Kate’s gaze riveted to Cole’s. “Why would you ask me that? What would the likes of the … the Talmidges”—she all but spat the word out now—“have to do with me? I’m a nobody.”
“You’re hardly a nobody, Kate.”
His soft-spoken words, in a voice so sincere, unhinged her. She looked down at her lap, saw that she’d been knotting her fingers together … over and over. With all her heart, Kate wanted him to take her in his arms and hold her while she cried it all out, told him everything. More than that, she wanted him to tell her it would all work out and be okay. But she knew better. It wouldn’t be okay. And he wouldn’t take her in his arms. And so, she sat there, alone, isolated on her tiny wood box, and sniffed … about a moment away from tears.
“Kate? Look at me.”
She did. Then, surprising her, he reached over and brushed back a stray lock of her hair, even going so far as to tuck it behind her ear. Then he caressed her cheek … and smiled. Tears sprang to Kate’s eyes, but she couldn’t look away. Not even when he said, “You’re not a nobody. And I ought to know.”
She sniffed, bit at her lower lip … and raised her chin. “Why would you know? What makes you say that?”
He chuckled softly at that and then looked down and away for a moment. As if he were shy. That got Kate’s attention. He was shy around her? She never would have suspected that. Just then, Cole swung his gaze back to her. “I know, Kate, because I’ve watched you for nearly a week now. I’ve seen what you put yourself through. And I know what drives you. Your baby. I have a lot of respect for what you’re doing. Not every woman would have the strength or the courage to do everything you have.”
That was quite a speech for him, Kate knew. Not only for how much he said, but for all he said, too. “I don’t know what to say. Except that I believe every woman would do as I’ve done, Cole. She’d have to. She wouldn’t have a choice. Babies don’t just go away.”
She heard herself and thought of her recent bleeding. And knew she was wrong. Sometimes babies do just … go away. But blessedly, hers hadn’t. Then, something about the look on Cole’s face told her he was thinking the same thing … about her bleeding and nearly losing her child. She knew what remained unspoken between them. The bleeding could start again … at any moment. It hadn’t done so. But it could. Why do things happen the way they do? she wondered.
“Out loud, Kate.”
She started, seeing now the bemused expression on his face. “What?”
“What you were thinking just now … say it out loud.”
An embarrassed half-smile claimed her features, but she shrugged and said, “Okay. I was just pondering on why things happen the way they do.”
He nodded encouragement. “Such as?”
“Such as.…” She hesitated, wondering if she really wanted to take Cole Youngblood into her confidence. But then she remembered that only a few days ago it had been her plan to have him get to know her so well that he couldn’t possibly kill her or carry her off to Edgar Talmidge. She realized that now was the moment to act. “Well, here I am trying my best to get a piece of land and start a new life for me and my baby. Because, like you said, everything I do is for her—” Kate stopped, looked into his eyes. “Sometimes I think it’s a girl child. That’s silly, isn’t it?”
“No, Kate. Who would know better than the mother?”
Warmed by his words, which said he respected her female intuition, Kate smiled at him and then went on. “Well, like I said, everything I do—everything I try so I can make all that come true—is bad for her.” The baby suddenly became real to Kate. Always before, before this moment, she’d thought of the baby inside her as an it. But no longer. It was as if having spoken her belief aloud to someone had made the child real to the world, and not just to her. The eagerness of anticipation seized Kate. Her baby was a girl.
But suddenly she realized that Cole was frowning at her. “I don’t understand, Kate. How’s what you’re doing bad for your baby?”
She, coupled her words with a broad gesture meant to encompass the Oklahoma Country. “I mean all this, Cole. The jouncing around in the wagon. All the work. The hard walking I have to do. The bending and stretching. And lifting. The worrying—”
“What worries you, Kate?”
Wariness seized her. He’d certainly jumped on that. Even now, he was leaning toward her, no doubt in anticipation of her answer. Cautious, her chin raised, Kate shrugged, tried to play down her words. “Lots of things, I suppose. Like whether we’ll get the land I want. Whether we get it registered on time. And build on it quick enough, like the law says. Things like that.”
