Once an Outlaw (30 page)

At noon Uncle Jake and the boys returned for lunch, and Clint and Nick arrived to see how the preparations were going. Emily fixed enough ham sandwiches for everyone, but after lunch shooed them all out of the kitchen as the women set to work on the elaborate dinner.

“Sure smells good in here,” Joey announced after Uncle Jake fetched him home from school. He traipsed toward the windowsill where the pies were cooling, but his mother steered him away, toward the gleaming table instead.

“You must be on your best behavior tonight, young man,” Lissa reminded him as she poured him a glass of milk and set a hunk of bread spread with jam before him. “Sheriff Clint’s brother and his wife are special guests and you need to use your very nicest manners.”

“Joey’s manners are always perfectly lovely,” Emily said quickly, winking at the boy. “But if you play gin rummy with Wade Barclay—or Clint or Nick,” she added suddenly, “remember not to cheat.”

“Cheat?” Lissa’s eyes widened.

“Uncle Jake taught me how—I can do it so no one can tell,” the boy bragged.

Emily nodded grimly at Lissa’s dismayed expression. “Goodness,” his mother said faintly. “Perhaps that’s something you’d best forget about before we reach San Francisco—”

“You ain’t going to San Francisco, you sneaking little bitch. You ain’t going nowhere.”

Emily dropped the carrot she’d been slicing onto the floor. It rolled clear across and landed near the toe of John Armstrong’s dust-filmed boot.

Lissa’s ex-fiancé filled the doorway of the cabin, looking even bigger and more powerful than Emily remembered. He was holding a rifle casually at his side and there was a sheathed knife at his waist. At sight of him, Lissa gave a choked scream, and Joey, seated at the table, froze, his small hand clenched around the milk glass.

Emily felt her heart stop, skip, and start again, thudding fast and furiously in her chest.

Outside the day was lovely, warm, peaceful. A light breeze toyed with the leaves on the aspens, a lark sang merrily, and chickens squawked in the new pen near the barn.

Inside the cabin, the fragrance of the fresh pies was obliterated by the smell of John Armstrong’s hair pomade mixed with the odor of his sweat. Lissa’s tiny, terrified moan was the only human sound.

Armstrong’s lips drew back in a taut, terrifying smile.

“Just happened to hit town, ladies. Passing through on my way to a brand-new job over in Huntsville, and what do you know? The whole town’s talking about some big wedding tomorrow—and all the visitors going to be here for it.”

He stepped into the cabin and kicked the door closed behind him. “Just so happened I heard some names I know. Guests of the bride and groom. Lucky stroke for me.” The smile broadened, growing, if possible, even colder. “Not so lucky for you, bitch,” he told Lissa. “Or your precious brat.”

His eyes shifted to Emily, white-faced at the counter, her hands closed around the chopping knife. “Or your nosy friend here. Not too lucky at all.”

“Something I need to say to you, Barclay.”

Jake Spoon had caught up with Clint and Nick a quarter mile from the ranch. As his horse pranced restlessly, Jake fixed the sheriff with a stern look.

“Can’t it wait, Spoon? I’m on my way to meet my brother’s stage.”

“This won’t take long.” Jake ignored Nick, who sat a big black gelding with ease. Instead he studied the sheriff a moment, his expression unreadable as his eyes pinned the broad-shouldered man who had tracked him down more than seven years before and sent him to jail.

“If I got to pick who my niece gets to marry, you’d be the last man on my list.” Jake spat into the dust of the trail. “But I don’t get to pick—Emily makes up her own mind. And she picked you.”

“So?” Clint’s mouth was a thin line.

“I don’t want anyone ever to say I’m not a fair man. I
stole what didn’t belong to me, and I paid for it. Now it’s over.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want you throwing it in her face.”

Beneath the hard words, Clint heard a quaver in Jake’s voice. It struck him, not for the first time, but perhaps stronger than ever, just how much Emily meant to the old man.

“I wouldn’t do that,” he said quietly. “I love her.”

Jake nodded. “Reckon that’s the only reason I’m letting this wedding go forward. Course, there’s Emily—once she’s made up her mind, not the devil or rampaging buffalo can stop her.”

“You’re right, Spoon—but there’s something else you should know. Whatever happened seven years ago between you and me—far as I’m concerned, it’s over. You served your time. That’s good enough for me.”

