by Jodi Thomas
Yet she’d told Howard, the station manager, to give him the clothes she’d bought for him. All were the right size, down to the gloves. The coat probably cost more than he had money in his pocket to pay her back. If she cared anything about her reputation, wouldn’t she have just left them, or borrowed rags no one would miss?
Nothing made sense to him anymore. In the cold loneliness of the winter night, he could almost feel her snuggling up against him. He could smell her hair and feel the weight of her head resting on his chest. If he closed his eyes tight enough, he could believe she was with him.
For the rest of his nights, Sloan knew he’d sleep next to her, if only in his mind.
* * *
The morning was crisp and clear as they loaded the stage for Fort Worth. McCall felt rested as she went over the plan of what she must do next. The Rogers women complained as they climbed into the coach. Their dresses and jackets were more for fashion than warmth. The reverend said nothing, as usual, but did manage a polite nod at McCall as they waited for the others to decide where everyone should sit. McCall surprised herself by hugging Starkie good-bye.
The big man looked like he was close to tears as he stepped away. “Now you let me know if you ever need anything, Mrs. Harrison. There ain’t nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
“Thanks,” McCall said as she took her seat. Mrs. Rogers had announced yesterday morning that she couldn’t ride facing the back of the stage, so McCall had been permanently assigned to the front window. Mr. Rogers shared the bench, since his wife and daughter had also complained about not wanting to be cramped. He placed a small case marked BIBLES in the space between him and McCall, as if to say that this chest was far too valuable to travel in the boot.
“Hold on!” Bryant yelled as he walked up from where he’d been checking on the horses. “We got another passenger.”
Before McCall could say a word, Sloan stepped into the coach. He glanced at her as though the others were no more than freight. His clothes were dusty as if he’d ridden most of the night. Several days’ growth of beard covered his face.
McCall caught herself remembering the way the short beard had felt two nights ago. She’d expected it to be rough and scratchy, but it was soft. She refused to look at him as he climbed in. Her fingers busily played with the flap over the window, as if adjusting it would keep out the draft. But the memory wouldn’t disappear so easily.
The Rogers women made no attempt to pull their skirts aside so he could sit between them. When Sloan reached for the Bibles, the reverend lifted the case to his lap and moved closer to the side of the coach.
Without a word, Sloan planted himself in the center of the now cramped bench between McCall and the preacher.
“Roll ’em out!” Starkie yelled as Bryant whipped the reins.
The coach took a sudden rocking jerk. Sloan, with nothing to hold on to, rocked back and forth on the center seat, his shoulders hitting first the reverend, then McCall.
McCall let out half a yell before he rocked back and forth, hitting her again.
“Sorry, miss,” Sloan said as if he’d never spoken to her in his life.
McCall looked in his eyes and saw no hint of sorrow in his dark gaze.
“Hold on, folks!” Bryant yelled again. “The road’s a little rough when it’s muddy, but we’ll level out soon.”
“A little!” Mrs. Rogers yelled at the roof of the coach. “We’ll all be black-and-blue by the time we get to the next station. Slow this thing down or I’ll send my husband up to drive.”
“Can’t do that, Mrs. Rogers!” Bryant’s voice boomed. “I’ve got a schedule to try and catch up with. We’ll be on harder ground before long. Just think of it as rocking aboard a ship.”
Sloan twisted toward McCall just as the coach bobbed sideways, sending him against her so hard she was pinned between him and the window. Cold air cut through the gap she’d caused in the window’s canvas flap.
McCall shoved with all her might, but he only budged an inch. The Rogerses were all too busy with their own problems to seem to notice.
“Change places with me,” Sloan ordered.
She thought of arguing, but at this rate she would be one mass of bruises within an hour.
Without waiting for an answer, Sloan circled her waist with his hands and lifted her over his lap as he slid against the side of the coach. His wide shoulders covered the opening, halting the draft. He then braced his legs against the opposite bench and pulled her hips firmly against his side. When the coach bobbed again, she moved only slightly, like a rider who’d learned to move with a horse.
