Wed to the Texas Outlaw (8 page)

“Good afternoon, King Efrin.” The bartender smiled, but Boone recognized the insincerity behind it. Boone was familiar with the false gesture since it had been directed at him many times. “How may I serve you?”

Efrin King lifted his crooked beak of a nose an inch, pranced in with his steps long and regal, a statement of his perceived superiority.

His clothing was finer than Lump's was. By choice or Kingly decree, Boone didn't yet know.

The question was not answered when the next brother filled the doorway. This one wore a long coat with a patch on the sleeve. His Stetson looked frayed at the brim. He didn't look haggard, quite, but he lacked his brother's polish. He also lacked his trim figure. Buck had an indulgent swell to his belly.

“Good day, Master Buck,” the bartender said. “And welcome.”

Next through the doorway came a youth, the first sprouting of hair over his lip thin and blond.

“Howdy, Merle!” Bird King launched his lanky body over the counter, digging a pair of shiny spurs into the wood, gouging it.

He grabbed two bottles from a shelf, heaved back over the bar then sat at a table. The young fool opened them both, guzzled from one then the other.

“Much obliged.” The kid lifted a bottle in salute to Merle.

So far the outlaws had not noticed him and Stanley watching from the corner table.

“I want your best.” Efrin King stared hard at the barkeep. His eyes narrowed, snakelike. His voice had a cold, hissing quality to it. “I'm disappointed that you did not anticipate that.”

Boone had seen a lot of evil men in his time, but none looked worse than this one.

“Next time, I'll do better, sir—that is, Your Highness.” Merle set a bottle and a glass on the counter.

“Buck.” Efrin shot a glance over his shoulder at his brother. “Polish the goblet.”

“Shine your own damn glass,” Buck growled.

“Please, allow me,” the bartender said quickly, clearly wanting to prevent an altercation between them.

The woman upstairs moaned loud and low. Dime to a dollar it was not from pleasure.

After a long indulgent sip of alcohol from his extra-clean glass, Efrin smacked is lips.

“Buck, take the money box.”

Merle looked submissive, giving the box over, but under that, Boone saw a few other emotions. Fear, anger—and worry. For the first time, he truly saw the other side of the crime; wondered how Merle was going to get by with his livelihood missing.

Boone remembered the faces of other barkeeps looking at him from the wrong end of his gun. Some of them angry, many frightened; all of them worried. They couldn't know that he would never pull the trigger. Somehow that didn't make him feel any better about himself.

Not surprisingly, the second in command didn't object to being ordered to do this task. Boone guessed he had taken the money many times.

Leland King was missing from the group. Boone prayed that he was sick at home and not in Jasper Springs causing trouble—not serving twisted justice to the doctor.

It took a good deal of self-control not to go racing back to the doc's office. He wanted to, but there were some things he needed to make clear right here while he had most of the family in one place.

Might as well start now.

He nodded to Stanley then stood, purposefully scraping his chair across the floor.

Boone Walker, destroyer of innocents, stepped into the light.

For an instant Efrin's composure slipped. For once, it was good to see someone fear his reputation.

His majesty gathered himself quickly, though. He indicated with noble-looking tilt of his head that Boone should sit at a table.

Bird King whooped. “Boone Walker! Lump said it was you but I figured he was off his mind again. I thought you was tried and convicted. Saw in the
Gazette
you was put away.”

“Things change.”

“You may sit and regale me of your crimes.” Efrin lowered his fancy-garbed body into a chair. He crossed one polished boot across his knee then flicked his fingers at an empty chair.

No doubt, the tyrant had made someone lick those boots clean.

Buck sat next to Bird who finished off his first bottle with a belch.

Boone continued to stand. He felt Stanley beside him. As small as he was, it was a comfort knowing the lawyer was there.

“You really kill all those men?” Bird asked, his eyes alight in anticipation.

“Them.” He shot the kid a cool glance. “And more.”

