The Circle Eight: Tobias (16 page)

“Ellis is a rat pretending to be a man.” James kept his voice even but she heard the fury beneath the words.
 

“I’m worried about his injuries but I can’t leave Will. He’s just woken up and I need to watch his recovery carefully.” She touched Will’s arm. “He’s still in pain and I also need to make sure he gets exact dosages of the herbs.”
 

James’s mouth tightened. “I don’t want to choose between my brothers.”
 

Rebecca’s heart clenched. “Neither do I.” She cared for all of them, in different ways. Will needed her for support and healing. James didn’t need
her at all. Tobias was a mystery as to what he needed, but he was not the same man she met when she was a wide-eyed girl.
 

“Tobias walk out of here? Or did Ellis drag him out?” James spent far too much time scowling.
 

“He walked. Maybe shuffled. He’s still in a great deal of pain and he shouldn’t be out of my care.”
 

“How long has it been?” James got to his feet.
 

“Since this morning.” She’d been worried sick about Tobias since. He didn’t even take anything with him for pain. Not that Ellis would have let him take it.
 

“Dammit. I’m going to go check on him.” James moved for the door and Will cried out.
 

“No, don’t leave, Jimmy!” He seemed to want to shorten everyone’s name, which is something a young boy would do. Will’s eyes were wide in his face, a sharp contrast to his head swathed in bandages. “Toby left and I don’t want you to go too.”
 

All the air left James’s lungs and he sat on the cot. “I won’t leave, Will, not now. Maybe Miss Rebecca can go visit Tobias?”
 

He was asking her to leave one patient for another. It was an impossible choice and she resented him for forcing her to make it. At the same time, she wanted to see Tobias and see for herself he was still healing. The beating he took was severe enough he should have stayed on his back for a week.
 

The situation made her angry and nervous, which made her furious at the man who caused it. Tobias had never left her heart, but he sure as hell knew how to make her blood boil. No one raised her ire faster than the man who had accepted the gift of her innocence. He should have refused to go with the deputy, damn him.
 

“I will go but I won’t be gone long.” She caught James’s gaze. “You need to stay here with Will. If anything happens, please have Mr. Donovan send someone to bring me back right away.”
 

“Yes, ma’am.” James’s ready response made her wonder if he was making fun of her. No matter what happened, she was going to be glad when the Gibsons were all hale and hearty. She couldn’t be with them a moment longer than necessary. Her sanity, and her heart, depended on it.
 

Within half an hour, she was on her way to town with a ranch hand as a guide. He was a burly, dark-haired man who didn’t speak to her at all on the short ride into the small town of Judson. It wasn’t much bigger than Briar Creek, with a dozen or so solid buildings, a livery, a rather
impressive two-story hotel and restaurant named King’s. It stuck out a bit considering the size of the town but she surmised people from all around came to eat there.
 

“Where is the jail?” She didn’t see any particular building that had a sign pronouncing it was the sheriff’s office.
 

“Yonder.” It was the first word the man had spoken the entire way into Judson. He pointed at a small, derelict building next to the livery. It was perhaps twelve feet by ten feet if she were to judge its size. No windows and one crooked door.
 

That was the jail? There was barely enough room to hold a prisoner and a deputy at the same time. She was dubious her guide had indicated the correct building. Perhaps he didn’t know where it was or had misunderstood Mr. Donovan.
 

Rebecca held her questions and dismounted in front of the pitiful jail. She secured her horse to the hitching post, which was lurching to one side, and approached the door. It opened, surprising her. Deputy Ellis sauntered out and crossed his beefy arms.
 

“What do you want, missy?”
 

The blood of generations of Grahams pumped through her veins and while her temper was hard to rile, she did get angry when the situation warranted it.
 

This one did.
 

“My name is Miss Graham. As you can guess, I am here to doctor Mr. Gibson. He was seriously beaten only a few days ago. He belongs in a bed receiving medical care not in a hovel with a man who seems to act as judge and jury.” Her voice grew deeper with each word until her throat was hoarse.
 

