Chapter 11
Chris slammed the drawer of the sheriff's desk closed. The whiskey he kept there wasn't what he needed and he knew that. He was close to crossing the line that would dull his senses and he knew he couldn't do that. Not with Lucy's protection dependent on him.
Outside the jail, the streets were quiet. Chris looked out the window, wanting to see a drunk ready to shoot up the town. Someone who needed to be taught a lesson. Someone he could fight.
The door to the sheriff's office opened and Chris tensed, fingers ready to find his gun.
Lucy stood there, her blue eyes big, shadows and lights from the kerosene lanterns highlighting the fear that was constantly on her face. Chris stared at her— every instinct to fight, the blood thrumming through his veins, wanted to hurt someone—and as he looked at the uncertain look on Lucy's face, thought about her being his responsibility, the anger slowed. As he held her gaze, the fear in her eyes shifted slightly, turning to uncertainty.
"You stayin' in town tonight, Cowboy?" Vin asked, coming in the door behind Lucy.
Lucy dropped her eyes to the floor and moved out of the way to allow Vin to come through the door after her.
Chris glanced at Lucy, but she didn't offer an opinion.
"Thought we'd head back to the ranch. Safer there," he said.
Vin nodded his approval. Chris glanced past him, to the rain falling steadily outside. He shoved his chair back, not missing Lucy's flinch at the sudden noise. He picked up the brown paper-wrapped slicker with the brown hat set on top and handed it unceremoniously toward Lucy.
She looked at him in surprise and then down at what he held.
"Go ahead," Chris said, his words coming out more as a directive than an offer.
Lucy took the package and hat, looking to Vin. Vin gave her a nod of encouragement. She set the hat aside and cautiously unwrapped the package. When she held up the long brown jacket, her eyes darted to Chris before looking down.
"I…it's…" she fumbled for words.
Chris cut her off before she thought she needed to thank him. Or, worse yet, refuse the needed rain gear. "Suit up. I'll get the horses."
Lucy nodded and quickly slipped her arms into the coat.
Chris took the last package, the one with the soap, and tucked it into his pocket under his coat so it wouldn't melt in the rain. With a look to Vin, to make sure he was still going to keep an eye on Lucy while he went for the horses, Chris headed outside into the drizzle.
The cold air hit him in the face, cooling the warmth that seemed to come with Lucy's presence. He pulled his hat down lower to shield his face from the rain.
He stepped into the livery stable, the rain louder inside on the roof than it was actually walking in the rain outside.
It didn't take him long to get both horses saddled. He was just tightening the cinch on Lucy's horse when the heavy door to the stables was pulled open.
Vin's usually amiable expression was drawn as he escorted Lucy into the livery.
Lucy went right to the mount Chris had saddled for her, ducking past Chris to get to the horse's head where she brushed a hand over the horse's face, her fingers combing through its forelock.
Vin turned his back slightly to Lucy, keeping his voice down. "She didn't want to make you wait on her. Insisted we come over here."
Chris had guessed as much.
"She tell you…" Vin's voice trailed off and he looked over his shoulder at Lucy. Swallowed hard. He met Chris' eyes. "She tell you much about what it was like with Eli Joe?"
Chris didn't insult Vin by turning his attention back to the cinch. "A little," he said honestly. He didn't want to break whatever sort of confidence Lucy had shared with him.
Vin's mouth thinned. "It was bad?"
Chris knew Vin knew the answer to that. Details weren't going to make him feel any better about what Lucy had been through. He rested a hand on the saddle, giving Vin time to say anything else.
"Take care of her, Pard," Vin finally said.
Chris gave him a nod.
Vin looked like he was fighting for control. He stepped back, clearing his throat.
"I'll see you tomorrow, then I'll be headin' out for a couple days," he said. "I'm gonna be riding out a ways, makin' sure no one's comin'."
Chris hung back while Lucy hugged Vin, her fingers curling into the buckskin across his shoulders. He heard Vin quietly tell her that it would be ok. That she just had to be strong for a little longer and this would all be over. That she could trust Chris.
Lucy nodded along to everything he said, but even in the dark stable, Chris could see the way her jaw trembled as Vin spoke.
"I love ya, Luce," Vin said, giving her braid a light tug. He stepped away from her reluctantly. "Chris," he said in parting.
Lucy watched Vin go, only looking over to Chris when Vin had left the stable. Her diminutive figure was dwarfed by the coat, but at least she would be dry on the ride back to the ranch.
