Forever and Always (35 page)

“The man isn't as stupid as I thought,” Logan said to Trusty. “You're going to have to help me out here. I don't think he's seen you, so stay in the woods. When I call you, go straight for Wat. If we're lucky, that'll give me time to reach for my gun. If we're not…well, I don't want to think about that.”

“I'm not going to wait much longer,” Wat shouted.

“I'm coming out,” Logan called back.

Walking slowly with his hands out from his sides, Logan emerged from the woods. “I left my rifle with my horse.” He reached down, pulled his gun from its holster, and tossed it on the ground. “Now it's time to keep your part of the bargain. Just know that if you hurt that boy, you won't be safe anywhere in the world because I'll follow you until one of us is dead.”

Wat didn't respond. It seemed to Logan that he'd waited a long time before the door opened. A moment later, Wat and Peter emerged with Wat holding a gun to Peter's head.

The boy struggled, but he was too small, and Wat was too big and powerful. “My father will kill you when he gets well,” Peter hollered.

The Bridgette Lowe that emerged from the cabin was unlike the woman Logan remembered. Her hair was in complete disarray. The part of it hanging over her face only partly covered a cheek that was swollen and red. What had once been a beautiful dress was soiled in places and had suffered several tears. It was clear even from a distance that she was extremely angry. She attempted to pull Peter from Wat's grasp, but he shoved her aside without once taking his eyes off Logan.

“Get the horses,” he ordered.

“I'm not leaving here on a horse,” Bridgette shouted. “Look at me! This is what your horse did. You can let that wretched child go and find me a respectable carriage. There's got to be at least one in this miserable corner of the world.”

“Get the horses,” Wat growled. “You can get your damned carriage once we get away safely.”

“If you hadn't been stupid enough to shoot through that door, you wouldn't have to worry about
getting away safely
. I only wanted you to steal a will, not shoot the best-liked man in town.”

“Stop arguing and get the horses,” Wat shouted.

“I didn't shoot anybody so I don't have to run away. I won't get myself hanged because you murdered a child who didn't have enough sense to stay in bed.”

“I'm not going to shoot the boy. I'm just using him as a hostage until I get away.”

“You're a liar, and a stupid one at that. I was dumb to think you could do something as simple as break into a lawyer's office without messing it up. I was told you were the most dangerous man in town. You're not dangerous. You're just too stupid to know what not to do.”

Logan wanted to shout to Bridgette to be quiet, that it was dangerous to goad a man like Wat when he was in trouble.

“Shut up and get the horses!” Wat shouted again.

Bridgette glared at him. “What are you going to do if don't?” She laughed at him. “Nothing. That's what I thought. You're a pathetic excuse for a man. In Chicago we have more dangerous men than you sweeping the streets. Do women actually like to be with you, or do you have to kidnap them like you did me?”

Logan had been worried what Wat would do, but he was still caught by surprise when the man simply turned his gun on Bridgette and shot her. Logan felt a flash of concern, but he put that aside to focus on what had to be done.

“Trusty, now!” he shouted.

With a heart-stopping growl, Trusty exploded from the trees. Wat was already off balance from shooting Bridgette, but he was thrown further off when he whirled to see Trusty coming at him with fangs bared. The moment Wat turned to shoot Bridgette, Logan had dived for his gun. Wat fired once at Logan and missed. Rolling away from Wat, Logan came to his knees. Just as he drew his gun into firing position, Trusty flung himself at Wat and sank his teeth into the man's thigh. Before Wat could take aim at the dog, Logan shot him in the center of his forehead.

Wat sank to the ground dead.

Logan ran to where Bridgette lay on the ground. He felt for a pulse, found it, but it was very weak. “I'm going to get you to a doctor,” he told her.

Bridgette pushed him away. “I hate you,” she said. “I've hated you from the day Uncle Samuel brought you to Chicago until this very moment. You ruined my life.”

“There's a doctor at the fort. It won't take long to get you there.”

Bridgette coughed up blood. “Why couldn't you die like you were supposed to? James said he gave you enough poison to kill a horse.”

“You can talk about all of this later.”

“There isn't going to be any
later
.” Bridgette coughed up more blood. “Get me inside. I don't want to die lying on the ground.”

Logan picked her up and started toward the cabin. “Are you hurt?” he asked Peter.

“No, but these ropes hurt.”

“I'll take them off as soon as I've made Bridgette comfortable.”

“She didn't want him to hurt me,” Peter said. “She wanted him to leave me behind.”

Logan thought that might have been the only kind thing Bridgette had done since she left Chicago. “Leave the man alone,” Logan told Trusty, who was worrying Wat's clothing. “He can't do anything to hurt anybody ever again.”

By the time Logan got Bridgette inside the building and on a bed, her eyes had closed. From the position of the bullet hole in her dress, she'd been shot in virtually the same spot as Colby. “I want you to stay here with Bridgette,” Logan said to Peter as he untied him. “I'm going to the camp to look for a doctor. I'll leave Trusty with you.”

