by Jillian Hart
“I’ve got to go.” There was nothing else to do but swerve past her in the narrow space between the table and the archway. It took only a second to grab his hat and haul his gloves from his jacket pockets.
“So, I was right.” She watched him with her arms folded beneath the soft rounds of her perfect breasts as if to attempt to shield her heart. “You can’t just kiss me like that—”
“Like what?”
Her face crumpled. “Like a fiction becoming real. I’ve read too many dime novels, I know, but the way you made me feel. It’s not right to do that so casually. Maybe you aren’t aware—”
“Oh, I’m aware.” This was what he wanted to avoid. This tangle of emotions and affections and starting something that could not be stopped. Now was the sticking point, the stopping place. And he would go no further. His heart cracked, and his voice with it. “You weren’t alone in those feelings. Is that what you want to know?”
“I…” She sputtered, as if that wasn’t at all what she expected him to say. “Really? I just assumed…” She swallowed hard. “That kissing is such an easy thing for a man to do. And, well, more physical things. I hadn’t realized…”
“That I had feelings for you, too? Believe me, there’s nothing simple about this. Not for me.”
Not for me, either. Claire didn’t know if she was relieved or more upset. Somehow knowing this tug on her heartstrings wasn’t one-sided, that Joshua was experiencing it, too, made her next step more consequential. Feelings were one thing; decisions and actions were another. Those were the things that affected a person’s life.
She had no intention of acting in any means or manner on these emotions, which felt so raw and new and intense. Love was a fairy tale. She’d believed in the power of it once to her own folly. And yet she’d never wanted to believe more. Never felt that there was a man so unerringly good and worthy to believe in. Joshua Gable was, on the outside, everything a man ought to be—everything that made the woman she was stretch tight with a deep, instinctive longing.
It felt as if she were ripping apart a piece of her soul as she struggled to sound unaffected. And failed miserably. “This is very simple for me.”
“How’s that?”
“Because I know what marriage is.”
“Yep, me, too.” He looked anguished. He crushed his hat in his hand until the brim looked ready to blow apart. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Hell, I don’t know what to tell you.”
“I know this powerful feeling, this…affection.” It was a small word for what she experienced, for what tripped within her soul whenever he was near, but she could not admit it was more. “This is a fleeting thing. It doesn’t last. I know this.”
“As do I. I take care of my grandmother and my ma. Which I’m bound by duty to do until they pass from this earth. I run the family holdings and make damn sure to do it well, so my brothers and their children will have something of our father’s. Something that lasts.”
“I understand.” She felt his despair, his wrenching heart, because it was as if it were hers, too. “You have duty and family. Those things matter. And I have my life here, one I don’t want to put at risk.”
“What if the Hamiltons wind up with your land? It’s none of my business, but they sure seem determined, having Clise go head-to-head with my cousin. I suppose a woman in your position wouldn’t mind having a man feeling the way I do on a string. Just in case.”
“Is that what you think of me?”
It would be so much easier to walk through this door if I did. Joshua winced, but he’d come this far and he wasn’t going to chicken out instead of simply saying the truth, so he said it. “I see that you’re a woman working hard to make her own way. I don’t doubt you could be married within a month, if you were inclined to take on a husband to pay the bills. I’m not saying anything in judgment of you either way. I’m only saying that man won’t be me. Can’t be.”
“I never thought otherwise. That’s why this decision is so clear.” She lifted her chin, not at a haughty angle, but one that denoted determination and inner strength. “How many times have I tried to say goodbye to you for good?”
“I don’t seem to leave you alone, is that it?”
“That’s it. Don’t mistake my gratitude. You’ve made an enormous difference in my life. You changed everything for me that night you rode up here.”
“I was damn furious at your husband. And when I saw how he treated you… Claire, no man should ever treat a woman that way. I’m glad I came that night. I’m honored to have helped you. We’ve always known this, whatever this is between us, has to end. Right?”
“Right.” She granted him a small grin.
One that lit her up from the inside; one that made his soul brighten with a blinding white heat. It’s time to end this, and end this right. Joshua released his death grip on his hat and worked the battered brim back into shape. He wished this didn’t hurt so damn much, but to stay, to give in to this momentary need to be with her, to cradle her in his arms and to make her his woman…
Leave now, Gable. There was no sense in that. No good possible outcome. She said it herself. She didn’t want the consequences any more than he did. Love doesn’t last…if it even exists. As for these needs, urges, well, as much as he wanted to give in to them, they were momentary. And they would not change the inevitable.
All he could do was to tip his hat to her, leaving just the way his gut instincts were hollering at him to do. “If you ever need anything, anything at all, you know where to find me.”
She moved once, a single nod, hardly a movement at all. Was her soul wrenching, too, as if it were being torn asunder? He had to end this now. No good could come from all these feelings wrenching a person apart. “Goodbye, pretty lady.”
She didn’t blink. She didn’t appear to breathe. With quiet dignity she watched him go, her heart in her eyes, and he knew as he yanked the door shut against the vicious wind that she did indeed feel this, too. He was no coward, but he wasn’t a fool, either.
