Adella's Enemy (12 page)
Authors: Jacqui Nelson
“But why frame Parsons?”
“Moreton’s betting on both sides. He owns more stock in the Joy Line than in the Katy. With Parsons eliminated, his more profitable railroad is sure to win.”
Standing between Stevens and Parsons on the railcar’s rear step,
Moreton surveyed the crowd. His bland smile remained fixed, until he spotted her and paused. His lips bowed with satisfaction, puffing out his side-whiskers like twin sails catching the wind. Then, as if she and he were strangers, his gaze resumed its leisurely stroll.
Senator
Moreton was a chameleon. Just like her. He’d lied to her. He’d used her. She was merely a pawn in his game.
“I don’t care about Parsons,” Fergal said, his words tumbling out now. “He’s a Yank and he’s standing beside
Moreton. Plus Helga demanded my assistance with Parsons in exchange for her help with Moreton.” He blew out a breath, then faced the train again. “It’s too late to do anything differently. Our plans are in motion. They cannot be stopped.”
No!
She couldn’t accept that. There was still time. Time to set things right. Time to stop the killing. Time to build a better future.
“Fergal, where’s Helga?” she demanded.
“She left.” Once again Kate stood behind Adella. The barrier of the McGrady Gang had proved no match for such a determined woman, especially one beaming with satisfaction. “Helga instructed the farm widows to proceed to the station without her. After she departed, I promised to arrange a meeting between the widows and my father. They agreed to delay their protest. The disaster has been diverted.”
A frown chased away Kate’s good humor. “But where’s your camera,
Adella? I need pictures. I want this welcome reception to be perfect for my father and his guest.”
Adella’s
stomach did a slow, sickly lurch. Today was going to be far from perfect. The other widows may’ve been placated, but Helga wouldn’t be. Adella scanned the crowd, searching for a tall blonde figure. Instead, Cormac’s dark head and giant frame came up the stairs and then pushed through the crowed toward her. Eden followed in his wake.
Thank Dixie.
And thank Eden too for finding Cormac.
If anyone could help Adella mend this madness, it was Cormac. She wanted to meet him halfway and throw herself into his capable arms. She didn’t want to face her struggles alone anymore.
Cormac’s
gaze locked on a point high above her. His face went white as chalk.
Adella
spun around. Atop the railcar, Helga crouched in a pose, and clothing identical to the saboteur who’d unleashed the rails that first day. The only thing missing was the floppy hat.
Helga jumped down, her coat billowing to reveal a trio of cylindrical sticks strapped to her chest. Their brightly lit fuses dazzled
Adella’s eyes. Helga landed on the platform between Adella and Kate, her coat dropping to conceal her dynamite.
Shock held
Adella immobile. The McGrady Gang stood poised as if ready to attack. Behind them, a few of the nearest townsfolk turned and stared. The rest continued clapping. Adella’s heartbeat joined the band music accelerating toward a crescendo.
Fergal grabbed her arm at the same time as Helga seized Kate’s.
“You need to leave, Adella.” Fergal pulled her away from the two women.
Helga nodded, her gaze following them. “Tell everyone I was holding the railroad bigwig’s daughter when the end came. He’ll have my farm, but he won’t have his daughter. That should make a powerful enough story for one of your photographs.”
Like a climber losing her footing, Adella tumbled back to two days ago and the counsel she’d given Helga inside the missionary tent.
If a subject is powerful, then so is the photograph
. She’d started this. Now she must end it.
“I won’t take that picture.”
Adella wrenched her arm out of Fergal’s grasp. “And I won’t go.”
Cormac
burst through the crowd and passed the McGrady Gang. He restrained Fergal in a headlock. The tuba and trombone cried their final notes. The cymbals smashed a resounding climax. And the crowd cheered in thunderous appreciation.
She threw herself at Helga. Helga stumbled under the onslaught. Kate slipped free, and
Adella yanked open Helga’s coat. The fuses had lost half their length.
The crowd’s merriment had subsided to the chattering of magpies.
“She has dynamite!” Adella shouted into the lull. “She’s going to blow up the train!”
Cormac
shoved Fergal behind him and reached for her.
All sound stopped. The silence lasted as long as it took the crowd to inhale a collective breath of astonishment. Then a single scream split the air. And the crowd
fled, running and shrieking as one.
“I wanted Parsons’ daughter,” Helga hissed. “You’ll have to take her place.”
