by Craig, Emma
Oh. Well, hell. “Um, no, I didn’t know that.” It didn’t matter a hill of beans to him, but he wasn’t sure how to say so without making her defensive.
She gave him a smile that was far too sardonic for a woman of her youth and beauty. “It’s the truth. I was sixteen when a man named John Horn took up with my family’s road show. I guess John was in his late twenties.” A low, contemptuous laugh crept from her throat, and Gabriel went cold. “He said he loved me.”
Aw, hell. Sometimes Gabriel purely hated his fellow men. Predatory bastards. “And you believed him.” He heaved a defeated sigh.
“Yes. And I was stupid enough to believe him.”
“Now, wait a minute, Sophie,” Gabriel said with as much severity in his tone as he dared used on her tonight. “That’s not fair. You were a kid. He was a grown man. You were his victim, not stupid. His kind prey on young girls, the damned bastards.”
He would have gone on to explain his further thoughts on the issue, but he realized Sophie’s huge hazel eyes were staring at him. He drew her closer and said, “What? You don’t really blame yourself for falling for that swine’s pretty words, do you?”
She didn’t answer for a minute. Her mouth opened and closed twice before she said, “Well, yes. I always have done so. I think I was stupid.”
“Don’t.” He was feeling a particle savage by this time. “If I had John Horn here, I’d shoot him in the balls for what he did to you.”
She smiled. “Why, Gabriel Caine, if that’s not the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me, I just don’t know what is.”
He laughed, too. “Well, he was scum, Sophie.” He eyed her shrewdly. “And I have a sneaking suspicion you weren’t the happiest sixteen-year-old girl in the world, to begin with. I’ll bet you were ripe for the plucking. I can imagine you, young and beautiful and lonely. I know good and well how hard it is to travel with a parental tent show, believe me. I’ll wager you were just longing for somebody to love you and take you away from it all.”
She looked surprised for a minute. “Yes. Yes, that’s exactly the way I felt.”
“I thought so. I remember feeling the same way, but I was a boy. When I grew up, I could just take off. Women don’t have that privilege.”
“No. We don’t.” She began fiddling with the sheet that covered their legs. “I—I didn’t know until then that my mother had been disowned by her family when she married my father. Her family was rich—I think they’d made a fortune in lumber or something. They disapproved of my father and his line of work, and they refused to acknowledge my mother after she married him.”
“Criminy, I don’t understand people like that.”
“I don’t, either, but they did.”
“You’d think people would consider their family members akin to gold. How many other daughters did these people have, that they could afford to throw one away like that?”
She graced the air with a little laugh. “I don’t know. I do know that my mother and father had a hard time of it during their marriage. They never seemed very happy to me, but I didn’t know why. My mother had, in effect, sacrificed everything for my father, and I have a feeling he didn’t think he lived up to her hopes.” She heaved a huge sigh. “Oh, I know he didn’t think so. And I’m afraid she didn’t, too.”
“It must not have been awfully comfortable in your home.”
“It wasn’t.” She gave him another wry grin that made his heart do funny things. “If you could call our living quarters a home. It was a trailer, actually, pulled by a big old raw-boned horse named Ginger. Except when we were stopping with my Uncle Jerome in Kansas City. I used to pretend Uncle Jerome’s house belonged to us. It was a nice house. Nothing special, like the Millhouse mansion—but it was permanent.”
He nodded. “That’s probably another reason you were ready for that Horn character when he showed up.”
She sighed. “Probably.” She didn’t continue.
Gabriel waited for a few minutes, then said, “When he found out you were carrying his child, I suppose he didn’t offer you marriage or anything.”
“Good heavens, no. He was horrified, although I didn’t understand why at the time. He took off in the middle of the night. Didn’t even leave a note or anything.”
“Bastard.” And after he shot the son of a bitch’s balls off, he’d shoot other parts of him. He’d try to prolong Horn’s agony for as long as he could before he put an end to his miserable life. Gabriel had never experienced violent urges of this nature; showed what love could do to a man. “You must have been—hurt.” And if that wasn’t an understatement, he didn’t know what was.
