Walking on Air (36 page)

Tyke grinned around a mouthful of apple pie. After chewing and swallowing, he replied, “So my staying tonight will give you a reason to sneak out?”

“Precisely,” Nan agreed. “And I shan’t have to worry about Laney waking up from a bad dream, because you shall be here to comfort her.”

“All right, you’ve twisted my arm enough,” he said with a chuckle. Then his expression went serious. “I’m told that your husband must take a dangerous walk right before dawn.”

Nan’s heart caught. “Who told you?”

“At first I got the information by eavesdropping on a conversation between Laney and Christopher. She was explaining what Gabe had meant on my porch when he said he’d seen me through the clouds.” Tyke shrugged. “Then, with some leading questions, I got the story firsthand from her.”

“And you don’t believe a word of it?” Nan asked tightly.

Tyke gazed at the flickering candles on the Christmas tree for a long moment. “Actually, I have good reason to believe all of it.” He sent Nan a solemn glance. “But that’s a story for later. I think you should herd us all off to bed to dream about Santa Claus leaving gifts in socks while you spend what remains of the night with your husband.”

Nan took Tyke’s advice to heart and went to her workroom to collect enough quilts to make her and Gabriel a pallet downstairs.

•   •   •

Nan expected the next several hours to be the most torturous of her life, but somehow Gabriel made them the most precious. After placing lighted candles in strategic places around the shop and drawing all the curtains closed, he took Nan into his arms to waltz to music they heard only in their hearts. He looked so handsome in the crimson shirt she’d made for him that merely admiring him took Nan’s breath away. Oh, how she loved this man.

As they whirled slowly around the shop, Nan tilted her head back to smile up at him. “How did you do this to me, Gabriel Valance?”

His strong white teeth flashed in a crooked grin. Nan traced every line of his dark face, committing each to memory. “What exactly are you accusing me of doing to you, Mrs. Valance?”

“You stole my broken heart,” she murmured, “and then you relentlessly mended all the cracks so none of the marvelous feelings you’ve given me can ever leak out.”

“Ah, Nan.” His gaze clung to hers. “Have I really filled your heart with marvelous feelings?”

“So many marvelous feelings that I’ve lost count.”

“What about in the morning? Will you have no regrets then?”

The very thought of that broke Nan’s heart all over again, but she was determined not to spoil what might be their final evening together. He knew without words from her how shattered and utterly devastated she would be when she lost him.
Please, God, don’t take him from me. Please don’t.
“You have been a gift in my life, Gabriel, a perfect and precious gift. I will never regret a single moment that I’ve had with you.”

He hunched his shoulders and gathered her close against him as he led her into yet another slow turn. “I’ll never regret a single moment, either. I just wish I didn’t have to leave you.”

Nan squeezed her eyes closed. Pain lanced through her chest. It felt as if steel claws were shredding her heart. “Please, Gabriel, let us not speak of that just yet. I am not strong like you are, I’m afraid, and I fear I shall get weepy and cling to you with such ferocity that you won’t be able to leave the shop at the designated time.”

“I’m not strong,” he said, his voice raspy next to her ear, the rumble of each word moving through the wall of his chest to vibrate into her body. “Truth is, I’m a coward, so afraid I’ll lose control that I’ve chosen to pretend it won’t happen instead of facing it.”

“Maybe it won’t,” she whispered, wishing with every ounce of her being that it could be true.

His arms tightened around her with almost crushing strength. “Let’s pretend this is the first night of the rest of our lives,” he said firmly.

Then he swept her up into his arms and carried her to the pallet, where he reverently divested her of her clothing and made love to her. Nan allowed herself to float into paradise with him, glorying in every touch of his hands on her skin, losing herself in every deep kiss, and spinning with him through starlit blackness when their passions peaked.

Afterward, they clung to each other beneath the quilts. Nan felt drained. At any other time, she knew she would be limp with exhaustion. But nerves and irrepressible dread kept her body taut, her heart racing, and her lungs aching with sobs she refused to release.

As if he sensed her desperation, Gabriel simply held her for a long while. Then he finally spoke. “Where is the Pinkerton report?”