A rock-hard restraint circled Adella’s wrist. Helga’s grasp was even more solid than when she’d grabbed Adella in the missionary tent or at the farm. Adella glanced down. Helga’s hand didn’t imprison her. A band of iron did. And a chain the length of her arm shackled her to an identical cuff around Helga’s wrist.
Cormac’s
bellow filled her ears. “No!”
Behind him, eyes wide and jaws
hanging, stood Kate, Eden, Fergal and the McGrady Gang. Beyond them were the backsides of the fleeing crowd. Only Cormac moved forward to help her. She couldn’t let him.
She jerked sideways. Using all of her bodyweight, she yanked Helga with her and leapt off the platform. Her back struck the mud. Her lungs compressed, depriving her of air. Stars danced in her eyes as she stared at the sky high above.
So bright. So blue. Where were the ever-present clouds? Was she dead? Was that why she felt so numb?
She turned her head. Helga lay beside her with her coat open. During their fall, two of the sticks of dynamite had been snuffed out. Only one continued to sizzle on a next to nil
fuse. One was enough.
Burn faster, she urged. Let it only be the two of us who die.
Mud splashed and sorrow flooded her. Cormac crouched between her and Helga. Shielding her with his body, he strained to pry the shackle from her wrist. The iron squealed in protest, then finally broke in two.
Cormac
picked her up and ran.
The explosion roared in her ears, slamming
Cormac against her, knocking them both to the ground. He didn’t move. His stillness signaled her defeat. She’d come to town to ruin one man’s life. Instead, she’d killed the man she loved.
She closed her eyes and prayed for her own death.
Chapter 10
Adella paced New Chicago’s train platform waiting for the McGrady Gang to let her board the midday train for Emporia. The blasted Irishmen stood in a row, shoulder to shoulder, barring her way.
The boards vibrated under her feet as a single man bounded up the steps behind her. She halted, but kept her back to him. She couldn’t bear to see the disappointment on
Cormac’s face. She deserved it though. Another death lay heavily on her conscience.
“Going somewhere, Miss Willows?”
Cormac’s deep brogue enveloped her, heating her chilled skin. She hadn’t felt warm since she woken yesterday morning alone in the bed they’d shared. A bed where he’d shown his affection for her. That affection was gone. What other reason could there be for his continued absence following yesterday’s barely averted disaster? Why hadn’t he come to her hotel room last night?
“I’m going away,” she replied. “I came to New Chicago for the wrong reasons. I should have come to save a man’s life, not ruin one. Because of me, Fergal’s dead.”
A four-foot wide crater had gouged out the earth and destroyed the track south of the platform. A platform missing a sizeable chunk thanks to the power of a single stick of dynamite. Luckily she was heading north. But where she’d stop she didn't know, because it didn’t matter. Nevertheless, she turned her gaze north, unable to face the damage she’d caused in New Chicago or the censure that must surely burn in Cormac’s eyes.
Behind her,
Cormac exhaled an extended breath. She wrapped her arms around her waist, struggling to hold onto her resolve not to look at him.
“Fergal wasn’t your responsibility,” he finally said. “He was mine. He may not have been with me and my men the day you arrived in town, but he was always one of us.”
Had Fergal felt responsible for Cormac as well? After Cormac had covered her body with his, Fergal had done the same to Helga. But while Cormac had shielded Adella from the blast, Fergal had trapped the explosion between himself and Helga. He’d died saving Adella and Cormac.
Parsons and Stevens had demanded explanations. Neither she nor
Cormac had uttered a word about Fergal’s involvement in Helga’s murderous plan. And Cormac hadn’t revealed Adella’s role in harassing the Katy either.
She’d shared Fergal’s compulsion to avenge
Declan’s death and, in her grief and single-mindedness, she allowed herself to do the unthinkable. She’d targeted an innocent man. Remorse clenched her chest in an unbreakable vise. But what hurt more was the realization that Fergal’s grief had changed him so much, he’d willingly endangered every person on yesterday’s train platform to gain his revenge.
Cormac
must have sensed her rising turmoil because when he spoke again, his voice was firm. “Fergal was a hero. He saved your life and mine and, as far as the townsfolk need know, he sacrificed himself to save them as well.”
She shook her head. “It should’ve been I who saved him. I should have—” Her thoughts spun as she searched for an answer. None came. “Fergal needed me. Just like Declan. I failed them both.” And she’d failed
Cormac too. She’d killed what might have been.