This time she nodded. “I was. I was—crushed. Literally, I felt as though he’d taken my heart out of my body and stamped on it under his boot heels. It was pretty awful. I felt like such a fool.”
“I can imagine.” He held her for a moment in silence, trying to give her some of his strength. Not that she didn’t have plenty of her own. “Was Miss Juniper in the picture then?”
“Oh, yes.” Sophie smiled a lovely, uncynical smile. “Juniper Madrigal is the most genuinely good person I’ve ever met, Gabriel. Honestly, I think she’s some kind of living saint. Or something.”
“I believe it.” He did, too.
“She was wonderful. Never uttered a word of blame to me, and went on and one about how wonderful it would be to have a precious little baby in the family, and about how long it had been since she’d been able to care for a baby. I think she might have saved my life. I—I thought about ending it more than once.”
“Yeah. I’m not surprised.” He shuddered at the thought of his beautiful Sophie ending it all before she’d had a chance to live. “And I’ll value Miss Juniper even more from now on, if she kept you from killing yourself.”
“She did. And she helped me tell my parents what had happened, too.”
“That must have been hard.”
“Oddly enough, it wasn’t, although I was dreading it before I did it. It was the strangest thing, but when I told my parents about the fix I was in, they seemed to recall the bond that had drawn them together to begin with. They—they sort of fell in love all over again.”
“Really?” He pulled away a little and peered down at her.
“Really. It was sort of an unexpected benefit. Oh, they were sorry it had happened, but it was sympathetic sorrow. It wasn’t as if they were ashamed or angry with me or anything. They were mostly sorry that I’d been deceived and hurt. And what I considered as my own tragedy seemed to draw them together in a way I’d never seen before. For the first time, I realized how much they loved each other. They must have, when you consider it, because they’d gone through hell to be together.”
Gabriel thought about it for a minute and realized his heart felt much lighter. “That’s a very nice story, actually.”
She laughed. “You think so, do you?” Shaking her head, she shivered all over, as if the recollection was too vivid for her own comfort. “It was really horrible.”
“Well, yes, I can see that it would be, for you. At the time. But then your parents kind of found each other again, and that’s nice.”
“Yes. And I had Joshua.”
Gabriel heaved a huge sigh. “And you had Joshua.”
“He was a wonderful little boy from the very beginning. He was a perfect baby. He had big, big eyes and dark eyebrows and eyelashes from the day he was born. He looked older than he was when he was a tiny baby because of his lovely dark eyebrows and lashes. He didn’t look all squishy like some babies do, either.”
Gabriel cleared his throat. “Um, I have to admit that I’m not familiar with very many babies.”
“Ha!” She laughed again. This one sounded genuine. “I’m sure you’re not.”
“Not that I don’t like kids or anything, you understand. It’s only that I, ah, haven’t been exposed to very many of them.”
“Of course not. A big, bad bounty hunter like you—”
“I’m not a bounty h
unter, dammit.” He gave her beautiful bottom a very small smack.
“Oh, that’s right. Well, a big, bad—um—apprehension agent like you—”
“That’s better.” In fact, he liked it.
“—surely doesn’t have much to do with children.”
“Not on an everyday basis.”
“Well, you can take it from me that Joshua was a beautiful boy. Inside and out. He had big blue eyes, sort of like Juniper’s, and shiny brown hair. And he was no trouble. He was never any trouble at all.”
Feeling inadequate for the situation, Gabriel tried to convey with his embrace how much he cared for and sympathized with her. He could tell she was close to tears again because her breathing was deep and rough; he admired her for being able to talk about it at all.
“My parents died in the influenza epidemic of ‘ninety-four.”
“I’m sorry.” God, that meant she’d lost her parents and her son within a very short span of time. Gabriel winced internally.
“I was sorry, too. We’d become close by that time, my parents and me. I loved them very much, and they loved me. And they loved each other, which I think is probably the biggest miracle of all.”
