by Jodi Thomas
A hundred questions came to mind, but she let them wait. Somehow, he was alive, and that was enough for now.
When they reached the camp they’d used the night before, they stopped. Duncan took care of the horses, Wyatt built a huge fire that warmed the whole clearing, and Lewt doctored the cut along her forehead as best he could.
A warm feeling of being safe washed over Em’s tired body as she leaned her chin on Lewt’s knee and closed her eyes.
“They found your horse,” he said simply, as if there were nothing else important in the world to tell her.
Em opened one eye and looked at him. She’d left him at an outlaw camp about to die, and all he could think of to say was that they’d found the horse. She considered yelling at him, but she didn’t have the energy. “What happened?” she asked, as Wyatt and Duncan stretched out on their bedrolls around the fire.
“I lived,” Lewt said with a smile, as if he were amazed.
“He wouldn’t have if we’d been a few minutes later,” Wyatt added.
“But I thought they’d shoot you immediately after I ran.”
Lewt grinned. “They wanted to, but to my surprise, they got in an argument over who got to kill me. The big guy with only one arm that worked seemed to think he had the right, but the stump of a man who found you claimed he was the one cheated. They tied me up to argue about the time Wyatt and Duncan hit the camp firing at everything that moved. I pulled a knife from my boot, cut myself loose, and took cover until the firing stopped.”
Em turned to stare at Wyatt. “Did you kill them all?”
Wyatt shook his head.
Lewt answered, “Your date to the party, the short guy, took a bullet to the head. It wasn’t a pretty sight. What little brains he had departed. The big slob of a man who claimed he was little Anna’s future husband had three slugs in him, and both these rangers say they only shot him once, so I’m thinking one of the other guards put a bullet in him while he had the chance. There were several wounded, but apparently two rangers were too much for them. The gang surrendered.”
“We didn’t want to mess with paperwork at the station, so we made a deal. They bury the dead, get the wounded to a doc, and all promise not to go back to Toledo’s place.” Duncan smiled. “Surprisingly, they all agreed to get out of Texas as fast as possible, heading any direction but south.”
Lewt laughed. “You didn’t give them much choice. You said you’d shoot them on sight if you ever saw them again.”
Em looked at Lewt. “I thought I lost you,” she whispered.
Wyatt didn’t seem to realize they might be having a private conversation, and he butted in. “No chance of that, Miss Em. Gamblers are like bindweed: No matter what you do, you can’t get rid of it. Besides, in a gunfight, no one thinks to shoot the gambler.”
“Don’t you think it’s time you turned in?” Lewt frowned at Wyatt.
“Sure,” Wyatt said, and rolled into his blanket.
Duncan stared at them. “Lewt, don’t you think you’d better turn in too? There’s a good spot on the other side of the fire.”
Lewt looked up at Em’s cousin. “I’m sleeping right here next to Em, if she agrees. I almost lost her today. I’m not moving away now, and if you have a problem with that, I’d better hear about it now.”
Duncan looked like he might argue, but he backed down and moved to the other side of the fire.
“Besides”—Lewt laughed as he looked at her—“I won her in the poker game. She’s mine for tonight anyway.”
Duncan’s back straightened, and he looked at them.
Em laughed. “He’s kidding, Duck. But just for tonight, I think I’d like to sleep in his arms. That’s all.”
Duncan didn’t look happy, but he nodded once and stretched out on his bedroll.
Em snuggled her back against Lewt’s chest and sighed.
Lewt whispered into her ear, “I wasn’t kidding, darling, and that’s not all.”
She smiled as he spread the blanket over them both, then without hesitating began to move his hands over her. When he reached her shirt, he unbuttoned the buttons to her waist and pulled the material away.
Lewt was silent, aware that others were close, but he wasn’t shy.
He caressed her breasts for a long while until the campfire grew low and they heard both the rangers snoring softly in their sleep. Then Lewt rolled her to her back and moved over her.
“I want you, Em, more than I’ve ever wanted a woman in my life.” His words brushed against her face as he kissed her softly. “But not like this. Not until we are alone and in a feather bed.” He brushed her ear with the tip of his tongue. “And believe me, darling, whatever it takes, you’ll come to me again when we’re alone.”
He lowered his body, pressing against her breasts with his chest. His hips made her fully aware of just how much he wanted her. His kiss turned hungry for a moment, and then as if forcing himself with his last bit of control, he moved away.
Em took a deep breath and felt his hand spread out over her middle.
“I know there’s not a chance in heaven or hell that a woman like you would marry a man like me, but when you come to me again, you’ll be coming to my bed. This need I have for you is too great to play halfway games. I’ll be your lover or I’ll be your friend.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”
She closed her eyes and tried to understand what he was talking about. Finally, she whispered, “Will you hold me tonight? All night?”
“I will,” he whispered, and pulled her against him.
His arms wrapped around her, holding her tight. Slowly, a breath at a time, she fell asleep, wondering if Lewt could ever understand that maybe she wanted him to be everything.
CHAPTER 37
THEY ARRIVED BACK AT THE MISSION ABOUT NOON the next day. The priest offered them all a bath, and the cooks had been busy in the kitchen. A meal was waiting for them when they were clean and dry.
