Fugitive Hearts Read online

  Fugitive Hearts

  Steam! Romance and Rails, Book 4

  E.E. Burke

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Author’s Note

  Afterword

  Also by E.E. Burke

  About the Author

  Copyright 2014

  E.E. Burke

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  Fugitive Hearts is a work of fiction. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Cover Design by Erin Dameron-Hill

  Train photography by Matthew Malkiewicz

  * * *

  Published by E.E. Burke

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-9898192-7-5

  Paperback book ISBN: 978-0-9898192-8-2

  www.eeburke.com

  To my children, who taught me how to love as only a mother can love.

  Chapter 1

  Parsons, Kansas, March 3, 1874

  “Sheriff, I killed my husband.”

  The honeyed voice was familiar. What she said sounded like pure nonsense. That, or he’d misunderstood.

  Frank Garrity raised his head from where he’d laid it on his arms after he got too tired to hold it up. He dragged open eyelids as heavy as wet canvas and squinted at a fuzzy, feminine image clothed in pure white.

  God above. An angel.

  The smell of cheap cigars and even cheaper whiskey convinced him he was still in the saloon, therefore amongst the living. He’d slipped into another drunken delusion. He only thought he saw an angel who’d confessed to murder.

  Something about this specter looked more substantial, and far more appealing, than the others that haunted his dreams. A wealth of dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, past the point where the scarred tabletop concealed her lower half, keeping the rest of her a tantalizing secret.

  If inebriation brought on angelic visions like this one, he’d have another drink.

  He curled his hand around the empty whiskey bottle. Couldn’t recall finishing it. Regret flickered, briefly. He didn’t drink this much, as a habit. Only on days when guilt overwhelmed his good sense and he could find no other way to obliterate the pain.

  God might’ve sent this angel to warn him not to overindulge.

  “Did you hear me?” The angel’s dulcet voice wavered. “I shot Frederick.”

  “Who?” Frank shook his head, confused. The only Frederick he knew lived next door with his wife—

  The whiskey-drenched fog cleared.

  So did his vision.

  Frank jerked his attention to her face and shock struck him square in the chest.

  Claire.

  She wasn’t a vision or an angel. Not the supernatural kind, at any rate. She ran the hotel next door. He hadn’t recognized her right off because she didn’t have on a dress.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

  Nope. She was still standing there, trembling, wearing her nightgown and a thin wrap.

  The proper lady he knew wouldn’t be caught dead in a saloon, much less looking like she’d just crawled out of bed. Her hair hung in loose disarray. An unhealthy flush beneath her skin coupled with the wild look in her eyes conveyed she might be in distress.

  She thrust her arms at him, turning up delicate wrists, pale and blue-veined. Her slender fingers curled inward as if to cradle something fragile. “I-I want to turn myself in.”

  The poor woman’s mind had snapped.

  Frank came to his feet so fast his chair flew back. It clattered to the floor, all the louder because the noise broke a hushed silence in the crowded barroom.

  No tinkling piano. No clinking glasses. No catcalls. Not even a giggle came from the serving girl, who stood a few feet away, wide-eyed and stock-still.

  He stumbled against the table, then wheeled around to where the crazy woman stood with her arms outstretched, like she expected him to slap manacles on her.

  By God, he had to get her home before the whole damn town witnessed her madness.

  He stripped off his heavy overcoat—her thin wrap didn’t stand a chance against the freezing temperatures outside—and flung it around her shoulders. Then he hauled her up against his side and made for the door in as close to a beeline as he could manage.

  Not too roostered. He hadn’t fallen over, and only weaved slightly.

  She slipped her arm around his waist, as if she feared he might fall on top of her, or worse, she could catch him if he did.

  “Dang it, woman. Let me do the rescuing.” He swept her up into his arms as he reached the front of the saloon, where a soot-faced railroader opened the door as courteously as a butler.

  A frigid blast struck Frank in the face. He sucked in a sharp breath. That cleared his head.

  The fragrant, feminine bundle in his arms squirmed. “Sheriff Garrity, put me down! I said you should arrest me, not accost me!”

  “Takin’ you home,” he muttered. He shifted her slight, curvaceous form into a more secure position—she weighed no more than his tack. Then he set off for the hotel, near the railroad depot, on the busiest street in Parsons.

  It wasn’t far. Just next door to the left. Or was it on the right?

  He veered left, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other, and prayed he wouldn’t trip and drop her on the sidewalk. Faint light from a quarter moon illuminated the filthy planks. No clouds, no snow, but jeezus it was cold. March had roared into Kansas with the fury of a cornered mountain lion.

