Someday I want to sail across the ocean. Maybe to Australia…someplace new and far away.
His throat had hummed against her temple. You’re flat-out crazy. Oregon is far enough for me.
Was she still that daring girl? Abbie didn’t think so. She had become practical and wise. Glancing up from the stream, she made her voice firm. “If I agree to this arrangement, we need a few rules.”
“Of course,” John said. “I have a few requirements of my own. Let’s have some of Beth’s pie while we talk.”
They turned in unison and sat beneath the oak. After dropping to her knees, Abbie sliced the pie and handed him a wedge. She took one for herself but set it aside. She didn’t want to talk about marriage with the taste of apples on her tongue. “First of all, I need to move out of the parsonage. Now that you’re well, I shouldn’t be living under your roof.”
John swallowed the bite of pie and shook his head. “It’s only for another week or two. As soon as Silas gets here, you and the kids can head home.”
Abbie shook her head. “But if we’re married, I won’t have to leave. I’ll ask Maggie to send my father a wire canceling the trip. We can stay all summer.”
John set down the plate, leaving the wedge of pie half eaten. “That’s not part of the plan. We’re doing this so you can go home as soon as possible.”
“That’s your plan. I’m staying for the sake of my children, especially Susanna. She needs to know you.”
“Staying here just isn’t wise,” he insisted. “One look at the two of us and the whole town will know she’s mine. The less she has to do with me, the better.”
Abbie’s spine went rigid. Shame had no place in her daughter’s life and neither did John’s reluctance. “I know you have a reputation, but I don’t care what people think. Are you embarrassed to claim her?”
“Hell, no. I owned up to my past a long time ago. No one’s going to be surprised I have a child.”
“Then why not be straightforward? Susanna deserves that respect.”
John’s eyes hardened, but Abbie knew his heart wasn’t dead to his daughter. She had seen tenderness in his gaze as he’d looked at the photographs. Even now, she sensed a love for Susanna behind his cold exterior. She could see emotion in his eyes—deep ones she didn’t understand. As much as she wanted to break through his shell, she waited until he found words of his own.
“It’s not a question of respect,” he finally said. “It’s a matter of her safety and yours.”
Abbie lifted his plate and set it in the hamper. The stickiness of the pie clung to her fingertips, reminding her of Beth’s comments about Bitterroot. After closing the lid, she said, “Why are you so afraid for us?”
His gaze honed to her eyes, then he pushed to his feet and ambled down to the creek. Bending low, he snatched up a rock and side-armed it deep into the meadow where it cracked into a tree. The sound matched the slap of Robert’s hand on her cheek. Inwardly she flinched, but she couldn’t take her eyes off John. In his black coat he looked like a lightning-scarred pine, charred on the outside but smoldering in places she couldn’t see. She knew all about burns—the more tender the skin, the deeper the scar. Rising to her feet, she walked to his side. “You have good aim.”
Disgust tightened his jaw. “Ben Gantry would agree with you. I killed his three sons. They were children, Abbie. Not much older than Robbie, and I shot them dead.”
“Oh, my God.”
“I know,” he said. “It’s horrible. I wish to God I’d been the one to die.”
Sick to her stomach, she touched his sleeve. What did a woman say to such a confession? She didn’t know, but she understood that he needed to talk. She also needed the facts to gauge their effect on their daughter. “Tell me everything.”
John stared across the meadow. “Back then, I sold my gun to anyone. Sir Alfred Walker was a rich English thug who wanted to scare off a bunch of sheep farmers. Ben Gantry was their leader, so I focused on him—and the people he loved.”
John raised his hand to the pocket with his cigarettes but then lowered it without taking one. A hawk circled overhead while the stream rippled with music that didn’t match the mood. Abbie felt a pain so deep she couldn’t speak. Robert had brutalized her terribly, but he had never touched the children. If he had, she would have shot him dead in his sleep. She couldn’t bring herself to think about Ben Gantry’s suffering. After hooking her arm around John’s elbow, she rested her cheek against his biceps. He was a new man, and she wanted him to know that the past didn’t matter—at least to her.
