Kitabı oxu: «Cooper's Wife»

Chapter One

“Bumpy, Mama.”

“I know, pumpkin.” Anna ached at the sight of exhaustion pinching Mandy’s button face, bruising the skin beneath her big blue eyes. “The stagecoach driver said we’ll be in Flint Creek before suppertime.”

The three-year-old sighed. Suppertime was so far away. Knowing just how she felt, Anna took the child on her lap and hugged her tight until she smiled.

Anna hadn’t dared to relax since their desperate flight from home. Was Dalton already on her trail?

But with each passing mile, Anna breathed easier. This was the third day of travel and no sign of trouble. Did she dare to hope that Jennings wasn’t following? Maybe, just maybe, she and Mandy were safe after all.

But despite her hopes, the worry tight in her stomach didn’t ease. Dalton wasn’t a man to forget.

“Too tight, Mama,” Mandy complained.

Anna loosened her hold on the child. What would happen to the little girl should Jennings find them?

The first sound of trouble came as a gunshot from outside the stage. The second was the scream of a horse. Was it Dalton? Fear pumped through her veins. The stage rocked fiercely to the right side, then limped to a stop.

What should she do? How could she protect Mandy? She glanced at the other travelers seated beside her and across the aisle. Would they help her? The banker who boarded the stage at Dillon mopped sweat from his brow with a monogrammed handkerchief. He didn’t look armed. But the ruffian seated beside him, who smelled of stale cigarette smoke and whiskey, hauled out a highly polished revolver.

“Don’t you worry, ma’am,” he said through gritted teeth. “I won’t let those no-good bandits do you harm.”

“Thank you, sir.” The gun looked deadly. Thank heavens he was on her side.

The stage door burst open. Anna choked, unable to scream. A masked man fired a gun. The passenger fired, then slumped over. Burly arms tossed the brave man and his gun on the dusty road.

They’d killed him. Shock washed through her. Anna couldn’t breathe. What was to become of them? She heard voices outside the stalled stage. They were laughing.

Laughing. How dare they? No one had the right to take joy in an innocent man’s death. Hot rage tore through her midsection. She’d seen just about enough of men’s violent ways.

“Get out,” a gruff voice ordered from the doorway.

Anna swung her reticule. It smacked the aimed revolver from the outlaw’s hand to the floor at her feet. “Stop this killing right now.”

Shock rounded his eyes. “Lady—”

“I said, enough.” She pushed at the scruffy brute’s chest. No one should be hurt because Dalton wanted her. “Where is he?”

A brutish laugh. “What kind of woman do we have here? I like a lady with some fight.”

Why was he laughing? Anna took one look at the cold glitter in the outlaw’s eyes, and her courage wavered.

Three other robbers stood on the road behind him, armed and mean-looking. They weren’t Jennings’ men. And now she’d made them angry. What would they do?

“This is the first thing I intend to take from you.” Cruel blue eyes laughed at her over the edge of a dirty red bandanna.

She gasped as the masked man tore the cloth bag from her wrist. A snap of pain bit her skin. Her money! This time it wasn’t tucked away in her sleeve. What was left of her life’s saving was dug out of the now ragged reticule.

A twisted gleam sparked in the villain’s eyes. “I’ll be back for more from you.”

He gave her a shove. Anna’s knees buckled and she lost her balance. Her shoulder slammed into the side of the coach. She hit the ground hard, tasting dust. Already the outlaw was reaching into the coach, sunlight glinting off the nose of his revolver. Mandy was in there, defenseless.

“No!” Anna launched forward, stumbled, then found her feet. She grabbed at the outlaw, pulling at his shirt. “Leave her alone. She’s my child. She—”

A gunshot split the air. Then another. She felt a fiery pain. Blood fell across her sleeve. Was she shot?

“Come here, little girl,” the blue-eyed outlaw cooed. “I won’t hurt ya.”

“No!” Anna hit him hard with her shoulder, trying to knock him aside. “Don’t you touch her.”

The outlaw spun from the coach and raised his hand. She saw the blow coming. He struck her face hard enough to make her ears ring. The pain seemed distant. It was nothing compared to her fear for Mandy. She dropped to her knees. Dizziness spun through her head. Tears stung her eyes as she pulled herself to her feet. She would stop that villain. She would protect her child.

