Between Love and Lies (26 page)

“No you can’t. But John…” Bat shook his head. “He ain’t a saint, but he’s no murderer either.”

“I thought the same about Cora.” She felt her lips part with surprise then dismay. Damn her loose tongue!

Noah’s hands tightened into fists. “She threatened you?”

If she shared this one truth, would they stop asking questions? “Not me, you. She said if I went to you for help, she’d end your life with poison. Your honest strength can’t win against something so evil. Every moment I stay in this jail makes the target on your back bigger. That’s why you have to let me go.”

Noah gaze swung to the marshal. “Can we arrest Cora?”

“Need more than a threat.”

Noah crossed to stand close to the bars separating them. “Why does Cora want to punish you?”

“Edward’s partner was Cora’s brother. The one way she could stay close to Orin was to become Edward’s paid companion. But he chose me instead and ruined her plans.”

“It always comes back to Edward.” Noah’s gaze searched her face. “There’s more to his story than you’re telling us, isn’t there?”

“What did you plan to do with his lost possessions?” Bat asked. “Give them to Cora? So she could stop the rumors about her brother stealing them?”

They remained determined to pry every last drop of truth from her. She’d told them too much. She wouldn’t utter another word about the past. Only the future mattered. “We need to leave Dodge.” She stared at Noah, willing him with all her heart to do as she said. “Everything depends on it. Release me.”

He shook his head. “Fulfilling your promise to your friend once mattered more than your own life. What’s changed?”

I won’t watch someone be killed again.
She almost screamed the words. They echoed in her head. She spun away from the bars, from Noah, and began pacing. She stopped as soon as she faced him again. She couldn’t escape him or her fear for his safety.

He was going to die. Because of her. Because she’d let him get too close.

“Tell us everything,” Noah said. Both he and the marshal regarded her expectantly.

She longed to reach through the bars and pull Noah close enough to kiss. That had stopped him before. For a while. She pressed her hand to the ache building in her forehead and was startled to find she still held the cards from her poker game with the marshal.

“Tell us what you saw.” Noah’s voice was quiet but determined.

She blinked in disbelief. “What I saw? What are you talking about? I never said—”

“You said you wouldn’t watch someone be killed.
Again
.”

Dear God, she’d said that aloud? She squeezed the cards in her hand, crumpling them.
You fool,
she berated herself.
You loose-lipped, addle-headed fool.

Noah reached through the bars, reaching for her. “You never mentioned witnessing your father’s death and Edward’s was a suicide. Or was it?”

Damn him and his resolve to learn the truth. Frustration and fear propelled her toward him. She hurled her cards through the bars. They struck his chest, making him flinch, before they fell with a harsh patter to the floor.

His hurt expression made her cringe.

He stood his ground though. He didn’t retreat. He waited for her to take his hand.

A wave of weariness made her grope for the cot behind her instead. Her bottom hit the mattress hard. “Stop playing with me.”

“I only want to keep you safe.”

That was the problem. Her wellbeing would cost him his own. “I’m tired. Is there an end to your constant badgering? Or do you intend to keep me up all night with these useless questions?” She wrapped her arms around her waist. She didn’t have to fake her exhaustion. It settled on her like a yoke, hunching her shoulders. Her chin drooped to her chest.

An uncomfortable silence descended on the other side of the bars.

“I understand you’re worn out,” Noah said softly. “But I’m not leaving. I won’t let you face your troubles alone.”

“Neither will I.” Bat’s chair squeaked then his footsteps came closer until he halted beside Noah. “Trust us to do what’s best.”

“What’s best? You’re both holding me against my will.” She couldn’t stop her tone from growing increasingly strident. “A jail is a jail. How different is this from the Star? “

“I can think of one large difference,” Noah replied.

“What?” she snapped.

“Cora.”

The woman’s name made her recoil. Uncertainty leached her voice of any strength. “What about her?”

“For the next week, she can’t continue forcing you to take that vile swill masquerading as a medicine. That’s why she threatened to kill me and not you.” His tone turned as harsh as hers had been earlier. “She was already killing you. And you both knew it. If I ever see her again, I’ll—” He spun to glare at the front door like he wanted to kick it down and storm across the street to the saloon.

Damn her foolish mouth a hundred times. She’d been so worried about him going after Gertie she’d forgotten his need for justice would double if he knew the fullness of Cora’s malice.

Her carelessness had pushed Noah one step closer to the grave.

* * *

Sadie swiped
her hand over her forehead. Her fingers came away damp. Hades must feel like this—hot and stifling and impossible to escape. The air hung in her cell, trapped like her by jailers who wouldn’t open a window enough for a draft to slip in…let alone turn their backs long enough for her to slip out.

She stopped pacing her cell, so she could better glare at the marshal who once again lounged in his chair. This time his feet were on his desk while his attention alternated between a copy of the
Dodge City Times
and a pocket watch. At ease but on guard.

Curse him for being so consistent.

After a final glance at his timepiece, he folded the paper and rose to his feet. “It’s time,” he called as he moved to the front door.

She fought the compulsion to stare at the bedroom. The creak of the floorboards told her Noah now occupied its doorway after being summoned from his rest in the other room. A room with a bed they’d recently shared.

Bat opened the door leading onto Front Street. The breeze was short-lived. So was the glimpse of the boy, the one both she and the marshal had employed to deliver their messages.

Bat took a tray covered in a red-checkered cloth from the boy. “You watched the cook prepare the entire meal like I asked?”

When the boy nodded, Bat tossed him a coin and told him to light out.

As soon as the door closed, Noah invaded her line of sight. His bed-tousled hair stole her breath as easily as he claimed the tray from the marshal, so the man could relock the door.

