Chapter 19 #2
With motions so quick the human eye couldn’t follow them, Abby whipped her knife away, back into its hidden pouch. Wade still wasn’t sure where exactly the woman kept the weapon, and it was rude to study her skirt long enough to be sure.
Abby shoved off Tom’s chest far harder than necessary, and she dusted off her knee as if Linscott had gotten her dirty.
Wade reached down, and Tom, his eyes locked on Abby, didn’t notice. Wade kicked him, no gentle prod like last time.
That, Tom noticed. He grabbed Wade’s hand to get to his feet.
Wade pulled maybe just a tad harder than was absolutely necessary, and Tom, back to looking at Abby, almost fell over forward.
“S–sorry, I didn’t mean to mistreat you…uh…” Linscott looked at Wade.
That wide-eyed fascination with Abby set Wade off. But he’d just told Tom about turning over a new leaf, so he refrained from gaining Tom’s attention with his fists. “It’s Abby.” Wade tried for a minimum amount of good manners. “Abby Lin?—”
“What?” Tom reacted as if a lightning bolt had just landed slap on him. “Abby Linscott? That’s my sister’s name.”
“Not Linscott.” Wade resisted the urge to swat the man in the back of the head, just to see if he could make him blink. Tom was riveted by Abby. “Lind. Abby Lind, this is Tom Linscott.”
Tom moved closer to Abby.
Abby seemed to be focused unduly on Tom too.
Wade needed his gun.
Suddenly, Tom was fumbling with something on his shirt.
Wade stepped closer. He’d have stepped right between them if there’d been room.
“Linscott?” Abby paid rapt attention to the man. “Tom Linscott?”
Tom produced a large gold pocket watch and pressed the stem winder. The watch popped open to reveal a picture. “This is…” Tom looked from the picture to Abby and back. “This could be you.”
“Who is it?” Abby leaned close, studying the picture. She took it from Tom’s hands even though he tried to hang on, but he didn’t try hard. He tried like a man who was numb all the way to his fingertips. She lifted it close, and long seconds passed as she stared at the likeness. “Mama.”
Barely able to hear the words, Wade leaned closer. “You recognize this picture?” Wade looked, and there was no way to deny that the woman in the picture bore a stunning resemblance to Abby.
“They died. My whole family died.” Abby’s eyes rose to meet Tom’s. “Except my older brother. You stayed back East.”
“When you all went West, I stayed behind. I had a girl I was sparking and a good job working in a lumberyard.” Tom’s lips curved down. “You forgot you had a brother?”
“No, not forgot. But that life seems so far away. Almost as though it happened to someone else.” Abby looked deeply into Tom’s eyes.
“She’s been living with the Flathead all these years, Tom. Speaking their language, living by their customs. She’s remembering her old life only in bits and pieces.”
“Indians kidnapped you?” Tom’s brows slammed together. “Savages? I never knew. I never even considered you’d lived, or I’d have come to save you. We heard the family died of the fever. I inherited Pa’s land, and my girl married someone else, so I came West.”
Temper flashed in Abby’s eyes.
Wade jumped in to head off her drawing her knife again. “The Flatheads found her alone, her family dead. They didn’t kidnap her. They saved her. Took her and cared for her and raised her as their own.” Wade added in a whisper, “She doesn’t like it when you call them savages.”
Tom started shaking his head. “My sister. I…I never thought one of you might have lived. I was t–told…” Tears welled up in Tom’s eyes.
Wade looked around quickly, knowing Tom wouldn’t want anyone to see him crying. Once the danger was past, his men had moved away. They were in the corral separating the stock.
Suddenly, Tom launched himself forward and grabbed hold of Abby in a bear hug. Startled, Abby looked to Wade as if asking for help.
Wade shrugged. “He’s happy to see you. Aren’t you kinda happy to know you have a brother?
” For some reason, Wade was extremely happy to find out Tom was Abby’s brother.
He didn’t bother trying to decide why exactly.
Of course, there was bad in it too. Tom couldn’t spark her, but he could take her home.
“Yes.” With a quiet cry of distress, Abby flung her arms around Tom and hugged back. “I’m very happy to know I have a brother. Tom, I do remember you. I was so young when we headed West.”
“Seven.” Tom let her go, stepped back a bit, and kept his head down as he fished a handkerchief out of his pocket.
He blew his nose and made a quick swipe of his eyes, then looked up.
