After Sundown (7 page)

But most stayed right where they were.

Lucas shook his head in disgust. God Almighty, how many people in this town had Antoinette duped with her lies and her pretty smiles? “I don’t know what kind of theatrical act she’s put on for you people—but I’m telling you she is
not
a sweet, innocent widow. She’s the daughter of a whore. She’s a thief who doesn’t care about anything but money. And she’s got
blood
on her hands. My
brother’s
blood.”

Everyone continued talking and debating with him, but Lucas decided to stop wasting his breath. He turned to Travis. “Where’s the telegraph office in this town?”

“We don’t have a telegraph here, sir,” the kid said, stepping forward and looking pleased to be asked even a simple question. “Too high in the mountains. Too hard to string the wire up these ridges and keep the poles standing, what with all the winds. But the mail express ain’t left yet... uh, on account of you took one of the fresh horses they needed for the team.” He gestured toward the end of the street, where the coach still sat outside the stables. “My pa owns the livery. Stage’ll be leavin’ in the morning, if you want to send a letter.”

Lucas grimaced. What he wanted was to send word home, to give his family a little peace by telling them he’d caught James’s killer—but he would arrive in St. Charles at the same time a letter would. “No, I don’t want to send a letter. But tell your pa I’m going to want two tickets on the stage. One way.” He headed back into the doctor’s house.

Holt had closed the door to his examining room. Lucas opened it without knocking. The doctor turned on him with a glare.

The pungent scent of smelling salts filled the room. Supported by the doctor’s female assistant, Antoinette was sitting up.

And wearing nothing but her petticoat and her camisole, lifted so it just covered her breasts while Holt was wrapping a white bandage around her ribs.

Lucas got an eyeful of porcelain skin and full, round breasts spilling over the scanty bit of cotton and lace and ribbon. Her dusky nipples showed through the thin fabric. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Their eyes met and she tried to cover herself better.

But she couldn’t quite manage it with the handcuffs.

Lucas felt like he’d just been kicked in the gut. “She fit to travel in the morning?” he demanded hoarsely.

“No.” Holt left the rest of the bandaging to his assistant and stalked toward Lucas. “She needs rest—”

“A day? Two days?”

“Five or six weeks.” Holt curtly gestured for him to leave and followed him out, shutting the door behind them.

“If that’s supposed to be a joke, Doc,” Lucas bit out, “it’s not real funny.”

“Do you see me laughing, Marshal?” Holt retorted as they faced each other in the parlor. “She was just starting to recover. Just getting back on her feet after everything she’d been through—and then you ran her right off the side of the mountain.”

“That what she told you?” Lucas scoffed.

“What I’m telling
you
is you can’t take her anywhere until her ribs heal. She’d never make it down the mountain in this condition. I’ve taped her up, but out on the trails, getting jostled around in a stagecoach...” He shook his head. “One of the broken bones could puncture a lung.”

“Well, Doc, accidents happen.”

Holt’s gray eyes turned icy. “Are you listening to what I’m saying? She could die—”

“And I’m supposed to care?”

“Allow me to put this in language you understand, Marshal. If you’re responsible for this woman’s death, you’d better kiss that shiny badge of yours good-bye. You may be the biggest toad in the puddle down in Indian Territory, but this is Colorado. You don’t legally have jurisdiction here. I’m willing to bet you can’t even enforce your Missouri warrant here.”

“It’s been taken care of,” Lucas replied slowly. Sometimes, having a famous reputation
did
prove to be useful. He narrowed his eyes. “You seem to have more than a passing knowledge of the law, Doctor. Makes me wonder how you came by it.”

“The hard way.” Holt’s voice dropped lower, his stare unflinching. “Let’s just say I don’t have a big soft spot in my heart for lawmen—especially lawmen who use their badge as an excuse to do whatever the hell they please. You take this girl out of here before she’s fit to travel and
you’ll
be the one facing a judge. Because I will shout about it all the way to Indian Territory and Missouri and Washington, D.C.—and your illustrious career as a hero to gullible kids will be finished.”

Lucas told himself it wasn’t worth the effort, or a bruised hand, to knock the good doctor on his self-righteous ass.

“What’s in this for you, Holt?” he shot back. “You trying to rescue her? You want to protect her? I’d be careful. The last man who took Antoinette Sutton under his wing got paid back with a bullet in the chest.”

For a moment, he almost thought the doctor was going to dare say
maybe he deserved it
.

Until Lucas let his right hand settle on the butt of his holstered Peacemaker.

The doctor’s gaze settled on the gun. “All I’m trying to do, McKenna, is save a life. It’s what I do for a living.” He glanced up, returning Lucas’s glare. “Trust me, she won’t be leaving Eminence. She can’t. You go on your way and come back in five weeks, she’ll still be here.”

