The Valiant Hearts Romance Collection

by Kristin Billerbeck

  “Arapaho are good-lookin’ people.” A thin cowboy with cold-red cheeks and tawny, overgrown whiskers looked up from the doorway. “Tall and stately, with the nicest features you ever saw. They say the Ute Indians like to steal Arapaho wives.”

  Wyatt swiveled his head back and forth between the cowboy and Clovis, his mind an incredulous blur. “Why are they looking for the girl?” His heart beat so loudly he could hardly hear. “What’s she done?”

  “There’s a bounty on her head.” Clovis put the stack of papers back in a drawer and closed it. “They say she killed her husband.”

  Chapter 6

  Wyatt stalked through the stable in a fury. His hair hung a filthy red under his battered hat, like muddy river clay—messy with wood splinters and sweat and soil. “I give up, Mrs. Moreau. I mean Miss Moreau. Whoever you are.” He crossed his arms stiffly, furious breaths heaving in his chest. “There’s no gold.”

  “Excuse me?” Jewel looked up from raking through mounds of dirty hay, her fingers pink from cold.

  “Either somebody’s taken it already, or Crazy Pierre’s a liar.” He heaved a ragged sigh of frustration. “Or maybe both.”

  “No, both is impossible.” Jewel set the rake against a gate and offered Wyatt a stiffly dried cloth she’d hung after washing. “If he’s a liar, then there’s no way someone could—”

  “You know what I mean.” Wyatt scowled. “I’m in no mood for parsing verbs now, if you don’t mind.”

  One of the young stable hands paused, feed bucket in hand, and Wyatt glared at him until he scampered out of sight. Then he took the cloth and sponged his dirty face, borrowing a bit of water from the water trough to moisten the cloth and scrub his filthy boots.

  “Well.” Jewel wiped her hands and leaned the rake against the log wall. “It sounds like you’ve made up your mind.” Her breath misted like a fine veil, dissipating slowly.

  “Look. I’m tired of these games.” Wyatt snatched his hat and banged it against his boot to knock off the dirt. “I’ve been digging all day long, two days straight, and nothing.” He slapped the hat back on his head. “Show me the letter now, or I’m calling it quits.”

  “You’ve been digging?” Jewel put her hands on her hips, and her cheeks flushed. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “You haven’t showed me the letter yet!” Wyatt flung out his arms.

  “You should have told me where you thought the gold was, and we could have discussed it together. But you disappeared for five days without telling anybody where you’d gone, and what was I supposed to think?” A flicker of hurt flashed across her face, but she covered it quickly, picking up the rake again and pulling it across the stable floor in staccato strokes.

  “Look.” Wyatt put both hands up, trying not to look at her. Those flushed cheeks and red-and-blue beaded earrings glittering under her dark hair. “I didn’t intend to do any searches without you, all right? It just happened. I was in the right place at the right time, and what was I supposed to do?” A vein in his neck pulsed. “Ride all the way back here to the ranch and ask your permission?”

  “So … it just ‘happened.’” Jewel kept her back turned. “I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work. Have you ever heard of one partner digging without the other?”

  “Jewel. Listen.” Wyatt strode across the stable and grabbed her elbow. “Miss Jewel,” he faltered, reddening and dropping her arm. Horrified at his own boldness. “Ma’am. I apologize.” He ducked his head and scrubbed his dirty forehead with the palm of his hand, trying to gather his words and his sense. “I heard a few things in Cody, and I thought I’d check ’em out. The old Monarch Inn on the Crescent Ranch? Ever heard of it?”

  “No.” Jewel smoothed her sleeve where he’d touched her and continued raking.

  “It had a big chair that locals called the ‘Throne.’ But there’s nothing there. Absolutely nothing.” He looked out over the stable, shaking with exhaustion and frustration. “I wasted my time.”

  “Look here, Mr. Kelly.” Jewel advanced toward him, pointing her finger straight at his chest with such spunk that he involuntarily put his hands up. “You shouldn’t have done anything without telling me first. I think I know where the gold is, and you didn’t bother to ask.”

  “You know?” Wyatt stumbled backward, knocking his hat sideways against a plank.

