Linda Castle (8 page)

With grim determination she laid out her wardrobe. When it was all spread upon the coverlet she did a quick, critical inventory.

The corset had yellowed a bit and the dress was probably woefully out of fashion, but everything was fresh and clean. To her surprise there was one silk chemise, a single pair of silk stockings and a clean bandanna folded carefully around two plain horn hair combs that were new. At the very bottom of the case was her green serge traveling suit with the matching bolero jacket trimmed in black velvet piping. Flynn had even had the presence of mind to put in a pair of black shoes.

The thought of his having access to her intimate articles made her flesh crawl. But what choice did she have?

Three years of her life were gone, and all she had to show for it was a threadbare dress and tortured nightmares to keep her company at night.

A poor wage for so much misery.

Flynn sat in the lobby alternating between red-hot anger and chilling guilt. He crushed the unlit cigarette into
a shapeless mass and rose to his feet. He had tossed back three fingers of whiskey in an attempt to take the edge off his anger.

It hadn’t worked.

He was headed toward the bar for another try when his gaze marched up the staircase for the fiftieth time in as many minutes.

“She won’t come,” he muttered. “She hates me too much to come.”

Marydyth had made it damned plain. She would rather go hungry than sit at the same table with him. She would rather do without than be in his debt.

He shivered involuntarily, and a strange feeling gnawed at his gut. He knew where her anger came from—where it had always come from—but that didn’t make it any easier to stomach. His mind drifted back over the years, allowing himself to remember the series of events that had brought him to this hotel lobby.

Geronimo and the continuing Apache problem had meant the Cochise County marshal was called away. Flynn had been sent to Hollenbeck Corners to help quell the violence of the miners’ strike. That was when he renewed his old friendship with J. C. Hollenbeck and was introduced to Marydyth. From the start there had been sparks between the two of them. She had been openly hostile, and avoided Flynn whenever possible. His lawman instincts had prickled from the first. She acted like somebody trying to hide her past. Then, when J.C. had been murdered, Flynn gave in to his instinct and started digging into the mystery that surrounded Marydyth.

The Wanted posters from Louisiana had turned up within a week. Then came telegrams from other lawmen who had come close to catching her and the man she had been seen traveling with.

If only I had recognized her sooner,
the haunting voice of his conscience said, but he shook the thought away.

She never made any effort to defend herself, and it wouldn’t have mattered if her past had shown up sooner or later. That was what nagged at him now since he had read Blaine’s confession. Had she kept her silence and gone to Yuma to protect her mysterious uncle Blaine? If so, it was a damned misguided thing to do.

If she was innocent then she should have proclaimed it loud and long.

If she was innocent.

He shook his head. That kind of thought was best left alone. She had to be innocent. She had been pardoned—she was going back to Hollenbeck Corners.

Because Rachel needs a mother.

Flynn looked at the big round-faced clock on the wall. Almost two hours had passed by since he slammed out of Marydyth’s room. People were coming and going through the lobby and most of them were heading for the dining room.

He took a deep breath and practically tasted the tang of sourdough bread and sizzling meat at the back of his tongue. His stomach growled.

She wasn’t coming.

He should just accept it and go get a steak. It wasn’t going to work out and he had been ten times the fool to ever think that it would.

Let it go.

He took a step toward the dining room but an image of Rachel’s sweet face popped into his head.

He knew he would have to try again with Marydyth—for Rachel. Flynn simply couldn’t go back to Hollenbeck Corners without settling things for Rachel.

A prickly sort of peace settled over him. As much as
it surprised him, he decided that he would apologize first—even though she should be the one to say she was sorry for calling him a bastard. Then he would find a way to talk some sense into her.

Flynn picked up his Stetson hat from the marbletopped side table and started toward the stairs. He had taken one step when Marydyth appeared on the stairs.

She was wearing the clothes he had selected. The dress did not cling to her body as he remembered it doing in the past, but there were still curves beneath the soft material that shimmered like an August sunset when she moved.

No doubt about it, she was still a looker. Even Yuma hadn’t changed that.

Her hair was pulled up on either side in the combs he had bought at the mercantile. The way the short curls tumbled together hid the uneven strands and did not look so unconventional.

