Prologue Page 21

  Chloe jumped to her feet and stood over him, no longer finding a need for diplomacy. "As hard as it may be to believe, I am going to turn down your unselfish offer and ask you to leave. Now."

  He stood, picked up the flowers he'd brought her and threw them at her feet. Then he stomped down the stairs and over the walk. From the fence he turned one last glare on her.

  "You'll die an old maid, Chloe. No other man will want you," he pronounced, then hurried away.

  Now she had one more thing to thank Travis for. If he hadn't come to Misfortune, she would probably have married Evan.

  "You'll die an old maid . . ."

  As if that was the worst thing that could happen to her, Chloe thought, after being threatened with the loss of her home.

  After all these lonely years.

  After grueling heartbreak.

  There was only one man she knew who made Evan's assertion a bleak and desolating prospect. She glanced at the far hills, lambent in the golden sundown.

  Pushing herself away from the porch railing, she went back into the house to put the kettle on for her bath.

  * * *

  "Dad blame it, boy," Tar Bolen snapped. "Quit swirling that pan like you was gettin' ready to feed the hogs. No wonder you ain't findin' much gold. Yer throwin' it all back into the water."

  Travis looked on as Tar once again demonstrated the proper technique to shake the gold to the bottom of the pan instead of sloshing it out. The motions involved rocking the pan from side to side and tapping the edge of it.

  The crusty prospector had gotten used to the idea of having a neighbor once he decided Travis wasn't ping to jump his claim.

  At first Travis hadn't been too happy to have him nosing around, making a nuisance of himself, but now he was really learning something from him. If he could just get used to the smell.

  The early September sun beat down on the back of his neck as he crouched on one knee next to a gently flowing spot in the El Diablo. The icy water had soaked him up to his thighs and his hands were freezing, but at least it numbed the blisters.

  There now," Tar announced proudly, giving the pan a final swish. "Now that's a fine mess of flakes." Travis was fascinated by what the old man had collected, a pea-sized mound of gold winking up from the bottom of the black pan. Still, it didn't seem like much.

  “Thanks, Tar," Travis said.

  “Nothin' to it," he replied. He stood stiffly and untied his mule, turning her to head back down the hill his own camp. "Come on, Hannah, ol’ gal. Let's this young feller get on with his work."

  Travis watched him go, then looked back down at the gold and at the pile of wet sand he still had to go. Right now that sand looked as big as a mountain. Resolutely, he sank his shovel into the pile. There be another mortgage payment hidden in it.

  * * *

  Chloe pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down to Evan's letter in hands that trembled ever so

  slightly. The morning sun streamed over her checkered tablecloth and the page containing Evan's cramped, rigidly precise handwriting. She'd opened the back door to carry two buckets of hot water outside to the laundry tub and found his envelope. She hadn't known what to expect in his words.

  “. . I see everything differently now and I realize how wrong I have been. My behavior at our last meeting was unforgivable, still I implore you to find mercy in your generous heart. . .”

  "I would like to call this evening after dinner to offer my apology in person. I miss the pleasure of your company and our evenings together. Perhaps we cannot be partners in life, but I will be honored if I can call you a friend. . ."

  She sighed and pushed the refolded letter back into the envelope. Evan was right, his behavior had been unpardonably rude. Yet what was to be gained by holding a grudge?

  Chloe was more alone now than at any other time in her life and she felt it very keenly. Isolation crowded her even as it cast her adrift. She hadn't seen Evan in weeks. In fact, he had been the last person to visit, if she could call it that. Adam Mitchell had made it impossible for her to attend church anymore. Not that she'd enjoyed it very much before that morning he'd come here with his insulting proposal. Her days were filled with work. Her evenings were spent doing mending, or reading in the parlor. Except for the ticking of the clock and the wind in the grass, silence was her

  only companion. Sometimes it seemed like she was the last person in this town.

  She lifted her gaze to the blacksmith shop beyond the window. No, she didn't want Evan for a husband, or even a beau, but it might be good to have a friend.

