Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

  “It’s Sophie,” he said. She looked and, sure enough, saw the new schoolteacher fairly flying down the boardwalk, hand fisted in her middle. And not ten steps behind her came Ridge Hawkins. As he passed a lighted window, a slash of lamplight fell on his features and Mercy was glad it wasn’t her he was after.

  “Now what d’ya suppose that’s about?” Tall murmured.

  ●

  “What else do ya see?” Travis asked, fascinated by the girl and all the things she knew.

  “Lots of stuff,” she said proudly and ate another of the cookies Travis had swiped from his mother’s kitchen.

  The scent of ham and potatoes frying wafted through the open windows and drifted across the yard to the spot by the fence where the two children sat in the light of a rising moon.

  Travis bit into another cookie himself and thought about what it must be like to see things ahead of time and wasn’t at all sure he’d like it. After all, knowing that Jed Foster’s old hound dog was going to get run over by a freight wagon hadn’t helped him save it. Still, thanks to Jenna, he’d found the pocket knife he’d lost a few months back and he knew that someday he was gonna grow up and be a doctor. Heck, maybe if she’d been in town a couple years ago, he might have been able to save his pa from getting thrown from that horse.

  “Don’t worry, Travis,” Jenna said and reached over to pat his hand. “You’re gonna get a new daddy soon.”

  “I am?”

  “Uh-huh. Just like me.”

  “Who’s mine gonna be?”

  “Reverend Kendrick,” she said around another mouthful of cookie.

  “The preacher?” Appalled, Travis suddenly had visions of being toted to church several times a day. “And who’re you gonna get?”

  “The sheriff.”

  Travis laughed and shook his head, relieved. “You’re wrong, Jenna. Ridge ain’t gonna marry your ma. And if you’re wrong about him, you could be wrong about the preacher too.”

  At least, he surely hoped so.

  ●

  The front door flew open and Sophie rushed in. Hair falling down around her shoulders, her skirt bunched at her waist, color flooding her cheeks, and her breath rushing in and out of her lungs as though she’d been running a foot race.

  Hattie jumped up from the settee and dropped the ball of yarn she’d been winding around the reverend’s outstretched hands. “Land’s sake, girl, whatever happened to you?”

  Sophie jumped, looked guiltily from Hattie to the preacher and back again before stammering out a reply. “Uh, nothing. I was uh... well, then I... and before I knew it...” Her voice trailed off into silence.

  The Reverend Kendrick set the yarn aside, stood up and moved to align himself at Hattie’s side. His kind eyes almost undid her, but Sophie was not about to let these people know what a fool she’d made of herself.

  “I’ll just go upstairs and—”

  “Sophie,” Ridge called out, entering the room as if the devil himself were just a step or two behind him. He stopped short when faced with the interested gazes of an audience he hadn’t been expecting.

  “Just what’s goin’ on around here?” Hattie wondered aloud and tapped the toe of her shoe against one of her rag rugs.

  “Nothing,” Sophie said quickly, shooting a meaningful glance at Ridge. “Absolutely nothing.”

  But clearly, Hattie wasn’t convinced. The woman stepped forward, gave Sophie a long look up and down, then shifted a suspicious glare at the sheriff. “Ridge Hawkins,” she said tightly, “if you—”

  “He didn’t do anything,” Sophie interrupted her quickly and laid one hand on the woman’s arm. Waiting for Hattie’s gaze to focus on her, she said, “I fell. At the school. Tore my dress and Ridge....”—she forced the next word out—“helped me.”

  All right, it wasn’t a very good lie, but it was the best she could do at a moment’s notice. And anything was better than the truth. That he’d kissed her and touched her and ignited in her more sensations than she’d known existed before she’d had to push him away.

  She swallowed hard on that last thought and then shoved it into the darkest corner of her mind. There would be plenty of time later to remember another lost chance at love. For now, she simply wanted to get through the rest of this evening without anyone else knowing what had happened.

