Shotgun Bride (25 page)

C
ree fell into step beside Mandy as she passed Doc’s office on her way back to the hotel following the funeral, and she started, as she always did when he sneaked up on her like that. He was half-Apache, Cree was, the son of a long-dead renegade who’d taken the white name of Lathrop, and he prided himself on making no sound, leaving no footprints, when he walked.

“So, it wasn’t a dream,” she said, and kept right on walking. Maybe her stride was even a little quicker than before.

“You’ve changed, Amanda Rose,” Cree observed, taking no apparent notice of her peevish tone and stiff-backed manner. “For one thing, you don’t look like a tomboy anymore.”

She was aching inside because John was gone forever, because Dixie was dying among folks she did not know, and because Kade was hurting and she couldn’t help him. Much as she’d missed Cree all these months and fretted over what devilment his wildness might have led him into, she wasn’t in the mood for one of their sparring matches. “What are you doing here?” she asked as she had in the night. She hadn’t gotten a straight answer then, but she was bound and determined to have one now.

His grin was cocky, and his dark eyes flashed with secrets. She knew he was going to sidestep the truth before he even opened his mouth. “I told you, Amanda Rose. I wanted to see my baby sister.”

“Either you’ve turned stupid, or you’re lying. Gig is here. His friends are probably around someplace, too. You wouldn’t have stuck your head into a noose like this just to pay me a visit.”

He feigned a wounded expression, keeping pace with her as she hurried along the sidewalk toward the Arizona Hotel. When she didn’t respond, but simply tightened her mouth, he decided to play one of his trump cards. He always had a sleeveful of those. “I’m working for Jim Dandy’s Wild West Show.”

That made her stop, right on the sidewalk, and look up at him, hugging herself against the persistent wind. She felt a chill, deep inside, as she gazed into those dark and often unreadable eyes, and knew it had nothing to do with the crisp spring weather. “Doing what?” she demanded. “Riding? Shooting? Throwing that knife of yours? What?”

“Some of everything.” Cree stepped back a half stride, though Mandy doubted he was aware of doing so. “Mainly, I just travel ahead of the show to stir up a little excitement, do some fancy riding and shooting, post some bills, sell a few tickets.”

Mandy wanted to kick him, though she wasn’t sure precisely why. Might have gone ahead and done it, too, if Kade hadn’t caught up just then.

He looked Cree over without a whit of reticence. “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” No trace of friendliness was in Kade’s voice or his manner, but that was understandable, she supposed, given the nature of the day.

“Kade, this is my brother, Cree Lathrop. Cree, my husband, Kade McKettrick.”

Cree put out his hand first, and Kade hesitated, almost imperceptibly, before taking it. He didn’t smile.

“Congratulations,” Cree said. “My little sister is a prize worth the winning.”

Kade slanted a look at Mandy, questioning, but tender, too. “Yes. She’s that, all right.” He indicated the hotel with his hat, which he carried in one hand, so that the wind ruffled his hair. “There’s a gathering up ahead to honor a departed friend,” he added quietly. “Maybe you’d like to join us.”

“I surely would,” Cree answered, edging the words with polite regret, “but I’ve got some things to do. Maybe we can talk later.”

A look passed between the two men, and it made Mandy feel pushed aside, and frightened, too.

“I’ll be over at the jailhouse after a while,” Kade said.

Cree inclined his head affably, but the look in his eyes was watchful and wary. “I might see you there.”

“What’s his business here, Mandy?”

“He’s working with a Wild West show.”

Apparently satisfied, Kade put an arm around Mandy and steered her toward the hotel. It was warm inside, crowded with John’s many friends, and Sarah Fee and Clive were handing out cups of steaming spiced cider. Mandy accepted one and let it warm her icy fingers, avoiding Kade’s gaze when she felt him studying her.

She might have dwelt on her uneasiness over Cree’s arrival if it hadn’t been for Becky. She was a vision, even in her mourning garb, weaving between the little clusters of people, speaking to this one, touching that one lightly on the arm, even smiling now and then. Watching her, Mandy felt profound admiration, for she’d glimpsed the depths of this woman’s suffering, and she knew what it must be costing her to seek others out and offer them comfort.

