by JoAnn Ross
"No. But I am an expert on Jack Clayton."
"Dammit, would you knock it off about Clayton?" Trace roared, losing what little patience he had left.
Jessica was in Mariah and Trace's bedroom, changing into a pair of silk pajamas and a heavy robe that should have warmed her, but didn't. Her blood still felt like ice in her veins, a feeling that had little to do with the time she'd spent standing outside her house in the freezing sleet.
"It's not like Trace to yell," she murmured.
"No," Mariah agreed. "The last time I heard him bellow like that was after he found out I'd broken into Alan's hotel room looking for proof he'd killed Laura."
"He was worried about you."
"True."
Mariah remembered that the fight had ended with Trace hovering over her as she lay on her back on the floor, proving without a single doubt that she hadn't gotten her money's worth from that self-defense course she'd taken from the high-priced Beverly Hills jujitsu expert. His fury had soon dissipated, replaced with something even darker, more primitive. More exciting.
When she felt her lips curving into a reminiscent smile, she chided herself for forgetting that a woman who'd come to be her friend had nearly lost her life tonight.
"And now he's worried about you."
"He takes too much on his shoulders."
Mariah shrugged, knowing, better than most, how futile it was to try to change nature. "Trace has wide shoulders. So does Rory."
"Yes." Jessica sighed. A significant little silence settled over the room.
Mariah sat down on the edge of the king-size bed and patted the mattress. "Want to talk about it?"
Jessica stared out into the well of darkness, and although she knew it was merely her imagination working overtime, for a fleeting instant the sight of her house going up in flames flickered through her mind.
She knew, without a doubt, that she would have died if Rory hadn't been in bed with her tonight. When the smoke detector had jerked her from her sleep, she'd been literally paralyzed with that primal, instinctive fear of fire she'd lived with all of her life. She knew she would not have been able to move had it not been for her absolute trust in Rory.
"It's difficult," she murmured, wondering what Mariah would say if she told her that the man who'd saved her life tonight was her husband from another time.
"Love usually is. Lord knows, Trace and I didn't exactly have an easy time of it."
"Your circumstances were unusual. After all, you met the morning of your sister's murder. Trace had to consider you a suspect and at the same time you were worried he'd cave in to pressure from your father—not to mention the national media—to solve the case quickly."
"I think I knew right off the bat he wouldn't do that," Mariah admitted.
"Oh?" Jessica was surprised. "Trace told me you accused him of being one of the stereotypical corrupt rubes you routinely wrote into your television crime show scripts."
Mariah smiled and blushed at the same time. "I didn't exactly say that," she corrected, "but I suppose I did imply it. But then, when he laid down the law to me, and wouldn't cave in to my own methods of persuasion, I knew he was a straight arrow."
"I assume your methods were not without their appeal."
Mariah Swann Callahan was the most naturally sexy woman Jessica had ever known. Even now, wearing one of Trace's oversize T-shirts over the top of a pair of prison gray, waffle-weave sweatpants, and with her hair uncombed, she managed to look like the kind of woman for which satin sheets and French champagne had been invented.
Despite the seriousness of the reason Jessica was here in her bedroom in the middle of the night, Mariah laughed. "They didn't call me the Vixen of Whiskey River for nothing." Her expression sobered as she looked up at Jessica. "Do you remember that night we went out to dinner together in Payson?"
"Of course." Mariah had almost been killed that night. Just as she'd almost died tonight. The idea made Jessica shiver.
"You assured me that what you and Trace had wasn't serious," Mariah reminded her. "That it couldn't be serious, because he was too strong willed. You said you could only be happy with the kind of man who'd let you wear the pants in the family."
"That's what I always believed." Jessica dragged her hand through her hair and smelled smoke. "But that was before I met Rory."
"Funny how the right man can change a woman's plans," Mariah said dryly. "And a man's. Looks as if Whiskey River has just gotten a new historian."
