Anora's Pride Page 22
He grinned back. “I hate to admit it but, as usual, you're right. You know you got me well and truly hooked.”
Behind them, Penny cleared her throat noisily.
“Hey, you two. Just whose wedding is this?”
Anora turned to her friend. “You make the most beautiful bride. Doesn't she, Jess?”
“Second only to you, my love.”
At that moment the first strains of organ music filled the room, underscoring the love Anora felt overflow her life. Surely no woman was more truly blessed, more truly loved than she.
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* * *
If you enjoyed
Anora's Pride,
you will want to read Kathleen Lawless's other books at
The Wild Rose Press.
Here are some samples...
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* * *
Deliver Me
by
Kathleen Lawless
* * * *
Chapter One
Texarkana, Arkansas, 1887
It looked like blood!
Maddy squatted just outside the barn door and stared at the brick-colored droplet congealing in the dust.
“Naughty Pooch, at it again,” she murmured as she straightened. The farm's pampered mongrel had a habit of bringing home tasty treasures, usually a dead rabbit or some such trophy. And since hunting was a part of Pooch's ancestry, Maddy didn't have the heart to scold him.
She surveyed the twilight-tinged contours of the family farm. Beyond the house and barn, shadowy fields of cotton stretched as far as the eye could see before disappearing into the slate-gray horizon, but there was no sign of the dog. From inside the barn came the familiar shuffling sounds of the animals settling down for the night, overscored by a low plaintive “moo” from Cindy.
Hinges sounded a protest as Maddy pushed open the barn door and stepped inside. She was instantly enveloped in scents of hay and warm animal flesh. She hooked the lantern over a post and took two steps forward before she was grabbed from behind, a rough hand clamped across her mouth.
Terror seized her insides and twisted. Frantically she sought a weapon. Any weapon. Her captor's breath was hot in her ear, thicker than molasses, as he held her to him with an awe-inspiring strength.
“Are you alone?”
Maddy nodded. Except for Ma, back in the house. Ma, who would never venture out to the barn, anyway. Not once she'd changed into her wrap and slippers.
“Are you going to scream?”
Maddy shook her head vehemently. Not that Ma would likely hear her if she did scream, but she wouldn't dream of dragging her stooped and frail mother out to the barn even if she could. And the field hands’ huts were a good quarter of a mile away. Too far to hear her scream.
“Good.”
As the hand was lifted from her mouth she felt the big man behind her start to sag. What was he about? Hoping she would let her guard down, perhaps?
In that instant she heard a low, menacing growl. Good old Pooch had come to her rescue.
The growl died.
He better not hurt that dog!
Maddy spun around in time to see Pooch sniff the stranger's leg and wag his tail.
“Good boy.” The man spoke soothingly to the dog, but his stance told her he was watching her closely, ready to deflect any sudden move she might make.
“Sic him, Pooch! Kill!”
The dog whined low in his throat, then turned and slunk from the barn.
“It's not his fault,” the stranger said. “Dogs like me.”
“Really?” Maddy took stock of the man who leaned against the wall as if he needed the support. She couldn't see much of his face on account of a hank of dark brown hair which fell over his forehead and obscured his eyes. The lamplight illuminated a jaw shadowed by several days’ growth of beard and prison grays stained by a rusty blotch of drying blood. Her gaze dropped to his ankles. How had he made it this far in shackles? They were half a day's ride from the prison. Even as she watched he seemed to ooze down to the ground.
“You can't stay here,” Maddy announced flatly. She knew, even if he didn't, that the U.S. marshals would be combing the countryside. Like as not they'd reach the farm at any moment.
The man busied himself unfastening his shirt, as if she weren't even there. He frowned down at the bullet hole in his side. “I'll need you to patch this up.”
Maddy took a step back. “You don't get it, mister. The federal marshals'll be out in full force, looking for you.”
