Twilight in Texas (29 page)

“Then I’ll teach you.” Smiling, Molly placed her hand over his heart.

His hand covered hers, and she felt him relax.

“Sleep,” she whispered. “I’ll watch over you.”

The aunts were packed and ready to leave when Molly awoke the next morning. Henrietta had decided this Texas was too wild a place for her. She missed her teas and garden parties.

By the time Molly sat down to breakfast with the two of them, the lecture was well under way. “You must come back with us,” Henrietta stated, “and that’s all there is to it. No one in her right mind would stay in a state where she’s been burned out, threatened, and kept prisoner in her own home.”

Molly tried not to listen. She’d learned years ago that arguing with her aunt was a waste of time. Henrietta’s ears only worked when she was the one talking.

“This child, Callie Ann, isn’t even yours, you know. She got along just fine before you came, and she’ll get along when you leave.”

Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Molly was thankful Callie Ann still slept.

“Your mother left you enough money and a fine house,” Alvina added as if they were simply having a chat and it was her turn. “Henrietta and I won’t always be around to take care of it for you. There is no need for you to work.”

Molly guessed long ago that the aunts had nowhere else to go. They’d often said their parents had left them enough money to live on, so they didn’t have to accept some inferior offer of marriage. But Molly knew it wasn’t enough to live in the style they enjoyed now. Her father always referred to Allen Farm as Molly’s house. For as long as she could remember, he’d told her that her mother had gone to Heaven early, but she’d left Molly a home that would always be hers. The rambling three-story was large enough to offer each aunt a suite of private quarters. Though it was called Allen Farm, it had never been a working farm. As far as Molly was concerned, it was no longer her home.

“Molly!” Aunt Henrietta shouted. “You must give up this impossible dreaming and come back home with us. You can’t seriously consider living in this place”—Henrietta waved her arm as if pointing at a slum—“with a man who doesn’t even know how to dress for dinner.”

She strutted and gestured like a tour guide. “There’s an armed stranger in the parlor and a horrible creature sleeping in the kitchen.”

“We’re safe enough now that it’s daylight.” Molly hoped her words would reassure the aunts, but they weren’t listening.

“Henrietta, don’t forget to mention a cook who can’t cook,” Alvina added. “And no housekeeper at all.”

Molly heard Wolf moving down the stairs almost without a sound. Both aunts jumped when he suddenly appeared in the doorway.

“Coffee?” Molly asked Wolf, as if she weren’t in the middle of a debate.

Wolf took a chair at the dining table, pushing aside the dessert plates from last night.

When Molly handed him a mug, he set it down carefully before pulling her gently onto his lap. “Morning.” He smiled.

She liked the way he touched her so easily. No one had ever dared. She knew he was getting used to the nearness of her, just as she was of him. He looked even more rugged than he had last night. His eyes were warm as they watched her. His arm protected her from the world as it rested around her waist. Maybe he didn’t know how to dress for dinner, but he knew how to make her feel safe and cherished.

“Are you two aware there are other people in the room?” Henrietta snapped.

“No,” Wolf answered. He leaned slightly and kissed Molly on the lips.

Molly laughed, knowing he teased the aunts. If he hadn’t come to the table so well armed, she might have thought of warning him. “Want breakfast?”

He nodded as she stood.

Henrietta cleared her throat. “We’ve decided Molly will be returning with us, Captain, so you will need to purchase three tickets on the stage leaving this afternoon.” She turned back to Molly. “We’ll be happy to help you pack. Though I doubt you have anything worth taking back since the fire. The clothes you’ve been wearing couldn’t have been made for you.”

Wolf never took his gaze off his wife. “And what did Molly decide?”

“I’m staying,” she answered. “Someone has to watch over you.”

He winked at her. “Then I guess my wife is staying, ladies.”

“I don’t think that will be the case, Captain,” Henrietta started. “We’ve—”

Wolf gulped down a drink of coffee. “End of discussion,” he said, as he watched Molly move toward the kitchen.

