Mary Connealy (97 page)

“They died. My whole family died.” Abby’s eyes rose to meet Tom’s. “Except my older brother. You stayed back East.”

“When you all went West, I stayed behind. I had a girl I was sparking and a good job working in a lumberyard.” Tom’s lips curved down. “You forgot you had a brother?”

“No, not forgot. But that life seems so far away. Almost like it happened to someone else.” Abby looked deeply into Tom’s eyes.

“She’s been living with the Flathead all these years, Tom. Speaking their language, living by their customs. She’s remembering her old life only in bits and pieces.”

“Indians kidnapped you?” Tom’s brows slammed together. “Savages? I never knew. I never even considered you’d lived or I’d have come to save you. We heard the family died of the fever. I inherited Pa’s land and my girl married someone else, so I came West.”

Wade saw a flash of temper in Abby’s eyes. He jumped in to head off her drawing her knife again. “The Flatheads found her alone, her family dead. They didn’t kidnap her. They
saved
her. Took her and cared for her and raised her as their own.” Wade added in a whisper, “She doesn’t like it when you call them savages.”

Tom started shaking his head. “My sister. I…I never thought one of you might have lived. I was t–told …” Tears welled up in Tom’s eyes.

Wade looked around quickly, knowing Tom wouldn’t want anyone to see him crying. Once the danger was past, his men had moved away. They were in the corral separating the stock.

Suddenly Tom launched himself forward and grabbed hold of Abby in a bear hug. Startled, Abby looked to Wade as if asking for help.

Wade shrugged. “He’s happy to see you. Aren’t you kinda happy to know you have a brother?” For some reason, Wade was extremely happy to find out Tom was Abby’s brother. He didn’t bother trying to decide why exactly. Of course, there was bad in it, too. Tom couldn’t spark her, but he could take her home.

“Yes.” With a quiet cry of distress, Abby flung her arms around Tom and hugged back. “I’m very happy to know I have a brother. Tom, I do remember you. I was so young when we headed West.”

“Seven.” Tom let her go, stepped back a bit, and kept his head down as he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket. He blew his nose and made a quick swipe of his eyes then looked up. “You were seven when Pa threw in with a wagon train. I was sixteen and not about to leave my best girl behind. Stubborn kid. If I’d have come, maybe I could have helped.”

Wade clapped his hand on Tom’s back, enjoying slapping the man a bit too much. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose Abby because of this. “You two have a lot of catching up to do. Why don’t you send your hands home with the cattle and ride out to the M Bar S with us, spend the day.”

Tom suddenly bulled up, got a mean look on his face that Wade remembered well from the old days. “I’m not coming out there. Abby is coming home with me.”

Wade froze. Then he melted; in fact, he got a little hot under the collar. “No, she’s not.”

“My sister is coming home with me.” Tom dismissed Wade’s comment and turned to Abby. “We’ll give you a ride. You don’t need a horse or anything else from Sawyer.”

“She’s got a job on our ranch.” Wade wasn’t about to let Abby ride off with anyone, least of all Tom Linscott.

“She doesn’t need a job. I can support her.” Tom reached for Abby.

Wade stepped between them. “I know how you live out there.”

“I live just fine.” Tom’s jaw clenched.

Wade could see the man remembering, but just in case, Wade reminded him. “Your cabin is falling down and your ranch hands live in it with you. She’d be more comfortable in a cave of bears. Safer, too.”

“So I’ll build a house.” Tom’s hand seemed to sweep aside the problem of where Abby would stay in the meantime. “I didn’t have a reason to before this.”

“Come out to the Sawyer place after the house is built. We’ll talk about her going with you then.” That gave Wade plenty of time to convince Abby that she needed to stay with him forever.

“No. She comes now.” Tom squared off in front of Wade, turning sideways to Abby.

“It’s not right nor proper.” Wade took a step closer to Linscott. “At least at my place we’ve got Gertie. Plus, Gertie is run ragged trying to take care of Pa and cook for the hands doing roundup. We really need Abby’s help.”

Tom jerked back. “You don’t have your roundup done yet?”

Wade thought the heat in his cheeks might be a blush. Blushing, at his age, in front of Tom Linscott, while the man swept Abby off to live with him. Could things get any worse? It was not
his
fault that he’d come home and found chaos. “No, we don’t. And that’s not what we’re talking about. Abby’s reputation will get dragged through the mud if she’s out there with all of your bachelor cowhands.”

