Jacy would never forget the difficulty she had summoning enough courage to come to this office the first time. Each succeeding visit had been only marginally less wrought with panic, which, she decided, spoke well of the power of desperation.
She watched Wes Hardin now, hands stuffed into the pockets of his black worsted trousers. He was obviously feeling the effects of a night of revelry. Rumor held him to be one of the heaviest drinkers and most womanizing men in town.
She doubted neither, but since he had treated her like a lady from the first, she soon lost her fear of the man himself, driven again by the power of desperation. After being turned down by practically every other lawyer in El Paso, she would have worked with the devil if he could help secure Hunter a new trial.
And if Hunter received a new trial, Wes Hardin would be the one to thank. Thus, she had been doubly taken aback to learn that Trevor was staying at his apartment.
“I’ve been down and out a few times myself,” Hardin explained, characteristically downplaying his notorious past. “You, however, are a lady of tender sensibilities. I must warn you what I learned from Arizona.”
“You heard from Tom Guest?” Tom, her father’s oldest and closest friend, was their only contact with the authorities in Arizona. Rather, Tom was Wes Hardin’s contact, for Jacy had not been able to establish direct contact with anyone. She sat on the edge of her seat now, anxious to hear the latest news, yet fearing from Hardin’s manner that she would not like what he had to say. She was right.
“A new trial is out of the question,” he told her. “According to Guest, all efforts have failed in light of Fallon’s escape.”
“Trevor’s escape?” Hadn’t she feared as much? Anguish lodged like a lump of unrisen dough in her throat. His escape? What about his claim that he hadn’t escaped? That he had been released in the black of night? Uncertain whether to repeat the story, she finally decided against it, partly from fear of being chastised for believing it. Last night she thought it too far-fetched to have been concocted. She believed Trevor.
She wanted to believe him. Then Wes Hardin handed her the letter from Tom Guest, and any possibility of believing Trevor vanished like ink washed from a page by tears.
“Second paragraph.” Hardin indicated the letter, which was written in bold script on heavy vellum. “The part about the Yuma guard who disappeared the night Fallon escaped.” He fell silent while Jacy found and read the paragraph.
The body of the guard named Yancy, who disappeared the night Fallon escaped from Yuma Prison, has been located a few miles into Mexico. His throat was slit.
The scroll-like squiggles of black ink swam in Jacy’s vision. As blackness closed in, she slid back in the chair. The letter hung idly in a limp hand. She was hardly aware when Hardin took it from her.
“Dangerous,” he repeated. “Anyone who would slit the throat of a guard is a dangerous man, Miss Kimble.”
Jacy fought nausea. Until this moment she hadn’t considered how much she wanted to believe Trevor. “How did he explain this?” Had Trevor known about the guard being found when he plied her with lies the night before?
“I haven’t mentioned it.”
When she shot him an accusing glance, Hardin added, “The letter was in the box this morning when I arrived. I haven’t seen Fallon to confront him.”
“Will you turn him over to Selman?”
Hardin held her anxious gaze unwaveringly. “Are you that certain of his guilt?”
“No. I mean…” Discomfited, Jacy jumped to her feet and crossed to the window, looked out across El Paso Street to the Gem Saloon beyond. But all she saw was stars.
Stars glittering in a velvet sky, while she sat mesmerized by Trevor’s impossible tale of being freed from Yuma Prison.
“I don’t know,” she said at length. But the doubt made room for another, unthinkable horror. Hunter! She turned to Hardin. “Is there any news about my brother?”
“None. Are you expecting something?”
“I don’t know.” Again she was uncertain whether to divulge her late night conversation with Trevor. She felt somehow that it was akin to betraying him; yet, if she truly believed in his veracity, she would tell Hardin in a minute.
Wouldn’t she?
“I’ve been worried that the officials might take revenge on Hunter.”
“You mean for Fallon’s escape?”
She nodded.
