Only Mine o-2

by Elizabeth Lowell

  «If you can handle stock half as well as you handle that bullwhip, Cal will think he’s died and gone to heaven,» Wolfe said as Jessica turned the horse toward the livery stable. «He’s got Indians and a freed slave riding herd for him when they feel like it, and Reno helps out when he’s not haring after gold, but Cal is always short-handed. Come spring calving, you’ll look as golden as your hair.»

  «Reno?» Rafe looked up from the whip he had been absently wiping clean and coiling. «Isn’t that the third man who knows the SanJuans like the back of his hand? You and Caleb being the other two, so I’m told.»

  «Reno knows the country better than I do. He’s uncanny about land. But I suspect you know Reno better by another name,» Wolfe said, amusement clear in his voice.

  «Do I?» drawledRafe.

  «Matthew Moran,» Wolfe said succinctly.

  Relief went visibly throughRafe. «Matt? He’s all right then? The last letter I got from him, he sounded like he had his tail in a real tight crack.»

  «Reno’s doing fine now, except he’s a damn fool for gold.»

  «Just like I’m a damn fool for distant horizons.»Rafe grinned. «The Moran men don’t housebreak worth a bucket of —» He stopped abruptly, remembering Jessica’s presence. «Er, spit.»

  Wolfe smiled slightly. «No man does, until he finds a woman like Willow.»

  The buggy whip hissed and snapped well above the wagon horse’s brown flank.Rafe’s gray glance touched Jessica appreciatively.

  «Or like your wife,» Rafe said. «You handle those reins very well, ma’am.»

  Wolfe’s eyes narrowed and all softness vanished from his expression.Rafe felt the tension snaking through the man who sat beside him on the narrow wagon seat.

  «The thing about a wanderer like me,» Rafe continued matter-of-factly, giving Wolfe a level look, «is that I can appreciate beautiful things without wanting to possess them. Possessions tie a man down. And nothing, no matter how rare or beautiful, will ever be as grand to me as the sunrise I haven’t seen.»

  With a visible effort, Wolfe brought his anger under control. He knew it was unreasonable to respond so fiercely toRafe’s simple appreciation of Jessica. Yet there it was, reasonable or not, and there it would remain until Jessica came to her senses and sought an annulment, freeing both of them from an impossible situation.

  But until that moment, Wolfe fought to maintain a self-control that became more difficult every night, every day, every hour spent in the company of a girl he couldn’t have, would never take, and wanted until he lived on the breaking edge of rage at having to be so close to what must be forever beyond his reach.

  «You’re very kind,» Jessica said quickly toRafe, for she, too, had sensed Wolfe’s anger. «But no one can equal thepara — er, Willow. I have a great deal of work ahead of me just to be an adequate Western wife.»

  Rafefrowned. «You’re rather delicately made for that kind of hardship.»

  «You and my husband have something in common. You both equate strength with muscles.»

  «For good reason,» Wolfe muttered.

  «For bad reason,» Jessica retorted. «Flowers are soft, frail, and, therefore, weak in your masculine estimation. Yet I will tell both of you fine, strong men something — the same storm that brings down a mighty oak does little more than wash the delicate faces of the violets living at the oak’s foot.»

  Rafelooked away quickly, trying to conceal his amusement at Jessica’s quickness. It was impossible. He gave Wolfe a rueful look and shook his head, laughing softly.

  «She’s got us, Wolfe.»

  Wolfe grunted and looked around the muddy street one last time. No one was in sight. Wolfe hoped it would stay that way.

  «I take it you’re going to see Willow?» Wolfe asked, turning his attention back to the big blond man who was watching him with a masculine sympathy that was laced with equally masculine amusement.

  «I’m really looking for Matt, but I kept hearing about a Virginia lady who came out here last year with five fine Arabian horses. She was searching for her ‘husband, ’ Matthew Moran.»Rafe shrugged. «I figured it had to be Willy. She’s the only girl I know with gumption enough to set out across wild country alone, just to find a brother she hadn’t seen in years.»

  Wolfe’s face softened into a half-smile. «That’s Willow. They broke the mold when they made her.»

  Rafenoticed both the affection in Wolfe’s voice and the shadow that drew Jessica’s face into unhappy lines. He lifted his hat, smoothed his bright hair with his hand, settled his hat once more with a jerk, and wondered if Caleb Black was a jealous sort of man.

