“It’s okay, Papa.”
When he looked up again, tears were rolling down his face. She thought her heart might break for him.
“It’s over, Sis. All of it. Nothing we can do. I don’t want to talk about it. Not ever again.”
She tried to dry his tears, but he batted her hand away. Proud to the end, she thought. “All right, Papa.” She couldn’t let Hunter languish in that prison, or hang, as Trevor feared. Yet, she wouldn’t confront her father again.
She sat down beside him, took his speckled hands in hers. “Will you do me a favor?”
“What’s that?” he mumbled, belligerent even in defeat.
“Try to get yourself together. You’re still young.”
“Hmmmph!”
“Fifty-five isn’t old,” she argued. “You have your whole life ahead of you.” You were planning to be governor of Arizona Territory, she wanted to add, but didn’t. Any man who was strong enough to serve as governor should still be filled with vigor, not withering away. “I know this isn’t the best of situations, but if we all work together we can make something of our lives. I’ll do my part, Papa. I’ll stop wanting to go home. I won’t ever mention Arizona again. Work with me, Papa. We’ll build a new life. A good life. For the children. We don’t have to stay here. We can go into Texas. They say there’s good ranching country in central Texas. We can—”
“What do you have in mind, Sis? Stealing it? Rustling cattle?”
She inhaled a deep angry breath, stifling a retort. She wouldn’t fuss anymore. She would remain positive. She wouldn’t badger Drummond, but she would plan. He would come around.
Drummond Kimble had always been full of spirit. He would be again. She would see to that. After Hunter was released, Papa would be all right. All he needed was Hunter, his son. If she ever doubted it, his revelations this morning proved how much he loved his son.
How much they all loved Hunter, she thought, regarding her sister-in-law now as though she were an alien.
“You’ve lost your mind, Mari,” she repeated.
“Not in the least, dear. It is the only way.” They were in the bedroom they shared with Tía Bella and Sophie—the women’s dormitory, they laughingly called it. The laughter was for Sophie. None of them had ever experienced such cramped quarters before.
After their talk, Drummond had left to feed the alligators and Jacy retreated here to gather her thoughts and consider the true meaning of her father’s revelation. Fortunately she had a disposition to handle things as they arose, and not worry about them until later. Later, was always the part she dreaded. Later, coming to terms with reality.
Reality—Trevor’s claim that Hunter would hang by the end of the term. If that were true, her father’s extraordinary efforts to prevent the sentence being carried out had been in vain. What had happened to change the agreement?
Of course, it wouldn’t have been a gentlemen’s agreement from the beginning. With Drummond out of the territory for life, why should those bastards in Arizona—thugs, Wes Hardin called them—honor the agreement?
Reality, which resulted in Drummond’s loss of will and mind.
Reality—she could never return home. Then Marielena arrived back from Mass, relaying Trevor’s request for her to go to Arizona with him. Of all the timing! Anger seethed inside her.
“The only way?” she questioned sarcastically. “Trevor got to you real good, didn’t he, Mari? You’re repeating his very words. Listen to me carefully. Going to Arizona with him is not the only way. It is not the way. It is not a way.”
Mari smiled with such sereneness Jacy wanted to scream. But as always, her sister-in-law’s quiet approach shamed her into lowering her voice. “Listen…” Her words drifted off, as she watched Mari with growing consternation. “What are you doing?”
“Packing for you, dear. Isn’t this what you planned to wear to spit in those bastards’ eyes?”
Jacy laughed. In spite of the situation, she tossed her head back and laughed. As long as she had known Mari, she had never heard her use such a word, not even when quoting someone else. Like now.
But Jacy’s humor soon turned to despair, despair as genuine as the soft doeskin riding habit Mari had carefully packed in the bottom of a straw basket.
Sobering, she sank to the bed. Taking Mari’s hands in hers, she drew her away from the futile task. “I can’t go.”
“Of course, you can go,” Mari assured her with a confidence Jacy hadn’t seen in the woman in years. “Regardless what you think, dear, we can and will take care of ourselves.” They studied each other for a moment, each in earnest. “It isn’t that we don’t need you, Jacy. We will always need you. You are our heart and our spirit and more often than not our good sense.”
