by Nora Roberts
“I’ll go anywhere you want.”
“Not gain anything?” Carlson laughed again, and it echoed off the rocks and air. “Satisfaction, my dear. I’ll gain satisfaction.”
“Are you hurt?” Jake asked quietly.
“No.” She shook her head, praying she could will him back behind the rock, back to safety. “No, he hasn’t hurt me. He won’t if you go back.”
“But you’re wrong, my dear, quite wrong.” Carlson bent his head close to hers, amused by the quick fury in Jake’s eyes when he brushed his lips over Sarah’s hair. “I’ll have to, you see, because you won’t understand. Unless I kill him for you, you won’t understand.
Your gunbelt, Redman.” Carlson drew back the hammer for emphasis and kept the gun tight against Sarah’s temple. “Take it off, slowly, very slowly, and kick it aside.”
“No!” She began to struggle, only to have him drag her arm farther up her back. “I’ll kill you myself.” She wept in rage and fear. “I swear it.”
“When I’m done here, my dear, you’ll do exactly what I say, when I say. In time you’ll understand this was for the best. Drop the belt, Redman.” Carlson smiled at him and jerked his head to indicate that he wanted the guns kicked away. “That’s fine.” He took the gun away from Sarah’s temple to point it at Jake’s heart. “You know, I’ve never killed a man before. It always seemed more civilized to hire someone- someone like yourself.” His smile widened. “But I believe I’m going to enjoy it a great deal.”
“You might.” Jake watched his eyes. He could only hope Sarah had the sense to run when it was over. Barker couldn’t be far behind. “Maybe you’ll enjoy it more when I tell you I killed your brother.”
The muscles in Carlson’s cheek twitched. “You bastard.”
Sarah screamed and threw her weight against his gun hand. She felt the explosion, as if the bullet had driven into her. Then she was on her knees. Life poured out of her when she saw Jake sprawled on the ground, blood seeping from his side.
“No. Oh, God, no.”
Carlson threw back his head and laughed at the sky.
“I was right. I enjoyed it. But he’s not dead yet. Not quite yet.” His lips stretched back from his teeth as he lifted the gun again.
She didn’t think. There was no room for thought in a mind swamped with grief. She reached out and felt the smooth grip of Jake’s gun in her hand. Kneeling in the dirt, she balanced it and aimed. “Samuel,” she murmured, and waited for him to turn his head.
The gun jumped in her hand when she fired. The sound of the shot echoed on and on and on. He just stared at her. Afraid she’d missed, Sarah drew back the hammer and calmly prepared to fire again.
Then he stumbled. He stared at her as his hand.; reached up to press against the blood that blossomed I on his shirtfront. Without a sound, he fell back. He groped once in the air, then tumbled off the edge and into the canyon.
Her hand went limp on the gun. Then the shudders began, racking shudders, as she crawled to Jake. He’d pushed himself upon one elbow, and he held his knife in his hand. She was weeping as she tore at her petticoats to pad the wound in his side.
“I thought he’d killed you. You looked-” There was so much blood, she thought frantically as she tore more cloth. “You need a doctor. I’ll get you on the horse as soon as-” She broke off again as her voice began to hitch. “It was crazy, absolutely crazy, for you to come out in the open like that. I thought you had more sense.”
“So did I.” The pain was searing, centering in his side and flowing out in waves of heat. He wanted to touch her, just once more, before he died. “Sarah…”
“Don’t talk.” Tears clogged her throat. His blood seeped through the pad and onto her hands. “Just lie still. I’m going to take care of you. Damn you, I won’t let you die.” He couldn’t see her face. Tired of the effort, he closed his eyes. He thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he heard horses coming. “You’re a hell of a woman,” he murmured, and passed out.
When he awoke, it was dark. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and a hollow throbbing at the base of his skull. The pain in his side was still there, but dull now, and constant. He lay still and wondered how long he’d been in hell.
He closed his eyes again, thinking it didn’t matter how long he’d been there, since he wouldn’t be leaving. Then he smelled her, smelled the soft scent that was Sarah. Though it cost him dearly, he opened his eyes again and tried to sit up.