He glanced up at her then, and Maddy felt her heart lurch before resuming its rhythm. The man had the most compelling blue eyes she'd ever seen. Not just the color of them, which brought to mind crushed delphiniums, but the eerie way they made her feel—as if she were privy to a rare glimpse of his soul—and the knowledge that this man before her, prison grays or not, was no criminal.
“Then I'll have to trust you to be a good girl and make certain they don't find me.”
The term girl got her dander up right away. At twenty-two years of age she was no girl but a woman fully grown, even if her figure remained boyishly slender. “Why should I?”
The way he looked at her fair curled her toes. As if he could, in turn, see clear through her, to the very marrow of her bones. “Because I didn't do what they say I did.”
He didn't ask her to believe him. He stated his innocence matter-of-factly, assumed she'd believe him simply because he spoke and she recognized the truth. The power of that staunch and simple belief stirred Maddy in a way she'd not been stirred for a good many years. She knew her fellow man was not always intrinsically good; that had been a painfully real lesson learned at a right tender age.
Her brain reeled with the weight of her decision. Turn him over to the marshals and wash her hands—but she knew Lee Roberts: the fugitive would likely never make it back alive. No way was she having human blood on her hands. Her pa and brother hadn't had a fair hearing. Had this man?
“Then we'd best get you moved,” Maddy said briskly.
He glanced at her, his eyes dull with pain and exhaustion. “Moved?”
“There's a place. My daddy used to hide runaway slaves, back when I was a little girl.”
He nodded and, with obvious difficulty, pulled himself erect. My, but he was tall.
“Wait.” Maddy crossed the barn to where the tools were kept nailed to one wall, picked up a hatchet, and made her way back to the stranger. “Plant your feet wide apart.”
He nodded stiffly and did as she said.
Maddy moistened her lips, knotted her brow in concentration and took a swing. The barn resounded with the dull ring of metal on metal. The shackles held. Maddy glanced around and spied a large flat rock used to prop the barn door open sometimes.
“Over here.” She got him into position, feet straddling the rock, and raised the hatchet high over her head for another aim, followed by a third. On the fourth blow the chain parted.
“There.” Breathing heavily, Maddy wiped her brow with the cuff of her sleeve. At the back of the barn she led the way to the last stall.
As the stranger leaned wearily against the wall, she kicked the hay to one side and revealed a hidden trap door. When she pulled on the ring it creaked slowly open. A black void yawned beneath the barn floor.
“Hurry,” Maddy said, giving the stranger an impatient shove. “There's a lantern down there and some matches.”
“Where are you going?”
“Outside to wipe up the blood. Else I'll never convince them you're not here.”
She noticed how the escaped prisoner cradled his injured side while he climbed down the ladder into the hidey-hole. As soon as his head disappeared, she closed the trapdoor and scattered hay overtop it. Then she fetched a stick and, outside the barn, obliterated any telltale droplets of blood in the dust. No sooner had she finished up and tossed the stick into the woodpile than hoofbeats announced the arrival of the marshals, five of them, riding abreast. The le
ader pulled ahead and stopped alongside her, touching his fingers to the brim of his hat.
“Evening, Maddy.”
Maddy cocked her head in an inquisitive manner. “Evening, Lee. What brings you boys out here tonight?”
“Got us an escaped convict on the run. Checking all the neighboring farms.” Lee Roberts’ stance reminded Maddy just how much he enjoyed his job. Especially this aspect of it—a manhunt. She felt a chill chase down her spine. Lord help the man in her barn if Lee got his hands on him.
“Merciful heavens.” Maddy fluttered her fingertips against her throat in what she hoped would be viewed as a helpless-female gesture.
“Don't you worry none. We'll get him. We always do. Roy. Chester. Look in the barn. You other two boys, check out the house and the shed. Mind you don't do anything to alarm Mrs. Winslow.”
While his men scattered, Lee dismounted, removed his hat, and approached Maddy. “You sure do look pretty tonight in the moonlight.” He frowned as Pooch rushed up and barked a noisy protest at his presence. Maddy glanced down at her feet to keep from laughing aloud.