“You can’t talk to me like that.”
 

“Yes, I can. You are a servant of this town and sworn to uphold the law. That means you work for the citizens, and the sheriff, not for yourself. Where is the sheriff? Does he know you forced a man who could barely walk into a jail cell?” She clenched her jaw, pleased to see Ellis had paled beneath her verbal spanking. Rebecca hadn’t realized that growing up with seven brothers and sisters would give her skills in how to chastise someone.
 

“The sheriff is visiting his Ma over in Austin. He put me in charge.” Ellis had lost his bluster.
 

“I’m sure he wouldn’t approve of putting a man’s life at risk without evidence a crime occurred. If there is any proof, it’s in the extent of his
injuries.” Rebecca poked one finger into his chest. “They nearly killed him.”
 

“It ain’t that ba—”
 

“Yes, it is. I’d like to have a word with the three men. From what he tells me, they already tried to kill his brother, Will, too. Will you investigate that, Deputy?” she challenged him. “Will is brain damaged. Do you understand that? He has the mind of a child now and he will never be a man. Because he was injured by a tree in the company of the same three men who tried to beat Tobias to death.”
 

She let that information sink in before she pushed passed him, using her medicine bag as a ramrod. As Rebecca stepped into the small building, she paused, waiting for her vision to adjust. It was dark as pitch inside with only the glow of a lantern with its wick turned down low to break the blackness.
 

“Tobias?”
 

There was a shuffling sound and then a groan. “Becca? What the hell are you doing here? You promised me you’d stay with Will. I thought Grahams were as good as their word.” His voice cut through her as easily as a sharp knife. His lack of faith and trust didn’t surprise her, but it did hurt.
 

She pushed aside her own pain and focused on Tobias. She’d come here to help with his injuries, not to be berated for a supposed lax in promises. “James is with him. Both of us wanted to make sure you were still alive. Maybe I shouldn’t have bothered.” She marched toward the lantern and turned up the wick until the small building flooded with the yellow glow.
 

She glanced around to find a single, well-worn chair in one corner with a series of papers tacked or nailed to the wall behind it, but no desk. In another corner was a cell, barely two feet by four feet. There was no cot, no chair or any type of furniture in the small cell. There was, however, one bruised and decidedly grumpy man on the floor, knees up, arms resting atop them.
 

Despite her anger and frustration with him, her heart twisted to see him locked in a primitive cage with not so much as a blanket or stool. She yanked at the bars, but they didn’t move. The construction was crude. Iron bars, as thick as her wrist, with six inches between each bar. Too small for him to escape and too narrow for her to do what she needed to do.
 

“Deputy Ellis!” she shouted.
 

“He ain’t gonna let you in here to doctor me.”
 

“Shut up, Tobias.”
 

“You got such a sassy mouth for a female.” He didn’t make a move to get closer. He simply stared from beneath his hat, his face cloaked in shadows.
 

“That shouldn’t surprise you.” She walked to the door to find the deputy had disappeared along with her guide. Perhaps they went off to enjoy a mid-morning meal at the restaurant. She would have to tend to Tobias through the bars. It wasn’t ideal but she could do what she had to.
 

When she returned to the cell, he hadn’t moved. She half-expected him to stand up and refuse to be touched. He was ornery enough to do that.
 

“Looks like it’s just the two of us.” She set the tapestry bag down on the floor, which was bare dirt. “Is there water to use?”
 

“Ellis had a canteen somewhere.” His voice had dropped and she wondered if he’d put on a brave face, to throw her off the scent of doctoring. That wouldn’t work either. Rebecca could be as stubborn as he could.
 

She hunted around until she found a canteen, half full of water. Using the small tin cup she always had in her bag, she poured water in the cup, then set it on top of the lantern to heat. With any luck it might get hot enough to boil.
 

