Til Death Do Us Part

by Beverly Barton

  Using the dim glow from the flashlight to guide her, Joanna headed back inside the mine. She saw J.T. throw Plott against a wooden support beam. If only she were closer, she could shoot.

  A rumble drifted from inside the mine, then a loud crash. Joanna pointed the flashlight in the direction of the noise and saw Plott lift his fist, then suddenly stop and stare up above his head.

  She shone the light toward the ceiling and screamed when she saw the heavy, rotted beams cracking. Huge, loose chunks of old timber fell, knocking both Lenny Plott and J.T. to the ground. Joanna ran toward J.T. He didn’t move.

  Dear God, please, don’t let him die!

  When she neared, she heard J.T. groan. She glanced over at Plott, who seemed to be unconscious. Kneeling over J.T., she wedged the flashlight between her breasts, sticking the handle inside her bra. Holding the gun, she laid her hand flat over it as she placed it on the ground.

  “J.T.?” She turned him over on his side and saw several small rivulets of blood streaking his face.

  He groaned. She wiped his sweaty, blood-smeared face with her palm and called his name again. His eyelids fluttered.

  Pain shot up from her hand to her arm. She looked down at the big foot crushing her hand that held the Glock, then she glanced up at Lenny Plott who stood towering over her. She tried to hold on to the gun, but knew she had lost it the minute Plott bent over and lifted her hand. He picked up the gun. Joanna’s heart beat frantically. J.T. moaned, then opened his eyes. Plott jerked Joanna up and shoved her in front of him. She clutched the flashlight that she’d stuck between her breasts.

  What was Plott going to do? Would he shoot her and then J.T.? Was there any way she could stop him? What if she hit him in the head with the flashlight? She might not be able to strike, but even if she did, the blow probably wouldn’t stun him.

  “Let her go, Plott.” J.T. struggled to lift his head.

  “You’re in no position to bargain,” Lenny said.

  A rifle shot hit the wall behind Plott’s head, sending shattered pieces of rock crashing down onto the ground. “But I am.” Joseph Ornelas’s deep voice echoed in the stillness of the dark mine.

  “I’ll kill her!” Plott yelled. “Whoever the hell you are, stay back or I’ll put a bullet in her head right this minute.”

  “Do what he says,” J.T. shouted.

  “Yeah, you’d better listen to your friend.”

  Using Joanna as a shield, Plott backed farther into the mine. Taking her one free hand, Joanna reached inside her bra, pulled out the flashlight and tossed it toward J.T. Plott cursed her, but didn’t stop moving, backing farther and farther into the darkness.

  J.T. rose to his knees, grabbed the flashlight and stumbled to his feet. He pointed the beam toward the mine entrance where Joseph Ornelas stood waiting. He motioned the other man to come on inside, then turned and followed Plott deeper into the mine.

  Joanna knew she wasn’t going to die without putting up a fight. Turning on her assailant in the darkness, she jerked out of his grasp and pelted him with her fists. He reached for her, but she escaped his grasp. He grabbed her arm. She cried out as his fingers bruised her flesh.

  He jerked her toward him. She shoved against his chest, pushing him with every ounce of her strength, but he held on to her arm as he staggered backward. He screamed when the ground disappeared beneath his feet and continued screaming as he dropped straight down into an open shaft, dragging Joanna with him, but unable to keep his hold on her wrist.

  When she realized what was happening, Joanna reached out, praying for something—anything—to grab on to to stop her deadly fall. She clutched a jutting piece of timber sticking out from the rock wall.

  Plott’s scream ended when his body hit the bottom of the deep shaft.

  With her feet dangling over the precipice, Joanna struggled to hold on to the edge of the wooden beam with both hands. J.T. thrust the flashlight into Joseph’s hand, fell to his knees and called out to Joanna.

  Joseph flashed the light over the edge of the shaft. Joanna gazed up at J.T., her eyes wide, her mouth trembling. The tight emotion-formed knots in J.T.’s stomach constricted painfully. One wrong move on his part and Joanna would fall to her death.