“No one will say a word against my sister or they’ll face me.” Tom jabbed a finger straight at his chest.

“Oh, now you’re going to shoot anyone who raises an eyebrow.” Wade snorted. “Instead of just letting her come to the M Bar S like you should.”

“She’s my responsibility. She’s my sister.” Tom shoved Wade’s shoulder.

Wade took a step forward. “You’re a stranger.”

“She’s mine.”

“No, she’s not. She’s mine!” Wade clenched his fists.

“Shut up!” Abby shoved herself between them, one hand flat on each of their chests. “Just shut up!”

Dead silence reigned. She looked from one to the other. “‘She’s mine’? Did I hear those words come from your lips? Both of you?”

Neither answered.

“I belong to no white man. I belong to no man!”

Wade watched Tom’s eyes focus on Abby with confusion and fondness. Then those eyes shifted to Wade and narrowed. Wade wondered what in the world the man was thinking. “Any fool can see she can’t stay out there with you.”

Abby’s blade flashed right under Wade’s nose. “I said shut up.”

Tom’s narrow, dangerous eyes widened. Then he smirked. “You ever meet a man you didn’t pull a knife on, baby sister?”

Wade thought it over. “I can’t remember her skipping anyone so far.”

Abby glared.

Tom studied Wade as if taking his measure…maybe for a pine box.

Wade wasn’t sure what the stubborn idiot was hunting for.

Suddenly Tom’s expression eased, and he shook his head and smiled. “No more fighting, Abby girl. You’re a woman grown, easy to see. You can decide where you go all on your own.”

“Of course I’ll go with Wade. I have a job, and I don’t want to live in a single house with a crowd of cowboys. At the M Bar S, I only have to put up with him and his whining yellow dog of a father.”

Tom jerked a little then started to laugh. “I’m starting to really like you.”

“And Gertie,” Wade interjected. “Don’t forget her. My housekeeper makes a perfect chaperone. Tough, no nonsense.” Abby might not be getting the undercurrent here, but then, the woman was busy putting her knife away in some secret hidey-hole. Wade knew Tom got it just fine.

“But I do want to spend time with you, Abby.” Tom rested his hand on her arm, sounding as sincere as a man ever had. “I’ve got enough men in town to drive my cattle home. I think I’ll come on out to the Sawyer place with—”

A bloodcurdling scream cut Tom off, and they all turned to face the sound.

A woman ran out of the sheriff’s office. Bright red blood on her hands. “Doctor! I need a doctor!”

Wade dashed forward. He heard other feet running, all charging toward the bleeding woman.

T
he sound of screaming bolted Red straight out of his chair. “Stay inside, Cass.” Shouting that order, he hoped Cassie picked today to be obedient and ran.

He saw Libby before he’d gotten out the door of the diner. Libby Jeffreys, his good friend who only minutes ago had left the diner with a tray of food for the sheriff and his prisoner. Libby now staggered onto the board sidewalk covered in blood.

He sprinted toward her and almost collided with Wade Sawyer, who reached her at the same moment from a different direction. Red caught Libby’s shoulders, looking for the source of the bleeding. “Wade, get the doctor for her.”

“No.” Libby’s voice shook. “I mean yes, get the doctor, but not for me. It’s Merl.”

“I’ll go.” Tom Linscott was a single pace behind Wade. He wheeled and raced for the doctor’s office.

“He’s knocked cold, bleeding, maybe dead.” Libby burst into tears.

Red took one more hard scan of Libby’s bloody but uninjured body. Then as Seth from the general store came up beside Red, he thrust the sobbing woman into Seth’s capable hands.

“Take care of her.” Red let her go and headed for the jail.

Wade beat him in the door.

The two went in to find a trail of blood leading from the single front room of the sheriff’s office through the swinging door to the back room. A room where Red’s prisoner had spent the night in one of the two small cells.

Red rushed to the door and swung it open to find Sheriff Dean facedown on the floor, lying in a pool of blood. The cell where Merl had locked up Red’s prisoner last night stood empty, the door swung open.

Dropping to the floor, Red felt sick to think the prisoner he’d brought in had done this. Red looked up at Wade, who was kneeling on the other side of Merl, and said, “It didn’t happen long ago. The blood is too fresh. I didn’t hear a gunshot.”

“Let’s roll him over. Be careful.”

