Saving Cole Turner (4 page)

“You’re not to have anything more to do with him.” He ground out the order as his powerful hands fisted.

“I’ve known him since we were kids. I consider him a friend. More than a friend.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“It means I plan to marry Cole Turner. If he’ll have me.”

Redness suffused her father’s craggy face like fire burning through coal. “You’ll do no such thing while there is a breath left in my body, young lady.”

“I love him.” She said those three words with conviction, the feeling inside her so strong she’d never take them back.

“What the hell does a girl like you know about love?”

Kate willed herself to stay calm. If her father sensed weakness, he’d clip her wings faster than a coyote on a hen. “You married mama when she was nineteen.”

Her father looked away for a moment before turning back, anger still etched in every line on his face.

“I was a good man. I had a future. I loved your mama. Cole Turner is not a good man. He has no future. And I doubt he knows a thing about love.” With every point he made, her father released a finger from his clenched fists. “Has he said he loves you? Has he been filling your ears with sweet-talking lies?”

Her father’s voice was booming so loud, Kate figured every cowhand on the ranch now knew what they were fighting about.

“No.” Painful as it was to admit, she wouldn’t lie. “But he is a good man,” she said, jumping up from the chair and announcing that fact just as loudly as her father had been shouting. If her father was going to tell the whole world what they were arguing about, she’d be sure they got the full story. “And he’s got money now. He’s no longer some poor beggar’s son you can run out of town because you don’t like the way he looks at your daughter.” She bunched a hand on each hip to brace against the storm of her father’s rage.

But Will didn’t speak for a moment. A vein pulsed at his temple.

Perhaps the reality of the situation was just hitting him. If she could get Cole to want her enough to marry her, there wouldn’t be much her father could do about it. Her father, powerful as he was, was no match for a hired gunslinger, and he knew it. Cole could defend his right to her, if necessary. Bullying her wouldn’t solve the problem, and her father was in no position to bully someone of Cole’s skill.

As if the same thoughts had run through his mind, her father slumped into the other chair and stared at her. “He’s a hired gun, Kate. He makes his living killing people.”

“He’s killed some.” And that fact had torn her up inside. “But he brings more in alive if they give up. He’s not the cold-blooded killer you think he is. And they are bad men,” she said, hoping they could now talk about this instead of rant about it.

Hope faded as her father glared at her. “You think your loving him is enough to change him back into the young man you remember before…before everything happened.”

She did think just that. Maybe not turn him back, but help to bring out the goodness she knew was inside of him. The goodness she’d seen, felt, touched. The boy who had futilely bound a bird’s broken leg, guarded a litter of fox pups from harm, and lent his shoulder for a ten-year-old girl to cry on when she lost her mother was worth redeeming.

Her father sat back and steepled his weathered hands. “Let me tell you something that only life can teach you so you can learn it without having to go through the misery.”

Kate took a deep breath. She’d at least hear him out, she thought, as she settled back in her chair.

“When I was a boy, my brother Charlie, the one who died in the war, he and I found this dog.” The planes of his tanned face softened at the mention of his older brother. “The dog was beat-up, dirty, and wouldn’t let any of us get near him. We figured he’d been abused somewhere along the way. Charlie took it upon himself to save that dog. He spent every free minute he could making friends with it, earning its trust, and giving it food and water.”

Her father rubbed his face as if he could wash away the bad memory that was sure to come. When he stared back at her, his eyes were moist.

“Finally, it looked like he’d succeeded. The dog took to following him everywhere and, being he was mostly black, we called him Shadow. No one else could get near Shadow but Charlie, and that was fine by me. I didn’t trust the dog. He was too quick to bare his teeth, to growl that low, mean growl that lets you know to stay away.”

“One day, Shadow was sleeping in the sun, a bowl of old food by his side. I guess Charlie thought the food was too old and the flies had been buzzing around too long to let the dog eat any more of it. Charlie reached for the food bowl. In that instant, Shadow woke up and grabbed Charlie’s arm, snarling and carrying on. He wouldn’t let go. Charlie was screaming bloody murder. I grabbed the rifle my pa kept in the barn thinking someone had attacked him and went running.”

