Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

  Ridge stood in the shade of the livery stable’s overhang and squinted into the sun. Snatching off his hat, he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his shirt, then slapped the hat back on. They’d all dodged a bullet today, he thought, breathing easier as Billy’s silhouette faded into the heat-induced haze in the distance. Could have been real trouble, he told himself, especially since Sophie had decided to take a hand in things.

  “What in the hell was she thinking?” he muttered.

  “Seems to me,” Toby said from right beside him, “she was tryin’ to help.”

  Ridge swiveled his head to look at his friend. “By getting herself—or both of us—killed?”

  Toby chuckled. “You look pretty much alive to me.”

  “No thanks to her,” he said, recalling the flash of pure, outright fear he’d felt when the damn woman stepped off that boardwalk to confront the gunfighter. It had been years since he’d actually been afraid of anything. Came from staring down the barrels of too many guns to count. Once you’d faced the doorway to hell, there wasn’t much left that could bring a scare to your soul.

  Or at least that’s what he’d thought until today.

  Still scowling, Ridge tried to understand it He’d stood between danger and the innocent before without feeling that sick pit of dread open up in his guts.

  What was it about this Eastern woman that put her apart from the crowd? he wondered. Surely not her disposition. Cranky as all get out and a tongue made for shaving the flesh off a man’s bones. Not her flashy way of dressing, certainly. Dresses buttoned to her chin and her hair tightly bound, she wasn’t exactly trying to seduce a man.

  But damned if she wasn’t doing just that.

  Toby laughed again and slapped Ridge on the back with a friendly pat strong enough to crush a smaller man.

  “You got it bad, don’t you, son?”

  “What?” he asked, shifting his stance to brace his feet wide apart and fold his arms across his chest.

  “For the new teacher,” Toby said, with a shake of his head. “Didn’t figure I’d ever see it Ridge Hawkins goin’ soft for a woman.”

  “Toby,” Ridge said, frowning at his friend, “when it’s this hot out, you shouldn’t be standing so close to your forge. Between the heat and the fire, you’re havin’ your brain fried.”

  Toby’s wide face split in a grin that was echoed in his dark brown eyes. “You say what you will, Ridge. That woman’s gotten to you.”

  All right, that was way too close to what he’d been thinking. He didn’t need his friends noticing him acting strange. It was hard enough noticing himself.

  “Damn near gotten me killed, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It ain’t and you know it.”

  “You’re crazy,” Ridge said with a forced laugh.

  “I may be crazy,” Toby told him. “But I ain’t stupid. Or blind.”

  “I hardly know her.” And what he didn’t know still worried him. Though he wasn’t about to say so.

  “Don’t seem to matter none,” the blacksmith said, moving back into the smithy, near the shimmering heat of the forge. Grabbing up a horseshoe, he tossed it onto the fire, then picked up the bellows and pumped them, driving air into the flames.

  Ridge didn’t know how he stood it. Sweat rolled down the big man’s face and chest, glistening like raindrops in the glow of the fire. Winter or summer, rain or shine, the blacksmith was here, wielding a hammer so heavy that most men couldn’t lift it, let alone swing it with an almost easy grace.

  In the years that Ridge had been in Tanglewood, he and Toby had become friends, each sensing the aloneness of the other. They were both outsiders and in that they shared a common bond. Even fifteen years after the war, a black man didn’t find many places to fit in. And as for Ridge, well, most God-fearing Christians didn’t have much use for a man who until recently had lived his life on the wrong side of the law.

  Ridge had never had many friends, and though he valued Toby, he wasn’t about to let the man get away with saying something like that.

  “You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  Toby laughed again, picked up the hammer and rested it on one muscled shoulder. “I’d say the look on your face pretty much says I do.”

  “Damn it, Tobe,” Ridge said, stalking toward his friend, “she’s the most annoying, stubborn, pushy...” His voice trailed off as he shook his head, trying to dislodge the picture of her in his mind. But it didn’t work. There she stayed, that silly hat of hers perched high on her head, her chin tilted and those green eyes narrowed as she stared down Billy the Kid.

  By damn, if he hadn’t been so scared for her, he would have admired the hell out of her. That was some woman.

  Even if she hadn’t known just who she was sassing.

  “She is all that,” Toby agreed and picked up a pair of tongs. Using them to pluck the horseshoe from the fire, he laid it on the anvil, positioned it just right, then slammed the hammer down onto it. Sparks flew and the white-hot metal gleamed and pulsed in the shadows. “But,” he added, turning the shoe slightly, “she’s also the only soul in this town who walked out there to back your play with Billy.”

  “Yeah,” Ridge muttered. But then he hadn’t expected any help. Townspeople hired sheriffs so they wouldn’t have to face down trouble themselves. Oh, not that most of them wouldn’t fight if pushed. But they damn well expected their lawman to take most of the risks. And that’s as it should be, he thought, trying to imagine Morton Simpson facing down Billy or someone like him.

  Of course, he wouldn’t have thought Sophie would do it either, yet there she’d stood, “Armed only with her mouth,” he said aloud.

  Chuckling, Toby said, “The way folks around here jump when she talks, I’d say that’s a pretty good weapon.”