“See you tomorrow, Deputy.” Bat collected his ring of keys from the nail where both sets hung. Then he tipped his hat to Sadie as he and crossed to the back door. “You too, Miss Sullivan. Hope you get a good night’s sleep.” The door closed behind him and the key turned in its lock.

Then there was only stillness…if one didn’t count the uncertainty churning inside her.

Sleep? What was that? Last night, she hadn’t slept at all after Noah had agreed to keep her here against her will.

She snuck a glance at him. He stared at her openly. Other than his untamed hair and unshaven jaw, he appeared utterly composed. Not a trace remained of the unrestrained man who’d made love to her a day ago. But her skin still tingled where he’d touched her, aching for him to do so again.

The heat rose in cheeks. He’d left his mark on her. She hadn’t done the same. He wouldn’t leave Dodge with her. He’d rather keep her in this cell. Was extracting her from the saloon all that mattered to him? That and his quest to gain justice on her behalf?

A frown tightened her brow. Was she so different? Hadn’t she sought the same for Edward without regard to her own wellbeing? She shook her head. That was different. Edward had begged her to help him, and she’d vowed she would.

If she hadn’t lied so many times, could she have persuaded Noah to leave with her? She turned her back on him and her useless questions. She couldn’t change the past, and maybe not even the future.

A wall of red brick filled her vision. Solid. Unmovable. It didn’t matter. The wall didn’t need to move. Just one stubborn drover turned lawman.

Behind her, the tread of his boots approached. Then the metal door squeaked open. She clung to her refusal to acknowledge the man opening it.

“Time to eat,” he said.

The hearty aroma of roast beef and potatoes broke her resolve. It wasn’t the entreaty in his voice. She added the lie to the others pestering her conscience.

Noah balanced a plate in each hand. When he held one out for her to take, she accepted the offering without hesitation.

He retrieved a chair from the desk and sat in her cell’s open doorway. “Time to talk as well.”

She sat down with a thump. Her prison cot was as firm and unforgiving as ever. She couldn’t escape it or the truth. Talking had made things worse. She pursed her lips and glared at the plate on her lap.

He heaved a sigh. “I wish I could let your rest longer, that I didn’t have to force this conversation. But I must. Our week together will end too fast.”

Yes, it would. If she pretended interest in eating, could she delay everything?

She managed three spoonfuls before her stomach heaved and bile burned her throat. She scrambled to her feet. Her gaze ricocheted around the cell.

“Sadie?” Noah’s deep voice resonated with his familiar worry but also something she couldn’t pinpoint. Something that made her want to run.

“I need to get out of here.”

“Will you please listen to me?”

Her hands, one clutching the spoon and the other the plate, trembled. She fought to steady them along with her stomach.

“We need to talk about yesterday. I didn’t know about the law Bat enforced. That’s no excuse though. I’ve now compromised your reputation along with your—” His words were muffled by a gravelly tone that had invaded his voice. Or was it in her ears?

“We cannot continue—” The rasping continued to rise and fall, along with the heat under her skin. “At the church we—”

Her body flared hot as an inferno and the room spun. She staggered sideways against the bars.

“Sadie! What’s wrong?”

Disbelief then anger roared in her ears, feeding the heat raging inside her. What was
wrong
? He’d touched every part of her. He’d made her love him. Then he agreed to lock her up like a criminal and besieged her with questions that hurt more than they helped.

She shoved away from the bars, from him. She hurled her plate at the wall. It fell with a clatter reminiscent of mocking laughter. She stabbed the wall with her spoon. Once. Twice. She didn’t stop. Shards of mortar and limestone rained down, pelting the toes of her shoes.

Noah pried the spoon from her fingers. “What’re you doing?”

“I’m—” Her vision narrowed, black edging in. The room only stopped moving when her palms found the wall. She sagged against its cool roughness. Within seconds, the brick flamed hot under her touch.

Large hands covered her shoulders. “Sadie, you’re scaring me.”

His admission snuffed out her anger, but not the heat. The illness building inside her was more intense than anything she’d felt before. Her insides coiled and her skin itched, begging to be scratched, while her head hurt as if pressed in an ever-tightening vise.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me. But it’s not good.” Her legs dropped out from under her. Strong arms caught her and held her secure.

From a long distance away, she heard Noah say, “You’ve had hot spells and chills before. You got through them. This will be the same. You’ll see.”

He sounded so certain. She wanted to believe him.

“This feels…” The darkness around her became complete, “….different.”

Muffled footsteps disturbed the silence, followed by the murmur of someone talking. The voice grew increasingly muddled until it reminded her of wasps droning high in a nest.

“Noah?”

He didn’t answer her, but the buzzing continued. Muffled then brusque, rising then falling, but always growing louder until it howled in her ears and blocked everything out.

“Noah, I’m scared too.”

CHAPTER 16

Noah knelt beside
the cot, held a damp cloth to Sadie’s brow and watched helplessly as she rolled her head in delirium. It hadn’t taken long before her body started rebelling against the loss of the blue mass syrup.

At first he’d failed to notice her decline, hidden as it was under a growing restlessness and irritability. When he and Bat had agreed to keep her locked up, he hadn’t blamed her for being cross. Afterward, he’d been distracted by his guilt. Putting Sadie behind bars wasn’t right, but the opportunity to better protect her had been an irresistible lure.

Now her deterioration had snowballed, laid her out like a landslide, left her incoherent and once again burning with fever. When he’d found her passed out amid the trunks she’d been searching, he’d been afraid. That medical emergency seemed minor compared to what she now endured. This wasn’t an illness one recovered from in a day.