Even the demand that they marry seemed to make sense. He cared so deeply that he would not allow her to go through life with the stigma of being a fallen woman.
Yes, it is enough to build a lifetime on, because I will make it up to him,
she vowed.
I will love him until he is so satisfied he will never leave my bed.
Opening her eyes, she glanced down at the ring he’d placed on her finger. The gold band had never looked so bright, just like her future. She stood and felt excitement and purpose filling the empty space in her heart left by Daniel’s passing.
Yes, to be with Trace, I’d give up the business
. She’d give up anything to be held in his arms.
“Mary Rose?” Penny called out.
Her brow furrowed, for her friend’s voice sounded odd.
“Could you come in here,
please
?”
The tension behind the words hurried her steps, but as she entered the parlor, she could see the captain standing beside his bride. Her face brightened, then fell as she took in Penny’s pale color and the gun Captain Augustus Wallace held to her temple.
“Such a pleasure for you to join us, my dear,” he sneered.
****
“You can’t do this.” She tried to reason with the man as he bound his wife’s arms to the dining room chair.
“Actually, I can,” he snapped as he took the folded handkerchief and placed it over Penny’s mouth. “I can’t have you screaming out, my dear, while I interrogate your young friend.”
Tears rolled down Penny’s cheeks, and Mary Rose felt helpless to stop him. “What do you want?” Like Penny, she was tied to a chair, only Captain Wallace had bound her hands behind her instead of to the chair arms.
“Your brother found something that belongs to me, and I mean to have it,” he told her in a cold and chilling voice.
“Daniel?”
Captain Wallace walked around the table, coming to a stop beside her. “Oh, yes, Daniel. You see, his actions are stopping me from completing a lucrative business deal. My associate lost something most valuable. A coin. That coin is my ticket to a life of luxury.”
Suddenly she knew. The image of the Mexican coin from Daniel’s desk flowed into her mind. She swallowed down the fears that welled up inside her. “I, I don’t know what you are talking about.”
The peal of laughter that spilled from his lips chilled her blood. Watching out of the corner of her eye, she saw him bring up the hand holding the gun. She flinched as he brought the cold steel to her face and stroked its length down her cheek.
“You are not a convincing liar,” he remarked. Laying the gun down, he leaned close to her ear. “Now, we can do this the easy way, or you can make it very hard on yourself.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she repeated.
His hand swept across her cheek in a stinging slap that rocked the chair. “Wrong answer.”
She felt the warm taste of blood from the corner of her mouth and concentrated on Penny’s face. She tried to use her eyes to tell her to hold on until help arrived.
“Where is the coin?”
She turned and glowered at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” As she watched, his face turned an ugly molten red.
“You think you’re brave, don’t you? Or perhaps you’re holding out for your friend, the marshal, to get here.”
She took a deep breath and felt the frantic beat of her heart. Behind him, she could see the hands of the clock inch beyond six p.m. Within the hour, Trace would arrive.
“Do you think I care? It won’t matter to me if I shoot him or not. I’ve killed more men in battle than I care to remember. One more won’t hurt my conscience.”
She followed him with her eyes as he stood and picked up his weapon to walk around behind her to the other side.
“Hm. I hear friendship is a strong bond. Perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way.”
To her horror, she watched as he moved to stand beside Penny.
“How many blows will you take, my dear, before your friend comes around?”
Penny’s eyes widened with a knowing fear. Suddenly Mary Rose understood what her friend had been unable to say. Her face blanched as he drew back his hand and Penny shrank against the chair.
“No!” Mary Rose screamed out. “I, I’ll show you.”
Augustus Wallace walked back toward the chair, snatched the ropes from her arms, and yanked her to her feet, putting his snarling lips within inches of her face. She did her best to stare him down.
“If you even try to stall or not tell me the truth, your friend will have a terrible accident. Such a shame for her to trip and fall down your stairs.”
She glanced across the table. Penny’s frightened mumbles behind the cloth were no doubt telling her not to do it. Yet there was an innocent child to protect. Mary Rose looked back at the demon-red eyes. A sick feeling filled her stomach; she could tell Augustus Wallace did not give empty threats.
