Come the Spring (Claybornes' Brides (Rose Hill) 5)

He showed both to Cole. He took a whiff of one and nodded. “When we first got here, I noticed there didn’t seem to be a starting point. The back of the house was burning as fiercely as the front. It was like the whole house was primed.”

“Whoever did it must have circled the house with the kerosene.”

“You thinking the Blackwater gang’s responsible? They might have seen the article in the paper, and a fire in the dead of night would be a sure way to get rid of a couple of possible witnesses. Rebecca’s lucky she didn’t move in here.”

“She could be next on their list,” Daniel said, his voice grim. “We’re going to have to keep close to all three of them, and as soon as they have had some sleep, they’re going to tell us the truth.”

“Are you going to tell them the fire was set?”

Daniel took the bottle from Cole and put both of them on the ground next to a tree. “Not yet,” he said. “I don’t want to scare them any more than they already are.”

Cole looked at the house. “What a hell of a night,” he muttered.

“Let’s get everyone settled,” Daniel said. “There’s too many people here. I don’t like crowds.”

The marshals could hear Rebecca issuing orders as they headed back to the front lawn. She had stepped forward and had taken charge with a vengeance. She sounded like a military commander who wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and the crowd she was ordering about responded like new recruits. They did whatever she told them to do.

Jessica and Grace didn’t know what they would have done if it hadn’t been for their friend organizing the townspeople. Neighbors were sent home to fetch blankets for the women and the baby, Dr. Lawrence was encouraged to open his home for Tilly until she could make other arrangements, men were told to bring the wagon to the hotel, and a brigade was established to haul water and put out the fire before it spread to the field beyond.

No one was allowed to stand idle. There was work to be done, and Rebecca was determined to see that it was completed as quickly as possible.

Less than thirty minutes later, the bone-weary group headed to the hotel. Although Grace protested vehemently, Daniel insisted on carrying her. Cole carried Caleb, who was fast asleep before they reached the street. Rebecca came up with the suggestion that Jessica and Caleb take one of the marshal’s rooms for the night and Grace take the other one. Since the hotel was full, the lawmen could sleep outside.

Cole and Daniel had other intentions. They weren’t about to let the women out of their sight. Daniel was going to stand guard in the lobby, and Cole would stay upstairs to watch the hallways, but their plans changed when they ran into Sheriff Sloan as he was tiptoeing out of the hotel.

Daniel told him what had happened and ordered him to sit outside Rebecca’s door. Sloan readily agreed, for he was extremely embarrassed that he hadn’t even known about the fire. He had been otherwise occupied, and from the smug, sated look on his face, Cole and Daniel knew exactly what he’d been doing.

The night manager was appalled at the sight of the soot-covered men and women, but he was also extremely solicitous. He immediately awakened two maids to help prepare the rooms. Everyone took baths. Caleb not only awakened during his bath, but was also full of energy. The nap on the way to the hotel had obviously rejuvenated him.

Jessica and Grace were dead on their feet and fell asleep as soon as they got into their beds. Daniel propped his chair against Grace’s door and was asleep seconds later with his hand resting on the hilt of his gun.

Cole was across the hall. He too had stretched out in his chair and had his back up against the door to Jessica’s room. He could hear Caleb chattering away in nonsensical gibberish. After several minutes, the door opened and the baby came running out.

Cole carried him back to his mother, but stopped short just inside the door when he saw Jessica. She was sleeping on her stomach with her arms splayed wide. Apparently she had been too exhausted to pull the covers up, and her pink nightgown had worked its way around her knees. Lord, but she had a shapely backside and legs. Cole noticed she had nice feet too, and he wondered if she was ticklish.

Her face was turned toward the moonlight streaming in through the open window. He stared at her mouth, remembering how soft her lips had been when she’d kissed him. He could still feel her pressed against him, and all he wanted to do now was get into that bed with her and…

He blocked the thoughts racing through his mind. The poor woman had been through hell tonight, and he didn’t have any business conjuring up such lustful notions. Besides, he was a U.S. marshal and the job carried responsibilities with it. He couldn’t act on his impulses, no matter how irresistible they were.

