Beautiful Bandit (Lone Star Legends) (31 page)

She took Esther’s hand in her own and sat down beside her. “What’s boring, Esther?”

“You are,” she replied, as clear as day.

Blinking, Kate heard a nervous laugh escape her lungs. “I’m boring?” Oh, Esther. If you only knew the awful truth about me, you wouldn’t say that!

“You’re not fooling me.” She gave Kate’s hand a squeeze, the strength of which belied her frail condition.

All right, Kate silently conceded, that much is true. Esther had seen that wanted poster in Amarillo. “You think the life I’ve lived is boring?” The question inspired a giggle, and it made Esther chuckle, too. But she sobered in a heartbeat to say, “I…know…you.”

Kate squeezed the woman’s hand. “And you’re probably the only person in this whole wide world who can say that—and mean it.”

“Josh…knows.”

Kate pressed a kiss to the withered hand in her own. “No, like everyone else, he thinks he knows me. But I’m happy—relieved, even—that he doesn’t.”

Esther frowned.

“If he knew the truth, he’d hate me.”

“No!”

She said it with such conviction that Kate was almost inclined to believe her. “The trouble with you, Esther Neville, is that your heart is bigger than your head.” On her feet now, she went back to plumping pillows and tidying covers. “You need to rest while I get some soup, and—”

“Boring.”

Laughing softly, Kate kissed Esther’s forehead. “All right, then, so I’m boring. But that’s a lot better than having Josh know the truth about—”

“No!” his grandmother interrupted her. “Stop.” With a clumsy wave of her hand, she added, “Stop feel…sorry for…y’rself. Then you can see…truth….”

Kate wasn’t sure which surprised her more, the clarity of Esther’s lecture or the meaning behind each painstakingly uttered word.

“Go. Now. Fetch sons, gran’chil’ren.” And with that, she closed her eyes.

“I’ll bring them to you, on one condition.”

The clock ticked once, twice, three times, before Esther opened her eyes. “Well…?”

“You must eat something while they’re visiting.”

She gave a great harrumph, then said, “Fine. Now, fetch them.” A mischievous grin lit her eyes. “Please?”

“I’ll be back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail with sons and daughters-in-law and grandchildren—and soup!” Before Esther could change her mind, Kate exited the room and closed the door.

Two hours later, after getting nearly an entire cup of broth into her patient, Kate sat in a straight-backed chair just outside Esther’s room, pretending to read a book. One by one, the elderly woman’s loved ones paraded into the room, visited with her, and left, red-eyed and sniffling, each stopping to thank her for her tender, loving care, which had given them weeks of extra time with Esther. “If not for you,” Matthew said, “we might not have had this chance to say good-bye.”

Good-bye? But this isn’t a good-bye visit! she wanted to say. Esther had seemed better, almost as good as new. Seeing her family, Kate believed, would be the medicine to keep Esther going strong, to hang on long after Josh and Dan’s return.

She remembered how Josh had paid a visit to Esther the night before he and his cousin had left for Laredo, and how Esther had promised to try to hold on until he was home again, safe and sound. It would break his heart to learn that she’d joined Ezra while he’d been gone.

That shouldn’t happen. Couldn’t happen. And Kate would move heaven and earth to make sure it didn’t.

She owed him that—and so much more.

36

I can’t tell you what a privilege it is,” the reporter said, “to be sitting in a Fort Worth, Texas, saloon, talking to the great Frank Michaels.”

Frank lit a match and held the flame to the tip of his cigar. “What are you planning to call this novel of yours, if you don’t mind my asking?” he said through the smoke.

Gardiner’s eyes widened. “Oh, but I don’t mind at all! I’m thinking something like The Guns of Frank Michaels: An Outlaw’s Story.” He grinned at Frank. “If that doesn’t sell half a million copies, I don’t know what will.”

“Seems a pitiful shame you’ll make out like a bandit, telling my tale.” He inspected the ashes before flicking them to the floor. “I think it’s only right that I get a cut of the profits.”

