Chapter 15
Clint walked with Kate through the rose garden behind the Dewaynes’ sprawling ranch house. It was her garden, and it suited her. The roses were planted haphazardly, not in neat rows but with abandon. Reds mixed with yellows, pink with white.
They smelled like her, too, and he thought she probably used rose petals for the fine flowery scent that always seem to cling to her.
Her hand touched his, and he found his fingers closing over hers, despite his intention to do exactly the opposite. He had meant to make it plain tonight that he wouldn’t be seeing much of her, that his ranch duties precluded any social activities.
But nothing had worked as he’d planned, not since the moment he stepped over the Dewayne threshold. She had greeted him with that smile that warmed him through and through. Her green eyes had lit just at his entrance, and he felt his resolve fade like fog under a morning sun.
Even more disconcerting was his welcome by the others. He’d been treated like one of the family by her father and two brothers. Worse, he had been asked his opinion on what to do about the new lawlessness in Rushton.
Clint had felt so damn small, as if he needed to crawl under a rock. Instead, he had shrugged. “It seems strange they seem to be targeting Jack.” He hesitated. “I don’t much like that McClary who’s staying there. And he was out the night the miner was killed.”
Russ Dewayne nodded. “Can’t say I care for him much, either, but he wasn’t here when the stage robberies started.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Clint let the implication hang in the air: Maybe McClary just hadn’t announced his presence until now.
“Can you keep an eye on him?” Russ asked.
Again, Clint felt like crawling under that rock. He’d done a lot in his lifetime he wasn’t exactly proud of, but he’d never lied to a friend, to someone whom he respected and who trusted him.
He nodded, then changed the subject, asking about the Dewayne herd.
“Hell, you know. It’s been rough all over; we were hit by winter as badly as Jack. We have to sell more of what’s left of the herd than we’d like. Rut that’s ranching; we expect bad weather, drought, wolves, coyotes. What we don’t expect is that human carrion circling around here.”
Clint inwardly winced. He wished he could explain. Now. But he couldn’t, not without betraying Rafe, his own brother, and the others.
“What are you going to do, Russ?”
“Damn if I know. Wait, I suppose. Jack was right about trying to find anyone in these hills. There wasn’t a trail after that first robbery.
The tracks just seemed to disappear. I feel so rotten about Jack.
He’s worked hard to build the Circle R. Some of us are talking about advancing him a loan ourselves, but we all have our own problems now. What will his hands do?”
“They’re getting impatient. Some are talking about leaving.”
“And you?”
Clint was only too aware of four sets of eyes on him. He shifted slightly in his chair and saw Kate’s face, anxiety on her face. No one had ever looked at him like that before. He hated to think of how that look might turn to something else, like contempt. “I haven’t decided.”
“You have a job here if you want one,” Russ said.
Clint nodded a noncommittal acknowledgment of the offer, realizing that there was a hint of matchmaking going on here. He had been accepted as a suitor by Kate’s family, and while he might have felt pleasure under other circumstances, he felt plain ill now.
Moments later, Russ suggested that the two “young people” take a walk, and Clint couldn’t refuse without hurting Kate.
That was something he simply couldn’t force himself to do, not with her cheeks flushing with embarrassment over the unsubtle hint.
He rose and went to her chair, pulling it out for her.
The moon was nearly three-quarters full, gold rather than silver, and expectancy hung in the air, the kind that usually preceded a storm.
There was also expectancy between the two of them, a tension relayed by their touching hands, an almost imperceptible squeeze of fingers, a responding tightening of clasp.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“About what?”
“My family’s … not so subtle matchmaking.”
His hand tightened unwillingly around hers. He couldn’t say he hadn’t noticed. He wasn’t good at lying. And that was the whole problem. At least one of them.
“You aren’t going to stay, are you? In Rushton?”
How did she know? Clint stopped and looked down at her. She was lovely in the moonlight, a wistful look on her face, a faraway gaze in her eyes.
“No,” he said. “My feet are tumbleweeds. They don’t stop for long.”
“You’ve been here nearly two years.”
His eyes met hers directly. “I’m a drifter, Kate. I’ve never been anything else, not since the war.”