“Don’t torture yourself, lass.” His advice rumbled in her ears, low and soothing. “Let go of the past.”
“What if I can’t?” Her voice cracked on the last word. She squeezed her eyes shut.
He stroked the lock of hair that had escaped from her pins. He wound the curl around his finger. The warmth of his flesh, a hairsbreadth away from touching hers, made her lean toward him.
“You’ll let go,” he replied, “when you find something worth holding onto instead.”
“Why didn’t you come to me last night?” The question burst from her lips before she could stop it. She cringed in mortification.
“Oh, I wanted to. But Parsons is more determined than ever. He kept me and Stevens up half the night discussing his plans to ensure the Katy reaches the border first. Even though we’re still running a hundred miles behind the Joy Line, Parson thinks that if we reach Ladore by May we might have a chance to win. All I could think was the only way I’d win was if you were still by my side in May.”
By his side?
He still wanted to be with her? A surge of hope made her spin to face him.
He towered over her. Her giant, dark-haired, silver-eyed Irishman clad in homespun tweed. He was perfect.
Except for one thing. He held her valise in his hand.
She gaped at it, speechless.
“I thought—” He cleared his throat and held out the bag for her to take. “I thought you might need it.”
“Why?” Since they’d first met, her valise had come between them. Now he wanted her to have it back? He was willing to erect another barrier between them? Disappointment compressed her lungs to the point of suffocation. She snatched the valise from his grasp and hurled it as far as she could, which wasn’t far enough.
“I don’t want it anymore.” With her breath lodged in her chest, her voice came out ragged. She started pacing again. Two strides left, then right and left again. “It can stay here, for all I care.”
Cormac’s
hands claimed her shoulders, anchoring her in place. Her heart raced with yearning while his brow furrowed. Why did she always hurt the ones she loved?
He leaned closer. “Why not stay as well?”
“Aye, you should stay,” said one of the McGrady Gang.
“Mac will be impossible to be around if you don’t.”
“It wouldn’t feel right with you gone, miss.”
She glanced over her shoulder at
Cormac’s gang and the train behind them. Charcoal smoke billowed from its stack. The train was ready to leave.
Cormac’s
grip tightened. “You can’t deny what you’ve heard. You’re needed here. Eden could use a friend as well. And Kate too.”
Adella
released a shaky laugh. “Kate hates me for what I nearly did to her father.”
“No, she doesn’t.”
Cormac’s reply held the same resolute tone she’d heard him use when rallying his men.
His thoughtfulness humbled her. She hung her head. If only there was a chance for friendship between her and Kate. But that was more than she could hope for. More than she deserved.
Cormac crooked a finger under her chin and raised her head until she stared directly into his eyes. “If you won’t stay for friendship, stay for love.”
She blinked in disbelief. “You still love me?”
“More than ever.” His frown deepened. “I’m also increasingly afraid that I can’t keep you safe.”
The tightness gripping her chest vanished. “On that score, I have no fear at all.” She hooked a finger around the top button of his waistcoat and pulled. “
Come closer, giant.”
He reached down and swept her off her feet and into his arms. Behind her, the
McGrady Gang erupted in whistles and cheers.
“You realize—” she laid her cheek against his chest, luxuriating in the steady beat of his heart, “—life with me won’t be a fairytale.”
“I know,” he whispered against her ear, then gently tugged her hair. “It’ll be better.”
She laughed, this time with her entire heart and soul. Visions of enemies faded. Maybe one day they’d disappear entirely.
Maybe not. The thought didn’t distress her as it once had.
As long as there was room for her in
Cormac’s heart, the future held promise.
The End
***
Dedication
Thank you Elisabeth and Jennifer for dreaming of a railroad-themed Western anthology and granting me the honor of working with you. Thank you to my writing friends at VIC, GVC, and RWA
®
who—over many years—have helped me become a better writer. Special thanks to Nora Snowdon and Lynda Bailey who faithfully reviewed every page of
Adella’s Enemy
. Finally, and as always, thank you to my mom, sister, and nephew.
Jacqui Nelson
***
Other Books by Jacqui Nelson
Between Heaven & Hell
by Jacqui Nelson, coming in 2013
Between Love & Lies
by Jacqui Nelson, coming in 2013
Contact
Jacqui Nelson
www.JacquiNelson.com
www.facebook.com/JacquiNelsonAuthor
