They had to be getting close to Cartwright, if the sun was any indication, and Micah lifted his left wrist to look at his watch when the stage slowed quickly - too quickly for his comfort. Shouting up front preceded the sound of a gunshot as Ellie jolted awake. Wyatt had already grabbed his pistol and was out the door, the papers he’d been studying tossed across the bench he’d been sitting on and the floor at his feet.
“Ellie, get down onto the floor and don’t get up for any reason.” His heart thudded, but he had to keep his wits about him. “Wyatt’s armed, so’s the shotgun rider and driver, but I’m going to see if they need help.” Was it as simple as a stage robbery, or did they know Ellie and Micah were coming into town? Wyatt had jumped out so quickly. Had he been involved?
He didn’t know, but he planned to find out. Ellie opened her mouth to argue, but Micah silenced her by pressing his lips to hers in a kiss far too short if it was to be their last. “Please,” hewhispered as tears filled her eyes. “Get down and stay down. For me.”
She nodded, not speaking while her eyes told him everything she was feeling. A tear rolled over onto her cheek as Micah wrenched open the door and hopped onto the ground. Closing it firmly behind him, Micah pulled his pistol in time to hear another shot fired, and he pressed himself against the coach to get a better handle on what was happening.
The driver sat beside the coach, a little blood blooming onto his shirt, but the wound didn’t look too deep. Stepping forward cautiously, Micah could hardly believe his eyes at the sight.
Wyatt had pulled his bandana over his face, and Micah’s eyes narrowed until he realized the seasoned cowboy had already put a bullet in the leg of the lone gunman. Wyatt and the shotgun rider had already tied the gunman’s hands behind his back while he lay bleeding from his leg on the ground.
“You can talk to the lawmen when you get to Cartwright,” Wyatt growled as he yanked the man up to a kneeling position and ignored his screams. Was he a lawman? “Thankfully, you won’t have far to ride.” Wyatt looked up, spotting Micah by the coach. “Sutton, come help me get this gentleman tied over one of the horses. Don’t reckon his leg’s gonna hold out long enough to make him walk.”
Micah quickly moved into action as the shotgun rider went to check on the stage driver. He’d been hit, but thankfully it was nothing more than a graze, and they were only a few minutes from town. If Callie had been there, she’d have insisted on cleaning the wound before they continued moving, but all Micah wanted to do was get out of the ravine they currently sat in and to less vulnerable ground.
Hills rose up on either side, beautiful, but giving bad actors a perfect vantage point to ambush them if they were so inclined. Micah didn’t like that idea, so he was motivated to move asquickly as he could to help Wyatt secure the man. He wanted to take justice into his own hands and demand to know if someone had sent him, but something held him back.
Once they got the shooter strapped in, Wyatt nodded his thanks to Micah. “Go check on your wife. I doubt she’s been involved in many shootouts.” Again, the recognition gleamed, but Micah had to trust the man who’d apprehended their attacker didn’t mean them harm.
“She’s been through a lot worse than that, but if I have anything to say about it, she never will again.”
Respect and something else showed on the small bit of the man’s face Micah could see, and he nodded. “Then I’d suggest you two not stay in Cartwright any longer than you have to. Let me gather my things, and I'll walk the rest of the distance to make sure this one doesn’t get any bright ideas.” He’d already disarmed the shooter, but Micah appreciated the extra measure of security.
By the time the two of them reached the stage door, Ellie had moved to a sitting position on the floor. Her head whipped up, eyes wide with fear as her whole body shook. In her hand was one of the papers Wyatt had dropped. The man behind him let out a puff of breath, and Micah’s hand went back to his pistol. “What’s that, Ellie?”
“It’s a file,” she ground out. “With my name and the details of my trust all over it.”
Micah whipped around, unholstering his pistol as Wyatt’s hands went up in surrender. “Guess it’s time I fully introduce myself before your husband puts a bullet in me. My name is Wyatt Edwards, Mrs. Sutton, and I’m the judge assigned to your case.”
