CAROLINE AND THE RAIDER

by Linda Lael Miller

A troubled expression lingered in Guthrie’s eyes for a few moments, but it was gone when he came to the table after pouring himself a cup of Jardena’s hot, fresh coffee.

  “Why didn’t you write to me?” Caroline demanded, studying her husband. Now that he’d shaved and his longish maple-colored hair was glossy with cleanliness, she was struck once again by his remarkable looks.

  “I’m no letter writer,” he answered, taking a sip of his coffee. “But I brought you a present.”

  Caroline’s eyes widened with pleasure. “What?” she demanded.

  He took a small package from his shirt pocket and handed it to her. Inside, Caroline found a delicate gold chain and an oval locket. She was so overcome that she couldn’t speak for a few seconds.

  Guthrie got up to fasten the chain around her neck, and his hands lingered, warm, on the flesh revealed by her summer dress. “Caroline,” he began gruffly, “I—”

  But before he could finish the sentence, the back door opened and Jardena came in, carrying a basket full of sun-dried laundry. She beamed at Guthrie and demanded, “What are you doing back in these parts, you black-hearted rascal?”

  He laughed and crossed the room to kiss her forehead and take the laundry basket out of her arms. “I couldn’t stay away from you any longer, Jardena.”

  She hooted with amusement at that, but Caroline noticed the flush that pinkened the woman’s coarse cheeks and was touched. “I’d sooner take up with a polecat or that scarecrow out there in the pea patch than with you, Guthrie Hayes,” the housekeeper boomed. “So just you keep out from under my feet, you hear?”

  Guthrie chuckled, set the clothes basket aside, and dropped back into his chair at the table. “I hear,” he said.

  Later that evening, Guthrie and Caroline shared a quiet dinner with Roy Loudon and his son in the formal dining room. Caroline excused herself soon after the meal ended, choosing not to help Jardena with the dishes for once, and Guthrie remained downstairs, probably to smoke and drink brandy with his friend.

  It was almost midnight when he entered the bedroom, sat down on his own side of the mattress, with his back to Caroline, and pulled off his boots.

  She reached out and touched his back. “What were you doing all this time, Guthrie?” she asked softly. “Offering me to Roy Loudon?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did explain the situation.”

  Caroline sat bolt upright. “You told him I could be sent to prison?”

  Guthrie stood and slipped his suspenders off his shoulders, then began unbuttoning his shirt. “Yes. And he promised me he’d take care of you and the baby if I don’t come back.”

  “I don’t want any man but you,” Caroline said stubbornly, pulling the covers up to her chin. “And I’m warning you, Mr. Hayes, if you try to abandon me, I’ll come looking for you.”

  He bent and kissed her, and he smelled of cheroots and good brandy. “Roy wouldn’t let you,” he said. “He’s a strong-minded man, for all his quiet ways.”

  Caroline put Roy Loudon forcibly out of her mind. She was Guthrie’s woman, and she always would be.

  When he stretched out beside her in bed, wondrously naked, she laid a hand on his hard chest, fingers splayed, and rested her head on his shoulder. But when another thought came to her, she raised herself to look straight into his face.

  “While you were gone, did you … did you take your comfort with any other woman?”

  Guthrie chuckled and drew her back down beside him. His arm was under her now, and his hand clasped her hip. “No,” he said forthrightly.

  Caroline wasn’t satisfied. “When you were still planning to marry Adabelle, you acted as if you believed a man had a right to visit a whore, even when he was promised.”

  He rolled her on top of him, pulling on the blankets so that they lay flesh to flesh. “That was before you cast your spell over me, Wildcat. I haven’t been with anybody else since you and I took up.” He wound an index finger in a tendril of her dark hair. “When a man’s been that good, he deserves a reward.”

  “He does indeed,” Caroline answered, and she began kissing her way down over his chest and belly.

  A few seconds later, Guthrie was being … rewarded.

  Chapter

  Indignation filled Caroline to the back of her throat, like a bubbling, bitter liquid. She remained in bed, watching Guthrie dress, too angry and hurt to speak.

  “I told you I’ll be back,” he said, coming to stand beside the bed and cup her chin in one hand. “And I meant it.”