When she had herself sufficiently under control she glanced up at Lee from behind her lashes, bashful-like. “What'd he do?”
“Who?”
“The man you're hunting down.”
“Killed his wife.”
Maddy's eyes widened in shock. “He confess to that?”
“His type never do. Shame the judge didn't order him hanged.” Lee licked his lips as if the idea of a hanging sat right well with him. The mere mention of the word was enough to set Maddy's stomach churning.
“How'd he get away?”
“Him and another rounder from Fort Worth Prison were on their way to the mountains to help blast for the new railway. Should the dynamite go off a tad early, so's the prison boys haven't yet got out of the way, well, not much of a loss, is it?”
“How'd he escape?”
“We think it was some gang members who rode with the other prisoner. They set up a charge and blew the Sulphur Springs bridge while the prison convoy was on it. We picked up the other con already. But Burke managed to give us the slip. For now.”
“For now,” Maddy echoed. “Where's he from, this Burke?”
“Down in Houston. But the wife was murdered in San Antonio. No matter. We'll have him before first light. He's hurt, and he doesn't know the area.”
“How do you know he's hurt?”
“One of the guards got off a couple shots. We spotted blood back at the creek. Don't you worry none. The bounder won't get far.”
Maddy nodded dully, her mind awhirl. What on earth had she done, giving refuge to a convicted wife-killer? It wasn't too late. She could lead Lee, right this minute, to the cellar where Burke was hiding. Let him and his men transport the escapee back to face what would surely be a death sentence one way or the other. Instinct told her Burke wasn't a man who took kindly to confinement. ‘Specially for something he didn't do.
Maddy tripped over her own thoughts. She still believed him. Despite what Lee said and the judge had ruled, she believed that sad and tortured man in her barn when he said, “I didn't do what they say I did.”
“Nobody in the barn, Marshal,” reported one of the deputies. “Or the field hands’ shacks.”
“Same with the house and shed, sir.”
“Fine, then. Mount up.” While his men did as they were ordered, Lee took Maddy aside out of earshot. “Can I call one evening soon, Maddy? Once the manhunt is over?”
Maddy thought about her fugitive. How long before his wound healed enough for him to travel? “I guess that'd be fine, Lee. So long as you know it's friendship I'm encouraging you with. Nothing more than that.”
“I guess you've made that clear enough these past years.”
“And I guess you keep hoping sooner or later you'll go and wear me down.”
“You know I'm a right stubborn cuss when I get my mind set a certain way.”
“Don't I just?”
Lee snapped his hat smartly onto his head and swung into the saddle of his massive chestnut stallion. “I'll be seeing you around sometime soon. And that's a promise.”
Maddy watched the fivesome depart. As soon as the coast was clear, she made her way into the farmhouse and fetched the medical supply kit. Pooch watched her with anxious eyes, almost telling her to hurry. Did he know something she didn't? Pooch's ancestors had been with her family for three generations, and they all seemed to have an uncanny sense of mankind's nature.
She returned to the barn accompanied by the clearly anxious dog, uncovered the trap door, and peered into the darkness below.
“Mr. Burke?”
No answer.
Maddy hesitated. Was he lurking down there, silently waiting for her to descend so he could...so he could what? The man was wounded and weak from loss of blood. His manhandling her earlier cost him the last of his strength. She took hold of her skirt and started down, letting her feet dangle a second before they found the first wooden rung.
“Mr. Burke? It's just me, Maddy. They're gone.”
Descending into the hidey-hole brought back a flood of memories she'd just as soon forget. Wide, frightened eyes, extra bright against dark-skinned faces. The smell of human fear and desperation, underscored by an air of hope. Despite everything that happened, she still revered her daddy for the part he'd played in giving those poor people hope.
Another scene, ugly in its grim execution, snuck up from the dark recesses of her childhood, and she closed her eyes against the memory. Her heel slipped and she tumbled the last foot and a half into the darkened cellar.
