Stay With Me (2 page)

It had to be Heaven.

She jumped when she heard a noise behind her.
Whirling around, she saw two yellow eyes, ground level, staring at
her. She screamed, the sound echoing in the quiet night. The
startled squirrel ran up the trunk of the nearest tree.

Just seeing the animal made her feel a little
better. She’d always hoped Tiny, her fat old cat who’d died last
year, had made it to Heaven. If a squirrel got in, Tiny was a sure
thing.

She looked to her left, then to the right. A
narrow dirt road stretched as far as the eye could see in both
directions. Hoping for a bit of divine inspiration, she looked up
and studied the sky.

She tried to pick out the brightest star.
That had, after all, worked out okay for the Wise Men. She patted
the pockets of her still damp skirt. Fresh out of frankincense or
gold. Oh, well.

She turned to the right and began walking
down the dirt road, wincing when she stepped on a sharp rock. She
got another hundred yards before a second rock sliced into her
other foot. She stood first on one foot, then the other, probing
the cuts with her fingers.

When had she had her last Tetanus
booster?

She laughed, feeling giddy. What did it
matter?

She squatted down, rubbed her hands across
the grass, attempting to wipe the blood off. She managed to smear
it up past both wrists. She resisted the urge to use the edge of
her skirt. It might have to last her through eternity. Now she
really regretted that she hadn’t worn her practical slacks and
blouse. “I hope you’ve got some extra bathrobes, God.” She spoke
quietly as she continued down the path. “Some of those white thick
ones, the kind they have in expensive hotels.”

She took a few more steps. “I always figured
Heaven would have pizza and hot chocolate and red licorice.”
Another six steps. “Not that I’m complaining, God. I’m sure there’s
more than this.” She did not want the Big Guy to think poorly of
her. After all, she’d handled this death thing pretty well so far.
No sense letting Him down now.

She walked another ten minutes, each step a
bit more painful than the last. She had almost decided to give up
and let God or whoever come and find her, when she reached the top
of the hill and spied a log cabin, another half-mile down the road.
A wooden barn, three times as big as the cabin, stood a hundred
yards to the right.

She hobbled as fast as her sore feet allowed,
slowing when she got close enough to see better. No porch light
beckoned. No sidewalk led up to the front door. Just more dirt.
“I’m assuming there’s more, God,” she whispered. “That I’m going to
walk through that door and find Paradise. Eternal peace.”

For the first time, she felt fear. What if
she was doomed to live an eternity of unending dirt roads and
bloody feet? The biggest fear of all hit her, almost taking her
breath away. What if this wasn’t Heaven? What if it was something
else? She didn’t want to say the name.

“Here’s the deal, God. I know I gave up. That
doesn’t make me a bad person. I know I could have—”

A dog’s angry bark interrupted her. That
scared her. In heaven, all the dogs would be gentle Labradors. In
the other place, they’d be pit bulls.

She wanted to run, but to where? Heart
pounding, hands clammy, she edged closer to the door. She raised
her hand to knock, but before she got the chance, the door swung
open. A man—a big, terrifyingly menacing man with a gun slung over
one shoulder—stood there. He held a lantern in one hand. The light
played over his strong features, his broad forehead, his straight
nose and whiskered chin.

He extended his arm, raising the lantern to
get a good look at her. He didn’t say a word; he just glared at
her, his eyes filled with hostility. She opened her mouth but no
words came out. She wanted to run but her legs refused to obey.

“That’s enough, Morton,” he said, turning his
head slightly. The barking stopped.

The devil and his dog, Morton.

He turned back toward her. He set the lantern
down, shrugged one powerful shoulder, and lowered his gun, placing
it next to the door. Then he looked at her again. “What the hell
are you doing here?” he asked. “I thought you said you were never
coming back.”

***

John barely kept her head from hitting the
floor. She’d dropped like a stone. But once he held her in his
arms, he didn’t have any notion of what to do with her. Then he saw
the blood on her hands and feet, and he knew he had to help
her.

“Damn, Morton,” he said to the dog. “She’s
hurt.”

