Explaining Herself (26 page)

When he pushed out the door, through the rain toward the stables, Victoria tried to feel glad that he would help. She felt afraid instead. Drawn.
Uncertain.

Why would anybody try to shoot Ross? Why would the sheriff arrest him for self-defense? Why was he at the Red Light, anyway?

She pressed a hand against her mouth and watched the stables out the window, and she wanted Ross to be safe. Stubborn and wrong or not, she wanted him safe
—and with her.

Evangeline slid
her arm around Victoria's shoul
ders. 'Your brother will take care of him," she comforted. "That's what he does. He takes care of people."

Then the stable doors opened and Thaddeas led his horse out, closed the doors, mounted. He lifted one hand, acknowledging the girls in the lit kitchen window, then rode away into the rain.

Evangeline sighed.

"Come on," said Vic softly. "Let's get you comfortable."

Of course Evangeline protested, but Victoria pulled her upstairs, found her a fresh
—if rather short— dress, and helped her dry her hair. Then she fixed Evangeline a cup of tea.

Then she put on her own cloak.

"What?" Evangeline put down her tea. "Victoria, you can't. You promised him. You swore!"

"I swore not to go to the jail with him. Well, I'm not with him. I swore to make you comfortable, and you're comfortable."

"But that's not what he meant. You're not being fair."

"He didn't play fair when he blackmailed me." She put on one of her mother's old cowboy hats. "Now I'm going to make sure Ross is okay. You stay here and be comfortable. Thad's orders."

Evangeline looked stricken, but Victoria hurried out into the rain anyway, toward the stables and her bicycle. She paused only long enough to whistle for Duchess.

It was after dark. And she'd promised.

Laramie had plenty of time to remember kissing Victoria, holding Victoria, not feeling alone.

Like he felt now.

Ward offered to unlock his handcuffs, then used the moment to push Laramie down so that his cheek cracked against the cot. The bullet wound in his side
throbbed almost as badly. But Laramie rolled awkwardly to his feet and said nothing
—by invoking Victoria's cinnamon scent, by imagining her eyes, her hair, and her eager, continuous kaleidoscopic of words.

Thoughts of her soothed him as nothing ever had.

Which was why he had to leave, while none of his memories of Victoria included her disillusionment.

Alone as he felt, Laramie was surprised when the door to the jail opened and Hank Schmidt, the foreman of the Circle-T ranch, sauntered in dripping rainwater.

"Sheriff," the older man greeted lazily as he took off his wet hat, slapped it against his leg. "Hear tell you pulled one of our boys out of some trouble tonight."

Laramie had already sat up, intrigued and confused. Someone had ridden out to the ranch? In a saloon full of folks he didn't even know, someone had gone to get help?

Ward said, "I arrested one of your boys for murder."

"The way I hear it, he was defending himself."

Ward hitched his thumbs into his suspenders. "I reckon the judge can decide that on Monday."

He was stalling for time, keeping Laramie locked up until he figured out how he knew him
—and what to do about it. All the more reason for Laramie to get the hell out.

Schmidt looked over at the cell. "Why's he still cuffed?"

"Holding him for murder," repeated Ward. "Dangerous man."

"Didn't know you for a coward, Sheriff." Schmidt narrowed his already sun-squinted eyes. "Give me the keys."

Ward straightened. "You ain't takin' my prisoner. That's breakin' the law, Schmidt, and I won't have it."

"I'm not takin'
anybody," said the foreman, dis
gusted. "I'm unlocking the handcuffs. Give me the keys."

Ward hesitated.

The Circle-T foreman leaned, dripping, over the desk. 'You either give me the key, or you unlock those cuffs yourself, or you arrest me for the goddamned hell I'm about to raise. I won't see you abusing one of my boys, and I sure as hell won't let the boss think I did.
Savvy?"

The two men stared, long and hard, and Schmidt won. With a swipe of the keys off the desk, Ward stomped over to the cell and said, "C'mere, boy."

Laramie doubted Ward had the balls to try anything in front of Schmidt, so he came to the bars, turned around, and felt the sheriff undo the cuffs with a few vicious swipes.

"There," announced Ward bitterly, as Laramie quickly stepped deeper into the cell, flexing his hands and shaking out his cramped arms. "You mean to give any more orders around my jail?"

"Brought a fellow out from the ranch," said Schmidt. "He'll help you stand guard, if you don't mind."

"I do mind. We already had one jailbreak today."

Schmidt smiled coolly. "All the more reason to accept the help, Sheriff. His name's Nate Dawson, and he'll stay outside in case anyone needs him." He glanced back by Laramie as he said that part. "Try not to shoot him. Fall roundup's coming on."

Then he nodded and turned to go. "Laramie."

Laramie felt... unbalanced. Not only had someone ridden to the ranch for help, but the man in charge had left his family to come to his defense. And Nate was outside.

"Sir," he answered weakly. When the door closed behind the foreman, he sank onto the cot. Was it even possible that he wasn't as alone as he'd feared?

"Goddamned cattle barons with their goddamned uppity ways," muttered Ward, staring with pure hatred at the door, then turning it at Laramie. "Think they're more important than everyone else. Well, don't you get any ideas that you're safe, sonny boy, 'cause this is still my jail. You hear?"

But Ward would have to wait a few lifetimes before Laramie ever called
him
sir.

The ride was dark, despite the gaslights along the streets. Rain skittered across Vic's hat, her clothes, and her bare hands. Her skirts weren't about to blow anywhere.

Twice, the bicycle wheels slid right out from under her, but somehow she caught herself with a foot before she truly fell. She reached the dark shops across the street and down from the jail pretty quickly
—faster, apparently, than Thaddeas. She didn't see his horse hitched out front.

He was going to help Laramie, wasn't he?