Chapter Fifteen
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ellie and Micah stood outside her grandfather’s home. They wouldn’t be staying there, but something in her needed to return and show the place it had no more power over her. She’d never return to California, not if she could help it, so this was her last time.
She’d known Judge Coin planned to send Judge Edwards a letter and some information ahead of them, but somehow meeting Wyatt Edwards made the whole thing feel real. Both he and Micah agreed it was a possibility someone had tipped Percival off to their arrival, but there was also the chance the stage hold up was simply random.
Staring over the black, wrought iron fence at the large Victorian style house brought her less anxiety than she might’ve thought. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, staring down the space her grandfather had built for the sake of showing it off and lording his wealth over the town, but she wasn’t the same Ellie who’dbeen carried from Cartwright in little more than a gunny sack by men who only wanted something from her.
No, between the Lord’s grace, Micah’s gentle care, and finally having friends who accepted her as she was, her shoulders sat higher. “I’m sure. I…I need to do this.”
Squeezing her hand in his, something she hoped would bring her this much peace for the rest of her life, Micah nodded. “Then let’s go. Do you think anyone’s been staying here since you left?”
The place didn’t look abandoned. The shrubs and flowers had been trimmed, and nothing had been allowed to become overgrown the way she might’ve expected. The rose garden was immaculate as always, something Grandfather said every house with means ought to have. Because of his thoughts on the particular flower, roses weren’t her favorite.
She’d only been gone for a few months, but apparently there was some staff employed, if the condition of the place was any indication. “His will included a stipend to keep the house up after his death, and it’s where I lived until Brent brought me to Cloverdale. I’m not sure if the staff is still there, but it looks like someone’s been here.”
At the time, she’d wondered why Grandfather would continue paying the staff, but now she wondered if it was all part of his grand plan to have her lose her inheritance and the money all go to Percival. The idea made her sick, but to this point she hadn’t actually laid eyes on the man who’d always made her feel so slimy.
Micah kept his head on a swivel, looking around lest the man who’d tried to hold up their stage had accomplices. Judge Edwards had taken him in to the lawmen in Cartwright for questioning, and Ellie knew Micah suspected he’d been a hired gun. She lifted the lock on the gate when a familiar voice, the only friendly one she heard after Mama died, yelled her name.
“Ellie Cartwright?!” Ellie’s head whipped around the same time Micah’s free hand went to his gun, but he relaxed when they both saw the now elderly woman whose salt and pepper hair and fine lines only served to make her more beautiful in Ellie’s view. “Is that you, honey?”
“Miss Lutken,” Ellie choked out with a sob as she ran into her old tutor’s arms. “You’re still here?” Grandfather hadn’t allowed her to see the woman after she’d finished her school when both her biblical education and steady stream of art supplies had all fallen by the wayside.
“I sure am, and I have been worried sick about you since I heard you up and left town so abruptly. There was even a rumor you’d been kidnapped,” she said before apparently finally noticing Micah and narrowing her eyes at him. “I’ve been praying for your safety everyday.”
Miss Lutken looked as though she was ready to tackle Micah to the ground and tell Ellie to run for it, but Ellie giggled and reached back for the man who’d become such a source of peace and joy for her. The idea of the five foot nothing woman doing so brought on a bit of the laughter. “Unfortunately, you heard right. A group of the miners captured me and had a mind to marry me for my inheritance.” There was more to the story, but she didn’t feel like rehashing it all. “Micah and his brothers here rescued me from where I’d been held near their ranch in Texas.” Technically, the mine shaft was on their land, but it was another detail she didn’t particularly want to explain. “We married, and I’m very happy with him. We’re here in town to try to get the judge to have them release my trust. If he doesn’t, we’ll go back home, and it’ll all be over.”
Micah, his gun reholstered, wrapped one arm around Ellie’s shoulders while sticking the other out to shake Miss Lutken’s hand. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Lutken. I’d like to personally thank you for being so kind to Ellie over the years. I hear you’rethe one we have to thank for both her knowledge of the Almighty and her love of art. She’s growing in both again, and I’ll forever be thankful to ya for that.”
