Caving into You (Love in the Old West series Book 1)

by Bess McBride

  “I can’t imagine whose face you saw. I don’t have a picture like that.”

  Hilly lifted an eyebrow then shrugged. “No? Well, maybe that’s my imagination. Maybe I saw it on the wall of that saloon or something. I don’t know if I believe in clairvoyance myself, but that was certainly strange that you saw my parents, although you probably could have guessed.”

  “That must be it,” Clint said. Torn between staying with her and heading for the hills to avoid discovery, he toyed with his cup. Sharon had silently come by to refill it once. Her limit was usually two cups of coffee for the price of one.

  Hilly looked at her wristwatch. She drew in a deep breath before speaking.

  “Do you have time to tell me about Boot Hill? I felt like I’ve kept you for too long already.”

  Clint nodded. “In fact, why don’t we walk down there? I’ve had enough coffee.”

  “Oh, sure!” Hilly said with relief. A thrill ran up her spine which she recognized as happiness. She’d thought he was going to run for it, given the strange exchange between them. He probably thought she was a bit nuts, given her talk of clairvoyance. She’d never known herself to divine information from touching people either, so she tried to put the sensation from her mind. She didn’t want to scare Clint off—not yet, anyway.

  Clint declined Hilly’s offer to pay for his coffee, and he left money on the table with a wave toward Sharon and the cook in the kitchen. He picked up his hat and seated it on his head before leading the way to the door and opening it for her. Hilly wasn’t unfamiliar with chivalry, but he had such an air of formality about him when he held doors open and pulled out her chair that she wondered more about his upbringing.

  He led the way down Allen Street, now clearing of the throngs of tourists, though some still remained.

  “Let’s cross the street here,” he said with a quick look toward an older two-story brick building. The signage painted at the top of the building showed it was a theater of some sort. They crossed before they reached the theater.

  Hilly paused to study it from across the street.

  “What is that building? Is it a movie theater? Or a performing center of some sort?” Hilly asked.

  Clint didn’t follow her eyes and barely broke stride, and Hilly quickened her step to catch up with him.

  “Clint?” she asked curiously. It was as if he didn’t want to talk about the building.

  “It was a theater. Not any more though. The building is one of the few in Tombstone to have survived fires over the years, probably because the outer walls are made of brick.”

  “Oh.” Hilly could only acknowledge his response, as strained and brief as it seemed to be. Clearly, he didn’t want to talk about the building.

  As they walked down the wooden sidewalks, Clint’s voice relaxed, and he pointed out other buildings. He noted that most of them were not original to nineteenth-century Tombstone as several devastating fires had ripped through the town.

  Whatever had bothered him before seemed to have vanished, and Hilly reminded herself not to ask him about the theater again, but to discover more about it later.

  As they walked, Clint offered up his arm again, and Hilly took it with a sideways glance. It felt distinctly odd, old-fashioned, and yet charming and nurturing. She imagined herself swishing along in long skirts and petticoats—picking up the dust of the boardwalk and streets. How had the women of the nineteenth-century West managed to keep their skirts clean?

  They reached the site of the O.K. Corral and turned the corner to head toward the state highway that led through town.

  “There is a placard on that wall commemorating the gunfight near the stable. A lot has been written about that fight over the years,” Clint said, “though its notoriety lasted only a short while for Tombstone residents.”

  Hilly turned to look at a bronze placard embedded in the wall of the back of the corral next to a small false-front building that purported to be a photography shop.

  “Really? That’s all I’ve ever heard of Tombstone. You know, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.” She grinned.

  “No, there was much more to Tombstone than that one event,” he said with a grin.

  “Yes, I’m sure there was,” Hilly murmured. And she had a hunch the theater that Clint avoided might have some stories. “How far is Boot Hill?” she asked.

  “Not too much further. Just another few minutes.”

  They rounded the corner and saw a fairly touristy wooden building with a large sign over a wooden building that read “Boot Hill Graveyard.”

