by Mary McBride
“Yes, sir.” Zack pivoted and shot out of the kitchen.
Sinking to her knees beside Race, Kate curled her shaking fingers around Isaac’s thick wrist, closing her eyes as she felt the solid pulse. “Isaac?” she queried softly.
Race shook his head somberly. “Let’s get him to bed,” he said. He slipped one arm beneath the big man’s shoulders and another under his knees. “Come on, partner.” He picked the bear-size man up gently, effortlessly, as if he were carrying a slumbering child to bed.
Kate scurried ahead to Isaac’s room, just down the hall from theirs, where she folded the linens back to allow Race to lower Isaac onto the mattress. Together they covered him and stood, side by side, gazing down at the motionless body of the man who had been, for both of them, a father and a friend.
“Where’s that damn doctor?” Race muttered.
Kate lifted her hand and smoothed it across his back. “It’s only been a few minutes. He’ll be here.”
Moments ago in the kitchen, Race’s voice had been strong, stern with command. Now he sounded bleak, bewildered. “What is it, Katie? Isaac’s never been sick a day in his life.”
“I don’t know, love. He’s well over seventy. Sometimes...” Now Kate’s voice failed her momentarily as she fought to contain both her tears and her fears. “Zack will be back with Doc Cullen soon. I’m sure there’s something he can do.”
“By God, there better be,” her husband whispered.
There were footsteps rushing down the hallway then, and Zack burst into the room.
“I got him, Papa,” the boy said breathlessly just as Samuel Cullen, plaid shirt stuffed into his trousers and his black bag in one fist, followed him into the room.
“Kate. Race. What the devil is...?” No sooner had he spoken than he glimpsed Isaac laid out on the bed. The doctor snapped open his bag and elbowed all three Logans out of his way. “When did he take ill?” he asked, and knelt beside his patient.
“This morning,” Kate answered.
“Just keeled over,” Zack put in.
“He hasn’t been sick a single day in his life, Doc,” Race said. “What do you think it is?”
Cullen was holding Isaac’s thick black wrist now. “Pulse seems strong,” he murmured. Then he leaned forward to pry up one wrinkled black eyelid, after which he cocked his head and put his ear close to the old man’s face.
Race and Kate exchanged anxious glances.
“Is he dying, Doc?” Zack whispered.
“Hush,” his mother said. “Let Doc Cullen do his job, Zack.”
The doctor sat back on his heels now. “That’s a fine suggestion, Kate. All of you get out and give Isaac and me some breathing space.”
“I’m staying,” Race growled.
Kate tugged at his arm but her husband didn’t budge until Samuel Cullen glared at him and muttered, “Fine. Then I’ll go, Race. Don’t know why you sent for me, anyway, if you’re such a competent physician.”
The doctor braced his hands on his knees, preparing to rise, when Race sighed.
“All right, Samuel. But only for a minute. We’ll be just out in the hall. And I’m warning you, if that old man dies and I’m not with him, I’ll nail that black bag of yours as well as your hide...”
“He knows, Race,” Kate said, curling her arm through his and leading him out into the hall.
“Shut that door behind you, too,” the doctor called.
* * *
Kate felt as if she’d been standing out in the hallway for days, although it had only been ten or fifteen minutes at the most. Race had been pacing back and forth, cursing the doctor up one side and down the other and calling him a “damn quack” so often that Kate had finally felt compelled to remind her husband that that damn quack had helped bring four of their babies, quite robustly, into this world. She would’ve reminded him about the time Honey had been so sick with pneumonia, only just then Samuel Cullen came out of Isaac’s room, shaking his head. To Kate he seemed more baffled than sad.
“What is it, Doc?” she quickly asked.
“Well...” He scratched his head, looked from Kate to Race and then back. “I can’t say exactly. Could be his heart. Could be just his age. But it’s grave. Awfully grave.”
Behind her Kate heard Race’s breath hitch and his big shoulders bump against the wall.
The doctor gazed down and busied himself with the latches on his medical bag. “There’s nothing I can do.” He shook his head again. “I’m sorry, Race.”
