He wanted the money. He got what he wanted.
There had been several thousand dollars on the table the night Garrett lost control and shot one of their marks. In the ensuing confusion, Sophie had seen her golden opportunity. A chance to escape Garrett—and a chance to do so with a bankroll.
She’d grabbed the cash and run for her life.
It had been effortless for her to disguise herself and travel. She’d been doing it for years. She’d become even better at it than her teacher. That probably had infuriated him as much as her taking the money. As much as the fact that she’d had the courage. As much as the fact that she’d eluded him for so long.
A weak, spineless internal voice taunted her, saying that it was pointless to continue. He’d find a way. He always did. She wasn’t as strong or as smart or as evil as he. Give up. You can’t win.
Another part of her, the desperate, instinctively self-preserving part proclaimed that if she couldn’t succeed, she was better off dead. But she wasn’t dead yet, and while she was still kicking and able, she was going to fight. She wouldn’t be sucked back into his clutches. She was a new person. She was Sophie Hollis, the person she wanted to be. And nobody was going to take that from her.
Clay stopped the wagon in front of Doc Chaney’s. The doctor had opened this office a little over a year ago, giving him more room on a ground floor. His first place had been over Eva Kirkpatrick’s dress shop.
There was no writing on the blackboard that hung beside the front door, and Clay took that to mean the doctor was in. He jumped down from the wagon. In the back, Sam raised his head. “Stay.”
Trusting and obedient to the end, the dog lay his chin back down between his front paws. Clay had drummed up the gumption to come this far; he wasn’t losing his grit now. He steeled himself to carry out this inevitable task.
Caleb Chaney was washing instruments in a basin of steaming water when Clay entered.
“Afternoon, Marshal. What can I do for you?”
“I brought old Sam. I figured it’d be the kind thing to give ’im that shot you spoke of.” Clay took a deep breath to steady his voice. “He’s ready.”
Caleb stopped what he was doing. “I can do that for you,” he replied. “Do you want to leave him?”
Clay shook his head. “No. I’ll stay, take him and bury him after.”
“All right then. Whenever you’re ready.”
Clay had done a good many unpleasant things in his life. Carrying Sam from the wagon to the doc’s office was one of the most difficult. He felt like a traitor. A traitor with a sick ache in his belly. He stroked Sam’s ears and looked into those trusting eyes for the last time.
Less than an hour later, Clay stood with his hand on the handle of a shovel, sweat blurring his vision. He wiped a kerchief across his eyes and tied it around his neck, glad to be alone and unobserved. A grown man shouldn’t get so choked up over a mutt.
Leaving a worn blanket wrapped around the dog’s body, he lowered Sam into the hole he’d dug and scraped in dirt. This mutt had been his closest companion for a good many years. Wouldn’t seem right not having the old boy by his side.
When there was nothing left to do, he laid down the tool and stood back. The hardest part had been turning him over to Dr. Chaney and then watching as his old friend slipped into eternal sleep.
Clay surveyed the spot he’d picked, a woodsy area a fair distance from the house on the three acres he owned at the edge of town. In his younger days Sam had run wild and free on this land, chasing rabbits and digging for gophers. Many an unfortunate critter had fallen prey to the energetic canine.
Sam had been Clay’s housemate on snowy winter nights, his companion on lazy summer afternoons. Clay felt foolish for getting all sentimental, but saying goodbye to a friend wasn’t easy.
“You were a good dog,” he said, needing to finalize the deed, but feeling inadequate. “I hope there are rabbits wherever you are now.” Clay wiped his nose on the kerchief and carried the shovel to the back of the wagon.
Sophie closed herself in her room that evening, but Amanda brought Emma in to ask advice about shoes they’d seen in a catalog.
“Visit the shoemaker,” she advised them. “You’ll get a more comfortable fit and better quality.” Going to her bureau, she slipped a cigar and match tin into her skirt pocket, then turned to them. “I’m going for a walk.”
“Be careful,” Amanda told her.
Sophie hurried down the stairs and along the boardwalk toward the First Ward. Glancing around, she assured herself she wasn’t being followed. It was still light enough to be able to detect if Garrett was on her trail.
She hated looking over her shoulder. She hated the person and the life he’d molded her into. She wanted an uncomplicated existence like the girls with whom she shared jobs and living space had. She resented being cheated out of a normal childhood and silently railed against the way her formative years had shaped her.
She was Sophie Hollis now, she told herself, but the reminder didn’t sound altogether convincing this time. Sophie was the person she wanted to be. The real her was a small scared girl who’d lost her family, a young woman who’d become a captive and a possession. Whenever she tried to remember her real family, other memories and a vault of lies distorted the truth. She had played so many parts, it was hard to remember who she really was. She’d been so many places she could scarcely remember them all.
