by Sharon Sala
“Trade you coffee and a biscuit for what’s in the case,” Denver said, grinning around the oversize bite he’d just taken.
Boone set the case down at Denver’s bare feet and then gave him a cool, studied stare.
“I think I’ll pass.”
Denver frowned. “Something wrong?”
“You tell me,” Boone said, and started back to his truck.
“Hey, don’t go off mad!” Denver shouted.
Boone turned, and the cold, hard glare on his face startled Denver enough that he sloshed hot coffee on his feet.
“What makes you think I should be mad?” Boone asked.
Having left that cryptic statement hanging in the air, Boone drove away, leaving Denver with scalded toes and a hundred thousand dollars in marked money.
Denver grabbed the money and then hurried inside. The boss wasn’t going to like being called on the job, but Denver didn’t much care.
Sunlight ricocheted off highly polished chrome, momentarily blinding the man behind the wheel as he came to a four-way stop just inside the city limits of Razor Bend. When the car phone rang, he answered without thought, unprepared for the sound of Denver Cherry’s voice.
“Hello?”
“It’s me,” Denver said.
The driver’s face underwent a dark change, from bland observation of the roadway to cold anger.
“What?”
“I just thought I’d let you know my new man did all right last night. Everything went off without a hitch. He just left.”
A rough curse slipped out of the driver’s mouth before he thought, but it was enough to let Denver know he’d been right in suspecting that something bad had gone down last night.
“Whatever you did, don’t do it again,” Denver warned. “You do, and I’m out.” Having said what he’d called to say, he hung up, then dropped into the chair. “Hell’s bells,” he muttered. “Am I the only one left with any sense?”
While Denver was making his call, Boone was making a side trip of his own. Although he was exhausted and needed to sleep, there was something else he needed much more. Whatever the captain had averted last night could have cost him his life.
All the way back from Dallas, his thoughts had been about Rachel. If he had died, would she have cared? He’d held her but briefly. He’d touched her face, but he wanted to touch her soul. He needed to know if her lips were as soft as they looked. He’d made love to her, but only in dreams. The urge to know her in the true sense of the word was making him crazy. The thought of losing her was worse than losing his own life.
And yet, as he turned off the road and into the driveway leading to her house, he knew he was losing his grip. He couldn’t lose someone he’d never had. Coming up here was wrong. It was dumb. It was dangerous. And yet, God help him, it had to be done. He wanted just to see her face, hear her voice. After that, maybe he could rest.
But when he got there she was gone.
Rachel boarded a plane in Oklahoma City and made a connection in Denver that took her straight into South Dakota. When she disembarked, instead of going for her luggage, she paused at the windows outside the skyline surrounding the terminal.
She stared until her eyes burned and the glare of the sun against the plate glass made her flesh damp with perspiration. As she stood at the window looking out on the horizon, a stocky middle-aged man in business attire paused beside her, noting her intense expression.
“I know how you feel,” he said. “It’s always good to get home, isn’t it?”
Rachel turned, her eyes wide and a little stunned. “Oh, I don’t live here,” she said. “In fact, this is my first visit.”
“My mistake,” he said, and then added as he started to walk away, “You just had that look.”
“What look?” Rachel asked.
“Oh...you know...the kind of look soldiers have when they get pictures from home. Like they’ve left a piece of themselves behind with those they love. I just assumed...” He shrugged. “Anyway, have a nice day, miss.”
He walked away, leaving Rachel to wonder if what he’d said was true. On the surface, everything around her seemed foreign. But was there a part of her, a subconscious part, that was rejoicing in a long-awaited return? She shuddered. At this point, the thought didn’t bear contemplation.
A day later, she learned one irrefutable fact: Trinity was no more.
But it had been there once, a small but thriving boomtown located somewhere between Lead and Deadwood. That it had ever existed was a shock in itself. She’d been braced for defeat, and instead she was getting answers she hadn’t been prepared to find.
