The Unlikely Groom

Chapter Two

T he Star of the North went abruptly silent and the air grew thick with tension. Lucas didn’t have to wonder why. Anyone who’d spent more than a day in Skagway would know that, chances were, Soapy Smith or one of his 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.

He wanted her to leave, to go away with him. But she couldn’t! Not yet. That would mean leaving Ian lying in the road, alone and cold and…dead.

Ashlynne gasped and choked back a new sob that suddenly threatened. Dead? It couldn’t be so! There must be some mistake, she told herself frantically. She must have come out of that last saloon and stepped into the wrong place, like Alice through the looking glass.

“Ashlynne.” The man knew her name. How was that possible? But he touched her and her curiosity dissolved like a fleeting wisp of smoke. He took her arm and encouraged her to stand. “You can’t stay here like this. Come with me.”

“I can’t!” She jerked her arm from his grasp. “I can’t just leave Ian alone here. Not like this.”

Inexorably he took her arm again. “He won’t be alone. I promise you. Look, here’s Reverend Dickey now. He’ll take care of Ian. Won’t you, preacher?”

“Of course.”

A new voice entered the conversation, the tone gentle but no less firm. A hand patted her shoulder lightly with a touch that reassured, completely unlike the tempered steel of the other man’s grip. “You go with Mr. Templeton now and leave everything else to me.”

She heard the plea, but she couldn’t bring herself to move. She didn’t look at either man, could only stare into the shadows that surrounded Ian’s body and hid the finer details of his face, his form. Could it be…what if he wasn’t really dead! He might be only asleep or wounded—badly, of course, but still alive. If they could find a doctor, he could heal any injury Ian had suffered and prove that this was all just some terrible mistake.

With new hope in place, Ashlynne reached anxiously for her brother. Her hand trembled as though palsied.

“Come on, Ashlynne,” urged the man, Templeton. His tone was as unyielding as she’d ever heard and it carried none of the underlying kindness of Reverend Dickey. It was Templeton who pulled her to her feet.

“We can’t do anything for Ian now,” he added, “but the preacher here can see that everything’s taken care of.”

Everything would be taken care of? The idea carried with it an odd giddiness and hope flickered to life as she snagged onto the reassurance of it. “You’re sure?” She hardly recognized the sound of her voice, thick with unshed tears and quivering with uncertainty. “Ian and…everything?”

“I’m sure.”

Everything would be taken care of.

The possibility drew her like a freezing man to the blaze of a fire. But could she truly leave Ian’s body in the hands of strangers? It didn’t seem right somehow. She would have never considered such a thing in San Francisco.

But in San Francisco, she wouldn’t have been surrounded by strangers. In San Francisco, this never would have happened.

Everything would be taken care of. The weak part of her, the weary soul scraped raw, urged her to say yes. She longed to have someone’s help, even if for just a little while. A little while in which she didn’t have to think, plan, decide. A little while for her to find the strength to regain her bearings. If she could do that, she would be all right again. She was certain of it.

She had to be.

But could she trust these men? Certainly if anyone could help Ian now, it would be a minister. And she remembered Templeton. He was the man from the Star of the North. That had been the only saloon where someone had spoken to her in a way other than to make a vulgar comment or crude invitation about how she might spend the rest of the night.

Lucas Templeton might not have been precisely a gentleman, but he hadn’t propositioned her, either.

Ashlynne found herself moving, as though prodded to it by her thoughts. She stepped back but then stopped at the last moment to stare down at Ian’s body. It was only a shell, she reminded herself halfheartedly as she recalled the lessons of other ministers when she had faced other deaths. It was empty now and no longer housed all that had made her brother the unique person he’d been.

“Goodbye, Ian,” she whispered, and the wind carried away the soft sound. “I’m sorry.” An arm encircled her shoulders loosely, and then Lucas Templeton led her away from Reverend Dickey and Ian and the remains of their shattered dreams.

She accompanied Templeton blindly, simply putting one foot in front of the other in a semblance of walking that seemed to satisfy him. And she found the movement worked to her advantage, as well. It gave her a new sense of purpose, an activity that she didn’t have to think about. As long as she continued to move, her mind and body remained occupied.

