by Anthology
“Welcome back. It’s good to see you, Jennings.”
The men exchanged a friendly handshake. Caroline couldn’t seem to move. Or stop looking at Smith. She could still feel his mouth on hers.
His gaze shifted to her and something dark flickered in his eyes. He tipped his hat. “Miss Curtis.”
His formality underscored the distance between them and her throat tightened. Somehow she managed to speak around the lump there. “Hello, Smith.”
The other night seemed like a dream, but he was standing right here in front of her. His beard stubble was gone. The square line of his jaw looked newly shaven and his black hair was trimmed above his collar. On the snow-touched chill of the wind, she caught his scent—male and dark and heady.
Thank goodness, he was paying her no mind as he spoke with the other man.
“How’s your pa getting on, Galloway?” he asked.
“Fine. He’s tough as an old boot.”
“Is Lem showing any signs of slowing down?”
“Not a one, just like your pa.”
“And the ranch?”
“Doing well,” Ethan answered.
Smith’s gaze slid to Caroline and sensation hummed beneath her skin. “And how’s your pa, Miss Curtis?”
His polite tone scraped her nerves raw. She wanted to walk away from this torture. “He passed on about four months ago.”
Galloway moved back beside her with a fond look. “My fiancée has been remarkably strong.”
Smith’s gaze snapped to Caroline. “Your fiancée!”
The boom of his voice drew the attention of those standing nearby. Caroline’s face heated.
Ethan frowned, glancing at her.
“I didn’t have a chance to tell you,” she said hoarsely to Smith. She could barely keep from squirming under the smoldering fury in his black eyes.
He had every right to be angry, especially after being ambushed by Ethan’s declaration.
A muscle flexed in Smith’s jaw as his gaze bored into her. He was visibly trying to restrain himself.
Inwardly she winced. She hadn’t wanted him to find out like this. In truth, she hadn’t wanted him to find out at all even though that would have been impossible.
She should have told him the other night, but after the blow she’d dealt him concerning their future, she couldn’t. It would have been like rubbing salt in the wound. Now Caroline saw that had been a mistake. It would’ve been more merciful coming from her when they were alone rather than hearing it from Ethan in front of half the town.
She held her breath, half expecting an explosion of temper or a barrage of questions from Smith. An awkward silence grew. When he finally spoke, he didn’t ask what she expected.
He gave her a flat stare. “What happened to your pa?”
So, he wasn’t going to congratulate them. And why should he? Caroline asked herself. The life he thought he’d left behind was gone. She said raggedly, “Stephen said his heart quit.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Caroline couldn’t tear her gaze from the knowing look in his black eyes.
Smith was well aware that she felt more relief and freedom at her parent’s death than loss. Gil Curtis had resented his only child almost as much as he had resented her mother.
Standing so close to her first love had her on edge and relief washed through her when the bell for morning services clanged.
“Guess we’d better get inside.” Ethan put a hand at the small of her back, guiding her across the snowy ground.
She smiled up at him, catching sight of Smith when she did. Caroline nearly faltered at the rage and fierce possessiveness radiating from him.
His gaze dropped to the other man’s hand on her and his jaw went anvil-hard. The look in his eyes was piercing, dangerous enough that she drew in a breath.
For a brief moment, she thought he might order Ethan to take his hands off of her.
Eyes glittering, features like granite, Smith turned and started toward the small white church. Caroline shuddered. Despite his limp, he managed to get several feet ahead of them. William hurried up beside him and Smith slowed as the lad spoke to him.
Ethan leaned down to her, his voice low and tight. “Was there some reason you didn’t tell Jennings about us?”
“I just couldn’t. I’d already told him we had no future.”
“He needed to know.”
“Ethan.” It vexed her in part because he was right. Her tone was curt. “It was too much at once.”
Smith had thought things would be the same as when he left. They weren’t. They would never be the same.