  “Now, this building wasn’t always here. This is a ‘gift shop,’ if you can believe that. A gift shop in a cemetery.” Clint’s voice held a note of mild derision.

  “Well, I’m sure they have to have some way to pay for maintenance of the cemetery,” Hilly said with a smile. He sounded offended, as if he took the inclusion of the gift shop as a personal affront. She almost teased him about continuing to be ‘in character’ in his Old West persona, but she bit back the words. Her teasing hadn’t gone over well the last time she’d tried it.

  “Maybe,” he said in a gruff voice. “I visited the cemetery when I first arrived. It’s changed quite a bit over the years. I mean...it must have changed quite a bit over the years. I...uh...saw an old photograph of the cemetery once, and I’m not sure the graves are all in the right spots.”

  They neared the entrance to the graveyard through the gift shop.

  “Well, I’m sure they’ve done the best they can to preserve it, Clint. My guess is there has probably been vandalism over the years, especially before your dreaded ‘gift shop’ was built. At one time, it was probably open to anyone who wanted to steal anything, even grave robbers.”

  Clint sighed and nodded. “That might be true.”

  They stepped inside the wooden building. Hilly picked up a graveyard guide and offered a donation for the cemetery. Clint didn’t seem to know anyone in the shop, and she guessed he didn’t frequent the graveyard like he did the coffee shop.

  They stepped outside, and Hilly was struck by the vista beyond the cemetery. The cemetery appeared to be situated on a hill overlooking a desert valley which stretched away toward mountains in the distance. The valley, a largely mesquite-dotted desert, sported a few houses but was generally free of other structures.

  The cemetery itself featured brightly painted white wooden “tombstones,” markers and a few crosses in rows at the head of a bed of rocks, presumably over the gravesites. She opened up her guide and began to read, but Clint took her by the elbow and walked her along the rows, stopping to discuss the occasional graves with tidbits of information not noted on the brochure.

  Squinting at the late afternoon sun behind him, Hilly studied him as he talked. How did he know so much? She had to ask.

  “How do you know all of this, Clint? I don’t see any of this discussed on the brochure.”

  Clint met her eyes, and she could see he hesitated before answering. He acted like he was hiding something, but she couldn’t imagine what.

  “Well, I’ve always been very interested in the history of Tombstone, so I’ve read quite a bit. There are books describing the folks who are buried here...how they died.”

  “Really? I’d love to see one. Can you recommend one? Maybe they have it in the gift shop. I saw a large selection of books as we passed through.”

  Clint took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair in a charming motion before sticking it back on his head. The gesture, however, made him look like he was stalling for time. What could possibly be so difficult about naming a book? She decided to let him off the hook. She would find the book herself.

  “Well, maybe you can’t remember the name of the book. No problem. I’ll find one myself. In the meantime, lead on!”

  Clint, looking as relieved as Hilly hoped he would, continued to lead the way. This time though, he limited himself to reading the markers, clearly freshly painted in black lettering. He offered no other information, and she didn’t
press him. Clint was rapidly becoming quite an enigma to her, one that she found fascinating. She never knew when he would clam up or avoid a question, and she really didn’t know why he did, but it made her all the more determined to pursue the answers.

  He paused in front of one grave marked “Unknown,” and looked as if he were about to say something but he pressed his lips together. Hilly couldn’t resist prodding him.

  “Do you know the story on this grave?”

  Clint, almost as if he were lost in thought, said, “Not much. They said he was well dressed and found at the bottom of a mineshaft. There was no telling if he was killed or if he fell down there. The fall caused too many injuries. I wondered if he had—” He stiffened, and threw her a hasty glance. “What I mean is I wondered about him. What would a well-dressed man be doing at the bottom of a mine shaft?”

  Hilly shook her head. “I don’t know. It sounds suspicious, doesn’t it? Do you know anything else about him?” Once again, Clint had cut off a sentence, and Hilly wondered what he had been about to say.

