Clean Inspirational Romance: Escape to Paradise (Inspirational Happy Sweet First Love Second Chance Romance) (Contemporary New Adult Love Inspired Holiday Short Stories) (37 page)

“I’m sorry.” Such useless words, but the only comfort he could offer her. At that, Mack did turn to look at him, though it was with a small, sad smile.

“So am I.”

She turned away from him then, his question having no doubt reopened a floodgate of memories and unwanted emotions. He didn’t know what to say, so he kept silent. And it was just as well – Mack seemed to find the silence comforting and encouraging. When she next spoke, Colin was initially uncertain as to what she was talking about – there had been quite a pause after she had last spoken.

“It happened when I was about eight. Not much more than a little mite.”

“You were close with your father then?” Colin observed.

Mack nodded. “Grew up roughhousing with him, chasing any little thing that we could chase on horseback. He was the one who taught me how to shoot, despite my ma just about fainting, bless her. That caused quite a ruckus in our household for sometime,” she chuckled.

Colin laughed a little at the thought – an eight-year-old little girl armed with a rifle. “I would imagine so,” he said.

Mack shook her head, a fond smile adorning her face. “I suspect he always wanted a boy, but ma wasn’t having any of it – she wanted a girl and that was that. Tried to get me in dresses and petticoats, be a proper gal, you know?” Colin wrinkled his nose; he couldn’t imagine Mack in a dress.

“But I guess pa always won that side of the argument – been handling guns like a pro since I was half my height,” she said proudly.

“Never been one for dresses then?” Colin teased her lightly. How different she was from the girls he had known back home. She didn’t care for fine clothing, whereas the ladies at home were quite particular about their daily outfit. She could shoot a gun, while the mere sight of one was enough to start a flurry of panic back at home.

Well, Colin conceded, Brianna – his fiancée – was a little different. But even she couldn’t hold a candle to Mack – tough, determined Mack.

“Nope,” Mack said instantly. “Well,” she conceded. “On occasion, when there isn’t work to do and I’m needed in my Sunday best. But in general flannels, jeans, and a good pair of boots work swell. Can’t very well run around chasing outlaws and scouting in a petticoat.”

She laughed a little, reminiscing over fond memories. “He did love his moonshine, though.” She shook her head. “Could hold his own like no one else – never got drunk at the saloon, never got in a fight with another wrangler.”

“Is that the reason for your name then?” Colin was curious.

Mack nodded the affirmative. “Moonshine Mack,” she said with much pride.

“Is Mack really your name?”

“Short for Mackenzie,” she explained. She clammed up after that, clearly finished with the conversation. However, it wasn’t but a short while when she spoke again. This time, it was to ask Colin a question.

“Why are you here?” she asked. It wasn’t meant offensively; he could hear the curiosity in her voice.

“My mother and father are in the trade business,” he explained, “and we came out to America to see if business would do as well here as it did in Europe.” Mack had a thoughtful expression on her face.

“And how’s Copper Creek been treating you all?”

“Pretty good,” Colin replied, thinking back to the steady sales they’d made. “Not much compared to what we have back home, but better than we’d anticipated.”

“So you’re planning on staying here long?”

And here was a topic where Colin was often uncertain about. “Maybe a few months, maybe longer. My mother wants to go back.”

“And you don’t?”

“I–” Colin started, then stopped. He didn’t quite know how to articulate his words. “I don’t know yet,” he said truthfully. Part of him wanted to stay, but there really was no strong reason for him to stay. And yet, he wanted to. Perhaps it was the adventure, the freedom he possessed here. Perhaps it was the allure of starting over.

“You don’t have a family to go back to? No relatives? No family?”

“I do,” Colin dragged out reluctantly. “Everyone is there. Relatives, family – my older brother and–” There was a short pause.

And Brianna. But he didn’t want to add her name to the list. “And Brianna,” he added reluctantly.

At that, she tilted her head, looking over at Colin. “Who’s Brianna?” The question was phrased lightly, almost as a casual conversation opener. But she gripped the wooden post beneath her just a little tighter.

