Dark Stranger sb-4

by Heather Graham

  He stood up, buckling on his scabbard. He nodded gravely. Then he walked to her and stroked her chin. "I only had five days. It took me three to find my way through the Federal troops. I have to pray I can make it back more quickly." He bent down and touched her lips lightly with his own. "You are so very beautiful, Kristin," he murmured to her. But he was still distant from her. Very distant.

  "Cole —" She choked on his name. Her heart was aching. There were so many things that needed to be said, and none of them mattered. She had said or done something to offend him and she didn't even know what it was. "Cole, I don't understand —"

  "Kristin, I don't want your pity."

  "What?"

  "Pity, Kristin. I don't want it. It's worthless stuff, and it isn't good for anyone. I wondered what last night was all about. You were barely civil to me when I left in May. Hate me, Kristin. Hate me all you want. But for God's sake, Kristin, don't pity me!"

  Incredulous, she stiffened, staring at him, fighting the tears that stung her eyes.

  "I've thought about having you and Shannon move to London until this thing is over with. I had a little power with Quantrill, but I'm afraid my influence with the Yankees is at a low ebb. This is a dangerous place —"

  "Go!" Kristin said.

  "Kristin —"

  "Go back to your bleeding Confederacy!" Kristin said heatedly. "I've already met with the Yankees, thanks, and they were damned civil."

  "Kristin —"

  "I'm all right here! I swear it. We are fine."

  He hesitated, then swept his frock coat over his shoulders and picked up his plumed hat.

  "Kristin —"

  "Cole, damn you, get out of here! You don't want my pity, you want my hatred! Well, then, you've got it! Go!"

  "Damn you, Kristin!"

  He came back to the bed and took her in his arms. The covers fell away, and she pressed against the wool of his uniform, felt the hot, determined yearning of his kiss. She wanted to fight him. She wanted to tell him that she really did hate him. But he was going away again, going away to the war. And she was afraid of the war. The war killed people.

  And so she kissed him back. She wound her arms around him and kissed him back every bit as passionately as he did her. And she felt his fingers move over her breast, and she savored every sensation.

  Then he lifted his lips from hers, and their eyes met, and he very slowly and carefully let her fall back to the bed.

  They didn't speak again. He kissed her forehead lightly, and then he left her.

  PART 4

  The Outlaw and The Cavalier

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  June, 1864

  He never should have come to Kansas.

  Cole knew he should never have come to Kansas. A scouting mission in Kentucky was one thing. He could slip into Virginia or even Maryland easily enough. Even in Ohio he might be all right. In the East they were slower to hang a man as a spy. In the East they didn't shoot a man down where he stood, not often, not that Cole had heard about anyway.

  He should never have come to Kansas.

  But the war effort was going badly, very badly. First General Lee had lost Stonewall Jackson. Then Jeb Stuart had been shot, and they had carried him back to Richmond, and he had died there. Countless men had died, some of them brilliant men, some of them men who were perhaps not so brilliant but who were blessed with an endless supply of courage and a fine bravado, even in the face of death.

  Jeb was the greatest loss, though. Cole could remember their days at West Point, and he could remember the pranks they had pulled when they had been assigned out west together. The only comfort in Jeb's death was the fact that his little daughter had died just weeks before. They said

  that when he lay dying he had talked of holding her again in heaven. They had buried him in Hollywood Cemetery. Cole had been with Kristin when they had buried him, but he had visited the grave when he'd come to Richmond, and he still found it impossible to believe that James Ewell Brown Stuart, his friend, the dashing cavalier, could be dead. He had visited Flora, Jeb's wife, and they'd laughed about some of their days back in Kansas, but then Flora had begun to cry, and he had thought it best to leave. Flora had just lost her husband, a Confederate general. Her father, a Union general, was still fighting.

  The war had never been fair.

  Cole had to head out again, this time to the Indian Nation, to confer with the Cherokees and Choctaws who had been persuaded to fight for the Confederacy. The Union armies were closing in on Richmond, and Lee was hard-pressed to protect the capital without Jackson to harass the Federals as they made their way through the Shenandoah Valley.

