Chapter 24
WARREN
“It’s gonna be okay.”
Maybe if I tell her enough, we’ll both believe it.
But it’s not so much Blackwood coming into town that has me worried as it is the way Mara retreated into herself after hearing his name.
She didn’t say anything on the way home.
Not even when we saw our family waiting for us, just like she’d predicted.
Didn’t even cry. Just tightened her lips, hunched her shoulders, and stared at Emmaline’s left hand with an expression so haunting that my gut damn near gnawed itself in half.
I push my own worries aside and hold my stoic wife and sleeping child as we sit on the sofa, surrounded by family and an alert Patches. “She’s gonna be okay,” I tell the dog as he rests a worried head on Mara’s thigh and looks between the two of us for reassurance.
She has to be.
Whatever it takes, I’m going to make sure of it.
I held her through the first time she saw the red birthmark then, although I didn’t know that was what troubled her so.
Held her before that as she fought to bring Emmaline into this world, and I held her afterwards as the shield around her heart began to crumble and she fell in love with her baby.
I’ll hold her through this and whatever else life throws our way.
I attempt to quell the fluttering vein in Mara’s temple—the only outward sign that her eery calmness isn’t as it seems—with a kiss as Dove gently rubs her back. “We’re gonna get through this, you hear me? He’s not gonna touch either one of you.”
“Damn right he’s not getting near my daughter or grandbaby.” Ever confident and matter of fact, Pop glances meaningfully between me and my brother. “Way I see it, there’s only one choice to make—do we kill him before or after he gets to town?”
A coarse bit of laughter slips from Mara before it turns into a choked sob.
And with the dam of her emotions finally breached, twin streaks of pain slide down her cheeks.
Emmaline wakes with an unhappy cry, adding chaos to the tension.
“If he ever sees her, he’ll know.” Mara presses her lips into our baby’s hair as if she’ll never get to kiss the soft strands again.
“He’ll know she’s his and he’ll find a way to take her from me and I’ll never see her again. ”
My jaw hardens at the rawness in her voice. “She’s never been anyone’s but ours in any way that matters, and she never will be.”
Mara grinds the heel of one palm in a useless attempt to stem the tears. Seeing both my girls cry doesn’t feel good, but I don’t dare pull Emmaline from her mama right now. I offer my finger for our Little Bit to chew on, and that satisfies her for the moment.
“Now now, dear.” Momma dabs at Mara’s cheeks with a handkerchief before folding it into her hands.
“Don’t fret about things that haven’t come to pass yet.
With the good Lord and your family looking out for you, things are going to be just fine.
You’ll see. You’re one of us now. Both of you.
And family always takes care of family.”
I wince on Mara’s behalf at the mention of God. Momma doesn’t know how much of a sore point the topic is.
“There’s merit to both options,” Jed muses, eyes glued to his own wife and her growing belly. “If he dies before the tournament, there’s no chance he ever learns about Mara or Emmaline. But then that might stir up all kinds of questions when he doesn’t show up.”
He’s right. “If we wait…” The thought kills me to think about.
“If we wait, then there’s the possibility he could find out about them.
All it takes is one person in town saying something, whether it be innocent or intentional.
And then he might get curious. Then again”—I form my words slowly as the idea comes to me—“who’s to say he doesn’t run into trouble on his way out of town?
Especially if it’s known that he’s carrying his winnings with him. ”
Jed’s eyes cut to Dove before meeting mine. “Sure is dangerous for a man to be traveling by himself. Between coyotes and highwaymen, one or the other is bound to meet him.”
“May the good Lord send both,” Momma says with disdain.
No one’s appetite is anywhere near what it was before, but we help Momma pull a meal together because it’s clear by the way she eyes a miserable Mara and an expecting Dove that no one’s leaving until they get something in their stomachs.
Mara just picks at her food, fork clinking against the plate, but at least by the end of the somber meal, it’s about a third lighter.
When everyone makes to leave, I pull my brother aside at the door.
“You have your own responsibilities,” I say, nodding towards Dove as she hugs Mara.
“I can’t ask you to take this risk. Not now.
” Even though I think we have a pretty damn near perfect idea of taking Montgomery out, there’s always a chance of something going wrong.
I’ll be damned if my sister-in-law is left with an injured husband to care for on top of her expecting a little one.
Or, God forbid, if she’s left a widow and my niece or nephew without a father.
Jed punches my shoulder, snatching me from the dark turn of my thoughts. “The hell is wrong with you?”
I scowl and punch him back, satisfied with his quick grimace. “I’m just trying to make sure nothing happens to you for Dove’s sake.”
“It hasn’t been so long ago that you were helping me get her back, or don’t you remember?”
“Of course I do.” Guilt twists like a knife as the memory plays out. “It was my fault she was taken in the first place. If I’d have kept my wits about me…”
Regret softens his eyes. “You couldn’t have known someone would be waiting behind the door ready to bash your head in. And with an injury like that, you shouldn’t even have gone after her with me. I should have sent you home or to the doctor.”
Jed keeps going before I can protest. “But you did. Because you’re my brother and I know how much you love my wife.” He pauses before adding sternly, “Like a sister.”
An instinctive smirk merges into a soft smile. “Best sister out of all of them.”
“Now you have a wife and a baby, and Mara needs a family around her more than ever. Men to go to war for her and protect her like she should have been protected before. And I’ll be damned if you try to talk me out of staying behind in this. I’ve got your back just like you had mine.”
Damn it to hell and back, but my eyes start to burn. I drag him into a bear hug. “Thank you.” Two simple words that don’t show even half of the fervor I mean them with.
