by Linda Jones
“By yourself?” Catalina asked, her voice sharper than she had intended.
Qaletaqa’s smile faded, just a little, and his gaze was riveted on Catalina. “Yes,” he said almost solemnly. “Alone.”
Catalina felt a chill she couldn’t explain away, a tingling at the back of her neck. “Do you travel far?” She could almost swear that she had looked into those eyes before.
The charming smile was back. “Very far.”
She offered the boy more cake, but he declined politely. “I have traveled farther than I thought possible. I have seen corners of the world that no other man has ever seen. There are miracles all around us, you know, but most humans never even notice them. They refuse to open their hearts and their minds.”
Catalina almost couldn’t speak. When she did manage a sound her voice was no more than a whisper. “Open your heart and your mind and all things are possible.”
Qaletaqa smiled brightly. “Yes. You understand.”
“Yes. No, not really. Are you … ” There were so many questions she wanted to ask. Will we meet again in a hundred years? Are you the one who brought me here?
“I must give you something in exchange for the wonderful food you have shared with me.” Qaletaqa pulled the sack he carried over his shoulder to the front and placed it between his legs. “What would be suitable?” He opened the top of the sack and reached inside, not looking at all.
“It’s not necessary … ” Catalina began.
“You will insult me,” he claimed with a smile.
His hand appeared from within the bag, clutching two lengths of leather, braided neatly and knotted at each end.
“These were braided from one length. I did the work myself. It symbolizes unity, oneness, harmony.” He pulled the cords apart, and offered them, one in each hand, to Catalina and Jackson. “Surely you have something you might wish to suspend from these simple gifts, something to remember our brief encounter by.”
Jackson took the length that was offered him, and Catalina could only wonder if he felt any of the amazement she did at the moment. She wanted to ask the boy if he had a flannel shirt or two in his sack, but she didn’t. It was preposterous. Bizarre. But she took the braided cord with a mumbled word of thanks.
Qaletaqa jumped to his feet, agile in that way only the very young are, and thanked Catalina for the food. “Even the cake,” he added as he turned to cross the creek.
On the other side he spun to face them once again, and flashed that winning smile. “I think that perhaps we will meet again one day, Goldie.”
He was gone before Catalina could find her tongue.
“I can’t go to church,” Catalina moaned pitifully. Jackson stood by the bed, his hand smoothing back her hair, his eyes worried. He’d bathed her face and brought her a toothbrush and baking soda and water to clean her mouth.
Catalina knew that if she threw up again, there would be nothing left inside her, no stomach at all. Still her insides revolted. The stomach flu; she’d been fighting it down for more than a week, ignoring the flutters in her stomach, the weakness that came over her at the end of the day. They were supposed to leave in a matter of days, and now this. What a time to get sick.
“I’m sorry,” she said weakly.
Doc Booker stuck his head in the door, a frown on his face. Engaged or not, it was improper for Jackson to be by her bed.
“She’s really sick,” Jackson said, turning to Doc. “Can’t you give her anything?”
Catalina heard the real worry in Jackson’s voice, and maybe Doc did, too, because he finally relented and came into the room to look down at her.
“She says it’s the stomach flu,” Jackson said, brushing his hand against her temple, softly, soothingly.
Doc harumphed.
“She was sick yesterday, too, and a couple of days last week.”
Doc shucked off his good church jacket, a less than friendly scowl on his face. “Is that a fact.”
Catalina couldn’t understand why he was so angry that she wouldn’t be attending church services with him this week. She’d been a faithful churchgoer during her stay at Doc’s ranch.
He kicked Jackson out of the room, and Catalina almost smiled. Not many people could get away with that.
Doc laid a hand on her forehead, and listened to her pulse. He scowled throughout the examination, even when he pressed lightly on her abdomen. When he was done he bent over the bed, placing his face close to hers.
“Miss Catalina,” he began formally, “I don’t want you to take offense. Remember, I’m a doctor.”
She nodded slightly, all that she could manage.
“When was the last time you had your monthly flow?”
Catalina closed her eyes. Not since she’d traveled back. She hadn’t even thought of the time that had passed. Two months? She counted back and was certain that it had been at least that long.
She told Doc, her voice a whisper, how long it had been. She didn’t whisper because she was embarrassed, as he apparently thought, but because she was shocked. It had to have happened their first night together.
Her child had been conceived in a whorehouse.
Jackson’s child.
She smiled brightly, almost forgetting how horrible she felt. “Morning sickness.”
Doc nodded, disapproval clear in his eyes.
“I wonder what Jackson will think of this?” There had been so many changes in his life, so fast. How would he feel about this one?
“Is it his?” Doc asked gruffly, his voice low.
“Of course it is.” Catalina pushed herself up on both elbows. She gave Doc Booker the indignant stare he deserved, and was rewarded with a small smile. He had come to like Jackson, after all.
“I reckon he’ll be pleased.”
Doc started to step away from the bed, and Catalina reached out to take his hand. “I want to tell him,” she whispered.
The old man nodded and smiled again. Two smiles in such a short time; surely that was a record for the crotchety Doc.
Jackson was waiting right outside, and he stepped into the room as soon as Doc opened the bedroom door.