All color drained from the writer’s face, and, after several false starts, he managed to squeak out, “Nothing happens fast in publishing, Mr. Michaels. Why, it could be a year before I see any money from the sale of this story. And, even then, it’ll come in dribs and drabs as the book sells.” He coughed nervously. “If it sells! And then, I’d have to find you to deliver your—uh, your share—”

“So, you’re saying my life’s work won’t be of interest to a big-shot editor in New York?”

While Tom and Amos snickered, Frank wondered if it was possible for the man’s face to go any whiter.

“No, of course, that isn’t what I’m saying. It’s just—well, I’ve never had a book published before, so it might take a while for them to research my background. You know, to decide if I’m worth their investment of paper and ink.”

“So, tell me, Collin, if they don’t think you’re worth the gamble,” Frank said, resting both elbows on the table, “why should I? There must be hundreds of would-be writers like you out there who’d jump at the chance to tell my story—writers with books already published, who won’t need to be ‘checked out.’ What if I just ask one of them to write the book, instead?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms.” Gardiner pushed back from the table and started to rise. “I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Mr. Michaels. I’ll just be—”

“Sit down, boy. Can’t you tell when someone’s funnin’ with you?” Once Gardiner returned to his seat, Frank said, “Now, where is your paper and pencil?”

“Lookit his hands a-shakin’,” Frank heard Tom whisper.

“Yeah, Frank. Ease up on the poor fool,” Amos said. “How do you expect him to write if you’re gonna scare him so bad he can’t hold his pencil?”

The two men shared a round of boisterous laughter, and the one good thing to come of the commotion, in Frank’s mind, was that being the butt of their joke had put the color back into the man’s cheeks. Frank slammed a fist onto the table, rattling beer steins and shot glasses. “You two have a choice to make, boys.”

Their startled expressions made it clear that he had their attention.

“You can sit there quietly and pretend you have some manners, or you can leave.”

Amos upended his shot glass and set it down with a thud. “Think I’ll see what-all they call a bathhouse in these parts,” he said, getting to his feet. He tossed a silver dollar onto the table and was out the door before the coin stopped spinning.

Tom stared after him, clearly undecided about whether he should stay or follow. Then, he added a dollar of his own to the table and swallowed the last of his beer. “Bath sounds mighty good,” he said, and with that, he was gone.

Frank had won more than his fair share of poker hands—some, not quite so fairly—and took great pride in the fact that he knew how to read a man. And if Gardiner wasn’t sitting there, wishing he could join Amos and Tom, Frank would eat his pistol. He decided to soften his approach—at least, until the fool had finished the book. The Guns of Frank Michaels had a nice ring to it, and the more he repeated the title in his mind, the more he wanted to see it in print.

“Barkeep, bring my friend here a bottle of your best,” he said to the man in an apron who came to collect their empty glasses.

When the bartender left them, Frank leaned back and propped his feet on the table, one boot atop the other. “So, tell me, Collin, where do we start?”

Gardiner picked up his pencil and said, “Why don’t you tell me where you were born, Mr. Michaels?”

“Frank,” he corrected him. “Please, call me Frank.”

During that first hour, the piano player and the dancing girls continued entertaining the men at the bar. But by the end of the second hour, Frank was the entertainment. He told Gardiner that, despite his reputation for being a cold-blooded killer, he had a heart. “And I gave it to a pretty young thing in San Antonio. Fell head over heels for her, but she ran off with a cowboy and broke my heart.”

Gardiner’s brow furrowed, and, with his pencil hovering above his tablet, he said, “Don’t tell me. You broke the cowboy’s heart—with a bullet?”

Frank smiled, thinking about how, very soon, he’d be reunited with the only woman he’d ever really loved.

On second thought, might be best to keep that part to yourself, Frank, old boy.

37

When Kate returned to Esther’s room following the rounds of family visits, she found the woman sitting up in bed, smiling.

