The Marshal Takes a Bride (19 page)

Katherine shut her eyes. She was aware that Dr. Bartlett was watching her reaction to his words, but she ignored him. Comfort, it seemed, wouldn’t come with a few well-placed prayers this time.

She spread her hand across her stomach, not quite able to believe that her baby—the one she’d only just started to get to know and love—was no longer living inside her.

Oh, how she’d wanted this baby, more than she’d understood until now. She couldn’t help but feel that she’d lost a part of Trey with their child.

Would this loss haunt her always? Would she never be free of the ache?

Guilt ate at her. Was this the sort of pain Trey had suffered these past four years? She finally understood a part of what drove him, but at a far too painful cost.

The door swung open, and Molly inched into the room. The terror on the little girl’s face forced Katherine to push her own grief aside.

Reaching out a hand to her sister, she said, “Come here, Molly.”

Molly tiptoed forward, looking once more like the little girl Katherine had met in the mining camp, instead of the vivacious child of the past few months. Where was the childlike energy, the infectious laughter Katherine had come to associate with the five-year-old?

Katherine swallowed past the pain in her head, the aching in her bones. “It’s all right. You can come closer.”

Molly’s eyes widened, and she took a step backward.

Katherine called on every scrap of her strength, sat up and forced a smile on her lips. “See? I’m fine.”

A sob burst from Molly’s lips, and she vaulted across the divide between them, then halted abruptly at the foot of the bed. “You look so sick,” she said, her voice barely more than a squeak.

Katherine wanted to soothe her sister’s fears, but she couldn’t lie to her. “I am sick. But I’m not going to die.”

Molly’s face scrunched into a frown. “But, Katherine, sick people die.”

“Not always.”

Blinking back tears, Molly scuffled around to the side of the bed. When she got closer, tears started spilling.

“I’m sorry I worried you.” Katherine patted a spot on the bed. “Come. Sit with me.”

Molly shook her head, her gaze darting to the doctor, over to Laney, to the doctor again, then finally back to Katherine.

“It’s all right. You won’t hurt me.”

“Really?”

Katherine lifted her arms. “Absolutely.”

Leading with a knee, Molly edged one leg onto the bed.

Ignoring her own pain, Katherine wrapped the little girl
in her arms and tugged her tightly against her. “See? I’m completely alive.”

Molly wiped her cheek on Katherine’s shoulder. “You scared me, Katherine.”

“I scared myself.”

Sniffing, the little girl pushed away. “Promise you won’t get sick again.”

If only she could make such a vow. “I’ll certainly try not to.”

“I would have been a good big sister.”

For a shocking moment, Katherine feared she was going to break down and sob, unable to stop for days. She hated that her innocent little sister had been subjected to the cruelty of another loss, hated that the loss had occurred. But she couldn’t give in to the weakness of her grief now. With her chin trembling, she forced a bright smile on her face. “I know, Molly. The best.”

“I miss Mr. Trey. I mean…
Daddy.
” Molly’s crestfallen expression mirrored the emotions in Katherine’s heart.

Katherine dragged her little sister back into her arms. “Oh, Molly, me, too.” She allowed a single tear to fall before she blinked the rest into submission. “Me, too.”

T
rey arrived in Denver hungry for blood. With leaden feet, he trudged up the back stairwell of Miss Martha’s boarding house. The cracked paint on the barren walls did nothing to improve his mood. He’d intentionally chosen this place to live because it left him cold. At the time he’d only needed somewhere to rest his head at night. In truth, it had felt wrong to commit time and money to a house when Laurette could no longer help him turn the brick and mortar into a home.

Thoughts of his dead wife still plagued him, heightened by his recent defeat. Thus, when he reached the top step, white-hot anger swirled up so fast, so completely it clogged the air in his lungs.

He forced the emotion down, took a deep breath and entered his room. Deadly silence slammed into him. The space felt foreign. Unwelcoming.

Empty.

He hadn’t realized how solitary and lonely his life had become in the years since Laurette’s murder. All his goals,
all his dreams had been reduced to the sole quest for revenge.

He was tired of the pain. Tired of the burning hatred.

Trey suddenly wanted Katherine and Molly. Just seeing them would lift his mood and make him forget, for a time, the defeat he felt so strongly now. But first he needed to clean off weeks of trail dust and defeat.

While he washed, his mind kept running through the infuriating events of the past two months. By the time he and Logan had arrived in Cheyenne, Ike Hayes had escaped custody. Although Marshal Roberts had wounded Ike in the scuffle, the outlaw still lived.

Trey’s jaw clenched with the effort to hold back his fury.

Ike. Still. Lived.

Those three words had driven Trey in his ruthless pursuit of the outlaw. He’d tracked Ike all the way from Cheyenne to Nebraska City. At each town, Trey had been no more than a day or two behind the killer. A week ago, the trail had dried up completely. Trey had been forced to return to Denver and to his original plan of waiting for Ike to come to him.

Looking out the window, Trey noticed the bustling activity on the street below. How could everyone act so normal?

