The Scoundrel's Bride (35 page)

Zach arched a brow as he nodded. That was certainly a strange exchange.

As soon as Carstairs exited the salon, Harrison snapped, “If you’ve come here with mischief in mind, you’d best think twice. Carstairs knows you’re here. Others probably so, too. The town is on the verge of lynching you as it is.”

“Mischief. Nah, I wouldn’t use the term mischief.” His fingers brushed his gun. “Murder’s more my style.”

Harrison blanched. “You wouldn’t live to see the dawn.”

“Might just be worth it to rid the world of you.”

The reverend’s laugh was evil. “But who, then, would care for your wife? I hear she’s blinded again. Such a pity.”

Zach called him a vile name then said, “Let’s go, Harrison. You are coming with me. When Morality wakes up, you are going to do a bit of explaining.”

“Explaining? About what?”

“Oh, let’s start off with the truth about your healings, shall we? You’ll tell her how you use the morning-glory seeds. I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Do you use the seeds in the elixir too, or do you limit it to the bread?”

Harrison’s bushy brows lifted in surprise. “You know about that? The girl doesn’t know, does she?”

“I’ve told Morality.”

“She didn’t believe you, I’m certain of that. I told her I healed all those people and she accepts what I say.” Harrison chuckled and folded his arms. “Why, if I said I could walk on water, that girl would fetch my shoes. When I told her she’d risked her soul by hitching up with you, she took it as gospel.”

Zach wanted to hit him. He wanted to shove the reverend’s nose through the back of his head. He couldn’t though, at least not yet. Morality needed to hear what her dear Reverend Uncle had to say. So he settled for walking up to the son of a bitch and grabbing his jacket and shirt just below the neck. His voice low and deadly, he said, “I’m taking you home, preacher man, and you are going to tell my wife that there was nothing to the talk of taking away her miracle.”

Harrison’s face was mottled, but his eyes glowed with an unholy glee. “Ah-hah,” he choked out. “That bothered her, did it? I’m not surprised. Experience, you know.”

Zach got an ugly feeling in his gut. “You did it, didn’t you, Harrison? You’re the reason she went blind.” It was all Zach could do not to kill him then and there. “Tell me.”

Harrison didn’t reply, and Zach tightened his grip and gave the preacher a shake. “Tell me!”

“All right! All right! I hit her head and she didn’t wake up for a couple of days. She didn’t remember what happened, and I wasn’t about to tell.”

Zach envisioned snapping the preacher’s neck. He shoved the man away, demanding, “Where did the miracle business come from?”

The preacher calmly brushed his lapels. He sounded eager to tell his story. Proud. “An explosion. Dumb girl was working with gun cotton. Volatile stuff. Blew her ten feet from her chair and I thought for sure it killed her. Someone said it was a miracle she lived through it, and when she woke up seeing, the Miracle Girl was born.”

Zach shook his head slowly. “God, I’m gonna love killing you.”

Harrison smirked. “You can’t kill me. Morality would hate you for it. In fact, she’ll hate you for interfering today once she gets her wits back. Don’t forget, she loves me.”

At that, Zach lost control. His first punch landed below Harrison’s left eye. His second broke the man’s nose. Blood squirted like juice from an orange, spattering Zach’s hand and shirt as Harrison roared with pain and rage.

He held his hands to his face and tried to back away. Zach didn’t speak. He put all he had to say behind his fists and calmly, efficiently beat Reverend J. P. Harrison until he fell to the floor.

“You are scum, Harrison. Buzzard bait. You’re not worth the powder it’d take to blow you to hell.” Zach kicked him in the ribs. “That one’s for all the folks you’ve drugged in the name of the Lord.” He kicked him in the face. “That one’s for me.”

Zach swung his leg hard and kicked him in the testicles. “That one’s for my wife.”

He spat on the gasping, whimpering lump of inhumanity rolling on the floor. “You were right about one thing, Reverend, I’m not going to kill you tonight. Morality is too fragile right now to handle it. However, if you want to keep breathing, don’t ever come anywhere near me or mine— and that includes Patrick Callahan. In fact, clear out of Texas altogether. Otherwise, I’ll rid the ground of your shadow before you can say Sam Houston.”

Zach left the salon and the riverboat without looking back.

Aboard the
Miracle
, three pairs of eyes, each unaware of the others, watched him go.