But her search for any sort of trail to Mercy Hollister or an outlaw named Dakota was fruitless, until the curator at a wild West museum showed her into a room filled with memorabilia of Wild Bill Hickok and his days in Deadwood. Even then, she almost missed it.
An old, fragile and very yellowed newspaper had been put on display behind a glass frame. The headlines were all about Hickok and a gunfight he’d had. But it was an item in the lower right-hand corner of the paper that caught her eye. And it was the lead line that sent her to her knees, her nose pressed against the glass as she read.
Outlaw dies at lover’s hands
When she was through, it was all she could do to get up.
“Dear, sweet Lord,” Rachel whispered, and wanted to run as far and as fast as her legs could carry her. She’d come hundreds of miles for the truth, and now that it was staring her in the face, she felt nothing but panic.
Not only had Mercy Hollister been real, but, according to this article, she’d been responsible for the death of an outlaw called Dakota Blaine. It didn’t make sense. The visions she’d been having were of a man and a woman in the deep throes of love, not a woman in fear for her life—or afraid of the man. How had this happened? What could possibly have changed between them to bring them to such a sorrowful end?
Rachel flushed, then turned pale as she fought to keep from passing out. Only the fact there were other people in the room kept her sane and silent.
“Okay, okay. So they were real. That doesn’t tie me to them,” she muttered, then went limp with defeat.
The very fact that she’d been reliving their lives tied her firmly to them, whether she liked it or not. When she finally trusted herself to walk, she went outside and caught a cab back to her hotel. It was time to go home.
And home she was. When Rachel landed in Oklahoma City once again, it was raining. The damp, dreary day went well with her state of mind. When she boarded the plane in Rapid City, she’d been in shock. The flight back home had been hell, as she struggled with what she had learned. The past three days had changed her perception of the world. She didn’t want to be anyone but herself, but what she wanted might have to take a back seat to who she had been.
Granted, she was back in Oklahoma, but the facts she’d brought home still gave her no answers. Yet as she started the long drive to Razor Bend, there was one fact she couldn’t ignore. Boone MacDonald’s appearance in her life had triggered everything that was happening to her. Therefore, he must also be the key to making it stop.
The next morning she entered her boss’s office with a letter requesting an indefinite leave of absence. Not only was her request granted, but his unexpected concern and offer of help sent her out of the office with tears in her eyes.
Which was exactly how Charlie Dutton first saw her. He grabbed her by the arm and spun her around as she started to pass him by.
. “Hey! Is that any way to treat your partner?”
Rachel looked away, unwilling for him to see her tears, but she was too late.
“You’re crying.”
Rachel gave him a lopsided grin. “No, my eyes are leaking.”
“Same thing,” he muttered. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Really.”
“The same nothing that prompted the three-day absence?”
“Sort of.”
“Look, it’s probably none of my
business, so if you don’t want me to butt in, just say so.”
“So.”
He glowered. “Damn it, Rachel, you’re my partner. Consider yourself butted. I want to know what’s going on.”
His mangled grammar made her laugh. “Charlie, you sweet-talking charmer. You have such a way with words.”
He glowered, refusing to be deterred. “What’s wrong? And why aren’t you in uniform?”
This was going to be rough. “I’ve decided to take a leave of absence.”
“I knew it! Something is really wrong. You wouldn’t be doing this if...” His face darkened. “It’s a guy, isn’t it?”
She flushed.
“It can’t be that stupid banker, because you were the dump-er, and he was the dump-ee. It’s not him, is it?”
“No, Griffin has nothing to do with my decision to—”
“Son of a—” Her grabbed her by the arm in sudden anger, pinning her until she had nowhere to look but at him.
Rachel struggled. “Charlie, let me go!”
“It’s that man I saw you with. That...that...damned outlaw, isn’t it?”
