Chapter 51 – The Price of Love

Two days later Adolph and Lily Busch were sitting on their front porch in the cooling night air. They'd been joined by Agent Malone and the Maverick brothers, as well as their good friends John and Edna McGinley and Doctor Whatley. The real story of the last few months had been explained for everyone's benefit, and Lily Busch had been profusely apologized to many times over.

"It makes me happy and sad," Lily clarified in a private moment with Ginny. "The two of you played your parts so well. You seemed truly in love with each other."

Ginny's smile grew big. "I'm sorry we had to deceive you, but it was for your own protection. Adolph had to be sure that you were safe. About the other . . . "

Lily's eyes danced happily. "I thought so. You can tell when a woman's really in love. And Bret is just crazy about you."

"Of that I'm not so sure. He may be just plain crazy." Both women laughed at the remark.

"Now, ladies. It's not nice to make fun of the mentally impaired," the youngest Maverick injected. "My brother Bret never claimed to be anything other than what he is."

Another round of laughter, before Adolph asked, "And how is the marshal, Doctor?"

Doc Whatley sat forward in his chair. "He'll be fine, Adolph, in a few days. Just as good as new. He's a lucky man, a few more inches . . . "

"I'm the lucky man, Doc," Bart corrected the physician. "If he hadn't tried to save me, there'd be one less Maverick sittin' on this porch."

"Yeah, and I'd have to explain to Pappy just exactly what happened," Bret told them. "A task I'm glad I don't have to perform."

"So what happens now, Bart?" John McGinley asked.

Bart rubbed his chin. "Now we travel with Agent Malone back to Denver. Pinkerton owes us a good bit of money. From there, who knows. I'll come by your place and say goodbye to the girls before we leave on Tuesday."

"Abigail will be heartbroken. She's been waiting for you to grow up enough to marry her," her father offered as an explanation.

"She'll be all grown up and you'll be fighting off the boys soon enough," Bart responded.

Adolph, silent for most of the conversation, spoke at last. "I still can't believe Sherman Caulfield was the cause of all the death and destruction. Temperance, Simone, Adele; even Dusty Jackson in a way. And why? Because of something that happened all those years ago."

"Just goes to show you, Adolph, what the desire for revenge can do to a man's soul." Ginny was right, and everyone knew it. "It's people like Sherman Caulfield that keep Pinkerton in business and me employed."

"Sad, but true," Doc Whatley interjected. "Well, now that everything's been settled, I'll have to go back to treating drunken trail hands on a regular basis. And I'll be euphoric to settle back down into my nice dull, boring routine. No more unexpected or unexplained deaths."

"We hope not, for your sake, Doc." And everyone on the porch laughed.

XXXXXXXX

By Sunday night everything was packed and ready to go. Bart had one last breakfast with the McGinleys, and Ginny paid a final visit to Helena Waggoner and baby Temperance. Bret spent some necessary poker playing time in St. Louis, winning instead of losing, and felt much more like Bret Maverick when he was through. The whole scenario of steady loss had sent him into a tailspin, and he was more than pleased to pull himself out of it.

Bart went to see Jeb Coughlin, who was recuperating at one of the St. Louis hotels, courtesy of the United States government. During the conversation, future plans became the topic of discussion. "We're leavin' Tuesday mornin'," Bart explained.

"Goin' back to Denver with Agent Malone?"

"Yeah, there's the small matter of some money due us. Quite a bit of money, actually. Course, not as much as Sherman offered me, but still . . . "

"At least you don't hafta go on the run to get it," Jeb offered. "Or spend any time trying to evade me or somebody like me."

"Yeah, thank God for small favors," Bart laughed. "What about you?"

"They need me in Wyoming. Somethin' about a kidnappin'."

Wyoming. Ginny was headed to Laramie. Bart wondered . . . "Heard anything about Pinkerton being involved?"

"Not yet. Is that where Malone's goin'?"

A nod of the head followed. "So she says. You might not have seen the last of her yet."

Jeb grinned. "Fine by me. Not only is she easy on the eyes, she's a damn fine agent. What about the Maverick brothers? They goin' to Laramie, too?"

"Nope," Bart answered. "Not sure what's ahead for us. Just hafta wait and see. There is somethin' you an me need to talk about, though."

The marshal sat up just a little straighter in bed and waited for the gambler to say something. It took a few minutes before Bart finally did.

"Why, Jeb? Why'd you take my bullet? I been tryin' to figure that out for days."

"Who says it was your bullet?"

"You know it was. You coulda been killed."

Jeb shrugged his shoulders. "But I wasn't, Bart."

"Maybe someday I'll be able to save your hide."

The Federal Marshal chuckled. "You never know, do you, amigo?"