She coasted her bicycle with a spray of puddle water right into an alley beside the Hot Dinner Cafe, Duchess loping along behind. Then she dismounted, propped it against the wall, and crept back to the mouth of the alley to see what she could see.

"Sit," she told Duchess. "Stay." The dog looked no happier about the orders than Vic had ever been, but the dog obeyed.

The first thing Victoria saw was a Circle-T ranch hand, standing outside the jail and staring at her with wide eyes.

She waved, then put a finger to her lips.

Nate Dawson spread his arms
—
what are you doing?
— and then pointed firmly back down the street.
Go home.

She shook her head, pointed at him in warning, then put her finger to her lips again. When he shook
his head, she pointed more adamantly. She knew a few secrets about him and her sister Laurel, after all, and
she
had faithfully kept
those.

Dawson widened his eyes again
—but looked helpless.

When she heard horses approaching, Victoria sank back into the shadows of the alley. It was Thaddeas, leading Ross's horse. He had a number of men with him
—and one woman, scandalously straddling a horse behind a man, her arms around the rider's middle and her skirts hitched up. On Main Street!

Victoria watched them head into the jail. Then she waited.

When Thaddeas Garrison brought a cluster of wet people into the jail with him, not a half hour after Hank Schmidt had left, Laramie felt sudden fear. What if he'd brought Victoria? What if she saw him like this?

Better to have let Harry Smith kill him than that.

That he didn't see her among Thaddeas's entourage
—folks he now recognized from the Red Light Saloon—relieved him so surely, he could almost forgive the man for destroying his life. Not for destroying his family's, or Julie’s. But his own. Almost.

"Howdy, Ward," greeted Thaddeas with casual, cowboy camaraderie. Now Laramie saw why a lawyer would wear dogging boots. "Word has it you've got one of my father's hands in here."

"Arrested him for murder," agreed Ward, looking particularly sour as four men and a barmaid dripped water all over his jail.

"The way I hear it, he shot in self-defense."

"He didn't just shoot," insisted Ward, still behind his desk. "The man's a gunslinger, Garrison."

"Last time I heard, being a good shot wasn't illegal
in the state of Wyoming. But incarcerating a man without just cause is."

Ward leaned forward, trying to look superior. 'You didn't hear me right, boy. I ain't holding him for bein' good with a gun. I'm holding him for killin' two men."

"Both of whom were shooting at him." Thaddeas managed to look superior without trying. "One of whom allegedly
escaped from your jail
this afternoon. I believe I can make a decent case that this gentleman wasn't just watching his back, and might have done a service for the community. You don't want to be arresting folks for that, do you? And don't cry 'firearms ordinance' to me, either," he added. "We've both been in the Red Light before."

Huh? Thaddeas Garrison had been in the Red Light Saloon?

"The judge can decide on Monday," insisted Ward.

"I don't think so," said Thaddeas, and smiled
—with just his mouth. "I think the judge will decide tonight, when I go wake him up. It'll annoy him some, sure. But he'll come down here, and he'll listen to what these eyewitnesses have to say about self-defense and escaped prisoners. And which one of us do you think will have most annoyed him by then—Sheriff?"

After what he'd discovered today, Laramie did not want to admire Thaddeas Garrison, but...
damn,
he was good! He was good enough that Ward stood up from behind his desk, trying to make up in brawn what he couldn't in brains.

"He ain't hired you as his lawyer," he pointed out.

"True." Thaddeas held up a hand. "Excuse us for a moment. Folks, you just make yourselves comfortable."

The witnesses he'd brought with him nodded. They'd come out in the rain
—for Laramie. They were willing to risk getting on Ward's bad side—for Laramie. It was incredible.

When Thaddeas approached the cell, Laramie met him. He expected the lawyer to say something about policies, even price. Instead Garrison said, very low, "As soon as I get these charges dismissed, you're leaving town. Preferably tonight. Understand?"

Laramie only began to understand
—with gut-deep dismay—when Garrison continued. "I don't know what's going on between you and my sister. She's a good girl and she knows her own mind, so I'll trust it's nothing needs killing for. But it's too much for my comfort even so, especially considering who and what you are. So I will get you out of here, and then you will collect your wages at the ranch, and then you will leave here."

It was what Laramie had meant to do anyway. It was what he wanted to do. But that the man who'd ruined
Laramie's
sister was now warning Laramie away from
his,
grated on him.

"And if I don't accept your help?" he challenged.

Thaddeas adjusted how he leaned his arms along the crossbar of the cell, as if to get more comfortable, and ducked his head even closer to the bars. "Take some advice. If I'm your lawyer, most of what I know about you stays our secret. But if I'm not, I might have to share some of it."

Then he met Laramie's eyes straight on, and mouthed,
Drazen.

Nate Dawson had not, Vic noticed with some relief, told Thaddeas about her. In fact, the cowhand would not even look at her now, as if pretending she didn't even exist.

Good.

She had to wait a long time, there in the alley. Rain drummed on her hat, dripping off the brim and down her hair. Some of it trickled in under her shirtwaist, first cold and then itchy. She didn't care. She just
wanted to see that Ross was safe. It mattered to her more than she could ever have imagined.

And Victoria could imagine a great deal.

Just when she was beginning to think she should cross the street and listen in at the jail windows, the door opened. The c
rowd that had gone in with Thad
deas emerged, mounted their horses, rode off in the direction from which they'd come
—even the woman who, again, showed her legs. Not too long after that, Thaddeas stepped out onto the boardwalk.

Then Ross Laramie. He was safe.

Victoria leaned against the brick wall of the Hot Dinner Cafe, weak with gratitude. He stood as tall and dark as ever. He walked just fine. He was safe, and Thaddeas had done it, and maybe she didn't hate her brother after all.