Beau swung open the door to the hotel and took the steps two at a time. He couldn’t wait to see her, to spend some time with her, to kiss her sweet mouth and to sink into her womanly body again.
Putting the key in the lock, he opened the door and glanced around. The room was empty. Annabelle was gone.
Like the rising of the sun, it slowly dawned on him. Everything of hers was missing.
His chest felt like it had been ripped open, exploding with pain as despair swept through him. Annabelle was gone.
A note lay on the bed. He shut the door, hurried over, and grabbed the piece of paper.
Dearest Beau,
I had to leave. You may have already left town and may never find this letter, but just in case you returned, I wanted you to know I could not turn you in. After everything we’ve been through, I’ve fallen in love with you and knew I couldn’t be the person who caused you to hang. I also could never be an outlaw’s wife and be in constant fear you would be killed or the law would catch you. I just couldn’t do that. So I left and returned home.
Please be careful. I wish you God speed and all my love.
Annabelle
Shock rippled through him like a stampede of cattle pounding the earth. He pulled his hat off and ran his hand through his hair. She loved him regardless of the fact that she believed he was a wanted criminal. She’d loved him enough not to turn him in, even though he’d done nothing wrong. He’d returned here to tell her the truth, but she’d run away before he had the chance.
She loved him—Beau Samuel—without knowing he was an undercover Pinkerton Agent and not the outlaw she believed him to be.
He sank down onto the bed and rested his head in his hands. Part of him knew he should be relieved, but another part wanted her to know he was not an outlaw. He wasn’t a wanted man. He was a good man, a Pinkerton agent doing his job. And that job included impersonating a bank robber to catch the Harris gang.
With her help, he had completed his mission and managed to get her the reward money. But Annabelle was gone, and with her disappearance, he felt like she’d taken a chunk of his heart.
*
Two months later, Ruby stood next to her cousin, Caroline McKenzie, and watched Annabelle scatter feed to her chickens, cooing and talking to them in a soothing voice.
“Something’s wrong with her,” Caroline said. “She’s not been right in the head since she returned.”
Caroline was right. Annabelle had changed since she’d returned. Sure, she was her same stubborn, determined self, but she reeked of sadness, and Ruby often heard her sister crying at night. Ruby would like to hunt down the man who’d done this to her sister, but Annabelle wouldn’t even mention his name.
“I know. She refuses to talk about what happened or even tell us which outlaw she tried to bring in. Every time Meg and Zach come out to check on her, she won’t tell Meg or myself anything,” Ruby said. She lined up the cans on the fence post, taking aim with her Baby Dragoon pistol.
“Do you think she was raped?” Caroline asked.
“Meg asked her and she said no,” Ruby said, watching her sister. “In fact, she laughed and got kind of hysterical. Then she asked Meg if Zach had raped her? I thought the two of them were going to get into fisticuffs over that remark.”
Ruby raised her arm, steadied her hand as she aimed at a tin can, then squeezed the trigger, hitting it in the center and sending it flying off the fence post.
“Part of me thinks I should stay here and watch over her, but I really want to go hunting again. I miss it,” she said with a sigh.
“I want to go with you,” Caroline said, her voice soft. “I want to see for myself if I can bring in a bad man. I want to tie him up and make him pay for whatever he’s done.”
Ruby whipped around and gazed at her cousin. A laugh rumbled from Ruby’s chest. “You’re not going anywhere with me until you learn to shoot. You’re not accidentally shooting me because you don’t know how to use a gun.”
Caroline planted her hands on her hips and pouted her bottom lip. “That’s why I’m here. You were going to show me how to handle a gun. I even went to the mercantile and bought me a six shooter.” She laughed. “I told old man Smith I was buying it as a gift.”
“You want to go bounty hunting with me?” Ruby asked shocked.
“Yes,” her cousin said, her hazel eyes dancing with merriment.
“Have you told your mama you’re going hunting?” Ruby asked.
Caroline took a deep breath. “Not yet. There’s no sense in stirring up the pot until I learn how to shoot. Once I’m good with a gun, then I’ll tell Mama, but she's going to be mad enough to eat the Devil with his horns on.”