“It’s back on the shelf where you first hid it.”

“I thought I told you to hide it someplace safe where you’ll be sure to come across it? If the angels erase your memory of me, I want you to find that document and read it so you’ll know a murder charge isn’t hanging over your head.”

“I’ll find it there, because I dust the shelves once a month.”

“Oh.” He chuckled. “Of
course
you do. It’s the perfect hiding place.”

“And if those angels rob me of my memory of you, they are Satan’s handymen, not God our Father’s.”

He drew the quilts close around them to create a cocoon of warmth.

Nan kissed him on the neck. “You’ve yet to give me my other gift,” she said.

He arched a dark brow at her. “Pardon me?”

“The long, slender box. I saw you with it yesterday. You gave nothing shaped like that to anyone. I can only assume it was a gift for me, and you’re waiting to hand it over!”

He laughed. Then his smile faded. “Ah,
that
gift. It’s nothing to do with me, Nan. That one’s from Santa, and when you find it tomorrow, be sure to read the letter he left for you inside the box.”

Nan’s chest tightened. She had never believed in Santa Claus and wasn’t about to begin now. Only somehow she suddenly yearned to believe. Santa Claus was magical, and she was in frantic need of a little magic just then. “Where do you suppose Santa hid that box?”

“Out by the woodpile.” There was no glimmer of laughter in his dark eyes when he met her gaze. “When the fires burn low, you or Laney or Christopher will be sure to find it. Save the letter, Nan. Keep it in a safe place. You’ll have that to remember me by.”

Nan couldn’t bear this a moment longer. She could already feel the pain of losing him tearing through her. Robbed of the ability to speak, she sought solace in his strong arms. He made love to her again, this time with an almost frantic urgency, and afterward, as they lay with their limbs intertwined, Nan felt a tear slip down his cheek.

Or was it a tear slipping down her own? Silent heartache. Though no clock sat in her workroom, she could hear the seconds ticking past inside her mind. “What time is it now?” she asked him.

He groped for his jeans and pulled out his pocket watch. After he flipped it open, he stared at the face for several seconds. “Two,” he finally told her.

The next time Nan asked, he checked his watch and whispered, “Three.”

Her voice sounded thin, hollow, and unfamiliar when she said, “You must leave at four.”

“Yes.” That was all he said for several minutes. Then he broke the silence. “Will you do something for me, Nan?”

“Anything,” she whispered. “Absolutely anything.”

“When I start my walk up the street, will you stand at the window?”

Tears burned like liquid fire in her eyes. “Oh, Gabriel.”

“Please, Nan. It’s important to me. Last time, your sweet face . . . Well, seeing you there, my beautiful angel at the window, it helped somehow. Promise me you’ll be there again so I can see you?”

Nan wanted to say that she would be out in the street, holding tight to him and walking right along with him. But she knew he would protest if she revealed that wish. Gabriel wouldn’t want her out there. He’d worry about her safety, for one, and he’d also want her to be at a distance when he drew his last breath, which he believed would spare her some of the ugliness.

“I will be there; I promise,” she whispered.

His arms trembled as he hugged her close. “It doesn’t hurt,” he told her. “If they let you remember anything, try to remember that. I felt no pain. And I’m not afraid.”

Nan figured she was terrified enough for both of them. Gabriel had told her at Baden’s house that nothing and nobody could interfere with the angels’ plans. Was she really so foolish as to think that a woman’s plot to save her husband could thwart fate?

When it came time for Gabriel to dress, Nan threw on her nightgown and wrapper so she could help fasten the buttons of his new red shirt and then smooth down his collar. Her hands shook, revealing the intensity of her emotions, but she strove to keep her eyes dry and to smile, which might possibly be her final gift to him.

He reached for his guns on the table, then stopped as he heard someone on the stairs. Laney burst into the room, and ran to him. She flung her arms around him, nearly strangling him with the intensity of her grip. Her shoulders shook, but she made no sound. Then, as suddenly as she’d appeared, she was gone. They heard her muffled sobs as she raced back up the narrow stairs.