“Is that all?” He sat back with his question. But his posture was no less tense, Kate could see.
“It’s enough,” she allowed. “I’ve got the same worries as every other soul here, I expect. I’m no different from them.”
Cole considered her a moment, as if he were digesting her words. But he kept to himself how he might feel as he next asked her, “What else worries you, Kate?”
He was attempting to goad her toward some confession, she was sure of it. So she spoke only of things he already knew. “Well, the baby does, of course. I worry I won’t … carry her the full time. And then even if I do, she’ll be born around the end of November. So I worry what the weather will be like then. And what the winters are like out here. And I worry about being alone when my time comes.”
“Alone? No you won’t. The kids will be here with you. I know they’d not be much help. But I’ll try my best to be here with you, too. If you like.”
Kate frowned, drew back, her eyes narrowing. “I appreciate that, Cole. I do. But why would the kids still be with me? What about that cousin of yours? You think it’ll take you that long to find her?”
It was Cole’s turn to look away and to look uncomfortable. He inhaled deeply, as if his chest were tight, and then again sought her gaze. “I don’t intend to go find her, Kate.”
Stung by surprise—this was exactly what she’d first feared, and had then hoped for, and now worried about—Kate sat up stiffly atop the wood box under her. “That’s not part of our deal, Cole. You said—”
“I said a lot of things. So did you.”
Kate swallowed, thinking he didn’t know the half of it. Or did he? But still, she agreed with him. “Yes, I did. I said a lot of things. But that doesn’t change the fact that—”
“That you’re their aunt now.”
For some reason, that most obvious relationship still startled her. She was actual kin to Joey, Willy, and Lydia. “I am, aren’t I? But—”
“But nothing, Kate. It’s better for them to be with you than it is for them to be with some cousin who’s a stranger to them.”
“Cole, I was a stranger to them a week ago.”
“I know that. But they’ve”—his hesitation captured Kate’s attention—“come to care about you.” He again looked away, staring out into the night.
Kate’s heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t only talking about the kids, she suddenly knew. He meant himself. He’d come to have warm feelings for her. She couldn’t look away from him, from his strong and handsome profile. Imagine that. Cole Youngblood, hired killer. He cares about me. And even though as recently as only a few minutes ago she’d still hoped to get him to care, nothing could have made Kate feel worse. Because she feared she, in turn, cared very much about him. No, she didn’t only fear it … she knew it. She cared so much that she could hardly picture a future without him.
Kate now acknowledged to herself that she’d been having these thoughts for some time. She recalled considering, some days ago, keeping the kids permanently. Yes, because she had genuine feelings for each of them. But also because she knew that if the kids were with her, she could be assured Cole would come by from time to time to see them … and maybe, one day, her. Kate sighed under her breath. Was she using Charlotte Anderson’s kids to get her own way? She hoped not, because she truly wanted them with her. But more importantly, was s
he coming to love the woman’s brother? Quite possibly. Kate scolded herself, saying she had to quit wishing for things because darned if she didn’t keep getting them—and never in a good way.
But now that he had practically declared his feelings for her, Kate called herself a schemer. Because he didn’t really know her, not who she really was. So whatever he felt for her was based on lies. That insight startled Kate. Now where did that come from? She had to stop herself from giving in to the urge to look around for a third person, some shadowy body standing behind her and whispering these truths into her ear. Because this wasn’t like her, all this thinking about herself she’d done in the past week.
But maybe that was because before then she’d been an honest person. An innocent and honest person who’d had no need to question her every thought, her every action. She’d never before had to weigh every response first to see how it would affect her past words or even her next deed. But no more. She now knew so much about the intolerable ways of the world that she’d become a part of it. The world had sullied her, she knew—not only her reputation, but also her body. And now … it wanted to claim her spirit with the lies it had forced her to tell.
