“All the more reason why Corrine’s help is essential until Irv can resume his duties. Now, you need to be on your way to Ranger, and I must go to bed before I drop. Any questions?”
The brothers looked at each other again. Laurel braced herself for what might be coming this time, but Davy flashed her a boyish grin. “Can we take a piece of pie for the road?”
She gave them half the pie for themselves, and sent them off with the others she had baked and boxed that day. As he carefully placed the last one in their truck, Mike said, “We’ll have them there well before breakfast. The men working the night shifts on the rigs love having pie for breakfast.”
“And moonshine for dinner,” Davy said.
The three were laughing together as she walked them out to their truck. She admonished them to drive carefully, but fast enough to return in time to start their shift at Logan’s store. “You can’t get fired.”
“Ah, we won’t,” Mike said. “We’re Mrs. Logan’s pet project.”
“She’s urging us to get baptized,” Davy explained. “She fears our infant baptism didn’t take.”
The three of them began laughing again, but there was no levity in Mike’s voice when suddenly he asked, “Who is that?” and simultaneously pulled a pair of brass knuckles from his pants pocket.
Thirty-Seven
Alarmed, Laurel turned.
Just outside the fan of light provided by the kitchen windows, Thatcher was propped against the clothesline post where he’d hitched his horse that morning. To Laurel’s dismay—and outrage—her heart thumped at the sight of his tall, lean silhouette.
She wanted to rail at him for not making his presence known, but she needed to defuse the O’Connors, who were a hairsbreadth away from a catastrophic overreaction. “It’s okay,” she told them in a murmur, then, “Mr. Hutton. You startled us.”
He pushed himself off the post and strolled forward, but his seeming nonchalance didn’t fool Laurel, and she doubted the O’Connors would be deceived by it, either. Beneath the brim of his cowboy hat, his eyes shifted from one twin to the other.
She was almost certain that Thatcher had seen the brass knuckles now bridging Mike’s fingers, and surely he’d also noticed that Davy’s right hand was at the small of his back, where she knew he carried a small pistol similar to hers.
When the twins first began delivering to the boom towns, she’d expressed concern for their safety. They’d shown her their
weapons and assured her that they would never be without a means of protecting themselves. However, this was the first time she’d seen just how willing they were to act first with violence and ask questions later. The two weren’t all smiles and blarney.
Thatcher stopped within five yards of them, planting his feet firmly, causing her to wonder if he was still toting the pistol he’d retrieved from her this morning and was about to draw it like a gunslinger in a dime novel.
He said, “I came to ask how your father-in-law is faring, but I saw that you had company and didn’t want to break up the party.”
She injected a lightness into her voice that she was far from feeling. “No party. These are the O’Connor brothers, Davy and Mike.” She pointed out which was which. “They work for me.”
“They brought you the peaches,” he said.
“That’s right. I’d forgotten I’d mentioned that.” But he hadn’t, and that was disconcerting. “Davy, Mike, this is Thatcher Hutton. He was the Good Samaritan I told you about, who brought Irv home last night after the raid.”
Thatcher leaned forward only far enough to shake hands with the twins in turn, then all three of them returned to their guarded stances.
Mike looked him over. “Are you a cowpoke, Mr. Hutton?”
He asked it as a put-down, but Thatcher replied blandly, “You could say.”
Laurel said, “He breaks and trains horses.”
“Does he?” Again, his question sounded deprecating.
Davy shot his twin a warning look, then addressed Thatcher with a smile. “So, you were at Lefty’s last night. Things were exciting, I hear. How did you avoid arrest, Mr. Hutton?”
“I wasn’t in the back room.”
“Occupied upstairs then,” Mike said.
Thatcher slanted him a glance, but didn’t even blink. “I was having a hamburger in the front room.”