Luke’s Runaway Bride (12 page)

Harley Cobbs, the quiet, polite guard at Daniel’s office. Daniel must have brought him to help, as part of the team of men he’d brought to rescue her.

“Harley! Over here!” She knew Daniel would be right behind him. Through a throng of people, Jenny raced to the car and watched the huge hairy man step off the train. His boots were so big he couldn’t seem to maneuver the stairs, so he leaped down. Jenny waved a handkerchief in the air, beaming at him. “We’re over here!”

Olivia appeared beside her.

Harley jolted back in surprise. He stared at them, his mouth open. Then, recovering quickly, he nodded and removed his hat politely.

“Miss Jenny, Miss Olivia, howdy. I didn’t expect to see you so soon, let alone you’d be waitin’ for me when the train arrived.” His cheek twitched. “McLintock released you?”

“Yes,” Jenny gulped. “We’re free to go.”

“But how did you know I was comin’?”

She flushed with excitement. “It’s the only train you could have taken, Luke said—”

“Luke?”

Jenny’s smile faded with embarrassment. Perhaps she sounded a little too friendly about Luke. She glanced toward Olivia, shifted uncomfortably, then said with renewed vigor, “Where’s Daniel? How many men did he bring?”

Harley frowned. He studied Jenny’s face, then caught sight of Luke out the corner of his eye. His head jerked in astonishment, and Jenny decided that Harley knew who Luke was.

Where was Daniel?

“I’m sorry to fluster you, Harley. I’m just so excited. Why, you must be tired from your journey.” She glanced up at the trickle of people still descending from the train, searching for her black-bearded fiancé. “Daniel, too. For a moment, I was beginning to think he wasn’t coming.” She laughed. “See how silly I am?”

She peered around his thick shoulders. “Where is he?”

“Ma’am, you’re expectin’ Mr. Daniel?”

She paused. “He did come, didn’t he?”

“Well, ma’am,” Harley began to explain, giving Luke a dead-cold stare, “your father came in yesterday, and Mr. Daniel was detained at the office, you see, something he couldn’t avoid. Your father wanted him to check prices—”

“Daniel didn’t come for me?”

There was a moment of awkward silence.

Daniel didn’t come.

The words beat into her mind.

How could that be true?

Jenny tried to brace herself but stumbled backward, unable to keep her wretched disappointment from showing.

Luke stepped up to her side to support her. He reached out, but she spurned his help. Seeing him here, having him witness her humiliation, was even worse.

Olivia cupped Jenny’s shoulder. It took Jenny a few seconds to compose herself. Finally, she addressed Harley. “Doesn’t he wonder if I’m safe and alive?”

“Believe me, he wanted to come.”

“What on earth did he tell my father?” Jenny blurted. “What reason did he give for our disappearance?”

Harley shuffled on the platform. He hooked his traveling bag around his shoulder. “He told them you were visiting his elderly relations. Let’s see now…their names… Daisy and…I can’t remember….”

“Nathaniel.”

“That’s right.” Harley s broad face spread into a grin.

Jenny shook her head in disbelief.

Luke folded his arms across his chest, and he and Harley scrutinized each other, like two angry bulls trapped in the same corral, searching for each other’s soft spot.

Luke’s face grew drawn. Jenny trembled at the stifled fury she saw in his eyes.

“Once a coward,” Luke said evenly, “always a coward.”

“Now, you listen!” Harley’s crimson neck bulged. His face clouded over. He looked a lot angrier and meaner than Jenny’d ever seen him. “I know who you are. You’ve got some damn nerve, showin’ your face after what you’ve done.”

Luke spoke through tight lips. “Why isn’t Daniel here?”

“I don’t think I have to explain it to you.”

“Then explain it to
me,
” Jenny said.

Harley ignored her, and his dismissive attitude caused her a fresh surge of anger. Whose side was Harley on? Why, she felt closer to Luke than she did to Daniel’s guard. And how ridiculous was that!

“Frankly,” Harley snarled at Luke, “I’m mighty surprised to see you out here in the open, after the robbery.”

“There was no robbery and you know it.”

“We’ll see what the sheriff has to say—”

“I don’t know how much Daniel told you about this delicate situation,” Luke snarled, “but I think the sheriff’s the last place you want to be heading. Not with all the attention and publicity it’ll bring to Daniel’s business, and his new engagement.”

