Just West of Heaven

by Maureen Child

  “I don’t mind,” she said, following him across the room. Then perching on the edge of the desk, she asked, “You gonna be at the painting party over at the school tomorrow?”

  “Sure,” he said around a mouthful of stew. “Ain’t everybody?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said, adding, “Pa’s bringing his fiddle.”

  “That’ll be fine,” Tall told her. “Your pa plays a mean tune.”

  “Maybe you’ll dance with me?”

  He looked up at her and blinked. “Well, I, uh—”

  “Is the sheriff here?” a voice from the doorway asked.

  Tall stood up.

  Mercy silently cursed the little telegrapher for his poor timing.

  “No, he ain’t, Clarence,” Tall said. “But I am.”

  The little man shook his head and pushed his thick spectacles higher up on the bridge of his nose. “He told me to bring this wire soon’s I got it in.”

  “Well, give it here then,” Tall said, holding one hand out for it.

  “Nope. He said I should give it straight to him.”

  The deputy glanced at Mercy, then frowned at the man in the doorway. “I’m in charge when Ridge ain’t in town, so you should just give it over, Clarence, and stop tryin’ to...” He searched for a legal-sounding phrase and found it. “Obstruct the law.”

  “I ain’t obstructin’ nothin’,” the little man said and scurried across the floor to slap the wire into Tall’s outstretched hand. Then he left, muttering something about a man trying to do his job and getting nothing but a headache for his trouble.

  Tall smiled at Mercy and said, “I have to read this. Official business.”

  She nodded and settled down to wait. She wasn’t going to leave until she at least got him to promise to dance with her.

  A moment or two later, though, Tall was racing across the floor and grabbing his hat off the peg by the front door. “I got to go, Mercy. I’ll see you later.” He ducked his head and ran out, sprinting toward the train station.

  Left alone in the office, she stood up and kicked the sheriff’s desk. Then disgusted and limping, she headed back to work.

  ●

  “Oh Lordy,” Sophie murmured and her breath brushed Ridge’s shoulder.

  His body still cradled deeply within hers, Ridge felt the magic of the last few moments slowly fade away. Cold, hard realization settled in his chest like an icy stone as he levered himself up onto one elbow and looked down at her.

  Her green eyes mirrored his own sense of uneasiness and he knew without a doubt that whatever was coming wasn’t something he wanted to hear. But damn it, he needed to hear it. Both as a man and as a sheriff.

  She reached up to smooth his hair back from his forehead and he steeled himself against the gentleness of her touch and the warmth still pooled within him. As much as he wanted to just enjoy what he’d found with her, there were too many unanswered questions. Rolling to one side of her, he pulled her close, still needing to feel her against him, despite the misgivings roiling within.

  “What’s goin’ on, Sophie?” he asked.

  She laughed shortly. “I should think that’s fairly obvious.”

  He shook his head and cupped her face in his palm. “You know what I’m talkin’ about,” he said.

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  Was she just trying to brazen it out? Or was she innocent enough to think he wouldn’t notice?

  “Sophie, up until a minute ago, you were a virgin.”

  Color filled her cheeks instantly as she denied it.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

  “I’m not,” he said. “Wish I was.”

  Just as he wished so many things. That she wasn’t lying to him. That he didn’t know she was wanted by the law. That there was a way out of this mess—for both of them.

  “Can’t you just leave this alone?” she asked. “Can’t we just have this moment? This one moment?”

  “Don’t you think I want that too?” he asked, rubbing the pad of his thumb beneath her eye. Hell, he wanted many more moments. But neither of them could have that until he knew the truth.

  “Then stop, Ridge,” she said, grabbing his hand and holding it. “Stop now. While we still can.”

  “And live with secrets?” he asked, shaking his head. “No. I want more than that, Sophie. I want it all. Present, future, and the past. And none of that can happen until you stop lying to me.”

  She pushed herself into a sitting position, batting his hand aside as she grabbed at her chemise. Holding it up in front of her, she looked at him through wide, wounded green eyes.

  All Ridge wanted to do was grab her, hold her tight, and tell her everything would be all right. But he couldn’t. Not until he knew what he was up against. Not until she told him what she was hiding. Not until she trusted him enough to give him more than her body.

  She pushed her hair behind her back and the simple movement distracted him, sending a warning pulse through his body that told him if he wasn’t careful, he’d forget all about answers and just look to bury himself inside her again. Swallowing hard, he said softly, “No more lies, Sophie. Not now. Not anymore.”

  She threw her chemise on, covering the breasts he ached to caress again, then slipped into her petticoat, tying the strings at her waist. Looking at him, she shook her head, sending that lion’s mane of red curls flying about her face.

  “I can’t,” she said simply.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Hell yes, it matters,” he shouted. “Everything about you matters to me. Don’t you see that?”

  She stood up, pulling the edges of her chemise together and holding on for all she was worth. Turning to face the wind, she closed her eyes as the breeze rushed past her, and for one long moment, Ridge just looked at her, knowing he would remember this image of her for the rest of his life. With the blue mountain lupine at her feet and the red wave of her hair flying out behind her and the soft white cotton of her petticoat fluttering in the wind, she looked as far from his life as an angel dropped to earth.