Caleb began to fidget in his arms then, pulling Cole back from his fantasies. The baby was wet. Cole quickly found his nappies and lay him on the side of the bed close to Jessica.

“No,” Caleb chanted over and over. He swung his leg up, kicking Cole in the arm, and tried to flip over so that he could slide down on the floor.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Cole whispered. “You’re going to get changed, and then you’re going to sleep.”

He tied the straps securing the nappy, picked up Caleb, then grabbed his baby doll and shoved it into his arms. The baby was grinning and chattering away as Cole carried him over to the narrow cot the manager had sent up, tucked him in, and quietly left the room.

Caleb was right behind him. Jessica heard Cole mumble something under his breath and covered her mouth with her hands so he wouldn’t hear her laugh. She had been horrified to find him in her room, but then she’d heard him whispering to her son and realized his intentions were quite honorable. Cole was a good man, and she and her son were perfectly safe with him.

She fell asleep with good intentions of rescuing Cole.

Caleb ended up sleeping on Cole’s lap for a couple of hours, woke up chattering, and then fell asleep on Daniel’s shoulder. Needless to say, the marshals didn’t get much rest.

Nineteen

Daniel was summoned to the telegraph office at seven the following morning.

Cole met Sloan in the lobby and ordered him to hire two deputies to help guard the women. He waited at the hotel until the sheriff strolled in a few minutes later with Robert York and John Carver. The two men were heavily armed and looked dangerous. They convinced Cole they knew what they were doing, and he quickly filled them in on what was expected of them. Jessica and Rebecca were to stay in their rooms until the marshals returned to meet with them. Grace had been ordered to stay in bed until the doctor looked in on her that afternoon.

“Don’t let anyone but Dr. Lawrence go upstairs,” he ordered. “York, you stand outside Jessica’s door. Carver, you take Rebecca’s, and Sloan, you watch Grace’s.”

“But I haven’t had my morning coffee yet. Couldn’t I go into the dining room and get something to eat?” Sloan moaned.

“No,” Cole answered. “You’re going to stay outside Grace’s door.”

Lack of sleep made Cole more surly than usual, and Sloan was smart enough not to provoke him.

Cole took the key to the jail from the sheriff and headed across town. The office was stuffy, and so he left the door open to get some fresh air. Everything smelled like smoke to him, which was probably why he didn’t have an appetite.

It was almost eight when Daniel arrived. He carried a pot of coffee in one hand and a wad of telegrams in the other.

He didn’t waste any time telling Cole what he had learned. “One of the Blackwater gang was captured.”

“Where did they get him?”

“He was hiding in one of the caverns just inside the Texas border. They’ve taken him over to Blackwater.”

Cole went to get a clean cup from the shelf across the room. He poured himself some coffee, took a drink, and then asked, “Is he alive?”

“Barely,” Daniel answered. “The sheriff in Maple Hills put a couple of bullets in him. It was a piece of luck that the sheriff stumbled on him. The man was

sick as a dog with influenza, but he still put up a fight. I hope to God he lives long enough to stand trial. Damn, I wish I were there now. I can’t wait to talk to him.”

“You can’t believe he’ll tell you anything.”

“Oh, yes, I do believe that. He’s going to tell me everything I want to know.”

“Is talking all you plan to do, or did you have something else in mind?” he asked quietly.

“That depends on how the trial goes. He isn’t going to walk away,” Daniel said. He shook his head and added, “Judge Rafferty won’t let that happen. If the man’s one of the Blackwater boys, he’ll hang.”

“You sound like you know this judge personally.”