Kate was confronted with another truth, one she couldn’t allow herself to evade. If she did, she knew with blinding clarity, it would be at the steep cost of all that remained of that core of good nestled deep inside her. And that truth was … she couldn’t blame a faceless world for her troubles. Because that would be yet another lie. She had to accept that she, and she alone, through choices she’d made, had created her present troubles, which had put her right here at this lonely place, at this fireside, with this man … who’d just said he cared about her.
Kate exhaled sharply, knew what she had to do … and found it was her turn to say, “Cole? Will you look at me, please?”
Slowly, as if he were reluctant to do so, he turned to her. He looked at her. He met her gaze, yet he said nothing. He didn’t have to. It was there on his face. From his dark eyes shone the truth. He hated caring about her as much as she hated caring about him. There was no getting around it.
Which left her no choice but to try to set things right between them. She decided to start with the unraveling of one little lie from the tapestry of untruths she’d woven. Taking a deep breath for courage, she said, “You can’t leave those kids with me, Cole. It wouldn’t be right—even as much as I care about them. And I do. I care about them a lot. But…” Her hesitance now, right at the brink of a truth, disappointed her. She’d thought she could do it, but maybe she was so far gone that she couldn’t. Shame had her looking down at the very earth of the Promised Land that lay all around her.
“But what, Kate?” Cole asked in his quiet way.
She looked up, met his gaze. “They could get hurt if they were with me. And I don’t mean bumps or scratches, just growing-up things. I mean the truth is … they could get killed.” There. She’d said it. And this tiny bit of truth felt good, like a return to honesty.
Cole narrowed his eyes, sent her a sidelong glance. “Is that so? They could get killed? Who’d kill them? Someone like the Talmidges?”
Kate gasped at his words, at yet another intrusion of that name into the relative sanctuary that was their campsite. It seemed such a violation in light of her present thoughts, in light of wanting to do the right thing by those kids … and by Cole. But maybe, it suddenly occurred to her, this way was the path, the path meant to be all along. Enemies. Her and Cole. It seemed so. It certainly seemed he’d been heading in this direction all along in their conversation.
Then, so be it, Kate found herself thinking. She raised her chin, but still said nothing, wouldn’t answer him about the Talmidges. But her silence, she knew, spoke louder than any words she could say. Her silence damned her. But what difference did it make? It was already too late. For her. And for Cole.
Then Cole spoke again. “I’ve heard that Mrs. Talmidge has green eyes and black hair. Like yours.”
Kate’s heart thumped leadenly, angrily, in her chest. “Like mine? It seems I’m not all that remarkable, then, doesn’t it?”
Cole chuckled at her words, a humorless sound, a sound like that of a pistol being cocked. “Oh, I’d say you’re quite remarkable, Kate. Quite.”
He didn’t mean that as a compliment to her. She knew it. Yet she pretended to take it as such. “Thank you … I suppose.”
He black eyes glittering with the reflected flames from the campfire, he ducked his chin in acknowledgment. “You’re welcome.” Then he shifted his weight, bending his knees, resting his arms atop them and folding his hands together. He stared out into the night, focusing just above the fire’s flames. “You know, it’s a sad thing, really, for the Talmidges. All that money. All that power. And no children. No one to pass everything along to.”
Now he sought Kate’s gaze again and held it. “A thing like that could make a man desperate, I’d expect. Desperate for a child.”
He’s only guessing, Kate kept telling herself, as she licked nervously at her dry lips and yet refused to look away. He can’t know unless I tell him. “I suppose,” was all she would finally allow.
Cole stared right through her. Anchoring an elbow atop his bent knee, he cupped his jaw and chin with a hand … and considered her. Then, when Kate’s nerves were stretched taut, threatening to snap and shatter, he said, “Just tell me the truth, Kate. I think it’s time. Because I think they’re here. And I think you know it.”
Kate startled even herself when she jumped up. “No,” she blurted out, her voice no more than a hiss as she backed away, mindful of the buckboard wagon behind her. Cole was on his feet almost before she was. “No,” she said again. “You don’t know anything.” Her breathing became shallow, her temples pounded. She had to protect her baby at all costs. “You know nothing, do you hear me?”