Jacy smiled, rueful. “Like now?”
Mari smiled. The sweetest smile this side of heaven, Hunter always said. Everyone knew it was true. Marielena was entirely too good and sweet to be useful at anything else. Or so Jacy thought.
“What if Trevor is right?” Mari appealed. “If Hunter is scheduled to hang, as Trevor believes, we can’t sit by and let it happen. We must do something to prevent it. Wes Hardin’s letters have gotten us nowhere.”
“Now I know why.” Sighing heavily, Jacy shared her father’s latest revelation. Mari sank to the bed, her face ashen, as the tale lengthened.
“Never return?” Mari’s black eyes dimmed, as if with pain. “No Kimble can ever cross the border?”
Jacy nodded, but even as she did so, Mari’s face began to brighten.
“It’s a very long border, dear. They certainly can’t patrol it all every moment of the day and night in case a Kimble tries to return home.”
Jacy shook her head, amused, when she knew she should be aggravated. “You’re as daffy as Tía Bella and Papa.”
“Maybe.”
“It would never work.”
Mari turned solemn. “It must,” she replied with unusual sternness. Jacy had the distinct impression her sister-in-law was through arguing. “We don’t have time to think of something else, dear. Hunter doesn’t have time. I don’t have time.” She tucked a loose strand of blond hair behind Jacy’s ear. “Neither do you and Trevor.”
Annoyance flushed Jacy to the roots of her hair. “Me and Trevor?” She glanced away. “Now I know you’re daffy.”
“You can’t deny what you feel for him, dear. It is there.” She placed a hand over Jacy’s rapidly beating heart, then to her forehead. “And here. You love him. I don’t know how long you have loved him. You probably don’t, either. Certainly for the last five years.”
“I can’t believe this conversation!” How had they gotten so far off the track?
Love Trevor? She stared at the frayed wool rug that covered a portion of the packed-earth floor. Although she had admitted as much to herself, that seemed harmless. Now, spoken aloud, the emotion was given a name, like in baptism. It became real. It swelled inside her, filling her up, suffocating her. Spoken aloud, the emotion toppled a barrier inside her. Spoken aloud, it became true, and she would never be able to deny it, not even to herself, not ever again.
She jerked away and stood up. “If I go, it will be to save Hunter.”
“Of course, dear, but you will make good use of the time? It would be such a shame—”
“Good use?” Jacy turned to squint at her sister-in-law, who was making less sense with each passing minute.
“Trevor is in love with you,” Mari said. She might as well have slapped Jacy.
She staggered backward, while everything around her went black. Desperately she tried to seal off all the tiny vulnerable places inside her, but hope rushed in anyway. Like through leaks in a dam, hope gushed into all the soft, hidden places that had been filled with nothing but despair for five long years.
“He didn’t say that!” she snapped, hoping for an explanation, for a reprieve from the senseless hope Mari’s claim spawned inside her.
“Of course not. Trevor doesn’t believe in love. You r
emember his life story, the dismal—”
“There you have it, Mari. If he doesn’t believe in love, then he can’t be in love with me. Thankfully. Because I certainly am not—”
“Jacy, stop protesting. This opportunity is a godsend. You and Trevor are going to save my husband, maybe even bring him home to me. You will be together for days, perhaps weeks. You’ll have plenty of time to teach Trevor to love.”
“Teach Trevor…” The idea stunned Jacy almost as much as Mari’s earlier claim had done. Moisture, borne by something mysteriously sad, filled her eyes. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be. But if it wasn’t love, it didn’t have a name.
Teach Trevor to love? The notion fluttered through her on wings of the very hope she had tried so hard to extinguish. Hope. Love. Dear God, what an unholy mess! Nothing could come of this. Nothing but more heartbreak.
“That’s the most ridiculous flight of fancy you’ve taken in ages, Mari.” Jacy strove to sound indignant, but all she felt was sick. “There is no way I’m going off to Arizona with that…that escaped convict!”
