Prologue Read online

  At the first sharp twinge her breath stopped on a gasp in her chest. Then she felt his length fill her, complete her. She forced herself to relax and discovered that he really did fit. His hips began to move, driving him into her with powerful strokes. Instinctively, she matched her movements to compliment his and found the same yearning ache beginning to grow in her again.

  Faster he moved, pushing with a frantic rhythm, as he sought to quench the blaze burning through him. With each stroke he thrust her closer and closer to the edge of their existence until she felt all her muscles close in on themselves in tight powerful contractions. She knew she called his name but heard her own voice uttering other incoherent words.

  For another endless moment his hard smooth strokes continued. Then from deep in his chest an animal groan rose as pain and pleasure mingled in hot, pulsating jets, giving him the release he sought.

  Watching his face, she thought he looked as though he were in agony.

  Spent and panting he relaxed against her and rested his damp forehead in the soft curve of her neck. Chloe welcomed his weight pressing her into the mattress and a wave of tenderness washed through her. As she rubbed his back, unexpected tears ran from the outer corners of her eyes and across her temples. She took a deep, shuddering breath to stop them.

  One tear fell on Travis's forehead. Still within her, he immediately braced himself up on the full length of his arms to search her face in the low light. "Chloe," he questioned anxiously, "are you all right? Did I hurt you much?"

  She quickly reached up and dried her face, not wanting him to see the depth of his effect on her. "No, it was good. Just like you said it would be, Travis."

  He hovered over her a moment. Then he kissed her eyelids and closed his arms around her.

  * * *

  When the gray eye of dawn opened on the lovers in their feather bed, it found Travis awake with Chloe nestled against him, her long hair spilling over his chest. In her sleep she looked so innocent. Her hands were not soft and white as Celia's had been, and he wished they were. Not because he yearned for any quality his wife had possessed. He only wished Chloe hadn't had to work so hard. He smiled when he thought of the many sides he'd seen of this female—the tough-talking harpy, brave when threatened with losing her home, the shy virgin, and now the generous lover.

  Now he understood why the saloon girl in Canyon City had left him feeling unsatisfied. Having Chloe's softness in his arms felt like the best thing that had ever happened to him and made leaving ten times harder.

  He looked around the room, felt the clean sheets against his skin and the soft mattress beneath him, and thought of the hundreds of nights he'd stared at -a moon through a barred window. He'd never expected to see anything like this again, much less be part of it, even briefly. He'd been just a kid when he -went to prison, scared and angry, convicted of murdering the woman he had loved, a woman who'd used and betrayed him. Facing a life sentence at twenty had sucked the hope right out of him. But there was something about Chloe with her sassy tongue and gentle touch that made him begin to believe all the old wounds could be healed, made him think of the future. Last night his sleep had been dreamless and unbroken for the first time in over five years.

  It didn't matter, he thought, abruptly capturing his wandering imagination. He couldn't stay. As much as he wanted to fulfill that long-ago dream of home, he wouldn't, couldn't take that chance again. Life had left him with nothing but a fragile shell of himself that he guarded carefully. Now it was time to leave.

  He began to disengage himself from Chloe's arms and legs. She rolled over and presented her smooth white back to him.

  Still, it wasn't daylight yet and he didn't need to be gone this instant. There was no telling when he'd have this kind of luxury again. He tucked the sheet around them and pulled her close. Feeling safe and comfortable, he slept again.

  * * *

  Chloe woke to a strange sensation, the new but very pleasant experience of feeling Travis's warm

  body pressed against her back. She'd once heard of sleeping spoon-style but couldn't imagine what it meant. Now she knew. His arm was wrapped around her middle, hugging her to his long body, and she fit perfectly in his sheltering embrace.

  He stirred behind her and she felt his lips on the back of her neck.

  "I have to leave."