  “Hang on, honey. I’m going to pull you up.”

  Lying flat on his stomach, J.T. leaned over the shaft and stretched out one hand. Instantly he realized he couldn’t reach her.

  “You’re going to have to give me your hand,” he told her. “Just reach up to me with one hand.”

  “No! I can’t! If—if I let go, I’ll fall.” Sweat dampened her palms. The wooden beam felt moist. What if her hands slipped off? What if she couldn’t continue holding on?

  “You won’t fall, honey. I’m right here. See how close I am—” He wiggled the fingers of his right hand. “See how easy it’ll be to just reach out to me.”

  What if she let go and lifted her hand to him and he still couldn’t reach her? What if he caught her hand and couldn’t hold on to her? “I can’t, J.T. I can’t. Please, think of something else. I just can’t let go.”

  “She’s scared,” Joseph said. “She’s not thinking straight.”

  “Joanna, hold on. I’ll find a way to get you.” J.T. looked up at Joseph. “I’m going to have to lean over farther to reach her. I need the light to see her, but I also need you to anchor me to keep me from falling into the shaft.”

  “No, J.T., don’t risk your life,” Joanna yelled. “Can’t you go get a rope or—” The beam she clutched with all her might groaned, loosening just a fraction from the rock wall and sending a shower of granular sediment cascading down over her. “J.T.!”

  “Give me your hand, Jo. Now!” He leaned into the shaft, stretching out his hand as far as he could. “Trust me. Believe that I can save you.”

  “I want to trust you, to believe.”

  “Lift your right hand and give it to me.”

  Joanna looked at his hand and saw Benjamin Greymountain’s silver-and-turquoise ring on his finger. J.T. noticed the way she stared at the ring. “This was meant to be a wedding band,” he told her. “Just like the one you’re wearing. A symbol of a love to last a lifetime and beyond.” He slammed the palm of his hand against the rock wall of the shaft. “You can’t hang on much longer. If your hands slip, you’re going to fall. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

  “I know! I know!” Joanna panted, taking in short, choppy breaths. “Don’t let me fall, don’t let me die.”

  “Either give me your trust and lift your hand up to me, or I’m going to risk coming over the edge far enough to grab you.”

  “No! Don’t! You could fall.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He leaned over just a fraction farther.

  “Don’t do it,” she pleaded.

  “Honey, haven’t you figured it out? If you don’t come out of this alive, there’s no reason for me to live. Either we both get out of this damned mine together or we die down there together. It’s your choice.”

  J.T. held his breath. Joanna closed her eyes. She couldn’t let J.T. risk his life any more than he already had. Her only chance to save him and maybe save herself, too, was to put her complete trust in him, to truly believe that he could save her.

  She eased her right hand to the edge of the wooden beam, released it and shot her arm straight up. J.T. clasped her wrist, tugging her upward.

  “That’s it, honey.”

  Letting go of the beam completely, she gave herself over to J.T.’s strength as he lifted her up and out of the shaft. With both of them on their knees, J.T. hauled her up against him, hugging her fiercely. Weeping, she clung to him. Tears stung his eyes.

  He lifted her to her feet, then swept her up into his arms. “It’s over,” he said. “And you’re safe. Safe in my arms forever.”

  She laid her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. “He’s dead, isn’t he? Really dead?”

  “Yeah, he’s about as dead as a man can get.” Joseph shone the flashlight down i
nto the shaft where Lenny Plott had fallen. “If you want to be sure, take a look,” he said. “But I warn you, it’s not a pretty sight.”

  “You don’t have to look at him if you’d rather not,” J.T. told her.

  “I want to see,” she said. “I need to see him dead.”

  Held securely in J.T.’s strong arms, she peered over the edge of the shaft. The flashlight illuminated just a fraction of the deep shaft, but enough for Joanna to see the lower half of Lenny Plott’s lifeless body impaled on a sharp, jagged rock formation. She shuddered.

  “My God!” Joanna gasped.

  “Yeah.” Joseph nodded. “I’d say the Great Spirit had a hand in Plott’s demise.”