  All right, she told herself, and put the letter in her apron pocket. She'd give him a chance, just one, to make amends.

  * * *

  Chloe was sitting on the porch swing when she saw Evan's dark figure coming down the road. He carried none of the trappings of courtship—no flowers or candy—and she was relieved. As he neared she saw that even his clothes were less dressy; he wore a work shirt and dungarees. Apparently he'd dropped all pretense of the ardent suitor.

  Still, her better judgment had made her decide to hold this meeting on the front porch instead of in the house. If the situation became unpleasant again, it might be easier to sweep into the parlor and close the door than to try to make him leave.

  When Evan reached the far end of the fence, he followed it slowly, watching her with eyes that held the same peculiar, feverish glimmer she'd seen before. Vague apprehension ruffled Chloe like a chill breeze while he stared at her and then at the house, letting his hand drag along each weathered picket. Feeling a little tense, she smoothed her plum broadcloth skirt.

  "You found my letter?" he asked, standing at the gate.

  "Yes, Evan, and I appreciated it." After a second's hesitation, she gestured at the empty seat next to her on the swing. "Please—come and sit down."

  He crossed the walk and came up the stairs. "You're looking well, Chloe," he said, lowering himself to the swing. "A bit thinner, perhaps, but I suppose that's due to . . . " He let the sentence hang unfinished, as if having reconsidered the remark.

  "But I'm here to make amends for my rude conduct the last time I was here," he went on, fidgeting next to her. "I didn't understand then that even if we don't marry, our association needn't end. I've missed this." He gestured broadly at their surroundings. His knee began bouncing up and down.

  She sighed and pushed a loose pin back into her hair. "Friends are hard to come by, along with everything else," she reflected, almost to herself. "It's not good to have no one in the world, no one to talk to, to share things with." She was so acutely aware of that now.

  A knowing, satisfied expression crossed his face. "Then you accept my apology and forgive my bad manners?"

  She wasn't going to let him off that easily. She brushed a speck of lint from her skirt as she considered his question. "I don't know, Evan. You said some pretty hard things to me."

  He hung his head in regret, then looked up at her, eyes glinting. "It was wrong of me. I was just disappointed."

  The confession surprised her and it occurred to her how much he'd changed in the last few months. He certainly was very different from the man who'd originally come calling on her. Then he'd been hesitant, timid and respectful, afraid of offending her, unable to look her in the face. Now he was edgy and more direct and Chloe again was struck with the odd feeling that she was looking at a stranger's eyes through a mask of Evan's face. She couldn't shake the feeling, no matter how silly she told herself it was.

  But maybe he had been disappointed, she thought, jumping to his defense again. All these months she'd excused his rudeness and tried to understand that he'd been threatened by Travis's presence. The two men were nothing alike and Evan must have sensed that he was lacking in so many ways when compared to Travis. Perhaps that was why he'd lashed out at her. "I do forgive you, Evan. Life is too short to bear grudges."

  He smiled, looking pleased. "Good." He leaned back against the swing, his knee still bouncing nervously. His gaze drifted
over the pleated bodice of her blouse, then lifted to her eyes.

  Chloe read what she saw there and suddenly felt very uncomfortable. All her niggling qualms about Evan, which she usually ignored, clamored in her mind. He edged closer to her on the swing, his pale eyes lingering on her, his thigh brushing hers. She shifted slightly, instinct moving her closer to the other end of the swing.

  "You don't have to feign false virtue anymore, Chloe. Not when we're finally beginning to understand each other."

  False virtue? A horrible suspicion began to dawn on her that Evan's idea of friendship didn't match hers. "I don't think I understand you," Chloe retorted, her shoulders drawing away from his outstretched hand.

  She realized then that she didn't like Evan Peterson. She wasn't sure she ever had. And she suspected that he despised her. He'd failed her at every turn—when she'd needed his help, his protection, his resourcefulness, his loyalty, he'd simply sat back and left her to find her own way. Now he'd failed her as a friend. His selfishness and weakness were finally clear to her.

