Jodi Thomas (33 page)

Carter swung up on his horse and grabbed the reins of Jacob’s mount. “Into battle!” he shouted at Traveler. With a loud yell he hoped would echo, Carter charged into the cluster of buildings at full gallop, not realizing he hadn’t pulled his weapon until he was ten feet from the shacks.

The man on the porch stormed forward, prepared to face Carter head on. But the ground was muddy. The huge man twisted, almost falling, just as he fired, sending lead blazing into the air.

Carter reached him in a heartbeat. He jumped off his horse, frightening Traveler even more than the gunshot had. The horse reared. Carter hit the mud, flat on his back, clawing to free his Colt from the holster.

As if in slow motion he watched Traveler’s hoof swing into Zeb Whitaker’s head. The big man jerked backward, his weapon raised to fire at Carter.

Carter scrambled to his feet. In three steps he was standing over Zeb. He grabbed a handful of Zeb’s matted hair and raised the scoundrel’s head from the mud to the light spilling from the house. Zeb Whitaker gave no response. The horse had knocked him out cold.

“You got him!” Jacob shouted as he fought his way out the door. “I came up clean looking for the train’s vault. Load Whitaker up and lets get out of here.” Jacob was easily winning a fight with two drunks as he moved toward Carter. The drunks seemed to think running at the ranger until he slugged them was a grand way to fight.

Carter lugged Zeb’s body over the woman’s horse, left tied to a dilapidated hitching post. He bound the buffalo hunter’s legs and hands beneath the animal. In pulling the reins free, he demolished the post and set the two mules loose. They kicked and ran, disappearing into the night with the supplies the woman hadn’t unloaded.

“Let’s ride!” Jacob shouted as he raised his gun in the air and fired, sending any remaining horses scattering and any outlaw left alive rushing for cover. “Since there’s no evidence of the train robbery, we must be in the wrong rats’ nest.”

Suddenly a woman’s scream outsounded even the gunfire. When she paused, she swore that she’d kill everyone.

“Hurry.” Jacob looked worried for the first time. “She’ll be out any minute.”

Carter had to dance with his mount to catch the stirrups. He had no doubt this was also Traveler’s first battle.

Carter finally swung up and grabbed the reins of Zeb’s horse. They galloped away into the cool night.

They thundered across the open country as if the devil chased them. Carter struggled with the reins of Zeb’s horse. The animal was half wild and didn’t take to a lead well. Carter hadn’t had time to put on his gloves, so the leather strips cut into his hands.

With the first light of dawn, the ranger slowed, searching the horizon to see if they’d been followed. Zeb’s low moans and swearing had polluted the silence for a few hours, but both Carter and Jacob acted as if they weren’t hearing a thing.

Jacob suddenly laughed. “That was great fun! Let’s go back and do it again tonight. Those small-time cattle rustlers never knew what hit them. It’ll take days for them to round up their horses and sober up enough to try and figure out what happened.”

Carter didn’t comment then, or later when Jacob tried to make him a hero, claiming he had Zeb already beaten on the ground by the time the ranger could get outside to help.

Carter tried to deny it, but Jacob continued telling the story for his own amusement, adding to it each time. Carter McKoy would be legend in another few tellings.

When they reached the outskirts of Childress, Carter said his good-byes. He knew the ranger and Riley would take care of Zeb Whitaker from this point. All he had on his mind was turning toward home.

He knew the way. He’d made it a few weeks before in the rain. Only this time Carter didn’t push himself or his horse. There was no hurry. Lacy had checked almost daily with her father-in-law; no one had seen Bailee. If she wasn’t there waiting for him, his home was just somewhere to rest. It was no longer where his heart dwelled.

When he rode onto his land, he took a long breath, welcoming the smells. As before, he crossed the creek and came up by the orchard. The harvest had been completed and the trunks of the trees banked with straw against the cold. In the short time he’d been gone, the trees had turned color, dying off to winter.

He saw no light from the house and only a small one from the bunkhouse. Samuel was still here. He’d be gone before the last leaves fell.

