by Lisa Plumley
“Ha!” Juana frowned, hefted a split mesquite branch, and shoved it into the stove fire with far more force than seemed necessary. “That’s what those brothers of Ellen’s wanted him to believe. They came out here, all fancy men from the States, and snatched poor Ben away before Mason could even sober up from Ellen’s funeral.”
She looked at Amelia and shook her head. “Any man would have taken to the bottle, facing all he did with her. Especially at the end.”
“His wife’s brothers took Ben?”
Juana waved away Amelia’s surprise. “Bastardos. Selfish men,” she muttered, her Spanish accent growing stronger. “They thought their nephew belonged in a civilized place, not here in the Territory with a drunken papa and no mother.”
“But he’s the boy’s father!” Amelia cried. “Surely Ben would have been happier at home with him.”
An image of a little boy, dragged away crying by the uncles he barely knew, filled her mind. After losing his mother, Ben would have needed his father all the more. Couldn’t his relatives see that?
“Ah, but they were happier having their revenge on Mason,” Juana said. “I don’t think they ever liked him, ever thought he should have married Ellen and brought her west with him. They are cruel men. I saw it myself at her funeral.”
She shuddered, and her mouth turned down at the corners. “They called Mason every vile name I’ve ever heard, and some I haven’t.” She smiled wryly. “They said he drove Ellen to what she did.”
Amelia stared at her, stunned by the idea of men who would strike out in such a way at the funeral of a man’s wife. Men so vindictive they’d risk hurting their own small nephew in the name of revenge.
“But they were Mason’s relatives, too, Juana. By marriage, at least. Maybe you misunderstood, maybe—”
“No.” Juana shook her head, her voice firm. “No. They accused him. Accused him of killing their sister.” She picked up the bread dough from Amelia’s table, ripped it in half, and began rounding one portion into a smooth-topped bread loaf. “The lawmen were duty-bound to take Mason in and find out the truth.”
“And that’s when he escaped? When the posse started after him?” Amelia guessed.
“Not at first,” Juana said, frowning as she shook away the flour clinging to the bread dough. “Sheriff Shibell came out alone to talk to Mason at first. He knew him, just like everybody else. He didn’t believe what those bastardo brothers of Ellen’s said.” She cast Amelia a sharp glance. “None of us did.”
She muttered something below her breath and shook her head. “But by then those Sharpes had taken Ben away, and Mason went after them.”
“So when the sheriff got there,” Amelia said, thinking aloud, “and found Mason gone, he assumed he’d run because he was guilty.”
“Yes.” Juana’s lips tightened. “And set the posse after him, then and there. Tonto.”
Amelia sighed. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said. “If Mason was trying to get to Tucson to find his son, what was he doing robbing stagecoaches in the meantime?”
Juana shrugged. “Not robbing. Trying to ask about where those bastardo Sharpe brothers had taken his son without being caught, I’d say,” she said. “A clever one, that Kincaid.”
“I don’t think I ever saw him take any money,” Amelia reflected, thinking back on the stagecoach robberies she’d witnessed since embarking on her Arizona Territory mission. “And it did turn out to be a very effective disguise.”
It had certainly fooled her. She nearly blushed to recall how convinced she’d been that she was meeting the famous poet bandit. So much had happened since then, those convictions seemed far away indeed.
“But he never talked to me about it,” Juana went on. “Maybe James or Manuel. Mason is not a man to confide in others.”
Amelia remembered his pain when he’d described to her the loss of his wife, his freedom…his son. That Mason had trusted her enough to reveal himself to her humbled her. And she—she had convinced herself this morning that she meant little to him, if he could leave her so easily. Sorrow slowed her hands as she scraped dough from the tabletop and threw the scraps away.
She had to find a way to clear his name, to restore his freedom if she could. She loved him. And she owed Mason at least that much for the many times he’d saved her since her arrival in the Territory.
Amelia’s eyes narrowed. Her father was an influential man back home—perhaps if he sent a wire to the sheriff in Tucson? Arranged a work furlough, perhaps? She could easily imagine the sheriff agreeing to such a plan, especially if J.G. O’Malley vouched for Mason.
