Prologue Page 12

  "Who the hell are you to order me around? I told you I had enough of that to last me two lifetimes. You'd better get off my back or you'll be watching it go down the road. And I don't think that's what you really want—you're getting a lot more than you're paying for." He started to walk away, then turned to face her, pointing at her to emphasize his words. "One more thing. I'll kill any man who tries to put me in jail again. You keep that in mind."

  He stalked back to the forge and she knew he meant every word he'd said.

  * * *

  Later that evening Chloe was scrubbing the table, trying to justify her original demand for Travis's temperance. After all, that was how he'd started all this, with his whiskey sipping. She'd never have gotten the idea to talk to Fred Winslow if Travis had yielded.

  Her conscience was making it a difficult task, harassing her with the inescapable truth that she'd done a conniving, mean-spirited thing. She wished now she'd listened to that conscience when it had spoken before, urging her to abandon the idea of trying to turn Travis in.

  "... you're getting a lot more than you're paying for.”

  That was a fact. He worked hard and his only payment was a roughed-in room in the shop and his meals. She knew that point alone gave her little say over what he did with his spare time.

  She moved to the sink and looked out the window. Tonight the chair stood empty in the dark blue twilight. Then as if a ghost had risen from the cemetery, she pictured her father sitting there a hundred nights like this, a thousand. Usually sodden and morose, sometimes he didn't speak for days. Doc had told her she was lucky Frank was a melancholy drunk instead of a mean one.

  But she'd never seen Travis drunk, or even tipsy. It was vexing, but she knew she owed him an apology. And if she didn't do it now the problem would keep her awake.

  "Oh, all right!" she huffed, her better nature winning again. She grabbed a lantern and went down the back steps.

  * * *

  Travis found himself walking through a dim, shadowy country that it seemed the sun had never touched. Trees with black branches rattled like dry bones in the wind. A chilly mist swirled around his knees and hid the spongy ground that pulled at his boots. And everywhere was the smell of dampness and decay.

  His heart began to beat heavily in his chest. Here, in this eternal twilight, grief and loneliness ran like howling wolves, stalking him on a path that twisted deeper into the dark forest of those dead, bare trees.

  Fear and despair dried his throat. Something was close behind him—he could hear the pounding footsteps growing nearer. He knew he had to run, but didn't know where to go. He was lost on this black and gray landscape, and the mist around his legs was like molasses, hobbling him. Sweat-soaked and breathless, he struggled to get away from his pursuer, but he could barely move. His heart felt as though it might explode from the effort.

  Then suddenly, the one who chased him was now in the path ahead, waiting for him, beckoning him. Man or woman, Travis couldn't tell—a white cowl covered the figure's face. The paralysis that had slowed him fell away and he was propelled inexorably forward.

  Who was it waiting for him, who? He wrenched the cowl away and saw Celia, her face blue, his belt around her neck. She held out her arms to pull him into her lifeless embrace.

  No—God, no.

  * * *

  When Chloe walked in and saw Travis, she was reminded of the first day he spent upstairs, weak and delirious, thrashing around on the mattress. She wondered briefly if he'd suffered some kind of relapse. No, she decided, he was dreaming.

  "Travis," she called, approaching his bed. "Wake up. I want to talk to you." She reached out to shake him from his nightmare.

  He plucked her hand from his shoulder and held it in a viselike grip, apparently intent on snapping the bones. "Goddamn you, Celia," he growled. "Go back to hell where you belong."

  "Travis, let go of my hand," Chloe said, alarmed. "You're going to break it!"

  Travis instantly relaxed his grip and sat up with a start, the old bed screeching. He saw Chloe standing next to him, her eyes huge in the lantern light as she massaged her wrist. He recognized his surroundings and realized he'd had another nightmare, this time about his wife. The quarrel with Chloe must have triggered it.

  "Did I hurt you?" he muttered, embarrassed.

  "No, I'm all right." Who was Celia, she wondered, that he would curse her with such fury? The strength of his grip and his venomous words had been terrifying, but he looked even more frightened than she was. Sweat drenched him and his face was pale as death. "What about you?" she asked quietly.

