Running Wild (43 page)

Star slowly shifted her gaze. Nicholas was laying on his
back, breathing heavily, the cane rifle clutched in his hands, with smoke
rising from the end of it. Turning his head toward her, he blew a piece of
straw away from his face and flashed her a smile. “Best shootin’ you ever did,
ma’am. Reckon we oughta have started with a pistol instead of a rifle, huh?”

She bit her lip, nodded, and then, no longer able to
maintain her composure, burst into tears.

***

“The doc says,” Del said, “that I ought to stay in bed for a
week. That I shouldn’t even
think
about leaving for two. The train
leaves tomorrow afternoon at four p.m. Purchase me a ticket, won’t you, sugar?”

Dressed in simple white muslin, Star sat in a chair next to
his hotel room bed, deep affection warming her heart as she regarded him. Dressed
in a nightshirt, he sat propped up against the headboard, his face almost as
pale as the sheets. His dark eyes shone brightly even through heavy doses of
morphine. Nicholas sat on the opposite side of the bed, casually draped over
the back of a wooden chair, which he’d turned toward the bed. He’d removed his
coat, and his grey waistcoat hung open against the heat of the day.

Star avoided eye contact with him. He did the same.

“Jane shan’t be out of the hospital for two more weeks, Del.
Don’t you think you ought to wait?” Star asked.

On the return to Chicago the previous day Del had, between
deep swallows of the moonshine they’d found in the barn, related the story of
Jane’s miraculous survival. Apparently jostling Simon’s arm
had
set his
aim off, and the bullet had missed her. The fall however, had broken her arm
and two ribs. By and by, she’d managed to crawl up the bank, where a passerby
found her and took her to the hospital. There she’d told anyone who would
listen—deliriously and dramatically—what had occurred. Telegrams flew and
before Star had spent one night at the farm, everyone knew where she was.

“Of course,” Del had told her over the rattle of the wagon,
“we didn’t really need Jane’s information, since we already knew about the farm
from Keller’s investigation.”

“Keller?” Star asked.

“Yes, the private investigator that Nick hired.”

“A private investigator? When?” Star glanced at Nicholas,
who drove the wagon from the seat plank in the front, while she sat with Del,
his head and twice-wounded shoulder pillowed in her lap.

“After the trunk incident,” Del said, “which you ought to
have told me about, sugar, but,” he said, gritting his teeth at a sudden twinge
of pain. He took another deep swallow from his jug. “We’ll let that pass, shall
we? Keller tracked down Price’s father and got a wealth of information out of
him, including the fact that after Price’s grandmother, that Farnsworth woman,
you know, brought him to Boston, he tried, surreptitiously and unsuccessfully,
to sabotage your women’s movement there. He soon discovered that many of your
compatriots, male and female alike, sympathized with it. By and by he found
more fertile ground in New York, where he also met Bella.”

“And murdered her,” Star said, closing her eyes briefly as
memory assailed her.

Del patted her leg gently. “We speculated as such,” he said.
“Did Price confirm it, then?”

“Confirm it? He
gloated
over it. . .” She told them
everything she had learned from Simon, followed by a quick recap of her days in
captivity.

“Then,” Nicholas had said, when she fell silent. His voice
was unusually tight. “Price never touched you.”

“No. . . Not in
that
way,” she replied.

He exhaled slowly. “Good. Not dismissing his hitting you,”
he added hastily, “just that the other, well that’s a whole ’nother bag of
nails.”

“A man who’d hit a woman,” Del growled, “has no right to
call himself a man.”

Nicholas, his face schooled to blankness, glanced back at
Del. “Anyhow, Keller learned about the trunk, too,” Nicholas said. He proceeded
to relate the story of how Simon’s father had put his son in touch with a
friend working the Boston railroad line, who had snuck Simon into the baggage
car. The elder Price insisted that they’d misunderstood the incident; it was
merely a prank against an old college chum gone wrong. The trunks had been
mixed up.
All
of it was a misunderstanding. Simon meant Star no harm. .
.