ZACH STOOD at the edge of the bayou, breathing hard and as angry as he’d ever been at himself. Beating up Harrison had been a damn foolish thing to do. Now he couldn’t cart the preacher’s butt back to the cabin, and Morality would fret over this miracle business until the swelling went down and she could see again.

He wouldn’t even consider the possibility that her sight might not return.

With a conscious effort, he allowed the peacefulness of the scene to drift over him and he calmed. Maybe it hadn’t been such a dumb thing to do after all. Heaven knows, Harrison deserved it, and maybe it was better for him not to speak to Morality. No telling what he might have said, even with a knife at his back as Zach had intended. The son of a bitch was mad, demented. Evil.

Zach rubbed his satisfyingly sore knuckles. Morality wasn’t strong enough right now to hear about her miracle. She could live without hearing what Zach had wanted her uncle to say, but he wasn’t so sure she could live with the truth. She’d be better off learning about her miracle once her sight returned.

Dusk descended like a widow’s veil over the bayou as Zach shoved his hands in his pockets and began to walk. The dying breeze carried the perfume of burning cedar, and he instinctively followed the pleasing scent.

He didn’t want to return to the cabin. The memory of how she’d looked lying in his bed flashed across his mind, and he muttered a curse. While his head told him he wasn’t responsible for her injuries, the gnawing in his gut told him something different. If it hadn’t been for him…

Zach scowled as the sick feeling poked at the back of his throat. Remorse. That’s what this was. Having experienced the emotion so seldom in his life, it took a few moments to put a name to it.

Well, hell. He kicked at a tuft of grass and sent it flying in a clod of dirt. It was stupid for him to feel this way. If not for him, she’d be married to Harrison by now. She’d be better off blind.

Sure, Burkett, easy for you to say
. He wasn’t the one who’d spent years living in darkness. He wasn’t the one lying in bed, broken and beaten and bruised.

“I should have finished it with Harrison.”

A mockingbird taunted him from the branch of redbud. Zach nodded, agreeing. He couldn’t kill Harrison, not yet anyway. Not until he was certain Morality wouldn’t fall apart at the news.

Nor could he go home, and that’s what he really wanted. Funny how after all the years away, he’d so quickly come to think of that tiny little cabin as home. He wanted to be there, now. With Morality.

At the same time, he couldn’t stand to be there. It hurt too damn much.

The events of the day had stirred a restlessness inside him that demanded to be soothed. Zach knew of only a few ways to do that. Sex was out of the question, and he’d already indulged in a fight. That had only made things worse.

He’d just have to do something rotten to the Marstons.

After a moment of thought, Zach’s mouth curved in a smile. He knew just the thing. A little window-breaking. Maybe even a tiny bit of stealing. That would be just for fun. The real objective of the exercise, other than making him feel better, would be to leave something behind.

Zach waited until dark to return to town, then he took back streets to his office, entering the building from the alley. Once inside he unlocked his desk drawer and withdrew a stack of papers. Invoices, letters, stock certificates, and bank drafts. Each appeared authentic. All were forged. Together they provided damning evidence of an illegal connection between Congressman E. J. Marston and Mr. Archibald Grimes Tanner of the Texas Southern Railroad.

Zach whistled beneath his breath as he made his way by stealth to the offices of Marston Shipping. Being bad always helped to lift his spirits.

PATRICK CALLAHAN didn’t know what to do. He’d followed Mr. Zach from the riverboat, but then lost him in the forest. He’d gone out to the cabin, hoping to catch up with him there, but all he’d found was Eulalie Peabody snoring in the rocking chair and Morality sleeping fitfully in her bed.

Patrick had the nagging notion he’d best find Mr. Zach and make sure everything was all right. Morality’s husband had looked mad enough to chew splinters when he left the riverboat.

Plus, his shirt had been splattered with blood.

From the saloon behind him came the sounds of drunken laughter and the discordant song of a badly tuned piano. Patrick shuffled his feet nervously as he gazed at the
Miracle
. When he couldn’t find Mr. Zach, he’d decided to check up on Reverend Harrison. He’d already looked for him at the Marstons’, and the preacher wasn’t at the wagon, either. That left the boat, but Patrick didn’t particularly want to go down there. Something about it simply didn’t feel right, and he’d avoided going there as long as he could.