  “I’m getting you out of here,” J.T. said. “The sooner we put all of this behind us, the better.”

  Joanna clung to J.T., rejoicing in their being alive, as he carried her out of the mine and into the light. Squinting against the glare of the late-afternoon sun, she stared at the Navajo men waiting in a straight line just outside the mine entrance.

  J.T. carried her to the patrol car, opened the back door and slid inside, holding her in his arms. “After we get you thoroughly checked over at the clinic, we’ll stay tonight on the reservation at my mother’s house,” J.T. said. “I’m sure the FBI will want to question all of us. But tomorrow, I’m going to take you home, back to my ranch. And as soon as you and Elena can do whatever you women do to plan a wedding, we’re getting married.”

  “What?” Joanna gazed at him in disbelief.

  He looked at her dirty, tear-streaked face and knew that no power on earth or in heaven would keep them apart. If Benjamin Greymountain had loved Annabelle as much as J.T. loved Joanna, the man would have found a way to keep her. Maybe their ancestors hadn’t been able to fulfill the promise of their love, but J.T. intended to make sure he and Joanna reaped all the benefits from this once-in-a-lifetime love they shared.

  “We’re getting married as soon as possible,” he said.

  “Is that what you call a proposal?”

  “It’s all you’ll get from me.” With a shaky hand, he reached out and touched her beautiful face. “I’m not much of a romantic, honey, but you already know that. And I won’t be much of a bargain as a husband, but I have a feeling you’ll whip me into shape without too much trouble. Heck, by the time we have kids, I’ll probably be downright domesticated.”

  “J. T. Blackwood, you are without a doubt the most irritating, infuriating—”

  “Should I take that to mean you’ll marry me?”

  Joseph pecked on the window. J.T. motioned him away. Joseph opened the car door, stuck his head in, propped his booted foot inside and held up his cellular phone.

  “I just talked to my sister, and I thought you’d like to know that Eddie’s going to be fine. Or at least he will be until Kate takes a switch to his skinny little legs.”

  “I doubt she’ll have the heart to whip him,” Joanna said. “I know that if he were mine, I wouldn’t.”

  “Maybe this has taught him not to go off alone again.” J.T. motioned with the side of his head, indicating for Joseph to get lost. Removing his foot, Joseph stepped back and closed the door. Smiling, he turned around to wait for the helicopter carrying Dane Carmichael to land.

  “I can think of only one thing I’d rather have from you than a marriage proposal.” Joanna kissed J.T.’s lips softly, her breath mingling with his.

  “Name it and it’s yours.”

  “Don’t agree too hastily,” she told him. “This might be something you can’t give me.”

  “You’ll never know until you ask.”

  “All right.” She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked directly at him. “More than anything, I’d like to have a declaration of love from you.”

  “A what?”

  “A declaration of—”

  “Yeah, I heard you.” Shaking his head, he grunted. “During the past few hours I’ve said it over and over again. ‘I love Joanna. I love her more than anything on earth. I love her so much it hurts. I never thought it possible to love anyone the way I love her. If she dies, I don’t want to live.’ I’ve said it to myself so many times, I guess I just forgot that I hadn’t told you.”

  “I think you just did.”

  He lifted her right hand in his, interlocking their fingers. They both glanced down at their matching rings.

  “Yeah, I guess I did.” J.T. looked at her with longing. “Ayóí óosh’ni, Joanna.” And this time he knew exactly what the words meant. I love you.

  Cupping the back of her head in his hand, he covered her mouth with his, claiming her, possessing her, telling her more eloquently than words ever could what was in his heart.

  Joanna thought she heard the sound of drums, way off in the distance. Just a faint echo, as if the sound had traveled a span of decades to reach this moment in time.

  EPILOGUE

  Richmond, Virginia

  June 1965

  I shall soon join my beloved Benjamin. The years that have separated us will vanish. Not one day has passed that I have not thought of him, yearned for him, loved him beyond all reasoning. Although our time together was so brief, I would not give up one precious, stolen moment for a lifetime with any other man. I have lived my life in the only way I knew how. Benjamin understood that I could not desert my sons. And once the boys were grown, Benjamin was gone. If I have but one regret, it is that Benjamin and I did not have a child. A child would have made our love immortal.

