Claudia Dain (44 page)

"No!" she said as loud as she could. It came out a whisper, a whisper that rocked against the wind coming off the prairie, a whisper that slammed against Jack's soul. "He's my father."

Her father pulled his gun at the commotion behind him, dropped to his knee, and fired off a shot. It spat up chunks of wood from the platform. No. This dream was turning all wrong, twisting into something that couldn't be happening. But it was. They'd kill each other, these two men who were hardened by life and used to killing.

Which man could she bear to live without?

No, that wasn't a question she could answer. She had to stop it somehow.

How?

Her voice was frozen in her throat, her breath pressed down into her lungs with the fist of despair. Everything slowed until she could count the beats of her heart, timing them against the breath she wanted to gulp down into her. Jack was the law. Her father stood outside the law.

It didn't matter. Tim Ross was her father.

In the stretched-out eternity of that moment, she saw blood soak through the fabric of Jack's pants from a thrown splinter, saw the tiny dark hairs covering the back of her father's hand, saw the gleam of metal and heard the distinctive clink of the hammer begin thumbed back for another shot.

Which could she live without?

Jack didn't move. His gun was out, but he didn't raise it, didn't have his thumb on the hammer, didn't even duck in the face of that monstrous black barrel facing him

He was going against every lesson he'd learned to survive, every lesson he'd taught her to survive. He wasn't going to do the one thing he did best: fight. Jack, who slept with his gun by his side; who wasn't comfortable unless he had three hundred rounds of ammunition on his body, who had learned that a gun was his best friend in his fight to stay alive, wasn't going to fight. He was a fighter to the marrow and he wasn't going to fight.

He wasn't going to fire.

Her father fired off his shot. He was too experienced to hesitate when the target was clear and he was too experienced not to miss.

The bullet hit Jack high up on the outside of his right thigh.

Jack flinched as the bullet tore a hole in him; he grunted, but he didn't fire. No, he didn't fire. He looked at Anne over his shoulder, his blue eyes hot with pain and anguish. And resolve. But no regret. Not one ounce of regret. The look in his eyes tore the breath out of her lungs.

Anne felt the breath she had been trying to force rise up in a willing sob as she watched his blood turn his pants dark and wet. He wasn't going to fire. He wasn't going to fire on her pa. She watched Jack lower his gun even more. Never once did his eyes leave hers.

"Go on. Get outta here," he commanded, his voice a growl of loving despair.

He was trying to protect her in every way he could. He didn't want her near when shots were fired, perhaps going wide of the mark, and he didn't want her near, watching as her father killed him, shot by shot. He didn't want her to see him die.

Jack would die, because he wouldn't be the one to kill her pa.

Understanding exploded in her heart like gunpowder. He wouldn't be the one to take her father from her; not again. He would let himself be shot to death, piece by piece, wound by wound, because he loved her. He'd let himself be killed, because he loved her, and he was trying to give her what she wanted. Even if he died doing it.

Love endures all things.

Yes, love endured all things, even death. Even letting your life bleed out so that the woman you loved could have a father.

Tears ran out of her like water. She couldn't stop them. She couldn't make anything stop.

She couldn't make Jack defend himself.

Did she want him to? Did she want Jack to save himself, risking her father's life?

Her father? Tim Ross had never loved her, not like this. Only Jack loved her enough to die for her, but he wasn't going to. Not on her account. Not if she could stop it.

She had to stop it.

Which could she live without?

The man kneeling in the dirt had never been her father; that knowing burst open like rotten fruit in her hand, sticky and spoiled. Tim Ross had never been a father. He didn't know her. She didn't know him. All she had ever had was the dream of him.

And the dream of Tim Ross was nothing but cloud compared to the solid reality of Jack.

Which could she live without?

She moved then, freed from hesitation and indecision. Never in her life had she felt so free, free of the need to find a place in the world, free of the need to be loved. She was loved. Jack loved her and she loved him and that's all there was to know.

She had the answer.
 
It was a question she could answer, after all.

Anne didn't hesitate. For once, she didn't hesitate. Because it was Jack. Because she could do anything for Jack. She was ready for Tim Ross.

Love bears all things.

A shot rang out, deafening, cracking, rebounding. Tim Ross fell on his face in the dust of Abilene, Kansas, shot by his daughter. She'd killed him with the first shot. She hadn't flinched and she hadn't hesitated. Because it was for Jack.

Jack rose stiffly to his feet, his eyes never leaving Anne. He knew Brazos, Tim Ross, was dead. A shot like that could only kill. Anne had killed her father. That took some doing. He didn't know what she'd do now, if she'd blame him, if she'd regret it and dissolve in tears or rise up in anger. What did a woman do when she'd killed her pa to save her man? He didn't know. He never would have asked it of her. He'd never have pushed her to it, no matter how many bullets had found their way into him. He'd take any bullet to save Anne sorrow and trouble.

She'd waited all her life for her pa to come back. He wasn't going to be the one to take Tim Ross away from her again and for good. He'd lived through that kind of loss. He wasn't going to be the one to do it to her.

"Anne," he said, catching her eye. She was staring at Brazos, watching the blood run out to turn the dust to red mud. She'd shot him right in the head. "Anne, look at me."

"Should I keep firing? Should I empty the gun?" she said. Her voice sounded small, lost.

Damn, but he hadn't wanted anything like this for her. This was his world; he hadn't wanted her stained by it. He'd only wanted to keep her safe, but how could a woman be safe, be clean of the filth of life, with him around? He carried filth and sorrow like a coat on his back.

"No, you can put it away," he said. "Go on."

She hesitated and then slipped the gun into her reticule.

"Anne?"

"Jack? You all right?"

"Am I all right?"