“No word of that. The Chinese underground should have learned of anything out of the ordinary.” He motioned behind them toward Overland and Organ, beyond which lived the several thousand Chinese inhabitants of El Paso. Hardin had mentioned the Chinese underground before. Jacy wasn’t certain what he meant by the term.
“Out of the ordinary?” she snapped. “I don’t suppose that includes hanging.” Realizing she could not afford to alienate her only ally, she added, “I’m sorry.”
“Not in a prison, no ma’am, hanging is not out of the ordinary. But if Hunter Kimble had been executed, you can bet it would have made the papers. Everyone would be talking about it. So rest assured.” He patted her shoulder.
She sighed, repositioning her thin black rebozo over her dingy white blouse. “Thank you for your kindness,” she said. “And for seeing after Tía Bella’s problem. I don’t know when we will be able to pay you.”
He stroked one side of his black mustache and smiled. “This is on me, ma’am. Repayment, if you will, for those who helped my dear mother and dearly departed wife when I made things rough on them.”
She returned his smile, hers rueful. “It’s comforting to know the Kimbles are not the first family to worry over recalcitrant men.”
“Recalcitrant is one of the nicer things I’ve been called, Miss Kimble. Go on back to your brood and try not to worry. I won’t give up trying to get through to those Arizona thugs.”
“Thank you.”
“And heed my advice about Fallon. At least until we know the whole of the matter.”
Not trusting her voice, she nodded and headed down the staircase. It was easy for him to say. But she was the one embroiled in it. Ignoring Trevor would be all well and good, if he left them alone. Or if there were any other way to help Hunter.
One thing was certain. She couldn’t let him talk to Drummond. Throughout the long night, she had pondered his question. Hunter’s life or Drummond’s sanity? If it came down to that, the answer was clear. She would risk her father’s sanity to save Hunter’s life. Drummond would expect that of her.
Now things had changed. If Trevor had murdered that guard…The chill that gripped her in Hardin’s office returned to race down her spine. Strangely, she felt more alone than ever. She wished Hardin hadn’t told her about Yancy.
Ana Bowdrie was one thing. Bad as it was, murder in a heated argument was different from slitting a man’s throat.
Or was it? If Trevor had been desperate enough to break out of prison, he would certainly have been caught in a rage of passion that would enable him to slit a man’s throat. If that man stood between him and freedom.
Oh, what should she do? She knew the right answer—go straight to the authorities. Or back up these stairs and tell Wes Hardin the tale Trevor told her the night before. Let him decide whether to turn Trevor in.
Turn Trevor in. The phrase left her feeling so hopeless she forgot for a moment where she was, where she had been, where she was headed. She stepped onto the boardwalk and straight into a man’s hard, muscular frame.
Trevor. Her heart leaped to her throat.
He grabbed her by the arm and without speaking a word dragged her into the alley that ran along one side of the Wells Fargo Building. When he backed her against the wall, his presence covered her like a shadow. He filled her vision. He was back. Dangerous, Wes Hardin said.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded before she could say a word. She could tell he was furious.
Well, she was angry, too. Anger warmed the chill inside her. Anger and the stifling El Paso heat and
the touch of this man. “Walking down the street.”
“I meant upstairs. Do you know who that man is?”
“John Wesley Hardin, attorney at law.”
“John Wesley Hardin, murderer.”
“Murderer? Who’s calling the kettle black?”
“Damnit, Jace, he’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous? Now that’s funny. Not five minutes ago he used that exact same word to describe you.”
He stared at her long with those hard brown eyes, while she watched her statement sink in.
“What were you doing with him?” he asked again.
“Jealous?” Why had she said that? Why did she revert to her old self when she was with this man? “I take that back.”
“Can’t.” His face loomed close. Even knowing the truth, the old hum began to play inside her. His eyes held her prisoner. “The answer is yes.” His voice was silky soft. She thought she might be the only person in the world who had ever heard it that soft and sensuous.
“I’d be mighty jealous,” he was saying, “if I thought there was reason.”
