The trouble was, if he would not look back, and couldn’t envision a future, what was left?
* * *
“Fred, are you listening to me? Put down that blamed whittling and pay attention. I tell you, something funny is going on over at the Maitland house.”
Sighing, Fred Winslow dragged his boots from the desk and tossed his knife aside. Mildred DeGroot’s corseted bulk cast a shadow over his work anyway. The afternoon had been peaceful enough until she showed up in his office with some complaint that he was trying hard to shrug off.
“Oh, now, Millie,” he began, trying a placating tone. “We don’t know anything of the kind.”
“You sure won’t find out from here, whittling your life away. You’re still the sheriff here in Misfortune, even if there’s no one to put in the jail.”
And that was exactly the way Fred liked it, nice and quiet. A month had passed before the excitement died down after the shoot-out last year with that McGuire feller and Jace Rankin. Besides that incident, Misfortune was a good place for a sheriff to work. He didn’t want any trouble, and stirring up the bounty hunter was the surest way to find it. It had taken two helpings of bicarbonate to settle his stomach after Albert told him that the man was back in town.
Gathering up an old newspaper full of wood shavings, he rolled his chair to the corner stove and threw them inside. “Well, what in blue blazes do you expect me to do? Arrest him?” The very thought made Fred’s dyspepsia rumble to life. “Chloe isn’t here anymore to complain about Rankin using her house, so there’s no one to file trespassing charges. Anyways, he’s kind of a friend of hers and that McGuire feller she married. She probably wouldn’t care.” No one in town had gotten past calling Chloe’s husband anything more formal than “that McGuire feller.”
“I’m not talking about trespassing. Jace Rankin says he’s taking care of a sick boy in that house, and I haven’t seen hide nor hair of the young’un in all the times I’ve been over there. He won’t let me have a look at him, and everyone around here knows I can doctor almost as good as old Miles Sherwood, God rest him. For all we know that boy could be dead. Maybe he even murdered him!”
“Murdered him! Oh, now, Millie,” he repeated. Why couldn’t she and Albert leave things be?
“Have you seen those cold blue eyes? He looks like a killer to me.”
Oh, Lordy-Lord this was getting worse by the minute. The last thing Fred wanted to do was leave this office and confront a blue-eyed killer. But Millie looked pretty threatening herself. He dithered.
She drew herself to her full five-foot height. “Fred Winslow, you get up out of that chair and come with me to Chloe’s house. We’re still paying your salary here, and I guess I know what’s what. I know something is wrong over there. And you’re going to find out what it is.”
“Aw, Millie—” he groaned and pulled himself to his feet with foot-dragging reluctance. He suspected that if he didn’t move fast enough to suit her, she’d have him by the ear. “You don’t need to come along.”
“Oh, yes I do. It’s your duty to protect the citizens of Misfortune, and I’m going to make sure you do it. So stop your bellyaching, Fred,” she demanded, marching him to the office door.
Thinking of the salty-tasting bicarbonate, the sheriff figured his bellyache was just beginning.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jace lingered at the corral fence until dusk fell. Now and then Kyla went to the kitchen window to seek him out. He stood there for a long time, apparently deep in thought, his arms resting on one of the rails. A brisk wind cut across the yellow plain, borne down from the surrounding hills that were frosted with early snow. It whipped his long hair and flattened his tan shirt against his lean body, but he seemed unaffected by the chill.
Her earlier alarm gave way to guilt blended with anger as she stared at his back. Who did he think he was, barking at her like that? She had only asked a couple of questions, and he blew up as if she’d accused him of stealing from a church collection plate. He had demanded a lot more information from her, and she had provided it without as much fuss. It was cold out there; she could feel it seeping through the glass. But if he wanted to stay at the fence and sulk, so be it.
Then, as if feeling her gaze on him, he turned and looked up. Their eyes connected for just an instant, but the electric intensity that flashed between them stopped Kyla’s breath in her throat. The wind caught the open edges of his shirt, revealing the sturdy wall of his chest. Was it anger she saw in his face? Regret? No . . . she sensed a yearning so powerful, a hunger so fierce—was it from him or within herself?—she backed away from the window, her hand at her throat.