"You ready?" he asked.
Lucy nodded. He hadn't expected anything different. She easily mounted up and Chris untied his stallion's reins, swinging up in to the saddle.
He set a harder pace than he had on the way into town, having a better feel for Lucy's comfort in the saddle. Lucy kept up with him easily. He should have expected as much from Vin's sister.
The rain started to come down harder and he picked up the pace more, keeping an eye on Lucy. She rode without comment or complaint.
"You alright?" he called over the sound of the building downpour.
She nodded quickly. He didn't think she was going to say more, but then she spoke.
"Do you think there's a storm coming?"
Chris glanced at how white her knuckles were as she grasped the reins before the cuffs of her duster fell over her hands again.
"Looks like it."
She swallowed hard and looked ahead.
When the ranch came into view through the dark and the rain, Chris called for Lucy to go right to the house. She did, looking up at the sky.
Chris hurried to the barn with both horses, taking extra time to rub them down and dry them off in the barn before closing them into warm stalls.
When he got to the house, Lucy was nowhere to be seen, but there was a fire crackling in the cookstove, warm water and a fresh towel ready for him. Chris glanced toward the closed bedroom door. There was no light coming from underneath. A low rumble of thunder rolled outside and he hurried to get washed up and dried off, wanting to get to the warmth of his bed after the long, cold ride home.
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Another sharp flash of lightning lit Lucy's room and she stifled a cry, closing her eyes, but it wasn't enough to block the next bolts of lightning that sent piercing light through her closed eyelids. The thunder that followed was a quick succession of cracks that reverberated in her chest.
Her breaths were so shaky and uneven that she could barely fill her lungs.
Swinging her feet over the edge of her bed, she pulled the extra blanket from her bed, pulling it around her shoulders over her nightgown.
She opened her bedroom door cautiously. Chris' door was firmly shut so she ventured out to the kitchen.
Warmth still radiated from the stove and Lucy set the tea kettle on it, hoping a glass of tea would settle her. She glanced at the plain clock on the wall in the sitting room. Well after two am and she hadn't managed to sleep a wink. Not with the thunder.
Her hands started to shake and she clenched the edges of the blanket she held around her.
Storms in Texas had been the worst times with Eli Joe. The rains would keep him and his men in the cabin, sometimes for days at a time. With nothing to do except drink, they would get rowdy. And then stir-crazy, which turned to mean.
The worst she had ever been hurt had been during a storm, thunder cracking and mixing with the blows Eli Joe landed, lighting making her dizzy, and then the sound of the rain as she lay in a crumpled heap, hurting too much to breathe.
She did her best to block out the sound of the storm outside, the wind rattling something on the porch. With every flash of lightning, she could see Eli Joe's face, twisted with cruelty.
She saw the steam coming from the spout of the tea kettle and quickly removed it from the stove before it whistled and woke Mr. Larabee. She poured it into a mug, adding a tea ball, trying to smell the fragrance of the tea and not the iron of the blood that had covered her face.
She carefully carried the mug toward the table, the rain coming down in sheets outside the snug cabin, but too much of her mind was still back in the drafty cabin in Tuscosa.
Thunder cracked like a rifle shot and Lucy jolted, dropping her mug.
The cup broke into pieces, the hot tea splashing across her bare feet and ankles. With a cry, Lucy moved her hands to cover her mouth, too late to hold back her panic.
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Chris flew upright in bed, reaching for his gun before he was fully awake. As soon as his hand closed around the wood handle of the pistol, he froze, listening.
Another crash of thunder. Rain pelting the window. And a cry.
Without hesitating, he was out of bed, gun in hand. The hallway was empty, Lucy's door open. He glanced in to see her bed unmade, but no sign of her.
His heart pounding, he moved to the kitchen and saw her on the floor, broken shards of pottery around her bare feet. He quickly swung his gaze around the kitchen, the sitting room, not seeing anything else amiss. The door was still closed, no sign of anyone else.
Lightning struck again, lighting up the room and he could see Lucy trying to pick up broken pieces of a mug.
Lucy looked up then. Terror flashed across her face at the sight of him. "I'm sorry, so sorry," she said, the words spilling out of her quickly. "I'll clean it up. I didn't mean to."
"I'll get it," Chris said. His voice was too harsh and Lucy grasped the broken shard in her hand reflexively, then let out a cry of pain.
