Western Romance Collection: Rugged Cowboys Part 46

He didn't subscribe to any of the nonsense talk about her. He certainly hadn't asked her about any of it, and he wouldn't have just made the decision to keep her outof her own room, no lesswithout consulting her. Mr. Maxim wasn't that kind of person.

So she took in a deep breath and straightened her back and waited, the only option afforded her other than simply walking out in a huff. Eventually, he had to come out, or there would be a great many hungry people waiting come supper time.

It gave her far too much time by herself, though, as the place sat empty. She could see Zella standing over by the kitchen, but every time that Marie actually looked up, she turned back in as if someone had called her back.

They certainly were avoiding her. The only question was why, and what she could do about it. If there was anything, and if there wasn't, then at least say something so she could get her things and find someplace else to stay.

Honestly. It was beginning to feel like a pattern with this town. If someone would simply talk to her, maybe some of their problems could be solved, but apparently everyone found it much easier and more convenient if they just avoided her as much as possible, pushed things off as long as they could, and then pretended that they hadn't.

She had half a mind to step right through that kitchen door and give them a piece of her mind. She stopped herself, though, in spite of her frustration. Chris had been right, even if she didn't have to like it. She was sticking her nose in where it wasn't needed, and where others had at least made the pa.s.sing attempt to keep their own noses out of her business.

Still, at some point she'd have to figure something out. Someone would have to start talking, or she was going to go mad. She had no problem being the one to start the ball rolling, if that were even possible. There was absolutely no excuse for being unwilling to do what you'd ask of someone else.

The problem was, though, that she was already doing everything that she could. She kept no secretswell, no, that wasn't true at all, was it?

She had things that she didn't talk about. Things that it wouldn't have been appropriate to discuss. But sitting on the outside, anyone would see that as just being her keeping things from them, and in a certain way of looking at it, that's what she was doing. Discretion looked very much like secrecy from the outside, as she well knew.

Marie rose from her seat and took a breath. Her clothes were most of the way dry, now, and with just a little bit of luck, they might not be soaked through by the time she got back to her hotel. At least, that was what she let herself hope.

The rain was still coming down, softer now, the last dying gasps of insistence that the rain wouldn't let up just because of some inconvenience it might have been causing people. Soon, those last attempts would die off, and the sun would start shining through the clouds. It just hadn't happened quite yet, but it was as inevitable as the sun rising the next morning.

Marie allowed herself to hum a little tune as she crossed the street, a half-remembered melody that almost certainly had a more straightforward tune when she had first heard it. Someone let out a yell, off in the distance. It might have been anything, at first.

And then it was followed by a shot, and the options for what it might have been tightened up considerably. Marie's heart threatened to stop right in her chest.

It couldn't possibly have been what it sounded like. Perhaps she had heard someone startled by an animal, and they'd fired the shot for their own safety.

The idea didn't calm her down one bit, and she was off and running before she knew what she was doing. That wasn't the sound of someone being spooked and then shooting a snake, she knew.

Someone was hurt, and they were hurt bad, and if she didn't do anything then she'd have no right to complain about anyone else, either. Now she just had to hope she got there in time.

Thirty.

Chris's mood hadn't improved. He didn't expect it to, but he had hoped in spite of himself. No such luck, it would seem. He took in a deep breath and rubbed a little more.

n.o.body would see the stain. In all likelihood, few people would have seen it before. That was the happy fact. But Chris would have seen it every time he looked down, and that was reason enough to clean the mess up. Now even he couldn't see it, even if he looked for it quite hard.

That should have been a small victory all by itself, but it wasn't. There were good reasons he didn't talk about his past. Very good reasons indeed. But somehow, none of them mattered enough to make him feel better about snapping at Marie, the way that she'd sulked out of the bar sticking in his mind like a bit of food stuck between his teeth.

And just like that, every few moments he would run into it again, and he'd be stuck trying to rub it clean, the same way that he'd rubbed the counter. Unlike the counter, the only way to fix it was to forget about it, but in spite of himself he couldn't.

Then the shout. It was out back, and shouts weren't unheard of. In fact, a day without any shouting was much more worthy of comment, with Sarah's girls working as much as they did, and the sort of people who see those girls being who they are.

The shot afterward, thoughthat was what pulled Chris out of his stupor. His hand went automatically to his pistol and slipped it free, and waved Jim to follow along. The broad-chested bouncer pulled himself out of the seat like a man half his size and twice as energetic. He was like a whole new person, Chris thought with a sour wryness.