  She twisted away from him and glared at the yellow curtains on her window, which were fluttering prettily in an early-morning summer breeze. “You’ve only been here one day,” she pointed out.

  “Caroline, if I don’t go after Flynn right now, today, I’ll lose him again. Hell, maybe I already have.”

  Beneath the blankets, she spread her hands over her stomach and grieved. The baby deserved a proper home, with a mother and father in residence. “It had better not be two and a half months before I see you again,” she warned, but that was only bravado. Deep down, she knew there was little or nothing she could do to sway Guthrie. He’d made up his mind to capture Seaton Flynn, and he was not a flexible man.

  He leaned down and kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Don’t worry, Wildcat, I won’t be able to stay away that long.”

  “You did before.”

  “Caroline, I’m closing in on Flynn. He’s nearby. I can feel it.”

  His certainty alarmed her, and she caught hold of one of his hands with both of hers and held on tight. “Promise me you’ll be careful, Guthrie. If anything happens to you …”

  He sat down on the edge of the bed, his eyes gentle. “If anything happens to me,” he said firmly, “do your grieving and then make a new life.”

  She clung to his hand, even though that normally wasn’t her way. “I’d grieve forever,” she said, “and I wouldn’t marry another man, if that’s what you’re suggesting. I couldn’t stand to feel someone else’s hands on me.”

  “I’m not exactly on peaceable terms with the idea myself,” Guthrie agreed. “But if I can’t have your promise to let my friend protect you, at least, then you can’t have mine to be careful.”

  “You wouldn’t actually be reckless …”

  Guthrie drew gently away from her and bent to pull on his boots. “I’m getting tired of playing cat and mouse with this bastard,” he said obliquely. But she knew he was tempted to do something bold and thus force a confrontation with Seaton Flynn.

  A mental image of Guthrie falling to the ground, fatally shot, filled Caroline’s mind. She squeezed her eyes shut against the picture, but it was still there. “Dear God,” she whispered miserably, “I wish I’d never met that man. I wish I’d never heard his name!”

  Guthrie opened her eyes with a kiss, like a storybook prince, sliding his hand beneath the blankets to lay it against her warm, bare stomach. “No, you don’t. You wouldn’t have come looking for me at the saloon that day if it hadn’t been for him,” he said, “and my baby wouldn’t be growing inside you right now.”

  “Guthrie, please—stay.”

  He shook his head. “Give me your promise, Caroline,” he said, “and I’ll give you mine.”

  It was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but she swallowed hard and gave her word. “All right,” she told him, in an anguished whisper. “If—if you don’t come back—I’ll do as you asked.”

  He touched her lips with the tip of one index finger. “By Christmas,” he clarified. “If I’m not here before Christmas.”

  Miserably, she nodded.

  Guthrie sighed like one who has just prevailed in a struggle. “I’H be careful,” he said. And then he tossed the covers back and moved downward to kiss the quivering flesh of Caroline’s abdomen.

  Heat surged through her, and she silently damned Guthrie Hayes for his power over her.

  He parted the moist silk that sheltered her and nibbled brazenly at the morsel he’d unveiled. Wi
th a groan of helplessness and passion, Caroline reached over her head to grip the railings in the headboard and arched her back.

  Guthrie’s chuckle vibrated against her flesh, but then he began to enjoy her in earnest and soon the only sounds she could hear were those of her own muffled groans and hard breathing.

  Jardena brought Caroline’s breakfast tray only minutes after Guthrie had gone.

  Caroline didn’t bother to hide her tears from the woman who had become her friend. “He won’t be back,” she whispered brokenly. “Flynn will kill him.”

  Jardena set the tray carefully on the bedside table, after moving a lamp aside. Her expression was troubled and her eyes were filled with compassion. “You can’t think like that,” she scolded. “Bad thoughts can make things happen, just like good ones.”

  Now fully dressed, although her body was still humming from the tune Guthrie had played on it, Caroline reached with a trembling hand for her teacup. She gave a bitter, humorless little laugh. “He expects me to turn right around and marry someone else if he’s not back by Christmas. Just as if the last few months had never happened. Can you imagine that?”