“Goodness gracious, sakes alive!” Kate exclaimed, hugging her. “What a wonderful welcome home this will be for Josh!”

“S-sit.” Esther patted the mattress. “I h-have some-something to t-tell you.”

“All right, but I hope it’s something simple and brief. I’m much too happy and excited about the improvement in your condition to pay attention for long.”

“How long…how long we know…?”

Kate gave it a moment’s thought. “A month or so?”

“You come…’n May, w-when I was…I was in Amarillo.” Esther took a ragged breath. “Today…August second.”

It hardly seemed possible she’d been with the Nevilles that long.

“L-long enough to love you.”

Kate’s eyes misted. “I love you, too,” she said, patting Esther’s hand.

“When Josh…comes home, you t-tell him…s-something for me.”

“Oh, don’t be silly! You’re almost your old self. You can tell him!”

But Esther shook her head. “No. This…miracle.”

Kate didn’t understand, and said so.

“W-when you thought I w-was sleeping? W-when you w-worried because I w-wasn’t eating?”

Kate nodded.

“Praying. Praying hard.”

Before Kate could say how thrilled she was that God had answered those prayers, the woman continued.

“I l-lived good life. Lots of sadness, disappointment. Lots of joy, too. But, but I miss Ezra. W-want to be with him.”

That’s what Esther had prayed for? To die, so that she could join her husband in heaven?

“First, I t-tell you something.”

“As long as it isn’t good-bye—”

“Please, hush. You test my p-patience.”

Kate shrugged. “Sorry.”

“S-soon, your name will be cleared.”

She didn’t understand, and opened her mouth to say so.

But Esther held up a hand, silencing her. “You can t-talk when I finish…if you let me.”

“Sorry,” she said again.

“Josh, he love y-you, and when he get back, he need to know y-you love him, too.”

He loves me? Kate thought. But how could Esther be so sure, unless he’d told her before his trip to Laredo?

“T-tell him…everything. S-so, when y-your name is cleared, he w-will know he can trust you.”

But what if he decided he didn’t want a tainted, barren outlaw?

Esther frowned. “C-consider it my d-dying r-request.”

“But Esther, you aren’t dying. Just look at you, sitting up, all rosy-cheeked and smiling!”

“It…mmmiracle. I w-wanted to spend last moments…w-with you.”

If it was true—and Kate hoped it was not—why would this wonderful woman want to spend her last moments with the likes of her?

Esther pointed at her night table. “P-pencil and paper in th’ d-drawer….”

Kate found them and held them out to Esther.

“N-not for me. For you. Write this: ‘I s-solemnly swear….’”

Esther waited while Kate put pencil to paper, then gave a satisfied nod. “…‘t-to love and ch-cherish J-Josh, all the days of his l-life.’ Th-then, sign ‘Dinah K-Kate Th-Theodore.’”

Kate got as far as “life” and nearly dropped the pencil. How could she sign something so important with a fake name?

“Y-you love him?”

“With all my heart.”

“Then admit it! Wr-rite. S-sign. S-so I can go to Jesus, knowing I d-did w-what I could to ensure my grandson w-won’t pine away f-for you.”

Even in the waning light of evening, Kate could see the gray pallor returning to Esther’s cheeks. Noticed that she’d sunk deeper into her pillows, too. As quick as she could, Kate wrote down the rest of what Esther had dictated, word for word, hoping to appease the woman and encourage her to revive. When she finished, she held out the paper like a schoolgirl seeking her teacher’s approval.

“S-sign.”

“But Esther,” she whispered, “we both know that Dinah Theodore isn’t my real name. What’s the point of—”

“Who you are is there,” she said, poking a finger at Kate’s chest. “K-Kate. D-Dinah. J-just names.” Gasping, she slid further under the covers. Her teeth started to chatter. “C-cold…so c-cold….”

Kate grabbed the quilt from the chair beside the bed and draped it over Esther. She then retrieved several more from the wardrobe, the window seat, and her cot, and added them to the pile.

“H-hold me….”