“But what if…” She swallowed, pressed her lips tightly together. Lips he longed to kiss. “What if…”
“If it makes you feel better, I’ll stay in town for a little while. You could always come and find me if you need to—if he turns out to be the same type of man as before.”
“You would do that?” She gaped at him, open-mouthed. “Truly? If might be dangerous for you.”
“It might be, but no one knows who I am, or how we came about being together this way.”
It was a damned fool thing to do, and that was a fact. He ought to make tracks out of Carson City the minute the money was in his hand. Instead, he’d just offered to put the noose around his own neck. And all for her.
And she would never understand why he did it, because he could sure as hell never tell her.
That would mean admitting he loved her.
He managed to maintain a bit of a smile, something he hoped encouraged her. “All right? I’ll hang around, and I’m sure you could get your hands on a way to get back to me if you needed to. Make an excuse to go to town. You’ll need clothes, you’ll need personal things.”
“That’s true.” She chewed her lip, staring into the distance over his shoulder. The light of the setting sun reflected in her eyes, shone in the hair which drifted around her face where it came loose from its braid.
He took stock of every inch of her at that moment, letting her soak into his brain and his heart that he might never let her go.
“All right,” she agreed. “I suppose we’ll set up here for the night and we’ll move on in the morning.”
They did not meet each other’s eyes as they set up. He knew it would be a mistake to look at her for too long.
17
“I never thought I would come to enjoy cooking over a campfire—or that I would be good at it.” She cast a look Jed’s way. “Keep your opinions to yourself, if you don’t mind.”
He chuckled, shook his head. “No, no. I was gonna agree with you. It’s been a real treat, eating decent food. I never could make a decent cornbread. Always came out hard as a rock.”
“You left it on the fire too long, I would wager—or you needed to move it further from the center.” She smeared a bit of pork fat onto a slab and ate it with great relish.
“I’ll keep that in mind the next time I get a hankering for it.”
What had just struck her as the most delicious thing she’d wrapped her lips around in recent memory went as dry and tasteless as sawdust. She struggled to swallow it down.
It was a natural thing to say. She would be leaving him the next day. He would have to fend for himself after then.
Natural or not, Jed’s words hung over her heart like a black storm cloud. A heavy as the iron skillet in which she’d baked the bread.
She’d been in such a haste to get away from him.
Now?
There was no telling how she felt. It was all such a mixed-up mess. She might easily have continued on into the city. In fact, it would have looked normal for her to be in a hurry to get there.
She’d been in a hurry before, thanks to the baby. She should’ve hurried if for that reason alone, to get the bedding over with and start the process of making Mark Furnish believe he was the father.
Yet she’d agreed to spend one last, uncomfortable night outdoors. She’d all but jumped at the chance, had fought against the impulse to agree too quickly for fear of making her eagerness obvious.
He ate in silence except for the sound of chewing. There was no telling how he felt about anything, ever. He’d rather put on a mask and hide himself than show a hint of real, human feeling—outside of rage, of course, considering the way he’d beaten that man outside of the general store.
Maybe it was for the best that there’d never be anything between them, since she didn’t know how she’d live with a man who kept everything bottled up inside.
She’d already lived with one who flared into temper at the slightest inconvenience, after all. Was there a man alive who shared himself naturally, normally, who didn’t run only hot or cold?
“You know what we’re going to say tomorrow?” she asked, if only for a reason to speak. If he expected her to spend the entire night in silence—their last night together—he had something else coming.
“Of course.”
A man of few words, as always, when all she wanted was to hear more from him. To carry something with her once they parted ways. What else would she have to hold in her heart? To pore over every night before falling asleep?
“What are you going to do with the money?”
His brows lifted. “The money from Mr. Furnish?”
“No. The money from the bank you’re going to rob when we arrive in the city.”
His laughter warmed her, made the back of her neck tingle pleasurably. “A silly question, I admit.” He settled back, folding his arms over his chest, pursing his lips. “I would purchase a little parcel for myself.”
“Land?”
“Yes, land.” He cut his eyes to her. “I’m not as quick with comebacks as you are, or else I would’ve given you a taste of your own medicine.”
She giggled. It was so nice to be with him when he was in a pleasant mood. Would she ever have imagined enjoying the company of a man prior to meeting him?
“A parcel of land, then,” she prompted.
“Yeah. Just something small. But something of my own. What I always wanted.”
She cast her memory back to past conversations. “You know a lot about ranching. Is that what you want to do?”
He nodded. “I was supposed to have a set-up of my own one day—my father’s, when he passed it down. Or I would have, as the oldest son.”
She clenched her fists out of sight, hidden in her skirts. “What happened?”
He chuckled without humor. “That’s not the sort of thing a man can tell over the course of a single supper.”
“Does it look like I have anywhere else to go?” Please, please, please tell me. I want so much to know you. I want so much to feel close to you.
He stretched out his legs, crossing them at the ankle. His chest rose and fell when he took a deep breath. “My father disowned me years ago. Never saw him or my Ma again after that.”
