The Wedding Dress
Chapter 2
Matt Dillon sat in the hard wooden chair, his elbows resting on his knees and head in his hands. It was 2:45am, and on a normal day he would have been asleep for at least four hours by now. How he longed for a normal day.
She looked so small, so helpless lying on that table. A blanket was pulled up to her chest, concealing the bullet wound in her abdomen. She hadn't stirred since it happened, and he had no way of knowing if she ever would. He was in hell's waiting room, just as he had been two years ago. Sitting in the same chair, feeling the same agony.
Matt was a spiritual man, though not a religious one in the traditional sense. He wasn't much for public displays of worship, or public displays of anything else for that matter. He had never been a big talker, not even silently to his maker. But he had prayed that night—longer and harder than ever before.
She had been clinging to life by a thread then too, and he was to blame. He should never have left her alone, vulnerable to the twisted revenge fantasies of his enemies. They had taken her, abused her, and the moment he saw what they had done he knew his life would never be the same. If she lived, the scars would be a daily reminder of the price she had paid for loving him. If she died, he wouldn't have the desire or ability to go on without her.
And so he had prayed that night, begging, pleading, bargaining, as people are known to do when they are powerless to do anything else. He vowed that if she lived, he would try to forgive himself and spend the rest of his days making it up to her. She had given him the best years of her life—eighteen years of friendship and loyalty, of intimacy and passion—and he had given her eighteen years of maybes and somedays. This was someday, he had decided. If she made it through this, he would take Doc's advice and retire with dignity from the job that had kept such a stranglehold on him, but which he knew was better suited to a younger body that time and injury had not yet compromised. He would whisk her away from the sorry drunks and roughneck cowboys and make sure she didn't have to spend another night serving drinks until her back hurt. They had both worked hard their whole lives, and they had earned this. In middle age, Matt Dillon would finally settle down and marry the woman he had loved almost longer than he could remember.
He liked to think that his prayers had made the difference, and maybe they had. But he suspected it was her own strength and determination that had pulled her through that ordeal. Against all odds, she had survived.
Yet here he sat two years later, the badge on his chest advertising his betrayal like a scarlet letter and his lover once again slipping away from him. The circumstances were very different, but he felt no less responsible. Had he retired like he promised—like she deserved—they would have been enjoying their coffee at some quiet, private ranch this morning instead of a table in the saloon where she still had to earn a living. She wouldn't have needed to make a deposit at the bank, and she wouldn't have walked into the line of fire as the lookout for the bank robbery in progress followed orders to kill anyone who threatened to thwart their efforts. The sound of that shot had been exploding in his head all day, with a slow motion replay of a blast so powerful it had thrust her body almost all the way back to his chair. He would give anything to be lying on that table instead of her, but then she would be in his place, bearing a deeper wound that causes even greater suffering. She had been in that chair too many times before.
The room was completely silent except for clock on the wall, ticking away each second and chiming on the hour. Doc had offered to take shifts with him through the night, to watch the shallow breaths and pray that they kept getting stronger. At this point, just like last time, it was all anyone could do. But by midnight Matt had insisted that he could take the whole night, telling Doc that he wasn't tired instead of admitting that he thought she might die and he couldn't bear the thought of not being there.
He had barely been able to look Doc in the face when he rushed her lifeless body up those stairs, the hideous stain spreading through her white blouse. Doc loved her too, probably more than anyone in the world other than Matt. He had been there for her two years ago as well, every agonizing minute of it. And when she pulled through then, Doc had rested easy knowing that the days of digging bullets out of his closest friends were almost over. After tracking down her attackers, Matt had told him that he was done. That nothing makes you realize what you have until you almost lose it, and he wasn't going to risk losing her again.
What had gone wrong? He had every intention of following through with his plans, he had even written a letter of resignation. On the way to mail it, the telegraph operator had delivered an urgent message to him regarding an escaped convict he had helped put in prison. The man was extremely dangerous and was now on the loose, free to terrorize innocent citizens. He had to find him.
She had told him she understood. Her wounds were healing nicely, the physical ones anyway, and she figured she could do this one last time. The waiting, the worrying, the uncertainty. He would complete this duty, and then she could put The Long Branch up for sale and start looking for the house they had been discussing.
Except that he returned to learn that the Cordry gang had left a trail of robberies and dead bodies from Garden City to Great Bend, and they hadn't been caught. And after that, it was something else. Always something else. Somehow, almost two years had gone by and the resignation letter still sat in his desk drawer.
He knew it was nothing short of a miracle that she had stayed with him. She'd even had a proposal from a man who fell head over heels in love with her almost the moment he met her. Matt certainly understood how that could happen. This man had offered her a home, a commitment, and painfully, she had considered it.
Matt, tell me to say no to Will Stambridge. It was such a small request, one he could have fulfilled so easily. It had nearly ripped his insides out seeing her with another man, and he wanted to say it, to shout it. Say no to Will Stambridge. I love you, and it will kill me if you leave. Please don't give up on us.
But that's not what he had done. He hadn't earned the right to tell her not to leave, and it felt wrong to pretend he had. So he told her it was a decision that only she could make. She knew that, but he would never forget the disappointment on her face when he said it. He should have given her more.
The clock on the wall chimed three times, and Matt flinched as the first chime startled him out of his internal conversation. He quickly searched her face, checking for any sign of reaction to the sound. She remained perfectly still, her chest still slowly rising and falling. He took her limp hand and enveloped it in his, squeezing tightly enough that he could feel the ring on her finger. It was the promise ring he had given her many years ago, when it didn't seem to matter so much if marriage had to wait because they had all the time in the world. He had told her then that it was just as meaningful as a wedding ring, a promise to be faithful and spend their lives together even though he couldn't marry her right now.
Matt twisted the ring back and forth, gently caressing her finger as he did so. Some promise. He closed his eyes and prepared to ask for one more miracle.
TBC