by Linda Jones
“Besides,” Doc said harshly, “it don’t look right, the two of you alone in this house all day. I can’t let my place go to seed just to chaperone you two.”
“I don’t care how it looks,” Catalina snapped. “Besides, who’s around to see?”
Doc lifted a stubborn chin. “It don’t matter if I never get another visitor, it still don’t look right. Sometimes the Reverend Preston stops by, and I wouldn’t want him to think there’s anything untoward going on here, in my house.”
Doc Booker grinned, and Catalina dreaded whatever was coming. She didn’t like the gleam in his eyes. Not at all. “As a matter of fact,” he said, an unnatural lightness in his voice, “I think it might be a grand idea for the Kid … I mean, Jackson and me to move out to the barn. A couple of pallets, a few blankets … ”
“No,” Catalina objected. “I have my own room.” She pointed, without turning her head, to the closed door at the back of the room. The late Victoria Booker’s room, complete with lace curtains and pillows and a narrow bed. “It gets much too cold at night for Jackson to be sleeping in the barn.”
“I have plenty of blankets,” Doc assured her. “And if the Kid … ”
“Jackson,” Catalina snapped, correcting the old man before he had a chance to correct himself.
Doc smiled, a more genuine smile this time. “If Jackson gets cold and lonely, he can snuggle up to his horse. At least until after the wedding.”
Catalina was furious, but Jackson laughed, “You’re right, Doc. Until I can travel, it would be best if I slept in the barn.”
She turned an exasperated face to him. “Really, Jackson, that’s not necessary.”
He took her hand, holding her fingers gingerly, and gave her a smile that was much too serene. “Yes,” he whispered, and his voice was low and for her alone, “it is very necessary.”
There was a moment of strained silence in the small room. If Jackson was working with Doc all day long, and sleeping in the barn at night, she would never see him. And it could be weeks before he was ready to travel any great distance. In spite of his protests, his returning color, his wicked smile, he was still weak.
“I don’t like it,” she said softly.
“There’s a solution,” Doc said smugly, offering no more, even when Catalina stared at him and waited.
Finally she spoke, and her words were harsh. “And what would that solution be?”
“We could make a trip to Baxter, and let the Reverend Preston get you two properly wed.”
Catalina could feel the blood rush from her face, and knew she faced the two men pale, white as the proverbial ghost. “No,” she said softly. “Jackson can’t go back to Baxter. Ever.”
Doc frowned. “No one there would recognize him, and I’ve told everyone about my nephew Jackson. We could just tell everyone that the two of you were smitten at first sight, and decided … ”
“No,” Catalina said again, and this time her voice was stronger. She couldn’t shake the feeling that history couldn’t really be changed, that somehow, if Jackson returned to Baxter, he would die on the street as he was fated. Shot, a dozen times. Ambushed.
Jackson held one palm against her cheek, a comforting gesture but tentative at best. “Catalina?” He whispered her name, and only then did she meet his questioning gaze.
“Promise me you won’t ever go back to Baxter,” she insisted softly.
Jackson hesitated, and rocked his thumb across her cheek, a mindless caress as he searched her eyes.
“Promise me, Jackson.”
“All right,” he whispered. “If it’s that important to you … ”
“It is,” she said, the words expelled with her sigh of relief.
Jackson shifted slightly as his body rebelled against the hard pallet. True, he spent most nights on the ground, or at least it seemed that way. On the trail, camping away from town. Except for a few places, like Alberta’s, he made a point of resting far from town, away from people. He’d never had a real home, that he could remember. Had never wanted one, until now.
Truth was, it wasn’t the hard ground that bothered him. It was knowing that Catalina was sleeping so close by, and that he couldn’t touch her. Not yet.
He could close his eyes and remember so clearly what she had felt like, that one night they’d been lovers. When he’d known that he wanted her but had not yet realized that he loved her. When he’d lost himself as never before, given and taken more than ever before. When he had, in his heart and soul, claimed Catalina for his own.