“You were seven when Pa threw in with a wagon train. I was sixteen and not about to leave my best girl behind. Stubborn kid. If I’d have come, maybe I could have helped. ”
Wade clapped his hand on Tom’s back, enjoying slapping the man a bit too much. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to lose Abby because of this. “You two have a lot of catching up to do. Why don’t you send your hands home with the cattle and ride out to the M Bar S with us, spend the day?”
Tom suddenly bulled up, got a mean look on his face that Wade remembered well from the old days. “I’m not coming out there. Abby is coming home with me.”
Wade froze. Then he melted. In fact, he got a little hot under the collar. “No, she’s not.”
“My sister is coming home with me.” Tom dismissed Wade’s comment and turned to Abby. “We’ll give you a ride. You don’t need a horse or anything else from Sawyer.”
“She’s got a job on our ranch.” Wade wasn’t about to let Abby ride off with anyone, least of all Tom Linscott.
“She doesn’t need a job. I can support her.” Tom reached for Abby.
Wade stepped between them. “I know how you live out there.”
“I live just fine.” Tom’s jaw clenched.
The man appeared to be remembering, but just in case, Wade reminded him. “Your cabin is falling down, and your ranch hands live in it with you. She’d be more comfortable in a cave of bears. Safer too.”
“So I’ll build a house.” Tom’s hand seemed to sweep aside the problem of where Abby would stay in the meantime. “I didn’t have a reason to before this.”
“Come out to the Sawyer place after the house is built. We’ll talk about her going with you then.” That gave Wade plenty of time to convince Abby that she needed to stay with him forever.
“No. She comes now.” Tom squared off in front of Wade, turning sideways to Abby.
“It’s not right nor proper.” Wade took a step closer to Linscott. “At least at my place we’ve got Gertie. Plus, Gertie is run ragged trying to take care of Pa and cook for the hands doing roundup. We really need Abby’s help.”
Tom jerked back. “You don’t have your roundup done yet?”
That heat in Wade’s cheeks might be a blush.
Blushing, at his age, in front of Tom Linscott, while the man swept Abby off to live with him.
Could things get any worse? It was not his fault that he’d come home and found chaos.
“No, we don’t. And that’s not what we’re talking about.
Abby’s reputation will get dragged through the mud if she’s out there with all of your bachelor cowhands. ”
“No one will say a word against my sister, or they’ll face me.” Tom jabbed a finger straight at his chest.
“Oh, now you’re going to shoot anyone who raises an eyebrow.” Wade snorted. “Instead of just letting her come to the M Bar S like you should.”
“She’s my responsibility. She’s my sister.” Tom shoved Wade’s shoulder.
Wade took a step forward. “You’re a stranger.”
“She’s mine.”
“No, she’s not. She’s mine!” Wade clenched his fists.
“Shut up!” Abby shoved herself between them, one hand flat on each of their chests. “Just shut up!”
Dead silence reigned. She looked from one to the other. “‘She’s mine’? Did I hear those words come from your lips? Both of you?”
Neither answered.
“I belong to no white man. I belong to no man!”
Tom focused on Abby with confusion and fondness. Then his eyes shifted to Wade and narrowed. What in the world was the man thinking?
“Any fool can see she can’t stay out there with you.”
Abby’s blade flashed right under Wade’s nose. “I said, ‘shut up.’”
Tom’s eyes widened. Then he smirked. “You ever meet a man you didn’t pull a knife on, baby sister?”
Wade thought it over. “I can’t remember her skipping anyone so far.”
Abby glared.
Tom studied Wade as if taking his measure…maybe for a pine box. Suddenly, Tom’s expression eased, and he shook his head and smiled. “No more fighting, Abby girl. You’re a woman grown, easy to see. You can decide where you go all on your own.”
“Of course, I’ll go with Wade. I have a job, and I don’t want to live in a single house with a crowd of cowboys. At the M Bar S, I only have to put up with him and his whining yellow dog of a father.”
Tom jerked a little, then started to laugh. “I’m starting to really like you.”
“And Gertie,” Wade interjected. “Don’t forget her. My housekeeper makes a perfect chaperone. Tough, no nonsense.” Abby might not be getting the undercurrent here like Tom did, but then, the woman was busy putting her knife away in some secret hidey-hole.
“But I do want to spend time with you, Abby.” Tom rested his hand on her arm, sounding as sincere as a man ever had. “I’ve got enough men in town to drive my cattle home. I think I’ll come on out to the Sawyer place with?—”
A bloodcurdling scream cut Tom off, and they all turned to face the sound.
A woman ran out of the sheriff’s office, bright red blood on her hands. “Doctor! I need a doctor!”