Then voices filled the air. She looked up, confused. She heard shouts of “It’s the law!” and “Jed, where’s my mare?” and “the gold, it’s getting away!” and then “Run!” Gunfire popped as she jumped to her feet. Already the outlaw had run from the stage, leaving Mandy untouched inside.

“Looks like the law’s here.” The banker climbed out, his voice low, sweat beading on his forehead. “She’s scared but all right. You’d better take cover, ma’am.”

“After I get my daughter.” She had to shout over the gunfire. “Don’t wait for us. Those rocks over there should shelter you.”

Horses thundered past. Guns fired so close, it hurt her ears. A stray bullet lodged into the side of the coach. She had to hurry. She reached through the doorway. “Come, grab my hand.”

She saw a peaked face, eyes wide with fright. Mandy crawled off the seat. “That’s right.” Anna leaned forward and caught the child’s hand.

Then the stage rocked hard. Small fingers clutched hers and held tight, then were wrenched from her grip. The stage shot forward. The frame slammed into her jaw and cheek, then her shoulder, knocking her to the ground.

“Mandy!” She held the child’s glove in her hand. Cold horror washed over her as the driverless stage rattled up the road. In a flash she saw the danger, all that could happen. She leaped to her feet, already running hard. “Mandy. Jump!”

Gunfire, bullets and mounted riders swirled around her. She kept running. She had to get to Mandy before something happened. Before the stage crashed or tumbled over the narrow edge of the trail and down the mountain.

Air wheezed out of her lungs. Pain slashed through her side. She was almost there. Almost gaining. Every step brought her closer to catching hold of the boot and climbing aboard. Every step brought her closer to saving her daughter. She reached out and just missed the heavy leather strap holding the luggage to the rear of the coach. She reached again.

One back wheel hit a boulder. The vehicle careened to one side and skidded sideways. She watched in horror as the front right wheel struck another boulder. The stage rolled over and landed on its top, hesitating at the edge of the road. It tottered, then tumbled forward.

“No!” Anna skidded down the embankment, flew down the edge of the mountain. Rocks cascaded beneath her feet. She slid, went down. Pain skidded up her leg when she crashed into a low scrubby pine.

Breathing hard, she broke free and kept running. All she could see was the stage, rolling end over end, falling apart each time it struck the ground. An axle broke with a crash. Two wheels flew through the air and hit the ground rolling. A door came off. The vehicle hit the earth so hard, the sound of the impact cracked like thunder across the face of the mountainside.

And Mandy was inside. Anna had to get to her. She tasted the grit of dust and dirt in her mouth, felt them in her eyes. Her feet gave out beneath her, and she skidded on loose rock and earth. Time stood still as she watched, her heartbeat frozen. The stage rolled over the edge of a cliff and out of sight.

No sound of impact, just the eerie silence of falling. No. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t lose her daughter, her whole heart. Anna fought for balance, but the earth beneath her feet gave way. Rocks and gravel and bits of stubby grass tumbled ahead of her. She saw the bright sheen of the sun flash in her eyes.

She scrambled, struggling for any purchase, any solid tree root or boulder that would stop her fall. She had to save Mandy. She would not let her daughter die.

“Sheriff, Corinthos is getting away.”

Cooper spun his palomino and headed toward the snowy ridge. His deputies could take care of the robbers, but he wanted Corinthos, the leader of the gang. He was sick of the killing and carnage in this part of the county. It was his job and his responsibility to end it.

The outlaw swung his gelding around and fired.

Cooper shot back. A direct hit. Corinthos’ gloved left hand covered his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. Shock lined his dirt-smudged face as he slipped from the saddle.

Got him. Cooper felt grim satisfaction as he cocked the Colt, ready in case the outlaw drew on him again. He drove his mount closer to the fallen man. A woman’s cry of distress and then a crack of wood breaking spun him around. A woman?

Before he could contemplate that, he caught sight of the six runaway horses, still harnessed, dragging the dangerously tipping stage around the bend in the road. Cooper kicked his stallion into a gallop just as the harness broke apart. The coach tumbled over the edge.

The woman, blond hair flying, screaming as she ran, jumped feet first down the dangerous mountainside and out of sight. Crazy woman. Whatever she had in the stage wasn’t more valuable than her life. Flint Creek Mountain was a place of cliffs and sheer edges.