  “He did, eh?” Hattie asked, and her expression left no doubt in anyone’s mind that she knew she wasn’t getting the whole story.

  Sophie risked a glance at Ridge and saw confusion and frustration etched into his features as he stared at her. Well, better that he be confused than know the truth.

  Lifting her chin and keeping her voice level, she tossed her hair back from her face and looked him square in the eye. “Thank you again, Sheriff. For your help.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched and she watched as a steely calm seemed to drop over him. He nodded stiffly and said, “Glad I could help, Sophie.”

  Anxious to escape the remainders of this situation, she turned for the stairs, only partly aware that Hattie was right behind her.

  Ridge’s gaze followed her up the stairs, and when she disappeared down the landing, he turned his head to meet the calm, interested stare of his friend, the reverend.

  “She fell, did she?”

  “That’s what she said,” Ridge told him and yanked off his hat to shove one hand through his hair.

  “What do you say?”

  “Elias,” he started, “don’t push me on this.”

  “That’s a good woman, Ridge. She doesn’t deserve to be treated as less.”

  “Don’t you think I know that?” he muttered, despite being aware that just a while ago, he hadn’t been thinking along those lines.

  “A part of you knows it,” Elias said softly, “it’s the other part I’m concerned about.”

  Ridge shot him a look and knew his friend was seeing way too clearly. Uncomfortable with the scrutiny, he jammed his hat back onto his head, said, “I’ll be staying at the jailhouse from now on. Tell Hattie I’ll be by to collect my things tomorrow.”

  As he turned to leave, Elias’s voice stopped him. “You think the jailhouse is far enough away from her?”

  “Nope,” he muttered and stepped out into the night.

  ●

  Once inside her room, Sophie inhaled slowly, deeply, and relaxed for the first time since rushing out of the schoolhouse. Picking up a match, she struck it, then lit the wick in the oil lamp sitting on the table beside her bed. As the flickering light danced around the empty room, she realized she wasn’t as alone as she’d thought. Hattie had followed her into the room and was even now closing the door behind her.

  “Now,” the other woman said, “you want to tell me what really happened?”

  No, she surely didn’t. So she avoided that question by asking one of her own. “Where’s Jenna?”

  Hattie waved one hand at her and moved to plop down onto the edge of the bed. “Don’t you worry about that little darlin’. She’s out back with Travis.”

  Nodding, Sophie took a moment to be glad that at least Jenna was making friends here. She on the other hand seemed to be making nothing more than a mess of things.

  “Sophie, honey,” Hattie was saying, “I don’t want you thinking I’m a busybody... but us womenfolks have got to stick together. Which is why I’m going to ask you one question.”

  “What’s that?” she asked and surreptitiously did up the buttons on her skirt’s waistband.

  “Do I need to load my shotgun and plan a wedding?”

  Sophie shot her a quick look and didn’t miss the suspicion in the other woman’s gaze. “Of course not!” she said, though even she had to admit her voice lacked conviction. So she went on, hoping to sound more believable. “I’m a respectable widow, Hattie.”

  “Not sayin’ otherwise,” the woman said wit
h a kind smile. “All I am sayin’ is, that men being what they are, well…”

  It was the sympathetic concern shining in Hattie’s eyes that did her in. The woman wasn’t judging her. She wasn’t gathering stones to pitch at her. She was simply offering her support. Something Sophie hadn’t experienced in far too long.

  Giving in to the misery welling inside her, she took a seat beside Hattie and folded her hands in her lap.

  “He kissed me,” she said, and even as the words left her, she relived the experience, remembering every sigh, every touch, every breath. “Twice.”

  “Ah...” the woman beside her murmured and gave her joined hands a pat. “I figured as much.”

  “You did?”

  “Mmm. You have the look of a woman who’s been kissed by a man who knows what he’s doin’.”

  An apt description if she’d ever heard one. Sophie sighed and flopped backward onto the mattress. Staring up at the ceiling, she said, “He certainly does.”

