Nate (The Rock Creek Six)

by Handeland, Lori

  She let her horse have its head. The two of them raced down the embankment and splashed into the river. Water sprayed up and over them both, and the sound of Jo's laughter touched something inside Nate that hadn't been touched in a very long time.

  Longingly, he glanced back the way they had come. Life would be so much easier, and he would be so much smarter, if he turned around and ran. But he'd taken the easy way out for far too long, and Jo had been hurt because of it. Besides he'd never claimed to be smart. He was an old, drunken fool—or maybe just an old fool tonight.

  He couldn't let Jo return to Rock Creek and face the gossips on her own. If she wouldn't marry him, he'd make certain no one dared look at her cross-eyed. He might not be good for much, but when it came to intimidation, Nate Lang could hold his own with anyone.

  Moments later, he rode into town. Dusk spread across the street, shrouding Jo in shadow. Her silhouette waifish, the thought of her alone in the world made him ache.

  She was so small to be so strong. Too young to be so wise. Far too sweet to have given her virginity to a man like him. Perhaps she wasn't as wise as he believed.

  Could she fancy herself in love with him? Nate snorted. No one could be that foolish. Besides, she'd refused his offer of marriage. Rightly, no doubt. What Jo felt for him was friendship, perhaps pity, nothing more.

  He still wasn't exactly sure why she'd slept with him. There was something off about her reasoning, but knowing Jo, he'd never get to the bottom of it. She was mulish stubborn when she chose to be.

  Nate joined her in front of the Paradise Hotel and dismounted.

  "Thought you were leaving," she said.

  "Not today."

  Jo merely shrugged and went inside. Nate followed, bumping into her when she stopped in the center of the lobby. The top of her head reached only to the middle of his chest. A wave of protectiveness flowed through him, and he put a hand on her shoulder. She started, gave him a quick frown, but she didn't shrug him off, so he let his hand remain. The warmth of her skin through her shirt warmed him. The fine bones of her shoulder made him want to stroke them with his thumb.

  A shadow memory of kissing her shoulder, rubbing his cheek along her sleek skin made him jolt and yank his hand away. She didn't seem to notice; she was too busy listening.

  "Where are they?" she whispered.

  The hotel had a deserted air. The desk was unmanned; the restaurant sat empty.

  "Eden?" Nate called. "Sullivan?"

  No one answered. He strode through the dining room and stuck his head into the kitchen, letting out a sigh of relief to find a pot simmering on the stove. It was too early for supper, which explained the empty dining area. Eden was in town somewhere. She just wasn't here right now—along with the rest of her huge brood, which was damn odd.

  More uneasy by the moment, Nate rejoined Jo in the lobby. "No sign of anyone. But there's stew on the stove."

  Moving to the window, Nate peered across the street at the jail. The windows were dark, and the door, usually wide open when Sullivan was there, remained tightly shut.

  He turned. "No one's at the jail, either."

  Jo raised her eyebrows. "Let's try Mary's."

  They left through the back of the hotel and hurried down a side street. The dark windows told the same tale. Mary and Reese weren't home either. Nevertheless, Nate knocked. As expected, no one answered.

  "I don't like this," Nate muttered.

  "That makes two of us. Hey!" She scrambled to keep up when he strode toward Main Street. "Where you going?"

  "Rogue's Palace. There's always someone there."

  He stopped in the middle of the street at the sight of Cash's place, also dark and empty. Something was very wrong.

  The trill of a piano split the night, and the two of them turned toward Three Queens.

  "Johnny's playing 'Do They Miss Me at Home' again," Jo observed.

  "That can't be good." The boy played the old tune on only the most mournful of occasions.

  "I got a bad feeling," Nate said.

  Jo laced her fingers with his. "You and me both."

  Her hand was small and warm, his big and cold, but somehow they fit together just right. It had been so long since anyone had held his hand Nate had forgotten how soothing such a simple gesture could be. He closed his fingers around hers and held on tight.

  Together they crossed the street and stepped through the batwing doors of Lily's place.

