Rugged and Relentless (39 page)

“But we don’t.” Lacey huffed. “What if Mr. Creed took offense at something they said, and things got out of hand?” She looked at him. “Did you overhear them insult any of us?”

“All of you.” Creed’s answer made Evie’s blood run cold.

Four men. Four women they didn’t respect, defenseless in the middle of the night
. No alternate reason after all.
Braden’s worst fear made real if not for Mr. Creed’s vigilance
.

“The other men will suspect the cause immediately, will they not?” Evie held his gaze until he gave another short nod. “Do you believe any others think the same way, or will tonight’s events abolish any doubts as to our virtue?”
Will we be safe?

She ignored the horrified resignation on her friends’ faces as Cora, Naomi, and Lacey were forced to face the cause of all the ruckus. They’d suspected as well as she but not accepted it until now.

“There should be no other doubts.” Creed’s assurance lent little comfort, despite Riordan’s and Klumpf’s hasty agreements. “But even amongst these four, they debated the issue.”

“That makes no sense,” Lacey all but whimpered.

“What Mr. Creed is saying”—Evie closed her eyes—“is that not all of those men believed us to be loose women. Even if they all know we’re virtuous, our reputations won’t protect us.”

“On the contrary.” Creed cracked his split knuckles as though to underscore his point. “A man knows that if he dishonors one of you, you’ll have no choice but to marry him. They counted on it.”

     TWENTY-EIGHT     

A
man couldn’t count on anything these days. Corbin stalked past the others, noisy crows cawing over the night’s adventure and causing enough racket to make sure anyone sensible couldn’t catch a wink of sleep. He flung himself onto his bunk.

Fools
. He turned his back on the lot of them, facing the unfinished wood of the bunk wall.
Cretins
. Hope Falls had been settling into a familiar, plodding routine. Wake up, eat breakfast, work, eat lunch, work more, eat dinner and socialize with the women, and go back to the bunkhouse. If it weren’t for the women—and their admittedly superior food—it would have been exactly the same setup Corbin abandoned a decade ago.

He despised the routine, but it served a purpose. Routine lulled the dull-witted and optimistic into a sort of drowsy contentment. It made men lazy, and women more appreciative of small gestures designed to woo and win. Corbin had bided his time, waiting for the routine to assert itself.

And four fools undid in forty moments what had taken weeks of patience to establish. Excitement ran high tonight, but tomorrow wariness would replace the thrill. Men would eye their fellow workers with new suspicion, the women withdraw
to reassess their judgment. Something shattered never became whole again. At best it mended. But Corbin couldn’t wait for time’s healing touch.

Granger followed him across three states to Charleston, and he’d gotten word the man came as far as Colorado. Corbin didn’t know whether the tenacious hunter tracked him to Durango, but he couldn’t take the risk he’d get that far. Granger was to be avoided at any cost.

Except the Game. Corbin would sacrifice anything but that. He pulled out the piece he’d lifted from Granger’s brother, square copper emblazoned with a crown and three fleurs-de-lis on one side and naught but an angry slash on the other. Rubbing it between thumb and forefinger, Corbin considered his next move.

Originally, he’d thought to pursue the cook. Miss Thompson appealed to him at first for the additional revenue to be earned from her café, but he’d quickly realized she’d be a difficult woman to control. So he settled on Miss Higgins, whose more biddable demeanor suited his purposes. If worse came to worst, a widower’s inheritance could be worth more than a wife after all.

Miss Lyman, owner of the mercantile and sister to the principal mill investor, would make the richest wife but also the most closely watched. She’d never been a possibility for the simple reason that a wealthy heiress involved too high a risk.

But the situation had changed, and the Game called more strongly than ever. Corbin flipped the piece, pondering his options. He’d thought marriage would be the ultimate bluff, but now things were becoming clear. …

The longer the women stayed, the more muddled everything became. Before they arrived, Braden knew exactly what he had to do. He sent Eric and Owen home to proper hospitals as soon as they could be moved and wrote to free Cora. But the moment his featherbrained sister whisked into town, packing luggage to the
sky and headaches to hide them, everything became a negotiation.

Battles couldn’t be chosen because every single one could be the turning point, a weakness leaving Cora and his family exposed to even more danger. So Braden waged war with every word he spoke. Every pang of pain he ignored so the doctor wouldn’t drug away his scant ability to protect the women.

And I failed
. Braden’s hands clenched into fists, nails breaking the skin of his palms as Creed summarized the events of last night.
Cora was in danger, and I slept through it. Blasted morphine
. The doctor would never force it on him again. Never.

