…I do not know if this letter will reach you before you apprehend McCade, but I send this anyway—you will not harm him. I say this not as a command to you, but as a reminder to your true nature. You return this man to uncertain justice because it is the moral choice. Anything else is vigilantism.
I trust you, Sebastian. And you must trust yourself…
Isabel
Chapter Twenty-Eight
This was an easy place for a man to die.
The Barranca del Cobre was a savage scar across the land, a deep green gouge made by the knife of a god. But still beautiful for all that.
For a man to survive such a place, he had to be more than half-wild himself. Sebastian felt no fear, facing that wilderness. Rather, it was anticipation building in him, the kind a wolf might feel when he spotted prey and prepared for the long chase ahead.
A chase crowned by the joy of the kill.
His prey waited in a shoddy camp in the canyon below. Sebastian was perched above him, well out of sight. McCade stumbled out of his tent, and Sebastian smiled to see his quarry flail like a dying cow.
He might be going a little mad, smiling like that. In his other life he would have recited all his familiar books, the lines that allowed him to retreat behind his reserve, to pretend that he didn’t feel.
But in this life, the one where he embraced the wilderness, he simply smiled.
He raised the field glasses to his face, studied his reflection in the lenses for a moment.
After his return to Batopilas from his first trip into this landscape, Sebastian had almost shot himself when he’d caught a glimpse of his reflection.
That hadn’t been his face. Not as dark as it was, streaked with grime, his too-long hair a salt-and-pepper cloud above it. And that beard—his mouth and neck were swallowed entirely by it.
How long had he been in the wilderness this trip? Sebastian counted the days.
Forty. He’d been here forty days.
How long since he’d spoken to another living being? Forty-three days. A man in Batopilas, when he’d purchased supplies.
How long since he’d seen another human? Thirty-nine days.
He thought he’d seen a shadow on the rock face at one point—the Indians here were known for their reclusiveness. But perhaps it hadn’t been human—perhaps it had been an animal. He couldn’t say for certain.
He ran a hand through his beard as he stared at his reflection in the lenses. Strange, that he hardly even felt the beard upon his chin any longer. Or the clothes across his skin. Such things would have irritated him to distraction before.
He lifted the field glasses to his eyes, watched his prey for several moments. McCade looked terrible. Gaunt, filthy, clearly out of his element.
In a week, or perhaps a few days, the problem would be solved. Barranca del Cobre would have killed McCade by then.
Sebastian pulled his pistol from its holster. He wanted to solve the problem now.
McCade didn’t hear Sebastian approach. He stared at nothing as Sebastian came closer and closer, only the sound of the pistol’s hammer cocking catching the man’s attention.
He turned slowly, as if unsure if the noise were real or not.
Sebastian would prove soon enough that it was.
A ghastly smile pulled at McCade’s lips. “Bannister sent you all this way to find me? My father was right—that man does hate him.”
The man was this close to death, and he still couldn’t set aside his jeering.
Let him have it for this last moment.
“Bannister didn’t send me. I came for her.” Was that his voice? He hadn’t heard it in so long. He didn’t remember it being so deep. So rough.
McCade squatted by the remains of his campfire. “So what happens now? You haul me back, there’s another trial,” he rattled off, “I serve a few years—and when I’m out, I find her.” The mocking light fled his gaze, leaving it flat. Pitiless. Empty. “I’ll make you watch as I carve her into ribbons, very, very slowly.”
Sebastian raised the gun and put the barrel against McCade’s temple. One flick of his finger, and he was done. He could return to her.
“Careful,” the other man warned. “That’s loaded.”
“I know.”
“Well, go ahead then,” McCade urged. “You picked a good spot for it—no one will find me here. You win. You caught me.”
There was no regret, no remorse, no pleading.
If the tables were turned, if McCade held the gun on him—there would be no hesitation. Sebastian would already be dead.
Sebastian tightened his grip on the pistol, the muscles of his arm flexing—causing the letter in his breast pocket to rustle.
Her letter. Her words.
She wouldn’t want him to do this. If she were here, she’d lay her hand over his arm and stop him.
But she wasn’t here. There was nothing to stop him from killing the man, from sending him to his final judgment.
One pull of Sebastian’s finger and she would be safe forever.
She’d never know what truly happened here—he could tell her anything he liked.
But because she wasn’t here, he must stop himself.
He slowly holstered the pistol, pulled the handcuffs from his belt.
McCade’s eyes widened, the first time Sebastian had ever seen him baffled.
“You’re under arrest,” Sebastian said as he fastened the cuffs around the man’s wrists. “I’m taking you back to Los Angeles to stand trial.”
COMPANIA TELEGRAFIA MEXICANA 6 JULIO 1899
HAVE APPREHENDED MCCADE AM RETURNING TO LOS ANGELES
SPENCER
Chapter Twenty-Nine
San Francisco
September 1899
Isabel swiped the rag across the blackboard, coughing as chalk dust tickled her nose. The streetcar clattered faintly from a few blocks away. Her students chattered and laughed in the courtyard just outside the window, released for the day and on their way home to their mansions in Nob Hill.