She met his gaze and their eyes locked for two heartbeats. He could read the hatred even at this distance.

But it didn’t matter. He was Rachel’s guardian, and she was Rachel’s mother. That bond was stronger than their enmity.

He could and would deal with Satan himself, if it would make Rachel happy.

M
arydyth stood on the stairs overlooking the lobby and tried to keep her knees from shaking.

Dear God, this is so hard

All her dreams of returning to a real life, of walking into a hotel lobby and ordering a meal like any other ordinary person were evaporating like dew on a hot day.

People were turning to stare at her. A few had even openly pointed and made comments behind their hands. They knew her, remembered the horrible stories in the
Chronicle
and the
Epitaph.
She was a fool to hope they would have forgotten. She was big news—”the Black Widow”—”Murdering Mary”—the woman who had put two husbands in the ground for money.

Her trial had been the biggest news in the territory. Only Geronimo’s subsequent surrender had garnered more room in the local papers. Women who commit murder are almost as interesting as Apaches, and Marydyth had been the newspapermen’s dream come true. Not only was she younger than J.C., she had a
past.

Nobody ever stopped to consider that she might have been innocent of J.C.’s killing, or that long ago she had
done terrible things in Louisiana because she had had no choice.

She had been convicted because of where she was born and the way she looked. She had been convicted even before Flynn O’Bannion brought in the Wanted posters.

The awful monikers had followed her all the way to Yuma and back again.

It didn’t seem fair.

Dear God, make my feet move. Please don’t let me stand here, frozen, while they cut me to little pieces with their whispers and their stares.

Bitterness rose in the back of her throat. She could not let Flynn defeat her because she was too weak to challenge him. If she did not force herself to make a stand, then she would never see Rachel.

Her feet began to move of their own accord. Not because she was no longer terrified—she was—but because she could not lose her daughter twice in a lifetime. And particularly not to the likes of Flynn O’Bannion.

Flynn looked at Marydyth over the glass of Jose Cuervo. He rarely drank tequila, but tonight he indulged himself in a shot. Maybe it was the constant buzz of whispered voices behind his back or maybe it was the contempt that shone in Marydyth’s eyes. Whatever the reason, he knocked back another shot of liquid fire, closing his eyes against the burn as it slid down his gullet.

When he opened his eyes he noticed an unshaved youth smiling at Marydyth as he walked by the dining table. She shyly smiled back. A new rush of indignant whispers swept across the dining room.

“I suppose I should get used to this,” she said softly as she ducked her head and took another bite of steak.

He had flatly refused to discuss Rachel until after they
had eaten. He wasn’t sure why he did it, but damn it all, she was thin as a rail and he couldn’t think of any other way to persuade her to eat.

Flynn narrowed his eyes and studied her. On the outside she was cool beauty but the quiver in her voice showed him just how much she was bothered by the gossip. “It won’t be so bad in Hollenbeck,” he heard himself say.

She looked up. “And what makes you think I am staying in Hollenbeck?”

“Where else would you go?” He met her chilly gaze.

“Anywhere. There is a whole big world out there. J.C. left us well-fixed, and.” Her voice trailed off.

The candle in the middle of the linen-swathed table guttered for a moment. He wondered if the cold he felt sweeping across the table was real or imagined. Didn’t she know the terms of J.C.’s will?

“Now I am curious, Marydyth.” Flynn fixed his eyes on her face. “What exactly did you think was going to happen when you got out of Yuma?”

She smiled sadly. “I had planned on getting my daughter and my money and putting this place far behind me.”

She didn’t know. She had no idea that J.C. had left every cent in trust to Rachel, and that Flynn controlled the money too.

He shook his head and poured another jigger of tequila. He had been hungry as a bear but his appetite had left him. He shoved the plate away and stared hard across the table.

Marydyth must have felt his eyes upon her because her head slowly came up, and she met his gaze.

“I think we better talk about Rachel now,” he said softly.

Marydyth swallowed hard.

Flynn pulled a tobacco pouch from his pocket and rolled a cigarette. Telling her was harder than he had imagined, and he damned well wasn’t going to mention the money. She had had enough for one day.

