The Brides Of Tombstone 01 Mail Order Outlaw (12 page)

She watched him go, shoulders slumped and shook her head. He’d be back to normal by breakfast and have forgotten what he was so unhappy about. That was the wonderful thing about Jamie. He didn’t hold a grudge or stay angry for long.

Lizzie finished milking their two cows and carried both full buckets up to the house. Once there she poured the milk through a square of cheesecloth into a clean milk can and took it to the icehouse. She took yesterday’s milk from the small building dug into the hillside, and replaced it with the fresh milk. The milk from yesterday would be served at breakfast and any leftovers would be put into the icebox in the kitchen for later use. Most of the milk she got today would be made into butter. Another of her chores, but one she didn’t mind so much. She usually sat at the table and worked the churn with one hand while turning the pages of a book lying open on the table with the other.

Mal fed the horses in the corral and passed Lizzie on his way to the barn to feed the animals there. The animals always ate before the people did. Without the animals, there was no ranch, so they were taken care of first.

Atina ran the metal bar around the inside of the large triangle hanging outside the kitchen door and everyone dropped what they were doing and went to the kitchen to eat.

“Mama. Guess what?” said Jamie. “I’m going to be Mal’s best man.

“Is that so?” said his mother while setting the piping hot biscuits on a platter for the table.

“Yup, and I get to hold his ring for Lizzie and give it to him when the preacher says to.”

Atina raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure that’s wise?” she asked Mal. “Letting him hold the ring for that long?”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Mal. “I won’t give it to him until just before we march down the aisle.”

“Good. I’d hate to see him lose the ring in the creek, or some other place he’s not supposed to be.”

“Aw, Mama. I wouldn’t lose it, I’d be real careful.”

“Just like you were with your father’s pocket knife?”

“That was an accident.” Jamie pouted.

“One that would not have happened,” Atina pointed her finger at her son. “If you’d listened to me, done as I said and stayed out of the creek.”

“But it was so hot—”

Atina had one hand on her hip and the other she pointed at Jamie with her index finger. “There is no excuse for not obeying me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Ignoring the banter between her mother and brother, Lizzie turned to Mal. “Do I get to see the ring before the wedding?” Under the table she rubbed her knee up against Mal’s.

“Nope. It’s a surprise.”

Lizzie pouted for a moment and then smiled. “Will I like it?”

“You better. You’ll be wearing it for the next hundred or so years.”

She laughed. “A hundred years. I don’t think I’ll be alive that long.”

Mal took her hand and brought it close to his lips. “Don’t short change us.” He kissed her hand.

All the men laughed at the show of affection. They always did, but Lizzie didn’t care. She liked that Mal wanted to show the world how he felt and he didn’t care who knew it. Though she loved it when he kissed her hand, she still hadn’t learned not to blush, which made the men guffaw all the more.

Today was Lizzie’s turn to muck the stalls. She and Mal didn’t do it together anymore, there was just too much work.

Mal was watching the cowboys break a couple of new horses.

She heard rather than saw the stranger approach.

His spurs jingled as he walked across the barn floor.

“Well, lookie here what I got. My brother’s pretty little half-breed, all by herself. With no one to protect her.”

In a fluid movement, Lizzie dropped the pitchfork and pulled her Colt at the same time. She turned and faced the man she’d seen at the mercantile the day before yesterday.

He put up his hands. “I don’t mean no harm, girlie. Just came by to see my little brother. Didn’t he tell you about me?”

“He did. Why do you think I haven’t lowered my gun?” She squared her shoulders and widened her stance. “Why don’t you leave, Harvey? You don’t need to see Mal, and he don’t want to see you.”

“Mal? Um, yes, Mal.” Harvey focused on the pistol aimed his way. “See he told you my name. I usually call him Ed, his…uh…middle name is Edward. Did he tell you that?”

“No.”

“I ain’t gonna hurt you none. Just have a little conversation. I hear you and Ed…er Mal…are getting hitched on Saturday. That so?”

“Yes, that’s right. You’re not invited.”

Harvey leaned against one of the posts supporting the ceiling and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked up and stared at something on the ceiling.

Lizzie looked up to see what he was looking at. When she looked back up, Harvey was right in her face. She hadn’t heard him move. Even those spurs of his were silent.

“Now, little gal.” He held her close with one arm around her waist and used the other to pull her head back with her braid.

When he smiled, his rotting teeth and the fetid smell of his breath nearly made her gag.

“We’re gonna get to know each other better. A lot better.”

Lizzie struggled, bracing her hands against his chest, but his arm might as well have been made of iron. She couldn’t loosen his hold and panic stabbed her chest.

He brought his mouth down to hers and she turned her head so all he kissed was her cheek.

His eyebrows came together and he frowned. He let go of her hair, took her chin in his hand and squeezed. “You won’t move out of the way this time.”

His mouth mashed against hers, grinding the inside of her lips against her teeth. Keeping her lips tight, she thought she’d puke.

Suddenly Lizzie was free and falling backwards.

He’d let go far enough so he could backhand her, and then pushed her away.

“Filthy, half-breed. Don’t know what he sees in you, but mark my words, you and I are gonna dance, girlie. Just not today.” He turned on his heel and strode out of the barn.

Lizzie got up, dusted herself off and went to find Mal.

* * *

Harvey rode away from the ranch at a gallop. He didn’t want Ed to catch him out here in the open where he could easily gun him down. As much as he hated to admit it, his little brother was faster and more accurate with a gun than he was.

But he’d accomplished what he wanted to. He’d put a scare into the girlie and he got a little taste of her, too. He’d get more than a taste if Ed didn’t do right by him. And she’d be good, she was tall like Belle and could take a lot. He liked it when they fought back. It got him more excited and when he finally took them, he was aroused beyond measure.

