by Jill Gregory
“Do you remember that I told you I had to go away for a while because of what happened to Joe? That I was going to take steps making sure that the man responsible for killing him was punished? Well, I’m still working on that. And this lady is not my girl; she’s someone who’s going to help me.”
The youngsters nodded solemnly. Cassie chewed on her lower lip. “But I don’t understand. If she’s helping you, Cal, why would Jesse lock her in the closet?”
“Don’t ask so many questions,” Jesse exploded, raking a hand through his hair.
“It’s all right.” Cal threw him a level look. “I don’t blame Cassie for having questions. Or you either, Will. This is pretty confusing. But right now you just have to trust that me and Jesse and this lady—her name is Melora—are doing the best we can to catch and punish the man who killed Joe. And to clear Joe’s name—and mine. Your job is to look out for each other, lay low here on the farm like I told you, and take care of Louisa until she’s all better. Okay?”
“Okay.” Will pulled impatiently out of Cal’s embrace. “I’m hungry. When can we eat?”
“Oh, my gosh, supper,” Cassie gasped. She broke away from Cal and, with a frantic glance at Melora, raced off to the kitchen. At a nod from Cal, Jesse shepherded Will after her.
Alone with Melora in the little bedroom, Cal shut the door. He regarded Melora with his arms folded across his chest.
“If you wanted to escape, why didn’t you leave while I was in town? I’m sure you had opportunities.”
“No, I did not,” she lied.
“That so?”
“That’s so.” But she couldn’t help flushing under his relentless gaze. In the fading afternoon light his eyes were the color of a storm-tossed sea. “I was busy trying to help Louisa. I wouldn’t run out on a sick child, even if she is your sister. I couldn’t do that no matter what you may think of me.”
“You want to know what I think of you?” Cal stepped closer.
He looked tired—exhausted, really. His hat was pushed back on his head; his boots were covered in dust; there was grime streaked across his lean face.
“No,” Melora told him bluntly. “I’m not sure I do.”
Suddenly Cal sat down on the bed and closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he stared at her without speaking. Then he cleared his throat.
“Look, Melora, maybe I don’t have any right to ask favors of you, but would you please not tell Cassie and Will—and Louisa when she wakes up again—the truth. About us. About you... and me.”
“Don’t you think your family would be interested in hearing all about how their wonderful big brother kidnapped me?”
For a moment anger flared dangerously in his eyes. Then it was replaced by that look of staunch, stubborn purposefulness that always made Melora uneasy. “They’ve been through enough already.” He swung off the bed and advanced on her, his mouth a hard line that slashed the tough planes of his face.
“None of them has had it easy, Melora. They’ve lost both their parents over the years, and recently their oldest brother and their home. This farm is only a temporary refuge until I’ve straightened everything else out—” He broke off suddenly, frowning at her. “Don’t ask me to explain it all to you because I’m damned if I will. But know this, Princess: It’s my job to protect them and help put the pieces of their lives back together, and I’m damned if I’m going to stand by and watch anything else shake up their already rickety little world. So if you won’t agree to keep quiet, I guess I’ll just have to hustle you out of here and take you up to that cabin I’ve got all ready for you. It’s a good twenty miles from here, and there’s not a soul nearby, except the eagles and some deer and moose, so you can’t get into any trouble—or cause any.”
Her lips quivered. He meant it. There was no mistaking the cold threat radiating from his powerful frame. “I won’t tell them.” She turned her back on him. “But not because you threatened me.”
“Then why?”
“Because I like your family. And they obviously think the sun rises and sets with you, and I don’t want to be the one to disillusion them.”
There was a silence. From the kitchen they could hear Cassie and Will rattling plates and cups and utensils. Outside, a rose and vermilion sunset gilded the cool blue sky.
“Fair enough, Melora.” Cal spoke at last, his voice deep and quiet. “I’m beholden to you for that. And for what you did for Louisa today. Cassie told me and Dr. Wright how you took care of her.”