He never looked up as he rolled the smoke. “I’ll bet you have things you would like to know about her.” He pulled the yellow pouch string taut and slipped it back into his shirt pocket.

“Yes, of course.” Marydyth tried to latch onto a single question about Rachel, but her mind was swarming with things she wished she knew.

How did she look?

Did she remember her? Were her teeth straight? A hundred things a mother should know popped into her head.

“Is—is she happy?” she finally stammered.

Flynn’s head came up but there was a hesitation in him that made Marydyth’s pulse pound.

“Most of the time, I believe she is happy.”

A relieved tiny smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She leaned forward a bit in the chair; excitement made her tremble. “What did she want for her last birthday?”

“A pink dress with two ruffled petticoats,” Flynn answered without a pause. “It was the talk of the town for a while, me taking Rachel in to Sarah Ferguson’s for fittings.”

For a moment Marydyth wondered why Victoria didn’t do that for her only grandchild, but then she realized that if her grandmother cared so little for Rachel that she would
give
her to O’Bannion, then she would not be inclined to take her to the dressmaker.

A bitter taste filled her mouth. She had worried over what Victoria thought about her during the first years of
her marriage to J.C. What had it gotten her? The old woman hated her and had taken that resentment out on Rachel.

Maternal protectiveness flared inside Marydyth. She had to know her daughter, had to be there for her—even if it meant knuckling under to Flynn. “I—I want to be a part of her life,” Marydyth blurted out. She searched his face, hoping against hope that he might have a particle of decency in his black heart. “If you will let me.”

Flynn’s brows pinched together. “Why do you think I came to Tombstone, Marydyth?”

“I—I don’t know.” She was wary of him.

“Rachel needs a woman’s influence in her life. She needs a mother.”

“Rachel needs
her
mother,” Marydyth corrected.

Flynn stared at the remains of his dinner, fighting for control. “All right, Rachel needs her mother. She needs you.”

“Are you sure? You’re going to let me have her, let me take her away from Hollenbeck.”

Flynn’s head snapped up. He glared across the table. “I don’t think you understand my meaning, Marydyth.”

“What? But I thought.”

“Rachel does need you but she is not
going
anywhere.”

“But you said she lived with you—”

“And that is the way things will remain.” His words fell like an anvil.

Marydyth gripped her hands together at the edge of the table. “Oh, you are a vile, low-down—”

“Stop.” He cut her off in midinsult. “I don’t think you want to do this right here. But if you don’t care about your own reputation, Marydyth, then think of Rachel,” Flynn warned. “She has to grow up in this territory. She
has had enough of a burden from the past. Let’s not make her future another millstone around her little neck.”

Marydyth clamped her lips shut but her eyes darted from table to table around the dining room. More than one pair of eyes were trained on her and Flynn.

He held himself rigid but his voice was low and controlled. “You are welcome to pick up the pieces of your life, to get to know Rachel again.”

“That will be no hardship,” she whispered stiffly.

“You may not think so when I tell you what my terms are.”

“I’m listening.”

He nodded. “You are welcome to live in Hollenbeck House with Rachel, but I am part of the package.”

She inhaled and drew back. Her eyes widened and she looked at him as if he were something that had just crawled from under a slimy stone. “Do you mean you want me to be your
whore?”

Flynn’s gaze never wavered. The corners of his mouth lifted in a wry grin. “Lady, I have stepped over better prospects when I was out looking.”

She drew back as if he had hit her:

He kept right on talking. “If a willing woman was what I was after I am sure I could find one with a lot sweeter tongue and nicer disposition than you, so don’t flatter yourself.” Flynn’s mouth twisted.

“Damn you.”

He crushed the cold cigarette and leaned near the middle of the table. “You can move into Hollenbeck House and be Rachel’s mother in every sense of the word. I will have no contact with you above the normal comings and goings of the household, but know this: I am now and always will be her legal guardian.”

Her bottom lip began to quiver and her eyes filled with a wash of tears.

“Make no mistake about this, Marydyth. I don’t really care one way or the other what you do. But it could mean something to Rachel and the way she grows up.” He sat back in his chair and released a rush of breath. “The decision is yours. If you want to live in Hollenbeck House, the door is open.”

