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

“Grace…”

“I realize I should have tried harder to convince my friend to tell the truth, but I can’t change the past.”

“Come back here.”

She was too tired to argue and did as he ordered. “I’d like to go to bed.”

“You’re too upset to sleep.”

“How do you know how I feel?”

“I can see it in your face. I know I shouldn’t have raised my voice to you, and I’m sorry about that, but I’m damned well not going to apologize for my anger. I lost the only two women I’m ever going to love, and I don’t care how scared Jessica was. She and you should have come forward.”

The impact of what he had just said was devastating, and she realized for the very first time just how much his opinion had come to matter to her. He had just told her he could never love again, and, dear God, she was already falling in love with him. She wouldn’t let that happen. Only a fool would love a man who couldn’t open his heart to her.

“Why did you kiss me?”

The question caught him off guard. “I wanted to.”

She folded her arms across her waist. “Don’t ever do it again. Promise me you won’t.”

He wouldn’t make a promise he had no intention of keeping, and so he said nothing at all, until she pushed him.

“I want your word, Daniel.”

“No.”

“No? Do you mean … after what just happened … you would want to kiss me again?”

“Yeah, I would and I will.”

“Have you figured it all out yet, Daniel?” Cooper’s raspy voice intruded.

Daniel jumped to his feet. “You’re awake.”

Grace rushed to his side. “How do you feel, Marshal?”

“Like I’m in the middle of a war. What’s the matter with you two, fighting with a dying man between you?”

Daniel was so relieved to see his friend awake a huge grin crossed his face.

Grace was teary-eyed. “I’m sorry we disturbed you.”

“You shouldn’t shout at a lady,” Cooper told Daniel before turning to Grace. “And you should have told us what you knew. Now, don’t cry, darlin’.”

“You’re not dying, are you, Cooper?” Daniel asked.

Cooper would have laughed, but he didn’t have the stamina. He felt as weak and used up as a hundred-year-old plow horse. “I don’t suppose I am,” he said. “I asked you a question,” he reminded him. “Help me sit up, fetch me a glass of water, and then tell me if you’ve figured it out yet.”

Grace hurried to place two pillows behind the marshal’s back while Daniel lifted him up. A moment later, Daniel handed him a glass of water, then pulled his chair closer to the bed.

Grace felt Cooper’s brow, smiled because it didn’t feel overly warm to her, and then politely excused herself and tried to leave the room so that they would have privacy for their talk.

“Grace, come back here,” Daniel ordered.

When she went back to the chair across from him, Daniel shook his head at her and motioned for her to come to him.

“Are you going to introduce me to the lady?” Cooper asked.

“My name is Grace Winthrop,” she said, and instinctively started to curtsy.

“She’s Lady Grace Winthrop,” Daniel told his friend. “She already knows who you are, Cooper.”

He patted the side of the bed next to Daniel. “Sit with me, darlin’.”

“She isn’t your darlin’.”

“She isn’t?” he asked before taking a long swallow of the cool water.

“No, she isn’t,” Daniel replied. “She’s mine.”

Grace stumbled and fell on the foot of the bed. She was too astounded by his comment to argue. Did all men make so little sense? Daniel had kissed her, then shouted at her, and then he said the most ridiculously romantic thing she’d ever heard.

She simply had to get away from him as quickly as possible before he turned her mind into mush.

“Cooper fancies himself a lady’s man,” Daniel remarked.

“I am a lady’s man,” Cooper corrected.

Daniel settled back in his chair and relaxed. His friend was going to make it. Now it was time to talk about what had happened. He was pretty sure he had it all figured out, but he wanted confirmation.

“So tell me, Cooper, did Rebecca shoot you or was it someone else?”

Grace was so taken aback by the question, she jumped to her feet to protest. “You cannot be serious, Daniel. You can’t possibly believe that sweet Rebecca had anything to do with this.” Images of Rebecca cuddling little Caleb flashed in her mind. She remembered how worried and frightened Rebecca had been when she first arrived at Tilly’s house after the fire. What would they have done if she hadn’t stepped forward to take charge in their time of need? No, Grace thought, Daniel was wrong.

“Rebecca did the shooting,” Cooper said quietly. “I never saw it coming, never once suspected. There was a man there, but I only got a fleeting glance at him before I was blown into the hallway. I was going down when she shot at me again. The last thing I remember is the sound of glass breaking.”

Grace was too stunned to speak.

Cooper told Daniel every detail he could recall, including the fact that Rebecca had been naked. “I opened the door and was so surprised by the sight of her, I think I hesitated before I went for my gun. Those seconds almost cost me my life. I should have been prepared for any eventuality.”

Grace fell back on the bed. “She’s one of them?” she gasped, trying to come to terms with the truth. “The fire,” she cried out. “Did she start the fire? Did she hit me?” By the time she finished her questions, she was shaking.

