THE TRAP
By Linda Ellen
November 2010
This is just a shortie, written for the November 2010 forum challenge; I just never got around to putting it up. The story was written from two screen caps – one of Michaela holding a turkey on a platter, smiling down at Ethan sitting at the head of her table (from Father's Day), the children and Sully sitting, and the other a shirtless Sully on a horse, grimacing and looking at Cloud Dancing. This is AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman (but those people aren't using them anyway!)
00
At the wonderfully laden Thanksgiving table, Sully sat staring straight ahead over his daughter and son's heads, absently twisting a napkin in his hands. He was fuming inside, but you'd never have known by his outward appearance.
Here he was sitting in his own house, at his own table, his wife holding a platter with the turkey he had provided, but somehow he had been relegated to one of the side chairs at the table, while his nemesis – his wife's ex-husband Ethan – was sitting at the head!
Just then Sully heard his wife ask who would carve the turkey. Who would carve? HE always carved! He couldn't bear to turn his head to view what he knew he would see – his wife smiling flirtatiously at her ex-husband while the man looked back at her with seduction painted glaringly on his smirking face!
Sully watched little Brian smiling his precocious grin and Colleen, staring enraptured at her 'Pa' – oooooh, the thought of applying that word to Ethan Cooper made Sully's blood start to boil. Even Matthew was smiling at his 'real' father.
Ethan has no right to be sitting there! I'm their father now – and have been ever since Brian was a baby! Sully fumed.
Ethan had left his pregnant wife high and dry and taken her money sock with every penny they had – and she'd not heard from him, except for the divorce papers in the mail – until today.
Thinking back to all of the nights he had held a weeping Michaela in his arms as she cried over the louse that had broken her heart so badly, it didn't make sense that she was fawning over him now!
As Ethan stood to begin carving, suddenly Sully couldn't take another minute of it and bolted up from the table, his chair falling backwards with a crash. He cast his eyes in Michaela's direction and mumbled, "I just remembered somethin' I gotta do," as he turned and headed for the door.
"But...Sully...it's Thanksgiving! Where are you going?" Michaela sputtered, placing the platter on the corner of the table and starting toward the door, only to see it shut after her obviously flustered husband.
"Ma...where's he goin'?" Matthew asked, unable to imagine the cause of his usually calm and quiet stepfather's outburst.
Looking around at the family nervously, Michaela wiped her hands on her apron, shaking her head slowly. "I don't know..."
Inside she was quaking. She knew Sully had gotten the wrong idea – that was plain. This whole day and plan had been sprung on her so fast, she hadn't had time to apprise her husband. And now he had left the house. Well, no matter. She would have to carry on with her plan anyway.
OOOOOOOOO
Sully leaned over his horse's back, thoroughly winded and grimacing from the pain of galloping bareback on the steed for too long at a stretch. His brother, Cloud Dancing, pulled his horse up next to him, gently pulling back on his reins. The Indian looked over at his best friend and brother curiously.
"You are troubled. The spirits told me to come this way and look for you. What is wrong, my brother?"
Sully squinted at him against the sun and swallowed dryly, not even wanting to put his thoughts into words.
Cloud Dancing, however, knew Sully well and he knew he needed to talk about whatever this was that bothered him so. "Come, let us sit over there under a tree...your horse looks like it could use a rest – as do you."
Silently nodding, Sully acquiesced and turned his horse, riding the short distance to the closest tree and gladly dismounting. Cloud Dancing lowered himself to the ground, silently waiting for Sully to begin.
After several minutes of staring out over the vista of rolling hills and trees, Sully said softly, "Ethan Cooper's back."
The Indian stared at him thoughtfully for a moment. "The man Dr. Mike was married to...before you?"
Sully nodded numbly.
Cloud Dancing raised an eyebrow. "Why would this bother you? Are they not...as your people say...divorced?"
Sully nodded and picked up a pebble, flinging it angrily down the hill, his mouth forming a petulant snarl.
"Then...?" The Indian prompted.
"Today's Thanksgivin'...I got her the turkey...went to town and got her all the fixin's she said she needed...but when I got back, he was there." Finally glancing at his brother, he added, "She put him at the head of the table...all smilin' at him...the kids grinnin' at him...you'd think he was some kind of conquerin' hero or somethin'!"
The Indian thought about this for a moment. "This does not sound like the Dr. Mike I know..."