Guided by the faint lamplight which filtered through the trapdoor, she crawled toward the spot where she knew the lantern and matches would be. Her hands shook as she fumbled to strike a match. At last it flared and she quickly lit the lantern and adjusted the wick, wrinkling her nose against the stale, earthy smell.
The hiding spot was smaller than she recalled. Impossible for a man of Burke's proportions to stand upright. Glancing around, she spotted him slumped against the wall, his head resting on his chest, his long legs sprawled in front of him.
Just as well he's passed out, Maddy thought as she unwrapped the medical kit. She could clean his wound without him feeling a thing. At least, not till he woke up.
Luckily, the bullet had gone clean through and out the other side, leaving a reasonably neat hole to stitch up. She could have dug it out if she'd had to, but this way was far easier. Once she finished patching him up as best she could, she sat back on her heels, knowing it promised to be a long night ahead.
~*~
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* * *
Callie's Honor
by
Kathleen Lawless
* * * *
Prologue
Oregon, 1868
Rafe straightened from the unmarked grave and turned to the Shoshoni brave next to him. “I won't forget this.”
“You go after them? The white men who did this?”
“Honor demands it.”
His blood brother's face remained sober, although his black eyes danced with teasing. “You chase honor only when it suits you, Brother.”
“You're a fine one to talk.” Rafe clasped the other man's hand. The difference in the color of their skin in no way lessened the bond he felt deep in his heart. “I won't forget this.”
“If you wish it, I would accompany you.”
“I know. But it's best I go alone.”
“Be careful. It is your face, also, that other men will be on the lookout for.”
Rafe ran a hand along his clean-shaven jaw. “Always had a hankering to wear a beard.”
Wounded Bear clasped his forearm. “You know even if you find these men it will not return your brother to his life.”
Rafe pressed his lips together. “No, it won't. But I aim to see to it that the Denzell boys have killed for the last time.”
“And the father?”
“I'll think of something fitting. Lord knows there's plenty of blood on the old man's hands, even if his sons did the killing.”
* * * *
Chapter 1
Callie heard the approaching rider long before his image appeared on the horizon. She tossed the last of the scraps to the chickens and headed back to the cabin, steadfastly refusing to quicken her pace. If she was going to live alone in the wilds of Oregon, she had to learn not to run for cover anytime a stranger blew across her path. Besides, her shotgun stood just inside the cabin's front door, within easy reach. Chances were good her lone visitor was just someone on his way to town, maybe stopping in to ask directions.
Still, Callie picked up her gun and felt its reassuring weight. So far, anytime a man trespassed onto her territory it had boded ill, and she wasn't about to be taking any chances.
Narrowing her eyes against the sun's glare, she raised the shotgun and waited. The stranger was not making very good time, due to the fact he was hauling a brown-and-white calf along behind him at the end of a dusty rope. The calf bawled its protest at being dragged along this way.
Man and horse pulled up abruptly, less than a stone's throw from her front steps. “Good day to you, ma'am.” The man's voice was pleasant enough as he touched the brim of his hat, although he didn't remove it the way Callie expected a real gentleman would. He seemed to be deliberately leaving his hat in place, as well as his face in shadow, making it impossible for Callie to tell whether or not she'd seen him around these parts before.
“Good enough day,” Callie said tightly, her hold on the shotgun unwavering. The man before her sat his saddle with the ease of one born to it. It was difficult to judge which was the more splendid creature, the man whose face remained hidden or the ebony horse beneath him.
The man tugged on the rope, eliciting a fresh complaint from the cow. “I was wondering if this animal might belong to you. Happened upon her wandering across the road a ways back. Noticed a hole in the fence when I passed by earlier. Thought she might have got away on you.”
“I daresay she's mine, all right,” Callie said, her suspicions lessening ever so slightly. “I expect fetching her back slowed your journey some.”