  Clint shook his head. “No, I don’t think he had any identification on him. That was not uncommon.” He sighed and moved on to the next set of markers. “And here are the graves of Billy Clanton and Tom and Frank McLaury, ‘murdered in the streets of Tombstone 1881.’”

  “Murdered? Really?”

  Clint shrugged his shoulders and dug his hands into his pockets as he surveyed the markers. “Well, that’s how their families and some townsfolk saw it.”

  “Oh! I thought the Earps and Doc Holliday were the ‘law,’ and the Clantons and McLaurys the bad guys. I remember thinking about that during the show. I wondered if there was more to the story. Not all that simple, huh?”

  Clint turned to eye her with a lift of his lips. “Nothing is ever that simple, is it?”

  Hilly eyed him. No, not even you. She shook her head but said nothing.

  “Well, that’s about it for Boot Hill,” Clint said. He squinted at the sun. “I’d guess it’s getting to be about 5 o’clock.”

  Hilly looked at her watch. He was right. It was a few minutes after 5 p.m. “And you can tell that from the position of the sun?” she said with a grin.

  Clint led the way back to the bookstore. “I’ve learned to over the years. I can’t seem to keep a watch ticking.”

  They entered the gift shop, and when Clint would have exited, Hilly paused at the books. He waited patiently. She scanned the titles and covers, looking for any handy reference books. She looked over her shoulder.

  “Do you see that book you were talking about? The one with the rest of the information on the grave sites?”

  Clint shook his head. “No,” he said briefly.

  Hilly didn’t think he’d had time to scan the shelves, but maybe he already knew they didn’t carry the book. Why on earth would a gift shop at Boot Hill Graveyard not carry the book that Clint had read? Perhaps it was out of print. Hilly shrugged and returned to her perusal.

  One book on Tombstone caught her eye, and she picked it up and leafed through it. A fan of pictorial essays, she studied some of the photographs of 1880’s Tombstone. The town certainly did appear to be much larger and more populated than it was now. Profiles of famous residents caught her eye—the Earp brothers, various law enforcement officials, prominent miners who made it rich. She studied a picture of seven men who appeared to be posing in front of an artificial background, pick axes in their hands.

  Hilly narrowed her eyes and stared at the man on the far left. Tall, with seemingly light-colored hair, he was the only clean-shaven man in the picture, with all the rest sporting large mustaches. His large light-colored hat covered the top part of his head but not his mouth or his firm chin. The resemblance to Clint was uncanny. What had he said about his family?

  “Hey, Clint...” Hilly began. Clint, studying a display of rocks, turned to her. “There’s a guy in this picture who looks just like you. How long did you say your family had been in Tucson?”

  Clint was at her side in an instant, leaning over her shoulder to stare at the picture. Hilly thought she could feel tension emanating from his body, but she told herself she was mistaken. She herself lost track of her thoughts at his nearness. Given that he’d taken three ‘nosedives’ that day, he didn’t smell at all bad.

  “That’s not me,” he ground out. “I mean...that’s no one I’m related to. He sure does look like me, doesn’t he, but I don’t think my relatives were here during...” He scanned the date on the picture. “1881. No, I am pretty sure they settled here in the 1900s.”

  Hilly, bemused by Clint’s nearness and suddenly daydreaming about leaning against his chest and staring off over the desert into a famous Arizona sunset, brought her attention back to the picture. She scanned it again.

  “No? Just a coincidence then,” she said. “It’s hard to tell in these black and white photos. Everyone looks so grim.”

  “I believe they were told they could not smile, and so they did tend to look unhappy.”

  “I’m going to buy this one,” Hilly said. She picked up a few more and moved toward the cash register. Once her books were purchased, she stepped outside into the bright sunshine and hesitated.

  “I’ll walk you back to town,” Clint said. “Where did you park your car?”

  “Oh, I walked,” Hilly said. “I’m staying at the Sunset Inn. It’s just up the road here.”

  “I know where it is. I didn’t realize you were staying in town. How long will you be here?” Clint’s voice held a note that Hilly couldn’t decipher. Was he happy, sad, didn’t care?