Kate thought it odd that their longtime caretaker so assiduously avoided looking in their eyes, but she decided that Sam had concluded one or both of them might cry if he met their worried gazes. Or perhaps that he would.
“How long does he have?” Race asked, his own choked-back tears evident in his rough voice.
“Hard to say, Race. Could happen any time. Or then...” The doctor shrugged. “I just can’t say.”
Kate saw him to the door, and when she returned Race was standing with his head bowed beside Isaac’s bed.
At the sound of her footsteps behind him, Race whispered wetly, “I can’t just go and leave him like this. Not after all these years, Kate. Not after all Isaac’s seen me through. I can’t just up and go.”
“Then don’t,” she said. “Stay.”
Race dragged in a deep, rough breath, letting it out with a curse. “What about Honey? What am I going to do about my little girl?”
Kate leaned her head against his arm. “She’s not so little anymore, Race.” She sighed. “Who knows? Maybe this is the Lord’s way of letting her find her own way home.”
Chapter Six
Honey rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms. Thank God the sun was up, she thought. She had spent a long, chilly night in the little alleyway beside the livery stable in Cerrillos, her eyes rarely straying from the front door of the hotel. Unless Gideon Summerfield had wings, he was still in there. And when he came out, she was going to follow him—to the ends of the earth if need be—until she got her money back.
Her money. That was how she thought of it now. Not her father’s, or the bank’s, or the citizens’ who had made their weekly deposits. Hers. It sure as hell wasn’t Summerfield’s.
“Poor Jonquil,” she murmured to the mare, who stood quietly beside her. While lying in wait for Gideon, Honey hadn’t dared unsaddle the animal, although she had sneaked into the livery stable for a bag of oats after everyone was gone. “Lucky Jonquil,” she muttered now. Honey herself hadn’t had a bite to eat since her meal in the café yesterday morning. Her stomach rumbled now as if responding to her thoughts, and she crossed her arms tightly to still the gnawing pangs.
Her eyes felt gritty from lack of sleep. When she hadn’t been watching the hotel door, she’d been looking up and down the street, fully expecting to see her father kicking up the dust on a borrowed mount or else just stalking her on foot. The thought almost made her laugh. She was stalking Gideon. Her father was stalking her. The three of them were like an angry little parade. The banker. The thief. And the...? What was she, Honey wondered, other than cold and hungry and so tired she could hardly see straight?
She lifted her gaze to the window of Gideon’s room. The room where he had slept in a bed all night. Damn him! Well, she hoped he was as cold as he’d been the night before when he had turned to her in his sleep.
The thought stirred a peculiar flutter in the pit of her stomach. She sniffed disgustedly, ascribing the butterfly to her ravenous hunger. It certainly wasn’t thinking about that snake-tongued scoundrel. A married scoundrel at that. And one who’d lost track of his wife.
She scooted closer to the side of the building as the morning light began to bring the main street of Cerrillos to life. Two prospectors ambled by, leading their pack mules out to the edge of town. A milk wagon clattered past. Soon the shades went up on the bank across the street. At that precise moment the hotel door opened, and Gideon Summerfield walked out.
The butterfly in her stomach surged once
more, and this time Honey put it down to pure excitement, rather than hunger. It certainly wasn’t the way the outlaw stood on the planked sidewalk with his long legs slightly parted or the way he shifted his lean hips as he adjusted his gun belt. Or the way he rolled his broad shoulders as if to work out a kink in a muscle. And she’d be damned, she thought, if she’d allow herself to react at all to the way the cool morning sun seemed to tip his cinnamon hair with gold. It wasn’t him she was glad to see, she told herself. What made her glad was the prospect of seeing him lead her to that canvas sack stuffed with money—her money—from Logan Savings and Loan.
She flattened herself against the wall while his eyes scanned the street. His horse was probably right here at the livery stable, she thought. After he crossed the street, she would ride Jonquil around back and wait to follow Gideon when he rode out.
But he didn’t cross the street. Instead he walked slowly, almost lazily, up the sidewalk to the bank. He paused in front of the door a moment. Honey watched as his lean body tensed, as he flexed the fingers of his right hand before gliding his gun from its holster, as he strode into the bank.
