Page 76 of A Steadfast Heart
The word bounced around inside his head, stinging like nettles every place it landed.
“I need to see about getting my boys out of here.” Quade’s voice rubbed salt into every nettle sting. “They were only trying to help that young lady, after all.”
Ed joined Nick and Drew at the wall of bars. Too close. He couldn’t breathe. Drew stepped back and sat on the cot, needing the small separation from his hovering brothers.
“When is Danna getting back?”
Ed’s question sounded as if it came from a thousand miles away. Drew shook his head, trying to drown out that word.Mistake.It echoed in his mind. He’d trusted another city woman and brought his brothers to this jail cell.
Wallace turned to Ed. “I don’t know.” The deputy’s tone was sharp. He faced Quade. “I have witnesses that say McGraw threw the first punch, that he and his brothers instigated the brawl.”
Drew’s eyes slid closed. Of course they had. Because Michael had been threatening Kaitlyn, and they would always protect their own.
Or one they thought of as their own.
Images flashed through his mind. He hadn’t had a clear view of her. Had she really been struggling?
Wallace’s voice tugged him back to the present. “But your men outnumbered them. They chose to continue throwing punches when restraining the McGraws would have been sufficient.”
Quade nodded. “I understand. If you have to keep them all here until Danna gets back, I can live with that.”
“Boss!” Conchas moved forward in his own cell. “You didn’t say nuttin’—”
“Shut it, Riley. You made your bed.” Quade tossed a gloating look toward the McGraws, then faced Wallace. “There’s no urgent work on my spread. No major deadline. Be a shame if there was over at the McGraw place.”
Ed shook the cell bars. “You low-down skunk.”
Quade slipped out the front door.
The nettle stings in Drew’s chest became raw burns. Ed was going to lose his homestead. They wouldn’t be out of this cell in time to meet the deadline.
And Quade had been a part of it all.
Nick sat beside him and laid a hand on Drew’s shoulder. “Isaac is still there. He can finish it. There’s not much left.”
Drew shook his head. “You think Isaac will leave us here while he works on the cabin? When we don’t come home, he’ll come looking for us.”
Nick shook his hand back and forth. Drew nodded. He thought it was about a fifty-fifty chance as well.
Conchas moved toward the bars separating the two cells and grinned. “Be a right shame for a half-built house to catch fire,” he muttered.
Ed launched himself toward the cowhand, who snickered as he stepped back out of reach.
“Get back from those bars, McGraw,” the deputy roared.
Nick turned to Drew, his face pale. “If Kaitlyn’s gone, where are the kids?”
* * *
How did I end up here?
Kaitlyn shifted in her seat next to Michael. This train was taking her to prison. No one was going to save her, not even herself. Not at the price of the children.
The young boy in the seat across the aisle from them was restless after a couple of hours on the train. He stepped into the aisle and bumped into Michael. Her brother shoved him back a step.
The boy ran to his mother, who held him close while she glared at Michael.
Kaitlyn had held Tillie like that. The night Kaitlyn had packed her trunk, Tillie had cried, not wanting Kaitlyn to leave. Would she remember Kaitlyn telling her that no matter what, it wasn’t her fault? She hoped so.