In time, she came to Mandy. “Joy in the midst of sorrow,” she said, and taking Mandy’s hand, she kissed her on the cheek. “You made a lovely bride, Amanda Rose. If I neglected to offer my congratulations last night, I apologize.”

“You came to the wedding,” Mandy said softly. “You can’t know what that meant to me, especially…” Her words fell away, and she flushed with misery. “I mean—”

“I know what you were trying to say,” Becky said gently.

“How can you be so strong?” Mandy couldn’t stop herself from asking. “You loved John so much, and yet here you are, trying to make other people feel better.”

Becky raised one eyebrow, smiled a little. She was still pale, and an ache pulsed in her eyes, but she was coming back from wherever she’d gone in those first cruel hours after the tragedies, and so was Emmeline. “It’s
because
I loved John so much that I’m determined to go on as best I can,” she said softly. Her grip on Mandy’s hand tightened momentarily before she released it. “You and Kade, Rafe and Emmeline—all of you are so lucky to have found each other so early in your lives. Make the most of it, Amanda Rose. Love that man with everything you are and everything you have and, more important still, let him love you back.”

Mandy swallowed, lonely for Kade even though he was only a dozen feet away, talking quietly with his father and Jeb. Was it love, what she felt for him? She didn’t have the experience to know. “I keep thinking it all happened too quickly,” she confessed. “That it can’t last.”

“Just be glad it happened at all,” Becky said. “And
make
it last. The choice is yours to make, my girl.” She gave Mandy a little push in Kade’s direction and moved on to accept a kiss and a word of consolation from Doc.

Angus smiled down at Mandy when she reached Kade’s side. “Doc said you were quite a hand with those Sussex kids,” her father-in-law said. “Makes me proud to call you daughter.”

Tears burned behind Mandy’s eyes, and she blinked them back. She didn’t know what to say, didn’t, in fact, trust herself to speak. No one had ever told her they were proud of her before, not like they meant it, anyway. Coupled with the things Becky had said, and coming from the head of the McKettrick clan, it was nearly enough to overwhelm her.

“Have you seen Emmeline?” Concepcion asked, appearing at Angus’s side with fresh mugs of cider for herself and her husband. “I am worried about her. She was so upset at the funeral.”

Mandy was ashamed that she’d forgotten her friend even for a moment. “I’ll find out how she is,” she said, and after exchanging a glance with Kade, she headed for the stairs.

She knocked lightly at the door of the room Rafe and Emmeline shared when they were in town, and entered at Rafe’s gruff “Come in.”

Emmeline lay still on the bed, her eyes closed, and Rafe had drawn up a chair to stay close and hold her hand. The expression in his eyes was bleak when he looked up at Mandy, but that McKettrick strength was there, too.

“I’ll sit with Emmeline awhile,” Mandy told him. Then, taking a chance: “Why don’t you go downstairs and talk to Kade?”

R
afe stopped at the base of the stairs and swept the lobby with his gaze, and it came to rest, with no great willingness, on Kade, who was standing alone by the front window, staring out. He seemed oblivious of the other people in the room, but then, that was Kade. He was bookish, more interested in the dead and dusty philosophies of the Greeks and the Romans, most times, than living folks. It wouldn’t have surprised Rafe to find out Kade was going over some ancient battle in his mind, drawing parallels between that and the outlaw situation and trying to extract a strategy.

With a sigh of resignation, Rafe started moving again. He crossed the room, stood next to Kade. The street looked empty to him, but there was no telling what Kade saw there.

The silence was awkward, but Rafe knew it fell to him to break it. He’d presented himself, and he figured he had to do the talking.

“I hear you and Mandy tied the knot.”

Kade lifted a glass of punch to his mouth, took a sip, but didn’t turn to face Rafe or even glance in his direction. “That’s right,” he said in his own good time. “How’s Emmeline?”

Rafe bit back a terse response. “I reckon she’ll mend in time.”

Kade took more punch. With him, the mills ground slowly. “What about you?”

“I’ve been better.” Rafe folded his arms, wondering what it was about that lonesome track that fascinated his brother, and forced himself to go on, get it over with. “I was wrong the other night. When I said it was your fault that Emmeline lost the baby, I mean. You probably saved her life.”

