* * *
Quinn couldn’t wait another moment. He started downhill from the cave just as somewhere nearby, Notion’s loud barks broke the predawn stillness.
As Quinn raced toward the sound, he realized they were quickly fading, as if the dog was chasing something fast. His heart pounding, Quinn prayed the animal was only trailing a jackrabbit. He wanted so desperately to believe it that he imagined himself shouting at the mongrel for scaring him half out of his mind. Reaching further, he imagined Anna laughing at his panic.
Then he reached the narrow clearing, and those hopes were snuffed out like a candle flame at bedtime. He stopped dead still, his mind unable to conceive that what he saw was anything but nightmare. Ned Hamby, knee planted atop Anna’s back, holding up her hair and — God help him – it was real – Hamby was scalping her dead body!
His pain and shock exploded in a single exclamation.
“NO!”
* * *
Pain brought Anna back, the bright pain that arced across her forehead. Ignoring the weight pressed against her spine, she reached to touch it, and she gasped at the streaming wetness and the flap of skin and hair. Her eyes rolled in her skull at the realization she’d been scalped — or near enough to cost her life.
Nausea choked her. If she didn’t bleed to death, she would die of infection unless help came for her — and soon.
Stupid, to think she would have time to bleed out. The knee pressed against her back meant that whoever had done this was still there. She froze in horror, expecting the knife to finish hacking at her scalp at any moment, then expecting whatever death her attacker had in store.
“Hold it right there, Mister!” Someone — not the man on her back — shouted. He sounded young but mean.
“Get off her!”
She instantly recognized Quinn Ryan’s voice, enraged and terrified at once.
The man atop her laughed. “Don’t make no nevermind to me. She’s dead already. Just the way you’re gonna be. Now throw your gun down ‘fore Hop blows your damned head off.”
Reina del cielo, it was Hamby! How in God’s name had he caught her unawares? Once again, his voice rendered her helpless. She couldn’t fight against him if she tried, especially not with her strength spurting out her forehead.
“God damn,” the young man — apparently Hop — swore. “Didn’t I kill you once already?”
“You’re going to wish you had,” Quinn growled.
She wished that she could see him. One last glimpse of his face was all she asked.
The weight lifted from her back; Hamby rose and took a few steps forward. Dimly, she could see him put away his knife and draw his gun.
“You’re in a hell of a spot to be threatening anybody,” Ned told Quinn. “Now toss the goddamned gun before Hop and I both plug you.”
Apparently, Quinn did not comply.
“Now, you stubborn bastard!” Hamby screamed.
They were going to shoot him down, Anna realized. They were going to kill him while she bled to death. Already, the edges of her vision were growing gray and hazy. Unconsciousness pulled at her like the moon tugging the tides.
Why couldn’t I tell him I would marry him? Why couldn’t I move on?
She’d been so intent on living in the past, on holding on to Rosalinda’s memory, that she hadn’t been able to look forward to a future with her lover at her side. Yet tonight, that last remnant of her daughter had gone home. Or maybe the old woman had been right. Rosalinda had never really been here. Perhaps, instead, Quinn Ryan had healed what Señora Valdez called her “sickness of the spirit.”
Why had it taken her so long to listen to what the curing woman told her? Why had she waited until the moment of her death? Both of their deaths.
She shifted slightly, and her hip ground into something hard and painful. It was the revolver she had taken with her from the cave! Incredibly, Hamby hadn’t found it.
She heard a thunk, Quinn throwing down his pistol.
“Now on your knees!” screamed Hamby.
Could she force herself to use the gun beneath her hip? Her arms felt heavy as lead, and she recalled her failure with the rifle. But this time, Quinn’s life hung in the balance, not just her own. If she was going to die, she’d do it giving him a chance.
By focusing on Quinn’s need, she managed to drag out the pistol. But when she raised it, she could see nothing for the blood that poured into her eyes.
God help her, she was as likely to shoot Quinn as to save him! And even if she didn’t, Hop, the second man, stood somewhere out of sight. When she opened fire, would he kill Quinn? In an attempt to clear her vision, she used her left wrist to try to wipe away the blood.
The pain exploding through her forehead was so severe that her hand unconsciously clenched, the index finger squeezing off a shot. And then all hell broke loose.
Gunfire seemed to erupt from everywhere at once. She was half-surprised to realize she was still shooting, shooting at every blast she heard.
She lost consciousness before she could determine what, if anything, she’d hit.