  His whispered words fell on her like rocks. She'd known he would be going today but knowing didn't make it easier. She thought of the night before and marveled at the fury that had raged through her. Along with her clothes Travis had also lifted away her inhibitions and tapped into a primitive part of her she hadn't known existed. He seemed to sense just where to touch her and when, before she even knew, and aroused in her a craving to fuse with his spirit as well as his body. She had never guessed it was possible to feel so close to another human being, to share something so powerful. For that brief time, it was almost as though they'd exchanged souls.

  She turned and looked into his handsome slumberous face, now shadowed by a one-day beard. 'Why not stay? No one here knows what happened to you." She reached up to touch the bristles on his jaw. "Besides, Misfortune is about as dead as a town can be and still have people living in it. Nobody comes here. That bounty hunter probably won't even be able to find us."

  He pulled himself up to one elbow. He didn't have the nerve to tell her the confused truth, that he was dying to stay and frantic to leave. He shrugged carelessly. "I've caused you enough trouble. People here will start talking."

  She scowled. "Hah! When haven't they talked about me? It's been going on for years!" Already hating the emptiness he left, she watched as he rose from her bed, his back a pattern of sheet wrinkles. “Anyway" she continued softly from her pillow, "if you go there'll be no blacksmith in Misfortune."

  Travis studied her for a moment before turning to the washstand. "It's not that simple, Chloe." It would be hard for anyone to grasp how relentless Rankin was. "I've got Jace Rankin looking for me and he's not going to give up." He washed and dried himself.

  "But where are you going? Do you have something to do?"

  “I heard they're looking for hands at the Silver Creek Ranch. I was headed there before I had that I saw your advertisement. If that doesn't work out, I'll keep looking till I find something. I just need to buy a horse." He reached for his pants, not bothering with underwear.

  She glanced up at him as he buttoned his shirt and tucked it in. "Stay here. You can have a new life. A new start. The town needs you." To hell with the town, she thought. I need you.

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to her, and pulled on his boots. "I don't want to be needed. I have to keep moving."

  How could he make her understand his need for self-protection? She kept trying to scale the wall he'd built around himself. Not that she was pushy or coy—it wasn't that at all. Her devices were guileless: the way the sun sparkled on her hair, her unexpected moments of shyness, the way she'd cried when he made love to her . . .

  He turned to her and took her chapped hand. He didn't want her to think he had heartlessly used her and was now rejecting her, but he knew nothing he said would help much. "Last night meant a lot to me, Chloe. But I told you before we started that I had to be leaving today."

  He really meant it, he was going. In spite of last night. Or maybe because of it, she agonized. Maybe she'd given herself too easily, too completely, and the bounty hunter was just an excuse he was using to get away. In any case, she certainly wasn't going to beg him to change his mind and her pride wouldn't let him see how much this was hurting her.

  "And I won't keep you one minute longer," she replied and sat up, her voice now crisp and businesslike. She wound the sheet around herself and rose to pull an old wrapper from the wardrobe.

  He winced at her tone, the one she'd used on him when he met her, and stepped over to touch her elbow. It had been a very long time since he'd had to worry about anyone's feelings except his own. "Chloe, I don't want to leave with bad feelings between us.
We shared a very special thing." The sight of her with the sheet twisted around her and that sleep-tangled sunset hair falling to her waist made him think of a Grecian statue he'd once seen in a book.

  Her expression was stony. "And now I'm supposed to smile and wave farewell with my handkerchief and throw rose petals at you. Well, let's get on with it.

  He sighed. She pointedly turned her back and put the wrapper on, shutting him out.

  "Goddammit, Chloe! I didn't force you into that bed. I asked you if you were sure you wanted to make love with me." His face was hot and he was feeling more like a heel every minute. His defense sounded weak and selfish to his own ears. Distracted, he stood at her mirror and tried to comb his dark hair with his fingers. When he turned, she was screwing her own hair down into the ugly knot that hid its beauty.