She spun back toward him, shaking with anger. “You can thank me by explaining all this! By telling me why you think Wyatt is responsible for your brother’s death.”
“Leave it be, Melora.”
“I have a right to know. To help clear up the mistake.”
“There’s been no mistake! Damn it!” he exploded, and reaching her in two strides, he snatched her by the shoulders, but just as Melora gasped in fright, Jesse shoved the door open a crack and poked his head in.
“Supper’s on.”
“I’m not hungry.” Melora was rigid in Cal’s arms. She spoke between clenched teeth. “I’d like to rest.”
It was true. She was worn out from the strain of the past days and, in particular, from the crisis with Louisa. And she was weary of this whole ridiculous charade, of fighting and arguing with Cal, who had to be the most mule-headed man in the world.
She didn’t want to sit opposite him and pretend to be his friend. She didn’t want to make small talk or eat any of the meal she’d worked so hard to prepare. She didn’t want to try anymore to figure out this whole mess. She just wanted to see her own little sister again, to have Wyatt cradle her in his arms and tell her that it was all a horrible mistake and that he was going to put everything to rights. That he was going to take care of her and Jinx and the ranch and she wouldn’t have to worry about anything ever again.
When she glanced longingly at the neatly made-up bed beneath the window, Cal followed the direction of her gaze. He let go of her arms. “You’re sure?” His tone was curt. “You need to eat, you know.”
“I need to sleep. To forget everything, for a little while.” To her horror she sounded dangerously close to tears.
Cal must have heard it, but to her relief he allowed her to retain some semblance of dignity by merely shrugging. “Suit yourself. Go ahead and rest. Reckon we can save you some supper for when you wake up.”
He closed the door behind him without glancing back. Melora immediately threw herself down upon the blue and green checked quilt.
For a kidnapper that man was mighty considerate. And for a kidnapper he had an unusually sweet and devoted family.
It complicated everything.
He’s not only a kidnapper, she reminded herself as her eyes closed and her head sank onto the pillow. He’s an outlaw. He was in prison.
She dozed fitfully, but thoughts of Cal, of his family, of Jinx and Aggie and Wyatt swirled confusedly through her tired brain.
As she wandered through that misty gray fog somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, those same words repeated themselves in her brain.
He’s a kidnapper. An outlaw...
Her eyes flew open suddenly. She had it. She knew why Cal blamed Wyatt for his brother’s death, why he hated him so much. This had to be the answer.
If Cal was an outlaw, then perhaps his brother Joe had been one too. And perhaps Wyatt had caught them both or identified them as the culprits in some crime, and somehow or other Joe had been killed by some lawman because of Wyatt’s intervention, and now Cal wanted vengeance against him.
She bolted upright, trembling. She had to get out of here. For all she knew, Cal was already making some move against Wyatt, was already drawing him closer to ensnaring him in a trap.
She ran to the window, but it was too small for her to climb through. Frustrated, she stalked the room, forgetting her weariness, frantic only with the need to get away.
Dusk loomed, and she turned up the kerosene lamp on the bedside
table, illuminating the plainly furnished little room enough so she could make out the small homemade bureau, the closet, the shelf of books along one wall. Sudden curiosity sent her to the shelf, and she began glancing through the books.
What kinds of books do outlaws read?
To her surprise, there was a leather edition of Ivanhoe, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a Bible, a much-worn volume of The Last of the Mohicans, and a volume of poetry. Just as she was turning away, some papers wedged between Ivanhoe and the Bible caught her eye. On impulse Melora reached for them.
They were folded over. As she opened them, a gasp rushed from her.
They were wanted posters.
Ice crystals formed around her heart as her gaze flew over each one in turn. Cal’s likeness filled one page, his lean, taut face staring out at her, his expression fierce and stoic. The second poster contained a drawing of someone who could only be his brother—his older brother—for the resemblance was unmistakable, though his brother wore a neat mustache.
Her gaze riveted back on Cal’s deftly sketched face. The likeness was good; it was damned good.
