Tucker’s Claim Read online

  Tracker looked toward the house. “Folk get wind of what you’re doing with the widow and there won’t be much left of you to drag home.”

  “I’m not doing anything. It was a onetime thing. It’s over now.”

  “That wave she tossed you didn’t look like goodbye.”

  No, it hadn’t, and that pricked his conscience.

  Mine. Had he really said that to her?

  “Sally Mae has some odd views on things.”

  It’s an opening. What in hell had she meant by that?

  “From all I’ve heard, she’s a levelheaded woman.”

  Tucker tossed Tracker a grin. The last thing he needed was Tracker chewing on his love life. “How levelheaded can she be if she took up with me?”

  The expected, joking agreement didn’t come, but a look that asked who did he think he was fooling did. “The woman has a lot to lose.”

  No shit. “I won’t let her get hurt.”

  “Good to know. Any ideas how you’re going to prevent it?”

  “Mind your own business, Tracker.”

  Ever since they were kids in their small town, Tracker had been treating him to that skeptical lift of the brow. It was as irritating now as it had been the first time he’d seen it twenty-four years ago when Tucker had boasted that he could make a stone skip five times across the pond.

  “I could argue that you are my business.”

  Like hell. “And you’d lose.”

  Cocking his head, Tracker conceded the point. Tucker changed the subject.

  “What else brings you here?”

  “I’m supposed to meet up with Shadow.”

  Tracker and Shadow had volunteered to scout the farthest-out areas for word of Desi’s sister. No one had protested. The two men, twins, were perfectly suited to the job. They could move through the most dangerous territories undetected. Part of it was due to their appearance, and the other had to do with their uncanny, deadly ability to work in tandem. Almost as if they knew each other’s thoughts without speaking. “Any word on Ari?”

  Tucker knew the answer before Tracker spoke. Ari and Desi had been stolen by Comancheros eighteen months ago. As unlikely as it was that Ari was still alive, Caine had promised Desi Hell’s Eight would find her. And what one promised, they all honored. No matter if that promise had them chasing a will-o’-the-wisp of hope that Ari was still alive. There were some things a man didn’t mind doing. And there wasn’t a man at Hell’s Eight who minded looking for Ari. Not only because of how they felt about Desi, but because not one of them could stomach the thought that Ari might be alive and trapped in the hell that the Comancheros delivered women into. Maybe it was because Ari was Desi’s twin and it was like picturing Desi trapped. Or maybe they just needed to make a difference. The past year or two had been frustrating. Raising horses didn’t provide the same day-to-day excitement of bounty hunting. And the reward wasn’t as clear-cut.

  “No. I keep hearing talk of how, about a year ago, someone dumped a white girl eight hours south of here.” He shrugged. “But that could be Ari or someone else. Or complete fiction.”

  More likely fiction. Made up by someone wanting the reward for information that Hell’s Eight had put out. Or there could be a more nefarious reason. “You think maybe it’s a lure to a trap?”

  Tracker shrugged. “It’s unlikely a white woman in those parts wouldn’t generate comment.”

  “Well, if it is an attempt to lure Desi out into the open, it’s a fool waste of time.” Tucker pulled his hat down against the first bright rays of the rising sun. “Desi isn’t moving a foot off Hell’s Eight until Caine feels it’s safe.”

  And as careful as Caine was of Desi, that wasn’t likely to be anytime soon.

  “That’s a fact.” Tracker stared off into the distance, that peculiar stillness surrounding him.

  “What?”

  Tracker pulled his hat down with the small jerk that said he’d come to a decision. “I’ve just got a feeling, and until I check it out, I’m not bringing any news back to Desi. Good or bad.”

  The hairs on the back of Tucker’s neck rose. “You think Ari might be alive?”

  “I’ve just got a feeling is all.”

  Eerie as it was, Tucker had come to have faith in Tracker’s feelings. “When are we going to check it out?”

  “We?”

  “Figured I’d come with you. It’s rough country south of here.”

  Tracker cast another look at the house. His eyes narrowed. “You sure you want to be leaving now?”