“I didn’t mean to upset you, Jacy, but…” Mari took Jacy by the shoulders. Emotion glistened in her eyes until she squeezed them tight. “I want Hunter back so badly. I miss him more than I can ever say. I yearn for him, ache for him. When he comes home we will be the happiest two people on the face of the earth. No matter if we can’t go home again. We’ll build our own home. Even if we never have a dime between us, we’ll have each other.”
She opened her eyes, looked Jacy in the face, and continued earnestly. “I want the same thing for you, dear. For you, who love us so much; you who have sacrificed and worried and tirelessly shouldered the responsibility of this family all these years. We will never be able to repay you. Nothing would ever be enough. Nothing except a true and lasting love of your very own.”
Jacy stood stunned, while everything inside her hummed to life. Tears rolled down her face, but she wasn’t aware of them until she tasted their salt. Mari was crying, too.
“Well, if we aren’t two of the most maudlin…” Reaching, she embraced her sister-in-law. Wordlessly the two women stood in each other’s arms until their raw emotions healed enough for them to continue preparations for what Jacy now knew would be a journey fraught with more perils than she had imagined. If she agreed to go.
While Mari finished packing the basket, she explained that Trevor did have a plan, and that it would take Jacy to implement it, because Trevor obviously couldn’t be seen in Arizona, and even if he could, no one was likely to open up to him.
“Since I’ve been banished from the territory, I don’t see them opening to me, either.” But the more they discussed it, the more convinced Jacy became. There seemed to be no other way. If Trevor were right…She couldn’t take a chance that Hunter would hang for her own lack of confidence in Trevor—or her inner terror of spending so much time alone with him. Hunter’s life, after all, meant more than that…to all of them.
If it ended in heartbreak—Hunter’s life was still worth it. In spite of herself that soft spot of vulnerability began to rejoice. A few days alone with Trevor…
Yes, a dastardly unholy mess!
“I’ll talk to him,” she said finally.
As though she had agreed to the entire plan, Mari insisted they settle the details of running the family in her absence. “I don’t want you worrying about us, dear.” Mari would walk the children to school, Todd included, attend a later Mass, and return home in time to get the mail off at noon.
“It’s a shame we can’t lock Papa and Tía Bella up in the convent while I’m gone,” Jacy mused. Then on a serious note, “Maybe you could persuade Tía Bella to attend Mass with you. That way she couldn’t abscond with the mail while you’re gone.”
“Don’t worry about it, dear. And don’t worry about Grandpa. We’ll tell him you’re taking a sabbatical with the nuns at Mount Carmel.”
“He isn’t likely to believe that.”
“He knows you’ve been under more stress than usual, what with Trevor around.”
“He will probably think I’ve run off with Trevor,” she refuted, then laughed weakly. “Which is what I will have done.” But Mari was unaware of the true cause of Drummond’s hatred for Trevor. “Papa can never find out,” she insisted.
“We will handle him, dear.”
The only snag came when Mari called Todd in to send him to Wes Hardin’s office. Jacy exploded.
“Now I know this will never work!”
“Calm down,” Mari insisted. “Trevor and I have it all worked out.”
“Uncle Trevor?” Todd questioned. “You’ve seen him?”
Jacy ignored her nephew. “I suppose he bought tickets on the 10:04 to Yuma. We’re to meet him at the depot.”
“Of course not. Wes Hardin is arranging the details. Obviously you and Trevor can’t go to his office in the light of day.” As though Jacy had never raised an objection, Mari turned to her son. “You must keep this very quiet, Todd.”
The boy’s eyes were wide as silver dollars.
“Mari,” Jacy objected. “We’ll handle it after dark.”
“Even after dark it would be too dangerous. Trevor agrees. Todd is the only person in the family who can run about downtown without raising suspicion. Except Grandpa, of course.”
Which, Jacy had to admit, was true. Still…“Todd, this is serious, grown up business. You can’t take it lightly. Your father’s life is at stake, or I wouldn’t consider such a foolhardy scheme. And while we’re on the subject, if I do go, I expect you to attend school and help your mother and see after Grandpa and stay away from the saloons. Take your mother’s message and slip in there now and—”
“Take it easy, Aunt Jace. I know what to do.”
