by Lynda J. Cox
“Yes, actually, I have. There was a time when I was the topic of gossip in Federal. Harrison too. But I did what I knew in my heart to be the right thing, Amy, and I have never regretted it for an instant.” Rachel took Amelia’s clenched fist into her hand. “If your heart tells you it’s the right thing to do, listen to it. Hold your head up, look everyone else in the eye, and dare them to stop you. And Federal is like any other small town. By next week, those two old hens over there will have something else to gossip about.”
Tears sprang into Amelia’s eyes. “Thank you for understanding.”
Rachel smiled. “I think you’d be surprised just how much Harrison understands too.”
****
Dr. Archer’s buggy stood in the yard when Amelia returned home. “Stay here,” she said to Saul and Jenny. She leaped from the wagon, and raced to the house.
Archer met her as she rushed onto the porch.
“Colt?” she asked in a breathless rush.
“Colt’s fine.” He smiled and patted her arm. “I just came out to check on him. I made him lie down because changing the bandage wore him out. Pain can do that.” Archer set his black bag on the low railing. “What happened to make that wound break open? He’s awfully tight-lipped about it.”
“Donnie Morris shoved him into the doorjamb after I slapped him.”
Archer’s brows shot up. “You slapped Colt and then Donnie—”
“No, I slapped Donnie. He said something inappropriate, and I lost my head and slapped him.” Amelia dropped her gaze. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
Archer cleared his throat. “So, Donnie took his temper out on Colt. Lucky Donnie’s still walking.” He picked up the bag. “I’ll be back in about a week and we’ll see how that shoulder’s healing. By the way, that was a good idea, putting his arm in a sling. It has to be a bit more comfortable for him.”
“Dr. Archer.” Amelia caught his arm before her resolve faded. “Saul and Jenny haven’t seen Nathan and Molly in some time. Would you mind taking them home with you, and I’ll come and get them later this evening?”
Archer tugged the ends of his mustache. “Folks are already talking, Amy. You sure you want to be here alone with him for a couple of hours?”
Rachel Taylor’s words echoed in her head. If your heart tells you it’s the right thing to do, listen to it.
“You don’t trust him either?”
Archer shook his head. “It’s not Colt I don’t trust. It’s the course of nature that worries me the most. Putting two attractive young people together in a situation where they can be alone is dangerous. It could have lasting implications.”
Amelia’s face burned. “I need to talk to him, and it is rather hard to do that with Saul and Jenny here. I’m asking you to do this favor for me as my friend, not as my doctor.”
Archer was silent for a long moment. He cleared his throat again, shifted his bag from hand to hand, and tugged at the collar of his frock coat. “Amy, I—”
“Please don’t lecture me. I’ve already been lectured by Marshal Taylor today. People in this town seem to forget that I’m nineteen, and most girls my age are already married. And Momma and Daddy aren’t here anymore. Whether or not I wanted to, I had to become an adult that day.”
“You remind me of Rebecca.” The doctor tugged lightly on the sleeve of Amelia’s blouse. “This isn’t a good place to wear your heart.”
Amelia drew a deep breath. “Dr. Archer, everyone is telling me to marry Donnie Morris. Are you going to tell me that too? They’re all telling me to send Colt on his way. That he is nothing but trouble for me and Saul and Jenny. A few years ago I remember folks saying you got away with murder when you were found not guilty after your first wife died, yet no one told Rebecca that you were nothing but trouble for her.”
Archer’s gaze moved to the distance.
Amelia knew she had scored a point. She had been old enough to hear the gossip about how troubled Dr. Archer’s marriage to Rebecca was at first, and the whole town had buzzed for weeks over Dr. Archer’s arrest and trial. Amelia quelled her guilt for reminding him. “Colt is not trouble for me or Saul or Jenny. And I don’t want to marry someone like Donnie Morris.”
