The Texan and the Lady (21 page)

All thought of ever leaving her vanished as he felt her move. Her softness gently washed over all the scars on his body and soul, making him feel like he’d just woken up from a year’s sleep. “Morning,” he answered, wondering how she could feel so wonderful. He’d touched her completely only a short time ago, but he felt like he couldn’t wait to discover her every curve all over again.

She rested her chin on his chest. “It’ll be light soon. I need to get back before Mrs. Gray catches me out. I can just imagine how she’d react if she knew I spent the night with you.”

“Probably not much different than you’d react if you knew she spent the night with Spider Morris.”

Jennie laughed. “She didn’t!”

“Maybe Spider figures she’s been a widow long enough,” Austin guessed.

“I can’t see them together.” Jennie shook her head, making curls tickle his chest. “Not Mrs. Gray.”

“Speaking of seeing,” Austin slowly moved his hands down her body, “I wish there was enough light for me to see you.”

“No.” She shook her curls again. “I’ll be gone by sunup.”

Austin’s arm tightened around her. He knew she was right, but he didn’t want to let her go. “Jennie, there’s so much we need to talk about.”

She placed her fingers over his lips. “Not now,” she whispered. “For now, just let me remember. I’ve never had anything happen worth remembering until I met you.”

She hugged him tightly and was silent for a long time before she whispered, “My parents were always afraid I’d turn the wrong direction and never make it home, so they’d tie red ribbons along the road to show me the way. I’d see the ribbon and know I was nearing home.” She moved her fingers over his chest. “I feel that way with you. I’m not sure where we’re going, but I think we’re finally moving in the right direction.”

A hundred thoughts came to his mind, but Austin didn’t say a word as his hand lightly brushed over her body.

She stood and searched for her clothes in the shadowy darkness. He remained silent. Before she covered the beauty of her body, he memorized each line of her form. A smile slowly spread across his face. He couldn’t remember ever watching a woman dress. He’d always been the one leaving.

When she began fastening the buttons, she finally turned to him for help. Silently she held up her hair and faced the windows. Austin stood and slid on his pants before accepting the challenge.

He performed the task as slowly as he thought she’d allow, then leaned forward and gently kissed her on the back of her neck. “Jennie,” he whispered, knowingly breaking the silence she’d asked for, but wanting to say her name once more.

Turning her to face him, Austin slowly lowered his lips to hers, wanting to taste her once more before they parted. But the sound of horses thundering past shattered the predawn silence and pulled him back to reality.

“They’re traveling fast, too fast,” he mumbled as he held her to him a moment longer. It sounded like they were headed straight for the office door.

“Stay here!” Austin yelled. He grabbed his gunbelt and ran toward the shouting outside.

He lifted his rifle from a resting place in the office without breaking stride. Flinging the door wide, he stepped back to look before running onto the porch.

A team of horses, lathered and snorting for breath, pulled to a halt at his door. Austin struck a match and lit the lantern hanging from one of the porch poles. When he looked up, he couldn’t believe the sight in the wagon. True sat on the bench, eyes wide with fear and hands bleeding from trying to hold the reins tightly.

“Marshal!” True cried. “Marshal, you’ve got to help us!”

As he rounded the wagon, Austin strapped his gunbelt around his waist.

“They shot at us from all directions!” True was sobbing so hard the marshal could barely understand the child’s words. “There must have been a hundred of them, maybe two hundred.”

“Who?” Austin looked around, making sure the wagon hadn’t been followed.

“I don’t know,” True answered. “I was asleep in the back, but I think we were about halfway to Colton’s ranch, and all at once I heard gunfire. Colton fired back into the blackness as he ordered us to keep down. When shots came again, he was hit hard.”

Austin pulled the covers from the back bed. There, cuddled as close as she could to the bench sat Delta, wearing her green dress and cape. Colton’s head rested on her skirts as if in sleep, but he looked more dead than alive.

“Is he breathing?” Austin placed his hand on Colton’s throat and felt a weak pulse still beating. Blood was splattered everywhere across his clothes.

Delta gently brushed Colton’s black hair off his bloody forehead. “It’s all my fault,” she mumbled. “The bullet was meant for me.”

