Denver (9 page)

She fled, and they raced after her. Dan yanked on his reins, vaulted down from the seat, and ran toward them as they grabbed her and pulled her into a darkened alley between saloons.

“Hey!” He knew his yell was probably drowned out by music from the saloons. He hadn’t worn his revolver since his first week in Denver, and he swore as he dashed past a saloon.

With a bellow of pain a man flung out of the alleyway into the snow. Another followed, careening into Dan and knocking him aside.

“Hey! Damnit!” Dan shoved past him and raced around the corner. Something hit him in the middle with a resounding blow that doubled him over. He glanced up to see the waif with the knotty club raised
in her hands, and he lunged forward, tackling her, his arms locking around her middle. Both of them catapulted back into the snow as she came down with the club, striking his head and shoulder.

He yelled with pain as the club went flying. He felt as if he had wrapped his arms around a wildcat. She kicked and bit and fought and scratched until his anger exploded and he shoved her down, sitting astride her flailing body, pinning her arms, astounded at her strength.

“Dammit! I’m trying to rescue you.”

“Go to hell, mister! I didn’t ask for your help!”

He recognized her voice and the faint Irish brogue. “Holy hell. Mary Katherine O’Malley!”

“Who’re you?” a stunned voice asked, and for the second time in less than twenty-four hours Dan found himself on top of a female in the snow. Only this one wasn’t as round and soft as the other. She felt tiny and frail. A total illusion.

“I’m Dan Castle,” he said dryly, standing up and pulling her to her feet. He rubbed his shoulder. “If I had known,” he said almost to himself, “I’d have ridden like the demons of hell were after me. Did you hit those men with the club too?” he asked, looking at the thick gnarled club in the snow.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sounding truly contrite as she retrieved the club. “Are you hurt badly?”

“I’m going to live,” he said, touching the side of his head gingerly and pulling away his hand covered with warm blood.

“Oh, my goodness, you’re bleeding!”

“Your goodness is not the way I would describe the past few minutes,” he snapped, and fished in his pocket for a handkerchief.

“I’m sorry. I thought you were one of them. Why are you always around when I’m in trouble?”

“That’s a question I was just asking myself,” he said. “Damn, I can’t find my handkerchief.”

“Here’s my muffler. Maybe we should get you to the doctor. You might need to be sewed up.”

“No, I don’t need to be sewed up!”

He felt dizzy, and it added to his anger. “If there is one thing from this night I hope I learn, it’s to mind
my own business!” She took his arm and they staggered through the snow back to the street. Yellow light spilled from the frosty saloon window; muted music and laughter could be heard. “What the hell were you doing? Hunting for your drunken father?” He turned to confront her, and gazed down into a face filled with fear. His anger fled.

“I’m sorry. Can’t you find your father?” he asked gently.

“I’m not looking for Pa. I’m looking for Brian,” she said, a distraught note coming to her voice. “My little brother.”

“You think he’s in a saloon?”

“I don’t know.” He heard the uncertainty in her voice, watching her lift her chin, and he had to admire her. “I would feel terrible if you had an ugly scar,” she said. “Please, let me go with you to see Doc Felton. He stays up all hours of the night. He isn’t married and he plays keno at the Lazy Dog until after two in the morning. You should have told me who you were.”

“I didn’t exactly have time.” In his two brief encounters with her, she had managed to get under his skin and work on him like a thorn. Minutes before, his sympathy had been stirred; now annoyance returned. “What about your brother?” he asked.

A frown creased her wide brow. As she glanced toward the light, he was afforded a clear look at her profile. With a furry cap fastened around her face, her severe hairdo and plain clothes hidden, he saw she had pretty features, with thick eyelashes he hadn’t noticed the first time he met her. “He should have been home hours ago,” she said.

“I’ll help you find him.”

“You don’t need to do that, and besides, you’re bleeding.”

“Head wounds bleed, and I’ll be all right. I’ve been hit in the head before.” But never by a waif who shouldn’t be able to kill a fly, he thought, studying her slight figure and wondering how she could wield such a blow. “Where have you looked?”

“All the saloons in the block behind you, and I just looked in this one. He’s not in here.”

“All right. Let’s go look in the next block.”

“Why don’t I take one side of the street, and you take the other?”

