Donovan's Bed: The Calhoun Sisters, Book 1 (29 page)

“So anyway, Mrs. Donovan, I thought I’d just stop by and put your mind at rest. No one will ever know from me that Jack Donovan was once Blade.”

Put her mind at rest?
Dear Lord, the man had just uprooted the very foundations of her marriage! But she couldn’t let him know how he had shocked her. No one could know. This was between her and Jack.

She forced a smile to her lips. “That’s very reassuring. Thank you for coming by, Jedidiah,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to work.”

“Certainly, ma’am.” Jedidiah Brown put on his hat and went to the door to flip open the locks. “Good day now.”
 

“Good day.” When the door had closed behind the lawman, Sarah got up and locked it again. Then she slowly returned to her desk and sank into the chair.
 

Jack Donovan was Blade. He was a man who had lived by the gun, walking barely on the right side of the law. A hired tracker. A man who hunted other men for profit.
 

A killer.
 

She had always known there was something dark about Jack, but never had she expected this.
 

Clenching her hands tightly in her lap, she concentrated on breathing steadily. Part of her was confused and disbelieving. Another part of her wanted to weep.
 

And part of her was furiously, painfully hurt.
 

Why hadn’t he told her? He knew how she felt about violence—she had told him herself. And she had confided in
him
—confessed her whole past, sins and all, on the night they first made love at Miller’s Pond.
 

But he hadn’t revealed one single thing to her.
 

The more she thought about it, the more infuriated she became. She had agonized through every word of that confession, certain that he would withdraw his marriage proposal once he knew the truth. She had bared her soul to the man to whom she had given her heart, only to find that her husband had hidden critical information about himself from her.
 

And now she was married to the kind of man she despised, one who had killed for profit and thrived on violence.
 

How many men had he killed? And how had he killed them? Did he care whether the criminal he pursued was guilty, or did he just care about getting paid for the job?
 

Just who
was
Jack Donovan? The tender man she had come to love? Or a ruthless killer?
 

Clearly he wanted to start anew, but a man didn’t put that part of himself away, never to return. At the very least, a man who lived by violence would have made many enemies. How long would it take for one of those enemies to track him down and perhaps kill him? They had been married only two weeks, and already Jedidiah Brown, a perfect stranger, had discovered Jack’s secret.

She took her reticule from the drawer and headed for the door. Only one person could answer all her questions, and that was Jack himself.
 

Jack knew there was trouble when he saw Senseless galloping up the drive as if pursued by a swarm of angry bees. He broke off his conversation with Matt and strode up to the house, reaching the front steps just as Sarah slid off the horse.
 

“Sweetheart, is there something wrong?” He reached for her arm, but she dodged his touch.

“In the house. Now.” Blue eyes glittering with fury, she turned her back on him and stomped up the steps.

Donovan stared after her for a moment, then signaled to one of the ranch hands. The man came and took the horse’s reins, and Donovan slowly entered the house.
 

Sarah wasn’t in the parlor or the kitchen. He was just about to call out to her when he heard footsteps overhead. Heading for the stairs, he winced as other sounds reached his ears—slamming, banging, muttering.
 

His wife was in one hell of a temper about something.
 

He found her in the bedroom, pawing through the wardrobe. A pile of her clothes was heaped on the bed, and an empty trunk stood open in the middle of the floor. A twinge of alarm crept over him.
 

“Sarah?”

She whirled to face him, a pale pink gown clutched in her hands. “I’m leaving you,” she said, then flung the garment on the bed with the others.
 

“Leaving? What are you talking about?” He came over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Tell me what’s bothering you.”

“Don’t touch me.” She shrugged him off and sent a glare over her shoulder that made him step back a pace. “I may not like guns, Jack Donovan, but I certainly know how to use one—and I will if you lay your hands on me again.”

Her words sparked his own temper. “Don’t threaten me, Sarah.”

“You don’t scare me, Jack,” she scoffed, turning to pile some shirtwaists on the bed. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he snapped. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

“I told you. I’m leaving you.”

“Why, damn it?” he roared. “What the hell have I done?”

She paused and gave him a level, pain-filled look. “It’s what you haven’t done, Jack…if that’s even your real name.”

“What?” Fear streaked through him. She meant it—she was leaving. He grabbed her before she could take another garment from the wardrobe, tightening his grip as she struggled. “What did you mean by that?”

She twisted in his grasp, trying to peel his fingers from her arms. “You know exactly what I mean,
Blade
.”

Stunned, he stared at her. His grip loosened unconsciously, and she broke away from him, rubbing at her upper arms. “What did you call me?”
 

“Don’t insult me by pretending ignorance,” she sneered. “You know exactly what I called you. And why.”

He sighed with resignation. “Yes, I do know.”
 

“What’s this? A confession?” With a brittle smile, she went to the bureau and yanked open the top drawer. “You’re a little late, Jack.”

“How did you find out?”

“Oh, I have my ways.” She dumped a handful of stockings on the bed. “You might have told me yourself.”

“I didn’t see that it mattered.”

She spun to face him. “How can you say that? I told you everything about me—
everything
—before we got married. Didn’t it occur to you to do the same?”

“Sassy girl, listen to me—”

“Don’t you ‘sassy girl’ me,” she snapped. “I bared my soul before I ever said yes to your proposal, because it was important to me to clear the air before we got married.”

“I told you straight out when we first met that I wasn’t going to talk about my past, Sarah.”

“I’m your
wife
!” she shouted. “I have a right to know.”
 