  "Your blacksmith is gone, your virginity is gone—the town is nearly gone. Why can't we make the best of our lives?"

  Disbelief threw her into stunned silence. Apparently assuming that she agreed, Evan took her arm in a rough grip and pulled her against his thin chest. His words came to her in an obscene whisper, as he pressed wet, repulsive kisses on her neck. "McGuire did me a favor, actually. Now I don't need to play the attentive admirer, trying to win your favor."

  Fear and revulsion gave her back her voice but her words were muffled under his assault. She tried to bring her hands up to his shoulders to push him away but he possessed a strength she would not have suspected. Her squirming served only to heighten his arousal and she was flooded by the fear that he was going to rape her.

  His face looming bare inches from hers, his expression frenzied, he snapped, "You probably let that uneducated savage kiss you but with me you're always so puritanical." Again he tried to connect his lips to hers, this time his sweaty hand grabbing her breast. "Did you like what he did all those nights you two were here alone? Did you suppose I didn't know what was going on?"

  "Evan!" she shrieked. Finally working her arm free and twisting away from him, she pulled back her hand and slapped him with every ounce of strength that terror and anger had given her. The blow sounded a sharp crack, like a dry barrel stave snapping, and Chloe's palm stung like fire. But it gave her enough time to roll off the swing and she landed on the porch flooring, immediately scrambling to her feet. Hoping her fury covered her fear, she glared at him, her breath coming in short gasps. "Did you think you would come here and—and— Get off my porch and off my land! Don't you ever, ever come back here!"

  Evan covered her red palm print with his own hand, then gripped his temples between his thumb and second finger, as he did during one of his headaches. He looked up at her from lowered brows. His voice came from a dark, hateful soul. Chloe hardly recognized the sound as his own. "Why did you invite me over here and lead me on if you had no intention of following through with your wanton promises?" he snarled.

  "What?" she demanded. "I don't know what you're talking about, Evan." Travis had been right, she realized. There was something profoundly wrong with Evan Peterson. "You invited yourself to my home and you are not welcome here. I insist that you leave right stow." She struggled to keep her voice strong and steady. Showing any weakness now would be her downfall.

  Evan rose from the swing and Chloe felt a twinge of alarm at the malignity she saw in his face. She wanted to back away, but knew she couldn't. Her only defense lay in remaining resolute. She met his look with one that she hoped was fiercer than his.

  For a timeless moment she waited for him to either hit her or turn away. It seemed she had won, that her rage far exceeded his selfishness, because he broke their gaze and thundered down the steps. He went back down the road, dust rising from each step he took.

  She watched him go and didn't take her eyes off his back until he was only a dot at the far end of the road. Then she sat hard on the swing, perspiration soaking her, and her hands began to tremble slightly. She scrubbed her lips with the hem of her skirt, feeling dirty. She looked at her wrist and saw that her cuff button had been torn off during her struggle to escape Evan's grasp.

  Until this moment, like a faded flower pressed between the pages of a book, she'd harbored the idea that Evan must have cared for her, just a little, in spite of what Travis had said. Now she knew how wrong she'd been. Travis was gone and if she was to have no one in this world, then so be it. She'd learn to make her own way. It would be far better to be alone than have to endure a man like Evan.

  The sun was a brilliant red-orange ball settling on the horizon, ending this day and this chapter of her life.

  She stood up, sealing away in her heart the part of her that had once yearned for love.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The sun was low in the sky when Chloe reached down and plucked three carrots from her kitchen garden growing next to the back porch. On the opposite horizon, a huge harvest moon rose behind the hills. Those last days of September were shorter as summer drew its last breath. In just the past week, the nights had turned crisp and in the mornings the wind had a sharp edge. A scent was in the air, the spicy aroma that signaled the change of seasons.

  She crouched and shook the soil off two nice potatoes to put in her basket. Looking at them, remorse struck her without warning, as it often did these days. She thought of Travis living on these potatoes because she'd banished him from the house, and wished she had it all to do over again. He'd been everything she thought she wouldn't want: independent, rebellious, iron-willed, full-blooded, with his emotions alive beneath a carefully blank surface. Now she realized that those very qualities had drawn her to him.