I did the right thing, he assured himself as he bowed his head against the wind and gave himself up to the night. He was numb clear through by the time he reached the stable. The problem was that the knifing cold deadened everything.
Everything but his soul.
Claire let out her pent-up breath. Was he gone? She circled around the corner of the table and pulled back the edge of the ruffled curtain. Moonlight shimmered like a halo, casting a magical luster across the silent night. There, moving against the pearled landscape was Joshua, astride his great strong gelding and riding away from her as fast as his horse could go.
And taking her heart with him.
It was strange how she thought it had been frozen over, but she’d been wrong. The tiny blossom of love was new and tender, yet fierce. Like those delicate snowdrop flowers that pushed through the ice of late winter to bloom and greet the spring.
There was no spring. Not in her life. There would be no man—even Joshua—stepping into her life to be what Ham was not. Men. Whenever one comes courting, he’s the best man on earth. Once he gets a ring on your finger, then it’s a different matter. Her mother’s words ripped through her like a nightmare into a dream.
Mama, I don’t want you to be right this time. With her hopes sinking, Claire pivoted to keep Joshua in her sight. He wasn’t taking the road, but the horse path that cut through the property. Gilded in platinum, graced by stardust, he was naught but a silhouette, a rider on his proud horse; but she knew his characteristics so well.
Love swelled within her, making it hard to breathe and harder to see, and his hat and his granite profile blurred, becoming sharp pinpoints of light as wetness streaked down her face.
Just let him go. Her fingernails dug into the sill as he rose over the crest of the hill and disappeared from her sight. He took with him all the brief images of what it would be like to be held in his arms all the cold night through. She remained at the window, as if waiting, even though she knew he was gone.
Forever.
An owl’s lonely who? who? echoed across the night. Joshua pulled his hands out of his pockets, yanked off his gloves and swore. He didn’t regret leaving Claire’s house when he did, but he sure could have used a baked potato in each pocket right now. He wouldn’t be fumbling to send back the answering call—the all-clear signal.
Liam kept to the shadows. “We got visitors. It’s the deputy this time and he’s pissed.”
“How many ridin’ with him?”
“Just the Hamiltons. Figure on taking the back trails through this time. Cut through the hills, in case we’re watching for them. It’s good cover. James is keepin’ watch on them now. He’ll signal when they’re heading toward the widow’s stable.”
“I was halfway hoping those bastards wouldn’t come after the horses. They ought to let this be. Then I could be at home with my feet up in front of the fire.”
“Dreamin’ of the pretty widow?”
Joshua hated that his brother was right. Claire had stayed in his heart ever since he’d escaped her kitchen. “I have my reasons for makin’ sure she’s safe. Not because of the reason you think.”
Liam arched a brow and wisely said nothing. James’s coyote call skidded across the rolls and draws of the prairie, and several distant coyotes answered with their high-pitched howls.
“Time to move.” Joshua yanked on his glove, guiding General with the touch of his heel. “Let’s get this over with.”
He kept to the draw of the hillside, staying just out of sight so they wouldn’t be spotted over the ridge. The scraggly stands of cedar and pine hid their progress just enough so that they even surprised Jordan just beneath the top of the ridge that led directly to Claire’s barn.
No words were necessary and it was too damn cold to bother talking. Joshua nosed General into the line, and they waited with the wind tossing around cedar limbs and hundred-year-old pines. It was as if the very earth was avenging the wrongs done to the woman safe and warm in her little house.
Joshua didn’t dare break his concentration to look over his shoulder, but he knew what he would find. Her lights would still be on; maybe she’d already changed into her nightgown and housecoat. With the wind moaning like a tortured soul, he could still feel the connection in his soul that bound them. Her sadness hit him like a ruthless gust. There wasn’t much he could do to mend her sadness. But as he heard James’s signal sail loud and clear overhead, he steadied his rifle and led his brothers over the ridge and into the path of the men who’d come to do harm.
“Hello, boys.” Joshua squeezed off a shot, and Reed Hamilton’s revolver flew from his hand and hit the ground with a heavy thunk. “Deputy, if you draw that, I’ll stop you.”
Logan looked fit to kill. “You got a reason to be drawing on me, Gable? I’m the law in these parts.”
“Not on this land. You are trespassing.” Joshua nodded to Liam, who was circling around the deputy to disarm him. “You know the law better than any of us. I’m within my rights to hang a horse thief I catch in the act.”
“Horse thieves? You’re mistaken, Gable. We’re just passing through.” Logan’s one-sided smile was a slow curve of arrogance and cunning. He looked like a man who thought he could get away with anything. That he was above the law he enforced. “What are you doing on the widow’s land? I’m helpin’ the boys here to keep their sister-in-law safe. Put down your weapons and—”
“I know how you’re gonna lie about this come morning,” Joshua said, not caring if he got in trouble with the town sheriff. What he cared about was leaving Claire undefended and vulnerable to the greedy men hovering around the rocky land, eager to possess it.
And now Joshua knew why. Like Logan’s land, Claire’s property was along an old path north and into Canada. Rustled livestock could be herded, without crossing off Hamilton land, until they hit the border. And after that, money could be made at the Wickshaw auction.
