The Marshal's Ready-Made Family (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

M
ary Louise burst into Garrett’s office, her face flushed. “They’re fighting.” She gasped. “And it’s all my fault.”

“Where?” he responded immediately.

“Behind the livery.”

Garrett strapped on his gun and snatched his hat on the way out the back door. If Mary Louise was involved, it had to be the McCoy brothers. He followed the frantic woman to the corral behind the livery where Caleb and David wrestled in the dirt. Garrett fetched a bucket of water and doused the brawling pair. Coughing and sputtering, they sprang apart.

“What’d you go and do that for?” Caleb demanded.

Garrett tossed the pail aside. “You boys were making a mess. You want to tell me what this is all about?”

He already knew, but the two needed to work things out in the open with words, not fists.

The brothers exchanged a sullen glance. David broke away first, raking his hands through his hair.

Caleb glared at his back. “He stole my girl.”

“She isn’t a horse, son.” Garrett raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like he rustled her from the corral one night.”

Caleb swiped the wet hair from his eyes. “He stole her just the same. She was sweet on me.”

“She was being nice,” David said. “That’s how she is.”

“What do you know? You don’t love her.”

David’s arm shot out and he grasped a fistful of his brother’s shirt. “That’s not for you to say, is it?”

Garrett latched his hand around David’s wrist and shook loose his hold. “Fighting isn’t going to solve any of this.” He encompassed the two in his question. “Has the lady made her choice known?”

Caleb aimed an accusing glare at his brother. “She’s going for a buggy ride with David tomorrow. That don’t mean she’s sweet on him. She’s probably just being
nice.
” He bitterly drew out the last word.

David’s face hardened. “You asked her for a buggy ride, too. What did she say?”

“She was busy.” Caleb’s face reddened. “That’s all. That’s why she couldn’t come.”

“She didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“You don’t know that.”

The two leaped for each other again, and Garrett held his arms askew between them. “This isn’t going to be solved with a brawl. Why don’t you two cool off.”

David stalked away, and Garrett studied Caleb. He’d been paying close attention to Mary Louise over the past few weeks, and he was certain she’d chosen David. The two sweethearts were walking on eggshells, afraid of hurting Caleb.

Garrett swiped the back of his hand across his forehead beneath the brim of his hat. “It’s time you moved on.”

“How do you know? What has David said? Whatever it is, he’s lying.”

“It’s not what your brother has said. It’s how Mary Louise looks at him.”

Caleb’s face caved in defeat. “She just doesn’t know me well enough. If he hadn’t distracted her, we’d be together.”

A sound caught his attention, and Garrett caught sight of David.

His battered deputy stepped forward and hung his head. “She’s given me permission to ask her pa if we can court. She’s already made her choice.”

Garrett caught Caleb’s stricken expression and waved David away. “Why don’t you call it a day? Your brother needs a moment alone.”

David hesitated for a moment, then dutifully turned away.

His heart heavy, Garrett propped his forearms on the top railing of the corral fence and stared at the brown earth stirred up by the brothers’ fight.

He gave Caleb a few minutes with his thoughts before speaking. “There are two truths in life. You can’t keep people from dying, and you can’t make people love you. It’s as simple as that.”

“But if she spent more time with me, she’d know me better. She could sort out her feelings.” The younger man’s voice broke and he swallowed hard. “He stole her right from under my nose. My own brother. I trusted him and he—”

Garrett held up his hand. “I’ll say it again. She’s not a piece of chattel you can steal and steal back again. She’s a living breathing person and she can make up her own mind. She
has
made up her own mind.”

“Then why didn’t she tell me?”

“I suspect she didn’t want to hurt you.”

“But—”

“Look, I know you’re all torn up, but blaming David won’t change anything.”

A sheen of tears appeared in Caleb’s eyes. “It’s like someone ripped my heart out, and I’ll never be whole again.”

Garrett reached out a hand and gripped the younger man’s shoulder. “It feels like that now, but it won’t always. You’re a fine man, and someday you’ll find someone who loves you back. Don’t settle for anything less. A one-sided love is like a poison. It eats away at you from the inside until you’re just a shell.”

“What does it matter? I already feel like I’m dying inside.”

“You’ll heal.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

Garrett silently questioned his oft-repeated answer. The pain lessened, but did a heart ever truly mend? Or did a person carry around the reminders of the pain like a scar?

