CHAPTER
17

“Let her go.” His growled demand echoed through the alleyway as Zach advanced.

The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed into angry slits as he jerked Rosalind closer to his side. “Back off, buddy. I saw her fir—”

Zach grabbed the man’s arm and yanked him away from Rosalind. The card he’d been holding fluttered to the ground as he brought up a fist to defend himself. He jabbed. Zach dodged.

Rosalind dropped to the ground between them, and Zach nearly stepped on her hand. “Get out of the way, Rosalind.”

But she didn’t. Not until her flailing in the dirt produced the fallen card. Worried about knocking her head with his knee, Zach looked down, giving his opponent an opening.

The man’s fist connected with Zach’s jaw, snapping his head sideways. Rosalind gasped and finally scooted out of the way. Icy calm penetrated Zach’s veins. With his sister-in-law out of the equation, he could give his full attention to his assailant.

The man retreated a step, but not far enough. Zach swung. His knuckles collided with the man’s cheekbone with satisfying solidness. The fellow staggered backward until he bumped up against the butcher shop wall. Zach advanced, grabbed his shirtfront, and pinned him there.

“Go fetch the marshal, Rosalind.”

The man made no move to strike another blow, but he glared at Zach belligerently. “You laid hands on me first, mister.”

Zach twisted the cotton shirt a notch tighter in his fist. “You laid hands on the lady first, mister. Around here we don’t take kindly to brutes forcing innocent young women into alleys and assaulting them.”

“Innocent? Ha!” The man practically spat the words. “She might be female, but she sure ain’t innocent. One look at that picture she crawled through the dirt for will tell you that much.” He smirked, and a vile laugh escaped his throat. “Hope you weren’t planning on buying that particular cow. She’s probably been givin’ her milk away for free to gents all over the county. Right under your nose too.”

Zach’s hands were full of the man’s shirt, so he lifted him a few inches off the ground and head-butted him right in the face.

“Ow!” Blood spurted from the man’s nose. Good. Maybe the idiot would shut up now.

A handful of passersby were gathering at the end of the alley and peering in. Rosalind must have seen them too, for she started backpedaling.

“Let him go,” she said, her voice quiet and quivering.

Zach twisted to look at her. Pale face. Wide, shimmering eyes. White knuckles gripping that confounded card.

“Please, Zach. Just let him go.”

Zach frowned. The maggot deserved jail time, or at the very least a few more blows to the head. Or the groin. That would be more fitting for someone who said such vile things about a girl barely old enough to wear long skirts.

Unfortunately, Zach couldn’t mete out the appropriate punishment without becoming guilty of assault himself, now that the man was subdued. So, with a sideways shove, Zach released him, taking what satisfaction he could from the blood dripping down the fellow’s face.

“Get out of here,” he muttered, silently daring the slimy toad to take another shot at him. One swing, and Zach would be justified in smacking him into the ground.

Unfortunately, his adversary seemed to have come to the same conclusion and opted for self-preservation. After stumbling a couple steps, he righted himself, rubbed the blood from his mouth and nose with a swipe of his sleeve, and shot a scalding glare at Zach that worried him about as much as a dart from an ant’s peashooter. Then, with a sarcastic tip of his hat to Rosalind and a smirk begging to be wiped off his face by Zach’s fist, the man turned and strolled away.

“You all right?” Zach asked, pivoting to face his sister-in-law.

She nodded, but she looked about as all right as a kicked puppy.

He reached a hand toward her. “Here, let me—”

“No!” She covered the card she held with both hands, pressed it to her chest, and twisted away from him.

“—take your basket,” he finished, approaching her with the same care one would exude near a skittish mare. His hand closed around the basket handle and gently lifted the weight off her arm. “I ain’t got no interest in relieving you of anything else.”

As soon as she realized her precious card was safe from prying eyes, everything about her drooped. Her shoulders sagged, and her arms loosened, allowing him to collect the shopping basket from her. But her defenses crumbled as well, for her eyes started leaking and her entire body shook.

Not tears. Please, Lord. Anything but tears.

A messy, gasping sob was the answer to that prayer.

Panic pumped blood double-time through his veins. He scanned the alley for help and found nothing but curious onlookers who didn’t need to be sticking their noses in Rosalind’s private business.

Not having a clue what to do to make the tears stop, he opted for the one thing he could figure out—how to protect her privacy.

“This way.” Wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he bundled her close and marched away from Sixth Street. He’d been aiming for the wagonyard when this whole debacle unfolded. He might as well take her there. Hide her in Jack’s stall until the tears dried.

Dried. Handkerchief. Something else he could do.

Zach jostled the market basket up to his elbow, crammed his left hand into his trouser pocket, and pulled out the solution to all feminine distress. Feeling slightly less inept, he shoved the white cotton at Rosalind as they trudged toward the end of the alley.

Thanking the Lord for a less crowded walkway on Seventh Street than Sixth, Zach lengthened his stride and steered Rosalind around the handful of folks out and about. They garnered more than a few strange looks, but Zach just scowled and kept moving. No one approached.

Once they reached the wagonyard, Zach waved off the stableboy with a shake of his head and bustled Rosalind into the livery barn, relieved to note they had the place to themselves. Well, except for a mule team and a pony or two lazing about in their stalls. They stuck their heads over the half doors to see what all the fuss was about when the humans clomped down the center aisle, but otherwise paid them no particular attention.

