Coming Up Roses

by Catherine Anderson

  It's over, a voice within her whispered.

  And Kate knew it truly was. Ever since Miranda's birth nearly five years ago, she had spent every waking moment in fear for her. These last seven months, that fearfulness had become a fixation. Now, she was no longer afraid. There was no reason to be. Miranda was safe, perfectly safe, and as long as Zachariah McGovern drew breath, she would always remain safe.

  Heroes, and magic, and castles made of dreams… Foolish childhood fantasies. Kate could never believe in such things again. Her nose had been rubbed too hard in grim reality for her to do that. But she had spun those fantasies for her daughter, day after day, creating make-believe worlds all trimmed in gold because Miranda had needed a handful of magic. And somehow, crazy though it seemed, the fantasies had become real.

  Tears filled Kate's eyes, and a tremulous smile touched her mouth. Miranda's hero, Zachariah McGovern. For a man of heroic proportions, Kate supposed he was a little rough around the edges. His castles were seven-room houses built out of straw. Instead of flowing silk garments, he wore dirt-smudged denim and faded chambray. He had ridden to their rescue on a sorrel gelding named Dander instead of a prancing white steed. And last but not least, he didn't have a magic wand. But he was a hero, just the same. And in his own way, he had worked magic, filling their lives with laughter, making them feel safe when Kate had despaired of ever feeling safe again.

  Miranda's hero.

  And now Kate's. She wasn't sure how it had happened, or when it had happened, but she had fallen in love with him, rough edges and all. Deeply and irrevocably in love. And she wanted a life with him. Tossing griddle cakes in the air. Flipping peas with spoons. She wanted it all with no threats hanging over her head, with no fear that it could all be snatched away.

  The faint sound of a door closing caught Kate's attention. She turned her gaze toward the house to see the object of her thoughts emerging from the shadows to stand at the top of the steps. Dressed only in jeans that rode low on his hipbones, he struck an unnervingly male pose, one knee bent, hands at his waist, his muscular chest and shoulders gleaming like burnished silver in the moonlight. When he spotted her, the tension flowed from his body, and he descended the steps in two easy strides.

  "Katie?" His voice cut through the gloom, low and whispery, yet gruff. "Why didn't you tell me you were going outside? I woke up, and all I had in bed with me was a kid and a dog."

  Before she could form a reply, he stepped on something with his bare foot. "Jesus H. Christ!"

  Kate smiled to herself as he gimped his way toward her. Bracing a hand on the wobbly fence, he vaulted over, his body a harmony of motion, the perfect blend of strength and agility. As always, she felt dwarfed when he drew up beside her. Dwarfed, but not threatened. Never that, not with Zachariah.

  "Are you okay?"

  "I just had some thinking to do, and this seemed like the right place." She inclined her head at the garden. "Good-bye to the old, hello to the new."

  He leaned on the fence beside her. The touch of his arm was warm and vibrantly male, making Kate aware of her body as she had never been. His shimmering gaze searched hers for a long moment. "Joseph?" he asked.

  She studied her hands, uncertain how to express her feelings. "He's ruled my life for so long, Zachariah. I think it's high time to put him behind me."

  "Amen to that."

  She nibbled her lip. "I'm afraid you don't understand. I mean really behind me." She looked up, her heart in her throat. "You'll probably think I'm crazy. After all you've done—with the garden and all."

  She saw the tendons along his throat convulse as he swallowed. He fixed his gaze on the distant mountains.

  "You've decided to turn yourself in."

  It wasn't a question, and by that Kate knew he did understand, probably far better than she had hoped. "He still has a hold on me. He always will if I leave things as they are." Tears stung her eyes, but she didn't try to blink them away. Not with this man. "I want my life back. I know it's crazy, but I'll never feel free of him unless I—"

  "Honey, you don't have to explain. I knew you'd decide to do it sooner or later. I just didn't expect it now."

  "Would you like me to wait?"