At last, Kade turned toward him, a look of sorrowful amusement in his eyes, and batted at his ear with the palm of one hand. “Funny thing,” he drawled. “I thought I just heard Rafe McKettrick apologize.”

Rafe scowled. “Don’t make too much of it.”

Kade laughed and shook his head, but then his expression turned solemn again. “I want to win the ranch,” he said with the forthrightness that was their common inheritance, “and I mean to have it if I can. But I wouldn’t have wished that kind of sorrow on you for anything.”

Rafe was tempted to lay a hand to Kade’s shoulder, but something, maybe pride, stopped him. “You won’t get the Triple M if I have anything to say about it,” he said, and he meant it.

“Fair enough.” With that, Kade turned back to surveying his moldy Romans and prissy Greeks, making their invisible parade down the street, and Rafe went in search of something to eat.

“Everybody ran off and left me,” he said cheerfully, apparently explaining the excess of pie. He’d finished off at least two pieces himself, judging by the debris. “Pa and Concepcion went to pay some social calls, and Holt’s gone back to the Circle C. Kade’s down at the jailhouse, if you’re wondering, making some repairs.”

Mandy sighed. “I knew he meant to go there.” She was glad to have Jeb to sit with, because it would be dark soon and she didn’t want to go back to her and Kade’s room alone. Cree was her brother and her closest friend, but he’d scared her the night before, and she still felt skittery.

Jeb took a pack of cards from the pocket of his suit coat, which was draped over the back of his chair, and shuffled. “Poker?”

Mandy smiled in spite of herself. “Sure.”

He dealt, watched as she pretended to puzzle over her hand, rearranging cards and frowning.

“This is some honeymoon,” he observed at considerable length.

Mandy pulled a piece of pie in her direction, then pushed it away again without picking up a fork. “Yes,” she conceded.

His eyes danced. “I’m not sure this is a fit game for a lady.”

“Kade thought the same thing about horse racing.”

Jeb laughed. “He sure enough did.” He picked up his cards then and studied them, and his grin lost a little of its luster.

“Not a betting man?” Mandy teased. She had a straight, ace high.

Jeb’s pride was his undoing, the way it was with most men. Without a word, he fished a coin out of his trouser pocket and tossed it into the center of the table, then raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to bet.

“Will you take a promissory note?” she asked sweetly.

“Since you’re my sister-in-law, I reckon that would be all right.”

“Good.”

By the time Kade returned two hours later, looking as though he’d been dragged backward through a knothole, she was up three heifers, a buckboard, and a fancy Mexican saddle.

C
ree Lathrop was kin, now that he and Mandy were married, Kade reflected as he opened the door of Curry’s cell the next morning, a plate of Mamie Sussex’s questionable cooking in his free hand, but that didn’t mean he had to like the man.

Curry lay on his cot, staring up at the ceiling. He was sweating, and he looked like a husk with everything inside rotted away. He’d been that way since the shoot-out the other night, hardly moving or speaking.

Kade, watchful, set the plate down on the floor beside him and took a step back. “Looks like that gang of yours turned on you. Got themselves a new leader or something.”

“Leave me alone,” Curry moaned. “I’m sick. Real sick. Maybe my wound is fixing to take an infection.”

Kade shook his head, stepped out of the cell, shut the door, and locked it.

Cree Lathrop was standing just over the threshold when he turned around, and it gave Kade a start, though he was pretty sure his reaction didn’t show.

“Mornin’, Marshal,” Cree said with a slow grin that said he knew he’d caught Kade off guard, and he’d intended to do just that. “Or should I call you brother, now that you and my sister are man and wife?”

“My given name will do,” Kade said, willing the hairs on the back of his neck to lie down flat.

Lathrop was a lithe man, clad in fitted gear, probably bought in Mexico. He pulled off his black gloves with graceful, methodical motions and tucked them into his gun belt. His weapon was a .44, unless Kade missed his guess, and the holster looked worn. He carried a bowie knife, too.

Cree heaved a grand sigh. “Looks like we’re not destined to be friends, you and I,” he said with insincere regret. “I was afraid of that.”