“I do,” Daniel answered. “Everyone in Texas knows him, or at least has heard of him. Rafferty has quite a reputation for being hard-nosed. Folks think he makes Hangin’ Judge Cyrus Burns look like a saint. You don’t cross Rafferty and keep on breathing. He’s also got a real personal stake in all of this,” he added. “Rafferty lost a good friend in a robbery up in Kansas. The two of them went way back, and he took the man’s death hard. He wants revenge.”

“Then he’s personally involved. A fancy lawyer could argue for a new judge.”

“Maybe, but he’d lose,” Daniel said. “Rafferty’s the law in west Texas. Fortunately, he’s also an honest man. Hell, if he weren’t, he would have handed the man over to a lynching mob by now.”

“You think they’ve had trouble?”

“Yes, I do.”

Cole thought about that for a moment, and then asked, “What’s in the other telegrams?”

“They’re all from Rafferty. He must have been standing inside the telegraph office and was in a talkative mood. He wanted to know if we had any leads, and I wired him back that there was a remote possibility of a witness. He jumped right on that. I told him there might have been a woman hiding in the bank, that we think it’s one of three, but none of them will admit it…”

“What did he say about that?”

“He wants us to bring all three of them to Blackwater. He says he can get the truth out of them.”

“Does he have the authority to make us bring them?”

Daniel leaned back against the wall. “Yes and no,” he answered. “We’re on special assignment, so we don’t have to follow his instructions.”

“But?”

“Rafferty’s got some powerful friends in Washington. He might be able to exert enough pressure to force us to do what he wants. I don’t want to get him riled up, so I’m letting him think we’ll cooperate. I promised him that we would know for certain today if we had a witness or not.”

“And will we know today?”

“Hell, yes, we’ll know.”

“Grace might not be up to talking today. We might have to wait.”

“We’ll talk to her this afternoon, then. By the end of the day, we’ll know whether or not we have a witness.”

Cole muttered an expletive. He’d just spotted Rebecca on the boardwalk across the street. She was wearing a pink dress and carrying a pink-and-white-striped parasol. She was so lovely, she was literally stopping traffic as men paused to gawk at her. Her guard, Carver, trailed close behind, glancing in all directions.

“Here comes Rebecca,” Cole said. “Ah, hell, she just stopped to talk to the reporter.”

Ryan looked outside. “He was hanging around the telegraph office while I was inside, and when I came out, he went running in. He probably knows everything now, and from the look on Rebecca’s face, I’m guessing he just told her they caught one of the gang.”

“How do they know?”

Daniel turned back to Cole. “Know what?”

“That the man they caught is one of the gang.”

“He was carrying a large sum of money.”

“So? Lots of people carry large sums of money when they travel.”

“That’s true,” Daniel conceded. “But they also found a copy of the Rockford Falls Gazette in his saddlebags. The date’s the same as the day of the robbery.”

“It’s still circumstantial evidence, isn’t it?”

“Did I mention he tried to kill the sheriff before he was captured?”

Cole shook his head. “No, you didn’t mention that. He won’t be walking away free and clear, then. They’ll hold him for attempted murder.”

“But I want to get him for the robberies. If he’s one of the gang, then he’s going to talk to me and tell me everything. I want all the other names.”

“How do you think you’re going to convince him to talk?”

“I’ll figure out something,” Daniel replied. “It would make it easier if there was a witness to point him out…”

“I wouldn’t get my hopes up, Daniel. Those women could have told the same story for an altogether different reason. You think two of them are hell-bent to protect the third woman. I’m not sure. It occurs to me that we don’t know anything relevant about these women, and I think it’s time we looked into their backgrounds.”

“I’m not taking anything they tell us as true until I’ve checked it out.”

“Good,” Cole replied. He glanced out the window again, just in time to see Rebecca strike the reporter’s arm with her parasol. Even from the distance separating them, he could see how pale and upset she was. Not paying any attention to what she was doing, she picked up her skirts and rushed into the street, almost running headfirst into a horse and buggy. Carver pulled her back in the nick of time.

A minute later, she came running into the office, ordering her guard to remain outside to watch the door. Cole and Daniel waited for her to regain her breath.