Her eyes narrowed down to slits of blue fire and she blinked rapidly to keep the tears from spilling over her cheeks.

Flynn shoved back his chair and rose. He leaned over the table and kept his voice low so nobody else would hear.

“You sleep on it. If you decide you can live with those conditions and abide by
my
rules, then meet me tomorrow morning. The stage for Hollenbeck Corners leaves at six sharp, and I’ll be on it.”

Cold. Merciless, blinding cold.

The thin blanket was not enough, never enough to keep out the bone-chilling cold.

Marydyth shivered, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

Then she heard the sound of footsteps echoing through the thick dark corridors of Yuma—only it wasn’t Yuma. She whimpered as her surroundings shifted and changed. Now she was in the corridor of the paddleboat going toward her cabin. The boat was churning its way down the big wide river. The footsteps were getting louder, stronger.
closer.

He was coming. Andre was coming to her. It was her wedding night.

Measured, heavy treads drew nearer. a flicker of lantern
light flashed along the thick, adobe wall—no, it was not an adobe wall, it was wallpapered and wainscoted. A man’s shadow played and danced in the light. There was the sound of waves lapping against the side of the riverboat.

It was Andre. He opened the door and staggered inside. Drunk…big…threatening. What was happening? Didn’t he understand that she was young and inexperienced? Oh, why was he hurting her so?

The pain. She was so frightened of the pain that she grabbed a lamp and brought it down hard.

She woke before the scream had quite bubbled up from the back of her throat. Her hair was slick and matted to her head with sweat. She twisted her fists in the sheet, afraid she would fly apart if she didn’t have something to anchor her.

Marydyth gulped in deep breaths and tried to orient herself. She felt as if she’d dragged herself from a great pit when she sat up and looked around at the pale shapes of her room.

The sound of laughter and piano music drifted through the open window. She was not in Yuma. She was in Tombstone. Andre was long dead.

And Rachel needed her.

Marydyth collapsed back into the pillows with relief. She closed her eyes and counted to twenty, hoping her pulse would slow down.

She was not in danger—not tonight.

Never again,
she screamed inside her head.

Relief and latent terror mingled in her chest, made her weak and queasy. She had hoped once she was free from Yuma the nightmare would stop. But it had come tonight. The first night of her freedom and she had been visited by her demons.

Her hands were shaking like leaves in a strong wind when she tossed back the sheet and rose naked from the bed. Flynn had packed a nightrail, but she didn’t wish to sleep in a garment
he
had chosen. She measured each tottering step until she reached the washstand. More water ended up on her feet and her thighs than in the bowl, but she ignored it and splashed the tepid liquid on her face and over her hair and let it run down her breasts.

Marydyth moved cautiously toward the window, standing a little to the side so as to not be seen. She drew back the lacy curtain and sighed when the cool desert breeze washed over her.

It was the first night breeze she had felt in three years.

Tears sprang to her eyes when she glanced up and saw the moon hanging low in the western sky.

The moon.

And it made her cry with joy just to be able to see it.

“Damn you, Flynn O’Bannion.” She cursed into the night air. There was no question what her decision would be, there was no
decision
to make.

Rachel was her child and she would walk through fire for her. And that arrogant bastard knew it. He knew she would agree to his terms because she had no choice, but the thought of living in the same house with a man she loathed beyond reason left her shaken.

How could she do it?

How could she not?

Marydyth stepped away from the window and started to dress. There was not a chance in the world that she would sleep any more tonight. She might as well pack and prepare herself to get on that stage.

The only hope she had, the one that kept her from screaming aloud in frustration, was the hope that once
she talked to Victoria she might convince her to change the guardianship.

There was always a chance, and it was that slim hope that made her calmly shake out her clothing and prepare to face the day.

Flynn leaned against the rough wood wall of the depot with one boot heel hitched up.

All night long he had lain awake and stared at the ceiling, trying to decide if he wanted Marydyth Hollenbeck to show up or not. She had been as cantankerous as a grizzly, and the prospect of having her in the same house filled him with dread.