After Nicholas had finished, they’d fallen silent until they
reached Chicago. Once there, while the doctor attended Del in his hotel
room—hospitals being a hot bed of disease, he asserted, and Jane staying in it
besides—Star visited Jane. Her near-death experience had done her character
little good. Her conversation jumped between weakness, hysteria, and borderline
violence over the injustice done to her. It stretched Star’s already frayed
nerves to the limit and after only an hour, she’d left for the hotel room that
Nicholas and Del had procured for her. There she’d meant to take a short nap,
but had instead slept through dinner
and
breakfast. Upon waking, she’d
dressed and come to Del’s room.

“You cannot pay me to stay here,” Del answered Star, now.
“Jane’s sisters will arrive tomorrow. I’ve less use for them than for Jane. I
doubt Chicago has enough peace officers to keep us all from killing each
other.”

“She’s still your wife,” Star pointed out gently.

“And I mean to avoid the scandal of murdering said wife.
Will you purchase me passage, Star, or must I do it myself?”

She sighed. “I’ll do it. For myself and Nicholas as well.”

“No, ma’am,” Nicholas said. “I’ve already got mine. I’m
pullin’ stakes this evening for the Bar M.”

“The Bar M?” Star asked jerking her head up. But . . . but
he’d come for her! He couldn’t mean to leave her
now
.

“I’m more than halfway home. I figure you and Del can get
back East by yourselves.”

Del frowned. “I don’t know. . . .”

She’d thought Nicholas’s detachment on the drive back from
the farm had been due to anxiety over Del’s precarious health. She’d assumed
they’d talk later, perhaps find common ground again. He’d traveled halfway across
the continent to rescue her. That must mean he’d developed a lasting attachment
to her, mustn’t it?

“I thought,” she said, “that you were going to stay with us
until the fall roundup.”

Shrugging, he regarded her with hooded eyes. “Jim needs me
and I reckon I’ve seen all I wanted to back East. Said goodbye to your parents
before I left.”

Then it wasn’t a sudden idea. He’d planned it. Oh but she
must change his mind! She couldn’t lose him this way. What to do? Beg, plead?
Apologize. . . .

“Perhaps you might reevaluate that decision, Nick, given the
circumstances,” Del said. “I’m not quite mended. I could use your assistance on
the train.”

A tiny smile settled on Nicholas’s face. It didn’t reach his
eyes. “Reckon you’ll do just fine. Star’s plenty strong enough to help you, and
what she can’t do, you’ll pay the porter for. Fact is, I’m here right now to
say goodbye. Gonna finish packing, and then board the six o’clock for
Cheyenne.”

Del heaved a disgusted sigh. He held out his hand as
Nicholas rose, and Star’s heart, only beginning to mend, started to tear at the
cracks. “Well, it’s been a pleasure, Nick. I confess, I never thought I’d have
much use for a cowboy. Not my sort of thing at all, but you, sir, have proven
me wrong. Your company is, shall we say, enlightening?”

Nick chuckled. “Yes sir, I’ll same the same about you. Ever
get out my way, you come stay with us awhile, you hear? Maybe I can help
straighten out that shot o’ yours.”

Del grinned. “If I travel that way I most certainly shall
visit, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. Star’s told me of that
rabid cougar. I’ve no desire to repeat her experience.”

Nick nodded. His chest ached as he focused on Star. She
rose. “I’ll accompany you to the door, shall I?”

He wished she wouldn’t. This was hard enough as it was.

He nodded and walked to the door, every nerve in his body in
tune to her movements. He opened the door, and she brushed past him to step
into the corridor. So that was how this was going to be. Them alone, even
worse. Didn’t she see how much easier it’d be if they parted without words?

He closed the door and looked into her eyes, brown in the
dimness of the corridor. For all his resolve to end this fast and easy, he
wished he could see them gold again, one last time. In gaslight or candle light
or sunlight. Sparkling and alive with mirth.

“If this is about us,” she said in a tight voice, “I wish
you would reconsider. It is not fair to you or my parents for me, for
that
,
to come between you.”

He drew in a breath. “No, ma’am, it’s not. Just time for me
to head home is all.”

