Give My Love to Rose (11 page)

Marston shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“
Are you leaving?” Rose
somehow found the strength to ask.

Marston’s grip on the chair in front of him
tightened until Rose feared for the well-being of the wood. “Yes.
It’s for the best.”

“
The best of who?” Rose
inquired, setting her glass down on the counter.

“
For you and Langley, of
course,” Marston replied. He wasn’t what these people needed. All
he would bring them was trouble.

Rose wrapped her arms around herself,
shielding herself from the pain. Marston found his gaze drawn to
the way the lantern light illuminated the thin fabric of her
sleeping gown and her soft body beneath—that was an image that
would be haunting his dreams for many nights to come.

“
I think you’re doing it
for you,” she countered. Rose picked her glass back up and Marston
realized her hand was shaking.

He felt a pain deep in his chest but shook
his off. “Yeah, you’re probably right. I warned you that I don’t
care about anybody but myself.”

Rose turned her side to him and took a long
sip of her water as she stared out the window. Silence reigned. An
uncomfortable silence that seemed to weigh ten tons.

“
Langley will be upset,”
Rose finally whispered.

“
The kid will be fine,”
Marston snapped, his stomach filling with a painful ache he didn’t
care to name.

Rose still didn’t glance his way. “If you’re
ever back around this way….”

Marston cut her off. “I don’t get to
Louisiana often.”

He stared at her profile and saw her lip
tremble. With horror Marston realized she was once again about to
cry.

She was going to cry over him.

The pain he’d been feeling before was
nothing compared to the pain he felt when he saw that bottom lip
quivering as Rose fought back her tears. Marston had no idea what
to say and so he said nothing at all. He simply left the cabin,
climbed on his horse and rode away like the hounds of hell were on
his heels.

***

Rose collapsed to her knees on the kitchen
floor. She had let herself hope—made herself believe—but no. As
Marston’s hoofbeats faded into the distance, Rose realized she was
once again alone and he wasn’t coming back.

Rose found herself unable to quell the
heart-wrenching sobs that overtook her as she realized none of her
silly daydreams were going to come true. Marston was not her
friend.

Strange that losing him hurt so badly when
Rose had never truly had him. Marston had never been hers and yet
Rose had hoped so desperately that he would choose to stay. She had
thought that with enough kindness and acceptance she could earn his
trust and perhaps someday it could even grow to love….

But she’d been wrong.

Rose picked herself up from the floor and
forced her tears to end. She dried her face on her sleeves and
poured the last of her water into the sink. She didn’t have time to
give Marston any more of her tears. He obviously didn’t care about
her or about Langley and he had made his choice.

While Rose would miss him and the thought of
what could have been and the life she could have had with the man
by her side, Rose would not fret over it any longer. She only had
two more hours until sunrise and plenty of work to do come
morning.

***

Marston rode hard until he was several miles
from the cabin and then he pulled up on the reins to give the gray
a break. He jumped from the saddle, cursing the pain in his leg. He
paced and limped heavily as he stared up at the night sky.

Why did he care that Rose had been fighting
back tears over him? Why would anyone waste tears on a man like
him? Did that damn woman realize that he’d been doing her a favor
by riding away?

“
God help me,” Marston
pleaded as he looked up at the stars. “What am I supposed to
do?”

But the sky remained quiet and no answer
shone back at him. Even that opinionated voice in his head appeared
to have run out of things to say. The only sound in the darkness
was the hoot of an owl. “So no signs from God and no smart ass
remarks from my conscience?” Marston grumbled, kicking the
ground.

The owl hooted again and Marston swore it
sounded as if the creature were laughing. “Shut up, owl,” he warned
and in response the bird hooted more loudly. Marston let out a roar
of rage, pulled his revolver and with a single shot he shut the
critter up for good.

‘
Feel better?’