  The frantic woman in his arms finally stopped wiggling and sagged against him. Her teeth chattered, despite her body feeling pretty warm for only being in her nightclothes. She peeked over the lapels of the heavy coat he’d wrapped her up in. “Wh-where are you t-taking me? T-to jail?”

  “Home,” he repeated.

  “But, I killed my husband.”

  Her woeful confession set Frank’s teeth on edge. “Right now, all I care about is getting you back where you belong and warmed up. I’ll worry about your dead husband later.”

  She buried her face in his chest.

  He hadn’t meant to sound so callous. Something terrible must’ve happened if her sanity had gone this far off the tracks.

  Sadness coated his numb heart. Mrs. Claire Daines was the most levelheaded woman he knew. Her visionary brother had put up a fancy hotel out in the middle of nowhere, betting his railroad would fill it. The
n Claire had moved out here with her husband and made the place a success, with her gracious hospitality and feminine touches. Every traveler wanted to stay at the Belmont House. The hotel was always full, even in the midst of an economic depression.

  Maybe she and her husband had experienced unexpected financial difficulties. The hermit had gone off his rocker and killed himself. She felt guilty. Frank had seen that happen before.

  He’d seen too many tragedies that made no sense, which was why he’d stopped trying to figure them out. He did what he could do something about. Enforce the law and serve justice. His job didn’t include arresting a genteel woman with an overactive conscience.

  Frank bumped into an oaken and etched-glass door. “Here we are.” He searched for the handle with his fingers. Used the toe of his boot to coax the door open. Once they were inside, he’d put her down.

  Half a dozen men milled about the lobby, which was situated between an ornate mahogany reception desk and a carpeted stairway to the second floor.

  The distraught woman put her arms around his neck and hid her face in his shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” he murmured reassuringly. “I won’t leave you out here in your nightclothes. Where are your quarters?”

  “Upstairs, in the back,” came the muffled reply.

  The anxious guests converged on Frank about the time a clock started chiming.

  “We heard a gunshot.”

  Chime.

  “There’s a dead man up there.”

  Chime.

  “Are you the sheriff?”

  Chime.

  “Thank you. I know. Yes.” Frank fired off short answers without slowing down to talk. He’d take Claire to her rooms and learn what happened first-hand before he started interviews.

  As he climbed the stairs, the chimes stopped. Eleven. When he got a moment, he’d need to jot down the time in the small notebook he carried in his pocket.

  The woman in his arms still shivered, despite the air being warmer inside. Maybe it wasn’t from cold as much as shock. If her husband had ended his life in front of her, that would explain her fragile state and bizarre behavior.

  Frank had been acquainted with the hotel’s gracious owner for the past two years. In all that time he’d never seen Claire leave the hotel with so much as a hair out of place.

  Her reclusive husband, on the other hand, could be a ghost for all he knew. The invalid never left their suite. He didn’t even go to church on Sundays. According to his wife, he suffered from war injuries and had trouble getting out. She took care of him without complaint while running a busy hotel and, more recently, taking in an orphaned boy. “Where’s Billy?”

  “In bed,” came her muffled reply.

  Odd. Nobody else seemed to be.

  Apprehensive guests peeked out of their rooms. They held lamps and candles aloft. The lights cast eerie shadows on their faces and across the rose-patterned paper that lined the hallway.

  Frank held the trembling woman closer. Not because he felt more protective toward her than he would any other distraught lady. He’d keep telling himself that until he believed it.

  When he’d passed the last guest room and a flickering light in a gas lamp on the wall, he came to the first room without a number. Near the end of the hall, a door stood ajar. The owner’s rooms.

  He hesitated. It might be too much for her if he took her inside and she saw her dead husband again. “Is there somewhere else you can wait while I take a look inside?”

  “Jail,” she murmured, in a resigned tone.

  He huffed with annoyance. “Stop talking about going to jail. You need a doctor.”

  “I’m not sick.”

  “Is there a cure for hardheaded?”

  With his elbow, he nudged open the door. Cold air escaped the dark room. His nostrils flared at a charred odor. “Smells like something burned.”

  Frank stepped inside. He set his charge on her feet. She maintained a fixed stare. It reminded him of an expression on the faces of young soldiers who’d gotten their first taste of war.

  Without thinking, he cupped his hand on her head and gently stroked her disheveled hair. Desire buzzed through him. He’d never touched her before tonight, but had wondered what might happen if he did. Now, he knew. Didn’t come as a surprise.