“He’ll be fine, Jacy.” Mari tussled the boy’s black hair and received only a mild grimace. “I wouldn’t send him if I didn’t believe it. He’s my son. And Hunter’s. I wouldn’t put him in danger.”
“I know.” Jacy inhaled a deep, trembling breath, chastised. “I worry.”
“And we love you for it. But you have your work cut out. Regardless of what we discussed earlier, this isn’t a pleasure excursion. You will be in danger yourself.”
“I’ll be fine.” But would she be? She followed Mari out of the house. “If I go.”
“If anyone asks,” Mari said, ignoring Jacy’s protest, “we are carrying food to the Treviños’. Señor Treviño got hit in the head with one of those little balls…You know, the game they brought over from England?”
In spite of herself, Jacy was captivated by Mari’s enthusiasm. “That’s the second lie you’ve planned in the last few minutes.”
“The third today.” Mari smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll go to confession. As soon as Hunter is safe and you and Trevor are home.”
Home? With Drummond’s revelations, this was the only place on earth they had to call home. This dusty, dismal place. Yet, the sun glanced off white adobe walls around them with an uncommon sparkle.
Trevor, in love with her? Could it be true? And if it were? Dear God in Heaven. What if it were true?
Jacy Kimble in love with him? Impossible. Surely, impossible. For the umpteenth time, Trevor rued the day he set out on this mission. Why hadn’t he run to Old Mexico when he had the chance?
While he still had the chance, he corrected. The breadth of a country wouldn’t be enough to banish Jacy from his dreams, but it would certainly halt any tendency on his part to act on them.
Jacy Kimble in love with him? Ridiculous. Only in his dreams. Those damnable dreams that had served such an essential purpose in prison were becoming a curse here in the same town with her.
Same town, hell. Soon he would be traveling with her. Day and night.
Night and day. Night and night and night.
The padre came, shook Trevor on the shoulder. He started, like it was Yancy. Seeing the brown-robed cleric, he relaxed. Same dream, different world.
Or was it? Any plac
e could be a prison if a person let it. He had heard that somewhere. He knew it to be true.
“Marielena said you would remain with us until after Vespers,” the padre said quietly. “Come with me. There is a small room off the vestibule where you will be more comfortable.”
“Thanks.”
It was indeed a small room. Too small. With the large oaken door closed, it resembled a prison cell entirely too much for comfort. Trevor paced the breadth, ten paces from wall to wall, and tried to still his inner quaking. But as hard as he tried to convince himself of the truth—this was a church, not a prison—he felt caged. Trapped. He could hear the bells and count the hours, like in prison.
And like in prison the dream loomed large and glorious in his mind. He worked at banishing it, and was partially successful, but only because he had so recently seen Jacy. He willed the images to go away, the want. The deep, burning want that had simmered inside him for five long years.
Involving her had been a mistake, a damnable mistake. Yet, what choice had he had? To save Hunter, he needed Jacy’s help.
That’s what this was all about. Hunter.
Hunter. Hunter. He paced back and forth on the cold stone floor. Hunter. Hunter.
When the door burst open, Trevor’s back was to it. He swung around, startled, and there she stood. Jacy Kimble. Statuesque, haughty even in peasant attire, her eyes the color of lapis, hard and cold, like recently quarried stone.
It struck him then why he bought that cross. No religious significance, unless he worshiped idols. Jacy Kimble, blue-eyed idol.
She didn’t love him. The thought brought swift relief. No one with eyes that hard and cold could love. He had known it all along, only forgotten. Well, maybe not forgotten, overlooked in the fiery want that continually simmered inside him. Looking at her now, it burst into flame. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
She didn’t love him. Thank god! “Morning, Miss Fancy Pants.” Then he saw Mari.
Abustle with the arrangements, she pushed Jacy into the room, coming in behind her. “Todd is on his way to Wes Hardin’s,” Mari explained. She set the basket on the table. “I’ve packed food, enough for a couple of days if you don’t mind going a little hungry. Here’s the ammunition you asked for. Todd is to tell Wes Hardin about your gun…” Why Jacy thought Mari incapable of taking charge was beyond Trevor.
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