Gabe picked up his gun belt. Nan saw him hesitate, and then he laid it back on the table.

“What?” she whispered.

“I’m not wearing them,” he said hoarsely. “Not this time.” His firm mouth tipped into a travesty of a grin. “No snakes out there to shoot, only a boy with more guts than brains.”

That
boy
meant to kill her husband.
Pete Raintree.
Nan had grown to detest that name. She wondered where the fellow was right now. Was he already hiding in the shadows? Or had he taken a room at the hotel, where he could watch for Gabriel to step out into the street?

Gabriel tipped his hat onto his dark head. After adjusting the brim, he touched it in a final salute to her. “You’re one hell of a lady, Nan Valance. The greatest honor—and pleasure—of my whole life has been to be your husband.”

Nan fought for control, but her eyes filled with tears anyway. “I love you so very much. Don’t go out there, Gabriel. He can’t shoot you if you stay in here with me. Please don’t go!”

Nan winced at the hysteria in her voice. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t do this to him. For Gabriel, walking out that door would be difficult enough without tearful pleas from her.

“I can’t hide from God, Nan. Nobody can.” He drew her into his arms and murmured against her hair, “This is foreordained. And tears can’t save me.”

“What can? Something has to! What can?” She heard herself practically screaming and managed to bite down on bubbling hysteria.

“Pray for me,” he said thickly. “If anyone’s prayers go directly to God’s ears, I’m certain yours do. So just pray. Maybe your voice will ring through heaven with such force that the gates will swing wide-open for me this time.”

Nan couldn’t pray for him to go to heaven, not when she so desperately needed him to stay here on earth. Somehow she walked with him across the shop. Somehow she stood at the door to bid him a final farewell. Somehow she didn’t sob when he kissed her deeply.

“Don’t say good-bye.” He straightened and smiled down at her. In the flickering candlelight, he looked so beautiful to her—tall, dark, wonderful, her beloved Gabriel, the man who’d given her the priceless gift of laughter. “I can do everything else, Nan, but I don’t think I can stand hearing you say that word.”

She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. He turned, hesitated, and turned back to flash her one last grin. “Don’t forget your present from Santa. I love you, Nan.” His smile held fast. “Watch my face as I say that. I
love
you, Nan.” He paused. “Are my brows twitching?”

She shook her head.

“Am I shifty eyed?”

She managed another shake.

“Do you believe that I mean it, deep in your heart?”

She couldn’t speak, so she nodded. He seemed to understand.

A long look. A kiss. Another long look. Then he left the shop and closed the door softly behind him.

Sobbing, Nan ran from window to window to tear open the curtains. But by the time she could see out, Gabriel had already vanished. She ran to fetch a candle and set it on the windowsill, telling herself that she would stand there so he could see her. She’d promised, and it was a vow she meant to keep.

Clasping her hands over her heart, she trembled with trepidation. Where was he now? At the saloon? Was he just now ordering a bottle of whiskey? Was he thinking of her? Or was he thinking of the bullet that would soon be buried in his chest? Nan had never felt so helpless. How could she stand here and do nothing while some no-account killed the only man she’d ever loved?

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no! I need him. We need him. And he needs us. Oh, please, no.”

Nan prayed as she’d never prayed, the words disjointed in her mind, one thought breaking short and going in circles just as another took shape. Then, as suddenly as if someone had shouted it out loud, it came to her.

God helps those who help themselves.

With a gasp, Nan bolted across the stretch of floor to her workroom archway to stare at the guns Gabriel had left on her project table.

E
verything is pretty much the same as last time
,
Gabe thought. Or was it? As he crossed the saloon to stand at the bar, he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was slightly off somehow. Had there been so many men inside the establishment the last time? Gabe hadn’t taken a head count that first morning, but now several of the tables had a couple of fellows seated at them.
Strange.
It was just after four o’clock in the morning. Very few people were normally still drinking at this hour. They’d either passed out or they’d gone home to sleep. And to top it off, it was Christmas morning. Didn’t these fellows have families?