Jake chewed the end of the cigar clamped between his teeth. “Something else
you
should know, Barclay. Lester and Pete—once they ran from Jefferson City—they stayed clean. Did a little gunfighting, some line riding, some scout work, but they haven’t held up a stage since the last job we all pulled together in Missouri.”

“I’m not looking to make trouble for them, if that’s what you’re worried about. Damn it, Spoon, I love your niece. She’s going to be a part of me, of my family.” Clint glanced at his brother, who appeared to be studying the floating puffs of clouds in the pristine sky. “And you and Pete and Lester … well, you’re
her
family, so I guess that, whether we like it or not, that’s going to make you mine too.”

“Hmmmph. Reckon that part remains to be seen,” Jake said gruffly. But a gleam entered his eyes. “Course, you do owe it all to me and I expect you to remember
that. If I hadn’t told my son and Pete to lock the two of you up in that jail cell—”

“I suppose you told Pete to wait behind the door and coldcock me too.”

Jake guffawed. “Didn’t seem to be any other way,” he said with a shrug.

Clint’s eyes narrowed. “Take credit if you want for getting Emily to forgive me, Spoon, but you should know, I’d never have let her go. I’d have made Emily listen to me one way or another—”

“Hah!”

“And she’d have forgiven me,” Clint added coolly. “It seems to me, you benefited too. She wasn’t talking to any of you until she got over being mad at me—”

“She was talkin’! Not much, but she was talkin’—”

“Excuse me,” Nick interrupted, “in case you’ve both forgotten, we’ve got a stage to meet.”

“Go on then. Who’s stopping you?” Jake reined his horse around. “Just wanted to make sure we understand each other.”

“We do.” Clint looked at him, a long, measuring look. He nodded. “I’ll take care of her, Spoon—the way she deserves. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Jake said nothing. Merely studied the other man’s hard calm face, and then gave a curt nod.

“See that you do.” He wheeled his horse and started back up the trail toward the ranch.

“You’re going to be sorry,” Joey said. He finally released the glass of milk and pushed back his chair. “You’d better get out of here right now. Uncle Jake told me what he’d do if he ever got his hands on you, and Sheriff Clint said—”

“Yeah, well, they’re not here—none of ’em! I saw ’em all ride off—back to work, back to town.” Armstrong strode toward Joey, but Lissa darted in front of the table so he couldn’t reach the boy.

“No!” she cried. “Leave him alone!”

“You telling me what to do?” Armstrong pointed the rifle at her and Lissa went still.

“No, I am.” Emily spoke quietly. She moved forward to Lissa’s side. “Leave us alone. Just clear out of my house while you still can. I’m warning you—”

“And I’m telling you that I’m not going anywhere without this woman and that boy.” He swung the rifle toward Emily. “I’ve searched all over and now that I found ’em, they’re coming with me. But not before I’ve taught them both—and you, too, Miz Spoon—a real good lesson.”

Suddenly Joey dashed around the table and right past Armstrong to the cabin door.

As Armstrong spun around, leveling the gun, Lissa threw herself at him. She tried to wrench the gun from him, but he held it fast and flung her away, even as Joey made it outside. Armstrong charged after him, but Emily sprang into his path.

“No—let him go!” Breathing hard, she faced Armstrong as he aimed the gun at her, his beefy face suffused with rage. “You don’t need him. He’s… just a little boy. It’s me and Lissa you want to talk to.”

“I want to do a hell of a lot more than talk,” he snarled.

“Anything—I’ll do anything you want, John.” Lissa shakily pushed herself away from the wall. Holding her hands before her pleadingly, she moved toward him. “Anything, you hear? Just leave Joey out of this.”

“You’ve caused me a lot of trouble, woman.” Armstrong was watching her through eyes that shone with animosity
and a kind of fevered fascination. “You know how long I’ve been searching for you?”

From outside there came a whistling sound. A long, low whistle, followed quickly by several rapid birdlike chirps. Then it began again.

Emily caught her breath. That was the danger signal Clint had taught Joey. As Armstrong turned his head at the sound, Emily began to talk quickly to distract him. “Mr. Armstrong, why don’t you sit down? I’ll cut you some peach pie and we can discuss this. Would you like coffee or—”

“You shut up!” The big man forgot about the whistling and rounded on her, his mouth twisting. “This is between her and me—you’ve done nothing but stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong. She said she’d marry me and then she changed her mind, and I’ve got a notion it’s your fault.”

“No, John,” Lissa said as Armstrong suddenly took a menacing step toward Emily. She too raised her voice to speak over the whistling. “I’m the one you’re mad at. I… I never should have run away.”