They weren't moving. They seemed frozen in place on the platform. He wanted to run to her, take her up and hold her close. But he couldn't. Because of him, she'd killed a man. Her own pa.

"I'm fine," he said, forcing himself to stand. It wasn't much of a wound, just some blood and some sting. "Anne? Will you look at me?"

She did. She wasn't crying. She wasn't anything. She was just looking.

"Anne, I'm sorry about your pa... all this time... all that waitin'."

"All that time?" she said, taking a step toward him.

"You were waiting for him. He was all you ever wanted. I know it, and I'm sorry," he said.

"Jack," she said, her voice husky and soft. "It was you," she said. "It was you all that time, all those years. I was waiting... for you."

Chapter 25

The killing had drawn a crowd. Seemed the whole town, including Jessup at the train window, just had to see what was going on down at the train platform. It sure had been a busy week in Abilene.

Things like this just seemed to happen naturally when a bounty hunter took up residence.

"What happened?" Lane asked, arriving just ahead of the crowd.

"I shot him," Jack said, holding Anne at his side. He was leaning on her as if she were the rock that held up the world and she looked like she could do it, if pressed.

"You know who you shot?" Lane asked.

"Yeah, Brazos. Reward money on him. I'll take it in cash," Jack said.

Lane looked at Anne, who was looking at Jack. Did she know that the man lying in a red mess at the bottom of the platform was her pa? Probably not. She'd been real little when he took off. No reason for her to remember him. No reason at all for her to know that Tim Ross had been going by the name of Brazos for ten years now.

"Sounds fair," Lane said. "Looks like he got you some. Anne? How're you doing?"

"Fine," she said, her voice soft and high. Maybe a bit shaky, but she'd seen a shooting and that was to be expected from a gal as sensitive and sheltered as Anne was. "Jack needs some help, though."

"I'm fine, too," he said, looking down at her, his expression unreadable. "Don't no one need to worry over me."

"I'm going to worry over you and you're going to like it. I get to take care of you some now. Understood?" Anne said, looking up at Jack, her expression fierce with love.

Jack cleared his throat and said softly, "Understood." He kissed the top of her head and said, "You sure got grit, you know that?"

She gripped him hard around the waist and said with a crack in her voice, "I sure do."

The crowd reached them then and, at a look from Charles, the women of Anne's family kept still about the dead man at their feet. Tim Ross was dead, but then, he'd been dead to them for years. And now Nell was free and they both knew it. That was all he needed. Once this was cleaned up, he was making Nell his woman and no one, not even Miss Daphne, was going to get in his way. If Jack could manage that woman, so could he.

It didn't take long to clean up the mess Brazos had made in his dying. Once he was carted off, the crowd disappeared with him. Jack, Anne, Miss Daphne, and Nell went off to the Mustang to get him cleaned and doctored some. If Anne hadn't had such a good hold of Jack, he might have wandered off to avoid the fussing that was sure to come, but she had him good and tight.

Neil McShay watched the crowd that had encircled Tim Ross wander off, the Walton kids the last to go and that after being hounded and snapped at by their mother, and looked back toward where Sarah was standing. He'd never known Sarah Davies to be so still.

"You want to go with them? Jack's been shot up some and I guess Anne could use the help."

"No," she said, "I think she'll be fine." And then she smiled. "Did you see how she stood with Jack? That girl's come of age today."

Neil walked across the street and stepped up on the boardwalk. "She's married, too. Been married a whole week now."

"So she has," Sarah said lightly, her eyes shining with expectation.

"So, I guess that makes you free to set your horse on your own trail."

"Free as wind in the grass." She smiled, not meeting his eyes.

"So," he said, edging up next to her, crowding her against the platform, "want me to tell you how Ida died?"

Sarah smiled and let out her breath. "You gave me a scare, Neil; I would have bet money you were going to show me."

Neil didn't say a word, but his smile was a mile wide.

* * *

The saloon was crowded, the old man who usually had himself wedged in a corner was up and drinking, rubbing elbows and listening to the talk. Quiet talk it was; nobody seemed to want to talk out loud about what had just happened. Grey would have, but Jack had told him to shut up straight out and, for once, Grey was listening.

"Hurt much?" Anne asked as she tied on the bandage.

"Not much," he said. He'd seen worse.

"I'm not much of a hand with gunshot wounds," she said, straightening up.

"You'll do," he said, smiling.

"I don't want to get any good at it either," she said, frowning down at him.

"You sure are an easy woman to please.
 
All's I got to do is not get shot."

"Yeah, but can you do it?" she said.

The old man at the bar listened to them with a smile and then edged over to the sheriff. Blakes and Grey were down by the window, Martha and Shaughn were washing up, and Nell was walking Miss Daphne home. What he had to say to the sheriff would be private, at least to begin with; what Lane did later was out of his hands.

"You don't need to hunt over God's creation for the man who killed Bill Tucker. He's standing right next to you."

Charles looked sideways at the man next to him. He wasn't much to look at; lean, old, stooped, and gray. Hardly the kind of man to gut a man like a deer.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinkin', but I was a prime man in my day and I still have the strength I earned all those years riding the range and tossing cattle."

"Why'd you do it?" Lane asked softly. "And why are you telling me? You covered your trail good."

"Thank ye," he said amiably. "I'll tell you who Tucker was and then you won't need to ask why I did it."

"I'm listenin'."

"Tucker was no good. His game was to sweet-talk women out of their land. He took my sister for everything, five years back; she died soon after. I lost his trail and then picked it up again here, in Abilene. I've just been sitting, waiting for him to make his move, wanting to catch him in the act. I thought he was trying it with Anne and her folks; looked like he was, too, until Jack Skull rolled into town. That put an end to him."