West of Heaven

by Victoria Bylin

  “We took vows, Jayne.

  “This may be a marriage in name only, but I intend to protect you. You’ll be safer here than anywhere else.”

  Danger had heightened her senses, making her aware of the taut cords in Ethan’s neck and the heat of his skin. She’d lost so much—her home, her business, her dream of loving a good man. Tears welled and spilled from her eyes.

  Ethan brushed them aside with his knuckles. “It’ll be all right. I promise.”

  But she couldn’t stop the throbbing in her chest. More tears spilled, thicker than the first ones, until Ethan tipped his head downward and kissed them away, trailing his lips from her temple to her cheek.

  Did he feel it, too, this yearning for comfort? She couldn’t be Laura for him, not ever. But just for tonight she could meet a need, both his and hers…!

  Praise for Victoria Bylin’s debut

  Of Men and Angels

  “An uplifting tale of a spiritual woman, who’s deeply

  human, and the flawed man she loves. It’s evident that

  Ms. Bylin writes from her heart.”

  —Old Book Barn Gazette

  “Deft handling makes the well-tarnished Jake

  a man to admire.”

  —Romantic Times

  “Of Men and Angels is the perfect

  title for a perfect book. The characters are wonderfully human and well

  rounded, and the story is an exciting, heartwarming and

  spiritual tale with a magnitude of emotion.”

  —Romance Reviews Today

  “Unconditional love and the quest for forgiveness

  take center stage in this involving romance.”

  —The Romance Reader’s Connection

  West of Heaven

  Victoria Bylin

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  To Mom and George,

  for having the courage to love twice.

  I also want to thank my editor, Kim Nadelson, and

  executive editor Tracy Farrell for their guidance.

  They made this book possible.

  As always, hugs to my husband and sons,

  who make life…good.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Midas, New Mexico

  April 1885

  “W hat in God’s name is all that racket?”

  Her husband’s voice rasped in Jayne Dawson’s ear. She and Hank had been married less than a week and were sharing a real bed for the second time. He’d been whispering that this time would be better than the first, when someone had started pounding on the door to their room in the Midas Hotel.

  “Criminy,” he muttered. “He’s gotta be mixed up.”

  As Hank went back to nuzzling her neck, Jayne closed her eyes to block out the intrusion. When the man coughed again, she stiffened like a fence post. “Hank, maybe we should—”

  Silencing her with a kiss, her husband stroked her breast. The rhythm was too quick for her. She needed time to catch up with him, maybe a little sweet talk, anything to take her mind off the stranger standing just outside their door. With a determined moan, Hank slid a wet kiss down her neck.

  Rap. Rap. Rap.

  Jayne turned her head against the pillow. “Hank, I can’t do this with someone standing in the hall.”

  “He’ll go away. Just relax.”

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “I know you’re in there, Jesse.”

  “Shit!” Hank leaped off her as if he’d been struck by a bullet. Moonlight turned his body bone-white as he snatched his pants off the chair and hurried into them. He put on a shirt, then pulled his Peacemaker out of the gunbelt and cocked the hammer.

  “Hide, Jayney,” he ordered. “Get under the covers and don’t move a muscle.”

  “Who’s Jesse?”

  He shook his head. “Just do what I say.”

  It wasn’t in Jayne’s nature to obey anyone, but being stark naked put her at a distinct disadvantage. She scooted lower on the bed, flattened herself against the mattress and listened as her husband stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.

  She strained to hear through the thick oak, but the tinny music from a nearby saloon masked the voices in the hall. She lowered the sheet an inch and peeked over the hem. The oil lamp flickered against the ivory wall, casting shadows through the gloom as a sinister chortle reached her ears. Her gaze narrowed to the doorknob just as it began to turn.

  Was it Hank? Or the stranger with the rasping cough? She would have given a month of Sundays to have been wearing her best dress, or any dress for that matter, but she settled for leaping out of bed and shoving her arms into the cotton wrapper Hank had tossed on the floor. There hadn’t been time for a fancy trousseau like the ones she had stitched for the Lexington well-to-do. A week ago she’d been disappointed. Now she was just glad to be covered.

  Clutching the flaps of the garment around her middle, she dropped to a crouch in front of her trunk and rummaged for her mother’s sewing shears. If the stranger came at her, she’d fight with her last breath before she’d let him touch her. And she had a few things to say to Hank, too. He owed her an explanation.

  As her fingers gripped the scissors, Hank slipped back into the room, turned the lock and braced both hands high against the door. With his wheat-colored hair and slim build, he reminded her of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike.

  Still clutching the scissors, she pushed up from the crouch. “Who was that man?”

  Her husband raised his face to the plaster ceiling, blew out a breath, then dropped his arms to his sides and faced her squarely. “Do you remember when I told you I had a past?”

  How could she forget? They’d been alone in the tiny sitting room above her mother’s dress shop. He’d told her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him and that he wanted a fresh start in life. That’s when he had revealed that he’d been a lawman in Wyoming and that he’d killed a good man by mistake.

