Tomorrow's Shining Dream

by Naomi Rawlings

  Light emanated from the windows of the house, and happy voices drifted into the yard.

  Daniel swung off his horse. He was the worst sort of scoundrel, claiming he needed to work late and missing out on a fifteen-year-old’s party, and all because he didn’t want to be around the revelry.

  Or around Charlotte.

  He headed across the yard and gave a brief knock on the door, never mind that the sound was likely to be swallowed by the voices and laughter on the other side of the wall.

  When no one opened it, he twisted the knob and stepped inside.

  “Sheriff Harding!” Six-year-old Joe ran straight up to him, a little wooden figure of what looked to be a lawman in his hand. “Did you get to fire your gun today?”

  “There you are.” Anna Mae’s gaze met his from across the room. “I was worried you weren’t coming.”

  “Glad to have you, Sheriff.” Ellie sprang up from their impossibly large table and headed to the stove. “We moved on to cake, but I kept a plate warm for you.”

  “Everything all right in town?” Sam looked at him with eyes full of questions.

  “Did you and Captain Whitelaw catch some rustlers?” This from Martin, the birthday boy who spoke around a mouthful of cake.

  Joe tugged on Daniel’s hand. “Did the rustlers look mean?”

  “Did they shoot at you?” Janey asked.

  More questions filled the air, until he couldn’t tell who was asking or which question he was supposed to answer first.

  He scanned the room and found the only set of lips that weren’t moving. They were the perfect shade of pink, and they sat just beneath a pert little nose and two wide blue eyes. Considering he saw that very face every night in his dreams, he didn’t need to stare now to remember every slope and plane of it. But something was different about Charlotte. She hadn’t put her hair up into the serviceable bun she usually wore, but she’d piled it atop her head in a way that left a few curls hanging by her cheeks and made her entire demeanor look soft.

  And what was she wearing? Not a dress he’d ever seen before—and he knew because he had all of them memorized. The silvery-blue fabric nearly shimmered in the flickering light from Sam and Ellie’s lanterns, and she didn’t need to be standing for him to know the smart cut of the fabric suited her.

  Hang it all. What had made him think he could come here tonight and laugh and smile and enjoy time with his friends while celebrating Martin’s birthday? He wasn’t going to be doing any celebrating or smiling or laughing until long after Charlotte married Andrew and moved away.

  “I’m sorry, but I think… excuse me.” He turned on his heel and reached for the door. Going back to Twin Rivers and relieving one of his volunteers of patrol duty suddenly seemed better than staring at the woman he loved but could never have while he forced himself to eat cake.

  “Daniel?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Do you not want to eat?”

  “Aren’t you going to stay?”

  A chorus of voices and questions erupted behind him, but once again, no one stayed quiet long enough for him to give a single answer, let alone answer everyone.

  “Actually, I need a word with the sheriff. In private.” Wes’s voice rang out over the rest of the chaos.

  Daniel blinked and looked over his shoulder. Wes had already pushed back his chair and stood. He strode toward the door so quickly Daniel barely had time to open it and step outside before his friend trampled him.

  “What’s wrong?” Daniel called.

  Wes remained silent, stalking across the dusty yard toward the paddock where Ares, Blaze, and the other horses were penned.

  Daniel followed. “Is it something about the rustlers?”

  Great, now he sounded like the young’uns inside. But it was the most obvious question to ask.

  “Nothing whatsoever with the rustlers, I just needed a reason to leave, and talking to you was the first thing I could think of.”

  “But we’re not talking.” Or at least they wouldn’t be if he hadn’t followed Wes to the paddock.

  “Why do you want to leave?” Daniel tried again.

  Not that he had any room to criticize Wes when he’d been thinking of doing the same thing. But Agamemnon Westin VI had never been one to turn down a piece of cake, and it wasn’t as though he was deeply in love with a woman seated inside that he could never have.