“It wasn’t someone, but something. Blood was spurting out of Charlie’s arm and the dog was hanging on for dear life, even as Charlie was calling out its name and telling it to stop.”

Her father gave her a long look, his eyes cold and clear. She felt the chill of that look to her core. “I had to shoot that dog to free my brother. Charlie lost all feeling in his right hand. You know what that’s like? Trying to do farm work without use of a hand? He learned to use his left, well enough so that he could hide his infirmity and join the Army, but he was never the same after that. He never trusted anyone or any creature again. It was a hard lesson, learned the hard way, and it scarred him for life. Short as his life was. Maybe if he’d had use of that hand, he’d have survived the war.”

Kate swallowed the lump that stuck in her throat. “You think Cole’s like that dog?”

“I think Cole has been through more than any human being should have to endure, particularly a kid. But it’s scarred him deep inside like it scarred that dog.” Her father leaned forward, blocking the light from the kerosene lamp on the table behind him so the glow encircled his body. Resting his elbows on his knees, he clasped his hands between his legs.

“I’m smart enough to know the dog was reacting with instinct. If Charlie had never reached for that food bowl, maybe if the dog hadn’t been asleep before it happened, Charlie could have gone years more with Shadow being a faithful dog. But there would have come a time when that dog felt threatened and he would have gone after whoever was there in the same way he’d always defended himself in the wild.”

“Cole’s not a dog. And as a boy he wouldn’t have hurt any creature before…”

“Before he killed his father, you mean.” Will shook his head as he interrupted her. “I’m not saying the man didn’t deserve what he got. But Cole wasn’t in his rights to give it to him.”

“The law wouldn’t do anything.” Kate blinked back tears as the ache of what Cole had endured claimed her. “Sheriff said it was between a husband and wife and he had no say in it.”

“And if you marry him and he turns out like his father…”

Like a dynamite stick with a lit fuse, Kate was near to exploding at her father’s injustice. “He’s nothing like his father. Nothing.” She knew the truth down to her marrow.

“I wouldn’t be able to do anything to help you except kill him,” her father continued in a flat voice, without emotion, ignoring her interruption.

Kate wouldn’t say it, but she knew her father wouldn’t be able to kill Cole unless he shot him in the back.

“Damn it, Kate. He’s a hired killer. Is that what you want for a husband?” Her father exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath.

Kate clasped her hands in front of her, her nails digging into her palms. Why couldn’t people see in Cole what she saw? “He could be a rancher. If you’d help him, he’d be a good one.” She wasn’t so sure Cole was inclined toward ranching, but he was working for Matt Tyler and doing a little ranch work.

“If I
help
him? Cole Turner would never let me help him, Kate, and you know why.”

“Because you sent the law after him when he left town, after he killed his pa. You used what he told me to help them find him.” Her father’s betrayal of Cole, of her, had never strayed far from her memory since the day he’d done it.

“Do you know why I sent the law after him? Because I knew that no one in Three Bridges would ever convict Cole Turner for killing his father. But if he ran, he’d be hunted down and likely killed by some bounty hunter.” Her father’s voice grew louder, his hands waving like an orchestra conductor tangling with a difficult piece of music. “And if he wasn’t killed, but stood trial in another town, he’d likely have been convicted of murder. Even at his age, they’d still have considered him a man, and the fact that the bullet entered from the back wouldn’t have been taken as self-defense.”

“You know Jed Turner was standing over Cole’s mother and beating her to death.” Kate’s throat felt like it was stuffed with cotton. “Cole wasn’t strong enough to stop him with his hands. He warned his father, but it did no good.” Kate fought back the tears as she remembered how shaken Cole had been when he came to find her and tell her what he’d done before he lit out.

“I believe that. Because I knew Jed Turner and I knew Anna. And she died not six months later, likely from the damage her husband had caused. But people who didn’t know anything about the Turners wouldn’t be so understanding. I sent the law after him so he’d have to stand trial here and his name would be cleared. So he wouldn’t spend his life on the run. So he could have a fresh start. And he became a bounty hunter with that fresh start.” He nodded to punctuate the fact.