He clenched his jaw to keep back the stinging words that rose in response to her outburst. “You said you would leave it alone, Sarah. You said that you weren’t going to dig into my past anymore. Was that a lie?”

“I have never lied to you, Jack Donovan. Never.”

“Then how did you find out?”

“None of your business.” She scooped a bunch of clothes off the bed and dropped them in the trunk. When she turned back for more, he was there, blocking the way.

“It
is
my business, sweetheart,” he said with soft menace. “Now I suggest you tell me how you found out.”
 

She looked at him with a hint of fear in her eyes, and he wished he could call the words back. “The marshal told me,” she said quietly. “And when he leaves town, he had better leave unharmed, Jack. Now please get out of my way.”

He stepped aside without another word and watched her as she jammed two dresses in a leather satchel, then squeezed the rest of her clothes in the trunk. She slammed the lid shut, ignoring the lacy sleeve of a nightdress that hung out, and flipped the fastenings closed.
 

Donovan stared at that strip of ivory lace and remembered how surprised and delighted she had been when he had presented her with a new wardrobe as a wedding gift. How he had enjoyed picking out the clothes for her. How she had shyly worn the ivory nightgown on their wedding night, and how he had taken great pleasure in removing the garment an inch at a time.
 

But now she was leaving.
 

“Sarah,” he said softly. “I’m not going to hurt Jedidiah. Can’t we talk about this?”

“We should have talked about it a long time ago,” she replied. Her shoulders sagged, and she kept her back to him. “Jack, you knew how I feel about violence. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I suppose because…I know how you feel about violence.” He took a step toward her. “Sarah, I didn’t want to lose you.” He heard her sigh, saw the way her head bowed, and felt hope. “Sarah.” He stroked one hand cautiously over her braid. “Sweetheart, surely it’s not that important.”

Her head came up, and she slowly turned to face him. The tears welling in her eyes hit him like a full load of buckshot to the gut. “Jack, how can it not be important? Your past made you the man that you are. You can’t just put it aside like an old shirt.”

“I seem to have done all right.” When her face fell, he hurried on. “Don’t you see? No one cares who I was. It’s who I am now that counts.”

“And just who is that?” she demanded. “Jack Donovan is an orphan from Kansas with a lot of money. Blade is a notorious killer. Yet somehow, you are both of them.”

“Being a bounty hunter doesn’t necessarily involve killing—”
 

“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never killed?” She held his gaze, her expression challenging. “Tell me that you’ve never killed a man, Jack, and I’ll stay.”

“I can’t tell you that, Sarah.”

She closed her eyes tightly, one tear trickling down her cheek. “Then I have to go.”

“Damn it, Sarah—I love you!”

“I know you do. But I can’t live with violence, Jack. It always comes back to haunt me. Just like Luke did.”
 

“Sassy girl, please don’t leave me.” He took her hands in his when she reached for her satchel. “We can make this work.”

Her fingers curled around his, then she pulled away from him. “I don’t think we can.”

“Damn it, Sarah, I don’t deserve this!” He swung around, fists impotently clenched, and stalked the length of the room. “I wasn’t a criminal. I was a tool used by the law when they needed help.”

“But you’ve still killed, Jack. And that’s something I need to come to terms with.”

“Don’t expect me to apologize for choices I made years ago. Living is what matters, Sarah,” he said fiercely. “I did what I had to in order to survive. Does that mean that I don’t deserve to build a life for myself now? I realized a long time ago that nothing’s black and nothing’s white. Most people are somewhere in the middle.”

“I don’t know, Jack—”

“What about you, Sarah? You had doubts about this marriage working because you wanted the paper, and I wanted a helpmate. But somehow you’ve managed to be both.” He gestured to himself. “I’m the same way. I’m not going to apologize for Blade, because he got me here. But I will apologize for not telling you. I was afraid that I would lose you.”

“Oh, Jack.” She looked away.

“Tell me one thing, Sarah.” He strode across the room and cupped her face in both his hands. “Do you still love me?”

She closed her eyes and pressed one hand against his, cradling it against her cheek. “I’ll always love you, Jack. But I may never be able to live with you.”

“Sarah…” He turned his hand and stroked the backs of his fingers down her cheek. They came away damp as her tears started to fall.
 

“I have to go.” Reluctantly, she stepped back. His hands fell to his sides as she took up her satchel. “I’ll be staying at the newspaper office.”
 

He frowned. “Not your mother’s house?”

She shook her head. “No. I need to think this out on my own, and Mama would spend twenty-four hours a day trying to talk me into coming back here.”

He gave her a weak smile. “Like I said, how about your mother’s house?”

She laughed, but the tiny chuckle quickly became a sob. “Send my trunk to me at the
Chronicle
, all right?”
 

“Sure.” It was all he could do not to grab her and hold her to him. “I’m going to send one of the boys out to watch the newspaper office. And don’t even think about arguing.”
 

“I won’t.” She let out a soft sigh. “Actually, that would make me feel safer. Thank you, Jack.”
 

“Glad you’re being sensible. One last thing, sassy girl.”
 

She paused in the doorway of the bedroom. “Yes?”

“If Petrie tries to hurt you again, I just might kill him. So ponder that, too, while you’re doing all that thinking.” At her startled look, he said, “You wanted me to be honest.”

She swallowed hard, then gave him a shaky smile. “Funny thing is, I don’t think I could hold it against you if you did. Guess that makes me a hypocrite.” She looked away. “I appreciate your honesty.”