  “I just had to.” Wes opened the latch on the paddock, leaving the gate cracked so Daniel could follow. “I couldn’t take being inside that house a second longer.”

  “Because there are too many kids? Too much commotion?”

  Wes paused beside Ares. The great black stallion stood beside him like a celebrated warhorse from centuries past. “Because of Ellie.”

  Daniel jerked back. So Wes was in love with a woman he could never have?

  No. Wes couldn’t have feelings for Sam’s wife. He was still in love with Abigail.

  “She’s beginning to…you know.” Wes made a rounding motion over his stomach, like a woman’s body might look if it were heavy with child. “And I can’t… I just…”

  Wes looked past Daniel, his eyes focusing on the darkening desert while a muscle pulsed at the side of his jaw. “I remember when Abigail was like that, her pregnant belly just starting to round itself beneath her skirts. I can’t do this again. You see how much Sam loves Ellie. You know how long he’s wanted a family. But what if Ellie doesn’t survive the delivery?”

  Daniel drew in a deep breath. “Your ma brought you into the world safe and healthy, Mariah and Charlotte and little Perseus too. My ma delivered me and Anna Mae without any trouble. We might not have ever met Sam’s ma, but she obviously delivered a healthy child. The whole of humanity would die off in a few decades if every woman went the way of Abigail.”

  “I know that.” Wes’s jaw was hard as he spoke, his shoulders held in a rigidly straight line. “At least, part of my mind knows that. But the other part, the part that cares for Sam and Ellie, is terrified. And I’m equally terrified of what will happen after Charlie marries Andrew. He’ll expect young’uns, I’m sure.”

  Charlotte with another man’s children. Daniel’s heart contracted into a hard mass. In all his imaginings of what Charlotte’s life would be like after she married Andrew, he hadn’t quite allowed his mind to get that far.

  “Every time I’m around a woman with child, I can’t help but remember Abigail at the end.” Wes swallowed. “I see all the blood, her pale skin, the way the last flickers of life drained from her dull eyes.”

  Daniel’s own throat grew tight. He hadn’t been at the A Bar W the night Abigail had passed. But he’d seen enough death during his years as sheriff to know it was never pleasant. “Maybe with time…”

  What…? Wes wouldn’t remember Abigail whenever he spied a woman in the family way? Maybe. But speaking the words seemed paltry when anguish filled Wes’s eyes and wreathed the lines of his face.

  “I can’t be here right now. Tell the others I’m sorry.” Wes grabbed the pommel of Ares’s saddle, placed a foot in the stirrup, and swung himself atop the great beast.

  Daniel walked to the gate and opened it without a word. After all, there wasn’t much else he could say.

  Wes barreled through the gate and into the darkening night, and Daniel turned toward Blaze. Before he could heft himself into the saddle, the door to the house opened, and a lone figure in a silvery-blue dress stepped outside.

  He should climb astride Blaze and sneak out of the yard as quietly as possible, before Charlotte spotted him.

  But then she looked his direction, and his feet rooted themselves to the ground like a cottonwood beside the Rio Grande. Her dress shimmered in the dying sunlight and flowed around her ankles as she moved toward him with quick, confident strides, and he was helpless to look away. Even when she stopped in front of him, he couldn’t move his eyes from the soft curve of her cheeks or the full pinkness of her lips
.

  “Did Wes leave?” She glanced over her shoulder at the small plumes of dust hovering in Ares’s wake. “It’s Ellie, isn’t it? He thinks he can hide what he’s feeling, but it’s obvious he’s scared sick for Ellie and Sam.”

  A small, strangled sound emerged from his throat. He’d been right about her dress inside. The fabric fit snuggly around her chest and waist before flaring gently around her hips and then falling to her feet, and her fancy updo and the curls hanging beside the soft curve of her cheek made her look even lovelier.

  “He should have waited for me. I would have ridden back with him,” she said.

  But he couldn’t really make sense of the words because he was too busy staring at the way her lips moved as she pronounced each and every sound.

