Wanted

by Amber Scott

  Chapter Thirteen

  As Jesse rolled out the canvas and began to prop up the corners, the fabric smacked the air. A standard military stock tent, the former occupant a nameless, faceless soldier, dead and gone for a cause that still rankled Jesse. The war. It had left him and Ginny more than orphans. They were without any kin at all.

  That was the past and best not dwelled on. He'd done what he could to extract his vengeance and right the wrongs no one else seemed to care about. Behind him, Samantha was silent. He felt her watching his movements.

  That rankled him more than the war. Disconcerted him. Dammed but she'd wriggled her way back under his skin, and now he'd arrived unprepared to see his interrogation through. That didn't mean he wouldn't do it.

  By now, she must have suspected he was on to her game. Why else would she have kept so quiet, compliant? Why else would she have returned that kiss—a moment of weakness on his part that wouldn't be repeated—so thoroughly?

  The tent finished, the camp made, fire lit. He'd run plumb out of excuses. He turned and faced her.

  "This place is beautiful,” Samantha said. “How did your horse know where to go?"

  "Training.” He crossed his arms. He wouldn't draw his gun just yet. He'd wait.

  "Jesse, we need to talk."

  He kept his brow smooth. This ought to be interesting.

  Samantha looked away, toyed with the loose hem of his shirt she wore. It fit her too damn well. Like it was made to display her shoulders, her collarbone.

  "I think there may be something wrong with me. Not a snakebite.” She kept her eyes down. Paused. “My father died recently."

  Jesse ignored the tug of sympathy.

  "It was sudden, and we weren't close at the time. I think it may have traumatized me more than I realized.” Her voice was smooth, even, but the words still sounded bitten off.

  What was she trying to do? What could this maneuver gain her?

  "I've had several blackouts since he died. I fall asleep one place and wake up in another. At first I thought I'd been sleepwalking, then that I was having very vivid and realistic dreams.” Her eyes widened at the word realistic. “I get faint and dizzy, and to be honest, I'm having a hard time making sense of what is real ... and what is a dream."

  Jesse frowned despite his efforts to remain impassive.

  "I wasn't even going to tell you. To be honest, I thought it might freak you out. If it does, well, then I guess it does. But if I faint again or black out or whatever I do, I think you should know what's going on. I'm not really sure what happens when I'm out, but I'm afraid...” She looked up but not to meet his eyes. Her gaze landed on his chest. “I'm afraid I may hurt myself ... or someone else, unintentionally, unaware of what I'm doing..."

  She spoke each word more softly. Finally, when he didn't reply, didn't move or even blink, she made eye contact. What she saw in his face made her flinch, or so he surmised when she jerked her head and shoulders straighter.

  At last he slowly, mockingly, began to applaud her. She looked from his clapping hands to his face, and her façade of vulnerability vanished. Anger took its place, along with something else. If he didn't know better, he'd say she was hurt.

  But she'd have to be telling the truth for that to be true. Jesse dismissed evaluating what could be only the work of a talented actress.

  "Why are you clapping?” she demanded, lips pursed, jaw set.

  "A fine performance deserves applause."

  "Performance,” she blustered. “Performance? You think I made that up? I—I—you can't possibly think that..."

  "Save it. And your energy. You're going to need it.” As the double meaning rang through his body, he felt the flare of heat. He ignored it. He wouldn't be touching her again. Ever.

  One moment of weakness, planned so perfectly on her part, was all she would be getting. His family's lives depended on it.

  "They won't find us. They'd need a tracker, which they won't get, because I'm the only one for miles qualified. Handy, that."

  "Who won't find us?” The edge on her words dulled.

  "Your employers, of course."

  "My ... employers? What are you talking about? I don't have a real job, only a temp position when the local library has extra shifts."

  He didn't miss the underlying condescension in her words, but he was no idiot. Jesse didn't answer, he smirked. She was caught, and the more she talked, the closer the noose cinched around her lies.

  She only bluffed further. “What employers? I haven't had a full-time job since last spring, and that ended when I graduated. No one at the law library probably even remembers my name, let alone be looking for me."

