by Tess Oliver
I lifted his hand to my mouth and kissed his knuckles. “Open this cell and let me inside, Angus. You can grant me one last moment with him before—” My words broke off.
Angus considered my wish for a moment. Surprisingly, he walked over and opened the door to the cell. I walked inside and he shut me in with Cade. “I’ll finish this tasty smoke outside.”
Heat surrounded us as we stared at each other in the shadowy interior of the dank smelling cell. Cade grabbed my hand and pressed it against his chest. “You are right here forever, and no magic tricks or sorcery can pry you from my heart.”
I reached up and pushed his long hair off his face. “Angus is very powerful, Cade. But you’ll be free, and that’s all that matters.”
Cade took hold of my hand. His calloused fingers traced lightly over the skin of my forearm and across my palm. Even a simple touch from him made me react both physically and emotionally.
“You were meant for me, Poppy. I can feel it in my fingertips when I touch you.” He lifted my hand and pressed my wrist to his mouth. Then he pulled me to him. “And next time I hold you, I won’t have this fat lip so I can give you a proper kiss.”
I smiled up at him and then hopped up on my toes to kiss him lightly.
He squeezed me against him. “Hmm, I think it’s feeling better already.”
I was never going to be held by this man again and that thought was too much to bear. “I have suffered with Angus’s obsession since I was fifteen. I always thought he’d give up on the idea of having me. Now that I’ve found what true love feels like, I hate him even more.” I couldn’t keep my voice from breaking up.
“I can’t fault the man for his obsession with you.” He kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry I spoke harshly to you yesterday, Poppy. It was just a lot to take in.” He looked toward the door. “But I’m a believer now.” He studied my face for a moment. “My angel, my Poppy, this isn’t over. I won’t let him have you.”
I pressed my face against his chest, and the heat of his body comforted me until the dreaded sound of the door opening jarred me back to reality.
“Times up.” Angus’s ugly voice echoed off the brick wall of the cell. He opened the barred door, and I peeled myself off of Cade. “Have a seat at the desk, Poppy,” Angus commanded. Cade’s hand fell away from mine as I left the cell and shuffled across the rough floor to the desk.
Angus chanted some unfamiliar words and waved his arm once. Nothing felt different, and for a moment, I wondered if the spell had truly worked.
Angus shoved his key in the door lock. “Good news, Boy,” his tone was lighter and completely unfamiliar sounding, “they’ve dropped the charges. You’re free to go home.”
Cade glanced around with a look of profound confusion. He stepped out of the cell and nodded at Angus. I sat forward into the light as he walked past the desk. He stopped in front of the desk. Everything about him, his handsome face, his pale, magnetic gaze his strong shoulders, was breathtakingly familiar, and my heart skipped a beat as it always did when he looked at me. I held my breath. . . hoping.
He stared at me a moment and then nodded. “Miss.” It was the only word he uttered before walking out the door with my heart.
***
A small hawk stood on the fence post in front of the house, waiting for some unsuspecting creature to wander out. Just weeks ago, I would have looked out onto the Montana landscape and marveled at its vast beauty. But now I hated the bleak, endless, colorless land.
Angus’s large, cold hand squeezed my shoulder, and I went rigid beneath his touch. “I have to go into town. One of the bank’s windows was broken last night.” His confidence and arrogance had waned in the past weeks as he realized that I was far from willing to accept a life with him. “You need to eat something, Poppy. You are shrinking away to nothing.”
I looked up at him and my head spun slightly from hunger. “Am I? Then my plan is working. When there is nothing left of me, you’ll have to move on and find another girl to torment.”
He pulled his hand from my shoulder. “I’ve provided you with this nice home.”
I laughed. “You’ve provided me? You act as if you built it with your own hands. You killed the man who once lived here so you could sweep in and take his job.”
“Poppy, you didn’t think you were going to stay here forever with that cow farmer. It is hardly the life for a witch.”
“He’s a rancher, and yes, I would have stayed here with him forever.” I pushed to standing and swayed on my feet.
Angus took hold of my shoulders to steady me. “You have to eat or you’ll—”
“— die? Precisely. And that should be reminder enough that I am hardly a witch. My blood is mostly mortal, and unlike you, I will grow old and die. What will you do with me when I’m wrinkled, gray, and hunched over from age?”
From the expression on his face, it was obvious he had not dealt with that reality yet.
“You will toss me out on the street and find someone new. That is why I’m meant to live amongst mortals not witches. You and I were never meant for each other.”
“That’s not true.” He pulled me into his iron grasp, and I struggled futilely against him. “You will grow to love me, or I will make sure you do.”
I pushed hard against his chest and he released me. I stared up at him in utter disbelief. “You would cast a spell to make me love you? You are that desperate? That is beyond pathetic, even for you, Angus Wolfe.”
“You can’t go on like this forever. Eventually you will have to eat, and eventually you will have to come out of this state of melancholy.”
“You’re wrong. I can go on like this forever. But I will eat again if you take us back to Salem. If I at least had Nonni and Mari in my life, the desolation would not be so stark.”