With the money she’d snatched that fateful night, she’d made it her mission to find as many people as she could whom they had scammed and to pay them back. Garrett would kill her when he found out. But while she was still alive, she was going to do the best she could.
As she passed opposite the billiard hall, a sound alerted her to a rider coming up behind her. She spun around. Atop the horse was a broad-shouldered man wearing a familiar hat.
“Evenin’, Sophie.”
“Clay,” she said in relief.
“Where you headed?”
“The park.”
He slid from the saddle and fell into step beside her, leading his horse by the reins.
She fingered the cigar in her pocket wistfully.
“How’s Sam?” she asked finally.
Clay took a minute to answer, and at his hesitation she looked at him. “Buried ’im today,” he said.
“What happened?” she asked, halting in surprise.
He paused beside her. “I asked Doc to take care of it with an injection. Sam just went to sleep and didn’t wake up.”
“I’m so sorry,” she answered, feeling inadequate.
“He could hardly get around anymore.” Clay resumed walking, prompting her to join him. “It was time,” he assured her.
At the nuance of emotion in his voice, Sophie studied his expression. She doubted anyone else would have picked up on that tiny crack in his composure he’d almost succeeded in hiding. “That’s good then.”
He thumbed his hat back on his head and she could see his eyes more plainly. “It was tough bringin’ myself to do it.”
“You’re a kind man.”
“’Bout average I expect.”
She studied his profile against the streaks of orange in the sky to the west. “I hardly think so.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Most men are solely concerned with themselves. Making money any way they can. Finding women to do their bidding.”
He studied her a moment. “You say that like you’ve known a lot of selfish men.”
She shrugged. “Enough.”
“Is your father like that?”
She hadn’t had a father for years, but she tried to imagine what Sophie Hollis’s father would be like. “No, my father is kind to my mother and concerned for the welfare of his family.”
“Who were all these bad examples you’ve known then?”
She gestured with an uplifted palm. “I overhear conversations in the dining hall. I read the newspaper.”
“I see.”
“You
buried Sam somewhere?”
“My place.”
She’d never heard him mention his home before. “I don’t even know where you live.”
“Northeast a ways.”
“You have a house?”
“Didn’t want to live right in town, even though it would’ve been easier most of the time. I wanted to be able to get away and didn’t want neighbors spyin’ on my every move.”
“What’s it like? Your house?”
“Just a house. Nothin’ fancy.”
Residents sitting on the porch of Mrs. Ned’s Boarding House on Broadway waved to them as they crossed the street to the park. Clay tipped his hat, and Sophie wondered if there would be speculation concerning the two of them now that they’d been seen together more than once.
Clay tethered his horse to one of the cast-iron rings set into the ground at the park entrance.
“You’re coming with me?” she asked.
“Is that all right?”
“Sure.” It couldn’t hurt to have the law by her side if Garrett decided to show up. For a crazy second she considered telling Clay about Garrett, but then she would have to explain everything, and she imagined the look on Clay’s face if he learned what she’d done before she’d come here.
They strolled deep into the park to one of the stone benches, and Sophie perched on the edge. “This is where I usually sit.”
He took the opposite end.
“What thoughts are in your head tonight?” he asked.
“Just silly girl things.” She fingered the cigar in her pocket.
“I have trouble believin’ that.”
“Why?”
“You’re not given to the same silliness as the other girls, that’s why.”
“You find them all silly?” she asked.
“Find ’em all obvious.”
“Meaning?”
“Just that they’ve got their caps set on findin’ husbands. I get the feeling it’s something else that you’re looking for.”
“And you think you know me?”
He tilted his head. With a self-deprecating grin, he replied, “I don’t know what women think on. I’m sure it’s a lot different than what men think about.” He glanced around. “What is it you like about this place?”
“It’s private.”
“It’s right in the middle of town,” he disagreed.
“You’ve never lived in a dormitory with twenty women. This is private.”
“Does it wear on you bein’ around the others day and night?”
She nodded. “Not that they aren’t lovely girls. I just don’t share much in common with them.”
“I can see that.” He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “You’re different from them. I don’t mean that in a bad way, Sophie. They seem…younger.”
He was right. They were innocent girls fresh from the bosoms of their families, just as Sophie’d thought a hundred times. She was a magpie in a cage full of canaries.
“Not that you’re on the shelf or anything,” he added quickly.
She touched her pocket. “No offense taken.”
“What did you do before you came to Newton?” Clay asked.
“I told you I lived on a farm with my family.”
“Where you didn’t learn to cook.”
“Right.”
“And you didn’t ride after you were small.”
“That’s right.”
“What did you do? With your days? Can you sew?”
“I can sew. And I was tutored.”
He glanced at her. “No wonder you’re so smart. Why a tutor? Why didn’t you go to school?”
If she was smart, she wouldn’t be trapped in this lie. “My mother was ill, and my father wanted me nearby in case she needed me.”