The marine breeze blowing in from the open window stirred the hair at her nape, making gooseflesh rise there. After being in San Francisco for nearly a year, she still found the supposedly warm autumn weather chill-inducing.
She kept at the blackboard, swiping it with even strokes to ensure the last trace of chalk was gone. The neatness of her classroom at the California Ladies’ Academy pleased her soul.
Setting the rag in the blackboard tray, next to the chalk lined up in readiness for tomorrow, she turned to her satchel. A single, solitary letter poked out from it.
She ran her fingers along the paper. Sebastian’s latest letter. The other three hundred or so were in the bottom of the bag. One for every day they had been apart.
She hadn’t received all that he’d sent—the mail service between here and Mexico was too inexact for that. But she knew they were out there, trapped somewhere in the ether, fluttering on translucent insect’s wings.
The letters that had reached her were more than enough, a nearly ridiculous weight in her satchel. One she couldn’t be without. He’d poured himself and his days into those letters, much as he’d once poured himself into those notebooks.
Now he poured himself into his letters to her.
His happiness, his anger, his smiles—not laughter, not quite yet—all presented for her. Along with his yearning.
Dear God, the yearning. The ache of it was a secret, delicious suffering residing in the center of her always, flaring each and every time she read over the words he poured for her.
Even when he was exhausted from his search, even when he wanted to do nothing more than sink into sleep, he sent a letter.
Te amo.
S.
Just those two words and his initial—but he still gave them.
She tucked the letter away. Already she had it memorized, but she’d spend this evening running her fingers along the same places his had touched, imagining it was his skin under them instead of thin, crinkling paper.
The only physical contact she had with him, and she snatched it up hungrily with each new letter.
As she hoisted her bag onto her shoulder, the tramp of booted feet came from behind her. Manuel, here to sweep the floors, no doubt.
“Buenas tardes, Señor,” she greeted him. “¿Comó esta usted?”
“Bien, ¿y usted?”
She spun at those oh-so-familiar mellow tones, her heart instinctually leaping with joy, her breath hitching with anticipation.
And a fair amount of uncertainty.
Sebastian stared back at her, his broad length entirely in black, hat in hand, as immaculately turned out as ever.
The illusion held until she looked into those gray eyes. Eyes that looked tired, nearly exhausted, as if he hadn’t slept for the past year. Had there always been that much gray in his hair? She wasn’t quite certain; her memory wasn’t infallible like his.
“I would have thought you’d still be at the trial,” she said.
She’d obsessively followed the news of McCade’s second trial for attempted murder, reading over and over again the accounts of his and Sebastian’s testimony. The papers had indicated it would go on for a few more days.
“It ended yesterday.” That impassive expression of his made her stomach lurch. If McCade had escaped yet again, she didn’t know how she would survive it. Perhaps that was why Sebastian had come so quickly, to warn her.
“Guilty.” His voice was harsh. “He’ll serve twenty years at Folsom.”
She exhaled deeply, trying to blow away her anxiety, trying to capture the elation she should be experiencing, seeing him after so long. “So in twenty years I’ll need to worry about him coming after me?”
“You’re overgenerous—he won’t survive,” he assured her. “Not twenty years there.”
“It’s finished then.” There was triumph, yes, but it was tinged with a hollow sort of regret. “You did exactly what you promised. Delivered him to justice. And it was served, this time.”
Perhaps if it had been done right the first time, if they’d been spared this year of bitter separation, she might have been entirely joyous.
“More than that, I delivered him unharmed. The only time I touched him was to put the handcuffs on him. I wanted to.” He looked heavenward. “Lord, how I wanted to hurt him. He tried me severely, too.” He looked back at her. “But I didn’t.”
She swallowed past the tightness in her throat. They remained nearly ten feet apart. Her heart strained to close the distance, but her reserve—and his—kept her where she was.
“I saw the account of it in the papers.” Her steadiness matched his. “You’re quite the hero in Los Angeles.”
“Did you see the praise they heaped on my father?” His mouth twisted. “They painted me as following in his footsteps, heroically tracking that fugitive to the ends of the earth. For justice.”
She knew how much that hurt him, felt an answering hurt within herself. The need to comfort him trembled within her, and yet…
He hadn’t given the slightest indication he wanted her comfort.
“I know the true story,” she said. “From your letters.”
“When I came upon him, all alone in the wildness of the canyons—all I could think of was you and your words, your pale hand against my arm, restraining me. So I stayed my rage and put the handcuffs on him as gently as a mother dressing a child. To be honest, I don’t think Mexico agreed with him.”
She took a step toward him, her stomach clenching when he made no reciprocal move toward her.
“I was never so proud as when I received that letter from you.” Her throat was near to closing completely. “And now he’s in jail. We never have to speak of him again.”
“True.” He ran his hand along a desk and looked about the classroom. “You’re enjoying San Francisco?”
“Yes. My pupils are quite intelligent and willing, if a bit spoiled. The city itself is... well, quite beyond my imaginings.”