Colin pretended not to notice. “A…close family friend.” He didn’t want to say anything more, already having regretted telling Mack about her at all. Mack didn’t say anything, but Colin almost felt that the silence was worse than if she had said something.

“Wife?” she asked finally. She was guessing.

Colin laughed once at the suggestion. Not quite, he thought. “No,” he told her instead. For reasons unfathomable to him, Mack looked almost relieved in the dim glow of the dusky light.

“Oh,” was all she said. They fell into a silence once more, though it was more uncomfortable than comfortable this time. 

“We’ve been talking about Beth recently,” Mack suddenly said, out of the blue. It caught Colin off-guard – they rarely addressed the situation head-on. It was always danced around, carefully addressed without being addressed directly. So to bring it up so abruptly startled Colin, kicking his heartbeat up a notch.

“I didn’t kill her.” Those were the first words out of Colin’s mouth. He wasn’t certain of exactly why he said them – there were a multitude of reasons. Perhaps it was the incessantly persistent need to prove his innocence and free himself from this snarled mess. Perhaps it was his pride, his own conscience screaming against the fact that some people thought he was a murderer. Or perhaps it was because he was so desperate to prove to Mack that he wasn’t the killer.

Mack. Why would he be so persistent in proving it to Mack? Why not Sam? Colin shook his head. The important thing was he did not kill that girl. Even if the rest of the world didn’t believe him, he knew that he was innocent. And that, he supposed, would have to be enough.

“I never said you did,” Mack said evenly, though she regarded him with a fixed stare. “Sam and I were merely talking about the times we shared with her.”

Oh. Colin swallowed the dry lump in his throat and forced himself to remain calm. “Ah,” he said, directing his gaze to a small tuft of grass in front of him.

“Hmm.” Mack swung her legs back and forth on the post, palms firmly grasping the chipped wood she sat on. She was silent for a while after that, but just when Colin was about to ask her if anything was wrong, she opened her mouth and spoke.

“Sam thinks you did it.” Colin blinked, though he was far from surprised. If Sam’s behavior towards him was anything to judge by, Sam had been certain he was the killer since the very day they met.

“Why?” Colin managed to ask.

Mack was thoughtful in choosing her words and what to reveal to Colin.

“I don’t know,” she said finally. “There are certain parts to the story that don’t add up.” Now she did turn to look at him, gray eyes forever solemn and sharp.

“I’m telling the truth!” Colin protested.

“I’m sure,” Mack nodded firmly as she brushed stray wood chips off her jeans. “Besides,” she added, turning to look at him over her shoulder. “Even if you weren’t, I’d find out. And that would be so much worse.”

Colin didn’t know what to think.

***

The days dragged on to weeks and before Colin knew it, nearly a month had passed since the discovery of Beth’s body. Still no headway had been made in the case, though it seemed to him that they were going in circles.

Certain clues were piecing together in ways that made absolutely no sense. At one point, the sheriff himself had been a suspect. Everything added up to a new, mismatched puzzle, and it was one that was driving Mack crazy. She was never cross, never angry, but Colin could tell she was getting frustrated.

“I’ve never been on a case for so long before,” she told him once. And despite his persistent status as a suspect, Mack never once exonerated him, nor ever once declared him the perpetrator so as to wrap up the case quickly.

“There are certain things,” she was explaining to him, as they walked over to meet Sam where they had found the body, “that don’t make sense.”

She turned to Colin as they walked. “If your story is true, then Sam or the sheriff or someone close to Beth must be lying. But why would they lie? What would there be to gain? And Sam and Beth were going to get married next spring.”

“Sam and Beth were engaged?” This was new information to him, but he reasoned that as a suspect he did not have access to all the information. Mack nodded vigorously.

“Yup,” she said.

They were walking past the store now, warm sun tickling their noses and cheeks. Colin was mildly horrified at this revelation. Small wonder Sam had been so remarkably vicious towards him the last few weeks. Sam was about eight yards away now. “It must have been devastating for him.”