  “There are things I can’t tell you,” he had said. “But if you can see fit to forgive me for my secrets, I’ll love you forever.”

  Forgiveness sprung from her soul as easily as water from an abundant well. She’d met him in church just two months earlier on Christmas Eve, and never before had she seen a man with such soulful eyes. His sun-bleached hair had been tipped with gold, like the ornamental angels hanging in the snow-crusted windows of the sanctuary.

  “God can forgive anything,” she’d said. “And so can I.”

  Until tonight, not once had it occurred to her that the past might not be ready to forgive him. How naive she’d been. But thoughts of California had stirred her blood. She had wanted to see more of the world than the streets of Lexington, and so she had trusted Hank with her dreams. At least until now. Tying a knot in the belt to her robe, she made her voice firm. “You have to tell me everything, Hank. Right now.”

  His shoulders rounded as he blew out a breath and faced her. “I will, Jayney, as soon as I get back. But I have to go with this man. I’ve got something he wants, and that means I’m going to be gone for a few days.”

  “A few days? This is crazy. W
e should go to the sheriff right now. He’ll help us.”

  He shook his head. “Going to the locals will just make things worse.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive. We’ll talk as soon as I get back, but until then, stay in the hotel. If I’m not here in three days, that’s when you need to go to the law.”

  She watched as he slipped into his old brown duster. A week ago she had stitched a packet of money into a secret pocket for safekeeping. “Hank, our savings—”

  “Trust me, Jayney. I’ll be back, but I might need something that’s in that pouch.”

  She understood how it felt to be poor and friendless. She wanted to grab her scissors and cut out the money, but his eyes were pleading with her to believe in him. Besides, she’d spoken her wedding vows from the heart and she believed in keeping promises.

  “All right,” she said. “But hurry. I’ll be worried.”

  After he lifted his hat off the bedpost, Hank brushed his lips against hers, a soft kiss that tasted like goodbye.

  Which is exactly what it turned out to be.

  Chapter One

  “L ady, face it. Your husband’s dead and you’ve got to go.”

  Jayne pushed to her feet from the crouch she had assumed next to Hank’s body and scowled at the rancher blocking the light from the barn door. The day was as gray as pewter and just as hard. She was standing in a falling-down barn on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a filthy man glaring at her as if she’d just spit in his face.

  Where were his manners, not to mention his compassion? Granted, he’d found a dead man in his barn and he had a right to be upset, but couldn’t he show a bit of sympathy for a new widow? Almost anyone else would have offered a kind word, even a cup of hot tea to take off the chill, but not this man. He was looming in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and one dirty boot draped over the other, staring at her as if she were vermin.

  She’d eat dirt for a week before she would let him intimidate her. A wife had duties, and she intended to fulfill them. She also needed the greenbacks in Hank’s duster.

  The sheriff was standing just inside the barn door, tapping his boot as if she were wasting his precious time. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dawson, but Mr. Trent is right. We’ve got to leave.”

  “Surely we can wait a few minutes. I’d like to be alone with my husband.”

  The rancher huffed like a bull getting ready to charge. “You don’t have a few minutes. A storm’s coming, and I want you and Handley out of here.”

  “It’s April,” she said reasonably. “A little rain is nothing. I need some time—”

  “It won’t be rain, dammit. It’s going to snow like hell and if you don’t leave now, you’ll be stuck here for a week. I want you gone.”

  The sheriff grunted. “Settle down, Trent. You’ve got no call to yell like that.”

  “Like hell I don’t.” The rancher narrowed his gaze to her face. Gold flecks burned like a campfire at dusk and his lips thinned to a bitter sneer. “Do you understand, ma’am? You cannot stay here.”

  With the silvery sky at his back, he was more of a shadow than flesh and blood, but she’d gotten a good look at Ethan Trent earlier in the day. His face was lean to the point of gauntness, and he was wearing the most ragged clothes she’d ever seen. He needed a bath and a shave, not to mention a few good meals, but it wasn’t her place to march him down to the creek with a scrub brush and a cake of soap. Hank had left her with a mess of her own to clean up.

  Rising to her full height, she glared at the man blocking the light. “My apologies for the inconvenience, Mr. Trent. We’ll leave right now. If you’ll loan us a horse for my husband’s body—”

  “I don’t have a horse to spare. I’ll bury him myself.”

  “Thank you, but no. I want to take Hank back to town.”

  “You can’t.”

  But she had to. She wanted the comfort of standing in a church and singing hymns as she’d done a year ago for her mother, though she doubted Ethan Trent would understand that sentiment. He was staring at her with the angriest brown eyes she had ever seen. They were liquid and hard at the same time, like water frozen across a slick of mud.

  “I have to see my husband properly buried, Mr. Trent. I have to say goodbye.”

  He huffed as if she had told a joke. “Don’t waste your time. He won’t hear a goddamned word.”

  Her mouth gaped. “That’s a cruel thing to say.”