  But, he told himself as he stood up and grabbed her arm, turning her to face him, she was in his life and he didn’t want to lose her now. And God help them both, he would unless he could get her to talk to him. Give him something to work with. Something to do.

  “Sophie, tell me. Tell me what you’re hiding.”

  “I can’t.”

  Still shutting him out. Even after what they’d just shared. Her refusal to trust him hit him harder than he might have expected. Holding on to her upper arms, he pulled her close and she tipped her head back to look up at him.

  “Then I’ll tell you what I already know,” he said. “I know you were a virgin up until about ten minutes ago.”

  She sucked in a breath.

  “And Sophie darlin’, as far as I know, there’s only been one virgin birth and you ain’t it.”

  “Ridge...”

  “So you’re not Jenna’s mother.”

  She shook her head.

  In spite of already knowing he was right, a sinking sensation hit him hard. “Who is she to you?”

  “My sister,” she said and a single tear escaped the corner of her eye to roll along her cheek.

  Sister? Why would she have had to kidnap her own sister? Misery clouded her eyes and his heart twisted in his chest, but he fought against the rush of protectiveness he felt toward her. He had to know it all. “You kidnapped her.”

  She fell back a step. “Kidnapped? Why would you say I kidnapped her?”

  He shoved one hand through his hair and kept his hold on her with the other. “I got a wanted poster on you. There’s a five-hundred-dollar reward out for Sophie Dolan.”

  “Oh God…”

  “Sophie...”

&nbs
p; She yanked free of his grasp and shoved at his chest. He didn’t budge. He wouldn’t let her go. Not now. Not when he was so close to finding out the truth behind that poster. The truth that would either set them free or separate them forever.

  “I didn’t kidnap her,” she said, pushing her hair back from her face with a nervous gesture. “I rescued her. From a man who would have made her life miserable.”

  “Damn it, Sophie.” It was true, then. She was the kidnapper the poster accused her of being. Changing the wording of the act didn’t change the act itself.

  “I’m not sorry,” she snapped, her green eyes blazing. “So arrest me, Sheriff—or so help me, the minute I get back to town, I’ll grab Jenna and run again.”

  CHAPTER Seventeen

  Panic reared up inside him. Instantly, he imagined his life without her. He saw the coming years stretching out in front of him like some vast desert—empty of anything and everything that might have made life worth living. Ridge had spent years living on the outside, and damn it, he was tired of it. He wanted in. He wanted a life. And love. And by God, he wanted it all with Sophie. Hearing her talk of throwing away what he’d only just found made him want to howl in frustration.

  “You’re not goin’ anywhere.” Grabbing hold of her, he yanked her close, loomed over her and staring down into her wide, green eyes. “Understand that, Sophie. No more lies. No more runnin’.”

  She looked up at him and shook her head. “You don’t understand...”

  “Then tell me.”

  “You know all you need to know,” she snapped, pulling free and looking around for her dress. Spotting it in a clump of lupine, she grabbed it up and stepped into it. She pulled it on, shoved her arms into the sleeves, then started buttoning, though her fingers were shaking so badly she made a fine mess of it. She’d only done up half of them when she gave it up with a hiss of disgust. “I’m a criminal, you’re a sheriff, and never the twain shall meet, I believe the phrase is.”

  “Don’t you climb up on that high horse with me now, Red.”

  “I do beg your pardon, Sheriff,” she practically snarled.

  He grabbed up his pants, tugged them on, then stomped into his boots. Damn woman. Thought she could keep quiet now? Thought she could turn into that prissy Easterner again and make him back up and sit down? Well, she had another think comin’. He’d ridden the outlaw trails. He’d been in gunfights. He damn sure wasn’t about to turn tail and run because his woman turned that barbed-wire tongue of hers loose.

  Twisting around to face her, he shoved both hands through his hair, then stabbed the air with his index finger. “You think I’m just gonna step aside and wave you on past?” he asked, swinging one arm wide for emphasis. “You really expect me to say, ‘Well, thanks a bunch, Sophie. Haven’t enjoyed a roll in the hay so much in a long time!’”

  “A roll in the hay?” she repeated, splotches of red dotting her cheeks even as sparks of anger glittered in her eyes. Stepping up close to him, she planted both hands against his chest and shoved him, hard. “That’s what this was to you?”

  “No,” he shouted, then, frustrated beyond belief, lowered his voice and repeated, “No. Aren’t you listenin’? I’m tryin’ to tell you that what just happened was the most amazing thing I’ve ever had in my life and I’m not gonna let you walk away from it. From us.”

  “There is no us,” she whispered. A sheen of tears swam in her eyes and an invisible hand squeezed Ridge’s heart until he thought he might howl with the pain of it.

  “Tell me, Sophie,” he said instead. “Tell me the rest of what you’re trying so hard to hide. Trust me.”

  She slumped against him and his heart broke for her. Damn, it was a hard thing, to see a strong woman look beaten.

  “What is it you need to hear?” she asked, resting her forehead against his chest.

  “Jenna,” he said. “She knows things. Things she shouldn’t have any way of knowing.”

