Give My Love to Rose (14 page)

“
I don’t have anything for
you,” the woman insisted, wringing her hands on her apron and
backing away.

Jeremiah leaped from his horse and was in
the doorway before she could get away. “I think you do,” he
countered with a wink.

“
Get away from my mama!”
the oldest of the two boys exclaimed as he came leaping from the
house, swinging an iron skillet. Jeremiah was laughing as he caught
the boy by the arm and tossed him off the porch. The boy landed in
a heap on the frozen ground.

“
Don’t hurt my babies!”
the woman pleaded.

Slowly the men dismounted and Marston
remained on Buck. “Well, then why don’t you just cooperate with us
and we won’t have to,” Duke offered.

The woman’s eyes were wide with fear and her
chin trembled. The oldest boy was still on the ground trying to
regain the breath that his fall had knocked out of him and the
youngest boy was watching with wide-eyed from just inside the
door.

Marston saw the pain and turmoil on her face
and then he recognized the resolve in her eyes as she squared her
shoulders. “Fine.” She motioned to her boys. “Boys, go to the
barn.”

“
But mama!” the oldest
exclaimed, leaping to his feet.

She fixed her son with a sharp look and
gestured toward the barn. “Gregory, take him now.”

Gregory tossed the pan aside as his younger
brother ran to him. Marston saw the tears in the boy’s eyes and
something inside of him snapped.

He couldn’t just let this happen.

“
Stop,” he growled as he
slid slowly from his horse and walked to the porch. The woman was
trembling and terrified as Marston turned his back to her and stood
facing the gang. “That’s enough.”

“
Marston?” Jeremiah was
clearly confused. “What are you doing?”

Marston met the oldest boy’s gaze. “Why
don’t you get on in the house with your mama now?”

“
Don’t do this, Marston,”
Duke urged.

Marston knew that he very well might die.
The only chance he stood was to make sure he didn’t pull his gun.
He would do everything in his power to change these men’s minds but
even if he failed at least he could say he tried.

“
Duke, this ain’t right.
Let’s just ride on.”

“
There won’t be any riding
on, Marston,” Duke countered and the other men nodded heartily in
agreement. “We need food and we need warm company and both are
waiting right in that house for us.”

Marston glanced at the boys who hadn’t yet
made a move toward their mama. “No,” Marston repeated. “Boys get on
inside.”

The oldest boy, Gregory, made a move toward
the house and Hinkley jumped forward and shoved the boy hard,
slamming him back into the dirt. Marston saw red. “You no good son
of a bitch!” he bellowed before leaping from the porch and tackling
Hinkley to the ground.

Marston was good in a fight and he was big
enough to hold his own but when six more bodies leaped at him, he
knew he was in for it. He tucked his head under her his arms and
curled up his legs as boots connected with every inch of his body.
The pain was intense and he couldn’t seem to draw a full
breath.

“
Alright, he’s had
enough,” Duke announced, his voice tight.

Marston wondered why the man called the gang
off. Usually, he killed any who opposed him, or let his gang do the
dirty work for him. Marston realized that Duke and Jeremiah hadn’t
taken part in his beating. His brother appeared mad enough to bite
the heads of nails though whether he was mad at the gang or at him,
Marston couldn’t say.

“
Ma’am, send your kids to
the barn,” Duke growled.

The woman did and Marston heard their tiny
footsteps run off. He wanted to save that woman what he knew was
coming, but he couldn’t. Hell, he was bleeding from his nose and
mouth. His head was pounding and he was fairly sure that his ribs
were bruised if his difficulty breathing was any indication.

Marston lay there on the cold ground and
heard the men lock themselves into the cabin. The din of their
voices, the only sound in the silence of the evening.

It was a long while before Marston found the
strength to push himself to his feet. His chest was aching and he
spit out a long stream of blood before wiping his face off the best
he could on his shirtsleeve.

He tried to forget what he knew was
happening in that house and instead he limped toward the barn. He
barely managed to duck in time to avoid the horseshoe that came
flying toward his head. “Stop that!” he scolded.