Wes Hardin’s warning rang in her ears. His warning to stay away from Trevor. But Hardin didn’t know Trevor. Not like she did. Not like she thought she did. “You don’t think Wes Hardin would be attracted to me?”
“Oh, he’d be attracted all right. But he’d have sense enough not to act on it, unless you…”
She watched memories assail him, the old shared memories she hadn’t allowed herself to recall until now, in his presence, when forgetting was impossible. “Unless I what, Trevor? Threw myself at him, like I did at you?”
He grinned. “Those were the days, Jace. The best of my life.”
She summoned a measure of sanity, faked though it was. “Those days are dead and buried.” The phrase rang ominously in her ears. “My life isn’t over. So turn me loose and let me get on with it.”
“You haven’t answered my question.”
“John Wesley Hardin is my attorney.”
“There are plenty of other attorneys in El Paso.”
“Not for the sister of a convicted murderer,” she spat. “Or for the daughter of a deposed Arizona politician who was run out of the state and reduced to living in a hovel in—”
Before she could finish he had drawn her to his chest and pressed her face into the crook of his shoulder, effectively stopping her tirade. She felt him breathe heavily against her. Her breath came short, too. She trembled all over. It took all her concentration not to reach her arms around him and pull him closer yet.
How good it felt to be in this man’s arms. Inside she melted. For five long years she had dreamed of these arms, powerful, protective arms. Regardless how hard she tried not to, how much she tried to hate him for being with Ana Bowdrie, she could not. She had yearned to feel his arms around her, deeply, desperately yearned.
“What do you need an attorney for?” he questioned into the top of her head. She felt his hot breath clear to the tips of her toes.
Shaking herself out of the hypnotic state, she pulled away and glanced quickly from side to side. No one had seen.
“I wasn’t turning you in, if that’s what you think.”
He didn’t answer, but she could tell by his intense, delving gaze he had considered the likelihood. Relenting, she explained, “Tía Bella almost got put in jail last night. I engaged Wes Hardin to quiet down the constable and straighten out the mess.”
“Tía who?”
“Mari’s aunt. Tía Bella. The woman we’re living with. She’s a little too doddering to be trusted with the mail, postmistress or not.” She grinned and his eyes softened on her. The slow melt inside felt so good, too good. She dropped her eyes.
But there was no safe haven, not standing this close to Trevor. There were only his lips, which brought kissing him to mind; his neck and chest, which brought snuggling against him to mind. She closed her eyes, inhaled the essence of him, the compelling, masculine essence she had dreamed of for five long years.
“What’d she do?” he asked, and even Jacy could tell Tía Bella was the farthest thing from his mind. Oh, God, she wanted to kiss him.
She curled her lips together. “She answers other people’s mail. Without their knowledge. It began innocently enough. For years she wrote letters for people all over the area who couldn’t write, or those who wanted a special script. She’s very talented, actually. She can copy the most intricate scripts. Nowadays, though, there are plenty of calligraphers, so she has little business. So she writes to her own whims, whether someone hires her or not. She takes interesting letters up to the cemetery and reads them to Elmo, her departed husband. Then she answers those she decides need attention. This time she got caught.”
Trevor laughed softly at the story, sending tremors down Jacy’s arms.
“She didn’t approve of Miguel Flores’ attraction to Señorita Boneville,” she finished.
“Heartless,” he mused, his gaze burning into her.
“Not entirely.” Oh, God, his arms felt so good around her. She felt free. Happy. She wanted to stay here, right here forever. “Tía was thinking of Señora Flores when she wrote the señorita and told her in no uncertain terms to leave Miguel alone.”
Trevor whooped and the sound, so familiar, vibrated through Jacy’s senses like a thunderstorm after a long drought. To prolong the intimacy, she lengthened the tale.
“She threatened excommunication, although I’m not sure how much effect that had on Miss Boneville.”
His gaze melted over her like warm honey. “As if you didn’t have your hands full.”
