Lily (Wildflowers Of Montana Book 5) (12 page)

I spun about with a broad grin, which immediately died when I saw that it wasn’t Jack that stood in my open doorway. It was Morgan.

“Oh, shit,” I whispered.

“Does that man of yours know you cuss?” he asked. One shoulder was propped against the doorway, cleaning a fingernail with the tip of a sharp knife. He was relaxed and too confident. A sign of an outlaw that was not afraid of anything. “That’s right, that man of yours. Not Pike, but Matthews. A fucking Pinkerton with a bride who just so happened to be in the bank when we robbed it.”

This was not good. Not only had Jack kept this man from the bank money, he’d done so by impersonation over the course of weeks. I had no doubt he wanted Jack dead, but his interest in seeing me suffer—and Jack because of it—was stronger.

I swallowed down the knot of fear. “Jack will be returning soon. If you want to stay alive, you’d best be on your way. I won’t tell him you were here.”

He lifted his beady eyes to mine. “He’s not coming anytime soon.”

My immediate thought was that Jack had left me, that he’d taken up some Pinkerton assignment and was halfway to Missoula by now. Maybe he’d hopped on the train east headed back to Washington. No. Jack wouldn’t have done that, so I just said, “Oh?”

“He’s in a meeting with that military man of his, at the saloon. By the way the ladies were surrounding them, I figure they’ll be there all night.”

The words were slung like weapons, meaning to hurt me. Jack wouldn’t dally with a saloon girl. The men he was with might, but Jack wasn’t a cheater. He was more honorable than Morgan would ever know. Regardless, if he truly was at the saloon, he might not be back in time to save me. I had to save myself.

“Matthews took something from me and I’m going to take something from him. Let’s go.”

He stood tall and stepped toward me. Of similar size to Jack, he was much heavier. Jack was all lean hard muscle, but this man must eat more steak than Dr. Bower, and by the size of his belly and the rosy color of his nose, drink quite a bit of alcohol. It might slow him down in a fight, but would not prevent him from harming me.

“Why should I go with you?”

“I can kill you here—” he held up the knife, “—but I’d rather make Matthews suffer first.”

I stepped behind the trunk, a solid barrier between us, but the room was small. Unless I decided to jump out the open window, I was trapped. It was futile to resist the man. Getting hurt, and possibly endangering the baby was to be avoided. I had to use my wits. He might have muscle, but I had intelligence on my side.

“Very well. I will go with you, but I will need my coat.”

“Coat?” he asked, looking at me as if I asked if he’d like some tea and cake.

I sniffed and tilted up my chin. “It is getting dark and the air will be cool. I assure you, I will complain and gripe if I am chilled at all. As Jack has told me, I have little meat on my bones and get cold quickly. You don’t wish for me to take a chill, do you? Then you’ll have to deal with a sick woman and—”

“Lord almighty, woman, shut yer trap.”

I bit my lip, trying to look contrite. He was easily riled and annoyed. Good.

“My coat?” I asked.

He sighed. “Where is it?”

I pointed to my trunk.

“Get it quick.”

I didn’t wish to turn my back on him, but if he’d wanted me dead, he would have done it before now. Lifting the lid, I rummaged through until I found one. While my back was turned, I slipped Jack’s ring from my finger and placed it on top of the pile. Either he’d think I left him, or he’d remembered the words he’d said to me out on the prairie.

You take it off, I will find it and I will find
you
. You belong to
me
.
 

Fighting back tears, I spun on my heel and faced Morgan. Lifting my chin, I walked toward the door, pretending I was being escorted to Sunday church instead of being kidnapped. The weight of Jack’s ring was gone and I felt like something was missing. Jack would find me. I knew it and felt resolved. While I certainly had to go with the man, it didn’t mean I had to make it easy for him. And so I began to prattle.