Gregory glared at him. “What are they doing
to my mama?”

Marston shook his head. “Nothing you need to
know about. How old are you boys?”

“
I’m twelve and Jacob is
eight. My pa will be back tomorrow and he’ll kill every one of you
that hurts my mama.”

“
We all gotta die somehow
and, boy, I wish your pa the best of luck in his vengeance.”
Marston rubbed at his swollen nose. “Now, you boys stay in this
barn and keep quiet until either your ma or your pa fetches you
out. If it’s your mama then she’s gonna need your help and comfort
until your pa makes it home so be strong men for her.”

Two pairs of wide brown eyes stared at him
and the boys nodded. Marston reached into his boot and pulled out
the derringer he kept inside. He laid it in Gregory’s hand. “You
know how to use this?”

“
Yes, sir.”

Marston nodded. “It’s only got one shot so
don’t go blazing in that house after those men unless you want to
make sure that you, your brother and your mama all die. Lock this
door from the inside and hopefully you’ll be alright but blast
anyone that tries to come in and get you if it ain’t your ma or
pa.”

Gregory nodded. “Yes, sir. Thank you…. Those
men beat you bad…”

Marston chuckled, the sound void of any real
emotion. “I’ve had worse, kid.”

Marston stepped back outside and closed the
barn door behind him. He stared up at the star dotted sky as his
frozen breath swirled around his head. The peaceful illusion around
him was shattered by the sound of the woman whimpering and crying
out with pain in the house.

Her quiet sobs might as well have been
gunshots they echoed so loudly in Marston’s ears.

Suddenly an image of Rose crying in her
kitchen flashed through his mind. Marston’s blood froze in his
veins. What if men like these found Rose and Langley? What if men
like these, men like him, found that cabin and there was no one
around to protect them? The thought of anyone laying hands on that
boy or his mother caused a rage unlike any Marston had ever felt to
flood his senses.

There wasn’t anything else he could do to
protect the woman in that house or the boys in that barn. Sure he
could try to play hero again and end up dead but then he wouldn’t
be able to get back to Rose and Langley. These men wouldn’t kill
this family—that was the only comfort that Marston was able to find
with the situation. Marston couldn’t leave Rose and Langley to the
same fate as this family.. he had to be with them and keep them
safe.

‘
Bout time you came to
your senses.’

Marston rolled his eyes at the voice and
headed toward the horses. He removed Jeremiah’s saddlebags from the
gray and tossed them onto the ground before securing the horse to
Buck. Rose and Langley needed this horse a hell of a lot more than
Jeremiah’s skinny ass.

Marston jumped on Buck and headed out into
the night as fast as the horses and his battered body would allow.
It would take three weeks to reach Harper Louisiana and Marston
could only hope he’d find Rose and Langley alive and well.

***

“
Where the hell is
Marston?” Duke asked aloud as the men made their way back outside
several hours after dawn.

“
That stupid son of a
bitch took off and took my horse with him!” Jeremiah exclaimed as
he kicked at his saddlebags on the ground.

Duke sighed. “We better be riding out, boys.
Jeremiah, you can ride with me.”

Jeremiah was cursing with every breath as he
hopped up on Duke’s horse. Duke paused a moment to watch the thin
blond woman stumble from the house and run toward the barn. After
everything she’d endured during the night, her first thought this
morning was about her children.

It amazed Duke the lengths some women would
go to in order to protect their offspring. Duke hadn’t had a mother
like that. His mama had tossed him into a ditch as a baby and it
had just so happened that an old outlaw found him before the
coyotes had.

“
Why’d that bastard take
off?” Jeremiah asked quietly for only Duke to hear as the men rode
out.

“
I already told you why,”
Duke stated with despair. “Marston has made the biggest mistake a
man can make and it’s liable to get him killed. He has started to
care.”

Chapter Thirteen

Langley was scared. It was morning, but his
mama wouldn’t wake up. She had been okay the night before other
than her real bad cough, but now she was terrible sick.

