“Go back to your camp,” he ordered McCade, “and get your things. We’re leaving.”
McCade moved off without protest, thank God.
Sebastian turned to Isabel, only to find her in close conference with Obregon. She appeared to be thanking him, but he waved her off, the gesture more tired than dismissive.
There was no room for Sebastian by her side—she had Obregon. Who’d stopped all of this with a few words.
Sebastian had been ready to spill blood to stop them. Exactly what she’d said she didn’t want.
A young woman appeared next to Obregon, her face twisted with disapproval. Sebastian wasn’t quite sure what she disapproved of, but there was certainly plenty to choose from in this whole mess. The woman offered an arm to Obregon, which he took with obvious reluctance, and led him away.
Isabel watched them for several long moments.
Sebastian simply watched her watch them.
Finally, she turned to him and his heart clenched.
This was it. The last time he would see her.
She didn’t come closer, only stared at him across the distance between them, her eyes unreadable behind her spectacles.
“That was my brother leading them.” Her voice was aggressively neutral.
“I know.”
Her throat worked, the moonlight flickering across the movement. “You held a gun on him to protect the man who attacked me.”
“Isn’t that what you wanted? For me to prevent bloodshed?” Christ, but she was maddening. He’d danced to her tune and still she wasn’t satisfied. “I thought you meant to include McCade’s blood in that.” He paused, his mind working for a moment. “There was no posse, was there?”
She shook her head.
“You convinced Obregon to corroborate it since you knew they’d believe him more readily than you.” He shook his head, impressed despite his anger that she’d put herself in danger—and that she hadn’t confided in him. “No man ever won betting against you, did he?”
“Someone once called me terrifyingly brilliant.” There was no humor in her words.
“He was correct.” He took a step toward her and was gratified to see her hold her position.
“You held a gun on my brother.” A tremor entered her voice. “Do you expect me to invite you to my family table after that? To tell them I love you?”
She was a sword once again, and the word love from her lips cleaved him in two.
“I never asked for that,” he said. “I told you there is no happy ending for us.”
“I never asked you for one.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said softly. “I suppose that is why I love you so well.”
The word love from his lips wasn’t anything as savage as a sword swing—it was as slim and subtle as a stiletto blade between his ribs.
Something halfway between a whimper and sob escaped her before she smothered it.
“So what happens now?” she asked, her voice still shaky.
He didn’t dare move any closer to comfort her. He had to be able to let her go.
“I take McCade back to Los Angeles. And I spend the rest of my life keeping him away from you.”
“That pleases you, does it? To martyr yourself playing the eternal sentinel?”
His temper flared, but he reined it in. “I can’t kill him for you,” he retorted. “I wish to God I could, but I fought too hard and too long for this soul of mine. To shoot him in cold blood, even for the woman I love, would kill it dead. I’ll do the next best thing—I’ll ensure you never have to fear him again. But I can’t kill him.”
She blinked hard, as if something were in her eyes. “I never wanted you to.” Her voice steadied. “You aren’t a monster, Sebastian. You aren’t your father. You’ve proven tonight you’re a better man than he.” She sighed. “And, of course, you’re the man I love.”
There it was again, just as painful as before, forcing him to cross the distance between them and gather her up for one last kiss. He put everything he had into it—his rage, his pain, his desire.
His love.
He took everything she gave in return, storing it up and hoping it was enough to last him the remainder of his days. However much it was, it would simply have to do for a long, lonely lifetime.
Finally, after too short a time, he broke off and simply held her against him. The moon turned her features to silver and onyx, light and shadow marrying to form the beloved features of her face. His heart ached at the thought that this would be the last time his arms encircled her, the last time his eyes beheld her.
“If he—” she whispered. “No. No, when he is gone… promise me you’ll come to me. Fate will catch him soon enough, I’m certain of it.”
Sadness washed over him. Fate was fickle, as they both well knew.
“As soon as he’s gone,” he lied, “I’ll come straight to you.”
Isabel watched his fine mouth form those words and knew he was false. His eyes never would obey his command to lie.
But what she asked was impossible, even more impossible than killing a man for her. He’d held a gun on her brother, prevented the lynching of an outlaw the entire town wanted to see hang, and he had a terrible past.
He’d stayed his need for vengeance not only for her, but for himself. When it had mattered the most, he’d not given in to the darkness within him.
These would be their last moments together. Unless…
“May I stay with you?” she asked. “Tonight? I can come to your room, after everyone’s asleep…”
His face twisted as though her words had cut him. “Isabel, your parents, the townspeople… I’ve already damaged your reputation enough. Let me leave with him now, and let you go.”
“If tonight is all we have,” she argued, “let’s take it.”
Wrong of her, to ask more of him, when he’d already given so much—but she’d snatch all of him, if she could.
She felt him soften against her, as he subtly yielded in consideration. “What of McCade? I must keep watch over him.”
“He’s only just escaped a hanging. What would he dare tonight, with everyone’s blood up?”