He didn't wait to see how close the bouncer would follow behind him, though. He was out the door in a second and moving down the street. It didn't take long to find where the commotion had come from, because there were already people beginning to gather around.

Chris slipped his pistol back home into its holster and shouldered his way through the crowd.

"What happened here?"

Someone Chris didn't immediately recognize turned to regard him. "He's shot," the man said, as if it were some kind of revelation.

A young man lay on the ground, blood coming out of a hole in his belly in kicks and spurts, his eyes gla.s.sing over even as he groaned in pain, holding his hand over the wound as if his life depended on it.

If the doctor were a skilled surgeon, maybe it would have, but Chris's expectations were grim. He leaned in and pressed his own hand down on the wound. Mickey groaned in pain and then sucked in a sharp breath as if he would only have one last chance.

"What happened?"

The man blinked hard, like it was a struggle, and kept his eyes shut a second. Then he opened them again.

"I don't rightlyhe just asked me for the time, and then he shot."

Chris cursed. "Did you get a look at him?"

"Tall," the guy said. "Wore a hat. Uh. Dark eyes. Dark hair."

He laid his head back on the ground, his eyes looking around wildly as his body finally started to realize that the jig was up and delirium started to take over.

Chris cursed again. "You're going to be fine, Mick. Don't panic. Just give it a minute, the doc will be here any time."

There was no chance. It had been too long already. He might be able to survive the initial shot, if they hurried. If the doc got there in the next few minutes. The odds of infection were nearly a hundred percent, though, and there wasn't much they could do at that point. Cutting out the rot would be like carving the man in half, with a wound this size and all the dirt and grit on the ground.

People started to stand back. Chris didn't bother looking up. Sheriff Roberts stood over him and the bartender kept his weight down on the wound, trying in vain to keep the blood from spilling out around his fingers.

"Help me get him up. He's got to get to a doctor."

The Sheriff crossed to the other side wordlessly and between the two of them, they managed to get Mickey on his feet. Chris tried to take as much of the weight as he could while keeping pressure on the wound, in spite of his doubts, forcing himself to hope.

The doc wasn't far. When the doc and a nurse met them halfway with a thick stack of bandages, Chris allowed himself just a little genuine hope, in spite of the fact that Mick had pa.s.sed out from the pain and blood loss. The four of them lifted the unconscious man onto a table. With a long look back, Chris left as the doctor started calling out orders and rooting around to clean the wound out.

He settled himself into a seat and leaned his head back. The Sheriff settled into a seat opposite.

"He'll be alright," Roberts offered. Chris let him think so. He couldn't afford to jinx it, not knowing who'd done the job.

"Yeah, the doc's good at his job."

"What do you know about what happened?"

The question was phrased in an idle way, like he was just asking the only person in the room. Sheriff Roberts had a good way of acting, when he wanted to, like he was your bud. But it was no accident that it was Chris who he was asking.

"I don't know anything for sure," Chris answered. It was the truth.

"Now you know I ain't asked you anything about where you been before," Roberts started, leaving the rest to Chris's imagination.

"Sure. And don't think I don't appreciate it."

"But something in my gut says you know something about this."

"You can take my piece, if you like," Chris offered. He left out that he had another in his room, and that he'd be going right for it after his heart started to slow down.

"I didn't say I thought you did it, Broadmoor. I said you know more than you're telling, and I want to hear it."

"I don't know anything, Sheriff. If I did, I'd come right to you."

"Then guess for me."

Chris let his eyes drift shut and took a long, deep breath. He considered the idea for a minute. He could do it, too. Wouldn't even be that hard. All he'd have to do was come out with as much or as little information as he absolutely had to. Roberts was trying his d.a.m.nedest to be clearjust a hint would be enough.

The problem was, though, that just a hint would be enough to get him into the room. It would be enough to put him into a situation where he'd just get himself shot.

Chris couldn't do that. He wouldn't. "I don't know anything, Sheriff."

All he could hope for was forgiveness after he dealt with it himself.

Thirty-One.

Marie watched the events unfolding in front of her with a cold, twisting gut and a feeling that whatever was behind it, Chris was taking it worse than the likely death of someone he probably didn't even know. Marie had never seen the injured man before in her life, not that it meant much of anything. She hadn't seen half the town before.

And yet, there Chris was, at the center of this maelstrom, as people whispered in voices too low for Marie to make out. It was easier to make out the disconcerted looks on their faces, and much easier to figure out what they were staring at. The Sheriff came before too long, in the tow of a young man with a low hat-brim, and a moment later Roberts helped Chris to take the body away.