“You have to tell her,” Ruby said. “I don’t want her worrying about you like we worried about Annabelle. It was terrible.”
“You’re right. But I’ve got to go. She invited Jimmy Brown, the hog farmer, to the house for dinner. She thinks he’d be a good husband for me. That man stinks. I’m not marrying a stinky hog farmer.” Caroline shook her head, crossing her arms over her chest.
“So why do you want to go with me?” Ruby asked. “What’s in it for you?”
“I reckon I can learn to take care of myself. Not be dependent on my mother or anyone. If I can earn money, I won’t need them,” she said, with a defiant snap of her head, her voice so soft Ruby had to listen carefully to hear her.
“You’re going to have to toughen up if you’re going with me. You’re as soft as a goose-hair pillow.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here to learn from you,” Caroline said. “I’d be right honored for you to teach me what you know. Then we can hit the trail, you and me, the petticoat avengers, bringing justice to the prairie.”
Ruby stared at her cousin and shook her head. She really didn’t believe Caroline was tough enough to become a bounty hunter, but the sting operations went down better with two working together. And Ruby had no one to help her now that Meg had retired.
“Can you become defiant in your attitude? Men, especially outlaws, should fear your name.”
Caroline thought for a moment. “I think I can make them fear me.”
Ruby must be crazy to be taking on her soft-spoken, shy cousin, but she was desperate to go hunting and she needed a partner.
“Okay, I’ll teach you. When we’re out on the trail hunting for bad guys, you need to listen and do exactly what I say. Your life could be in danger if you don’t.”
Caroline’s eyes sparkled with delight, and she brushed her black hair off her shoulders. “I’m ready to prove I’m a capable woman.”
Ruby almost laughed. Caroline’s voice was so soft she sounded more like a young girl than a woman capable of taking care of herself.
“Oh, no,” Caroline said, her eyes widening.
“What?” Ruby asked and whirled in the direction of where Caroline was looking. As Ruby watched, Annabelle leaned over and retched onto the ground.
“Oh, my,” Caroline said. “That’s the second time today she’s not kept her food down.”
“I know. She’s been feeling poorly now for over a month. I keep trying to get her to go to the doctor, but she refuses,” Ruby said, worried about Annabelle.
Annabelle straightened up and put the back of her hand to her forehead.
Ruby walked toward her. “You all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re pale and shaking. The chickens are fed. Go lay down for a little while. I’ll put them up before dark.”
Tears sprang into Annabelle’s eyes. “Thanks, Ruby. Please don’t tell Meg I’ve been feeling poorly. It’s going to be all right.”
Ruby frowned. “I’m worried about you.”
“Don’t be,” Annabelle responded. “When are you leaving? I know you and Caroline have been over there whispering. When do you plan to go hunting again?”
“Not for a while. Caroline wants to go with me, and I need to train her how to use a gun. I’m not taking a woman with me who can’t shoot.”
Annabelle smiled. “We were lucky our papa taught us so much.”
“Yes, we were. Now, you go rest, and Caroline and I are going to shoot some tin cans. Unless, you’d like to join us. You always were good at hitting a can.”
Annabelle reached out and placed her hand on Ruby’s arm. “No, I need to rest. But would you put up a can for me and draw a dark haired man with emerald eyes?”
Ruby smiled. “Will do. And I’ll make certain he gets one right between those green eyes.”
“Thanks,” Annabelle said with a sigh and strolled toward the house.
Caroline walked up to Ruby. “Is she all right?”
“She says she is, but I’d give anything to find the man who did this to her. I’d like to show him when you mess with one McKenzie sister, you get all of us.”
“She won’t tell you his name?”
“No, said she didn’t want anything to happen to him. She knows we’d be hunting him with a vengeance, and he’d be swinging from a rope.”
*
Beau rode beside the wagon that could be loaded with a box of gold and money from the San Antonio Bank and Loan Company. It was his job to escort the money to Austin, but the bank was sending out three different shipments in three different directions, and none of the parties involved knew if they were carrying the actual goods or if they were traveling with a decoy.