XXXXXXXX

Bret and Ginny spent their last night in St. Louis with each other. Dinner at the Union Plaza Hotel, with big, juicy steaks and Ginny once again wearing her favorite dress, the beautiful green gown she'd had on the first night at Adolph's party. For once in his life Bret was more interested in the lady he escorted than the steaks they ate.

They took the long way back in the carriage to the Busch Estate; neither wanted the night to end. Once they'd returned to the house Bret suggested a walk in the moonlight, and Ginny agreed. They were quieter than normal; they held hands like new lovers and watched the moon rise high over the fields. Finally the gambler broke the silence.

"Ginny."

It took her a minute to answer him. "Yes, Bret?"

Without a sound he pulled her to him and kissed her. It was there in his kiss, as it usually was, that sense of sadness and melancholy that she first noticed the day they met on the train to Denver. But now there was something else there, too – an underlying passion, and longing, that hadn't been there before. Almost as if he didn't want to say goodbye. Almost as if . . . she tried to put it out of her mind, and just enjoy the feeling of his lips on hers, the tenderness of his embrace, the warmth of his touch. But she couldn't ignore it. Something had changed, and she had to know what it was.

When they broke apart at long last she didn't have to ask. "I love you," he told her, and everything that she'd felt in the kiss was included in the sound of his voice. Had she heard him right?

"Did you just say . . . ?"

He pulled her back and kissed her again, that same slow, passionate caress, and she was breathless by the time he loosed his hold on her. "I did," he told her. "I love you. I don't know how else to say it. I love you."

She was slow to reply, as if the spell she'd fallen under would be broken when she spoke. "I do, too. I mean . . . I love you, too. Now what do we do?"

Once more he held her as tightly in his arms as he could get her. This kiss was gentle, and tender, and full of raw emotion that loudly proclaimed that his feelings for her were real – more real than Bret Maverick had ever thought they could be. "We go to Denver. I collect my money. You quit Pinkerton. We get married."

The look of shock on her face must have said it all; he moved back from her as if he'd been pushed. "Married? Is that what you really want?"

"I want you," he told her. "I want you in my life, for the rest of my life. I don't ever want any doubts about how I feel. Yes, I want to get married."

"And you want me to quit Pinkerton?"

He heard the fear in her voice. What was she afraid of? She'd just admitted that she loved him, too. Didn't she want to be married? Slowly the haze that had descended upon his brain began to clear. It wasn't marriage that she was afraid of. It was the cost of that marriage that scared the wits out of her. It was the loss of Pinkerton right now.

"You . . . you don't want to quit Pinkerton?"

Ginny looked into Bret's eyes, into the coal blackness that resided there. Everything that she'd ever wanted was in those eyes, and everything that she'd ever feared. How could she explain it to him? "No. Not yet."

"You love the job."

"Yes."

"More than me."

"No."

"Then why . . . "

"I'm not sure I can explain."

"Try."

She winced at the pain in his voice. She'd never been very adept at understanding or explaining her emotions, but she had to try. She loved him, more than anything in the world, but she wasn't ready to marry him and leave Pinkerton – not yet. Could she make him understand why?

"Can I tell you a story? Not a story really, the truth. My truth. I was fourteen years old when I met Arthur Stansbury. Both of my parents had been killed, and I had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn. Arthur took me in, gave me a place to live and a reason to go on living. He made me finish school, taught me to ride and shoot, how to act and walk and dress. He was my mother and father both. I fell in love with him, and I fell in love with his great love, Pinkerton. I wanted to be an agent, to be the best agent Pinkerton ever had. I worked long and hard at it. I was well on my way, and then I ended up on that train with you and Bart, headed to Denver. You know what's happened since then.

"The closer I got to you, the more I loved you. I loved you enough to actually think about leaving Arthur behind, and Pinkerton, and spending the rest of my life with you. But there's the problem. I want to come to you with no regrets, no 'what-if's' in my life. Nothing left undone that could make me think of anything but you, and us. And right now that's impossible.

"I love working for Pinkerton, but I will give it up when the time comes. There's something that I owe them, something I promised Arthur. I promised that I would be the first Female Regional Director for Pinkerton. And I've still got a long way to go. If I quit now, Bret, I'll always wonder if I could have done it. And instead of thinking about us, I'll be wondering about what could have been.

"I can't leave now. I can't quit until I've done what I set out to do. It wouldn't be fair to you, and it wouldn't be fair to me. I love you enough to wait for us to be together, when I've done what I set out to do and I've nothing left to prove. So that there's no one in the world but you and me. No Arthur Stansbury, no Pinkerton Detective Agency, nothing to keep us apart. Do you love me that much?"

Bret still held her in his arms; now he pulled her tight against his chest so that she wouldn't see the tears that stood in those coal black eyes. He knew what it was like to want something so badly that you'd do almost anything to get it. That feeling had cost him the first girl he'd ever loved all those years ago – Mary Alice Tompkins. He couldn't let it cost him Ginny Malone.