“I probably won’t,” he agreed and carried her over to the cot. Sitting down, he plopped her onto his lap and held her there.
“You’ll regret this, you—you—bastard!” She continued to struggle, her pain nearly choking her. He’d made his choice, her mind screamed. He’d chosen his precious law over her and now everything was over. Her freedom... Jenna’s life... Oh God. Her gaze swept the cell frantically, searching for an escape that wasn’t there. How could this have happened? How could he have turned against her like this? Had what they shared meant nothing to him?
At that thought, she balled her fist and took a swing at him.
“No doubt,” he grumbled and muttered an oath when her small fist connected with his jaw. “Now are you gonna listen to me?”
“No!” The pain in her fist was nothing compared to the sharp ache squeezing her heart. “I listened to you once. When you told me not to run. When you told me to trust you.” She spat the words at him. “And you see where listening to you got me!”
“Then if we’re not gonna talk…” He speared his fingers into her hair, tipped her head back, and laid siege to her mouth. She fought him at first, as he’d expected, and he really couldn’t blame her. After all, she was in jail. But damn it, she should trust him.
He parted her lips with his tongue and darted into her warmth, feeling the strength and passion he found within her surge through him. This woman was everything to him, he thought as he felt her surrender to the power of what lay between them.
She pressed herself close to him, arching her breasts into his chest and every inch of his body burst into flame. There on that narrow cot in a small cell, he held his world in his arms and as he swallowed her sighs he knew he would do anything he had to, anything, to keep her.
“It seems,” a voice tinged with amusement said, “I’ve arrived just in time.”
Ridge lifted his head and Sophie blinked blindly like a woman coming up from underwater. She felt short of breath, her head was spinning, and her heartbeat thundered in her chest. It just wasn’t fair that she could still respond to a man who was going to ruin her life.
“Evenin’, Reverend,” Ridge said and Sophie turned her head to see Elias, Hattie, and Jenna standing in the open doorway.
Confusion mixed with embarrassment sputtered through her and she shot Ridge a look, silently asking for an explanation.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” he said with a helpless shrug. “I figured the only way to make you see reason was to lock you up while I told you my plan.”
“Which is...?” she asked.
“We’re getting married,” he said bluntly and for the first time in her life Sophie was absolutely speechless with surprise. For a few seconds, anyway. She looked up at him and saw the earnestness in his eyes and knew he was dead serious. A pang of regret tingled inside her.
“Because a man can’t be forced to testify against his wife?” she asked and wondered if he heard the ache in her voice.
“For God’s sake, Sophie,” he muttered.
“We’re not getting married, Ridge.”
“Don’t argue with me, Red,” he ground out.
“Thank you for offering to do this,” she went on, “but I won’t get married just to be safe.”
Ridge shot a look at the people in the doorway and they backed up a step or two, allowing him and Sophie a touch more privacy. Then turning to face her, he cupped her face in his palms and she felt the hard warmth of him shine brightly all the way to her soul.
“Red, I never thought I’d say this to anybody,” he whispered, his gaze moving over her face as if he were trying to memorize her every feature. Finally, though, he shifted his gaze to hers, looked deeply into her eyes and said, “I love you.”
Sophie’s breath caught in her throat. This she hadn’t expected. Tears stung her eyes until she was forced to blink wildly just to be able to see him clearly. “No,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You don’t.”
One corner of his mouth lifted. “Yeah I do. Didn’t mean to.” He smoothed her hair back from her face. “You kind of sneaked up on me, but I do, nonetheless. I love the way you yell at me. I love the way you tilt your chin up when you’re getting ready for war.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off.
“I love your courage, your strength. You are the only woman I’ve ever wanted in my life, Red. Don’t say no.” His gaze locked with hers and she read the emotion shining in his pale blue eyes as he added softly, “Don’t leave me alone.”
Sophie’s heart filled her throat. She’d desired him, hated him, fought with him, and loved him almost from the first moment she’d seen him. And to have this joy at the darkest moment of her life was the greatest gift she’d ever been given.