* * *
As Quinn dropped, he felt the wind of a bullet pass by his neck. Almost in the same instant, he heard the boy behind him scream in agony.
Quinn slammed hard onto his sore shoulder and rolled toward the spot where he’d tossed his gun moments before. As he reached for it, he saw Hamby drop his aim, and he knew the gunman’s second shot would not miss him.
But that bullet never came. Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn saw the muzzle flash from Anna’s revolver. A fraction of an instant later, the sound of the gunshot exploded — as did Ned Hamby’s left temple.
The bullet passed completely through the outlaw’s skull. As he swayed on his feet for one final moment, his right temple erupted in a waterfall of gore.
Leaping to his feet, Quinn forgot everything but Anna. He raced toward her, his heart sinking at the sight. Her head had flopped to one side. With the first ruddy light of dawn, her face, which had appeared masked in obsidian, now looked wet and scarlet. If he didn’t help her quickly, she would bleed to death.
Dropping to his knees, he reached down to touch her.
Behind him, he heard a gun’s click and a familiar voice. “Leave her be, and get up.”
Cameron. But what in God’s name would he be doing here? Slowly, Quinn turned toward the judge.
“She’ll die if we don’t help her.”
The bastard shrugged, though his pistol pointed steadily at Quinn’s heart.
“She’s a criminal, a horse thief,” Cameron told him. “Don’t you remember? We hang them when we can.”
“She’s not the thief here, Cameron. We both know it.”
The judge’s thick mustache twitched, and his eyes brightened. “Perhaps not. Perhaps she’s instead an unfortunate young woman, scalped by Navajo squatters. Her death could convince the army to clean them out of this canyon for me so my mine will be safe.”
“You know the Navajo are innocent. Hamby did this.”
Cameron shook his head. His smile seemed to radiate cold, as if his teeth were chunks of ice. “Your services will no longer be required, Quinn. I’ve found a more tractable sheriff. A whore and a bottle will be more effective than my threats against you ever were —”
“It took you this long to figure that you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?” Quinn asked. Anything to keep Cameron talking. Maybe then he’d have a chance to think of something, anything to get himself and Anna out of this alive.
The noise of a gunshot made both Quinn and Cameron duck for cover. Hop, apparently not dead of his injury, had fired on them both.
“Help me, you sorry bastards!” the boy screamed, his plea nearly incoherent. “Quit your jawin’ and come help! It hurts — so bad!”
He fired again, as if to force the issue.
Cameron, distracted for the moment, recovered just in time to see Quinn grab the gun from Anna’s hand.
The judge would h
ave shot first, except a bullet from Hop’s gun at that moment struck his lower left leg. His shout of pain and fury was cut short when Quinn shot him through the chest.
There was a sound of gurgling, and the judge spent his last breath. Hop, too, grew silent, as if he’d passed out or even died.
Shaking, Quinn crawled toward Anna. In the area around them, three men lay dead or dying, but as far as he was concerned, justice had been served. But what justice would there be — and what life for him remained now — if the woman that he loved were now dead too?
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Cañon del Sangre de Cristo
April 14,1884
Anna’s first consciousness was of Quinn Ryan’s voice beside her. Too exhausted to open her eyes, she rested, listening.
“I meant what I said before. I want you to be my wife.” Quinn paused. “Hell, that’s not romantic. Sounds like I’m issuing an order to my deputy.”
“How ‘bout this?” he continued. Apparently, he spoke only to himself, for the only other sound she heard was that of pine boughs in the distance, stirred by a crisp breeze.
Anna heard movement, and she peeked from beneath her lashes to watch him get down on his knees.
She couldn’t tell for certain, but the light looked strange, fragmented. Where were they, she wondered? She didn’t ask though. As her strength returned, it felt more pleasant to listen to Quinn’s rambling monologue.
“I love you, Anna. Will you marry me?” he asked. Apparently not satisfied, he tried again. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
His words so completely lacked his usual cocky self-assurance that he sounded like a boy. As if to underscore the point, impatience rumbled to the surface.
“Damn it, will you wake up, Anna, so I can get this humiliation over with? I messed this up the last time, and I’ll probably mess it up again — but I want you. I want you, darling. Wake up!”
Anna’s pretense of sleep erupted into helpless laughter. Laughter that shook her shoulders and made her head ache. Still, she couldn’t help herself. With Quinn, she never could.
“That’s what —” She tried to catch her breath but had to start anew. “That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Ryan. You always make me laugh.”
