Catch Me (18 page)

“You bitch.”

“Are you still here?” She went back to studying her nails. Grime had long embedded itself under their half moon crescents. “I should think if you’re so confident in Masterson’s hopping to your bidding, you’d be off ensuring it.”

White-knuckled fists gripped the bars. “The only thing I’ll be ensuring is that I see you hanged. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Hanged?” She lost her careful mask, her lower lip trembling. “He can’t have me hanged. No one would hang a woman. I didn’t kill anyone.”

Linkers leaned back from the bars and threw his head back as he laughed. “I don’t think it much matters to Mr. Masterson. He doesn’t cotton to disobedience much.”

Bitter copper filled her mouth. She’d bit the inside of her cheek. “Disobedience? He’s not my master to obey and I’m most certainly not his lackey.”

“I tell him that and he might be inspired to visit with you awhile.” Linkers pressed his face between the bars. It took everything she had not to plant her fist in that leering grin. “He’s got a certain way of inspiring respect.”

How in the name of God could her father have been associated with this sort of man? Her eyes stung at the thought, but she shoved the tears away as fast as she could dredge up more anger. Heavens forbid Ike think he’d actually inspired fear in her. She bared her teeth in a feral smile. “Tell him. I dare you. I wonder what he’ll think of you visiting his newest pet without permission?”

For a moment, they stayed locked in combat, without even saying a word. It was fairly obvious from the way his hands clenched around the bars that he’d like nothing more than to open the door and beat her. But for all Masterson’s perfidy, he couldn’t very well march her into his marionette court sporting a black eye when half the town had seen her come in without a scratch. She wished with all her soul Ike would just give up and move on. Dean was in a precarious position, perched outside the jail’s window. If someone came along and saw him, they’d know there was no good reason on earth for a man to be lurking in the alleyway.

“Link, are you coming to play cards with me or you going to spend the whole night begging for some pussy?” Mahouly’s voice called down the short hallway.

They both flinched, though Maggie would like to think hers was much less obvious than Linkers’s hunching shoulders. Finally he slapped a bar with an open palm and pushed away. “I’m going to like watching your feet dance in the breeze, bitch.”

She bit back her retort by sheer will, eagerness to see him gone winning out over her pride. Sucking deep breaths that failed at calming her raging insides, she listened to his footsteps fade away down the hall, until the connecting door squealed open and slammed shut again. She counted to five, the longest she could manage, to assure herself the way was clear before jumping to the window again.

“Dean,” she whispered. “Dean, are you still there?”

His head bobbed up, dark blond hair shimmering in the thread of moonlight that angled between the tight-set buildings. “Right here.”

Tears filled her eyes again with an inexplicable rush of relief. “What do I need to do?”

“Get in the far corner and cover up with whatever you can. Maybe the mattress.” His head bent as he looked down at something. “If Andrew will hurry up, I think we’ll be ready to blast in a couple minutes.”

“I’m doing the best I fucking can, Elmer.” Andrew’s voice came from somewhere to the right. “It’s been a few years since I last worked with dynamite.”

“Blast?” she repeated. Oh dear Lord, they were going to blow up the side of the jail. She swallowed and her shoulders hunched against the coming explosion. The cell wasn’t large enough to keep her safe if Andrew messed up.

Dean reached through the window bars to stroke down her neck. His thumb rested on her hard-beating pulse. “It’ll be fine. Andrew used to be the best in four counties. If everything goes according to plan, he’ll drop the wall and we’ll be out of town before anyone figures out what’s going on. And without any deaths.”

She gulped. There wasn’t much other choice. If she stayed, Masterson would see her hanged. She nodded.

“Good.” He petted across her jaw one more time, his grin pure mischief. “Get in the corner and get down. You’ll know when it’s safe to come out.” He started to sink out of sight, but Maggie grabbed his wrist.

“Wait,” she whispered. He stopped and turned back to the window, expectation lightening his face. But words were hard to grab onto. They tumbled in and out through her mind like frightened butterflies. “Just…Just thank you. For even trying.”

“No.” His blue eyes filled with tender emotion. “Don’t thank me. I should have seen so much earlier…I love you, Maggie.”

Her heart tried its best to climb up her throat and out of her body to fly to him. He loved her. She could hardly believe it, not after everything they’d been through.