Something told her that she ought to have helped, but she just... froze. She should have known what to do. She'd done it enough times, back in New Orleans, but... with all that blood... The man was already nearly knocking on heaven's door, and the odds that he could be saved for love or money were so slim.

She tried to move to follow, but her body wouldn't move. All she could do was watch the blood-so much blood-soak into the gra.s.s. She felt strangely detached, almost numb, as if she weren't really being affected by any of the things going on around her. As if none of it were real.

She snapped out of it when someone-a big man, the one from the bar who had left them to their privacy only a little while ago-wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her away.

"You oughtn't see this, ma'am," he was saying softly. She heard him in the same way she heard all the voices around. Where had Chris gone? She'd lost him, when he'd moved away. When she hadn't followed him, even though she'd thought that she would, she'd thought that she wanted to.

Marie's mind started to catch up to the situation a minute later, when she had finally gotten far enough away. When she couldn't smell the acrid, unpleasant smell of gunpowder and the hint of coppery sweetness that was blood hanging in the air. She looked around. Recognized her surroundings.

And more than that, she recognized Chris coming out of the doctor's place, his shoulders set low and hard and a mean look on his face. He glared right at her, but he didn't see her. Whatever he was seeing, she knew the expression because she'd seen it before.

The teacher slipped out of the big man's arms. He made a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but then an instant later he saw Chris and decided that he didn't want to be there any more. Marie understood the doubts but didn't have room to indulge them.

She pressed herself against him as he walked. He looked down at her, from wherever his mind was a million miles away. Then he looked back up. "Go on, Marie, I can't talk right now."

She stood and let him pa.s.s, but she didn't leave. "When will you be able to talk?"

He looked back at her for a second, and then seemed to decide that it wasn't worth answering after all. Marie followed after, taking long steps and leaping up the stairs two at a time, regardless of what it might have done for her skirt.

"Christopher Broadmoor, you answer me. If you're going off with your pistol, then you at least tell me why. Tell me what I'm supposed to tell Jamie, if he asks for you."

Chris stiffened when she said Jamie's name. His jaw pressed together like a vise, but after a long moment he turned again and stepped through the back door. It was different, this time. She'd been up to this room twice before, and both times it had been an experience, to say the least.

Now, though, it was silent as she stepped through the door. Must have been that everyone who might have been up here was outside, gossiping. And they'd be gossiping about her all the more, in a little while. This was no place for a lady. Was she even a lady any more? She'd given away whatever little virtue that she might have had in their eyes.

Chris's door was closed when she got to it, a moment after him. She opened it softly. When she'd first run after him, she'd seen it all playing out in her head, all fire and brimstone. Hit him with the full force and fury of G.o.d. But now, she just wanted to stop him. Just get him to see reason because if he didn't then it wasn't just her who would be suffering.

"Why does it need to be you? I know you didn't tell the Sheriff about wherever you're heading."

"I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know anything, and I'm not headed anywhere."

He was packing a bag, though, sure as anything. She watched him pull a box of cartridges out from behind the bed and slip it into a sack.

"Don't you lie to me, Chris Broadmoor, not after-"

She didn't finish her sentence, and she knew she didn't need to. He stopped, at least for a moment, and turned to face her.

"You're right," he said finally. "I shouldn't lie to you. I'm going to deal with this once and for all, and I'm doing it because I have to."

"No," she said, insistent. "You don't have to. You can just let someone else handle it, just this once, Chris. You don't have to handle anything at all."

He smiled. "You're a smart woman, Miss Bainbridge," he said softly. "But in this one case, you don't really know what you're talking about at all."

He tested the weight of the bag on his back.

"Tell me what I'm supposed to tell Jamie. Tell me what I'm supposed to do when the Governor's people come and try to take him."

He closed his eyes, and she knew she had him. She might have hurt his feelings, deep down. If he had any feelings to speak of. But she did what she had to do, and just for once, just for now, that was enough.

Thirty-Two.

Chris set down on the bed and dropped his bag, suddenly tired as a wave of something that wasn't entirely unlike regret hit him. Marie was right, as much as he didn't want to admit it. He'd already made his decisions, and there wasn't going to be any take-backs, no matter what he might want. No matter who might get hurt, he'd made his bed and now it was time to lie in it.

"You made your point," he said softly. "You don't have to wait."

The sound of her feet not moving was unsurprising. Then they started moving the wrong direction. His bed sagged as she set down in it beside where he lay. He didn't move the arm that covered his face. There wasn't any reason to move it, not now.

"You know, Chris, it's funny."