The big dog whined in response and ran
nervous circles around John’s legs. “Get out of the way,” he
scolded the dog, as he carried the woman to the bed in the far
corner of the room. With as much care as he could, he placed her on
top of the worn blanket, then took a step back. She looked small
and pale and so very still. Reaching forward, he held his hand in
front of her lips. Delicate breaths warmed his fingers.

“It’s okay, boy,” he said, patting the dog’s
head, knowing he wasn’t reassuring the animal so much as himself.
What had brought this woman to his door in the middle of the night
wearing nothing but her shift? He tried to ignore her barely
covered breasts, her small waist, and the sweet flare of her hips.
He concentrated on her face.

She looked thinner than he remembered. She’d
cut her hair, too. Now it just brushed her shoulders. He remembered
the hours she’d spent in front of the mirror, crimping her long
hair with the hot iron. Then she’d laid out her powders and her
paints and weighed down her face with a layer of oil. Tonight, her
skin, still pale, looked bare. He ran a thumb across her cheek.
Just skin. He could see the faint shadow of freckles on her nose.
Somehow, it made her look younger. Innocent.

“Deceitful witch,” he muttered. This woman
was no innocent. She probably hadn’t been born innocent.

He held the lantern above her head and moved
it down the length of her body, looking for injuries. When he got
to her feet and saw fresh blood oozing from both, he quickly set
the lantern down on the table next to the bed. He walked across the
room, grabbed a clean cloth from the cupboard, and wet it with
water from the pitcher he kept on the table. He returned to the end
of the bed and picked up one foot. The warmth and softness of her
skin shocked him.

“Conniving gold-digger,” he reminded
himself.

He wiped first one foot, then the other. One
of the cuts worried him. Grabbing another clean cloth from the
cupboard, he doubled it over once, and then again. Pressing the
edges of the cut skin together, he wrapped the cloth around her
foot, tying it in a knot on top.

He got his third cloth, the last clean one he
had, wet it, and wiped off her hands. She sighed, a soft sweet
sound. He flicked his eyes to her face. Her pale pink lips parted
and he could see just the tip of her tongue.

“Manipulative, spoiled, rude,” he said,
kneading his forehead with his fingers. Damn, his head hurt. “Come
on,” he said. “You’re not the fainting type.” He put his hand on
her shoulder and shook her gently. She didn’t stir.

Making yet another trip to his cupboards, he
reached for his vinegar bottle. After pouring a generous amount
into a cup, he brought it back to the bed and held it under her
nose. She sniffed, coughed, and turned her head to avoid the
smell.

“Good girl,” he urged. “Now open your damn
eyes or I swear, I’ll dunk your head in a pail of this stuff.”

Her dark lashes fluttered against her pale
skin. She opened her eyes, startling him. He’d never noticed before
just how blue they were.

He watched as she looked first at him, then
from one corner of the room to the other, then at Morton, who sat
at the end of the bed, growling. Her gaze settled back on him. Big
and round, her eyes filled her face. She looked scared to
death.

He didn’t remember her ever looking scared.
Belligerent. Sullen. All that and more. But never scared.

“Sarah, you’re okay,” he assured her.

If anything she looked even more
frightened.

“Did someone hurt you?” he asked, struggling
to get the words out. No woman deserved to be mistreated. Not even
this one.

She shook her head.

“Tell me what happened,” he demanded.

She cowered against the bed, causing the
narrow strap of her shift to slip a couple inches lower on her bare
shoulder. He worked hard to keep his eyes on her face.

“Never mind,” he said. “We’ll talk about it
later. Would you like some water?”

She nodded.

On his way to get the cup, he opened the door
for Morton. When the dog didn’t look inclined to move, John
whistled. The dog whined one more time, gave Sarah a quick look,
and then left but not before brushing his big body up against
John’s legs. John shut the door and walked over to the shelf above
his stove, picked up his extra cup, and filled it with water from
the pitcher. He went back to the bed and held it out to her.

Their fingers met around the metal cup. His
large tanned ones seemed twice the size of her small white ones. He
saw the scar across the first joint of his ring finger, an old
reminder of Peter’s clumsiness with a fishing hook.