“No, don’t.” She was there, murmuring to him, pressing him gently back on a pillow, then laying a cool cloth against his hot face.
“How long-” He could only manage two whispered words before the strength leaked out of him.
“Don’t worry.” Cradling his head with her arm, she brought a cup to his lips. “Drink a little. Then you’ll sleep again. I’m right here with you,” she continued when he coughed and tried to turn his head away. “Can’t-” He tried to focus on her face, but saw only a silhouette. It was Sarah, though. “Can’t be in hell,” he murmured, then sank back into the darkness…
When he awoke again, it was daylight. And she was there, leaning over him, smiling, murmuring something he couldn’t quite understand. But there were tears drying on her cheeks, cheeks that were too pale. She sat beside him, took his hand and held it against her lips. Even as he struggled to speak, he lost consciousness again.
She thought it would drive her mad, the way he drifted in and out of consciousness that first week, with the fever burning through him and the doctor giving her no hope. Hour after hour, day after day, she sat beside him, bathing his hot skin, soothing when the chills racked him, praying when he fell back into that deep, silent sleep.
What had he said that day when he’d awakened?
Pacing to the window, the one Maggie had told her Jake had sometimes sat in, she drew the curtain aside to look down at the empty street. He’d said it couldn’t be hell. But he’d been wrong, Sarah thought. It was hell, and she was mired in it, terrified each day that he would leave her.
So much blood. He’d lost so much blood. By the time Barker had ridden up she’d nearly managed to stop it, but the ride back to town had cost him more. She had stanched still more while the doctor had cut and probed into his side to remove the bullet. She hadn’t known that watching the bullet come out of him would be as bad as watching it go in.
Then the fever had raced through him, vicious and merciless. In a week he’d been awake only a handful of minutes, often delirious, sometimes speaking in what Lucius had told her was Apache. If it didn’t break soon, she knew, no matter how hard she prayed, no matter how hard she fought, it would take him. Sarah moved back to the bed to sit beside him and watch over him in the pale light of dawn.
Time drifted, for her even as it did for him. She lost track of minutes, then hours, then days. When morning came she held his hand in hers and thought over the time they’d had together. His hands had been strong, she thought. Biting back a sob, she laid her forehead on his shoulder. And gentle, too, she remembered. When he’d touched her. When he’d taught her.
With him she’d found something lovely, something powerful. A sunrise. A fast river. A storm. She knew now that love, desire, passion and affection could be one emotion for one man. From that first frantic discovery in the hay to the soft, sweet loving by the stream, he’d given her more than most women had in a lifetime.
“But I’m greedy,” she murmured to him. “I want more. Jake, don’t leave me. Don’t cheat me out of what we could have.” She blinked back tears when she heard the door open behind her.
“How is he?”
“The same.” Sarah rose,and waited while Maggie set a tray on the bureau. She’d long ago stopped arguing about eating. It had taken her only a few days to realize that if she wanted the strength to stay with Jake she needed food.
“Don’t worry none about this breakfast, because Anne Cody made it up for you.”
Sarah dashed away the hated, weakening tears.
“Tha
t was kind of her.”
“She asked about our boy here, and wanted you to know that Alice is doing just fine.”
“I’m glad.” Without interest, she folded back the cloth so that steam rose fragrantly from the biscuits. “Looks like Carlotta skipped town.”
“It doesn’t matter.” With no more interest than she had in the biscuits, she looked at her own face in the mirror. Behind her reflection, she could see Jake lying motionless in the bed. “The damage is done.”
“Child, you need sleep, and not what you get sitting up in that chair all night. You go on and use my room. I’ll stay with him.”
“I can’t.” Sarah ignored the biscuits and took the coffee. “Sometimes he calls for me, and I’m afraid if I’m not here he might…slip away. That’s foolish, I suppose, but I just can’t leave him, Maggie.”
“I know.” Because she did, Maggie set a comforting hand on Sarah’s shoulder. The noise at the door had her turning back. “What are you doing sneaking around here, young John Cody?”
