A Texan's Luck (16 page)

All the blood in his body could drip out, and he'd still be aware of her so near. "You know about nursing?" he managed to ask as he tried to sober enough to talk to her.

"Of course. I was once hired to be a nurse to an old woman. I did a good job, until she died."

Great reference,
he thought and shifted in the chair. One of his knees brushed her leg as her gown bumped against his cheek, and he became totally aware of the fullness of her breasts.

"Be still," she snapped.

Walker tried to get his mind off her nearness. He stared down at her little toes sticking out from beneath her gown. "You think you're going to grow any more, Lacy?" he said before he thought.

Lacy stepped away as she thumped him against the side of his face with a fist full of wet towel.

Walker yelped and grabbed his throbbing head. After the pain settled, he said without looking at her, "I may be wrong, Nurse, but I don't think you're supposed to hit a man with a head wound in the head."

"How dare you comment about my bust!"

Walker realized his mistake and managed to raise his stare to hers. "I was thinking of your toes. Those are the smallest toes I've ever seen on a woman."

"You see a lot of toes, do you?"

"Well, no." Now he thought about it, he couldn't ever remember seeing any woman's toes. That wasn't what he usually looked at when the few women he'd seen were stripping down to skin.

"Then how do you know mine aren't huge?"

He guessed she laughed at him, but he didn't care. Better that than her thinking he'd been noticing the softness of her breasts … which was exactly what he had been doing a moment before.

She stepped back between his knees, no longer angry now that she understood he only studied her feet. "Lean your head over and let me check the cut."

He followed orders. While she worked, he added, "Are you sure they're not going to grow any more? Maybe toes are the last thing to develop on a woman. You're not that old, you know, you might not be finished."

Lacy laughed. "I'm twenty, Captain, and nothing's grown on me since I was fifteen."

He thought of telling her that her bust seemed about the right size, but he didn't know if his skull could take another blow.

Lacy worked all morning, well aware of the
captain guarding her. Wherever she went, he managed to be right behind her. Ever since he'd asked to kiss her, she'd been even more uncomfortable around him than before. She told herself that it wasn't so much that she would have minded the kiss but more that he'd thought about it. Planned it out like a field maneuver. If he'd just kissed her soft and light like he had the night before, maybe even on the lips this time, she wouldn't have objected. After all, he was her husband.

Eli came in and worked with Duncan on the press. The old man remembered Walker and spoke to him with respect, so whatever made Walker leave town hadn't been something that disgraced the family. She thought of asking Eli what he knew of the matter, but the old man had a love for gossip, which was always healthy in the news business, but never provided completely dependable information.

Besides, the men were busy with several orders for handbills that needed to be printed. The orders were small, but they would keep everyone working until the flat papers came in from Dallas. The big sheets were shipped in by train every Wednesday with national and state news already printed on them, headlines and all. The pages had blank space for local stories scattered in squares on each page. That way the small papers only had to set type for their ads and stories, then line up their press with the paper's gaps. The man who bought a paper on the street got an overall look at news from Washington and Dallas to Cedar Point. A story of a local farmer's sale on chickens might be placed beside the happenings in Congress.

Lacy wrote most of the stories, though Jay Boy loved to help when he had time. Eli did the ads. Not that there was much in the way of stories in Cedar Point. The weather was always important, weddings, funerals, and sometimes arrests. If any other news happened, Sheriff Riley or Willard the mercantile owner usually told everyone in town before Lacy could get it in print.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Walker tried to talk her out of going to the station for the paper, but that had been her job since the first week she'd married. Walker's father had started teaching her the books the first morning they'd worked together, and part of the accounts included logging expenses. "This will be your responsibility soon, Lacy," the old man had said. "You have much to learn, but don't worry. I won't leave you until you know it all."

And he hadn't,
Lacy thought. Even in the end when he took opium for the pain, he'd hold on as long as he could so they had time to talk. Then he'd swallow his medicine and float into a half-dream, half-dead state for several hours.

After more than two years, she still missed him dearly. She missed the way they'd talk for hours and how his crippled hand would pat hers and tell her she was a great treasure.

"My son is going to love you," he'd say, "like you got a right to be loved, Lacy." Then he'd fall asleep, and she'd dream about when her invisible husband came home and made his father's promise true.

The wind whipped cold and dry as she stood on the platform and pushed away the past along with a tear from her cheek. Why couldn't Walker have inherited an ounce of his father's kindness?

As the train pulled in, Walker leaned closer. "Stay behind me," he ordered without a hint of request in his tone.

Lacy nodded, but she couldn't resist leaning around him until she could see the train. An excitement rippled across the platform when the train pulled in. People going on trips. Folks coming home. The smoke and the noise. Like many in town, Lacy came sometimes just to watch it arrive.

She looked down the row of cars as passengers stepped off even as the train chugged to a stop. A tall young woman dressed in forest green swung from the steps with grace and yelled, "Lacy!"

Before Walker's arm could stop her, Lacy ran to meet the girl. "Nell!" she cried with pure joy.

They hugged, pulled apart to smile at one another, then hugged again. "It's been so long." Lacy laughed. "We weren't expecting you for at least another month."

"I know, but I couldn't wait. I've so much news I had to—" Nell stopped suddenly. "Lacy, there's a man standing just behind you staring at us."

Lacy didn't turn around. "Is he wearing a uniform and a frown?"

Nell whispered, "Tall, handsome, dark hair, big frown."

"Oh, don't worry about him. That's just my husband."

Before Nell could question her, Lacy stepped back and said, "Captain Larson, I'd like you to meet Miss Nell Desire, a dear friend of mine."