At least with one’s heart, the scars were hidden.

Garrett caught a glance of the raw pain apparent in Caleb’s mournful eyes.

Then again, maybe the scars of the heart were the most obvious of all. He wondered if his showed.

* * *

Jo sat in the sheriff’s office and held her arm around a sobbing Mary Louise. She awkwardly patted the distraught girl’s shoulder. “They’ve fought before. This isn’t even the worst.”

“I should have said something sooner.” The blonde heaved in a shaky breath. “I just couldn’t.”

Garrett slipped through the door and he and Jo exchanged a glance. With a slight nod, she motioned him toward his desk. “I was just telling Mary Louise this isn’t the end of the world.”

The girl hiccuped. “It feels like it. Everything has gone wrong. Nobody is coming to Daddy’s business anymore. Everyone whispers behind his back. They’re calling him a murderer. Now the boys are fighting over me.”

Garrett spread his hands along the table. “I’m doing what I can to find the killer. Hopefully, we’ll have this case solved soon.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Mary Louise blew her nose with noisy abandon into her lace-edged handkerchief. “It’s even worse now that Daddy tried to buy all of Mr. Hodges’s old stock at a discount. Everyone thinks badly of us.”

Jo glanced at the sobbing girl. For such a beauty, she certainly didn’t cry pretty. Her face had gone all blotchy and her frown disappeared into her chin.

Feeling like a first-rate heel for her uncharitable thoughts, Jo patted Mary Louise’s hand. “Garrett will get to the bottom of what happened, won’t you? Something will work out. Something always does.”

“I hope so. Pa won’t even talk about David, and I’ll simply die if we can’t get married. I love him so much.”

Jo rolled her eyes. “You won’t die.”

The sobbing girl sprang to her feet and glared. “How do you know? You’ve never been in love. Everyone knows you two only got married because you had to!”

Jo sprang upright. “I know you’re upset, but there’s no need to be rude.”

“You don’t know what it’s like. You’ve never even been courted!”

Mary Louise flounced out of the room and slammed the door, leaving them in stunned silence.

Garrett half rose from his seat, and Jo waved him down. “Let her go. She’s young and in love.”

Garrett fisted his hand on the desk. “That’s no excuse for her behavior.”

“It’s all right.” Jo stood and grasped the door handle. Her lungs squeezed and she desperately needed fresh air. “I’ll see you at supper.”

“Jo,” he called.

She ignored him, scurrying along the boardwalk, her eyes burning. What did she know? Maybe Mary Louise
would
die if she and David couldn’t be together. If
not
being in love hurt this much, Jo didn’t want to know what the true emotion felt like.

* * *

A week after Jo’s brothers’ epic battle in the livery corral, Beatrice passed her deciphered message across the table and chewed on the end of her pencil while Jo reviewed her work.

Carefully checking each letter, Jo circled part of the translation. “You’re still mixing up the
c
and the
y.
”

Beatrice groaned as she accepted the corrected sheet. “I thought I got it right.”

“Everyone gets those two letters mixed up at first. You’ll get it. It just takes practice.”

“I suppose.”

Jo gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. “Don’t worry. I was overwhelmed at first, too.”

“Speaking of overwhelming.” Beatrice perked up at the change of subject. “How is married life?”

“Well...” Jo carefully measured her answer. “Different than I thought.”

“Different good or different bad?”

The office door swung open, interrupting her answer.

Mr. Sundberg doffed his hat and ran a hand through his disheveled hair. “It’s the missus. She’s in labor,
ja.
Mrs. McCoy needs Jo.”

The Sundbergs lived on a homestead just north of town. They’d emigrated five years ago, and Mrs. Sundberg pined for a baby. She’d lost three already, and Jo and her ma feared she’d never deliver a healthy child.

Dreading the answer, Jo spoke. “Where’s the doc’s wife? I thought she was helping out.”

“Can’t find her,
ja.
Must help. You.”

A refusal balanced on the tip of Jo’s tongue, but her ma wouldn’t have called on her unless it was an emergency. “Bea, can you close up the office?”

“I’ll take care of it,” the older woman answered immediately.

Jo snatched a few belongings and followed the harried man outside to his wagon. The two-mile trip passed in strained silence. By the time Jo reached Mrs. Sundberg’s bedside, the woman’s brilliant blond hair hung damp around her face. She moaned and rolled her head from side to side on the pillow. She clutched her distended belly and grimaced.

