Linda Castle (17 page)

The spray of giant boulders gathered speed and momentum as they crashed toward Flynn. He turned to flee, and caught just a glimpse of someone running away before the first stone hit him.

Marydyth heard the sound, smelled the thick odor of dust in the air at the same moment Jack snorted and shied away from his picket line.

“What is it, boy?” She touched the gelding’s neck, trying to calm him as she had seen Flynn do. The sound
ended as abruptly as it started but the thick taste of dirt hung in the air.

Marydyth stood by the horse, scratching his neck, talking to him, unwilling to break contact with another living thing. But as the minutes stretched on, her panic began to grow.

Flynn should have returned by now. He would not leave her alone for this long—unless something terrible had happened.

Marydyth swallowed hard and picked up the canteen from the ground. The sun was almost completely gone, but she could make out the firm and definite print of Flynn’s tracks in the sand.

“I promise I’ll be back, Jack,” she said as she turned and started walking.

She hoped she was able to keep her promise.

M
arydyth tried to make a little noise while she walked, in case Flynn was out here somewhere just wanting a

little privacy. After the incident at the Lavender Lady,

she sure didn’t want him to accuse her of sneaking up on him.

As she walked the odor of dust in the air grew stronger. There had been no wind, and she wondered why the air was thick with it. She swallowed and tasted it heavy on her tongue; Arizona soil, gritty and pungent.

Then she reached an area where dust hung in the air like a thick curtain. It turned the air a dirty, brownish

color. The only time she had ever seen dust like that was

when J.C. had taken her to one of the smaller mines and a blast had been set off. Dust and dirt had belched from the hole.

Marydyth stumbled over something. She looked down, squinting through the dirt in the dim twilight.

She blinked, not believing what she saw. It was an arm—Flynn’s arm—protruding from a pile of stones.

Marydyth fell upon the pile like a madwoman. The rocks cut her hands and she knew her fingertips were
bleeding, but she didn’t care. She focused only on digging Flynn free from the rocks.

“He can’t be dead—oh please, God, don’t let him be dead,” she murmured over and over, like a religious chant, as she removed the stones from his body.

When she had them off she leaned down to check if he was still breathing. Yes, thank God—he was still alive. But then she saw the back of his buckskin shirt, dark with drying blood. Miraculously his face was unmarked, but there was a lump on the back of his head the size of a turkey egg. Marydyth rolled him over and gingerly peeled up the shirt to see how badly he was hurt.

Flynn felt consciousness returning with a searing streak down his shoulder and back. The second thing he became aware of was Marydyth’s frantic whispers.

“I wanted him out of Rachel’s life, but not like this, not like this. Oh, please, God, oh please, don’t let him die.”

“Am I that bad off?” he asked as he opened one eye. He did not miss the way her body stiffened.

“You’re alive,” she said in a breathy whisper.

“Don’t sound so damned happy about it,” he growled and tried to get up.

“You’re hurt,” she said.

“You think I don’t know that?” he snapped.

“Then stop trying to get up. What happened?”

“You tell me,” he said while he pushed himself up off his belly, fighting the nauseating wave of pain that went with each excruciating movement.

“How would I know what happened?” She sat back on her heels and watched him slowly rise.

His head was swimming and his vision was a little blurry but he managed to push himself up into a sitting position. “I saw someone running away after the slide.”

“Yes?” Marydyth asked.

“I thought it was you.” His voice fell with the impact of a hammer on an anvil.

Blunt, direct and straight to her heart. She drew in a breath and stood up.

“Damn you, Flynn O’Bannion. Damn you to hell. What do you want from me?” Her voice rose. “You have my home, my daughter. Do you want my sanity as well?”

“Sanity? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He rubbed the back of his head with one palm. There was a hard lump beneath his hand.

“I’m beginning to think you’re doing all of this to make me think I’m crazy,” she said. “Well, I am not crazy!”

Her voice rang out while she stood there with her feet braced apart, hands on her hips, glaring down at him. Looking up at her made his head throb more. “If I wanted you dead I could’ve put a knife between your ribs while you were otherwise occupied last night”

She clamped her luscious lips together and defied him to deny it.

He blinked and stared at her. It was a sobering thought to consider that he could easily have been murdered while they were locked together in passion.

“Damn you—I didn’t try to shoot you—I didn’t cause these rocks to fall on you, but you won’t believe that, will you? No, you won’t believe it because I have killed before and ’once a murderess, always a murderess’—right?”