  “I thought of it after you left, and it makes perfect sense. But you haven’t told me why you went to Cody.”

  He straightened his hat and kept his eyes averted. “On business.”

  “Whose business?”

  “Personal business.”

  “Fine. Don’t tell me.” She folded her arms. “But don’t expect any clues from me either, if you’re not willing to tell me everything, fifty-fifty. You can figure out where the gold is on your own. But I think I know.”

  She turned to walk away, and Wyatt just stood there, hands on his hips. “They’re looking for you, you know,” he called after her. “I thought you’d appreciate it if I told you.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Jewel whirled around.

  “In Cody.” Wyatt dropped his voice and took a step closer. “You know why.”

  Jewel’s face went pale, and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “You told them, didn’t you?” she whispered. “You told them I’m staying here.”

  “I didn’t tell them anything.” Wyatt kicked the mud off his spurs against the hard floor, still angry.

  Jewel blinked as if confused and drew back, nearly dropping the rake. She lunged for it, catching the handle before it clattered to the floor. “You … mean you didn’t tell them I’m here?”

  “Of course I didn’t.” Wyatt tossed the cloth over a wooden gate. “What was I supposed to say? ‘The girl you say killed her husband is working at my uncle’s ranch—come and get her’?”

  “They’d drag me out of my bed.”

  “Doggone right, they would.” Wyatt took a step closer, his hands clenching. “And I’ll be honest. I don’t know what to think of you.” He pointed a shaking finger at her, hoping the ache didn’t show too much in his eyes. “But let’s get one thing straight. You stay away from my uncle, hear me? If anything happens to him, so help me, I’ll call the local sheriff and have you dragged off to the gallows.”

  “I’d never touch your uncle.” Jewel spoke so softly Wyatt could barely hear.

  Wyatt sized her up, arms crossed. A lump swelled in his throat so tightly he had to breathe deeply through his nose.

  “Don’t you think I would have done something already if I’d planned to? I’ve been here more than two years.” Her eyes filled suddenly, and she looked down at the straw-covered floor, kicking at it with a high-buttoned boot. “And I didn’t kill my husband. It’s a lie.”

  Wyatt didn’t answer. He stuck his hands in his pocket and looked away, clenching a muscle in his jaw.

  “You didn’t turn me in.” Jewel raised her head, her expression changed to one of gratitude, almost humility. “That speaks more of your belief in me than anything you can say.”

  “I haven’t said anything,” Wyatt snapped, kicking a bit of straw with his boot. “I just want the truth, and that’s it.”

  Jewel studied him a moment, not speaking. A gust of wind blew snow flurries through an open window in the stable, and she shivered.

  “It’s in the outhouse.”

  “The outhouse? What’s in the outhouse—the truth?” He scrunched up his forehead. “What in the Sam Hill are you talking about?”

  Jewel glared, shushing him fiercely with a finger to her lips. “Crazy Pierre’s outhouse,” she whispered. “I think I’ve figured out the riddle.”

  Wyatt threw his arms up in disgust, ready to turn and stomp away, when the words fell across his memory like snowflakes: “Throne of solitude in the light of the moon.”

  Moon. Crescent. Outhouses sometimes have a crescent moon carved in the door.

  “Of all the …” Wyatt’s face blanched, and he snatched off his hat and whacked a po
st with it, not sure whether to laugh or kick something. Two horses backed and reared in indignation, and Jewel scolded him, rushing to calm the horses.

  “You’re telling me ol’ Crazy Pierre left his gold in a doggone privy?” Wyatt stalked closer.

  “Throne of solitude.” Jewel shrugged with a smile. “I guess they don’t call him crazy for no reason.”

  Wyatt considered this a second, letting out a snort of laughter. “He was eccentric all right. A strange fellow. But there’s no way under the sun I’m digging into somebody’s privy—I don’t care how long he’s been dead.”

  “Not under, over.” Jewel spoke in hushed tones. “The rest of the letter said this: ‘Deux pieds en bas et lèvent les yeux.’ ‘Two feet down, and look up.’ Do you understand?”

  “Exactly. Two feet down. I already told you, I’m not digging up a john. Got it?”

