Prairie Moon

by Maggie Osborne

  “I’m glad I wasn’t present,” she said in a low voice. “I don’t ever again want to see someone shoot at you.”

  “I’m lucky. Didn’t I tell you?” He signaled a waiter and ordered supper.

  “I’m glad,” she murmured after an obvious struggle. He knew she wanted to tell him that one day his luck would run out.

  “The nonsense will end once we get on the train. The farther east we go, the less likely it is that anyone will recognize me. If someone does, it’s unlikely he’ll think about a challenge.” He shrugged. “In any case, once beyond St. Louis, we won’t see many men wearing guns.”

  “But you will be, won’t you.” It wasn’t a question. “Maybe you won’t wear your gun belt, but you’ll carry a weapon.”

  “Who told you about Metzger?”

  “One of the delivery men.” She tilted her head and studied him across the flowers and candles. “I thought about it afterward. It must feel good to know you rid the world of a man like that. The delivery man said Metzger had done terrible things.”

  “I defended myself, that’s all. But, yes. There’s one less criminal out there.”

  They talked about less weighty topics during supper, but she returned to his reputation over coffee.

  “You could leave the West and live on either coast, where every other stranger isn’t trying to kill you. It strikes me as an heroic act to stay here. And unnecessary.”

  He decided to treat the subject lightly. “And what would I do with myself back east or farther west?”

  “For one thing, you wouldn’t be watching the door as you’ve done all evening.” Her smile removed any suggestion of criticism. She understood. “You could practice law, couldn’t you?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “You could continue bringing criminals to justice, you’d just be doing it in a courtroom instead of in the streets or out on the plains.”

  What she didn’t realize was that it was easier to be lonely in an empty land than it was to be lonely in a city, surrounded by people. The West was filled with men like him—silent, solitary men who would never marry or have children or settle in one place. They drifted from town to town, sometimes visible, sometimes not, looking for the life their younger selves had hoped to have. Waiting for the man who was faster on the trigger.

  “Maybe someday I’ll do that.” He said it to appease her on a night that he wanted her to be happy.

  Della saw through his light answer. A long, lonely life with an ocean view wasn’t more appealing than a short, violent life under open skies. What she didn’t understand was why he assumed he would always be alone. He was handsome, a man of means, thoughtful, generous, and charming if a woman took the time to work past his reserve.

  The problem was geographical. While Cameron stayed in the West, he had a limited future. All he could offer a woman was the inevitability of widow’s weeds. But if he left the territories where his reputation made him a legend, it appeared to her that everything would change.

  A rush of color tinted her cheeks as she thought about the old gypsy woman’s prediction that she would have more children.

  If Cameron decided to leave the West . . . then what now seemed unthinkable became thinkable. Maybe, just maybe, she and Cameron . . .

  She slid a look at him as they left the restaurant. His profile was watchful and stony, his jaw set. His mind was open to everything around them, aware of people and things that Della didn’t notice. One of the things he was aware of was her, she knew that from the way he pressed her arm close to his body.

  She also sensed he wanted to tell her something, that frustrating feeling had not gone away. But he wasn’t a man to speak his emotions, she knew that. From the way he looked at her, she suspected she could guess some of the things he might say if he could speak easily about feelings.

  And possibly she could listen if he could speak.

  Everything had changed because she saw a way they could reach each other, if he was willing to leave his legend here and walk away from it. Ducking her head, she hid a hot face, felt her hand tremble on his sleeve. And she stumbled as steam seemed to build in her stomach and behind her ribs.

  Cameron steadied her. “Are we going too fast?”

  He wasn’t, but she was. Pausing, she touched her fingertips to her forehead and commanded herself to proceed slowly. Because Cameron could leave the West didn’t mean that he would. And she was still guilty of being a thoughtless and bad wife. Guilty of leaving her baby behind, an unconscionable act.