  «Sounds like you know Willow real well,» Rafe said to Wolfe after a moment.

  «Well enough.»

  «And Cal?»

  Belatedly, Wolfe caught the drift ofRafe’s thoughts. He smiled thinly.

  «Cal is the best friend I have. He’s as big as you are, he has as much give in him as a granite cliff, he’s greased lightning with his belt gun, and he loves Willow the way I never expected to see a man love anything, especially a man as hard as Caleb Black.»

  Rafe’seyebrow climbed. «How does Willow feel about it?»

  «The same way Cal does, a love you can touch. Seeing them together makes you believe that God did indeed know what He was doing when He created man and woman and gave them the earth for their children.»

  Jessica heard both the certainty and the subtle yearning in Wolfe’s voice. She didn’t know whether to weep or scream at the fresh evidence of Wolfe’s deep admiration for his best friend’s wife.

  Wolfe didn’t notice Jessica’s taut, unsmiling mouth. His full attention was onRafe, who was thinking over all that Wolfe had said, and what he had not said, as well. Finally, Rafe sighed and shifted his weight, making the seat spring complain.

  «Glad to hear that,» Rafe said. «Willy was such a soft little thing. I was always afraid life was going to chew her up and spit her out in little pieces.»

  «Chew up a paragon?» Jessica said tightly as she pulled the horse to a halt in front of the livery stable. «I doubt that, Rafael. Life would choke to death on Willow’s perfection. Dead life is a paradox to make the head ache. Not to mention the stomach.»

  At the last word, Jessica jammed the wagon whip back into its holder. When she looked up, Wolfe was watching her with veiled interest, measuring her anger. Abruptly, she knew she was simply sharpening a weapon he would turn on her at every opportunity. Yet even knowing that, she could neither stop the words nor diminish the deadly sweetness of her voice when she spoke.

  «Would it be possible to stop singing the paragon’s praises long enough to get on the trail?» Jessica asked. «We’re making the townspeople nervous.»

  «THAT’S the damnedest rig I ever saw,» Rafe said, reining his horse alongside Jessica’s, «and I’ve seen a few odd things in my wandering life.»

  Despite the bone-deep tiredness that gnawed at Jessica, she straightened in the sidesaddle and focused onRafe, grateful to have something to take her mind off the wind.

  Huge mountains rose all around the riders, their peaks invisible beneath a seething lid ofslatecolored clouds. Climbing up in elevation was like riding back into winter. Wind took snow from the clouds and churned it into billowing veils of white. Wind pried at the snow on the ground, lifting particles of ice and turning them into a stinging, invisible rasp that scoured unprotected skin.

  But most of all, the wind keened and moaned, prying at Jessica’s self-control to get to the nightmares beneath.

  «Don’t they have sidesaddles in Australia?» she asked quickly, unable to bear either the wind or her own thoughts.

  «I didn’t see any, but I didn’t see more than a handful of white women, either.»Rafe glanced sideways at her. «Is it as uncomfortable as it looks?»

  With gritted teeth and a stifled moan, Jessica shifted her weight, trying to settle the voluminous skirts of her riding habit more comfortably around the sidesaddle’s off-center horn.

  «On a gaite
d horse, over level country, for a few hours at a time, it’s quite comfortable.»

  «But old Two-Spot’s only ‘gait’ is a trot that would shake the change out of a man’s pocket,» Rafe finished for Jessica, «we’ve been riding sixteen hours a day for three days, and you look so worn I’d swear the sun would shine right through you.»

  The wind flexed, twisted, and howled down from the pass ahead, carrying the icy promise of more snow.

  «I don’t think the presence of sunlight is going to be a problem,» Jessica said, smiling briefly.

  «All the same, when Wolfe comes back from scouting ahead, I’ll suggest that we make camp early tonight.»

  «No.» The naked command in her own voice made Jessica wince. «I don’t want to be the cause of any delay,» she added more gently. «I’m stronger than I look. Truly.»

  «I know.»

  She gaveRafe a sideways look of disbelief.

  «I mean it,» he said. «I wouldn’t have bet you could get through the first day, much less the last two. But if you don’t get more rest, you’ll have to be tied to that damn fool saddle by this time tomorrow.»