“Well?” He looked at Doc for a long moment, and then he turned to Catalina. She smiled at him, but it did nothing to ease the concern on his face.
“She won’t be coming to church with me today, and I would recommend that she postpone any travel plans for a while.”
Doc left with those slightly ominous words, and Jackson turned a worried frown to Catalina. “It’s bad?”
Catalina patted the bed beside her, and Jackson lowered himself gently beside her. He was prepared for the worst, steeling himself for the news.
“It’s not bad at all,” Catalina said softly.
“But Doc said you couldn’t travel.”
Catalina lifted her hand in a wave of dismissal. “Old-fashioned thinking. I can do whatever I please.”
The nausea was already fading, and Catalina sat up to face Jackson. She took one hand and twined her fingers through his. “I’m pregnant, Jackson. We’re going to have a baby.”
She’d thought he would be relieved, but he turned as white as the bedspread that covered her legs and clutched a bit too tightly at her fingers.
“A baby?”
Catalina nodded. “Conceived at Alberta’s. Almost two months ago.”
Jackson looked almost as pale as he had when she’d thought he was going to die, and his hands trembled just slightly. A fearless man, struck dumb by the very notion of a child.
After a few strained moments the shocked expression on his face faded, and he smiled — just a little. “A baby,” he repeated. “That’s … nice.”
“Nice?” Catalina pulled her fingers away from his and sat up straight. “I’m going to bear your child. I’m going to be sick all the time, and get horrendously fat, and it will be worth every moment of pain and discomfort. Nice? Nice? Can’t you do any better than that?”
His smile turned into a grin, and he leaned toward her. �
��How about very nice.”
“If it’s very nice, why did you turn white when I told you?” Catalina placed her hands on his hard shoulders and kissed him lightly in spite of her harsh words.
“Because it’s also very scary,” he whispered. “I don’t know how to be a father.”
“Of course you do.”
“I don’t even remember my own parents, much less how to care for a child, a helpless baby.”
She could see it now, the trepidation in his eyes. “Do you really believe,” she began huskily, “that any child of ours could be helpless?”
Jackson gave her a half grin, almost sheepish. “I don’t suppose so.”
“I’m feeling a little better,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder.
“Are you?” He stroked her hair and held her tenderly, as if she might break. Catalina had a feeling that he was going to be stubborn about this, like Doc Booker, treating her as if she were ill for the next seven months.
“Pregnancy is a perfectly natural state for a woman my age,” she said sensibly, trailing her lips across his throat.
He mumbled a reply, but it didn’t sound as if he believed her.
He held her gingerly for a long while, and they listened as Doc’s buckboard pulled away from the ranch. Jackson didn’t move, only stroked her hair gently. Too gently. While there was certainly a lot to be said for nineteenth-century men, this apparent dread of pregnancy had all the possibilities of a real drawback.
“Jackson,” she whispered, lifting her head from his shoulder to stare into his still pale face. “Kiss me.”
He did, a kiss much too hesitant.
“I won’t break,” she prodded.
“But you’re … we’ll have to take it easy, right?”
“I am able to do anything an unpregnant woman can do.” She emphasized the point by sliding her hand down his body and resting it between his legs, stroking him, feeling him grow hard beneath her fingers.
He didn’t argue when she fell back onto the bed, bringing him with her.
“Anything?” he whispered.
“Do you realize, my darling Jackson, that this nightgown I’m wearing is much easier to remove than the dress I was wearing the last time we were alone in the house?”
“I certainly do.” He ran his hands over the soft cotton that covered her body.
“And do you realize, Jackson my love, that I’m wearing absolutely nothing underneath?”
He lifted his head and looked her in the eye as he slid the long skirt of her nightgown up and brushed his fingers against her bare thigh.
“You’re a wicked woman, Catalina Lane.”
“Yes, I know,” she said, deftly unfastening the buttons of his twill pants. “When are zippers going to be invented, anyway?” she asked, fumbling with the last button.
“What’s a zipper?” Jackson buried his face against her neck, then drew away for a moment to push her nightgown over her breasts, over her head.
“Never mind.”
Catalina lifted the curtain and stared into a black and moonless night. “He should’ve been home hours ago.”
Jackson didn’t seem to be concerned at all. He had listed for her several times a number of reasons why Doc hadn’t returned. A broken wheel, a horse with a thrown shoe, a sick friend … but Catalina didn’t quite buy any one of them.
“Well, he won’t be coming in tonight,” Jackson assured her, approaching from behind, taking her hand and allowing the curtain to fall into place. “It’s too dark.”
“We should look for him,” Catalina insisted as Jackson settled his hands on her shoulders. “He might have had trouble on the road, or he might have gotten sick.”
“It’s too dark,” Jackson said again. “If he doesn’t show up bright and early in the morning, we’ll search for him.”
Catalina felt a cold fear touch her heart, turning her blood cold. “You can’t go into Baxter.” She whispered the words that spoke of her greatest fear. “The book … ” She turned slowly and lifted her face to stare into pale blue eyes, eyes once icy that now were soft. Still and clear. “It said you would die on the street in Baxter. Shot a dozen times.”