Except Mason would never agree. He’d think it indentured servitude, she was almost certain. And he’d be partly right. Amelia bit her lip, trying to think of another plan. Surely there was something she could do to help. Mason was an innocent man.
Juana plunked the unbaked loaf into a pan and started shaping the next, frowning to herself over the story she’d been telling. “Those Sharpes were right about one thing, though. Mason did not belong with her.”
Surprised at the venom in Juana’s tone, Amelia paused in the act of wiping up flour from the tabletop. “You didn’t like Ellen?”
Juana plunked the second loaf into a pan with an unladylike snort. “Like her?” She wiped her hands and looked at Amelia. “Tell me. What is to like about a woman who cares only for herself?”
“But surely she loved her husband, her son—”
“Ellen was cold, pequeña. I think Mason did not see at first, because she was so beautiful. After time…after time he could no longer ignore it.”
Juana lifted a crate of crockery bowls and battered cutlery, balancing its weight against her hips as she headed for the stage station’s front room. Amelia followed her into the long, low room, thoughts of Mason’s wife—and her acknowledged beauty—slowing her movements as she followed Juana along the rough-hewn tables, laying bowls at each place setting.
Suddenly she felt too messy, too poorly dressed and too pitifully groomed to ever hope to hold Mason’s interest. Not like his beautiful wife, the mother of his child. Glumly, Amelia gathered a handful of spoons and knives to add to the place settings, ashamed at her shallow concerns and yet wholly unable to put them aside.
Mason’s leaving made every doubtful thought she’d ever entertained about herself leap straight into her mind and set up housekeeping again.
“I thought you were the same,” Juana said with a small laugh, going to light the lamps hung at even intervals along the adobe walls. Evening was nearly upon them, deepening the shadows where the farthest oil lamps hung. “Another fancy eastern lady, come to hurt my friend.”
The words struck Amelia like a careless blow, made her heart thump hollowly in her chest as she clutched the tableware still to be set. Was that how she truly appeared? No wonder Mason had seemed so unfriendly at first, so unwilling to view her as anything more than a burden to be disposed of as quickly as possible.
He’d had other priorities. His freedom. His son. And she’d distracted him from them all. Regret tightened inside her like a fist. Numbly she watched Juana replace the chimney on the last lamp and blow out the lighted taper she’d used.
“I—I never meant to hurt him,” Amelia said, staring just past Juana’s shoulder. No wonder Juana and Mason got along so well—neither had the slightest fear of speaking their truths, however bluntly. She rubbed the smooth silver in her hands, trying to summon the courage to go on. “I didn’t even mean for him to rescue me. I never—”
“Oh, Amelia!” Juana exclaimed, touching her shoulder lightly. “I know that! You needn’t look so worried. I changed my mind when I—”
Hoof beats entering the courtyard stilled her voice. A horse whinnied, then blew. An instant later, the door swung open.
Manuel.
Alone.
Yet he’d vowed to stay with Mason for as long as he needed him.
Amelia’s spoons and knives fell from her nerveless grip, clattering to the floor
in a shower of dull silver.
“Where’s Mason?” she cried, rushing toward him. If Manuel had returned alone, did that mean the posse had captured Mason?
Manuel raised his hands, palms upward. “Señorita, he—”
No. She couldn’t listen.
Mason had to be outside. Nothing had happened. He was fine. Fine. Maybe even waiting for her, and she was wasting time talking with Manuel. She pushed past him and entered the courtyard, her head swiveling for any sign of Mason.
The sun had nearly set, casting the boxy, mesquite-bordered area into long, cool shadows. The breeze ruffled her hair, lifting tendrils from her chignon to stream across her face. Brushing them impatiently aside, Amelia looked toward the hitching post. Manuel’s horse stood tethered there, its sides lathered and heaving.
Manuel’s horse only.
Her heartbeat quickening, she scanned the rest of the courtyard. Station hands at work, wagons being repaired at the blacksmith’s shop, and high rounded creosote bushes crowded her vision. No tall, broad-shouldered man rode in toward the station. No Mason.