Gabe thought of his own family—Laney, Christopher, Tyke, Jasper, and Nan. Oh, God, his precious Nan. If he’d had his druthers, he sure as hell wouldn’t be standing in this saloon, about to knock back jiggers of rotgut. These men needed a couple of angels to give them a good, hard shake so they’d appreciate the people who waited for them at home.

When the barkeep came to take Gabe’s order, he smiled and nodded. That was definitely different. Last time, all Gabe had gotten was a stiff, “Merry Christmas.” He ordered a whole bottle, just as he had the last time, even though he knew that having it marked with his name was silly. He’d never be back to pour another measure from it.

At the end of the bar, Doc Peterson nursed a drink. This time around, Gabe didn’t have to guess at the doctor’s identity; he knew the man and liked him. The poor fellow’s thin gray hair was in a stir, and once again his gray suit looked as if he’d slept in it. Gabe knew the physician hadn’t been home recently to catch some sleep. His wife never would have let him leave the house with his necktie all crooked and escaping from the stickpin.

Gabe looked into the mirror behind the bar and met the doctor’s gaze. Doc’s larynx bobbed. He inclined his head in a silent greeting, which was another different thing. Either Gabe’s memory was faulty, or he guessed not
every
detail could be exactly the same this time around. He’d lived this last month so differently than he had the first time, and according to Nan, he’d collected some friends along the way. Knowing that felt damned good. At least this time when Raintree shot him, Gabe wouldn’t lie in the street feeling indescribably empty because no one would mourn his passing. Some people would feel a little sad when they learned of his death. And his family, he knew, would mourn him deeply.

Gabe just hoped Nan’s and Laney’s memories would be erased so they’d feel no grief. How would it be fair if they had to endure pain because he had failed so miserably at life the first time around that he’d needed to be sent back to take another shot at it? He had this sadness coming, but by God, they didn’t deserve it.

“You doing okay, Doc?” Gabe asked. He figured it’d be rude not to speak, and if that was breaking the damned rules, what the hell? He’d already broken so many that one more would hardly matter. “I sure hope the little Wilson girl isn’t sick.”

Doc shook his head. “No. Thanks to you, Charity is fine.” He smiled wearily. “I lost an old fellow tonight, though. The family is taking it pretty hard. In my business, you sometimes feel like a failure, and the only way to cheer up is to have a toddy.”

Gabe nodded. “Just don’t fall into the habit,” he warned. “You’ve got a mighty nice lady waiting at home for you, and there’s not a man alive who can save the whole world. You do your best. That’s all you can do.”

Doc lifted his glass. “Good luck, Gabriel. I think you’re due.”

Gabe frowned and knocked back the contents of his glass.
Good luck?
He couldn’t recall anyone ever having wished him that. No gunman worth his salt depended on luck. He counted on his instincts, his speed, and his accuracy—which was precisely why Gabe had left his weapons lying on Nan’s worktable. When he turned to face Pete Raintree, he didn’t want to react reflexively and slap leather. This time around, the kid would live to walk away. Whether he deserved to or not wasn’t the point.

Pouring himself one more jigger, just as he had the last time, Gabe smiled, albeit with a sting in his eyes. This time around, Christopher Broderick wasn’t outside under the brothel staircase, clutching his knees and wearing a ragged coat as his only defense against the cold. And when Gabe got drilled, he wouldn’t be missing an important breakfast date.
Nope.
This time the kid was safe at home, snug under a double layer of quilts on Nan’s settee. Gabe hoped the boy had taken a leap of faith to believe in Santa Claus tonight and was now dreaming about a jolly old elf filling his sock with sugarplums.

It’s time.
Gabe wished he could ignore the seconds that ticked past in his head, but like he’d told Nan, he couldn’t hide from this, and he sure as hell couldn’t run from it. He drained his glass and set it back on the counter with a sharp click.

Doc stirred. “Hey, Gabriel.”

This sure as hell was different. Surprised, Gabe turned toward the physician. “What’s that, Doc?”