Rachel glared. She wouldn’t answer, because she couldn’t lie, and if she said it was true, Charlie would have Boone’s head before she could explain what was wrong. And, dear God, how to explain what was going on?
“I’m going to kill him,” Charlie muttered, and dragged Rachel out of the hall to a secluded part of the station. “Did he hurt you? Are you, uh... Is there any way you could be...?”
Rachel gasped, her eyes wide with shock. “Good Lord, no!”
Charlie flushed, then looked away. “Well,” he muttered, “I had to know.”
“He doesn’t have anything to do with it,” Rachel said, and then bit her tongue at the lie. “I’ve been having some personal problems. Until I get them all worked out, I don’t feel it’s in my patients’ best interest that I be less than focused, do you?”
“Is that the best excuse you could come up with?”
“Just about.”
He slumped, his hands shoved in his pockets. “I have a new car, a new haircut, I even have a new suit. Who am I going to impress if you’re not here?” Tears came again, and Charlie groaned when he saw them in her eyes.
“Well, damn it, I was just kidding,” he muttered. “I already have too many girls as it is. Practically have to beat them off with a stick.”
Rachel laughed, then caught her breath on a sob. “Take care of yourself,” she said. “I’ll be seeing you.” Then she walked out the door.
“Yeah, right,” Charlie muttered. “See you around.”
Rachel exited the station with her head down, blinking back tears with fierce intent. She needed a hole to crawl into and a shoulder to cry on, but she didn’t think the pair would compute. Not unless she found a willing gopher or a very small man. Unfortunately for her, before she reached her car, she had her man—just not the one she wanted.
“Rachel, I’ve been trying to catch you for...”
Griffin Ross paused, at a sudden loss for words, when he saw the tears in Rachel Brant’s eyes.
“Why, sweetheart, what on earth is wrong?”
His sympathy was her undoing. She shook her head and tried to duck into her car, but he would have none of it. To her dismay, he took her in his arms.
“Griff, don’t,” she muttered, and ducked out from under his grasp, then out of his reach.
“You’ve been crying!”
She rolled her eyes. The men she knew were so astute.
“People do that sometimes, you know.”
“But why?” he asked.
“Frankly, Griff, it’s none of your business,” Rachel said, and got into her car and drove away, leaving him to think what he would of it all.
Boone came out of the auto supply store carrying a new jack. Snake had proclaimed an innocence that Boone didn’t buy, but he’d made a believer out of Snake, just the same. Now, when the gang was all together at Denver’s house, Snake gave him a wide, cautious berth, which was fine with Boone. The less he had to do with the man, the better off they would both be.
A flash of color caught his eye as he put the jack in the bed of the truck. He turned. Relief surged. It was Rachel. She was back!
He glanced at his watch, noting the time, and wondering why she wasn’t in uniform. Then he shrugged and got into his truck.
I’m making a big deal out of nothing. Shifts change.
And yet, as he drove down the street to the Adam’s Rib Café to have lunch, he couldn’t help remembering the look on her face. She’d seemed upset.
Tonight I’ll go see. She won’t even have to know I’m there.
The night was clear and dark. The threat of rain had passed. Countless stars dappled the dense black sky as a breeze rustled leaves just starting to turn color.
Rachel slept warm and snug beneath her covers, unconcerned that, outside, an oncoming frost was dropping the temperature by degrees. Her sleep was deep and dreamless. She never knew when it began to change.
She rolled onto her back, her eyes wide open and fixed on a scene only she could see. Panicked, she shoved the covers aside and bolted from the bed, running through the house on bare feet, once nearly tripping on the tail of her white flannel. gown. Her subconscious mind was in total control. Locks turned. Doors were opened, then closed behind her, as if someone else were performing the acts.
Rachel ran from the house, unmindful of the dew-damp grass or the growing chill in the air. She moved as a woman in terror, struck dumb by the sight of what lay before her. In her mind she was shouting, but no sound ever came from her lips.