Harley groped for words. He floundered for a moment, then looked Jenny in the eye. “Daniel sent you a message. That he…cares for you.”

She laughed without humor. “Is that what you think I want to hear? Daniel would never send a message like that through you. You’re bluffing. Daniel took the coward’s way out, just like Luke said.” She swallowed her despair. “Daniel sent you alone because he didn’t want to face Luke. Why not? Why doesn’t he want to face him? What’s Daniel hiding?”

One possibility pounded through her mind.
Was Daniel the boy’s father?
She nearly crumpled with the image of the little boy waiting to hear word from a father who wouldn’t give it.

Harley was silent.

“What if I’d been injured?” Her voice quivered.

Harley’s dark eyes flashed with lightning speed. “Are you?” Incensed, he glared at Luke, stepping closer, clenching his drawn fists. Ready to fight.

“No,” she said, stepping in front of Luke. It was a protective gesture, but she was unsure of why she did it. “But Daniel doesn’t know that.”

Nudging her back by her shoulder, Luke stepped forward. “I don’t hide from anyone.”

Jenny shook her head and glanced at a very solemn Olivia. Her poor friend, another innocent person trapped in the middle of this.

Daniel was treating Jenny like a nobody. Well, she deserved to be acknowledged. She shivered with apprehension. Adam deserved to be acknowledged. Hadn’t Luke told her that?

“When this train turns around,” Jenny declared to Harley, “I want you to take a message back to Daniel.”

“But you’re comin’ back with me, aren’t you?”

“No.”

Harley gritted his teeth. “My orders are to take you back.”

“I don’t follow orders.”

Harley’s face was stone. Jenny’s gaze lingered on his crooked nose, and she suddenly recalled how proudly Daniel had spoken of Harley’s boxing championships in New York. Did she have anything to fear from the man?

No. That was ridiculous.

“What’s the message?” Harley asked.

“This.” She twisted the engagement ring off her finger and shoved it into Harley’s thick hand. “Give him this. And tell him if he wants to talk to me, the next time he can come himself.”

Luke nudged her. His eyes widened in alarm. “Wait a second—”

“Go home, Harley,” Jenny interrupted.

With drawn features, Luke insisted, “I think you better get on the train. For your own good. For your own safety.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re worried about my safety? Isn’t that a hoot?”

His jaw clenched. “Listen, I know you’re angry. But take your anger out on me. Hate my guts if you want to—we never have to see each other again. But get back on that train. It’s turning around and heading back to Denver in just over an hour. Go on with your life. I’ll figure out what to do with Adam.”

Adam. She cringed at what this whole mess implied for little Adam.

But she would not take advice from Luke McLintock. “If Daniel wants me, he can come and get me.”

Luke stepped closer, looking as if he wanted to shake her. “You’ve got to return. You can’t stay here. I’ll send two men to escort you and make sure you return safely to your father.” His voice sharpened. “Take Olivia, and get back on the train.”

Who in blazes did he think he was? Tossing her like a ball, back and forth between Daniel and himself. Well, she was darned tired of always giving in to people who thought they knew what was best for her. And what was best for her at this moment was not going back.

Jenny glanced at Olivia to see if she had any objections, but Olivia only shrugged in confusion.

Jenny turned back to Luke and chose her words very deliberately, very carefully. “Thank you kindly,” she said, “but no.”

Harley took a deep breath and stared at all of them. An artery throbbed at his temple.

“Go home, Harley,” Jenny repeated.

The boxer peered over her shoulder at the stationhouse. He gave a cold smile that was more frightening than any display of anger. “First I think I need a drink. It’s been a long night.”

With that, he hiked up his bag and walked away.

In stony silence, Luke, Jenny and Olivia watched him go.

What now? Jenny wondered. What had started as a beautiful morning turned out to be one of the most devastating of her life.

She swallowed the bitterness in her mouth, slowly spun on her heel and turned to face the man responsible.

Luke.

“I still think you should get back on the train. Go back to your father. And Daniel if you want to,” Luke said, desperately trying to convince her ten minutes later, but still not having any luck. Why wouldn’t the dang woman listen?