Kade wanted coffee, but instinct warned him not to turn his back on Cree, even long enough to pour brew into a mug. He gestured toward a chair. “Have a seat.” They’d talked the night before, but only briefly, and not in much depth, since Old Billy had been hanging around, along with a few of Captain Harvey’s soldiers.

Cree moved with the grace of a mountain lion, sitting down easy, stretching his legs out in front of him. His spurs were hammered silver, and he’d taken the trouble to polish them at some point. “You have any sisters, Kade?”

“Just brothers.” Kade regarded Emmeline as a sister, now that he’d moved on from his initial fascination with her, but he didn’t care to mention her, not to Lathrop, anyhow.

Another philosophical sigh. “Well, it’s a special thing, having a sister. Hard to explain. On the one hand, it’s a burden.” He made the accompanying gesture. “On the other, it’s a sacred trust.”

Kade didn’t comment, he merely listened. He did take note, as he had the night before, that Cree was well-spoken; like Mandy, he’d had some education somewhere along the line.

Cree’s voice was soft, even, with an odd sort of rhythmic underbeat, like the ticking of a metronome in a distant room. “Amanda Rose is wild as a range filly in spring,” he went on. “She’s never lived in one place long, and she doesn’t know what it is to have fine things.” He indicated Curry’s cell with a slight inclination of his head. “Thanks to that devil’s saint in there, she and I both learned to look out for ourselves, early on.”

“I reckon you intend to make a point somewhere along the line. You mind getting to it?”

Cree smiled slowly, and the answer was a while in coming, too. “I came here as a favor to you,” he said, lounging. “You look to be a good man, and it only seemed right to warn you that she’ll just up and leave one of these fine days.” Another gesture, this time with both hands. “Best you know ahead of time, so it doesn’t come as a shock.”

The thought of Mandy taking to her heels wasn’t new to Kade, not by any means, but it still made his gut grind, hearing someone else say it out loud. Especially someone who surely knew Mandy better than he did. “I plan on convincing her to stay,” he said evenly.

Cree pulled a mournful face, but the light in his nearly black eyes and the easy confidence in his manner gave the lie to his expression. “She tell you that I’m with the Wild West show?” he asked mildly, and this time, Kade knew damn well that the other man had read him clearly, because he gave a little smile. “Mandy’s always wanted to join up with one of those outfits, see the country, ride fine horses, have a little money of her own to put by for the future. Jim and the rest of the company will be here in a week or so. The show will run another week after that. And when we pull out, Mandy will go with us.”

Kade felt as though he’d been punched in the belly, but he kept his composure. “Her choice,” he said with a detachment he didn’t feel. “If she wants to leave, I won’t try to stop her.” Like hell he wouldn’t.

“Fair enough.” Cree got to his feet. “Mind if I have a word with the prisoner? I’ve got no use for him myself, but he means something to my ma.”

Kade glanced pointedly at the .44. “Not if you take off that iron first, I don’t,” he said, expecting an argument. Hell, part of him craved one, complete with fists, bruises, and blood. “The knife, too.”

Cree merely shrugged, though, unbuckled his gun belt, and set it aside on Kade’s desk, along with the gloves. They were made of thin, supple leather, those gloves, designed for shooting, not honest work. He pulled the knife from its scabbard and laid it down, too. “I won’t be long.”

Kade watched as Mandy’s brother strolled back to the cell and stood looking in, gripping the bars. Since a good ten feet stretched between Cree and the bowie and the.44, he figured it was safe to pour himself a cup of coffee, and he did.

Lathrop spoke in the same low, even tone he’d used with Kade, the words pitched just a shade too low to catch hold of, and if Curry offered a response, Kade didn’t hear it.

Presently, Cree came back, nodded cordially to Kade, strapped on his gun belt, reclaimed his knife, and left.

Kade waited until he was gone, then approached the cell himself.

“What was that little powwow about?” he asked without a hope in all creation of getting an answer.

Curry was still staring at the ceiling, his meal untouched on the floor beside the cot. His clothes were soaked with sweat, and his throat moved visibly when he swallowed.

“Said he’d cut my throat first chance he got,” Curry said, and squeezed his eyes shut like somebody trying to get over a bad dream.