Chapter 9
ALICE
Joseph lies crumpled on the floor between Kodiak’s legs. His face purple, lips parted in a frozen gasp. Kodiak lies behind him, sweat pouring down his face, his chest rising and falling with ragged breaths. The chain in his hand is taut, looped once around Joseph’s neck like a collar.
I stagger back, frozen in the frame of the doorway. My whole body goes weightless, as if gravity itself has released me into space.
Kodiak unwraps the chain and lets it drop. It hits the floor with a final, metallic clatter.
I can’t breathe.
Joseph—gone.
This is my doing. I tricked him.
What had I thought would happen?
God forgive me.
“Alice.”
The voice snaps my focus to him.
“You hear me?”
I manage a faint nod.
“Good.” He jerks his chin toward Joseph’s body. “Where’s the key?”
My stomach lurches. “I—”
“No time for panic,” he says, voice calm but firm. “They’ll be missin’ him soon enough. You want me out of these chains; where’s the key?”
The key. Joseph had the key. The man who ruled my life, reduced now to nothing but weight and flesh.
My fingers curl in my skirts.
How could I?
I lied. Led my husband to his death.
Surely there was another way. A path to freedom that would have spared my mortal soul.
“Alice,” Kodiak says again, softer this time, but no less urgent. “Where is the key?”
My breath comes shallow, ragged. Joseph had the key. Now he’s murdered, his waistcoat twisted askew.
My husband.
My stomach heaves. I press a hand to my mouth, swaying where I stand. I hadn’t been ready for this, hadn’t imagined it would be like this. Not tonight. Not so soon.
“I-I can’t,” I stammer. My pulse thunders in my ears.
Kodiak’s voice cuts through the rising whirl of my panic. “Yes, you can.” Easy. Solid. Grounded as a fencepost.
“You don’t understand.”
“I understand plenty,” he says. “I know you’re scared. But you ain’t scared of me.”
My throat tightens, my wits on the edge of failure. “H-how can I be sure?”
He doesn’t flinch at the question. “If I meant you harm, you’d already know it. You patched me up, stood close enough to touch, and I never laid a hand you didn’t want. That’s the truth, ain’t it?”
My breath comes faster, my palms damp where they press against my skirts.
“Now listen,” he says. “You’ve got one chance. One. Either fetch that key and we walk out of here together, or we both hang when the law comes lookin’.”
The reality of it all closes in, bitter and final, yet it all seems like some ghastly play. A sickness settles deep in my gut. I want to run, to hide, to wake up from this nightmare.
But the way his eyes fix on me anchors me fast.
“Alice,” he says, almost pleading. “Trust me.”
Unchained, Kodiak moves with a strength and certainty that chills me. Not the bedridden man of days ago but something else entirely. He shoves Joseph’s limp body from his lap with a groan, and Joseph’s head strikes the floor with a dull thud. My stomach lurches at the sound.
He crouches low with a wince, patting Joseph down, then slips a hand into the waistcoat pocket. Bills. Folded, neat, clipped with gold.
“Where’s the inn keep its coffers?” he asks, slipping the bills into his pocket without sparing me a glance.
“Pardon?”
“Payroll. Expenses. Where’s the cash kept?”
I scoff. “You will not steal from this inn.”
His eyes snap to mine, sharp as flint. “How do you suppose we pay our way out in the world? Your dearly departed took everything I had, and I intend to get it back. Now, you can tell me and save us both a whole lotta time.”
“What will happen to the staff?” My throat tightens. “They won’t be paid.”
He drags a hand down his face, sighing, muttering, then louder, “To hell with the staff, Alice.”
“No!” I shout, surprising myself. The sound cracks through the sparsely furnished guest room. “These people are my family, and I won’t steal from them.”
He shakes his head, a low curse tumbling from his lips as he pushes past me. I stumble, my skirts brushing Joseph’s outstretched hand. A dead man’s hand. My God.
