Out of Control (5 page)

Her arms trembled as they held her daughter. The little girl whimpered, and Audra realized she was holding too tight.

“Shhh, baby girl. Shhh, Maggie.”

She heard footsteps and listened to the foul, sinful words pouring from her husband's mouth. She was a woman of faith. How had she ended up married to such a man?

A stupid question.

Her father had arranged it. He'd as good as sold her to Wendell to pay off debts. She looked down at her daughter and wondered if her father owed more money. Audra had a little sister, Carolyn. Would her father sell Carolyn to some brute? There was a baby brother, Isaac. He might not be such a commodity as a girl, but he might already be learning to behave in the image of her father.

Thinking of the fate of her little sister and brother back in Houston almost started her to squeezing Maggie again.

From the words Wendell muttered between the cussing, she knew Julia wasn't with him. He shouldn't have come back without her. Furious with her husband for being angry and cursing the Lord when anyone with a lick of sense would be asking for God's help, Audra straightened her usually limp backbone until it was rigid.

She'd been a dutiful wife, as the Bible laid down. But there came a time when obeying a man so steeped in sin was a sin unto itself.

Well, no more. No more would she stand idly while her husband was evil and her children were in danger and her dearest friend, Julia, was missing.

Her days of letting
any
man control her life were over.

Her father and Wendell had done a poor job of it. She was taking charge.

“Things are going to change in this household.” She spoke the words as a vow to God. The changes would start as soon as her husband stepped back inside that door.

She'd always believed a woman must go along with things. But that was before she'd met Julia and seen how brave and smart a woman could be.

Julia was stronger, smarter, and more independent than any woman Audra had ever known.

Audra was changing right now to be like Julia.

Julia Gilliland was a half-wit, and no amount of Christian charity would change that one speck.

Since the woman was too weak-headed to know what was good for her, Rafe kept his mouth shut as she mounted the horse he gave her to ride and kicked it into a trot, in the exact opposite direction of the cavern.

Julia rode for about a dozen yards before Rafe caught up, grabbed her reins, and said, “Wrong way.”

“Are you sure?”

No, he was just guessing. “Weren't you mostly crying your head off the whole ride home? What makes you think you know how to get to the cavern from here?”

“I normally have an excellent sense of direction.” She arched a brow at him but let him redirect her horse. “And I almost never cry.”

“You've been crying pretty much nonstop since I met you.” The moon was so full and bright it blotted out the stars. He saw clearly how puffy her eyes were.

She sat up straight. “These are not normal circumstances.”

“I sure hope not.”

“As a rule I have very steady nerves.”

“I'm going to have to take your word on that, because I've seen no proof of it. For now, just follow me.” He turned her horse and headed straight for that cave on a trail that twisted into the heavy forest and was swallowed up in darkness. He expected Ethan to go stubborn and turn back for home. But he tagged along, bringing up the rear.

“The trail I climb is straight west of the cavern.”

Rafe knew there was no trail, but dealing with a half-wit was teaching him to just be quiet and let her figure it out for herself. Especially since, somehow, she had reached the cavern. So she might well be right. The fewer words he spoke, the fewer he'd have to eat.

She rode her horse astride with no complaints. Sidesaddle was more correct for women, Rafe had heard. But the Kincaids didn't own a sidesaddle, or a woman. He had to admit that, for the last five minutes, she'd been steady as a rock.

Then she kicked her horse and got ahead of him, staying on the wider trail when they needed to veer off to the south.

“You don't know where you're going,” Rafe called after her. “So just calm down and let me get us as far as the cavern—then you can take charge.”

He shuddered at the very thought.

Wendell slammed his way back into the cabin. “I can't find her anywhere. A night outdoors'll teach her a lesson. Why'd she go off like that?”

Audra had just made a vow of turning over a new leaf. Now, faced with the same old Wendell, her selfish, cranky husband, she wasn't sure how a woman took control of her life.