Unflinching, he stared across the meadow. “I knew Ben had gone to town and left the boys alone, so I asked Walker’s son to come along for a little fun. Pete was younger than me, and he thought I walked on water. What a damned fool.”
Abbie glanced up just as John raised his face to the sky and peered through the branches. The shade dappled his face with bars, filling her with an ache as she squeezed his arm tighter.
“Pete and I stood behind a tree a lot like this one,” he said. “Every time one of the kids opened the door, we fired. The plan was to scare them, but the oldest one snuck out a window and came up behind us with a Sharps rifle.”
Not knowing what to say, Abbie reached around his waist. The heat of the sun had soaked into his black coat, making it hot against her hand. As if her touch were even hotter, John broke from her grasp, picked up another rock and hurled it at the same tree. It struck dead-on. “I could have fired an inch above his head and scared the devil out of him. Hell, I could have shot off his ear. Instead I aimed for his chest.”
Tears pushed into Abbie’s eyes. They were for the boy who’d tried to be a hero, Ben Gantry who had come home to the blood of his sons and John who had to live with himself.
Turning away from the creek, he looked straight at her. “Do you want to hear the rest?”
“I’d spare you the misery, but I need to know for Susanna’s sake.”
“And for yourself, too,” he said quietly. “I spilled my guts to God and Silas a long time ago, but you need to know who you’re marrying. I’m a child-killer, Abbie. The murdering didn’t end with Gantry’s oldest boy. The other two charged out the door to help their brother. One had a pistol he could barely lift and the other had a shotgun. I shouted for Pete to stay behind the tree, but he yelled something stupid and the kid with the pistol fired at him. The bullet went through his shoulder and knocked him flat. The boys were both charging at him and firing, so I shot back. One bullet each and it was over.”
How did a father survive the murder of his three sons? Abbie bit her lip, but she couldn’t stifle a gasp of horror.
“Yeah, I know,” John said bitterly. “I was a real son of a bitch.”
“Now I know why you went to prison.”
He nodded. “I should have hanged, but Pete’s wound saved my life. We lied and said they fired first, and that all the shooting was in self-defense. No one believed us, but the judge took a bribe to lessen the charge. Pete and I both got out of prison three years later.”
Had that sentence been an injustice to the Gantry boys, or was it mercy for a man who had changed? Mercy, she supposed, though she doubted Gantry would agree. “What did Ben do after you got out?”
“He swore to kill us both. Pete got caught in a blizzard and froze to death. After prison, I lived with Silas for a while. I wrote a letter to Ben telling him I wished I’d died in the place of his sons, but I never mailed it. It’s still in the back of my Bible.”
“Do you think about sending it?”
“Every day, but I waited too long. If Gantry’s gone on with life, it would stir up the pain.”
Abbie touched his sleeve. “And if he hasn’t?”
“He’d want revenge.”
He said it with such authority that Abbie knew he had more secrets. She wanted to ask, but this wasn’t the time. She needed to focus on the danger to Susanna. “If Gantry hasn’t come after you since you left prison, why do you think he’ll do it n
ow?”
John reached into his pocket for another cigarette. She watched as he took a drag and blew the smoke sideways, away from her nose. “As the saying goes, ‘An eye for an eye.’ If he hears about Susanna, he’ll want revenge and he’ll have a means for it. She’s in danger, Abbie. I feel it in my bones.”
In spite of the heat, Abbie shivered. “I feel it, too.”
“That’s why you and the kids have to leave.”
With a sad clarity, Abbie understood why John didn’t want a wife and children. His love would put them at risk and so he’d chosen loneliness. “You’re afraid for us,” she said.
“Damn right I am. I don’t want to have to kill Gantry to protect you, but I’d do it. He can have me. I’d throw my guns at his feet and beg forgiveness, but he can’t have you or Susanna.”