The voice was back. Marston was almost happy
to hear it because it took his mind off the pain in his heart. What
the hell was wrong with him? He needed to find a saloon and get
good and drunk. Maybe he could find somebody to shoot or something
to steal…. Anything to feel like his old self. He needed anything
to help him forget that dilapidated cabin, that over-talkative boy,
and that soft, beautiful woman.

Jeremiah! The name flashed through his mind
and Marston remembered the quest he’d been on to pay his brother
back just before he’d been sidetracked by a dying Langston.

Marston hardened his heart and climbed back
into the saddle. He would forget about Rose and Langley and any
foolish notion he might have had in the last few days that he could
be anything other than what he was. He would forget about having
his ear talked off all day and quiet family dinners. He would
forget about late night talks on the porch, soft pale skin, and
blue eyes.

Marston grabbed up the reins and headed
west, his back firmly facing the approaching sunrise.

***

Marston topped over a small rise nearly two
weeks later and shook his head at the ramshackle lean-to his
brother was currently hiding out in. Jeremiah never had made a lick
of sense to Marston. The man never stayed in once place longer than
a month or two, but he always made sure he built some kind of home
to rest his head in at night.

Marston had always assumed it came from
never having a real home as a child. Marston didn’t have the same
urge for a shelter and home as Jeremiah had developed—an image of a
worn out cabin with crooked shutters and worn work dresses on a
line entered Marston’s mind and he grumbled as he shoved it
away.

Marston’s eyes were immediately drawn to his
stolen buckskin which was currently hitched up to a rail that
didn’t appear as if it would stand up to a warm breeze or a
sparrow’s weight. Jeremiah was an imbecile.

A low whistle had Buck instantly whipping
his head around, tossing his mane and whinnying. Marston hopped off
the gray and clicked his tongue, chuckling when Buck gave a tug and
pulled the rail from the ground dragging it with him as he came up
the hill toward Marston.

Stealing his horse back was truly easier
than he had expected and he was a bit let down… as if in answer to
his thoughts, Jeremiah came leaping out the leather flap that
served as his door. His faded red long johns hung off his skinny
frame as he raised up his rifle and fired a shot.

A fiery pain seared across Marston’s arm as
he fought to keep the gray under control and cursed his brother to
hell. “You damn son of a bitch!” Marston bellowed. “You shot
me!”

Jeremiah shouldered his rifle again and
Marston quickly pulled his revolver and shot the gun clear out of
his brother’s hands. He didn’t lower his revolver, however, and
kept it aimed at Jeremiah’s head.

“
You overreacting
bastard!” Jeremiah exclaimed, shaking his bleeding hand. “I only
grazed your arm, don’t kill me!”

“
I’m about to overreact
real bad when I blow your damned brains out!” Marston snapped back
as he headed down the hill toward brother dearest. He was faintly
aware of Buck trailing behind him still dragging that
post.

“
Quit your damn threats,
Marston,” Jeremiah grumbled. “If you’re gonna kill me then get it
over with. You’ve been threatening my life for as long as I can
remember.”

“
The only reason I haven’t
killed you already is because we have the same mama,” Marston
assured him. “You left me to die in the middle of a prairie during
a drought without a horse!”

Jeremiah shrugged. “You owed me money.”

“
You damned weasel. You
were willing to kill your brother over a little bit of
money?”

“
I wouldn’t call fifty
dollars a little bit of money!” Jeremiah exclaimed.

Marston holstered his gun and crossed his
arms over his chest. “So you stole Buck? That flea bitten beast
isn’t worth twenty.”

Jeremiah grinned. “Just so you know, I had a
man offer me seventy-five dollars for that horse but I turned him
down because I had a feeling my baby brother might be showing
up.”

Marston grumbled under his breath as he
reached into his saddlebags and pulled out fifty dollars—money he’d
stolen from the family with the wagon what seemed like a lifetime
ago.

He laid the money in his brother’s
outstretched palm. “What about the interest?” Jeremiah asked with a
chuckle.

Marston had his knife pulled and the blade
tight against Jeremiah’s racing pulse before the man could blink.
“What interest?”