  “It damn sure is,” Ridge admitted, having been on the receiving end of that mouth a time or two himself. Bracing one shoulder against the plank wall, he glanced at Toby and said, “She was something, wasn’t she?” Shaking his head, he said on a laugh, “I swear, Billy didn’t know what the hell to do with her.”

  “Sound like somebody else you know?” Toby asked with a knowing look.

  “Yeah,” Ridge said, nodding, “it does.”

  And that was the problem, he thought. He just didn’t know whether to grab her and kiss her hard enough to straighten her hair—or to strangle her and call it justifiable.

  Although, he thought with a resigned sigh, he was leaning more toward the kissing. Damn it.

  ●

  ALBANY

  “Any word, Mr. Finney?” Charles Vinson looked up from the stack of papers on his desk and met the hard, flat stare of the man across from him.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said and pulled a notebook from the inside pocket of his brown and gray-striped suit.

  Ah well, Charles told himself, the fact that the man obviously preferred hideous suits didn’t necessarily mean he wasn’t a decent detective. After all, the Pinkertons had a reputation for accomplishing their tasks no matter what.

  “Here it is,” Finney said, nodding to himself as he read his own notes. “A widow and her child seen on a westbound train. The child apparently caused quite a stir with some shenanigans.”

  “Such as?” Charles’s ears perked up. This might be it, he told himself. Of course Sophie would try to hide her trail by posing as Jenna’s mother. As if that would throw him off the scent for long.

  The detective snorted derisively. “Apparently, the child was telling fortunes. Frightened a few passengers.”

  Judging from the man’s expression, he didn’t believe in any such nonsense himself. But Charles could tell him differently—if he’d been so inclined, which he wasn’t. He’d seen Jenna’s gift. He knew it to be real and powerful. And he wanted it for himself.

  At any cost.

  “I see. We
ll.” Charles’s features took on a mask of cool indifference. Wouldn’t do to let the hired help see how excited he was by this news. Steepling his fingers, he said only, “That’s very interesting, Mr. Finney. Have you discovered their final destination yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  A quick, sharp stab of disappointment hit him low, but he concealed it. “Pity.”

  Flipping the notebook closed and slipping it into his pocket again, the detective stood almost at attention and said, “If I may suggest...”

  “Yes?”

  “Perhaps you might consider offering a reward?” Finney shrugged slightly, and the movement barely registered. “People are often more willing to help someone else when they benefit as well.”

  “An interesting suggestion, Detective,” Charles said, leaning back in his maroon leather chair. Bracing his elbow on the arm, he tapped one manicured fingertip against his chin. “And how do we advertise this reward?”

  Another shrug. “Newspapers, wanted posters distributed to local law enforcement.”

  He thought about it for a long moment. Another expense added to the money already spent on hiring the Pinks in the first place. However, he thought, mentally calculating the riches to be had once Jenna was in his control, with the child’s gift of “sight,” he would be able to master the stock market within a few weeks. And that was just the beginning. There were fortunes to be made in shipping and importing and farming and mining and—well, the possibilities were endless.

  Smiling, he told himself that any monies spent in the search to find the girl were nothing more than an investment in his future.

  Shifting his gaze to meet the dark, stony eyes of the man patiently awaiting further instructions, he said simply, “Do it.”

  ●

  TANGLEWOOD

  Sophie cupped her face in her palms and forced herself to draw several long, deep breaths. Billy the Kid. Good heavens, she’d been standing in the middle of the road, giving Billy the Kid a lecture on the manners of good gunfighting.

  Her head felt light. Her stomach did a quick somersault and she swallowed hard. What a fool Ridge must think her. She’d gone marching off to help him when in reality… She paused, let her hands drop to her lap and tilted her head to one side as she thought about this. In reality, he hadn’t needed help at all. Pushing up from her chair, Sophie walked to the front window and looked out at Main Street.

  It was as if none of it had happened. People were streaming from the shops to continue on about their market-day errands. As if a near gun battle on a pretty Saturday morning were nothing more exciting than a new hat. Which led her to suppose that this wasn’t the first time it had—or rather hadn’t—happened.

  “Just exactly who is Ridge Hawkins?” she wondered aloud, her fingers lightly tapping against the windowsill. A man Billy the Kid avoided having trouble with. A man who stood up to a notorious gunfighter—single-handed, mind you—with no trouble at all.

  Yet, if he was a famous lawman, surely she would have heard of him, as she’d read of so many others, such as the Earps, or Bat Masterson, or Wild Bill Hickok. But then, she could say the same about his being a gunfighter, couldn’t she?

  “So what do I know about this man?” Brain racing, she turned around to face the office, letting her gaze sweep the cluttered room. Dust gathered in the corners, a cobweb swung lazily from the ceiling, and a veritable mountain of papers lay stacked haphazardly on the desk.

  Well. Her eyebrows lifted slightly. She knew he was a man and therefore a stranger to a broom. Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about the room, short of the impressive weapons rack hanging on the wall nearest the door. Three shotguns and four rifles stood on that rack and their brass fittings gleamed in the indirect sunlight. Sophie would have been willing to bet that the guns were the only things in the office that were dusted with any kind of regularity. Of course, she admitted silently, a man living among people like Billy the Kid had better keep his weapons in good working order.

