by Jill Gregory
“Cal. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s cold out here,” he said abruptly, getting to his feet. “You’re shivering again.” He took her arm and helped her up, then started back to the house. Melora walked beside him in numb silence. She was chilled, inside as well as outside. She’d never felt so icy cold and miserable in her life.
“Campbell was the foreman of the ranch Joe and I worked at near Tucson.” Cal continued when they were seated at the kitchen table with steaming cups of coffee before them. “When we heard about Uncle Jed passing on and about the Diamond X, we made a decision to go back to Nogales, to sell the ranch while we could still get something for it and move Jesse and the younger kids on to Rawhide for a fresh start on the Diamond X. We gave Campbell notice we’d be leaving soon and showed him the deed.”
Cal picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without drinking. His eyes were faraway. “He congratulated us. Wished us well. Which was to be expected, since we were friends, the three of us. Friends,” he grunted, shaking his head.
“He can be very... charming. And caring.”
Cal’s laugh was harsh. “He damn well can.”
Melora sipped desperately at her coffee, needing something hot and bracing to break the chill enveloping her. “What happened then, Cal? How did things go so terribly wrong?”
“Two days before Joe and I were due to go home, we stumbled onto the truth. That Campbell was rustling from our employer, a man named Ed Grimstock. And from everyone else in that valley,” he added, pushing back his chair. He paced around the kitchen with long, restless strides like a long-caged panther.
“He and Sheriff Harper were working together. Rustling the valley dry.”
Rustling. She’d heard him say the word before, she’d seen it in the wanted poster, but this time it struck her like the claws of a hawk scratching deep into her skin, tearing through to her very blood and bones.
There was rustling in Rawhide too. But it had been going on a long time, she told herself, long before “Wyatt Holden” had come to town. Yet her hands shook a little as she lifted her cup.
Melora finished her coffee, her thoughts whirling like the grounds in the bottom of the coffeepot as she poured more of the hot, sustaining drink for Cal and then for herself.
“I think I’d better hear exactly what happened next.” She took a deep breath, then glanced up at Cal. “If it’s not too painful to tell.”
“I lived through it, Melora. Reckon I can talk about it. And I reckon you have a right—hell, no, you have a need to know. So you can understand exactly what kind of man we’re dealing with.”
She watched him rake a hand through his hair, then sit down again and stare at his coffee cup. She couldn’t tell how much of the ache in her heart was for herself and how much was for him.
“When Joe and I caught on to what Campbell and Harper were up to, we rode straight to our employer and filled him in. We were planning to head to town and wire the federal marshal, but Campbell got wind of the fact that we were on to him. He and Harper showed up at Grimstock’s ranch right after we left for town. They murdered Grimstock, and then they rode into town and announced that Joe and I had killed him.”
“Cal, no!”
“They said we’d killed him because he and Campbell had caught us rustling.”
She touched his arm. She felt sick, shocked, furious. She couldn’t understand how he could tell her all this so calmly, with such quiet steadiness. But the harshness in his face as he turned his gaze to her quickly brought home to her that his anger ran deep and deadly. He kept it locked within him, but it was there, and when he faced Rafe Campbell again, it would come out.
“They caught you in town?” She prompted him, needing to hear the end of the story, needing to stop the assault of terrible words.
“Almost, but not quite.” Cal ran a finger back and forth across the wood table. “There was this saloon girl who was sweet on Joe. Every girl he met was always sweet on Joe,” he added with a rueful grin. Then his lips tightened. “But this girl saw Campbell and Harper rounding up a posse, and she warned us. We barely made it out of town alive.”
It seemed that the insects had gone mad outside the farmhouse. The wild chirping chorus poured through the darkness beyond the windows, filling the night. But there was no other sound in the house as Cal stood, strode to the window, and stared out.
“Campbell and Harper and their posse rode us down. On the third day they set up an ambush, and Joe was shot. Killed. I got away, but they caught me a few miles later.” He swung back to stare at Melora, every muscle in his tall frame coiled with tension. “I didn’t even get to see my brother buried. They put me in jail, right next door to Ray and Zeke, and that was that. Oh, there was a trial, with a lot of trumped-up evidence, and I was sentenced to hang. Campbell packed up and left town a few days before the hanging—no doubt moving on to greener pastures, figuring I was as good as dead. I didn’t know at the time he was eventually going to lay claim to my inheritance, and use my name to get it.”
Melora hugged her arms around herself, fighting the nausea in her throat. Her body trembled.
Was it possible that the man who’d gone down on his knees to beg her to marry him was the same man who had rustled cattle, killed the rancher Grimstock, and framed two innocent men?
“I still... can’t quite believe it.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Cal stood over her, his eyes hard. “I was taken in too, Melora—by the easy, upstanding way he talked, by his fine smile and booming laugh. Joe and I had been around enough to recognize most card sharks and flimflam men, but we didn’t nail this one. We trusted him; we thought he was our friend. Some friend.”
“Some fiancé,” she echoed in a hoarse whisper.