The three of them stood near the ticket booth as he tried to calm his frazzled nerves. Daniel hadn’t bothered to show up. Luke still couldn’t believe it.

“Not on your life,” Jenny challenged. “I’ll make my own decisions from here on in.”

Adjusting the brim of his hat, Luke wavered, watching the animated expression on Jenny’s face. She clearly cared for Daniel a great deal, arranged marriage or not. Why had it deflated him, seeing the eagerness on her face as she’d greeted Harley, then seeing it shatter at Daniel’s betrayal?

Daniel was a son of a bitch, treating his woman like this. If she were Luke’s, he’d never desert her. Come hell or high water, he’d have swum across the ocean for a woman he intended to marry.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this,” he warned her. “I know your feelings are hurt—”

Jenny spun around to face him. “My feelings are hurt? That’s your summation?”

He took a step back and raised his palms. “Look, I’m sorry I brought you into this mess, but we’re here now, and I’m telling you, Daniel sent Harley for a reason.”

“I know,” she snapped. “To take us back. But since we’re not going back, Harley will have to return alone. Right, Olivia?”

Olivia nodded. The poor woman looked close to tears.

“I suppose,” he answered. But personally, he didn’t think it’d be that easy to appease Harley.

Jenny peered down the train tracks to the horizon. “It seems Daniel’s not interested in Adam or me.”

Luke sighed. “Oh, he’s plenty interested in you. He’s scared to lose you—that’s why he didn’t come. He’s stalling, hoping you won’t learn the truth about the boy. That you won’t believe my version of the story.”

She assessed him coolly. “Just because I’m staying doesn’t mean I’m any closer to believing you. I still don’t know who to believe.”

Pushing back his Stetson, he met her piercing eyes. He was in her poor graces. Well, why the hell wouldn’t he be? He’d gotten them all into this bloody mess, hadn’t he?

“And just so you know,” Jenny added hastily, deflating him even further, “my decision to stay has nothing to do with you. What you did to me was just as despicable as what Daniel’s doing. You took me against my will. I don’t trust either one of you. What this little lesson has taught me is that I’m on my own.”

Luke shrank and rubbed a hand over his clean-shaven jaw. He deserved every word of what he got. Trouble was, what was he going to do to get them out of this?

He peered up at the train. The conductor was already ushering new passengers aboard. In another fifty minutes, twelve o’clock sharp, the train would pull out of the station. Without Jenny.

Jenny watched the hopper of coal being shoveled into the engine. “Olivia and I are going to stand on our own two feet from here on in.” With a final scathing glance at Luke, she pulled her shoulders back, grabbed Olivia by the elbow and sailed off the platform.

He watched her go. Nothing he could say would stop her.

How could he right this wrong? Who would care for Adam? Who would stand up for an innocent five-year-old boy?

It was clear to Luke that Daniel felt no connection to the child. Adam would be better off without him.

Luke’s heart ached with the knowledge. Adam would have no father to share his life with. No mother, either. Whatever Luke’s problems with Daniel might be, they were nothing compared to Adam’s.

What should Luke do with the boy?

He could put him in an orphanage. Another new one had started up last week.

Or he could ask Reverend Thomas to help find a loving home for the boy.

One thing was sure, Luke definitely couldn’t take him. He had no place in his life for a boy. He didn’t even have a proper home.

Most of all, Luke wasn’t sure he had anything deep down to give. In his soul. In his heart.

What did he know about raising a child? He’d never been around them much. At least not paying any attention. Children needed clothes and boots and little beds. Luke couldn’t take care of a kid. He didn’t even know what little kids ate.

His life was too sporadic, too unscheduled, too wild—just as he liked it. But not the settled type of life a child needed.

And even if he did choose to give Adam a roof over his head, where was the boy supposed to sleep? In the saloon next to Luke’s room? With the dancing girls and drinkers? Adam would be starting school next year. Would Luke send him off every morning, with his primer and his pencil from the saloon doors?

The townsfolk would curse him. The schoolmarm, the women, the store owners, the ministers, everyone.

So far, the boy was fine at Daisy and Nathaniel’s, but Luke couldn’t very well accept responsibility for Adam, then send him their way permanently. Besides, the two old folks were in their seventies.

The locomotive hissed beside him, and Luke jumped at the sound. How long had he been standing here?