Peter. His brother. Younger than John by just
a year, the two of them had been inseparable. The only thing that
had ever come between them had been a woman. This woman.

He let go of the cup. She caught it but not
before a little water sloshed over the edge. The water stain spread
across the pale blue of her shift. He backed up, needing to put
some distance between them.

She might look soft and sweet, but this woman
had killed his brother.

Maybe she hadn’t pushed him down the silver
mine shaft with her own hands, but if not for her incessant
wanting, her need for things, her inability to ever be satisfied,
Peter wouldn’t have been compelled to take the risk that had cost
him his life.

“How was Cheyenne?” he asked. That’s where
she’d been headed six months ago, just three weeks after his
brother’s death. He’d come home, after working a back-breaking ten
hours clearing trees, and her bags had been packed.

His mother, who had moved in after Peter’s
funeral, had been sitting at the table. Sarah stood by the window.
She hadn’t even bothered to say hello when he’d entered the
room.

“I’m leaving,” she’d said. “I kept my
promise. I stuck around long enough to know I’m not with child.
Proof positive came today. Thank the sweet Lord.”

He still remembered how cold her words had
sounded. He’d understood the sadness in his mother’s eyes. It
wasn’t Sarah’s leaving that pained her. She wouldn’t miss her
daughter-in-law. It was that she’d lost her last hope. There’d be
no grandchild to rock in her arms. No chance to hold Peter’s child
tight against her breast.

“I’ll be on tomorrow’s stage,” Sarah had
said. “I need you to get my bags to town. Is the wagon fixed?”

He’d nodded. It didn’t matter. He’d drag her
damn cases on his back, the full three miles, to get the evil out
of his house. He wanted her at the other end of the earth.
Cheyenne, a three-day stage ride south, would have to do.

“I’d like my money,” she’d said, holding out
her hand.

He’d walked back to the barn, dug the money
out of its hiding place, and returned to his house. He’d thrown the
packet on the table. She’d picked it up, counted it, and put it
into her valise.

“Sarah, you don’t have to go,” his mother had
said. “You’re my son’s wife. There’s a place for you here.”

“I was your son’s wife,” she’d responded.
“Now I’m a rich widow. I’m leaving and I’m never coming back.”

But she had. Tonight of all nights. Had Peter
lived, he’d have been thirty-one today. “You’re not welcome here,”
John said. “I’m not as charitable as my mother.”

“Mother?” she whispered.

She looked confused, almost forlorn.

“You’re on the next stage,” he said. “I’ll
put you on it myself.”

“Stage?” She took another small sip of
water.

“You’re not my responsibility,” he said.

She nodded, never taking her big blue eyes
off him. “I thought I was dead.”

He stood up and grabbed his hat off the hook.
“I couldn’t be so lucky,” he muttered, not wanting to admit how her
words shook him. He hated her, sure. But he didn’t want her
dead.

She didn’t respond at all, just blinked her
big eyes a couple times. And then a tear slid down one pale
cheek.

What kind of man made a woman cry? He turned
away, unwilling to watch the results of his own surliness. He got
to the door before she spoke.

“Thank you for helping me,” she said, looking
at her bandaged foot.

He didn’t want her gratitude. He wanted her
gone. “Forget it. Just get better so you can get the hell out of my
life.”

She wasn’t dead. Instead the storm had tossed
her right into a stranger’s bed. A stranger who had called her
Sarah as if he knew her, and couldn’t wait to get rid of her.

She swung her legs to the side. Mindful of
her bandaged foot, she eased out of bed, walked over to the window,
and pulled back the thin cotton curtain. Early dawn had pushed the
dark night aside, bathing the land in a soft purple hue. She
watched the man and his big black dog walk toward the weathered,
unpainted barn. When he opened the big door and disappeared inside,
she let out a deep breath.

He knew her name. How creepy was that? She
must have talked in her sleep. As a child, she’d done that. She
hadn’t believed it until the night her father had turned on a tape
recorder. She thought she’d outgrown it.

Now, it had caused her to be at a serious
information disadvantage. She knew nothing about him. She looked at
her clean hands and feet. He hadn’t been exactly friendly but then
again, he hadn’t given her any real reason to be afraid.