Doc Booker snored unevenly, snorting on occasion and then falling into a soft rumble. Jackson knew that he and the Doc had nothing in common. The old man was righteous and pious and judgmental, the kind of man Jackson had despised all his life. He and the doctor-turned-rancher had nothing to bring them together … except for one shared realization.
Catalina was special. He couldn’t treat her like one of Alberta’s girls. She should have what she always wanted, her special wedding night. She deserved that. She deserved everything.
She was the only good thing that had ever happened to him, the only decent person he’d taken into his life. She could make him forget what he was … what he’d been.
So he tried to forget that he hurt with wanting her, that he’d seen her own need in those whiskey eyes. He tried to forget by wondering what it would be like to have a real home. To sleep in a bed every night with his wife, to have children, to live with love instead of fear.
Doc groaned and rose unsteadily, weaving on his feet before he headed for the barn door that was cracked slightly open. Moonlight spilled in as the old man opened the door quietly.
Moments later Doc Booker was back, closing the door as easily as he had opened it.
“Everything all right?” Jackson asked softly.
The old man, no more than a shadow in the dark barn, jumped when Jackson spoke.
“I thought you were asleep.” Doc whispered hoarsely.
“I’ve slept too much in the past three weeks.”
Doc Booker settled himself on his pallet, but he didn’t lie down. He faced Jackson, sitting awkwardly on the temporary bed. “I’m up and down all night now. What I wouldn’t give for just one long, uninterrupted night of sleep.”
“Did you check on Catalina?”
Doc Booker chuckled, low and almost friendly. “No; I checked on the privy. Miss Catalina’s fine, I assure you. Locked up tight.”
“Locked in, huh?”
“Yep. I made her bolt the door, and I checked it the first time I was up.”
Jackson just grunted, a noncommittal rumble that meant nothing.
Doc laughed again, a little louder this time. “So when’s the wedding?”
Jackson rolled up into a sitting position and faced the Doc. It didn’t look as if either of them was going to get any more sleep tonight.
“Not until we leave here. You heard her … she’s terrified of what might happen if I go back into Baxter.”
“No one there will recognize you, now.”
Jackson believed that was probably true, but he didn’t want to tell the old man about Catalina’s earlier claims — that she had traveled back in time a hundred years. That he was supposed to die in Baxter.
“I made a promise. I told her I wouldn’t go back, so we’ll have to wait until I can travel.”
Doc Booker was silent. “That shouldn’t be too much longer. You’re healing nicely, for a man I was certain was dead.”
They sat there, the silence between them companionable for once, and Jackson wondered what he should say next. He’d never thanked the Doc for saving his life … that was the sort of nicety he was unaccustomed to.
“I’m going to town tomorrow,” Doc said cautiously. “I need some supplies, and you could use some new duds. I’d loan you some of mine, but the pants would be a mite short, and you look to me of an age to have been out of knickers for quite some time. Miss Catalina and I have discussed it, and I think I know what she wants.”
“Nope. It would be best if she stays here. Alberta has been mighty quiet, but I don’t trust that woman. The only reason she hasn’t come out here and tried to take Catalina is that she’s afraid of going to war with the Baptists. Nope, goin’ to church on Sunday is all that’s safe for Miss Catalina, and even then I have to listen to her caterwaul about leaving you here alone, and I worry that we might meet up with someone on the way back.”
“I’ll be able to travel soon,” Jackson assured the old man … and himself. “Catalina and I need to get away from here.”
“You’re not ready just yet, son,” Doc said gruffly. “It’s a miracle you’re alive; don’t rush it.”
“It is a miracle,” Jackson said softly, and he wasn’t speaking of his recovery, but of finding Catalina when he’d lost all hope.
Somehow Doc knew exactly what he meant.
“She deserves better than the likes of you,” he said without rancor.
