by Maggie James
She was startled. “I thought Skelly gave it to me.”
“Skelly?” he hooted. “The only thing he’d do is crawl under it with you if he had half a chance.”
She grimaced at the thought and said, “Thank you, but it still doesn’t mean I want to be around you.”
“I thought we could call a truce.”
Tess knew she would like that.
A lot.
Because she really was lonely.
And because she could not deny being drawn to him for some reason she did not understand.
Her gaze flicked over him. His beard had grown and looked scruffy, and he was bare-chested despite the early morning cool. She could tell by his broad shoulders and sinewy arms that he was no stranger to hard work.
“But if you want me to leave, I will,” he said.
Tess glanced away, not meeting his eyes lest he see what she was thinking—how despite her dislike of him she found him extremely handsome in a rugged, feral kind of way.
She had never been kissed in her whole life and suddenly found herself wondering what it would be like to have his lips close over hers. She had never been held by a man, either, and felt a shuddering within to imagine his strong arms wrapped about her.
“I…I suppose it’s all right,” she said finally, nervously. “That we have a truce, that is.” Uncomfortable by his raw masculinity, she added, “Aren’t you cold without a shirt on?”
“Not here in the sun coming through the opening.” He settled back, obviously pleased she was not dismissing him. He chewed on a sliver of wood. “So tell me about yourself.”
She was reluctant at first, but then the words came easier, and she told him everything.
He listened with interest, eyes widening now and then, and when she finished, he gave a long, low whistle and said, “So they got you for stealing a mule when that woman actually loaned it to you. That’s bad, princess. Real bad.”
“We had an agreement that I would send her the money to pay for it, but she warned me if I got caught she’d say I stole it. But why couldn’t she just have said she loaned it to me without knowing what I was going to do with it?”
“Because when you got caught she washed her hands of you. And by the way,” he added with a smirk, “you trying to rob the assay office like that was a dumb thing to do.”
“Well, it didn’t seem like it at the time.”
“How did you get caught?”
She bit her lip to remember. “I didn’t know how to use the gun. He was able to take it away from me.”
Curt managed to hold back a laugh. “Sorry, but it sounds to me like you never had a chance.”
“Well, I had to try,” she said dismally. “I had no money, no place to go. Besides, Lulie made me believe I had a right to Saul’s money.”
“I have to agree with her. If anybody does, it’s you.”
She was quiet for a moment. He sounded like he was on her side, so she ventured to ask, “Do you think the judge will agree and let me go?”
He was blunt in his response. “No. You’ll hang. We both will—unless I can figure a way to get us out of here.”
She felt a rush of hope. “Can you?”
“I’m still trying. I explore every day. That’s why you don’t see me except feeding times. I’ve gone over every inch of this place, even climbed down into one of the side shafts thinking there might’ve been another entrance somewhere, but if there is, I haven’t found it. However, I’m not giving up.”
“Please don’t,” she urged. “But now it’s your turn to talk. Why do they say you murdered that man?”
He confided his story, how he had met Abe Pugh in a poker game in Tombstone. “I suspected he was cheating, but I didn’t act quick enough. Somebody else called him on it. Abe had a gun in his lap and shot from under the table. He killed the man and got me in the shoulder. By the time I could go after him, he had some distance on me, but I managed to trail him to Devil’s Eye. I saw him in the saloon and was waiting for him to come out. That’s when I happened to see you get off the stage and hear you asking about your fiancé.
“Anyway,” he continued, “after you’d gone up to the hotel, Pugh showed. I stepped out of the alley and told him I didn’t want any trouble…just what he’d stolen from me. Like a fool, he went for his gun, and I had no choice but to shoot him in self-defense.”
“Then why—”
“The first man out of the saloon yelled that I’d killed Worley Branson’s cousin. Since I’d checked out the town and knew Branson was considered the law, I knew there was no way anybody would believe it wasn’t murder, so I ran.”
“And then tried to hide in my room.”
“Right. I saw you at your window, so I knew which one it was. I was gambling everybody would think I’d already left town, and if I could make you think I was Beckwith long enough for things to quiet down, I could get away.
“Only it didn’t work out that way,” he added with a shrug.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered—and meant it. “If I hadn’t panicked, you’d have succeeded.”
“Maybe.”
“So here we are.”
His sigh was long and exasperated. “Yeah. Funny how things work out sometimes. If we’d met up sooner and made friends, we could have helped each other. I’d have even been willing to help you get your money back.”
“Lulie says Harville may have had something to do with Saul getting killed.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. I’ve heard a lot about dirty dealings in that town. So if we do get out of here, maybe we’ll pay another visit to the assay office.”
“You’d do that?”
He shrugged. “Why not? We’ve got a truce, remember? Besides”—he winked—“I’d be doing the West a favor to help get the money for you to hightail it home…maybe even spare some fool man having to put up with a baby like you for a wife.”