Cal yanked her up out of the chair so suddenly she gasped, and he held her roughly by the shoulders. “So you see now why you can’t go back. I’m leading him here—to Deadwood actually. And he won’t have time to bother with Jinx because he’ll be too intent on getting you back. To do that, he has to follow my instructions.”
“Instructions?”
“Zeke and Ray sent him a wire after they split up from us. The wire informed him that if he wanted to see you alive again, he’d better get to Deadwood pronto. They signed my name to it. I’ll wager that came as a nice little shock.”
She swallowed. “Did he really believe you’d been hanged? Didn’t Sheriff Harper send word to him after you escaped?”
“No,” Cal said. “Harper’s dead. I shot him during the jailbreak as he was about to plug Jesse in the back.”
Melora closed her eyes.
“So I reckon when that wire came, my good old pard Campbell got the shock of his life.”
Cal watched as she opened her eyes, visibly struggling to take it all in. He let her go when she wrenched away from him. Then it was her turn to pace, a churning restlessness driving her from the countertop to the stove, to the pantry, and back again to the table.
“What makes you think he’ll come for me?” she demanded, her fingers splayed on the wood surface. “He’ll probably just cut his losses and run.”
“No way.”
“How can you say that? Now that he knows you’re alive and on to him, he must know that you could show up in Rawhide and challenge his identity! That you could not only take back the Diamond X, but get him thrown in jail to boot!”
“Campbell’s smart enough to know I can’t take that chance, Melora. What if everyone believed him and not me—just like you did? I need proof. Proof that he was the one involved in rustling in Arizona, proof that he was the one who murdered Grimstock. Proof that he framed me and Joe. I need him to confess—fully and in front of a reliable, completely trustworthy witness. And besides,” he added, giving her a hard, level look that made her heart pound faster, “there’s something else. Something personal.”
She held her breath as he studied her, his expression unreadable. “I wanted Campbell to lose something he cared de
eply about. I wanted him to see what it felt like to have something stolen from him. Not just something, someone. Someone important. Because he stole not only the Diamond X but my brother’s life. And he stole our good name.”
For some reason she took a step back as he advanced on her. He caught her chin between his fingers and forced her to look up, directly into the green depths of his eyes.
“So I stole his fiancée,” he said as calmly and coldly as an undertaker. “I stole the incomparable Melora Deane.”
There was a silence. Wind soughed through the pines above the farmhouse, and the distant wail of coyotes rent the night.
“Perhaps he won’t care.” Her tone was equally hard. “It seems clear enough that Wyatt—I mean, Campbell—never loved me. He was merely using me. For all I know he’s been planning to take over the Weeping Willow and sell it or—or... I don’t know what, but I’m damn sure going to find out.”
“We’ll both find out.” Cal’s hand moved from her chin. It slid across her cheek, brushing aside a stray lock of golden hair. “Soon as he shows up in Deadwood and walks into my trap.”
“You’re so sure he’ll come?”
“He’ll come.” His gaze traveled from her wide eyes to her full, trembling lips. It dipped down to the swell of her breasts outlined beneath the green and blue flannel shirt, then returned to lock once more with her eyes. There was a roughness in his voice and, at the same time, a kind of gentleness. “He’ll come.”
The wail of a coyote blasted close, so close Melora jumped straight into Cal’s arms. He steadied her, his hands sure and strong. “Campbell’s a skunk, Melora, but he’s made of flesh and blood. He’ll come for you all right. He won’t let go of you without a fight. There’s something in him that makes him always want to be the best—to have the best and flaunt the best.”
“And what does that have to do with me?” she asked lightly, teasingly, half embarrassed by his implication, yet fascinated by it at the same time.
Any other man she had ever known would have taken her in his arms and told her in flattering detail exactly what he meant. Any other man would have kissed her and complimented her and made it all too clear how beautiful and desirable and irresistible he found her.
But Cal did none of those things. He appraised her with eyes as clear and keen as the sharp edge of a knife.
“You damn well know,” he replied coolly, and suddenly he stepped back, away from her. Turning on his heel, he stalked to the door.
Melora felt as though he’d upended a bucket of icy spring water over her head. Twin blotches of color brightened her cheeks as she watched him twist the knob of the kitchen door.
Melora Deane was not accustomed to being rebuffed. For the second time that night shock poured through her.
“Get some shut-eye, Melora.” For all the matter-of-fact brusqueness in his voice, he might have been talking to Zeke or Ray or his brother Jesse. He glanced back at her over his shoulder, his features as unreadable as weathered granite.
“It’s been a long day.”
The door closed behind him.
Weak in the knees, Melora sank into a chair. That man...that impossible man...
She couldn’t even formulate one coherent thought describing what she thought of him.
But she knew one thing. She wished she could bite off her tongue. Alone in the kitchen, with the coyotes howling mournfully in the hills, Melora stared at the closed kitchen door for a very long while.
Chapter 15
Two days later Louisa Holden was up and scampering about as good as new and begging her brother Cal for permission to go to the O’Malley family’s barbecue.