My God, he was going to rob it! Honey’s first instinct was to yell for help. Then she clamped her lips together. No. Let him rob it, she thought. Let him get away with another big fat sack brimming with cash. She’d follow him just as she had planned, then, instead of recovering a single bag of money, she’d get two. Her victory would be twice as sweet. She leaned back against the livery wall, smiling.
It wasn’t long before he sauntered out of the bank as casually as a shopkeeper who’d just deposited the day’s receipts. He was strolling along as if he didn’t have a care in the world—only the canvas sack he swung in his left hand. Free as a bird, she thought disgustedly, with nobody shouting alarms from the bank, or firing shots at the robber, or taking off in hot pursuit. It was as if nobody cared.
In fact, as Honey watched in amazement, she saw someone peek from the bank window, then disappear into the dark interior. Well, it was probably a teller like Kenneth Crane, she thought. Too weak-kneed to do anything but hand over the bank’s money and then quiver and cower behind a wall.
Fine. Wonderful. It was all the better if nobody else pursued him. Then there wouldn’t be anybody to tell her to go back or to get out of the way. When she recovered the money—and she would recover the money—two sacks now—there wouldn’t be anybody else trying to share the praise or claim the glory. And best of all, her father would know there was no one else to credit for such persistence and responsibility. Only his daughter. By God, she’d make him proud if it killed her.
Gideon Summerfield walked into the livery stable, just as she had predicted. Honey scrambled to her feet.
“Let’s go, girl,” she said, and clambered up onto Jonquil’s back.
* * *
Gideon swiped off his hat, ran a sleeve across his forehead, then squinted ahead into the late-afternoon sun. “Damn little mule,” he muttered. She had been following him all day, through the rugged gullies and canyons west of Cerrillos. Twice he’d ridden a big circle around her while she just kept plugging along, obviously believing he was just over the next ridge. Her relaxed posture in the saddle made Gideon wonder about the young woman’s sanity. Didn’t she know she was lost?
And why the hell was she following him anyway? He knew it was Logan’s mare she was on, remembering that fine piece of horseflesh from when the banker had met him at the train, so Gideon surmised that Logan had caught up with his little teller somewhere along the line yesterday. What he couldn’t figure out, though, was why, instead of giving herself over to her employer’s protection, Miss Edwina Cassidy had stolen the man’s horse.
Hell, any woman impulsive enough to shackle herself to a bank robber probably would steal the bank president’s horse if she thought it would help her get the stolen money back. But if she was following him in hopes that he would lead her to the canvas satchel, she was wrong. Dead wrong.
Lost, too. And still dressed like a damn whore. Lucky for her he had folded up some of her respectable clothes and stuffed them in his saddlebag. When he had done it, he had told himself it was a shame for her to lose such fine clothes and that, if he saw a way to do it, he’d send them on to her in Santa Fe. Under all his good intentions, however, Gideon grudgingly admitted he just couldn’t quite part with them yet. After he’d put the little windflower on the train, those clothes were all he had to remind him of her. Lucky for her he was little better than a moonstruck kid. Not so lucky for him, though. He needed this particular distraction about as much as he needed a hole in the middle of his head.
He stopped at sundown. By the time it was dark he had gathered enough wood to see him through a cool night, had watered his horse in a trickle of a creek, then rubbed the animal down. He had even managed a half bath himself and had hung his shirt to dry over the branches of a low-growing juniper.
Gideon settled down by the campfire, waiting. She was out there. Probably shivering now in that scrap of a dress. Probably hungry. But, damn her, Edwina Cassidy probably wasn’t afraid. Too stupid to know when she ought to be afraid. No, she wasn’t stupid by a long shot. Stubborn, though. He let a quiet curse ripple across his lips. He’d never met a more stubborn woman.
What the hell was he going to do with her? He wished it were just a couple of days ago, and he was reaching for that money bag again, more cautiously this time, anticipating her quick little hands and the click of the cuff. He worried that five years in prison had slowed and blunted him. He couldn’t afford any dullness now, in mind or body, considering the task that lay ahead of him. Not only that, but now he was again responsible for the little bank teller.