“No, no,” Amelia whispered, wheeling blindly toward the opened stage station door. Warmth hit her when she stumbled inside, seeking Manuel.
He stood beside Juana, his broad-brimmed sombrero gone, looking as though he’d climbed on his hands and knees the whole way up Picacho Peak. Dried mud caked his shirt to his chest, and his trousers were ripped at the knees. His face, when he looked at her, was lined with fatigue, dirt-smudged and haggard.
She couldn’t move any further. Dread rooted her to the spot.
Juana tugged a chair from the table, scraping its legs across the hard-packed earth floor. She nodded toward it, motioning Amelia into it with a subtle inclination of her head. New sorrow pulled at the corners of her mouth. Bad. The news Manuel brought was bad.
“No.” Amelia backed up, the room swimming. Even in the low lamplight, everything looked different—brighter, blurrier, farther away. Small sounds reached her—the horse shifting outside, the stew bubbling in the back room, a bird crying near the window—but whatever Juana was saying was lost to her.
Her fingers felt numb. She tasted denial, breathed it in the air, and whatever the news Manuel had brought, she didn’t want it.
“No.” She backed up further. Her hip bumped against something, then a chair and wash basin toppled, crashing into the adobe wall behind. The sound galvanized her, sent her feet into motion with only the need to get away guiding her.
Tables, more chairs blocked her path. Blindly she pushed them aside, feeling her throat tighten with tears that wouldn’t come. Manuel’s message was false. Mason was strong, he knew how to survive in the desert and beyond. He’d never—
Warm fingers closed on her upper arm. “Señorita, I must tell you,” came Manuel’s voice into the darkness swirling around her. “I promised I would tell you—”
Fury swept through Amelia with such force it made her shake. She spun, wrenching his hand from her arm. “You left him!” she spat. “You promised to stay with him! How can you speak to me of promises when you—you—”
Rage choked her, made it impossible to go on. Instead she glared at Manuel, seeing only the man who’d failed to help Mason. The man who’d brought everything upon their heads with his carelessness in returning the wagon to Maricopa Wells, the man who’d all-but led the posse straight to Mason—and she knew what it was to hate someone in an instant.
“Amelia.” Juana’s voice sounded gentle, like that of a mother to a grieving child. “Pequeña, sit down. Listen to him.” Her hand touched Amelia’s shoulder. “Manuel is only keeping his word. He came to—”
“No! If not for him, Mason would never have been found. The posse would still be searching. And Ben would have a father now, not—”
A sob rippled through her. Manuel’s roar of anger made it stick in her throat, unvoiced.
“If not for you, he would have been with his son days ago!” he yelled, his Spanish accent thickening as he advanced toward her. “Instead he stayed here to lie with you, and put us all at risk. Puta! Do not raise your voice to me.”
He looked ready to strike her, his eyes blazing against his dirt-smudged skin. His hand shot forward, clamped around her wrist, and Amelia shrank before him, shocked from her rage by the bitterness in his face. Manuel wrenched her wrist to waist-height. He pressed his thumb into the fragile bones at its center, forcing her hand to open.
“Manuel, no!” cried Juana. “Not like this!”
“This one deserves no better.” His eyes met Amelia’s, and for an instant she thought she glimpsed pity there. It vanished just as quickly. “She is as bad as that bitch wife of his.”
He pushed his fist into her palm, forcing something into her hand. Something light, yet familiar—she felt its fine-honed edge bite into her skin, but couldn’t look closer to see what it was.
“Mason asked me to give you this,” Manuel said, releasing her wrist with a cruel snap of his arm.
“And to say goodbye.”
He spat into the ground at her feet. With one final, scathing look he strode away, leaving Amelia wavering. Goodbye? Goodbye? Hysteria pushed at her, unraveling her thoughts as quickly as they came. She stared at Juana, unable to move or speak.
Suddenly, Juana’s image wavered and blurred, and as though noticing the fact from a great distance, Amelia realized she was crying. Tears streamed down her cheeks, running into her mouth, her ears, tasting of salt and disbelief.