  It didn’t take much to figure out where his thoughts had traveled. Tucker let his gaze follow Tracker’s. The house stood as a small dark fortress bathed in the light of sunrise. Dark surrounded by bright. Despair surrounded by hope. And in the midst of it all, Sally slept, protected by her faith and that will of iron that believed miracles were created by man, not God. Son of a bitch. Tracker was crazy if he thought Tucker didn’t understand the reality. The woman did not need a mixed-blood, beat-up bounty hunter messing with her life. It just wasn’t as easy to walk away as it should be.

  “I’m sure.” Tucker slid his toe out from under the pup. “I could use the distraction.”

  5

  She needed a distraction.

  Sally Mae rolled over in the bed three hours later and pulled the pillow on top of her face, as if the act could erase from her mind’s eye the pagan beauty of Tucker as he’d loved her. As if it could keep her body from flushing with remembered pleasure, could keep her nipples from peaking, keep her from wanting to do it all over. She’d have to douche again. Just in case. Tucker was a very potent lover. And as much as she’d always wanted a child, she wouldn’t want to make one face the stigma of illegitimacy. Between the vinegar sponge she’d used and the vinegar douche after, she should be safe. Jonah had been adamant it would work and she’d never conceived during her marriage. Which shouldn’t have surprised her. Jonah had always been right.

  A stab of resentment came out of nowhere. The ability to prevent pregnancy had been one area where she’d never wanted him to be so all knowing. And during the last years of her marriage, she’d spent the days of her flow in mourning for the child she’d begun to believe Jonah was never going to want. After six years of marriage, she’d felt the time was right, but her hints had been met with a patronizing caress of her hair, a shake of Jonah’s head and an ever-increasingly annoying, “Not yet.”

  On the heels of resentment came guilt. Jonah had been a great man. Of all the woman he could have selected to wed, he’d chosen her. And he’d never hidden the fact that he wanted to make a difference in the bigger world, wanted to be free to practice more progressive techniques while bringing the benefits of modern medicine to people who needed it. He’d never made a secret that he wanted his wife to be a helpmate. And at first she hadn’t minded. She’d been like a sponge soaking up all the knowledge he’d imparted, until she could diagnose illness and perform surgeries as well as he did. But over the years she’d found herself wanting more.

  Not that learning what Jonah wanted her to learn had been easy. Jonah had been an exacting teacher, but a very good one and he’d never been short on praise. He’d been very proud of her accomplishments, which just made her disloyal thoughts that much uglier. Especially since in a time when most of her contemporaries longed fruitlessly for more opportunities, she was being taught everything there was to know in a profession most women could never dream of pursuing. She pressed the pillow against her face. She should have been more grateful. It was her own sense of inadequacy that had left her sometimes feeling that, outside of medicine, she hadn’t had a place in Jonah’s life. And it wasn’t that she didn’t enjoy practicing medicine. It was just she’d sometimes longed for the comfort of more traditional roles. Especially that of wife and mother. She’d always wanted a family. Maybe to replace the one she’d lost as Jonah had suggested in one of his rare disapproving moments, or maybe just because she genuinely enjoyed caring for others and being needed.
r />   A pounding came at the front door.

  “Miz Sally, Miz Sally! Come quick.” The pounding grew louder, more urgent. “Someone’s been shot.”

  Sally pulled the pillow off her face and sighed.

  “Hurry, Miz Sally.”

  The news that someone had been shot was all it should take to get her moving, but the violence in this town assured that someone was always getting shot, and the truth was, she was becoming immune to the panic that announcement used to inspire. Jonah would have called it maturity, but she knew differently. Jonah had been the most brilliant man she knew when it came to medicine, and looked on every case with an eager curiosity. But for her, the constant demands were more wearing and depressing and she was coming to resent the scale of the intrusion into her life. Not a pretty thing to realize about oneself.