“Marry me, Red. And trust me to find a way out of this. Let me be Jenna’s daddy for real. Let’s make us some more babies to keep her company.”
“Do it, Mama,” Jenna called and Sophie laughed shortly. “You’re s’posed to. I can see it!”
“Well,” Sophie said, reaching up to rub the pad of her thumb across his bottom lip. “I suppose that settles it”
“Damn right,” Ridge said, grinning. “You already told me she’s never wrong.”
“There’s only one problem,” she said.
“Red…”
“I cursed you,” she reminded him. “And your descendants.”
“Well, I figure if you can put the curse on, he said with a half-smile, “you can take it off. You reckon?”
Sophie looked directly into his deep blue eyes, smiled and said softly, “I reckon.”
●
CHAPTER Twenty
Two days later, the saloon had officially been closed and turned into a makeshift courtroom. The place was packed to the rafters with the citizens of Tanglewood and all the folks who’d come in from the outlying ranches.
Sophie sat beside Ridge at one of the tables up front wondering if it was too late to run. But even as she considered it, she knew she’d never get out of the saloon. If Charles didn’t stop her, her new husband would. Ridge had hardly left her side in the last two days, and though he kept insisting that she trust him, he hadn’t bothered to tell her what he had in mind. And please God, he did have a plan.
Folding her hands together tightly, she flicked a glance at Ridge and wished she felt half as confident as he looked. His black broadcloth pants had been brushed and pressed and his boots polished. He wore a black fingertip-length jacket over a starched white shirt and the silver star pinned to his lapel seemed to catch every light in the room until it gleamed with what looked like an inner fire. He leaned back in his chair with a casual ease that Sophie envied until she noticed a muscle in his jaw twitching and she realized he wasn’t any calmer than she was.
That knowledge terrified her. He, too, must hear the sound of an imaginary cell door slamming behind her.
Sophie’s throat closed up tight. There just didn’t seem to be a way out of this mess, and knowing that in a couple of hours’ time she could very well be on her way to prison wasn’t exactly making it easy to breathe.
Nervous, she let her gaze drift across the familiar faces crowding the saloon. She could feel their curiosity. Feel their stares. Kidnapper, they whispered and looked at her with what she could only guess was a mixture of fascination and fear. She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. The only person missing was Toby, who’d volunteered to look after Jenna while court was in session. Muttered conversations rose and fell as rapidly as the paper fans being wielded by nervous hands.
A trickle of perspiration rolled down Sophie’s back and again she shifted uneasily. Despite Jenna’s assurances that everything would “be all right,” Sophie was worried. Charles wasn’t a man to give up. And now that he’d found Jenna, she knew he would do whatever he had to do to keep her.
As if sensing the
turmoil spinning inside her, Ridge glanced her way, gave her a half-smile, then reached to pat her hand. “It’s gonna be fine, Sophie,” he said quietly.
“I hope so,” she told him, grabbing hold of his hand and holding on tight. But frankly, she didn’t know how it could be.
“Come to order,” the judge hollered and smacked his gavel down onto the bartop. Sophie’s gaze swung in his direction. About sixty, Judge Elijah Forrest was small and wiry with sharp gray eyes, grizzled hair, and salt-and-pepper whisker stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning. His black suit was dusty, his white shirt less than spotless, and he sat on a tall stool behind a bar in a Western saloon. Yet with all that, he carried a sort of legal dignity with him and the crowd hushed when he spoke.
“Now,” he said, thumbing through a sheaf of papers in front of him, “the way I hear it, this fella...” He paused and pointed to Charles, sitting alone at a table opposite Sophie and Ridge. “Says he has legal claim to the child, Jenna...”
“Hawkins, Your Honor,” Ridge supplied easily.
One gray eyebrow lifted into a high arch. “She’s your daughter then, Ridge?”
“Yes, sir, she is,” he answered.