He watched her swallow with difficulty, as if his words choked her. He felt the same thing happening to him. He wanted to kiss her so damn bad. But that was the last thing he should do.
“You never want to settle down?”
Yes. Now. He shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I can.” That was as direct as he could get.
She nodded, accepting his words, what she believed was his honesty. “I used to think I would like to travel. To go East. Or to San Francisco.”
Kate was trying so hard to make it easy for him.
There had, after all, been little between them except glances, a few dances, conversation that, up to now, had come so easily to them, and …
that instinct between two people that tells them something extraordinary is occurring.
Clint hadn’t known it existed, and now it was too late for him.
“And now?” he said softly.
“Now I know this is where I belong, this land. These mountains.”
Clint felt it again, that attempt on her part to dismiss the implications of their previous words, as if she was reassuring him that his decisions were his, his life his.
If only …
“If only?”
Clint hadn’t realized he had uttered the words. He smiled down at her. “If only you weren’t so lovely.”
He saw her pleased look, that becoming blush coloring her face again. She truly didn’t know how pretty she was, he thought.
He couldn’t help himself. He moved closer to her, bent his head to touch her lips. She was like a lodestone to him, a magnet drawing him ever closer.
Her lips were soft, welcoming. Her skin was so incredibly soft, smelling delicately of roses. He wanted her as he’d never wanted anything in his life, had never thought he could want anything this desperately.
His lips played over hers lightly, and her mouth opened slightly to his.
Her hand went to his arm, hovering there, as if uncertain what to do.
That innocence was his undoing. His arms wrapped around her with gentle possession, and his lips moved along the delicate curves of her face, memorizing the pleasure of each touch, the quiet, satisfying joy of her response.
He rested his cheek against hers for a fraction of a second. “Oh, Kate,” he heard himself say.
Her only answer was a slight movement of her face until their lips met again in a kiss so pregnant with promise, yet so bittersweet with understanding, that Clint knew he was lost between heaven and hell.
Jack Randall felt his world crumble as he looked down at the telegram.
Sara was dead!
There was a daughter. A daughter whose existence his wife had kept from him because Sara had so hated what he was.
He crushed the telegram in his hand. He had used what little cash he had left to hire a detective in Boston, adding a bonus for quick results.
It hadn’t taken long. A day. A day to find a death certificate and a birth certificate. For a daughter named Shea. His heart pounded so hard, so fast, he had to grab the counter to keep standing. Sara. Dead. Every hope he’d ever had died with her.
“You all right, Mr. Randall?”
It took a moment for the voice to penetrate his shock. Mister Randall. He had worked the last ten years to earn that title, that respect in the man’s voice. He had always believed he would someday lure Sara back and show her he had changed.
“I’m fine, just a bit of a shock. A friend … died.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Randall. Is there anything I can do?”
Jack shook his head. “No. No, thank you.” He turned around blindly, searching for the door, finding it and stumbling out into bright sunlight.
He headed for a saloon.
Sara had despised him so much, she had never told him he had a child. Only one thing in his life had ever hurt more: the day he’d returned to their boardinghouse room and found her gone, a note lying next to the bank bills she’d found.
And now he knew exactly why she had left. Sara would stay with a thief, but she wouldn’t allow her child to do the same.
He was indifferent to the others in the saloon, going straight to the long bar. “Whiskey,” he told the barkeep, and quickly swallowed the glassful. “Another.”
He hoped the liquor would numb the overwhelming pain, but it only made brighter the memories.
Sara’s startling blue eyes that had once looked at him as if he were a god.
He had saved her from a pair of runaway horses on a Boston street and then had charmed her into running away with him when her father had objected to his lack of family and a steady job.
He should have known better. She was as honest as he was dishonest. He had been raised to see nothing wrong in relieving careless people of their money. She had been raised to see everything in black and white. And he had turned out to be very black indeed.
Until he met Sara, he’d never had a conscience. And in truth one didn’t sprout then, either. Stealing had been so damnably natural for him. When Sara had first caught him at it, he’d sworn he would never do it again. But he had. Even then she’d stayed with him until … until she was with child.