Desperate Hearts

by Alexis Harrington

  The sun cast a copper halo on the top of her hair. It had grown longer, he realized. He wished he could be around to see how it looked when it reached length she yearned for.

  She nodded but said nothing more about him staying in Blakely. Secretly he supposed he was disappointed, but he had asked for it. How many times did he think could push her away and tell her no before she gave up? It made their good-bye all the more poignant as he gazed into her turquoise eyes.

  She nodded. “I know. You did a wonderful thing for this town, Jace,” she said. Her voice trembled but remained dry-eyed.

  “If you ever need anything—” He let the sentence unfinished. The truth was even if she needed anything, with the life he lived she would have no way to reach him. Every feeling that Lyle Upton had silenced in those early years chose this moment to come to life, and the pain of leaving her was as fierce as a raw nerve. The weight of his regrets was growing heavier by the moment.

  He took her into his arms and gave her a long, soft kiss, one that expressed more love than any words he could tell her. One that he would remember on those nights when he had only the sound of rain and own heartbeat for company.

  As she pressed her lips to his, Kyla knew she could not be mad at Jace—he had done everything he had promised to do, and more. If he could not love her, well, there was nothing she could do about that. She couldn’t force him to it. Her throat grew tight with longing.

  Stepping away from her, he pulled his horse’s reins from the hitching post and climbed into his saddle. He gave her one long, final look, his ice blue eyes riveted on her face, then pulled the horse around and kicked into a trot.

  “Good-bye, Jace,” she choked.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jace trotted slowly down Blakely’s main street, steadfastly resisting the urge to look back over his shoulder. Kyla might be back there watching him from the sidewalk, and he didn’t want to know. He already felt sick and empty inside. So he kept his gaze pointed forward and away from the thin November sun that warmed his back.

  He passed the shops and restaurant, the church and homes. It was a pretty little town, a nice place that would be better now that Luke Jory and his thieves had been dealt with. It might even be a good place settle down, if a man was so inclined. And if he was able to follow his inclinations.

  But Jace was hoping to make it to California before hard winter set in. He wondered just how far away it was. No matter, he supposed. There was nothing to hold him here any longer. He’d done the job he taken on back in Silver City when a young boy with one hell of a sassy attitude and a lot of grit had come looking for him.

  He shifted in his saddle and looked at the hills beyond town. It all seemed like a lifetime ago, the things he and Kyla had lived through. Now he could look back and almost chuckle over Mildred DeGroot walking in while he kissed Kyla and believing that he kissing “the boy.” But he still shuddered when he thought of sitting next to Kyla while she lay delirious with fever, more dead than alive from Hobie McIntyre’s gunshot wound. And when he remembered her a in yellow gown with ribbons in her hair, he had to force himself to keep the horse aimed west.

  But perhaps by coming here he had atoned for the Bluebird Saloon. Maybe the woman and her little girl were watching him from some peaceful place where no harm could come to them, and they approved of what he had done for Kyla and Blakely. He hoped so. He’d asked for their forgiveness often enough. Perhaps he had it at last.

  “Hey, Rankin.”

  Oh God, no, he thought. He knew the tone of that phrase. Instantly, a dozen noonday scenes flashed through his memory; a dozen hotheaded men with axes to grind or coup to count had approached him with those very words.

  “Mr. Rankin, wait.”

  But when Jace looked up, he recognized not only the speaker on the sidewalk, but the group of men he was with. Most of them he had met yesterday. He nudged his horse to their side of the street.

  “Something I can do for you?” he asked, curious but on guard.

  “There might be something we can do for each other.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We have a proposition to discuss with you, if you’re of a mind.”

  Sure, why not, he thought. That was the mixed blessing of having nowhere to go and nothing to do. He had all the time in the world.

  * * *

  Kyla went back to Jim Porter’s place that afternoon with a heart as heavy as lead. Although she had believed she could take it, watching Jace ride away for the last time was the hardest thing she had done since they had set out together.

