Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

  And the colors in her dream shifted, curving and coiling into shades of gray and black, and out of the shadows came Charles’s face, smiling.

  A sharp kick in her side shattered the spell that held her and Sophie’s eyes flew open. Gasping in air like a fish tossed onto a riverbank, she shot into a sitting position and stared into the moonlit darkness of her room. Her heartbeat thudded like a well-beaten drum as the remnants of the visions faded away slowly. Seconds ticked past and at last her heart left her throat and slipped back into her chest where it belonged.

  Another hard kick shook the last of the fog away and she glanced down at her sleeping sister. Long, strawberry-blond hair swept across the white pillowcase, and her face looked nearly angelic in the soft light Sophie reached over and smoothed one hand along that silky cheek before swinging her legs off the mattress and slipping out of bed.

  “Why now?” she muttered to herself as she wrapped her arms around her middle. It had been weeks since the visions had crowded her dreams. Weeks when she’d almost begun to hope that after years of quashing the images that flashed into her mind at the most inopportune moments, she’d finally beaten them into submission.

  “Apparently not, though,” she whispered, walking across the room toward the slash of moonlight that sliced through the darkness. Her knees trembled slightly and the throb in her forehead warned her that the visions were still with her, just hovering at the edges of her mind, waiting for a chance to come back and be recognized. But she wouldn’t allow that. Wouldn’t acknowledge what her mother had always called her “gift.”

  It wasn’t a gift. It was a curse. The worst kind. The kind that set you apart from everything you wanted. That set you apart from the world.

  She’d seen enough evidence of that back home. Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, Sophie remembered the house where she’d grown up and the family that everyone in town had considered just a “bubble off plumb.”

  As far back as anyone could remember, the Dolan women had been “different.” They knew things no one else did. Saw danger before it pounced. Saw love flower where no one expected it. They could look at a person and instantly recognize the secrets buried deep within. It was said they could read souls. And most people didn’t appreciate that.

  By day, their neighbors kept a safe distance, being polite, but offering no real friendship. But by night, they all came to the Dolan house, looking for direction or advice or a peek into a future that frightened them. And during the years Sophie’s mother had been a widow, the coins those people paid for a glimpse beyond the veil were all that kept her and her mother going.

  They all wanted to know what the Dolans could see... but at the same time, they resented Sophie and her mother for being able to see what they couldn’t. By the time Sophie was ten, she’d resigned herself to the fact that she would never really be accepted. By anyone but the family she loved.

  But accepting it and being happy about it were two different things.

  At the window, Sophie sank to the floor, lifted the sash, and propped her arms on the sill. A soft, cool breeze dusted across her face, lifting her hair and teasing her skin until a ripple of gooseflesh raced along her spine. But she welcomed it. Awake and chilly was better than asleep and running from her own mind. Leaning into the moonlight, she stared down at the street below.

  Most of the windows were dark, as Tanglewood slept. But at the far end of the street, the brightly lit saloon tossed patches of yellow lamplight into the dirt. Piano music, slightly out of tune, drifted on the night air and the low rumble of voices and laughter carried just as easily in the stillness.

  A lone rider steered his horse down the middle of the street and Sophie’s gaze followed him. Alone, she thought. He looked so alone and just for a moment she wondered what that would be like. To answer to no one. To have no responsibilities. No one wondering who you are or what you want. No one counting on you.

  “Sophie?” Jenna’s voice whispered, curious.

  Instantly, she shifted her gaze to the shadows crowding around the wide bed. “Go back to sleep, honey,” she said quietly.

  The little girl sighed and shifted, making the mattress creak just a bit under her faint weight. “You’re here.”

  “Of course I’m here, honey,” she assured her gently. “I’ll always be here.”

  “Good.”

  In seconds, Jenna’s easy breathing told Sophie the girl was sleeping again. Smiling to herself, she turned back to the window, and watched the solitary horseman move off down the street to be swallowed by darkness.

  There was something else she hadn’t considered before. Being alone, having no one to answer to or worry about, also meant having no one to love.

  And loving Jenna was worth everything.

  ●

  By morning, Sophie was more than willing to get started on their brand new life. To put aside the ugly episode with the sheriff and the visions that had continued to haunt her throughout the night. Jenna, on the other hand, wasn’t so easily dissuaded.

  She shifted a look at her sister and noted the short arms crossed over the narrow chest and the disgusted huff of breath escaping her. Four years old or not, the child had no trouble expressing her fury.

  “But he is my daddy,” the little girl insisted as Sophie deftly worked a buttonhook on the little shoes.

  Morning sunshine drifted through the partially opened window and a sigh of a breeze swished into the room.

  It would have been a perfect beginning to their first day in Tanglewood... if she hadn’t spent the last half hour arguing with a certain little girl.

  “Honey.” She glanced up again and said, as patiently as possible, “You have to stop saying that.”

  Jenna swung her free foot, kicking at the bed she sat on. “Don’t have to,” she said, despite managing to keep her bottom lip thrust out in a magnificent pout.