  Sophie was silent. Too silent. Pulling back, he tipped her chin up and he looked at her, not surprised in the least to see that stubborn expression he’d become so used to seeing on her face.

  His tone gentled in response to that stubbornness. He knew it was hard for her. Hell, he felt as though he’d been kicked in the stomach. How much worse would it be for her to realize that her masquerade was falling apart? “Toby claims the Indians would say Jenna’s been touched by the spirits.”

  Now she did surprise him by flashing a small, brief smile. “Touched by the spirits,” she echoed, her voice soft and wistful. “What a lovely way to put it. And how very different from what I’m accustomed to hearing.”

  Ridge nodded. “So she does have the ‘sight.’”

  “Yes,” Sophie said and stepped back from him, wrapping her arms around herself and holding on tight.

  “Thought so,” he said softly, remembering the times Jenna had looked at him and he’d felt that tiny touch inside his mind. Shaking his head, he choked out a laugh and added, “Thought I was going crazy the first time I felt her inside my head.”

  “What?”

  “Jenna,” he said, and wondered why she looked so surprised. “She slips into my head. I can feel her there. Even shut her out once. She looked mighty upset about it too.”

  Sophie lifted one hand to cover her mouth. “I didn’t know she’d done that to anyone but me. Oh God.”

  “What about you?” he asked, reminding her, “The day of the rattler... you ran into the schoolhouse just a heartbeat behind Jenna’s scream for help. You couldn’t have heard her and reached her in time.”

  She reached up and rubbed the spot between her eyes. “I—”

  “You have it too.”

  “Not like Jenna,” she said quickly, and it was as if now that he’d finally gotten her to talk about it, the words couldn’t tumble from her fast enough. “The women in my family have been blessed”—and she said the word so sarcastically he winced in sympathy—”for generations.” Rubbing her hands up and down her arms, she continued. “We see bits and pieces of the future. Never the whole. Just snatches, images. Although my mother’s gift was stronger and Jenna seems to have far more power than I ever had.”

  “This is hard to take in,” Ridge admitted, not sure if he was comfortable knowing that Sophie could see more than he could.

  “It always is,” she snapped, and frustrated with the wind tossing her hair, she grabbed the mass and began to braid it with nervous hands.

  “You know,” he pointed out, “you’ve had your whole life to get used to this. I’ve had about two minutes.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” she said with a forced laugh that sounded like it scraped along her throat. “Do you think you’re the first person to look at me as though I’m crazy?”

  “I’m not—” he argued, defending himself.

  “Of course you are,” she said quickly, waving one hand at him. “You’re staring at me and wondering right now if I can read your mind—I can’t—and you’re wondering what I can see about you or the future or—It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Shaking her head, she tossed the thick braid behind her back and started pacing. “I’ve been called names, I’ve had people cross the street to avoid me. I even had to smile when the man I thought loved me ran away because I’d saved his life with a vision.”

  One word in that last sentence stopped him cold. “Man? What man?”

  “He isn’t important,” Sophie said. “What is important is that I’ve spent most of my life trying to smother the visions that jump into my mind. I don’t want these images. I want to be normal.”

  “So that’s why you became a kidnapper?” he asked shortly. “So you could have a normal life?”

  “No,” she snapped at him. “So Jenna could have a normal life.”

  “Explain.” It was an order. He needed to hear her explanation even if it wouldn’t change a damn thing about
the situation.

  She did, talking quickly, her quick steps matching the rhythm of her words, and as she talked, Ridge listened, silently scrambling for a way out of the mess they found themselves in.

  “So,” she finished, scrubbing her hands across her face, “somehow Charles convinced my mother to name him Jenna’s guardian just before she died.”

  “And?” he prompted.

  “And he told me what he’d planned for her. He wants her to help him in his investments. To build a fortune. He’d keep her locked away in a room, bringing her out only to use her.” She shivered and added quietly, “I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  Sophie wanted to believe him. More than anything, she wanted to be able to trust Ridge Hawkins. But the simple fact was he represented the very law that would snatch Jenna from her in an instant. It had felt so good to finally talk to someone. To tell him the truth, to tell him who she was and why she was here in Tanglewood.

  But now that she had, what would happen? Oh, she didn’t doubt that he felt something for her. But was it enough? Would he choose her and Jenna’s safety over the law? Or would his own sense of right and wrong force him to arrest her and send Jenna back to Charles?

  Just the thought of that made her want to hike up the hem of her dress and start running. Briefly, she considered jumping onto his horse and riding off across the meadow and back down the mountain. Then she could grab Jenna and get out of town. Before he could stop her. Before he could lock her up and ruin Jenna’s life.

  A short, humorless laugh bubbled inside her chest. To do any of that would require her actually being able to mount the big animal. And without Ridge’s help, she’d never be able to accomplish it. She lifted one hand to her mouth and absently chewed on her thumbnail as she considered and discarded other options. She could try to take his gun away from him. No, she’d never be able to do it. Besides which, she didn’t have the slightest notion how to fire the blasted thing. She could hit him over the head and make a run for it. But she didn’t want to hurt him. She could wail and weep and throw herself on his mercy.