The aunts had never been addressed in such a manner and complained all the way to the stagecoach station. Wolf helped them both embark as Molly stood a few feet away, waving. She couldn’t believe she’d won so easily and half feared they might try to pull her in if she stepped within an arm’s reach of the coach.

Just before the stage rocked into action, Wolf patted it twice, the way a man would a horse. Molly watched the action curiously. A memory stirred from years ago. The gesture would have gone unnoticed if Wolf had been on horseback, but somehow it seemed strange now. And somehow familiar.

M
OLLY WATCHED THE STAGE DISAPPEAR FROM VIEW
. She felt like a part of her life was gone forever. She might see her aunts again, maybe even visit Allen Farm, but it wouldn’t be the same. Her years of daydreaming were over. There was much to be done.

“We’d better get back.” Wolf offered his arm as the wind kicked up dustdevils in the street and distant thunder rumbled like gunfire.

“They’re really not so bad,” she whispered.

“Really?”

Molly laughed. “Okay, they are so bad, but they mean well. I think I’m finally starting to understand something my father once said. ‘Happiness in life comes in the production, not the consumption.’ My aunts have always been consumers; they’ll never understand my need to work. They only want what’s best for me.”

“I know,” Wolf said with all seriousness. “That’s why I didn’t kill them.”

For a second, Molly almost believed him. He looked like a man who could carry out any threat he made. She shoved him hard with her elbow when she recognized his lousy attempt at humor.

To her surprise, he pushed her back, though his hand steadied her so there was no chance she would fall.

They walked down the street like two drunks locked arm in arm as they elbowed one another off the walk. She was playing with the bear again, she thought, only she wasn’t sure who was teaching whom.

As they turned the corner and headed home, huge raindrops plopped around them,
creating
tiny individual puddles. Clouds moved in fast, shoving morning into shadows. Wolf quickened his pace and offered his arm as shelter.

Molly noticed Charlie Filmore sitting on the front porch a second before Wolf did. The little man held his head with bloody hands as he yelled for help.

Molly started running first, but Wolf passed her in only a few steps. When he reached Charlie, his Colts were drawn. While Molly knelt by the little man, Wolf circled into the house, his keen gaze missing nothing.

“Charlie!” Molly tried to get him to release his head so she could see the damage. “Charlie! What happened? Let me help you.” She’d feared from the beginning that his wobbly walk would cause him to fall and injure himself.

“No,” he cried. “I wanta die!” Blood oozed between his fingers at the side of his head.

“Charlie! Let me see,” she asked again, realizing the blood was pulsing out to the rhythm of
Charlie’s heartbeat.

Wolf appeared behind him, his guns still drawn.

Molly glanced up at him for help, but his gaze scanned the street.

Wolf’s words came hard but not cruel. “Where is she, Charlie? Where’s the girl?”

Molly stood and took a step toward the house. “Callie Ann!” Logic registered that the child couldn’t be inside, or Wolf wouldn’t have asked.

Charlie cried out in a heartbreaking gulp. “Early was upstairs when one fellow jumped Josh in the parlor and another grabbed me in the hallway. I screamed for the kid to run. She was halfway up the stairs when we heard a round of gunfire from above.

“Callie turned to run back down toward me as a man stepped out of one of the bedrooms and shouted, ‘One dead.’”

Charlie’s cries made his words come in a rush. “The fellow holding me yelled, ‘Grab the kid and let’s get out of here!’ Then he hit me with the butt of his gun.”

The little man pulled himself together enough to continue, “As I tumbled, I saw them start beating on Josh. It was the Digger brothers and their men. I’d swear to it. Callie Ann screamed and cried and kicked to get away from one of them. I must have blacked out, ’cause the next thing I remember, they were gone.”

Molly looked up. The yard was full of neighbors and rangers, all standing in the rain listening to Charlie.