Red and Wade eased the burly older man over, and he groaned. With a rush of hope, Red saw what looked like a single blow to the head, a nasty gash, swollen and bleeding into his salt-and-pepper gray hair, but not a bullet wound.

Merl’s eyes flicked open, and he struggled to sit up.

“Lay still.” Red pressed on the older man’s shoulders. “The doc will be here in a few seconds. You’re all right. Just got knocked cold.”

Red prayed silently. A quick glance at Wade’s moving lips told him Wade had joined in with his own prayers.

No other wound showed up. Merl reached for his head with a moan of pain. “What happened?”

“Just stay quiet. Looks like your prisoner or maybe his partner knocked you cold and escaped.” Red had hoped the prisoner would talk, especially after he’d been locked up overnight.

The man didn’t seem possessed of any great supply of courage, judging by the way he’d lain frozen under the onslaught of Belle’s and Emma’s gunfire. And if the man talked, then the ring of outlaws could be broken up for good. Now the area ranchers had their cattle back and the hideout uncovered, but they didn’t have a line on the outlaws.

Frustrated, Red turned back to Merl just as the doctor hustled into the narrow hallway that ran along the front of the jail cells. Red got to his feet to make room for the doctor. He studied the little area and moved toward the rear of the building. That’s when he noticed the alley door standing just barely ajar. “Wade.” Red strode the last few feet and examined the latch. “They must have gotten in this way.” Red stepped outside, knowing it was far, far too late. He crouched down and studied the dirt torn up with hoofprints.

“Look at this door. The knob isn’t broken. They must’ve had a key.”

“Door probably takes a skeleton key. Easy to find.” Red stood and rubbed one hand into his hair. “I should have stayed all night instead of going back to Grant’s Hotel to sleep. We knew he had a partner.”

Wade tugged the brim of his hat low over his eyes. “Tell me how you caught him.”

Tom Linscott picked that moment to round the building. Glowing Sun—no, Abby—was right behind him. Red was struck by how the two resembled each other. Not many folks had that unusual shade of white-blond hair. “The doc is taking Merl over to his office. Looks like he just got a hard blow to the head. He should be okay.”

“Morning, Tom. Find any cattle of yours in that mob we brought in?”

“My men are checking. We were just in town a few minutes when Libby started screaming. She’s fine, by the way. Upset but not hurt at all. This gang’s been hitting us for a few head all winter. Probably gathers a few up then drives them somewhere to sell. Tough call with the brands, but it’s hard to do a perfect job of covering the old ones. We should be able to identify ours.”

Red looked from Tom to Abby again then shook his head to focus on what was important. “I brought in a man to the sheriff I found holed up with the cattle. He had a partner with him who got away.”

Red quickly told them as many details as he could. Then they started studying the tracks. In the lightly traveled alley, they could tell which way the gang went, straight for a clump of trees that led into the rugged hills around Divide.

Abby did a better job of tracking than any of the rest of them. Finally, the ground turned to rock and the riders seemed to vanish. Frustrated, they turned back to Divide.

“At least we got these cattle.” Wade slapped Red on the shoulder. “Maybe with their hideout found, they’ll move on. But I hate passing our troubles on to some other ranchers. I’ve got to get headed for home now. We’re in the middle of roundup.”

“You’re still doing roundup?” Red was amazed.

Wade scowled. “Yes, we’re still doing roundup.”

Red was sorry he’d said anything. “Send your men on home and take a few more minutes to decide if there’s anything to be done about these rustlers. It won’t take long.”

Wade agreed.

The group headed for Libby’s Diner, where Cassie was now waiting tables with Susannah hanging from one ankle and Michael strapped on her back. Red marveled at his wife. She just would not stop working.

“How’s Merl?” Cassie came up with a coffee cup and a pot as Red settled at the table. Michael blinked sleepy eyes at Red over Cassie’s shoulder and smiled.

“He’s at the doctor’s office. Doc said he’s making sense and sitting up, so he’ll be okay, but someone must have come up behind him, because he can’t remember a thing.” Red got up to relieve Cassie of her burden and also because he couldn’t get enough of holding his little redheaded son. He settled Michael on one knee, Susannah on the other, and still managed to drink his coffee without burning tiny fingers. He was getting real good at this father stuff.

Wade came in next, holding the door open for Abby. A cranky-looking Tom Linscott tried to come in with Wade still holding the door, but Wade stepped in front of Tom and dropped the door in Tom’s face. The two shoved at each other for a few seconds as if fighting to see who could get in the door first.