Taken by the Cowboy (27 page)

He was doing just
fine.

Henry's arm tightened
around her neck.

Jessica struggled to
breathe.

Suddenly, another gun
cocked. Jessica's gaze darted toward the sound, as Rosalie came
around the side of the house aiming a rifle.

"What a sight,” she
purred. “Sheriff Truman Wade with his hands in the air. I’ll never
forget it as long as I live.”

“What are you doing
here, Rosie?” he asked.

She scoffed. “What does
it matter? It's me you want to talk to, not Henry. That’s all you
need to know."

Jessica squirmed in
Henry's arms, but he pressed the revolver tighter against her
temple.

"Is that really
necessary?" she protested.

Rosalie laughed.
"Truman, that lady of yours likes to complain. I don't know what
you see in her."

"What do you want,
Rosie?" His voice was deep and controlled—a clear sign that he was
angry enough to do serious damage.

"I want
you
,
Truman,” she flirtatiously replied. “I always have. You know
that."

"Rosie?" Henry
whimpered. "What do you mean? I thought—"

"Shut up, Henry," she
snapped.

An edgy grumble escaped
him, but Jessica was the only one to hear it.

Rosalie kept her eyes
locked on Truman's. "I just wasn't good enough for you, was I? I
was beginning to think you weren't even a real man, until Miss
Junebug came to town." She glanced over at Jessica. "How'd you do
it, anyway? How'd you get him to wake up finally?"

Jessica didn't respond,
but deep down, she could feel her anger kicking and bucking, as if
it had a personal, dangerous aim of vengeance all its own.

"Well, look at that.
She’s shy,” Rosalie teased, while she flashed a bitter look at
Truman. "Not that it matters, because I'm gonna shoot her anyway.
After we’re finished."

Jessica struggled in
Henry’s tight grip. "If you kill me,” she said, “he'll hate you
more than ever."

Truman held his hand up
to hush her. "It's not about me, is it, Rosie?"

Rosalie smiled
maliciously. "You're smart, Truman. That's why I always liked
you."

"If you're looking for
the bank combination,” he said, “she doesn't have it."

Rosalie smirked. "I
know she doesn't have it, Truman, because I have it. It's safely
hidden in my corset, and has been all along. You're welcome to come
search for it, though. I won't mind. In fact, I’d quite enjoy
it."

Jessica clenched her
fists in an effort to control her rage.

"What are you doin' out
here anyway?" Rosalie asked. "This wasn't in the plan, but you made
things a lot easier by coming. Saved us from breaking into the
jailhouse."

Truman said nothing,
and Jessica knew he was studying Rosalie's grip on that rifle.

"You don't get it, do
you?" she said to Jessica. "Henry and I have been planning this
ever since you came to town. I killed Lou. I wanted that safe
combination, so I shot him. And when people thought you did it, the
idea came to me. That's when Henry suddenly became real
attractive.” Rosalie looked at Truman. “I had him write those
stories to keep folks thinkin' she was an outlaw. So naturally,
when the bank gets robbed tomorrow, and the sheriff's found dead
with a bullet between his eyes, folks won't be lookin' for me.
They'll be lookin' for the notorious Junebug Jess. But
unfortunately," Rosalie added, "they won't find her, because she'll
be six feet under."

"What about Virgil?"
Truman asked. "Why'd you kill him?"

"Everybody knew she
didn't like him. They all saw what happened that day, and when
folks started to forget about her reputation, I wanted to freshen
up their memories. It worked didn't it? They want to hang her."

"You won't get away
with this, Rosie."

"Won't I? Who's gonna
stop me?"

All at once, Truman
whirled around and grabbed the revolver out of Henry's hand.

Henry fell backwards
against the house. Jessica screamed and ducked. A shot rang out,
echoing off the barnyard buildings.

"I'm hit!" Rosalie
yelled. "God help me, I'm hit!"

Everything was quiet
except for the ring of a gunshot fading into the distance. When
Jessica opened her eyes, Henry Gordon was standing over her,
pointing. "Uh..." he stuttered.