“You might be right.” Interesting statement, too. Gabriel had met very few long-married couples who still valued each other. Good for the Madrigals.
“It was hard, losing them. It was hard for Joshua. He was only six at the time.”
“You mean you lost your parents and your son in a single year?” Good God, that was even worse than he’d feared.
He felt her nod before he heard her tiny, “Yes.”
“Ah, Sophie, life’s not fair, is it?”
“No, it isn’t.”
He drew her down with him until they were both lying beneath the sheets, and held her close. “I wish I could bring Joshua back to you, sweetheart. I know that’s a stupid thing to say, but I mean it.”
“I know you do. Thank you.”
As if the angel of good sense had suddenly entered the room and whacked him with its wand, enlightenment regarding a particularly puzzling aspect of Sophie’s personality struck him. “Shoot, no wonder you seem to hate men.”
“Most of them,” she agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “I guess that’s not really fair. My father was a nice man, and my uncle Jerome is wonderful. And Joshua—” She had to stop talking and swallow. “Well, Joshua would have been a good man. I know it.”
“I do, too, sweetheart. You’d have made sure of it. And we’re not all like John Horn, Sophie. Honest to God, we’re not.”
“Oh, I know it, really. Or the infamous Mr. Patterson of Tucson, Arizona Territory.”
“Crap, I forgot all about him.”
She chuckled against his chest. “I could name a million more, if those two examples aren’t enough. I meet some true rats in my line of work. I’m not considered respectable by decent society, you understand. I am, however, considered fair game by many otherwise respectable husbands and fathers.”
“That’s hogwash. You’re more respectable than most of the women I’ve met in my day.”
“Why, thank you. I’m sure you’ll disregard our present circumstances when evaluating my relative respectability in the future.”
“Don’t get sarcastic on me, Sophie. You know what I mean.”
“I guess so.”
He’d been lusting after her for so long, and their first sexual encounter had been so remarkable, that it wasn’t too long before Gabriel was ready for another go-around. He held himself back because he didn’t believe it would be appropriate under the circumstances. The very notion of little Joshua Madrigal being gunned down on a San Antonio street by the disgusting Ivo Hardwick made him want to wash himself. He didn’t want to taint the evening with his lust.
Dammit. When had he, Gabriel Caine, managed to develop such inconvenient compunctions? He couldn’t recall. But he had developed them, blast it, and there was no getting away from them now. Anyhow, it was delicious simply lying herewith his arms around her. Sophie was an armful and then some. He wanted to make another survey of every inch of her glorious flesh soon and hoped she’d oblige.
Somehow or other, he was going to have to figure a way to remain in Sophie’s company after he’d arrested Ivo Hardwick and taken him back to Abilene. First, of course, he’d have to smooth her ruffled feathers. She was sure to be as mad as fire to have her scheme to kill Hardwick overthrown. But Gabriel had faith in himself. Besides, he’d just cross that bridge when he came to it.
It was the next part he couldn’t figure out, the staying with-Sophie part, that had him buffaloed. How did people generally accomplish things like that, anyway? Holy smoke, they married, didn’t they?
The thought of marriage was too much for him. He went to sleep under the influence of it.
* * * *
She’d told him. She’d sworn she’d never tell Joshua’s story to anybody, least of all a man. But she’d told Gabriel Caine. What’s more, she’d told him everything. Even about John Horn, her own stupidity, and her parents.
Lord, she could hardly believe it. Love could make a woman turn simple-minded, and Sophie was beginning to feel resentful of the fates for making her fall in love with this particular man at this particular time. Love wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair. At least Gabriel had admitted the latter.
The true irony was that she wanted nothing more than to cuddle up in his strong arms and sleep her troubles away. She was sure she could sleep sweetly and completely tonight, next to Gabriel, in his bed.
But that behavior would go directly counter to her plans. What’s more, if she succumbed to the temptation, she would be abandoning Joshua. She’d never abandon her little boy. She had retribution to exact on Ivo Hardwick before she could even think about herself and her own happiness—if there was such a thing in the cards for her.