Either way, their lives were on the line protecting the cargo, but Beau had a hard time staying focused. This was his third trip for the bank since Annabelle had deserted him in Fort Worth.
At first he’d felt a sense of relief, then anger. Now, damn it, now all he could do was think about the buxomly blonde. He missed her. His chest ached at the memory of her violet flashing eyes, the way she smiled and the way she gave as good as she received. Annabelle was a woman who let him know exactly how she felt. And he liked that about her.
She’d made him realize he was a good man who deserved the love of a woman and a family. His own family had sent him packing, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t have a wife and kids, did it? Annabelle was his family, and she’d made him feel loved and special, and God, how he missed her.
In a thousand years, he’d never imagined himself falling in love. But she’d captured his heart and now all he could do was think about her, instead of focusing on the job he’d once found enjoyable. The job that proved he was a good, honest man, not an outlaw.
But since Annabelle had charged into his life, he loathed this job. She helped him realize he was a good man regardless of his family. He no longer needed this job to prove his self worth.
The Pinkerton’s had used him, and he’d known it all along. Using them back, he now longed for something different. He wanted to return to his roots and maybe start a farm. Raise some cattle and pigs and even a few chickens.
This life of riding the trail, either protecting or searching for someone, had grown old. He’d reached an age when he no longer wanted to show the world he wasn’t like his brother or his family. He no longer had to prove to anyone who he was.
He knew exactly who he was and he didn’t need to prove anything to anyone.
He wanted to be Annabelle’s man.
As soon as they reached Austin, he’d made up his mind. He would telegraph the Pinkerton office in Fort Worth and tell John he was done.
Finished. He was resigning from the Pinkertons.
The image of Annabelle floated in his mind, and he sighed. He needed her by his side. He needed to find Annabelle, and if she’d accept him, he wanted to be her husband. To promise her forever. To love that sassy-mouthed woman from now until the end of time.
This was no longer the life for him, and instead, he wanted the two of them to begin their life together, either on her farm or by starting another farm. It didn’t matter to him as long as she was by his side.
Jesse and Frank might find him and kill him, but until they did, he wanted to be Annabelle’s man. He needed her to know she was all that mattered and she’d branded her initials on his heart.
Shots rang out—the signal from the scouts that there were riders about.
Beau glanced around the countryside, anxiously searching for what had drawn his man’s gunfire. He was going to get killed if he didn’t get his mind off of Annabelle.
He located the riders on the hill. “We’ve got company, gentlemen.”
Beau’s men picked up their speed, and he watched as the riders sat on their horses, gazing at them from a distance. Hopefully, they wouldn’t follow. But his gun was out, his men alerted, and they were prepared.
In another hour, they’d reach Austin, and then he could go after the woman he loved.
*
Annabelle had made a decision. She couldn’t go any longer without talking to Beau. She had to find him. She had to speak to him. It had been two long months since she’d seen him. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, and she couldn’t wait any longer.
Soon, everyone would know.
In the deepest recesses of her heart, she’d hoped he would come for her. But that wasn’t happening.
The sun had risen; she’d fed the chickens and done as many chores as she could. Now she was leaving. She grabbed her saddlebags and walked out the door, glancing back one last time, uncertain she would ever return.
She wasn’t going to tell Ruby until right before she left. This way she’d have a shorter time period of having to listen to Ruby pitch a fit over Annabelle leaving.
Ever since Annabelle had gone after Beau, they’d been watching her like a hawk. And she was sick to death of them treating her like she was about to break.
She took a deep breath and sighed. She
was
about to break. She felt like a piece of fine china; if you tipped her over, she’d shatter.
She walked to the barn and saddled her horse. Tying the cinch on tight, she had no clue where to begin to locate Beau. If she had to, she’d go to Missouri and find his family, but she was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. She was hoping he was still right where she’d left him in Fort Worth.
And that’s where she was headed. The wild, wooly city of Fort Worth, Texas.
The barn door opened and Ruby came inside, wiping the sweat from her forehead. “Summer has arrived, and it’s already getting hot this morning.”
Her eyes widened as she stared at Annabelle. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”