Luke’s Runaway Bride (21 page)

From the racks at the front doors, Luke grabbed a tin of oil and a cloth. He turned around.

Daniel stood in his path.

Luke gasped. The tin slid to the ground as he went for his gun.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said Daniel. He was breathing hard, rubbing his black beard and pointing a six-shooter with his other hand.

Luke’s mouth went dry. “Where is she?”

“I’m meeting Harley somewhere not too far away.”

So Daniel hadn’t seen her yet?

After all these years, they just stared coldly at each other. Luke slid his gaze toward Travis. Travis was removing the horse’s blanket and peering at them with alarm. Adam must still be lying in the straw. What would Daniel do if he discovered Adam here?

No violence, Luke prayed. No violence in front of the boy.
Lie down, Adam. Don’t get up.

“Friend of yours?” asked Daniel with a leer at Travis.

“One of my men,” Luke responded calmly, letting Daniel know he couldn’t get away with murder here. If that’s why the bastard had come.

A fat drop of perspiration trickled down Luke’s temple. To distract Daniel from discovering the boy, Luke bent down and picked up the fallen tin of oil.

Daniel glanced down at the worn rag and tin. “I see you’re still a workin’ class boy.”

Luke’s jaw pulsed.
And I see you’re still a bastard.
“If you want me, take me. Leave Jenny alone.”

Daniel raised his gun higher. “Give me Jenny, and I’ll sign those adoption papers you want so bad.”

One punch was all Luke wanted. One punch to crack Daniel’s jaw. “You sign first.”

A sheen of desperation clung to Daniel’s skin. “No. Not until she says she’s coming back with me. I want you to come with me and convince her.”

Luke’s hand hovered near his gun. He’d always been a better shot. But how could he shoot in front of the kid? As despicable as Daniel was, Luke couldn’t shoot Adam’s father right in front of him. The boy would suffer the way Luke had suffered, being a party to his father’s hanging.

Luke nodded. “Lead me to her,” he said, trying not to sound too eager, hoping like hell they’d leave the stable immediately. “I’ll convince Jenny to go back…with you.”

“You better say something to your man over there,” said Daniel, “so he doesn’t follow us. Tell him you’ll be back by nightfall. I know you won’t try anything funny, because if you shoot me, you’ll never find out where she is.”

The heartless bastard. Luke nodded, about to turn. Before he could, Daniel slid Luke’s guns out of his holsters.

As Luke made his way to the stall, Daniel stepped to the open back doors, guns in hand, standing in a wash of sunshine.

“Travis,” Luke ordered when he reached the stall, “you’re not to follow me. Take Adam to the saloon where he’ll be safe.”

With Daniel preoccupied talking to the stableboy, Luke crouched down to Adam’s level. “Adam, go back to the saloon with Travis and wait for me there. I’m going to see if I can find Jenny.”

Adam placed a stained, chubby hand on Luke’s denim-covered thigh. Would this be it between them? Luke’s throat ached. He’d do everything in his power to make sure he came back, but if not…

“Will you remember this moment with me?” Luke patted the soft, dimpled hand.

“Sure.”

He wanted to give the boy something he’d never had himself: a goodbye from his father. “Adam, I know how you feel about me. I know how much you love me.” Luke’s voice faltered. “Even though I didn’t know it then, with you growing up in the saloon beside me all these years, I loved you all along.”

“Really?” The boy gave him a tender grin. Then he leaned forward, dropped his grooming brush in the straw and hugged Luke, his little arms able to reach only so far.

Luke swallowed. “Now look at me, Adam. Look at me and tell me…goodbye.”

A puzzled look appeared in Adam’s brown eyes. He smiled and spoke in that wonderful, boyish voice Luke would always remember. “’Bye, Luke.”

H
ooves pounded beneath Luke as they galloped along the railroad tracks. They were heading west, toward the mountains and the setting sun. Daniel had supplied the horses, likely by arrangement with Harley.

Overgrown brush flicked over Luke’s boot. He tilted his hat in the wind and swore. Daniel wouldn’t win. Not this time.