  Chapter 8

  "They're back! "Carrie shouted and ran toward them.

  Johnny's fingers stumbled along the keys, ending the sad song on a discordant note before he spun around with a grin. His smile faltered at the sight of Nate and Jo in the doorway.

  Carrie kept on coming, muttering, "They're back; they're back."

  Nate was surprised at her excitement. She'd never been glad to see him before. Carrie loved with all her heart, but her heart belonged to Daddy. Perhaps it was Jo she planned on hugging.

  As if she'd heard his unspoken thought, Jo's hand jerked in his. Her entire arm went stiff. Nate looked her way to discover Jo's gaze fixed on the lizard attached to Carrie's shoulder. He resisted the urge to laugh. Face-anything-and-smile Jo Clancy was afraid of lizards.

  Nate stepped in front of her, but Carrie charged right past them and out into the night. Jo and Nate exchanged puzzled glances.

  Carrie bounded right back in with a confused expression of her own. "They're not back," she said to the room at large.

  Nate's gaze wandered over the crowd. None of his friends were in attendance. However, all the missing wives and children were.

  Eden hoisted herself from a chair. She was huge. Sullivan had been a busy boy—again. "Where's Sin?" she asked.

  "How the hell would I know?"

  His bad feeling spreading all over the place, Nate's voice came out more harshly than he would have liked. Jo elbowed him in the ribs before walking over to Mary. "You told," she accused.

  "No. He figured it out all by himself." Mary gazed at the floor. "Mostly."

  "What's going on here?" Nate demanded. "Where is everyone?"

  "Out looking for you, cheri." Behind the bar, Lily poured him a drink and left the bottle.

  "They'd never come looking for me." Nate went to the bar and curled his hand around the glass. "I'd kick their ass."

  Lily laughed. "And I would enjoy watching. Nevertheless, they have gone searching for you and Jo-"

  "Jo maybe. That I'd buy."

  "When did they leave?"

  Jo's voice came as if from far away. Nate listened absently, fascinated by the shade of the whiskey in his glass. Amber or butterscotch, he pondered, perhaps somewhere in between.

  "Night before last," Eden answered. "You should have run smack into them."

  "We didn't."

  Drawing out the moment, Nate swirled the liquid round and around. He lifted the drink, took a deep sniff. His mouth watered painfully. God, he was thirsty. Every minute of every day, each day more and more.

  Nate put the glass to his lips and met Jo's eyes in the mirror above the bar. She didn't plead; she didn't accuse. She never had. But when she turned away as if she couldn't bear to watch him return to the hell he'd just walked through, he sighed and set the drink back down. The click of the glass on the bar held a finality he didn't much care for.

  He'd never been a strong man, and tempting his demons was a good way to wind up consumed by them. So he crossed the room, leaving the drink and the bottle as far behind him as he could.

  When he walked past Jo, she started, shot him a suspicious glare, and spun about, her gaze going to the full glass on the bar. The joy of her smile made him joyous too, for an instant.

  Jo didn't understand how hard it was for him to leave that drink untouched. The only reason he'd been able to was the sudden and unexpected responsibility for his friends' women and children. The second the others rode into Rock Creek he'd be back at this bar, or any other, consuming not just a drink but a bottle, even two.

/>   Nate took a seat at Eden's table. As soon as he did, Fiona climbed into his lap and kissed his face.

  "Ooo, scratchy!" With a confused scowl she rubbed her hands over the stubble on his head. "Unca Nate, where you get hair?"

  The child had never seen him anything but bald. No one here had.

  He scratched his scalp, surprised to find a good crop of hair up there. He must not have shaved for longer than he remembered. "I always had hair, Fiona. I just didn't let it grow."

  "Never seed black and white hair before."

  "Fiona," Eden warned.

  Typically, Fiona ignored her. "Let it grow, Unca Nate. You pretty."

  She jumped from his lap, joined hands with Georgie, and ran off to play.

  "I think you're pretty too." Lily appeared at Nate's shoulder and winked. "But then I always did."

