A Promise in Defiance: Romance in the Rockies Book 3 (28 page)

Naomi heard a gasp and
the young girl, Mary Jean, broke through the crowd. She pushed past Delilah,
who scowled at being swept aside, and dropped down beside Logan. “Oh my gosh,
Preacher.” She moved to touch his face, then his body, but every inch on the
man was black and blue or bleeding. “Here, let me get you back to the church . . .”

Logan raised his hand. “Give
me . . . just . . . a minute.”

Oh, Naomi did not miss
the daggers flying from Delilah’s eyes. The queen was clearly contemplating
taking off the young girl’s head.

Jealousy, thy name be
Delilah.

“Here, help me stand,
Naomi.”

She slipped under
Charles’s shoulder and rose with him, taking as much of the load as she could.
Exhausted, he nearly toppled them. “Come on, you can do this,” she said. A
determined heave got him to his feet. As they paused to make sure he had his
balance, loud muttering and offended grumbling drew their attention to the
dissipating crowd.

Delilah and the large
black man were pushing people around, knocking them out of the way, spinning,
scanning the crowd as if hunting for a treasure of great value.

“There!” Delilah
yelled.

The crowd blocked much
of Naomi’s view, but it looked like the pair focused in on something pink and
raced for it. The color winked between men as they flowed away from the area. Naomi
caught a flash of a long golden braid. Then a girl screamed, and her blood ran
cold. “Hannah?”

She abandoned Charles
and thrashed her way through the men, following the sound. She burst into an
opening and found Delilah holding Hannah by the wrist, her other hand reared
back with a pink parasol as if she were going to strike her sister.

Naomi’s temper exploded.
She grabbed Delilah’s arm and snatched the woman around. The parasol slipped
from her fingers and her eyes widened in astonishment.

“You let my sister go.”
She clenched her teeth. “Now.”

For an instant, Delilah
was afraid. Naomi saw it in her eyes, but she quickly regained her confidence
and released Hannah. Naomi wasn’t quite so fast to gather up her self-control.
She wanted to choke this woman. If she had hit Hannah, hurt her in anyway—

“Please release my arm
now.”

Naomi realized her
fingers were cramping from squeezing Delilah’s flesh, and let go. She did not,
however, take her eyes off the woman. “Hannah, are you all right?”

Her sister scooped up
the parasol. “The
owner
gave this to me.” Not waiting for conversation, Hannah
marched by Delilah with her chin held high.

“Did you see where she
went?” Delilah asked quickly, before Hannah was gone.

“No I did not,” she
tossed back.

Delilah came back to
Naomi. The woman’s cheeks flushed with color, she held her lips in a tight,
thin line, and her nostrils flared. Delighted to add to the woman’s
frustration, Naomi said, “No she did not.”

“Naomi,” Charles
extended his hand, bloody, and dirty, “let us take our leave.”

Naomi couldn’t help but
evaluate Delilah. As beautiful as a rattlesnake. As deadly too? She had a
sudden, puzzling pang of pity for her. Rattlesnakes couldn’t change their
nature.

“Naomi,” Charles
prompted more firmly. She took his hand, but didn’t miss the ugly glares he and
Delilah shared.

As they walked away,
the crowd thinned a bit more and they spotted Mollie talking to Emilio and a
man wearing checkered pants. Smith, Naomi recalled. Mollie too, held a parasol
and Smith looked none too happy about it. He gestured to it repeatedly and with
agitation. Emilio positioned himself between Mollie and the man, a grim look on
his face.

Charles stopped. He
couldn’t do anything in his current condition. Should Naomi—?

She was pondering
intervening herself when Billy and Hannah walked up. Hannah still held her
parasol and now Little Billy. Billy positioned himself alongside Emilio and
crossed his arms. Emilio remained calm as the man leaned forward and poked him
in the chest. Billy leaned in as well, but Emilio gestured for him to back off.
Finally, Smith stormed off in those ridiculous pants.

Charles swayed and
Naomi caught him. “Charles!”

“I’m all right. A
little lightheaded. Let’s get to the Iron Horse and I’ll clean up a bit . . .”
A weary, but wry grin teased the corner of his mouth, “unless you need to toss
me aside again to rescue someone else?”

Naomi gasped. “I had to
help Hannah—”

He was chuckling, and
flinching before she could finish. “I am only joking,” he rubbed a hand across
his ribs, “at my own expense.” He groaned softly.

“Come on.” She
tightened her grip on him and pulled him out of the street, where traffic was
nearly back to normal. “I suppose you’re going to explain this fight to me. Not
that I’m suspicious, but it sure looked like you and the preacher didn’t
exactly have your hearts in it.”

Charles paused and
Naomi followed his gaze. Fifty yards up, Delilah stood in the middle of the
street, yelling and gesturing wildly at Smith. Suddenly, she slapped him, a sting
so vicious passersby and horses reacted to the sound.

Charles nodded, looking
pleased. “Let’s just say it was for a good cause.”

Logan did not meet the
eyes of the men laughing on the street as he limped home, his arm around Mary Jean.

“Good fight, preacher.
Enjoyed it.”

“You sure know how to
wrangle up a flock.”

“Wish you woulda give
more notice. I woulda placed a bet.”

Logan looked at the
ground instead . . . and pondered the few places on his body
that didn’t hurt. A spot between his shoulder blades and the bottom of his
feet.

His face pounded with
the beat of his heart. His scalp, temples, even the back of his head had a drumbeat.
His knuckles thrummed like a freight wagon had run over them, repeatedly. Even
his knees hurt. 

