“What is the matter?” He tried to stand still and not act like he noticed her gaze moving over him. He never thought of his body being anything out of the ordinary, more scarred maybe than most. If she was his wife, as she claimed, surely she’d seen him naked.
“Are you all right, lady?” The edges of his brain were starting to clear. She did look vaguely familiar. The past and dreams began to separate in his mind. “Is something the matter with you ... or me?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. Her glance darted the length of him once more, and she added, “You shouldn’t bathe with your socks on.”
He looked down at the wool socks. “All right,” he answered, as if she made any sense. “I’ll try to remember that in the future.” If she was his wife, he must have forgotten how picky she was. A woman with white-blond hair sitting on a bed crossed his mind. He remembered she refused to put on a dress.
She marched back to the campsite. He followed, wondering if clothes often made her angry.
Without looking at him, she tossed a blanket in his direction. “If you’ll sit on the box, I’ll rebandage the wound. There is no telling how many bugs or how much mud got beneath the bandage. I’ve heard of folks getting infections from river water.”
“All right,” he answered, hoping not to make her angry or shock her again until he figured out who she was. He didn’t believe it possible such a woman could be his wife. First, he had no time or place in his life for a wife, and second, a lady like her would never give him more than a glance. But facts were muddled in his brain. He had no idea what day, or even what month it must be, but visions of her lined the corners of his thoughts.
He tried to think back before the pain. He’d been riding south, following a trail of cattle thieves out of Dodge. He remembered being bone-tired when he stopped at Cedar Point and deciding he might learn something about the men he was trailing if he had a few drinks. The sheriff there would loan him a cell for the night if he had too much. Sam could remember Sheriff Riley always kidded him about not being able to hold his alcohol. So why couldn’t he remember how he met this woman before him?
The rest of that night in Cedar Point seemed more dream than memory.
While his wife stirred up the fire, he covered himself, then sat on a box and studied her. She was a lady, that he would bet on. He’d never seen the likes of her in a saloon. But her dress was no more than a rag. Sections of the skirt were missing as if it had been quilted and someone had left out a few of the panels. She was thin, but not girl thin. A full-grown woman moved beneath those rags. A woman who hadn’t been eating regularly, he’d guess.
“Turn around,” she ordered as she knelt behind him. “And keep still while I work.”
Wrapping the blanket around his waist, he did as she instructed. He felt her fingers at his back, working with the knot of a bandage tied just below his rib cage. Her hands were warm and seemed used to the feel of him.
“The wound is still closed.” Her words brushed against the back of his shoulder. “No more bleeding, but I’ll bandage it just in case.”
He glanced over his shoulder in time to see her rip a strip of material from the skirt of her dress.
He realized she’d been cutting her own clothes to doctor him. “I’ll buy you another dress,” he offered.
“No,” she shot in anger. “I’ll buy my own dress.”
Sam frowned. She might be beautiful, but she had a temper. He’d never known of a woman who got mad just because a man offered to buy her something. Yet, her touch was gentle as she spread the cotton around his waist and tied it. Her body leaned close against his, and he felt an ache like he’d never felt before. A hunger for something he’d never tasted. A longing. A hope.
She might call herself his wife, but he’d never made love to her. There wasn’t enough pain or liquor in the world to make him forget what this woman would have felt like beneath him.
“Who are you?” he asked as she pulled the blanket over his shoulder.
“Forget my name again, did you, Sam?”
He wanted to tell her that she wasn’t someone he would forget, but at the moment he couldn’t remember much more than his own name. He’d been hurt enough times to know that in a day or two the world would settle back into place, but he didn’t want to wait that long to hear her name.
“Mrs. Sam Gatlin.” She laughed. “That’s my name.”
He frowned.
She took pity on him. “Sarah. I’m Sarah. Maybe next time the sheriff marries us, you’ll remember.”
Her hand moved along his forehead as though she’d touched him there a thousand times. “How’s the hangover?”
“Pounding,” he answered, wanting to ask about the sheriff, but guessing it could wait. “How long have I been drunk?” He caught her hand in his and held it a moment before he let go.
“Four days.” She didn’t seem offended by his action. “Passed out most of the time, which was probably for the best.” She unwrapped a white shirt from wrinkled brown paper. “You want me to help you?” She held out the shirt.
He thought of saying no, but he kind of liked the idea of her drawing near again. As she slipped the shirt over his shoulders, she moved close once more, bumping against him slightly, as if it were nothing unusual. He wondered if she knew no one ever came near him. No one dared.
“Want some coffee?” She buttoned the first button, then lay her palm flat against his chest and brushed the material smooth.
The simple action dynamited his senses, shattering a hundred barriers he’d built over the years.
And she wasn’t even aware of what she’d done, for she turned and added, “Coffee’s all we have, I’m afraid. The kids must not have thought it worth stealing.”
He nodded, deciding just to watch her without talking. She wasn’t making sense, and he wouldn‘t, either, if he tried to talk.