  She threw back the covers, pulled a dress over her nightgown and hurried to the door, buttoning it as she went. Old Jed stood there, his wrinkled face dotted with perspiration, his breath wheezing in his chest. Shadows of the man he’d been in his youth could still be seen in his face and his lean frame, but so could the battles he’d fought. While his blue eyes were keen with the knowledge of his lifetime, his hands and back were bent with arthritis. And his lungs were almost worn out.

  “Thee shouldn’t be running, Jed. It’s not good for thy lungs.”

  He shot her an impatient look. “That bullet isn’t helping Billy none, neither.”

  “Billy Hanson is the one shot?” Dear God, he was just a boy. “Are they bringing him over?”

  “They don’t dare move him.”

  She grabbed for Jonah’s bag and pushed past Jed. She didn’t need to ask him where the shooting occurred. It was always at the saloon. She hurried down the street, her heart pounding. Behind her she could hear Jed wheezing as he tried to keep up.

  “He’s out in front of the saloon,” he called.

  “Of course.” Her skirt flapped against her legs. Her breath echoed harshly in her ears. Ahead she could see a crowd gathered around something in the street. Billy.

  “No need to take that tone, Miz Sally. Nothing wrong with a man having a drink.”

  No indeed. Except that whenever men gathered with just such a purpose, bloodshed ensued. Pushing through the crowd, she pulled up short as she saw Billy. He lay in the dirty street clutching his stomach, his blue shirt—the one his mother had sewn for last month’s social when he’d gone sweet on Jennifer Hayes—dark with blood. There was more blood on his lips and a steady trail trickled from his mouth down his neck.

  For a second she closed her eyes as horror, fear and a niggle of hope roiled within her.

  Dear Lord…

  The medical satchel made a rattle as she set it on the ground. Why was it that the only way for a man to prove himself was to go out and kill something? Animal, human—sometimes she wondered if they truly saw a difference. Another glance at Billy’s face showed just the bare traces of a beard. Children…

  Jed limped up beside her, his breath rasping harshly in his chest. She placed her hand on his arm, steadying him, not liking the paleness of his complexion. “Can you help him, Miz Sally?” he wheezed.

  The answer stuck in her throat. She just didn’t know.

  “We left him just as he was, Mrs. Sally,” Peter, the town merchant offered. “Dr. Jonah was always real particular about not moving anyone bad hurt.”

  The last was said with a bite. Since the day the first resident had come to her door and asked her to take that monumental step into her husband’s shoes, these subtle hints that any deviation from the pattern Jonah had lain down would not be tolerated had been constant. As was her annoyance. One complication to being taught all Jonah knew was that she’d developed her own opinions on how some things should be done.

  “Thank you, Pete.”

  She knelt beside the boy, forcing a smile to her lips as his eyes focused. “Hi, Billy.”

  “I messed up,” he whispered. It was an attempt at maturity that did nothing to offset the fear in his eyes. The instinctive knowledge of impending death. The victims always knew. So did she. And after one glance at the blood soaking Billy’s clothes, she was afraid the answer to Jed’s question was not going to be positive. Keeping her smile firmly in place, she unbuttoned his shirt. “Well, let’s see if we can fix it, all right?”

  The crowd closed in. “Scandalous,” she heard a woman whisper.

  It always amazed her that people could assume she experienced lecherous thoughts while attending the wounded. Especially when she wasn’t a woman prone to lecherous thoughts. Scenes from the night before flashed through her mind, and she was forced to amend. Unless it came to Tucker McCade. And even if it were Tucker lying here like this, about all she would feel was a sense of horror.

  Keeping her impatience in check, she ordered the men nearest, “Push the crowd back, please.”

  “All right folks. Give Mrs. Sally room to work.”

  There was a grumble and the shuffling of feet over dirt as she parted the lapel and revealed the small round hole in his torso bubbling blood.

  The blood pumping from the wound was black. Not good. That meant the bullet had hit the liver. Billy would bleed out into his abdomen. That would spare him the agony of infection, but it wouldn’t spare him death.

  Billy grabbed her wrist with bloody fingers. “It’s bad, isn’t it, Mrs. Sally?”