“Goodbye?” she croaked. It couldn’t be, he couldn’t be gone. Mason, Mason…
“Ahh, pequeña,” Juana murmured. “I did not think it would come to this. I had hoped there would be another way. Another way for Mason, too.”
“Another way?” Amelia unfolded her clenched fist, feeling a dull sense of relief as the object she’d held so tightly stopped pressing against her skin.
“He needs you,” Juana said. “I do not know why he would choose this, after all that has happened.”
“Choose? Choose what? Oh, Juana, I…”
Her voice cracked, blunted by confusion and pain, and Amelia looked down instead of speaking. Her satchel key winked up at her, resting within the reddened impression it had created in her palm. She’d forgotten Mason still had it.
A tear ran down the bridge of her nose and splashed onto it, wetting her already-dampened skin. Why this, why now? The last thing she wanted was her satchels. The last thing she cared about was working on her book orders again, when Mason…when Mason was gone.
A fresh sob wrenched through her. Bent with the pain, Amelia closed her fist around her satchel key. She wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to ease the ache.
“Pequeña. Little one.” Juana hugged her, stroking her back gently. “I know this is hard,” she murmured. “I know, I know. But at least he is safe. At least he—”
“What?” Amelia’s head snapped up. She sniffed, trying to clear her stuffy head, all her attention centered on Juana’s face. Dear heaven, had she heard her aright? “What did you say?”
“Mason is safe, he got away.”
Juana looked at her quizzically, then understanding showed in her dark eyes. Smiling, she put both hands to Amelia’s face and used her thumbs to wipe the tears from her cheeks.
“You did not hear me before,” she said quietly. “Did not hear Manuel when he first arrived.”
“I thought—I thought—” Oh, but she wanted to scream aloud as the realization struck her that Mason was safe. Safe. “I thought he was captured, ki—”
“No. No, he is safe.”
“Then why—” Amelia opened her fist, looked down at her satchel key. “Why did he give Manuel this? Where has he gone?”
Juana’s hands settled on her shoulders. “To Tucson. He’s gone to get Ben. He’s not…”
She paused, as though reconsidering her words. “I thought you wept because Mason did not return for you,” she said gently.
Amelia stared at her. Her thoughts were jumb
led, too confused to be sorted out. Mason wasn’t coming for her? He was safe, but not coming back for her?
“He…he promised,” she whispered. “That’s why I agreed to stay, to wait for him.”
I love you.
That’s why I’m leaving.
Pain twisted, reborn within her. He’d told her then, straight out, what he meant to do—and why. He didn’t want her love. Didn’t want her. I’ll wait for you, she’d said.
And Mason had said goodbye.
Like a fool she’d chosen not to listen, chosen to ignore the words her heart didn’t want to hear. Now her same foolish heart ached more with every moment that passed. Once again she’d loved someone who didn’t want her…cared for someone who didn’t care back.
Why had she expected more? She’d been nothing more than an obligation to Mason—an obligation he’d gratefully gotten rid of as soon as they’d reached Picacho Peak.
You can’t help me, he’d told her time and again, pushing her away each time. You can’t, you can’t….
Just like her father. No matter how worthy she tried to be, it never seemed to be enough. Maybe would never be enough.
Juana touched her arm, and the compassion in her gaze brought new tears to Amelia’s eyes. “Mason promised?” she asked softly, her eyebrows raised. “Then maybe Manuel misunderstood. Maybe he’s—”
“No. I misunderstood.”
“Pequeña—”
Amelia shrugged off her gentle hug, stepped back and tried to wave away Juana’s concern, as well. “Mason told me. I didn’t believe him then. Now—” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “—now I guess I have to.”
Sniffling, she swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Someday the hurt would go away. Until then, she’d have to manage as best she could.
“Will there be a stage for Tucson tonight?” she asked, staring numbly through the still-open doorway. Hard as it was to imagine herself leaving without Mason, it seemed she’d have to. She’d have to get her books, get on with her book order deliveries—get on with her life back home when she’d finished.
“Not for you,” Juana said firmly. “Not after this.”