“Be careful.” Lucas spoke close to her ear and his arm tightened around her shoulders as he led her up onto the wooden planks of the boardwalk.

She followed without comment or hesitation. For the moment she could think of nothing more than holding herself together. Guarding herself until she could find a stoic facade to present to the outside world.

She was a Mackenzie, after all, and there were certain rules to be followed whenever trouble threatened: hide your tears, show only your strength, never retreat and, oddly enough, live life to the fullest. She’d never been particularly good at any of those things, but surely she could manage it this time. Somehow.

This time she needed at least the appearance of maintaining her composure as she never had before.

“Here.”

Lucas took hold of her elbow and steered her through an open doorway. A blazing chandelier bestowed a sudden shock of light all around her and Ashlynne blinked. The Star of the North. She recognized the place immediately. It had been no more than an hour since she’d been here and it looked exactly the same. Ridiculously normal. The only difference she could see was that most of the earlier patrons were gone. They had all gone outside to see—

No. Don’t remember it now. Put it from your mind. First, you must find your strength. The rest will be waiting when you’re ready for it.

The advice echoed in her mind and, for a moment, she could almost believe that it was Grandfather Mackenzie who stood next to her this time. He would have given her that guidance exactly so, had he been here.

He wasn’t, of course. Granddad had been gone for more than five years now, Grandmother even longer. They’d welcomed her parents to that celestial plane more than six months ago and now Ian would join them. They had all gone, left Ashlynne alone and—

Stop it! For God’s sake, just stop thinking!

She listened to her better judgment because she could do nothing else. If she didn’t, she’d fly apart into a thousand pieces that could never again be fitted together. Desperately she followed Lucas as he wound his way through the scattered maze of tables and chairs, until he stopped at one that looked just like all the others.

He pulled out a chair. “Sit down.”

It was simpler to follow his instruction than to argue, and she had no words in any case. She had decided not to think—and it was just as well. Her legs felt suddenly weak, her knees on the verge of collapse. She’d kept herself moving through the street by sheer force of will, but now, when presented with another choice, her physical strength deserted her without warning. She sat down hard on the plain wooden chair.

“Do you want to take off your cloak?”

Ashlynne looked down at herself. The heavy woolen cloak—one of her few purchases for this trip to Alaska—covered her from neck to ankle, and suddenly she’d never been so grateful for a garment. It felt…good, heavy. Its weight somehow gave her a sense of security that otherwise seemed missing. She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, as though warning Lucas not to force the issue.

He didn’t. In fact, he walked away and left her sitting alone.

Seizing any distraction, Ashlynne watched Lucas as he approached the bar. He moved with a casual grace that came unexpected from a man of his size. She’d thought the same thing when she’d first seen him and the impact hardly lessened upon second notice.

How was it, she wondered, that he had been the one to come to her aid? No one else had. Peripherally she’d been aware of others who’d stood around her in the street, staring and whispering among themselves, but none of them had approached her. Then Lucas had been there, kneeling next to her, and he’d helped her away from there. He’d seen to it that the reverend would take care of Ian, and he’d provided a safe place for her in the warmth and comfort of the Star of the North.

A saloon, she reminded herself.

The truth—that she found herself in this place again—hovered just beyond her ability to do something about it. It was wrong; she knew it with a vague uneasiness. She should have been aware of other emotions to concern her, as well, but…there was nothing. Rather, an ephemeral discomfort merely taunted her with the elusive impression of her complete and utter failure.

She had let Ian down and now she was a disappointment to herself, as well.

And still, she couldn’t do anything to change what had happened.

“Here.”

Ashlynne blinked, grateful for the diversion. Lucas stood next to the table, pointing to a steaming mug waiting on the table directly in front of her. She stared at it as though not quite comprehending exactly what it meant.

“Drink it. It’ll help.”

She nodded, not certain that he was right but touched by the gesture all the same. She recalled other times, when friends and relatives had made the same kind of offer or she’d done something similar for them. Remembering it now, she doubted that it had been of any real help. Still, it had been kinder than nothing at all.

Slowly, Ashlynne reached for the cup and slipped her not-quite-steady finger through the handle. Coffee. She could smell it, see a sliver of steam waft upward. She curled her fingers around the warm mug and brought it close enough to peer inside.