  “You look lovely.” There, he’d found a way to make his tongue work again—at least partway. He hadn’t actually intended to voice the words that had just slipped out, though.

  She looked up at him, her eyes serious. “Do you really think I look lovely, or are you just saying that because… because… because you feel like you need to compliment me?”

  “No, you look lovely. That dress, it, ah… suits you.” His tongue spoke again before he could stop it.

  She looked down at herself. “I managed to get through both supper and dessert without dropping anything on me either, so maybe there’s hope.”

  “You’ll be impressing the socialites in San Antonio in no time.”

  “Maybe.” She folded her arms over her chest in a half-hearted hug and looked away.

  Wasn’t this what she wanted? To be beautiful and polished and impeccable, especially around other people? “Is something wrong?”

  She bit her lip. “I don’t know.”

  “Is this about your pa? Or about Consuela being gone?”

  “Not that.” She pressed a hand to the side of her neck, the gesture feminine and dainty despite the worry lines that furrowed her brow. “It’s just… the more time I spend with Andrew, the more I wonder if marrying him will be a mistake.”

  He froze, his heart thumping wildly against his rib cage. Was Charlotte finally coming to realize what he’d been telling her? Thank you, God.

  “Then don’t marry him.” He reached out and took her shoulders, drawing her a step closer, near enough to look into her eyes and see the dark rim of blue around her irises and the way the blue shades slowly lightened until they reached the black circle in the center. “You deserve more than a comfortable life with someone you ‘care’ for. You deserve to be so in love with the person you marry that you can’t envision a future for yourself without him.”

  Like him and his future without Charlotte. He couldn’t quite imagine what his life would look like once she was gone.

  “Why?” Her breath brushed against his chin, and this close, her eyes appeared an even deeper shade of blue.

  “Why what?”

  “Why don’t you want me to marry him?”

  The air stilled around them as they looked at each other. Somewhere in the distance, cattle lowed, and one of the horses inside the paddock snorted. The muted sounds of laughter and voices floated from the house on the other side of the yard, but neither of them spoke.

  Charlotte searched his face, her eyes intent, almost pleading, as though she was silently begging him for something…

  But what?

  What would he say? Charlotte stared up into Daniel’s eyes, the look in them so warm and tender she wanted to stand here on the desert with him forever.

  Say you have feelings for me. Say you don’t want me to marry Andrew because you want me to marry you instead.

  The breath clogged in her chest as she waited for his response.

  But instead of using his lips to speak words of love, he let out a small groan. “We’ve been over this before. Marriage is forever. It’s serious, a binding promise made before God between you and a man you intend to share your life with in every way. Wait for the right man, find someone who loves you for who you are, and when you find him, cling to him with everything you have. That kind of love, the kind of relationship I’m speaking of—like what my ma and pa share—it doesn’t come around very often.”

  Her cheeks grew cold, and something inside her turned hollow, like a giant, gaping cave had opened up right where her heart used to be. Daniel’s words made sense. In fact, she understood them better now than she had when he’d told her this very thing the first day she’d gone to his office. He didn’t want her to marry Andrew because he wanted her to be in love with whomever she wed.

  But what if she was already in love? And what if the person she loved didn’t love her in return?

  The words she’d been meaning to ask died on her tongue. She’d come outside only partially because she’d been concerned for Wes, but more because she’d needed to ask Daniel why he didn’t want to meet anymore.

  She didn’t have the heart to ask now. What did his reason matter, anyway? He clearly didn’t feel about her the way she felt about him.

  He was still looking at her, watching her with those intent blue eyes that had intimidated her a few months back. He probably expected her to say something, to argue with his reasoning about her not marrying Andrew like she’d done all along. She wouldn’t argue anymore, but she wasn’t about to let him know how she felt either.

  “Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind.” Her voice sounded wooden against the soft desert breeze. “But the more I think about it, the more I can see how my future should be with Andrew.”