“We know something happened to her. She wouldn't stay out overnight.”

“She's always going off. And she never has a decent word to say to me when I'm home. I'll betcha she's just hiding to be spiteful. She wants to go back East.” Wendell drew deep on his cigar and stank up the cabin when he exhaled. It little mattered; he stank up the cabin just by walking inside.

“You've brought us to a place that isn't safe.” Audra had heard Wendell say those very words many times. “Why else are we hidden here so far from town? She worries about the baby. She wants us to be close to a doctor after that episode with my labor pangs. She wants a life that isn't so hard.”

“She's lazy is what she is.” Wendell jabbed his fat, black cigar at her. Left-handed. “Don't hurt her to do some heavy work.”

“That girl works from before sunrise until after dark every day. She's the hardest working person I know. And she won't let me help because of the baby. Her concern is for others, not for herself. We have to leave here, Wendell.”

“This is your home now. If Julia'd had any sense, she wouldn't've wandered off. I can't find her in the dark. If she's hiding to worry me, she'll come home on her own. If she fell off one of these steep trails, I'll find her in the morning. Now get to bed. You look like a wrung-out dishrag when you're tired.”

“Which is all the time.” Audra heard her voice rising. She didn't intend to have a shouting match with her husband. She'd heard him yelling plenty and knew she couldn't best him. But she could be honest. She could speak up instead of letting herself be cowed into silence. There was strength in that. “She won't let me do the heavy chores, chopping wood, tending the garden. I don't want to lose this child. We need you, Wendell. You've got to move us into town. This life is too hard for two women alone with a baby and another on the way.”

“You're staying out here.”

“Town can't be any more dangerous than this place. Julia being missing proves that.” Audra glanced down and saw that little Maggie had fallen asleep while Audra stood bickering. She ducked into the bedroom and laid the baby down on the pallet Maggie shared with Julia. Audra closed the door quietly and stepped away from it, hoping the baby would sleep through this first sign of her mother having a backbone. It might be noisy.

“We aren't living out here anymore, Wendell.”

“Shut up.” He slashed his cigar at her. He was still favoring his right hand. “I'm the head of this house, and I say we're staying, and that's final.”

“No, I will
not
shut up, and what you say is
not
final.” Her words froze him in his tracks.

Fear made her heart pump fast.

“What did you just say to me?” Wendell turned to look at her, his eyes blazing. He hadn't ever hit her, but then she'd never challenged him before.

His rage had been awakened by his annoyance at Julia, but he was fine with taking his temper out on his wife. Then Audra looked closer. He didn't look right. His eyes almost . . . almost . . . glittered. His skin had a dry, flushed look to it. He seemed ever so slightly . . . mad. Audra wondered if he would come at her with his fists, but she wasn't backing down no matter what he did.

“I'm leaving here as soon as we get Julia back.” She could have waited. Picked a moment when he was calm. But he was never truly calm, so she forged on. “We're moving to town. If that doesn't suit you, we'll go back to Houston.”

“You're not going anywhere.” He threw his cigar on the floor and stomped as if he wished it were her neck. Then he stepped right up to her face.

“Yes, I am.” She smelled his fetid breath. She noticed a rotten egg smell that was worse even than usual. “I'm going even if I have to walk the whole way carrying a baby. I am
done
with this place, and we'll be coming to town to take a stagecoach, so there'll be no more keeping us a secret.”

“There's no stagecoach in Rawhide.” He sneered the words, calling her stupid.

“Then I'll get a ride on a freight wagon.” She felt strong as her temper rose.

“No wife of mine is gonna talk to me that way.” Wendell caught her arm and jerked her forward so she slammed into his chest. He made a soft grunt, as if the collision had hurt, and for a second his hold on her arm shifted, almost as if he was using her for balance. Then he was steady again, and she wondered if she'd imagined it.

Even though they were close in size, she didn't fool herself that she was stronger. A man's strength would best her if it came to a fight. But she had twice the brainpower Wendell had, so she used that.