It wasn’t fear that shivered through her, at least not the kind of fear that Tom Hardesty roused. This was different. It was the same sensation that she’d felt the other morning while she watched him shave. One that spoke to the woman in her she kept hidden from the world. The woman that no man—not Hardesty, not Hank—had ever reached.
She closed her shirt collar and peered at him from around the edge of the window frame. He had turned and was walking back to the shop. His movements were fluid and deliberate, his stride long and loose-jointed. When he was out of sight, she leaned against the wall, slightly breathless and flushed.
Jace Rankin probably did not hear the word “no” very often, she supposed. And suddenly, she could understand why.
A few minutes later, Kyla was struggling to put more firewood into the stove when she heard the door open behind her. A piece of cedar in her hand, she whirled and found Jace there. He carried the smell of cold, fresh air on his clothes.
She regarded him with her brows raised but said nothing. She didn’t expect an apology, but she wasn’t going to be the first one to speak either.
Apparently he realized that. “I didn’t mean to, you know—earlier—” he said, stumbling awkwardly around his words. Reaching carefully into his shirt, he pulled out a ball of squirming yellow fluff that he presented to her on the flat of his hand. “Well, I thought you might like to see this.”
A chick peeped at her and flapped the tiny buds of its wings.
“Oh, the sweet little thing!” she exclaimed, caught off guard. Dropping the wood, she took the bird from him and cradled it in her palm, laughing delightedly. “Where did you find him?”
He smiled, too, almost self-consciously. “An old biddy has a nest in the corner of the shop with five or six chicks.” He chuckled. “I risked my neck getting this one—she wasn’t too happy about me kidnapping him.”
“I love newborn animals,” she said and touched the bird to her cheek, smiling again at the feel of its soft down. “My favorite time of year at the ranch is when the calves and colts are born. They wobble around knock-kneed, trying to get their bearings. Then when they get a little older, it’s fun to see them romping around the range.”
“I grew up in town,” he said. “If chickens ever roosted in my old man’s shop, he would have set the dog after them.”
“Back home, there’s beauty to every season. The green hills in spring that turn golden in summer, poplars along the river turning color in October. The clean white blanket of the first snowfall.” She closed her eyes for a second, and a shadow of melancholy made her voice quiver slightly. She missed the place so much. “I can see it all so clearly. I can even remember the smell of the first fire of autumn in the fireplace. I’d be lighting it about now.” She opened her eyes, and heat rose in her cheeks. “I guess it sounds kind of dull and mushy to you.”
“No, it sounds nice. Homey,” he admitted. He didn’t smile exactly, but she saw one in his eyes.
“Ranch life is all I’ve ever known. I was probably no more than six or seven years old the first time my father perched me in front of him on his horse—I rode around with him all morning.” She sighed and her grin faded. “That was before Aggie came with Tom . . .”
He nodded and moved closer to her while they studied the chick, close enough that his chest touched her shoulder. She pulled away
at first, recoiling automatically. But then cautiously, tentatively, she let her shoulder brush him again. His heat penetrated their shirts and she felt the warmth as if there were no fabric between them.
Why, why, why was she drawn to him? she wondered with annoyance. She didn’t want to have anything to do with any man; she just wanted to see justice served and to get her home back. There was no room in her plans for anyone else, and certainly not for a man like Jace. Yes he was handsome, in a way that she’d never encountered before—with those unnerving eyes that made her feel as if he could see into her soul. But that wasn’t enough to explain why she listened for his footsteps in this house, or what had pulled her to the window again and again while he lingered at the corral.
He was known for his reputation, menacing and fearless, but behind that reputation lurked a man with self-doubts and regrets. It was easy to respect his tough indifference—his very attitude demanded it—and just as easy to dislike him for it. But his uncertainty, she feared that most; it was what could touch her heart.