  He waved his hand, anxious to change the subject. "I'm fine, fine." His bad dreams were not open for discussion. Feeling foolish and yet still shaken, he tried to make a joke of the incident. 'Was I yelling loud enough to bring you out here?"

  Now Chloe looked self-conscious as she shrugged and ducked her head. "No, it wasn't that. It's just, well, I wanted to apologize for what I said yesterday. I had no right to tell you what to do and to compare you to my father."

  He sat up on the edge of the bed and motioned her to a stool next to the old chest of drawers. She perched on the seat, her hands folded in her lap. He could see this was difficult for her. Chloe was proud, not the type to enjoy admitting she was wrong.

  "I saw you on that chair, the same place he sat most of the time. It brought-back memories, I guess."

  "It made you miss him," Travis ventured.

  She shook her head emphatically as she watched a moth bumping against the lantern's glass chimney. "I don't miss him. After my mother was gone he never drew a sober breath, or a happy one. When he died, it was for the best."

  Again Travis wondered about the lack of emotion she claimed. It wasn't that she didn't care, he suspected. For some reason, she chose not to let herself care, or forgive. But that was like clamping down the lid on a boiling pot. One of these days the lid was going to blow off. That fool Peterson was not going to be much help when it happened. She deserved better.

  When he spoke, he drew the words from a part of himself he rarely bothered to consult anymore. "Chloe, you should try to get over that grudge you're carrying. You've got a long time to live and you don't want that weight dragging you down."

  "I don't know what you're talking about," she retorted, frowning. "I'm not carrying a grudge. I told you, that accident my father had was for the best."

  Travis abandoned the thought. It wasn't his business. Besides, he was probably the last person on earth who should give advice about letting go of bitterness. Then he remembered Fred Winslow. "What about the sheriff," his tone now demanding and distrustful. "Am I going to have to kill him?"

  Chloe felt her cheeks grow hot but his question brought a chill to her stomach. She looked away from his accusing eyes into her lap.

  "I told you the truth. I asked for the posters to line the shelves. At least that's what Fred believes I wanted with them." She met his gaze then. "He has no reason to think otherwise."

  "None?"

  Chloe maintained her connection with his eyes. "None. I told him nothing."

  For several silent moments he watched her unflinching gaze. They weren't friends. He only worked for Chloe. But he'd come close to admiring her for her directness and gumption. She was stubborn, but at least she was honest about it. He nodded, satisfied.

  "Does my drinking bother you that much?" he asked.

  She thought a moment before answering. After the fuss she'd made, his whiskey bottle didn't seem as important as it originally had. He was nothing like Frank Maitland. It wasn't the drinking so much as his mule-headed defiance that made her fry.

  "No," she finally admitted. "It doesn't bother me that much."

  "Good, because I'm not about to change."

  No, she imagined not, but somewhere inside her, a tiny voice cheered. He was rude, angry, and dangerous. But there was something about him, a heat, an energy . . . something.

  "It's getting late," he said abruptly. "You'd better go back in.
"

  She started to rise, then paused and sat again. "I'll just stay for a little while," she replied, reaching out to lower the lantern flame. "Why don't you see if you can go back to sleep."

  He studied her a moment, then nodded, accepting her unspoken offer. It was a simple gesture really, but it was the nicest thing anyone had done for him in years. He lay back against the mattress, one hand resting on his chest.

  Just as he was dropping off, he thought he felt her hand cover his.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next morning was overcast, a rare occurrence at this time of year. Chloe decided to take advantage of the cooler day and make soap. It was a hot, messy job so she wore her oldest clothes to stand over the kettle in the sun-faded yard, stirring fat and lye water while it boiled.

  The sound of Travis's maul striking iron intruded on her thoughts, reminding her of last night. How he'd looked while held in the arms of his nightmare: terrorized yet enraged as some unseen wraith named Celia appeared in his sleep.