"It doesn't sound like the Michaela I know! I just couldn't take another minute of it...so I...bolted. Been ridin' for two hours tryin' ta clear my head."
After another few moments, Cloud Dancing murmured, "I think there is more to this than you know, my brother."
"You got any idea how much it hurt watchin' MY wife and MY kids fawnin' over that jerk? I'm the one that picked up the pieces for 'em six years ago! I'm the one that's been there for 'em!" Sully fumed, the anger gathering fuel again.
"I think you should go back and find out the reason...it may surprise you," his brother wisely advised.
Sully stared at his best friend and brother in aggravation for a minute, but something in the other man's eyes slowly softened him. Finally he huffed a big sigh and shrugged.
Rising nimbly from the ground and vaulting onto his horse, he murmured, "See ya."
OOOOOOOOO
Three hours after he left, Sully opened the door to his homestead, finding the one room cabin swept clean of the Thanksgiving festivities, Colleen and Brian reading quietly, Matthew nowhere to be seen...and more importantly...no Ethan.
"Pa!" the kids exclaimed. "You sure missed all the fun!" "Yeah, you shoulda been here, Pa, you'da loved it!"
Sully's eyebrows drew together in confusion and he turned to his wife, who was conspicuously grinning like the cat with the canary.
"That's right, my husband, you should have been here to witness a very amusing scene," Michaela added, catching her bottom lip between her teeth.
"Will one of ya please tell me what you're talkin' about?" Sully groused, still feeling a tiny bit of aggravation.
"The U.S. Marshall was here, Pa. He arrested...Ethan..." Colleen began to explain, purposely not wanting to give the other man the title of 'Pa'.
"Arrested him?" Sully asked incredulously.
"Mmm hmm. I hadn't had a chance to tell you, but while you were out hunting, I was contacted by a Marshall Elias Burch with regard to a plan he had for apprehending a criminal he had been tracking for months. None other than Ethan Cooper. He hadn't arrested him yet because he needed proof of several things – and he got just what he needed right here," she added impishly.
Beginning to warm up to the story, Sully smiled the half grin his wife loved so much, his blue eyes twinkling in the lamplight as he strolled to the table and took a seat.
"Do tell," he encouraged his very animated wife.
"Well, it seems that Ethan has been living on the wrong side of the law ever since he ran out on me and the children, going from town to town, gambling, brawling, committing who knows what kind of crimes, including fraud and embezzlement. And when the Marshall found out he would be passing through here, he asked me to lay a trap for him. And it worked like a charm!" Michaela giggled with uncharacteristic spite. Sully chuckled with her.
"Matthew knew what the plan was, but Colleen was too young to remember him and Brian wasn't even born when he left, so..."
"But I knew he was a sorry, no good..." Colleen threw in for good measure.
"Anyway," Michaela went on, "the plan was for him to feel so comfortable here with us that he would start talking, bragging, which is something he was always so good at – and put his foot in his mouth – and he did! I let him believe, after you left, that I was unhappy with you and that my whole outlook on life had changed, and he fell for it! He started telling me all about his latest 'caper', with plenty of details."
Sully shook his head in amazement, gazing lovingly into Michaela's sparkling, multi-colored eyes. "Marshall Burch had snuck into the children's alcove and heard every word. Even had Jake and Hank along with him for witnesses. It gave them enough to put him away for a very long time. Oh Sully, the look he gave me when he realized I had outsmarted him..." she gushed, her eyes twinkling with mischief as she reached for his hand, "I know I shouldn't feel this happy over someone going to jail...but I must say...revenge does taste sweet!" Husband and wife grinned knowingly into each other's eyes.
Then glancing at her two youngest, she asked, "Colleen, Brian...would you go out and take care of your father's horse, please?" Astutely understanding their parents wanted a few minutes alone the two immediately complied.
Rising from her chair and crossing to her husband, she sat down on his lap and brought her lips to his for a very firm and satisfying kiss.
"I'm sorry I didn't have time to tell you...I know how it must have looked and I know, at least for awhile, that I hurt you. Will you forgive me?" she asked softly, gazing at him with such love and adoration, he felt warmth rush through him from his head to his toes.
How could he resist? "On one condition," he began seriously, but the twinkle in his eyes betrayed him.
"What might that be?" his wife purred teasingly.
"The next time...I want to help spring the trap!" and with that, he sealed the deal with some very passionate kisses...until the kids returned, of course.
The End