by Jill Gregory
Sure enough, a corpse was strapped to the top of the coach, wrapped in a blood-soaked horse blanket beside a pile of baggage.
“That a passenger, Slim?” Waylon asked as Myrtle gasped in horror beside him.
“Nope. One of the varmints who tried to rob us!”
“You shot one?” Ernest gazed approvingly at the sweating, dust-caked face of the driver as he leaped down from the coach and threw open the door. “Good work, Slim—”
“ ‘Fraid I cain’t take credit for it, or Raidy neither,” the driver said, interrupting. With one quick motion, he let down the stagecoach steps.
“Well, if you didn’t shoot him, then who—?”
“She did.” He jerked his thumb toward the door of the coach as a bright-eyed young woman gracefully alighted.
Behind her straggled a batch of other passengers: a portly silver-haired man; a matron in black bombazine and high-laced boots, and a gawky young fellow with spectacles perched on his thin, high-bridged nose and carrying a satchel over his arm. But no one in the welcoming committee paid any of them the least heed—they all stared with varying degrees of amazement at the slender, dark-haired girl in the sapphire-blue silk traveling dress who paused in the street and regarded them with quiet appraisal. For a moment there was silence as the sun beat down, the horses tossed their heads, and the wind whistled down from the mountains.
Then the girl straightened her shoulders, pushed back a loose tendril of her heavy hair, and strode across the street with brisk, assured steps. She addressed the welcoming committee curtly.
“Someone kindly send for the sheriff. I would greatly like to finish this business at once and be on my way.”
Thus Rebeccah Rawlings arrived in her new hometown of Powder Creek. While the townsfolk looked her over with good old-fashioned curiosity, gaping and whispering among themselves, she gripped her reticule in weary fingers and managed, as she had for the last several hours, to keep from retching.
She’d never killed a man before. She’d shot at some and target-practiced at tin cans, tree stumps, and even coins tossed in the air, but never had she aimed her gun at a man and meant to kill him. Until today.
But that desperado had actually fired inside the coach—he could have killed any one of the passengers, herself included, and no one else had seemed inclined to do anything. So she had done what Bear had taught her to do—shoot back, defend herself. Afterward she’d wanted to scream, moan, and vomit out her guts, but she couldn’t. Too many people around. She’d have looked like a weak little fool.
And she was hardly that. She forced her shoulders straighter. She was Bear Rawlings’s daughter. She was far too tough to flinch or cry or even ponder about the life she’d snuffed out with the squeeze of a trigger.
And she couldn’t ever forget it, even for a moment. She had too many enemies now, she reflected. For a moment her stomach clenched as she remembered the man who had accosted her in Boston before she set out. Neely Stoner had sent him to scare her. As if she were a sniveling coward who would have turned over the papers to the silver mine even if she had them!
But Neely’d tried to get them anyhow. She knew he—and the others—would try again. It was possible, Rebeccah acknowledged with a cold pinprick of fear, that she had even been followed to Montana, that somehow the men who were after those papers had found out about the ranch. And that meant that sooner or later—probably sooner—some mean, greedy hombres would show up to steal them or force her to hand them over.
She couldn’t let her guard down even for a moment, couldn’t let herself go soft or weak. If she did, Neely and the rest would close in for the kill.
Through her weariness and the bilious waves of nausea, she exerted every effort to appear brisk and unconcerned. She allowed herself a swift glance around the town and drew comfort from what she saw. In all the years she’d been away in Boston, she’d forgotten just how rough and primitive frontier towns were. This one was as rough as any of them. But something inside her lifted at the sight of Koppel’s General Store with its large swinging sign and false front, at the apothecary and dry-goods stores alongside it, even at the numerous saloons lining both sides of the narrow street. She gazed quickly about at the rough wooden boardwalk and hitching posts, at the water troughs and the dusty street filled with cowboys, merchants, horses, chickens, and dogs, at the women in homespun calico clutching babies in their arms. Her gaze rose to sweep over the wide-open stunning blue horizon.