“I hope you have this planned out. As a doctor’s apprentice, I am well aware that if I don’t eat frequently I become dizzy and lethargic. Did you notice that the sun is going down? The man at the livery said his bones ache when a storm is coming on and he told me, just this morning, that he could barely walk. That means we’re in for some harsh weather. Such a surprise because—”

Morgan groaned and I kept right on jabbering.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

JACK

Sending a telegram to Washington was quick. Just two words.
I resign.
The reply would be slower in coming and I had to meet the colonel one last time before I took Lily and left town. Where we went, I had no idea, but it would not be for the Pinkertons or the colonel. I might even be happy living with her huge family, if the men her sisters married didn’t feed me to the pigs first. Two months ago, I would have been stunned to be happy walking away from my work, from the never-ending stream of outlaws that needed to be brought to justice. They were someone else’s problems now. With that thought in my head, I didn’t even mind the hour it took to track down the military man at the saloon. He was with several others in uniform, enjoying an early round of whiskey.

They were celebrating Benson’s capture and as I’d done the work, I’d been pulled into the celebration. When the upstairs girls joined in on the fun, I let the good times pass me, letting the bachelors have their fun. They might need to release some of their pent-up energies in the lush, willing bodies of these whores, but I had my own woman, a woman who was just as lusty, just as willing sleeping off my very ardent attentions.

Even so, I had been unable to pull myself away from the saloon before the sun had long set and returned to Dr. Bower’s house, eager to take Lily away with me. Standing at the front door, I didn’t know if I should knock or just enter. After what I’d done to her in her bedroom—there was no question the room was totally defiled—I should just walk right on in.

This was Dr. Bower’s house, however, and I’d married the woman under his supervision—weak as that had been. He also could wield a scalpel, so I knocked. Dr. Bower opened the door.

“Ah, Mr. Matthews. It is good to see you.”

I shook his hand. He was an odd man, not concerned that I had married Lily hastily and in secret. Based on what I knew of him from Lily and the way he’d behaved the day before, I wasn’t surprised.

“Good evening, sir.”

He returned to his office without a backward glance. Looking up the stairwell, I didn’t see or hear anything from Lily, so I had no choice but to follow him. He was a small man, trim, yet his profession seemed to have taken its toll. His hair was graying and deep grooves lined his face.

“I hope you stay for dinner. Lily serves a delicious pork roast on Wednesdays.”

I breathed in, then replied, “I don’t smell a roast, or any dinner, for that matter.”

He glanced up then, suddenly aware of the time. “That’s odd. She loves roast.”

I wasn’t going to quibble over the fact that the man wasn’t aware Lily didn’t eat meat. I focused on the fact that he said that it was odd. While the man seemed to have his head up his ass, he was observant enough to pick up on any changes in routine. Lily was a woman of routine herself and definitely catered to Dr. Bower’s equally annoying trait. That meant that Lily hadn’t prepared the roast as expected. Either it had also been eaten by a wild dog or something wasn’t right.

“Where is Lily?” I asked, a feeling of dread settling over me.

He raised one graying brow. “I assumed she was with you. She is your wife, is she not?”

Spinning on my heel, I took the steps two at a time and stalked into Lily’s room. I saw it right away. My ring. It was resting on top of a wrinkled dress in her trunk.

I grabbed it and squeezed it in my palm. I spun around the room, wishing she were playing a game of hide and seek.

“Lily!” I bellowed.

Dr. Bower came up the stairs then. “What is going on?”

“She’s not here. Something’s wrong.”

“How do you know that?”

I stood with my hands on my hips in the hallway.

“She took a bath earlier; a wet bath sheet is over the knob of the brass footboard.” I pointed my thumb behind me. “She packed her trunk to leave the house. It’s filled to the brim with the lid open. She left her hat on the hook by the door and she left my ring out where I could find it.”

His mouth fell open at my recitation. “You noticed all of that so quickly?”

“I’m a detective, sir. It’s my job to notice things like this.”

I held my ring up between my fingers for him to see. “This ring. She wouldn’t take it off.”

“Maybe she was washing dishes,” he countered. I doubted he was trying to be contrary, but instead thinking of less evil possibilities. Innocent people thought of reasonable reasons for someone to disappear. I was too jaded for that.

“She would have left it by the sink and she knows, she
knows
to put it back on. She left the ring for me to find, so I would find her.”

I pushed past the older man and stomped down the stairs.