  Later, after he was asleep again, a wave of tenderness had engulfed her while she watched him. Awake, he was often rebellious and independent, harboring a cold, inexplicable anger. But asleep, his face still bruised, he looked like an exhausted teenage boy who'd been in a fight. The impulse to hold his hand after he'd dozed off had been so compelling, she'd been helpless to stop herself. It was a very forward thing to do, but she'd sat with him for a half hour, just watching over him.

  For the thousandth time Chloe wondered about the man working in the shop. She knew little about him beyond the fact that he was running from the law. She still didn't even know why he'd been sent to prison, and she frequently regretted her pretended lack of curiosity the day he would have told her the reason.

  In fact, he knew far more about her than she did him. For the most part he appeared to be carefully controlled, but she sensed frightening, turbulent emotions churning just beneath that surface. She'd glimpsed them when he first arrived. She also detected a strength of character. The few things she had learned about him only served to make him even more puzzling than before.

  She swished her paddle through the bubbling mixture in the kettle. Steam and the smell of wood smoke drifted over her. One thing was certain. It was becoming very difficult to ignore him. His powerful physical presence alone ensured that. Time and again Chloe had caught herself following his shape with her eyes. Or during some boring job like this one, her transgressing thoughts would stray to him. No amount of scolding herself made any difference. And now she'd held his hand.

  Evan—he was the right one for her, she reminded herself anxiously, pushing the paddle with more determination. Not the outlaw blacksmith.

  The anvil rang again. Anyway, he didn't remember what she'd done, she was certain of that.

  She ladled the harsh soap into pans to harden, then stopped. At least she hoped he didn't.

  * * *

  But Travis did remember. He had Doc's mare in the shop and as he tucked the horse's foreleg between his knees to nail on her shoe, the memory of Chloe's hand on his stirred up more feelings than he wanted it to. Now and then he glanced at her standing over her black iron pot, wearing a blue dress bleached by time and washed to the color of a morning sky. Her rolled-up sleeves revealed slender pale arms. Damp strands of reddish hair, loose from her hairpins, twisted into curls at her neck and on her forehead. He tried to ignore the way her hips swayed as she stirred the concoction she brewed, but he wasn't having much luck.

  Lately, he had to admit, he was discovering there was more to her than orders and opinions. Life was much easier when Chloe was bossy and irritating. Her occasional gestures of kindness only complicated what he wanted to remain as very simple. When the time came to leave, he wanted to walk away without one backward glance or a single regret.

  She would make that hard, he realized. He'd never known a woman with so many sides to her. Faces, yes. Several women he'd known had owned lots of faces, each with a different, self-serving purpose. But Chloe had just the one. Her unpredictability was frustrating but at the same time, intriguing.

  The smell of homemade soap floated to him and as he snipped the last shoe nail in the horse's hoof, Travis wondered how many of those sides he'd get to glimpse before he left.

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Chloe sat in the oak swivel chair at her father's desk and unlocked it. Lifting the rolltop, she took out her pen and ink pot, and a scuffed leather-bound box. When she opened the box and looked inside, she was buoyed by the sight of silver and gold coins jumbled together. She added the ones Travis had given her today, then reached in and ran her fingers through the money like a miser, enjoying the weight of it in her hands.

  Each day, her blacksmith shop made more money to add to the cache, and every night before dinner she counted it, marking her progress on a piece of paper. She was going to make it. Her father had left her in this mess, but she'd picked herself up and found a way out of it. She still had three weeks till the mortgage payment was due and she finally dared to believe she would meet that deadline.

  Three more weeks and she could breathe easier. Three more weeks and Travis McGuire would be gone.

  Her head came up at the thought. That was their agreement, that he'd stay till the payment was made. Yes, of course, he'd be leaving. It certainly would be for the best, she told herself sensibly. She could then move ahead and have a life with Evan.

  Odd, but that wasn't as comforting a thought as it had once been and she struggled to understand why.

