Hank was gone. As she slipped into her clothes, she heard voices coming from the kitchen.
“Now Hank, we’ve done all we can do.” The sheriff’s deep baritone voice rattled through the house.
Aggie slipped on her boots. She heard Hank, but couldn’t make out his words.
As she hurried from the bedroom, the sheriff ’s voice sounded again. “You can’t go after them. You can barely walk, man.”
Aggie slowed her steps as she walked into the kitchen. Three men were sitting at the table drinking coffee. Blue, the sheriff, and her husband.
“What has happened?” she asked as calmly as she could muster.
Hank looked at his cup but the sheriff faced her. “You were right about shooting that fellow. He got as far as Clarendon before he knew he had to see a doctor. He was hit in the left shoulder, just like you said. The doc wired me as soon as he patched him up, and turned him over to a marshal who was in town investigating a cattle rustling gang near there.”
Aggie frowned. Hank still wasn’t looking at her. “Did he say why he tried to kill my husband?”
The sheriff nodded. “He said a man in Fort Worth paid him. Said this fellow made an offer in a bar to anyone interested that if they’d see you had a horrible honeymoon he’d give a hundred dollars.”
Aggie couldn’t believe it. “You mean someone tried to kill Hank for a hundred dollars?”
The sheriff shook his head. “Not kill, just bother. The fellow you put a bullet in swears he planned to knock Hank out and set the barn afire. But he panicked.” The sheriff pulled out a chair for her as Aggie melted into it. “The good news is he’s in jail. It seems he was wanted for a few other crimes as well, and we’d been looking for him for months. We know the man who made the offer in the bar, but it’ll just be his word against this lowlife, and no jury would take the story of a criminal over a railroad executive.”
Aggie felt horrible. Hank being hurt was all her fault. She didn’t have to ask a name, she knew only one railroad man, Potter Stockton. “What’s the bad news?” she managed.
The sheriff looked at Hank as if waiting for permission to continue.
Hank covered her hand with his and nodded.
“The bad news,” the sheriff mumbled, “is that the guy says there were two men that night in the bar who took the railroad man up on his offer.”
Aggie felt as if someone was choking her. “Someone else is out there?”
The sheriff nodded. “He may have given up and gone back, but I came out to warn you to keep a lookout for trouble.”
The sheriff left, with Blue by his side. Blue had picked up the box of repaired guns and said he’d be back from town in an hour.
When they were gone, Aggie stood beside Hank’s chair and waited for him to say the first word. If he hadn’t married her he would have been working today, not losing money while laid up with a broken leg. She wasn’t even good company since she’d spent the day upstairs. He couldn’t have even climbed up to see her.
Finally, he reached for her hand. “I should have guessed Potter was a hothead. He must have sent that drunk at the train station to stop me, and when that didn’t work he planned to at least see that we couldn’t be happy.”
She moved closer and leaned her shoulder against him. “I am happy, dear. I hate that he broke your leg and somehow I’m probably to blame, but you must know that I’m happy—here on the ranch—with you.”
He looked up at her then as if he wanted to believe her, but something deep inside stopped him. She thought he was about to argue, but he only said, “I want you to promise to wear my Colts today. Don’t take them off.”
She nodded.
“I can’t just sit here and wait for trouble to come, but I can work in the barn. I’ll have Blue move my workbench so that I can keep an eye on the house and my rifle will always be within reach.”
“I’ll bring my tools out. It’s warm enough for me to work in the barn.”
He pulled her into his lap and held her gently. She thought of a hundred things that needed doing, but it felt so good to have him holding her. She’d almost woken him last night to