In the cards. What a remarkable expression to think of at this moment.
Feeling more than usually ironic and jaded and conveniently stuffing her feeling of guilt about deceiving Gabriel aside, Sophie carefully extricated herself from his embrace. The magical incense had dissipated, the world had returned to its mundane orbit, and the night air was cold on skin that had lately been warmed by Gabriel’s arms. A sharp pang of longing struck her, and she thought about postponing her plans for the evening. She could just as well kill Hardwick tomorrow, after all. She didn’t necessarily have to kill him tonight.
And that, as she well knew, was a pernicious devil trying to weaken her resolve. She would act tonight, for tonight she knew where her target lay. If she waited, Hardwick would get away again. Worse, she might not find the strength to try again. Somehow, her evening with Gabriel had made her goal in life seem not so entirely noble.
Also, she’d planned this evening carefully in order to negate the threat of Gabriel’s interfering with her. If what she was about to do seemed ignoble and unsavory to her, it was only because—because— Well, she didn’t know, but she hoped the feeling would go away.
Her heart constricted when she considered Gabriel’s reaction when he realized what she’d done. She decided such thoughts were too depressing. She should dwell on happier matters. Eliminating Ivo Hardwick from the world, for example.
She dressed, thanking her stars for the little bit of light shining in the room. After she’d gathered up all of her things, and all of Gabriel’s clothes, including two pairs of his shoes, she tiptoed to the bed one last time and gazed down at him, wishing she could kiss him goodnight. She didn’t dare take the chance.
A notion that this wouldn’t happen another time, that she’d never experience his love again in this life, weighed heavily on her. Why, oh, why, had this happened now? Why did she have to find the right man now, of all inconvenient times? She shook her head, angry with herself for getting sentimental.
Then she told herself it didn’t matter, that Gabriel was probably just like all the rest, and that he’d leave her, too. She told herself that all men were like that. There
were no good men in the world. Men always left. Or the men in her life did, at any rate. She knew good and well she was lying to herself; that she was only making excuses for doing something beastly.
And, with tears trickling down her cheeks—tears for Joshua, and tears for Gabriel, and even tears for Sophie—she silently left Gabriel slumbering like a child in their bed of love.
Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel awoke with such a sensation of well-being tickling his innards, he wondered for a minute if he was sick. But that didn’t make any sense.
Then he remembered Sophie. Yes, indeed. Ah, Sophie. The woman he loved.
But he probably shouldn’t think about that part of his good mood, or this happy feeling would go away. He turned over, keeping his eyes closed. He was as hot and hard as a man could get, and he wondered if she’d be amenable to another tumble. They’d made magic together last night; he wouldn’t mind starting this day right.
He reached out for her, thinking to draw her close to his body. He needed her right smack next to him in order for him to feel right. With a chuckle, he wondered how that had happened so fast. His arm flopped on the bare sheet.
Hell, she must have got up. He hoped she hadn’t been embarrassed and tiptoed back to her own room. Blast.
“Sophie?” His throat was dry, and her name sounded as if a randy bullfrog had croaked it.
Silence answered him: a big, hollow silence.
Damn. Maybe she was gone. He wondered if Juniper would be shocked. He tended to doubt it. For such a sweet, elderly lady, she was remarkably sensible about some things. His heart twanged when he recalled Sophie’s tale of Joshua, and about how wonderful Juniper had been.
He tried again. “Sophie? Are you still here? I hope you’re still here. I need to tell you something.”
Would she laugh at him when he told her he loved her? Somehow, he didn’t think so, although she was an odd duck, his Sophie. He never knew how she’d react to anything.
Again, Sophie’s sweet voice answered him not.
Aw, hell, it looked as if he was going to have to wake up. He opened his eyes and blinked into the somber grayness of his room. It had looked sort of nice last night—it had even seemed to be filled with some sweet-smelling vapor or something. This morning, it looked empty. Astonishing how the absence of one largish, lovely blonde could affect a room’s overall aura of hospitality.