The casual, encouraging remark brought up the question Jessica'd been asking herself for days. The all-important question she and Rory had been avoiding.
"I don't know if he'll be staying." Her tone was flat and discouraged.
"Of course he will." Mariah leaned over and gave her a friendly hug. "I've seen the way he looks at you. The man's obviously head over heels in love with you, Jess. There's no earthly power that could get him to walk away from that."
That, Jessica knew, was true. But once again she was forced to wonder what Mariah would say about the unearthly powers in Whiskey River, powers beyond anyone's control.
11
While Mariah and Jessica were sharing womanly secrets Rory continued to argue with Trace.
"There's one thing you need to understand," he said. "I'm going after Clayton. With or without your approval . And there's not a damn thing you can do to stop me."
Trace looked every bit as frustrated as Rory felt. "I can lock you up in jail. And throw the key in Whiskey River."
"Not legally." Even in Rory's time, although the parameters were admittedly stretched in the Wild West, unlawful arrest was officially discouraged.
"I have a rule about civilians mucking around in a case," Trace argued. "Especially one that could involve violence."
"And yet, Jessica tells me that you break that rule on occasion. Such as when you allowed Mariah to assist you with her sister's murder investigation."
"It wasn't as if I had much choice," Trace muttered. "She also ended up almost getting killed, which proves my point."
"You don't have any choice this time, either. And I have no intention of getting killed."
"That's what they all say," Trace muttered.
"There is a way to compromise."
"Compromise has never been one of my favorite words. But what do you suggest?"
"You could always deputize me."
Trace stared at him. "Now I know you're crazy."
"It's not impossible. There are many cases of modern day civilian posses. Even here in Arizona. I read in the paper of a group of ordinary citizens in Phoenix who have formed patrols—"
"Not in my county," Trace interjected. "And not to go after would-be murderers."
"Perhaps you're forgetting that I was one of the people Chapmann tried to murder. But more importantly, he tried to kill Jess. And there is no way in hell that I'm going to let him get away with that."
Trace cursed and shook his head.
"How would you feel," Rory continued, pressing his case, "if it had been Mariah who'd nearly been burned alive?"
"I'd want to kill the black-hearted son of a bitch." Trace's tone was flat. And final.
"Exactly."
The two men stared at each other. Finally Trace cursed again. "All right. But if I deputize you, you're going to have to follow my orders."
"Of course," Rory agreed quickly.
Too quickly, Trace thought, already regretting his decision.
Jessica was even more concerned by the idea of Rory going after Eric Chapmann than Trace. "You can't possibly be serious," she said, after he'd come into the bedroom to share his plans. Mariah had taken one look at Rory's grim face and left them alone.
"You know that I am."
"It's Trace's job to bring him in."
"Legally." He ran his hands down her arms and linked their fingers together. "Morally, it's mine."
"But the last time—"
"The last time I made the mistake of leaving you unprotected. Trace is getting
an officer from the state police to come guard you and Mariah while we're gone. You'll be well protected."
"Still, what if he ambushes you?" As he did before. The words hovered unspoken between them.
"If that happens, we're obviously in some sort of weird time loop," he decided. "Which means you'll come along and rescue me again."
Jessica didn't know whether to laugh or to cry at his bad joke. "Don't you take anything seriously?"
"Of course." He drew her into his arms and held her close. "I take Clayton seriously." He pressed his lips against the top of her head, breathing in the scent of smoke in her hair. It had been so close, Rory thought darkly. Too close. His caressing hands skimmed her ribs, teased her breasts, cradled her hips. "And most important, I take my feelings for you very, very seriously."
She tilted her head back to look up at him. Tears glistened wetly in her eyes, her lips managed a trembling smile. "I love you. So much. If anything happened to you…"
"Nothing's going to happen." He bent his head and kissed her, eyes open and on hers. "I swear, as soon as I make certain that Clayton is out of our lives, once and for all, I'll come back to you."