The horses slowed, winded from galloping uphill. Daniel removed his gun from his holster and pointed it at Luke. “Quiet now,” he threatened.

Luke gritted his teeth.

To their left, a clearing appeared, and a hundred yards farther, three temporary crew sheds. Smoke billowed from the chimneys, and Luke realized there were rail workers inside, finished for the day, preparing for the next. Horses neighed from the makeshift corral. Stacks of ties, rails and rods lined the earth.

When they passed the camp, Daniel lowered his gun. “Not much farther.” The dark circles beneath his eyes were highlighted by the flash of orange sunlight.

“Why’d you bring Jenny here?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Daniel snarled, wiping his greasy brow with the back of the hand that held the gun. He adjusted his bowler hat. “I helped build this place. Through my sweat and negotiation, Nyland bought this land. The transcontinental’s pushing west because of
me.
Jenny’s damn proud of that—she told me herself. Bringing her here will remind her who I am. She’ll never leave me.”

Luke shook his head in disgust. The brush grew denser, pines and aspens closing in on their path. They had to ride single file to pass, Luke ahead of Daniel.

A mile farther, around a bend, three rail cars gleamed in the dusk—a steam engine, a coal car behind it and a flatcar loaded with logs.

Was Jenny in one of the cars? Riding closer, he didn’t see her, but they were approaching the edge of a steep gorge. A temporary wooden bridge spanned the hundred-foot drop, and those tracks ended just beyond the other rim. Straight down, in dugout furrows, the footings were laid for the permanent bridge, with huge rocks and boulders beside them.

“Luke!” Jenny’s soft voice called, sending his heart careening.

He spun around as Harley stepped out of the pines.

Harley was dragging Jenny by her arm. Luke stood up in his stirrups, aching to jump down and hold her. He flinched at the sight of her. Her skirt was torn. Oh, hell, the side of her face was swollen.

“You son of a bitch,” he roared, starting to spring from his saddle.

“Easy,” said Daniel, cocking his gun.

Jenny’s face twisted in torment.

When he saw Harley press a gun to her ribs, Luke halted and clamped his mouth shut. With rage building, he slowly eased back into his saddle and twisted toward Daniel. “What happened to you, Kincaid?”

Daniel cleared his voice. “I made something of myself.” He tipped his hat at Jenny. “You’re a sight for sore eyes, darling. Last time I saw you was the night of our engagement. Remember?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice quivering.

“Remember how excited you were? How we waltzed together?”

“I remember, Daniel, but things have changed.”

“Nothing’s changed, as far as I’m concerned. Whatever Luke might have told you about the boy are false accusations. Let your mind unreel for a moment, Jenny, and remember how it feels to be in my arms.”

She shook her head. Her straight, dirty hair tumbled around her shoulders.

Daniel’s lips tightened into a grim line. “We’re going to find the closest minister, and we’ll be married before morning.”

She recoiled at his words.

Luke felt his innards heave at the thought.

Jenny knotted her fingers in her skirt with a defiant glare. “No, I don’t want to marry you.” She turned from Daniel to Luke. Her face softened as he gently shook his head. He’d never be robbed of her.
Never.

Daniel’s face hardened. He turned to Luke with venom in his eyes. When Daniel began to dismount, Luke abruptly motioned to Jenny, nodding toward the woods. Would she understand?

She did. As Daniel slid off his horse, she yanked free of Harley and lurched for the pines. Luke braced himself, then leaped from his saddle directly on top of Daniel.

“What—” Daniel stumbled to the ground, winded. Luke slammed his muscular body hard into Daniel’s and was able to punch the bastard’s face twice before Harley jumped him.

Fists hammered Luke’s skull. He felt the fresh scar on his face rip open. Pain throbbed in his head.

With a hard kick at Harley’s gut, Luke rolled away from the two men, swiping one of Harley’s guns in the process. He fired blindly in Harley’s direction, but the staggering man ducked and the shot missed him.

Daniel cursed as he recoiled from his beating. “Get him first,” he ordered Harley, “then we’ll go after the girl.”