"Truman!" Jessica
fought for breath. He was halfway down the stairs, sprawled on his
back with his hand on his chest. The front of his black shirt was
drenched in blood, which was seeping through his fingers.

Jessica skidded down
the stairs to his side and lifted his head onto her lap. "Oh my
God, what happened?" she asked, realizing with horror that both
guns had gone off at once.

His breath came in
short gasps. "Dammit," he whispered, struggling to sit up.

Rosalie was lying on
the ground at the bottom of the steps, moaning. "Truman? I...I
didn't mean it!"

"Don’t even speak to
him!" Jessica screamed. She cradled his head, pushed the hair away
from his face. He tried again to get up, but she held him down.
"Lie still."

She hoped he didn't
hear the fear in her voice as it cracked hideously on the last
word. Tears flooded her eyes as she opened his shirt and examined
the wound – a bullet hole in the chest, not far from his heart,
bleeding profusely. She tugged her skirt up to cover the wound and
staunch the flow of blood.

She thought of her
brother, Gregory…

"Jessica...my
pocket."

"What?" She could
barely speak.

"My shirt p-pocket." He
was panting now.

She lifted the flap and
reached inside, where she found something that belonged to her. The
diamond necklace.

"You need it to get
home," he whispered.

"I won't leave
you."

"I'm sorry," he said,
coughing and panting.

His blood was all over
her hands now and staining her skirt. Tears rained down her
cheeks.

"Please, don’t go," she
sobbed, cradling his head in her arms.

"You can go back to
your family now," he said.

"I don't want to go
back." She bent forward and kissed him on the mouth.

"Yes, you do. I'm
sorry. I wanted more time with you."

"Please hold on." She
looked up at Henry. "Don't just stand there!" she shouted. "Get a
doctor!" Henry took off down the stairs toward the barn.

"It's too late," Truman
whispered.

"No, it's not. Try and
hold on.”

"I can't."

She kissed him on the
forehead. "I love you," she told him. "I love you."

"
Forever
," he
whispered.

His eyes fell
closed.

Jessica’s whole body
shook uncontrollably with grief and rage. "Oh, no. Please wake up,
Truman. Don't leave me."

Rosalie rolled over,
clutching her leg. "Someone help me. I’m hurt."

Jessica ignored her.
It can't be true. You aren't dead. You said everything would be
all right.

She laid her hand on
his chest where his shirt was soaked with blood.
Please, let
there be a heartbeat
.

There was nothing.

Jessica bowed her head
and wept. Shivering, she buried her face in Truman's shoulder. His
hand fell limply off his stomach onto the step, but Jessica reached
for it and drew it to her cheek.

Holding it there
against her skin, she let one knee slip down a step so she could
lie beside him.

“I love you, Truman.”
Forever
.

Clouds moved in front
of the sun, and a gust of wind blew across the prairie.

From that moment, time
stopped completely for Jessica. There was no difference between
past and future. She didn’t care whether she went home or stayed in
the past. Nothing mattered outside of her grief.

And yet, her heart
continued to beat, and blood still moved through her veins….

Two weeks
later

"Baby? Can you hear
me?"

Yes, she could hear
things – the steady beeping of a heart monitor, voices in the
corridor, water running from a tap—but her body simply wouldn’t
respond. All she could do was lay there, paralyzed, listening to
that familiar voice.

"Jessica…you're safe
now. You're in the hospital. Please wake up."

At last, she managed to
open her eyes. "Mom?"

"Yes, I'm here.
William! Come quick! She's awake."

Jessica squeezed her
mother's hand as her father stepped into view.

"Oh, thank God,” he
said.

A terrible grief ripped
through her heart, but she didn’t really understand it. She
couldn’t seem to remember much of anything. What was she doing
here?

Her mother leaned
forward and hugged her. "We were so worried about you, but we never
gave up."

Jessica looked around
groggily, while intense but ambiguous emotions clouded her
thinking. Everything was foggy. "What happened to me?"

"You had a car
accident."

"A car accident," she
repeated in confusion. "Am I okay?"

"You're fine, but you
had us very worried."