  JOANNA WIPED THE tears from her eyes. Glancing down at the last entry in Annabelle Beaumont’s diary, she traced her great-grandmother’s handwriting with the tips of her fingers. There, beneath the final entry, Annabelle had neatly penned a stanza from her favorite Christina Rossetti poem.

  Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death: Come back to me in dreams that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago?

  Joanna closed the diary and placed it inside her desk, then, one by one, she turned out the lights in the living room of the new house she and J.T. had built shortly after their wedding seven years ago. Hesitating briefly in front of the fireplace, she looked up over the mantel at her most recently completed portrait—an oil painting of her three children, which she had hung between her prized portraits of her great-grandmother and J.T.’s great-grandfather.

  These three strong, healthy offspring of hers and J.T.’s were the true legacy of love, one they knew in their hearts they shared with their ancestors.

  Six-year-old John Thomas, with his black hair, green eyes and tall, sturdy body already taking on the long, lean proportions of his father’s, was their firstborn. The twins, Annabelle and Benjamin, had just turned three last week, and still possessed chubby toddler forms. A riot of red curls circled their little brown faces, which possessed their father’s strong Navajo features.

  Joanna flipped off the last lamp, walked down the hallway and stopped by John Thomas’s bedroom, peeping in on him. Her heart always caught in her throat whenever she looked at him. He was so beautiful, so absolutely perfect. She went on to the next door, stopped and walked into her twins’ bedroom. In a few more years, they’d want separate rooms, but for now they were happy being together twenty-four hours a day.

  Her precious little Annabelle and Benjamin. Born of a love that would live forever. She pulled up the blanket Annabelle had kicked to the foot of her bed. She’d been a restless sleeper since infancy. Occasionally, Joanna would find her completely turned around in her bed, with her feet resting on the headboard.

  Joanna tiptoed out of the twins’ room and down the hallway. Opening the door to the master suite, she deliberately ignored J.T., who lay stretched out naked in the middle of the bed. She slipped off her silk robe, letting it puddle around her feet, then reached out and picked up J.T.’s tan Stetson from the dresser where he’d placed it. She set it on her head, turned around and put her hands on her hips.
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br />   J.T. sat up in bed, bracing his back against the headboard and crossing his arms behind his head.

  “Howdy, partner.” Joanna swung her naked hips provocatively as she walked to the foot of the huge four-poster bed. “Want to play cowgirl and Indian?”

  J.T. grinned. “I might, if I like the rules of the game.”

  “The rules are very simple,” Joanna said, taking off the Stetson and holding it in her hand. “The first part of the game is ringtoss. If I can circle the object of my choice with this cowboy hat, I win a free ride.”

  “And if you lose?”

  “Then you get to tie me to a stake and set me on fire.” J.T. blew out a deep breath, lifted his hips up off the bed and laughed. “What the hell are you waiting for, woman? Toss that hat!”

  Joanna sized him up, taking note of every inch of his masculine beauty laid out before her in naked splendor. She swung the Stetson around and around on her finger, lifted it and whirled it through the air. It landed right on target, sitting up straight over his arousal.

  “Looks like you win, honey.” He held open his arms. “Come get your free ride.”

  Joanna crawled onto the bed, lifted the Stetson, tossed it to the floor and circled J.T. with her hand. He groaned deep in his throat.

  “You’d think after seven years of riding, I’d have you broken in by now.” She licked him intimately.

  J.T. grabbed her by the shoulders and lifted her on top of him. Joanna giggled, then sighed when he placed her over his erection and eased himself into her body.

  “Ride ’em, cowgirl,” he said.

  And she did.

  ROARKE’S WIFE

  CHAPTER ONE

  “SHE’S OUTSIDE.” Dane Carmichael stood in the doorway of Simon Roarke’s office. “The lady brought her aunt with her.”