  Moreover, she was putting thoughts in his mind that perhaps he didn’t have. Men could be attracted to women without wanting to marry them. And she didn’t want to marry, either. At least she hadn’t until the gypsy woman put the idea in her head.

  “Damn.” She glared at him, irritated by the confusion whirling in her mind. “Why can’t things ever be simple?”

  “What’s complicated?”

  “You. Me.” She threw out her arm. “You want to say something to me, I know you do, but you can’t. I want to listen, but I don’t know if I’m ready.”

  Mostly she wanted to kiss him until she was dizzy with desire. She wanted the heat in her belly to ignite against the fire on his skin. She wanted to taste him, touch him, drag her fingernails down his naked chest and hear him groan her name. She longed for him to break down the walls of resistance and release the passion she’d driven deep into an almost forgotten corner. She wanted to offer herself to his hands and mouth, to his lips and tongue. She wanted to lose herself in the sweet oblivion of his body and touch.

  She opened her eyes, shaken by the intensity of inappropriate thoughts, and discovered him staring down at her, his eyes a dark starlit blue.

  “My God,” he said softly. Slowly he raised a hand and touched his fingertips to her cheek, let his thumb drift across her lips. “Della.” His gaze narrowed and she understood that he could read what she was thinking.

  She touched her tongue to his thumb, tasted salt and soap, felt a jagged flash of electricity sear through her body. Sagging forward, she leaned against his chest, not caring if anyone saw them. She didn’t move until she thought her legs would support her, until she felt his hands slip beneath the folds of her cape and circle her waist, steadying her.

  Cameron looked deeply into her eyes, then without a word, he took her arm and quickly walked the short distance to the hotel entrance. Stealing looks at each other, but not speaking, they climbed the stairs, then turned, breathless, in front of the doors to the suite.

  She could never remember who moved first, but suddenly she was in his arms, her hands framing his face, bringing his mouth down hard on hers.

  His hands slipped beneath her cape, moved up her rib cage then back to her waist, pulling her into his body. When she felt the rigid urgency of his arousal, she gasped and pushed harder against him. Urgent kisses slid to her throat, back to her lips.

  Della couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Instinct and desire overwhelmed her and she welcomed surrender. For weeks, she had known in her secret heart that this moment would come. Foolishly, she had imagined that she would have a choice when it did.

  “Cameron.” She whispered his name, her breath ragged and hot. “I . . . we . . .” They were in the hallway, for heaven’s sake. “Open the door.” She placed a hand on his chest and felt his heart racing beneath her palm.

  Straightening, Cameron looked down at her. He touched her throat and she felt a tremor in his fingertips. He released a long, low breath then knots ran up his jaw. He stepped back from her and found the key to the suite.

  The instant the door opened, Della reached for his hand but he didn’t move when she would have tugged him inside.

  “Cameron?” Confused, she watched the struggle warring across his expression.

  “I’ll see you in the morning.” His voice was rough with desire and the look in his eyes made her go weak with wanting him.

  “I don’t understand.”

  He started to say something, t
hen swore and strode away from her. At the staircase he looked back, holding her gaze, then he moved down the stairs and out of sight.

  Chapter 15

  The dream came again, leaving Della with a guilty headache when she awoke. After wiping her eyes with the edge of the sheet, she experienced a burst of anger toward Clarence as intense as the anger she’d felt on the day she wrote her last letter to him.

  Was she supposed to be celibate and lonely for the rest of her life? Is that what Clarence would have wanted? Finally a man had come who stirred her emotions and made her feel alive. In the past weeks she had whistled and laughed and talked more than she had in years. She felt herself awakening as if from a deep numbing slumber. Was that so terrible?

  Sitting up, Della pushed a wave of hair out of her eyes then covered her face with her hands. She had done wrong by Clarence. If she could, she would turn back the clock and write a different letter. She would give anything, anything, to have let Clarence die believing he was loved. God could look into her heart and know the truth of her pain and remorse.