“You’re my little brother,” he says gruffly. “Always will be.”
Mara tucks herself inside my arms in bed that night, ear flattened to my heart, but I can tell by the coiled tension all over her body that she’s not sleeping.
Hell, I don’t guess my heartbeat is soothing enough with its wild rhythm.
I hum for her until my throat goes hoarse, but sleep doesn’t come for either of us.
That moment of shock and dread on her face when she heard that cursed name keeps replaying in my mind, as if someone keeps resetting the gramophone needle when it reaches the center instead of letting the damn song come to an end.
It’s too late to undo all the things that were done to her.
Things that should never have been done to any woman, let alone the young girl she was when it first began.
I squeeze my wife tighter and comb through our past conversations for names.
First there’s the Overstreets. Missionaries who were too strict and harsh on a little girl and never loved her. But they’re dead now, and just as well. I’ve never laid a hand on a man or woman proclaiming the gospel, but I’d do that and more for her.
Then there’s the son Neil. Mara thinks he’s dead, and he just might well be. A cheater—especially one who’s bad at cards—isn’t likely to live long enough to keep cheating. Maybe he’s dead and burning in hell right alongside his parents for the way he stole her innocence and then sold her.
Who else did she speak about?
Those sons of bitches who took Dove.
Joe, Chance, and Crowley.
Jedidiah dispatched all three in his own path of retribution, so that leaves only one man to shoulder the blame for every injustice done to my wife.
Montgomery Blackwood.
Ribbons of cold satisfaction thread around my mind at the thought of him being dead. As long as he’s still breathing, Mara can’t heal. Not completely, anyway. And while I can’t turn back time and stop Blackwood from hurting her, the one thing I can do is make time stop for him.
Permanently.
“I thought I was over everything,” she suddenly whispers, “but I was so wrong. How can he still make me afraid when my life is so different now with you?”
My wife’s words may as well be a ton of bricks by the way they slam into me and made all the worse by the pain they hold.
I push Blackwood aside to squeeze her tighter and release a ragged breath into her hair.
“It takes time, Mara darlin’. You’ve come so far from where you were, watching and weighing my every action from behind a shield”—more like prison—“of distrust. You’ve let me be a papa to Emmaline and a husband to you.
I know it took a hell of a lot for you to do that, and I’m so damn proud of you.
But even though you’ve started to heal, it hasn’t even been a year yet.
Your mind still sees him as a threat and is trying to protect you by warning you to keep far away from him. ”
Some of her tension deflates with her sigh, and I inhale, wishing I could breathe it all in and take it away for her.
“I’m not gonna tell you not to worry because feelings don’t work like that.
But I will say this—I promised you that first night that I’d always protect you and Emmaline.
Doesn’t matter what or who it is. So every time any thoughts about Blackwood or anyone else come creeping into your mind, just you remember that everything’s different now.
You’re not facing him on your own anymore.
Now you have me and all your family beside you. ”
Silence falls, and I wonder if she’ll answer me or if I made things worse.
“I just want this to all be over with so I can be happy again like I was this morning.” Her small voice disappears into the night.
“Before it was ruined. Everything was perfect with just you and me and Emmaline and Patches. I was so happy for our first picture as a family, and now I won’t even be able to look at it without thinking of him. ”
“No…it’s not ruined. And you will be happy again,” I swear to her, dragging my lips across her forehead.
“All of us will be. I’m not going to let him take that away, you hear me?
” She lifts her face in search of my mouth, and I lay claim to her sad lips with everything I have, hoping she can feel the truth of my words since she can’t see it in my eyes.
“Now, it’s been a long day, and you need to get some rest before Little Bit wakes up. ”
“I don’t want to go to sleep.” Mara’s tangible misery eats at my soul. “Because if I do, I know he’s waiting for me there.”
Fucking hell, but I can’t stop the burning anger that rises toward the phantom son of a bitch. I roll atop her and take her mouth in a possessive kiss. When she softens beneath me, I pull back. “This is our bed, and I’ll be damned if any man other than me touches you in it, even in your dreams.”
Her nightdress might as well be nonexistent for the barrier it provides against hiding my body’s reaction to the heat of her as she presses closer. I angle my hips away, but she hooks her ankles over my legs and pulls me down further. “Closer,” she begs. “I need you closer.”
I give her more of my weight, but not all. “I need you to be able to breathe, and you can’t do that if I smother you.”
“I can still breathe. But if you hold me tight, then it helps me to stop thinking about everything else. Because then all I can feel and smell is you and know that my life here is real and not something I dreamed up to save myself.”
Well, damn. How can I deny her this?
“Don’t you go thinking things like that.
I promise you’re awake. And if you weren’t, I’d find a way to meet you in your dreams and take you with me from there, too.
” A light puff of air leaves her lips as I lower onto her.
Me, though? I’m fighting back a curse as I settle into the cradle of her thighs.
The last thing she needs is a stiff cock poking her in such a vulnerable state, but unfortunately, only my head—the upper one—understands the gravity of the situation.
Mara wiggles her legs until they’re between mine. Now the only parts of her that can truly move are her arms, and she tunnels her hands up my sides until they’re ensnared, too. She sighs again with heavy contentment as the weight of my body essentially forces her taut muscles to relax.
I lower my forehead to hers and match her, breath to breath. “No one’s ever taking you away from me, Mara. Our souls are connected now, and they always will be. That’s why I know that if we hadn’t met when we did, fate would have led me to you later. You’re mine for now and for always.”