“It’s in Daniel’s desk, locked in the strongbox.”
“Let’s get it.”
As he shoved her before him, Mary Rose stumbled over her own feet on the way toward the study.
“You killed my brother?”
“Yes, he kept getting in the way, just like you’re doing now.” His hand upon her back pushed her toward the doorway.
“And Moe, was he part of the deal?”
“My simple-minded brother?” Wallace scoffed. “He was a liability to be taken care of.” He shoved her behind the desk. “Your trip to the fort was a stroke of luck. Which drawer?”
“You killed your own brother?” she whispered. “How could you?”
“Bottom?” Wrenching the bottom desk drawer open, Captain Wallace found the strongbox and placed it on top of the desk. “It was quite easy. Open it.”
“It’s locked.”
“Key, woman.”
“Upstairs in my jewelry box.”
A string of curses poured from his lips as he hauled her to her feet and pushed her up the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mack Taylor stumbled away from the freight office. It was Friday, the end of a good work week, and like always he’d bought himself a little bottle from the saloon. It had been his intention to go behind the freight office and celebrate his liberty. He hadn’t expected to hear the exchange between Gentry and the army officer. His hands were shaking. Popping the top off the bottle, he raised it to his lips and drank a few gulps of liquid courage, then wiped his hand across his mouth.
He’d never been a hero. Never wanted to stand out in a crowd, but he had to tell somebody. He thought about Rand Weston, but he’d ridden out about a half hour ago, something about an urgent telegram. That left only one other person, Marshal Castillo. Turning the bottle upside down, he closed his eyes and let the rest of the contents drain down his throat.
Crossing away from the freight office, he moved behind the corral, keeping to the shadows and making a beeline for the sheriff’s office.
****
Trace adjusted his tie in the small mirror over the dresser. Elaine had brought him a telegram from the marshal in San Antonio. It seemed the captain had served with the cavalry during the late war with his half-brother, Moe. That connection fit well. Another telegram to the fort confirmed his suspicions that the officer did not get along well with his superior. “All good reasons to want to leave,” he mumbled, as his fingers finished with the tie. Downstairs, he heard the door to the sheriff’s office open and close.
“Marshal?”
“Up here,” he called out, and turned to reach for his jacket lying across the end of the bed.
“Marshal?”
Trace paused. The voice didn’t belong to his friend but to the livery hand. Grabbing his jacket, he hurried down the stairs. Stepping into Rand’s office, he found Mack pacing back and forth before the desk, wringing his hands.
“What’s the matter?”
“I gotta tell someone, I gotta.”
A cold fear crept across his shoulders. He kept an eye on the man as he crossed to the coffeepot that Rand always kept on the stove. “Why don’t you sit down, Mack.”
“You’re the law when there ain’t nobody else, right?”
“That’s the way the State looks at it,” Trace answered. “Sit down. Tell me what’s got you all shook up.”
He watched the man swallow, then lower his body to the chair. “I heard ’em.” Mack looked up with a tortured face. “He killed Daniel and Moe. I heard him say it.”
Trace’s nerves came alive. He leaned down. “Who?”
Slowly, with painstaking accuracy, Mack gave him every detail of what he’d overheard in the freight office, confirming Trace’s worst fears. He reached to the peg behind the desk where his gun belt rested.
“Who else knows about this?” he asked, strapping on his weapons.
“Just me,” Mack replied. His eyes grew large. “He could have killed me, just like he did his brother…”
“Yeah, but we’re not gonna let that happen. I’m escorting you over to the hotel. Doc’s over there, and I’m gonna get Elaine to put you in a safe room with Doc until the bouncer from the saloon can get over there as protection.”
“Clyde can ride for Sheriff Weston,” Mack suggested, standing.
Trace’s mouth pressed firm. There were other things in the works he couldn’t spill, not just yet. He pulled the keys from the desk, unlocked the rifle case, and pulled one down. “Hold this,” he told Mack, and relocked the rack. “All right, let’s go, and you stay close to me.”