  The two of them smiled at each other, remembering the way they'd met. Lily had walked in on him when he was stark naked and shaving his head. It was one of the few times Nate had ever seen her flustered.

  Jo kicked out the chair next to his and straddled it like a man. "Are you going after them?"

  "No," he said slowly. It had been a long time since he'd had to think for himself. His friends had been taking care of that chore for many years. Nate was surprised and pleased to discover he could still make a few deductions on his own. "That's what got us into this predicament in the first place. If they'd waited a while, we'd have been home and everyone would be happy."

  And I'd be on my second drink right about now.

  "See?" Jo turned to Mary. "You couldn't wait a week?"

  Mary crossed her arms over her chest and gave Jo a narrow glare. "I didn't go running off to Mexico alone."

  "Ladies, ladies," Nate soothed. "Relax. No one's going to mess with those four. They'll come riding into town by tomorrow night, or the next at the latest. Then everything will return to the way it should be."

  He smiled at Jo, but she didn't smile back. She knew what he meant by the way it should be—his friends running the town while he ran booze past his lips. Ah, those were the days.

  Against his will, Nate's gaze drifted to the beckoning bottle and glass on the bar. The flickering lantern light turned the whiskey the shade of sunset across water. He licked his lips.

  Jo's hand covered Nate's, drawing his attention back to her. Now she smiled, but the expression held no joy, only a deep sadness incongruent with the Jo he knew. "You should stay with Eden."

  His gaze shot to the bottle again.

  Jo moved her hand to his grizzled cheek and turned his face to hers. "She'll need your help."

  "Right." Nate stood. "Come on, Fiona."

  The little girl ran over and lifted her arms to be picked up. He obliged, tucking her against his side. She laid her head on his shoulder with complete trust. That always made his throat go tight and thick. He swallowed, but the uncommon emotion did not go away, so he ignored it as he always did. He could usually ignore feelings long enough for them to go away. If they didn't, he could always drown them into oblivion. Or at least he always could before.

  The other children gathered around. Eden still sat in the chair. "You need a hand up?"

  She shook her head. "Can you take the four of them over?" Her eyes remained on Jo. "I'll be there directly."

  Nate frowned. Eden was too smart by half. If she found out what had happened between him and Jo, she'd remove his liver with a Bowie knife.

  "All right," he said slowly, cutting a glance at Jo.

  She pointed at him, then herself, then drew her finger across her lips. Nate smiled.

  It was their secret.

  * * *

  They waited until Nate was gone and Johnny had taken Carrie and Georgie upstairs to play before they pounced on her.

  "What happened?" Mary demanded.

  "I found him and brought him home."

  "Took long enough."

  "I got a little lost."

  "You never get lost."

  "There's always a first time."

  "That's what I'm afraid of."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  All three women crossed their arms and raised their brows. Jo did the same.

  "I think you do, but I'll spell it out just in case. Did Nate make love to you?" Mary asked.

  "No," Jo answered with complete honesty. He hadn't been making love to her. He'd been making love to his dead wife.

  Her friends frowned, then glanced at one another in confusion. Her tone had obviously convinced them she told the truth. But their eyes had convinced them otherwise.

  She and Nate touched now with a casualness that hinted at intimacy. Even though he did not recall a moment in his mind, his body remembered. He stood closer to her than he used to, put his hand on her shoulder, put his body in front of hers when she was afraid, held her hand when she was nervous. He hadn't noticed, but she had. And it broke her heart. Because she wanted so much more and she could only have less.

  "No?" Mary asked. "You're sure?"

  "I think I'd know."

  "True enough, mon ami. Leave her be, Mary."

  Mary ignored Lily, continuing to badger Jo. "Something's going on with you two. And with him. I've never seen Nate sober. And he wanted that drink more than he wanted his next breath, but he didn't take it. Why?"

  Jo shrugged. "You'll have to ask him."

  "Hmm," Mary murmured.

  "You know there's been talk about the two of you before," Eden ventured.

  Jo just rolled her eyes.