He ran his hand around the back of her neck and tugged her nearer the bars. The kiss he pressed to her mouth was brief, but no less powerful for it. Their mouths clung and stroked, and his tongue traced the tender inside of her bottom lip. She tightened her grip on his wrist, needing the assurance of his solidity. He pulled away and she wanted to drag him back again. Anything to draw out the hovering moment of possibility.

“Anytime,” he said with a quiet laugh, before he disappeared from view.

Anytime. Right. Of course. She snatched the oh-too-thin straw-stuffed mattress off the cot and crouched in the corner. Naturally, he’d break her out of jail again, anytime she liked.

Turning her back to the outside wall and tucking her chin to her chest, she pulled the mattress over herself. Her lips moved in silent prayer. She scrunched her eyes shut as she vowed never again to do anything so foolish as to land herself in jail.

The wait trickled out into forever but if she stretched her senses she could swear she heard a hissing, sizzling sound. She counted the seconds off, the better to distract herself from the fear that threatened to choke off her air. Three…Two…One…Her heart tumbled when the explosion didn’t come as she expected.

The heavens crashed down around her. Plaster crumbled. Dirt flew. The air went hazy.

A deadly force threw Maggie off her knees, into the iron bars. Her head rang with the impact. Shouts came from outside and in. She shook her head, desperate to clear the grayness that filled her vision.

She shoved the mattress off her back, but it didn’t go far. It sprang back up to curl around her again. She pushed, twisting to see what held her down. A slab of wall as tall as a man slanted across the room, resting on the bars at about waist-high. The bottom edge pinned the thin mattress and beneath that, the side of her boot.

She pulled. Yanked. Twisted her ankle. Nothing worked. Boot steps slammed down the corridor, coming closer. Her blood rushed in her ears.

“Come on, Maggie,” Dean yelled, muffled by the tumble of creaking beams and falling plaster.

She wrapped her hands around her boot top and yanked again. “I can’t. I’m stuck.” Her voice was scaling up to a near scream. She’d never been so near to hysterical.

“It’s going to be all right,” he said, much more close this time.

She looked up. He stood next to her, but all she could see were his boots and workpants, until he bent down and put his shoulder to the slab of wall. “When I push,” he said, “you pull. Got it?”

She nodded. Her hair dropped into her face and she shoved it back with her shoulder.

“On three.” But before he could start counting, Mahouly and Linkers appeared.

Mahouly leveled his shotgun somewhere beyond her. “What the fuck is going on here?”

Dean shoved, grunting with the force. She pulled her foot free and went flying into the corner of the cell where stucco and plaster met. Pain lanced across her shoulders. Scrubbing her hands over her face, she tried to relieve the ringing in her skull. She blinked.

Dean had managed to drop the section of wall between them and the guards, leaning it across the metal cot, but it only served the purpose of protection so long as they remained crouched behind it. Dean had his pistol out and he popped up for half a second, sending the goons ducking around the corner with a fast shower of gunfire. Dropping back behind the protective wall, he looked over his shoulder. His hands moved in a blur, dumping spent cartridges from the chamber of his gun and refilling from a pocket.

“Run,” he growled.

“Not without you.”

He turned away and shot three rounds, seemingly without looking first. But the yelp that spun around the room was most certainly Linkers’s. Maggie ignored the sudden rush of satisfaction that gave her.

“I can’t hold them off forever,” Dean said. “Go now, or this will all be for nothing.”

She wanted to touch him—no, she needed to. But she couldn’t, not when he was dealing death so efficiently. Her hands balled into ineffectual fists and her nails pinched into her palms.

But he was right. Half the cell had collapsed. Everyone in town would already be out of their beds, coming to see what the noise was. They’d be trapped like rats between the jail and the mercantile if they didn’t move soon. Her mouth opened and closed, but she couldn’t think of what to say. Thanking him seemed downright silly, considering the sacrifice he was making.

He fired again, another three rounds, and was down reloading before she could barely blink. For all his previous warnings about his deadly instincts, she hadn’t understood until now. He was nearly a machine, all business and killing.

His hand flew out toward her and to her shame she flinched. He saw it, his eyes going ice cold through the dust that still swirled through the air. But he only took hold of her shoulder and pulled her to him. He kissed her and passion flared, fueled by their danger. Just as quickly, it was gone again. He shoved her back. “Next time I fire, you’re gone. Or I’ll shoot you myself.”

She nodded. He silently counted off five fingers. She watched them and every second he counted felt like an hour. At one, he jumped up and slammed his free hand across the hammer of his Colt.