Kodiak’s boots hammer like thunder down the stairs. I follow, heart slamming, whispering prayers between breaths. Fool. Criminal. Devil. And yet, I can’t let him do this alone.
In the corridor below, I find him at Joseph’s office, hand already on the knob. He rattles it, then shoulder slams the door once. The lock holds. He draws back and kicks with a pained grunt. The crack of splintering wood jolts through me as the door is sent flying wide.
“What are you doing?” I cry, panicked.
He doesn’t turn. “Quit pesterin’ me with questions, woman.
” Papers scatter off the desk as he tears inside and rifles through drawers.
A fine wool Stetson rests atop a stack of leather-bound books.
He lifts it, studies it a beat, then sets it square on his head.
“I already told you, I ain’t goin’ to the gallows on account of the Sherman family.
And I’ll be damned if I leave this place empty-handed. ”
Kodiak lets his hand stray over Joseph’s desk, hooks a tobacco pouch with two fingers, and shoves it in his pocket. At last, he faces me, expression dark. “Now, are you with me or not?”
For years I’d prayed for freedom, and briefly, I believed Kodiak had been brought to my doorstep to answer that prayer. It felt destined—stars and planets aligned—right up until the moment Joseph’s cold, dead expression stared back at me.
God wouldn’t answer a prayer with such a sin. I should have known better.
“You’re a murderer,” I say, almost a whisper, but sharp enough to stop his search.
“That ain’t news to you,” he says, then flings a heap of papers aside.
“Shit,” he mutters, gripping his side. He strides toward me until his shadow swallows me whole.
“Those Sherman boys stuck me like a hog and chained me up, kept me breathing only so I might hang. I know you ain’t one of ’em,” he says, his hands closing at my waist.
Since we’ve met, he’s taken liberties I’d never grant a man other than my husband, yet his ungentlemanly gesture makes me soften under his touch.
“I knew it first time I laid eyes on you. Too kind, too soft to bind yourself willingly to a Sherman. I know that clan. Rotten to the core, every last one of ’em. How’d he make you his, Alice? Tell me.”
My throat tightens, heat climbing into my cheeks, my legs near failing me.
He’s twisting me with his words. I know it, but I cannot stop the pull.
Surely he’s done the same to a dozen women, at least. Convinced them they were goddesses just to have his way before leaving them like fools. Yet the truth spills from me.
“M-my father. Owed a debt to Sherman senior.” I’ve never spoken the words aloud, not even to myself.
“Your father sold you to the Shermans?”
I flinch, heat prickling my skin, searing from neck to cheeks. “He didn’t have a choice.” My protest is weak even as I speak it. “The land was all we had. My brothers and sisters…without the Shermans’ loan, they’d have starved.”
“Bullshit,” he says. His jaw sets hard, voice a growl. “Sherman would’ve found his head on a pike before I’d let him lay a hand on you.”
My knees nearly give; my chest seizes with a shudder I can’t suppress.
It should horrify me. It does. But God help me, it stirs something deeper.
No man has ever spoken of me this way. Not Father, who bartered me like livestock.
Not Joseph, who took me like property. But this outlaw, this killer, says he’d spill blood to keep me safe, and the vow tears through me like a firestone ripping through the sky.
Shame prickles my skin, hot and unholy, because part of me leans toward him, drawn into the violence of his promise as though it were a kiss.
Kodiak’s gaze narrows, darkened under the brim of his stolen hat.
He sees it—sees me unraveling beneath his words.
A slow smile, dangerous and knowing, curves his lips.
“That got to you, didn’t it?” He hushes, like his words are a secret meant only for me.
“Little lamb, you tremble like I’ve already laid you down. ”
The shame sears hotter. My lips part, but no sound comes. I want to deny it, to call him ungodly, indecent. But the truth is there in my pulse, in the fire brewing in my belly. He knows it.
“You ain’t afraid of me,” he says softly. “You’re afraid of how I make you feel.” Pulling me closer, his breath is hot against the shell of my ear. “You’re slick as rain, ain’t you? Soaking through your pretty slip.”