“If I never get another chance to say it, I want to say it now. Thank you for keeping Mrs. Wilson from taking her little daughter into my office this week. I don’t know what led you to be in that precise spot at that exact moment, but I’ll always thank God you were there and had the foresight to warn that woman away. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that you saved that child’s life.”

Gabe held that thought close as he pushed through the bat-wing doors and stepped out into the predawn darkness. His boots thumped on the boardwalk, making crisp yet hollow sounds. His senses were so sharp that his skin prickled. He’d told Nan he wasn’t afraid. But now he felt it—a cold, crawling fear that inched up his spine and turned his blood to ice. It wasn’t that he was afraid of dying. What terrified him was leaving Nan alone, and knowing that he would miss all the years they could have had together.

A snowflake drifted down, startling him. He thought he heard the plank walkway across the street creak under someone’s weight. Then he thought he saw movement in the thick shadows in front of the closed, dark-windowed shops.

Just nerves
,
he assured himself. And as he stepped out onto the street, he started to pray.
If you’re listening, Lord, I still don’t have the words of your prayer memorized, so all I can do is talk to you inside my head, sort of like I’d talk to a friend.
Gabe decided that sounded stupid and was glad he wasn’t saying it aloud.
Nobody ever taught me to pray before I met Nan. Please watch over her for me. She’s the sweetest person I’ve ever known. I swear, she’s never had a mean thought or done a mean thing to anybody. As for me, well, I tried, but I guess you know by now that I can’t follow your rules even to save my own soul.
Gabe let out a quivery breath.
I’m sorry for that, but then again, not really sorry, so I won’t ask for forgiveness. Just know that I tried hard to think about things this time and do what I thought was right, even though the angels said different.
Gabe kept putting one foot in front of the other despite a faint voice at the back of his mind that kept screaming for him to dive and roll. Any second now, Pete Raintree would shout his name.
I guess that’s all, Lord. Except, if you have a second to spare, I could use a big dose of courage right now. It’s mighty hard to keep walking.

Gabe searched for the candlelight that should be shining from Nan’s shop window. All he saw was blackness. He took a few more steps, convinced that he wasn’t seeing right. She’d promised she’d stand at the glass. So where the hell was she? Why had she doused all the wicks?

“Valance! Gabriel Valance!”

The shout was followed by a gunshot that made Gabe jerk. He closed his eyes for an instant. He hadn’t been hit. Not yet. Then he slowly turned around. His hands ached to go for his guns, to shoot back and try to save himself. Only he already knew how that would end, and in a crazy way he was glad that he wasn’t wearing his Colts.

A male voice barked from somewhere off to Gabe’s left and nearly startled him out of his boots. “Drop it, Raintree!”

What the hell? This isn’t in the script.
The next instant, Gabe saw men spilling from the saloon. Who were
they
? The movement in the shadows that Gabe believed he’d only imagined moments earlier materialized into men—shopkeepers, hired help—all of them with rifles aimed at Raintree and ready to fire.

“Drop the gun, mister!” someone else shouted. “One wrong move and we’ll fill you with so much lead, you’ll leak like a colander!”

“You heard him!” another voice warned. “Here in Random, we watch out for our own!”

It seemed to Gabe that men shouted warnings from nearly every direction. Doc’s tenor stood out from all the rest. “We folks in Random stand together, son. I don’t hold with killing, but I do shoot rattlesnakes, and right now, you’re looking like one to me.”

Stunned, Gabe couldn’t think, couldn’t move. This wasn’t happening. He shook his head and blinked, but nothing changed. Then his bewilderment turned to spine-chilling terror when a woman’s voice, thin and shaky, shrilled from behind him.

“I’ve got a gun on you, too, Raintree!”

Nan?
Gabe couldn’t credit his ears.

“I’ll shoot you dead; I promise you. If you’ve got a brain in your head, you’ll drop that pistol to the ground!”

Oh, Lord.
If Nan’s hands were shaking half as badly as her voice, she’d be the one to drop her weapon, and she probably had the damn thing cocked. What the Sam Hill was she
thinking
?

Pete Raintree, as tall and gangly as Gabe remembered, staggered in a full circle, clearly too panicked to think straight. Instead of dropping his weapon, he waved it around, saying, “Are you people
crazy
? This is a shoot-out. You ain’t s’posed to interfere!”