“Better?” Sloan asked as McCall rocked against his side.
She hated to admit it, but leaning against his chest was much better. His leg braced her slightly, keeping her from tumbling forward, and she no longer had the constant draft from the window on her neck and shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said, admitting he was right.
“Anytime,” he answered, pulling his hat low as if he had no desire to become overly friendly with anyone in the coach.
They rode on to the rhythm of Mrs. Rogers’s complaining for almost an hour, then as Bryant had promised, the road straightened out and everyone relaxed. McCall moved an inch away from Sloan’s chest, but she noticed he didn’t move his leg, keeping it slanted so that it touched hers.
“We haven’t had time to properly introduce ourselves,” Mrs. Rogers began, as though she were the appointed leader of the group.
“I’m Mrs. Rogers. This is my husband, the reverend. We’re on our way to San Antonio. This is our daughter, Pearl Ann.”
Sloan touched his first finger to his hat. “Nice to meet you,” he said without volunteering any information about himself.
“And,” Mrs. Rogers frowned at him, as though she thought him beneath her but still felt the need to be proper, “the lady you seem to be sitting a bit too close to is the widow Harrison. The famous widow of Major Harrison.”
Sloan raised an eyebrow. “Famous?”
Mrs. Rogers pressed her lips together as if irritated with a small child. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Holden Harrison?”
“Can’t say as I have,” Sloan lied and leaned forward, encouraging the woman with his interest.
“She’s a little quiet, but don’t hold that against her,” Mrs. Rogers said. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind my telling you who she is.”
“I wouldn’t hold anything against her.” Sloan glanced at McCall. Only she saw his wink.
She could see the fire in his dark eyes, like slow-burning coals from a flame started long ago. McCall couldn’t tell if he was laughing at her or hiding anger with his false smile. But the fire was a certainty. McCall fought down a comment. She didn’t like to be gossiped about, but she didn’t want to talk to either Sloan or Mrs. Rogers. Her only option was to remain silent.
“Her husband was a great man. Half the men in Texas served under him during the war. But what she did was just as brave.”
“What did she do?” Pearl chimed in, tired of her mother bragging on McCall.
The younger woman had a way of opening her eyes too wide and staring hard when she was irritated. McCall couldn’t help but notice that she was dressed younger than the tiny lines around her eyes told of her being. Her ringlet hair seemed out of place on a woman obviously in her twenties.
Mrs. Rogers wiggled in her seat, getting comfortable before continuing the story. “She went into battle with her husband. Lots of battles. I’ve heard men tell story after story of her riding through enemy lines to deliver messages, and riding like the wind through the night to carry needed word home.
“She was like one of his men, always there, always with him. When the major was dying, she held him all night while he bled all over her clothes. Then she talked the Yankees into helping her load his body into a wagon. She drove the major home all alone. Not even stopping to change from her bloody clothes.”
“You did that?” Pearl looked at McCall with horro
r. “Wasn’t it terrible, traveling with a dead body? And wearing the same clothes day after day?”
McCall could hardly hide her disgust for the girl. “He was my husband,” she answered simply. “He’d asked to be buried at home.”
“It took her weeks,” Mrs. Rogers added. “Traveling through land where there weren’t any farms to stop at for food.”
“No,” McCall corrected. “It took days. I don’t remember much about it except the cold and how alone I felt. I don’t remember thinking about food at all. My clothing seemed unimportant.”
Mrs. Rogers wanted to hear details, but McCall wouldn’t volunteer any more information. She finally grew tired of trying to get McCall to talk and turned her attention to Sloan. “Were you in the war, sir?”
“Yes,” Sloan answered.
“The North or the South?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” she huffed. “After all, it’s over. I imagine you’ve settled down in the three years since it ended. A wife and children? Started a whole new life and don’t want to talk about the war.”
“No,” Sloan answered. “No wife or children.”
