Teresa Medeiros (28 page)

Billy’s eyes narrowed in a mean-eyed squint that sent a primitive shiver rippling down Esmerelda’s spine. “To bed.”

Billy spent the longest night of his life watching Esmerelda sleep in his bed without him.

As the rosy blush of dawn crept across her cheeks, he sat in the old rocker with his bare feet propped on the edge of the straw mattress. Somewhere outside, a lone rooster warbled a plaintive how-do-you-do. A board directly over his head let out a mighty creak, warning him that Zoe was already awake and stirring.

Esmerelda looked so beautiful lying there on the narrow bedstead he’d slept in as a boy, with her hair spilled across the quilt his ma had stitched, that Billy had to rock backward every now and then just to catch his breath. Having her there was like having one of his more vivid boyhood fantasies fulfilled. He could still remember lying on that bed alone, gazing out his window at the Missouri moon and dreaming of a girl just like her. The kind of girl a Darling could only dream of having.

But he was no longer a boy. And Esmerelda was a woman grown. He wanted her badly. It wasn’t right and it wasn’t fair, but he wanted her anyway. The only thing that stopped him from taking her was knowing that if he went back on his word now, he would be no better than Jasper or Bart Fine or any of the other meanspirited sons-of-bitches who believed they could steal what they wanted without ever once having to pay a price.

There had been a moment last night, when Esmerelda had lain vulnerable and trembling in his arms, her naked breasts still flushed from her first taste of bliss, when he would have paid any price to climb between those milky thighs of hers—even his soul. Billy dropped his head into his hands, wondering if he’d ever again taste anything as sweet as the rain on Esmerelda’s skin.

At first he thought the rumble of distant thunder was only the taunt of his memory. But that was before the first gunshot rang out, shattering the morning calm.

“Winstead!” Billy hissed before springing out of the rocker and scrambling for the open window.

That first shot was followed by a torrent of hoofbeats and a gleeful barrage of gunfire. Billy pressed his back to the wall and stole a cautious peek out the window, half expecting to be gunned down by a spray of bullets.

When he saw who was making the racket and why, he almost wished he had been. He groaned aloud before biting off one of his more descriptive oaths. He nearly jumped out of his skin when it was greeted by a scandalized gasp.

“Why, William Darling!” Esmerelda cried, sitting bolt upright in the bed. “I know that chair isn’t very comfortable and you tend to be grumpy in the morning, but you ought to be ashamed of yourself for using that kind of gutter language in front of a lady.”

Billy reached behind him and snatched the burlap curtains together, wishing he’d thought to slam the window when he had the chance. At least he no longer had to worry about a stray bullet striking either of them. “Oh, I am, honey. Deeply ashamed. Now, you just go right back to sleep and I’ll get Ma to wash out my mouth with some of her strongest lye soap.”

Esmerelda yawned, the tumble of her hair making her look deliciously rumpled. Billy suffered a sharp pang of regret. He should have crawled into that bed with her when he’d had the chance. If she got a gander at what was outside that window, he might never get another one.

“What’s that dreadful noise?” she asked, knuckling her eyes.

“It’s probably just Ma shooting her some breakfast. You know Ma. When she gets a hankering for chicken gizzards, there’s no dissuading her.”

Esmerelda lowered her hands. “Your mother shoots chickens?”

For once in his life, Billy’s glib tongue failed him. He strode toward the bed. “There’s really no need for you to rise this early. Why don’t you let me tuck you back in?”

He jerked the quilt out from under her and threw it over her head, hoping it would muffle the worst of the din. It barely succeeded in muffling her outraged protests. She finally managed to bat it away, but before she could do more than sputter in indignation, the gunfire ceased and a male voice boomed like cannonshot, making them both jump.

“Hey, little brother! You alive in there?”

Billy winced at that familiar bellow. A bellow even Esmerelda couldn’t fail to recognize. He closed his eyes briefly and cleared his throat before calling out, “Yeah, Virg, I’m alive.”