  The housekeeper sighed and laid one hand on Caroline’s shoulder. “You’d be happy here,” she said. “Roy’s a good man, Caroline, and you’d never lack for anything if you were his wife. Neither would your child.”

  Caroline stared at Jardena. “You too?” she marveled, with quiet anger. “It’s as though everyone thinks—”

  “Guthrie’s strong,” Jardena interrupted calmly. “And he can look after himself.”

  Disconsolately, Caroline began to eat from the food on the tray. She wasn’t hungry, but she knew her baby needed sustenance to grow. “It’ll be purely my fault if Guthrie dies,” she said. “Before I came along, he was happy, working his mine and planning … planning to marry Adabelle Rogers.”

  Jardena shook her head. “Guthrie wouldn’t have been happy married to anybody besides you. Now, you straighten yourself up and stop carryin’ on like some queen locked up in a dungeon. You’ve got your work to do, so do it.” With that, she left.

  Knowing full well that there was nothing she could do besides wait and pray and conduct Ferris’s lessons, Caroline finished her breakfast and carried the tray downstairs.

  That night, when she was standing out on the porch, gripping the railing in both hands and counting the stars to keep from fretting about Guthrie, Roy Loudon joined her.

  Pipe in hand, he stood beside her at the railing, and she was struck once again by his uncommonly good looks. He was a fine man, stern but fair in his dealings with his son and the men who worked for him, and Caroline knew she might even have loved him if she hadn’t met Guthrie first.

  “We’re old friends, your husband and I,” he said quietly, tamping fresh tobacco into his pipe with a practiced thumb.

  Because she liked Mr. Loudon, and because she was lonesome, Caroline tried to make polite conversation. “I guess you both served in General Lee’s army,” she ventured.

  Roy chuckled. “Hardly, Miss Caroline. I was once a personal aide to General Grant. Carried messages to Mr. Lincoln himself on occasion.”

  Caroline turned to look him full in the face, her mouth open in surprise. She remembered her manners shortly and closed it. “But that would make you a Union man, and Guthrie was definitely—”

  “I know,” Roy interrupted good-naturedly. “Hayes was a Reb. Still is, deep down.”

  “How could you have become friends?”

  “Later in the war, the President ordered an inspection tour of some of our prison camps. Mr. Lincoln was deeply concerned with reports that Rebel soldiers were being mistreated—both sides were running short of food and medical supplies, naturally, but he’d heard stories of intentional cruelty. General Grant sent me on the mission.”

  Caroline’s eyes were wide. “And you encountered Guthrie?”

  “You might say that. I’d just gone through the second camp, somewhere in Pennsylvania, and I’d found some things I knew the President wouldn’t like. I was in my tent, writing my report, when all hell broke loose outside. There was a lot of shouting and gunfire, and I grabbed my pistol and rushed out to see what was happening.

  “That was how I found myself square in the middle of one of Hayes’s famous raids. Before I could make heads or tails of things, I’d been struck over the head and two of the prisoners came after me with pitchforks.

  “Guthrie saw what was about to happen, and he stopped them. I’ll never forget what he said. ‘The name’s Guthrie Hayes, Billy Yank, and the way I see it, you owe me a favor. One day, I might just want to collect it.’”

  Caroline smiled because the image was clear in her mind and the remark sounded so much like something her husband would say.

  “Sure enough,” Roy went on, “he showed up on the ranch years later and asked for a job. Of course, I gave him one, and that was when we became friends.”

  “Remarkable,” Caroline said, thinking how strange it was that the two men should encounter each other again when so much time had passed.

  Roy shrugged, but the look in his eyes as he gazed down at Caroline was a tender one. “I know all about what you did, Caroline—about Seaton Flynn and the possibility that you’ll have to stand trial for releasing him.”

  She swallowed, half expecting her employer to say she wasn’t suitable to teach his son and ask her to leave.

  Cautiously, he laid one big hand on her shoulder. “I have a degree of power, and more money than one man rightfully deserves,” he confided. “If anything happens to Guthrie, I’ll look after you, and I’ll raise your child as if it were my own, but there would be no demands made on you.”