The sky was huge as heaven. The towering Rockies loomed majestically in the distance, dotted here and there by tiny crystal lakes that glimmered like miniature sapphires among the high firs and pines. At the feet of the cobalt mountains the valleys were lush and breathtaking with late-summer flowers: poppies, asters, Indian paintbrush, lilies, and white and purple heather.
Montana was a land of glittering beauty—sharp mountains, jade prairies, bluegrass, laurel, red cedar, and spruce.
And space—shining clean, tingly, wide-open space, where she could breathe and ride free and lose herself—and lose her memories, every single one of them.
Her gaze returned almost dazedly to the scene before her—the street with its wandering chickens, the dogs, children, horses, and buggies all part of this raw little town before her—and she took hold of herself with quick effort. But deep inside she felt glad—quietly, joyfully glad.
She was free. Free of Boston. Free of Miss Elizabeth Wright’s Academy for Young Ladies, free of that horrid, stuffy brick building trimmed in ivy, free of the cramped little room that she’d called home the past two years. She was free now of the dry, tasteless meals at table, the prim stares of the rest of the teachers, any of whom would have probably fainted away at the sight of this wild western town. No more schedules, prissy gowns buttoned up to the neck, long days teaching literature to girls who never bothered to pick up a book. This was home now. Not this town precisely, or any of these staring people. But once she rode out to the ranch, found it in its lovely little valley, threw open the door of the ranchhouse her father had bequeathed to her, and stepped inside, she would be home. And the moment she unpacked her own belongings, her books, her piano music, her paintings, she’d be free for good.
Weary as she was from her journey, from the violence of what had happened this very afternoon, from the bloodshed in which she had been forced to play a part, she knew a taut pulling of anticipation, of longing as she thought of the ranch. She couldn’t wait to get there, to be alone, at peace in her very own home.
“Ma’am, are you telling us that you shot that varmint up there?” Ernest Duke couldn’t believe his ears. This elegant, spectacularly lovely female dressed in all that silky, lacy finery, with those feathers sticking out of her little blue velvet hat, and her dress so fine—a little crumpled but rich-looking for all that—this girl had killed an outlaw? He peered at her incredulously, unable to conceal his doubt. “With what, may I ask?”
Rebeccah’s intense violet eyes skewered him. “Are you the sheriff, sir?”
Ernest took a step back beneath that blistering stare.
“Why, no. I’m Mayor Duke. But—”
“I prefer to tell my story to the sheriff.” She turned away from him with a dismissive wave of her gloved hand, let her glance flit over Myrtle Lee’s bulky form, and allowed it at last to come to rest upon Waylon Pritchard’s sweating one.
“Would you be so kind,” she said in slowly distinct accents, as if speaking to a very small child or someone bereft of sense, “to fetch the sheriff to me? I have no wish to stand here in the sun for however many hours remain in the day.”
Waylon flushed beneath those large, brilliant, icy eyes. He had never seen a woman like this before. He’d thought Coral was beautiful, with her pale, curly hair and sweet light-green eyes, but this girl took his breath away. Regal as a princess she was and talked every bit as fine. Her face was heart-shaped, as delicately formed as his ma’s best china. Beneath that little feathered hat of hers, her skin glowed like fresh cream. He w
as fascinated by the way those eyes of hers tilted slightly upward at the outer ends. Most appealing. They were a rich, wild violet hue, so deep and brilliant, they put the poor sky to shame. She was tall, willowy—but not too willowy, he noted admiringly. A few wisps of jet-black hair had escaped her heavy chignon during the journey and now sprang rebelliously about her cheeks, adding dark, earthy drama to the beauty before him.
“Ma’am,” Waylon stuttered at last as she continued to stare at him with growing impatience, “I’ll be glad to fetch the sheriff for you. It’d be an honor. It’d be a privilege. I’d like nothing better than to do you this service.”
“Then git goin’!” the driver, Slim, bellowed, tossing baggage down onto the street.
And then someone from the crowd yelled, “Hold yore horses, Waylon! Here comes the sheriff now!”
