“Then I’ll come to you, but you’ll not sleep.” He offered his hand. “Until tonight.”
She accepted his hand. “Until tonight.”
They rode back to town in a comfortable silence.
The afternoon was bright with spring and all the world seemed right for Adam for the first time in years. Since they may have caught the men who robbed and burned the stage, there was no reason for Nichole to hide. He was looking forward to seeing the expression on Bergette’s face when she discovered a woman had been hiding out in his room. If the news didn’t send her packing, Nichole had suggested several ways to encourage her to go, one more outrageous than the next.
He wanted to do the everyday things with Nick, like sit on the porch at sundown or drink coffee at the kitchen table without worrying that someone might come in. He wanted to go for rides at sunrise and sleep in a bed with her nude body wrapped around him.
Adam was still laughing when he opened his office door and found Sister Celestine sitting at his desk with a rifle across her lap.
“Sister?” he asked as Nichole followed him inside.
The nun stood slowly, cradling the rifle in her arms as though she’d done so many times. “Doctor,” she announced without emotion, “we’ve got an outbreak of trouble around the place.”
Nichole lowered her gun belt from her shoulder.
Rose entered at full run from the examining room. She held a butcher knife in each hand. Her thick curly hair had fallen from its bun, making her look very much like a pirate. “Who-”
She froze when she saw Adam and Nichole. Slowly lowering her knives, she whispered, “Thank the Lord, you’re back.”
“You may say that again, Sister Rose.” The nun raised her chin to attention. “Reinforcements have arrived.”
TWENTY-TWO
GLANCING AT THE woman he had just spent the morning making passionate love to, Adam tried to adjust his mood and his eyes to the muted light of his office. Little remained of the beautiful, funny, sexy woman he’d held only an hour ago. She’d been replaced by a warrior he hardly recognized. Her body had hardened to stone, her wonderful green eyes darkened with purpose. The holster she’d carried lightly over her shoulder was strapped around her waist. The transformation was complete.
“Stay away from the windows,” Rose whispered as though someone outside might hear her. “We’ve been shot at several times since noon.”
“What is going on?” Adam looked directly at Sister Cel, knowing she’d be miserly with the answers.
“Charles and Lily are covering the back. Nance boarded up the windows in your rooms. Bergette and Mrs. Jamison are safe upstairs judging from the crying.” Even Sister Cel was adopting Nichole’s stance. Only she looked more like heaven’s warrior than one on earth. “We’ve secured the perimeters as much as possible, Doctor.”
“Start at the beginning and tell me what happened.” Adam kept his voice calm though panic spread across his brain like bindweed as he moved around the room counting bullet holes in his windowpanes.
“I’ll tell you what happened.” Rose bobbed up and down between the windows as she crossed the room, following the doctor like some crazed jack-in-the-box pull toy. “All hell’s done broke loose, that’s what’s happened. But don’t you worry none, we’re going to fight to win. Remember the Alamo!”
“They all died at the Alamo,” Adam stated, wondering if Rose and the nun had downed all his supply of medicinal whiskey.
Rose reached him trying to stare him down from her foot shorter disadvantage. “Well, it’s the only battle cry I know. I say we fight to the death if we have to just like old Davy Jones did.”
“It was Davy Crockett, Rose,” Sister Cel interrupted. “I remember someone saying he was the oldest Texan to die at the mission. Old Davy.”
“He wasn’t a Texan.” Rose waved a knife to make her point.
“He was if he died at the Alamo,” Sister Cel raised her nose in the air as if ending the argument.
“Forget the Alamo!” Adam shouted. “That was thirty years ago. What is happening now?”
The door to the hallway creaked. Everyone swung at once and aimed.
No one breathed.
The door opened wider, then Nance crawled around it, smiling with excitement. “Hello, Doc.”
Adam bent down to the child. “Maybe you can tell me what is going on.”
“You bet.” Nance sat crossing his legs in front of him on the floor. “About noon, Harry from the stage office came over to tell Lily that some men on a trail drive caught the raiders who burned his stage. He was real happy. He swung Lily around like they was dancing. He said word was there was a woman who could identify them as the stage robbers and as cattle rustlers and murderers.”
Nance shrugged his shoulders as if he doubted such a statement. “Then, a few minutes later, he comes running back to tell Lily… he likes to talk to her and I just listen… that two of the men escaped from the deputy and Mole who rode out to bring them in. Then,” Nance looked as though he were putting everything in order in his mind, “somebody started shooting at the house.” He shrugged again. “Nothing much happened after that.” He put his chin on his palms and his elbows on his knees, looking bored with the game. “Except every time I stand up more than two feet high, someone yells at me.”
“One shot came from the roof across the street,” Nichole announced as she studied the bullet holes. “Another from the second floor, back room of the house next door.”
“That’s Mole’s room.” Rose bit her knuckles.
“I know,” Nichole answered, not missing the quick turn of Adam’s stare. But there was no time for questions.
“Has the back or sides of the house taken any shots?” she asked, hoping Adam would forget about how and why she might know where Mole’s room was located.
“No,” Sister Cel said. “Only the front. And I’m thinking it’s one shooter, maybe two, no more. Every now and then they seem to have to take a break and we don’t hear anything for a while.”
Nichole looked out the windows. There were a dozen places where someone could wait with a rifle. The windows were wide and tall, but the porch shadowed some of the view. From twenty feet away she imagined someone could see no more than movement inside the house. That might account for the several shots and no hits. The collapsing shacks across the street would make perfect places to hide.
“They’re after me,” Nichole whispered. “There’s no need for me to put the rest of you in danger. The men who escaped the deputy have nothing to lose and everything to gain by killing me. I’m the only witness to both crimes. They have to have seen me ride in with you, Adam. So they are setting out there just waiting for a clear shot.”
“No,” Rose argued. “It could be Mole after me. He’s not a good shot, but if he drinks enough he thinks he is. He told me once that if I ever walked out on him, he’d see me dead. You already said one of the shots came from his room, and we all know he’s too much of a coward to come right up to the door again.”
“The shooter could be after me,” Sister Cel added softly, as if it were her turn at a quilting bee and she had to add another patch. “I was the only one in the room when the first shot was fired.” She cleared her throat. “And I’ve a few things I haven’t told you, Doc, about my life.”
Adam looked closely at her. “Now seems like a good time.” For a woman of the Church, she had her secrets. Her knowledge of words like perimeter and shooter made him wonder about her past. She also showed no sign of releasing her grip on his rifle.
“Well, he’s not gunning for me,” Nance volunteered. “I ain’t done nothing.”
“Quiet, all of you,” Adam ordered. “It doesn’t matter who he’s after, he’s not getting anyone.” He looked at Sister Cel. “There’s no time to hear all the whys. Later. Right now, we’ve got to get out of this mess.”
A shot shattered the glass on the front door. Adam grabbed his Colt and leaned against the wall. Rose screamed so loud he thought she was hit until he saw her dart across the room toward the kitchen. Sister Cel and Nick each took post beside a window.