  «Then that’s just what Wolfe will do. We have to get over the Great Divide before a real storm comes.»

  Rafe’smouth flattened beneath the light bronze beard stubble. He knew what was driving Wolfe. They had cut sign of other men headed for the pass over the Great Divide. In the last six hours, they had skirted areas where groups of men had camped in anticipation of the coming storm. The closer they came to the pass, the more likely it became that they would stumble over other men.

  «Gold fever,» Rafe muttered. «Worse than cholera.»

  «I doubt it. I’ve seen cholera go through a village like a scythe through a field of grain, leaving nothing standing, no adult living to bury the dead, and only a handful of children left alive to mourn.»

  He stared at Jessica, surprised again. «You were one of them?»

  She nodded. «I was nine.»

  «Sweet Jesus,» he muttered. «How did you survive?»

  Jessica smiled wearily. «I keep telling you. I’m not as fragile as I look.»

  «I hope not,» Rafe said bluntly, «or you won’t make it over the pass. These mountains are as rough as the ones I saw in South America, and a damn sight worse than anything Australia had to offer.»

  «Yet these mountains fascinate you.»

  Rafehesitated, surprised by Jessica’s insight. «I hadn’t thought of it that way, but you’re right. Of all the mountains I’ve seen, these are different. Taller than God and meaner than the Devil, yet there’s a beauty in the basins and long valleys…»

  He made a soft, puzzled sound. «It makes me feel like somewhere ahead there’s a cabin I’ve never seen, a woman I’ve never known, and both of them are waiting for me, filled with warmth.»

  «You’re a good man, Rafael Moran,» Jessica said, her voice husky with bittersweet emotion. «I hope you find them.»

  Rafelooked at Jessica with eyes that were the same color as the clouds. The sadness in her was almost tangible, as great as the weariness that made her lips pale and drawn.

  A flicker of motion from the trail ahead distractedRafe. Even as his hand wrapped around the butt of the shotgun he carried, the burnt toast color of the big mare Wolfe had bought in Canyon City condensed out of the black and white of the landscape.

  «Wolfe’s coming,» Rafe said, easing his shotgun back into its saddle scabbard.

  Jessica nodded and fell back into the semi-daze that gripped her whenever she let down her guard.

  Silently, Rafe decided to suggest an early camp if Wolfe didn’t suggest it first. But when Wolfe rode up, he had an almost tangible aura of alertness around him. Even before he spoke, Rafe sensed that there would be no early camp.

  «It’s snowing in the pass,» Wolfe said tersely. «If we don’t get through now, we’ll have to make camp until the pass opens again. It could be a week or more. Even if we went without fire, it would be dangerous.»

  «A cold camp?» Rafe asked. «Are there more men ahead?»

  Wolfe nodded curtly.

  «Did they see you?»

  «No.» Wolfe reached into his saddle bag and withdrew a box of cartridges. «Cut to the right after you cross the stream, skirt the base of the ridge, and wait for me in the forest on the other side.»

  Without warning, he snapped the box of cartridges inRafe’s direction. When the other man caught it with a motion of his hand that was so swift that it blurred, Wolfe smiled.

  «You’re Reno’s brother, all right. Fastest hands I ever saw, except maybe Cal’s.» Wolfe’s smile faded. «How are you with a long gun?»

  «Better than some and a damn sight worse than you.»

  «Take Jessica’s carbine. Ride with it across your saddle.»

  Rafeleaned over, lifted the carbine from Jessica’s saddle scabbard, and checked over the gun with the easy, economical motions of a man doing a familiar task.

  «What about you?» Rafe asked without looking up.

  «There’s a knoll about a thousand feet from their camp. I can watch them and you at the same time. If they start moving, I’ll start shooting. Some of them are bound to get past, though. No way I’ll get all nine before they get to cover.»

  A blond eyebrow climbed asRafe realized that Wolfe was prepared to kill the men from ambush, if need be.

  «You know those boys?» Rafe asked.

  «I had words with some of them at a stage stop.»

  Jessica’s breath came in audibly.

  Rafelooked at her, then at Wolfe. «I see. In that case, I’ll be happy to pick off the stragglers.»