All she could see was the man in the canyon below her. The scent of gunpowder filled her nostrils. The sun beamed down upon her head. She lifted her arm and screamed. It came from so far within her that it moved past her mind and into the present, breaking the silence of the Kiamichis. Moments later, pain shattered the dream. She fell to her knees in the grass, with tears streaming down her face.
Boone braked as his headlights flashed on a deer racing across the narrow ribbon of blacktop. Its magnificence was illuminated as it paused, momentarily stunned by the bright glare of the lights in which it had been caught. The rack of antlers spreading out from its head gleamed, a bejeweled crown on the king of the mountain. Then the animal moved and, like a shadow, was gone.
Boone accelerated carefully, cognizant of the fact that another deer could be waiting just around the next bend.
A mile farther up the mountain, that caution saved him from hitting the woman who ran from the trees and straight into the glare of his lights. She ran with eyes wide open and tears on her face.
It was Rachel.
He hit the brakes, jamming the truck into park as he grabbed for the door. Within seconds, he was out of his truck and running toward her with his weapon drawn. Convinced that she was fleeing for her life, he crouched with his gun aimed into the darkness behind her, aiming at an unknown foe as she let out a scream and fell onto her knees in the ditch at the side of the road.
Chapter 9
Gritting her teeth, Rachel clutched at her head, only vaguely aware of the cold and the damp and a blinding white light.
“Oh, God, make it stop,” she begged, rocking back and forth on her knees and digging her fingers into her hair as the pain ripped through her brain like grasping tentacles.
But when she was lifted from the ground and held fast against a wild, beating heart, she went limp, absorbing the warmth of a body and the strength from the arms in which she was held.
She sighed as a low, urgent voice murmured near her ear. “Rachel! What happened to you?”
She couldn’t focus, and even as she spoke, the sound of her own voice in her ears wracked her head with a fresh wave of pain. “Who—?”
“It’s me. Boone.”
She blinked, her head lolling against his arm. She tried hard to focus on the dark, shadowy face silhouetted above her, but the light from behind him was too bright and
the pain in her head still too great. She clutched weakly at the front of his jacket, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Home... I want to go home.”
Boone turned, holding her tight. Seconds later, she was on the seat beside him. By the time he reached her house, tears were streaming down her face. In all his years on the force, he’d never been this scared. Hesitancy was in his voice as he reached for her, wanting to hold her. “Rachel?”
She leaned toward him, and it was all the invitation he needed.
“Come here, baby,” he said softly. “Let’s get you in the house.”
She went into Boone’s arms as if she’d been doing it all her life. As he carried her up the walk, something hard and cold and hidden way deep inside him began to unfold. And when he carried her into her house and kicked the door shut behind him, he had an overwhelming sense of having finally come home.
The rooms were warm, a safe shelter from the cold and the night. He sat her on the side of her bed, and she stayed, like a misbehaving child who’d been put in a corner. Then he tossed his jacket on a nearby chair and knelt down before her.
“Rachel...can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Speech was impossible. All she could do was hang on to the bed as the light in her room changed from bulb to wick and the covers from patchwork and cotton to red velvet and white satin.
Dakota looked up at Mercy with a smile on his face and a promise in his eyes. His fingers were soft and gentle as his hand moved up her thigh.
Mercy shivered with longing and leaned back on the bed, waiting for this man to work his magic.
He hooked his forefinger in the top of her stocking and started pulling it down, inch by agonizing inch.
Mercy sighed and then groaned as he lowered his head, fervently kissing a dimple near the bend of her knee. Digging her fingers into his thatch of black hair, she urged him back up until he was kissing her mouth instead.
Rachel blinked, as if refocusing her gaze, and for the first time since she’d been lifted from the middle of the road, she knew her rescuer for who he was. The dark eyes, the hard-edged features in a cold, handsome face. Black hair and leather, Levi’s and boots.