  Chloe sat up abruptly, straightened her papers and closed the box with a thud. Three more weeks—

  She put down her pen and gazed out the open door at the emptiness of the prairie just beyond the yard. It was just that, well, she'd sort of gotten used to Travis being out there, working. To seeing him flood water over his dark hair at the pump at the end of the day, to hearing his footfalls on the back steps at dinner time. She was beginning to expect to find his eyes leveled on her if she turned suddenly, to look out at night to see yellow lantern light in his window and know he was just across the yard. .

  Her hands were poised on the handles of the roll-top to close it when she glanced down at one of the pigeonholes and noticed her father's old mining claim. She sat back in the chair and stared at the yellowing paper. It made her smile to think about it, the commotion that claim had stirred up. She'd been a very little girl at the time. Her father didn't drink back then. He'd wanted to give gold mining a try, close the shop for a while. Everyone he knew was getting rich, he'd said, and he wanted his share. Although it sounded like a wonderful adventure, Chloe hadn't wanted him to go. She knew she'd miss him too much. Emma was adamantly opposed to the idea, and her parents went round and round until Frank finally gave up and stuffed the claim into an old cigar box and put it in the desk.

  She stood again and closed the desk. Then far off and dreamlike, she heard music. On summer evenings when the wind was right, Chloe could hear old Zeke Lomax playing the piano at the Twilight Star Saloon and she'd stop what she was doing to listen a moment. Tonight as she sat at the desk, a cool breeze lifting the curtains, the sweet melody of "Annie Laurie" floated to her. She left her chair and went to stand at the door. A bittersweet smile pulled at the corners of her mouth. She hadn't thought of that song in years.

  Her memory traveled back to a long-ago harvest dance held in Misfortune. She must have been, oh, let's see, she pondered. It had been before her mother died. She was about sixteen then. She'd worn a beautiful pale pink gown with a daring neckline that so irked her father he threatened to lock her in the house. As a compromise, she'd draped Emma's best cream lace shawl over her shoulders. Her hair she'd tortured into foot-long sausage curls that trailed down her back and bounced like springs with each step.

  Doyle Higley, on furlough from the Apache wars in New Mexico, had called for her in his lieutenant's uniform. She'd felt like a princess that evening, dancing under the big autumn moon with a handsome young knight.


  The song ended and Chloe moved away from the door. Ah, well, she reflected, that was all long ago. Doyle had been killed in battle three months later and her own life had changed a lot since that night.

  But now as Zeke took up "My Darlin' Clementine," Chloe lifted her skirts a couple of inches and pirouetted around the room, remembering a time when her worries had been as light as thistledown.

  Travis found her thus. He'd come in looking for his dinner and tracked her down to the parlor. At first he wasn't sure what she was doing, then he heard the faint music. He had to smile to himself as he watched her twirl and swish her skirts like a child, completely absorbed. Dancing! He didn't think the fussbudget was interested in much else besides riding roughshod over everyone. On impulse, he stepped into her path when she reached his side of the room and let her dance right into his arms.

  Chloe bumped into his chest, then pulled up short, startled and feeling foolish. A blush burned her face. "Good heavens, what are you doing?"

  "Dancing with a lady," he said, and grasped her waist. "And don't tell me 'no'." Zeke was now playing a waltz and Travis swept her away, navigating them around the furniture.

  Flabbergasted not only by his actions, but as she floated within the circle of his arms Chloe was also surprised to find that Travis danced so well. Sometimes she forgot he hadn't been born in jail, that he'd had a life before, even if she didn't know anything about it.

  His combed hair was slicked down with water, still wet from its dousing at the pump. His clean chambray shirt smelled of her soap and his own scent. Where her hand rested on his shoulder she felt warm, firm muscle moving beneath the fabric. Chancing a look at his eyes, she saw a smile there, though it didn't reach his lips. She really wished she could see the rest of his face, the part hidden by his beard.

  She knew she should stop; it didn't seem right to be twirling around the parlor like this. But before she could protest, he'd maneuvered them out the screen door and Chloe found herself waltzing on the wide wraparound porch. The dry lawn whizzed past in a yellow blur.