Chapter Twelve
Luke’s Ranch
Luke jumped off his horse and darted toward the front door.
“Go home, Caleb!” he called to his deputy. “Let me deal with this. I’ll fill you in tomorrow,” he yelled over his shoulder before slamming the door shut behind him.
Given the late hour, it was quiet all throughout his home.
Evelyn had evidently gone back to her and Caleb’s ranch, which was adjacent to his, and all other house staff had retreated back to their own accommodations.
Luke knew that Madelaine was in her room when he saw the faint glow of light coming through underneath the door, which illuminated the stone floor in the hallway just enough so Luke could see in the dark.
He didn’t know whether she was decent or if she’d be in a state of undress, but he didn’t really care. “Madelaine!” he yelled, slamming his fist against the solid wooden door.
He heard a yelp, then Simon’s alarmed voice, and then Madelaine’s frantic whisper. His anger rose to unprecedented levels, and he couldn’t hold it back any longer. He furiously pushed the door open, which crashed against the wall, and marched right into the room with wide, furious strides.
Belle and Simon sat on the bed, wide-eyed and fiercely hugging each other as Belle began crying in obvious fear. Madelaine stood at the end of the bed, holding her hand over her heaving chest as she stared at him with a petrified look on her face.
Smoothing her skirt with her hands, she turned her back to him and went back to packing her saddlebags. “Have you no manners?” she asked with clear annoyance in her voice, but she didn’t look at him.
“Why are you packing your bags?” he countered, stepping closer to the bed to get a better look at what she was doing.
“Why do you think?” she asked with a curt, angry glance, as she turned away from him to retrieve something from the top of the commode.
Luke was perplexed. Why was she angry?
“Why?” he demanded, outraged, grabbing her by the elbow to halt her movements.
She stared back at him with a scathing look and yanked her arm out of his grip. “It’s none of your business!” she said furiously, clearly appalled at him touching her like that.
Wrong answer.
“What do you mean, it’s none of my business?” he yelled in utter disbelief. “You made it my business when you stepped foot into my house!”
“You brought us here!” she yelled back, and Luke could almost physically feel the daggers her fiery eyes were shooting at him. “I didn’t ask you to!”
He couldn’t deny that part. That day, he’d acted in the moment to get all three of them to safety as swiftly as possible.
“You had nowhere to go!” he said sternly.
“How do you know?” she replied sarcastically. “Did you ask? No!” Madelaine scoffed and focused on the bags, not really doing much of anything, but angrily fiddling with one of the buckles.
“I needed to get you away from all the danger!” he growled, feeling slightly overwhelmed with this whole situation. “And you were injured!
He had never been forced to answer to anybody, let alone a stranger who could very well be scamming him right now. But most surprisingly, since when was Madelaine so combative? He wasn’t used to this kind of wayward behavior from a woman.
Madelaine spun around to him, and the hem of her long, wide skirt slapped against his boots as she did, which made him take a small step backwards.
“Why do you even care? We are clearly just a burden to you!” she interrupted him, before she stalked back to the dresser again to rummage around in another drawer, not retrieving a single item.
“What?” Luke was appalled. “I have never said such a thing! Ever!”
“You didn’t need to. Your behavior showed it.”
Luke stared at her in disbelief. “What are you talking about?” Grinding his teeth hard, he closed his eyes to calm down. “I have never told you that you are a burden,” he said, fighting to remain calm. “You are not…”
Madelaine interrupted his speech yet again when she slammed the drawer shut, but she remained standing in front of the solid wooden commode and stared at the blank wall behind it. “It doesn’t matter anymore. We are not welcome here,” she said dismissively.
“Where’s all this coming from?” Luke raised his arms and let them fall by his side in a helpless motion. Instead of fueling it, her unexpected retaliation drained his fighting spirit a little. He was so perturbed by these accusations he almost forgot what he needed to say to her.
Apparently, Madelaine wasn’t finished.
“All these days we were here, you didn’t once ask me what was going on.
You didn’t try to talk to me, and you didn’t try to get to know me.