“Damn right. I been through four states looking for you. Where’ve you been?” His eyes narrowed. “Someone in that saloon said you came to town with a man. You married to him?”

“No, no. I’m not married to anyone—”

“Who is he then, you little slut?” Armstrong stepped toward her. “I knew you’d cheat on me! You were always a sneaking little—”

The whistling stopped abruptly and in its place came silence. An eerie, dead silence.

“Something’s wrong,” Armstrong muttered abruptly. His eyes darted nervously between Emily and Lissa. Sweat dripped down his temples. “Where’d that kid go?
We need to get out of here,” he muttered, advancing on Lissa. Suddenly he grabbed her arm, and she cried out in pain.

Emily leapt forward. Desperately she drove the chopping knife into his arm with all the force she could muster.

“Run, Lissa!” she cried.

Armstrong screamed in agony as the knife pierced his flesh and blood spurted out. As Lissa twisted free, sobbing, and lurched toward the door, Emily yanked out the knife and shoved the man backward before he could recover from the shock of being stabbed. She darted toward the door, terror driving her as she stumbled out into bright sunshine, right on Lissa’s heels.

She froze momentarily halfway across the porch, blinking at what she saw. Nick Barclay stood ten feet from the porch, his gun leveled at the cabin, or rather at the man who had just staggered out of the cabin door, his arm bloody, his face contorted with pain and fury. Beside Nick stood Uncle Jake, his feet planted apart, his eyes grim. Pete and Lester stood on the other side of Nick, brandishing their Colt .45s.

They were spread out in a semicircle, surrounding the front of the cabin, and on the porch was Clint. He seized Emily and thrust her behind him, and she realized he had already done the same to a startled Lissa.

“Hold it right there, Armstrong. Drop your gun!”

Clint’s Colt was aimed directly at Armstrong’s chest. Behind him, Lissa and Emily clutched one another.

“Get out of my way—
Sheriff !”
Armstrong gasped the last word contemptuously. “That’s my woman. This is between her and me. And that little dark-haired bitch stabbed me. You see this?” He pointed toward his blood-soaked arm. “She did that. You oughta arrest her.”

“I said
drop your gun
.” Clint’s voice was pure ice. Emily had never heard him sound so cold. Her heart pounded with terror for him—he was standing directly between her and Lissa and Armstrong, facing the brunt of the man’s fury.

If Armstrong decided to shoot, Clint was at close range, right in his path …

“You’re surrounded,” Nick growled.

“The only way you’ll get out alive,” Uncle Jake put in, “is if you drop your gun right now. Otherwise, we’ll mow you down.”

Emily could smell Armstrong’s panic. He stared around the semicircle of men, then looked at the lawman confronting him, his gun drawn, aimed, steady. But even as Emily watched the man’s eyes, she saw the rage take over, rob him of all rational thought.

“I’m taking you and those bitches to hell with me then,” he bellowed at Clint and jerked the rifle up. But even as he squeezed the trigger, Clint fired—and so did the four other men.

Emily and Lissa screamed and held each other as bullet after bullet slammed into Armstrong’s body. His bloodcurdling scream penetrated to her very soul and then quickly cut off as he toppled backward, crashing down dead right in front of the cabin door.

For a moment the world shook and spun. Emily didn’t know when she let go of Lissa, when she was suddenly gathered in Clint’s arms. All she knew was that he was holding her close, whispering her name over and over, and slowly steadily the sickening queasy feeling passed and the ground steadied beneath her feet.

She opened her eyes and saw that Lissa was sitting on the ground beneath the tree, with Joey cradled in her lap
and Nick bending over both of them. Uncle Jake and Pete and Lester were lifting Armstrong’s body from the porch.

And Clint was gazing down at her, worry furrowing his brow.

“It’s over, Emily. It’s all over. Are you all right?”

“I was so scared.” She clung to him, holding on as if she would never let him go.

“You had good reason.” His mouth tightened. “Good thing Joey remembered that whistle I taught him.”

“A very good thing,” she murmured, resting her head against his chest. “Clint, I thought…”

“I’d never have let him shoot you, sweetheart. No way.”

“No, I thought he was going to shoot you,” she whispered.

Clint stroked her back. His lips pressed a kiss to her forehead. This precious woman who felt so right in his arms, whose courage never failed to surprise him—she’d been frightened for
him
. Powerful emotions surged through him and he closed his eyes, thanking God she was safe, thanking God that she loved him.