His lips nibbled leisurely at hers, as if they had all the time in the world, as if Trace wasn't in the other room waiting for him.
"And we'll get married again, and live to a ripe old age, watching our grandchildren ride horses and run wild in the woods. And years from now, Mac will run the announcement of our fiftieth wedding anniversary in the Rim Rock Record, and people will ask us the secret for staying married for half a century and we'll tell them that the secret to a successful marriage is a deep and all-abiding love."
His tantalizing kisses, his stroking hands, his warm, reassuring words spun a shimmering web around Jessica, seducing her into submission.
"And," he added as her lips softened beneath his and her arms crept up his chest to wrap around his neck, "of course it helps to be lucky enough to be married to the sexiest woman on the face of the earth."
She knew he'd wanted to make her laugh, but instead, his attempt at humor only made her realize exactly how much she'd lose if anything happened to him.
She wasn't going to panic, because it wouldn't help. And she wasn't going to cry because it would only make him feel guilty, and if he was worried about her, he might allow his mind to drift at the wrong moment, giving Clayton the upper hand.
What she was going to do, she realized, was let Rory live out his destiny. She took a deep breath to keep the tears at bay.
"Whatever happens," she said on a voice choked with emotion, "remember that I love you. More than life itself."
There was hunger in her avid kiss. Hunger, desperation and urgency. Rory could taste it as her tongue tangled with his, could feel it as molten heat radiated from her body, could hear it in the primitive sounds torn from her throat. His own blood, fired by her desperate passion, thundered in his ears, seeming to call out her name over and over again.
Emilie. Jess. Emilie. The two women had become intrinsically linked in his mind and in his heart. And he loved them both. For all time.
It took every ounce of inner resolve Rory possessed to finally break off the heated kiss. He framed her face in his hands. "I have to go. But I promise I'll be back before you know it. Safe and sound."
He'd said those same words to her before, Jess knew. And, amazingly, although he'd been a century late, he had come back. She could only hope she wouldn't have to wait another hundred years to see the only man she'd ever loved—the only man she could ever love—again.
He kissed her one more time, a swift hot kiss that did nothing to ease the pain, then released her and walked out of the room to join Trace in his search for Black Jack Clayton alias Eric Chapmann.
The DPS officer who'd arrived while Rory had been talking with Jessica objected to the two women standing in the open doorway, but there was no way he was going to keep them from watching their men set off on their mission.
"They'll be back," Mariah assured Jessica as they watched the Suburban's taillights disappear into the swirling white snow.
Tears streaming down her face, Jessica couldn't answer. All she could do now was to wait. And pray.
"I still don't get it," Trace said as he drove the Suburban high into the mountains. The abandoned forest service road was little more than a series of rocks followed by potholes deep enough to bury the tires nearly up to the rims. Behind them, the two-horse trailer bounced along.
"What makes you think Chapmann's up here? The logical thing is for him to have taken off to one of the cities—Phoenix, Tucson, or even Denver—where he could blend in."
"And the police are looking for him in all those cities," Rory said. "But the kind of man who'd set fires to kill people isn't logical. You can't use routine police procedures to track him down."
What Rory could not tell Trace was that Wolfe had once shown him the cave he and Noel had camped out in while they'd been on the run from Black Jack and the posse that had been pursing them. Later, when he'd gone searching for the killer himself, he'd found evidence that Clayton had camped out in the cave. Unfortunately, after luring Rory away from Whiskey River—and his bride—the outlaw had doubled back to town.
The sun had come up, gleaming blindingly through the tops of the shaggy, white-draped pine trees, making the freshly fallen snow sparkle like diamonds. It was a pristine, deceptively peaceful scene. It was hard to believe the evil that was lurking not far away.
"Well, guess we've hit the end of the road." Trace frowned at the huge boulder blocking the way. "Time to play cowboys and bad guys."