Sensing the gravity of the situation, Jo snatched a rag from the bowl on the side table and made quick work of washing her hands. Mopping her damp forehead, Jo caught her ma’s gaze. Edith gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

Her ma leaned closer and lowered her voice. “There’s a complication with the baby.”

Jo’s heart sank.

Chapter Twenty-Three

G
arrett couldn’t clear his thoughts. Caleb had thought Mary Louise the only girl for him, but Garrett was certain he’d find another love. How did a fellow know if he’d found true love? Was it possible to find that love more than once in a lifetime?

He kept picturing the look on Jo’s face when Mary Louise had made her angry accusation. She’d appeared...defeated. And he’d done that to her. He’d taken the fire out of her heart with his distant ways. He’d talked himself into the marriage knowing it was wrong because he wanted her near.

He’d wrapped himself in ice as protection and had frozen her out in the process.

“Hey.” David rapped on his desk. “Are you listening?”

Garrett bolted upright. “No. Were you talking?”

His new deputy rolled his eyes. “You’ve been daydreaming all morning. What’s wrong with you?”

Everything.
“Nothing.”

Garrett rubbed the back of his neck. He couldn’t get Jo off his mind. She must think him a first-rate loon after his antics the other morning. His feelings definitely felt like madness, but not like the madness of his father. His emotions were strong but not violent. More like forged steel than burning embers.

Not the black darkness he’d grown up with. He and Jo were friends before the marriage. He’d seen couples who acted almost as if they hated each other. Could you have love and romance with your best friend?

He’d never know unless he risked telling her the truth about his past.

David rapped on his desk again.

“What?” Garrett snapped.

“I’ve been following Tom Walby for days. He hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary. Are you certain he’s the culprit?”

Garrett checked his watch. “I called Tom in today. We’ll put the pressure on him. Give him a chance to do the right thing. If we don’t do something, there’ll be a mob after Mr. Stuart.”

The door swung open and Tom Walby stumbled inside looking as if he’d been dragged behind his horse instead of riding it. He collapsed onto the chair set before the desk and groaned.

Though his visitor was here sooner than expected, Garrett was relieved. He motioned for David. “Can you take notes while Tom talks?”

Understanding dawned on the younger man’s face and he quickly retrieved paper and pencil from his desk opposite Garrett’s.

Tom rubbed his face. “You know why I’m here?”

“I think so.” Garrett tented his hands and kicked back in his chair. “Why don’t you tell me what happened in your words.”

“I didn’t mean to do it.” Tom’s rough face screwed up in a grimace. “I was drunk.”

“Didn’t mean to do what? You’ll have to say the words outright.”

“I think I killed Mr. Hodges.”

“You think or you know?”

“I was drunk.” Tom repeated.

“Had you been drinking all day?”

“Most of it.” Tom squared his shoulders. “There was a good crowd that afternoon and I’d been winning at poker. Those cowboys were full of money and the railroad boys had gotten their paychecks. They were buying us all drinks. Then I started losing.” Tom grunted. “I don’t remember much after that.”

“Do you remember shooting the gun?”

“I don’t.” Tom swiped at his eyes. “When I woke up the next day, I had a shiner and my gun was short two bullets.”

David’s pencil frantically scratched across the page.

Garrett gave his deputy a moment to catch up before continuing. “You blacked out?”

“It’s happened before.”

“Why, Tom?” Garrett asked the question he’d always wanted to ask his own father. “The drink was bound to catch up with you. Why didn’t you ever quit?”

The other man hung his head. “I don’t know. I say I’m gonna quit. I make promises. To myself, to my wife. I go a day without drinking, sometimes more. Then, I don’t know, something happens and I talk myself into coming to town. It’s never going to be more than one. Never.”

Garrett fought against the pull of time, keeping his thoughts rigidly in the present. “What about the shivaree at my house? That was you, too, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Tom hung his head. “Mr. Stuart thought one of them cowboys was back in town. He was trying real hard to shift the blame. It was eating at me, you know? Because I knew Stuart didn’t do it. I thought if your place was messed up at the same time, you’d blame the cowboys.”

A low rumble of anger vibrated in Garrett’s chest. “Was that the only reason?”