“Why would you want to return to that period of time? This era provides us with so many more conveniences.”
“You can create any convenience for yourself you want. You’re not going to tell me we’re staying here simply because we can have light without candles. And you can’t possibly be entertained by mundane tasks such as checking on the bank’s broken windows.”
He shrugged his massive shoulders. “Perhaps I just enjoy the power I have over the mortals in this town.” He glanced down at his star. “And all because I’m wearing a shiny badge. Mortals are so ridiculous.”
“You had power in Salem, too, when you were masquerading as a pastor.”
“Yes, but it seems lawman is much better suited to me than a man of the church. Besides, I could no longer stand their state of perpetual ignorance. It grew tiresome.”
I looked at him for a moment. There was a glimmer of uncertainty in his eyes. “Angus, are you hiding from something? Did something happen in Salem that earned you banishment? I mean, as silly as the people of Salem were, even they would have eventually discovered that you were not a man of the cloth.”
He waved my suggestion off. “I was caught once or twice with a woman, but I used the same magic I used on your rancher. Then all was forgotten. I assure you I left there with the simpletons paying me as much reverence as always.” He walked to the hook on the wall and lifted off my shawl and bonnet. He’d conjured me an entire wardrobe, but I still wore the dresses Libby had traded pie for. “I insist you walk into town with me. The fresh air will do you good and spur your appetite.”
He’d changed the subject abruptly, and it seemed there was more to his self-exile then he was letting on. “We could return to Salem, find Nonni and Mari, and then move somewhere else,” I suggested.
“What makes you think I want your grandmother anywhere in my life?”
“Fine, then I will continue to starve myself, and you will have to find someone else to torment.”
He dropped the shawl around my shoulder and handed me the bonnet. “Let’s go.”
I pulled down the brim of my hat and wrapped the shawl around me to ward off the cool breeze and hide my face as much as possible. I’d walked throu
gh town several times, shuffling obediently behind Angus, and every time, the townsfolk had nearly strained their necks in a chance to get a glimpse of the Marshal’s wife.
Just weeks before they’d known me as the girl who’d been nearly killed by a bear, the girl who Libby had taken in as lost and homeless. Now I was a complete stranger. Now I was a woman daft enough to marry someone as wretched as Marshall West. Of course, the marriage was a farce. The fact that we were not married was the one string of hope I held onto for now, although, all in all, things looked rather grim from where I stood.
“I’ll wait out here while you go in and conduct business.”
Angus hesitated a moment and scanned the area as if he was looking for one man in particular, which, no doubt, he was. “I’ll only be a moment.”
People walking past made no attempt to hide their curiosity, and I shrank into my shawl and hat as much as possible. I could not have felt more ashamed or out of place in this town now. I wanted desperately to leave.
Boot heels sounded on the wood plank walkway in front of the bank, and my heart raced ahead. I turned around as the boot heels approached. An elderly man with a scraggly beard tipped his hat at me as he walked by. I quickly reminded myself that almost every man in town wore boots and that I had to stop being so ridiculous. Still, it took me a moment to calm the tremble in my hands. If this had truly been part of Angus’s plan to torture me, it was working.
Several women thought they were being discreet by mumbling behind gloved hands as they strolled past. I turned away from the road just as a gust of wind shot through the walkway. My bonnet flew from my head. I spun around to grab it, but someone had snatched it from flight. A breath caught in my throat as he stared down at me with pale green eyes. He politely pulled off his hat and nodded to me. A long strand of his dark hair blew temporarily across his face. The cuts and scrapes had healed, and his mouth was no longer swollen and bruised. Jackson stood behind him.
“I think this belongs to you,” he handed me the bonnet without taking his eyes off of me. His fingers grazed mine as he handed me the hat and his touch instantly warmed my skin.
“Thank you.” My words were barely audible. I looked up into his face and tried to convince myself that I saw a glimmer of recognition in his eyes, but I was fooling myself.
“I’m done here, Poppy. Let’s be off.” Angus’s severe tone startled me. He turned and thundered down the wooden walkway.
I pushed a smile onto my face, but truly, I wanted nothing more than to break into sobs. I had half hoped I would see him again, but now I realized it only made things worse. He stuck his hat on his head and nodded politely.
I turned away from the man I loved to trudge after the man I loathed.
Chapter 25
Cade
“Whooee, that Marshall sure has a fine looking wife,” Jackson spoke but I barely heard what he said. I couldn’t pull my attention away from her as she drifted away from me. Her silky blonde hair swished side to side along the back of her delicate neck.
Jackson shucked me on the shoulder, and I snapped out of the trance. “What do you say, Cade? That lawman has got himself a beauty, eh?”
I watched her slim, lithe figure disappear around the corner. She glimpsed back at me once before vanishing.
“Don’t you think?” Jackson asked again.
“Yeah, Jacks.” I finally pulled my gaze from where she’d been just seconds before. “Breaks my heart just to look at her.”
###
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