Jace knew he should do something, anything, besides hang around here with Kyla. She didn’t shy from his touch against her shoulder—he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He had brought her the chick as a roundabout apology for snapping at her, but the sweetness it brought out in her made him stay. Except for her clothes and hair, all traces of the boy Kyle were absent. Maybe a stranger would be fooled, but he wasn’t. He saw what he believed was her true self—a tender, feminine woman.
Slowly she looked up at him. Though the kitchen had grown dusky with the fading light, he saw the fear in her turquoise eyes. But he also saw longing, perhaps for a touch that soothed and comforted.
Oddly, he felt as uncertain as he sensed she was. The tip of her tongue appeared when nervously she wet her soft coral lips. Putting a finger under her chin he tipped her face up to his. There was a world of hurt and courage in that face.
“Kyla . . .”
A kiss. Maybe a kiss would redeem them both. Was it possible—could it be that simple? Would it fill the emptiness he sometimes felt and temper her bitterness? Touching only her chin, Jace slowly lowered his head to hers. She smelled of sage and new fabric and some other faint indefinable scent that was all her own. He heard the slight catch of her breath and her eyes fluttered closed as his mouth hovered just above hers. He grazed the corner of her lips, lightly, easily. She was softer than he had dreamed. His pulse pounded in his ears; he heard nothing but his own breathing mingled with hers. Sweetness, God, the sweetness—
Then the kitchen door burst open.
“Merciful heavens!”
Kyla jumped back, gasping in utter surprise at the strange voice. Jace broke away with a violent start. In a purely reflexive action, he pulled his revolver before he drew another breath and trained it on Mildred DeGroot where she stood in the open back doorway. Her hands were at her throat in horror. The man he remembered to be Misfortune’s sheriff hovered just behind her.
Swearing under his breath, Jace lowered the gun and pushed Kyla behind him. The chick in her hand peeped like an alarm clock, adding to the confusion.
“Lady, you nearly got a bullet between the eyes,” he said to Mildred, his voice like a whip. That fact seemed to make no impression on the woman, however.
“Fred, do you see, do you see?” Mildred sputtered like a landed wide-mouth bass, and her chins quivered in indignation. “I told you something was going on but, but I never thought he and that boy—that boy and him—kissing! Merciful heavens!”
Mildred DeGroot was too thick-skulled to sense danger. If she had been a man her bad judgment would have gotten her killed years before, Jace swore silently.
Kyla looked up at Jace’s granite profile, and she was glad to be standing behind him and not in front of his gun.
Fred Winslow, pale as whitewash, shouldered his way past Mildred. Jace lifted the revolver again and held it out the full length of his arm. It was astounding how fast he moved.
“N-now, Mr. Rankin, ain’t no call for weapons here.”
“I’m waiting to hear the reason why you two broke in here uninvited, Winslow.” He didn’t raise his voice. His low, deadly tone chilled the blood in Kyla’s veins.
Winslow swallowed and swallowed but no words came out of his mouth.
Coolly deliberate, Jace cocked the gun.
“Jace, no!” Kyla shrieked. God, he wouldn’t really shoot the man, she thought in a panic.
Winslow cowered and ducked as if he had fired. “Why, it’s a girl,” Mildred marveled. She stared at Kyla with obvious fascination, but without a hint of embarrassment or self-consciousness.
Kyla cursed the position she was in. Once again her disguise had been exposed, and she could do nothing about it, due to the compromising position they had been caught in. Much as she wanted to, she could not very well insist that she was Kyle Springer, fifteen year-old farm boy. She must have lost her mind to let Rankin kiss her. Well, it wasn’t really a kiss. But it could have turned into one. She could barely stand to be touched—how had she succumbed to the brush of his lips against hers? Was she so easily swayed with a dumb peace offering like a chick? Her moment of insanity might have endangered her life. At the very least, it was an embarrassing situation.
“I’m still waiting, Winslow,” Jace said, maintaining his aim.
A gleam of perspiration shone on the sheriff’s jowly face. He stared at the point of Jace’s revolver, transfixed like a deer caught in kerosene lamplight. When he finally spoke, he sounded breathless. “Uh, we—that is me and Millie—well, mostly Millie, we were worried that something funny was going on here . . .”