She didn’t wait to watch the results. Leaping blindly through the open wall, she blinked away the stinging in her eyes. All from the dust. It had to be. She’d crumple to a pile of nothing if she began to cry.

Andrew grabbed her waist and half shoved, half dragged her down the narrow alley. All three of their horses waited, rearing and whinnying. She took a running start and leaped onto Sandie’s saddle, then leaned to scoop up Jameson’s reins. No way was she leaving him for Masterson’s men. Andrew was right behind her, swinging onto his own horse. She hunkered down low over Sandie’s neck. They thundered down the quiet street, past gawkers and lookie-loos wandering onto their front porches.

Vultures. They were all vultures, watching with avid interest as she and Andrew rode out of town, and they’d be off soon to see what the drama was at the jail. Meanwhile, Dean would be trapped like a wounded animal. He’d be hanged for aiding and abetting a fugitive, especially if Masterson had his way about it.

There was no way she would let him die.

Dawn came abruptly to Maggie, her eyes gone bleary with lack of sleep. She sat on a crate in the dirt before what had once been Robert’s hunting cabin. Nestled in a box canyon, the one-room shack had seen better days. Now the flat roof sagged in parts, the two small, glass-paned windows long broken out. But it was far more secluded than the ranch house she’d been raised in.

She and Andrew had stopped there first to gather supplies. In a frenzy of fear for Dean, she’d stuffed what she could of her belongings in two spare saddlebags. She’d peeked out windows constantly while she packed, expecting a posse to swarm the open land any second. Andrew had stayed with the horses, a rifle cradled in his arms.

Every slam of Sandie’s hooves had driven worry for Dean into her brain. If he were dead in the shootout, she wasn’t sure what she’d do.

Terror had dogged her heels the three hours it had taken them to cover the five miles between the Bullock home and the hunting cabin. Their meandering line of back-tracking hopefully cross-scented their trail. If Masterson brought in one of the native trackers, all the misdirection in the world wouldn’t suffice for long. She could only hope she and Andrew had stymied them temporarily. Luckily, the steep walls of the narrow canyon surrounding them meant the only avenue of approach was from the south, where Andrew once more pulled guard with his rifle. Even with only two, they could hold off an approaching party a good long while, though they’d have nowhere left to flee.

If she could only think of a plan to spring Dean, she’d gladly leave Arizona behind. After seeing her tucked safely in the cabin, Andrew had snuck into town to verify that Dean was still alive. A little battered and bruised, Andrew had reported, but overall not too much worse for wear. She’d clutched the knowledge to herself. Tears of relief burned just like tears of sorrow.

She shivered and contracted her knees more tightly to her chest, though the day already held the promise of heat to come later on.

She wasn’t sure when exactly she’d come to love Dean, but there it was. Unavoidable and still a little raw inside her. She couldn’t help probing at it, poking around and feeling it out. Warm and more than a little frightening. Somehow she’d have to learn to adapt. Include Dean in the protective circle of those she trusted.

He’d certainly earned her trust, despite his earlier actions. Breaking her out of jail, at peril to his personal goals, was more than enough for her.

But a future still shimmered out of reach, a shining oasis on the horizon. A person wise to the trickery of the desert knew that glimpse of water wasn’t real, no matter how much she might ache for it.

A whip-poor-will chirped in the distance. The signal they’d agreed to. She launched to her feet and snatched the shotgun on her way to the rock-concealed hideout Andrew had been manning for the last hour.

She slipped around the long way, sliding against rough limestone rocks and trailing through the sand. Taking a position next to Andrew, who was sprawled out along the ground, his rifle pointed down the only trail, she looked for whatever had drawn his attention.

Still two miles out, one man rode a horse slowly up the narrow path.

Andrew titled his head and spoke in a voice that wasn’t quite a whisper. “Only one man. Not what I expected.”

She shook her head, even as her heart swelled inside her chest. She’d know that loose, relaxed style of riding anywhere, as well as the particular turn of his neck into his shoulder. It took everything she had not to spring down from their concealed position. “That’s not one of Masterson’s. It’s my father.”

But there was still a chance it was a trap. Masterson could have hooked in Father, and even now a posse of gun-toting men, illegally deputized, could be following behind him, waiting for her and Andrew to let their guards down. Her muscles pulled tight against the urge to stand and wave.