“Jo, too,” Tom added sheepishly.

“You were sweet on her once, weren’t you?”

“I didn’t think she’d marry anyone. Ever. I guess I was mad when I found out the two of you were getting hitched. I married the missus just to show Jo someone else would have me. Jo was always too good for me anyway. Even in the eighth grade.”

Garrett watched as David’s eyes widened.

He’d been certain about the shooting, but the shivaree was only a hunch. “You’ve got a child now. You made a commitment. It’s time you made peace with that. No matter what your reasons for marrying, it’s your choice how you live your life each day. What you’re doing isn’t fair to any of you.”

The day of the wedding Tom had been skulking around the edges of the festivities. The damage he’d inflicted on the house had been vicious, personal.

Tom cleared his throat and he dabbed at his brow with a dingy red handkerchief. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“It’s not up to me.” Containing his anger, Garrett yanked the keys from his top drawer. “Your punishment is up to the judge. I’ll keep you in the jail here. With no witnesses, I’m not certain how it will go for you.”

“You’ll put in a good word for me, won’t you?”

“I gotta be honest, Tom, I’m not feeling all that charitable toward you right now. You killed a man and you can’t even remember what happened. You took a life. For all I know, it was self-defense. Mr. Hodges was known to have a temper. But you’ve lost all your credibility and I can’t bring it back for you. Then you damaged my house. And on my wedding day, no less.”

Garrett walked Tom back to the jail and locked him inside, then returned to the front office.

David sat in the chair, stunned. “You said the only proof you had was flimsy.”

Garrett slid open his top desk drawer and fished out two bullets, then set them side by side on the dark blotter. “They look alike, don’t they?”

David studied the bullets, rolling them over the leather surface. “Yes.”

“This is the one that killed Mr. Hodges.” Garrett brandished the warped metal cylinder. “And the other is from Tom’s gun. I keep track of people who shoot first and aim later. Folks around here make their own bullets, and a lot of times you can tell who they belong to. Not always. But Tom’s got a distinctive mold.”

Garrett indicated three identical deep grooves on the side of each bullet.

David slumped in his chair. “Why did we need a confession?”

“Could have been a coincidence. No one saw anything. Tom doesn’t even remember what happened.” Garrett shrugged. “I didn’t want to leave it up to chance.”

“I still can’t believe he had a crush on Jo.” David frowned.

“You see what you expect to see. You don’t appreciate the person she’s become.”

“Hey,” Tom yelled from the rear of the jailhouse. “How about some lunch?”

David and Garrett exchanged a look.

“Next time, eat before you confess,” Garrett called back, then leaned forward in his chair. “We’ll set up something with the hotel for meals. It’ll be double shifts until the trial. They might want him up in Wichita. It’s murder, after all.”

David scrawled something in his notes. “That solves all the crimes in Cimarron Springs.”

“I got a telegram from Guthrie this morning.” Except Jo hadn’t delivered it. “They found the four cowboys who started the fire in the jailhouse. They’ve been arrested for cattle rustling.” Why had Beatrice delivered the message and not Jo? The question had been eating at him all morning. “Yep. Everything is wrapped up neat as a pin.” Garrett tucked the two bullets into his vest pocket.

He pictured Jo’s once-lively green eyes, now dull with regret. He’d been a coward, and he’d made a real mess of things. The lies he’d told wouldn’t clean up easy.

* * *

Jo rinsed her hands in a bowl and wiped them on a towel. After several tense hours, and though the baby had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck, Mrs. Sundberg had delivered a healthy baby boy. Edith motioned for Jo and they stepped into the kitchen while the doc examined mother and infant. They took turns washing up in the sink.

Edith collapsed onto a chair. “I’m getting too old for this.”

Exhausted and inexplicably cranky, Jo snapped, “Then why didn’t you ask the doctor’s wife, Mrs. Johnsen, for help?”

Ever since Mary Louise had shouted her accusations, Jo had been irritable and out of sorts. The words had echoed hollowly inside her chest. She had naively thought she’d grow closer to her husband with time and nearness. Instead, they’d grown further apart.

She pictured their future together. Two people in the same home, sharing the same name, and yet thousands of miles apart—speaking to each other across a chasm of stilted civility. How long could she live like that? How long before she turned so brittle a strong wind would break her into a thousand pieces?