Lucas choked out a derisive laugh. “I go on my way, and you and the other hornswoggled people in this town will be buying her a first-class ticket on the next train out of Denver.” He turned on his heel. “I’ll be back shortly—and by that I mean, later tonight.” He stopped at the door. “And she’d better still be here.”

He yanked the door shut behind him, wondering how in the name of God and all the angels one smallish woman could cause such huge upheaval.

Outside, a few people lingered, studying the wanted poster and talking among themselves. Frustration and exasperation knotted together inside Lucas.

Now that he had spared Antoinette’s life, it seemed her life had been made his responsibility. He wasn’t sure whether Holt was telling the truth about her condition, whether she
might
be able to travel to the nearest train depot—but if he took the chance and things went wrong, it could cost him everything.

He glanced around. The idea of cooling his heels in this worthless scrap of a town for five weeks almost made him retch.

But he wouldn’t be here that long. He had seen people in worse shape get out of bed and hit the trail in less time. Hell, he’d had broken ribs himself more than once, and never had he been laid up for an entire month.

Two weeks, he figured, maybe three, and she’d be ready to go.

Until then, he had no choice but to stay here. He sure as hell couldn’t trust the townsfolk to keep her in custody. Not when Antoinette had so many of them hoodwinked into believing she was every bit as sweet and good as she appeared.

Travis stood a few feet away, standing watch over Lucas’s saddlebags like some kind of loyal puppy.

Lucas sighed and walked over to him. “Where’s the jail in this town, kid?”

“Uh, we don’t have one, sir.”

Lucas regarded him for a long moment. “There’s no jail?”

“No, sir. It’s the truth, sir. Jail burned down this summer and our town marshal left to take a job up north, and we ain’t found anyone willin’ to take his place since. Nearest law’s the county sheriff down in Central City, and that’s—”

“Seventy miles down the mountain.” Lucas ran a hand over his unshaven face, tried to remember the last time he’d slept, and muttered a word that started with “f” that made Travis blink.

Yet the admiration in the kid’s eyes only seemed to grow. “So... so what’re you going to do with the prisoner, Marshal?”

“What am I going to do with her?” Lucas echoed, wondering the same thing as he looked at the shops and houses and stone chapel and abandoned buildings that made up Eminence. For a moment, all he could think about was a hot meal and a decent bed.

Then an idea occurred to him. He glanced sideways at Travis. “Post office is in the general store?”

“Yessir.”

Lucas headed across the street.

“Marshal? Sir?” Travis followed at his heels. “What have you decided to do?”

A
nightmare. She had been swept up in a nightmare
. The dose of laudanum Mrs. Owens had given Annie helped dull the stabbing pain in her ribs and made breathing easier—but it didn’t relieve the sick feeling of panic in her stomach.

And the haze of the drug seeping through her veins only brought her memories of this room more vividly to life. They whirled around her, like ghosts.

The feel of the hard, smooth examining table beneath her. The flickering lamplight. The odors of rubbing alcohol and smelling salts. The sound of distant voices.

She closed her eyes. Tried to shut it all out. Couldn’t escape the echoes of her own words, pleading.

My baby... not me... save the baby...

Annie sobbed, the sound scratchy and thin. Her throat had gone dry. She lifted her head, glanced into the dark corners, frightened by a dizzying sense that the images were more than memories, that they were happening now. The walls seemed to move, tumbling toward her, the ceiling closing in to crush her. “Mrs. Owens...”

But Mrs. Owens wasn’t here. She had left Annie to rest, after bandaging her sprained ankle and buttoning up her dress.

Annie sank back down on the table, whimpering softly. She was alone, with the heavy steel manacles around her wrists. And the memories. The sounds and smells and other fragments of time floated through the numbing fog of laudanum.

One image was of a dark silhouette standing above her on a hill, aiming a pistol at her in the fading light of day. She stared up the barrel of that gun and held her last breath and waited for the end. The end of all the pain, all the horror she felt at what she had done.

Only it didn’t end.

She kept waiting for the gunshot that never came.
He had changed his mind. Why had he changed his mind?

She turned her head toward the door of the examining room, remembering the lawman’s expression when he had stormed in right after she’d been awakened by the smelling salts.

James’s brother
. The one who had left Missouri years ago. Lucas. He didn’t look anything like James. Didn’t talk or act anything like James. She had sat there feeling mortified and naked and defenseless, and Lucas McKenna had stared at her—not with the hatred and anger she had seen earlier in those gold-flecked green eyes, but with a feeling that unsettled her even more.

A feeling she had seen often when men glanced her way on the streets of St. Charles: a volatile mix of cool disdain... and heated desire.