  He sighed. "No. I just—" He broke off and turned his dark head to study her. "What about Miranda? They might lock you up." His voice went hard-edged. "Jesus, Katie, think about this, really think. Do you understand what's at stake? An inquest. If that goes badly, you could be indicted and have to stand trial. It could take weeks, maybe months. Are you ready for that? Is she?"

  Kate felt as though someone were closing his hands around her throat. She wasn't all that familiar with court proceedings. No small wonder since Joseph hadn't allowed her much contact with the outside world. "You mean the sheriff can't decide?"

  "The sheriff?" His dark face looked harsh and alien to her when he turned to regard her. "Honey, a man's been killed."

  "But it was an accident."

  "The sheriff doesn't have the authority to decide that."

  "You mean I'll have to be in jail and tried for murder?"

  He exhaled with a weary sigh and ran a hand over his face. "That depends on the coroner's findings. If he can't tell for sure how Joseph really died, it'll go before a grand jury and be their decision." When his gaze returned to hers, he looked more grim than Kate had ever seen him. "The grand jury will decide whether or not there's sufficient evidence to make you stand trial. Seven jurors, Katie girl, all men. Most of them with wives who have had reason to clobber them a time or two."

  "Husbands?" she echoed hollowly.

  "Husbands," he affirmed. Though his eyes glinted with seriousness, his mouth quirked slightly at the corners.

  "Hopefully fair-minded individuals who won't hand down an indictment. But if you go to trial, you can count on the prosecuting attorney to make it look as bad for you as he can. That's his job, to get convictions."

  Kate steepled her fingers and pressed their tips against her lips. "Oh, Zachariah, what do you think I should do?"

  He laughed low in his chest, but there was no humor in the sound. "Don't lay that on me. It's too tempting to play autocrat. You have to make the decision. The outcome will have an effect on me, yes, but you and Miranda will suffer most."

  Kate gazed off across the valley, swamped by memories. For so long, she had never been allowed to make decisions, not about anything. And now she was being forced to make the most important one of her life. There was a part of her that nearly wished Zachariah would play autocrat. But she knew that was fear raising its head.

  One of the most special things about him was that he treated her like a thinking individual.

  Her decision… Kate shoved the fear back and focused on the issues that had brought her out here tonight in the first place. Being free of Joseph, putting all of this behind her. She could never do that until she faced things. In short, risks or no, there was only one thing she could do.

  "Miranda will have you," she whispered. "She doesn't need me anymore. Not really."

  "Oh, honey…" He shifted sideways to brush the tears from her cheeks. "Of course she needs you. She'll always need you."

  "You don't understand. I'm not sad about it. I'm glad, wonderfully glad." Kate caught his wrist and pressed a kiss to his rough palm. "If something happened—if I disappeared from her life, she'd be sad for a while, but she'd be all right. Because she has you. I don't have to worry about what might happen to her anymore. Not the way I used to. That was the one hold Joseph still had on me, and now it's gone."

  "What about you?" He twisted his wrist to catch her hand in his strong grip. "What about you, Katie? Have you thought of that? We can leave Joseph where he is. You don't have to take the risk. Having him planted there isn't eating on my conscience any, not under the circumstances. The way I see it, a rose garden is better than he deserves."

  "It is eating at me, though," she whispered. "Sometimes, life makes it impossible to choose betwe
en right and wrong, and we do what we must. We keep secrets that haunt us because to reveal them might hurt someone we love."

  At the words, he averted his face, looking for all the world as though she had struck him.

  "Zachariah? You understand what I'm saying, don't you?" she asked anxiously.

  "Unfortunately, yes." He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "We all have a secret or two that haunts us, I reckon. And sometimes circumstances dictate." His mouth curved in a grim smile. "Instead of doing the right thing, we do what we feel we have to. I understand. Maybe better than you think."

  "Seven months ago, I did the unthinkable to protect my child. Now she doesn't need protecting, and I'm free to do the right thing, even though it's late in coming. It's a loose end for me, Zachariah. Please say you understand."

  "Honey, of course I understand. But what if you're tried for murder and found guilty? Not to say it might happen that way. I don't think it will. But what if it did?"