He'd just untied the last rope when Bridgette had a paroxysm of coughing. Blood ran from both corners of her mouth. Once the coughing stopped, she took a deep breath, her body shuddered, and she died.

Thoughts and regrets chased each other around in his head as he stared at the body of the woman he once planned to marry. She'd destroyed her own life. She had beauty, wealth, social prominence—far more of all three than ninety-nine percent of the women in the world—and she couldn't be satisfied. She'd let greed, jealousy, and hate destroy what could have been a nearly perfect life. She'd learned nothing from the mistakes of her father or the sterling example of her uncle.

Yet Logan felt sorry for her. She'd never found the kind of love he had found with Sibyl. She'd never had the opportunity to realize that there were many things much more important than money and social position, that one didn't have to live in a bustling city like Chicago to find meaning in life. She'd never had the opportunity to work hard for something worthwhile and be able to feast on her success. She'd spent her life chasing an illusion.

“Is she dead?” Peter asked.

“Yes.”

The child stared at Bridgette's body. “She wasn't nice.”

“No,” Logan agreed, “she wasn't nice, but she was very unhappy.”

“I'm unhappy that Papa won't let me have my own horse, but I don't call people names.”

That wasn't exactly how Logan would have expressed it, but Peter was nine. The sound of approaching horses caught Logan's attention. When he went to the door, he saw a group of men from Cactus Corner gathered around Wat's body.

Morely Sumner looked up when Logan and Peter emerged from the cabin.

“I'm sure glad you found that boy,” he said. “The whole town was in an uproar when they found he was missing. Some people thought you'd taken him with you, but Jared told them not to be idiots.”

“How's Colby?” Logan asked.

“No change when we left,” Reece Hill said. “We didn't tell Naomi about Peter.” He walked up to the boy. “What were you doing?”

Peter pointed to Wat. “I wanted to shoot that man.”

“Jared almost had a heart attack when he found the boy had taken Colby's favorite horse and his rifle. He'd be here now if we hadn't forced him to stay in case something happened to Colby.”

“Where's that woman?” Morely asked.

“She's inside the cabin,” Logan said.

“She's dead,” Peter said. “The bad man shot her.”

Both men turned to Logan. “I'm sorry for you,” Reece said, “but I can't say I'm sorry she's dead.”

“We need to get the bodies to the fort,” Logan said. He would decide later what to do about Bridgette. Right now he wanted to get Peter back to town and find out how Colby was doing.

* * *

“She won't leave him,” Sibyl told Logan. “We've all tried to get her to rest, but she won't listen to anybody.”

“How about the doctor?” Colby asked.

“He won't leave, either. He says he can't do anything useful in bed.”

Peter was safely home and asleep in his room. Laurie had given him a severe dressing down for scaring them all to death, but she'd ruined it by hugging him and shedding enough tears over him to soak his shirt. Kitty, acting at least fifteen years older than her age, told Peter that he was an annoying boy and that he would have to change before any woman would consider marrying him.

Sibyl kept touching Logan—holding his hand, putting her arm around him, leaning against him—as though constant contact would keep him safe and at her side. Logan seemed equally in need of reassurance that they wouldn't be parted again.

They had left Wat Pfefferkorn's body at Camp Verde, but Logan had insisted that they let him bring Bridgette's body back to Cactus Corner, as there was no way he could get her back to Chicago for burial. She would be buried the next day. They still had to answer questions when the marshal arrived, but Jared had assured him there wouldn't be a problem.

The town was still keeping a vigil for Colby, but life had to go on so most people went about their business, stopping from time to time to ask if there was any news and wanting to be told the minute there was. Sibyl had stayed home, but Cassie and Horace had opened the bank. Because of the impending merger, Ethan Kessling had moved his office from the Community Bank to Spencer's Bank. The Pinkerton agent, Dan Giles, had stopped in to say he was looking to buy a house. Since he'd been paying very conspicuous attention to Cassie, Sibyl had suggested he look into buying the house Cassie was renting. That would keep Cassie from having to move after the wedding.

“I'm sorry about Bridgette,” Sibyl said to Logan. “I couldn't like her, and I'll never forgive her for trying to poison you, but I wouldn't have wished her to die the way she did.”

Logan didn't tell her about Bridgette's last words to him. There didn't seem to be any point.

“I don't know what Naomi and Colby are going to do when they find out what Peter did. I know that boy worships his father, but that was a crazy thing to do.”

Logan agreed, but he could see himself having done something like that for his father. At that age, a child has no real understanding of death. “He is a brave little boy,” Logan said. “Even after Wat had tied him up, he was threatening the man.”

“If we have a boy like that, I'm sending him to live with Naomi. I wouldn't know what to do with him.”

“Yes, you would. You'd love him as much as Naomi and Colby love Peter.”