“I didn’t fight this
much when I was drunk, mean, and goin’ to hell.” He flapped his lips gingerly.
They felt twice their normal size and throbbed too. 

Mary Jean shifted a
little and brought his arm higher up her shoulder. “Heck of a fight. What
started it?”

He wished he could tell
her the truth, but she worked at The Crystal Chandelier and that made it too
risky. One slip and Delilah might figure something out. “Aw, a couple of sore
egos that got out of control. Why’d you dye your hair?”

She flinched a little
and tucked a loose, black curl behind her ear. “Delilah thought it made me look
more mature.”

“More experienced?”

“She never said that.”

“She didn’t have to. I
know what she’s doing with you. She’s movin’ you into the business. Slow. You’re
pretty. You’ll make her a lot of money.”

“I’ll never do that
kind of work. I’ll stay behind the bar the rest of my life and hum while I wash
dishes. I’ll never become a . . . a . . . you
know.”

“I hope that’s true but
Delilah’s made a livin’ outta bein’ persuasive.”

They clomped up the
steps of the church and Mary Jean helped Logan finish the trek to his cot at
the back of the building. She eased him down on his bed and wiped her hands. “She
can use all the tricks in her bag. I’m no whore. Now, where’s your alcohol and
rags?”

A few minutes later,
Mary Jean sat on the cot with Logan, wiping blood away from the corner of his
mouth with half a pair of freshly laundered socks. He knew she was being
gentle, but dang, it hurt. He flinched when she pressed the cloth damp with
witch hazel to his cheek. In the past, this clean-up after a fight had occurred
while he was still inebriated and, therefore, still numb to the pain.

“You know, I could be a
little hurt. Or insulted. You all but said she’d talk me into becoming one of
her girls. You think I’m bound for that?”

Logan allowed himself
to study Mary Jean’s haunting green eyes, flawless, peach-colored skin,
coal-black hair twisted up in a bun, and delicate little curls that tickled her
cheekbones. And yet he saw Delilah, felt the softness of her shoulders beneath
his fingers . . . recalled her pressing against him in the
doorway. The thoughts had kept him awake these last several nights, reminding
him of his weaknesses.

He shook himself,
frustrated by the shallowness. “I’m sorry.” For more than he cared to speak,
but he’d keep to Mary Jean’s concern. “I’ve kept bad company for too long. My
manners are lacking. I did not mean to imply you’ll take that path. It’ll be
your choice, not hers.”

“You ever been married?”
Mary Jean raised his hand to the cloth on his cheek and pressed it there.

“No.”

She picked up the other
sock, poured on the witch hazel, then looked up at him with unveiled hope. “You
ever wanna be?”

He couldn’t stop his
eyes drifting down to her lips. Full, soft, pink. He remembered a young girl
from what seemed a hundred years ago, overflowing with hope and . . .
innocence. She seemed more like a dream now, one he’d let slip through his
fingers. “Maybe one day.” His guilt over Delilah’s choices—choices she’d made
out of hate for him—squeezed his heart. “If I can make some other things right.”

Delilah took a long,
deep, calming breath and splayed her hands out on the bar. “They have to be
here somewhere. Five—no,
six
—girls don’t just disappear into thin air.”

Fury muddled her thinking.
She took another deeper breath and closed her eyes. “Mary Jean, give me a
drink.”

Glass clinked against
glass, followed by a scraping sound as the shot slid to her fingers. She waited
a moment, searching for some space, some isolated fleck of nothingness that
would cancel out all this anger and help her think. The image of Mary Jean
gently helping Logan to his feet set off a maelstrom of emotions that Delilah
couldn’t begin to understand. They swirled in the darkness behind her closed
eyes.

She wanted to burn this
town and everyone in it to the ground and laugh at the flames. That was no way
to do business. Worse, she was thinking with her heart. Revenge and jealousy—a
recipe for a disaster.

She tossed the whiskey
back and concentrated on the burn, the way it seared her throat, singed her
heart . . . cauterized the wound.

The rage started
melting. She could feel it flowing out of her.

She had to be smart.
She opened her eyes and stared at herself in the large oval mirror behind the bar.
Pretty, petite features, skin with a hint of olive in it, auburn hair twisted
stylishly atop her head. The lacy violet dress brought out the gold in her
eyes, and showed much too much bosom. No wonder they thought they could run
roughshod over her. A mere wisp of a girl.

Yet she had more power
than they realized. She had the power to stab them in their hearts.

Like she had been
stabbed.

She slid her gaze to
Mary Jean. “How is our preacher?”

“Oh, beat up. Bloody.
He’ll be fine, though.”

“Cleaned him up well,
did you?”

“I tried.”

Delilah rotated her
head, loosening tense shoulders. “Join me in a drink.” She shoved the glass
toward Mary Jean.

“I don’t like whiskey.”

Delilah smiled, sweetly
she hoped. “Well, I have some of my special sherry right there,” she pointed at
a decanter on the shelf. “Pour yourself some. I’d like more whiskey.”

“Coming right up.”

Delilah made sure Mary
Jean took a sip of sherry. “Velvety, isn’t it?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Delilah downed half her
whiskey. “I know you’ve been practicing. Are you ready to perform in the
theater?”

Mary Jean nearly
dropped the sherry glass. “The theater?”

“Yes, I think we’ll do
a show Friday night. A special one, just for you. And we’ll let everyone in.”