“But you saved me from that.”
Catalina was shaking her head before he’d finished. “I can’t be certain. I don’t remember the date. I was always terrible with dates. What if I didn’t change history at all? You can’t possibly go into Baxter. If Doc doesn’t show up tomorrow, early, I’ll look for him.”
Jackson narrowed his eyes. “No. You can’t leave here by yourself. It’s not safe.”
Catalina chewed her lip. He was right, of course, but it seemed to her — she knew — that it would be much more dangerous for Jackson to travel to Baxter.
“Maybe he’ll show up in the morning,” she said halfheartedly.
“I’m sure he will.” He was trying to console her, but Jackson sounded as unsettled as Catalina. It was true there were any number of reasons Doc might have had to spend the night in town, but Catalina was certain he would have broken his neck to get home and assure himself that she and Jackson weren’t alone in his home overnight. It was simply too improper. Scandalous.
Jackson cupped her chin in his hand and lowered his lips to hers, softly brushing his mouth against hers. “I hate to see you with a worried frown on your face,” he whispered. “Doc’s spending the night in town, and we have the house to ourselves. That’s nothing to frown about, Catalina.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist and held him tight, filled with wonder that she had found him. There was a glowing warmth deep inside, a glow that stole away all her worries for a while, and it was as much a wonder to her as the journey she had made to find her one true love, her soul mate, the other half of herself.
He gave her a gentle kiss, his hands moving over her back almost tentatively, delicately, as if he was afraid she might break. She wanted to assure him that she wouldn’t, that she could take whatever he offered her … soft or hard … fast or slow … she wanted everything Jackson had to give, and more.
“I’ve been doing some thinking,” Jackson said, drawing just slightly away from her. “About the baby.”
He sounded a little unsure, and Catalina held her breath.
“We talked one night about magic,” he said softly, though they were all alone, miles from any other human being. “And I must admit I have a hard time accepting anything I can’t see with my own eyes.”
“Including magic?”
Jackson nodded. “But this … ” He slid his hand down to rest on her still-flat stomach. “It’s real magic. That you should come from so far away, and that I should find you in the middle of the desert, and that on our first night together we created something, someone. It was meant to be, this child. Our child. No matter what happens to me … ”
Catalina reached up and laid a finger over Jackson’s lips. “Nothing’s going to happen to you,” she insisted, but a deep chill stole away the glow that had warmed her.
Jackson smiled, a half grin, as he took her fingers and kissed them. “When we get to Texas we’ll have a dozen more.”
“A dozen? I don’t think so. Maybe three.”
Jackson backed her toward the wide bed in the corner of the room. “Only three?”
“We’ll discuss it later.”
Jackson undressed her as he practically danced her to the bed, his hands deft, his lips finding hers. Tonight she would sleep in his arms. Once Doc returned she would have to wait until they left the ranch and started their long journey to Texas. It wouldn’t be much longer.
She gently fell back on the bed, and Jackson fell with her. “I love you, Catalina,” he whispered hoarsely.
She kissed his skin, soft and warm and hard. “I love you, too.” She wanted to look into his eyes and tell him even more. That he had proven to her that love really did exist, that the soul was stronger than time itself. But her body was aching for his, and for the moment I love you, too was enough. She had forever to tell him t
he rest.
He heard the hoofbeats coming closer; it took him only a few sleepy seconds to realize that it wasn’t Doc’s buckboard.
“Catalina.” He gave her a gentle shove as he rolled from the bed and began to dress quickly. She murmured and rolled away from him, onto her stomach, burying her face into the bed.
He called her name louder, and this time she lifted her head to look at him and gave him a sleepy smile. “Good morning,” she mumbled before dropping her head to the bed again.
“Someone’s coming,” he snapped. “And it’s not Doc.”
Catalina came alive then, springing from the bed and searching the room for her clothes. She heard the riders, too, by now, and didn’t have time to do more than slip into the dress she’d worn the day before and step into a pair of boots.
“How do you feel this morning?” he asked.
Catalina wrinkled her nose. “Not too “bad. Nothing like yesterday.”
He gave her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Good.” Jackson wished for his gunbelt, but it had been packed away with everything else that reminded Catalina of Kid Creede. The riders were just outside the door now, and all he could do was grab the rifle that hung over the frame. The weapon hadn’t been fired in years — it probably wasn’t even loaded — and Jackson cursed under his breath as he threw open the front door and stepped outside, into the gray light of early morning.
Two men sat their horses before him. One was Harold Goodman, perched in his saddle like a man who owned the world. The other Jackson took a moment to recognize … and when he was certain he was right he swore under his breath again.
Joseph Wynkoop, an ugly sonofabitch. Jackson hadn’t seen him in six years. They’d traveled together for a short while, before Jackson had discovered that Koop had no scruples at all.
If Harold had hired Koop to kill Doc, the old man was probably already dead.
Koop hung back while Harold urged his horse closer to Jackson.
“Mr. Cady,” he said cheerfully, “I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. It seems your uncle has been in an accident. A fatal accident. It happened on his way out of town yesterday, just moments after he’d sold me this place. You will be leaving today, I presume?”