Sibyl laughed. “I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he did something like what Peter did. That's because he'd be the son of a man who's selflessly brave without even realizing the significance of what he's done. It's the wife and mother who'd be quaking with fear.”

“I've never seen you quake with fear, not even during the bank robbery.”

“I quaked on the inside,” Sibyl told him. “I wasn't about to let those men think I was afraid of them.”

“Should I start worrying about our daughters taking after their mother?” Logan asked with a grin.

“Let's hope there's no need for either of us to do anything like that ever again. I wouldn't mind growing old quietly.”

Logan kissed her. “Just as long as we do it together.”

They spent the rest of the morning waiting for some news about Colby's condition. By the end of the day, there still had been no change. Sibyl had been able to convince Naomi to lie down for a bit, but she only agreed when they brought a cot so she could sleep next to Colby. Sibyl fed all the children, and Laurie put them to bed.

The next morning, the doctor told them Colby was still in a coma. There was no knowing when or if he would come out of it. Logan left everyone, becoming more and more despondent, to take care of Bridgette's funeral.

No one was in attendance except Logan, the preacher, and the men hired to move the casket. The service was brief, the remarks at the cemetery even shorter. Logan stayed while the grave was being filled in. When he turned away, he was stunned to see Dr. James Pittman walking toward him.

Many emotions flowed through him, but the primary one was rage. It was all he could do not to attack the man. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “If you've come to see Bridgette, you're too late.”

“So I was told.” He looked to where the men were shoveling the dirt into the grave. “Thank you for giving her a decent burial. Would you tell me what happened to her?”

“Why should I?”

“Because I loved her. If I had loved her better, maybe I could have found a way to keep her from destroying herself.”

Logan would never forgive the man, but having found love himself, he could understand what a powerful force that could be. “I doubt anyone could have helped Bridgette. Not even the man she loved.”

“I know now she didn't love me, at least not the way I loved her,” James said, “but I was so sure she did that I was willing to sell my soul. Looking back now, I don't know how I ever justified trying to poison you. I told Bridgette we didn't need your money. I could make enough to support us in any style she wanted. I made the first doses weak, hoping she'd have a change of heart when she saw what was happening to you.”

“Then why did you give her the poison she used to try to kill me?”

“I didn't give her any more medicine or any poison. Before she left Chicago, I told her I was through.”

“Then were did she get the poison? She said she had the medicine you had sent for me.”

“I don't know, but she didn't get it from me. I've given up my practice and left Chicago for good.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I was going to try to talk Bridgette into coming back to Chicago. Even knowing she didn't love me, I would have still married her. Now I have to find a way to restore my soul. I not only failed Bridgette and myself, I violated my Hippocratic oath.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don't know where to start. It's possible none of that matters. You could turn me in to the police, and I could spend the rest of my life in jail.”

“I could,” Logan said, “but if you'd like to absolve yourself in my eyes, find a western town or community without a doctor. Go there, set up your practice, charge as little as you can, and do your damnedest to make sure every person lives a long and healthy life.”

“I've given up medicine.”

“Then take it up again. If you're half as good as everybody says you are, that's the best thing you can do with your life.”

“You don't want to see me pay for what I did?”

“That wouldn't change anything, and it would deprive some community of an excellent doctor. We can ask Colby. He knows—” Logan shook his head in disgust. “I'm a fool. The best doctor in Chicago is standing right in front of me, and I didn't think to tell him I have a brother who may die from a bullet wound. If you can do anything to save him, I'll forgive you anything you want.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

Naomi wasn't happy to have a second doctor introduced into the room regardless of his reputation, but her father told her not to be a fool. All that was important was saving Colby's life. Two heads were better than one, especially when the second head was much younger than his. Logan listened while the two doctors consulted.

“I know you said he's a famous doctor,” Naomi said to Logan, “but who is he and what's he doing in Cactus Corner?”

“He was in love with Bridgette. He came hoping to convince her to return to Chicago and marry him.”

“I thought you said he was brilliant.”

“He is, but love can make anyone blind. Besides, Bridgette was a beautiful woman.”

“Only a man could think so. What are you going to do?” Naomi asked the doctor.

“Nothing different,” James said. “Your father has given your husband the best possible care. I've offered to sit with him while he gets some rest.”

“You need some rest, too,” Logan said to Naomi. “Why don't I sit with Dr. Pittman while you lie down.”

“I don't want to leave Colby. I want to be here when he wakes up.” She was choked by a sob. “He
will
wake up.”

“And you won't make him feel any better looking like something the cat dragged in,” her father said. “You look terrible. Get some rest. I'll give you something to help you sleep.”

After a while, her father convinced Naomi to go to a real bed and try to get some rest. “You'll call me at once if there's any change,” the doctor said to Dr. Pittman.

“Absolutely,” James said. “The first faces he'll want to see will be yours and his wife's.”