  The lies fairly dripped from her tongue now. Perfect. The more flustered he got her, the sooner she would trip up on what looked to be a thoroughly rehearsed role.

  As she gasped and put on an affronted look, her cheeks bloomed with color, and her lips flushed pinker. Really. She should have tried to be more subtle.

  "Even if they do manage to find you, they won't leave alive. I promise you that. As long as my sister and her husband are safe when we get back, I won't turn you over to the sheriff."

  Samantha's eyebrows shot up. Her mouth fell open. “The sheriff? Are you kidding me?” She laughed, not out of amusement.

  Jesse's shoulders prickled. He refused to let her duplicity deceive him, to let her act enrage him. He had to keep a level, clear head.

  She looked away, shook her head, and looked skyward. “Is this some sort of prank? A joke?” She looked back to Jesse. “If I didn't know he died of a heart attack, if I hadn't seen his body myself, I swear I'd be calling your bluff right now and waiting for my dad to come out from hiding, laughing his ass off. But he's dead, and I may be losing my mind. However, you are definitely nuts."

  She stood up and began walking away from the camp. As he reached for his gun, she swung back around and paced toward him. She wasn't trying to leave, but the change in her act intrigued him.

  What was her angle now?

  "Nuts. Out of your gourd. Off to the funny farm. Off your rocker. Crazy.” She paced and gestured like a general. “Or ... I am. Great. Perfect. Soon as I think I've got this thing figured out, it up and changes."

  Jesse almost smiled at the comical display. That would only lower his guard, likely what she was after.

  Samantha stopped and addressed the sky. “Why, God? Why me? Why this? You give me the most gorgeous man on the planet, who also happens to drive me crazy—in a good way...” She directed the last to Jesse with a pointed glance and wave. “And now he's crazy too? I don't get it."

  She dropped her arms and sat back down, her face cupped in her hands, her head shaking. Jesse frowned deeper. What was she up to? It didn't matter. What mattered was getting her to confess and then to find Mick and Joe and make sure they never laid a hand, or even thought of doing so, on his sister or her husband.

  He decided to take another approach. He sat next to her, making certain his holstered gun rested on the other side, expecting her to grab for it. Let her believe he bought her act. Let her think he was growing complacent.

  "You're not crazy. Neither am I."

  She looked up, and it startled him to see tears shining in her eyes. “No, I am. Bonkers, nutso, totally wacko. But don't worry. I'll manage. I always do."

  A pang barbed his heart. He reached for her hand then pulled back. “Samantha. You don't have to do this. Whatever they've promised you, I can double it.” It was a lie. He'd never pay her good money meant for widows and their children. Not her, not anyone.

  Samantha scowled a little and peered at him. “Jesse, no one is paying me anything. I swear to you, I have absolutely no idea who or what you are talking about."

  He stared at her for a long moment. The sincerity in her words, in her eyes, was remarkable. He wondered what kind of person it took to act out a falsehood so convincingly.

  The desperate kind, he supposed. Well, desperate or not, she wasn't going anywhere. That mean
t neither was he. So, before the afternoon slipped into evening, he rose and got to cooking the dried beef and beans. Evening to night. Night. Sleep. With her tied to him if need be.

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  Chapter Fourteen

  Her pulse still raced from the strange conversation, but she didn't speak and didn't move. Samantha sat and stared, watching Jesse put a kettle over the fire and begin to fill it.

  His words replayed over and again in her mind. To his words, she added Carla's, then others', the prior memories, dreams or not. Nothing made sense. Yet something would. She could feel it.

  What she'd said about her dad kept popping in and out of her head too. As though she had stumbled across an important idea. It was like trying to remember what you were going to say to someone, forgotten in conversation, but important. Not life and death important, more like “Aha!” important.

  Jesse moved like a wolf. He stalked. Even that first night, wherever the hell she'd been and he'd been, she'd noticed it on some level. He moved with wary, ready purpose, sure and tense and graceful at the same time.