Though Sumner asked questions, Wyatt and Duncan gave only the barest of details. To them, they’d done what they rode out to do and it was finished. The old man seemed to understand. He was cut from the same cloth.
Em finished eating and went to her tiny room in the nuns’ quarters. The mission smelled of incense and memories two hundred years in the making. Its thick walls closed out the world and all sounds. She slipped into the simple white gown they’d given her when she’d first arrived and curled up beneath a warm blanket. Within seconds she was asleep. The sound sleep of those too tired to even dream.
It was dawn the next morning when she woke. Sometime during the night her mind had let everything settle in her thoughts, and in the stillness, Em saw the world more clearly than ever before.
Ten minutes later, she found Lewt at breakfast. He smiled at her, but not his usual bold smile. There was an uncertainty in his gaze, as if maybe he’d stepped over the line. They weren’t two people alone now; they were surrounded not only with others, but with who they were.
“Morning,” he said, without adding a darling to it as she thought he might.
“Morning,” she answered, very much aware that the cooks were watching. “Where is everyone?”
“We’re loading up the supplies,” Sarah J said, as if she thought she was part of their conversation. “Sumner says we’re heading out in an hour, and I don’t plan to be hungry on the train. Rachel made some of her wonderful bread for the priest and the sisters, but I made a few meals for the road.”
Em looked at Lewt, hoping he’d fill in the details.
He pulled out her chair and poured her a cup of coffee before he spoke. “If we move fast, you can make the night train into Austin and from there to Anderson Glen by dawn tomorrow though we’ll probably have to ride on one of the freight runs.”
“We’re heading home.” She almost jumped out of her chair. “I can’t wait. I’ve never missed anything as much as I miss home.”
“Sumner and Wyatt are getting the wagon in better shape to make th
e trip. Duncan’s saying good-bye to Anna, and I was assigned to pound on your door if you didn’t appear soon.”
A dozen questions came to mind, but they’d have to wait. If she planned to be ready when they pulled out, she had to hurry.
Lewt stood as she jumped up and caught her chair as she knocked it back in her haste. “We’re going home.” The other three didn’t look as excited as she felt.
Em ran to her room and packed her few things as fast as she could. She wanted to have time to check all the horses before they started out and to say good-bye to the priest and nuns she’d met.
When she glanced out her window into the courtyard, she saw Duncan standing beside Anna. She’d removed her little-girl shift and was wearing one of the habits the sisters had given her, but her wild hair was still free.
Em turned away, not wanting to eavesdrop.
It appeared all were safe and they were heading home. By tomorrow she could be riding across the ranch and they’d all sit around at dinner and talk of all that had happened.
CHAPTER 38
DUNCAN STOOD IN FRONT OF ANNA, FIGHTING THE urge to touch her. For a week she’d slept beside him, nursed his wound, bathed him. They’d shared hours of being together, locked in together, but he’d never learned to talk to her.
“Are you sure you want to stay here?” Duncan asked.
She nodded.
“Well, I’d rather you come to Whispering Mountain with me. My cousins would take good care of you, and you’d be safe there also. But I can’t very well order you to come with me. Appears to me you’ve probably had enough of people telling you what to do. The priest told me you took right to the order of nuns here, even been going to prayers with them.”
Anna took his hand in hers but didn’t say a word.
“I guess you got a right to make up your own mind. I’ve left money with the priest in case you change it. He said he’d see you had traveling clothes and he’d take you over to a rail station himself.”
Duncan shoved his hat back on his head, wishing he could persuade her to go with him. Nobody around here knew what she’d been through. Nobody knew how strong she was. Maybe, he told himself, nobody including him knew what she wanted. “If you come to Austin, the ranger station will know where I’m at. If you make it to Anderson Glen, somebody at Elmo’s Mercantile will bring you out to the ranch. I wrote everything down and left it with the priest in case you forget.
“Any chance you want to talk to me, Anna? I thought I heard your voice once, but maybe it was a dream.”
She shook her head, then stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
“I guess that means we’re friends.” He smiled. “Mind if I stop by now and then and check on you?”
Anna smiled.
She was tiny, he thought, but beautiful. Maybe the most beautiful creature he’d ever known. She might be nineteen, but he had the feeling she was just newborn.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” He tipped his hat and turned to leave, but she caught his hand.
Without looking at him, she slipped a piece of paper into his hand and ran back to the nuns working on fencing in what looked like a garden.
Duncan turned the worn paper in his hand. It looked like a corner of an envelope yellowed with age and smudged. He couldn’t make out the name at the top, but the address was a number on Lantern West in New Orleans.
He flipped the scrap over, and in a child’s block writing someone had penciled Anna Margaret Barrister.
Duncan smiled. He had her name and a clue. Anna wasn’t giving up on life and hiding out in a mission; she was giving him the key and waiting for him to return with an answer.
“I’ll be back,” he whispered. “I promise, if you have family left, I’ll find out.”
When he walked through the kitchen, he began his investigation. “Ladies,” he said to the cooks, “do either of you remember Toledo ever getting mail from New Orleans?”