  “Tonight and tomorrow night. I return to Phoenix the day after, where my brother lives.”

  They began to walk toward Hilly’s motel.

  “Do you visit Phoenix often, Hilly?”

  Hilly thought she heard a note of excitement in his voice, but she told herself she was reading too much into his tones. She would have loved to think he wanted her to visit often. But what was the point? She didn’t, and she wasn’t sure what she thought about a long-distance relationship.

  Hilly shook her head. “No, not really. I’ve seen my brother and his family twice in the last six months, but I don’t really visit all that often.” She tried to grin but fell short. She looked up at Clint, walking beside her. His expression was unreadable.

  “I see,” he said. “Do you enjoy living in the Northwest? It rains a lot there, doesn’t it? That must be pleasant.”

  No, she had read too much into his voice. He was just making conversation.

  “It does rain a lot there. Not always pleasant. Arizona is nice in the fall though. This is my first time visiting in the fall.”

  “So, you don’t come down here often?”

  Hilly thought Clint must have forgotten he asked the question. She shook her head. “No.” However, she thought if Clint said the word, she might come much more often.

  “Did you fly on an airplane or did you drive your car all the way?”

  Hilly almost smiled at the way he spoke. Most people would have omitted the word ‘airplane’ when flying or ‘car’ when driving. It was as if he added extra words to sentences, as if he thought he might not be understood.

  “I flew and rented a car.”

  Clint nodded. He was silent, and Hilly could think of nothing else to say. She only knew she didn’t want to go back to the motel and stay there alone, but she had taken too much of Clint’s time as it was. It wasn’t as if he’d been waiting around all his life for her to show up.

  They approached the motel, and Hilly dragged her steps. Clint slowed to accommodate her.

  “Are you tired?” he asked.

  She thought of her daily two-mile jogs. No, she wasn’t tired.

  “No, not really.” She chewed the inside of her lip. Dared she invite him to dinner? Where? She knew nothing about the town after sundown. But Clint surprised her.

  “Would you like to go to dinner in about an hour? I need to wash up after laying in the dust all day, but
I could come back and pick you up in an hour.”

  “Yes!” Hilly said. “I would. Thank you.” She tried to hide the relief and delight in her voice but failed.

  Clint’s broad smile seemed to match her emotions.

  “Good. I’ll see you back here in an hour then.”

  Hilly nodded and watched him stride away down the street. She wondered what he would look like in modern clothing. As handsome as he did now, she suspected.

  She returned to her room, showered, and slipped into a pair of khaki slacks and a blouse. She wished she’d thought to bring a skirt or something more girly, but she hadn’t expected she would need anything particularly feminine. Attracting men hadn’t been on her agenda when she packed for the conference and to visit her brother and his family.

  At a few minutes before six, she went outside to wait for Clint. He didn’t pull up in a car as she expected, but walked down the street. As he approached, she saw that he wore cowboy boots as he had that day, but these were newer, darker. He wore dark blue jeans, a blue plaid, long-sleeved shirt, and a dark brown cowboy hat. In fact, other than the color of his clothing, he looked exactly as he had that day, except for the blue jeans. He could easily have slipped into any one of the photographs in her book and blended in. It was as if he were really a product of the Old West. Time had not changed for him.

  Chapter Five

  Clint had taken great care to pull out the few twenty-first century pieces of clothing he’d managed to buy on his meager wages. He was particularly proud of his new dark brown felt hat in a cattleman style with broad brim that stayed on in a stiff breeze. His boots were new too—sturdy and tough. He had no intention of wearing his new duds for the show. He hoped that if he did manage to get back to where he belonged, that he could bring his new finery with him.

  He wished he’d been able to afford a nice jacket to go with his clothes, but there was nowhere in town to buy a proper coat, and he didn’t want to hitch a ride in the car with Larry and wear out his welcome there. He thought he looked presentable. Clean anyway.