His lips parted and his breath washed over her, smelling of spice, and himself. “Isabel, I—”
A burst of sound pressed against her ears, then all was silent.
He looked down at her with a puzzled expression, the same one he’d worn when considering the dresser he’d pulled over. And then he slumped hard against her.
She only caught the barest impression of a man running past them, moonlight sliding along the barrel of a pistol as he made for the darkness of the woods.
Sebastian was falling, and she could hardly slow his descent, much less keep him upright. She clutched at him, her arms failing as something hot seeped under her hand, sticking in the webbing of her fingers.
“Sebastian?” The rush of her pulse filled her ears, loud in the silence enfolding them.
The puzzled expression remained on his face, although it was frighteningly taut and drawn now.
“Isabel?” The crease between his eyes deepened. “I do believe he shot me.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Isabel pulled and pulled, but she could not move Sebastian. Not the barest inch. He was too large, she was too weak… oh God, she was going to fail him.
Blood coated the both of them. No matter how hard she pressed her hands against the wound in his shoulder, it just kept coming and coming—how much blood could a man have?
Enough to coat her arms to the elbow, her sleeves sticky with it.
“Sebastian.”
No response. But his chest still moved—and the blood still flowed.
“Sebastian.”
Nothing. She sent her fist into his torso. Still nothing.
“Sebastian, Sebastian, Sebastian…”
Her throat had never hurt like this, not even after the attack—the force with which she called to him seemed to strip the skin from it. But she kept on, because she would permanently destr
oy her voice rather than lose him—and she could think of no other way to call him back.
Finally, a faint threat of sound: “Don’t cry. I cannot bear it.”
She lowered her forehead to his chest in relief, her hair catching in the blood trailing along his arm. “I’m not crying,” she sobbed. “Please, stay awake, don’t—don’t—”
The rest was lost in choking hiccups. She continued to push hard against his wound, trying to keep his life within his frame.
Suddenly she was roughly shoved aside. She battled the hands that were trying to take her from Sebastian as she fell to her back, striking wildly, connecting occasionally with flesh.
“Stop it,” a voice hissed. “Step aside and let me do my job!”
Isabel didn’t know that voice and didn’t care to know that voice, she only wanted to get to Sebastian. She clawed her way up to do just that—only to be shoved back again.
“Get ahold of yourself! And stop screaming his name.”
The little nurse. That voice was the little nurse.
The mad rush of her blood slowed to a quivering.
“Can you help him?” She caught at the nurse’s sleeve. “You must help him.”
“Stay back,” the nurse warned, shaking off Isabel’s hand. She pressed a length of fabric against Sebastian’s shoulder. “You’ll have to go fetch your sister.”
Was the woman mad? Isabel caught her sleeve again. “I couldn’t possibly leave him, he’ll die if I leave him, you don’t understand—”
“Enough!” The woman set her hand into Isabel’s shoulder and shoved. The ground rose hard to slap her bottom. “Lord, what I wouldn’t give for someone reasonable at the moment,” the nurse muttered. “What’s her name?” she asked more loudly.
“Who?” Isabel couldn’t understand why this woman was trying to keep her from Sebastian, didn’t she know—
“Your sister! So that I can call her here and have her help.”
Her sister. Franny was here. Where was Franny?
“What the hell is going on?”
Both she and the nurse snapped around at that barked question.
Juan. He came striding out of the darkness, the mask off now.
“Who are you?” the nurse demanded. She shook her head and turned back to Sebastian’s wound. “Never mind, help me get this man to the wagon. I have to get him back to the sanatorium.”
Juan took in the situation with hanging jaw. “Is that the marshal? Did McCade shoot him? And where the hell is McCade?”
The nurse stood up, setting her fists on her hips. “I don’t know and I don’t care. Help me get him to the wagon.”
Isabel wrung her hands together, dimly hearing the crack of her knuckles, as they lifted Sebastian. Juan took Sebastian’s shoulders while the nurse took his feet.
“Where’s the posse?” Juan grunted at Isabel.
“There was no posse,” she answered dully, her fingers tingling with the force she was applying to her hands. “I made it all up. To save you.”
She followed behind them. It would be all right now—Juan was here, the nurse was here, Franny was with the wagon—they would take him to the sanatorium and she would be there when he awoke and then—
“Jesus, Isabel, you could have been hurt,” Juan seethed as he staggered under Sebastian’s weight. “That son of bitch deserved to be hanged.”
“Perhaps,” she allowed. “But you didn’t deserve to take on such a sin on my account.”
Juan made a scornful noise. “He hurt you.”
They made their shambling way to the wagon, the nurse and Juan faltering under their burden, Isabel stumbling behind on numb legs.
“Jesus Christ Almighty,” Juan roared when he saw who was in the driver’s seat of the wagon. “You brought Franny with you, too! Isabel, what were you thinking?”
I thought to save you. And I did.
But I couldn’t save Sebastian.
Her head began to throb.
“Oh hush,” Franny chided him. “What happened to him?”