“Well, come join the party, then,” his oldest brother roared in an invitation too jovial to resist. “There’s a young feller out here who’d like to have a word with you. Turns out he’s mighty sorry for shootin’ you up like he did. He’d like to make peace with both you and his Maker before we string him up from this here oak.”

Esmerelda went pale, then white. Their gazes locked for a frantic moment before she went bounding out of the bed and Billy went bounding over it, both racing for the gunbelt draped over the doorknob. Despite his well-honed reflexes, Esmerelda got there first.

She wrapped her fingers around the butt of the pistol. He wrapped his fingers around hers. They wrestled over the weapon, neither willing to be the first to let go.

“If you put another bullet in me,” he muttered through clenched teeth, desperately trying to steer the barrel of the weapon away from all four of their bare feet, “I’m not going to be quite so inclined to overlook it.”

“Then let go!” she demanded, straining against his relentless grip.

He did.

Esmerelda was so surprised, she stumbled against the wardrobe and nearly fell. From her triumphant look, Billy knew that she’d failed to take one thing into account. He still stood between her and the door.

He asserted his squatter’s claim by leaning against it and folding his arms over his chest. “I can take the gun from you by force, but I’d rather you give it to me.”

“They’re going to hang him,” she wailed softly “They’re going to hang my baby brother.”

“No, they’re not.” He held out his hand. It was as steady as it had ever been without a gun in it. “For once in your life, woman, you’re going to have to trust somebody besides yourself.”

Although Esmerelda’s face was still ashen, her eyes glittered with pride. A pride she had clung to without complaint or compromise ever since her parents had left a lonely, frightened twelve-year-old to fend for herself and her little brother. Billy held his breath. If she relaxed her white-knuckled grip on the gun, she would be offering him a gift even more precious than the generous liberties she’d allowed him in the barn.

When she lifted the pistol, pointing the barrel square at his chest, disappointment stabbed him. Then she turned the weapon and gently laid it, butt-first, into his palm. Ignoring the gun, he cupped her nape in his other hand and drew her to him for a kiss.

“You’ll never regret it,” he murmured into her hair. “I swear it.”

After Billy had snatched up his gunbelt and gone, Esmerelda slumped against the wardrobe, unable to determine if she was more dazed by his promise or his kiss. Both had been brief, fierce, and unbearably sweet.

She might have lingered there all morning if Virgil’s roar hadn’t rattled the windowpanes, startling her back to sanity. “I hate to start the party without you, son, but this tenderfoot’s fancy necktie ain’t gonna hold forever.”

“Bartholomew,” Esmerelda whispered, besieged by a fresh wave of horror.

She threw open the door and raced into the parlor, forgetting about her revealing attire. She skidded to a halt, shocked to discover Zoe Darling perched on a cane-backed rocker by the hearth, rocking and puffing on her pipe as if a lynching wasn’t about to occur practically in her own front yard. Sadie slept on the rag rug at her feet, blissfully snoring.

Esmerelda dropped to her knees beside the chair and
gazed up into the woman’s stoic face. “Ma?” The word came easily to her tongue for the first time. “You need to fetch your shotgun. It really won’t do to send Billy out there all alone. In case you haven’t noticed, your sons have a tendency to be …” reckless? bloodthirsty? as vicious as a pack of rabid coyotes? “um … high-spirited.”

“The boy’s old enough to fight his own battles.” Zoe took another laconic puff off the pipe, refusing to meet Esmerelda’s eyes. “He proved that fourteen years ago when he up and ran off.”

“But he almost died only a few days ago. He still hasn’t regained his full strength.”

Zoe cut her eyes toward Esmerelda, taking in her disheveled hair, rumpled nightgown, and bare feet. Her mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Looks to me like he has.”

Esmerelda blushed to the roots of her hair. She climbed stiffly to her feet. “Very well, Mrs. Darling. But since you’ve decided to harden your heart against a thirteen-year-old boy who ran off to avenge his father’s death, you might want to know that he didn’t do it for himself. He did it for you. Because they made you cry.”