Her fiancé studied her hard, irritation flashing in his blue eyes. “I can see why it threw him.”
So could she and she didn’t need Ethan pointing that out to her. Still, it wasn’t fair to blame him. She didn’t want to talk about Smith anymore.
Ethan hesitated on the bottom step. She glanced up at him. “It’s almost time for church to start. Shall we go in?”
After a long moment, he asked, “Are you okay?”
No, she wasn’t. The raw hurt in Smith’s eyes tortured her.
“Despite seeing him the other night,” Ethan said, “I can’t imagine running into him this morning was easy for you.”
It hadn’t been and not only because of the awkward declaration Ethan had made. Would she feel this jolt of shock every time she set eyes on Smith? This flood of relief and searing joy?
She had told her fiancé that Smith had come by her house to give her the news of his return in person. She hadn’t told Ethan that the man had kissed her senseless. Or that she’d kissed him back just as enthusiastically.
Ethan’s gaze went to Smith as the other man walked into the church with William. “I can take you home, if you’d like.”
She was tempted, but this would never get easier. Best to get it over with. “I appreciate that, but it’s not necessary.”
After another search of her face, he nodded, saying nothing else until they stopped in the doorway. “Let’s sit up there, by the Millers.”
She nodded, her gaze skimming over the weathered pine floor. Wet boot prints, large and small, as well as little clumps of mud led up the aisle. A fire burned in a small stove in the corner to her right. On the cold air, she caught a mix of scents—horseflesh, leather and rosewater.
Ethan slid an arm around her waist and she stiffened reflexively. If he felt it, he gave no indication, continuing to hold her near as he guided her up the aisle. Past Smith.
Was Ethan doing that on purpose? Staking his claim? Showing Smith that she no longer belonged to him?
She could feel Smith’s gaze on her, burning a hole through her. From the corner of her eye, she saw others looking from her to the recently returned rancher.
She wished she could disappear. Her chest tightened. If only she were the same woman he had left behind. But she wasn’t.
Despite Smith’s return, they couldn’t be a couple anyway. She could no longer give him what he needed.
Throat aching, she settled on the pew beside the doctor and his wife. Her first love took a seat three rows in front of them and squeezed William’s shoulder as the boy scooted past him to sit on the same pew with his friend Ben. William said something that made Smith chuckle.
Pain streaked through her at the exchange between the two. She looked past her bronze silk skirts, fixing her gaze on her black button-up shoes as she tried to corral the emotions churning inside her.
Smith was a natural with kids. He deserved a family and the future he’d planned. He wouldn’t be able to have that with her. It was just as well that she had moved on.
She hated herself for hurting him again. He’d been through enough pain in the past two years.
Still, she didn’t want to second-guess her decision to move forward into a new relationship. It had taken too long for her to accept that Smith was never returning. That she could be happy with someone else even though she would never love a
nyone the way she had loved Smith.
She might be tempted to reconcile with him, but what they had was in the past. Over. And it had to stay that way.
Chapter Three
How could Caroline have fallen for someone else? Smith still couldn’t believe it, but he’d seen it with his own eyes. Hell, he couldn’t stop seeing it.
Galloway’s hand on her, the way he looked at her. His fiancée.
Smith’s chest felt hollow, just as it had since coming up on the two of them together at church.
Hours later, he was sprawled on one end of the long sofa in the Jenningses’ large front room. His father sat at the opposite end and his ma was settled in her rocking chair to Smith’s left. A fire burned in the massive stone fireplace, warming the airy space. A colorful woven rug was spread in front of the hearth.
Emmett and Viola Jennings had arrived home just before dark, delayed by the snow, as Smith had guessed. Whenever he glanced at his mother, she had tears in her eyes. His pa squeezed his shoulder every half hour. To make sure he was real, Emmett said. This was the homecoming Smith had wished for from Caroline. It had started out well enough then gone to hell.