Rachel shook her head, but Sarah J spoke up. “She goes to Mexico City every June or July, and once I seen her bring back a box of mail. Mostly things she ordered that we couldn’t get, but once I remember I saw a package from New Orleans tucked between the sewing notions and mail-order catalogs. She saw it about the same time I did and jerked it up. Headed straight for her office, and when she came out an hour later that package was nowhere in sight. One of the girls told me later that Toledo must be touched in the head because she built a fire in the fireplace in her office. No one in their right mind would do such a thing that time of year.”
Duncan thanked them and headed out to load up. He had his first clue and now a belief that Toledo might be corresponding with someone. It would take time, maybe years, but he’d solve the puzzle.
His gaze found Anna working with the nuns. She’d wait, he thought, for as long as it took. She’d kept a scrap of paper hidden for years. She’d never lost hope. She wouldn’t lose it now.
“Ready to load up?” Duncan yelled at Sumner.
The old man nodded, then moved closer. “You sure we should take those two cooks to Whispering Mountain? They could murder us in our sleep, you know.”
Duncan grinned. “Well, we can’t just turn them loose on the world. Who knows what would happen? I’ll stop at the Austin office and see if they can’t look up their crime. In the meantime, we can’t put them in jail just because they say they’re murderers and I wouldn’t feel right letting them go, so the only thing I can think of is to keep my eye on them.”
Sumner followed his logic. “They ever say who they killed?”
“Nope, but you can work on getting me a few names when we get home.”
The old man didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded.
Duncan thought he heard Sumner mumble something about first gamblers and now murderers. Houseguests sure weren’t what they used to be.
The two cooks came out with a basket of food and climbed into the wagon. Em followed, talking with the priest. Lewt and Wyatt were already mounted.
Duncan grinned. Now that everything had calmed down, he was ready for another mission, but he knew his cousins would insist on him resting up and healing. They’d also try to fatten him up.
Maybe he could take a few weeks off and stay home.
CHAPTER 39
LEWT RODE AHEAD OF THE WAGON. THE NEAREST town would take most of the day to get to, but once they were on the train they’d be in Austin in a few hours. He felt like he’d been away for a year. His room at the small hotel he’d found a few years ago would be waiting, his clothes in the wardrobe, his papers and books scattered across the desk.
He’d always found a kind of quiet peace in his room. The landlady wasn’t the type to rent to gamblers, but he’d caught her when money was lean and she’d agreed he could stay as long as he entered from the side door after hours so as not to disturb her respectable lodgers. The only meal she served was breakfast, and he rarely got up for that. When he did, he made sure he wore his most conservative suit and talked little. When someone asked him what line of work he was in, he simply said banking. No one ever asked more. Though banking was solid, the inquisitive person assumed any further discussion would be either boring or over their heads.
Lewt realized that for the first time ever, he wasn’t in any hurry to get back to his room—or his life, for that matter. He’d spent a week almost dying daily, it seemed, and the realization that he’d miss it surprised him. Or maybe it was the knowledge that he’d be saying good-bye to Em at the train station in Austin. He had a feeling she thought they’d all be going farther north, but for him, the trip had ended.
Suddenly, he wished he could slow down the small caravan. If they missed the train they’d have to stay the night at the train station and he’d have one more night away. One more night with Em near.
“Glad to be getting back?” Duncan asked as he pulled up next to Lewt.
“Not really,” he answered honestly.
“Want to travel on up to Whispering Mountain with us? I could lend you a
horse to ride back to Austin. You seem to have taken to riding lately.”
Lewt knew it would only prolong the inevitable. “No,” he finally answered. “I think it’s time for me to go back to work.”
For the rest of the day, he watched Em as they moved closer and closer to the end of their time together. He decided he didn’t mind that she wore men’s clothes; he’d felt what was beneath and could imagine how she looked all long and lean and nude. There was no time for them to be alone, not even for a few minutes. In what seemed like a moment, she’d become a memory even though she was still standing in front of him.
When they reached the train, he grew silent, already missing her.
As they pulled away from the station, he stood on the back platform and watched the sun set as the train rushed toward Austin. He’d told Em she’d have to come to him, but she wasn’t coming. She was talking to Duncan and Sumner in the next car, or having dinner with the cooks, or checking on the horses, but she wasn’t coming to him.
The night grew dark, and he felt it on the inside as well as on the outside.
He thought of all they’d shared during the days together and how close they’d held one another that last night on the way back to the mission. If he’d known it would be their last time together, would he have done anything different? Would he have made love to her? Would he have pulled away and held her less so the pain of losing her now wouldn’t hurt so badly?
When the door opened, Lewt let hope flood his thoughts for a moment before he realized it was only Duncan coming out to smoke his nightly cigar.
“Wish you’d consider going on home with us,” Duncan said. “At the least, you’d be a great help with the cooks and all their loot.”
“No thanks. I don’t belong there. You were right.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow. “Still friends?”
Lewt offered his hand. “Still friends. I’ll take your money at cards or join in any fight with you, Duck.”
