“Lane.”
They answered as one and she stilled, her gaze snapping to Decker.
He returned her steady look with the slightest shake of his head.
Bide our time.
Decker didn’t want to scrub the floors tonight. Besides, this would be a waste of a kill when he didn’t plan on feeding again for weeks.
“Laurie. Please call me Laurie.” Clear liquor splashed over his hand and he winced.
“Oops,” Safine said in a tone that was anything but apologetic.
Decker almost smiled. “We’re in my saloon, not your chapel. God won’t care if you cuss a little.”
The preacher sank his teeth into the edge of his lip when Safine jabbed the needle into the clean edges of the cut. His heartbeat skipped and scattered like rabbits, racing along Decker’s last nerve.
“We never got a proper introduction,” he said in a tight, breathless voice.
And yet I know so much more about you, than you know of me.
His hand spasmed under Safine’s needle. Decker took his fingers and pinned them to the table.
“Decker Belmont,” he said. “And you’ve met my wife, Safine.”
“Good thing, too,” she murmured, “would’ve been a shame if you bled out in our saloon.”
Something indescribable flickered through his eyes—pain, longing, fear, all gone so quickly Decker might have missed it if he wasn’t studying his face for signs of who Elias Lane was to him.
Father, brother, uncle? He gathered the preacher was younger than Safine, but not by much; Elias was far too old to be his brother, and Decker dismissed the thought, leaving only father and uncle. If he had to wager, he would bet on uncle.
The similarities were subtle, but present—the same unruly hair, almost too long, and a delicately crooked nose that might have been broken once. His eyes were different. Worried and tentative, like a dog kicked too many times, and holding none of the bite Elias had when he arrived.
“The newspaper said Ender’s Ridge was the Devil’s Town,” he said.
Decker’s last nerve snapped. “The newspaper?”
Mr. Lane winced when Safine dug the needle deep into his palm. “I bought the last one when I got off the train inRidgewater. I can’t imagine who would write about your town like that—everyone I’ve met has been kind to me.”
The preacher’s voice trailed into the distance as Decker focused on two words.
The newspaper.
Ender’s Blessing jumbled the memories of humans who had been there, muddying them until they never quite remembered how to get there or what went on across the river. Ender’s Ridge was never remembered long enough for lawmen to come looking for them, much less a reporter writing about them.
Bitter implications fell like dominos. If their visitors remembered Ender’s Ridge long enough to write a newspaper article calling them theDevil’s Town, what else did they remember?
Winds of change had blown into town with the new preacher, and the gale snatched away anonymity and peace. How deep did the unveiling run?
And why now?
Safine pulled the thread taut and snipped the excess with a tiny pair of gold-handled shears. “Don’t strain it for the next few days. I’m not sewing you up again.”
“You make an excellent doctor. I appreciate you fixing me up the first time.” He gave her a rueful smile and tilted his head to make sure the wayward goose wasn’t under the table again. “What do I owe you—” The words died in his throat as he straightened and came eye to eye with Decker.
The preacher’s breath wavered across his lips. Decker wanted to yank the air from his lungs, unraveling each gasp and sigh until it told him why he was here.
“The newspaper. Stop by tomorrow night. I’d like to read it,” Decker said softly.