While the water heated, she sat on the ground outside the cell and peered at Tobias. “How are you feeling?”
 

“Like shit on toast that’s been pissed on by a bull. What did you think I’d feel like?”
 

She counted to five before she answered. “Like shit on toast that’s been pissed on by a bull.” She ignored his snort of laughter. “Now come closer and let me check your vital signs.”
 

“I ain’t dead. That’s all you need to know.”
 

She huffed out an impatient breath. “If I have to I will pick the lock with a hair pin and happily throttle you. Now get over here.”
 

“Sassy.” He moved closer to the bars, allowing her to reach through and get a good look at him.
 

She gasped although she tried to hold back. His face was pale as milk with dark circles beneath his eyes, while sweat dripped down gaunt cheeks. She placed one hand on his forehead and the other on his neck and confirmed what she already knew. He was running a fever, pulse pounding through his veins.
 

“You can’t stay here a moment longer.” She got to her feet and brushed the dirt from her dress.
 

“Don’t get yourself all worked up. I ain’t dead and I don’t plan on dying.” He waved his hand in dismissal. “You didn’t need to come here. I don’t need you.”
 

After the stress of the last week and her emotional reaction to seeing Tobias again, his cold response hit her like a hot poker to the gut. This time, she wasn’t going to hold back. She was wounded. And furious.
 

“You have no idea what I need or don’t need. You’re a bastard who can’t see past the nose on his face.” She ignored the tightness in her throat and the frantic pounding of her heart. This was the time to tell him the entire truth. Everything. “When I was seventeen, I fell in love with you. You were the prince I was waiting for who would be my perfect mate.” She laughed without humor, her bleeding soul exposed for his ridicule.
 

He didn’t speak or move. His gaze was locked with hers, but his expression was as emotionless as the iron between them. At that moment, she hated him.
 

“Did you hear me? I loved you and gave you my innocence. You threw me away as if I was nothing more than a Saturday night tumble.” She swiped away tears angrily. “You spent yourself in the grass, but it didn’t matter. It was the first and only time I was with a man, and I got pregnant.”
 

That got his attention. His eyes widened but he still remained silent.
 

“I lost the child when I fell off the ladder in a barn while helping a woman in town with her little boy. Doctor Radicy took care of me and I never told my family. That baby girl was my secret. She is the baby I never got to hold but loved with all my heart.” This was the dark secret she’d held deep inside her heart. It had festered, scraping at her when she least expected it. Seeing Tobias made it burst as though it was a cyst, spreading poison inside her. She had to get it all out.
 

“I had forgiven you, did you know that? Of course not, because you didn’t know what I went through. When I saw you again I thought maybe you would apologize or at the very least acknowledge what had happened between us. But no, you treated me as though I was a nobody whose only job was to save your brother. Well I’m done. Completely, utterly done forever. I will make sure your brother is well enough before I return to the Circle Eight. I never want to see you again.” She snatched up her bag, snatched the cup off the top of the lantern so it splashed its liquid around the dirt and strode out the door.
 

For at least a few heartbeats, she hoped he would call out to her, to say something to her about what she’d told him. He knew her darkest secret
and didn’t care. Rebecca had told herself she didn’t love him anymore, that he meant nothing to her, but that didn’t stop her heart from breaking into a thousand pieces all over again. This was the last time she would cry over Tobias Gibson.
 

Tobias stared at the door, body and mind numb. His heart, on the other hand, pounded so hard, his ears hurt. He didn’t understand everything that just happened, but he did know he had made the biggest mistake of his life. Huge. Enormous. Bigger than words.
 

What had he done?
 

Her confession hit him hard. He couldn’t take a breath he’d been so poleaxed by every word that tumbled from her angry mouth. Oh, he deserved her fury, her hatred and every bit of the hurt he suffered when she left. Hell, he deserved to be horsewhipped. Pulled behind a wagon until his skin peeled off.