At long last, Archer nodded and peered down at her. “This is against my better judgment, and will have every tongue in town wagging, but I’ll take Saul and Jenny with me. Rebecca and I can keep them overnight. It’ll give me an excuse not to go into the office in the morning. Mrs. Porter has an appointment, and I swear that woman has a mighty grist of imagined complaints.”
“Thank you.” For one moment, she hesitated, wondering if this was the best course of action. Then Rachel’s words echoed in her again and she lifted her chin, squaring her shoulders. Her heart was telling her this was the right thing to do. Now, she just had to summon the courage to tell Colt what she wanted to say, and find the words to say it.
****
Amelia waved to Jenny and Saul as they rode away in Archer’s small buggy. When she walked into the cabin, Colt stood by the table, watching her intently.
For a moment, Amelia stood motionless. Then she flung herself at him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Colt caught her with his good arm. His deep chuckle washed over her, warmer than the heat of the July sun. “What’s this all about?”
Amelia shook her head, unable to voice her emotions. For just a second or two, she relished the strength of his arm around her waist, the warmth of his shoulder under her cheek, the sound of his voice and the scent of him, a blending of bay rum, talc, and soap. “You washed your hair,” she murmured, refusing to lift her head from his shoulder.
“It was a little difficult one-handed, bending over a bucket at the hand pump, but I couldn’t stand it another minute.” Colt eased away from her. “Now, what’s this all about?”
Amelia dropped her head, uncertain of where to start or even how to begin.
He caught her chin in his palm, fingers splaying over her cheek. With gentle pressure, he tilted her head up to him, and forced her to meet his cool, gray gaze. “Amy?”
“I’ve been thinking.” She backed a step away. There was a curl to the ends of his silver-shot black hair she hadn’t seen before. He was dressed in another of her father’s shirts, and the white sling wasn’t such a contrast to the gray material. The color deepened the gray of his eyes to a shade that made her think of the underside of a towering thunderhead, heavy with rain.
She forced her attention away from the depths of his eyes, tried to gather her scattered thoughts, and repeated, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Obviously. Want to tell me what you’ve been thinking?”
She licked suddenly dry lips, and wished her mouth didn’t feel as parched as an arroyo in August. “I think, when you kissed me, I was wrong when I told you I didn’t like being kissed like that.”
“How were you wrong?”
She dropped her gaze, and trailed a fingertip along the edge of the table, riding the bumps and ridges of the hand-hewn pine planks. Now that the moment had arrived, she couldn’t find the words she had rehearsed in her head all the way from town. A huge lump seemed to be lodged in her throat.
“Amy?”
“Does being grown up mean really having to give up dreams and never letting those hopes be more than dreams?” She lifted her face to him.
“What are you getting at?”
He hadn’t moved, yet Amelia sensed he was poised somehow. “I don’t know, Colt, what I’m trying to get at. I was raised to be a good, obedient girl. I was raised not to talk back or question my elders. Yet today, I told Marshal Taylor off. I just sent Saul and Jenny home with Dr. Archer, and I don’t care what anyone in town will think when they hear we’ve been here, all alone for a night.”
He tilted his head, and one brow rose in slow degrees.
“For as long as I could remember, I was raised to marry someone like Donnie Morris. But I don’t want to be married to someone like Donnie Morris. I don’t know anyt
hing about the things a husband and a wife do, but I know that when Donnie Morris kissed me”—she drew a deep breath—“when he kissed me it wasn’t anything like when you kissed me.”
Colt dragged his hand through his hair, thoroughly disheveling it, but didn’t speak.
Amelia glanced away from him for a moment. “I don’t know what it is, but ever since you’ve been here, I can’t stand to be away from you. Whenever you’re near me, I have butterflies in my stomach, my heart races as if I’ve been running a long, long way, and I know I like the way you make me feel. I know you’ve only been here for a day more than a week, but I also know I could never even think of kissing someone like Donnie Morris again. I don’t think anyone will ever make me feel inside the way you make me feel.”
Colt’s jaw dropped as if she had hit him across the back of the head with an axe handle.