Cole put a hand out to her, as if he meant to touch her. “Kate—”
She jerked back. “No. Don’t you touch me.” Cole lowered his arm to his side and stood there, a deep frown bracketing his mouth with tiny lines. “Leave me alone,” she warned, her voice breaking on a sob. She grabbed at her skirt, holding it up out of the way of her feet. “Don’t say a word. You don’t know anything. It’s my baby. Mine. You don’t know what I’ve been through.”
“That’s what I’m asking you, Kate. I want to know.”
A derisive noise escaped her. She continued backing up … until she hit against the wagon at her back. “I expect you do want to know. The truth would mean a lot to you, wouldn’t it?”
Cole stayed where he was, his chin coming up a notch, his gaze scrutinizing her. “What do you mean by that?”
“You tell me,” Kate challenged him as she glanced down, seeking his weapon. There it was, where he’d left it. On his bedroll and next to his feet. She saw too that he’d followed her actions and even now carefully considered her in light of that. Kate realized something else. She was losing control. And he had to know that. How could he not? But there was nothing she could do about it. Fear for her baby, more than for herself, and the realization that there was no longer a reason to pretend, had her on the edge of hysteria.
“What do you want me to tell you, Kate? I don’t know what you mean.”
She cocked her head at a questioning angle. “You don’t? How about all those times you said you wouldn’t shoot a woman? You want to talk about that? Here I am. And there’s your gun. Shoot me.”
Cole raked a hand through his hair. His every sharp-edged movement spoke of extreme agitation. “Why in the hell would I want to shoot you, Kate? You’re my wife, for God’s sake.”
“Ha. In name only,” she sneered. “And only because I forced you into the ceremony. And we both know that. So don’t let that stop you.”
“Dammit, Kate, stop me from what?”
“Stop you from doing your dirty work, that’s what. I read that telegraph in your saddlebag, Cole. I read it. And I know what it is you have to do. And so do you.”
; Sickened by her very words, terrified over what might happen next, Kate turned and fled … out into the night. Out of the comforting light of the campfire, her only home-fire for now. Out past other wagons, other would-be settlers. Out past freedom and hope.
Out past Cole Youngblood’s reach … but not his voice. “Kate! Come back. I’d never hurt you,” he called after her.
* * *
“Dammit!” The angry word shot like a bullet out of Cole’s mouth. His hands balled into fists, he kicked ineffectually at the dirt surrounding the campfire and continued to swear softly. Kitty’s hound-dog head popped out of the back of the schooner. Peering around the slackened canvas above the tailgate, he stared alertly in Cole’s direction.
Cole ignored him because Kate commanded his attention. She was rapidly disappearing from sight. As she threaded her way through the different encampments in the dark she was met by shouts of “Whoa, there” and “Hold on now, missy” from folks startled by her headlong passage. With practiced skill, Cole scooped up his six-shooter, unfurled the belt from around his holster, and strapped it on.
“Son of a bitch.” He’d meant what he’d said to her. Didn’t she know that? He wouldn’t hurt her. He couldn’t. Not ever. Because the truth was … he maybe loved her. That was as close as he could come to admitting it. But still, there wasn’t much sense anymore in denying the possibility to himself. It just took something like this—Kate’s endangering herself—to make him know it. Cole wanted to yell, because if something happened to her now, if she fell and hurt herself, he’d lose the only chance he had to find out. The only chance he had to tell her. And if that happened, he’d never forgive himself.
Cole hurried to tie the holster’s leather thong around his thigh while trying to catch glimpses of Kate’s retreating figure. She was at times swallowed up by the surrounding darkness, only to reappear moments later as she hit a patch of moonlight, or tore through yet another campsite. His gun finally on, his Stetson jammed on his head, Cole stepped over the schooner’s wooden tongue and marked her retreat. If she continued on in that direction, she’d end up at the creek where that afternoon he’d watered the mules and his roan.
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