And what did he have planned for her now?

The door opened and again Annie had the unnerving sensation that a moment torn from the past was happening in the present. She tried to sit up, wincing, bracing herself—but it wasn’t the black-haired, rough-looking lawman this time.

Only Dr. Holt entered the room.

“How do you feel?” He returned to her side, speaking in the same quiet, gentle way he always addressed her. “Is the laudanum helping?”

He looked down at her with concern as he checked her pulse, whispering a curse when the handcuffs got in the way.

Annie shook her head. “I... want to get... out of here.”

“Mrs. Smi— I mean, Miss—”

“Annie.” She couldn’t meet his gaze. “It’s... Annie.”

“Annie,” he said, no condemnation or reproach in his voice as he used her real name for the first time. “I wasn’t lying about what I told the marshal out there.” He inclined his head toward the door. “The laudanum may’ve eased your pain some, but those cracked ribs are serious. If you try to escape before they heal, you could—”

“I didn’t mean out... of town.” Her vision suddenly swam with tears. “Out of... this
room
.
Please
.”

Understanding finally dawned on his face. “Of course. I’m a fool. God Almighty, we shouldn’t have left you in here all alone.”

He slid one arm beneath her shoulders and the other beneath her knees and picked her up, gingerly, as if she might shatter in his arms. She bit her lower lip, every movement causing a fresh wave of pain. Without another word, he carried her out of the examining room.

In the darkened parlor, he settled her on a worn, velvet-upholstered couch. Then he tucked round pillows behind her shoulders and her head to prop her up and covered her with a counterpane. “Better?”

She nodded, grateful for his kindness, relieved to be away from that room where she had lost everything that mattered to her, lost the last dream she would ever dream.

Annie blinked tears from her eyes, giving in to the drowsiness of the laudanum, gazing down at the dying flames on the hearth. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Dr. Holt again.

Couldn’t bear that he now knew the truth about who she was. What she had been. What she had done.

He moved toward the fireplace and crouched in front of it, picking up a poker to stab at the charred logs. “Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Greer are upstairs preparing the guest room for you. The marshal... hell, I’m sure you overheard our shouting match out here. I don’t know where he went off to.” The doctor sounded disgusted.

The clock on the mantel chimed seven times and he glanced up at it. “I told Rebecca I think it’d be best if you stayed here tonight, where I can keep an eye on you.” His voice gentled as he turned to face her. “Annie, you don’t have to tell me, it’s none of my business, but—”

“You want to know... if it’s true,” she whispered, not looking up from the flames, every shallow breath hurting. “If I... killed James McKenna.”

He remained silent a moment. “Some men,” he said, “need killing.”

She lifted her eyes to his, surprised by the fierceness of his voice—and by what she saw in his expression.

He wanted to believe in her, wanted to think the best of her.

And she had to disillusion him.

“Some men, maybe... but not James,” she whispered. “He had his faults. But he didn’t deserve to die.” She paused to take another shallow, aching breath. “He was good to me. And I cared about him.”
And I thought he cared about me
. A pain that no drug could ease wrenched her heart, and she dropped her gaze, staring down at the patterned wool rug on the floor. “I never wanted... to hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt anyone on purpose. It was an accident.” Her voice almost gave out. “I swear it was an accident.”

She lay still, unable to bear what she would see now in Dr. Holt’s eyes: doubt, disapproval, shame. Perhaps anger that she had misled everyone in Eminence for so long. Maybe even pity that she had been foolish enough to care for the wealthy man who had bought and paid for her company.

The crackling of the fire made the only sound.

Finally she summoned her courage and looked up again.

The doctor was simply regarding her with those soft, dove-gray eyes, his expression of concern and compassion unchanged. Then he nodded.

Annie swallowed hard past a lump in her throat. She didn’t understand how he could just accept that she was telling the truth—without judging her, with no proof other than her word.

Lucas McKenna would certainly never believe James’s death was an accident.

And neither would the judge and jury back in St. Charles.

“Dr. Holt—”

“Annie, I’ve been telling you for the better part of two months now to call me Daniel,” he chided softly.

She plucked at a loose thread on the counterpane, the steel manacles around her wrists jangling. “Daniel, I’m grateful for all you’ve done for me. And God knows I”—she inhaled a shaky, shallow breath—“don’t want to go back to Missouri to face a trial, but I... don’t think you should keep trying to help me. It’ll only get you into trouble—”

“Trouble and I are old acquaintances. And I figure no one from Montana Territory is going to be riding down to help you,” he said, adding gently, “There
is
no family in Montana Territory, is there?”

She shook her head, lowering her lashes, remembering the countless lies she had told to conceal her identity.