“I’m not asking you to stay, Colt.” She lowered her gaze to the table. “And I’m not even asking you to kiss me again, because you probably don’t want to. I know I’m not pretty.”
Silence reigned in the cabin for the space of a heartbeat.
With one finger, Colt tilted her head. “Don’t you ever say that again.”
“I’m sorry, but I just wanted you to…”
He pressed a finger over her lips, stilling her words. He shook his head, amazement and awe lining his lean features. “Don’t you ever again say you’re not pretty. Not where I can hear it. As to wanting to kiss you…Amy, I have been wanting to do a whole hell of a lot more than just kiss you.”
Colt brushed the back of his hand along her jaw, and curled his fingers around her neck. Amelia stepped closer as he pulled her to him. His thumb lightly rose along her jaw, tilting up her face.
The butterflies had returned, fluttering into her breast. Her heart raced and her hands trembled. A shock of hair fell across his forehead. With trembling fingers, she pushed it back onto his head. It felt like the most natural thing she had ever done. She trailed her fingertips down the side of his face, tracing the strength of his jaw.
Sunlight slanted into the small cabin through the still-open door, bathing Colt in the long rays of the setting sun. Amelia couldn’t breathe for the tenderness and awe in his expression. His eyes told her that she was something to be treasured, something beautiful, and fine. This was a totally new sensation, heady and exhilarating, and her throat tightened.
Colt shook his head. “This isn’t right, Amy.” His voice was rough.
Her heart felt as if it was being squeezed. He didn’t want to kiss her again, despite what he’d said. Tears stung her eyes.
As if he read her thoughts, he pulled her into his embrace, and stroked her back. “It’s not right. You deserve so much more than a few stolen hours. It shouldn’t have to be this way for you.”
Amelia slipped her arms around his waist, and pressed her cheek to the width of his good shoulder. “If all we have…”
“No. I want more than a few hours, Amy. I want to know that maybe those dreams I gave up aren’t gone forever. I’m tired of constantly looking over my shoulder. I’m so damn tired of surviving. And you are worth so much more than that. You don’t deserve that kind of life, and you don’t deserve a man who can’t be committed completely to you because he’s always looking over his shoulder.”
Colt broke away from her, his chiseled features lined and haggard. He shook his head and that shock of hair fell over his brow again. She ached to brush it away.
“I don’t want a few stolen hours, lady.” His voice grew rougher. “I want to be able to come to you and know it’s going to be for the rest of our lives.”
“Then stay. Stay here with me and Saul and Jenny. Stay and learn to dream again.”
“I wish to God I could.”
Frustration added an edge to her voice. “Why can’t you? I’m offering you a chance to put your past behind you, to make a new li—”
“My past is the very reason I can’t stay, Amy. Don’t you see that? I will always have a past and I will always be waiting for it to come riding over the horizon, waiting for the bullet that has my name on it to find me.” He turned from her, his shoulders slumping. “And I don’t want my past ever finding me here, because I don’t want you hurt by the things I’ve done.”
Chapter Ten
Colt sat on a granite boulder high atop a ridge, staring down at the small cabin. Smoke curled from the chimney, which meant Amelia was awake and had started breakfast. The early morning sunlight took the chill of the night from the land and beat down on his back, warming him.
He pulled his gaze from the house to settle on a hawk rising into the brilliant azure dome. The raptor screamed at regular intervals, Colt knew, to try to scare some small game into bolting from a hiding place. The bird of prey circled lazily, soaring higher and higher until it was little more than a tiny speck of black and its cries were whisper-quiet.
The faint, acrid scent of burning tobacco made Colt look around but he didn’t see anyone. Any man trying to get the drop on him wouldn’t be smoking. Colt allowed himself to relax and remain seated on the granite boulder.
He shut his eyes. Did Amelia know what she had offered him? Not just herself, not just her heart, but the chance to finally stop looking over his shoulder, to maybe make a life for himself.
What kind of a fool was he for refusing her offer? No, he wasn’t a fool, but he also wasn’t a blackguard or a conscienceless cad as those damn dime novels Saul read made him out to be. What kind of fool was he to even hope he could accept her offer and put his past behind him? He knew better.