She bit her lip. “Would it help if I apologized?” He could
see her eyes starting to water, damn it. “For all that I said—”

As his throat closed up, he held up his hand to stop her.
When she appeared determined to go on, he pressed a finger against her lips.
Soft as rose petals. . . . “You don’t have anything to apologize for. I was the
one who said all the bad things. Accused you of selfishness and all. I was
wrong, Star. You aren’t selfish. Look how you risked your life to save Jane.
You don’t even
like
Jane.”

She blinked several times. “Why, then return with us. We
can—”

“No,” he stopped her again. What was the use? Even now, she
spoke no words of love, no confession to a companionship beyond the fire under
the sheets. Because she didn’t feel it, not enough, anyhow. “It’s time for me
to go home. We had fun, but it’s gotta end sometime, right?” A question . . .
one last chance.

She swallowed again. “We live two thousand miles apart.”

“Sure. So we’ll end it here.” And quick-like too, because
much longer and he’d prove to her that he wasn’t near the man she thought him
to be. His eyes were burning. He hadn’t wept in a long time, not since Dickie’d
been born and Jim put him in Nick’s arms and called him uncle.

He missed home. Missed it so much it hurt almost as much as
losing Star.

He leaned forward to give her a quick kiss on the forehead.
“Good bye, Star.” He turned on his heel and walked down the hall. When she
called out his name in a rough, tear-laced voice, he didn’t turn around.

Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing

“And so, Del,” Star said, after she and Del had sat in
silence on the train for two hours. She’d purchased the tickets as Del had
demanded the day before, had transported him to the depot against all medical
advice and helped him board the train. He now slumped against the train wall,
feigning morphine-induced delirium. Her exhausted brain and broken heart,
however, had taken as much mournful contemplation as they could stand and
demand distraction. “Is this it between you and Jane?”

Del opened his eyes. “Did you say something? I was
sleeping.”

“You were not, and I’m tired of pretending that you are.”

Sighing, Del straightened up. He winced. “All right. Jane .
. . yes, I suppose it is.” He took a breath. “Truthfully, Star, I cannot bear
another fight. We could forgive each other the rest of the infidelities, but
she was in love with Price.” He paused. “She’ll blame me for Price. You know
she will.”

“Blame
you
? With what reasoning? You did nothing
wrong.”

“Reason doesn’t matter to Jane.”

No, Star thought, it never had. “Will you divorce her?

“Divorce.” He grimaced. “I don’t know . . . probably.
Divorce cannot possibly be more scandalous than what we’ve already done.” He
shook his head as a deep sadness settled around him, writing lines into the
corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. “I’ve ruined her, haven’t I? I
knew she was too young when I married her, but I threw both caution and
conscience to the wind.”

“Many women have married as young and no disaster come of
it. The fault for this affair rests with her and Simon, not you, Del.”

“Price was merely the tool. We are the ones who employed
it.”

“Jane did, not you.”

He shrugged, unconvinced. They were quiet for a time
listening to the clickety-clack of the train and the murmur of passengers.
“What about you, sugar?” Del presently ventured. “What’s next for you?”

“Next? Why I’m returning home, obviously.”

“Without your cowboy.”

Her heart twisted and she tried to force lightness into her
voice. “He’s not my cowboy, and he’s returned to his own home in Colorado.”

“Yes, I know that,” Del said, impatiently. “What I don’t
understand, Star, is why the devil you didn’t go with him.”

Her eyes burned as she looked out the window, trying not to
squirm under his gaze. She’d no wish to sort through the pieces of her broken
heart with Del. “I don’t belong in Colorado.”

“Don’t belong―Star, you’re in love with the man!”

Her stomach flipped and then contracted into a light
cramping ache. “Yes,” she said gruffly, “and you love Jane. See how well that
turned out?”

“Just because our marriage ended in catastrophe, doesn’t
mean yours must follow the same path.”

“I’m not following your path. In point of fact, I am
avoiding it like the plague.”

“Star,” he started softly. She turned from her view of
passing cornfields, to see Del’s face creased in suffering. He pinched the
bridge of his nose, as if it would prevent his thoughts from traveling to his
heart. “Loving Jane was never the mistake. The mistake was letting her go.
Again and again.”