Creed gave the bare bones of it, but they both knew the gravity of what could have been. Braden didn’t trust himself to demand the details yet. He didn’t trust himself to speak. If he opened his mouth, he’d yell himself hoarse before he could do anything useful. And it would scare Cora even more.

She walked into the room with the others, back stiff and chin set as she prepared for the conversation to come. But Braden knew her too well to believe her unaffected. Cora finally feared what he’d dreaded the moment he saw her in this accursed excuse for a town—that she’d need the type of protection he couldn’t provide. And, for the first time, she might understand why she needed to find another man to build a life with.

But she wouldn’t do it. She had to leave town to be safe, but he hadn’t been able to force her from his side. Cora’s loyalty ran as deep as an ocean and could drown any force but the woman’s own stubbornness. Or Braden’s.

There’s only one way to be rid of her. Lord, forgive me for what I’m about to do. What other choice do I have?

Too many options. Robert Kane left town in a blaze of bruises, but Jake hadn’t thinned his crowd of suspects nearly enough. Kane’s story hadn’t been cleared, but Jake could live with that. The odds Kane and Twyler were the same man sank low. For one thing,
Twyler wasn’t stupid, and five suspects remained.

Even if Jake was wrong, Kane would remain in custody—safely tucked away from the women he’d planned to accost and easily within reach should word come back he hadn’t worked where he claimed.

In all honesty, Jake didn’t truly suspect Gent either. Despite his intelligence and the bootblack, Gent’s age precluded him. All reports of Twyler put him at no more than thirty, too obvious a difference for someone not to have mentioned.

Which left four men fitting Twyler’s description. Dodger, the high-climbing thief whose too-large clothing concealed more than Jake could guess; Williams, whose cocky attitude made him enough of a character it could be a disguise; Fillmore, the unassuming shadow who’d shown enough backbone not to accompany Kane the night before; and Clump, whose unusual background and raised boot-bottoms made him an oddity if nothing else.

Any one could be Twyler. Or none of them. Theories and questions chased themselves around Jake’s skull until they tangled tighter than a logjam. It took him nowhere in a hurry while Evie and her friends faced growing danger. If Twyler panicked or changed his plans, the women might pay the price.

“We need to set guards to watch the house at night,” he told Lyman the next morning. “I only trust myself, Riordan, and Lawson to do it. McCreedy, too, but he’s got a wife to look after already, so he’s out. Things can’t stay as they are.”

“Stand still or sit down, Creed,” Lyman barked at him, obviously unable to marshal the fury coursing through him. “I can’t believe I slept through the entire thing. Morphine takes away the pain but steals the time from a man’s life.”

“No harm done.” His fiancée reached out to clasp Lyman’s hand, but he pulled away. “Mr. Creed and Mr. Riordan kept everything under control, and we’re none the worse for wear.”

“I am.” Jake gestured to his left eye, which only opened a fraction of an inch. “But keeping the women safe is all that matters.”
And finding Twyler is a part of that. Edward’s death deserves justice, but a
crafty criminal who shows no remorse when it comes to murder needs to be caught more for the sake of the living. It shouldn’t have taken a black eye for me to see it
. He cast a glance toward Evie, who didn’t say much.

“A guard won’t be good enough.” Lyman stuck his hand beneath the sheet and glowered at his fiancée. “I was right when I said it at the start—Hope Falls is no place for a woman. You four need to leave. We’ll find investors for the mill and use our resources to set you up back East, in safety.”

“No.” Evie shook her head. “Even if we could be sure that would work, it’s too late. I gave my word to those men to make them meals while they worked here. Besides, I won’t leave Mrs. Nash. She can’t move now, with the babe so close.”

“We can hire another cook.” The moment he said it, Jake wanted to bite back the words. He made it sound as though Evie could be replaced, exchanged, or some such foolishness. Anyone who’d spent more than three minutes in her company knew better. And that was before tasting any of her food.

“Men consider it a matter of honor to keep their word.” Miss Higgins looked at them incredulously. “Why would you imagine we’d go back on ours over an isolated bit of idiocy?”

“Most
men consider it a matter of honor.” Cora Thompson stared at Lyman with such intensity, Jake suddenly wondered what had passed between the two of them since her arrival. “Some make promises and become all too willing to break them.”

“And some women are too blind to see when circumstances change,” Lyman snapped back. “If it comes down to your well-being or being thought well of, there is no possible comparison.”

“He’s right.” Jake threw his support behind Lyman before the women could quibble about the wording or some such. “I chose to shield you from the crudeness of what the men said, but I dislike the consequences. Words aren’t actions, and I spared you both since the worst didn’t reach your doorstep. But it came close—too blasted close to ignore.”