Cora. She was a spitfire from the day she was born, with a will that could challenge any man or woman. Came out kickin’ and screamin’, so Ma always said, and she never stopped. She had a way about her. Could get anyone to do anything with just a grin and a kiss on the cheek. I’m sure my aunt regretted the day she took us both in. I was no angel myself, but Cora… Cora was somethin’ else, she was. She and my aunt would go at it like you wouldn’t believe. Downright screamin’ matches that made your ears bleed. And over the stupidest things, too. They were the same, the two of them. Both bullheaded and convinced they were always right. Not a good pair. Aunt Elizabeth was strict, too, exactly the opposite of my parents, and Cora didn’t take too well to bein’ bossed about. She preferred to do the bossin’.”

Connor paused as a memory floated into his mind and a laugh burst out through his lips. “There was this one time, I don’t even remember what she was in trouble for. She was always in trouble for something. But this time, Aunt Elizabeth was real mad, madder’n hen spit. She told Cora she had to scrub every single floor in the house and make it shine if she ever wanted to leave it again. And that wasn’t an idle threat. Aunt Elizabeth stuck to her guns, and Cora knew it. But my aunt didn’t know Cora as well as she thought. Cora scrubbed the floors all right. She scrubbed them all with molasses. Boy did they shine, though. Took Aunt Elizabeth three days straight to get the house clean again. And she gave Cora a whoopin’ she never forgot, too. But oh, was that funny.” His brow puckered. “Well, it was until she scrubbed the floor in my room, too.” A faint annoyance at the memory danced over him, but it disappeared as quickly as it came when Abby’s giggle drifted across the fire to him.

“I bet Cora was a wonderful sister.” Her eyes gleamed in the firelight.

“She was,” Connor agreed. “The best a guy like me could ever have. She put up with a lot of my crap, stuck by me when no one else would, through thick and thin. When I nearly lost it, after Lydia died, Cora was the one who held me together. She was my rock, more than I was ever hers. I woulda done anything for that girl. Anything at all.”

They spent the next several hours sharing stories, both happy and sad, and exchanging laughter and tears. Some stories they both knew. Others were rarely told tales that were usually kept close to the chest and released a burden when shared.

As the embers burned low once more, Connor leaned over and put his hand on Abby’s knee. A tingling sensation danced up his arm and fluttered in his chest.

“I’m sorry all of this has happened to you, Abs,” he said and he had never meant anything more sincerely than he did just then. “You deserved so much more, so much better than this hell we’ve ended up in.”

A sad smile graced her face. “We all deserve better than this, Connor. None of us should have ever had to live with something so horrible, so unbelievable. But we don’t have much choice in the matter, do we? We can only play with what we are given. We can’t change any of it. We can only do our best to fix the future.”

Their eyes locked for a long moment until Abby cleared her throat and let her gaze drop. Her eyes fell to his hand, still on her leg, and crinkled with concern. He looked down. His fingers were shaking, twitching on her knee. He made a move to jerk it away, to hide his shame, but her fingers twined in his before he had the chance.

“How long has it been?” she asked. “How long since you’ve had a drink?”

He shrugged. “Dunno. Couple weeks, I think. Last time was in Lonesome Ridge, just after, ya know. Just after Cora.”

“Is it still bad?”

His mouth pulled to one side. “Sometimes. It’s gettin’ easier a bit, with each day that goes by, but I still get the shakes. I still find myself wantin’ it.”

“You didn’t take the whiskey,” she said. “Back at that house.”

He glanced up at her. A smile sat on her face and pride glowed in her eyes.

“You saw that?” He shifted uncomfortably beside her, but made sure his fingers stayed connected with hers.

“I did.” She squeezed his hand tight and leaned back against the saddle she was using to prop herself up.

They stayed like that, with their hands linked tightly together, until the fired burned to nothing and they fell asleep sitting up against their saddles.

CHAPTER 15

A low growl echoed from the beast plodding along at Summer Rain’s side. The sky was dark, clouds rolled overhead. She let her hand drop to his neck and absently scratched him behind the ear. It was nice, having someone to hunt with, having someone who understood her. The wolf cocked his head to the side and looked up at her with a seeming understanding. She felt like returning the look with a smile, but she couldn’t remember what exactly a smile was, or how to do it.

The wolf froze and jerked his head around. His body lowered into a crouch and he made himself as small as possible. Summer Rain dropped to her knees beside him and waited. His ears swiveled and she narrowed her eyes in the direction they turned, squinting into the fading light.

The wolf’s hearing was still better than hers and it took her a little while to pick out the sounds coming toward them. At first she didn’t catch the plop-plop of a horse’s hooves over the swaying scratches of the nearby trees, but soon she was able to identify four of them. A grin blossomed on her face, created without her help and full of teeth.