Ed’s Lizzie would be one of those. A fighter. He could hardly wait.

Once and for all, Ed would learn he couldn’t leave Harvey, couldn’t leave the gang, except over Harvey’s dead body, and he knew Ed didn’t have the stomach for that. Hadn’t he proved it with the last little filly Ed had been interested in? Ed had stayed away from her afterwards and he hadn’t taken a liking to anyone else…until now. This one must be special. All the more reason for Harvey to mess her up. Make sure no one, especially Ed, ever wanted her again. If Harvey was all Ed had, then Ed wouldn’t leave.

Harvey didn’t take long to get to town, at a full gallop the trip was less than ten minutes, but there was no need to run the horse all that way. Just long enough to be out of sight of the ranch.

When he got to his room at the Tombstone Hotel, he laid his saddlebags across the end of the bed. He’d left his horse at the stables. The stallion would get a good rub down and some oats. Harvey had paid extra for that. His horse needed to be taken care of. Only thing between a man and death in this desert was his horse.

Now he’d take a nap. He’d sleep all day if he could, but Ed wouldn’t let him. Not after that little gal told him what Harvey had done to her. That weren’t nothing compared to what he planned to do. She was a pretty thing. He did so like pretty things.

* * *

Lizzie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood showed from where he’d mashed her lips against her teeth and busted her lip with his slap.

She had to tell Mal, but what would he do? What could he do? Harvey was his brother. Regardless he needed to know. The family, and specifically Lizzie, wasn’t safe.

He was at the corral, where she expected him to be; only he was in the chute sitting atop one of the horses needing breaking.

“No!” she shouted just as the gate opened and the stallion came barreling out. She put her fist in her mouth so as not to distract Mal from the business at hand.

He broke the horse to saddle in about a minute and the animal eventually settled. Mal rode the animal twice around the ring.

He rode the big chestnut mount over to her, kicked his foot out of the stirrups and slid out of the saddle.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lizzie could barely speak and, if it could have, steam would have been rising from her ears.

Mal crawled between the two rails that made up the sides of the corral.

“I had to know how to break a horse. It’s not hard and is kind of fun. What’s wrong?” He took Lizzie by the shoulders. “Tell me what happened. You’ve got a split lip and it’s bleeding.”

He swiped his thumb gently over her mouth, and then held it up for her to see.

“I know.” Her heart was still racing. “I had a visit from your brother. He sent you a message.” She pointed at her lip. “He said we are going to dance. Oh, Mal, or should I call you Ed?”

He drew back, his brows drawn into a frown. “Did he tell you to call me Ed?”

“He said it’s your middle name and what your family calls you.”

“That’s true. Everyone did call me Ed. Lizzie, come with me. We need to talk.”

She stiffened. “Not sure I like the sound of that, but let’s go.”

He gave her a wide smile. “Can we take a ride over to the Abernathy place?”

“Sure. Let’s saddle up.”

They saddled their horses and made the three mile journey in about fifteen minutes. The made ride to the Abernathy place, in silence. The ranch might have been next to the Cobb ranch but that didn’t mean it was close. Once there they dismounted and Ed took her hand while they walked up the porch stairs. Ed sat on the top step and Lizzie sat beside him.

“You know I love you, don’t you, Lizzie?”

“Until this minute…” she squeezed his hand, “I only guessed at it. You’ve never said it before.”

Ed cringed. “That’s a gross error on my part, but whatever you decide, I will always love you.”

She pressed a hand to her throat. “You’re scaring me, Mal.”

“That’s just it. I’m not Mal, I’m Ed. Ed Talbot. Harvey Talbot is my half brother. We have the same father.”

She closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. “You’re not making sense. Start at the beginning.”

He took a deep breath. “My father is Josiah Talbot, or was, he’s dead now. Killed on the last robbery I ever took part in.”

Lizzie’s eyebrows came together. “Robbery? You?”

He let go of her hand and stood, pacing across the veranda up to the door and back to the stairs where she sat. “My father was a bad man. When my mother died, I was thirteen and just like Jamie, as innocent a boy as you’d ever known.”

“Go on,” she encouraged, gripping her denim in clenched fingers.

“After mother died, Josiah came and got me. I started riding with his gang then. I want you to know now…” he stopped and looked her directly in the eyes. “I’ve never killed anyone. Harvey did most of the killing, if any was done. He likes it. What he didn’t do, Josiah did. Both of the men were as evil as anyone you could ever imagine.”

“Mal,” she began

“No, it’s Ed. I’m not Mal, though I feel like I know him from the things you’ve told me.”

“Ed,” she began again, reaching out a hand. “It’s not your fault…”

“It is my fault. Until recently, until your letters, I never had the courage to leave and try to live a good life. I’m a coward, Lizzie.” His shoulders slumped with this admission.

She stood and came to him, put her arm around his waist. “Mal or Ed or whatever your name is, I don’t care what was in your past.”

“You will.” He untangled himself from her arms and walked away. “About three months ago, Josiah decided to rob a stage. It went bad and Josiah was killed. Harvey went crazy. I tried to stop him, but in his anger over Josiah’s death, he killed everyone on the stage. The lone passenger was Malcolm Brandon. You see, he really was coming to you.”

“Oh, my God.” Her body went rigid and she pulled away. “And you just thought I must be some sort of desperate female that would accept any man because I’d been a mail order bride?”

“No! That’s not what I thought at all.” He tried to take her hand but she snatched hers away. “I got to know you in those letters you sent Malcolm. I knew you were a funny, loving woman. You were brave and strong and caring. I learned enough about you, that I fell in love and I had to take a chance.”

With hands held out in front of her body, she backed up and then stopped. “The money. Where did you get the money?”