Eleven

“The Good Book says, ‘And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’” Reverend Matthews paused, his gaze sweeping over the half-dozing congregation.

Movement out the open window caught Glory’s attention. Quickly covering her mouth, she hoped to stifle the gasp before anyone heard. Hope nudged her with an elbow and cast her a puzzled glance. Glory gestured toward the moving object.

Luke rode past the side of the church on Soldier. The man on a pale horse.

Cold chills raised the hair on her arms.

Strange the way the reverend picked that scripture to recite at that exact moment. McClain and death? She shivered. Too coincidental.

Then she glimpsed the limp body strapped across the horse’s rump and a sickening lump settled in her stomach. A dead man. It could be none other than Perkins.

Reverend Matthews slammed his hand on the pulpit, making her and the first ten saint-filled rows jump in alarm. Those sleeping came awake, darting red-faced looks around.

The preacher pointed a bony finger toward the door.

“I saaaid, ‘Aaand Hell followed with him’!”

Glory had never seen the usually mild man this aroused, not even when his daughter ran off with a gambler. Some unseen hand had reached down and sizzled the reverend’s hair, standing each strand on end. With scarlet cheeks, his eyes alight with a strange glow, he resembled some terrible demon.

Prickly claws inched up her back.

Knowing Luke’s circumstances, she figured hell could very well clutch at his coattails. She shuddered to think of the horrible significance of the dead body. For them both.

“Good people, the time is here to guard against that pale horse. Death rides silently, a thief in the night.” The reverend’s clothing dripped with sweat. “It rides looking for you…and for me. To steal us away to everlasting hell and damnation.”

She squirmed uncomfortably. If the preacher hadn’t pierced her with his stare, she’d have bolted for the door.

Finally, he arrived at the end of his sermon. The strange being returned the meek servant it’d held hostage. “Before we go, I respectfully request that each of you make welcome our newest citizen, Dr. Ted Dalton. Will you stand, Dr. Dalton, so folks can take a gander at you?”

Glory jerked to attention. Santa Anna had gotten a doctor and no one bothered to tell her? But then, she hadn’t been to town since she came to speak with Fieldings three days ago.

The newcomer rose. He stood tall, perhaps a tad taller than Luke. His dark coloring gave him an assured air. A quick smile. Nice. But not nearly as startling as Luke’s.

“And also, don’t forget to welcome Mr. an’ Mrs. Sagen and their sweet little daughter, Josephine.” The reverend pointed out the family who’d arrived within the month.

Glory hadn’t met them yet, although they were neighbors. The girl looked about the age of Patience. She hoped the two would strike up a friendship. At least the family hadn’t been in the community long enough to develop an aversion to the Days. Leastwise, she prayed not.

Speaking of baby sis, she had acted strangely ever since Glory walked into the kitchen yesterday morning after leaving Luke. In fact, Patience stared as if she’d seen a ghost. Now in church, Glory caught the girl’s amused smirk.

She wound her way through the milling congregation toward the doors, wondering what mischief Squirt had gotten into. No telling. Right this minute, she couldn’t worry about that. She had more important business.

Two more pews and she’d have clear sailing. Only she hadn’t counted on the new doctor standing with his hand out.

“Nice to meet you, Miss…” His dark eyes reminded her of chimney soot. Soft and sort of clingy.

“Day. Glory Day.” She found her hand lost in his firm grip. “Welcome to Santa Anna. I’m sure the community has duly expressed gratitude for your arrival.”

His name escaped her. Walton? Walston? Oh Lord, why hadn’t she paid attention? She returned his agreeable smile.

Before she could engage in further conversation, someone shoved. Luckily, the back of an empty pew kept her upright.

She might’ve known. Bess and Amelia giggled, each capturing an arm of the new doctor.

“Dr. Dalton, you must have Sunday dinner with us. We’ve brought enough food for an army.” Amelia flashed her dimples, batting her eyelashes in some sort of secret Morse code.

“Yes, you simply must tell us all about life in New Orleans. We hear it’s quite sinful. And we packed the most scrumptious fried chicken you’ve ever eaten.”

Glory moved down the church steps and watched Bess tug Dr. Dalton in the direction of a shady elm her family had staked out.

During the summer months, Sundays were always dinner on the ground, literally. Custom dictated everyone bring plenty of food, and once the sermon ended, spread cloths on the grass. The gala occasion to eat and socialize broke the monotony of their mundane lives.

The varied shapes and colors reminded Glory of the friendship patchwork quilt Grandmother Day left behind when she took up residence on the other side.

Except the friendship part would’ve been misleading. The social circle shunned the Day family.