She jerked a thumb toward Sebastian, hanging between Juan and the nurse as they readied to lift him into the bed.
Sebastian didn’t even moan as they slid him into the wagon bed, a two-foot-wide smear of blood marking his path.
“Shot,” the nurse said succinctly, once her patient was settled. “You’ll have to drive us back to the sanatorium, quick as you can.” She peered in at Joaquin in the wagon bed. “And poor Mr. Obregon has fainted from the pain and exertion. I hope all of this was worth it,” she finished scornfully.
Worth it? Sebastian injured, McCade loose somewhere—but the alternative had been to allow Juan to kill a man and possibly face murder charges.
“Franny’s not driving you back,” Juan said grimly. “I am. Franny’s taking Isabel home.”
“No, no, no.” They must not take him from her, she would not let them. She grabbed the sides of the wagon bed and began to climb in.
Juan pulled her back easily, although she clung with all her might. He spun her around and caught her arms. “That outlaw is still loose. You have to get to shelter.”
“But Sebastian could die. I have to be with him.” She tried to pull free, went to elbow Juan aside, but her brother only shook her. Quite fiercely.
“He’ll die for certain if we don’t get him to a doctor,” he urged. She stilled, studied him for a moment. His grip gentled when she did.
“Let him go,” Juan urged.
She nodded and gently tugged her arms for him to release her.
Juan did so and stepped back.
She turned and dashed for the wagon, uncaring if McCade were still out there, because Sebastian needed her and she’d never leave him—
Only to be caught in Franny’s inexorable grip.
“I’ve got her,” Franny assured Juan as Isabel writhed in her clutches. “Get going.”
Her sister dragged Isabel without mercy back to the house, Isabel screaming his name with every step she took away from him.
Sebastian woke to a clacking and a swaying.
Woke was perhaps the wrong word. The self he came to was not his own.
His thoughts were fuzzy with mold, his tongue thick and dry in his mouth, and his limbs deaf to his commands. He could only blink through the fog enfolding him.
“Ah, Marshal Spencer, good afternoon.”
He turned to the voice, fighting through the haze in his mind to identify who was speaking.
A man…? Yes, a man sat next to him, something clenched in his mouth, rocking with the motion of the… train.
He was on a train. How had he gotten here?
The object in the other man’s mouth coalesced into a pipe, the scent of tobacco hitting him in an overpowering wave.
“Do you remember me?” the man asked.
Sebastian could only shake his head.
“Well, you weren’t conscious when we met, so that’s understandable.”
None of this was understandable, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words to ask what had happened.
He became aware of an ache high in his chest. No, more than an ache—pain, but something was pushing the sharpness away, leaving only the press of the blunt edge. The same thing was pushing his thoughts from him.
“Dr. Arthur Goodwin, at your service. Lucky for you, Nurse McCallahan was close by. She kept you from bleeding too much. Lovely nurse, that girl. Wonderfully cool head in a crisis.”
Something finally coalesced into solidity. “Where… where is she? Is she safe?”
“Nurse McCallahan? She’s quite well, left her back at the sanatorium in Pine Ridge. She hauled you from Cabrillo to the sanatorium, I patched you up, and since I was already heading back to my teaching position in Los Angeles, thought I’d haul you back with me. Take you home and all that.”
It made a kind of sense, and yet it didn’t. He pondered the other man’s words, waiting for the fog to thin further.
“Not the nurse,” Sebastian said finally. “Isabel.”
The nurse—a broad-chested, hard-faced woman—shrugged in response.
Sebastian’s mind finally wrapped clumsy fingers around what the doctor had been saying. Hysterical. She’d been hysterical.
Isabel was never hysterical.
She never screams.
Panic swelled in him and he tried to rise with it, but managed only to shift on the cot. The pain pressed harder against him.
“I have to…” He fumbled for the words. “I have to get off at the next stop. I have to see her.”
The doctor exchanged a glance with the nurse, who rose to go fetch something. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Even if you could rise—which you can’t—we’re already to Pasadena. Cabrillo is hours behind us, and in a few hours we’ll have you nicely settled in at the hospital.”
“She can’t… I have to reassure her.” He closed his eyes, unsure whether the pain washing over him was from his wound or the thought of her in such distress.
“Of course, of course, send a telegram and all that. Once you’re settled.”
Despite his ruined state, Sebastian could tell the doctor was only humoring him.
The nurse returned with a cup in her hands. Before he could think to protest, she had it at his lips and tipped it down his throat.
The taste of alcohol and something even fouler had him gagging, but it all went down regardless, leaving his mouth and throat coated with horridness. His stomach rolled as the brew hit it.
“What…?” Damn this haziness. “What was that?”
The doctor waved his pipe at him. “Something to help with the pain.”
That explained the fog—too late to spit the stuff out.
“The outlaw?” he asked. The man’s name eluded him, but it was there in his mind. Somewhere.
“Oh, I heard he ran. I imagine the sheriff is chasing him now.”
Not the most reassuring answer, but there wasn’t anything to be done.
Autumn Sage Page 31