Gideon narrowed his gaze on an outcropping of rock about twenty yards from his blazing little fire. “You’re gonna freeze out there, bright eyes,” he called. “Come on in.”
It took her nearly half an hour. Probably arguing with herself, Gideon figured. Or trying to hog-tie her own stubborn disposition. He was prepared to give her another thirty minutes before he dragged her, kicking and screaming, to the warmth of the fire.
She emerged from behind the rocks and came slowly toward him. The flames lit up the red satin of her dress and glinted in her hair. For a moment Gideon thought he was dreaming—a lonely man by a campfire who had conjured up a vision in shimmering satin and flame-glossed hair.
She stopped just short of the campfire’s circle of light, chewing her lower lip, toeing the ground like a bashful child.
“Come on,” Gideon coaxed.
Her only movement then was the stubborn lift of her chin. “How did you know I was out there?”
He smiled. “Just a guess.” He rose then, taking the blanket that was draped over his shoulders and placing it around hers before leading her to the fire. “Did you bed your horse down?” he asked.
She shook her head, adding a sidelong, apologetic glance.
Without a word, Gideon disappeared in the direction from which Honey had come.
She stretched out her hands to the snapping fire, feeling the warmth replace the chill that had begun to settle deep in her bones. She didn’t think it was possible to be so tired. Too tired even to worry that there was no sign of either money sack—not the one from Santa Fe or the one he had taken this morning in Cerrillos. Right now she didn’t want to worry about the money. She just wanted to rest.
His soft footfall drew her gaze to the edge of the circle of light, to the hard musculature of his chest, the long ropy muscles of his arms. He carried her father’s big Mexican saddle against one hip as if it weighed nothing at all. For the very first time Honey noticed that Gideon’s skin wasn’t deeply tanned like most men in New Mexico. It occurred to her he probably hadn’t been outside in a long time. Years, perhaps. She found it nearly impossible to imagine Gideon Summerfield in a prison cell, cooped up like a wild animal in a cage. For that was what he appeared to be now—a wild, half-naked, very male animal. Beautiful. Pale. Like a wolf in wintertime.
>
He dropped the saddle onto the ground behind her, then walked to the juniper where his shirt was draped. He chuckled softly as he shoved his arms through the sleeves. “Well, you’ve done something I never did in all my years of outlawing, Ed,” he said.
Honey tilted her head toward him. “What’s that?”
“Stole a man’s horse. That’ll get you a rope necklace in some counties.”
She dismissed the crime with a wave of her hand. Jonquil wasn’t stolen, after all. Honey had merely borrowed her. And anyway, even though Gideon wasn’t aware of it, she knew her father would never press charges against her. Not publicly at least. Privately, eventually, he’d skin her alive. Unless, of course, she handed him a fat sack of stolen cash.
Gideon searched through his saddlebag, then handed her a biscuit and a small square of beef jerky. “Not exactly a feast,” he said, folding his legs to sit beside her. “But you know what they say about beggars not being choosers. Horse thieves, too, I reckon.”
Honey’s curt reply was garbled by the food she had immediately stuffed in her mouth.
He stared into the fire, then picked up a few loose stones and tossed them into the flames. “You should’ve stayed with Logan, Ed. You would’ve been safe.”
She swallowed. “Not without the money. He’s furious.”
Gideon laughed. “So you went and stole his horse just to placate him, huh?” He shook his head in disbelief. “You think he’s blaming you because I robbed his bank?”
“I know he’s blaming me.”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
Her turquoise eyes flashed in the firelight. “Of course it was my fault. I should have stopped you.”
He lifted her wrist, measuring it with his fingers, marveling at the delicacy of her bones, the softness of the flesh that covered them. She seemed so fragile, as breakable as a little porcelain figurine.
And she was, dammit. With a flick of his own wrist, he could have snapped hers. But her iron will and her stubborn heart were ignorant of her body’s vulnerability. She needed to be aware of that. He grasped her wrist more tightly in his frustration, and when he spoke, his tone was as rough as his touch. “Do you really believe you could have stopped me, Ed? From robbing the bank? Or now?” His gaze heated intentionally. “From doing anything I want?”