  Wolfe smiled thinly. «If anyone gets past me, watch out for a man with a brown, drooping mustache. He’s wearing a gray cavalry cape and riding a black Tennessee walking horse with three white socks. He has a hideout gun behind his belt buckle, but I wouldn’t recommend letting him get close enough to use it.»

  «Friend of yours?» Rafe asked dryly.

  «Never met the man. Cal killed his twin brother, Reno got the kid brother, and I got a couple of cousins, along with some other gang members.»

  «Claim jumpers?» Rafe asked.

  «They had it in mind. But first they took Willow. It was the last mistake those boys ever made.»

  Rafe’seyes narrowed.

  «Don’t give Jericho Slater an even break,» Wolfe continued. «ThoseSlaters makeQuantril’s Raiders look like altar boys. If he finds out you’re Reno’s brother, he’ll kill you any way he can.»

  «I’m an obliging sort of man,» Rafe said calmly. «If a man comes to me with dying on his mind, I do my best to help him out.»

  The corner of Wolfe’s mouth lifted. «I’ll just bet you do. Give me fifteen minutes to get in position. And watch for patches of ice ahead.»

  As he turned his horse, Jessica said urgently, «Wolfe.»

  He reined in and looked over his shoulder.

  «I…» Her voice died. She made an uncertain gesture with her hand. «Be careful.»

  He nodded, lifted the reins again, and sent his horse ahead on the trail at a ground-eating trot.

  Fifteen minutes later, Jessica andRafe followed. She rode tensely in the saddle, straining to hear rifle shots. All she heard was the empty, icy howl of the wind. It plucked at her already overstretched nerves until she felt as though she must scream just to shut out the wind’s endless keening.

  The minutes passed as though stretched upon a tanning rack. Jessica almost welcomed Two-Spot’s bone-shaking trot simply as a distraction.Rafe didn’t speak. Nor did she try to speak to him.

  The ridge they skirted was overgrown with a combination of spruce and fir. The trees were a green so dark it looked black. Slender, whitebarked aspen grew along ravines. Not even a hint of green edged the aspens’ graceful, ghostly branches, for spring hadn’t yet come to the high country.

  In the rare pauses in the wind, the horses’ breath came out in silvery plumes. The animals were working hard and the land was rising relentlessly bene
ath their feet. Patches of ice gleamed sullenly beneath the recent snow, making the footing tricky.

  WhenRafe and Jessica rounded the ridge and crossed a small clearing to the forest beyond, Wolfe was waiting for them. Jessica’s heart lifted as she looked at Wolfe’s dark face and easy masculine power. The renewed realization of just how handsome her husband was broke over her in a wave. The trail clothes suited him. The austere mountains suited him. In his lean hands, the heavily inlaid rifle was revealed for the streamlined, no-nonsense weapon it really was.

  And Wolfe was revealed for the man he really was; he had been born for this wild land rather than for the brocade and satin of civilization. Jessica understood that as surely as she understood that she loved Wolfe for what he was, that she had always loved him, and she always would.

  The realization stunned her, sinking past layers of exhaustion to the raw emotion beneath.

  «They didn’t see us,» Wolfe said. «Too busy drinking and playing cards. Jericho will have them picked cleaner than a hound’s tooth before breakfast.»

  «Good at cards, huh?» Rafe asked.

  «He’ll do until you sit down with the Devil himself.»

  Wolfe took the lead once more, followed by Two-Spot and the pack horses.Rafe waited until they were a hundred yards ahead before he let his horse follow. He had kept Jessica’s carbine, and he rode with it across his saddle, listening for any sounds from behind.

  Exhaustion reclaimed Jessica’s body in a numbing gray tide. She slumped in the saddle. Staring at nothing, she endured the endless trail as it became steeper and rougher. Along the left, asnowmantled slope dropped away a few feet from the trail. Jessica didn’t notice. She was running on reflex alone, able to stay upright in the saddle but nothing more.

  When Two-Step hit an icy patch and went down to his knees, she grabbed instinctively for the saddle horn, but it was too late. She was already pitching forward, beyond the reach of the curving, off-center horn. Two-Step lunged to the right, trying to regain his own balance. The sudden motion completed Jessica’s undoing. She hurtled from the sidesaddle onto the snow-covered slope and began rolling down in a flurry of skirts and flailing limbs.