Her father had never explained why he had sent the sheriff after Cole. She’d always assumed he’d put the law before the man. “Why didn’t you offer him a job so he didn’t have to turn to hunting men to make a living?”

Her father rubbed his chin as if deciding what to tell her. “I knew you were infatuated with him. You were just fifteen when his mother died. He was eighteen and full of anger by the time the trial ended. I couldn’t risk what would have happened then. I’m not prepared to risk it now.”

It wasn’t infatuation. She’d loved Cole then, and five years later, nothing had changed. If anything, her love was stronger now that she’d seen him again, knew he’d survived, and was still the Cole she had fallen in love with. He might be harder on the outside, but there was still that softer inside he’d protected all these years. There was still a man yearning for someone to love him, to understand him.

“Does the fact that I love him mean nothing to you?”

“It’s just seeing him again, Kate. One thing about Cole, he’s always attracted women. Always will, given that face of his. That’s not love, Kitten.” Her father’s tone softened as if to cushion the blow his words were delivering.

“I’m not a little girl anymore. I know what love is and isn’t. I’ve loved him for five years, though you’ve refused to believe it.” Kate was determined to make him understand this point if nothing else. “And I’ll never marry anyone but him.”

“Then you’ll never marry.” Her father’s jaw tensed and there was fire in his eyes. In the space of a second, the softness in him was gone, the anger back.

“Are we done?” Kate had nothing more to say. She’d warned him. That was what she had come to do.

“You’re not to see him. No more meetings,” her father commanded, pointing his finger at her as she got up to leave. He rose from his chair, towering over her.

His intimidation tactics wouldn’t work. They never had.

“Are you planning to lock me in my room?” Kate said, squaring her shoulders.

“Don’t let it come to that, Katherine.”

Kate spun on her heel and headed for the door. “I won’t,” she said without a backwards glance. And she wouldn’t.

She’d be Cole’s wife long before it came to that.

Kate stood just inside the kitchen’s doorway; the fixings for a small picnic of homemade corn fritters and apple cider tucked into the basket on her arm. Mary was in town getting staples, but Kate was counting on her putting two and two together when she returned.

Kate hesitated a moment to listen to two loud voices coming from behind the closed door of her father’s study.

She’d seen Charlie Pritchard ride in, but she wouldn’t necessarily pay his visit, however infrequent, any mind if she hadn’t heard Cole’s name mentioned. Something about Cole being interested in Charlie’s land. Along with Matt Tyler. And, if she followed the thread of the discussion accurately, her father was interested as well. Now.

But hope rose within her nonetheless. If Cole had approached Charlie about buying land, maybe, just maybe, he really
was
thinking about settling down in Three Bridges. With her.

If things worked out today--and they had to—her father would be right happy to buy that land as a wedding gift for her and Cole. Her heart felt lighter as she slipped out the back of the kitchen and headed toward the barn.

Chapter 5

Squinting against the glare, Cole walked out of the sheriff’s office and into the welcomed sunlight of the warm summer morning. His job was finished in Three Bridges. Four of the five rustlers were sitting behind bars, and the fifth one, if he was smart, was long gone by now. Cole’s early morning surprise had worked. He and the three cowhands he’d enlisted had captured the outlaws, with nothing getting damaged except maybe the rustlers’ pride.

The town, with its few shops, saloons, a hotel, and jailhouse, wasn’t busy at this hour. A smattering of people moved along the creaky wooden sidewalks that flanked the rutted main road, dust hanging heavy in the air from hot days without rain.

Cole nodded back to a rangy man, with a familiar face, crossing near him, and kept going straight to his horse. People in Three Bridges might recognize him, but they didn’t know him, and he was sure they didn’t care to.

He didn’t like killing people. He still got sick afterwards, alone, where no one could see how it tore at his soul. But tracking was something he could do and do well. And the times--and there were more than a few--when he could bring them in alive to stand trial for the crimes they’d committed, brought a sliver of satisfaction at seeing justice done.