  But as much as she longed to change the past, she couldn’t do it. Pulling her fingers down her face, she thought about what the old gypsy had said, that everything in her life circled back to the past.

  This morning the gypsy’s comment appeared discouragingly true. Cameron had walked away from her when he remembered she was his friend’s wife. She had figured that out late last night. And it was an example of the past overshadowing the present. As was the awful dream about following Clarence’s hearse. And so was this journey, a deliberate confrontation with the past. Even behaviors from a bygone era had recently jumped up to surprise her.

  It shouldn’t be a wonder that the dream was coming more frequently, she thought while she dressed and packed her things in the small traveling trunk that one of the delivery men had brought to the suite yesterday. The dream reflected the confusing mix of emotions that grew stronger with every step toward Atlanta. Today she felt chilled by a consuming dread.

  Part of the dread was caused by a reluctance to face Cameron after last night’s feverish display in the hallway. A wave of crimson flowed up to her cheeks as she came down the staircase and saw him waiting in the hotel lobby. What on earth should she say?

  I couldn’t sleep for thinking about you and longing for you. I didn’t want you to leave, you must have known that. I respect your honor and I’m grateful that you respect mine, but we are adults who need each other and we feel so right together. I ask nothing from you, I expect nothing. I just want . . .

  “Good morning, Mrs. Ward.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Cameron.”

  They each formed awkward smiles then looked away. Della smoothed the skirt of her dark blue traveling suit, adjusted the brim of her hat. A glance about the lobby confirmed that her trunk was now downstairs. Inside her purse was a clean handkerchief, a bit of rice powder and a tiny puff, and the ten dollars that she’d taken from the bank before they left Two Creeks. She also had some hard candy, extra hairpins, an emergency sewing kit.

  A bearded man wearing soiled chaps and a heavy duster strode into the lobby. “The stage for the railhead leaves in ten minutes. Is that trunk going?”

  Cameron saw to her trunk then returned. “It’s a twenty-mile trip over rough roads, and the coach is crowded.” He turned his hat between his hands. “About last night . . .”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” she murmured, looking down at her purse. “I understand.”

  “I doubt it.” He settled his hat and offered his arm. “It will take most of the day to reach the station. Once we arrive, we’ll board immediately and have supper on the train.”

  It occurred to her that they wouldn’t have much privacy from here on. “Cameron? I’m crazy inside, thinking about Claire and seeing the Wards again. All of it. One minute I’m elated and the next minute I’m frightened and want to run in the other direction.” She raised her eyes to his. “But this is the most wonderful thing anyone has ever done for me. I’ll never forget that you made it possible.”

  “Are you saying good-bye? It’s not time yet.” A strange, thin smile touched his lips.

  Good-bye? The idea startled her. Cameron had become so much a part of her daily life that his absence would leave a hole. Her chest tightened and she bit her lip.

  At some point, they needed to have an embarrassingly frank talk. Della needed to find a way to suggest that if Cameron would relocate to either of the coasts, they might have a future together. This, of course, assumed that she hadn’t misread his emotions. And it assumed that he believed she could be a better wife than she had been to Clarence. And it assumed that he could overcome his strong resistance toward courting his friend’s wife.

  There were too many assumptions. Sighing, she took Cameron’s arm and let him help her into the cramped stagecoach. She squeezed between two male passengers who stank of tobacco and sausages.

  Cameron stared inside, his expression stony enough that conversation died among the other passengers. “I’ll ride topside with the driver,” he said, closing the stage door.

  Della inhaled the sour smell of smoke and onions, and wished she could ride topside, too. She’d been spoiled by traveling in the open clean air.

  Several hours later, she realized this was the longest time she’d spent apart from Cameron since he’d ridden up her driveway. She missed him with a sharpness that made her throat ache.