“You said before she did all the cookin’. She did that even though she was sick?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Who takes care of her now that you’re not there?”
“She’s better now.” It was getting more and more difficult to keep her story consistent. She’d never had to sustain a lie for so long and to so many people. She was used to the short con. She changed the subject. “You said your mother sent you to school.”
“She did.”
They glanced at each other. Sophie wasn’t eager to continue an exploration into her fabricated past, so she persisted. “So this place of yours…what’s it like?”
“Just a small house on a few acres of land. I bought it from a family who fell on some bad luck and moved on. I could show it to you—Sunday if you’d like.”
“I would like that.”
A few minutes passed before he spoke again. “Are you lookin’ for a husband?”
“I’m not.”
His deep voice was intimate when he asked, “What do you want, Sophie?”
Chapter Nine
Sophie paused, uncertain how much to reveal about herself.
“I want to be able to take care of myself. I want my own business and to make decisions for myself.”
“Did some man do this to you? Make you not want marriage?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You sound like you know a different way is all.”
She didn’t reply.
“You’re not afraid of me.”
“No.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
She looked at him in the twilight. “I think I do. And because of that it’s me I don’t trust.”
“Are you afraid of what you might feel if you let yourself?”
She looked away without answering, studied the half moon shining down from the darkening heavens.
“Just how did you discourage Mr. Tripp anyway?” he asked.
“I told him I wasn’t the wife he was looking for, but that there were plenty of other eager prospects.”
“So he moved along to one of them.”
“Seems he has.”
“And you’re not jealous?”
“Goodness no.”
“You haven’t discouraged me.”
“Do I need to?”
“You askin’ if I’m going to pursue you if you don’t?”
“I’m not asking anything. You’re the one with all the questions.”
“Sorry. Just my nature I reckon.”
“It’s what makes you good at your job.”
The night stretched silently between them until he asked, “Where do you want this to go, Sophie?”
She shook her head. She didn’t know and she couldn’t say. All she knew amidst the confusion that was her life was that Clay had become part of her existence in a way she’d never anticipated any man could. That fact terrified and soothed her at the same time. If she was smart she’d call a stop to this right now. She wouldn’t let things get any more complicated than they were.
She’d had small selfish thoughts of using him for protection, of staying near so Garrett wouldn’t be tempted to seek her out or continue his threats. But she couldn’t do that. She’d be no better than the person she’d been before. Than the person Garrett had taught her to be.
A realization came to Sophie at that moment. A realization she wasn’t sure she could afford to recognize since she needed to be safe.
She wanted to change.
She’d been lying and deceiving people for so long that it had become second nature. She’d come to think of deceit as normal. But it wasn’t.
Clay wouldn’t lie if someone had a gun to his head. He had more character than a dozen of her or a hundred of Garrett put together.
But how could she change now? How could she tell the truth regarding anything without condemning herself to prison? She couldn’t. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
She would be assuming identities and pretending for the rest of her life.
Or she’d be in jail.
Not much of a choice.
An uncharacteristic sense of hopelessness swept over her. She blinked back the sting of tears.
&nbs
p; But he’d seen. “Sophie? What is it?”
How could a person be so kind? She’d never known tenderness or kindness, and the touch of his hand on hers made her want to let down her defenses and sob.
But she didn’t. She was stronger than that. She was a survivor. She’d been through a lot worse than this and she wouldn’t crumble now.
“What makes you so sad?”
She shook her head.
“Can I help?”
Only if he could find Tek Garrett and shoot him in the heart without any questions asked. She shook her head again, stood and studied the now dark sky. In the distance the jangle of an off-key piano blended with laughter and a far off train whistle, but she felt safely cocooned where she was.
Clay remained seated but took her hand and raised it to his lips. His warm breath and a soft kiss sent a tingle up her arm, and her breasts tightened unexpectedly.
Sophie brought her other hand to her breasts in surprise and closed her eyes to the night, giving herself over to the sensations he created within her.
“Your fingers smell like…tobacco.”
She attempted to pull her hand away, but he grinned and held on. Clay kissed each of her fingertips, then turned her hand over and pressed his lips against her palm.
She turned toward him then, her heart racing and her head a jumble of confusion. “What is this insistent yearning you make me feel?” she asked. “What causes this flurry of anticipation and expectancy? Why is it I can’t turn away or run or do what I know is best?”
Releasing her hand, Clay got to his feet where he towered over her and bracketed her face between his hard palms.
“I don’t have fancy answers for you, Sophie. My life has always been simple. Black and white. I take life as it comes, and I just know I feel good when I’m with you. And I think about you when we’re not together. It’s not complicated for me.”
A good man. An honest straightforward man. He was as different from her as the moon was from the sun. She shouldn’t let this go one moment longer, because thinking of the two of them together was hopeless.
The Lawman's Bride (Harlequin Historical Series) Page 9