  Caroline was moved by his declaration; while Mr. Loudon had always behaved in a gentlemanly fashion toward her, she’d never guessed that he actually bore her any tender feelings. Now she suspected he did.

  “It wouldn’t be fair to ask you to sacrifice like that,” she said softly. “There must be plenty of women willing to take your name and be a real wife to you.”

  His smile was gentle and sad. “I know it’s Guthrie you love, Caroline. But if he doesn’t come back, you’ll need a man. I want to be that man.”

  Hearing Guthrie make her promise to seek Roy’s protection if she needed it was one thing, but actually having him offer himself was something else. Roy Loudon deserved better than a wife who couldn’t love him, a wife who would soon be burgeoning with another man’s child.

  “Guthrie will come back,” she insisted. If she couldn’t believe that, she couldn’t go on.

  Roy touched her face with a big, calloused hand. “I hope you’re right,” he said, “though, God help me, there’s a part of me that wants you enough to wish he wouldn’t.”

  With that, Mr. Loudon turned and went back inside his house, leaving Caroline to resume her count of the stars.

  But she had to stop, because they kept blurring together.

  Presently, she went inside, climbed the stairs to her room, and threw herself down onto the bed to beat at the mattress with her fists in a burst of fear and frustration.

  The very next day, it was Ferris who brought her the parcel that would change everything, including her reluctant promise to Guthrie.

  She was sitting by the pond, writing another of her endless letters to Lily and Emma, when Ferris scrambled through the trees on foot, a big smile on his face.

  “Somebody sent you a present,” he said. “The foreman brought this back from the post office in town.”

  Frowning, unsettled for a reason she couldn’t quite define, Caroline reached for the small package. She knew instinctively that Guthrie hadn’t sent it, but the handwriting was familiar, in a vague and disturbing way.

  With awkward fingers, she undid the twine that bound it and unfolded the plain brown paper. Inside lay the small oval frame that had held Annie Hayes’s photograph, though now that had been replaced with a picture of Caroline and Guthrie taken on their wedding day in Cheyenne.
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  The whole world seemed to shift and sway dangerously, and Caroline let the picture frame lie in her lap while she gripped the rough bark of the log with both hands to keep her balance.

  “Is something wrong?” Ferris asked, squatting down in front of her and peering into her face.

  Caroline swallowed, unable to answer, and unfolded the yellow sheet of paper tucked into the back of the frame.

  I’ve got him, boasted the strong, distinct handwriting she now recognized as Seaton Flynn’s. If you don’t want Hayes to die, you’ll be on the two o’clock stage to Laramie, out of Cheyenne, on Friday afternoon. And you won’t mention this to anyone. Regards, S.F.

  Bile rushed into the back of Caroline’s throat and, for a few seconds, she struggled not to throw up. A moment later, she even managed a smile. “It’s our wedding picture,” she said, holding up the frame with a hand that only shook slightly. “See?”

  Ferris was still frowning. “Miss Caroline, you don’t look so good.”

  She stood up resolutely, praying she wouldn’t swoon. “I’m just fine, thank you,” she said, in her no-nonsense tone. Her mind was frantically figuring the day of the week, and the realization that it was already Friday nearly paralyzed her. “I’d like to go riding, Ferris,” she told him, in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “Would you please saddle my horse?”

  “Sure, but—well—I think I’d better go with you.”

  Caroline shook her head too hard, too quickly. “No, Ferris. I want you to prepare that essay we were talking about yesterday.”

  The boy screwed up his face. “Now? But we’re finished for the day …”

  “Ferris,” she blurted sharply, “just do as I say!”

  “Pa won’t like it, your going riding alone,” he protested, but he was already turning around and starting back toward the house and barn.

  Caroline followed him in a haze. She couldn’t take the time to pack anything, and if she tried, Jardena might guess what she was planning to do. Still, she would need money for her stage fare.

  She went into the house, took her wages from the drawer in the nightstand, and tucked them into the pocket of her green corduroy riding skirt, another garment she’d made for herself, along with the little picture frame. The thought of Guthrie being held in some hideaway of Seaton’s, hurt and maybe dying, made illness threaten again.