“Yep,” Jackson agreed. “That she does. Have you ever seen a woman more … ” Jackson searched for the right words to describe Catalina. Beautiful, certainly, but more than that. Luminous, when she smiled and when she wept and broke his heart. Unexpected, tossing him and Harold Goodman to the ground with apparent ease. Strong, demanding that he live when he’d already given up. “Amazing,” he finally said.
Doc answered with a thoughtful murmur, and Jackson stretched back on his hard pallet. Morning would soon be upon them, warming sun and bright light. While Doc was gone he could steal another kiss …
No, he couldn’t. With Doc away from the ranch, there would be nothing and no one to stop them from taking what they both wanted. He wanted to wait … for Catalina’s sake … but he could only stand so much.
Catalina rolled slowly from the bed, straining her ears as she listened to the quiet house. It seemed so empty without Jackson in it. When she opened the door and peeked into the main room it chilled her heart to see the empty bed.
Gray morning light lit the room, but the sun wasn’t yet up. Time to fix breakfast for Jackson and Doc and herself, a big meal to carry them through the busy morning.
Doc had taught her, with little evidence of patience, how to cook. He hadn’t complained, but she had a feeling Doc Booker would be glad to be rid of them as soon as Jackson was able to travel. They had disrupted his quiet life, and at times he seemed awfully impatient.
She was impatient herself. Anxious to be far away from Baxter. Anxious to be alone with Jackson again. He still moved carefully and slowly, but she could see that he improved every day.
He had not been pleased to hear that Doc had told the townspeople about his nephew Jackson Cady, who was coming to fetch her. The old guy had even gone to the telegraph office, sent a strangely worded message to his sister — who evidently was real — to make the story believable.
If anyone were to stop by, Jackson’s presence here would be explained. Catalina didn’t want anyone from Baxter stopping by, no matter how changed Jackson’s appearance was. She tried to assure him — and herself — that no one would recognize him, but she knew if she looked into those pale blue eyes she would know. Would anyone else? Had anyone else been so captivated by those eyes that they would recognize them anywhere, no matter what other changes there had been?
Without the guns, the duster, the black shirt, he did look remarkably different. Going through Doc’s discarded things, she had found a pair of spectacles. They had been his wife’s, he’d explained, as Catalina had perched them on her nose. Much too strong. They made her head swim and her eyes water.
She’d set them aside and uttered a passing thought to Jackson that if anyone were to stop by he could wear them to further disguise himself. He was not, to put it lightly, particularly taken with the idea.
She didn’t want to see anyone from Baxter ever again. The Sunday visits were bad enough. Doc insisted, and Jackson assured her that it was necessary. But Catalina kept staring at the spot, there on the street, where Jackson had been shot and left to die, and she saw it again and again in her mind. Heard the explosions, saw the blood, saw Jackson fall.
Catalina stayed close to Doc during those visits, and always remained silent. The Baptists had forgiven her, but they hadn’t forgotten what she’d been. What they’d believed her to be. She caught some of the men staring at her with entirely too much interest in their eyes, and the women were still wary of her. It was easiest to stay shyly at Doc’s side, to pray silently, and to leave town as quickly as possible.
The only saving grace was Helen Dunston, the Reverend Preston’s widowed sister. It was so plain to see that the woman was taken with Doc. Well, plain to her, but evidently not so plain to Doc Booker. Another stubborn man. Catalina had tried to tell him a hundred times that Mrs. Dunston was sweet on him, but he just blushed and blustered, shrugging off her certainty and nearly jumping out of the buckboard — even as it crept down the road — when she’d suggested that he court the widow.
Much too soon, he grumbled. And he was old enough to be her father, by a long shot. When she’d told him that she didn’t think Helen Dunston cared how old he was he’d turned a lovely shade of pink.
Harold Goodman kept his distance. He wasn’t a churchgoer, and he hadn’t made another visit to Doc’s ranch since that first Sunday. The man was a weasel. It was almost unbearable, the waiting. Catalina was certain Goodman had something up his sleeve. A man like that didn’t take kindly to losing. He was too petty to simply let it go.