You actively avoided me for days. You showed me more than once that you don’t really care about us,” she said, almost sounding sad as she walked back toward the bed, but the bite in her tone didn’t let him forget how angry she was.
Well, so was he.
“I didn’t want to push you too hard!” he exclaimed defensively.
“You are suffering from memory loss. I found you injured lying in the snow, being shot at by a group of angry men, for crying out loud!” Luke wanted to rein in his outrage at all of this, but he couldn’t.
“What do you think?” he yelled. “That I don’t want to know more about you and your situation?
Why you were there? Why you were out there in the freezing cold with two small children?
Who those men were and why they were after you all? ”
Madelaine heaved a stuttering sigh, but she avoided his eyes and didn’t reply. Luke saw her hands trembling.
“I do care! I care about all of you.” He glanced at Simon and Belle, hiding in their corner, looking too scared for his liking.
He would deal with that later. “There are certain things we need to discuss, and seeing that you are seemingly up for a discussion right now, Madelaine, there are men in town who are looking for you and the children.”
As soon as he said it, Madelaine’s body stiffened, and her eyes shot up to his face. He tried to calm his voice as he continued, but failed. She obviously knew something. Seeing her reaction, his voice was stone-cold.
“Caleb and I spoke to them in the saloon when they started asking questions at the bar about the three of you. They seemed to be quite well informed, knew your names and where you came from, but I did not get the impression that they were the good guys.” Scanning her face, he looked for another reaction to his statements.
He didn’t know what to think of it when she didn’t seem surprised.
Not at all. Although she had suddenly gotten very pale.
He knew he needed to proceed with caution. “I need you to tell me everything you do know, Madelaine. I can only help you if you help me.”
Madelaine glanced back toward the children in obvious distress. Luke did not want to believe that she hadn’t told him the whole truth, but her current behavior was not very helpful. It took everything in him to calm down his temper. He needed to be reasonable, or she might just run away.
When she looked up and directly into his eyes, she seemed clearly worried and very hesitant to speak.
“Madelaine?” he tried more gently.
“I can’t…” Her voice was nothing more than a whisper. “It would put you into danger. You and everyone on this ranch. Evelyn. Caleb…”
Luke shook his head, stepped closer to her, and very carefully took her delicate hand in his.
“You do not need to worry about me or any of us. I’m the sheriff, and I do have a whole army behind me if the need should arise.
” He said this with conviction. The reaction of the young men in the saloon tonight had confirmed exactly that.
“Please talk to me. Tell me what happened. Who is Phineas Greed?” he tried.
As soon as he mentioned the name, Madelaine made a choking, sobbing noise. Her knees buckled, and she sank onto the edge of the bed. She ripped her hand out of his and wrapped her arms around herself. She closed her eyes, and the pain on her face was all too apparent. “This is too much…”
Luke was running out of patience, grabbing her elbow.
Remembering who he was, he spoke to her firmly. “Enough of that! Talk! I will not leave until you do.”
She stared at her elbow, shocked, then back at him, but there were no signs of her being overly scared of him. He assumed that the truth was a much scarier thing to be worried about.
She swallowed hard, and when Luke saw several emotions cross her face, he decided to give her a minute to gather her thoughts.
“Phineas… is my cousin,” she said quietly.
Luke raised his eyebrows. “I was told that he is your fiancé…?”
Madelaine scoffed at that. “No! He is not! He wants to force me to marry him.”
Luke couldn’t let up now. “Do you remember anything else?” he asked.
She nodded before she spoke. “Yes. I remember… all of it.”
Luke held his breath. “All of it?”
She confirmed it with a single nod.
“I inherited my father’s farm after both my parents died. Phineas heard about it and moved in a few short weeks after it happened. All under the pretense that he wanted to help me. But then…”
“Why were you out there that morning? With Simon and Belle?” Luke cut her off.
Right now, he needed to know the facts. He was obviously sorry for the loss of her parents.
However, she had lied straight to his face, and he was only human.
In this moment, he felt real disappointment and utterly betrayed.