Gunfire drew his attention, remmded him of why he was here in the first place—to bring in Corinthos and put an end to his gang’s violence. But the sight of the desperate woman tugged at him. He was responsible for her life, too, responsible to help her if he could.

Resigned to fighting Corinthos another time, Cooper galloped after her. “Hey, lady.”

She didn’t answer. Gunfire popped behind him as he loped his mount along the road’s edge. His stomach fell at the sight of a woman tumbling down toward the edge of a cliff, a sheer drop of a hundred feet, maybe more. It was hard to tell from where he sat.

She was in trouble. There was no doubt about that. He reached for his rope, trying to judge how best to save her. Then he spotted a little pink bonnet crushed and torn, lying amid the splintered fragments from the stage. Was a child was in that stage? No wonder the woman was frantic.

Cooper drove his stallion off the road and down the mountainside. The great palomino struggled to stay afoot, crashing through the low brush and along unstable earth. Cooper stood in his stirrups, leaned back and loosened the noose with one hand. He couldn’t see the stagecoach, lost somewhere over the edge of the cliff. But he could see the woman sliding feet first to a stop. Thank God. He could catch her in time. He swung the rose, once, twice. But before he could throw, the ground broke apart beneath the woman and she fell straight down the cliff.

The earth could very well give out beneath him, too, but Cooper drove his mount harder. He tasted dust and the sharp scent of pine. He saw the danger ahead, heard the crash of the stage as it came to rest somewhere out of sight. Heard the woman’s voice shriek her child’s name with such agony, it tore at his heart.

Cooper drew his stallion to a halt. He could see the wrecked stage a good fifty feet below, hung up on an outcropping of pines, and the woman, holding tight to a root. The earth beneath them was sheer granite. So barren and hard not even weeds grew there. To fall would mean death.

“Hold on, lady.” He slung the lariat over his neck and knelt down. He caught her by the wrist, holding her tight. “Let’s get you safe.”

“But my daughter—”

He lifted the woman onto the cliff’s edge beside him. “Don’t worry. I’m going to go down and get her.”

“Her name is Mandy.” Blood streaked the woman’s torn dress, scrapes from her fall, no doubt. Panic rang in her voice. “She’s only three years old. She has to be hurt. I want to go down with you.”

He secured the rope to the closest tree, a sturdy pine. “This rope can’t hold both of our weights. I only have the one rope.”

“But she’s my little girl.”

Her blue gaze met his, and he saw her fear, felt the determination as strong as this mountain. He knew what love felt like, the all-encompassing affection for a child. He had to admire her for that.

Fine, he had a soft spot for caring mothers. “You just stay here, ma’am. I promise I’ll take real good care of your girl.”

“I think I can hear her crying. Surely that means she’s not hurt too badly, if she can cry.”

“I sure hope so.” He eased himself over the cliff, hand over hand. Sweat broke out on his forehead, on his back. He wasn’t afraid of outlaws and gun battles, but heights terrified him.

He stared hard at the craggy granite in front of him and didn’t look down. Hand over hand. Just a few more feet. He reached what was left of the stage, a smashed wooden cage missing more parts than he could count. He spotted a scrap of pink. He reached inside and brought up a small child, sputtering and bloody. She was the tiniest thing, all gold hair and pink ruffles.

Reed-thin arms wrapped about his neck. She held on with all her might. Her little body was rigid against his chest. “Don’t worry, little girl. I won’t let you fall.”

“Mama!” The little girl’s voice came weak. Her breath against his throat felt choppy and irregular. She wheezed, and he held her tighter. It was as he feared; the child was badly injured. Town and medical help was so far away.

He secured the girl to his chest, using the lariat he carried. Then he began the arduous work of climbing hand over hand up the rope. The wind gusted, knocking them against the granite wall. He turned to take the blow with his shoulder, to protect the fragile child he carried. The rope swung them out away from the rock, and he caught sight of a dizzying glimpse of brown-gray rock below. His stomach lurched. Yep, it was best not to look down.

He kept climbing hand over hand, listening to the rattle of little Mandy’s breathing. Another blast of wind knocked him against the cliff side, sent him swinging.

“Mama.” The little girl sniffled. So small, she was hardly any weight at all against his chest. Her blood stained his shirt and he felt her shiver, even in the bright sunshine. Not a good sign.

“I’m right here, Mandy.” The woman’s voice rang like bells, sweet and clear. She peered over the edge of the cliff.