She turned on her heel and stomped away. He wanted to call her back, to tell her that he didn’t believe that she shot him, but once again her words echoed in his aching head.

He sat there mute and watched her until she was nearly out of sight. The throbbing in his head grew harder while her words echoed through his brain.

Because I have killed before. Once a murderess, always a murderess.

They rode into Millville a few hours later. Flynn had chewed the inside of his mouth raw while he fought off the waves of dizziness and nausea that accompanied every mile. A knot had formed in the pit of his stomach, but it was not due to the injury—it was because of his doubts about Marydyth.

He knew she was innocent of the shot that killed Trooper, and doubted that she could have been responsible for the rock slide. But damn it, how could he discount her own words?

“There’s the doctor’s office,” Marydyth said flatly, pointing to a wooden sign hanging from a second-story balcony.

“Thanks.” Flynn guided Jack toward the hitching post and waited until Marydyth had slid off the saddle before he tried to move.

When he swung his leg over the cantle, a line of pain scorched its way down his back. He felt the warm, sticky ooze of blood clinging to the back of his shirt and the waistband of his pants.

“I’ll get another shirt from your sleeping bag,” Marydyth offered.

All he could do was nod. He stood, holding on to the saddle horn and the cantle, drawing in deep breaths, trying to accustom himself to the pain.

Her lips were compressed into a thin straight linewell, as thin as those lush soft lips could ever be-and her eyes were like blue flames each time she looked at him.

Flynn did not recall ever seeing Marydyth so damned mad. During the trial when she had been charged with J.C.’s murder he had seen her go from disbelief to shock and finally into mute misery, but he had never seen her mad. And through it all she had never defended herself of the charge. It was almost as if she were resigned to her punishment, as if she welcomed the sentence that consigned her to Yuma.

His gut and his heart told him that Marydyth was telling the truth, that she never would harm him. But if Marydyth was telling the truth, then she
was
a murderer by her own admission.

A wave of dizziness washed over him while he tried to make sense of the puzzle. Flynn rolled his eyes upward and looked at the noonday sky. Why was it growing so dark in the middle of the day?

Marydyth stood frozen while Flynn seemed to crumple. It was incomprehensible to her that the rock-hard, unyielding brute could ever have a weak moment. But his eyes rolled back in his head and his face lost some of the tension.

She rushed to him and managed to get his arm over her shoulder. But he was too heavy for her to hold. She felt herself being crushed toward the earth by his masculine weight.

“Hey, you need some help, ma’am?” A toothy man in typical miner’s garb stepped up and slipped Flynn’s other arm over his shoulder, hitching some of his weight from Marydyth just before her own knees buckled.

She took a deep breath and pulled herself up, determined to shoulder at least half his weight. “Yes, we need the doctor.”

“Doc’s office is on the second story. We’ll never drag
this big galoot up those stairs. Not without help, we won’t.”

Marydyth scanned the street, cursing her wayward curls for falling in her eyes and obscuring her vision.

“Marv? Joe?” the miner called out. Within seconds Flynn was being hauled—none too gently it seemed—up the stairs by three brawny men. Marydyth trotted behind them, murmuring to be careful, not to jerk him like that, to watch out for the railing, but they didn’t seem to hear her.

Flynn regained consciousness while the physician was working on his back.

“You are a very lucky man,” declared a voice from above and behind him. Then he saw a capable right hand, which was missing the two middle fingers, bring a white strip of bandage around to the front.

“Sit up,” the voice ordered.

The doctor tied the last strip of bandage in place and stepped around so Flynn could see his face. It was plain and deeply lined, like most country physicians.

“You have a pair of cracked lower ribs and a lot of torn—up flesh, but nothing was truly broken-only bent a mite,” the doctor said with a wink and a humorless smile.

“Can I ride?” Flynn asked.

“Would it make a difference if I said no?” The doctor never even looked at Flynn, but went on adjusting the bandage.

“Not a bit”

“You’ve got a fine little nurse here.” The doctor smiled at Marydyth. “I think your wife can tend what needs tending.”

Wife.

Flynn and Marydyth locked uncomfortable gazes. The word hung between them like a dark veil.

“Try to take it easy when you get home. No heavy lifting—a little common sense—and you should be right as rain in a few weeks.”

“How much do I owe you?” Flynn dug into his pocket, ignoring the pinch of his ribs when he swiveled.

“Two dollars.”