“Funny?” Jace repeated and took a step forward.
“Well, she was worried because she had never seen the boy and thought maybe he had, uh, passed away—” Winslow gave Mildred a withering glance, then hurried on. “B-but I see we made a mistake. Sorry to have troubled you. Come on, Millie.” He turned and prodded Mildred with his forearm. She stood fast.
Jace holstered his revolver, but his expression remained as dark and fearsome as a storm sky.
“Well, Mr. Rankin,” Mildred said with a prim, knowing tone, eyeing Kyla up and down. “I didn’t know you were keeping a woman here. If I had, I wouldn’t have bothered Fred.”
Kyla gritted her back teeth and made a fist inside her sling. “Now just you wait a minute—” she began, automatically dropping back into Kyle’s voice, outraged at the insinuation. God, what a horrible woman!
Jace took another step toward the sheriff and Mildred DeGroot. And another. Kyla felt his fury rolling him like waves of heat, but he maintained the same control that both frightened and awed people. He leaned over Mildred so that his face was just inches hers.
“You don’t know anything, lady. And you’d better plan to keep it that way if anyone comes to Misfortune asking questions about me or her.” He tilted his head back slightly in Kyla’s direction but did not use her same. “Because if you talk, if you say one word about either of us, I’ll know. Believe me, I’ll know. Now you both get the hell out of here and don’t let me see your face again. Ever.” The color drained out of Mildred’s pudgy cheeks; apparently she finally realized the raw danger that stood before her. Jace shifted his gaze to Fred Winslow—the sheriff looked like a man who’d seen his life pass before his eyes. “Sheriff, the same goes for you.”
Jace took yet another step forward, practically pushing them both out to the back porch. “And the next time you get the itch to meddle in someone else’s business, remember that this was the day your curiosity almost got you killed.”
He closed the door behind them then stood there, gripping the knob for a moment, as if fighting the urge to yank it out of the wood. There was a stumbling confusion of hurried footsteps on the stairs that faded away, then was followed by profound silence. Finally he turned to Kyla. His face was set and blank.
“I hope you’re up to traveling because we’ve got to get out of here. Now, tonight. I don’t trust either
of them. I tried to put the fear of God in them, but as soon as the scare wears off, they’ll tell everyone within a hundred miles about us. Even if Many Braids was right about Hardesty’s men giving up the chase to get drunk, I don’t think we’re finished with them, and word has a way of getting around.” He picked up his rifle. “Those busybodies will be watching every move we make, but they won’t be expecting us to leave tonight. Do you need help to get your gear together?”
Shaken to the point of trembling, she said, “No, I-I’ll be ready in a minute.”
“Good. We still have the advantage, and I want to keep it that way. We’re going to Baker City.” He brushed past her, still tense with anger.
“Baker City?” Vexation overrode her fear, and she couldn’t hide it. They had already lost so much time to her illness, she chafed at the idea of losing more.
“That was part of our deal. I have to talk to McGuire first—I owe it to him. Since he’s not in Misfortune, we’re going to Baker City.” He turned and walked through the parlor to go upstairs.
She looked down at the chick gripped loosely in her hand. God, this wasn’t the life she wanted—not this. She didn’t want to be a regular participant in armed showdowns, she didn’t want to live on the run. She just wanted to go home. It seemed like a lifetime since she’d last seen the ranch. And now Jace was telling her that she would have to wait even longer.
A sense of weariness came over her at the though of leaving this half-furnished house to sleep on the trail again. But it was just as well that they were leaving the vague intimacy of this place. She must not lose sight of her goal, or let anything interfere.
Like that kiss—it was a stupid, reckless moment that made her drop her guard. It seemed more dreamlike than real. At least it might if dreams drew such vivid details as the rasp of beard stubble against her chin, or the smell of leather and soap, or the soft heat of breath ruffling her eyelashes. But it hadn’t been humiliating or disgusting, like Tom Hardesty’s slobbering invasion of her mouth and ears. This had been almost . . . sweet. And for a frightening instant, she’d wanted to rest her head against Jace’s shoulder and feel his arms around her.
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