Glory hurried to their spot, apart from the others to help her mother unfold their best damask tablecloth. A lump stuck in her throat to watch her mother take great pains in hiding the hole at one end. Apart from the others, her mother unfolded her best damask tablecloth, taking great pains to hide the hole. Hope carried the lunch basket from the wagon while Squirt bossed. Glory had much more pressing things in mind than feeding her stomach. Besides, with panic whipping up a froth inside, nothing would stay put anyway. She headed down Santa Anna’s main street.

“Where you going?” Patience caught her arm. “Ain’t you gonna have lunch? Mama’s got it all spread.”

‘“Ain’t’ isn’t a word. You know that. You’re getting too big to keep spouting poor English.” She deliberately lengthened her stride.

“Other people say it.” Patience skipped happily along.

“Mama doesn’t allow it. You should know better.”

“You’re just being a meanie or you’d come sit with us.”

Goodness gracious. She ground her teeth to keep from saying something she’d regret. “I’m not interested in eating.”

“But where you going?”

“Crazy, that’s where I’m headed if you don’t quit pestering me. Now get your little self back to Mama and Hope.”

“I bet you’re gonna go see Mr. Luke. I saw him ride by the church. You’re sweet on him. I know you are.”

She froze in her tracks, glaring at the pigtailed pest.

“Why you would think that, I’ve no idea. I’m merely taking a walk and it’s none of your business where.” Anger that Patience hit on the truth made her lash out. “For the last time, please do as you’re told. I’ll see you later.”

There went that pout.

“I’ll tell Mama on you.”

“I don’t care. Just scat.”

Tears sparkled in her baby sister’s eyes. Darn! She’d only meant to be insistent. She draped an arm around Patience’s neck and kissed her cheek.

“I’m sorry. Hey, you know what? I’ll bet that new girl, Josephine, would love to be your friend. Why don’t you invite her to eat with you? Maybe she’ll come play sometime if you tell her all about Miss Minnie, Mr. George, and the babies.”

“You really think so?” The girl wiped her face.

“Sure do. She’ll see what a fun playmate you are.”

“But will you be back soon?”

“I promise.” She kissed the freckled cheek. “I won’t take long.”

Truth to tell, it would take only a few seconds to have their hopes and dreams turn into a wisp of smoke. One glimpse of Perkins’s dead body and everything would crash around them.

Patience skipped toward the church. The poor darling was starved for a friend her age. Glory hoped the new girl took to her. Being an older sister, in addition to mother and father, sure carried a lot of responsibility—most of which she failed miserably at.

Unease clutched her when she turned back down the street.

How did Patience know she had feelings for McClain?

She’d dared write those secrets in her journal only after everyone went to bed. Her heart skipped a beat.

Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the book since getting home at daybreak yesterday morning. The chores hadn’t given her a chance to look though.

Sweet on him? She had fought tooth and toenail against leaving Luke. She could help him if he’d let her. If he couldn’t rejoin the Rangers soon…

You take away a man’s purpose, you take his soul, leaving an empty shell. Purpose and soul went together.

Even though she told herself he hadn’t meant to kiss her, she couldn’t stop the glow the remembrance brought.

The moonlight.

The man of her dreams.

The magic of his touch.

Then, as now, her lips ached for more. He’d almost given in a second before he helped her onto Caesar’s back. Temptation lingered in his eyes until his good sense took over and he realized whose favors he’d sampled. Didn’t take a genius or the light of day to see the mistake on his face. Night couldn’t hide that.

Good heavens! She couldn’t believe she had kicked him.

She groaned aloud. Despite ignorance of the fine art of courting—not that she’d call what happened courting, mind you, and not having knowledge of the etiquette involved in such—kicking the suitor had to rank close to the top of the list of worst possible blunders.

He must’ve thought her the most priggish woman ever born. Blast! A second chance might never come again.

If it didn’t? How could she make that one kiss last for a lifetime? And how could she pretend it hadn’t meant so much?

At that moment, she spied Luke’s horse. Worry multiplied. She set a pace to match her pulse.

* * *

Luke squinted into the bright sun. It figured Glory would waste no time.

Stabbing pain returned with the knowledge she’d trailed him to the campsite for monetary reasons alone. Nothing else. She’d made it clear. Even so, he understood. Desperation tended to harden the softest heart.

She now marched as if Glory-bound and daring Satan to step into her path.

Dread swelled in his belly until it squeezed out room for hope or dreaming. The taste in his mouth reminded him of the nasty doses of Professor Low’s Liniment and Worm Syrup his mother used to poke down him. Only that would be an improvement over this.

