The Unlikely Groom. Wendy Douglas

men was responsible for the gunfire.

      But what, exactly, had they done now?

      A woman’s scream tore through the eerie silence, which changed everything as far as Lucas was concerned. Soapy Smith or not, women had mostly been protected from Skagway’s troubles in the past. At least the kind of trouble that involved gunfire.

      Lucas shoved Candy away and surged to his feet. Most of the others around him had begun to move, as well, and now they all headed for the door. The crowd bottled up at the entrance, but Lucas didn’t let that slow him down. Using his size and his shoulders to his advantage, he demanded, “Let me through,” in a voice of authority that guaranteed others would comply. He’d acquired that certain tone when he’d first opened the Star, and it worked as well now as whenever he’d used it in the past.

      “Wait for me, sugar!” Candy cried from behind him.

      Lucas ignored her and shoved his way through the door and out into the cold. He hadn’t stopped to grab his heavy coat and now held himself stiff against the first shiver produced by the bitter winter wind. He put the frigid temperatures from his mind.

      Groups of men had begun to gather in the nighttime streets and Lucas elbowed his way through the milling throng, again using his size to his advantage. No one seemed of a mind to argue and a path cleared for him until he reached the front of the crowd.

      A few men had brought lanterns and now held them high, illuminating various patches of the shrouded, darkened street. Lucas peered into the shadows, searching for any sign of the ruckus. A man, judging from the size and mode of dress, lay unmoving and crumpled in the street. The body was twisted at an odd, unnatural angle that warned the man was dead. A smaller figure knelt next to him.

      The woman who had screamed?

      An unwelcome, ancient urge—could it have been decency?—sent a frisson of unease chasing up his spine. Instinct prodded him to go to the woman and her dead companion. To do what he could?

      He shook his head, nothing more than a sharp, single movement, but he would have liked to have kept even that much to himself. What was wrong with him that he would consider helping anyone? He knew better. He could do nothing. If there were things that needed doing, then he was not the one to attempt them.

      Another Lucas Templeton might have felt differently, might have made another choice, but that Lucas no longer existed and hadn’t for years. This Lucas knew better. This Lucas had been created by a lifetime of mistakes, bad judgments and failures, and he’d learned every one of the lessons he’d been meant to. He knew when to up the ante and when to fold—and now was hardly the time to raise the stakes.

      But where was Deputy Taylor to help that poor devil in the street? Or, for that matter, Reverend Dickey? Lucas peered into the shadows that surrounded the crowd but spied neither man. He knew how the law operated in Skagway, particularly if Soapy or one of his cohorts was involved in the fracas, and Lucas figured Taylor would show up in his own good time.

      But what about the preacher? Where the hell was religion when a man needed it?

      “What happened?” he asked no one in particular.

      “One of Soapy’s men got him.”

      The answer came as little surprise; it would hardly be the first time. Rumors of Soapy’s activities had been varied and persistent. Men complained frequently of being swindled by crooked card games, false business fronts, robberies—and even murder.

      “What started it?” he asked.

      “They was playin’ cards.” Lucas didn’t look to see who answered. “I weren’t there when the ruckus started, but the way I heard it, the dead feller lost all his money to one of the boys and then he called Soapy’s gang a bunch of cheaters. S’pose it went downhill from there.”

      Downhill? Under other circumstances, Lucas might have smiled to himself, thinking about it. Alaskans and those who had survived the hardships of life in the north had a certain way of understating any given situation. But then, he supposed, men who lived with difficulties such as those faced every day in this part of the world saw life from an entirely different perspective.

      Enough to accept without question the wish of one man to shoot down another?

      A gust of wind whipped itself up and raced down the street. Lucas tensed to hold back a fresh shiver, but his own discomfort suddenly lost its significance when he realized the wind carried with it a soft cry that he might otherwise have missed.

      “Oh, Ian.”

      He jerked his head up to stare at the figures in the road. They hadn’t moved.

      Ian, the voice had said.

      Ian?

      Aw, shit. Lucas narrowed his eyes and drew his brow down into a fierce grimace. He stared into the street, at the dead man and his companion, and knew he couldn’t be mistaken.

      He wasn’t mistaken.

      The cry, uttered so breathlessly on a choked sob and carried on the wind, had been a woman’s. She’d said Ian.

      Son of a bitch. A growing list of other cusswords rolled around inside Lucas’s head and he took great satisfaction in listing every one of them. He deserved them. He needed them.

      Ashlynne Mackenzie crouched next to the dead man in the road.

      She had found her husband.

      But why did she have to squat there, so alone and helpless? Irritation scored him suddenly, frustrating him that no one went to her aid. They—all of them—couldn’t just stand here and watch, leaving her to suffer alone that way.

      Why don’t you help her?

      Dammit. He frowned again, this time just because he wanted to. Why the hell had he ever come out to investigate this damned ruckus in the first place?

      Shit.

      The cusswords began a new parade through his mind but provided him with little satisfaction this time. He didn’t want to help Ashlynne Mackenzie; he didn’t even want to think about her. He had turned his back and walked away from helping people years ago.

      You look out for yourself now, he reminded himself firmly. If that meant nothing more than offering a bit of entertainment, a place to go and a few hours of forgetfulness for an ever-changing group of lonely miners, then that was enough for him. All Lucas wanted was to make a decent living away from the demands of civilization.

      He didn’t go out of his way for anybody—and he wouldn’t do it for Ashlynne.

      No, the best thing he could do would be to turn and walk away from this debacle. And he would. Just as soon as someone else stepped forward to help her.

      Lucas waited, but no one moved. He didn’t realize that he had, either, until he heard a familiar voice from behind him.

      “Sugar, where’re you going?”

      He ignored Candy’s question and kept walking.

      The man came to her almost as if in a dream. Ashlynne hadn’t realized he was here at first; she seemed able to do nothing but kneel on the rutted, frozen ground and stare at Ian’s prone body. And cry. The tears, though, had begun to dry the moment she’d sensed another presence next to her.

      Never cry in front of strangers.

      Ashlynne could hear Grandmother Mackenzie’s admonishment as though the old woman remained of this earth and stood here, right next to her. She didn’t; the old woman had passed on years ago. Ashlynne was alone now, so how could she possibly take Grandmother’s advice? Everything was wrong—terribly, terribly wrong—and it would never be right again.

      Ashlynne’s dilemma didn’t seem to matter to the man who crouched next to her. He refused to be denied, instead urging her to her feet and away from…here and Ian. She heard the words and even understood his meaning, and yet she couldn’t move.

      She could do nothing.