“Oh.” What else was there to say? She imagined he’d stolen from them or done something foolish which had brought harm to the cattle. Leaving a fence open, some lazy thing a young man would do.
His eyes shifted, moved over her face. “Don’t you wanna know why?”
“It’s none of my business.”
“You don’t have the slightest bit of curiosity, then?”
“No.”
“I thought you always tried to be honest.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “It seems you want to tell me, but you want me to push you into it. If it makes you feel better, fine. I want you to tell me why your father disowned you.”
His mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “You’ve got my number, sure as shootin’. Can’t put anything past you. But I ain’t never told anybody before, is all. Not even Zeke, and he was the closest thing I had to a brother in all these years.”
“Did your brother push you away, then, too?” she asked, sympathy building. She knew then that she’d likely fallen in love with the rascal, as all she felt was sorry for him. No blame for whatever it was he’d done to earn his place outside the family. She merely wanted to know what they’d felt was too great to forgive.
His brow creased, his mouth drawing into a thin line. “Nope. I killed him.”
She felt as though she’d just jumped into a body of near-frozen water, as though the very blood in her veins had gone solid. “You…”
“Killed him. Yep. I did.” He sounded so casual, as though they were discussing the cost of feed or the next day’s weather. Not as though they discussed the end of his brother’s life, certainly.
“You can’t mean it. It must have been—”
“What makes you think I don’t mean it, huh?
” He was on his feet so suddenly, she jumped back. Away from him.
He would not let her get away that easily. He leaned over her, blocking out the view of the campfire and everything else. All she could see was him, all there was in the world was him.
She was through being cornered.
“Get away from me.” She said it with teeth clenched, barely moving her lips. “I mean it. Get. Back. You don’t frighten me, so stop trying to.”
He blinked like he might be unsure whether she meant it, but he did back away. “There’s something I need you to know, something about me that will never change. I need you to remember this when I leave you with your fiancé tomorrow.”
“What?” she whispered.
“I am not a good man. I don’t know when you got the notion in your head that I am—when Zeke was so sick, or when you had your accident, maybe? But that is not who I am. Do not make the mistake of thinking so. Do you understand?”
She nodded. It was all she could do. Oh, he was so angry, so hateful.
Toward her? There was no telling. Weeks earlier, she might have believed herself to be the one he lashed out at.
Now?
“What did you do, then?” she challenged. “Since you are such a terrible person, you must be proud of what you did. Or at least proud of the telling of it. The shock it stirs in those who listen.”
His scowl slipped. “Do not test me. When will you ever tire of testing me?”
Her answer was simple, delivered in a low voice which belied the steel behind it. “When you tire of huffing and stomping your feet to prove what an evil man you are. I have seen callousness, Jed. I’ve seen heartless, cold, unfeeling men who had nothing but hate in their hearts. You are not one of those men.”
“There are all kinds of bad men in the world, Melissa.” He sat again, on a rock closer to her than he’d been before. “Even if they don’t mean to do bad, they end up doing bad anyway. It’s just their way. How they were born, I reckon.”
“And you think you’re one of them.”
“I don’t have to think. I know.” He removed his hat, something she rarely saw him do, and turned it in his hands. “Even when I try to do right, something always happens to ruin everything.”
“When you told me to leave you, so that I might go on by myself?”
He snickered, eyes still on the sweat-stained, battered hat. “Yeah. Sort of like that.”
“Your thoughts were in the right place. You meant well.”
“Don’t you see? That doesn’t matter worth a damn when things still go to hell. What difference does it make that I wanted to do the right thing when I didn’t end up doing it?”
There was no answer to this question, for how many times had Melissa tried to do what was right? As a girl, she’d sacrificed her share of the meager bits of food she’d scavenged for the sake of her brothers, that they might eat more. She’d told them time and again how wrong it was to steal, how wicked to lie.
And yet she’d stolen Mark Furnish’s money when she’d first asked him to send passage to Carson City, as there had been no intention of marrying him then. Her brothers had become thieves the moment they were old enough to pick pockets.
Both acts were done in hopes of survival, but was that enough to wipe a sin clean from a person’s soul?
Jed knew nothing of her silent questions, as he was lost in tormented thoughts. The played upon the face she knew so well, muscles twitching, eyes which held the power to set her soul aflame narrowing and darkening with each memory.
He did not wish to be comforted.
There were ways to comfort a person without doing it outright. Memories of the night she’d bared her soul tugged at her, a reminder of the great weight she’d released after confessing her secrets.
After drawing a deep breath and sending up a silent prayer, she asked, “How did your brother die?”
He shot her a withering look. “Did I hear that right?”
“You can tell me. We’ll never see each other again after tomorrow.” The words all but stuck in her throat, yet she managed to pretend as though it did not matter.
His eyes were heavy as he studied her. Was he asking himself whether this was a wise idea? Or what her motives might be? Whether she was trustworthy? He had to know by then the answer to that, after all they’d been through.
When his shoulders relaxed, she knew he’d come to a decision, and braced herself for what she was about to hear.