Daniel offered her a chair, but she declined the invitation to sit and began to pace around the office. It was very apparent that she was highly agitated.

“Why have you assigned a guard to follow me?” she asked.

“For protection,” Cole answered.

“But why do you think I need to be protected?”

“After the mob here last night, we thought it was best to hire guards for all three of you just to make sure no one tries to bother you.”

“Does the guard upset you?” Cole asked.

“No,” she answered. “I am upset, but not because of Mr. Carver. He’s only doing his job.”

“Then what’s bothering you?” Cole asked.

“I’ve just heard the most startling news from that despicable reporter this morning. He told me that one of the Blackwater gang has been captured. Was the reporter lying or was he telling the truth?”

Because she was looking at Daniel, he stepped forward to answer. “Yes, it’s true. One of them was caught.”

“Is he dead or alive?” she cried out.

“Alive,” Daniel answered. “But just barely.”

“I hope he dies,” she whispered, and then bowed her head. “No, I shouldn’t say that. It’s just that there’s been so much killing, and if he’s responsible, he should pay for his crimes. Do they know the man’s name?”

“I don’t know if the authorities know his name or not,” Daniel said. “I didn’t ask.”

“Are they bringing him back to Rockford Falls to stand trial?”

“No, they’ve taken him to Blackwater, Texas.”

“Is that a long way from here?”

“Yes,” Cole answered.

She looked relieved.

“Good,” she whispered. “I won’t have to worry about him getting loose and coming after Jessica and Grace and me.”

She collapsed into a chair and began to fan herself with her handkerchief. “The murderer has confessed to his crimes, hasn’t he?”

“No, he hasn’t.”

“But they’re sure he’s one of them? They won’t let him out, will they?”

She sounded terrified of the possibility. Daniel quickly put her mind to rest. “They won’t let him out,” he assured her.

She glanced down at her lap. “Oh, Lord, my hands are shaking. I’m not used to this kind of exciteme

nt, and this past week has been hellacious. First, there were the murders at the bank, and then I was named a witness in the paper, and the fire last night … It’s too much. It’s simply too much.” Her voice broke.

Daniel sat down on the edge of the desk to face her. “I know how distressing this is, but…”

“No, you don’t know,” she cried out. “I’m … so … scared.”

After whispering the admission, she burst into tears and buried her face in her hands. “I’ve been such a coward, but I’m going to do the right thing now. You don’t need to bother Jessica or Grace any longer because…”

She didn’t go on. Daniel leaned toward her and tried to look sympathetic, while Cole shoved a glass of water into her hand.

“Here, drink this,” he suggested.

She wiped her face with her handkerchief and looked up at him. “Try to understand. I didn’t want anyone to know … I’m engaged to the most wonderful man. He’s a respected businessman and very careful about appearances. A scandal would ruin him. It’s taken him five long years to get up the courage to propose to me. I thought I could go back home and pretend none of this happened. You would catch the men eventually. My fiancé runs with a very sophisticated, wealthy crowd. Can you see why I would keep silent?”

“Rebecca, what are you telling us?” Cole asked. “I’m your witness. I was hiding under the desk when the Blackwater gang came inside. The purse you found belongs to me.”

Both marshals tried to contain their reaction to the news. Relief flooded through Cole, and he felt guilty about that. He was just so damned happy it wasn’t Jessica.

Daniel felt a burst of excitement rush through his veins. She was there, and, God willing, she saw all of them.

“They’ll try to kill me, won’t they?” she whispered.

“We’ll protect you,” Cole fervently promised.

“You’ll try, but they’ll find a way to silence me.”

“We aren’t going to let anyone hurt you,” Daniel vowed.

She wiped the tears away from her face before speaking again. “I know I should have come forward sooner, but I was very frightened. I just wanted to pretend it didn’t happen, and I kept hoping that you would catch them … eventually. I’m so sorry I lied. It isn’t like me to act so cowardly.”