A new kind of fear filled Gabe. He couldn’t let that kid die just because he was too stupid or too scared to put down the weapon. Gabe threw up his arms. “Don’t shoot him! Please don’t shoot him! Raintree, drop the goddamned gun! They’re gonna drill your hide with holes if you don’t.” Gabe saw the younger man turn toward him. “Throw it down. Just throw it do—”

Gabe felt the punch of lead hit him in the chest before he heard the shot. He staggered back but didn’t fall. Then, as if a metal bar struck him across the bend of his legs, he went to his knees.

“Gabriel!” Nan screamed his name. Gabe heard the terror and anguish in that cry, but damned if he could turn his head to look at her. He felt numb all over.
Go back
, he wanted to yell, but he couldn’t make his vocal cords work. The darkness around him grew blacker. Bright little spots bounced in front of his eyes. Noise exploded against his eardrums, a staccato of weapon reports. “Gabriel!”

He felt her arms come around him. And for just an instant his vision cleared.
Nan, my window angel.
Only she wasn’t safe inside her shop; she was on her knees beside him in the street. What if she took a bullet with his name on it?

Gabe felt himself slumping sideways, felt Nan’s fingers clutching frantically at his shirt to hold him up. Then he hit the ground, shoulder first. He figured his head must have hit, too, but he was beyond registering anything. Blackness moved in. He knew how dying went. The only difference was, he didn’t feel so cold this time.

Because Nan’s arms were around him.

•   •   •

“No!” Nan screamed the word. She felt blood seeping from Gabriel’s chest, hot and sticky against her hand. “No! Please, God,
no
!”

This can’t be happening
, she thought wildly. Nearly all the shopkeepers along Main had heeded her warning and had been waiting to protect her husband. Why, oh,
why
had Gabriel interfered, trying to save a no-account man who didn’t deserve to be saved?

Don’t shoot him!
Gabriel had shouted. And then he’d raised his arms and walked toward Raintree, making a target of himself.
No!
She couldn’t understand. Why would God take such a wonderful man when he was needed here by so many? Laney needed him. Christopher needed him. Tyke Baden needed him. Even Jasper needed him.
And so do I! He’s my life, my heart, every breath I take!

Hard male hands closed over Nan’s shoulders. She vised her arms around her husband, knowing that those hands meant to take him from her. She braced against the tugs. Then she shrieked and fought, blindly lashing out. “Leave him be. Don’t
touch
him! Leave us
alone
!”

But in the end, Nan’s strength was no match for that of the men, and they pried her husband from her arms. Dazed, robbed of comprehension, Nan knelt on the frozen earth with snow pelting her face. One thought kept circling stupidly in her brain, something Gabriel had told her: that nothing could interfere with the plans of the angels.
I can’t hide from God.

Nan felt as if her heart were being ripped from her chest. She covered her face with her hands and began rocking back and forth.
All for naught.
All her efforts to save Gabriel’s life had been futile, the silly, desperate contrivances of a frantic wife to save a man already marked for death. Only
why
? She couldn’t understand it. Gabriel, so wonderful and good of heart, had been taken from her while hundreds, probably thousands of less deserving husbands still lived.

“Mama?”

Laney’s voice barely penetrated the fog. It seemed as if the girl called out to her from a great distance. She felt a grip on her arm and recognized Laney’s touch.

“Mama, they carried Gabe to Doc’s!” Nan felt Laney give her arm a yank. “Not to the undertaker’s, Mama. Do you hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Nan blinked. She was almost afraid to comprehend Laney’s words. It would kill her to be given false hope. “What?” She brushed at her cheeks. “What did you say?”

Laney knelt down to look Nan in the eyes. “I don’t think he’s dead, Mama. I know Raintree shot him in the chest again, but it didn’t kill him this time. At least, I don’t think it did.”

“He ain’t dead.” That was Christopher’s voice. “At least, not yet he ain’t. Dead men don’t get carried to Doc’s. They get took to the undertaker.”