Abbie flashed on John holding his gun on Ed at Sally’s boardinghouse. No wonder he’d been so calm—he had no fear of death, only a fear of living. Her heart ached for him. He wasn’t the same man who had murdered Gantry’s sons and she wanted him to know it. She laced her hands behind her back. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Beth tells me you’re the best preacher she’s ever heard. She says you tell people the truth without rubbing their noses in their mistakes.”
He shrugged. “That’s my job.”
“It’s more than that. You’ve lived this life—both the ugliness and the kindness. Deep down you know how we all feel—even Ben Gantry. I don’t know if he can forgive you, but you’re not the same man who committed that crime.”
John waved off her words as if he’d heard them a hundred times. “I know all about God’s mercy. I’m alive because of it, but I’m still a child-killer. I figure it’s the worst thing a man can do.”
Was it worse than a husband beating his wife? Worse than massacring women and children of any color or letting orphans starve? Or enslaving a race of people? Abbie didn’t think so. Violence and pain riddled the human landscape. If meanness was the curse, love was the cure.
Knowing that kindness would make John rebel, she said, “Yep. You’re a real bastard.”
The cussword startled him, but he composed himself. “That’s right. I’m a lying, thieving, cheating son of a bitch.”
Abbie raised one eyebrow. “Don’t forget your bad language. I’ve heard you cuss.”
John’s gaze narrowed on her face. “What else do you know about me?”
“Only that you’re not the evil so-and-so you’re pretending to be.” She touched his sleeve. “Do you know what courage it takes to face the past? You’re a good man, John. I want Susanna to know you.”
He shook his head. “The past won’t disappear.”
“That’s why we have to stay for the summer. She knows about the past because of Robert’s file. You can let her think the worst or you can show her your best.”
When he hung his head, Abbie knelt in front of him and tipped her face up to his. His dark eyes glowed like banked coals. She smelled tobacco smoke on him, but he needed to know that he wasn’t repulsive to her so she raised her hand and cupped his jaw. The bristles of his beard tickled her palm. Did she dare kiss his cheek? She imagined the roughness of his skin against her lips and felt a stirring in her belly, soft like a butterfly wing. Closing her eyes, she rose up on her knees and kissed the tender spot in front of his ear.
Air whooshed from his lungs. “Abbie, don’t.”
But he was stroking her hair and breathing in the scent of her skin. As she pressed her cheek against his, she felt traces of stubble scraping her skin. Robert had worn a beard. John’s skin felt wonderfully new. Feeling brave and wanting him to know she cared, she kissed the smooth skin again, staying close until he sought her mouth with a searching need of his own.
As if she were seventeen, Abbie parted her lips, offering tenderness in place of the sorrow. This kiss was a gift to him—a rose plucked from the garden of her heart. Aching to enjoy the bloom before it withered, she etched the caress into her memory. Someday she’d pluck a rose and remember the softness of John’s lips. She’d feel the sun on her back and recall the hot wool of his coat against her palm. Wanting more, she cupped the back of his head and ran her hand along his scalp. Never again would she look at a raven and not think of John’s feathery hair falling through her fingers.
As she massaged the back of his head, he brushed her lips with his tongue, asking her to let him inside. Abbie knew it was risky. Deepening the kiss could set off the panic. But how could she say no? He needed tenderness and she wanted to give it. The seeds in her belly wanted to bloom and he was the sun.
When she parted her lips, his tongue found hers, daring her to give him more. She tasted apples, but then her lips started to burn with the traces of the nicotine. Her body stiffened with hate—not for John but for the taste of him and the memories of Robert’s abuse. Desperate to escape the smokiness, she opened her eyes. Her gaze landed on the white scar near his ear and she flashed on Ed and the knife. John had protected her with his life. How could she not trust him to be good to her?
Fighting the instinct to push him away, she squeezed her eyes shut and kissed him harder, but his hair smelled like smoke and so did his coat. She could feel him stroking her back, pulling her closer, as if he were memorizing every curve. The caress was hungry yet tender, but dread made her tremble. If the panic struck… She couldn’t bear to think about it, so she got angry.