Tess knew he was teasing…but she also knew he meant it when he called her a baby. He thought she was unable to look out for herself and she couldn’t blame him. After all, she had fallen to pieces when a stronger woman would have held together.
Enjoying the light moment, she countered, “Well, what about the fool men back east? They don’t want a baby for a wife, either. So maybe the best thing is for you to escape and leave me here to hang so they’ll all be spared.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “Well, you do have some spunk, don’t you?” He got to his feet and held out his hand to her. “Come on with me. You need to learn your way around.”
Because she had nothing else to do, and also because she wanted to be with him, Tess gave him her hand so he could help her up. He took her hand again after lighting a torch and led the way back into the mine.
He was familiar with every step and told her when to press close to the wall to keep from stepping into a hole or, worse, off a ledge.
“I think it’s terrible this place is used for a jail,” she grumbled.
“I’m not surprised. Devil’s Eye is nothing but a watering hole for drifters, outlaws, and prospectors, and law and order is a joke. Harville and Branson run the place. Makes me wish I was a federal marshal so I could come in and clean it up.”
“So what are you?” she bluntly asked. “So far all I know is that you’re a gambler.”
“Not really. I was just feeling lucky that night.”
“Then what do you do?”
They had reached a wide, flat area, with a narrow stream to one side. He let go of her hand, and with a tin cup he had found earlier, he scooped up a drink for her as he told her how one day he hoped to start his own cattle ranch. “All I need is some good land for grazing. A herd can double in three years, and there’s plenty of money to be made.
“A longhorn steer might be worth just three dollars a head in Texas,” he continued, “but once it’s driven to market in Chicago, it will bring thirty. And the railroad is coming. Everybody knows that. When it does, profits will be even higher because the cattle can
be transported faster and not lose as much weight driving them across country.”
They sat down on flat rocks, and Tess listened, fascinated, as Curt talked on—of roping and branding and wide-open spaces. Gradually she came to realize that it sounded like heaven to her, too. She began to think how wonderful it would be to live like that, surrounded by rippling prairie grass, bordered by majestic mountains, cool mountain streams, and riding a thundering horse, swinging a lasso over her head as she chased a wily calf.
“Perry would love it, too,” she suddenly cried. “He’d love to learn to ride. He always wanted a pony, and—”
She caught herself, saw how Curt was looking at her, and suddenly felt foolish. “I’m sorry. I just got carried away listening to you. It sounded so wonderful it made me want to be a part of it all, and I got to thinking about my brother…how happy he’d be out here.
“But it won’t happen,” she said, the glow of her fantasy fading beneath the shroud of misery that hung over them. “The judge will come. We’ll both hang. So what’s the point in talking about what can never be?”
At that, Curt blazed, “The point is having hope, damn it, which is another reason you’d never make it out here. You give up too blasted easy. You’re used to living in a world where it’s the same thing, day after day, with no real challenges. Out here you’ve got to be able to take a kick in the teeth and then pull yourself up by your bootstraps and keep on going.”
He stood and handed her the torch. “Here. Take this and go back to the front of the shaft. I’m not giving up.”
He walked away, disappearing into the shadows, and for an instant she was tempted to call after him, but resisted.
He was right.
She was not used to having to struggle to survive.
She was used to taking life’s blows and not fighting back.
But no more, by God.
No more.
Chapter Seven
Curt was surprised when Tess had told him she wanted to help search for a way out of the mine shaft. So in the days that followed, they explored every nook and cranny possible, which left them exhausted at night, and they parted early.
Curt stared into the glowing embers and wondered if Tess was warm enough where she slept near the entrance. Stubborn filly that she was, she had been quick to turn down his offer to share his alcove. So he had offered to build a fire for her, but she said if she felt the need she could do it herself.
Actually, she was surprising him more and more by showing grit he never knew she had. But still, if any woman ever needed looking after, it was Tess Partridge. Saul Beckwith had been spared, all right, because he never would’ve had a real wife—just a child to look after.
Curt shook his head at the ludicrous image in his mind of her walking into the assay office with a gun in her hand. It was a miracle she hadn’t shot herself in the foot. She needed someone to look after her, all right; but, he reminded himself grimly, unless he could find a way out of the shaft, it wouldn’t matter. She was as good as dead.
And so was he.
Damn it, he wished now he hadn’t trailed Abe Pugh, but it was not his nature to run from a fight. If he had lost the money fair and square, it would have been different. He had known before he ever sat down at that poker table there was a chance he might lose. Still, he was willing to gamble, willing to wager everything he had in hopes of winning enough to stake a ranch of his own. It had been his dream for as long as he could remember. It was what had kept him going, after he ran away from home in Tennessee when he was only ten years old to escape a drunken father who used him for a punching bag when his mother was too beaten down to hit anymore.
The first few years had been rough, a continuing cycle of sleeping in alleys or old barns, stealing food, getting caught, being sent to an orphan home, only to escape and start all over again.
About the time he turned sixteen, curiosity had driven him back to see his mother and younger brothers and sisters, only to learn his father had finally beaten his mother to death and been hanged for doing it. No one knew what had happened to the kids.