Before she could react, Wolf shouted orders in rapid fire. No one questioned a word, everyone acted. The only time he lowered his voice was when he looked at Molly. “I need your help,” he said, staring straight into her eyes. “Can you help?”

Molly nodded, fighting down her fears.

“I’ve sent someone for Washburn, but we have three injured. Charlie, Josh in the parlor, and Early upstairs.”

“Early’s still alive?”

“Barely.” Wolf’s expression gave her little hope. “Can you take care of them? I need every man to go after Callie Ann.”

Molly was already moving. Two men helped Charlie inside while two others followed her. Her body shook all over. All she wanted to do was cry and hide. But she had to help. She had to do her part.

First, she’d do what she could for the wounded, then she’d go after the Digger brothers herself. All her life she’d thought of helping people, but if they’d hurt Callie Ann, she’d shoot them and leave their bodies to the buzzards.

Josh attempted to stand when she entered the house. He looked like he’d been run over by a herd of buffalo, but he was alive. Another ranger was already helping him.

Molly ran upstairs. Early’s body lay on the rug beside a half-made bed. Carefully, Molly rolled her over and met her worst fear. Early had been shot in the chest. Blood was everywhere.

Molly leaned close and heard the young woman’s shallow breathing.

She glanced at the two men at the door. “Get her downstairs to the dining table. Fast!”

She ran ahead of them and cleared the table of dishes with one sweep. She spread a white tablecloth as the men reached the bottom of the stairs.

There was no time to waste moving from room to room. “Put her on one side,” Molly ordered, “and Charlie on the other.”

Charlie still sobbed when men helped him onto the table. “I wanta die,” he cried. “I just want to die.”

As the men hurried to get the supplies Molly asked for, she grabbed Charlie’s hands and pulled them away from his eyes. “Listen, Charlie. Listen! Miss Early’s still alive, but I don’t know for how long. You’ve got to lie very still and talk to her. She likes to talk to you. If she can hear your voice, maybe she’ll stay with us long enough for me to sew her up.”

He stopped crying and looked beside him.

When she saw the pain in his eyes, she shouted, “Don’t you even think about losing control! We need you now.” Molly moved around the table to Early’s side. “I have to help her. I don’t have time to treat you. So lie still so you don’t bleed to death while I work on her.”

Charlie’s eyes widened with panic, but he did what she said. He held a rag to his head wound while he talked to Early, telling her how she was going to make it and how she wasn’t to give one thought to dying.

Callie Ann was never out of Molly’s thoughts, as her hands worked with lightning speed. Early’s wound was so severe, Molly didn’t see how she was still breathing. There was no time to hesitate or wait for Washburn. She had to act and act fast.

As supplies filled the room, Molly pressed against Early’s chest in an effort to slow the bleeding enough to have a closer look.

Dr. Washburn appeared next to her, soaked with rain and out of breath. “What do we have here?” Washburn asked, without trying to take charge.

“We’ve got to get the bullet out and the bleeding stopped.”

Washburn nodded and spread his instruments on the table. But instead of moving Molly out of the way, he handed her the first tool.

“I can’t,” she started. She’d watched others, but she’d never done anything like this. “I haven’t…”

“Neither have I,” the young doctor answered. “We’ve got more help on the way, but it may take an hour. Do we have that much time to wait?”

He asked her. Her! How would she know? She’d never wanted to be a doctor. She wasn’t even a nurse. But no cream or powder would help Early. “I don’t think we do,” she whispered.

“I agree,” he answered.

Together they worked, trying to stop the bleeding, trying again and again to pull out the bullet. Trying with bloody hands to thread a needle to sew her together.

Molly kept telling herself she had to do what she could. They were Early’s only hope.

Charlie’s voice drifted around the room, soothing the panic that hung in the air thicker than the humidity. He talked of all the times he’d been shot and what he’d thought about each time and how he’d never let his mind think of dying.