Instead, she bided her time. A little farther. Just a little more, and there would be two miles of land visible behind him, just as soon as he turned a twist in the path. When he was only a quarter mile from their position, she trilled a different birdcall. Unusual anywhere east of Mississippi, it was their long-agreed family signal.

Funny how she’d never questioned why they might need one, or what kind of deeds Father had been up to in order to require it.

She shoved those thoughts away when she heard the triple-call in return. Andrew didn’t seem as thrilled as she was, but that was to be expected. She hopped to her feet and he grabbed her ankle. It took a quick dance step to keep her standing upright, but that triple return call meant that all was clear and well in Father’s world. Describing how excited that made her was beyond words.

When he saw her wave, Father whooped and kicked his horse into a lope. He drew up at the tight entrance to the canyon and leaped off his horse. Scuttling down from their watch position proved dangerous with her nerves so shot. She stumbled and caught herself against the rock.

She ignored how slow he dismounted and threw herself into his arms. She buried her cheek against his clean white shirtfront. Scalding tears stung her cheeks. Sinking her fingers into the lapel of his duster, she breathed in the true, homey scent of him. “Oh, Father,” she whispered, voice harsh with emotion. “How did you know to come?”

He rubbed a hand over the back of her head, much like he had when she’d been a little girl crying after a nightmare. “Your last telegraph about Linkers. It frightened me out of my wits, child.”

She sniffled. “You shouldn’t have come. Your health—”

“Damn my health.” His arms tightened around her. “My health is nothing when it comes to your safety.”

Perhaps it was selfish, but she drank in the words. So long she’d felt alone in keeping their family together. She scrubbed a wrist across her eyes. “Come on. We’re out in the open.” She turned her face up to where Andrew kept guard. “We’re going back to the cabin.”

His eyes narrowed. They were a deeper shade of blue than Dean’s eyes, but the shape was still near enough to send a pang through her.

“If you say so,” he said, though he kept a wary eye on her father.

She didn’t recognize the horse Father had ridden, but that was unsurprising. She took its reins and started leading it back toward the small hunting cabin, peeking over her shoulder for glimpses of her father. She could hardly believe he’d come, just when she’d needed him. He still looked much better, though she’d like to stuff him with a few good meals. Deep brackets cut his gaunt cheeks and the sedate pace she walked at seemed almost too much for him.

After setting the horse to graze, she ushered him into the one-room shack and saw him seated in the only real chair. She set about making him a snack, though canned fruit pilfered from their cellar was the best she could do.

“I bet you’re hungry, aren’t you?” she asked as she dug out the peaches from one of her bags. “You came in on the train?”

He nodded and passed a hand over his face. She ignored the way the hand trembled. “I got into Tucson very early this morning. Hired a horse from the livery and headed out here straight away.”

She set the dish next to him, along with a glass of water, and pulled over a crate so she could sit. “I don’t understand how you knew I was here at the cabin.”

A dark shadow flittered across his expression, something nerve-rackingly close to guilt. “I didn’t. Finding you here was a happy accident.”

She smiled, but it felt a little shaky at the corners. “A blessed coincidence, then. But why were you coming out here, if not for me?”

He dropped his gaze from her and fiddled with the spoon she’d set in the dish of peaches. “Why don’t we start with you? The man standing sentinel above the pass? Is that the bounty hunter you mentioned in your telegraph?”

“No.” Her chest burned at the reminder of Dean and where he was. Likely enduring plenty of misery, all for her. “That’s Andrew up there. He’s Dean’s brother.”

Father’s eagle-eyed gaze slanted toward her once more. That quickly, she felt like a chastised child. “Why is a bounty hunter’s brother standing guard over you so near to Fresh Springs?”

She twisted herself down into as small a knot as she could, hiding from the burning emotions. In as few words as possible, she related the story, beginning with Dean capturing her in the hotel room and ending with the semi-failed jailbreak attempt. She elected not to go into detail about what precipitated the showdown between Linkers and Dean, but she wondered if perhaps Father realized after all, from the tight downturn of his mouth.

When she trailed off, his deep-chested sigh filled the quiet. She picked at a grass burr on her skirt, grateful she’d taken the time to change into more womanly wear at the house. Though Father agreed to the necessity of wearing male attire on occasion, he’d never been particularly pleased at seeing her in it.

Eventually he looked down at her. His heavy brows drawn down, his frown struck her beneath the breastbone. “Quite a busy time you’ve had.”