  When he had left Virginia Cole had gone to Tennessee, and from Tennessee he had been ordered to rejoin his brother's unit. The noose was closing tighter and tighter around the neck of the Confederacy. John Hunt Morgan had managed to escape his captors, and he needed information about the Union troops being sent into Kentucky and Tennessee from Kansas City. Cole had taken the assignment in the little town outside the big city for only one reason — he would be close to Kristin. He had to see her. It had been so long, and they had parted so bitterly. He'd received a few letters from her, terse, quick notes telling him that they were all fine, telling him that the Union was in firm control of the part of Missouri where the ranch sat, that he was better off away and that he should take care.

  Jamie and Malachi had received warmer letters. Much warmer letters. But still, even to his brothers, Kristin had said very little. Every letter was the same. She related some silly little anecdote that was sure to make them laugh, and then she closed, telling them she was praying for them all. She thought there might be a wedding as soon as the war was over or maybe even before. Shannon was corresponding regularly with a Captain Ellsworth, and Kristin said she, too, thought he was a charming gentleman. He was a Yankee, but she was sure the family would forget that once the war was over. They would all have to, she added forcefully, if there was to be a future.

  Cole wasn't sure there could be. There was that one part of his past that he couldn't forget, and he never would be able to forget it, not unless he could finish it off, bury it completely. Not until the redlegs who had razed his place and killed his wife were dead could he ever really rest. No matter how sweet the temptation.

  Sitting at a corner table in the saloon, his feet propped and his hat pulled low, he sipped a whiskey and listened to the conversation at the bar. He learned quickly that Lieutenant Billingsley would be transferring eight hundred troops from Kansas to Tupelo and then on to Kentucky by the following week. The saloon was crowded with Union soldiers, green recruits by the looks of them — he didn't think many of the boys even had to shave as yet — but they had one or two older soldiers with them. No one had paid Cole much heed. He was dressed in denim and cotton, with a cattleman's chaps and silver spurs in place and a cowhide vest. He didn't look much like a man who gave a damn about the war one way or the other. One man had asked him what he was doing out of uniform, and he'd quickly invented a story about being sent home, full of shrapnel, after the battle of Shiloh. After that, someone had sent over a bottle of whiskey and he'd set his hat low over his forehead and he'd listened. Now that he had his information, it was time to go. He wanted to reach his wife.

  His wife.

  He could even say it out loud now. And only once in a while did the bitterness assail him. His wife… His wife had been slain, but he had married a little spitfire of a blonde, and she was his woman now. His wife.

  He tensed, remembering that she knew, knew everything about him, about his past. Damn Emery! He'd had no right to spill out the past like that for her. Now he would never know…

  Know what? he asked himself.

  What her feelings were, what her feelings really were. Hell, it was a damnable time for a marriage. He could still count on his fingers the times he had seen her… Kristin. He'd been impatient with her, and he'd been furious with her, but he'd always admired her courage, no matter what, and
from the beginning he'd been determined to protect her.

  Then he'd discovered that he needed her.

  Like air. Like water. Like the very earth. He needed her. When he'd been away from her he'd still had the nightmares, but time had slowly taken them away. When visions of a woman came to haunt him while he slept, it was Kristin's delicate features he saw, her soft, slow smile, her wide, luminous eyes.

  He'd never denied that he cared for her.

  He just hadn't wanted to admit how much.

  He didn't want a wife feeling sorry for him. He didn't want her holding on, afraid to hurt a traumatized soldier. The whole thing made him seethe inside. He'd swear that he'd be quit of her as soon as the war was over, and then he'd panic, and he'd pray that everything was all right, and he would wish with all his heart that he could just get back to that little patch of Missouri on the border where he could reach out and just touch her face, her hand…

  And if he did, he wondered glumly, what good could it do him? He could never stop. Not until one of them lay dead. Him or Fitz. Maybe Fitz hadn't fired the shot that had killed his wife, but he had ordered the raid on Cole's place, and he had led it. In the few months that he had ridden with Quantrill, Cole had managed to meet up with a number of the men who had been in on the raid.