Her ma huffed. “I didn’t ask Mrs. Johnsen for assistance because she wasn’t available.”

Jo remained stubbornly silent. Garrett cared for her, she knew he did. She caught him looking at her when he didn’t think she was aware. He kept his distance, circling further and further away.

“I’m scared,” Jo whispered the admission, staring at her hands.

Her ma leaned forward. “Scared of what?”

“Of all this.” Jo waved a limp hand in the general direction of Mrs. Sundberg’s closed door. “What if that boy had died?” Jo choked back a sob. “Doesn’t it ever bother you?”

Edith blanched. She opened and closed her mouth a few times. “Of course it bothers me.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“Because it’s my Christian duty. Because I feel good knowing I can help. Because...” Her voice trailed off as Jo’s words finally sank in. “You really are afraid, aren’t you?”

Jo swallowed around the lump in her throat. She hated this, hated feeling vulnerable. Truth be told, she liked having people believe she wasn’t afraid of anything. She didn’t want to admit her weakness.

Hiding had only driven a wedge between her and her ma, and she hated the lie. The hiding. “If I’m ever going to have children of my own, I have to stop delivering babies.”

Emotions flitted across her ma’s face—disbelief, remorse and finally understanding. She knelt before Jo and cradled her face in her hands. “Oh, gracious. I’ve been blind, haven’t I? I never realized you were too young to understand.” She studied Jo’s defeated expression. “Is this why you never went courting? Is this why you married a man you hardly know?”

“Part of it.”

And because she’d never found someone she was interested in spending her life with—until Garrett.

Her ma clutched her hands. “I thought you didn’t want to be with me, that you were rejecting me. I’ve always been a little in awe of you.”

“Me?”

“You’re not afraid to speak your mind.”

“But you always say the right thing.”

“I say the correct things,” Edith spoke earnestly, “because that’s the easy way. You’re brave enough to say what you feel even when it pains you. Like now.” She stood and held out her hand for Jo. “This is why I do what I do.”

Her ma pushed open the door, revealing the new family. Mr. Sundberg perched on the edge of the bed beside his wife, the swaddled infant cradled between them. They both looked radiant, stunned and overjoyed all at the same time.

Doc Johnsen latched his leather satchel as his wife caught sight of them in the doorway.

Mrs. Sundberg followed her gaze, and her face lit with a smile. “Would you like to hold him?”

Jo accepted the tiny bundle and stared in wonder at the sleepy new life. She’d held plenty of babies in her life, but never with the sense of awe she felt now. Something shifted in her chest. A door opened in her heart, and she felt a burst of light rush into it.

The child was perfect, beautiful and helpless. Each tiny finger was capped with a perfectly formed nail, a shock of dark hair covered the baby’s head. That tug of emotion became an incessant pull. She wanted this. She wanted to be a mother.

For years she’d come up with excuses. Hidden herself away behind wide-brimmed leather hats and boys' clothes. She’d been afraid her whole life. Afraid of being weak. Afraid of wanting something she might never have.

The infant mewled, his tiny mouth working, and Jo reluctantly returned the swaddled bundle to Mrs. Sundberg. Her ma ushered out the bystanders and quietly closed the door behind her, giving the new family some privacy.

After exchanging a few words with the doc and his wife, Edith led her outside and held her hand. “I’m sorry, Jo. I should have paid more attention to your feelings and respected your wishes. I shouldn’t have called on you today. I’ve been mule-headed. I realize that now. I saw things the way I wanted them to be, not the way they really were. Working with you as a midwife kept us close. I thought once you became a woman, my job was over. I was afraid of being useless.”

“Like a hand break on a canoe?”

Her ma laughed. “Just like that.”

As much as Garrett had been running hot and cold, holding back his feelings, Jo had been just as guilty. She’d been guarding a part of herself because she was afraid of being weak. She was afraid of having more to lose than Garrett. In their relationship, she’d been balancing the scales, only giving as much as she thought she could get in return, terrified of showing weakness, of losing the upper hand.

One of them had to give.

Edith touched her shoulder. “We’re all afraid. Sometimes courage is merely the point when our need overcomes our fear.”

Jo considered her ma’s words. Unless one of them changed, she and Garrett would keep drifting apart. The day was still young enough for gathering some supplies for a picnic. It was time she gave him more than she received in return. No more balancing the scales of affection like a greedy banker.