Absently, he mixed shaving cream in the bowl he cupped in his palm. Ticking off the past weeks, one by one, his mind returned to the morning after his wedding night. The last time he’d seen Katherine.

Until the moment when he’d stared into her frightened, dejected eyes, Trey hadn’t truly understood how much his quest for vengeance hurt her. By allowing grief to rule his every move, he’d kept Laurette’s memory alive in his
heart—and prevented Katherine from truly becoming his wife.

But after four years of seeking vengeance, he’d become comfortable in his bitterness. He didn’t know how else to live. Nevertheless, he couldn’t continue on the same angry path. He owed it to Katherine and Molly to break the cycle of pain and hurt.

Trey swallowed. Hard. If he never brought Ike to justice, if he never took revenge, could he truly commit his life, his heart and his future to Katherine and Molly?

How could he just let go of Laurette without finishing the quest to avenge her murder? How could he continue hurting Katherine and Molly?

He hadn’t counted on finding love again. Katherine, with her goodness, and Molly, with her childlike devotion, had broken through his defenses. And the more they took over his heart, the less he hated.

Trey didn’t believe God’s plan for his life had included losing Laurette and their unborn baby, but he couldn’t deny that their deaths made finding Katherine and Molly that much more precious to him.

He had the strongest urge to take both woman and child into his arms and tell them how much he cared.

He’d figure out the rest later.

Impatient to get to Charity House, he quickly shaved and finished dressing. But the moment he slammed his hat on his head, a sick feeling of dread navigated along his spine.

Something wasn’t right.

He knew it in his gut.

Trey left his room in a haze and rushed down the street, toward Charity House.

As he drew up to the front of the house, the lack of
activity struck him first, convincing him to stand on his guard. At this hour, the children were usually at their loudest, with an adult voice or two raised over the chatter.

Looking around him, a dark premonition shot through him, sending a shiver across his soul. The deadly stillness enveloped him. In response, an ache started in his gut, wrapped around his heart and then turned into the same twisting agony he’d endured when he’d ridden onto the ranch four years ago and found Laurette dying.

Pushing through the front door, he tossed his hat to the nearest chair. He only had time for impressions as he searched for human life. The ticking of the clock. The lemon oil Laney used on the furniture. The candles and lanterns blazing, casting their light into the room.

Where was everyone?

Trey raised his voice, surprised at the shake in it. “Hello. Anyone here?” He glanced around him, then swallowed several times.
“Anyone?”

Mrs. Smythe shuffled into the hallway. The look on her face confirmed his worst fears. “Oh, Marshal Scott, I’m so sorry. She just didn’t have the strength.”

“What do you mean?”

A myriad of emotions flickered across the woman’s face. “It’s Katherine.”

A gut-wrenching fear twined into guilt and finally settled into self-recrimination for leaving his wife alone for so long.

“What about Katherine?” Trey didn’t realize he’d shouted until he saw Mrs. Smythe step away from him.

She pointed over his shoulder. “Upstairs.”

The way she said the word sent a shiver of terror racing along the back of his neck.

“The doctor is with her.”

Doctor?
Stifling the panic that rose in his throat, Trey spun around and took the stairs three at a time. Katherine was in trouble, and just like with Laurette, he hadn’t been here for her.

Guilt mingled with panic pushed him faster as he headed straight for her room and burst through the door.

His gaze sought and found his wife. Pale and small in her bed, she looked like a woman who had given up on life. Molly sat next to her, gripping her hands in hers while tears ran down her face.

Katherine was dying. And he was too late to save her.
Just like Laurette.

He sensed others in the room, but Katherine and Molly were all that mattered to him now. Molly sprang from the bed and vaulted into his arms. “Daddy, you came home.”

Trey hugged her tight against him, his eyes never leaving Katherine’s blank stare.

“I always come back, kitten.”
Just never in time.

No, he wouldn’t allow death to defeat him, not this time. This time he would fight harder.

He settled Molly on his hip and then made his way across the room. He kept his gaze centered on Katherine, forcing his own fears aside as he recognized the loss of will in her. He’d always thought of Katherine as a woman full of sparkle. But now she looked dull, lifeless.

Every part of his body went on alert.

“Katherine,” he whispered.

She shut her eyes, swallowed. A shudder wracked through her body before she looked at him again. The blank stare she gave him confirmed his doubts. Whatever had happened to her, she’d allowed it to defeat her spirit.

A hand touched his shoulder. He turned, his gaze land
ing on Laney’s worried expression. “Don’t worry, Trey. She’s going to live.”

He defied one of his own rules and allowed fear to overtake logic. “What…what happened?”

Molly tapped him on the shoulder. “She lost the baby,” she whispered.

She lost the baby. Pain suffocated his ability to take a breath. Hoping he had misunderstood Molly, he looked to Laney. She nodded slowly, sadly, and then Shane Bartlett moved within his line of vision. “It’s true.”

“I didn’t know,” Trey said softly.

“She found out only a few weeks ago,” Dr. Bartlett replied.