Whispers of memories
flashed in her mind—images of wide-open prairies, horses and
wagons....

It was all so vague.
She shut her eyes and fought to remember. She felt dizzy and
nauseous as she grasped for a clear image of something, anything,
but her stomach churned violently, and the faint smell of food from
a wheeled cart in the hall made her want to wretch.

Jessica touched her
throat. "My necklace. Where's my necklace?"

"Don't panic. The
nurses had to remove it. I have it in my purse."

"And my watch?" She
didn't know why these items mattered so much to her, but the need
to ensure their existence seemed imperative.

"I have that, too."

Jessica needed to lie
back. Her mother fluffed the pillow, while her father went to the
corner table to turn on a little transistor radio. As he adjusted
the tuning, static blared on and off until he found music.

Oh, Susanna. Don't
you cry for me...

Jessica bolted upright.
"That song."

"What about it?" Her
mother frowned with concern.

"I remember it was
playing in my car when I crashed." Fleeting images of rain and mud
and Junebugs flashed before her eyes, and she rubbed hard at them
while the music seemed to overlap into some other world, some other
existence that tore at her heart and filled her with grief and
despair. What was going on?

"Sweetheart, do you
remember what happened?" her mother asked. "We need to know."

Her father moved
closer. "Martha, give her time to recover. We can ask her
later."

"Ask me what?"

Her parents regarded
each other warily. They hesitated for a long moment before her
mother finally spoke. "Jessica, where were you?"

Her heart began to beat
faster, and her father glanced with concern at the monitor.

"What do you mean?” she
replied. “You said I had a car accident."

“Yes, and we found you
at the crash site. But before that, you were missing."

"Missing?"

"Your accident happened
more than a month ago. We found the car, totally flattened—there
was no way you could have survived in it—but you were gone, as if
you’d vanished into thin air."

A tense silence weighed
heavily in the room. Jessica tried to think, but her brain was in a
stress-induced haze. "How did I end up here?"

The last thing she
remembered was hydroplaning on the road and spinning around and
around in the car.

But there was more. So
much more.

She'd been to a
funeral. Memories began to clog her brain. She'd been sick, so
sick...throwing up from the grief.

A funeral. She'd lost
him....

"A driver spotted you
this morning in the same place we found your car,” her mother said.
“You were lying unconscious on the side of the road."

"How can that be?"

"Martha, stop,” her
father said. “Are you all right, Jess? You look pale."

Jessica stared blankly
at him. "Could I have a glass of water?"

"Of course." Her father
went to the tiny bathroom and turned on the tap.

"Do you remember
anything at all?" her mother asked.

Her father returned
with a white paper cup and a straw. He helped her to sit up and
take a drink. When she lay back down on the pillow, a man's image
appeared in her mind as clearly as if he were standing at the foot
of the bed.

He wore a black hat and
white shirt with a dark vest, and he was strikingly handsome with
mesmerizing blue eyes.

"Jessica?"

"Yes?"

"Do you remember
anything?"

She began to tremble.
Maybe she shouldn't have swallowed the water so fast. "No. I feel
sick. I think I need to...."

Her mother grabbed a
silver pan, held it under Jessica’s chin, and she retched into it.
When she finished, she sat back on the bed and tried to take deep
breaths. “What’s wrong with me?”

Her parents said
nothing.

"Why are you looking at
me like that?" she asked.

Her father broke in.
"Martha...."

Jessica's gaze shot
toward him. His forehead crinkled with concern.

"Mom, Dad, there’s
something you're not telling me."

"Just try to remember
where you've been,” her father said. “It's very important."

"Why?"

Her mother lowered her
gaze for a moment, then looked up again. "Jessica, I don't know how
to tell you this, but I suppose there is no right way to say it.
You're pregnant."

Good God
.

All at once, memories
flooded her brain, and she burst into tears, sobbing and laughing
at the same time.

"Are you all
right?"

She covered her face
with her hands, unable to explain why she was so distraught, so
grief-stricken, and yet so happy at the same time – about a man
whose identity was still a mystery to her.