And Rebeccah sighed with relief. At last. The crowd parted. She braced herself for the explanation ahead of her, for the tough stance she was prepared to take in order to get possession of the reward money. She had exactly forty-seven dollars in her reticule, all the money she possessed in the world, and it wasn’t nearly enough to build up and maintain a ranch. She would need every penny to survive on her own out here. The thought of how close she was to poverty frightened her, but she took refuge in knowing that at least she didn’t look poor. Anyone seeing her fine clothes and the ruby ring winking on her finger, the pearl choker at her throat, would think she was rich as Midas. But appearances, Rebeccah knew well, could be deceiving.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and peered through the opening in the throng. She had a deep-seated distrust and resentment of lawmen and was eager to get this business over with as rapidly as possible. The less she had to do with the sheriff of Powder Creek, the better, but she needed this money, and he was the only one who could get it for her. Rebeccah believed in facing up to difficult tasks immediately instead of putting them off. She’d dispatch matters with this sheriff, she told herself, and then get out to the ranch in time to sleep in her very own bed tonight.
She didn’t know precisely what she expected, perhaps a balding, middle-aged lawman with a paunch and red-rimmed eyes, or an ancient oak of a man, leathered and squinty and bow-kneed, but the man coming toward her with easy, purposeful strides was none of those things.
He moved with the grace of an Indian. Something about his height, the way he carried himself seemed oddly familiar.
Rebeccah felt a curious twisting of her heart. And then it began to hammer ...
He was tall, with wide, muscular shoulders beneath his blue shirt and leather vest. He had a lean, taut-muscled body and a flowing, dangerous gait. Don’t mess with me, his walk said. I don’t look for trouble, but I won’t run from it either.
Like him ... she thought on a wave of memory. Like him.
The sun glided westward, no longer hampering her vision, and she could see his face as he paused before her.
Rebeccah gasped.
It was his face, strong and stern and quiet. And strikingly familiar, even after all these years.
Wolf Bodine.
He was the same—and yet different.
He could be no more than thirty years old, but there was a grim hardness now in the set of his jaw, a sort of weathered toughness that had matured and intensified over the years. The cool gray eyes had tiny fine lines around their edges now, a hint of sadness or bitterness or perhaps harshness reflected in their clear depths—and they glinted like polished stones, missing nothing.
Oh, God. He was as handsome as she remembered—no, she realized dazedly, more so. The years had chiseled him, hardened him, stamped him with a keen, fine-honed ruggedness. His body was corded with muscle. His stomach was flat, his hips lean beneath his dark trousers.
Wolf Bodine.
How can this be? she thought with a quivering disbelief, her gaze taking in those compelling eyes, the clean-shaven jaw, the burnished chestnut hair that just reached the collar of his shirt. She trembled inwardly at the bronzed toughness of that never-to-be-forgotten face, lost herself in the long-lashed gray eyes that pierced her like tomahawks as she held her ground on the boardwalk. She was all too aware of the sinewy muscularity of his imposing frame, of his steady, quiet manner that was no less dangerous for all its calm. It was him.
She had seen him a thousand times in her memories, her dreams, her thoughts. He was the one ... the one she’d been foolishly, idiotically in love with since she was twelve years old.
Loco. That’s what she was. Loco to have thought all this time about a man she’d met as a child, a man she’d spent only moments with, a man who was her father’s enemy.
A man she’d left for dead on the dirt floor of a hideaway cabin in the middle of nowhere.
2
His badge glittered in the late-afternoon sun. Rebeccah clenched the silken strap of her reticule and worked at not letting her feet fidget. Bear always said her feet twitched when she was nervous. And lawmen always made her nervous.
Reflex, probably. She’d spent a good portion of her life running from the law.
But there’s no reason to be in such a tizzy over Wolf Bodine, she told herself desperately. You’re a grown woman now, nearly twenty-one years old, not a stupid little girl.
And you’ve done nothing wrong.
Besides, he didn’t remember her. He was staring at her with a cool detachment that held no trace of recognition.
Well, why should he remember a filthy kid who’d spit in his face and let him get clobbered with a Colt revolver?
Better if he never remembered any of that, she realized hastily. She gulped in a deep breath. She knew she’d scream if the silence went on another moment.