But it wasn’t that which made her stomach feel as if she’d just swallowed ground glass, and which made her sink down on the bed in shock, her hands trembling as she clutched the wanted posters in numb fingers.
It was the names.
Beneath Cal’s image the names jumped out at her.
WANTED!
WYATT HOLDEN
FOR MURDER AND CATTLE RUSTLING
$200 DOLLAR REWARD.
“Joe Holden” was the name boldly printed beneath the sketch of Cal’s brother.
“No!” Melora choked out the word through numb lips. “No, this can’t be... it doesn’t make any sense...”
“Give those to me.” Cal addressed her from the doorway, his tone as hard as the fists clenched at his sides.
Chapter 13
In three steps he reached her and snatched the wanted posters away. Melora perched frozen on the bed, staring at him, too shocked and bewildered to form any one of the hundreds of questions reeling through her mind.
“You—you’re not Wyatt Holden!” she gasped at last, fixing him with the first sparking glints of a growing fury.
“I’m not?”
“You—you used his name, you rustled cattle and used his name, and you—you murdered someone—and—”
Cal’s bitter, twisted lips made her voice trail off. He folded the posters and set them back between the books on the shelf, then turned toward her, his posture deceptively casual, but she could see the tension across his broad shoulders, the hard set of his jaw.
“Sorry, Princess, but it’s just the opposite. He used my name. He’s been using my name.”
“You’re lying!”
He stalked toward her again until he was so close he could have reached out and touched her ashen cheeks. But he made no move to touch her as she sat on the bed. “If you want to marry Wyatt Holden so badly,” he told her evenly, “we’d best call a preacher up here to this farm and get it over with. Because if you go back to Rawhide, you won’t be marrying Wyatt Holden, you’ll be marrying a snake named Rafe Campbell.”
His words rang like broken bells in her ears. She struggled to comprehend them, to make sense of them.
But she was lost.
“Let me out of here.” Melora lashed out at last. She sprang up, facing him, desperation in her eyes. “I don’t believe you. You’re a liar. A liar and a murderer and a kidnapper. Your name is Cal, not Wyatt! Now let me pass. I won’t stay in this cabin another moment!”
But as she whipped toward the door, Cassie suddenly appeared on the threshold. Her eyes looked enormous, sad and scared in her pale face. She wore an ankle-length calico nightgown with a ruffled neck, and her hair, no longer bound up in pigtails, trailed loose past her thin, childish shoulders.
Melora skidded to a halt as she saw the girl. She bit her lip, wondering how much Cassie had overheard. Behind her Cal sucked in his breath.
Cassie peered from one to the other of them. Then her gaze returned to Melora. “You’re not going to help us, are you?”
“Cassie, I want to help, but—”
“Didn’t Cal tell you about Joe?”
“No, he didn’t. But I don’t—”
“The posse killed Joe,” Cassie said before Cal could stop her. “And he didn’t do anything wrong. And that crooked sheriff was going to hang Cal. And he didn’t do anything wrong either. It was that other man—”
“Cassie, I have to leave. I can’t listen to any more,” Melora gasped, darting past the girl.
She fled past Jesse, who was stacking dinner plates in the kitchen, while Will played marbles on the floor. She raced past the doorway to Louisa’s room, where in a flashing glimpse she saw the girl sleeping peacefully. Leaping over the marbles beside the rug, Melora flew straight out the door.
“What did I say?” Cassie turned to Cal with a forlorn expression. She began to cry. “I just wanted to talk her into helping us, so this can all be over and you can stay with us for good—”
“I know, Cassie. I know.” Cal patted her arm. “Stay right here now and look after Lou. I’m going to bring Melora back.”
“But she doesn’t want to help us,” the girl wailed, and her voice echoed in Cal’s ears as he bolted out the farmhouse door in pursuit of Melora Deane.
He caught her just beyond the barn and hauled her up against the trunk of a spruce. “This is a stupid idea, Melora. You can’t run away in the dark.”
“It’s not dark yet!”
He threw a glance at the purple-shadowed twilight sky. The last glimpse of the luminously glowing sun was slipping beneath the horizon. “It will be in a minute or two. Come on back to the house, and we’ll talk.”