Jeremiah flashed him a grin that Marston
knew for a fact the man practiced in a mirror quite often. It was a
grin meant to appease his attacker and charm them. “No
interest.”

Marston sheathed his knife and nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” he grumbled. He grabbed the gray’s reins
and placed them in Jeremiah’s bleeding hand. “Here’s you a horse. I
ain’t got no need for two of them.”

“
Why thanks, Marston!”
Jeremiah teased with a wink. “That’s plain charitable of
you.”

Marston rolled his eyes and went about
untangling Buck from the post while Jeremiah looked the gray over.
“You got anything to eat, Jeremiah?”

“
Sure do,” Jeremiah
replied, patting his grumpy brother on the back. “Fried opossum and
beans. Good damn stuff,” he added, rubbing his beer swollen belly
and licking his lips.

Marston shook his head. “The anticipation
overwhelms me.”

Chapter Ten

“
What the hell is wrong
with you?!” Jeremiah exclaimed three days later after Marston
tipped over a cup of water and proceeded to throw the cup a hundred
yards into the distance.

Marston just grumbled and stalked back
inside the lean-to. He went rifling through his saddlebags, hunting
for the flask of whiskey he knew was stashed inside, when his hand
closed around a bundle of money.

Marston frowned. He hadn’t realized he had
so much left. He pulled the money out and counted it slowly.

Three hundred dollars.

Every single wall Marston had built around
his heart in the last few weeks to block out the memory of Rose and
Langley came crashing down in an instant.

This was their money. It was the money he
had stolen from them and Marston had forgotten all about it. They
needed this money. They needed it a whole hell of a lot more than
he did.

Marston shook his head. No, they didn’t.

‘
Yes, they do.’

“
Shut the hell up,” he
grumbled. He didn’t make a habit of being sorry for things and he
sure as hell wasn’t gonna start now. Marston forced those walls to
rise one more as he shoved the money back into his
saddlebags.

He tossed the saddlebags over his shoulder
and strode from the shack. “Where are you going?” Jeremiah asked
with a frown.

He was worried about his brother. Marston
had always been prickly like a cactus but here lately the man
seemed to be one giant prick. Jeremiah had no idea what had
happened to the man, but he was getting tired of dealing with his
over the top grouchiness.

“
We’ve been sitting around
this shack for days like a couple of women,” Marston grumbled as he
began saddling Buck. “It’s time we loaded up and did
something.”

“
We could ride into the
town a couple of hours away and play some cards,” Jeremiah offered,
tossing his saddle over the gray.

Marston squinted into the sunset and nodded.
“Sounds good to me.”

***

“
They’ve got some fairly
good whiskey in that saloon over there,” Jeremiah noted, tipping
his head toward the two-story building as they rode down the rutted
street.

Marston nodded and led Buck toward the
saloon. It was the nicest building in this town which was merely a
stopover for outlaws, cattle drivers and any other traveler headed
west.

“
Nice place,” Marston said
as he glanced up at the second story and saw the scantily clad
woman leaning over the balcony.

“
Well aren’t you a big
piece of man,” she called down to him. Her voice had a husky
quality and she waved coyly. “Care to come on upstairs in a while
and offer me some company?”

Marston merely shrugged and headed inside.
“You gonna take her up on the offer?” Jeremiah questioned, elbowing
him in the stomach.

“
Depends...” Marston
shrugged. “I might just decide to get good and drunk. If that
happens I’ll have to say no. I wouldn’t wanna get up there and
embarrass myself.”

“
Surely you wouldn’t have
that problem!” Jeremiah exclaimed as the two brothers settled down
in some empty barstools.

“
I’m not as young as I
used to be,” Marston grinned, tapping the bar.

“
You’re younger than me,”
Jeremiah noted, catching the beer the barkeep slid his way. “You
can’t be much more than thirty.”

Marston caught the next beer and stared down
into it. “Well, I feel damned old.”

“
You look old too. Do you
realize just how bad you’re looking these days?” Jeremiah asked,
downing a big swig.