  “I thought so,” Hattie said wistfully. “If I was ten years younger”—she paused to pat her expansive middle—”and a good bit lighter, I might have set my cap for him myself.”

  Pushing herself up onto one elbow, Sophie looked at the other woman and said, “I haven’t set my cap for Ridge Hawkins, Hattie. I’m not looking for a husband.”

  To her surprise, her new friend laughed, slapped her knee and laughed harder. After several seconds, when she’d caught her breath again, Hattie wiped tears of enjoyment out of her eyes and said, “Honey, it’s when you’re not lookin’ that you usually find ‘em.”

  That was certainly true, she thought. After all, she’d come to Tanglewood to hide. Not to find romance. And yet, she found herself drawn to a man that could only mean trouble.

  “Why,” Hattie went on, “I never would’ve imagined marryin’ a preacher. But Elias,” she said softly, dreamily, “he’s quite the kisser, for a man of God.”

  “Are you and Elias—” She left the question unfinished.

  “Haven’t decided yet,” Hattie said and tugged her shirtwaist down, emphasizing the opulent swell of her bosom. Then winking, she added, “You’ll be the first to know though, I promise.”

  With that, she left the room and closed the door quietly after her. And Sophie was alone with far too many thoughts.

  ●

  Next morning, Ridge’s back hurt, his legs were cramped from lying all night on the too-short cot in the now-empty jail cell, and Ridge had a whole new sympathy for Joe Markham, who’d spent five nights in the damn cell. But now Joe was back home with Maggie and it was Ridge suffering on that damned cot.

  And dreaming about Sophie all night hadn’t done a damn thing to help the situation any either.

  Grumbling about just punishments and what Elias would no doubt call “penance,” he poured himself a cup of last night’s coffee from the pot on the stove and walked to his desk. Stretching the kinks out of his back, he sank into his chair, sipped at the still hot, muddy brew and shuddered as it slid down his throat.

  “Jesus, that’s awful,” he said on a groan as he reached for the latest stack of papers he’d yet to go through. He sure as hell didn’t feel like working, but it was better than doing nothing—which would only give him more time to think about what had happened with Sophie last night.

  She’d hurried away from him so fast, her heels had practically set fire to the boardwalk. And blast it, he wanted to know why. Hell, there were plenty of women who’d consider him a fairly good catch. But Sophie wasn’t even trying.

  Setting the coffee cup down, he untied the string holding the new stack of wanted posters together and started the process of sorting through them.

  Three separate piles formed on his desk as he quickly went about the familiar business. One stack for the serious threats: murderers, bank robbers, and the like. Another for the small-time criminals that every town saw sooner or later: cardsharps, road agents, and pickpockets. And the last pile was reserved for the unusual: missing persons, kidnappers. Ridge picked up that last poster and felt his heart do a hard slam against his rib cage. Holding his breath, he stared hard at the artist’s rendering of a too-familiar face.

  After a long minute, his gaze dropped to the crisp black lettering beneath the portrait and the breath he’d been holding left him in a rush.

  “Sophie Dolan, wanted for kidnapping. $500 dollar reward. Contact Pinkerton Agency.”

  ●

  CHAPTER Eleven

  Something cold and hard dropped into the pit of his stomach. The fog in his head lifted as if wiped away by an invisible hand. He heard each beat of his heart, felt each breath as it labored from his lungs. His grip on the poster tightened as he stared down into the artist’s rendering of Sophie’s eyes.

  Kidnapping?

  How did a woman kidnap her own child? But even as that question rose up in his mind, he countered it with another. How did he know Jenna was her child? He only had Sophie’s word for it, after all.

  Well, he’d guessed she was hiding something, hadn’t he? Although he had to admit, he hadn’t been expecting this.

  “Damn it.”

  Shoving back and away from his desk, he jumped to his feet and, carrying the poster with him, stalked back and forth across the room. His boot heels crashed against the floor and set off a like pounding in his head.