  "You asked and I said yes, so I don't see why you feel like you have to justify yourself now." She tightened the tie on her wrapper and stood by the door. He wasn't even leaving her for a worthwhile purpose. He had no place to go, no task requiring his attention. He'd rather do nothing than be with her. Rejection weighed like a millstone on her heart, but sheer brass kept her head high. "You'd better be going or you'll be late."

  "Late for what?" he asked and then wanted to kick himself for walking face-first into her barb.

  She followed him downstairs to the kitchen, watching helplessly as he went out the back door to the shop to gather his belongings. It was the last time she'd hear his boots on the stairs, the last time she'd see him in the yard.

  She found her good wrapper on the floor where they'd dropped it, remembering a Travis McGuire who held her in his arms in the dark and awakened her unused emotions and feelings. But as she picked up the discarded dressing gown, last night seemed like a million years ago. The spell that had enveloped them was broken by the sunrise and Chloe had to face the reality of her future.

  Automatically, she went to the sink and pumped water into the coffeepot, just as she'd done hundreds of times. With Evan gone and Travis going, the house would be so empty. The prospect of her coming loneliness was almost more than she could bear.

  He came back up the stairs, the whole blue denim length of him, and laid his saddlebag on the kitchen table. Chloe looked at it and her heart ached.

  "Can I have my gun back?" he asked.

  She went to the pantry and retrieved the box of bullets and the loose shells wrapped in her handkerchief. He put them all in the saddlebag, where she'd originally found them.

  "Your revolver is in my father's desk." They went to the parlor and she rolled back the top and removed his big Colt from a pigeonhole. "Here," she said, holding it out to him.

  Then she opened her strongbox and counted out all the money they'd made over and above what she'd need to pay the bank, and handed it to him. "You earned some extra money."

  Travis hesitated. He could always get by, but her position was more chancy by far. Besides, it didn't sit well with him to take money from a woman, especially under the circumstances. "No, Chloe." He shook his head. "You keep it."

  "It was part of our agreement. You worked for it, it's yours."

  He took it, the coins clinking in his hand, but he didn't like it.

  Then her eyes lighted on her father's old mining claim. She pulled it out and found her pen and bottle of ink. She scratched a paragraph relinquishing her ownership as Frank's heir and transferring it to Travis. She held the document out to him. "Take this, too."

  "What is it?"

  "Just take it," she repeated, trying to control her quavering voice. When he didn't, she threw it at his feet. "If you're so anxious to be alone and have no one need you, go dig in the hills. It's the most solitary life there is. You could go for months without seeing another human."

  Travis picked up the claim where it fell and read what she'd written. "Why are you giving this to me?"

  "I told you why. You can go sit up in the hills and never have to talk to another person or be responsible for anyone except yourself. You won't get bored because there's backbreaking work to do all day long, every day. You'll love it." And maybe if you have that, you'll keep my memory with you, too, she thought.

  All the sweetness, all the loving affection he'd discovered in her were once again sealed away behind a stout wall of defense, riveted in place with hairpins. "I can't accept this, Chloe. It's part of your inheritance," he said, trying to hand it back to her.

  Determined not to cry in front of him, she fought a sensation of mounting hysteria. "Then pay me for it. Do I look like the type to go prospecting? If you don't take it, I'm going to burn it."

  There was an edge in her voice he hadn't heard before and it worried him. "All right, all right," he said and tucked it into the saddlebag. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar gold piece.

  "I don't want your money," she contradicted herself.

  "Then I won't take that claim," he retorted.

  She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, stubbornly refusing to hold out her hand. He put the coin on the desk.

  He stood before her and dropped the bag on the floor, his hands hanging at his sides. "Well, I guess this is it."

  She nodded. She hated him in that instant for being so handsome, for making her love him, hated him for everything about him that was wonderful. But she hated herself even more for letting him get so close.

  "Honey, I'm sorry—"

  She frowned at the endearment, the sound of it knifing through her heart. "Don't call me that. And you don't have anything to be sorry for."

  He stumbled to an uncomfortable halt in his apology. "Anyway, I appreciate everything you did for me. I probably wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you."