  He dropped his hand to his side. “I have to look around. Wait here.”

  She didn’t speak. He got a nod.

  The room was awful dark. He fumbled in his pocket for a pack of lucifers and struck one.

  A quick survey revealed singed curtains fluttering over a partially opened window. That explained the chill and the smell. Some papers were strewn around. Nearby, a candle lay on the wood floor in a puddle of water.

  The match burned his fingers. Frank shook it out.

  Fortunately, someone had put out the fire before it took hold. A blaze could’ve burned down the building in no time.

  He retrieved the candle. After a few matches, he got the damp wick dry enough to light it, wedged the taper into its stand and set it on the desk.

  That’s when he saw the body.

  A man wearing a night robe lay sprawled face down on a floral rug.

  Frank squatted by the still figure. He detected a faint scent of gunpowder and a sharper stench that indicated the loss of bodily functions. No pulse, mottled skin, ice cold…

  He rolled the dead man over onto his back. The body remained flaccid, which meant he couldn’t have been dead for long. Less than a couple hours.

  Sightless eyes stared upward. Blood and powder burns stained his white nightshirt around a neat hole drilled in his chest. Whoever shot him had been standing close, but it didn’t look close enough to be a self-inflicted wound.

  Frank’s heart commenced to pound. Every thudding beat resounded in his head and a bitter taste filled his mouth. The effects of the whiskey. He’d seen more than his share of dead bodies, in much worse condition than this one.

  He drew a deep breath and released it. Forced his mind to focus. He couldn’t allow anything to cloud his thinking—not the smell of death, not the whiskey he’d downed that threatened to come up, not even his sympathy for the young widow.

  Mr. Daines had been shot through the heart. His wife had admitted to killing him. One question remained. Why?

  Frank stood slowly. The poor woman hadn’t moved from where he’d left her just inside the door. “Mrs. Daines, your husband’s dead,” he said as kindly as possible. He figured she knew this, but confirmed it anyway.

  Her features twisted in an agonized grimace. Her delayed reaction could mean her husband’s violent death hadn’t really sunk in until now, regardless of how much she’d talked about it. She would come out of the trance she’d been in and would get hysterical.

  Frank stepped into her line of vision. “Don’t look at him. Look at me.”

  She closed her eyes and shook her head. Her dark hair rippled all the way to her knees. He lifted a silky strand out of her eyes, couldn’t resist touching it. He’d never seen her with her hair down, much less looking disheveled, and so vulnerable.

  A sense of powerless came over him. He had to do something to aid her. He adjusted his bulky overcoat around her shoulders and drew it closed to protect her modesty. She’d buttoned the nightgown clear up to her chin.

  His heart gave an odd jerk. He lifted his arms to open them to her, then caught himself at the last second. Whether he’d meant to hold her or comfort her, it was so far beyond propriety didn’t bear considering. He had no excuse other than being drunk, and even that wasn’t a valid reason.

  Thankfully, she still had her eyes closed and hadn’t noticed. As much as he pitied her, or yearned to hold her, it wasn’t his job to comfort her. He had a responsibility to find out why she’d killed her husband.

  “Can you answer a few questions?”

  Keeping her eyes shut, she nodded.

  “You shot him?”

  Another nod.

  “Why?”

  The widow put h
er hands over her face. “I didn’t mean to.”

  An accident. This made sense. He didn’t believe she’d kill a fly in cold blood. Engulfed in his oversized coat, she looked so small, not even strong enough to pull back the hammer.

  Frank perused the room. A table by the sofa knocked out of place, loose papers scattered on the floor, an overturned candle, all indicated a struggle had taken place.

  “Did you two have an argument?” he asked.

  Her fingers opened slightly to allow her to peek out from between them. “Yes, no… I-I struck the table when I ran out the door.”

  Understandable, given her state of mind. “The papers? And candle?”

  “I’m clumsy.”

  He wouldn’t have thought that. She had a graceful way of moving, at least that’s what he’d noticed. Along with other things he had no business noticing. He also knew her to be scrupulously honest, so he would set aside his doubt. For now.

  “Where’s the gun?”

  “Gun?” She said it like she’d never heard the word before.

  “Pistol. Revolver. What you used to shoot him.”

  “I don’t…remember where I left it.”

  A terrible shock could do that to a person, make them forget. He hadn’t felt a gun when he’d carried her over here. He crossed his arms over his chest so he wouldn’t be tempted to check. “What do you remember?”

  She met his question with a blank look.