She kept mumbling as she tossed and turned
under her covers and when Langley laid his palm on her forehead,
her skin had burned him. He knew he should go for the doc, but
they’d gotten snowfall in the night so he couldn’t walk to town and
he couldn’t saddle the mare on his own.

“
Mama, what can I do to
help you?” he whispered, his voice echoing in the quiet of the
cabin.

He pushed a bit of the sweaty hair from her
brow when she didn’t answer and he pulled the covers up to her
chin.

Langley stood and walked from the room.
Never in his life had he felt so helpless and terrified. He wished
Marston would come back. His mama had told him that the man would,
but Langley was beginning to think she had lied to him to spare his
feelings.

Langley kicked the table leg. Why hadn’t he
gone to the doctor sooner! He’d known his mama was sick, but she
had kept insisting for weeks that it was simply a cold and she
would get better. He should never have listened to her.

What if that banker showed up while mama was
in the bed like she was? He had heard the man demand payment anyway
he could get it last time and while Langley didn’t know exactly
what that meant, he knew it was a threat to his mama.

Just to assure himself that he could protect
her, Langley grabbed the rifle from beside the door and tested the
weight of it in his hands. Then he went to the counter, grabbed a
stale biscuit and tore off a chunk with his teeth.

Langley went to the fireplace and began to
stoke the fire, poking at it and becoming lost in his thoughts and
worries. Pounding hooves approaching the cabin yanked Langley from
his thoughts.

He tossed down the poker and raced toward
the gun. Langley scooted a kitchen chair to the door and climbed on
so he could stick the rifle barrel out of the hole. Without
thinking about what he was doing, and simply wanting to protect his
mama, Langley pulled the trigger.

The recoil of the rifle sent him stumbling
backward and tumbling off the chair. Langley was sent sprawling on
the floor and the rifle went sliding away.

“
Dammit!” a man’s voice
bellowed. “Rose? Langley? Whichever one of you just shot me is
going to have the favor returned! I swear on all that is holy, I
will put a bullet in your damned ass!”

“
Marston?!” Langley
exclaimed as he leaped to his feet and threw open the door. “I
didn’t kill you, did I?”

“
I’m talking aren’t I?”
Marston grumbled.

Langley stared up at him. He was just as big
as Langley remembered as he stood there in his duster coat with a
blood tear across the sleeve. “I’m sorry, Marston! I thought you
was someone else. I didn’t hurt you too bad did I?”

“
No, it ain’t too bad,”
Marston replied, relief flooding him at seeing Langley alive and
well. “As a matter of fact, you shot me in the same spot my brother
has already gotten a time or two.”

“
You have a brother?”
Langley asked. Marston nodded as he looked over the boy’s head for
any sign of Rose. “And he shot you?”

“
Yeah, that’s
right.”

“
Wow…” Langley sighed.
“I’m glad I don’t have a brother.”

“
You should be,” Langley
agreed. “Where’s your mama?”

Langley’s blue eyes filled with fear and
worry. “She’s real sick, Marston. She’s been sick for weeks but
this morning she won’t wake up and she’s burning hot.”

Marston pushed past Langley and strode into
the cabin, stepping over the fallen chair and heading straight for
Rose’s bedroom. He stepped inside and his breath caught painfully
in his chest. Rose’s breath rattled in her lungs, her face was
ghastly pale and she was covered in a sheen of sweat. Her red hair
was dirty and limp against the white sheets as she lay as still as
death upon the bed.

All the months Marston had wasted running
from what he felt for Rose and Langley came crashing down on him
and he felt the purest form of remorse and pain nearly tackle him
to the floor.

Marston walked to the edge of the bed on
shaking legs and crouched down. He reached out a trembling hand and
pushed her hair from her overheated cheeks.

“
What did the doc say?”
Marston whispered when Langley stepped into the doorway.

“
He hasn’t been here… Mama
has been sick for a while, but she refused to see him and wouldn’t
let me go get him. She kept saying she just needed time to get
better.”

Marston growled and cursed her stubbornness.
Though it wasn’t her fault that she was the way she was. She’d had
to be strong to raise her son on her own for this long.