Mrs. Rogers perked up and smiled that broad, toothy smile only mothers of overaged single daughters get. “Oh, so you’re still unattached?”
Sloan slowly slid his hand along his leg. The back side of his fingers brushed against McCall’s thigh, but no one but her seemed to notice. He’d removed his gloves. She could feel the warmth of his hand through the material of her skirt.
“Still unmarried,” he mumbled as his hand moved back up his leg, applying slightly more pressure to McCall’s thigh than before.
“What type of wife are you looking for, may I ask?” Mrs. Rogers leaned forward as her child leaned backward and opened her eyes too wide a few times toward her mother, as though the action would silence the woman.
“The kind who’ll stay in bed until daybreak,” Sloan answered.
Mrs. Rogers let out a huff in shock. McCall shifted slightly and swung her foot so that the toe of her boot jabbed into his calf.
Sloan fought to keep from yelling out in pain and laughing at the same time. “And a woman not overly fond of inflicting pain on me,” he mumbled. “It seems I’ve had the misfortune to meet of late the kind of woman who has a mean side to her that’ll most likely get me killed.”
McCall shifted again and dug her elbow into his ribs.
When he drew in his breath suddenly, McCall flashed him what she hoped was a worried look. “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Alexander. Did I hurt you when I moved? We’re so cramped I didn’t notice.”
“No, ma’am,” he lied again, thinking his ribs would never heal with McCall around.
“Mr. Alexander?” the reverend’s wife chimed. “Do you know this man, Widow Harrison? I was under the assumption we were all strangers here.”
McCall shook her head, but she wasn’t accustomed to lying. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
A moment later, the wheel hit a hole. Everyone in the coach rolled to one side. The stage rocked once violently and vaulted sideways as if pushed aside by some giant. Sloan swore. The reverend prayed. Pearl screamed for her mother.
McCall reached for Sloan and found herself on top of him a second later, with the reverend on top of them both. The sound of wood shattering mixed with the shouts of the passengers. Mrs. Rogers’s hollering was cut off by Pearl landing atop her mother.
“Whoa!” Bryant yelled, and the stage slowed while still leaning.
Before the screams died, he was on the ground, pulling the door open. “You folks all right in there?”
Pearl crawled off her mother. Her bonnet was crumpled beside her and part of her blond curls was gone with the hat. The reverend helped his daughter out of the lopsided coach, patting her hand to calm her. Mrs. Rogers scrambled for the opening next, like a rat about to go down with the ship. Her flying arms would have pushed anyone else aside. She was screaming and crying as the men helped her to the ground.
For a moment, Sloan was alone with McCall, his back against the window. She rested on him, holding tightly to his jacket as if she didn’t believe the rocking had stopped.
Sloan bent his head slightly and brushed his lips against her forehead. “You all right, darling?”
McCall took a long breath. “I think so.” She moved slightly, stretching against him, testing for broken bones.
He pulled her closer with one arm as his free hand moved slowly over her from shoulder to hip, making sure she wasn’t hurt. “Good. I wouldn’t want you hurt before I strangle you.”
She pulled away and climbed from the coach as though she hadn’t heard his words.
Sloan fought the urge to swear. She was driving him completely mad. He wished she’d shot him that first night he’d touched her and put him out of his misery. Even a stagecoach wreck with McCall made him more hungry for her touch.
He crawled from the stage and joined the others a few feet away. Everyone had survived with only a few scratches. Only Pearl’s bonnet, with several curls of wig hair attached to the back, looked to be a fatality.
“We’ve busted a wheel, folks,” Bryant announced the obvious. “Make yourselves comfortable. It’ll take me an hour or so to fix it. That is, if I can.”
“Need any help?” Sloan offered.
Bryant shook his head. “I’ll yell when I’m ready to put the new one on.” He lifted a box of tools from the front boot. “You could walk the horses a little. It’d sure be lucky if we were close enough to water for them to have a drink while we wait.”