  “It’s the truth.”

  Shaking his head, he paced across the barn, picked up a shovel with a rusty blade and glowered at her. “The wind’s picking up. You and Handley need to hit the trail.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not leaving without my husband. Not like this.”

  Who else in the world knew that Hank was afraid of the dark? That he slept with a lamp turned low and that he feared death? The one time he’d accompanied her to her mother’s grave, he’d stood several feet away, whistling to himself as if that would make a difference.

  I don’t ever wanna die, Jayney. It’s just too damn dark.

  And it was. Especially today with the hard sky pressing through the splintery walls of the barn and a wild-eyed rancher gripping the shovel, scowling at her as if she’d committed a crime.

  Sheriff Handley strode through the doorway, not bothering to take off his hat. The man had no respect for the dead, or for her.

  “Are you finished, ma’am?” he asked forcefully.

  Jayne glared at him as he glanced down at Hank with marked disgust. Why hadn’t the man thought to bring an extra horse to carry the body? He was both stupid and rude. He didn’t deserve to carry the badge.

  She cleared her throat. “Sheriff, would you please tell Mr. Trent that we need to borrow a horse.”

  The rancher shrugged. “Like I said, I don’t have one to lend. I ride the roan, and the gelding’s not going anywhere.”

  The sheriff dipped his chin at her and arched his eyebrows as if she were a child. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Dawson, but circumstances can’t be changed. Mr. Trent has kindly offered to give your husband a decent burial. You need to take him up on that offer.”

  Kindly wasn’t how she would have described the man clutching the shovel as if it were a weapon. He resembled a half-crazed grizzly more than he did a human being. And maybe something even more dangerous—an animal wounded beyond caring about himself or anyone else.

  She’d heard tales of trapped animals gnawing off their own paws to escape from steel traps. As she looked into Ethan Trent’s hard brown eyes, she knew those stories were true. She didn’t want her husband to be buried by this bitter man.

  “All right, Sheriff,” she said, standing straighter. “You and I will leave as soon as Hank is buried, but I need a few minutes alone with him.”

  The rancher huffed, grabbed a pickax to go with the shovel and stormed out of the barn. “You deal with her,” he said, glancing back at Handley.

  The sheriff put his hands on his hips. “Ma’am, Mr. Trent is right. That storm could turn to a blizzard in the blink of an eye, and it’s gonna get mighty cold. I’m partial to sleeping in my own bed, and for you, young lady, I recommend the comfort of the hotel.”

  But the hotel held nothing but bad memories of the night Hank walked out on her, and of the three foolish days she had waited for him. She wasn’t ready to go back to that emptiness. She had to make Handley understand. “Are you married, Sheriff?”

  His eyes stayed as hard as rock. “For thirty years.”

  “Then you understand why I have to stay.”

  “No, ma’am. I understand why you have to leave. Your husband would want you to be safe.”

  The sheriff had a point. Hank would have been annoyed with her for riding out here in the first place, but she had taken a vow, “Until death us do part.” Though death had come, they weren’t quite parted, and they wouldn’t be until Hank was buried.

  “Please, Sheriff, ride back to town without me. If the rain ge
ts worse, I’ll sleep in the barn and go back to town tomorrow. I’m a good rider, and I’m sure Mr. Trent will loan me a blanket.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.” He chuffed like a mule and Jayne knew she had lost the argument.

  If she couldn’t win with logic, she would have to find another way to see her husband laid to rest, but no matter what else happened today, she had to retrieve the money hidden in his duster.

  “I understand, Sheriff.” Steepling her fingers at her waist, she glanced down at Hank. “I won’t take more than a few minutes.”

  Handley gave a curt nod and paced out the door.

  As soon as he was gone Jayne dropped to her knees, looked at the frozen mask of her husband’s face and broke into sobs. She had given him her heart and trusted him with her future. How could he have done this to her? Who was “Jesse,” and why had Hank gone off with a stranger? What secrets had he kept from her?

  A moan tore from her throat as she made a fist and pressed it into his belly. His duster had gaped wide, revealing the denim shirt she’d mended for him in Lexington. The sight of it shot her back in time to their first kiss, the brief marriage ceremony and the wedding night that had been a disaster from start to finish. She couldn’t bear to think about that night, the grimy train ride that followed or their last moments in the Midas Hotel.

  Tears as thick as oil spilled from her eyes. Would Hank still be alive if she’d gone to the sheriff sooner? She had followed his orders to a tee, waiting for three full days before she told the story to Handley.

  The balding sheriff had been skeptical and rude. “Your husband’s probably off with an old drinkin’ buddy, ma’am. He’ll be back when he’s sobered up.”

  But Hank never drank. When she had told the sheriff, he’d shrugged it off. She had searched on her own, but no one had given her the time of day, except for Reverend John Leaf. He’d asked a dozen questions, none of which she could answer, and then promised to keep his ears open. Not until a rancher reported finding the body of a U.S. Marshal had the sheriff paid her a visit.