“I figured they would’ve come for you long before now. You’re a woman who...” He cleared his throat. “You remind me of...”

When Annie glanced up, Daniel moved away from the hearth to stand before the front window, staring out into the night. “I had a sister,” be continued haltingly. “Sweet and pretty. Had a real tender heart, like you. Just picked the wrong sort of man. She... died when she was about your age.”

He fell silent, picking up a porcelain figurine of a cat that lay in the middle of a table before the window.

“Daniel, I’m sorry,” Annie whispered with genuine feeling, understanding now why he had always shown her such special caring and concern. From the beginning, he had treated her like a little sister.

He set the figurine down and turned to face her again, running a hand through his disheveled hair. “Is there anyone who might be able to help you if—when you go back home to Missouri? Any family?”

Family. Home
. Those two words pained Annie far more than her injuries. “I... have an older brother,” she said, “but...”

She gazed past Daniel, through the window and into the darkness, remembering the night Raphael Sutton had left St. Charles four years ago. Rafe had galloped off with a smile and a boast.
I’m gonna make us rich, Annie. You’ll see. Rich enough to buy this whole damn town
. He had written a few times after that—once to ask for money—and then disappeared. Just like Papa.

Just like men always do
, Mama had said.

And yet, when Annie had first started handling the mail over at Mrs. Greer’s general store, she had secretly placed a letter in the outgoing bag—a note addressed to Rafe’s last known whereabouts and signed only
Sweet Pea
, the name he used to call her when they were young and inseparable.

In her heart, she had known her long-lost big brother wouldn’t come riding into Eminence to scoop her up and carry her away to someplace safe. She didn’t even know if he was still alive.

And yet she kept hoping.

“No,” she said finally. “No family back in Missouri or anywhere else. Not anymore.” She looked up at Daniel. “It’s only... been two months, but you and the others have... have been more of a family to me than my real family was.”

Footsteps sounded on the staircase as Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Greer came down from the upper floor.

Annie held her breath, her side burning, and waited for them to come around the corner into the parlor. She wished she could sink into the couch and disappear. They had done their duty as good Christian women, saw that her injuries were tended and that she had a room for the night—but now they would despise her for what she had done, spurn her like all the other respectable women she had ever met, and walk out the door without a backward glance.

Rebecca came bustling in several steps ahead of Mrs. Owens.

And with one look at Annie, she promptly sank to the floor beside the couch in a heap of pink silk and tears, the purple ostrich feather in her hat fluttering as she shook her head. “Oh, dearie! Oh, lamb! Land sakes, I can’t
believe
what that huffed-up, mean-eyed critter of a lawman said! Tell me it isn’t true! Please tell me it isn’t—”

“Rebecca...” Annie felt a sharp pain in the center of her chest that had nothing to do with broken bones. Everyone in Eminence had been so generous to her, but Rebecca most of all—and in return Annie had brought her only hurt. “I’m not going to lie to you anymore,” she whispered. “What the marshal told you is true—”

“You mean... you planned to murder that man?” Mrs. Owens sank down in an armchair next to the couch.

“W-What?” Annie glanced from her to Daniel and back to Rebecca.

“That was what he told the folks outside!” Rebecca cried. “He’s an awful, terrible critter!” She proceeded to recount at length the marshal’s version of what had taken place back in Missouri.

And for the first time since her arrest, Annie felt an emotion other than guilt and fear.

Anger. “He thinks I
plotted
to kill James? For
revenge
and the
money
? Why would he...”

She didn’t finish, already knowing the answer: Lucas McKenna was like everyone else back in St. Charles. Everyone who had always thought the worst of her, always believed she was her mama’s daughter.

“Anyone who knows you would know better.” Rebecca dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief. “You wouldn’t hurt a flea, never mind plot a murder!”

“Tell us what happened,” Mrs. Owens suggested gently.

“Yes, lamb, just tell us.” Rebecca reached down to brush a damp strand of hair from Annie’s forehead.

Annie closed her eyes, the motherly gesture wringing her heart. “Rebecca, some of it’s true. I
am
the daughter of a prostitute,” she whispered. “And I
was
James McKenna’s mistress for three years. The child I was carrying”—her voice broke—“was his. I’ve never had a husband. And I
did
take James’s life...”

She turned her face away, choked with guilt and remorse, tears sliding down her cheeks. “B-But I didn’t go there that night to kill him. I didn’t bring a gun. I went to tell him about the
baby
. And he... he threw fifty dollars at me and told me to get out and...” A sob tore from her. “I don’t
know
anything about guns. There was one on the desk and... I didn’t know it could go off like that. I never meant to hurt him! It all happened so
fast
.” She was sobbing so hard, she couldn’t continue.