“I don’t know what your brother Brian looks like and I don’t think you should wander around alone. I don’t want to have to come to your rescue again.”

“I told you I was sorry. And I’ll take care of your doctor bill.”

“Thank you,” he said, amused by her offer. He took her arm and they moved down the street. “What does Brian look like?”

“Like me. Everyone says we look alike. He has red hair, freckles, and hazel eyes. He’s seventeen years old, and too young to be gambling. Besides, he had chores at home, and he was supposed to return long ago. I sent him to the store, and he was going to see his friend Newton.”

“Have you asked Newton about him?”

“There’s not much use,” she said with a sigh, crunching through the snow. “Newton lives with an uncle who gambles day and night, so he doesn’t care where Newton is or what he does.” They paused in front of a saloon and she rubbed the window, standing on tiptoe to look through a spot that hadn’t frosted over.

“The window isn’t as frosty higher up. Let me hold you up.”

“Oh, no! You needn’t,” she answered, sounding uncertain.

Ignoring her protest, he took the club from her, closed his hands around her waist, and lifted her. She was feather light and she grasped his wrists to steady herself. There was a tiny ledge at the bottom of the window where she could rest her toes. When he was near her, he realized she smelled like roses, and in the middle of winter it gave him a strange yearning for summertime. She was tiny, and he was amused that his holding her flustered her, until he remembered how long Silas had been away and how plain she was. She
probably knew next to nothing about men. He glanced up at her, unable to see her face, feeling her fingers clamped tightly around his wrists.

“He’s not here,” she said, and he set her down. Instantly she moved away from him toward the next saloon. In spite of her coat and the lightness of his touch, Mary knew the moment his fingers closed on her arm. He walked beside her and her heart beat rapidly. He made her nervous, and the fact that she had almost split his head open added to her worries, but Brian was the prime concern now, and with each saloon her fear mounted.

They reached the next block, with only three saloons left. Dan held Mary O’Malley high again, where there was a clear circle in the frosty panes.

“I see him! There he is!” Her voice was filled with relief. “Thank you for your help!” she exclaimed when he set her down. She shook his hand vigorously. “Good night to you, sir,” she said, and he heard the faint touch of Irish brogue to the “sir.”

“Wait a minute, Miss O’Malley,” he said, laughing at her instant dismissal of him and finding it strange to address her as Miss O’Malley after listening to Silas calling her Mary. “You can’t go inside a saloon alone at this hour.”

“Oh, I’ve done that before.”

“Wait right here. I’ll go get your brother,” he said firmly, holding her shoulders. “If he really looks like you, I can’t miss him.”

Dan strode inside, wishing he had his six-shooter at this late hour. The saloons at the end of the street were the rowdiest, with the most fights. He paused inside, blinking in the bright lights, his gaze sweeping over the warm, smoke-filled interior. He spotted Brian O’Malley without difficulty. He looked like his sister, and except for broad, bony shoulders, he looked fifteen years old too. Dan’s jaw clamped shut grimly. He didn’t know the age of any of the O’Malley children, but they all needed a ma and a pa who would keep them at home out of trouble. Dan decided he might have a talk with Paddy O’Malley.

As he threaded his way through the crowd, his anger mounted, that the young sapling would gamble and stay out late and worry his sister. He needed his hide tanned for such foolishness. Dan strode up to him without a pause and dropped his hand on Brian’s shoulder.

“Gentlemen, the kid is out past his bedtime, count him out of the game. Brian O’Malley, you belong at home in bed.”

Dan yanked him up by the back of his shirt. There was one moment of stunned shock, and then, if Dan thought he’d had a wildcat in his arms when he tackled Mary, now he felt as if he had yanked a grizzly out of its winter slumber.

Brian O’Malley exploded into fists and feet and teeth until Dan was lifted into the air and tossed out through the front door of the saloon. He sailed over the steps, landing facefirst in the slushy snow, the breath knocked from his lungs.

“Oh, holy saints,” Mary O’Malley mumbled, kneeling beside him, trying to turn him over. “Mister! Oh, saints preserve us! Please answer me! Mister, I’m sorry. Did Brian—”

“Yes, Brian did!” Dan ground out the words. “How old is he?”

“He’s seventeen and a little high-tempered. Let me help you to a doctor.”