Eventually he had made his way west and took to the ranching life. He learned to ride and rope and shoot and felt like he’d found his place in life.
And then two things happened to blow his world apart.
The war.
And a woman.
He had just turned twenty-three when Texas joined the fight between the North and the South and going off to war was the last thing he wanted to do. He was satisfied working as foreman on Jordan Comstock’s big ranch, and even more so with Comstock’s daughter, Mary Lou. With her flame-red hair, sparkling green eyes, and sassy little turned-up nose, she had a lasso around his heart for sure.
He had asked her to marry him too many times to count, but she enjoyed pitting him against her many other suitors. Still, he was the one she sneaked out of the house to be with at night, and he was the one to whom she had given her virginity on a moss-covered creek bank. He was confident that when she was ready to settle down, she would choose him.
Then war broke out. Jordan Comstock formed a regiment and got himself elected captain, letting Curt know in no uncertain terms that he was expected to join up.
He hadn’t wanted to leave Mary Lou, but she had made a flag for the regiment, and when she gave it to him the day they left, she had burst into tears, thrown her arms around him, and promised to marry him as soon as he came home.
So Curt had marched off to war, bursting with joy to think she had finally said yes, and began counting the days till he could return and make her his wife.
Only days turned to weeks, then months and years. He never got back to Texas during all that time, because he became so embroiled in the fighting that all else was pushed from his mind as he became one of the South’s most courageous soldiers.
Not long into the war, Jordan was wounded bad enough to send him home, so Curt had taken over the regiment, which was almost completely wiped out at Gettysburg. After that, he had formed a kind of renegade cavalry unit that became legendary.
Finally, when the last shot was fired, the last flag waved, Curt had gone home to Mary Lou…only to discover she had married someone else.
The fire sputtered and popped, bringing him back to the present. The flames were dying, but he was not going to try to keep it going…like he so foolishly had attempted to do with his love for Mary Lou.
Jordan had given him his old job back, and he had taken it because he didn’t know what the hell he was going to do with his life.
He tasted bitter bile to remember how Mary Lou had brazenly sneaked into his room over the barn his very first night home, crying and begging his forgiveness for not waiting. She had described how, with her father sick and her mother crying all the time, she hadn’t known what to do and had been desperate. An only child, there was no one but her to take care of things, and when Tom Padgett, a much older man who owned the adjoining spread, proposed, her mother made her accept, saying it was the only way they could survive.
Curt had been drinking when she came to his room. He had sat on the side of his bed, stonily listening and continuing to sip whiskey, as she knelt beside him, arms wrapped about his legs, head on his knees, and wept her tale.
At first he had been angry, but gradually he began to think she might be telling the truth, especially when she pointed out that she had merely been a victim of the war like so many other people and driven to do whatever was necessary in order to survive.
She had also said she still loved him with all her heart and soul. That was when he had finally taken her in his arms. They had made love with abandon till just before the first light of day forced them apart, lest Mary Lou be seen leaving the barn.
Thus began their illicit love, although Mary Lou insisted it would not always be that way. She would divorce Tom, she swore, as soon as her father died. His war wounds had left him weak. He had a bad heart. The doctor said he probably did not have long to live. So Curt had to be patient, sh
e said, because if she left Tom, it might upset her father and hasten his death, and she did not want that on her conscience.
Believing her—believing that she loved him and meant every word she said——Curt reluctantly accepted the situation. It was, however, a kind of hell, living with the deception, knowing she belonged to another man, worrying they would get caught…as well as feeling guilt for wishing Jordan Comstock would die.
And then he did.
Curt went through the motions of grief, all the while wondering how long it would be before Mary Lou asked Tom for a divorce.
He would lay away at night, arms folded behind his head, and stare up at the ceiling and think about how good life was going to be when he and Mary Lou were married and living in the big house. He was sure Tom would do the proper thing and see to it she got everything that had been her father’s. After all, he had a place of his own. So while it was a tense situation, Curt was positive everything would work out.
And that’s what Curt told himself over and over, night after night, as he tried to be patient, knowing there had to be a proper mourning period. Mary Lou could not bury her father one day and ask her husband for a divorce the next.
It was also hard not being with her, because she felt it was too big a risk for them to meet. If Tom found out, she feared there would be a lot of trouble.
So Curt tried to be tolerant, but when several months passed, he decided one day he just couldn’t stand it any longer. And, managing to catch her alone in the house, he fiercely told her as much.
And that was when she revealed she had changed her mind. Divorce, she said, was out of the question, for she had discovered that it was Tom’s money keeping the ranch going, not her father’s, and since Curt didn’t have any, she was afraid they would wind up destitute.
Curt argued that was nonsense, that he would keep the ranch going and make it prosper.
And what if Tom would not give her the ranch? she argued. What would they do then?
It would not matter, Curt had countered. They would start over somewhere else. They would be together. That’s all that mattered.