Carter led his horse across the yard, knowing he wouldn’t wake the old man. The barn was empty. Papa Farrow and his people had moved on.

Rubbing Traveler down, Carter caught himself talking to the animal, thanking him. “You’re fit to be named after a general’s horse,” Carter said as he gave the horse an extra scoop of oats.

All seemed in order. All except for Bailee not being here. At the washstand by the well, he stripped and washed. He couldn’t stand the thought of putting back on any of his filthy clothes, so he wrapped a towel around himself. If Samuel should wake, hed think Carter had reverted back to the days when he used to do the wash naked.

Carter knew the house would be locked. He hadn’t had time to take a key those weeks ago when Wheeler pulled him to the barn. Now, he felt along the porch railing for the extra one. Henry the Eighth sauntered over to him in welcome and waited, expecting Carter to rub his ears. Carter frowned, then obliged.

When the door swung open, the warmth of the house surprised him. Someone had been there recently. For a moment he thought it might be Bailee. But she would have heard him. She would have run to greet him.

He glanced back to the bunkhouse, wondering if Samuel might have been inside. But if he had, why wouldn’t he have stayed there, and not also had to heat the bunkhouse ?

Carter checked the door to the bedroom. Maybe Lacy was here? She’d had time to travel back here since he’d seen her.

But the door was open, and he saw the outline of an empty bed. No one was there.

Everything looked to be in place. His stack of clothes were missing from the comer of the pie safe where Bailee put them when she finished washing them. Maybe Samuel had given them to the Gypsies.

Maybe he’d given them Bailee’s wagon, Carter thought, remembering it was missing from the barn. Or maybe she’d gone.

He glanced at her china, her tablecloth, her candlesticks. She hadn’t left him. At least not willingly. She wouldn’t have forgotten her things. He allowed himself to breathe, and the weeks of tiredness flowed into his bones.

He crossed and lifted the cellar door, thinking tonight he would finally be able to sleep in his silent rooms. And, as every night, Bailee would be there beside him, if only in his mind.

B
AILEE HEARD A SLIGHT TAP, FIRST NEAR THE OPENING of the passage, then at the entrance to Carter’s bedroom. The trifling noise would never have awakened her if she hadn’t slept in total silence every night since she found Carter’s underground rooms.

Snuggling deeper beneath the covers, she listened. Her eyes were wide open, but she couldn’t even make out a shadow in the blackness.

From the moment she found his private rooms, she’d felt Carter near. She understood him so much clearer. And she missed him far greater.

It occurred to her that maybe she should wait until Carter brought her into his underground world, but when she found the passage, she could wait no longer. She needed to feel him with her. Though he might never say the words, she knew he loved her, and somehow in the darkness she believed it was true.

So she’d moved her things down beside his, rearranging his world to include her. She’d thumbed through his books and spent hours looking at a signing book his mother must have drawn that rested beside his bed. With simple strokes Carter’s mother had shown the hand movements for hundreds of words.

The rooms were safe and welcoming, until now.

Something moved near the bookshelves, as though tripping over the carpetbag Bailee hadn’t found a place for yet. Something fell to the floor with a wet plop. Something breathed.

Bailee froze. She was not alone.

Frantically she retraced her steps. She’d locked the door, hadn’t she? She’d closed the trapdoor when she’d walked down the steps to the cellar. At least she thought she had. She’d closed the passageway. Of course she had.

Or had she?

Could the intruder be an animal that had somehow burrowed into the walls? Or a mouse? Mice found their way everywhere.

She was almost sick with fear when the side of the bed gave to a sudden weight. If it were an animal, it was huge. And it was between her and the lamp.

Carter stretched his arm out and relaxed into the softness of his own bed a moment before a scream three inches from his ear frightened him out of a few years of his life.

He was up, fumbling for matches as the scream came again, echoing off the walls. It didn’t occur to him that he was totally nude until after the match flickered to light.

Bailee stared at him with huge frightened eyes, and he stared back until the match burned his finger.