“We've heard the stories. Join us,” Efrin said. “We've run Jasper Springs for a few years now. We could use a man of your talent. You must have noticed that our word is law.”

Hooking his boot toe around King's chair leg, Boone swiped it out from under the man. Efrin sprawled backward, his head slamming the floor. He reached for his gun. Boone stomped on his wrist. He didn't let up on the pressure even when two of the outlaw's fingers began to spasm.

“Was law.” Boone drew his gun. He heard the whisper of metal against leather when Stanley drew his. “This is my town now. You and your brothers can get out—or die. Choice is yours.”

He knew damn well they wouldn't get out of town, but the threat needed to be issued, the viper's nest stirred.

Merle ducked under the bar.

Boone leveled his gun at Buck's face. “Place your piece on the table, barrel toward you. Same for you, kid.”

Buck cast his older brother a glance as he slid the gun toward Boone. It was there for half a second then gone, a smirk of contempt for his regal sibling.

Bird stood, dropped the bottles from his fists and then did as ordered.

“I'll take that money box.”

Buck shoved the cash box toward him.

“You, kid. Trot upstairs and bring down your brother. Smythe, keep your aim on the stairs in case the fool comes down with more than one of his weapons hanging out.”

A defiant expression moved across Efrin's eyes. His free hand jerked across his body. Boone bent and snatched the weapon from the outlaw's holster.

He felt the meanness of the expression he shot at King, the narrow tilt of his eyes, the grim, angry set of his mouth and the slight baring of his teeth. This spectacle of brutality was necessary to show his dominance over them.

It was a damn lucky thing that Lantree could not see him in this moment. His brother would be ashamed of who he had become. Lantree treated others with care and concern.

Boone did not. The more afraid of him these outlaws were, the more likely he was to survive. And not only him but Melinda and his lawyer, as well.

“You can't ride in and take over our town.” Efrin glared up at him, not looking at all like royalty in the moment. Only an ugly, fading outlaw.

“Just did it.”

Boone lifted his boot from Efrin's wrist. The joint would smart, but he didn't believe it was broken.

Lump stumbled down the stairs, his brother propelling him.

“It's Boone Walker in the flesh,” Bird said as though that would impress his single-minded sibling.

“You're mad if you think you can take Jasper Springs. It's ours,” Efrin hissed, but he was scooting on his backside toward the door when he said it. “Come on boys.”

With a curse, Buck helped his brother off the floor then propelled him toward the door.

Lump turned in the doorway after his brothers had exited, cast him a sloppy glare. “Or our women.”

Remembering the whore's moan, he aimed his gun at Lump's boot. He meant to hit leather, but if the man's toes were long, hell's curses, he didn't mind if one of them got bloodied.

A kingly voice, wrought with agitation, carried in from the boardwalk. “The three of you against him and I ended up on the floor. You imbeciles!”

Buck shoved his brother down the steps, turned and gave Boone a quick nod.

Hell's curses, what did that mean? Was it some odd outlaw respect or a promise of retribution?

In the end it didn't really matter. He'd thrown down the challenge.

He ought to have bound the four of them and delivered them to the law, but his gut was uneasy. Had been since he'd left Melinda alone.

With one of the four missing, there was no time for making arrests now. Every passing second ate at his nerves. He wouldn't take an easy breath until he saw that his wife and the doctor were safe.

He had to get back. That meant turning the Kings over to the law another time. But so be it.

Stanley stood watch at the window.

Merle emerged from his hidey-hole behind the bar.

“They've gone,” Stanley announced.

Boone tossed the money box to Merle. The look of relief that passed over his face when he grasped it in his hands made Boone feel ashamed. He'd survived by robbing saloons. All of a sudden he regretted every time he'd done it.

Boone had a feeling that living life on the straight and narrow just might be the only way for him in the future. He wondered if, following that path, he might become a man that his brother would respect.

That Melinda would. She liked him, he knew. He saw it in her smile, in the flash of caring in her pretty blue eyes. He felt it in the gentle pressure of her fingers when he was the lucky recipient of her touch.