  She’d surprised him, he thought, and that hadn’t happened in too many years to count. He’d always considered himself a good judge of character. Hell, living the way he’d lived most of his life, he’d had to be. If you couldn’t trust the man beside you in a gunfight, you’d end up mighty dead mighty fast.

  So he’d watched and he’d learned. He’d taught himself to read a person—man or woman—and to see beyond the face they showed to folks. And he’d been damn good at it. Or so he’d thought

  Until now.

  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered thickly and stopped beside the front window. Slapping one hand against the window frame, he leaned in and stared out the dirty glass at the town of Tanglewood as it came to life.

  Ridge blindly watched his friends and neighbors going about their business. Morton Simpson stood out on his boardwalk, sweeping a night’s worth of dirt from in front of his store. Mercy James was washing down the restaurant windows and paused to smile at Davey Sams as he headed inside for breakfast. And a couple of kids raced down the middle of the street, chasing their dog.

  He’d come to this place a few years ago and had sworn to protect this town and uphold the law. Lord knew, he’d found the law late in his life. Ridge had ridden more than his share of owlhoot trails, alongside men whose faces were most often found on the kind of wanted poster he still held fisted in one hand. But damn it, he wasn’t the same man anymore.

  Not since the night four years before when a U.S. Marshal had taken a chance on him. The scene out on the street faded into oblivion as Ridge remembered that night and the man who’d changed his life.

  He could almost feel the cold mountain air stinging his cheeks, and if he tried he was pretty sure he’d be able to smell the sweet, warm scent of burning wood.

  His horse had been on its last legs when Ridge rode up to the campfire. A lone man sat back from the flames and watched him approach. And any thoughts Ridge might have had about stealing the fella’s horse disappeared quick enough when the old man produced a Sharps rifle and pointed it at him.

  “Hey, now,” Ridge said and lifted both hands high. No fast moves, he told himself even as he looked for and couldn’t find a way out of this predicament. “Ain’t no call to go bein’ so testy.”

  “Mister,” the man said softly, “you step down easy off that poor horse and keep your hands where I can see ‘em.”

  “I’m not huntin’ trouble,” Ridge told him as he did just as he was told. He was in no hurry to find out what size hole a fifty-caliber bullet would leave
in his body.

  “Looks to me like you’ve already found some, son.” The older man waved the barrel of his long gun and indicated that Ridge should take a seat on the far side of the fire.

  So he did, needing the warmth even more than he feared that black hole of a barrel pointed at him. His fingers were stiff with cold and it felt as though his butt carried the permanent imprint of that damned saddle.

  Crouching beside the fire, Ridge carefully kept his gaze slightly averted as the flames crackled and danced in the wind sliding down off the peaks. A man who stared into the light of a fire would find himself temporarily blinded when he tried to see into the darkness. But he watched sparks lift, wink brightly for an instant, then disappear into the inky blackness.

  “Ran into a few bandits some miles back,” he lied, since it didn’t seem like a good idea to mention the posse he’d spent most of the day losing. “Had to do some fast moving. My horse is about done in, I’m afraid.”

  “Bandits,” the old man said with a slow nod, neither accepting nor dismissing the story. Then he offered, “There’s coffee. And beans.”

  His stomach rumbled and Ridge realized that he hadn’t had a bite to eat in nearly two days. Not much time for resting up and such when you were always a step or two ahead of the law. And that bank Jim and Texas Jack had robbed had been sitting right smack­dab in the middle of a town whose citizens apparently didn’t know the meaning of the word “quit.” Hell, Ridge hadn’t planned on being in on a robbery. Rustling a couple of cows here and there, all right. But banks? Nope, he wanted no part of that. Yet that posse of God-fearing Christians were probably still out there on the flats somewhere and Ridge hoped to hell the other boys had gotten away. There was just nothin’ meaner than an ordinary citizen who’d been pushed too far.

  “’Preciate it,” he said and helped himself.

  The beans had been seasoned with sage and damned if they didn’t smell better than a Kansas City steak. When his hands were full of plate and cup, he heard the trigger on that Sharps snick into a cocked position and the hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up.