  She wanted to lie, but her God forbade her to lie. Even to save the feelings of a boy who’d tried all the wrong ways to become a man. She couldn’t get words to push past her lips, so she just nodded.

  From down the street, a woman screamed Billy’s name. Only a mother’s cry could contain that much anguish. It had to be Hazel.

  A peculiar calm came over Billy’s face. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”

  She could only nod again, tears lodging in a choking ball in her throat. Billy’s eyes focused for a moment when his mother cried his name again. Sally Mae gave Billy what she hoped was an encouraging smile, and buttoned his shirt back up. He looked at her with understanding in his eyes at what that meant. He blinked back tears. She blinked back hers. He coughed. Blood sprayed and ran down his face. She wiped at the streams with her fingers, a stupid effort. Her touch would do nothing to stop this. A wet handkerchief came into her field of vision, along with a pair of knee-high moccasins. Only one man wore moccasins like that. Tucker. She glanced up and accepted the offer.

  Tucker wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at Billy and the expression on his face made her want to slap him for not stopping whatever had happened earlier. A foolish notion. Tucker lived by the same code as everyone out here. The one that said a man looking for trouble was probably going to find it. And likely, in his eyes, Billy going into that saloon last night meant he’d been looking for trouble.

  As quickly as she could, Sally wiped Billy’s face. There was no way she could get all the blood, but she could at least remove it from the places where it would leave the worst memory for Hazel. Nothing was going to lessen the impact of when Hazel saw her son. Nor her reaction when she realized Sally couldn’t save him. It always went that way with the survivors. First the optimism of hope and then the anger of helplessness. Reaching deep inside, Sally Mae stretched for the strength that would sustain her through Hazel’s grief and her own sense of failure. Her eyes went to Tucker even as her lips formed the prayer.

  Please, Lord, give me…

  Hazel pushed through the crowd, a plain, thin woman with graying hair, a tanned complexion and soft blue eyes. With an inarticulate cry, she dropped to her knees beside her son. Her work-worn hands pushed through his dark brown hair as she drew him to her bosom, cradling his cheek in her palm, her sobs wrenching her shoulders. Sally Mae sat back on her heels and immediately felt the support of Tucker’s strong thighs. She expected him to step away, but he didn’t, and she was glad. For too long, she’d been expected to be strong, independent and steadfast. But in this past year, she’d begun to realize that being self-suffici
ent, dependable and needing no one was not the ideal place she thought it would be. It was stressful and sometimes scary, but mostly it was very lonely. In a silent thank-you, she pressed back against Tucker’s knees.

  He took the blood-soaked handkerchief from her hand. She gave him a shaky smile, not caring if anyone thought anything of it. He was always there for her and though he insisted on being treated like one shunned, she wasn’t doing it anymore. She wouldn’t endanger his life by forcing an open friendship, but she wouldn’t shun him. Friends didn’t do that to friends.

  “I thank thee.”

  With a nod that sent his hair falling about his face, he stepped aside.

  “Do something for him.”

  Hazel’s hoarse whisper hammered at her composure. Reluctantly taking her gaze from the calm of Tucker’s, Sally Mae met Hazel’s anguish with the simple truth that she just couldn’t change. “I can’t.”

  “You help criminals. You help bandits. You help dogs, but you won’t help my son?”

  In the folds of her skirt, she clenched her hand into a fist. “Thee know I would help him if I could.”

  Sally Mae was too slow to prevent Hazel from lifting Billy’s shirt away from his wound. The shirt bunched in Hazel’s hands and she held on as if the tightness of her grip could change reality. “There has to be something you can do.”

  “I can pray.”

  Hazel didn’t move as the import of those three words sank in. Then she gave a nod so brittle it was inevitable that it shattered into a harsh sob.

  “Thank you.”

  Sally knelt in the dirt beside Hazel and placed her hand over one of the other woman’s as she reached inside for the serenity that evaded her in moments like this. God’s will was God’s will. It was her duty to accept it serenely and to make choices in accordance with his wishes. But looking at a sixteen-year-old boy dying in his mother’s arms? It was very hard to feel serene.