After his parents’ shock at seeing him alive had faded, they’d eaten supper and Smith had filled them in on what had happened to land him in prison. His parents agreed that he should try to determine why his name had been included on a list of dead prisoners.
So far, neither Emmett nor Viola had asked if he’d seen Caroline. Which suited Smith just fine. He didn’t want to talk about her. The image of Galloway’s hand on her still blistered him up.
Frustration had him getting to his feet and going to the stone fireplace to stoke the fire.
His mother studied the sock she was darning, asking casually, “Have you seen Caroline?”
So much for not talking about the woman who had ripped his heart out and stomped all over it with her tiny feet. He jabbed at the burning wood, sending ash and sparks flying.
His grip tightened painfully on the poker as he turned to face his parents. “Yes. And I know all about her engagement.”
Just saying the word put a greasy knot in his gut.
“I’m sorry, son.” Viola set aside her sewing and came to him, giving him a big hug. Her light rosewater scent was comfortingly familiar yet suffocating at the same time.
If his and Caroline’s roles had been reversed, he wouldn’t have forgotten her as quickly as she’d forgotten him. “I guess I shouldn’t have expected her to wait for me.”
Compassion burned in his father’s dark eyes, the same black as Smith’s. “Did she tell you the night you returned?”
“She didn’t tell me at all. Galloway did.”
Emmett frowned.
“Just before church this morning,” Smith added bitterly.
His mother patted his arm, her blue eyes sad. “I’m so sorry, son.”
Tension stretched across his shoulders. Thinking of Caroline with Galloway—with any man—made Smith feel empty and dark. The same way he’d felt in prison.
“This is the first time since your presumed death that she’s let anyone court her,” his father said.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.” He replaced the poker, moving to one side of the fireplace and propping a booted foot on the wall behind him. “Why Galloway? What is it about him?”
“He’s a good man,” the older man offered.
Smith grunted. It didn’t matter how good Galloway was. Caroline shouldn’t be with him.
This morning, Smith had somehow kept from tearing Galloway’s arm off and managed a civil tongue in his head. It was a good thing he’d left soon after services ended because he wanted to sweep Caroline up in his arms and carry her off somewhere.
“They’ve only ever been friends. When did things change?” Why had they changed? He just wanted to understand.
His mother shook her head. “I think they grew close when he helped out around her place after her surgery.”
“Surgery?” Smith snapped to attention, his boot heel striking the wood floor with a loud thud. Ice-cold fear ripped through him. “What surgery? When? What was wrong with her?”
“She didn’t tell you that, either?” Emmett frowned.
“No.”
“It was over a year ago,” Viola said. “She had an inflamed appendix.”
“What’s that?”
“An internal organ low on your left side.” The older woman touched a spot just above her hipbone.
“Doc Miller said she could’ve died,” Emmett put in.
Damn it! Why hadn’t Caroline told Smith any of this? He glanced at his parents. “But she’s okay now?”
“Yes,” his mother answered. “She seems to have recovered fully although something has never quite been the same. She’s different somehow.”
Emmett leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and holding his coffee cup between both hands. “Galloway, Della and one of Caroline’s students took care of her until she got back on her feet.”
Smith frowned. “Maybe that’s why she thinks she’s in love with him.”
“You don’t believe her?” his parents asked in unison.
He didn’t want to believe it and he found he just couldn’t. Still... “She’s engaged to him. I guess I have to believe her.”
He knew it wasn’t fair to have expected Caroline to put her life on hold the way he’d had to, the way he had been forced to do to both of them, but right now fair didn’t hold much sway with him.
Oh, he’d gotten her message loud and clear. She’d moved on and he should, too. Trying to think past the seething anger and violence inside him, Smith changed the subject.
“How are Ivy and Tom?”
After a sober silence, his mother spoke, her voice cracking, “Tom passed away about nine months after you disappeared.”
“What?” Stunned, Smith could barely take in the fact that his brother-in-law was gone.
