tried to keep his voice steady and careful. “Mary come back yet?”
James heaved, bending at the waist and meeting Lou at eye level. “You sayin’ you sent that stinker runnin’ like a herd of wild mustangs was after her, and you ain’t dying? You jest want Mary?”
“Did she take a horse?” Lou continued calmly, training his gaze on James.
James growled and straightened. “She did.”
“Check the stables, see if her horse returned.”
“Now, how’m I supposed to know which horse she took?”
“Find out.” The snarl took more energy than Lou thought it would.
“What’s going on?”
“Is Miss Mary missing?” A little voice trembled from the stairs, snagging Lou’s attention and putting an ache in the vicinity of his heart. He couldn’t meet her gaze. Something had happened to Mary and he hadn’t been there to protect her.
Just like Sarah.
Sourness coated the roof of his mouth.
“Don’t you worry, Josie. Everything is going to be okay.” He jerked his chin at James. “Pull out my car. We’re going to town.”
For once, the old man didn’t argue about driving a fancy Ford.
Soon, they were on their way to Burns. Lou stared out the window, his whole body aching, his worry amplifying every pain. Getting down the stairs had proved to be a terrible chore, one that had required lots of stops and support. He grimaced at his reflection, knowing he looked haggard and not caring one iota.
His strength might be on the low side, but James said the wound looked to be healing nicely. Only a few more days and he ought to be able to hunt that shooter down, if the bureau or local police hadn’t found him already. He’d check on that in town.
He felt his lips tugging farther downward. Where was Mary? If anything happened to her.... He clenched his legs, letting his fingers dig into his thigh, needing a different kind of pain to take his thoughts from what his life might be like without her in it.
Even though, according to the telegram sitting in his room, in a few months’ time he might never see her again. Guilt joined the worry, creating a ruckus in his head.
“You’re quiet,” James remarked from the driver’s seat.
“Not much to talk on.”
“She’s probably fine. We’ll find her. Give her grief over this whole thing.”
“Watch out the window,” Lou said. “She could be laying somewhere, hurt.”
A rattler could’ve spooked her horse, and though Mary had been riding a long time, she didn’t have a close bond with any of the horses. They wouldn’t think twice about leaving her.
“I hope Josie behaves for Horn,” said James.
They’d left the girl with their neighbor, though she’d been unwilling. Only the presence of a fresh batch of puppies had seemed to mollify her.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine. Seemed happy enough with those pups.”
“You heard anything on your shooter?” James dodged a shrub growing in the middle of the road.
The movement jolted Lou, sending an arcing pain through his shoulder. He winced, waiting for it to subside. “Nah. They think he’s related somehow to that speakeasy we busted.” Enforcing prohibition laws didn’t necessarily fall into the bureau’s jurisdiction, but they’d found some creative loopholes to catch criminals. Whatever it took to capture the bad guys, Lou was for it.
They didn’t make any more small talk the rest of the way. A sick feeling persisted in Lou’s stomach. As they drove into Burns, he felt a new resolve take hold. They hadn’t found Mary on the way, which meant she should still be in town.
He was going to chew her out good.
Feeling grim, he shuffled behind James, a crutch under his good side’s arm and James on the bad side, supporting him. They entered the police station. James’s gait was stiff, and Lou was ready to punch something.
The feeling worsened when he saw Mary sitting on the bench. With her hair pulled back, neat and clean, and her profile strong, she looked neither worried nor scared, but serene.
A burst of adrenaline exploded inside Lou, rushing through his body with the power of a locomotive. He growled.
She startled, turning to face them, surprise plastered all over her face. Her mouth made an oval shape, and then she broke into a smile.
Heat shot through him, anger and fear melding into an emotion so powerful he could barely hold himself to where he stood. Yet he resisted, forcing a calm he didn’t feel, holding back when he wanted to yell and stomp the way Josie had when he’d taken away the cookies she’d filched yesterday morning.
Mary must’ve sensed his mood because she stood slowly, casting a look to James before meeting Lou’s eyes.
“You’re angry,” she stated, and the sound of her smooth voice flavored by exotic syllables only heightened his turmoil. “I can explain.”
“Get in the car.”
Her features changed, becoming impassive. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
He jerked his head to the door and watched as she glided past, head high, shoulders straight. She hadn’t learned that posture from her mother, or from Julia, Trevor’s mom. No, that walk was all Mary. Proud, graceful, aloof... Another growl erupted.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She made it to the car before they did. They found her in the back, staring blankly out the side window and not meeting their eyes. Once they’d cranked his tin lizzie and hit the road, Lou still found it hard to speak. He knew from past experience that yelling at Mary solved nothing.
Not that he liked to yell, but when she stared up at him with those deep brown eyes, passive and quiet, it stirred him up, made him itch to get her to respond to him, not to ignore him the way she did others.
* * *
“What happened, Mary?” James interrupted the horrible silence that had filled the car since they’d picked her up. She could feel tension radiating off Lou and it scared her stiff.
She swallowed hard, afraid to speak, afraid Lou might explode.
He’d never, ever lifted a hand toward her, not even during their most volatile argument years ago when she’d asked to let her mother come live with them. Intellectually, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her.
But emotionally... Sometimes she dreamed of the men who’d visited her mother. Sometimes she woke from nightmares, drenched in sweat, trying to rid her mind of the paralyzing fear that overtook her.
“Speak yer mind. I’ll boot this shot-up agent out of the car if he yells, okay?” James cast a crooked