I gasp, the strain in my chest growing unbearable. How dare he speak to me this way? Yet I can’t push him away, don’t want to. And he doesn’t let me go.
“Thought so. I can feel the heat rollin’ off you.
Never been near a real man, have you? A man who don’t flinch, don’t bow, don’t hide behind ledgers and laws.
Joseph was a coward. Your daddy too. But a man worth his salt?
He risks his life for what matters. Kills for it if he has to.
That’s the natural order.” His hands tighten around me, making me shiver.
“And now you’re near one, your body knows it. ”
“Enough.” My voice breaks, limbs weak as I shove at him. “You will not speak to me that way.”
He tips his head with a chuckle, loosening his grip but not stepping back. His fingers linger at my waist. “There’s the teeth I was waitin’ on. Only makes me want you more.”
Gathering myself, I wrench free. “Mr. Archer—or Randolph, or whatever you choose to call yourself—you shall not steal from this house. I have funds set aside for just such a time, and if you’ll cease playing the brute for a moment, I will fetch them.”
He watches me long enough that my breath stutters, before he says, “Lead on.”
The barn swelters in the midday sun, the odor of hay and manure thick as the dusty air. I pry loose the plank, burlap sacks waiting where I left them. Kodiak crouches beside me, broad shoulders blocking the light.
“Would you look at that,” he says, surveying the gear, rations of canned food, and stack of bills. For a breath, I worry he’ll snatch everything and run.
Boots scrape the packed earth below. I start, heart thudding. It’s Gideon, his face pale.
“Miss Alice?” His voice cracks, then his focus shifts past me to the outlaw at my shoulder. Recognition sharpens his features. His hand fumbles to his hip, pulling a revolver he has no business carrying. He raises it, though it wavers in his grip. “You all right, ma’am?”
My breath knots tight. “Gideon, no!” I say quickly, pushing the words out steady as I can. “It’s all right. He won’t harm me.”
Gideon doesn’t lower the gun. “That’s the outlaw, Miss Alice.”
Kodiak shifts slowly, hands out and open as though calming a skittish colt. “Easy, boy. Ain’t here to hurt her.” His voice is a low rumble.
“Please, don’t hurt him,” I warn Kodiak. “Gideon, I’m safe. I promise.”
Gideon lowers his weapon, face drawn with apprehension. As he studies the scene, I see the truth become clear to him, the realization settle. “You’re leavin’ with him?”
I nod.
His shoulders sag. A breath escapes him, weary as an old man’s. “Reckoned the day’d come you’d be gone.”
It tightens my chest, but before I can speak, Kodiak cuts in. “If you give a damn about Miss Alice, then listen good, boy. When they come askin’, you tell ’em I killed Joseph and dragged her off. You do that, no harm comes down on your head. You understand?”
I glance at him, startled. Is this meant to shield me? To spare me the law’s noose when he casts me off somewhere on the trail?
Gideon’s voice breaks my thoughts. “Mr. Sherman’s dead?”
“Yes,” I whisper.
He swallows hard, a long silence stretching between us before he nods toward the yard. “I’ll have a carriage ready at the gate.”
“Smart boy,” Kodiak says, then hefts the burlap sacks to his shoulder, his other hand pressing lightly at my back, steering me on.
At the carriage, Gideon steadies me as I climb aboard. His face seems older than his years—drawn, sorrowful. Before he steps back, he slips his revolver into my hands. “Just in case,” he murmurs, cutting a wary flick toward Kodiak.
The iron chills my palm. My throat tightens. “Thank you, Gideon.”
His lip trembles, his attention fixed on me as if trying to memorize every detail, then he forces himself to step away.
Kodiak gathers the reins. “Best you head inside, boy.”
The whip cracks, and the horses surge forward. Wheels clatter over the stones, sunlight flaring as the inn drops away behind us.