I’ll keep you safeguarded, Claire. And he’d make sure these so-called men understood. There would be no more harassing of the gentle lady, whom he could still see clearly in his mind’s eye and how pale she went at her confession.
“I don’t suppose the sheriff is gonna believe his best deputy is in on a rustling ring,” Joshua said.
“Watch what you say, Gable.” Logan’s eyes narrowed with an unmistakable warning. “The sheriff ain’t likely to take kindly to a man like you threatening and harassing a lawman.”
“And the rightful owners of this-here land,” Rick Hamilton spoke up. “That makes you boys the trespassers.”
Joshua considered the way James was emptying all the bullets from Rick’s Winchester. “You may be right about the land. We won’t know until the attorneys are done arguing it out. But for now, the land is Claire’s and I’m here to make sure it stays that way. James, did you get all the weapons?”
“Almost done, big brother.”
“Then listen up, boys.” Joshua paused while James divested Reed of his knives. “If you steal back those horses or do anything to harm that nice lady down there, we’ll come hunting you down.”
“You can’t threaten a deputy.”
“It’s a free country, and I protect what’s mine.” It was too late to take back those words, and in truth, he meant them. It was his job to protect Claire Hamilton. If not him and his brothers, then who? “Turn around and get off this land.”
“It’s not your land,” Reed spit. “Not unless she’s got your ring on her finger and even then, the joke is on you, Gable. This land belongs to my family.”
“If and when it does, then you can come back. But until then, if I see you on this land again, we’ll shoot first and not even bother with this polite warning.”
“Yep, next time we’ll be burying you right here,” Liam commented as he closed in and they stood together as brothers in an unyielding line. “No one’ll miss you. They won’t even know where to find your bodies.”
Joshua nodded toward Logan. “Stay away from the woman. We mean it.”
As the furious men spun their horses around on the path, Joshua stayed stoic and vigilant. He kept his rage under control, but it was hard knowing what those men stood for. How they behaved. Ham had been one of them, and it made Joshua sick to think about how Claire had been treated.
Joshua had always looked at marriage from the same perspective: his own. He didn’t want a woman as domineering as his mother, as free-spirited and willful as his sister or as cantankerous and used to getting her own way as his gran. He had just about enough of those traits in women as he could tolerate. He provided for the women in his life and he didn’t begrudge his duty, but Lord knows those women weren’t easy on a man.
He’d never taken much time to consider how hard some men were on their women. Claire’s haunted look of pain and sorrow remained with him, shaming him, as he made sure Logan and the Hamilton brothers were well off the property.
Even late that night, warm, finally, in his bed in his upstairs room in his mother’s house, Claire’s sadness stayed with him. A heavy weight in his soul.
Chapter Seventeen
Claire let the door of the church close behind her with a hollow thud. Hollow, like places in her heart would always be. There was no repairing some things. No way to go back and piece together a failed pregnancy.
At least now the pretty nightgowns and baby blankets and shirts she’d made for her little one would help keep another baby warm. The pastor’s wife had been sure she could find a family needing new baby things.
And I can try to forget. She’d been clearing out the cabin of memories, for no memories associated in that house could be good, and she’d saved the baby clothes for last. Folding away the little things into a crate had been too painful, and even now the bleakness of it tightened like a band around her chest.
That’s done. I never have to do that again. She didn’t know why that made her feel more lost as she avoided the patches of ice on the shady steps and crunched through the snow. Only one mor
e thing to do. Just one.
And then she could close the door and turn the lock on the past. On the destruction that love—or rather, believing in love—had brought her.
Thor nickered a friendly greeting as if he sensed she could use a friend. And he was a friend she was grateful for. She loosened the knot and unwound the tether from the hitching post, allowing herself the comfort of burying her face in the warm heat of his neck.
His rough mane scratched pleasantly on her face, and the crushed velvet of his coat was a luxury as he nickered again, curving his neck to lay his head against her back. A horse hug. She held on tight.
“I missed you, my friend. I am so glad you’re back with me again.”
With the wisdom of a good horse, Thor nodded sagely as she stepped away and climbed beneath the furs on the narrow board seat. As they headed down the quiet lane, she couldn’t stand how his coat was still rough in patches and he was far too thin, but he’d weathered neglect better than his brother had. Loki was still too nervous and sickly to drive.
Thank heavens for Joshua. She’d never be able to remove the image of him riding tall through the night. Or how he’d steeped tea for her in her kitchen. How he looked as torn apart as she felt.
Whatever this connection was between them, she wanted it severed. She wanted it gone. Even now, the place in her heart where he seemed to be throbbed like a deep, untreatable wound. She wanted to let him go. But how did she cut him out of her soul?
“Claire.”
She jumped. She’d been so lost in thought she was surprised to see the blue-gray shadows on the dull snow and the bare tree limbs reaching like skeletal arms overhead.
Joshua? No, it couldn’t be him. She blinked and the man on the horse in the street before her came into focus.
Deputy Anson Cooper Logan leaned on his saddle horn, as if to emphasize the holstered repeating rifle within easy reach. There was no mistaking his dislike. “You’ve just saved me a trip out to visit you.”