Texas Twilight by Caroline Fyffe

her
throat. Against his better judgment, John glanced back to find her
gazing up at him through a barrage of fluttering eyelashes. He
hastened out the door.
     
    ***
     
    John settled into his hotel room after
retrieving his medical supplies and books from the stage office. He
unpacked just the bare necessities, believing he wouldn’t be
staying long. He hoped that within a couple days he’d have the
mix-up with Bixby resolved and have things back on track.
    With his letter in hand, he flopped down on
the goose feather mattress and got comfortable, plumping the pillow
before doubling it over and sticking it behind his head. For a
brief moment he closed his eyes.
    As was usual, the face of Bob Mackey, the man
he’d killed when he was nine years old, popped into his thoughts.
Although the number of times the vision awakened him in a cold
sweat had lessened over the years, they still occurred
occasionally. Like an old, unwelcome friend showing up at odd
times, not quite ready to give the relationship up.
    It had been a stormy August night and John
was home alone having missed the social and barn dance because of a
stomachache. At the sound of the door opening John grabbed his gun,
and snuck down the big staircase in the darkness. A tall figure
loomed in front of him, seemingly larger than any bear he’d hunted
with his father. His trigger finger trembled. There was an
earsplitting crash, then shards of glass sprayed him. His gun
discharged accidentally. In the close proximity, the blast was
deafening. It wasn’t until the smoke cleared and John was able to
light a lantern that he saw who it was. He’d tired to stop the flow
of blood, but the effort was futile and soon the man was dead.
    Bob Mackey was a merchant from town and a
friend to all. He’d been delivering a new pane of glass and it had
slipped and broken. Flood had told Mackey to drop it off anytime,
and since no one appeared to be home it was speculated that he was
putting it inside the front door.
    His parents had paid restitution to Bob’s
brother and business partner, and after time, he’d forgiven John,
but the shooting weighed heavily on his little-boy’s heart,
regardless of his mother’s assurance that it had been an accident.
And, truth be told, it was still as heavy a burden today as it had
been sixteen years prior. His mother looked for ways to help him
though his pain, to heal, but there hadn’t been a magical fix. As
he grew older, his ache turned to anger, and he began letting his
temper get the best of him. Longtime friends whispered behind their
hands. He started getting into fights. The betrayal of his friends
hurt. It was only after he’d decided to become a doctor that the
horror of it lessened. He’d pay his debt by saving a life, then
another, and another, and another…until his debt was gone. His
moving away from Y Knot had been a relief of sorts, finally free
from the stigma he still felt, even if most people had
forgotten.
    John held up the letter to divert his
thoughts. It was from Charity. She’d written to him unfailingly
while he was at Harvard, keeping him updated with all that was
happening at home.
    The most recent news was a new baby girl,
born to his brother, Luke, and his wife, Faith. The first two
grandbabies for his parents had been boys. Billy and Adam were
older now and were becoming a real help on the ranch. Then there
was Colton, Faith’s feisty eleven-year-old stepson. John stifled a
chuckle thinking how the boy had knocked Luke out with a frying pan
the night he’d found Faith.
    John glanced at the letter again, looking for
the little one’s name. Holly Lace McCutcheon. Pretty. But before
Holly there was Rachel’s and Matt’s little Faith, named after
Luke’s wife, and Mark and Amy’s Cinder. He was having a hard time
keeping all the names straight. And who could forget baby Dawn, the
little filly Luke had actually delivered? His nephews were
seriously outnumbered; although Amy and Rachel were expecting