They left the Suburban and walked back to the trailer. The horses were sturdy and surefooted. As he pulled himself astride the mare, Rory felt instantly at home. Although there was a great deal to be said for automobiles—he certainly enjoyed driving Jess's Jaguar—there was still nothing like a good horse.
They rode in silence, single file, through the canyon cut by Whiskey River over the aeons. Little puffs of breath like ghosts rose from his mare's nostrils. The day was so clear and cold he could see the crystals dancing in the air. The only sound was the clop of the horses' hooves on the rocky ground.
"How much further?" Trace asked from behind Rory. Although they'd experienced a brief argument over who would go first, Rory had finally convinced the sheriff that since he was the one who knew the cave's location, he should lead the way.
"It's not far." At least Rory didn't think it was. Although he recognized some of the landmarks, others had disappeared over the years.
"Good. Because I'm about to freeze my ass off."
Rory secretly shared Trace's discomfort. There'd once been a time when he never would have thought of complaining, not even to himself. Obviously modern conveniences like car heaters softened a man.
He was about to voice that opinion when a shot rang out, the report echoing all around them in the high canyon walls. Rory heard Trace's curse.
Both men dived to the ground, and the frightened horses took off at a gallop. "Did he hit you?" Rory asked as he and Trace ducked for cover.
"In the arm," Trace muttered as he glared down at the hole in the sleeve of the new leather jacket Mariah had given him for his birthday the previous week. Hell, he ought to shoot Chapmann just for this. "It's not that bad." Another shot whizzed by, ricocheted off a nearby tree trunk and sent splinters of bark flying.
Rory noted that Trace had managed to take his rifle with him when he'd dived off his gelding. Instincts like that were to be admired. Especially in this day and age when such shoot-outs were obviously not the norm.
"Where the hell is he?" Trace demanded. He glared up at the rocky escarpment.
The answer came in another volley of shots.
"Up there," Rory said, pointing to a huge red boulder the size of Trace's Suburban. "If you can hold him there, I'll try to climb up behind him."
"That's my job."
"You have the rifle," Rory pointed out. "I have the revolver. It makes mo
re sense for you to keep him occupied while I do the close-up work."
"Hell, you just want to kill him."
"Hell yes," Rory nearly shouted back. "And in case you haven't noticed, he's doing his damnedest to kill us. Just keep him shooting," he repeated. "There used to be a trail not far from here, cut by elk coming down to the river. With any luck, it'll still be there. I'll climb up and jump him while you draw his fire."
"I feel like an extra in a Roy Rogers movie," Trace grumbled. "Or the remake of the shoot-out at O.K. Corral. This is ridiculous."
"It can also be deadly," Rory reminded him. "And it's definitely no movie." As if to underscore his words, a bullet hit a tree inches from his head.
"You don't have to convince me." Trace sighted the rifle, lined up his shot and pulled the trigger. He looked over at Rory's pearl-handed revolver. "Does that thing even work?"
"Of course. At least it did the last time I fired it." He decided this was not the time to reveal exactly how many years ago that had been.
"Where the hell is the SWAT team when you need them?" Trace growled as another shot sang by them.
Missed again. Clayton never was that good a shot, Rory remembered. Which was why he tended to limit his victims to innocent homesteaders who couldn't fight back.
Fortunately, the trail was there, just as he remembered, just as it had been a century ago. Rory silently thanked the elk for not having altered their pattern over the years. He climbed nearly silently, watching where he walked, being careful not to step on dry twigs or dislodge rocks as Wolfe had taught him. The sound of gunfire continued.
He reached the top of the cliff. Clayton was crouched behind a boulder, his attention directed down into the canyon. It would be so easy to shoot him in the back. And even if there were questions, he figured the fact that the outlaw had already shot the sheriff would justify such an action.
He pulled his gun from his waistband, aimed and couldn't fire. He wanted to kill Clayton, but not this way. The biggest difference between him and Black Jack Clayton, Rory realized, was that although he had regrettably killed other men, he'd never drawn first. And never in cold blood.