  But he'd never found Henry Fitz.

  His thoughts suddenly shifted. He didn't know what it was that told him he was in danger, but suddenly he knew that he was. Maybe it was in the thud of a new pair of shiny Union boots on the floor, maybe it was something in the air. And maybe he had lived with the danger for so damned long that he could smell it.

  He should never have come to Kansas.

  It wasn't that he wasn't armed. He was. And the poor green boys in the saloon were carrying muzzle-loading rifles. He could probably kill the dozen or so of them in the room before they could even load their weapons.

  He didn't want to kill them. He'd always hated that kind of warfare. Hell, that was why Quantrill had been able to run circles around the Federals for years. Quantrill's men were so well armed that they could gun down an entire company before they could get off a single shot.

  He prepared to leave, praying that the newcomer wasn't someone he knew. But when he saw the man's face beneath the brim of his hat, his heart sank.

  The man was his own age, and he wore a lieutenant's insignia. He had dark hair and a long, dark beard, and the lines that furrowed his face said that he should have been older than thirty-two.

  It's been a long hard war for all of us. Cole thought bleakly.

  The Union officer's name was Kurt Taylor, and he had ridden escort and trails out in the Indian country with Cole when he had been with Stuart. Another West Pointer. They'd fought the Sioux side by side many times.

  But now they were on opposite sides.

  When Cole stood, Taylor saw him. The men stared straight at one another.

  Cole hesitated. He wasn't going to fire, not unless he had to. He didn't cotton to killing children, and that was about what it would be. He looked at the boys standing at the bar. Hell, most of them wouldn't even have started school when the trouble had started in Kansas.

  Do something, Taylor, Cole thought. Say something. But the man didn't move. The two of them just stood there staring at one another, and it was as if the world stood still.

  Then, miraculously, Taylor lifted his hat.

  "Howdy," he said, and walked on by.

  Taylor had recognized him. Cole knew it. He had seen the flash of recognition in his eyes. But Taylor wasn't going to turn him in.

  Taylor walked up to the bar. The soldiers saluted him, and he told them to be at ease. They returned to their conversations, but they were no longer as relaxed as they had been. They were in the presence of a commissioned officer now.

  But Kurt Taylor ignored the men, just as he was ignoring Cole. He ordered himself a brandy, swallowed it down quickly and ordered himself another. Then he turned around, leaned his elbows on the bar and looked out over the room.

  "You know, boys," he said, "war itself, soldiering, never did bother me. Joining the army seemed to be a right noble position in life. We had to defend American settlers from the Indians. We had to keep an eye on Mexico, and then suddenly we had our folks moving into Texas. Next thing you know, our great nation is divided, and we're at war with our Southern cousins. And even that's all right, 'cause we all know a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do." He paused and drained his second brandy. He didn't look at Cole, but Cole knew damned well that Taylor was talking straight to him.

  "Bushwhackers!" Kurt Taylor spit on the floor. Then he added, "And bloody murdering jayhawkers. I tell you, one is just as bad as the next, and if he claims to wear my colors, well, he's a liar. Those jayhawkers we've got up here, hell, they turned half of Kansas and Missouri against the Union. Folks that didn't own no slaves, that didn't care one way or another about the war, we lost them to the Confederacy because they so abhorred the murder that was being done. Quantrill's boys started up after Lane and Jennison began their goddamn raiding."

  "Pardon me —" one young man began.

  "No, sir! I do not pardon you!" Kurt Taylor snapped. "Murder is murder. And I hear tell that one of the worst of our Kansas murderers is right here, right here in this town. His name is Henry Fitz. He thought he could make himself a political career out of killing Missourians. He forgot there were decent folk in Kansas who would never condone the killing of women and children, whether it was done by bushwhackers or jayhawkers." He stared straight at Cole, and then he turned his back on him.