They were in blackness once more. Silence. He listened. She didn’t even breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he finally managed to stammer as he reached for his clothes only to find them. gone from the peg where they were kept.

He stumbled over what might be a rug where no rug had ever been before and opened the top draw of his dresser. Lace and silk greeted his touch, not cotton as he’d expected.

He pulled open the second drawer. The same.

At the third drawer he decided he must have somehow crossed through the wrong passage. This wasn’t his home. Nothing was in the right place.

Trousers flew from nowhere and slapped him across the face. “Thank you,” he mumbled as he untangled them from around his neck.

“You’re welcome,” came a whisper from the blackness.

He pulled on his trousers before she found the matches and lit the lamp.

He wanted to pull her to him and hold her so tight she’d know that he’d never let her go. But he didn’t. He couldn’t. She was mixed in with every thought he had, every breath he took, yet he couldn’t cross the three feet that now stood between them. He’d seen the fear in her eyes.

“You’re safe.” Bailee pulled the covers close around her. “I was worried.” She didn’t look up at him.

“Zeb’s behind bars,” Carter said, thinking he should tell her that first. The beauty of her made his mind foggy. She was even more beautiful than the picture he held in his memory. How could he have ever thought her plain?

“I missed you so,” she whispered. “But I felt near you once I found your passage.”

“I didn’t kill Ludlow.” He didn’t want her still worrying about that. Maybe she thought he was a killer? Maybe that’s why he saw such fear when she first looked at him.

“It took me some getting used to, the darkness and all.”

“The ranger helped me find Whitaker, and they’re going to charge Zeb with Ludlow’s murder.” Maybe she hadn’t noticed he’d been naked. He figured his odds were about a million to one, but maybe if they just talked, everything would be fine.

“Lacy’s still in Childress as far as I know,” he said. Bailee didn’t seem to be listening.

“Since this is where you sleep, this is where I’ll sleep.” She played with a thread on the quilt.

Her hair shielded part of her face from him, and he could almost feel the softness in his hand. But he couldn’t touch her. Not until he knew she wasn’t afraid of him.

“I’m the only witness. So I’ll have to testify.” Maybe she thought he was still nude. Maybe that was why she hadn’t looked at him.

“Our month is up,” she said, not paying any attention to what he was talking about. “It has been for several nights.”

He watched her, suddenly aware of what she’d said. “Bailee?” he whispered. “Look at me.”

Bailee smiled, glad he’d finally started to hear. She stretched her hand toward his as he sat on the bed. The sight of him was enough to stop her heart. His beard had grown an inch since she’d seen him. He looked leaner, more tanned even in the flicker of the lamp. But his eyes were still the same wonderful shade of blue and they still made her feel as if they could see all the way to her soul.

He was the one man who made her feel, who made her alive. She wouldn’t stay with him because she had to marry him to be out of jail, or for any other reason. She would stay with him because without him there was no life inside her heart.

“Our month is up,” she whispered once more.

Carter placed her fingers over his hand and signed a single sign.

“I love you too,” she answered.

“How did you know what I said?” He moved his fingers along her arm trying to convince himself she was truly with him.

“I listened with my heart.” Her gaze locked with his.

All at once any space between them was too much. He pulled her close, kissing her with a touch so light, so cherishing.

She curled into his embrace, seeking his warmth as he surrounded her with his arms. For a while he cradled her gently, touching her hair, tasting her lips, caressing as though each touch was newfound and a first.

Her hands moved over him hungry for the feel of him. They’d both made love too many times in their minds. They needed more, far more, tonight. She couldn’t find the words to tell him how much he meant to her, but slowly she began to show him.

When he straightened to pull off his trousers and blow out the lamp, he heard her giggle softly and knew no matter what mistakes he made in making love to her tonight, it would still be perfect.

“I want to love you by touch,” he whispered against her ear. “My mind would be overloaded with senses if I could also see you.”

She laughed against his cheek. “I’ve already seen quite a lot of you already.” She’d never be able to tell him how shocking—and beautiful—the sight of him had been.