The woman must be in shock, Austin thought. She wasn’t making any sense.

He quickly lifted Colton from her arms. “We’ll look at whose fault it is after we get this man some medical help.”

Delta and True followed him into the office. “He’s been gut-shot!” Delta cried. “I couldn’t make him stop bleeding.”

Jennie ran from the back room. She was within a step of Delta when the tiny blonde’s blue eyes rolled up. With Jennie cradling her, the two women slid to the floor together. “It’s all right,” she whispered to Delta as if the words could somehow make it true. “Everything’s all right now; you’re here. You’re safe.”

Austin carried Colton into the first cell and placed him on one of two bunks. A crimson puddle of blood darkened his white shirt from just above the belt line to his shoulder. He also had a cut across his forehead just below his hairline that looked like it might have happened when he fell from the wagon.

Pulling clothes away from the wound, Austin glanced at True. “Can you help, son?”

“Yes, sir,” True answered, hiding tiny bloody hands from sight.

“Good, ‘cause I need you now.” Austin didn’t like the size of Colton’s wound. Whoever had shot at the man meant to kill him. “Go tell the doc I need him fast, then go over to Spider Morris’s house and tell him what happened.”

“Yes, sir,” True said while already running to follow orders.

Austin spread a blanket over the wounded man and turned to Jennie. “How’s Delta?”

For once Jennie didn’t bother to defend her lie. “I don’t think she’s hurt. She just fainted.”

Austin lifted Delta and carried her to the other bunk inside the cell. “I think it would be best if I ran over to the Harvey House and got Audrey.” The look on his face told Jennie he didn’t give Colton much hope. “She’ll probably do as much good as the doc.”

Jennie nodded. For a breath’s length they stood, staring at each other, wishing there was time to say goodbye. Wishing their night together hadn’t ended so quickly. Both wishing there were no lies between them.

Without a word Austin disappeared into the back room to finish dressing.

DELTA WOKE, THINKING for a moment she’d had a nightmare. Then the memory of the night before focused. When they’d left the dance, she’d been feeling dizzy and had feared she might have to ask Colton to stop alongside the road if her stomach didn’t settle. Too much punch and dancing, she’d decided.

But her queasiness calmed as they traveled along the midnight dark road, avoiding holes as best they could. True was asleep in the wagon bed. Colton remained silent as always, but he put his arm around her for warmth and she leaned into him. The shadows moved like an old man needing slumber, fanning Delta to sleep with a cool breath.

From somewhere up ahead gunfire flashed in the blackness like ground lightning. Delta came full awake, staring into the night that seemed even blacker after the flashes of light. Colton reached for his rifle and swung her over the bench to safety before he stopped the horses.

“Stay down,” he ordered. “No matter what happens, stay down!”

When True appeared at his back, Colton shoved the reins into his tiny hands and whispered, “Hold on tight, boy, no matter how much it hurts. If you lose control of the horses with the next round of fire, we’re all dead.”

Colton stepped down, away from the wagon, making as much noise as he could. He raised his rifle and fired one shot into the night.

Delta screamed, suddenly aware of what he was doing. Any future shots from the highwaymen would be pointed toward him and away from her and True. Bright light flashed from another round he issued, marking him for the attacker.

An answer came before her scream died in the air. Colton took the bullet straight on, as though he’d been bracing himself for it for years. Then he crumpled without a sound.

Delta jumped from the wagon and felt in the darkness for his body. “Colton?” she cried as her hands moved along him.

No answer.

“Colton!” Panic hit Delta so hard she shook from the blow. She pulled at his arm while her ears ached with waiting to hear the unseen killer fire again.

Silence. Only silence. Whoever was out there seemed in no hurry to kill her.

Delta moved her fingers over Colton’s clothes until she felt the warmth of his blood gushing out an opening at his waist. Frantically, she pushed against the wound, trying to stop the flow.

True tied the reins around the brake and climbed down. “We got to get out of here, miss.”

“Not without him,” Delta answered. She couldn’t just leave Colton to die in the roadway.

“But it ain’t gonna take whoever shot Colton long to figure out we’re here. Our only chance is to try and make it to town by sunup.”