  Now dressed as Kyle again, she dragged around Jim’s muddy corral, currying the horses for lack anything else to do. Although she knew better, her mind insisted upon reviewing what she might have said or done differently to make Jace want to stay in Blakely.

  But the bald fact of the matter was that he was own man, and he had done exactly as he had wanted. If only she didn’t feel so bereft. She had her ranch back, and Hardesty—well, maybe she wouldn’t get over being the one who had ended his life. Jace had been right—there was no joy in revenge. But she wasn’t sorry that he couldn’t torment her any longer. The Vigilance Union had been taken care of. Everything had turned out better than she could have hoped when she first went looking for Jace back in September.

  For a moment she pressed her hand flat against her locket. The hardest thing of all, she fretted, would be forgetting his strong, attractive features. The clean, sculpted lines of his face, the pattern of his beard, his mouth that was neither thin nor full, but in a kiss was infinitely soothing and arousing, those piercing eyes that saw down to her soul. And he wore his handsomeness in complete ignorance—in her limited experience she had found that good-looking men tended to be a bit vain. Jace was anything but.

  She rested her head against a fence rail for a moment. How would she forget? In what part of her heart and mind did Jace dwell so that she might erase him? But even as she wished for it, she clung to the image she carried, hoping that it would never fade. The love of a lifetime should not be so easily banished.

  She lifted her head then, as if she had heard someone call her name. There was no one around—Jim was in town and his cowboys were off working on the other side of the creek. Scanning the open rangeland, saw no other person. Maybe the events of the last days had made her a little jumpy. It might even have been the wind sighing through the cottonwoods that grew along the creek bottom. She shrugged and turned back to her task.

  “I see you are well now, Winter Moon.”

  Kyla jumped and spun around. She saw Many Braids on the other side of the corral fence. He seemed have materialized out of thin air—no one had been here near the ranch house and corral when she looked just a moment earlier.

  The medicine man appeared exactly as she remembered—tall and straight as a yew, ageless, and dignified in his hodgepodge of buckskin pants and army coat.

  She had thought of him from time to time since her fever dream of him in Misfortune.

  “Many Braids!” She hurried to the fence to talk him. “Yes, I’m well now. My arm still aches but Jace said it will improve with time.”

  He nodded and considered her with his black, unwavering eyes. “When last I saw you, you stood with one foot in each world, this one and the next. I am pleased to see that you chose to remain with this world.”

  Hearing his words, a rash of goose bumps rose over Kyla. In her dream he had told her the very same thing, that she had a foot in each world. “Y-you mean when you came to our fire that night?”

  “Jace Rankin was very worried about you,” he said, not really answering her question. “You are the one who fills the empty place he has borne in his weary heart. He learned to trust you more than he did his rifle.”

  Kyla shifted. It was disconcerting to hear her feelings and Jace’s discussed so frankly by a man she met only once. How he knew these things, she couldn’t imagine. But Jace had been right. Many Braids was not an ordinary man. “Well, I—he doesn’t—“
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br />   “Now Jace Rankin must choose which world he will stand in. He must decide if he will stand with you, Winter Moon, or remain forever alone in his.”

  “Many Braids,” she began, her voice low regret, “he has already decided. He and I said good-bye this morning.”

  “And your heart is heavy. But things are not as they seemed then.”

  She put both hands on the fence rail and leaned forward eagerly. “Have you seen him? Talked to him?”

  “No, but Jace Rankin is a good man. He will make the right decision.” He took a step backward then and looked at the sky. “The white owl will be flying soon. It is time for me to return to the People for the winter.”

  “Wait, Many Braids—will I see you again?”

  He gave her an inscrutable smile. “I have found you three times now, Winter Moon. I will find you again.” He turned and strode across the field on his long legs that carried him out of her sight. She didn’t see or hear a horse; he must have walked. But to where? From where?

  I have found you three times. . . .

  Three times? She had talked with him only twice, the night she met him, and now. Unless—Jace had sworn that Many Braids never came to Misfortune, but she had seen him . . . heard him. . . .