Sloan nodded and began unhitching the team. He’d worked with horses all his life and felt the action relax him a little. He could also feel McCall watching him, but he didn’t look in her direction. She had some answering to do, but he’d wait until they didn’t have an audience. He could just guess how much pleasure Mrs. Rogers would have telling new stories about the famous Widow Harrison and some drifter.
McCall watched him closely, seeing the skill in his hands and the easy way he mastered the team. She glanced down at the women sitting on a rock to her left. They were both complaining as they compared scratches and rips in their skirts. Suddenly McCall had no time for them.
“I’ll help you,” she said as she stepped over the coach’s tongue and joined Sloan.
He glanced at her with a look that said he needed no assistance. When she cut her gaze over to the Rogerses, Sloan said, “Thanks, I could use a little help.” He handed her the lines to the two lead horses.
They worked together, walking the horses to a low place where some of last night’s rain still stood in one-inch puddles. When they were a quarter of a mile from the others, Sloan dropped the reins and allowed the animals to graze on winter weeds and hardy buffalo grass.
“We have to talk,” he said casually, as if only passing the time of day.
“We’ve nothing to say.” McCall followed his lead with her horses, but didn’t look up at him.
“Yes, we have,” Sloan corrected. “I tried to explain when I arrived at the station that night but you wouldn’t listen. I made some powerful enemies in the army. They swore to find me even after the war ended. They called themselves Satan’s Seven. The man we met that night you tried to shoot me must have been one of them. Remember, he said his name was Bull Willis. He was such a mountain of a man. When I knew him, he was much thinner and we were in a place where names weren’t important. It took him some time, but he recognized me even in the dark that night.”
“Why would he want to kill you now? The war’s over.”
“Not for men like him. Never for men like him. He doesn’t want to just kill me. He swore to cut my heart out while it was still beating and set it atop my chest. He and a few of his friends are following me. Right now they’re closer than they’ve ever been. I thought I’d draw them away from you; you’d be safe. But the night the Apache attacked me and cut my arm, they must have found my bedroll before I could get back to it.”
&nb
sp; “So?”
“In the bedroll was a picture of you.”
McCall faced him directly for the first time. “A picture of me? That’s ridiculous.”
“I found it at your house before we started the trip with the children. It was on the floor, like someone had thrown it away. I didn’t think you’d mind. It was only a bent tintype.” Sloan felt like a fool, rattling on.
“You stole a tintype of me?”
“I didn’t steal it,” he offered as his only defense.
“I didn’t give it to you,” she countered.
“That’s not important. What we have to think about now is that somewhere within a day or two from us is a man who wants to kill me and has your picture.”
“Would he kill me to get to you?”
Sloan closed his eyes. “If he knew you mattered to me, he’d kill you.”
McCall was silent. When he opened his eyes, she was looking closely at him. “Do I matter to you?”
Sloan knew that if he said yes, even a little, he’d be opening himself up for all kinds of pain. If he said no, he’d be telling the greatest lie of his life. In truth, he would have fought to the death to get the tintype back, never mind her.
“More than life,” he answered, figuring he might as well jump in head first and see how deep the well was. He was a drowning man either way.
Sloan wasn’t sure what he expected her response to be, but her fist flying at his face wasn’t among the top hundred guesses.
He ducked a moment before her balled fingers slammed into his cheek. With all the rage of a tornado, she swung again and again until he caught her around the waist and pulled her to him. “Damn!” he swore. The woman has more fire in her than a cannon.
“Stop it!” he yelled, trying not to hurt her, though she bore no such hesitance with him. “Stop it, General!”
She fought wildly, kicking, slugging with more strength than he thought a woman could muster.
Finally, he shoved her away and stepped backward. “What are you trying to do?” he shouted. “Kill me for caring about you?”
“I don’t want you caring about me,” she answered as she paced like a wild animal waiting for an opening to attack. “I don’t want you or any other man in my life at all. I was doing fine before I met you.”