“Leave me,” Colton whispered between clenched teeth. “Leave me. I’ve been a dead man for years.”

Delta felt him go limp in her embrace and knew the pain had finally won over his consciousness. She also knew the boy was right. They had to move quickly. “Help me lift him.”

Together they managed to get Colton in the wagon. Delta climbed in with him and whispered to True, “Can you drive a team?”

“You bet.” True moved around to the front wheel. “Don’t look all that hard. Henry explained it all to me the other day.”

True threaded the leather through his tiny fingers as Colton had done and slapped the horses into action.

Delta forced out all thought except holding on to Colton, until she saw the outline of town at daybreak. He hadn’t moved, and she’d kept her hand over his wound, pushing as hard as she could against the steady flow of blood oozing out. But the crimson banner of death spread.

Finally, she’d known she was safe when she saw Jennie. The horror of the night slid away, and the dizziness she’d felt after the dance returned with a mighty vengeance at having been set aside because of her fears. Without warning, the world floated away, and she watched consciousness fade first to gray, then to black.

When Delta opened her eyes, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but the dizziness had lessened. She took in her surroundings: the dusty cell, the sheriff’s office beyond, morning shining through the open door as though the sunshine could warm away all the darkness. Colton quietly slept in a bunk four feet from her. Jennie was shoving logs into an old stove while the smell of coffee drifted across the room.

Without caring that she was ruining her dress, Delta crawled out of her bunk and knelt on the floor beside Colton. She placed her arm protectively over his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she pulled the derringer he’d given her from between the folds of her skirts. “The shooting was all my fault.” She could almost see her stepbrother hiding in the shadows waiting for them. He’d probably shot Colton just to get him out of the way. Delta was sure Ward planned to kill her more slowly.

Resting her head on his shoulder, Delta couldn’t stop the tears. “I’m so sorry,” she cried.

Colton’s hand covered her hair. “No.” His voice was so weak Delta wasn’t sure she heard it.

“What?” She turned and stared at his ghost-white face.

Colton stroked her curls with his fingers. “It’s not your fault, Mary Elizabeth. I’ve a number of men who want me dead.”

Pain won another battle as Colton’s eyes closed.

Delta held his hand as tightly as she could. “Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t leave you.” He was the only man she’d ever admired in her life. In the two weeks she’d been with him, she’d known what it was like not to be afraid for the first time in her memory. “Promise you won’t die and leave me.”

Colton was too far into his battle to answer, but Audrey took up the challenge. “He’s not going to die.” The tall redhead set down her sewing basket that doubled as her medical bag. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

True stood behind Audrey, close as a noonday shadow. “The doc’s out of town delivering a baby but Sheriff Morris will be here in a minute.”

Audrey looked down at Colton, then smiled at Delta. “Does he really treat you good, honey?”

The question was too honest to be answered any other way but directly. “Yes. He’s been good to me. In the two weeks I’ve been with him, he’s never said an unkind word.” In fact he’d said very few words at all.

“Well, then, I’d best go to work, ‘cause he’s too handsome a man to die.” As she worked, Audrey continued talking. “Let the bushwackers kill off a few of those no-accounts a poxed pig wouldn’t breed with and leave the good-looking men alone.”

Delta wiped tears from her cheeks and smiled. With Audrey around, it was hard to believe everything wouldn’t be all right.

Audrey smiled back. “That’s better. Even death can’t ride in a buckboard full of smiles.”

The redheaded woman yelled orders so fast at True and Jennie, the little jail seemed like a crowded train station. Delta helped when she could and steadfastly refused to leave Colton’s side. Austin and Sheriff Morris appeared, wanting to ask Colton questions.

But Audrey shooed them out of the cell. “We’ll worry about saving this man’s life first, before you two try to figure out who used him for target practice.”

Both lawmen moved reluctantly to the porch. “I’d rather step in a nest of rattlers with one bullet in my gun than argue with that woman.” Spider shook his head. “I sure hopes she marries Wiley. With her fire and his strength they oughta have some fine younguns populating this country in no time.”

Austin agreed as he stepped off the porch. “I’ll ride out to the site where they were attacked and see if I can find out anything.”