Daniel nodded. “Most likely,” he said. “Unless one of the other men stayed behind, but I don’t think that happened. All Rebecca had to do was sprinkle some kerosene around the house and light a match. She was real sure of herself,” he told Cooper. “She went inside the house—”

Grace jumped to her feet again. “And helped herself to an apple,” she blurted out. “She tried to kill all of us … Tilly and Caleb and Jessica … and she wore black, Daniel. Didn’t she? She was dressed all in black.”

Daniel noticed that Cooper grimaced in pain when Grace sat on the bed again. She didn’t realize that every time she moved, she was causing him discomfort. Knowing Cooper the way he did, he also knew he wouldn’t say anything to her. Daniel gently pulled Grace toward him and deposited her on the arm of his chair.

She barely noticed she’d moved, so caught up was she in the horror of Rebecca’s treachery.

“She’s a good actress,” Cooper remarked.

Grace tried to stand again, but Daniel put his arm around her waist and held her down. “Yes, she is a good actress,” she agreed. “She was complacent and smug, and I thought she was my friend. Can you believe that, Marshal Cooper? I believed she was my friend.”

Cooper nodded. “I felt sorry for her.”

“Everything was a lie, wasn’t it? She pretended to be so worried about Jessica and me, and she kept telling us we had to stick together.”

“When you were locked in the jail together?” Daniel asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “She told us what she was going to say to you. She went over it again and again until we had all but memorized it.”

“Did she try to find out which one of you was the witness?”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She had probably already made up her mind to kill both of you.”

Grace visibly shivered. “She almost succeeded. If you and Cole hadn’t come when you did, we all would have died. Jessica would never have left the house without Caleb and Tilly and me, and the smoke would have gotten her.”

“The very first robbery … wasn’t the building burned to the ground?”

“Yes,” Daniel answered. “The first thought all of us had was that someone was trying to cover embezzlement. The bank manager swore that the receipts balanced every night. Every penny was accou

nted for,” he added. “And we ran a thorough check on all the officers and employees. Everyone came up squeaky clean.”

“Marshal, can you ever forgive me?” Grace asked. “If Jessica and I had told Daniel the truth, you wouldn’t have been shot. All of this could have been avoided.”

“That’s one way to think about it,” Cooper told her. “But there’s also another. If you two had told the truth at the beginning, Rebecca wouldn’t have said she was the witness. She could have happily gone on her way and let her friends go after Jessica. We might never have known that Rebecca was involved.”

“Then it wasn’t terribly wrong of Jessica and me to withhold the truth?”

“Grace, if you’re expecting me to thank you, it isn’t gonna happen,” Daniel said. “You should have told me the truth.”

His mind was consumed with Rebecca. “I let her slip right through my fingers.”

“I bent over backwards to accommodate the woman,” Cooper admitted. “I even let her … Ah, Daniel, I told her Grace and Jessica were going to meet her in Red Arrow, and I also let her send a telegram. She told me she wanted to let her friends know she wouldn’t be joining them, but we now know that was a lie. If you go into Red Arrow, they’re going to be waiting for you.”

“What about Cole and Jessica?” Grace whispered. “They’ll be walking into a trap.”

Daniel didn’t seem very upset by the possibility. A gleam had come into his eyes, and he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. “Aren’t you worried about Cole and Jessica?”

“No, they have to come through here to get to Red Arrow,” he explained. “And they’re at least a day behind us. Maybe two.”

“Then you won’t go into Red Arrow at all. You’ll take a cut through to Blackwater?”

She was nodding over her own conclusion when he contradicted her. “Oh, no, we’re going into Red Arrow all right.”

“But they’ll be waiting.…”

“God, I hope so.”

Cooper had been listening to the conversation with his eyes closed. He didn’t bother to open them when he asked, “You do have a plan in mind, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Daniel answered. “But it involves you, Cooper.”

“Daniel, he’s been seriously wounded, and his fever only just broke.”

“He won’t have to do much,” he promised.

“So what do you want me to do?” Cooper asked.

Daniel smiled. “I want you to die.”

Part Four

And in green underwood and cover

Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

Thirty-Five

For two long days and nights, four members of the Blackwater gang impatiently waited to ambush the women when they got off the train in Red Arrow. Three of them kept vigil at the depot, while the fourth kept to the shadows as a backup in the event his friends didn’t succeed.

Two trains arrived daily, one at ten in the morning and the other at six at night. The men were thorough in their search. After the passengers departed, a clean sweep was made of every car just to make certain the women weren’t hiding.

The hours in between the trains’ arrivals were spent in the town saloon. The four of them drank hard whiskey together, but none of them got drunk. Mr. Robertson did get a little careless, though, and the others had to help him cover up his spot of trouble. Robertson blamed his lack of control on boredom, for surely that was why he had taken the homely little whore named Flo out to one of the caverns and cut her. He hadn’t meant to kill her, just scare her a little; at least that’s what he believed when he started out with her perched on his saddle, but once he took his knife out and started carving, he got such a kick out of hearing her scream he didn’t want to stop.

His friends helped him bury the body, and aside from having to listen to Robertson boast about how she had squealed like a pig, they all put the inconvenience behind them. Flo was just a whore, after all, and no one was going to miss her.