  “No, no, no!” Jewel shook her head furiously. “You’re not listening. Two feet down. You’re thinking measurements. Crazy Pierre was thinking actual feet.” She lifted the hem of her skirt to show her boots. “These.” She pointed. “In an outhouse, you put two feet on the floor.”

  “And then ‘look up.’” Wyatt’s voice dripped wonder. “So … up in the rafters?” He felt his eyebrows nearly touch his hair. “You think it might still be there?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d like to find out.”

  Wyatt faced her, his breath huffing as his mind whirled through the possibilities. Ticking off all the crazy clues one by ridiculous one.

  “The spurs in the wooden box,” he said hoarsely, resting a hand on his forehead. “They had crescent moons.”

  “Like an outhouse door.” Jewel stood so still that Wyatt could see a stray snowflake catch in her hair as it blew through a crack in the log walls—a tiny white sparkle among gleaming black, like a lone star. He felt the sudden urge to reach out and brush it away, but instead he stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets.

  “Let’s go then.” Wyatt reached over the wooden post and patted Samson’s shiny neck.

  “Now?”

  “I’ll tell my uncle you’re indisposed for the evening.” Wyatt straightened his hat. “First one to Pierre’s gets dibs.”

  Jewel’s eyes glowed. “I’ll beat you there.”

  Chapter 7

  Light snow whirled around Wyatt as he scrambled off his horse. He threw a wool blanket over Samson’s back and gathered up his lantern, rifle, and shovels. A brooding sky hung in blue-gray layers over the pines, like translucent paper.

  “Come on.” Wyatt looked over his shoulder, the cold wind nearly blowing his hat off. “I don’t like the way these clouds are rolling in. Looks like a snowstorm.”

  “If the gold is up in the rafters, it shouldn’t take long.” Jewel slid off her sleek Indian pony’s back, her long black hair blowing. She’d tied it back with a simple velvet ribbon; Wyatt was amazed at its length and thickness. The women in Cody would pay big bucks for a wig made of hair like Jewel’s.

  “But do you really think an old outhouse could support the weight of, say, a hundred pounds of gold?” Wyatt finished tying Samson and shouldered his things, forcing his eyes away from Jewel and into the gray distance past Pierre’s house. “And if there’s as much gold as he said, it would weigh a lot more than that.”

  “Depends on the outhouse, I suppose.” Jewel ducked her head into the wind and walked side by side with Wyatt. “The structure and the design.”

  Wyatt shook snowflakes off his glasses and snorted. “If it’s really there, old Pierre was crazier than I give him credit for. Or smarter. Nobody in their right mind would hide gold in a privy—and nobody in their right mind would look for it.”

  They rounded the corner of the old cabin, and the front door creaked in the wind, swinging slightly open. Wyatt hushed, listening for footsteps or voices. “That old place gives me the creeps,” he whispered, moving closer to Jewel. “I guess we are really crazy to do this.”

  “Maybe so.” Jewel set her lips in a determined slant. “But I’m not giving up now—maybe never. I need to find this gold. I have to. It’s more important than you can possibly imagine.”

  Wyatt looked sideways at her, lifting a thick spruce branch for her to walk past. His shovels and rifle clinked together, hollow and metallic.

  “What’s so important?” he asked. “Why do you want the gold so badly?”

  Jewel hesitated a moment, her eyes briefly meeting his. “I need it to start over.” She rubbed her nose, which had reddened in the cold. “Nothing more.”

  “Start over?”

  “You know what they say about me. That I killed my husband. But I didn’t. I give you my word.” Her eyes glittered, but Wyatt couldn’t tell if it was tears or wind that made them fill.

  “Did you have any reason to want to kill him?”

  “Many.” Branches snapped under Jewel’s boots.

  Wyatt drew back in surprise but said nothing. The wind rattled bare tree branches together like skeleton fingers, and Jewel lifted her long skirts to step over a fallen limb.

  “But I didn’t kill him. His death was mysterious, all right—but I didn’t do it. Although I think I’ve figured out who did.”

  “Who?”

  “Someone who wanted the letter.”

  A shiver of cold fear tingled Wyatt’s spine. “But you’ve got the letter. Do you mean somebody might be looking for you now?”

