Love Under Two Gunslingers (7 page)
They’d left the dead bastards at the next livery stop. The first thing he’d done upon arrival in Springfield was to report in to the sheriff. He and Joshua had met the man the last time they’d been in town.
“I know. It’s been four days now since that attack, and it’s as if she’s still in shock. I’m worried, too.”
“Maybe at dinner we can get her to talk to us. We have to do
something
.”
Caleb tilted his head to the side. “Fallen for her, have you?”
“Yes, damn it.” Josh looked distinctly unhappy about the fact. “And it’s not just that I want to fuck her, though I do.”
Caleb chuckled but kept it low. “Yeah, me, too. I’m not surprised we fell for the same woman, just pissed that she’s married and off limits. Although that line I thought so inviolate is beginning to fade some.”
Joshua smiled. “You’ve got damn fine taste in women.”
Caleb laughed. “So do you.”
Anything else he might have said he swallowed when the door to Sarah’s room opened and she emerged. She smiled at them both, but as Joshua had pointed out, her smile seemed less than it had been.
“Thank you, again, for ordering that bath. It felt wonderful.”
“You’re welcome.” Joshua’s voice sounded rough, but Sarah didn’t seem to notice.
“Are we going downstairs for dinner?”
“Downstairs and out. There’s a restaurant in the center of town, serves the best steak this side of
The sun hung low in the sky, and the heat of the day waned. No breeze had arisen yet, but Caleb felt the change in the air. They might get a light rain tonight or maybe a full-out storm. Only time would tell.
“This is a busy town,” Sarah observed as they made their way down the crowded boardwalk. “And you’ve been here before.”
“Springfield is a hub for rail travel going south or west,” Joshua said. “And yes, we’ve been here several times.”
Caleb waited, hoping she’d say more, but of course she didn’t. They passed a dry goods store and the bank. Across the street, the Frontier Saloon seemed to be doing a rousing business. He and Joshua had visited that establishment in the past, too. A man could get whatever he wanted—a drink, a card game, or a willing female—at the Frontier.
Sarah still hadn’t said another word by the time they were seated at their table at Murchison’s. Caleb had asked for a corner table. He and Joshua tucked Sarah into the corner, between them. Since the attack, they’d been extra alert, taking every precaution. Sarah didn’t seem to notice or mind.
When their waiter brought the menus, Caleb ordered a bottle of wine. He preferred whisky himself. The wine was mostly for Sarah. One way or another he and Joshua were going to see the lady relax and talk about what troubled her.
Their dinners were ordered, and the wine opened and poured. He took a drink, pleased when Sarah followed suit. She held the glass a bit longer, taking another sip before putting it down.
Joshua reached for the bottle and topped up her glass. Looking at his brother, he knew they’d settled on the same method for getting Sarah to loosen up. Caleb tried to figure out how to get her to talk to them. In the end, he decided on a tack that might shock her out of her silence.
“We’re worried about you, Sarah. You haven’t been yourself since we killed those would-be thieves. We’re beginning to think you hate us now and—”
“No! Oh, God, no!”
Her expression, filled with horror, kicked him square in his conscience. As if realizing that she might have shouted, she shook her head and laid one hand on his arm and the other on Joshua’s.
“No, of course I don’t hate you! How could I? If not for your courage and your skill, I’d be dead. I’d be
dead
,” she repeated.
“We’ll never let anything happen to you, Sarah. Swear to God.” Joshua said.
“Joshua’s right. You can trust us to keep you safe.”
“I do! That’s not it. I just…I just can’t stop thinking about what happened. That I could have died without…well, without having ever
lived
. I was prepared to go through with this…this farce. But why am I taking myself across the country to be the wife of a man who doesn’t even really care about me, doesn’t even really
want
me?”
“The man married you, Sarah. Even if Maddox and your father came to some financial arrangement first, he must have wanted you enough to pay your father’s price for you.”
“Five thousand dollars. That’s what I’m worth.” Sarah nodded. Then she picked up her glass of wine, took a good deep drink.
“I want a divorce.” Sarah looked at him, and then Joshua. “I didn’t want to marry him in the first place. Father told me to, and I did because I’ve always been a dutiful daughter. But I don’t want to be a dutiful daughter any longer. Being dutiful nearly got me killed, so I want a divorce.”
“I’m no expert,” Caleb said slowly, trying with all that was in him not to let her see how her words not only pleased him but excited him. Hers was a fine sentiment and one that he and Joshua were both delighted to hear, but practicalities needed to be considered. “I’m no expert,” he began again, “but I don’t think getting a divorce is easily done. Especially for a woman who wants to divorce her husband. Doesn’t seem fair to me that things should be different for women than they are for men. But there it is. And if you’re thinking about just running off, I have to warn you
that
action might result in your being arrested. Even if you weren’t immediately arrested, you’d be a fugitive.”
Sarah picked up her wine glass. This time, her sip appeared more cautious. Caleb grinned. Likely the wine offered here wasn’t quite the same quality as some she might have had in Chicago. Although she didn’t act as if it tasted unpalatable, a good thing under the circumstances. She didn’t seem to be one who indulged overmuch, either. Her eyes had taken on a bit of sheen, and he had to wonder if maybe she wasn’t just a little bit tipsy.
“There has to be a way out of this mess. I don’t want to live the rest of my life with a man I don’t know, a man who doesn’t even want me.”
That was the second time she’d said that. “He’d be a fool not to want you,” Caleb said.
They fell silent as the waiter served their dinners. Even after the waiter left them in peace, Sarah just stared at her plate, unmoving.
“You know,” Joshua said, and Caleb’s gaze snapped to him and the note of speculation he heard in his brother’s voice, “if your marriage to Tyrone Maddox was unconsummated, then that would change everything.”