Chris quickly moved to cross to her and Lucy let out a sound of alarm and scrambled backwards, leaving smears of blood across the floor. Chris halted, seeing Lucy's eyes frantically moving from his gun to his face to the scars from old fights across his bare chest.
"Don't!" she sobbed. "Don't, please, don't!"
Chris held still. She squeezed her eyes shut, blood dripping from the gash in her hand to the white of her nightgown. The blanket that had been around her shoulders now on the floor, forgotten.
Chris eased back a step. With deliberate slowness, he set his gun on the kitchen table. Held his hands out at his sides to show they were empty, that his hands themselves weren't weapons he would ever use on her.
"Let me see your hand," he said, using all his control to keep his voice easy.
When he started to take another step toward her, Lucy drew away from him, bringing her knees up toward her chest, her sobs shaking her. Chris stopped again.
Lucy kept her head tucked down towards her knees, nearly curled in a ball.
Heaving a sigh, Chris took a step back. He sank down to the floor on the opposite side of the kitchen. Outside, the storm raged on. Across the kitchen, Lucy sobbed.
#
"Pretty bad storm last night," Buck commented.
Vin looked at the shingles that had blown off Chris' barn. The house looked sound still.
Buck let out a whistle, but Chris didn't come out of the barn. He looked at Vin and shrugged his shoulders. "Must be up at the house."
The house was quiet. Vin and Buck tied their mounts to the porch rail.
"Maybe they slept in," Buck suggested.
"Storm mighta kept them up," Vin agreed.
Buck jogged up the porch steps and knocked on the door before pushing it open.
He let out a low curse at the sight inside, Vin silently echoing the sentiment.
Lucy was curled in a ball on the floor, her face streaked with tears and she didn't move in her exhausted sleep. Streaks of blood covered the floor, her hand, her arm, the skirt of her nightgown. Broken pieces of a mug were scattered, Chris' gun was on the table, and Chris was seated on the floor, leaning back against the cabinets. His eyes were bleary as he opened them and looked at Buck and Vin.
"Rough night?" Buck asked.
Chris looked toward Lucy. "Something like that."
He dragged a hand over his face and Vin was struck by how haggard he looked. He got his feet under him and stood. He jerked his head toward Lucy, speaking to Vin. "She cut herself pretty good. Probably should see Nathan for some stitches."
Vin nodded and moved to Lucy. Crouching down next to her, he spoke softly. "Luce?"
She woke with a start, one hand coming up to shield her face.
"It's just me," Vin said.
Her expression cleared and she looked lost.
"Chris said you hurt your hand."
Without looking at her hand, she tucked it under the fabric of her nightgown. "It's fine."
"Let's see," Vin said.
He was aware of Chris moving behind him, pulling on a shirt, then getting a broom and setting to work on the mess on the floor. Buck got a rag from the sink, wetting it with water from the indoor pump and started cleaning the blood on the floor.
Lucy kept a wary eye on Chris, but offered her hand to Vin, palm up.
A deep cut ran across her palm.
"OK if we take your horse, Buck?" Vin asked.
"Yeah. Chris'll give me a horse to get back to town."
Vin helped Lucy stand, hiding his alarm at how much blood covered her nightgown.
"You need to change?"
Lucy gave him a look like she couldn't believe he would even suggest she go to town barefoot and in her nightgown. It was the slightest hint of who she was—who she had been before Eli Joe—and Vin let that encourage him.
She started to skirt past Chris, but he stopped her with a quiet word. Vin watched as she stood stock still while Chris got a clean rag from a drawer. Lucy held herself stiffly while Chris nodded toward her injured hand. Clenching her jaw, her shoulders a tight line, Lucy held her hand out.
Chris' jaw twitched slightly at the sight of the cut, but he didn't say anything. He doubled the rag over, then put it over the cut, tying it securely before stepping away from Lucy.
As soon as he stepped back, Lucy hurried to her room. Chris grabbed the broom again.
Vin went outside, needing some air while he waited for Lucy. When she came outside in her faded pink dress, brown hat that Chris had bought for her shading her eyes, and the makeshift bandage around her hand, Vin helped her onto Buck's horse, hoping to keep her from having to grab onto anything with her cut hand.
Lucy didn't say anything on the ride to town and Vin didn't push. He had already pushed enough, getting her into this marriage with Chris Larabee. And by all appearances, it wasn't going well.
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