Johnny slipped into the doorway and stood with his hat crushed in his hands. “Just wanted to see him, is all.”
“A sickroom ain’t no place for nasty little boys.” “It’s all right.” Sarah waved him in and summoned up a smile. “I’m sure Jake would be pleased that you’d taken the time to visit him.”
“He ain’t going to die, is he, Sarah?”
“No.” She found the confidence she’d lost during the night. “No, he isn’t going to die, Johnny.” “Ma says you’re taking real good care of him.” He reached out a hand, then balled it at his side again.
“It’s all right, boy,” Maggie said, softening. “You can pet him as long as he don’t know it. I do it myself.” Gingerly Johnny stroked a hand along Jake’s forehead.
“He’s pretty hot.”
“Yes, but the fever’s going to break soon.” Sarah laid a hand on Johnny’s shoulder. “Very soon.”
“Will’s better,” he said, giving Sarah a hopeful smile. “He’s got his arm in a sling and-all, but he’s getting around just fine and dandy. Won’t even let Liza fuss no more.”
“Before long Jake won’t let me fuss, either.”
Hours later she dozed, lulled by the afternoon sun. She slept lightly, her head nestled against the wing of the chair and her hands in her lap on top of her journal. She’d written everything she felt, hoped, despaired of on those pages. Someone called her name, and she lifted a hand as if to brush the voice away. She only wanted to sleep.
“Sarah.”
Now her eyes flew open, and she bolted out of the chair. Jake was half sitting up in bed, his brows drawn together in annoyance or confusion. And his eyes, she noted, were focused, alert and direct on hers.
“What the hell’s going on?” he asked her. Then he watched, astonished, as she collapsed on the side of the bed and wept.
It was three weeks before he had the strength to do more than stand on his own feet. He had time to think-perhaps too much time-but when he tried to do anything he found himself weak as a baby. It infuriated him, disgusted him. When he swore at Maggie twice in one morning, she told Sarah their patient was well on the road to recovery.
“He’s a tough one, Jake is,” Maggie went on as they climbed the steps to his room together. “Said he was damn sick and tired of having females poking him, pouring things into him and trying to give him baths.”
“So much for gratitude,” Sarah said with a laugh.
Then she swayed and clutched the banister for support. Maggie grabbed her arm. “Honey, are you all right?”
“Yes. Silly.” Shrugging it off, Sarah waited for the dizziness to pass. “I’m just tired yet, I think.” One look at Maggie’s shrewd face had her giving up and sitting carefully on the riser.
“How far along are you?”
It surprised Sarah that the direct question didn’t make her blush. Instead, she smiled. “About a month.” She knew the exact moment when she had conceived Jake’s child, on the riverbank under the moon. “I had the obvious sign, of course. Then, for the last few days, I haven’t been able to keep anything down in the morning.”
“I know.” Pleased as a partridge, Maggie cackled. “Honey, I knew you were breeding three days ago, when you turned green at the sight of Anne Cody’s flapjacks. Ain’t Jake just going to fall on his face?” “I haven’t told him,” Sarah said quickly. “I don’t want him to know until he’s…until we’ve…” She propped her chin in her hands. “Not yet, Maggie.” “That’s for you to decide.”
“Yes, and you won’t say any thing… to anyone?”
“Not a peep.”
Satisfied, Sarah rose and started up the stairs again. “The doctor said he’d be up and around in a couple of days. We haven’t been able to talk about anything important since he’s been healing.” She knocked on the door to his room before pushing it open.
The bed was empty.
“What-Maggie!”
“He was there an hour ago. I don’t know where-” But she was talking to air, as Sarah was flying down the stairs again.
“Sarah! Sarah!” His hand wrapped around a licorice whip, Johnny raced toward her. “I just saw Jake riding out of town. He sure looked a lot better.”
“Which way?” She grabbed the surprised boy by the shoulders. “Which way did he go?”
“That way.” He pointed. “I called after him, but I guess he didn’t hear me.”