  Though she'd resolved to survive by herself, her memories of Travis gave her no peace. At least their bittersweetness was preferable to her last nightmare meeting with Evan. He, thank God, had not bothered her again since that dreadful evening he came to "apologize."

  In the shadow of the porch, a chilly breeze eddied around her. It was time to bring out her down comforter and woolen rag rugs. It would be a long winter in this house. All her days seemed long now.

  From the road, the sound of approaching hoofbeats slowed and stopped outside the fence, just in front of the shop. Rising from her chore, she tried to see around the back steps. She hoped it wasn't somebody wanting a blacksmith. Since Travis had gone, time and again she'd had to explain that he no longer worked there, that Misfortune was without a blacksmith once more. She heard someone open the gate, its hinges screeching. Spurs rang with each step the someone took across the yard, hurtling her memory back to a hot noon when a drifter with spurs had walked through her gate. Wild hope flared in her.

  Travis . . . ?

  She stepped out from beside the stairs and was confronted by a man she'd never seen before. He was not very tall, no taller than herself. He had long dark hair and the bristle of a one-day or two-day-old beard. He wore a duster that nearly reached his an-ankles and a wide-brimmed hat, and he carried a well-tended Henry rifle in his right hand. Strapped around his slender waist was a gun belt that seemed too big for a man his size. His face was young; she would have guessed him to be in his early twenties.

  But that was the only indication of his youth. There was something ominous about him, something forbidding in his ice-blue eyes that gave her a sense of critical danger. She knew this man, somehow, but she was positive she'd never seen him before. His voice was low and husky when he spoke.

  "Beg pardon, ma'am," he said. "I need to see the blacksmith. My horse is losing a shoe."

  "My father was the only blacksmith in town," she replied cautiously, clutching her basket, "and he passed away last spring."

  "My condolences, ma'am. I'm really sorry to hear that." The man looked around the yard and then back to Chloe. "What's the name of this town?"

  "Misfortune," she answered, wishi
ng he would leave.

  He smiled a slow, private smile. "Sounds like a good hiding place for a man who doesn't want to be found. It would be a dandy place for a blacksmith who doesn't want to be found."

  Chloe's heart stopped for a horrible, gasping second, then with a tremendous lurch, began beating like a bird's. She looked at the ground quickly, hoping her fear didn't show in her eyes, that he couldn't bear her breathlessness.

  She tried to arrange her face in an expression of ignorant curiosity.

  "I'm sorry—?"

  He shifted the rifle to the crook of his left arm. Reaching into his pocket, he brought out a silver dollar, rolling it across the back of his knuckles as he talked. "You might be able to help me. I'm looking for a man I've been tracking for five months. He's always a jump ahead of me."

  "A criminal, you mean?"

  "We've got some business to discuss, him and me."

  "Are you a marshal?" she asked with a calmness she didn't feel.

  "Not exactly, ma'am. I get paid to find people who are wanted for one reason or another, people in some kind of trouble. My name's Jace Rankin."

  Yes, of course. She'd known it without being told. Oh, God, oh, God. Chloe's memory dropped back to her conversation with Travis that awful morning he left. She'd been full of audacity and advice then, telling him he ought to face Rankin to find out what he wanted. At the time she couldn't imagine what he feared or why he was afraid. Yet now that she faced him, she was absolutely terrified for Travis. All she could think of was to protect him and keep his whereabouts a secret from the bounty hunter with a boy's face and an old man's eyes.

  "You mean you are a bounty hunter, Mr. Rankin," she specified coolly, trying to cover her panic.

  "You might say that, Mrs.—" He waited for her to fill in the blank.

  "Miss Maitland," she supplied.

  "Well, Miss Maitland, have you seen any strangers around town in the last month or so? The man I'm tracking is a blacksmith by trade. Just spent a few years in prison. He's tall and thin, dark hair, light eyes. His name is Travis McGuire."