If they were lucky, she and Jackson would be far away from this place before he tried anything again. But what about Doc? Granted, she couldn’t claim to be much in the way of protection for the old man, and even Jackson couldn’t help much, at this point. But he shouldn’t have to face Harold Goodman and whatever gunman he brought in alone.
Catalina went to the window that faced the barn, drawn there. The barn door swung open and Jackson stepped outside with a cautious step, limping slightly. He stopped just outside the door and stared away from the cabin, toward the red rock that had drawn her to this place. He was perfectly still, powerful and beautiful and graceful.
He hadn’t asked her again where she’d come from.
Catalina knew he didn’t believe her story, didn’t believe the truth, and she couldn’t blame him. Until it had happened to her, she wouldn’t have believed it either. It didn’t matter. It was a surprise to her to realize that, but it was true.
Their life together was a gift, a treasure that shouldn’t have been found. It didn’t matter how she had gotten here, only that she was here now.
Her stomach growled, and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her. Of late, nineteenth-century food had not been agreeing with her. She rubbed a hand distractedly over her belly.
If Jackson didn’t ask, she wouldn’t mention again where she’d come from. If he could accept her as she was, now, and put away the past, she could put away all she knew as well.
The wind gusted, and a soft breeze lifted Jackson’s newly shortened hair away from his face, and still he didn’t move.
Catalina knew then that they would have to go far away from this place, far away from any place Kid Creede had ever been. Anyone who knew the Kid would recognize him now, stoic and strong. Pensive and … deadly. There was still a look of death about him. He’d seen too much to put it all behind him.
What held his attention so fully? Did he see ghosts in the distance? Or did he look to the future?
Sixteen
*
Catalina loaded the table with biscuits and honey, pan-fried ham, and scrambled eggs. She had finally learned to prepare coffee the way Jackson and Doc liked it — strong enough to peel paint — and both men drank entirely too much of the thick, dark brew.
She weakened her own cup with at least as much milk as coffee, and dumped in a heaping spoonful of sugar. It was the only way to make the stuff palatable.
Jackson seemed inordinately fond of his eggs this
morning. He had given them all of his attention, hardly glancing her way. It was very unlike him. She knew he wasn’t shy by any means, and he certainly wasn’t afraid of her. So why wouldn’t he look at her?
Finally Catalina got her wish, and Jackson lifted his head to look at her with narrowed eyes. He smiled, just a little, and Catalina put away all her doubts.
“Doc’s going to town today,” he said, breaking a biscuit in half.
“Oh,” Catalina turned to Doc, tearing her eyes away from Jackson. “What’s the occasion?” He hadn’t mentioned taking her with him, and that would mean an entire day with Jackson. Alone, miles from everyone.
“We need supplies. I used a month’s allotment of flour teaching you to make a decent biscuit.” He raised a biscuit to his mouth and took a big bite. “It was worth it, too.”
That last addition to his statement forced Catalina to forgive the first part.
“Well, you must give Helen Dunston my best wishes while you’re in town,” Catalina said innocently, keeping her eyes wide and the smile that threatened from her face. “Surely you will be stopping in to say hello to your friend Reverend Preston.”
Doc grunted and finished his biscuit without a word.
Something was bothering Jackson. There was a little furrow between his eyes that she had never seen before, and a muscle twitched at his jaw. Perhaps sleeping in the barn had not agreed with him.
She didn’t have long to wonder what was troubling him. He lifted his head and waved a biscuit at Doc. “You shouldn’t travel unarmed.”
Doc shook his head. “I haven’t carried a weapon in thirty years, and I’m not going to start now.”
“There’s a rifle hanging over the front door,” Jackson pointed out. “A muzzle-loader,” he muttered, disgusted, “but better than nothing. I could fix it for you. Take it apart and clean it up and put it back together again. It would be better than nothing.”
“No,” Doc said sternly.
Jackson sighed, that weary sigh she had heard so often in their first days together. “Take one of my Colts.” It was an order, issued to a man who didn’t take orders from anyone. “Catalina, where are they?”