“Damned hardheaded man,” Maggie muttered from the doorway.
“So he thinks he can just ride off,” Sarah said between her teeth. “Well, Jake Redman is in for a surprise. I need a horse, Maggie. And a rifle.”
He’d thought it through. He’d had nothing but time to think over the last weeks. She’d be mad, he figured. He almost smiled. Mad enough to spit, he imagined, but she’d get over it. In time she’d find someone who was right for her. Who was good for her.
Talking to her wouldn’t have helped. He’d never known a more stubborn woman. So he’d saddled up and ridden out of Lone Bluff the way he’d ridden out of countless towns before. Only this time it hurt. Not just the pain from his still-healing wound, but an ache deeper, sharper, than anything that could be caused by a bullet.
He’d get over it, too, he told himself. He’d just been fooling himself, letting himself pretend that she could belong to him.
He’d never forget how she’d looked, kneeling in the dirt with his gun in her hand. His gun. And there had been horror in her eyes. He’d taught her to kill, and he wasn’t sure he could live with that.
The way he figured it, she’d saved his life. The best he could do for her was return the favor and get out of hers.
She was rich now. Jake remembered how excited Lucius had been when he’d come to visit, talking on and on about the mine and how the gold was all but ready to fall into a man’s hands. She could go back east, or she could stay and build that big house with the parlor she’d told him about.
And he would…he would go on drifting.
When he heard the rider coming, instinct had him wheeling his horse around and reaching for his gun. He swore, rubbing his hand on his thigh, as Sarah closed the distance between them.
“You bastard.”
He acknowledged her with a nod. There was only one way to handle her now, one way to make certain she turned around and left. Before just looking at her made him want to crawl.
“Didn’t know you could ride, Duchess. You come out all this way to tell me goodbye?”
“I have more than that to say.” Her hands balled on the reins while she fought with her temper. “Not a word, Jake, to me, to anyone? Just saddle up and ride out?”
“That’s right. When it’s time to move on, you move.”
“So you’re telling me you have no reason to stay?” “That’s right.” He knew the truth sometimes hurt, but he hadn’t known a lie could. “You’re a mighty pretty woman, Duchess. You’ll be hard to top.”
He saw the hurt glow in her eyes before her chin came up.
“That’s a compliment? Well, you’re quite right, Jake. I’ll be very hard to top. You’ll never love another woman the way you love me. Or want one,” she said, more quietly. “Or need one.”
“Go on back, Sarah.” He started to turn his horse but stopped short when she drew the rifle out of its holster and aimed it heart-high. “You want to point that someplace else?”
For an answer, she lowered it a few strategic inches, smiling when his brow lifted. “Ever hear the one about hell’s fury, Jake?”
“I get the idea.” He shifted slightly. “Duchess, if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you pointed it back at my chest.”
“Get off your horse.”
“Damn it, Sarah.”
“I said off.” She cocked the lever in two sharp movements. “Now.”
He leaned forward in the saddle. “How do I know that’s even loaded?”
“How do you know it’s loaded?” She smiled, brought it up to her eye and fired. His hat flew off his head.
“Are you crazy?” Stunned, he dragged a hand through his hair. He could almost feel the heat. “You damn near killed me.”
“I hit what I aim at. Isn’t that what you said I should learn to do?” She cocked the rifle again. “Now get off that horse before I shoot something more vital off you.”
Swearing, he slid down. “What the hell are you trying to prove with all this?”
“Just hold it right there.” She dropped to the ground. Giddiness washed over her, and she had to lean one hand against her mount.
“Sarah-”
“I said hold it right there.” She shook her head to clear it.
“Are you sick?”
“No.” Steady again, she smiled. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”
“Just crazy, then.” He relaxed a little, but her pallor worried him. “Well, if you’ve a mind to kill me after spending the better part of a month keeping me alive, go ahead.”
“You’re damn right I kept you alive, and I didn’t do it so you could leave me the minute you could stand up. I did it because I love you, because you’re everything I want and everything I intend to have.