Sophie felt all the air whoosh out of her lungs. She stared at his profile, stunned. Ridge had lied to the judge? She’d no more expected that than she would have the sun suddenly deciding to rise in the west and sink in the east. Dozens of questions chased each other through her mind, but there were no answers to be had. By not even a flicker of an eyelash did Ridge let on that he knew she was surprised by his statement.
Whispers rustled through the crowd like autumn leaves caught in a sudden gust of wind.
“That’s a lie,” Charles shouted, jumping to his feet. “I have the paperwork to prove it. Just look through it, for heaven’s sake!”
The judge picked up the gavel again and slammed its head against the bar. “You sit down, until I call on ya.”
Blustering, obviously disgusted, Charles did as he was told.
Dutifully, the judge riffled through the papers again, frowned to himself, then looked up, pinning Ridge with a look. “You say the child’s yours.”
“Yes, sir,” Ridge lied again without hesitation and took Sophie’s hand in his. “Mine and my wife’s here.”
She blinked back a sudden sheen of tears and felt her heart swell in her chest. His strength poured into her, his love flowed deep into her soul and filled her to overflowing, like the banks of a rain-swollen river. She held on to him tightly, wanting to let him know, if only silently, that she knew what he was doing now and that she loved him for it.
Nodding, the judge folded his hands atop the paperwork and asked, “So what we have here is one man’s word against another.”
“And the legal papers naming me guardian,” Charles reminded him, jumping up to protest again.
“Mister,” the judge warned quietly, “I already told you to sit down till I call on ya.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“If I fine you for contempt of court, you’re goin’ to find it a mite less funny,” Elijah told him sternly. Clearly furious, Charles took his seat. “Now,” Elijah said to Ridge, “you got any other proof of what you’re sayin’ besides your word? Not that I don’t believe ya, boy. But this fella did come loaded for bear with all his paperwork here.”
Ridge gave Sophie’s hand one last squeeze and stood up. “Your Honor,” he said, his voice clear and strong, “I don’t need anything besides my word. I’m paid to uphold the law. I do my job. I don’t lie. I figure my reputation ought to be worth as much as Mr. Vinson’s papers.”
His word. Sophie listened to him, heard him lie to the judge and knew she’d never been loved so much in her life. Ridge was giving up everything for her. Everything he was. Everything he believed in. For her sake, he was offering up his honor, his reputation, his pride. For love of her, Ridge Hawkins was turning his life upside down.
Heart full, she stared up at him and knew that no matter what happened, she would always have this moment.
This one moment when a proud, honest man was willing to sacrifice himself for her.
Elijah rubbed one hand across his whiskery cheek as he did some thinking. After a long moment, though, he shook his head and said, “Son, I’d like to say you’re right. But legally, if all we’ve got is one man’s word against another, then his papers carry a mite more weight.”
A soft moan slid from her throat and Ridge sat down beside her, reaching blindly for her hand again. “It’s not just one man’s word,” someone in the crowd said suddenly. Elijah’s head snapped up and his gaze narrowed as he searched the crowd. “Who said that?”
“I did.” Mort Simpson stood up.
As one, Ridge and Sophie turned to stare at the storekeeper as he turned his hat over and over in nervous hands.
“Step forward,” the judge commanded, and Mort did just that, walking to stand in front of the bar. Elijah glared at the man. “You swear to tell the truth so help you God?”
“I do,” Mort said after clearing his throat.
Nodding, Elijah looked him dead in the eye and asked, “To the best of your knowledge, is the child Jenna the daughter of Ridge and Sophie Hawkins?”
The storekeeper glanced at the two people sitting at the table, then turned back to face the judge. “Yes, sir, she surely is.”
Ridge slanted a slow, disbelieving grin at Sophie and she blinked away tears to smile back at him. Hope, fragile as a breath, rose up inside her once more and Sophie clung to it desperately.
“This is outrageous!” Charles was on his feet and shouting to be heard over the rumble of sound from the audience.