It wasn’t a laugh so much as a tight expulsion of air that burst from her. “I didn’t know you were quite such an expert at understatement.”

But he didn’t seem to take much amusement from her words. If anything, his expression twisted tighter.

She knotted her hands together. “What’s been done with the money?”

“I left it in the care of the sanitarium. If neither of us arranges to collect it within three months, it’s to be put into a trust arranged to care for the needy and indigent.”

Unease wormed its way up her back and across her shoulders and she shifted her feet in closer to her body. “Why did you come out to Robert’s cabin, if you didn’t know I was here?”

Father sat up straighter and tugged his waistcoat down. He looked like he was preparing for battle, what with how he squared his shoulders and raised his chin. “I had to collect something. I believe it will be helpful in a meeting with Willheim.”

This…She knew this would end badly. “Why would you be meeting with Masterson? We’re well quit of that cold-hearted bastard.”

Father shook his head and leveled a clear-eyed look at her. “Watch your language, young lady. He’s really not so cold, Maggie. You have to understand that almost everything he does is aimed at turning Fresh Springs into a growing town that’s safe for its citizens.”

“Is that right?” Anger burned out any trepidation she’d been feeling. “Then please do explain to me how refusing aid to his oldest and dearest friend—who happens to also be the town’s sheriff—is in any way beneficial to Fresh Springs.” Her words spit out bitter and cold and, to her mortification, shook with rage. No matter what, she didn’t understand how Father could ask her for compassion for a slug like Masterson.

“Mind your place, girl.” He cracked the warning out like a smack across the face, and her head jerked back to match. Never, ever before had he talked to her like that.

She rose to her feet, her rigid back taking her up in one sharp line. “Mind my place?” she echoed. “Mind my place? That might be easier if you could perhaps
define
my place. Am I a combination housekeeper and pet? Because you and Robert always treated me as such.”

“We did no such thing. You were cherished, as a female ought to be.”

“No?” She pitched her voice into a mocking imitation of his. “‘Oh, don’t worry your little head, kitten. Robert and I are just out to take care of some business.’ That’s what you said the night he died. And you never did answer any of my damn questions. My own brother died. Your
son
. And you refused to talk about it. Why is that, Father?”

She couldn’t seem to stop her mouth. She had bigger concerns. Bigger problems. Dean was still in jail. She was a fugitive. She shouldn’t be worried about something that had happened two years ago. But she was. All her frustration and the desperate feelings of helplessness that had swamped her since Father got sick, driving her to reckless acts, had come to a frothy, searing boil.

“What didn’t you want me to know?”

Father crumbled. Oh, he still sat straight in the plain seat and his chin was still held high. But his face folded into a dejected caricature of the man he once was. She folded her arms around herself, holding back the impulse to fall to the floor beside him and bury her face in his knees. Dean had been right. Something about the situation was rotten. Secrets couldn’t stay buried any longer—not if she was going to have to flee Arizona. Otherwise the doubt and worries would follow her across the West, wherever she went.

She schooled herself the best she could, calming her roiling emotions. “Tell me, please. I’m a grown woman, Father. I deserve to know what broke our family.”

He drew his shoulders in and pointed to the far corner of the small room. “The third floorboard in. Pull it up.”

“What? How does that—”

“Please, kitten.” He scrubbed a hand over his eyes, which were red and bloodshot. “Just do it.”

The boards were weathered and silvery with lack of moisture. A finger-width gap ran between two. She wedged her hand in though a splinter stung her skin. To think, she’d been walking over their family’s secrets all morning.

Beneath the floor was a glass mason jar, the kind her mother had used to teach Maggie canning all those years ago. When she lifted it, the weight was slight, only barely more than she’d have expected from an empty jar. Dust clung to the sides and the brass top. She wiped it away, swiping her hands on her skirts. Oilskin was wrapped around the contents, protecting it from the elements and her peering curiosity. “What is it?” she asked, holding the jar up to her father.

He took it with hands that seemed to suddenly betray both his age and ill being. The skin over his fingers seemed tissue-paper thin, showing off thick, gnarled blue veins. She could hardly ignore the trembling now that it had become a full-fledged shake as he twisted the lid off the jar. Her stomach tumbled when he slipped out the contents and held them out to her. Folded inside the oilskin were a few sheets of paper, covered in a dark, cramped handwriting she didn’t recognize.

He set the empty jar on the table and stared at it. “If one were of a melodramatic bent, one might say it’s my attempt to regain my soul.”