It was a simple statement, often heard, overused, yet at this moment, spoken by this man, it was the truest of truths. It broke the spell. She did have her hands full; and for five long years she believed all her problems began and ended with one man—this man. Now he was back in her life and she didn’t know what to do. She wanted to rejoice. She wanted to rely on him. But he was not the solution to her problems. She must always remember that. He was her problem.
“I should turn you in,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Go ahead.” He dared her with his eyes, cocky, arrogant. Oh, God, he knew her so well. “Go ahead, Jace. Do it.”
She glanced down, squinched her eyes closed, willing herself not to succumb to the magnetism of him.
“I told you what it’ll cost to get me out of your life.”
She inhaled heavily, held her breath behind pursed lips.
“Let me talk to Drummond, Jace. That’s all. As soon as Hunter is safe, I’ll be history.”
History. Gone. She knew he would do it, too. Hadn’t he always told her he didn’t stick? Hadn’t he always warned her that he was a drifter, like his father. Born a drifter, always a drifter, he said often enough she would never forget it.
“I have to talk to him, Jace.”
They both knew he could talk to her father anytime he chose, which made believing him a liar all the more difficult. He wanted her approval. That, in turn, made believing him a murderer, not of one person but of two, almost impossible. Standing this close to him, inhaling his familiar essence, she felt juvenile things, things she hadn’t felt since she was young and life was simple.
“They found Yancy’s body,” she told him without prelude. He flinched.
“What?” When he gripped her shoulders, she felt him tremble but knew it could be her own inner quaking. In any case, it wouldn’t mean he was innocent, only that he feared getting caught.
“Say that again.”
“They found Yancy’s body.”
“How do you know this? When—”
“Wes Hardin had a letter from Tom Guest.”
“Go on.”
“Guest wrote that they found Yancy’s body a few miles into Mexico…” She lifted her head, looked him straight in the eye, and dreaded going on. For she had the worst feeling that she would see the truth the moment she spoke the words.
“Tell me, damnit.”
“His throat…wa
s…slit.”
Trevor’s eyes registered horror. Her relief was short-lived, however, for she realized that it could be horror that the body of the guard had ever been discovered.
After an indeterminable time, he shifted his hands to her face, cupped her jaw in damp palms. “As God is my witness, Jace, and you know He is, I did not murder that guard. He was alive the last time I saw him. The door closed on him. Locked him inside that damned prison. Inside.”
“You didn’t see anything else?” she asked, not because she believed him, but because she wanted to, desperately. She wasn’t so much interested in what he could remember, as in what he could say to convince her.
“Nothing. I watched the closed door until the shock wore off a bit and I realized that I had been deliberately set free. I took off through the brush—no rabbit was ever as scared, believe me—in the direction of Mexico.”
“Mexico,” she echoed, as if that confirmed his guilt.
“Jace, listen, that was by rote. Endless days and endless nights I planned every step of the way to Mexico and freedom. Every inmate in Yuma does. So I ran the way I had planned for maybe a mile. Then I came to my senses and knew I couldn’t run out on Hunter. Somehow, some way, I had to help him. Or at least figure out what the hell was going on.”
Jacy felt like a flywheel on a steam engine. She thought she might fly apart from the disparate emotions that clamored inside her. She wanted to believe Trevor. But she didn’t want to believe him because she wanted to. She wanted him to be telling the truth. Her heart beat with the labored heaviness of a funeral drum.
“I have to find the killer,” Trevor was saying. “Not Yancy’s killer, not first. Ana Bowdrie’s killer. Until I find that person, man or woman, Hunter is in danger. Far more danger than I’m in, I’ll tell you that. It gives me cold chills thinking about how Yancy stormed my cell and dragged me outside with never a word, until just before he closed the door.”
Jacy shuddered at the image. For five long years she had lived with a nightmare of what prison must be like. The walls, the bars, the huge locked doors. The nightmare had been at times unbearable, knowing Hunter was locked behind heavy iron doors. And Trevor. Yes, she hurt for him, too.
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