The judge ignored him and, when Mort finished testifying, asked, “Anybody else got somethin’ to say?”
The scrape and scuffle of chairs moving and feet shuffling filled the room and Sophie raked in a shaky breath as at least a dozen others stood up. They formed a line that snaked from the bar clean out the front door to the boardwalk.
Ridge pulled her close and draped one arm around her shoulders. It was as if the sun was peeking out from behind a threatening bank of black clouds. She wanted to believe. Wanted to hope.
Swiveling her head, she glanced at the judge, who allowed himself a small smile as he studied the growing line of “witnesses.” Daring a look at Charles, she watched as the man’s features darkened with rage.
“Appears to me,” the judge announced over Charles’s objections, “that we got us a few more testimonies to listen to.”
Ridge held her tight, pressing her to him, as, together, they listened to one person after another come forward to testify under oath that Jenna was Ridge’s daughter. Men and women she’d known only a few weeks stood before a judge and lied through their teeth to protect her and Jenna.
Her heart swelled to the point of bursting. Her throat tightened and tears stung the backs of her eyes. She clung to Ridge and felt the solid, warm comfort of his support as she listened to their testimony. She’d come to this place a stranger, expecting nothing, hoping to find a refuge.
And, she realized, as she held on to Ridge, she’d found so much more. She’d found friends. A home. And she’d found a love deeper and stronger than she’d ever believed possible.
Ridge gave her a squeeze, and she rested her head against his shoulder as Hattie finished her speech.
“I’m tellin’ you, Judge,” the woman said, dabbing at her streaming eyes with the tip of her hanky. “Ridge liked to walk a hole through my floor the night Jenna was born. All his worryin’ and carryin’ on, I practically had to order him out of the room at gunpoint. But I swear, you’ve never seen a happier man than Ridge when he first saw his baby. Why,” she added with a shake of her head, “when I handed him his newborn daughter, the man had tears in his eyes!”
“Is that right?” the judge asked, sliding Ridge a look.
Ridge held Sophie closer and nodded.
“May God strike me dead if I’m lying,” Hattie proclaimed.
Sophie didn’t know, whether to laugh or to leap out of the way of a heaven sent thunderbolt. But she did neither, instead shooting a glance at Charles, who quietly fumed at his table. He’d already been fined fifty dollars for his constant objections and since then he’d kept his mouth shut. But his silence didn’t hide his contempt for the proceedings. His fingers tapped against the tabletop and his gaze was fixed to a spot on the wall behind the judge’s head.
When the testimonies had ended, Judge Forest cleared his throat. Instantly, he had the attention of everyone in the room.
“Well,” he said slowly, rubbing his whiskery jaw with one hand. “I’ve read all the papers, I’ve heard all the testimony, and now I reckon it’s time for my decision.”
Sophie shot Charles another look. He hadn’t changed position. Ridge tightened his hold on her. She clung to him as if it meant her life. As, in fact, it did.
“Mister,” the judge said, giving Charles a steelyeyed look. “I don’t know you from Adam’s great-aunt. You show up here claiming the right to steal another man’s child and you believe I ought to help you do it.”
“She is not his child,” Charles argued.
“That ain’t what I’m hearin’,” the judge said, waving the man into silence. “I got a whole town who swears that child belongs to Ridge and his wife. I got the word of a lawman whom I trust. I got the word of a preacher who swears he married these two, and I got the word of the woman who helped deliver the child.”
“Lies,” Charles muttered, slanting a vicious glance at Sophie. “All of it. Lies. I don’t know how she’s done it. Or what she’s promised them—”
“Mister,” Judge Forest shouted and banged his gavel. “You are startin’ to try my patience. You hush up or so help me God you’ll be hearin’ my decision from the inside of a jail cell.” Wagging that wooden gavel at him, he then warned, “You know, we don’t take kindly to them that tries to steal children. You best watch your step before you find yourself the guest of honor at a tar-and-feather party.”
Just West of Heaven Page 25