Maybe he should stay out of it. He could go back and sit with Morality. Mrs. Peabody wasn’t much help, sleeping as she was. Morality could holler at the top of her lungs and she wouldn’t be heard above the snores.

That’s what he’d do. Patrick nodded decisively and turned to go. But an unseen hand seemed to grasp at his collar and pull him backward. “Confound and tarnation,” he muttered, glancing over his shoulder at the
Miracle
. One look. That’s all. He’d take one look inside the salon, and if Mr. Zach or Reverend Harrison weren’t there, he’d head back to the cabin and stay the night on the floor beside Morality’s bed.

Planks creaked beneath his feet as he boarded the
Miracle
. Lanterns from the riverboat off the starboard side and a sliver of moon provided a minimum of illumination, so Patrick grabbed a deck light and fished in his pocket for a match. The rasp of the tip across the railing, the hiss of the flaring flame, and the acrid bite of sulfur seemed to turn an ordinary act into something sinister. Patrick once again considered forgetting the entire idea.

But his feet carried him up the companionway to the Texas deck. The
Miracle
was silent, but for the normal scrapes and groans of any wooden vessel. At the door of the salon, he paused. He licked his dry lips, then stepped inside. “Reverend Harrison? Mr. Zach?”

Patrick breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the shadowed figure of the preacher seated behind his desk. “Reverend Harrison, I figured you’d have gone home by now. How come you’re sitting in the dark?”

Holding the lantern out, he noticed the bruises first. “Good gosh a’mighty.” Stepping closer, he held out the lantern and his eyes rounded in shock. His mouth opened, but no sound came out.

The reverend’s stare was fixed; his eyes wide and glassy. A dribble of blood streaked his forehead below the round hole above his right eye.

Patrick backed away, unable to tear his gaze from the dead man. Fear gripped his innards and his knees went weak. Not because of the body. When the Comanche hit his pa’s farm he’d seen the bodies of his own family in much worse shape than this. No, the fear that clamped a hold on him had to do with Morality.

She was gonna die. Simply lay down and die. First the blindness. Now this.

Reverend Harrison had been like her father, and judging by what he’d seen tonight, her husband, Zach Burkett, had killed him.

MORALITY SLEPT fitfully through the evening, awaking almost hourly to the Westminster chime of the mantel clock and the throb of her pain. A few minutes past ten she decided to ask Zach if there wasn’t another place he could keep his clock.

She managed to miss the chime at eleven, but she was awake and aching for the bonging of midnight. Even Mrs. Peabody must have been disturbed by the prolonged toll, because she snorted mid-snore and shifted in her chair.

Morality wondered where Zach was sleeping. He probably thought to spare her discomfort, but she’d rather be wrapped in his arms, even if it did pain her ribs a bit. She was frightened. Zach seemed positive she’d be able to see once the swelling around her eyes diminished. Dr. Trilby had said he thought it likely. But what if it didn’t happen? What if Reverend Uncle truly had taken away her miracle?

Zach wouldn’t want her anymore. She’d be of no use to him. A burden. A salty tear stung the cut across her temple and Morality began to pray.

She was still awake shortly after twelve-thirty when the cabin door scraped open. Instinctively she tried to open her eyes, and the old-remembered fear snaked through her. She couldn’t identify who had entered her home. “Who’s there?”

Zach’s reassuring whisper carried across the darkness. “It’s me, angel. Just came to see how you were doing.”

She heard him step across the room, then the mattress sagged as he sat. He spoke in a low murmur. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“You didn’t. I was already awake. Where have you been? You’re not sleeping outside, are you?”

“Uh, well, with you being injured and Mrs. Peabody here, I figured it’d be best. Anyway, there’s plenty of hay in the barn. Now, what are you doing awake? Are you in pain?”

“A little.” Morality reached for his hand and took comfort in the gentle squeeze he gave her. “Zach, I’m afraid.”

“I know, angel. I’m sorry for it. But just give it a little time and everything will be fine. I promise.”

In the darkness, she smiled. “Stay with me. Please?”

“You sure? I don’t want to hurt you any.”

“It hurts when you’re not here.”

He kissed the back of her hand. “All right. Let me get my boots off.”

Morality heard a pair of thumps and a rustle of cloth. “Maybe you shouldn’t undress, Zach. Don’t forget Mrs. Peabody.”