I'm so very sorry to anyone who received a copy of The Eagle and the Fawn missing the final chapter. There was a problem with the file that I did not notice until it was too late. Amazon has not allowed me to change it yet, and since it's still an issue on the day of publication, I will provide the text of the chapter here. I'm sorry for the inconvenience this has caused. Pre-order buyers, please reach out to me at lauriesanfordbooks@gmail.com, and I'll sent you something special as an apology. I hope to get this cleared up quickly. Thank you for your understanding.
Edit: This issue is now resolved, and anybody who got the wrong file should be able to update to the correct one. I will leave this here for a while just in case.
Twenty Nine
Cora barely managed a breath from her stifled lungs. Her head swam. She squinted through the misty rays of sunlight, sure her eyes deceived her. “Faith.” She stumbled past the form sprawled across the ground, painting the dirt in crimson, toward her friend.
Faith's entire body trembled, tears burgeoning in her eyes. When Cora reached her, Faith collapsed into her arms, a quivering mess of sobs and desperate gasps for air. Cora held her to her shoulder, smoothing back her long hair.
“Faith, you—” She shook her head, disbelieving. “You saved me.”
“I couldn't watch him kill you. The things he said—” She shuddered, tears racking her body anew.
“Thank you, Faith.” The words whispered in Faith’s ear would never suffice. She owed this girl her very life. She and Ellis both did.
Pulling back, Faith swiped her wrist over her tear-stained face. “I shot my father.” Her forlorn gaze pushed past Cora to the man in question. Ellis knelt over him now, unbuttoning Carter's shirt, tending to his wounds.
Faith's hands plummeted from Cora's arms. She stepped heavily over the dusty alley, her stare fixed upon her wounded father. What emotions must be coursing through her in this moment, to watch her father suffering from a wound she'd inflicted?
Gathering her skirts, she crouched low beside Ellis. Her gaze moved from the spot where Ellis attempted to stop Carter’s bleeding with his own shirt to her father's face, pale beneath the sun.
“I'm the one who taught you how to shoot,” he ground out, wincing as Ellis's hands moved over his injury.
Faith nodded. “You taught me for my own protection. ‘Use it for good,’ you said.” She swallowed, her eyes misting. “Today I did.”
Carter fixed her with a pained expression. “You don't understand how the world works, baby girl. Without my sacrifices, you wouldn't have a comfortable home, fine clothes, your horses. We could be stuck in some shanty somewhere with barely enough food to survive.”
Her chin trembled as she looked him straight in the eye. “But was it worth the sacrifice of your dignity, Father? Was it worth your soul?”
She sniffed, directing her attention to Ellis. “What do you need from me, Sheriff?”
Ellis blinked and appeared to shake himself. “Go get help. If we can quell the bleeding, he might still survive.”
She nodded once and rose to her feet. “And after that?”
He paused, his look thoughtful. “I suppose access to your home, your father's office. I'll need proof of his every crime against this town.”
Donning the regal stance of a queen, Faith dusted off her hands. “I'll do anything I can.”
Within minutes, she and Cora had directed the Gold Strike deputies to the scene.
“We had reports of gunfire in the livery,” Wainwright said as he trotted alongside them atop his horse. “We were just on our way out here to investigate.”
“There's one shot inside the livery,” Cora said between breaths. “The other is behind the livery with the sheriff.”
Wainwright reined in his furious stallion. “And the shooter?”
Cora snuck a glance at Faith, then bit her lip. “Everyone involved has been disarmed. There's no threat left.”
When Wainwright thundered away with a group of eager deputies behind him, Cora turned to Faith and gripped her arm. “What you did back there—” She choked on her words. “You've proven yourself to be a great woman of strength and courage today. I'm so proud to be your friend.”
Faith sucked in a quivering breath and attempted a smile. “You'd do it for me if the need arose. I'm sure of it. I'm going to need a friend now more than ever.”
Cora took her hand, pressing her fingers. “You have a friend in me, always.”
The minutes stretched thin before Ellis led Cora through the doors of the Gold Strike sheriff's office. Her legs and back ached, her shoulders weary with a burden more emotional than physical. Cora barely stumbled through the hallway and plopped into the chair Ellis extended toward her within the confines of his personal office.
“Here's some water.” He thrust a canteen into her hands. “You should drink it. I'll get you some food as soon as I can.”
“What about you?” She unscrewed the canteen. “You're just as weary as I am.”
A long sigh pressed from Ellis's chest. “I'll get sustenance soon enough. Don't worry about me.”
Raising the canteen to her lips, she watched him stoop over the desk and gather a stack of papers, then a steel nib pen from among a collection of others. Cool water rushed over her lips as he hunted beside her for ink.
“You never stop, do you?”
The question brought his head up. “I don’t have time to stop. There is always something to do.”
“Always someone to rescue. Some right to be wronged.” Wasn’t that one of the many reasons she’d found herself drawn to him like a hopeless scrap of driftwood washing ashore at high tide?