  Kyla shook her head. It was a puzzle that only the one man could clear up, but he just made it more mysterious. And Jace—did he really care for her, as Many Braids hinted?

  She sat on the bottom fence rail and idly picked up the curry comb. It wouldn’t matter, even if he did. He was on his way to California, or somewhere else. For several moments she lingered there, her eyes closed against the pale afternoon sun. She didn’t realize she dozed until a shadow fell between her and the sun.

  “Kyla?”

  Her eyes snapped open, and she found Jace standing before her, looking handsome and very pleased, as if some good fortune had befallen him.

  “Jace—I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know I would be staying in Blakely.”

  Her eyes grew wider. “Staying? You mean for a few days? For a week?”

  He smiled at her and pulled back the lapel of his duster to show her the sheriff’s badge pinned to his vest. “No, it looks more permanent than that.”

  Kyla’s thoughts tumbled over each other in the face of this stunning news. “What happened?”

  He dropped to a crouch in front of her. “Well, I was on my way out of town and doing my damnedest not to turn and look over my shoulder for you. Jim Porter and the group of men called to me from the street corner and invited me to a meeting at the Pine Cone. They were so pleased with the way things worked out yesterday with the Vigilance Committee, they asked if I thought I’d like a lawman’s job, full time.”

  Kyla raised her brows. “When I suggested that, you weren’t very interested in the idea.”

  He took her hand between his own. “I know this is hard for you to understand, but . . .” He paused, as if searching for the right words. “Remember when you told me how much you envied my being feared on sight?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, that’s all I’ve known for years. I admit it was my own doing, but I couldn’t go anywhere and be accepted for who I was. I dragged that goddamned reputation around with me like a mangy venison haunch. I just didn’t fit in anywhere because people tend to not like a man they fear. But now, this town has gotten to know me, at least well enough to offer me this job. I finally can stop drifting.”

  Kyla put on a face of indifference and dropped her gaze to the curry comb in her lap. “So what does this mean to me?”

  Jace put his finger under her chin and lifted her face to his. “It means that I’m in Blakely to stay.”

  She nodded. “I hope you enjoy the town. It’s a nice place to live.”

  He frowned slightly. “Damn it, Kyla—”

  “What do you expect me to say, Jace?” she asked.

  “Nothing. I mean I want to tell you that I—well—”

  Her heart began beating faster. “Yes? Tell me what?”

  He held her with his gaze. “I know I said that I couldn’t love anyone, that it was too late for me to make a new start, but—I was wrong. You gave me back my heart, honey.” He peered into her face, his expression naked and open. “I lived for years with a dead place inside me. Except I found out it wasn’t really dead, but just empty. You showed me that. The thing is, the only person who can fill that emptiness is you. I need to love you, as much as I need you to love me.”

  “Jace,” she whispered, because that was all her tight throat would let her do. “I need to love you, too.”

  He gave her a crooked smile and pressed kisses to her knuckles. “So will you marry the first sheriff of Blakely?”

  She laughed, so happy she didn’t know if her heart could contain her joy. “Yes, I will! What’s your first order of business?”

  He grinned at her. “To hire a deputy so that can have a honeymoon.” He held open his arms to her and she fell into them, thanking God and Many Braids’s spirits for letting Jace find his heart in her.

  “Maybe I should make Kyle Springer a deputy,” he teased.

  “Nope, I don’t think Kyle will be around anymore. There’s just me.”

  He smiled. “Mmm, with a head full of long red hair, and a yellow dress to wear to dinner.”

  “That’s right,” she said, “you promised to buy me another dress to replace the one that got lost in the mountains.”

  “Kyla, for the chance to see that smile for the rest of my life, I’ll buy you all the dresses you want.” He leaned and kissed her, that wonderful soft, healing kiss of his.

  “No,” she said and laid her palm against his cheek. “I just want you.”

  He looked at her with his whole heart in his eyes. “It’s a deal, Kyla. It’s a deal.”