“Matthews! This is preposterous. Who would want to take Lily? She’s just a woman.”

I should have punched him in the nose, but that would solve nothing. “She’s
my
woman.”

Opening the front door, I stormed outside and practically ran to the saloon.

I didn’t want to answer Dr. Bower’s question as to who would take her, for I knew the answer. There were many people who would want to take Lily. No one wanted
her.
They wanted to get back at me. In this part of the country, the list was short, but based on the events of the past few days, I could narrow the list even further.

The saloon was as I left it an hour before, perhaps a little more crowded and filled with a touch more smoke. My sharp gaze roamed over the room for the colonel and didn’t find him. A few of his soldiers were playing a game of poker and I stalked over to them.

“Where’s the colonel?” I growled.

They were too drunk to notice my intensity. One pointed upstairs and laughed. I opened four doors and didn’t offer apologies to the men I interrupted from their evening of debauchery. As for the colonel, he was in the fifth room, his enjoyment of a blond with large breasts and a very plump ass at an end.

As the door slammed inward against the wall, I growled. “Morgan has my woman and he’s going to die.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

LILY

Perhaps it was the hours riding on a swaying horse. Perhaps it was because I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. Perhaps it was the fact that Morgan was cooking a rabbit on a stick over the fire and the charred, sweet smell of grilled meat filled the still night air. Perhaps it was because Morgan was just a complete jackass, but I was going to vomit.

I told the man that, but he didn’t believe me. “I’ve heard you yammering for the past three hours. I’m sick of tired of hearing your problems with hemming a pair of pants or how your pansies wilt in the bright sun or the way the detergent from the mercantile burns your skin.”

He squatted down by the makeshift fire as I sat near him, my hand over my mouth. I was sweating and the saliva in my mouth felt hot. I always had a strong disposition, but now, now the baby decided to make its presence known.

I stood up and turned. Morgan stood as well, the stick with the half-charred, half-raw carcass waving beside my head. “You’re not going anywhere,” he said, his eyes alight with anger and the glow of the fire.

Lowering my hand from my lips, I replied weakly as my stomach rebelled. “Very well, I will vomit right here.” And so I did.

While he’d been quick to stand, he wasn’t as fast walking backwards and before he got out of my range, I’d vomited all down the front of his shirt, the wet sick of it sliding down over part of his pants and dripping onto his shoe. I heaved again and the rabbit on a stick went flying from his hand, landing in the fire with a hot sizzle.

“God dammit, woman!” He held his arms up away from him as he looked down at himself.

I fell to my knees and retched again, my hands pressed into the cool, damp ground. Finally, finally, my stomach was empty and the bout of nausea subsided. I tried to catch my breath as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. The acidic taste of bile coated my tongue and I wished for water to rinse my mouth.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were going to hurl?”

I glanced up at the man, too weak to move from my knees. “I did, several times. I feel ill if I ride a horse for too long.”

I was not going to tell him I was pregnant.

“You didn’t think that was something you should have warned me about?” he shouted. He complained aloud about his ruined clothes. The stench of vomit came from him and he stormed off to his saddlebag, dug around while he swore up a storm.

“Shit, woman, you’re worse than a rabid dog. I’ve got no other clothes.”

I felt a little like death warmed over, but I wasn’t quite as nauseous. That didn’t keep me from a thrilling sense of revenge on the bastard. Crawling on hands and knees, I moved to a patch of grass and curled up in a ball. I didn’t have to worry, at least in the short term, that he would do anything to me. I wasn’t going to fight him in my current state and he’d want that. I also knew he’d want Jack to witness my demise, so until he arrived, I was reasonably safe. It was easier than I expected to fall into a deep sleep, even with Morgan swearing and cussing as he ate burnt rabbit.

***

I woke when Morgan grabbed me and hauled me to my feet, wrapped his hand securely about my waist. The sun was just brightening the sky; the prairie had a soft gray glow about it. He waved his gun at the dark shapes of men that surrounded us.
Jack.
 

My skin was chilled from the lack of blankets, but Morgan was hot and sweaty against my back. He smelled awful, the combination of unwashed male and my vomit singed my nose.