  A quiver of fear attacked Kate's stomach. When she finally managed to speak, her voice came out thin and tremulous. "Then you'll have to raise my daughter. Will you promise to do that?"

  "Our daughter," he corrected in a deep whisper. "And yes, I give you my oath. I'll raise her and love her with every breath I take. But given my druthers, I'd like to have her ma in the bargain."

  Looking into his eyes, Kate knew in her heart that he would keep that oath, no matter what. Not just for her, but because he loved the child. Magic wishes did indeed come true, and Miranda had gotten hers, a new pa who was really something.

  "It's a matter I must tend to," she said softly. "I can't live the rest of my life with the threat of discovery banging over my head." She moistened her lips. "Don't you see, Zachariah? You can't have me in the bargain, not really.

  Not as long as I'm shackled to the past."

  He touched light fingertips to her temple. "Like I said, it's your decision to make, but that doesn't stop me from being afraid for you. Once you take that step, I can't protect you anymore. You do understand that?"

  Kate understood all too well. "I—I know it's a lot to ask, but would you consider going with me when I tell the sheriff? I'd feel better if you were there."

  He moaned low in his throat and drew her into his arms. "Honey, I'd walk straight into hell with you." He splayed a hand over her back. "You couldn't keep me away if you hogtied me."

  Kate encircled his waist with her arms, realizing as she did that this was the first time she had ever returned his embrace. She pressed a cheek to his bare chest and breathed in the scent of him. His skin bore faint traces of sweat and sun-dried denim, grass and hay, little-girl sweetness and musky dog. Being in his arms, holding him close… It felt so right, so perfectly and wonderfully right.

  With him beside her, she felt ready to face just about anything, even being charged with murder.

  * * *

  An hour later, Zach lay with Kate in his arms, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, his senses alert to every nuance of her breathing, every spot where her slight body pressed against his. In all his life, he had never tasted such cloying fear, not even when cholera had wiped out half his family, taking both his parents and three of his brothers. That had been fate, something he couldn't prevent. If he chose, he could stop Kate from what she intended to do tomorrow.

  Zach had a good mind to do just that. The problem was that he couldn't be sure his motivations were entirely noble. Scratch that. He knew they weren't noble. He felt a little sick when he remembered how he had tried to dissuade her from going to the sheriff. The truth of it was that he didn't honestly feel afraid for either one of them.

  He believed in the judicial system, and believing in it as he did, he found it impossible to contemplate Kate's being found guilty of Joseph's murder. Considering what the man had done and what he had been in the act of doing when she struck him, a jury would probably let her off even if she had intended to kill him. No one in his right mind would blame her for defending her child.

  If he was honest with himself, brutally honest, what really scared hell out of him was what might happen after Kate faced her demons. Once she was vindicated of any wrongdoing, he was going to be an unwanted element in her life, extra baggage she no longer needed, an authority figure she abhorred. After all she had been through, who could fault her for wanting her freedom?

  He had gone into this marriage knowing she didn't love him. They'd made a trade, his name and protection in exchange for her hand. After tomorrow, she'd be well on her way to not needing him. He didn't think she'd thought ahead to that yet. But when she did, it wouldn't be long before she started contemplating the possibility of an annulment.

  He thought about spiriting her away to another room. To stake his claim on her flesh, to consummate their marriage so nothing and no one could ever put it asunder. Using all his fragile self-control, he stifled the urge and closed his eyes against a rush of possessiveness.

  She wasn't ready for a physical relationship with him yet. All he had to do was look into her eyes to know that.

  She was becoming relaxed with him, yes. And he felt certain they had forged a lasting friendship between them.

  Given time to worm his way into her heart, he didn't doubt his ability to arouse her and make sex pleasurable for her. But time was a luxury he no longer had. After she went to the sheriff tomorrow, she would probably be incarcerated until she was vindicated. If he meant to consummate this marriage, he had only a few hours left.

  When had he become so desperate that he would actually consider tying a woman to him, her wishes be damned?