The brim of his hat curled in tightened fingers, he began, “I was sixteen years old. This was before the war started, but not much before. We were just finishing a branding—you’ve never seen one, but you will. Or you’ll at least see the men coming back from it and wonder how they stay on their feet. Days of work, wrangling and roping. And there were so many calves that spring.”
She didn’t want to think of what she’d see when he was no longer a part of her life.
He sighed. “Jasper only wanted to prove himself. It was the first thing he thought of in the morning and the last thing on his mind when he fell asleep. How he could prove, he was a man. Ten years old that spring, and he begged Pa from sunup to sundown in the days before we got the branding crew together to let him tag along. I finally told Pa I didn’t mind—it was the first year I’d be heading things up, and I guess I was feeling generous, you know.”
She nodded.
“But I told him not to get in the way,” Jed muttered. “I warned him; step out of line just once, get in the way of what a man was fixin’ to do just one time, and that would be it. I’d spank his behind shiny and send him to the house in front of all the men, just to make sure he was good and ashamed.”
“And did you have to?” she asked, remembering the times she’d threatened her brothers with similar punishment for their mischief.
He shook his head. “Didn’t get the chance, you see. He behaved himself those first two days. He just wanted to watch, to be part of it. To hear the men talking and joking and feel like he was one of us. And I did think I was a man, sure enough. Full of myself, struttin’ about like I owned the place. I would one day, you see, so I figured I might as well get myself used to it. Sixteen years old and not the first idea about life, but I thought I knew it all. Right up to the minute I fell from my saddle in the middle of roping a calf.”
His voice faded to silence and remained that way for a long, weighty minute.
Melissa’s teeth were on edge, her breath barely coming at all as she waited. Did she want to hear? It was too late to ask him to stop—he was there, in that day, on that horse. Falling from its back.
“A stupid thing,” he continued with a catch in his voice. “I was showin’ off, proud that I had roped thirty already that day when some of the men had to stop at twenty before turning the job over to somebody else. I was tired, really, and my reflexes were slow. When the calf doubled back, trying to get away, my horse reared rather than trample it. And I fell.”
“For two days, Jasper kept to himself. For two days, he stood by and watched. Watched me fall down in the muck, watched me get my shirt near torn off. The same with the other men, some of them gettin’ hurt for real. It can be dangerous work. But he stayed where I told him to stay and didn’t get in the way.”
He hung his head. “Until I fell, and he ran for me.”
Melissa’s eyes filled with tears.
“We’re talkin’ about a two-hundred-plus-pound calf who was already frightened half out of his wits. When he saw Jasper running for me, right through the path he was already running, he just kept going. Right over my baby brother.”
There was no stopping herself from imagining one of the boys in that position, trampled to death in front of her.
“I’ll never forget the screams. Not Jasper’s—he didn’t have time to scream. If there’s a God up there in Heaven, he never knew what hit him. It was the kick to the head that did it. I was the one who screamed. Me and the other men, but me most of all. At least Pa wasn’t there to see it, nor Ma. I don’t th
ink she would have survived hearing her favorite son’s head kicked open.”
“My Lord.” Melissa turned her face away, struggling to contain the sobs which tore at her.
“He was the favorite. The baby. Ma couldn’t have any more after the two of us—she lost three in the six years between us, you see, and the doc advised her not to put herself through it again. Jasper was sort of a miracle, I guess you could say. Everybody’s pet. And I got him killed. And I had to carry his body back to the house and look into her eyes and my father’s eyes and tell them what happened. Pa ordered me off the land that very day.”
“He didn’t!”
“He did.” Jed stared at his Stetson, turning it over and over. “I know if he had the time to think it over instead of just ordering me that way, he wouldn’t have done it. He wasn’t the sort who took revenge or anything like that, but he changed that day. He told me never to come back, that I was disowned because I let my brother die when I was supposed to protect him. And Ma was half out of her mind, she didn’t know what was what. So there was no one to stand up for me. I had to go.”
“You never went back?”
“I never dared. Besides, the war came the next year, and I signed up. I wrote home once, two years in, just to tell my ma that I was fightin’ and still loved her and was sorry for what I did. I got a letter back from the old foreman, telling me they were both dead and the ranch was getting sold off in pieces. Never did tell me how they died, but I guess it doesn’t matter. Dead is dead.”
Tears coursed down Melissa’s cheeks when she went to him, kneeling at his feet. “You didn’t kill Jasper. It wasn’t your fault.”
He did not look at her. “It was.”
“It wasn’t!”
“You weren’t there.” His head snapped around, eyes burning—or was it the reflection of the fire behind her in his eyes. “You don’t know. Argue anything you like until your face goes blue, but do not argue that because you were not there to see.”
“I don’t have to see to know,” she insisted. When he turned away once again, she reached for his chin, turning him back to her. “You weren’t responsible. It was an accident. Your father was hurting terribly that day, he said things he likely didn’t mean.” He tried to yank himself out of her grasp, but she held firm.
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