Jack nickered a welcome, bobbing his head as Zach approached, but his longtime mount picked up on his mood and grew solemn in a heartbeat. The quarter horse, solid black except for the white star on his forehead and socks on his hind legs, backed away from the door and made room for his human visitors. Zach dropped the market basket outside the stall and shuffled Rosalind into a front corner. Then, moving to his horse, he clasped Jack’s halter and patted his neck as he backed him up a few steps.

“Good boy,” he murmured softly as the animal obeyed his instructions. “Gonna have to postpone our ride, I’m afraid.” He kept his voice low, not wanting Rosalind to feel bad about interrupting his plans. He had no regrets. Family came first. Always. Even before courtship.

Right now, his sister-in-law took precedence over his wife.

With Jack settled and as out of the way as one could manage in an average-sized stall, Zach stepped away from his horse and joined Rosalind at the front near the door. Not wanting to crowd her, he positioned himself across the stall, casually leaning against the wall behind him.

Her head bowed, she stared at the ground, the card she’d been grasping so tightly having disappeared. Into a pocket, most likely.

Not really sure what to say, Zach opted for his favorite tactic—silence. She’d open up when she was ready. And if she didn’t? Well, he’d make it clear that she had his protection. No matter what.

She was family.

“It’s not true,” she finally said, her voice quiet, her gaze still glued to the floor, her hands worrying the ends of the damp handkerchief twisted between her fingers. Slowly her chin came up, and pretty blue eyes reddened from tears begged him to believe her. “I haven’t . . . been with anyone.” Her head wagged back and forth, and fresh tears threatened. “I wouldn’t. I swear.”

Zach frowned, insulted she would think it necessary to deny that particular charge. She was barely more than a kid. “Of course you haven’t,” he snapped. “Anyone with half a brain knows that filth was a lie. You’re as innocent as the day is long.”

Her gaze dropped back to the ground, and she bit her bottom lip. “No.” She shook her head, and Zach’s gut clenched. “No, I’m not.”

She’d probably kissed a fellow behind the schoolhouse or something. Didn’t mean she wasn’t still an innocent. A girl as pretty as her had probably had opportunities to kiss dozens of boys over the years. Not that she would have. Zach might not have known her all that long, but he’d seen her character up close and personal the last month. She worked nearly as hard as her sister, running things at home while Abigail ran the bakery. Delivering the widow bread. Even watching Audrey Sinclair’s brood on occasion to allow the busy mother to get a little shopping done without the chaos of toddlers constantly underfoot.

Girls as pretty as Rosalind tended to use their looks to get out of work, flirting and teasing to entice men into doing things for them. But not Rosalind. He rarely even saw her talking to men, now that he thought about it. She always flocked with other women at church and hung close to the bakery during the week.

“I did something,” she whispered. “Something wrong.” Her knuckles whitened at the force of her grip on the handkerchief. “It was for a good reason, or at least I thought so at the time. Papa needed medicine. He was so sick. So weak. When Julius offered to pay me . . .”

Zach’s throat tightened and bile rose. Surely she hadn’t . . . Please, God.

“. . . to pose for a few pictures . . .”

Air whooshed from his lungs in relief. Yet the dread knotting his gut refused to completely abate.

“. . . I thought it would be safe. He swore that no one within a hundred miles of here would ever see them. And the money paid for the medicine my father needed. Abby was so busy trying to keep the bakery going. Papa’s care fell to me.” Rosalind’s head jerked up. “She doesn’t know.” She stiffened, a zealous light entering her eyes. In three steps, she crossed the stall and gripped Zach’s wrist with icy fingers. “She can never know.”

“Can’t say that I agree with you there,” he said. “Secrets have a way of eating away at a family, even when we think keeping ’em hid is doing the folks we care about a favor. Trust me. I know.” He’d learned that truth the hard way with Seth and Evie. ’Course, he couldn’t deny his reluctance to spill all his skeletons onto Abigail. He would, he told himself. Eventually. After they got to know each other better. A boat needed to be sturdily built before a fella started rocking it.

Rosalind didn’t seem to agree, though. Her fingernails dug into his skin, and if her head shook any harder from side to side, it was bound to pop plumb off.

“Don’t worry.” He patted her hand a couple times, then gently pried her claws out of his hide. “It ain’t my story to tell, so I won’t be flappin’ my gums about it. But if family’s gonna stick together, they need to know what they’re fighting.”

“She wouldn’t understand.”

“Maybe not.” Zach sure didn’t. A sweet girl like Rosalind posing for naughty pictures? Didn’t make a lick of sense. Even if it was for her pa’s medicine. “But she’d stand by you, regardless.”

Rosalind shrugged, obviously recognizing it was true but still not wanting to admit her mistakes to the one person whose opinion she valued most. He understood the sentiment.

One thing was painfully clear. That Julius fella had manipulated her, exploited Rosalind’s worry about her pa’s health and trapped her into doing something she never would have done otherwise. The girl had been barely seventeen, for pity’s sake. Alone and unprotected with her father at death’s door. No one to watch out for her.

No wonder she had begged Zach to marry Abigail. She needed a protector. Had probably been needing one for a while. Well, now she had one—one who recalled a particular promise she’d made to reveal everything about her problem once he married her sister.

“So I take it this is the mistake you warned me about, the one you worried would bring danger to Abigail’s doorstep?”

The poor girl’s body wilted in on itself. She nodded.

Zach inhaled a deep breath and made himself as comfortable as possible against the wood slats at his back. He wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while.

“Guess you better start at the beginning.”