“Who are the O’Malleys, Lou?” Cal questioned her as he chopped wood out behind the barn, and Louisa, stringing dandelions together for a bracelet for Melora, paused a moment in her work to regard him witheringly.
“They’re the nicest people around. They have five kids and a big farmhouse and Lara O’Malley is my dearest, bestest friend in the world, and her pa gave me a ride to town in their buggy and brought me three whole pieces of licorice when I only asked for one and—”
“When’s the barbecue?” Cal interrupted, pausing with the ax in midair as he saw Melora rounding the corner of the barn, coming toward them, carrying two glasses of lemonade.
But Louisa never noticed and kept rattling on, intent on her plea. “Tonight. Please, please, please can we go? There’s going to be pies and cakes and lemonade and—”
“Speaking of lemonade, I thought you two might be thirsty,” Melora interrupted as she reached the little clearing that Cal had already piled high with lumber. She handed a glass of the cool concoction to Louisa and was rewarded by the girl’s squeal of delight. Squaring her shoulders, Melora turned to Cal.
“Would you like some?” she asked formally.
He gave her a curt nod.
Trying not to stare at the hard muscles in his chest and forearms as he stood before her shirtless, wearing only his pants and boots, Melora reached toward him with the glass.
Unfortunately, he reached toward her at the same time and their hands collided, sending some of the lemonade sloshing over.
“Ooops, sorry,” she gasped as she relinquished the glass.
Cal shrugged. “No harm done. There’s still plenty left for a thirsty man.” To her shock he suddenly seized her hand, held it up, and licked the cool drops of lemonade from her fingers.
“Delicious.”
Louisa laughed out loud. Cal gave her a wink
But Melora stood still as a statue, heedless of the warm sun blazing down on her, of the scent of pine and autumn leaves and mountain air drifting around her. Her fingers felt on fire every place his tongue had swiped. She felt her face flaming. And of course Cal noticed, since he noticed everything.
He gave her a slow, lazy grin, and then he lifted his glass in a silent salute and gulped down the lemonade.
Melora didn’t know quite what to do. She found herself at a loss. Good Lord, she thought, abruptly dropping her still-burning hand to her side with a stiff movement, you’d better stop going all agog every time you come within ten feet of Cal Holden.
This was getting to be ridiculous. She’d never gotten weak in the knees over any man before, but ever since that night when he’d walked out on her in the kitchen, some evil witch must have put her under a spell because she kept losing her train of thought when he was near. She kept wanting to follow him around like a puppy and wanting to make him notice her.
And at the same time she refused to let on one inkling of how she felt. She had too much pride actually to throw herself at a man, any man, and she certainly wasn’t going to make a fool of herself over a man as infuriating and uncooperative as Cal Holden.
Yet...
Men are trouble, plain and simple, Melora scolded herself angrily. And after the fiasco of her poor judgment concerning Rafe Campbell, she’d be wise to stay away from every man —for the rest of her life.
It had shaken her deeply to learn that as far as men were concerned, she wasn’t as clever or infallible as she’d always thought she was. Common sense told her to steer clear of anyone wearing breeches, to remain an independent, wary-eyed spinster for the rest of her days, but common sense couldn’t keep her eyes off Cal when he cleaned his guns, chopped wood, or played the harmonica.
Of course Cal paid no attention whatsoever to her. Since that night when he’d laid bare the ugly story of Rafe Campbell, he’d been the one steering clear. Unless it was absolutely necessary to speak to her, he ignored her. Unless they bumped into each other, he hadn’t touched her. Most of the time he seemed so busy and preoccupied she might have been invisible, a ghost flitting around the rafters of the farmhouse, real only to the children.
So what had that meant when he’d had the audacity to lick the lemonade from her hand?
Was he baiting her, trying to annoy her, or something else?
You could never tell with Cal. That was the problem. He was impossible to read. Just
now he set down his glass of lemonade and hefted the ax again. Melora grew breathless at the sight of all those rippling muscles.
“So, Lou, you really want to go to this barbecue?” he said just as if Melora weren’t still standing there in the hot sun, the sleeves of her flannel shirt rolled up, her hands now resting on her hips.
“Yes, Cal, I surely do, and I want you to go too, and Melora. The O’Malleys invited our entire family.”
“I’ll have to think about it, Lou.”
“But, Cal,” she whined, her lower lip pushing out in a childish pout.
“Listen, Lou, don’t argue with me about this. You know the rules. Go find Jesse and send him up here to talk to me. Then I’ll let you know.”
When the little girl had trotted off in search of her other brother, Cal chopped two more logs into eighths before he wiped an arm across his sweating forehead and set down the ax.
“It could be risky going to a barbecue tonight,” he said at last. Melora had picked up the dandelion bracelet Lou had dropped and was fitting it around her wrist.
“Why?” She tried to sound matter-of-fact, though in truth she was startled that Cal was broaching this topic with her. This was the first time they’d exchanged words alone since the night she’d discovered the truth—the truth about him and about the man she’d been planning to marry. Every other moment they’d been surrounded by the rest of the Holden family, as rambunctious and mischievous and close-knit a family as Melora had ever seen.