“We have enough to bring Madam Carey in on charges of kidnapping and trafficking. I have to get a judge down here as quickly as possible—a real one this time.” Hunkering down near the desk beside her, he began scratching words across the page. “I’ve already sent my deputies out to arrest her. She’s unprotected with both Carter and her dubious bouncer laid out on the doctor’s table.”
Cora clutched the cold metal canteen in clenched fingers. “I’d rather not be here when they bring her in.” She sat forward. “What will happen to the brothel without her running it? What about all those girls?” As vile a place as it was, Madam Carey employed many women who would go hungry otherwise.
“I don’t know.” Ellis continued writing, his head wagging. “I only have the capacity to deal with the problems as they come. Perhaps we’ll think of something.”
The landscape of Gold Strike would completely alter with Edward Carter and Madam Carey behind bars. Why did the possibility both relieve and terrify her? Cora set the canteen on Ellis’s desk, keenly aware of the way her hand still trembled. The feel of Carter’s hot breath on her neck, his crawling hands holding her firm, still burned into her skin until she could barely sit still.
“Ellis.”
He lifted one brow, his hand flying across the page. “Hmmm?”
“Ellis, look at me.” Cora pushed a hand beneath his stubbled chin, directing it her way. When he finally relented and turned his eyes toward hers, a chill skittered over her. “We defeated death today. Take a moment to celebrate, would you?”
Closing his eyes, Ellis leaned his cheek into her hand. The pen in his grip dropped to the page, leaving a trail of black ink across it. When his eyelids fluttered open, he cupped her hand over his, pressing her fingertips into the rough hair speckling his jaw. “It’s easier not to think about.”
Cora smoothed back the sandy hair falling across his forehead. “What do you mean?”
Ellis took the hand stroking his cheek and pressed it between his warm palms. “I thought my life was over when I heard that shot ring out. I thought you were gone.” Emotion tinged his voice. “I've seen a lot of people die doing what I do, but I never once felt like that before—like the very earth was giving way beneath my feet.”
Cora swallowed back the burning sensation rising in her gullet. Her body shuddered to remember that split second when nothing had stood between her and Carter’s bullet but the cold steel against her skin. “I felt so helpless.”
“So did I.” His strong jaw worked. “I've never felt so powerless. And to know it was my fault—”
“It wasn't your fault. How could it have been?”
“I pushed him.” His lips pressed together. “I was scared he was going to take you and hide you away and I'd never see you again. He never would have considered killing you otherwise.”
Cora turned her hand over within his grasp and laced her fingers with his. “Such a fate would have been far worse than death. I'm glad you didn't let him take me.”
His eyes descended her face slowly—tortured, as if weighted with lead. “Ultimately, I could do nothing to save you. My hands were completely tied after I angered him. You saved yourself, Cora.”
Her head began to shake. “No. It was Faith.”
“Faith pulled the trigger, but you set that train in motion.” His free hand rose to tuck a strand of strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. “Your goodness and love is effortless. You don't even see it, but I noticed it in you that very first day on the ridge, and I've watched it flourish ever since.”
Ellis lifted her hand and kissed the tender skin above her knuckles. “Faith chose you above her father because she saw you both clearly for who you truly were. You showed her your heart again and again, just as you do the girls in that brothel, just as you do the people of this town who need you.”
Cora inhaled shakily. “I just try to do the right thing. It's the least I can do after—” She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth. Even with him aware of her myriad of sins, she still couldn't force herself to voice them.
“It must not seem like a lot to you because being yourself comes naturally.” He squeezed her hands, launching pleasant shivers through her. “I've fallen so deeply and absolutely in love with you for who you are that my heart is no longer just mine, but yours.”
Cora stared into his eyes, dumbstruck. She had never imagined such affectionate sentiments reserved for her, the lowest of sinners, the least of girls from a foreign land who'd forfeited any chance of living a respectable life. Her days at Madam Carey’s lined up in her mind's eye, one after the other, each a nail driving into the coffin encasing her wayward soul.
Tears bloomed in her eyes, and she gripped his hand. Her gaze meandered over them, the way they fit together so perfectly. Her soul felt at home when he held her, but what home could a woman like her ever expect to claim?
“After the things that happened between us and what we said to each other, it's difficult to believe we've come to this place.” She smiled despite her tears. “I think even the animosity we harbored against each other was love in disguise.”
He beamed back at her, his eyes shimmering. “It was. It always was for me.”
“And that's what breaks my heart.” Her voice broke. “I've learned this lesson in life the hard way. Love isn't always enough.”
“But it can be.” His fingers softly toyed with the tendrils of hair falling around her face. “We can make it enough.”
If only. Hadn’t she discovered this truth long ago, when the hands of greed had ripped her from her family, stolen her innocence, thrown her into a life of moral ambiguity?
“I pushed you away when you came to the brothel because I was scared, but I wasn't wrong to do so.” She searched his entreating eyes, trying to draw strength from the depths of devotion she saw in him. “I'm in love with you enough to see that you deserve better than me, better than a town that will ridicule you when they see us together.”