Bustling with every kind of person, libraries, newspapers, temperance leagues, literary societies—it was a feast for the intellect.
“How many literary societies have you joined?” Amusement tinted that.
“All of them,” she admitted.
He smiled, hitting her right at her knees, making them want to give way. Steady.
“How is your mother?” she got out. “She must be quite glad to have you back from Mexico safely.”
“She’s well. In fact, she’s betrothed.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. A very kind man who thinks the world of her. Even Junius likes him.”
“Even Junius? The man must be a saint.”
He cleared his throat. “Junius is a changed dog. I hired someone to gentle him while I was away. The effort required was prodigious, I understand, but the results have been… extraordinary.”
Tears clotted in her throat and chest. “I see,” she said, the words wavering as they left her throat.
Oh, this was painful, this slow stumbling past these inane pleasantries. But all of this politeness must be exhausted before they could come to the heart of the matter.
He tapped his hat against his leg, looking everywhere except at her. “All that time hunting McCade, it gave me quite a bit of time to reflect.” He paused. “There is no doubt that a strain of violence runs within me. As I… unbent with you, I did not take the proper mental precautions to control it.” He looked straight at her now, his eyes as cool and clear and deep as a lake in autumn. “I can control it now. But I have… unbent as far as I can. I will always be reserved.”
Nothing of marriage, of affection, of love. Only control and reserve.
The tears came then, damp and shuddering. She could no longer hold them back.
He closed his eyes, averted his face. “I cannot… I cannot look at you when you do that.”
His pained words twisted through the center of her.
“As I said, I will always be reserved,” he said to the floor, “but even so, never doubt that I love you to the profoundest depths of my soul.”
A sob escaped her. Here, here was the declaration she’d been aching for.
His jaw clenched and his fists flexed as he went on speaking to the floor. “Knowing all of that—all of me—I must ask you…” He looked up and his eyes were ablaze. “I must ask you, will you have me?”
She closed the distance between them, nearly throwing herself at him.
“Of course, of course,” she breathed between kisses, shivering with the release of finally touching him after so long apart. “I love you with everything I have.”
His arms went round her and the sensation of it, the heavy clasp of them against her after only imagining for so long, smashed the ache she’d been living with right to pieces.
Here. Here is right where I belong.
But he wasn’t kissing her in return.
He frowned down at her. “Are you certain? I can’t… I will never be ardent. I can’t give full rein to every emotion within me. But it is there, I swear it.”
She ran a hand along his jaw. So warm, so smooth. She would never tire of the feel of his skin under hers.
“I know all that. Didn’t I read your letters?” Her fingertips traveled to his lips and he breathed a kiss into her palm. Finally.
“Ah, my Isabel. These things seem easy when we’re so far apart, with only letters to speak for us. You must be certain. For once I take you to wife, you’re never leaving my side.”
He kissed the tips of her fingers and a thrill ran through her. After imagining the touch of his lips for so long, the reality was almost more than she could bear. “What things are difficult now there’s nothing between us but flesh and speech?”
“I will never be an easy man to live with.” His breath caressed her hand. “My reserve, my taciturn ways—those won’t change.”
“I wouldn’t want them to. I myself am magnificently difficult.”
A smile flashed across his face. Two smiles in less
than a quarter of an hour. He had changed.
“And—” His expression twisted in hesitation. “I don’t know that I want to be a father. I would never want to be like my—”
She held a fingertip to his lips. “You would never be like him. And I don’t know that I want to be a mother.”
His frown eased, but didn’t erase. “If we marry, it would be in the papers.”
“I have found that San Franciscans cultivate an active disinterest in the affairs of Los Angeles.” Her heart slowed. “Unless you mean for us to return to Los Angeles. I suppose you would have to.” Breathing was becoming difficult. “Since you are a marshal there—”
He shook his head. “I turned in my badge.”
“What about your duties?” She frowned at him now. “What about justice?”
He shrugged. “As you said, I’ve done my duty. Justice isn’t quite so alluring when it can’t protect the ones you love.”
“So we can remain here in San Francisco?” she asked eagerly.
“Wherever you like. As long as it’s far away from your brother. I imagine he’s still put out I held a gun on him.”
She smiled. “I believe San Francisco is far enough away.”
He rested his forehead against hers. “If I were to travel the whole world, I would never find another to fit me as well as you do.”
“I’m here right at hand,” she whispered.
Lord, to be so close to him, to be touching him after all this time… if they weren’t in the middle of her classroom, she’d be tempted to strip him naked.
He breathed kisses along her jaw, nibbled along her lips. “What shall we do next, my Isabel?”
“First,” she said, “you are going to kiss me. Then you are going to marry me.”
He proceeded to do just as she commanded.
Epilogue
A man who’d never intended to take a wife was allowed to feel a bit unsettled upon waking the morning after his wedding.
It was a good kind of unsettled though.
Sebastian looked around the ridiculously ornate suite they had taken at the Palace Hotel, pulling his wife—his wife—closer to him as he did. She shifted, settling more of herself against him.
Autumn Sage Page 34