What he really wanted was a drink, but if what she said was accurate, he’d had plenty the past few days. She’d be surprised to learn that normally he avoided alcohol. He’d learned long ago that it dulled the senses, and in his line of work that could be deadly.
In less time than he thought possible, she handed him a steaming cup of coffee. He downed half of it in one swallow. As the warmth spread through his insides, Sam leaned back against the buffalo robe and closed his eyes. He could hear her moving around him, but sleep claimed him before he had time to form words to thank her.
She didn’t have to touch him; she didn’t even have to talk to him. If felt good just knowing she was close.
Hours later, when he drifted back, he was surprised to find her still with him. A part of him hadn’t wanted to wake because he thought she might be only in a dream. But there she sat on an empty crate, his freshly washed trousers spread across her lap.
Sam shoved his hair from his face and tried to rise. The clearing came into focus and he realized where he was as he stood. When he groaned, she looked up.
“Oh, hello.” Her voice was soft when she wasn’t yelling. “Feeling better?”
He thought about asking “compared to what?” but instead just nodded.
“Good, want to show me the way to your cabin now? We really should find it and get settled in before dark.”
He closed his eyes. It would sure help if she were sane or he more sober.
“What cabin? I don’t have a cabin.”
“Of course you do. You told me you had a place, and Denver directed me this far. If she was right about the clearing, she must know about the cabin. We just didn’t have time for more directions.”
The fog in his brain cleared slightly. If she’d been talking to Denver, no wonder the woman who claimed to be his wife was confused. “I only told Denver I had a cabin because I needed her to drop off supplies. This was a great place to leave a stash, but the clearing isn’t big enough to build a cabin on.”
Sarah looked disappointed. “I thought you had a place.” He didn’t have to read her mind to know what she could have added. She’d be
en hoping that if he had a cabin, maybe then she’d have somewhere to stay. Could it be possible that such a lovely creature not only didn’t have any clothes but had nowhere to go? If she’d picked him to follow, her other choices must be dire indeed.
“I only told Denver about a cabin because I needed supplies delivered here. I feared she would tell everyone in the state. This place is too hard to find for most to bother with. Denver’s lips are so loose, every secret that ever went into her head drips out. You’re probably not the only one she told about this spot, so we better get moving.”
“I’m not.” Sarah frowned. “She also must have told Tennessee Malone.”
“Tennessee Malone?” The name sounded familiar, but Sam couldn’t draw a face to match.
“He’s the man who brought the children out here. You know, your children.”
Sam started to wish he was still dreaming or drunk. “What children? I don’t have any children.”
Suddenly she jumped like a fireball on the sun and headed right toward him. A few inches from his nose, she shouted, “How dare you deny those sweet kids!”
“What kids?” he yelled, figuring if she could act like he was hard of hearing, he could do the same for her. “I never even heard of Malone or any kids he might have brought.”
She poked him in the very place she’d patted him before. “They sat right here and knew your name and said you were their father.”
Sam glanced past her to the clearing. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see children pop up from behind the rocks. He had somehow woken up from this drunk on the other side of the moon and everything was backward.
He took a deep breath and tried to think. “What kids, Sarah? I don’t see anyone out here but you and me on this wide spot between the river and the cliffs.”
“Of course not,” she answered, as if disgusted. “They disappeared.”
Sam grabbed his trousers from her and pulled them on, ignoring the pain in his back. He needed to think and he always did his best when he was pacing.
Walking back and forth between the trees and the water, he tried to remember anything that had happened the past few days. Only flashes of her blinked through his mind. He remembered her all wet and cold, the feel of her cuddled against his side, the way she faced him without fear. He knew how she looked in just her undergarments, but he couldn’t picture her on their wedding day. If there had been such a day.
She had handed him one of the white shirts Ruthie always made for him. She knew his name. She’d found this place.
Finally he figured it all out. He might be the one who just returned from a four-day drunk and who had been in so much agony he could think of nothing else, but she was definitely the one claiming crazy.
Surely if they were married and had kids he would have at least one memory of it.
Sam watched her closely, thinking he knew the feel of her touch on his flesh, but all the pieces wouldn’t fit together.
He feared, in time, he’d get over being drunk, but she would still be crazy.
SEVEN
“GET IN THE WAGON, SARAH,” SAM ORDERED, FIGHTING the need to swear. Slowly, over the past two days, he had remembered the details of their wedding, but most of the time after he’d been stabbed still floated in fog. In the bar that morning, she had said he would owe her if she helped him, but so far Sarah had not named her price. Maybe once they got to town she would find something in the mercantile that she considered payment for saving his life.
“We have to go.” He tried to keep the impatience from his tone.
She stood a few feet away, arms folded, acting as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said in the last hour.
“I’m not going,” she finally answered. “I can’t leave your children.”
They’d been over this a dozen times. Every time Sam woke up, she mentioned the kids. Then he tried to convince her there were none. Surely, if they’d been around, he would have at least heard them. “What children?” he asked as if he hadn’t listened to her reply before.
“The ones who disappeared.” She moved her head back and forth as if she were reciting a nursery rhyme.