“I don’t want to talk!” Melora kicked him in the shin. Cal swore but didn’t loosen his grip, keeping her pinned against the tree, while his eyes narrowed dangerously at the corners.
“The reason you’re so mad is that you know deep down that what I said is the truth. The truth has a way of biting people on the nose; it can’t be ignored. It’s felt, Melora; it makes itself felt. You know the truth, don’t you? Admit it.”
He stared down at her, studying her as her face mirrored one emotion after another. All around them the final glimmers of daylight fled before encroaching blackness.
The hills sang with insect sound, and unseen animals rustled through the brush. An owl hooted from the tree above them, and beyond Cal’s shoulder, on a distant peak, Melora saw a prong-horned antelope poised on the shadowy crest of a ridge. She swallowed hard as she forced herself to meet Cal’s stare, forced herself to look into his eyes.
And suddenly the truth tumbled from her own lips. “I don’t know what to believe,” she gasped, and then she sagged against him, and Cal’s arms encircled her as naturally as if he were comforting his own little sister.
Except that Melora Deane was not his sister. She was an exquisite young woman, one coming to grips with a terrible truth. And Cal felt something quite different from brotherly concern as he thought of how much this must be hurting her, of how Rafe Campbell could bring pain to so many, and most specifically to her, and from so far away.
“Melora, he’s a snake. A cold-blooded, manipulative murdering snake. You should be glad you found out before you married him—”
“Glad?” Melora jerked back, as white-lipped and shocked as if he’d punched her in the stomach. “I’ll never be glad of anything again. Either I’m a complete fool to be so taken in by him, or I’m an even bigger fool to be taken in by you.” She gave a half-crazed, desperate laugh. “And I don’t know which kind of fool I am! I don’t have the faintest notion what to believe!”
“I think you do.” Gently, but firmly, Cal hauled her up against him.
With her breasts pressed hard against his chest, and his hands gripping her arms, she could do nothing but stare into the intense fire of his ga
ze, do nothing but gasp at the heat that flowed through her, through both of them, that threatened to engulf and disintegrate her.
“Admit that you know the truth, Melora.”
“No. Your name isn’t Wyatt.” She managed to churn out the words in a breathless voice. “It’s Cal. Everyone calls you that. Zeke and Ray, your brother Jesse; so do Cassie and Will and Louisa!”
“My full name is Wyatt Calvin Holden. My family’s always called me Cal ever since I was a boy. Lately I’ve been using it all the time, thanks to Rafe Campbell dirtying the Holden name all across Arizona. I’ve had to go by Cal Johnson because of those wanted posters. If I’m caught before I clear my name, I’ll be hanged.”
“Hanged?” She swallowed hard, searching his face. “I suppose that makes sense—because you’re accused of murder.”
“Accused, tried, convicted. And I very nearly was hanged already, thanks to your fiancé. The night before they were going to hang me, Jesse sneaked into town and broke me out of jail. I took Zeke and Ray out with me; they hadn’t done anything but get in a fight and bust up a saloon, but the sheriff took a dislike to them and accused them of rustling. Good old Sheriff Harper.” His lips twisted harshly. “The crooked bastard was in cahoots with Campbell; the two of them worked together to frame me and Joe.”
“I don’t understand.” Dazed, with a raw, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, she shook her head, trying to make sense of all that he was telling her.
“It’s a long story, Melora. And it’s getting cold out here. You’re shivering.”
It was true. With nightfall, cool crystal gusts leaped down the mountains and slapped icily against her skin. She hadn’t even noticed until he pointed it out.
“I ... I don’t mind.”
“I do.” He took her arm and started back toward the farmhouse, now a dark silhouette among tall trees. The cozy glow beaming from the windows seemed a beacon, as did the gray smoke pluming from the chimney. “Let’s get you before a fire and give you some supper, and then later, when everyone else has turned in for the night, I’ll tell you the sad saga of Rafe Campbell and the Holden family.”