  Sighing, Sophie finished her task, came up on her knees, set the buttonhook aside, and placed her hands on the mattress at either side of her little sister. Staring into the soft green eyes, so like their mother’s, she bit back a sigh. How could she explain to a little girl that the things she saw in her head weren’t things that everyone else saw?

  And for pity’s sake, how could she convince her that seeing Ridge Hawkins as her daddy was a huge mistake? And it was a mistake, she assured herself, remembering the flash of suspicion in his blue eyes. All she needed was the local sheriff getting nosy enough about her to make inquiries.

  From what everyone had said about him the night before, Sophie had the distinct impression that he wouldn’t think twice about throwing her into a jail cell and turning the key.

  “Jenna, honey,” she began and paused as the child’s mutinous expression only darkened further. In reaction, her voice became sterner. “We both know he’s not your daddy, so you can’t call him that.”

  “But you want me to call you ‘mommy’ and you’re not.”

  “That’s different.”

  “No’s not,” she insisted, shaking her head.

  “Yes,” Sophie snapped right back, “it is. First of all, I asked you to call me ‘mommy,’ remember? The sheriff doesn’t want you to call him ‘daddy.’”

  Scrunching up her face, Jenna thought about that one for a minute, then her expression cleared and she smiled. Throwing her hands up, she shrugged and said, “He has to like me first, huh?”

  All right, Sophie thought. She’d take whatever she could get. “Yes, honey. It’d be better if you waited a while to call him ‘daddy.’”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “Good.” Five or ten years ought to do it.

  “Till tomorrow.”

  Sophie closed her eyes and shook her head. And people thought she was hardheaded. Conceding the argument for the moment, she stood up, put the buttonhook away, then helped her sister down.

  Turning for the
mirror, she picked up her one and only hat, set it at just the right angle and slid the hatpin home. It was important to make the right first impression on these people. After all, they’d be entrusting their children to her.

  She straightened the hang of her short, bottle-green jacket, then smoothed her hands over the matching skirt. Her face was a bit pale, making her freckles stand out like a white fence that had been splattered with gold paint, and there were shadows under her eyes. But then a night of sleeplessness was bound to affect a body one way or the other.

  Still, all things considered, it could have been worse. She caught Jenna’s eye in the glass and asked, “So. How do I look?”

  “Pretty,” the little girl said with a sharp nod.

  “Thank you.”

  “Daddy likes it when you wear green.”

  She groaned. “Jenna...”

  “And he likes your hair too,” the child continued, then tilted her head to one side and asked, “What’s a lion look like?”

  “Sweetie—what?”

  “A lion.” Jenna pulled at her hair ribbon and looked at the end of it as though she’d never seen one before. Amazing how quickly a child could get distracted.

  “What about a lion?” Sophie prompted.

  “Daddy thinks you look like one if your hair’s down and all over you.”

  “He does, does he?” Sophie muttered, shifting her gaze back to her own reflection. Meeting her own gaze, she wondered if that was supposed to have been a compliment or not. Thinking she looked like a lion, after all, was hardly poetry. Especially since the lion with a lot of hair was the male.

  But then, she reminded herself sternly, she didn’t want poetry from Sheriff Ridge Hawkins. She wanted to be left alone.

  Didn’t she?

  “Daddy thinks you have pretty eyes too,” Jenna added belatedly. “Do I have pretty eyes?”

  “You have beautiful eyes,” Sophie assured her.

  “Daddy likes yours.”

  A flicker of pleasure darted through her before she could stop it. “That’s very nice of Daddy—” She caught herself and gritted her teeth. “I mean Sheriff Hawkins.”

  Jenna smiled.

  Sophie inhaled slowly, deeply, and counted to ten, then twenty. It really wasn’t the girl’s fault. She simply said what she saw. She was too young to know any better. Too young to know that what went on in people’s minds and hearts was no one else’s business.

  But she would teach her. She would teach her how to block the images. How to keep stray thoughts from sliding into her own mind. And, most especially, how to keep from repeating everything she learned.

  She could do it. After all, she was the new teacher, wasn’t she?

  “Well,” she asked, looking at Jenna’s reflection, “are you ready to go and look at our new town?”

  “Uh-huh,” the girl said, already headed for the bedroom door.

  Sophie snatched up her purse, slipped it onto her wrist, and caught up with Jenna before she could scoot into the hall. “Now, remember the rules?” she asked, tipping that stubborn little chin up with the tips of her fingers.

  The girl sighed heavily and nodded. “I ‘member.”

  “Tell me,” Sophie said.

  Scowling, she went on in a singsong, “we’ve been through this before” kind of voice. “Don’t tell people what I see inside my head.”

  “Good,” Sophie said with a smile. “And why?”

  Another sigh, louder than the first “’Cause it’s scary sometimes and people won’t unnerstand.”

  “That’s right.”

  Rubbing beneath her nose with her closed fist, Jenna added, “I don’t unnerstand either, Soph—Mommy,” she corrected quickly. “How come I can’t tell ‘em?”

  How come indeed. She was a bit young to be told stories about witch trials and the tendency of people to want to destroy something they didn’t understand. Sophie didn’t want her sister scared… she just wanted her safe. So for right now, she decided to do nothing more than a “because I say so” kind of thing.

