Winning Maura's Heart by Linda Broday

Author:Linda Broday [Broday, Linda]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2022-12-08T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY

Sick at heart, Calhoun stumbled back to his horse. He couldn’t accept the fact that Max was no longer of this world. Max would never finish the secret project he was working on. How in the hell was Calhoun going to tell Maura and Emma? And those kids. Alphabet, or rather Alphie, adored the old coot.

Calhoun had asked Max why Alphie had latched on to him. Max had grinned and said, ‘Because I’m so lovable.’

The man really was, despite his affinity for liquor. The three nuns thought he hung the moon and Sister Angela giggled when he paid her any attention. Calhoun had seen that at supper when Max had called her Angie and winked.

A lump blocked his throat. Sick at heart, he rested his forehead against the saddle. How was he going to get back on the horse? Or face Maura. Or face another loss. Again.

The people at Heaven’s Door Orphanage had become like family. And in such a short time at that.

Moonlight glinted on the strap iron cage in the wagon. He hated that thing with a passion. If he could just get it off, he’d put Rooster in it and lock it tight.

The brush behind him rattled, alerting him. The gun firmly in hand, he turned, prepared to face the threat, whatever it was. But rising from the mass of dead foliage was not what he expected.

‘What are you doing here, Calhoun?’ Max asked. The man was beaten to a bloody pulp. His long hair streamed down like wet straw and his face suggested it had been run through a meat grinder.

‘I was planning your funeral, if you must know.’ Calhoun grinned at his friend. ‘I’d offer you a hand and hug you, but I’d probably land on my butt. Couldn’t you have picked a place that wasn’t so rocky?’

Max laughed. ‘You were worried about me.’

‘Hell yes, I was. Thanks to your drunk friend over there spouting that you were dead.’

‘You can’t believe anything Rooster says.’ Max moved to Calhoun and gave him an awkward hug. ‘I think you were standing here trying to figure out how to get back on your horse.’

With a nod, Calhoun admitted it. ‘And how I could get that cage there off the wagon and lock that boy’s captor in it.’

‘Yeah. There’s that.’ The kidding stopped. Max wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘I’d sure like to do that. I reckon Maura made it back with the kid OK?’

‘She did. That boy is in pitiful shape and clinging to her. She couldn’t come back to check on you and Emma is sick, so she sent me – the cripple.’

‘Cripple my big toe.’ Max laughed. ‘Tell that to someone who don’t know you.’

‘What happened and how did you wind up in the brush?’

‘After they beat the living daylights out of me, I pretended to be unconscious. One said he thought I was dead, so they decided to leave me here until morning and come back with a wagon.

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