Luke whirled toward the woods. Jenny had disappeared. Crackling branches and running feet echoed from deep within the forest. She’d made it. A cry of relief broke from his lips.

She needed time to reach the safety of the crew camp, and he’d do what he could to give it to her.

He leaped in the other direction, hitting the hard ground with his shoulder and splinted hand, and rolling beneath the steam engine. Raising his gun, he shot in the direction of the men. No one’s body thudded to the ground.

That meant two bullets fired, just four left. He’d have to make them last.

He waited but heard nothing.

“Come out,” Daniel finally shouted, somewhere off to Luke’s right.

“Over here,” Harley yelled from the left.

Luke was surrounded. How could he protect himself from two directions? Unless…

He wriggled over the cold rails and slid to the other side of the steam engine. If he got himself and the cars across the bridge, there’d be only one possible direction to come at him. They’d have to follow him over the bridge. Jenny would be long gone by then.

He unhitched the engine, and the two cars lurched backward. He darted underneath one, gave a sharp glance at the moving axle and mechanisms of the undercarriage and wrapped his legs and arms around a solid bracket.

As silent as ice sliding through water, the cars glided along the shiny rails.

“What in hell’s he doin’?” Harley screamed.

“You son of a bitch,” Daniel cried. “Come back here and face me.”

A bullet zinged past Luke’s ear. Another one caught his shoulder, ripped the cloth of his shirt, but barely grazed his flesh.

The railcars gathered speed. As they left the bank and rolled onto the bridge, Luke inched forward to the hitch and managed to climb up between the cars.

The wind slapped his face. Pain hammered his grazed shoulder. If his timing were off, if the cars reached the end of the tracks before he jumped to safety, the train might derail with him beneath it.

Where were the two other men? Had they taken the bait and followed?

Clinging to the wall of the coal car, a hundred feet in the air, Luke inched to the ladder. He heard a scraping sound from above him. In one smooth motion, he lifted his gun, and when Harley’s head and shoulders appeared, Luke fired.

The blast knocked Daniel’s thug through the air. Blood sprayed from his chest. He fell straight to the bottom of the gorge, to the boulders far below.

No one could survive that fall.

Luke braced himself against the coal car wall. Now what?

Where was Daniel?

Luke listened. The train gathered more speed. He had to jump off soon if he planned on saving his own skin. With his fingertips, Luke grabbed hold of the ladder then scrambled onto the coal pile, which was covered with a tarp. Daniel was standing on the other car, on top of the logs facing him. They stared at each other for one eerie moment.

Then Daniel dove for his gun, at the same time Luke jumped from the train.

The steel wheels screeched as the cars hugged a curve. The dark sky raced by in a blur. The train thudded off the tracks, derailing onto the soft earth, and then, with one deafening rumble, rolled over.

Out of control, Luke careened down the bumpy coal tarp, and when the train creaked to a stop on its side, he found himself dangling from the ladder with his arms above his head. The coal had toppled over his head, and coal dust stung his nostrils.

The air grew still again. He wasn’t sure how far down the ground was below him, if he’d cleared the gorge at all. His arm muscles shrieked from holding on so tight.

What had happened to Daniel?

Luke slowly turned his head. Three feet away, Daniel was clawing at the edge of the flatcar. His legs cycled in the air above the gorge.

Ever so gently, Luke tipped his gaze upward, above Daniel’s head. Most of the logs had tumbled off, but two remained, wedged above him. Daniel stared at the logs, his mouth twisted with fear.

A moment of compassion surged through Luke. A long time ago, when Daniel was a tenderhearted boy, he and his family had taken Luke and his mother in when they were in desperate need of help. Daniel had helped clothe and feed them. What had gone wrong? Daniel’s greed? But he’d been a good man once, just as Luke’s father had been a good man in his early years. And no one had ever helped his father.

Luke couldn’t end it like this. His voice shook as he held out his hand. “Hold on, Daniel. Reach for my hand!”

Daniel turned with vivid terror in his eyes. He opened his mouth, but words didn’t come out.

“Hold on,” Luke repeated, inching forward. The train began to rock.

“I’m not gonna make it,” Daniel whispered.