  And I wouldn't wish I was dead if it weren't for you, she thought. But she was gracious enough to acknowledge his thanks. "You're welcome, Travis."

  He suddenly pulled her into his arms for a last, brief embrace. They held tight to each other and she tried to absorb every sensation, the scent of him, the feel of him, lean and tall, the texture of his shirt under her fingers.

  Releasing her, he put a kiss on her forehead and chin. "My mother called these cross-kisses," he murmured, pressing his lips to her left cheek and then right. "When I was a kid and I was scared, she'd do this. Then, she said, the angels would watch out for me."

  The muscles in Chloe's throat clamped down and she lowered her head for a moment so he wouldn't see her chin tremble.

  The saddlebag over his shoulder, he crossed the parlor to the door. His hand was on the doorknob when her pride slipped and she tried one final, desperate time. In a low, choking voice she said, "Travis, don't leave."

  He gazed at her for a long moment, his faint smile shaky, his eyes welling up. She looked defenseless and the sight wrung his heart. He didn't trust himself to speak, to ask her to understand something he barely understood himself. He only knew if he stayed one minute more, he'd be on his knees before her, burying his face in her wrapper like a frightened child. "Goodbye, Chloe."

  His boot heels thumped down the porch stairs, over the walk, and out the gate, taking him away from her life. Her throat tight with despair and regret for things that would not be, on bare feet she ran to the end of the fence and watched as his image grew smaller with each step he took down the road. The hem of her gown dragged over the yellow, rain-soaked grass but she could think of nothing except the excruciating pain she felt and at that moment, she wanted him to feel it, too.

  "Go ahead and leave, then!" she shouted. "I'd—I'd rather be married to Evan for a hundred years than spend another minute with you."

  In her anguish she seized upon the worst thing she could say to him. At his retreating form Chloe shrieked the one word she'd never be able to take back, though in the long sleepless nights to come she'd pray again and again for the chance.

  "Jailbird!"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Tarpaper Bolen's jaw dropped. "You mean that stranger is goin' prospectin'?"

  It was a
nother Saturday afternoon at DeGroot's Mercantile and today's assemblage lounging at the winter was made up of Tar, Albert DeGroot, and Ned Langford, who lived three miles outside of Misfortune. It was nearly closing time and Albert draped the merchandise with dustcovers.

  Albert nodded with some amazement, pleased with the effect of his news. "Looks like. He came in this morning, big as you please, and asked me if I had any mining equipment. Have I got mining equipment! Yessir', says I, 'I can outfit you with whatever you need.' "

  That was certainly true. When the boom ended in Misfortune, Albert hadn't been able to give the stuff away. He neglected to add that McGuire had seemed to be aware of that and when all was said done, Albert had let the merchandise go for next nothing.

  He flapped a drape over a display case. "He bought a whole load of things—pans, picks, shovels, blankets, food, Grovers' elixir—I don't recollect what all. Then he said he was going out to your place, Ned, to buy a couple of horses."

  Ned helped himself to a peppermint stick from the jar on the counter. He was a pumpkin of a man, round and short, with faded orange hair and silver bristles in his three-day beard. He was also given to cutting the front end off his sentences. "Sold him that gelding what belonged to my wife afore she passed last year. Took that piebald, too. Paid me twenty dollars. Didn't tell me what he was up to, though."

  "Getting information from McGuire is like pulling hen's teeth, and that's a fact," Albert agreed, putting the lid on the cracker barrel. “Why, it might have been days before we knew his name if Evan hadn't told us." He paused here as another thought occurred to him. "I guess Evan doesn't have competition for Chloe after all if McGuire's gone off to the hills."

  Tar was apoplectic. "You mean that stranger is goin' prospectin' around here? Just let's see him get within five miles of my claim,

  "Damnation, Tar!" Albert snapped. "To hear you carry on so, a body would think you were worried about losing a woman, or maybe even a horse, instead of that miserable patch of ground you have."