Emmett cleared his throat. “He was thrown from an overturned wagon and broke his neck. He didn’t suffer.”
His sister was a widow. “Why hasn’t Ivy moved back home?”
“You know how she is,” his mother answered. “She wants to continue to run their stage stop.”
“Alone?”
“She’s doing a fine job of it,” Emmett said.
Viola smiled. “She’ll come home in a heartbeat when she hears you’re alive.”
Ivy lived two days’ ride from Mimosa Springs, close to a small town that had no wire service. “I’ll write her a letter and send it with the next stage going her direction. Does one still run that way on Tuesdays?”
“Yes.” His mother’s eyes softened. “I can do that if you’d rather avoid town for a while.”
“Thanks, Ma, but I can do it.” His sister wasn’t the only woman Smith wanted to contact.
He should leave his former fiancée be, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He had too many questions.
It was midafternoon the next day before he was able to get to Mimosa Springs. The air was still cold enough to freeze the horns off a steer and the snow had been packed down by feet, wagons and hooves.
Smith dismounted in front of Whitaker’s and looped his gelding’s reins over the hitching post. He glanced at the school just yards from him then turned away, shifting his attention to the north side of town. His gaze skimmed past the telegraph office that stood next to Whitaker’s, touched on the jail then Doc Miller’s house.
Hammer clanged on metal, drawing Smith’s attention across the street to the blacksmithy and the livery. The saloon sat quiet next to the saddlemaker’s shop, but the neighboring Sundown Restaurant was a hive of activity. Next to it stood Miss Millie’s boardinghouse. Sunlight, blinding against the frozen snow, slanted across the pink painted frame house.
Smith entered Whitaker’s, which also housed the post office, and wrote a short letter to his younger sister. He almost smiled as he imagined her reading the message that he was alive.
After he finish
ed, he went next door to speak to Sheriff Newberry about the best way to discover why he’d been listed as dead. Some minutes later, he had agreed to let Bart make the queries. Smith stepped outside, waiting for school to be dismissed.
His eyes were gritty from lack of sleep and he’d worked like a demon all day trying not to think about Caroline—her surgery or her engagement—but it hadn’t worked.
Suddenly the schoolhouse door flew open and a group of noisy children clattered down the steps. He waited until the students had scattered and all was quiet before making his way there.
He stopped in the doorway, taking the chance to look at Caroline before she knew he was here. The sunlight turned her hair a molten gold. The thick silkiness was piled on her head, wisps of hair teasing her elegant neck and dainty ears. Thin black stripes threaded her deep gold dress.
Smith’s gaze moved down the trim line of her back to the gentle flare of her hips as she swept the floor at the front of the room. She pushed the dirt onto a flat piece of tin and dumped it into the trash bin beside her desk.
There was no Christmas tree. Because some families didn’t and couldn’t celebrate Christmas, Mrs. Whitaker had always insisted on a small tree in the schoolhouse, well away from the stove. Had Caroline discontinued the tradition? He barely had time to wonder about it before she turned.
Her eyes, emerald-green in the afternoon light, widened. “Smith.”
The way she breathed his name had his body going tight.
“Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I wanted to talk to you.” He wanted more than that, but he knew he wouldn’t get it.
“If this is about Ethan—”
“It’s not,” he interrupted. Not all of it anyway.
The bodice of her practical dress was snug, her lace collar neat and starched. The garment wasn’t fancy, but she looked like a princess to him. All dainty and golden and beautiful. His attention lingered on the way the fabric molded to her full breasts.
When she rubbed her arms, Smith realized the door was still open. He reached back and shut it, dispelling some of the chill. Her gaze went to the door then back to him.
Stepping closer, he removed his hat. She stood motionless, tension vibrating from her. Unable to help himself, his gaze did a slow glide down her body, pausing at her waist then dropping below. Where was her scar? How big was it?