“Sheriff,” she blurted out, her words tumbling a shade too fast, “that man up there, the dead one, tried to rob our stagecoach. I shot him in self-defense. The driver says he is a wanted man by the name of Scoop Parmalee—of the Parmalee gang. There is a price on his head. I wish therefore to claim the reward money.”
He had his thumbs hooked in his gunbelt, and he was staring at her, staring hard.
“Have we met before?”
“No ... oo.” She went pink. The lie had just jumped out before she even realized it, and now it was too late to take it back.
His cool eyes studied her. “I’m reckoned to be good with faces.”
“How nice for you.” Sweat dripped down her armpits, dampening her gown.
“Ever been to Tucson?”
Relentless, that’s what he was. Typical lawman. Rebeccah’s nerves stretched taut. Think!
Her mind racing, she dropped her reticule to give herself more time. She wasn’t very good at this business of feminine wiles, but if ever there was a time for it, Rebeccah concluded, this must be it. The small bag struck the boardwalk with a thud.
Wolf Bodine moved not a muscle.
“Oh, dear.” She tried to sound helpless and dismayed.
Still he made no move to retrieve it for her. Instead he advanced closer. Rebeccah was intensely aware of his size, his strength. She breathed in the scent of him, a clean scent ... like cake soap and good leather and pine needles. With misgiving she saw the determination in his eyes as they pinned her coldly, ruthlessly.
Suspiciously.
“You didn’t answer my question, ma’am,” he said in a quiet drawl that was nevertheless purposeful. “Have you ever been to Tucson?”
“Never.”
Lies ought to come easily to her, but they didn’t. She met his gaze with tremendous effort, keeping her stare unflinching. Someone coughed behind her. The stagecoach driver threw down another trunk. Rebeccah’s feet itched to fidget. She knew she’d burst if she had to stare into those piercing eyes another moment.
In desperation she stooped to retrieve her own bag. As luck would have it, Waylon Pritchard bent to retrieve it at precisely the same moment.
Their heads banged together.
There was a resounding thump.
“Ouch!” she gasped, wincing and s
eeing stars as the pain rocked straight through to her skull.
“Dang it,” Waylon moaned, sinking onto the boardwalk.
Myrtle Lee Anderson guffawed. Mayor Duke tsked sympathetically, and the stagecoach passengers murmured concern as Waylon went on to curse out a string of colorful oaths. The rest of the onlookers laughed and began drifting away. They had chores to finish, work to do, and plenty of time to hear the gossip about the lady who shot Scoop Parmalee later.
Rebeccah’s head smarted from the force of the collision. She straightened with an effort, then a moment later staggered back, dizzy. Instantly Wolf Bodine’s hands shot out to steady her, preventing her from falling.
“Easy, there. You all right? Waylon, you clumsy oaf. Are you trying to help this lady or kill her?”
Pritchard, a bristly-bearded young man with the wit of a longhorn, hunkered down on the boardwalk and cradled his head in his hands.
“Aw, come on, Wolf. I was just tryin’ to be a gentleman, but this here lady has the hardest head I ever did come up against—”
“How dare you!” Stung out of her own pain, Rebeccah jerked free of Bodine’s grasp. The damnable temper she’d inherited from Bear flared up and galvanized her instinct to protect herself—for over the years she’d learned that if she didn’t do it, nobody would. “You’re the most clumsy, dim-witted fool ever to cross my path, you ... you obstreperous calamity. And give me back my bag!”
Bodine watched as the girl snatched her reticule from Waylon and smacked him in the shoulder with it. “Sheriff, are you going to give me that reward money or not?”
Bodine had to admire her for sheer orneriness. How could anyone who looked like such an elegant little angel be so full of spice and chili pepper? And this petite, violet-eyed angel was oddly familiar. But he couldn’t place her to save his life. Maybe it wasn’t Tucson ... but something nagged at him.
Regardless, she was trouble.
He knew it just by looking at her, by the lush cloud of velvet-black hair framing her dainty cheeks, by the imperious glimmer in those soot-lashed eyes, by the intelligent tilt of her majestic little chin. Trouble. He smelled it as surely as he smelled her fancy French perfume.