Abbie's Outlaw. Victoria Bylin

said. “I’d rather drink the whiskey, but what can it hurt?”

      Doc Randall harrumphed. “It’s gonna hurt plenty. Do you want her to treat this wound, or me?”

      Abbie forced herself to sound reasonable. “If you don’t take precautions, that cut will get infected. Even with whiskey, it might go bad.”

      “It’s a waste of good liquor,” said Randall.

      John shrugged. “It’s my call, Doc. Just do it.”

      With a disgusted grunt, the doctor took the bottle and poured the alcohol on the wound without a warning. John cried out and clutched at the floor, but there was nothing to squeeze. Abbie felt his pain as if it were her own. She had learned to tend the injuries that Robert inflicted, and she’d screamed for two days while giving birth to Robbie. She’d been torn nearly in two, but what hurt even more was never having another child. With tears rising in her eyes, she rocked forward and took John’s hand in both of hers. “It’ll be over soon,” she crooned. “Just hang on.”

      His fingers tightened around hers. “Don’t let go.”

      “I won’t.”

      His pupils had dilated with pain. If she could have rocked him in her arms, she would have done it. She hated suffering of any kind, but especially when the victim had been struck down while protecting the innocent.

      All sorts of words were pouring from the Reverend’s lips. Some were the prayers she would have expected from a man of the cloth, but others were bitter. In that mix of faith and human failing, she saw both the gunslinger she’d known in Kansas and the man he’d become. She wasn’t sure what to make of the differences.

      As the stinging passed, John composed himself, though he didn’t let go of her hand until Doc Randall took the last stitch.

      “That should do it,” said the older man. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”

      John pushed to a sitting position. “We’ll be at the parsonage.”

      Abbie was about to renew their argument about where to stay when Doc Randall interrupted. “Sally’s got room for you. It’s time you let your friends take care you.”

      When John clutched his side and pushed to his feet, Abbie knew that Doc Randall had lost the argument. Wise or not, John was going home alone and Abbie wondered why. Did he still have nightmares, the shaming kind where he cried out in his sleep? Or maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of fleas and scratchy sheets.

      Abbie knew in her soul that living under his roof was asking for trouble. It wasn’t just the way his eyes turned hungry when he looked at her. It was knowing she could still sense his thoughts and he could sense hers. A long time ago, they’d been that close…she’d held his hand while he’d told her how his father would beat him with a shovel and his mother had walked away. She had rubbed his back and fed him apple pie…

      “Abbie? Did you hear me?” John asked.

      “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

      “I said Doc’s going to drive me home in his buggy. I’d appreciate it if you and Beth would come with me, but I won’t ask twice.”

      But he had asked twice in Kansas. He’d asked her for more than she had been ready to give. Would he do it again? She didn’t think so, but it didn’t matter. She’d be a fool to make herself vulnerable to the man with her daughter’s brown eyes.

      But she’d be something even worse if she didn’t help him—a coward, and an ungrateful one at that. The blood on the floor would have been hers if he hadn’t kicked down the door. And if the wound became infected as she feared, he’d be suffering for days and even facing death. The thought made Abbie tremble with dread. Susanna had a right to meet her father, and Abbie owed him her life.

      Looking at John, she said, “I’ll walk over with Beth and Robbie.”

      He gave her a curt nod. “The front door’s unlocked. Just make yourselves comfortable upstairs.”

      Her whole body tensed at the thought of sharing his house, but how difficult could it be? He’d probably dose up on laudanum and sleep like a baby. At least that’s what she hoped.

      Chapter Four

      “Sam, get that broom moving.”

      “Yes, sir,” replied Susanna, being careful to deepen her voice.

      After arriving in Bitterroot three days ago, she had been lucky to find a job in Harlan Walker’s barbershop where she could listen to the customers gossip. So far, no one had said anything about John Leaf, and Susanna wasn’t sure what to ask. Thanks to Mr. Walker’s kindness, she could bide her time. He and his wife had insisted that “Sam” sleep in the back room, and Mrs. Walker had fed her big suppers. The home-cooked meals made Susanna miss her mother, but she wasn’t sorry she had run away. She needed to meet John Leaf to be sure that she wasn’t like him.

      Her worry had started the night two thugs attacked Robert Windsor in front of their house. Susanna didn’t know much about politics, but she’d heard rumors that he had taken bribes, and that the attack had been payback for a law that didn’t pass. She had heard it all from her window, including the snap of his neck as he’d hit the brick planter. For three days he had lain in his bed, paralyzed and dying. He’d talked first to her mother and then to Robbie. As always, Susanna had been last.

      You’re not my daughter. There’s a leather pouch in my desk. That’s all I have to give you. What did a girl say to such a declaration? Susanna still didn’t know.

      As she pushed the broom across the floor, she wished she had asked the man who’d raised her to tell her more, but she’d been too stunned to say anything. In the middle of the night, she had retrieved the pouch and taken it to her room where she’d read reports written by a Pinkerton’s detective.

      Truth had a way of singing for Susanna. Sometimes she recognized it in the mournful song of the birds her mother fed on their back porch. Other times she heard it in the rattle of a window holding tight against a storm. That night, she had heard the truth in the hammering of her own heart. All her life she had been told she resembled a long-dead grandmother. She didn’t fit anywhere, and now she knew why. She was the daughter of a killer—a man who had sold his gun and taken lives, including those of Ben Gantry’s sons.

      As she swept a wad of hair into the dustpan, Susanna weighed the evidence against John Leaf. The Gantry boys had been her age. The oldest, Eli, had been fifteen. His brothers, Zach and Orley, had been fourteen and twelve. Susanna’s knuckles turned white on the broom handle. John Leaf’s blood ran in her veins, and she hated him for what he’d done. He’d hurt her mother, too. They had done the thing that grown-ups did in the dark and then he’d left.

      With the smell of hair tonic filling her nose, Susanna worried that his meanness lived inside her. Why else would she have said such hateful things to her mother over an algebra exam? Susanna had gotten a bad grade, not because she couldn’t do the work, but because she didn’t care. Her mother had been firm.

      Your schooling is important, sweetie. I want you to have the choices I didn’t have.

      But I don’t want to be you! You’re weak and stupid!

      Shocked at herself, Susanna had fled to her room and beat her fists on her pillow. She felt as if she’d been taken over by a monster. When her mother had come upstairs carrying hot chocolate and saying she understood Susanna was angry about her “father’s” death, the monster had roared even louder. Who’s John Leaf? But the question had stayed on her tongue, burning like too much salt.

      How could she trust her mother to tell to the truth? Susanna had known since she was small that her mother had secrets. Sometimes she had bruises on her arms, and once she had come downstairs with a black eye and said she’d walked into a door. Had John Leaf hurt her mother like her so-called father had? Was that why her mother had left him? Or had he left them?

      Susanna