"Oh, Lacy, it's not Desire anymore. I'm almost of age now, and I need a more respectable name." The tall girl offered her hand to Walker. "Some of my friends call me Two Bits, but Lacy and Bailee insist on calling me Nell. I haven't decided on my last name yet." She laughed as if guessing she made little sense to Walker and not caring in the least. "When Fat Alice sent me off to school four years ago, she registered me as Smith. Imagine that, just plain Smith. But—"

"Pardon me, Miss Nell," Walker interrupted. "But I need to get my wife off this platform as fast as possible. Might you continue the discussion elsewhere?"

Nell grabbed her bag as the engineer handed Lacy her pages.

"See you next week, Miss Lacy." He tipped his hat.

"Thank you, Philip."

Walker took the papers and motioned with his head toward the waiting buggy he'd insisted Lacy use instead of walking as she always did. "We need to be on our way, ladies."

Nell locked arms with Lacy. "Is he always so bossy?" she whispered.

Lacy glanced at Walker. From his raised eyebrow, she knew he'd heard. "I'm afraid so. But he'll be gone in nineteen days."

"That bad," Nell said a little louder. "Counting the days?"

Lacy didn't answer. She didn't have to. Her friend understood.

That night Nell joined them for dinner at the hotel. She kept Lacy laughing with her tales of school. It seemed the fine finishing school Fat Alice sent her to was not quite prepared for a girl who grew up in a whorehouse.

Lacy thought Nell appeared so grand in her proper dress, with her proper manners. But she remembered the little Two Bits who befriended Carter years ago. Lacy had sworn to be the little girl's friend forever, but to the McKoys, Nell had become family.

"When are you heading out to Carter and Bailee's place?" Lacy asked Nell over pie.

"First thing in the morning," Nell answered. "I was kind of hoping to see my ranger tonight if he's in town. It's been six months since I've had a letter from him. The man still can't get the idea that he belongs to me. He still thinks of me as a kid."

Lacy sighed. "He's not here, Nell. As far as I know, not even Sheriff Riley's heard from him for a few months." Ranger Jacob Dalton had put Zeb Whitaker in jail twice over the years. Lacy kind of wished he'd do it again. "If he knew Whitaker was out, I have a feeling he'd be headed this direction."

Nell patted Lacy's hand. "Don't you worry about Whitaker. He's probably too old to sit a horse by now. And I sent wires to Jacob to let him know what's happening. It may take a while for it to bounce around and find him, but he'll come as soon as he gets it."

Lacy tried not to appear worried. She didn't want to frighten Nell. "We think Whitaker shot out the windows of the print shop last week. Or maybe he just hired someone, thinking he'd scare me. Riley said he heard that the entire time he was in prison, Whitaker swore he'd get back the money we stole from him."

Nell glanced at Walker, who'd been silent while they talked. "Were the shots fired at Lacy, or just the shop?"

Walker shrugged. "I'm not sure." He leaned forward with his elbows on the table, suddenly interested in the conversation. "Why?"

Nell hesitated, not wanting to voice her fears.

"What are you thinking?" he asked.

"I was only a child, but I remember Whitaker coming to Fat Alice's place. This was before Lacy and Bailee clubbed him and thought they'd murdered him. He was nothing but trouble, left more than one of the girls beat up. Finally, Alice met him at the door with a gun and told him if she ever saw him again, she'd kill him on sight."

Nell shifted in her chair. "We didn't see him after that, but we still heard stories. If he thinks the three of you have his money, he might kill one of you to get the other two to give it up." She stared directly at Walker. "Lacy's right out in the open."

"I'm well aware of that," Walker said with the icy coldness of a soldier on duty. "Riley thinks she should go to someone named Sarah's place. Carter wants her to come to his farm, but she won't budge."

"This is my home," Lacy answered, knowing they wouldn't understand. She loved her home. She wouldn't just pick up and leave because Zeb Whitaker might be after her.

Nell leaned closer. "But Lacy, don't you see? You're the easiest for him to come after."

Lacy frowned. She really didn't need another person telling her the same thing. "Don't worry about me. I've got Captain Larson to protect me for nineteen more days and, who knows, so many people hate Zeb Whitaker, someone might shoot him by then. Or your ranger might be back to protect us." Lacy pushed her worries aside. "That is if he's not running from you." Everyone knew Nell had been crazy about the ranger since she was a child. She called him "my ranger," like the state of Texas had given him to her one Christmas.

"He can run, but Jacob Dalton can't hide. I'll catch up with him one of these days and make him marry me. I made him promise that he'd wait for me to grow up."

Walker leaned back in his chair as if the conversation had taken a turn that no longer interested him.

"Or maybe…" Nell winked at Lacy. "I'll just sleep with him and drive him mad with desire for me." She smiled innocently at Walker, as if the words she'd just said couldn't have come out of her mouth. "But if I do," she whispered to Lacy, "I'm making him pay the going rate."

Laughing, Lacy watched Walker try not to choke on his coffee. She'd long ago grown used to Nell and her talk. Her husband remained silent all evening, acting more as guard than host. He was polite but distant.

Lacy asked Nell to stay with her, but the young girl refused. She complained of living in a dorm all fall and longed to be alone for a few hours. She did ask to borrow

Lacy's buggy and Dancer for a few days, planning to leave at dawn for the McKoy place.

Big silent Carter and a little girl everyone called Two Bits had sworn to be friends forever. Nell had kept her promise, as had he. Whenever she returned home, her first stop was always to Carter and Bailee's farm.

And if she were part of Bailee's family, Nell was also part of Lacy's. The little homeless girl who grew up in a house by the tracks had three adopted sisters. And they were all three in danger at the moment.

Nell gripped Lacy's hand. "Don't worry," she said. "Old Whitaker's not going to get to you."

Lacy tried to be braver than she felt. "That's right." She glanced at Walker. "The captain won't let him."