“Hell, no.” Dan sat up in the snow and glared at the saloon door.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m just dandy,” he said, standing up, steadying himself by clutching her shoulder while he took a deep breath and gritted his teeth. Throbbing pains seemed to come from several places on his body at once.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Oh, no!” She caught his arm. “Mister, I’ll go get him. You go home before you get killed.” She stomped toward the doors of the saloon, and rage burst in Dan. He caught her shoulders and turned her to face him.

“You wait right here! No seventeen-year-old kid is
going to throw me out of a saloon into the snow and get away with it! I’ll bring your brother out.”

“I should have warned you, but I was so relieved to find Brian alive—my brother is scrappy.”

“Yeah. Well, so am I.” Dan stormed past her into the saloon. Heads turned as he crossed the room. Brian O’Malley looked up, saw him coming, and stood up.

“Not again! Haven’t you learned to leave me alone?”

Dan put his head down, lunged, and knocked Brian O’Malley to the table. It crashed to the floor, and several men toppled over and tried to get out of the way while the two fought. Dan pulled back his right arm and threw a punch with all his weight behind it, connecting squarely on Brian’s jaw. It popped Brian’s head back and sent him sprawling over another table. Dan yanked him up, charging to the front door. When he was right in front of the door, Dan stepped back and kicked, his foot landing squarely in Brian’s backside and sending him flying through the door into the snow. Dan followed, to see Brian get up and shake his head, Mary clinging to his arm.

“Brian, come home.”

Dan strode to him, giving him another swift hard kick in the backside, sending him sprawling facefirst in the snow. “Get up and go home like your sister says.”

“Who’s he, Mary? I’m going to kill him,” Brian ground out, pushing himself up on hands and knees and shaking his head.

Brian started to get up, and Dan kicked him in the rump again. “You belong at home, not in a saloon. Don’t you know you could get your sister hurt badly? She shouldn’t be out hunting for you.”

Brian bellowed in rage. This time when he came up, Dan faced him.

“I can kick you all the way home and give you the beating you deserve, or you can go peacefully with your sister. Which will it be?”

“Brian, come home.”

“Mary, who is he?” Brian asked, staring at Dan with clenched fists.

She looked up at Dan. “I don’t know,” she said, suddenly realizing she didn’t know his name.

“I’m Dan Castle. I’m a friend of Silas’.”

“You really know Silas?” she asked in amazement.

“Yes. I’ll stop by your place someday and we can talk about it. Right now, it’s snowing again, my head is throbbing, and I’m freezing. Let’s go home.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to go to the doctor?”

“Aw, Mary, I didn’t hit him that hard,” Brian interjected, looking from one to the other with a puzzled frown.

“I did,” she said, and Brian turned to stare at Dan.

“I don’t need a doctor. I need to go home and get out of the cold.” And away from the O’Malleys, he added silently.

“Thank you for your help, sir,” she said, and Brian snorted derisively.

“You’re welcome.”

“Good night.” She took her brother’s arm and the two turned around to trudge away in the snow, Brian protesting her interference. Dan was going the same direction, so he shook his head in resignation and called to them.

“Miss O’Malley.”

“Yes?”

“Come get in the buggy. I’ll take you two home.”

“Oh, we don’t want—”

“Get in,” he said curtly, “before my toes freeze off.”

“Aw, hell, we can walk—” Brian began.

“No. We’ll ride,” Mary answered with dignity, and Dan reached out to help her into the buggy. He climbed in beside her, Brian getting in the seat behind them. Snow fell, tumbling in tiny flakes as they drove through a silent, deserted street. As he approached the boardinghouse, he saw smoke curling from the chimneys.

He tugged the reins and the team halted. Brian jumped down and strode into the house without looking back.

“Mr. Castle, thank you again. I do appreciate your efforts,” she said in a soft voice.

“You’re welcome, Miss O’Malley.”

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“I’m going to be fine,” he said, trying to hold on to his patience.

She nodded solemnly, and suddenly he wondered if she ever laughed. With the family she had, and with the boardinghouse, she had little to laugh about. Silas hadn’t said too much about it, except that he didn’t want her to work so hard. On impulse, Dan jumped down and helped her out of the carriage. She raised her face to gaze up at him as solemn as ever while snowflakes caught on her thick lashes.