  “I don’t unnerstand either,” she said, deliberately pronouncing the word just as Jenna did. “It’s just better this way.”

  “You don’t know either? Really?” the girl asked, clearly astonished. “I thought big people knowed everything.”

  Shaking her head, Sophie guided her sister into the hall, then closed the door behind her. Taking one small hand into hers, she muttered, “You’d be surprised, honey. Sometimes big people don’t know anything.”

  ●

  Ridge watched her making her way down the boardwalk and scowled to himself. Hell, he was still bleeding from the barbs she’d shot at him the night before. Woman had a tongue like a bowie knife. Sharp and deadly on both sides. Half the night, he’d lain awake remembering everything she’d said and—since it was too late—coming up with some real clever answers too. But mostly, he’d remembered her eyes and flush of color on her cheeks and the defiant way she’d faced him down.

  Hell, he couldn’t name more than three or four people who’d stood up to him like that. Most folks walked a wide circle around him. But not Sophie Ryan. She’d stood toe to toe with him and backed him right into a corner. In front of witnesses. He’d be lucky if his reputation as a bad man to cross would stand up under the gossip that was sure to spread.

  Walking to the porch post, he leaned one shoulder against the sturdy beam, folded his arms over his chest and narrowed his gaze as he watched her go. Quick, efficient steps, he told himself. She walked like a woman who knew where she was going. Naturally, in a town the size of Tanglewood, she could hardly take three steps without someone stepping out of their door to strike up a conversation. Everyone in town wanted to meet the new schoolteacher.

  Especially since Henry Tuttle was doing all he could to spread the tale of how Sophie had bested the sheriff.

  Ridge frowned again and saw Davey Sams step out of his gun shop long enough to shake Sophie’s hand, then bend down to get acquainted with her daughter.

  But that didn’t last long. Davey straightened abruptly, turned around and disappeared into his shop, closing the door behind him.

  Hmm. A worm of suspicion uncoiled inside him. Ridge tugged the brim of his hat down lower over his eyes and noticed that Sophie was walking a bit quicker now, her heels tapping against the boardwalk loud enough for him to hear the staccato beat clean across the street.

  “That’s her, huh?”

  He didn’t even glance at Tall as the deputy came up behind him. “Yeah, that’s her.”

  “She’s a real looker, ain’t she?” the other man mused thoughtfully.

  Ridge frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t even see her face from here. How would you know?”

  “A man knows these things, boss.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Sure,” Tall went on, apparently oblivious to the tightness in Ridge’s voice. “Hell, just look at her figure for a minute. Now, no God in His right mind’d make a woman’s body look like that without givin’ her a face to match.”

  Uneasiness crawled through Ridge’s body, but he told himself it had nothing to do with Tail’s wandering eye. Hell, everybody in town knew that the man was always on the scout for a pretty face. Still...

  “’Course,” Tall mused, “I could see why you’d not think much of her.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Well...” The deputy paused as if searching for a safe way of bringing up what had happened between Ridge and Sophie the night before. Apparently, though, he couldn’t find one since his voice faded off.

  Ridge’s back teeth ground together. “Aren’t you supposed to be out at Maggie Markham’s place fixin’ the damn roof?” he asked tightly, angling his deputy a hard look.

  “Hell, boss. Why don’t you just cut him loose and let him fix his own da
mn roof?”

  Ridge’s lips thinned. “Because he broke the law.”

  “Aw, he didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

  “Then he shouldn’t have broken Parker’s jaw.”

  Tall kicked at a board. “Parker shouldn’ta cheated at cards.”

  “We don’t know that he did.”

  “Joe says he did.”

  “Well now, Joe would, wouldn’t he?” Ridge didn’t have much liking for Parker Shoals, the banker. And Joe Markham was a friend of his. But damn it, the law was the law. Joe hit Parker, so Joe’d face the judge. It was that simple.

  In the time he’d been sheriff, Ridge had lived by one rule. There was a reason for the laws we live by.

  And no excuse in the world was good enough for breaking ‘em.

  He’d done enough of that in his past to know it for a fact. And if it hadn’t been for running into Marshal J. T. Thorne one dark, cold night, he might still be hiding from posses and skipping just out of the reach of a rope.

  “So go fix that roof,” Ridge said abruptly, tired of talking about it.

  Tall grimaced and hunched that too-long body as if trying to go unnoticed. It didn’t work. Finally, he nodded and said, “I’m goin’.”

  When he shambled off, Ridge flicked his gaze back to Sophie. Damned if she didn’t stir something inside him he hadn’t known existed. He’d known plenty of women in his time, but not one of them stirred up both his juices and his brain. This one was different. She not only kept a man’s interest, but she forced him to stay on his toes just to be able to spar with her.

  It’d probably be a good idea, he told himself, to stay clear of her. At least until he knew more about her. But, he thought as he stepped off the boardwalk into the street, he never had been a man to turn away from a challenge. Or a risk.

  Casting quick looks each way, he loped across the dirt road, dodging in between horses and wagons. Making his way through the morning shoppers, he headed after Sophie, not really sure what he’d say when he caught up to her.