  “Possibly. My husband wasn’t exactly tight-lipped about secrets,” she said, passing the lantern to her other hand and accepting Wyatt’s arm to pass through a thicket of briers. “A little whiskey, a hand or two of cards, and he couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. He spoke about the letter a week before he died, and that same week some men ransacked our house—apparently looking for the letter.”

  “So you think one of them did it?”

  “Of course. It’s pretty obvious to me, but no one would listen.” Jewel shrugged. “His whole clan had always disliked and distrusted me for being Indien d’Arapaho, as if that made me less than human. So when he died, everyone blamed me without a second thought.”

  Wyatt paused and surveyed the forested stretch outside Crazy Pierre’s homestead, scanning the trees for anything resembling an outhouse. His breath fogged and faded like the thin hope of comfort Jewel must have felt back in Idaho among the trappers.

  “Why do you still wear his ring then?”

  She shot him a dark look. “I assure you, Mr. Kelly, that a woman alone in this part of the country is far safer if she wears a ring than if she doesn’t. I’m surprised you didn’t think of that yourself.”

  “Sorry.” Wyatt scratched his neck, ashamed. Until now he’d thought of Jewel mainly in labels: Indian. Female. Hired hand.

  But under it all, she was painfully vulnerable. Just like himself, but perhaps more so.

  “Did … did you love him?” Wyatt asked in a near whisper, barely managing to speak the words. He kept his burning face turned toward the cabin, shivering under his thick leather coat.

  “I beg your pardon?” Jewel twisted around to see him.

  He shouldered his shovels and rifle uncomfortably, and everything clattered together. “I’m sorry.” He felt heat flood his face in racing pulses. “It’s none of my business. Forgive me.”

  Jewel brushed strands of hair from her eyes with her free hand. “Did you ask me if I loved my husband?”

  Of all the fool things for me to say. “I truly apologize.” Wyatt rubbed his face in his calloused palm, eyes scrunched together in embarrassment. “Forget I said anything, will you?”

  “No, I did not love him.” Jewel’s steady gaze caught his. “Ever.”

  Wyatt remained as still as a blue spruce, not daring to speak or even to breathe.

  “He treated me as nothing but property, Mr. Kelly. I was bought, sold. He wasted our money on whiskey and women, and he beat me. Quite severely at times. Once he might have killed me if I hadn’t defended myself with a pitchfork.” She ran her hand over h
er forearm—the one where Wyatt had seen the long scar.

  In a blinding second Wyatt remembered Jewel in Crazy Pierre’s cabin, raising the blunt end of the pistol stock to swing at Kirby Crowder with surprising force and agility. But she did not pull the trigger.

  “Why do you ask?” Her cheeks were red with cold.

  “Huh?” Wyatt turned, too shy to look at her. “Why do I ask what?”

  “If I loved my husband.” Jewel turned her eyes on him, their darkness keen and penetrating.

  Wyatt paused a moment, his chest rising and falling under his coat with his breath. Afraid to speak, to ruin the hush. “Did I ask that?” he stammered, painfully aware of what a short distance separated them. A foot? Six inches? Jewel’s breath misted, dissolving into thin air near his cheek.

  “You did.”

  Wyatt looked down at his boots in reddened humiliation, twisting the lantern handle and trying to come up with a reason that made any sense at all. “I … I have no idea.”

  “No one’s ever asked me that before,” Jewel whispered. “Thank you.”

  Then she reached out boldly and gave his cold hand a gentle squeeze.

  “Over there.” Jewel pointed as they tromped through fallen pine branches and autumn-thin leaves. Snow gathered in white patches in the crooks of tree trunks.

  “What’s over there?” Wyatt had to force his attention away from her, willing the wild hammering of his heart to slow down. Straightening his knocking knees.

  “The outhouse, Mr. Kelly.”

  He could still feel the fleeting warmth of her fingers against his. “Oh, that.” Wyatt swallowed and crossed his arms, trying to feign nonchalance. “You’re right. It sure looks like a privy to me.”

  Jewel strained on tiptoe to see better. Not that she was short. In fact, she came all the way up to Wyatt’s chin—not a mean feat for a girl. The Arapaho were tall and stately, great warriors, and Jewel must have come from hardy stock.