Zoe’s chin might have quivered just the tiniest bit, but Esmerelda wasn’t inclined to comfort her. Straightening her shoulders as if they were draped with a duchess’s ermine-trimmed mantle instead of an old, faded nightgown, she marched across the room and slammed her way out the door.

When Esmerelda caught her first glimpse of Bartholomew, her bravado deserted her. She had to wrap one arm around a porch post to keep from staggering to her knees.

He sat astride a dun gelding at the crest of the hill, his hands bound behind his back and a noose draped around
his neck. The other end of the rope had already been knotted over a jagged branch of the dead oak so that every time the horse shifted this way or that, it pulled his neck taut. It wasn’t the vivid bruises on her brother’s face but the defeated slope of his shoulders and the utter lack of hope in his expression that frightened Esmerelda more than anything.

Sam and Enos watched the proceedings from the back of the same wagon Billy had rented from the livery in Calamity, while Jasper gripped the reins of Bartholomew’s horse in his gloved hand. Even from that distance, there was no mistaking the nasty gleam in his eye.

Billy was already striding toward Virgil, who stood with hands on hips and feet planted wide, like some jolly giant appointed to greet the Lilliputians.

“It’s good to see you back on your feet, little brother,” he boomed. “Since I’ve elected myself president of this here hemp committee, I’d like to say a few words before we commence with the—”

“Cut him down, Virg,” Billy commanded.

Virgil’s face fell. He cupped a hand around his ear. “Say again. I don’t think I heard you right.”

Billy raised the pistol and kept walking. “I said cut him down.”

Enos and Sam exchanged a perplexed glance. Virgil took a step backward, his nervous gaze flicking to the weapon in his brother’s hand. “Hell, Billy, I loaned you that iron. You ain’t gonna shoot me with my own gun, are you?”

Billy stopped, cocking the pistol. “Only if I have to.”

Virgil gazed into his brother’s steely eyes for a long minute before flaring his nostrils in a snort of disgust. “Cut him down, Jasper.”

“Like hell I will.”

Billy swung the pistol toward Jasper.

A lazy grin spread over Jasper’s face. Esmerelda was struck anew by what a handsome man he might have been had his soul not been so ugly. “You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you, little brother? Cause if you shoot me, I just might drop these reins. And if I drop these reins, Mr. Fine-and-Dandy here is goin’ on the last ride he’ll ever take.”

“Don’t!” Esmerelda hoarsely cried.

Although she’d vowed to trust Billy, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She plunged down from the porch and went racing toward her brother. She might have made it if Billy hadn’t shot out an arm, caught her around the waist, and gathered her against him. She could feel his heart beating strong and steady against her back.

“Be still, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear, his voice as smooth as oiled leather. “You don’t want to spook the horse, do you?”

“N-n-no,” she replied, her teeth chattering with helpless fury.

He lifted his head to look Jasper straight in the eye. “This isn’t your quarrel,” he said mildly. “I’m the one the boy shot.”

“We’re blood kin,” Jasper replied. “You wrong one of us, you wrong us all. Then you pay the price.”

Virgil, Sam, and Enos nodded their agreement.

Billy gave Bartholomew a thorough once-over. “Looks to me like this boy’s already done enough paying. Those wouldn’t be your fist prints on his face, now, would they, Jasper? I always said you could whip any man as long as he had his hands tied behind his back.”

“Why, you rotten little—”Jasper started for him, but his death grip on the reins brought him up short.

The horse pranced sideways, straining Bartholomew’s neck to an impossible angle; Bartholomew didn’t make a sound, but Esmerelda whimpered aloud.

“Whoa, there,” Billy crooned, as much to Jasper and Esmerelda as to the jittery horse. “I only meant to suggest that since the boy’s insult to my person turned out to be nothing more than a flesh wound, hanging might be a mite harsh.”

Remembering how valiantly Billy had fought for his life only a few days before, Esmerelda’s heart welled with tenderness.

“What would you rather do?” Jasper asked, sneering with contempt. “Whip out that shiny little badge of yours and arrest him?”