Blowing out the light, he waited until his eyes adjusted to the dusk. Then, opening the door, he ushered Mack before him to the hotel and prayed he could get to Mary Rose in time.
Keeping his back to the buildings, Trace Castillo made his way to the Thornton house while keeping a watchful eye out for anything that moved. Across the way, light showed in the first floor window of the parlor. He paused, trying to see if there was any movement. But no one walked past a window. He needed to know where the captain was and if he had done anything to the women.
As silent as death, he stepped onto the porch. His back against the wooden clapboard, he peered around into the parlor window. The dining room table had been set and food awaited, but he didn’t see Mary Rose. Perhaps she was in the kitchen. Moving to the back, he looked in the window over the sink, but that room stood empty as well. A cold knot formed in the pit of his belly. He moved to the back door and eased it opened. His weapon held level at his waist, he crossed the kitchen and took a tentative look into the dining room.
He nearly missed her, sitting at the end of the table in the shadows. The bump of the chair against the floor made him turn his head. With a keen eye to the stairway, he crossed over and knelt beside Penny.
“Easy now,” he whispered, and began to undo the cords that bound her arms to the chair. With one arm freed, he moved to the other while she fumbled to get the gag from her mouth.
“She’s upstairs,” Penny hissed. “My…my husband is mad. He killed her brother, and now he wants some gold coin.”
“I know,” Trace assured her. “Listen to me. We’ve got to get you out of here. Can you walk?”
She nodded.
Helping her to stand, he led her to the open back door. “We’ll go around to the left and keep in the shadows. Elaine Harmon is waiting for us at the hotel.” Penny nodded and stepped out the door.
They made their way across the street to the boardwalk. There he continued to position her before him, his body protecting her, and he kept a watchful eye on the shadows. Just as they reached the hotel, Penny paused. Touching his hand, she said, “She loves you, Marshal, but if you love her, you are going to have to bend your pride and tell her so.”
“I do love her.” He heard the words come from his lips and knew they were true. Perhaps he had been infatuated with the lure of Amelia, but in his heart he knew Mary Rose was his woman. “I will tell her now and every day for the rest of my life.”
As they reached the hotel, Elaine opened the door, and Penny disappeared inside.
“Any word from Rand?”
Elaine shook her head.
Trace took a deep breath. “Take care of them.”
“I will. God speed, Marshal. Bring her back safe.”
Trace touched his forehead as Elaine closed the door, and he waited until he heard the lock click. Moving quietly in the night, he kept his eyes peeled for trouble. Wallace was in the house with Mary Rose. Gentry had yet to show his hand. He knew the captain had to come out into the open if she stood any chance of survival.
His back against the wall of the building closest to the Thornton house, he studied the light moving downstairs and to the left. Using the darkness, he crossed to the stand of trees between the buildings, crept as close as possible, and waited. Before long, he caught a glimpse of Wallace as he shoved Mary Rose against the wall and opened the cashbox. A look of confusion crossed his face. Through the glass, he heard the muted exchange between the two.
“Where’s the coin?”
“It was in there,” she replied.
“It’s not here now.”
“Maybe the man you had watching me has it?”
He stepped closer.
Trace’s fear and anger grew.
“No, he said you had it.” Wallace grabbed her arm. “Tell me, or so help me, I’ll kill her and then you.”
“You’ll never get the coin then,” Mary Rose snapped.
With a roar of anger, he shoved her toward the parlor.
Trace edged closer to the house, knowing that once Wallace got to the parlor he’d see Penny was gone.
“Where is she?” Wallace growled. “She couldn’t have gotten away.”
“What do you care? You won’t get away with this,” Trace heard Mary Rose bravely remark. “I know about the bank account. You made those deposits, didn’t you?”
“You’re a smart little strumpet, aren’t you? I bet that no-good half-breed marshal has spirited her away,” he snapped. “But I have you. I hardly think he can stop me now.”
“They will, you know. They will stop you. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so desperate to get that coin. What does that coin mean, anyway?”