  When had his love for her become twisted into something so unholy that he could look upon her as a piece of flesh to be owned?

  Behind his closed eyelids, Zach pictured the expression that would come into Kate's eyes if he used his strength against her. At the image, his stomach knotted with rage, not at her but himself because it would be so horribly easy for him to do it. Or worse yet, to use Miranda as leverage against her. She would do anything to ensure her daughter's well-being … anything. A carefully phrased threat from him, that's all it would take.

  Tucking in his chin to study her sweet face, Zach traced a fingertip along the fragile curve of her jaw. She murmured in her sleep and pressed closer to him. Every other night since their marriage, they had slept with a child and dog between them. But tonight she had moved into his arms as if it were the most natural thing in the world. All he needed was a little more time. Just a chance to make her love him, that was all he needed. And he wasn't going to get it.

  He had two choices, the way he saw it. He could force her hand now, or he could risk losing her. The first came with guarantees, the second didn't.

  Carefully, so as not to awaken her, Zach withdrew his arms from around Kate and left the bed. There were other places to sleep in this sprawling house, and if he wanted to like himself in the morning, he had best find one.

  The choice to walk away … that would be his gift to her.

  * * *

  The following afternoon, Kate sat alone in the kitchen, rhythmically rocking in her chair in an attempt to block out the sounds that floated into the house from outside. Men's voices and steel scraping rock … the sounds of a nightmare being unveiled and exposed to sunlight.

  When the noises ceased, so did Kate's frantic rocking. Curling her hands around the rocker armrests, she dug her nails into the wood. Sweat filmed her body and, not for the first time, she regretted her decision to visit the sheriff that morning. All for what? To exonerate herself? To give Joseph a sacred resting place? To put the guilt behind her? Those reasons seemed so feeble now.

  Marcus had taken Miranda over to Zachariah's place. Her husband was outside overseeing the grim exhumation of Joseph's remains. Sitting here in the shadows, she was getting a taste of the dimness and loneliness that could become a steady diet for her inside a jail cell if she should be convicted of his murder.

  The report of hea
vy boots echoed through the plank floor, and Kate knew Zachariah and the sheriff had come into the house. I won't be able to protect you any longer. You do understand that? Since hearing Zachariah utter those words, Kate had sensed his withdrawal from her. For the first time since their marriage, he had slept away from her last night. But it was more than that. There was an evasiveness about him, a detached expression in his eyes, almost as if he were bracing himself to say good-bye. That, above all else, struck terror into Kate.

  When had she come to need Zachariah so desperately? She craved the feeling of his warm, heavy hand on her shoulder. She yearned for his gaze, twinkling and full of laughter, to search hers for an endless moment, sending messages that both puzzled her and made her skin tingle. She longed to feel his arms around her, to hear him whisper, "It'll be okay, Katie girl."

  She wasn't a child. He couldn't wave his hand and make everything right in her world. Yet, somehow, she had come to count on his magic. Her rational side mocked her for that. You don't believe in heroes, remember? But she did believe in Zachariah. And she wanted him to slay the dragons so she wouldn't have to face them. Instead, he was pulling away his support, separating himself from her before she was even gone.

  Tears burned in the back of Kate's throat. She swallowed them down. Pain and fear were her old friends. She had learned long ago never to weep with sorrow. When things got tough, you stiffened your spine and gritted your teeth.

  "Kate?"

  Zachariah's voice lashed across her nerves, and she sprang from the chair. Whirling, her heart slamming against her ribs, she saw her husband and the sheriff coming through the door.

  "Sheriff Higgins would like to talk to you," Zachariah said softly.

  Kate's gaze slid to the lawman. An individual of wiry build and average height, he looked small standing beside her husband. Because of the heat, he had removed his black serge suit jacket. Sweat ringed the underarms of his white cotton shirt, and his bow tie hung loose at his unfastened collar. In one hand, he held a box camera, which she assumed he had used to take photographs of the corpse. The thought made bile surge up her throat.