Flynn stood up, a little shaky but on his own two feet. He picked up the clean twill shirt that Marydyth had brought, noticing his buckskin was ragged and filled with little stone cuts. The dark smear of his blood stained the back. He put one arm in a sleeve of the fresh shirt but when he went to rotate his shoulders and slip a hand in the other one, a knife blade of pain shot through him. He gritted his teeth and sucked in a breath, then he tried again.

“Oh, for pity sake!” Marydyth snapped. “Would it kill you to ask for help?”

She strode to the table where he was leaning and pulled the shirt up to help him slip his hand inside. She brought the front together and started buttoning it. Her nearness was impossible to ignore. She smelled like sunshine, leather and
her.

Each time she drew in an agitated breath, her breasts rose and fell enough for him to get a heartwarming glimpse of them within his own baggy shirt that she had borrowed. She licked her lips, and he remembered what it had felt like to kiss her.

“There now, you are done,” she said. But she lingered close and looked up at him.

For a moment time was like slow honey being poured from a jar. Everything lay suspended while they searched each other’s eyes.

He felt…something that he could not name.

“You two ride easy.” The doctor’s gravelly voice cut through the strange bewitchment.

In silence Flynn slowly maneuvered down the steep stairs to where Jack was still standing with his reins hanging loose in front of him. They found a livery, bought a horse and a beat-up saddle and headed for Hollenbeck Corners.

Even though he didn’t complain of pain, by evening, Marydyth could tell Flynn was hurting. Each step Jack took made him stiffen and hold his breath for an instant.

She rode alongside him, wanting to reach out and touch him, to give him some comfort.

During their ride to Millville she had felt his flat belly beneath her hands with each step. It had made her squirm in an itchy, aroused sort of way. Now, each time she looked at him she silently wished that she was still riding double, still sitting behind him feeling the heat and strength of his body in front of her.

“How much farther?” she asked.

“’Bout an hour, I’d guess.” Flynn had taken a slightly different route home. It was a little faster and he hoped they would arrive soon so Rachel would not worry.

“I’m as anxious as you are, Marydyth.”

His voice was low and thick, and she knew he was fighting to keep control while he was suffering.

“We—we could stop for a bit,” she finally said.

He pulled up on the reins and turned his upper body to face her. They stared at each other across the gulf between their horses.

“I’m not going to die on you, Marydyth. I’ve been banged up before—I’ll heal up and hair over.” He gave her a lopsided, boyish grin.

Something happened to Marydyth at that particular moment. Something insidious and frightening. Her heart thumped so loud in her chest she was sure he could hear it.

Dear Lord, I am falling in love with Flynn O’Bannion.

She couldn’t—she
wouldn’t.

“I only thought you might want to rest a minute—but if not, then let’s go.” Marydyth kicked her mount and stared straight ahead. There was no way in hell she was going to allow herself to care for a man who didn’t trust her—no matter what her heart said.

Rachel was halfway through Victoria’s hall and headed straight for Flynn’s cracked ribs when Marydyth stepped in front of her and intercepted the bone-crushing hug.

“I missed you, sweet pea,” Marydyth said as she took the momentum of Rachel’s weight into her arms and spun her around. She staggered a bit but she held her feet.

When Marydyth finally looked at him he mouthed one word—
thanks
.

She nodded, and her cheeks colored a little. Then she turned back to Rachel, who was chattering a mile a minute about making cookies with Gertie and the big calico barn cat out back who had delivered a litter of kittens, and could she have one if she was really, really good—could she please?

A warm, tickly feeling entered Flynn’s chest. His back hurt, his flesh stung—he couldn’t even take a deep breath without black spots dancing in front of his eyes—but by all that was holy, seeing Marydyth and Rachel together made him happy.

Happy.

He felt connected to them both, linked in a way that made him proud, happy and humble, and it all scared
him more than an Apache raiding party ever had been able to. And that, he thought wryly, was a hell of a note.

The trio returned to Hollenbeck House with Rachel happily filling them in on all her activities. She had extracted the promise from Flynn and Marydyth that as soon as the kittens were weaned she could have her pick. The news brought a glorious smile to her young face.

Once they reached Hollenbeck House, Marydyth insisted on helping Flynn unsaddle the horses. When she bent over, pulled by the weight of his big saddle, her rump had strained prettily against the denim fabric. He caught himself smiling more than once. When Marydyth finally left and went in to to get Rachel ready for bed he saw the stub of a half-smoked cigarette, and by it a scrap of paper.