  As soon as the words were out, she hated herself for the lie. But what else was she supposed to tell him? “Reckon my imagination got the best of me for a few seconds. Now if you’ll excuse me, I best get home.”

  She turned away, half so that she could walk to Athena, but half so that he wouldn’t notice when she reached up to wipe a tear from her cheek.

  Daniel sighed and rubbed his tired eyes, then stared at the map of Mexico spread across the top of his desk. It blurred before him, probably because he’d been up since four o’clock, which was turning out to be his new morning wakeup time. But what was the point of lying in bed staring at the ceiling? At least coming into his office meant he could get something useful done.

  Maybe.

  If he could concentrate on the rustlers long enough to forget Charlotte.

  But how could he forget her when he could still see the deep blue of her eyes as she’d searched his face in the dying sunlight? Still feel the slender form of her shoulders beneath his palms and smell the familiar scent of her lemon soap.

  Their mouths had been so close that he’d nearly leaned over and planted his lips on hers, then asked for her to promise she wouldn’t marry Andrew.

  But that would make him something of a tyrant. Who was he to take choices from her so that he could have the outcome he wanted?

  Of course, he could argue that his way would at least lead to Charlotte’s happiness, but she’d looked so dejected when she’d ridden off on Athena that happiness had been the last thing on her mind.

  Daniel pushed his chair back from the desk and stood. This whole business of forgetting his feelings for Charlotte was harder than he’d thought.

  But if he truly loved her, didn’t that mean he had to find a way to forget her? Especially when a life with him meant she couldn’t keep her horses?

  Christ had given up His life so others could live eternally, so he should be able to give up the woman he loved so she could have the future she wanted, which would always include her Arabians, regardless of who she married.

  But if he was doing what God wanted by not pursuing Charlotte, then why did his heart feel so heavy?

  Daniel blew out a breath. He needed to think clearly, to set his feelings about Charlotte aside and focus on the facts, much like he did when tracking a bandit.

  Tonight was Charlotte’s birthday party, and the entire town had been invited. He’d debated over not going, but he’d attended almost every party the A Bar W had ever hosted.
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br />   Also, he had a gift for Charlotte. Nothing big. But something he’d still like to hand her in person. If he didn’t give it to her tonight and she decided to marry Mortimer after all, he might not see her again.

  He’d go to the party, maybe dance with Charlotte once as a way of saying goodbye, give her the present…

  And that would be it.

  Daniel raked a hand through his hair and stalked toward the table with the coffee. He poured himself a cup and turned back toward his desk. Only then did he spot the small slip of paper lying beside the front door to his office.

  Had he missed it when he’d come inside two hours ago? Or had someone slid it beneath the door while he’d been sitting at his desk?

  He strode to the front of his office, passing the note entirely, and flung the door open. Dawn lit the sky in the east with a dusty shade of pink, but most of the town remained cloaked in the grayish-blue shadows of early morning. Nothing moved on the street, not a bird overhead or a jackrabbit looking for scraps, let alone a person hurrying away.

  He bent and picked up the paper.

  Tonight. Closed Canyon. 2:00 a.m.

  He scanned the street again for any sign of movement, but came away empty.

  Who had written the note?

  And could they be trusted?

  21

  “It’s a trap.” Cain set the note on the table beside his plate and bent back over his food, shoveling biscuits and gravy onto his fork.

  “How can you know?” Daniel snatched the slip of paper off the table. He stood in Cain’s tent, smack in the heart of the ranger encampment. As soon as he’d discovered the note, he’d gone straight to Cain. “You didn’t even look at the note long enough to read it, let alone think about anything it says.”

  “Sit. Eat some breakfast.” Cain shoved his fork at the empty chair on the opposite side of the table. One of the rangers had brought in an extra plate of food and a cup of coffee. “Heaven knows Anna Mae is always feeding the lot of us. The least you can do is eat some biscuits and gravy.”

  Daniel sat, but he didn’t put the note away or pick up his fork. “I asked why you think this is a trap.”