  "We don't want you hurt. If anything untoward happened, I'm sure Nate would marry you."

  "He already asked."

  "Really?" Lily purred. "Another wedding. Can I tell Cash?"

  Eden winced. "No."

  "Merde!"

  Mary clapped and grinned. "We'll have to wait until the boys come back. But I'll take care of everything."

  "I told him no," Jo said.

  "You what?" all three women shouted as one.

  "I told him no," she repeated and crossed the room to stare into the pool of whiskey in Nate's glass. Could she find answers there? Or merely Nate's form of oblivion?

  Telling him no was the hardest thing Jo had ever done. Her dream held out, a sparkling temptation with one hand, even as the other smashed it into shards as sharp and painful as glass.

  He didn't want to be her husband. He only wanted to atone for his mistake, assuage his guilt then leave her behind. She should hate him; it would be so much easier if she could. But hate wasn't in Jo. Especially not for Nate.

  A hand reached out and removed the glass from her grip. Another removed the bottle from her reach. In the mirror behind the bar three pairs of eyes watched her with varying degrees of confusion.

  "Why would you say no?" Mary asked. "Am I wrong to think you care for him?"

  "Of course I care." Jo faced them. "But I'm not going to ruin two lives just to stave off gossip."

  "Why would two lives be ruined?" Eden put her hand on Jo's arm. "If you ask me, he needs you. You got him to stop drinking, Jo. No one's been able to do that. Not ever."

  "I tricked him." She hung her head, ashamed.

  "Tricked? How?"

  "I got lost on purpose."

  "Or perhaps not lost at all, no?" Lily raised a perfectly arched black brow.

  Her friends thought they knew her, but Jo had become adept at hiding her true feelings years before she'd met them. None of them suspected how desperately she loved Nate. If they had, they'd have been matchmaking long before now. As it was, they merely thought he needed her, and that she, in her missionary mien, would do anything for someone in need.

  Jo shrugged off Lily's question. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. But he got so sick."

  Closing her eyes, she remembered his fever, his delusions, her terror. She never wanted to live through that again. She wouldn't even think about the incident with the Comanches, and she certainly wasn't going to tell her friends about it. They'd never let her l
eave Rock Creek again in this lifetime.

  "I was fooling with something I didn't understand. I might have killed him."

  "But you didn't, cherie. So why not marry him and take care of him for always? Someone has to."

  Jo opened her eyes and found all three women nodding. As much as she'd like to take care of Nate forever, if she married him knowing he had only married her to end gossip, she would die slowly from the inside out.

  Perhaps she was being selfish, but then selfish she was. She could not take vows she'd imagined taking in love and make them a lie. She could not bear his name but never his children. There was only so far she could go for that man, and she'd gone there and farther already.

  "That someone can't be me."

  "Why not?" Mary demanded. "You save every other lost soul you can get your hands on."

  "You' re exaggerating," Jo said, then escaped Three Queens before Mary could argue with her anymore.

  Thus far Jo had been unable to save the one soul that mattered to her beyond all others. But she would.

  In order to show Nate that his faith still lay within, she could not muddy their relationship with feelings. Love, hate, passion, they had no place in what she was committed to doing. As difficult as it might be, she would continue to be Nate's friend until he saw the truth.

  Then she would leave.

  * * *

  Later that evening, Nate ate with the youngest of the Sullivan children, while the older ones served dinner to the small number of guests in the hotel. He ordered Eden to her room, promising to put the kids to bed.

  Since she appeared to be carrying a good-sized boulder beneath her dress, which must weigh something terrible on a woman her size, Eden agreed with a pat on his cheek and a gentle, grateful smile.

  Jo had obviously kept her lip buttoned about Soledad, as promised. Because if she'd told her friends what he'd done, Eden wouldn't be patting his cheek, she'd be slapping it. Maybe he should tell her himself and endure a little penance. Maybe then he wouldn't feel so edgy and sad.

  But what had happened in Soledad was between himself and Jo. He could not share it with Eden, even if he could recall anything to share.