The muscles in his jaw clenched. “Hang them. I don't care—”
“I know you don't.” Her head cocked. “Ellis, I know you would give up everything for me, and that's why I can't let you. I'm a broken, degraded woman. I chose this path a long time ago. I never intended to fall in love.”
“But you did.”
“Yes, I did”—she blinked back the warmth in her eyes—“even though I tried so very hard not to. I couldn't help it.” Cora let her hands slip away from him, suddenly cold as she wrapped her arms around herself and hugged her body. “Our love doesn't change who I am or what I've done. I'm already ruining you by association. Half the men in this town will look at us and remember being as intimate with me as you would be. You could never be happy.” Her final words dissolved into a quiet cry, her lips shivering with the moisture of her own salty tears.
“Cora.” Ellis spoke her name with such reverence, it nearly shattered her. His fingers hooked her chin, propelling it up until her gaze brushed his. “I don't care what they think they know. They will never know you as intimately as I will. They had nothing but a carnal experience. They'll never know the depth of your love, your intelligence, your spirit, your good heart. What of it if they've touched the outside of you? I want what's inside. I want your soul to come home to mine.”
Warm tears blurred her vision as a laugh burst from her mouth. “You make it impossible to say goodbye, don't you?”
A sad smile lifted his lips as Ellis shifted until he knelt on the floor in front of her. “You may think you have to let me go because of the position I hold in this town, but I will not lose you over a job.” He found her hands again, engulfing them in his. “If this town can't accept you because of your past or me for being with you, then I'll find another one.” He shrugged. “I'll take you back home to Tennessee if I have to, but I won't let other people's opinions define us.”
The word echoed over and again in her mind, an extraordinary sound. Her eyes swept his determined face, the hope radiating from his gaze. “You're sure?”
“With every fiber of my being, I'm sure.” He leaned close, letting his forehead fall to hers, his warm breath sending tingles across her skin. “I was taught to see the world in black and white, with no compromise, no room to understand the person beneath someone's story.” His hand descended from her head to her jawline. “I don't want to do that with you. I refuse to do that with you.”
Cora's hands anchored at the sides of his neck. “I think you're the first person who has truly looked at me since I first stepped foot inside Madam Carey's.”
His chuckle of joy danced along her skin. “And I'm never going to stop looking at you, Cora Blackwood.”
His lips found hers, wet with falling tears, the promise of a man who'd lain everything at her feet. Cora gripped the collar of his shirt, hauling him closer, basking in the security of his nearness. His arms encircled her—solid, protective, loving. Her lips moved against his, her form secure in his arms, for the first time finding solace in the cruel world around them.
Ellis's eyes sparkled when he pulled back. “We should get out of here before it's too late. Wainwright should be bringing in Madam Carey any minute.”
Cora groaned, rolling her eyes. “She has to spoil everything, doesn't she?” She set her hands against his brawny chest. “You're right, though. I don't want to see her—ever again, if I can help it.”
“Then you don't have to.” Ellis extended his hand to her and pulled her up before him.
With an exasperated huff, she surveyed the dirtied, wrinkled men's shirt and trousers still sheathing her weary frame. “I can't believe I'm still wearing this. Please tell me you found a suitable dress for me to wear.”
Mischief swam in his gaze as it ascended her approvingly. “I don't think that will be a problem.”
“Good.” She squirmed in the unfamiliar clothing. “Let's find me something to wear and go back to your house. I've had enough of this place for today.”
Ellis watched her dust off the ill-fitting trousers. “I can't take you back to my house.”
Her head popped up, her brows cinching. “Why not?”
“It wouldn't be decent. Two unmarried people alone under one roof?” His tongue clicked with his shaking head. “I couldn't put you in that kind of compromising position, Miss Blackwood. You have a reputation to think about.”
A disbelieving puff of air escaped her. “A reputation? You do know you're in Gold Strike, don't you? I certainly have a reputation, but you needn’t protect it.”
“Still, it wouldn't be right.”
Her eyes narrowed in playful suspicion. “You were fine with having me sleep in your bed yesterday, and with you on the floor last night.”
“Yes, well...that was different.” The slightest twinge of a grin edged one side of his mouth. “Your life was in danger and you had nowhere else to go.”
Cora's hands flew to her hips. “So you're telling me I have to find somewhere else to stay because we're not married?”
“No.” His hand jetted out to grasp her arm. “I'm saying the church and the minister are only a few steps away.” His fingers tensed gently on her arm. “I'm ready if you are, Miss Blackwood—to make you Mrs. McCraw, that is.”
At her silence and gaping mouth, he stepped away and lowered his hand. “Of course, if you aren't ready, I will by no means coerce you. I'll simply find you respectable lodging for the night, and—”
His words cut off as Cora eliminated the distance between them and pressed her mouth to his soft, inviting lips. When she opened her eyes to look at him, her heart fluttered with surety. “Take me home tonight, Sheriff. Our life together begins today.”