Opening her eyes, she took in the rounded framework of hide-covered sticks that gave them shelter. In an instant, she realized they were inside a Navajo hogan and she was lying on thick sheepskins, nude but for a blanket. But that hardly mattered as compared to the swift play of emotion in Quinn’s eyes.
He pulled her into his embrace and rocked her. “Sweet Jesus, Anna, I was so afraid you’d never wake up. An old Navajo woman and a child brought me here. The old woman stitched your forehead —”
“— How’d she do?” Anna asked, feeling at the bandage. Thankfully, the swelling beneath it seemed minimal.
“I checked earlier. It looks fine. I think it’s healing well. She made you drink something and then put on some kind of medicine. I have to admit I was a little disappointed.”
“Disappointed?”
The Ryan grin she knew so well reemerged. “Yeah. I was hoping to put on a goat turd poultice, like you did to me. After she tended you, the woman and the little girl disappeared.”
“They disappeared?”
“Must have just walked off. Didn’t even say a word. I don’t know if they would have understood me, but I wanted to thank them just the same.”
That fit with what she knew about the Navajo of the canyon. They’d experienced enough unpleasantness with Americans to make them wary.
“What about the others?” she asked. “Hamby and —”
“— Dead, all of them. Even Ward Cameron. Did you know he was here?”
She shook her head, careful of the soreness. “What happened to my clothes, Quinn?”
“It’s awfully quiet around here. A man needs some entertainment.”
She slapped at his arm.
“You were so sticky with blood, I decided to try to clean you up a little,” he explained.
“A likely story.”
Quinn looked at her, and once again the humor faded from his eyes. In its place, she saw the strain of worry, and of want.
Despite the tenderness of her wound, she wanted nothing more than to reassure him there was no need to worry anymore. Gently, tentatively, her mouth sought his for a kiss.
He responded in an instant, deepening the kiss with all the emotion he’d held in check while she lay ill. It was a kiss that bared all his desires, a kiss that did not falter in the struggle to find words.
Her own passion flared in answer, and she eagerly accepted the questing of his tongue, the blazing sensation of his fingertips stroking the warm flesh beneath her blanket. Her nipples hardened with his teasing, and she felt that she must have him soon or die.
She drew strength from his caresses, strength enough to begin unbuttoning his shirt.
Pausing, he tried to help her, but she pushed his hands aside.
“You undressed me while I was sleeping.” She gazed boldly into his eyes. “Now I’m rested, and I’m ready for my turn.”
Working with deliberate, excruciating slowness, she loosened each button, moving steadily downward. She paused to kiss each inch of chest that she exposed and to listen to his gasps of pleasure.
“Oh, dear,” she said as the two sides of the shirt parted at last. “It seems I’m out of buttons.”
She put her thumb and a forefinger on a new one at his waist, the first of several that secured his trousers.
“Perhaps these will do as well,” she suggested, her honeyed voice all innocence.
To her utter shock, he rolled away.
“Lord, Anna. I hope I don’t spend my whole life regretting this, but this isn’t what I want.”
She glanced down but did not point out the evidence that suggested he was lying. Instead, heart pounding, she waited for him to explain.
“I don’t want this to have to last me through a thousand lonely nights. I need this to be forever. I want you to be my wife. If you’re going to stay alone in this canyon, I won’t — I can’t.” He shook his head, then filled his eyes with her. “You’re the most beautiful, amazing woman I have ever known. I know I’m going to regret this, Anna, but I have to tell you to stop.”
“No, you don’t,” she told him, offering a smile. “You don’t. This is forever, Ryan, because the Bard was wrong in our case. For us, as long as there is love, it’s not too late.”
He looked as stunned as she had felt just moments before. “Then you’ll —”
She nodded. “— I’ll marry you, Quinn. We’ll work to straighten out things so you can do your job in Copper Ridge. I’m sure the town can always use a midwife, enough so people won’t worry about what happened years ago. We can ride out here once a month or so to see those homesteaders who need me. I don’t care if Cameron found a vein of pure gold in my canyon. There’s not going to be a mine here. I can’t let greed drive the Navajo from their hogans or the ranchers from their spreads.”
Careful so as not to hurt her, he kissed the top of her blond head. “I have all the gold that I need here, enough to last forever.”
She kissed him deeply, her fingers making short work of the final buttons. And as the spring winds whispered through the red rock canyon, Anna made each caress a promise, each kiss a sacred vow.
THE END
Copyright © 2014 Gwyneth Atlee
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Original publishing date: 2000, Zebra Books
Kensington Publishing Corp.
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