“Yeah,” Mack murmured absentmindedly. “But he’s been a little odd lately. I can’t tell exactly why – perhaps it’s the murder that’s set him off, but he’s been pretty jumpy as of late.”

“Understandable,” Colin pointed out, “particularly since he doesn’t yet know the killer of his fiancée.”

“Wait.” Mack frowned. She stared ahead, not at anything, and began speaking. “If Colin was telling the truth, it must not have been anyone from around here. It had to be someone very close to Beth.” She spun around, her brows furrowed as she faced Colin. Sam walked towards them.

Mack was speaking more rapidly now, the words tumbling out of her like water crashing down from great heights. Colin worried she might grow dizzy or lose her balance at the rate at which she was turning her head. Her eyes widened as she directed her attention first from Sam to Colin, then back to Sam.

And as Colin listened, an ugly, cold feeling settled into the pit of his stomach. He knew who the killer was. But it couldn’t be. It simply couldn’t. He didn’t want to believe it. But indeed, if Mack’s reasoning and his truth and all the facts they had collected in the weeks leading up to now weren’t enough to point them in the direction of the killer, he didn’t know what was.

Mack, too, seemed to have figured it out. “Then the killer must be–” Her eyes widened as she made the realization and she whirled around to grab her gun. But she hadn’t gotten more than a few steps forward when Sam made his move. 

Mack yelped, stumbling and bending over backwards, nearly losing her balance. Sam had caught hold of her braided hair and viciously yanked back. Mack moved quickly though, jamming her elbow back under his chin and kicking backwards.

He released her with a grunt of pain and she tripped away from him, blinking watery pain away from her eyes. She turned around to confront him, but froze. He’d pulled out his gun and now had it pointed directly at her.

“Sam.” She didn’t shout his name, didn’t curse it. But Colin could see the hurt and shock in her eyes. She kept her gaze fixed on the gun, though her fingers twitched, as if agonizing over the gun she had left in her saddle bag.

“Mack.” Sam spoke conversationally, and had there not been a gun, had they not been tussling mere moments ago, Colin would’ve believed they were simply talking. He walked forward slowly, gaining two steps for every one backwards Mack took.

Colin made to move, but a sharp glance from Sam stopped him. “Move and I’ll paint the ground a real nice red with your gal’s blood.” Terror stabbed daggers in Colin’s chest and panic anchored him firmly to where he stood. But he was still too far from Mack, he lamented.

“Why?” Mack shook her head, still not understanding. A wide range of emotions flitted across her face: surprise, hurt, anger, shock. “Why Beth? I thought you loved her!”

Sam didn’t reply, instead only shaking his head. He gave her a pitying look. “You ask too many questions, doll. But it’s a right shame we had to end it this way – I always did like your pretty face.”

Sam had pointed the end of the barrel directly at Mack.

***

The gun fired, sharper than a whip or the crack of shattering glass.

On instinct, Colin dived for Mack, probably crushing her in the process, but at the very least shielding her from the bullet, which instead buried itself in his right shoulder.

As they tumbled to the ground, Mack didn’t scream. Instead she drew her revolver and fast as a rattlesnake fired two shots Sam, who fell to the ground.

She then swore like a seasoned sailor and berated Colin. “Stupid boy,” she said. “Stupid, stupid boy.” Colin could see the panic etched onto her face.

              Very quickly, she got out from under Colin to check on Sam. Sam was not moving but he was groaning slightly. Colin was wounded and bleeding, but looking at Mack standing there, unhurt, he did not think of his gunshot. He just felt relief. She was okay, she wasn’t hurt.

Satisfied that Sam was no longer a threat, Mack turned back to Colin, bleeding on the ground from his shoulder. She knelt, and cursed quietly under her breath as she struggled with removing his shirt. Colin dared a peek to his right – her hands were shaking far too much to be of help with pulling his sleeve up.

“Are you okay?”