He stared at her, remembering how he thought she looked like an angel when he’d married her. The angel was sure doing a good job of making his life hell. He wasn’t sure he was strong enough yet to drive a team through the water and back to town. But if he stayed here without food, he’d never get any stronger. They’d even finished the last of the coffee at dawn. He either had to take his chances driving down the river or die here in the clearing.
“We have to go.” Sam glanced up, guessing they had another three hours of daylight. Even if they left now, it would be late when they got to town. But there was no sense in waiting; conditions would not improve for them here in the clearing.
“No.” She brushed the sleeve of an old dress she put on to travel. The faded blue garment looked even more like a rag than the one she’d been cutting on for bandages. The sleeves were an inch too long and had frayed until they were like thin lace covering her wrist.
In his wildest dreams, he never imagined he’d find a woman as stubborn as himself. She might not come to his shoulder in height, but she obviously thought of herself as an even match for him.
“Then I’m leaving you,” he threatened.
“Then leave. When you pass out and fall off the wagon, don’t float by here and expect me to fish you out.”
He’d had all he could take. Slowly he lowered himself from the wagon and walked toward her.
If she had any sense, she’d run. But he knew she’d stand her ground. Something more than memory told him she hadn’t backed down from him one step since they’d met. For most people, the length of a room wasn’t far enough away from him. She must not have an ounce of self-preservation in her entire body.
When he stood in front of her, he noticed how tiny she was compared to his bulk. Didn’t she know he could break her in two as if she were no more than a dried twig?
“Well?” he asked.
“Well.” She took a breath and held it as if she were making herself bigger, more frightening.
Sam wrapped his arm around her waist and lifted her up against his chest. “You are going with me, not staying here to care for invisible children.”
“I’m staying.” She pointed her finger at him as though it were a weapon. “So put me down.”
Sam had been fighting the torture of her nearness for two days. The hunger for food was nothing compared to the hunger he felt to touch her. But he wasn’t an animal like some men he’d known, who would take a woman just because she was there for the taking.
If he were honest, though, he’d have to admit that he thought about holding her more than once. And a few times he’d wanted to return the touch she had so frequently given him.
She was already his. She’d told him so herself. He even remembered bits and pieces of the wedding. Sarah was his and he’d spent every waking hour not touching her while she’d patted and poked on him like a kid at an ant bed.
“Well?” She glared at him with those sky blue eyes. “Put me down!”
Sam lowered her to the ground without removing his arm from around her. The hint of honeysuckle drifted in the air, and he guessed she’d used the sliver of soap she had left to wash up. Before he thought of why, he leaned forward and kissed her hard on the mouth.
She didn’t fight, or try to push away, but she didn’t kiss him back, either. She felt stiff and cold, as if his advance had stopped her blood from flowing. He couldn’t even feel her heart beating. It was as if he’d caught a butterfly and held it a little too tightly.
When he straightened, he let go of her and said two words he’d never said in his life. “I’m sorry.”
If she had yelled at him, or slapped him, or swore to kill him, Sam would have felt better. At least she would have reacted. But she did nothing. The nothing hurt worse than anything she could have thought to do.
She didn’t back away from him now, he admi
red her for that. She stood right where he’d planted her and said, “You got a right, I guess. But don’t expect me to take any part of your handling me. I’ve been told men have needs that sometimes they can’t help but force on a woman.” Her chin rose slightly. “All I ask is that you don’t hurt me overly if you plan on not honoring our bargain.”
“What bargain?”
She stared at him with a hint of fear sparkling in her eyes. “You said if I helped you out back there in the bar that you would owe me one.”
“I did.” Sam had no intention on going back on his word but he couldn’t remember. “Name your price.”
“I ask one thing only. I probably should have said something earlier, but with you so hurt, I didn’t see that there was a need.”
“Ask.” Sam wasn’t sure he wanted to hear her words, but he knew he could wait no longer.
“I ask that we not become fully man and wife.... I ask that you not bed me until I’m ready. Just for once in my life I want my body to belong to me for the giving. I’ll be a wife to you in all other ways, I promise.”
The request seemed simple, but Sam saw the importance of her favor reflected in her eyes. He knew little of her past, but he saw her fighting for control in some part of her world. And here, with them, seemed to be where she drew the line.
He turned away. A week ago he would have sworn he didn’t have a heart, but Sarah just cut a chunk out of it. With coldness she spoke of something that was supposed to be special between a man and a woman. With the honesty of her stare she made his kiss less than nothing. And light blue eyes told him she meant every word. She would accept his advance, even his abuse if he chose not to keep his word. All she asked was that he allow her to live through it, like what he offered was a torture.
Half the people in Texas hated him and he didn’t care. They could be afraid of him or believe all the legends they wanted and it didn’t matter. As far as he could tell, Sarah didn’t even know enough about him to fear him. He’d never done anything to harm her.
She just thought less of him because he was a man ... because he had needs ... because he wanted her. As if wanting her were a crime. As if she had already decided he gave no honor to his words.
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