Damn! He’d rather face the business end of a forty-five than the bitter pill he had to force her to swallow.

It didn’t matter what this had done to his plans. He reckoned he could live without the job he’d give his right arm for. Glory and her family’s needs far outweighed his. And on the bright side, at least Max could rest easier in his grave.

By the time he entertained the notion of hiding, she’d already reached the stables. The sharp snap of her skirt against those long legs mimicked the sound of gunshots.

He prayed for a whizzing, deadly bullet to fly out of the air and end his misery. He wasn’t that lucky. Suddenly, the honeysuckle-and-deep-regret posse surrounded him. No escape.

“I watched you ride past the church.” Raw fear probably made her voice husky, her words cracked.

Just like his heart.

Glory glanced toward the body on the barn floor and clutched her mouth. “Who? What?”

“Howdy, Miss Glory.” George Simon waved from a stall near the back. Rarely did Horace’s father, the town’s blacksmith, darken church doors. The man worked seven days a week.

“Afternoon, George.”

She turned a sickly green.

Luke took her elbow. “Let’s go outside.”

The shade of a live oak beckoned. A breeze cleared his nostrils of manure and decaying flesh. Of course, that merely left him open to the fresh assault of a different nature.

“That’s Perkins in there…isn’t it?”

He worked his tongue, hoping for a bit of moisture. Sweet-smelling flowers and stonewashed eyes. A lethal combination.

The panic sitting in them now made them more blue than the deepest ocean. And a thousand times more unsafe. A fellow could drown in them if he didn’t watch out. There had to be worse things that could happen.

“McClain?”

He hauled his thoughts from the danger.

“I wish… Damn!” He stared miserably at the toes of his boots.

“You didn’t have to kill him. You knew we had to bring him in alive to collect the reward. How could you?” The quiver in her voice amplified her disappointment.

Reproach sat heavily between them. He couldn’t look at her, couldn’t bear to see the defeat in her pretty eyes.

“If you think I’d do that, then you don’t know me very well.” Luke lifted his hat and ran his fingers through his hair before jamming the sweat-stained Stetson back on his head. “Found him hanging from a tree, the body still warm. He hadn’t been there long when I cut him down.”

“I didn’t mean what I said. I’m just so tired of carrying this load.”

“If only I’d gotten there a few minutes earlier.” He jammed a hand into his pocket and gripped Max’s tin star. Though he tried, he couldn’t keep the anger or the sarcasm from charging in. “That’s the story of my life. Always too late. Never there when it counts.”

Doomed to be second best. Not only to his big brother, Duel, not only to law work, but second to love as well.

Glory touched his arm. He dared a glance and found the forlorn sadness he’d expected. But not defeat. Pride and more than a glimmer of determination blazed. A marvelous thing had the situation not been so grim.

“Seems I’m forever accusing.” She swung away.

The soft swish of her faded Sunday dress and the brilliant gold of her hair caressed by the sun’s rays worsened the ache that ran all the way down to his boots. What he wouldn’t give to make her his own. But what could he ask her to share? Disgrace and poverty didn’t entice too many ladies.

“What do we do now?”

Her murmur almost got lost before it reached him.

He left the hunk of metal in his pocket when he withdrew his hand. He shrugged his shoulders, afraid to trust his voice.

Glory answered her own question. “You know, we’ll survive. Don’t have an inkling how, but we will. It’s you I’m worried about. How can you go on without your North Star to guide you?”

His North Star? That she would be more concerned about him than where her family laid their heads renewed his faith.

If Glory could see a speck of hope in the situation, he could rise above despair as well. One man had the information he needed; surely there were others.

And he didn’t quite know how, but he’d darn well make sure she kept her home. Some way.

“Reckon I’ll just follow the sun and the moon until I find it again. Shouldn’t be too hard. Besides, I’m used to things not being the way they should. Wouldn’t know any other way.”

He edged toward her until his boots brushed the hem of her dress. Her eyes widened, yet she didn’t move a muscle. The heady scent of her might as well have been hot lead. Her nearness rendered him incapable of hearing the warning his heart tried to send.

This light-headed, woozy sensation mystified him. Not possible. He didn’t love anyone but Jessie. He’d sworn it beneath a moonlit Texas sky after he’d carved her name on a tree trunk.

But yet, he had this strange yearning to taste another’s lips. The pestering thought held on, refusing to let go. He lowered his head into the scented, silky web.

Never had he thought he’d fall into a snare so willingly or with such pleasure.

Patience hollered from across the street. “Glory! Mama said for you to get your fanny back to the church.”