Katherine had learned of their child while Trey had been hunting Ike Hayes. As his new wife had started preparing for their future, Trey had been clinging to the past, instead of remaining home with his family, where he belonged.
Where. He. Belonged.
The realization hit him hard.

Molly’s lower lip trembled. “I would have had a sister or brother.”

He patted Molly’s back, turned to look at Dr. Bartlett.

“Katherine? Is she going to—” He broke off, unable to say the words, afraid if he did, they would come true.

Dr. Bartlett sighed. “She’s fine, healthwise. But…” He lifted a shoulder in helplessness. “She’s been like this since yesterday.”

Trey turned back to his wife. She looked only half-alive, and then he knew what Dr. Bartlett was trying to tell him. Katherine was in shock, caught inside her pain and unable to release herself from the grief…the guilt.

He knew about those feelings, had felt them for months—no, years—after Laurette had died in his arms. For the
first time since that fateful day, his quest for vengeance seemed secondary, less significant. All that mattered now was helping Katherine come back from the black world in which she hid.

If anyone knew what she was suffering, it was Trey.

He lowered Molly to the ground and then knelt in front of the little girl. “I need to be with your sister, alone.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Laney said as she took Molly by the hand and led her out of the room.

Dr. Bartlett left as well, shutting the door behind him with a click. The silence hung thick and heavy in the room as Trey strode toward his wife.
His wife.
He knelt beside the bed, touched her cheek. He was home. He’d finally come home. But was he too late? Was he bound to fail his women when they needed him most?

Familiar guilt ripped through him all over again. This time the feeling was stronger, more real, than ever before. Katherine hadn’t wanted him to go, but he’d put vengeance ahead of her and her fears.

And now her soul was dying.

He shut his eyes and prayed a second time since Katherine had come into his life.

Oh, Lord, give me the strength to help Katherine break free from her grief. Give me another chance to do right by her.

He brushed the hair away from her face.

She blinked but didn’t respond to him otherwise.

“Come back to me, Katherine.”

As though his request finally lifted the veil cloaking her soul, her eyes cleared, and she slowly, hesitantly, lifted her arms to him.

The invitation was unmistakable.

With a moan of sorrow, he pulled her into his embrace,
cradled her against his chest. There could be no more holding back, no more pretending this woman didn’t mean the world to him. “My Katherine. I love you.”

He just hoped he hadn’t waited too long to speak his heart aloud.

A huge shudder worked through her, followed by a giant gasp.

“Let it out, honey.”

Her sobs came then, spiraling on top of one another. Big, heart-wrenching sobs that ripped through his body as sure as if he’d been the one crying instead of her.

He rocked her as her whimpers grew louder, more painful to bear. But for her sake, he accepted them as her due. He knew she needed to grieve, needed to cry over her loss, but with each of her gasps, his heart broke a little more.

“I wanted our baby,” she said through tight, short breaths.

The silent sobs in his heart screamed for release, but he buried them. There would be time enough later for his own grieving. “Me, too.”

She raised her guilt-ridden gaze. “It’s all my fault, Trey.”

How many times had he said those same words? How many times had friends told him they weren’t true? In that moment, he finally understood what so many had tried to tell him. No man, or woman, could control life and death. That was God’s territory alone. Why hadn’t he seen the truth sooner?

Forgive me, Lord.

“No, baby, no. You aren’t to blame. These things happen.”

Pain flickered in her gaze, but she nodded. “Dr. Bartlett said that the Lord, in His infinite wisdom, has a plan
bigger than me. Bigger than my understanding. Bigger than this tragedy.”

“Shane is right.” And Trey knew—he
finally
knew—the same was true for him.

She fell silent, her sobs turning to an occasional sigh of distress. Eventually, she turned limp in his arms, and he laid her gently back on the bed, pulled the sheet up to her chin.

“I want you to do something for me, my love,” he said.

She blinked up at him, her gaze clear but unreadable.

“Concentrate on getting well.”

“There’s too much to do. Charity House, chores…the school.”

He cupped her cheek. “Laney is a very resourceful woman. She’ll manage until you’re well again.”

“Molly—”

“I’ll take care of her. She’s my family now, too.” Katherine opened her mouth; he placed a finger over her lips. “Do this, please. For me.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know how to be sick.”

How he loved her strength, her independence, but not enough to relent on such an important matter. “Then now is as good a time as any to learn.”

She shook her head, clearly preparing to argue with him.

He dropped a gentle kiss to her lips. “You’re not going to be sensible about this, are you?”

An echo of a smile quivered at the corners of her mouth. “Those lessons in patience never took.”

Relieved by the small glimpse of the Katherine he’d left weeks ago, Trey pressed his lips to her forehead. “Concentrate on getting some sleep.”

He rose from the bed, but her hand shot out to still his progress. “Don’t leave me.”

“Never. I just have to take care of a few things. Then I’ll come and sit with you.”

She nodded. “I’d like that.”

He kissed the top of her head, then caressed her cheek, stunned he could feel both joy and fear at the same time. “I’ll be right back.”

“Trey, I have a question for you,” she said, her voice stopping him as he tried to turn and leave.