“You've got
one
wife, and she
is
going to talk to you this way. We should
never
have come to a place so dangerous we couldn't live in town with you. You should have found a better place to settle.”

She saw his eyes narrow and his teeth bare. But she didn't back down even though everything in her wanted to. It had finally come. Life and death. Audra was choosing life, and that meant leaving this place.

“If Julia was here, I'd go away with her right now in the night.” She yanked her arm free and was surprised Wendell's grip broke. Well, she could only hope her mild little effort to not be pushed around bothered him a bit. “And if she dies, I'll leave on my own. And I will raise your children to know that their father is a
fool
.”

Wendell shoved her with his left hand. She stumbled back and slammed into the wall. Her head hit so hard her knees gave out. As she began to sink, Wendell reached out his right hand, checked himself, and with his left caught her braid and held her on her feet, nearly tearing her hair out. He dragged her forward until their noses almost met. His eyes were blazing, and so close to him she felt heat coming off him in waves. He was feverish.

“You'll mind me, woman.” He shook her by the hair so hard her teeth knocked together.

The pain cleared her head of worry for the old coot. “I will
not
mind you if it means I have to watch my children die.” She rested her hand on her stomach. The one she still carried was at more risk than Maggie, but neither was safe.

“You're the one that'd be killing them if you're so stupid as to leave me.”

“No.” Audra grew more determined with every word. “That would be on
your
head if you let me go alone.”

“You try and leave, and I'll stop you.” He twisted her braid until she cried out with pain.

But the pain just made her angry. “You can't stop me because you're never here. I'll leave as soon as you do. I'll follow you to town; then your secret will be out. Everyone will know you have a wife, two daughters, and a baby on the way. You have to let go sometime, and when you do I am leaving. Now you take your filthy hands off of me.”

He released her hair and shoved her against the wall again. “I told you to shut your mouth.”

She shoved him back and bumped his right arm. He flinched as if the slight blow hurt terribly, though she suspected any hurt he felt was to his pride.

Wendell's eyes narrowed, but he didn't raise a fist. He'd been cruel with words and yet he'd never hit her. Right now, judging from the strange, almost glazed fury in his eyes, she was very much afraid he was capable of it. “We can't go back. Don't you know why we came out here?”

“You talked about heading west to California or Oregon. You said we'd start another general store.”

His voice cackled with cruel laughter, a sound she'd never heard from him before. His eyes seemed unfocused, as if he looked through her to the past. “You really think I paid for that house in Houston and your clothes and food with money earned from a pitiful store?”

Audra frowned. She had no idea what his income source had to do with anything. “Of course I believe it. How else did we live?”

“Gambling.” He spoke the word with grim satisfaction, and his eyes took on the glazed look of a fanatic.

“What?”

“Why do you think your pa married you off to me?” Wendell had never spoken of gambling. But now his manner was wild, as if he'd forgotten to keep things to himself.

“I knew he owed you money.”

“He owed me for a gambling debt he couldn't pay. A big one.” Wendell rubbed his unshaven chin as he eyed her. “I shouldn't have taken you in trade. I'd've been better off with the money—'cept your pa didn't have any, and a man has weak moments. You were a pretty little thing. Innocent. It appealed to me to have you in my hands.” His hungry gaze made her sick.

“And I knew Julia had one foot out the door,” he added. “She was fixing to leave first chance she got, and I needed someone for cover.”

“Cover?” That made no sense. None of it did. “What did you gamble on? You ran a store. Isn't most gambling done in a saloon? With card games?”

“I didn't have a store in Houston. I had the best little gambling house in town. And a man don't need a card game to gamble.”

“What then?”

“Horse races, cockfights, boxing mills, a throw of the dice.” That cruel laugh escaped again. “Honey, a man gambles on anything and everything, and the back of my saloon was the best place in town to put money down on a race or fight.”

“Saloon?” Audra shook her head. “My father lost money to you gambling?”