He smiled at the irony of it all. All those years he’d been packing iron, dodging his past and dreaming of hanging up those guns, he never would have imagined something like this would be offered to him. And his dreams of a house in a small mountain valley, a couple of kids, a few head of cattle…he had never really thought about a wife until the other night in the barn when he talked with Jenny. He knew having kids most of the time involved a woman’s contribution, but a woman like Amelia?
Ladies like her had never looked at him as a prospective husband. Oh sure, a few of those respectable ladies had shot him sidelong, encouraging glances, especially once he had finished growing and filling out. The one time he’d made the mistake of thinking those encouraging glances meant anything more, the “lady” had made it abundantly clear he had merely been a way to satisfy an itch, and that was all. He had steered clear of respectable ladies ever since.
He never would have dreamed that a woman like Amelia would look at him in any manner other than disdain or pity. That she regarded him with open, undisguised love rocked the foundations of what he thought he knew of humanity.
“Sitting out in the open without a gun is a good way to get yourself killed when you’re a shootist.”
Taylor’s voice forced Colt’s eyes open. He shook his head. “If you were trying to sneak up on me, you didn’t succeed, Marshal. I could smell your cigarette from a ways off.” He fixed his gaze on the small cabin on the valley floor. Taylor could so swiftly re-establish Colt’s long-held beliefs of the smallness and pettiness of humankind, and this morning, he didn’t want to believe that of anyone.
“If I was trying to get the drop on you, I wouldn’t have been smoking,” Taylor said. “If I wanted the drop on you, I’ve got it because you’re not wearing a gun. I never thought I would see the day that the notorious Colt Evans would be caught without iron.”
“I promised Amy as long as I was here, I wouldn’t wear my revolver.” He sent a sidelong glance in Taylor’s direction, forced to squint at his silhouette in the early morning sun. “So, I have to ask, Marshal, have you made it your personal responsibility to ride shotgun over me?”
Taylor walked closer, leading his black horse. “It is my responsibility to look out for Amy and Saul and Jenny.”
“I’m not going to do anything to hurt her or those kids.”
Taylor nudged his hat back and then leaned a shoulder against his massive bla
ck mount. “Did it ever occur to you, that just being here could hurt them? How long, Evans, before your past shows up and they get caught in the cross fire? Or does that even matter to you?”
“What if my past never shows up?” Colt bent over and plucked a long stalk of grass. He twirled it between his fingers, and rose to his feet, glancing around for the marmot angrily scolding the intruders on his mountaintop.
The plump rodent was perched on another boulder, chattering in a shrill voice. The animal’s coat gleamed with a yellow-gold cast in the early sunlight. The moment the creature realized Colt had spied him, it dove into the safety of its burrow.
“Evans, she’s an impressionable young girl. She thinks she’s in love with you. Leave now, while she can still let you go. Before she gets more than she bargained for. Give her a chance to marry the right man.”
“The right man…” Colt snorted. He dropped the stalk of grass and pulled his hand through his hair. “Isn’t that Amy’s choice, not yours?”
“You’re a shootist, with a seemingly deserved reputation.” Taylor straightened, dropped one of the black’s reins and walked closer to Colt. “What kind of a future can you promise her? It isn’t going to matter when you hang those guns up. You are always going to be a shootist.”
Colt rounded on a heel, crunching granite gravel and grit under his boot. “What kind of a future can anyone promise her?” He forced away his anger. Taylor was only repeating the same conclusion he’d reached himself. “Marshal, what the hell did you say to her yesterday?”
“What I’m telling you.” Taylor jerked his head in the direction of Amelia’s home. “You’re trouble for her and the best thing she could do is send you packing, as soon as she can.”
“Well, I need to thank you.” He dipped his head in the direction of the small cabin, mimicking Taylor’s gesture. “It ain’t often I get an offer like the one she made me yesterday afternoon. No commitments, no promises…”