It wasn’t much farther.

“Is that you, Coop?” His brother’s voice.

“Where the heck have you been?” The muscles in Cooper’s arms and back burned with fatigue. He kept climbing, but tipped his head back just enough to see the worry lining his younger brother’s face. “Don’t just stand there being useless. Help me up.”

“Useless. That’s me.” Tucker could grin even in a crisis. He curled both gloved hands around the rope and pulled.

Cooper handed the child up into her mother’s arms. Tucker helped him over the lip of the cliff.

“She’s hurt.” Sorrow rang in the woman’s voice.

The tiny girl looked blue and wasn’t breathing right. He couldn’t help but fear the worst. The woman, white-faced with fear, cradled her daughter tight in her arms. She kissed the girl’s forehead, the love for her child as unmistakable as the sun. It was a priceless emotion his wife had never managed to feel for their girls. He liked knowing some mothers did.

“Sheriff.” One of his deputies crested the bank. “Corinthos got away.”

Turning away from the mother and child, he began coiling the rope. “I shot him myself. He must have mounted and rode off.” Cooper mopped his brow with his forearm. “We’ve got wounded. We see to the girl first.”

The woman knelt beside her daughter on a bed of clover, checking her wounds. “Is there a doctor close?”

“No, ma’am.” Cooper untied his stallion. “We’re just lawmen. We feared there might be problems with the stage today. This pass is notorious for trouble.”

She took a breath. Worry crinkled the corners of eyes as deep as a summer sky. “But Mandy needs a doctor. I think she may have broken her arm, maybe her ribs. She isn’t breathing well.”

“I can see.” Cooper left the stallion standing and took a look. “Are you hurt, little lady?”

The child looked up with teary eyes and nodded. No sniffle, no whimper. Her lips were slightly bluish. Her breath came rapid and shallow.

“You’re a brave girl, too.” He knelt down on one knee, broad shoulders braced. He was all strength, but tenderness, too. “You must get that from your mama.”

Anna’s heart ached. So many cuts and bruises on the girl. She tore a strip of petticoat and covered a nasty gash on the child’s forearm. “How far away are we from a town?”

“Quite a ways.” The sheriffs low, rumbling voice sounded warm as sunshine. He pulled a clean and folded handkerchief from his shirt pocket and tore it into strips. Those big blunt-shaped hands deftly tied a neat bandage at Mandy’s wrist.

“You’re good at this, Sheriff.”

“I have little girls of my own who are always getting one scrape or another.”

Oh, that smile. As scared as she was for Mandy, Anna couldn’t help noticing the sheriffs handsome smile. And on a closer look, he had a handsome everything. From the strong straight blade of his nose—not too sharp, not too big—to the chiseled cut of his high cheekbones, to the square jaw sporting a day’s dark growth, he was quite a man.

“Owie.” Mandy bit her lip, trying to hold back her tears like a big girl.

“Let me see, pumpkin.” Anna gently pulled Mandy’s bandaged arm away from her chest. When she loosened a few buttons on the now ragged dress, she saw a horrible bruise marking her skin. But it was the sight of the left side of her little chest rising when her right side did not that terrified Anna. Something was dreadfully wrong.

“Tucker.” Calling to one of the deputies, the mighty sheriff strode away.

Would Mandy die? Fear condensed into a tight, hard ball in her stomach. Her hands trembled as she used a thin stick from the ground as a splint. She wrapped the last strips from her petticoat around Mandy’s broken arm, trying to keep hold of hope.

“I’m going to ride her into town.” Cooper squinted against the midday sun. “With the trouble she has breathing, I don’t figure we have a lot of time. My mount is the fastest.”

“I’ll go with you. Just give me a minute—”

“You’ll only slow me down.” Apology rang low in his voice.

“No, I’m not leaving her.” Anna held her daughter tight.

“You have to, ma’am. I can get her to a doctor faster than anyone can.”

“But Mandy needs me.”

“She needs medical care.”

It was as if she were on that cliff again, knowing there was nothing she could do to stop the coach from breaking apart. She could not let a stranger care for her daughter. Yet Mandy needed a doctor. Immediately. And this man could provide it.

He said he was a father. And it was true that he’d braved the chff to rescue Mandy. Judging by the breadth of those strong shoulders and the honor shining like a promise in his eyes, Anna decided she had to trust him. Mandy would die without help.