  She measured his mood, her mind hop-scotching around for conclusions, pulse calming then revving in turns. His jeans were dark and thick. Crisp. They looked even heavier and less worn than the pair she'd borrowed. Hers felt like a can of starch had been punched into the material.

  Hop. Turn. Jump.

  His shirt was nondescript, buttoning up the front but not at the cuffs. White more a wheat or cream. The tent looked old, used, not ... not ... What was the word exactly?

  Modern.

  Outhouse. Sheriff.

  His revolver looked like a classic Smith and Wesson.

  Old.

  Her dad. What was it he used to say? Like that song. If I could save time in a bottle...

  Her pulse quickened, ebbed.

  Jesse moved, stalked. He kept his back to her. Too good to be true but not a dream.

  Real.

  More than real. Transcendant.

  He was Jesse. Jesse Kincaid.

  Really.

  Really?

  Samantha shivered but not from the night chill. Her mouth went dry. Her throat tightened. She opened her mouth to ask him—what? What was she supposed to ask him? How?

  How could it be possible?

  "Hey, Jesse,” she heard herself saying, impressed with how casual she sounded.

  He glanced over his shoulder. “Yep?” His voice was cold.

  "What's today?"

  He turned, his eyes narrowed suspiciously. At first, he didn't answer. “What do you mean,” he finally said, “what's today? It's Friday."

  Samantha shook her head. The question stuck in her throat. He was going to pack her up and deposit her in the nearest insane asylum, she was positive of it. Or mental ward, or whatever the appropriate term was in this day and age. She had to ask. She didn't want to, but something compelled her to spit out the words. If he laughed...

  "Right, yes, um, I meant, what's today's date?"

  "September twenty-third.” When he turned back to the food, Jesse seemed no longer interested in her questions. If anything, he looked annoyed, what with his jaw clenching and all that tension in his shoulders.

  "And the year?” She struggled to keep her expression bland. Disinterested. As though she'd asked about the weather rather than the year. She braced herself for a hearty laugh after the scalding look.

  Jesse squinted his eyes so much crinkles appeared at the corners, the ones that should have been made by years of smiling, that she had the feeling were really from years of concentrating, watching, preparing for the worst, like he'd done earlier.

  "Eighteen seventy-one.” He stared at her, estimating her.

  She could feel the scorch of his gaze from her mind to her skin. Clear-cut suspicion. No amusement, the only hint of emotion outside the assessment a touch of—a glint really, no more, and maybe from the last rays of sunlight filtering through the tree canopy—admiration.

  Samantha scowled back. Seventy-one. Eighteen seventy-one. His words carried well and clearly to her ears; only her brain refused to accept what she'd heard. Only her mind, the very thing that decided to ask, wanted to hear it again.

  "Can you say that again?” she asked in that can-you-please-pass-the-butter kind of way.

  He walked two steps to her and stopped. He did it the way one might walk near a spooked animal, a wounded puppy. He did it carefully. “Eighteen seventy-one. What are you up to now?"

  That's what she'd thought he said. “What do you mean what am I up to now?” She needed a distraction.

  "You have to be the most talented actress I've ever come across. Not that I've known many. The ones I did, well, I'll just say they weren't on stage at the time."

  Samantha cocked her head. “Actress?"

  Sheriff, employers, actress. If he was Jesse Kincaid, and the year was 1871, and she had—by some miracle of science and the space-time continuum (whatever that meant)—gotten here, and all this was real, he thought she was working as an actress for someone, trying to fool him into believing something, so she and they ... The gears chinked and turned in her brain, and Samantha chewed her lip. Her dad. The map, the buried treasure, Jesse Kincaid. Dead or Alive.

  "You'll have to answer me eventually."

  Samantha looked up. “What?"

  "I said I appreciate all your efforts, but you'll have to answer to the truth eventually. We won't leave these woods until you do.” He resumed stirring the contents of the kettle. “Mick and Joe underestimated me. Don't you do the same."

  Samantha understood. Somehow.