“Unconsummated?”
“Yes, it means—”
“I know what it means.”
Caleb nearly laughed. Joshua’s expression looked embarrassed, but nothing compared to Sarah’s. Her cheeks had become suffused with red, and she couldn’t quite look them in the eyes.
“How would that change anything?” she asked her plate.
Caleb stared at Sarah for a long moment. Whether it embarrassed her further or not, he’d tell it flat out. “Sarah, without consummation, a marriage isn’t really a marriage. It’s not a done deal. If a marriage isn’t consummated, then it’s only a matter of having a priest grant an annulment.”
“You mean to tell me, that all this time, I haven’t even really been married to the man?”
“Sarah?” Caleb heard in his brother’s voice the same hope building in himself. Sarah blushed, then took another sip of wine. She nodded to her glass.
“He had too much to drink at the party my father hosted on our wedding night. When we got up to the hotel room, he…he went to sleep.”
“He went to sleep.” Caleb knew he sounded like an idiot, but he couldn’t help it. Everything had just changed. Not only that but he’d revised his opinion of Tyrone Maddox. The man was obviously stupid.
Sarah nodded vigorously. Whether or not this conversation would have taken place without the wine, neither he nor Joshua would ever know. He did doubt, however, that she would have been quite so specific in her next pronouncement without it.
“You bet he went to sleep. He never so much as saw me in my chemise. I’m still a virgin.”
* * * *
Dick Morgan hunched over his whisky, the booze doing nothing to ease the pain and anger inside him. His boy, dead. His brother, dead. It wasn’t supposed to have been this way. They’d planned to grab that fancy bitch, take a few turns fucking her, then kill her. He and his boys had gone after harder targets for less money and been successful.
His boys were dead
.
Now he only had Fredericks left. But he had friends. Oh yes, he did. Dick Morgan had friends and connections. He had allies. One of them, Willy Spoke, was keeping an eye on those two bastards and that whore. Down at that fancy restaurant eating steak. He hoped they had a good meal. He intended to see it be their last.
Morgan knocked back the whiskey in his glass and poured himself another from the bottle he’d bought. He’d get them. He’d get them good.
“You got it straight what we’re gonna do?” Morgan asked Carter Fredericks. Fredericks was the last of his men. The last who’d taken an oath to him right after Appomattox. More than ten years.
And for what? To lie Goddamned dead in the dust of Goddamned Missouri
.
“I got it,” Fredericks said. “I got it, all right. Going to see to it those bastards pay for Parsons. And for your boy and Bobby, too.”
Morgan had thought and thought how they could get away with killing that bitch in the middle of town. Seemed to him if he killed them accidental, like, if’n he was drunk, why then no one could blame him, could they?
He’d have his revenge and walk away at the end of it a rich man. Well, richer than he would have been splitting the fee from that dude with four others instead of just one.
He looked up and into the face of Willy Spoke. Spoke hung by the door for a minute and nodded when Morgan met his gaze. Morgan nodded back and then nudged Fredericks. “It’s time.”
Morgan stumbled to his feet, giving the appearance of being drunk. “You want to insult me, do it outside, asshole.”
“Bastard. I’ll do more than that.” Fredericks returned.
Fredericks
gave him a shove, and Morgan shoved back. People got out of their way, and the next jostle sent them outside on the boardwalk in front of the Frontier Saloon—exactly where they needed to be. Fredericks stepped onto the street, then turned to face the saloon and Morgan. He called him a son of a whore and dared him to act like a man.
There, across the street, Morgan could see the woman and those two assholes who’d killed his kid and his brother and Parsons.
Reaching for his gun, he smiled. They only had seconds to live.
* * * *
“Maybe once he knows I don’t want to be married to him anymore, he’ll agree to let me go, and there’ll be no hard feelings,” Sarah said as they walked back toward the hotel.
Joshua smiled at her. He simply couldn’t help it. He never would have believed that his life’s prospects could change so drastically with just one meal, but there it was. He knew Caleb felt the same way. Now all they had to do was help her be shed of that fool husband, then figure out a way to get her to accept them both into her bed.
No problem. No problem at all.
“There’s still the matter of the five thousand dollars,” Caleb said gently. “He’ll want that money back, Sarah, and I don’t think your father would be willing to give it to him.”
“I have the money. Or, I will in a few years.”
“In a few of years?” Caleb asked.
“Yes. My Grandfather Gladstone—my maternal grandfather—left me a bit of an inheritance when he died two years ago. I get that inheritance in a few years, when I turn twenty-five. I don’t know all the details, but I think there’s at least that much there. So maybe Mr. Maddox will accept a promissory note, or something.”
Joshua saw the expression on his brother’s face. Before he could ask what turn Caleb’s thoughts had taken, the relative peace of the evening shattered.
Across the street two men burst out of the Frontier Saloon, apparently drunk and in the midst of a fight that sounded nasty and about to turn nastier.
“Bastard, you take that back!”
“Son of a whore, why don’t you make me? Why don’t you act like a man!”
“I’ll show you a man, you piece of shit!”
They all three stopped walking, their attention immediately captured by the spectacle unfolding. Standing between him and Caleb, Sarah gasped. Joshua felt his brother tense. Then recognition dawned and he reacted without thinking, his protective instincts kicking in.
Wrapping his arms around Sarah, he yanked her to the ground, falling on top of her as the first shot rang out and glass shattered beside them.
He heard two reports from Caleb’s Peacemaker, his brother’s stance half-crouched, right arm out. People screamed, some running away, obviously afraid of being caught in the cross-fire. Joshua didn’t worry. He knew Caleb’s marksmanship and knew those two bastards had been killed.
Beneath him, Sarah lay frighteningly still. Joshua rolled off her as Caleb made his way toward the two he’d just shot.