  On the far wall at least ten different wanted posters hung, the ink drawings of hard-faced men watching her as if silently daring her to look away. A cold chill ran along her spine as she stared into those eyes.

  Slowly, she crossed the room, drawn to those faces like lead shavings to a magnet.

  Her gaze drifted from one face to the next as she drew closer, her heels clicking in the emptiness, sounding like a faint heartbeat. Inch-high black print screamed out from the cream-colored notices: Wanted.

  Reward. Robbery. Murder. Horse stealing.

  A sharp jolt of mind-numbing pain staggered her suddenly. Clapping one hand to her forehead, Sophie closed her eyes and saw... her own face on a poster not unlike these. The vision quickened, fluttering past her mind’s eye, dazzling her with its clarity. She watched, helpless, as her face was added to the motley collection of criminals hanging on sheriffs’ walls throughout the West.

  And then the images were gone, leaving her shaken and terrified, trying to decide if it had been an actual vision or if her own fears had created it.

  “That’s it,” she murmured, instantly grabbing at the second explanation in favor of the first. “It has to be.”

  She’d been suppressing her visions for so long now, they were completely unreliable, so it must have been her own imagination causing the headache and the images. Besides, if it had been a true vision... what could she do? There would be nowhere to hide. She’d be running from lawmen, bounty hunters, and even ordinary people who might recognize her face and turn her in for the reward.

  For heaven’s sake, she’d just finished irritating a man with the power to send her to prison.

  Would Charles actually do something like offer a reward for her return? she wondered and immediately told herself, Of course he would. Though he would be loath to spend any money, she thought wryly, he’d consider it an investment in his future. A future that he wanted Jenna to help him plan. Sophie’s own “gift” had always been sporadic—until recently. So Charles had no interest in her. But in order to get Jenna, he would have to find Sophie. And if that meant offering a reward for her capture, he’d do it.

  He’d have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Why hadn’t she thought of this before?

  “And what can I do about it now?”

  “Do about what?” Ridge’s voice came from right behind her and Sophie jumped, startled. She hadn’t even heard the door open.

  “Still a little skittish?” he asked, reaching out to take hold of her upper arm.

  A flash of heat shot from her arm through her chest and rocketed right down to the soles of her feet. Really, this had to stop. Nothing good could come of this attraction she felt for the sheriff. He was a potential enemy. One whom she should keep at a distance. And in another moment or two, she’d step back and away from him.

  “I suppose I am,” she said, silently relishing the sensations his touch brought to the surface.

  “Yeah,” he countered, tightening his grip on her arm slightly. One dark eyebrow arched as he added, “Most folks feel that way after their first gunfight.”

  Apparently, he was still a bit perturbed.

  She glanced down at his hand on her arm, then up into his eyes again before reminding him, “No one fired a gun.”

  “You were lucky,” he said, bending his head until they were eye to eye. “We were lucky.”

  Sophie cleared her throat and met his gaze. Perhaps she’d been a bit precipitate, but her intent had been pure enough. She’d only wanted to help and, despite how it had turned out, she didn’t regret the impulse. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, you might want to sit down.”

  He let her go, shook his head, and threw his hands wide in obvious exasperation. “Damn it, Sophie!”

  She frowned at him. “There’s no reason to swear at me.”

  “I can’t shoot you, so cussing you’s all I’ve got
.”

  “I only wanted to help,” she said, now sincerely beginning to rethink her impulsive behavior. It certainly wouldn’t do her a spot of good to have the one man who might conceivably lock her away in a jail cell mad at her all the time.

  And come to think of it, maybe she should try being a bit nicer to the sheriff. However, she looked into those glowering eyes of his and told herself that that was easier said than done. He might do strange things to her equilibrium, but he also had the capacity to stoke her temper faster than anyone she’d ever known.

  Then he surprised her again by sighing heavily and shaking his head. “I guess I know that,” he said, shooting her a long look. “But standing up to people like Billy is my job. Not yours.”

  It was his job. She knew that. But there’d been something more in his tone when he’d faced the young tough. She looked at him as something else occurred to her for the first time. “Why didn’t you arrest him?”

  “Billy?”

  “Yes. Isn’t that your job too?”

  Ridge viciously rubbed the back of his neck. “Because he’s not wanted in Nevada, that’s why.”

  “But if he had been?”

  His gaze narrowed on her. “Then he’d be in a cell right now.”

  And she didn’t doubt it for a moment. Even facing the dangers of dealing with a gunman, he would have done what he thought right. He would have upheld the law. She could see it in his eyes. And in response, a flicker of worry sputtered into life in the pit of her stomach. To this man, the law meant everything.

  And that put him at direct odds with her. Because for the first time in her life, she was, technically, a criminal. It didn’t matter that the law was wrong in her case. He wouldn’t care.

  “Sophie,” he said, dragging her back from her thoughts. “If you’re gonna be livin’ here, then I have to know that you’re not going to be stepping into the middle of every brawl, shootout, and knife fight that comes my way.”