Damn! Damn! Damn!
Choking back a curse, Abbie pulled out of his grasp. She couldn’t be mad at John—she’d kissed him first. She had no one to blame but herself. Pushing to her feet, she pressed her hands to her cheeks. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t realize—”
John’s face had turned to stone. “I did. You should add ‘lustful’ to that list of my fine qualities.”
But he was lying. She had tasted love in his kiss and he’d held her so close because he needed her. Abbie bit her lip. “You’re being too hard on yourself. I started it.”
“But I finished it. It won’t happen again.”
John stood and hooked his hands in his pockets so that his coat pulled away from his chest. As stiff as a pine, he looked at her. “My offer stands, but only if you move out of the parsonage. I’ll rent a house for you and Beth.”
Abbie’s heart broke at the thought of John going back to his lonely life, but it was best for everyone. “I accept, but we’re staying in Midas until I feel it’s time to leave.”
When John blew out a breath and looked downstream, Abbie followed his gaze to a pool that glistened with the brilliance of a mirror. The glare blinded them both and they turned to each other at the same time. John frowned at her. “I don’t like it, but I’ll respect your decision. There’s a local train to Raton on Thursday. We need to be on it.”
Abbie nodded. She’d have to time to buy a suitable dress. “We’ll need to explain the trip to Beth and Robbie.”
“That’s not a problem,” John replied. “We’re going on legal business concerning your husband’s estate.”
And that, Abbie realized, was sadly true.
Susanna liked riding on top of the stagecoach a lot better than sitting inside. The seating change had come about on the second day of the trip to Cheyenne. Mrs. Garlic Breath had turned out to be a nonstop talker, and Susanna had changed her mind about sitting in the stuffy coach.
After she and Silas settled among the trunks and mail-bags, the driver cracked the whip. For the next several miles, she reveled at the wind in her face. She loved the vastness of the West, the open grasslands, the blue sky and the rolling hills. If she squinted, she could see silver water in the Powder River. Overhead, a huge bird with brown wings was circling above a clump of trees. Susanna pointed to the sky. “What kind of bird is that?”
“A golden eagle,” he replied. “The last time I saw one of those was the day I met your daddy. He was kicking against the shackles and cussing at the guards.”
Silas
’s description matched the Pinkerton’s report in her satchel. This was the man she’d been expecting. “That was in prison, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.” Silas shifted his gaze from the bird to her face. “I got locked up for rustling cattle, a crime I didn’t commit. Things were different for your daddy. Do you know why he went to prison?”
Susanna felt her heart rise into her throat. “He killed three boys.”
“Yes, he did. He should have hanged, but instead he went to Laramie and the guard tossed him in with me.” Silas chuckled softly. “He hated my guts on sight.”
“Because of your color?” Susanna stiffened with outrage. She had grown up in Robert E. Lee’s backyard, but her mother had taught her that all men and all women were created equal.
Silas shook his head. “That wasn’t it at all. What irked your daddy was my Bible reading. He didn’t want to hear it.”
Susanna almost felt sorry for John Leaf. She knew how it felt to be stuck in Sunday school on a sunny day. Wrinkling her nose, she said, “Miss Pickett used to read out loud for a solid hour. It was really boring.”
“Lord, child, I’m not a thing like Miss Pickett,” Silas replied. “I started with the Gospel of John and then switched to the Revelation. Your daddy wouldn’t say so, but he liked the parts about the four horsemen and the angels coming down with fire.”
Susanna’s skin prickled with understanding. Most girls didn’t like stories about warrior angels, but she did. Sometimes she imagined she was one of them. As it rattled down a hill, the stagecoach picked up speed. She had to brace against a trunk to keep from sliding backward, just as she had to hold herself back from wondering what else she had in common with John Leaf. Had he read Huckleberry Finn? Did he think poetry was silly?
As the stage leaned into a curve, she realized she didn’t know John Leaf at all. Maybe he was a rancher now or perhaps he owned a store. Susanna’s stomach started to churn. He could be married with other children.
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