Not that he deserved her caring or his brother's forgiveness, but he did hope.

He heard a small voice in his mind, heard it so clearly that it startled him. His soul had begun the narrow path to redemption, the voice suggested.

God grant him the wisdom and the honorable nature to follow that voice.

Was it really suggesting he follow a certain career path? He wasn't sure it was possible to go from an outlaw to—to that.

In this moment all he knew was that Melinda might be in danger. There wasn't time to consider life spinning on a dime and shooting him off in an unbelievable direction.

Not only unbelievable but impossible.

He ran for his horse, Smythe only a step behind him.

If he managed to keep the doctor alive, maybe he'd be able to face his brother again.

* * *

Dr. Brown inclined his head toward the door of the waiting room.

Melinda followed him into an area with three chairs and a divan. Cold sunshine spilled through the front window but didn't do much to warm the room.

She expected to see an anxious father pacing, but did not.

“Have you ever seen a baby delivered, Mrs. Walker?”

“Many times. My husband's brother is a physician in Montana. I was his assistant for a time.”

Dr. Brown looked surprised but not disbelieving.

“So you recognize that we have a problem with this birth?”

“The baby ought to have come by now,” she said. “Perhaps it is turned wrong.”

“That's what I fear. She—”

A fist pounded on the door.

“Kings!” a boy's voice shouted. “Four minutes out!”

“Not enough time.” Dr. Brown scraped his fingers through straight black hair, glanced out the window, his frown deep and worried. “If they kill me right off, it'll be up to you to deliver the baby. Can you do it?”

Could she? She'd seen it done, helped Lantree with two such births, but on her own she would not know what to do.

A distressed cry came from the other room.

“We have to leave.” She gripped the doctor's hands in hers to press her point. “Take her home where her husband can protect her.”

“Mrs. Coulter is a widow. Her husband was shot in the back by Efrin when he refused to kneel down and lick the manure off his boots.”

Dr. Brown's brain must be spinning, trying to save his patient while fearing for his own life.

Boone. She needed Boone. He would know what to do.

But Boone was not here and they couldn't wait on him.

“Do you have a buggy and a horse?” she asked.

“A buckboard and a team.”

“A gun?”

He shook his head.

The buckboard would have to do, although a buggy would move faster.

“Go hitch it up. We're going to the homestead. I'll wait with Mrs. Coulter.”

First thing going back into the labor room Melinda opened the back door and called the dog in. The doctor might not like having him indoors, but Billbro was their best protection at the moment.

The clock in the waiting room tick-tocked in the silence, marking the time slipping away. Each swing of the pendulum brought the Kings closer to town.

Mrs. Coulter moaned, hissed out a breath.

“They're coming, aren't they?”

“They are. But we are leaving. Can you find the strength for that?”

She gritted her teeth and nodded through a contraction.

“You're married to that outlaw?” she said, the cramping apparently subsiding.

“I am.”

“Aren't you scared every minute?”

“I'm scared now—but if Boone were here I'd be less scared.”

It was true. She trusted her outlaw husband completely. Logic would suggest she ought not to trust any man she had known so briefly, especially one accused of so many things. But Melinda trusted her intuition, knew it to be true that a good heart beat inside the outlaw's chest.

Although most people, like Mrs. Coulter, would think her a fool for believing so.

“Well, I reckon your husband wouldn't have allowed Efrin King to shoot him in the back, left you a widow and expecting. Prideful nonsense—”

“I hear something,” Melinda whispered.

Yes, and so did Billbro. His hackles rose but he did not growl.

Melinda rose from the bedside and walked to the window. She peered out. A man was tying his horse to a tree nearby. He looked pleasant enough with a half smile on his face even though no one was around to see it—except her, and that was because she was spying through a curtain.

His gait was unhurried. She didn't see a weapon strapped to his thigh. As he walked toward the office, he glanced at trees and twittering birds.

What concerned her was that he chose to come to the back door when there was a perfectly good front door that any respectable person would use.