  "You think your partners hired me so they could steal your money. Your money, the portion you set aside from every robbery. They think you buried it. They found a map in your saddlebag, maybe the night you and I met. They think you've been hoarding your share, along with the extra take, and that you buried it."

  Jesse looked struck. Not awestruck so much as stunned.

  "They'll kill you for it, Jesse. They'll shoot you, not long from now if I remember right. They shoot you in the back. No one ever finds any treasure."

  She paused again, watching him take it in, curious and a bit nervous over how he would react. Because she had a hell of a lot more to tell him.

  "I'm right, aren't I?"

  "When?” he said at last.

  "I can't remember the date. My dad must have told me a thousand times, but I can't remember. I'm sorry.” She was.

  Jesse strode to her and lifted her by the shoulders. Stiffly, but not hurting her, he shook her. “When, damn it? Who's your father? What's his part in this?"

  His gaze darted; his lips pressed into a thin line.

  "I told you, I can't remember. I'm trying."

  "Who's your father?” His voice was demanding, urgent.

  "Henry Hendricks. He's not your enemy, though."

  "Then how does he know when Mick and Joe plan to kill me? How does he know to tell you unless he's in on it?"

  "Jesse, I swear to you, my father wouldn't have done anything to cause you harm. Besides, he's dead."

  His hold loosened, and recognition dawned on his face. He remembered her saying as much about her father. Maybe now he believed her?

  "He was a fan. He spent his whole life following your history, researching your life. He even tried to find the treasure. Like everyone else, he failed."

  Jesse's hold lost its anger, but he didn't let go. A bird's call echoed through the trees.

  "There's no buried loot,” he said, his voice strange, faraway. “The map shows my drop-off points, not where I've buried anything."

  Samantha sighed. “That makes sense.” She had to finish. She couldn't let him continue to believe she was deceiving him this whole time. She'd rather he thought she was crazy than a backstabbing actress in cahoots with whatever their names were—Mitch and Jeff?—it didn't matter.

  "My dad never met your partners. Neither have I. You might not believe me, at first, but I don't work for the men who p
lan to kill you. Or for anyone else. Neither did my dad.” She swallowed. “I'm not from here, Jesse..."

  He let go, stepped back.

  She pressed on, letting it all tumble out before she lost her nerve, before the way he was looking at her made her stop.

  "We met the night of my father's funeral. He died of a heart attack ... not in this year. My father died in the year 2007.” There. She'd said it. She went silent, watching Jesse digest her words.

  Only he didn't seem to have heard her. That is, he didn't react in a way that let her know he had. He didn't blanch or balk or laugh. He didn't scowl skeptically or roll his eyes.

  He stared at her, blinked, and shook his head.

  "I don't know how,” she added, “but if you're real, and I'm not dreaming, then somehow, I've skipped through time."

  His eyes narrowed a hair. Like he was thinking about what she'd claimed. Chewing it over.

  "Two thousand and seven?” he asked, then huffed, “You're imaginative. I'll give you that. Two thousand and seven."

  "I'm not making this up, Jesse. I wish I were. If you let me explain, and listen with an open mind, you'll see it's the only plausible explanation.” She sat back down on the log. The fire crackled, and steam wafted up from the kettle. “Think about how you found me each time. Think about what I was wearing, about how I've behaved.” Her cheeks grew a bit hot. “I'll bet money women in 1871 don't act the way I have with you. Not without a motive, anyway, or absolute necessity.” She wouldn't say whore or hooker or prostitute, though he was probably thinking that. If he didn't catch her meaning, oh well. She wouldn't group herself in that realm.

  Because she didn't want him to think badly of her. To lose respect for her.

  "I live in San Diego, California, in the year 2007. My father, Henry Hendricks, followed the life of the legendary outlaw, Jesse Kincaid, for as long as I can remember. When he died this summer, he left me three things. A bottle of whiskey, a map, and a wanted poster. Your wanted poster. I drank the whiskey, fell asleep, and woke up in the middle of nowhere with you looking over me."

  Jesse's eyes grew narrower with every word until that same scowl from the bushes returned. He slowly shook his head. “Impossible."