Because they still hadn’t heard from Johnson, they assumed he’d failed to kill the women himself. Robertson told the others he wished their boss were there because he was much smarter than they were and would surely be able to figure out where the women were hiding. He wasn’t there though, for he and his mistress had gone south to get Bell out of jail.

On the third morning of their watch, they heard through the grapevine that a U.S. marshal named Cooper had been killed. Someone had shot him and thrown him off a train. A wire had been sent to the sheriff in Red Arrow telling him to be on the lookout for any suspicious characters. He relayed the information to the owner of the saloon, who told it to everyone who came into his bar for a drink.

The four men felt they had cause for celebration. They sat together in the corner and shared a bottle of Rabbit Rye among them.

Robertson, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, wasn’t in a festive mood. “What’s taking those women so long to get here? According to the boss’s calculations, they should have gotten off the train yesterday or the day before.”

He had only just made the remarks when an old coot, with long straggly hair and a smell about him as rank as a skunk’s spray, came walking into the saloon.

He strutted up to the bar and draped himself across the counter. “Give me a drink, Harley. I just seen something real special, and I’ll tell you about it after I wet my whistle.”

The bartender, a big man with beefy arms and missing front teeth no one ever noticed because he never smiled, sauntered over to his customer and squinted at him.

“You got money today, Gus?”

In answer, the misshapen, scrawny man slammed a coin down on the countertop. “I sure do,” he boasted. “I got a lot of money today, almost three whole dollars.”

“Where’d you get it?” Harley asked as he poured Gus a watered-down drink of whiskey.

“Never you mind,” Gus answered. “Do you want to hear what I seen or not?”

“I’m listening.”

“I think maybe we’re getting us some new whores, and the two I saw were real perty and fresh looking. I seen them both, and I can’t make up my mind which one I want to diddle with first. Maybe I’ll do them both.”

“Are you drunk?” Harley asked.

“No, I ain’t drunk yet, but I plan to get that way as soon as you’ll pour me another drink. I seen what I seen,” he insisted. “Two men were with them,” he added before taking a long gulp. In his greed to quench his insatiable thirst, he spilled liquor down the sides of his face and quickly tried to catch the drops with the back of his hands and then licked them dry.

“They hid them all right, but I seen where. I went looking for Flo. Didn’t find her,” he said. “But I seen the women all right.”

“What are you talking about, you old goat? There aren’t any fresh whores coming here. I would have known about it. Don’t I run this town?”

“Yes, Harley, you surely do.”

“That’s right,” he growled. “And I’m telling you, I didn’t hire any new women.”

“I’m telling you what I seen. Two men hid those perty girls in the cavern just south of town. Maybe these men are gonna give you some competition and start up a whoring business of their own.”

Harley slammed his hand on the bar. “We’ll just see about that,” he hissed. “Now that Flo took off, I could use a couple more good women. Did you say there were only two men with them? Just two?”

“That’s what I said,” Gus agreed. “Not too smart neither. Those two fellers left those women on their own, tucked inside the cavern, but one of them must have gotten curious, because she poked her head out the entrance to have herself a look around. Then the other one had to look too, and I seen them both. They’re mighty fine looking,” he added with a snicker. “Nice and young, and sure to be feisty.”

Harley was fuming. He was considering riding out to the cavern to steal the women when Robertson strolled over to the bar.

Gus’s

stench ensured that Robertson wouldn’t get too close. “Tell me what you saw, old man,” he demanded, his hand caressing the handle on his knife. “I want to hear all about those women.”

It had been a long while since Gus had been the center of attention, and he gloated while he repeated the story, but before he got the chance to describe the two ladies in detail, Robertson had motioned to his friends and left the saloon. The three others followed him out the door.

They were gone a long time, almost three hours, and when they returned to the saloon, Gus was nowhere in sight. Robertson wanted to go looking for him, but the others talked him out of it. They reclaimed their table in the corner to discuss the situation.

Cole strode through the swinging barroom doors a moment later. Harley took one look at the badge on his vest and reached for the shotgun he kept tucked under the counter.

“Put your hands on the counter, where I can see them,” Cole ordered. He was being inordinately polite. Inwardly, he wanted to wait until the bartender had gone for his weapon and then shoot the insolent look off his face, but now that he was a marshal, he knew he couldn’t give in to all of his urges.

“The sheriff told me all about you, Harley,” Cole said. “He said you think you run this one-block town.”

“It’s true,” Harley boasted. “I do run it.”

“He also told me you shot a man in the back.”

“The sheriff couldn’t prove it was me,” the bartender said, his face turning red with anger. “I don’t want any trouble.”

The four men at the table were watching Cole closely. Cole’s attention was riveted on them, but he still noticed that Harley’s hands were down at his sides.

“I told you to put your hands up where I can see them. Do it now.”

The force of his voice, added to the dangerous look in his eyes, should have convinced Harley to do as he ordered. The bartender was obviously weighing the possible consequences as his glance darted back and forth between the men in the corner and the lawman.