  He knew Cole wouldn't shoot him.

  He knew Cole wouldn't shoot a man in the back.

  Cole was trembling, and his fingers were itching. He didn't even want to draw his gun. He wanted to find Fitz and wrap his fingers around the bastard's throat and choke the life out of him.

  "Give me another brandy there, barkeep. Boys, you watch your step while Fitz is around. He's down Main Street at the McKinley barn with his troops. I'd say there's about a dozen of those marauders. Yep, I think you ought to steer clear of the area."

  He tossed back another brandy, and then he turned and looked at Cole again.

  And then he walked out of the saloon.

  Cole left a few minutes after Taylor did. He wondered if his old comrade in arms had put on the performance he had so that Cole would get out of town or so that he would stay in it.

  He came out on the steps and looked up at the noonday sun, and he smiled. He came out to the hitching post and mounted his horse, a bay he had borrowed from Malachi because he had been afraid his own stallion was too well known here.

  Taylor had even told him where to find Fitz. Straight down Main Street.

  Cole started the bay at a walk. Within seconds he had urged the horse to a trot, and then to a canter, and then to a gallop. The barbershop whizzed by him, then the savings bank, the newspaper office and Ed Foley's Mercantile. He passed rows of neat houses with white picket fences and summer gardens, and then he was on the stretch of road leading to the farms beyond the town limits.

  He must have headed out in the right direction, because suddenly there was a line of troops coming toward him. Redlegs, so called for the color of their leggings. Raiders. Murderers. Jim Lane had led them once. Now Senator Jim Lane was in Washington, and even Doc Jennison, who had taken command of them after Lane, had gone on to new pursuits. But Henry Fitz was still leading his band, and still striking terror into the hearts of innocent men, women and children.

  Cole slowed the bay to a walk as the men approached. Henry Fitz sat atop a piebald, dead center. He had narrowed his dark little eyes, and he was staring down the road at Cole.

  Cole kept moving. He had to do this. He had to kill Fitz. And if he died, too…

  Would Kristin care? he found himself wondering. He had never doubted her gratitude, but he wondered now what she would feel if she heard that he had been gunned down on a Kansas road. Would she shed any tears for him? Would she miss him? Wou
ld she revile him for dying a senseless death, for leaving her alone?

  He closed his eyes for a moment. He had to do this. If they were to have any kind of a future together, he had to do this. Now.

  For a moment he remembered the flames, remembered them clearly. He remembered the crackling of the fire and he remembered the acrid smell of the smoke. And he remembered her, running, running to him. He remembered reaching out and touching her, and he remembered the way she had looked into his eyes and smiled and died. And he remembered the blood that had stained his hands…

  I loved you! his heart cried out. I loved you, Elizabeth! With all my heart and with all my soul.

  And in that moment he knew at last that he loved Kristin, too. He had to bury the past, because he longed for a future with her. He had been afraid to love again. He had not wanted to destroy Elizabeth's memory by loving again. Yet he knew now that if Elizabeth could speak to him she would tell him to love Kristin, to love her deeply and well, in memory of all they had once shared.

  He brought the bay to a halt and watched the road. The redlegs were trotting along easily, none of them expecting trouble from a lone man atop a single bay horse. But in the center of the group, the frown upon Henry Fitz's face was deepening. Another five feet — ten — and he would recognize Cole.

  "Howdy, there," Fitz began, drawing in on his reins. The rest of the party stopped along with him. His hat was tilted low over his thickly-bearded face, and his eyes seemed to disappear into folds of flesh. "I'll be damned!" he said suddenly. Then he laughed. "Come all the way to Kansas to die, boy?"

  And he reached for his revolver.

  Cole had been fast before the war. He had been fast in the West. He was faster now.

  Fitz had been the inspiration that had taught him how to draw faster than sound, faster than light. He had always known that someday, somehow, he would meet up with this man.

  And he did now, guns blazing. Holding the reins in his teeth, he tightened his thighs around the bay and rode into the group.