  Dark clouds piled above the mountains to the northwest and turned the sky a leaden color. The temperature had dropped in the last hour. Occasionally the stage driver glanced at the sky then cracked his whip over the backs of the horses, hoping to reach the station before the weather did.

  It wouldn’t be the mountains’ first snow this season. Cameron had noticed patches of white along the roadbed when they went hurtling over Kahoe Pass. Give it another six weeks and Kahoe would be impassable. Santa Fe would have to look west and south for supplies.

  Eventually the Atchison, the Topeka, and the Santa Fe would raise the money to blast a rail bed through the mountains and take the railroad the rest of the way into Santa Fe. Cameron didn’t doubt this for a moment. He had, in fact, invested in several railroads, including the Atchison, the Topeka, and the Santa Fe. Rail was coming to the mountains and plains from both coasts.

  Things were changing, he thought, sitting beside the stage driver, hunched against a cold wind. There were still Indian uprisings to deal with, but for the most part the Indian wars had ended. Eventually all the territories would become states. Farms and ranches had spread across the Great Plains faster than a man could count. Men like himself were pinning on a badge and taming the frontier towns. When Cameron first came west, a man could ride for days without seeing another soul. Now it didn’t matter where he went, it was an unusual day that he didn’t encounter someone on the trail.

  A few short years from now the West wouldn’t be wild anymore; it would feel a lot like civilization. When that happened, a man might as well move to California, where he could be warm all year while he put up with civilized society. Cameron sniffed the cold air and smelled snow. California sounded tempting on a day when the wind drove cold needles against his face.

  Della had said she understood why he walked away from her last night. He narrowed his eyes on the road and wondered what reason she’d come up with. At least she didn’t seem angry. But he was.

  It was goddamned unfair that he’d found the one person in all the world who made life seem worth living, and she turned out to be Clarence Ward’s wife.

  What sank this injustice to a tragedy was his suspicion that Della Ward could have been his. She had come into his arms willing and eager, he’d seen a softness when she looked at him.

  If it meant he could have Della, he would have moved to California on the next train. Instead of catching or shooting outlaws as a sheriff or a bounty hunter, he would balance his personal scales in a courtroom. He’d send the bastards to prison or the gallows, and satisfy his ne
ed in that way. He could have made that life work, if he could have had Della.

  He stared into the waning light and remembered whistling with her on the trail. Remembered dozens of good conversations, laughter, and teasing glances. Thinking about last night and rose-colored stockings sent knots running up his jaw, and his fists clenched.

  In a perfect world, he and Della would go to Atlanta and fetch Claire, then they would settle in California and live happily ever after as the family he’d believed he would never have.

  It was goddamned unfair.

  “Jesus, mister.” The driver’s eyes darted away. “All I said was, we’ll be at the station in about ten minutes.”

  Cameron hadn’t realized he was staring. He shifted his gaze to the first snowflakes spinning out of the darkening sky.

  Ten days, possibly a few more, and then it was over.

  They were late reaching the station. Full darkness had descended and snow was beginning to accumulate on the platform. Clouds of hissing steam blew back from the engine and the firebox glowed like a sunken eye through the curtain of snowflakes.

  The conductor waved everyone from the stage to the train, and men scurried to whisk their luggage to the baggage car. Since the dining car had closed, a porter stood beside the conductor pushing box suppers into the passenger’s hands.

  “This is hard to believe, isn’t it?” After the interior of the stage, the cold, crisp air smelled like nectar, and Della loved the feathery touch of snow against her cheeks. “Remember how hot it was the day you rode up my driveway?”

  That day might have happened years ago since it seemed as if Della had known James Cameron forever. Right now she knew that he was hungry and feeling out of sorts because the stage driver had controlled the stage and horses, not Cameron. And it would irritate him to ride on a train as a passenger. He didn’t like to be in someone else’s control. Smiling, she took his arm and tugged him toward the light spilling from the train onto the platform. “We don’t want them to leave without us.”