Luke gulped. “Yes, you will. You were always good on that rope in the hayloft. Hold on, I’m almost there.”

Daniel turned as white as a cloud. “Tell the boy—” he gave a desperate gulp “—tell the boy I didn’t mean no harm.”

And then Daniel was gone. He lost his grip and fell to the bottom of the gorge, his twisted body landing on the footings below.

Luke turned away in horror.

With a roaring boom, the railcars heaved, the remaining logs let go and everything began to topple downward.

Two days later, they buried Daniel atop the grassy slope of the ranch he’d grown up on, next to the gravesite of his folks.

The sheriff had taken care of Harley’s burial.

Jenny’s heart was heavy, with a burden she’d never felt before. How could it have ended like this?

Scraped and bruised, she bowed her head as the minister said the parting words. Beside her, Luke, his left hand resplinted and his left shoulder bandaged from the bullet wound, gave a heavy sigh.

She thanked God Luke had made it off the ledge with no more than a gash to his leg. After she’d reached the camp, the rail crew had returned with her to the gorge. Luke had suffered a concussion and he was slow to recover, but he seemed to have regained some strength this morning.

Adam was staying with the cook and his wife while Luke, Jenny, her father, Olivia, Travis, Daisy and Nathaniel paid their last respects.

A shovelful of dirt hit the casket. What a pitiful waste, she thought.

The wind whipped at her ribboned hair. The warm chinooks had finally left, replaced by bitter cold. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders and leaned her bonnet into the wind.

Afterward, Luke walked with her to the bottom of the hill.

Jenny turned and searched his sober face. “Will you ever tell Adam about his real father?”

“When Adam’s old enough to understand, I’ll tell him about the fine things I remember. I know this may seem strange, but in the end, Daniel became that childhood friend I once knew.”

Her eyes stung with tears. She turned away.

Luke grabbed her arm gently. “Jenny, about what’s happened—”

“Don’t, Luke. It’s too awful to talk about.”

“What happened to Daniel is not your fault. He brought it on himself.”

“I know, but it’s still too awful to talk about. I was a party to it, and coming back with the rail workers, seeing Daniel’s body sprawled on the rocks…”

When she looked Luke in the eye, she knew he couldn’t deny it. The agony in her heart was reflected in his sorrowful eyes.

She was numb with grief. She didn’t know what she felt.

For Daniel or for Luke.

The wind howled around her ears. It was cold here in Cheyenne. The wind never stopped blowing. It was best she stay out of the chill. It was best she return to Denver.

Jenny barely ate for three days, barely paid attention to her surroundings at the saloon, barely noticed Olivia’s coming and going.

Clearing up the dishes from their final dinner together in the saloon, knowing she’d be on the morning train, Jenny turned to Olivia with utter astonishment. “You eloped yesterday?” Jenny asked her. “Just two days after the funeral?”

Luke, hands full of cups and saucers, pushed the kitchen door open with his foot and glanced from Olivia to Travis, equally flabbergasted.

Olivia placed the porcelain cups, which were rattling in her jittery hands, on the kitchen counter. “Oh, I know it was wicked of us, Jenny, it really was.”

She twisted her fingers in her apron, but when Travis joined her and placed a large arm around her slim shoulders, Olivia burst into a smile and began to chatter. “But the timing was so perfect. It was such a lucky day to get married. First, in the morning, my apron strings accidentally came untied, and you
know
that means my sweetheart loves me very much. Then I pared an apple whole, without breaking the peel. I know you think it’s an old wives’ tale, but when I threw it over my shoulder to see in what shape it would land, to discover the first initial of my future husband, well, it was
T
—for Travis! And then the third lucky thing,” she said, clasping her hands in delight, her voice gaining speed, “was when Travis tripped and fell over a horseshoe. A horseshoe! And it was still studded with nails, bringing extra good luck.”

Olivia gulped and kept going. “I didn’t know how to tell you, Jenny, seein’ how we’re supposed to be leaving tomorrow, but I just can’t keep it bottled up any longer. Travis and I got married!”

Jenny was already laughing. So was Luke—for the first time in days.