Jodi Thomas (28 page)

As soon as they reached town, Lacy planned to go straight to her father-in-law and ask for help. With any luck, he could get a telegram sent to Sheriff Riley.

Bailee needed to see Carter. Once she knew he was all right, they’d think of some way to get him out. So her only mission in town would be to break into the jail.

Samuel’s job was to drive the wagon. Once they got to town, he’d hide it behind the newspaper office. From Lacy’s apartment window he could see the jail and be ready for whatever happened.

Rom, on the other hand, would scout around, listening for anything that might prove helpful. Wheeler was a talker and a drinker. Bailee bet Rom could find him bragging over whiskey in one of the saloons.

The plan was simple. Everyone would scatter and meet back at the apartment at midnight. It would probably be tomorrow before they could get things accomplished, but by dawn they’d know where they stood.

Bailee watched the night sky as they rode toward town. Only a sliver of a moon lit the way, and no one talked as they huddled in the back of Samuel’s wagon. Like Bailee, they were lost in their own thoughts.

It was no plan at all, she decided. Even if Lacy got a telegram off to Riley, he was probably too weak to travel. If he came back, he’d only be one against three, maybe four if Zeb showed his face. Lacy’s father-in-law might be a nice man, but he was old and crippled. He’d be of little help. Wheeler and his partners probably wouldn’t let Bailee see Carter, and if they did, Carter probably wouldn’t talk to her after she’d hurt him so with her question. Even if Rom did hear something, he most likely wouldn’t remember enough English to repeat it exactly.

Bailee fought back tears. “No plan at all,” she whispered.

Lacy seemed to believe they’d think of something when the time came, but experience had taught Bailee she wasn’t good at saying or doing the right thing without thinking it through. Her life was a string of calamities due to no regard for caution, and tonight promised to be no exception.

They pulled into a sleeping town, Bailee’s hopes low. Part of her wished she’d stayed in the orchard with the children, but she knew she couldn’t sleep without at least trying to apologize to Carter. She needed to explain about her past even if it meant telling him everything. Once she knew he wasn’t angry with her, they’d think of something.

Lacy, Bailee, and Rom climbed silently from the wagon and melted into the night. Lacy to the boardinghouse where her father-in-law lived, Rom to the shadows near the saloon, Bailee to the jail.

“Midnight,” Samuel whispered, as if anyone needed reminding.

Bailee pulled her shawl around her head. It wasn’t cold, but she felt somehow protected from the night with it covering her. The hour was far too late for respectable women to walk the streets alone. She kept her head low and her steps quick.

A light shown from the jail window. She had the odd sense of coming home as she entered the office/jail where she’d spent a week. Sheriff Riley never bothered to lock the door to the cell when Bailee and the others stayed there, so no bad memories hung over the place.

Smell was another matter. From the moment she opened the door, Sheriff Riley’s pipe tobacco greeted her, along with the odor of years of boiled coffee. Tonight, other smells blended with the familiar. Unwashed bodies. Whiskey. A lingering hint of violence.

Bailee stepped inside the office and pushed the door closed. She noticed the large cell was locked tonight. The bars dividing the office reflected the light of a single lantern atop the sheriff’s desk.

Ludlow sat with his feet propped beside the light. Empty coffee cups cluttered the usually neat counter, and a stack of unread mail weighed down one corner of the desk. Ludlow didn’t look up at her as he lazily cleaned his huge Colt.

“ ’Bout time you got here,” he mumbled as he swung his chair around and let his feet hit the floor with a thud. “I’m mighty thirsty—”

He didn’t finish the sentence when he spotted her. First surprise, then irritation registered in his scarred face. “What do you want?”

Bailee searched beyond the bars for Carter. “I came to see my husband.” She saw a dark form on the cot against the far wall, but it didn’t move.

“Have to come back when it’s daylight.” Ludlow stumbled over his words as he stood and blocked her view of the cell as if she didn’t have the right even to look. “It’s too late for a visit tonight.”

Bailee took a step, trying to see around the man to Carter. Was her husband asleep? Or unconscious? Surely if he were able, he’d at least move.

“I insist!” Bailee straightened her shoulders. “I have a right to visit.”

Ludlow widened his stance. “You can insist all you like, but you’re not seeing him till morning. Wheeler didn’t leave no orders that there could be visitors tonight. If he didn’t tell me, I ain’t doing it.”

“But I have to know if my husband is all right.”

“He’s fine.” Ludlow looked like he couldn’t care less if she believed him. He touched his badge as though trying to think of the right words a deputy should say. “Now, get out of here before I lock you up for bothering the law.”

Bailee stood her ground. “I’m not leaving until I’ve seen my husband, so don’t try to threaten me.” She pointed her finger at him.

Ludlow frowned. “I said leave or I’ll arrest you. I got the right, you know. This badge says I do.”

“No, it doesn’t!”

“Yes, it does!”

Bailee moved a foot closer, still just out of his reach. “You wouldn’t dare arrest me, you no-good drifter. That piece of tin doesn’t mean anything. You’re no more the law than Wheeler is.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then prove it.”

Ludlow took the bait. He grabbed her arm with one hand and the keys to the cell with the other. “I’ll show you what I can and can’t do.”

He pulled her to the cell and opened the lock, then shoved her inside with enough force to send her halfway across the floor.

“Now you can just stay there till you rot, for all I care.” He tossed the keys on the desk and stormed to a box nailed high that served as a shelf near the stove. A whiskey bottle replaced the coffee tin that usually rested there. Ludlow helped himself to a long swig. “This job ain’t as easy as Wheeler said it’d be,” he mumbled, then raised his voice to add, “and you don’t give me no more trouble or there’ll be hell to pay, lady. Hell to pay.”

Bailee forgot about the idiot she’d been talking to and moved into the back of the cell. Her hand brushed along Carter’s shoulder as he lay facing the wall. He was warm and she could tell he was breathing, but he didn’t roll toward her. Something was wrong.

She knelt. “Carter?” Her fingers brushed the familiar line of his arm. The muscles were tight, unyielding.

“Carter?”

“Go away,” he answered without moving. He didn’t sound as if he’d been asleep.

“I’m here to help,” she whispered back as her fingers brushed his hair. She could feel dried blood mingled in the strands.

“How? By getting locked in here with me?”

Bailee frowned. Maybe it wasn’t the best of plans, but at least she got to see him. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

He said the words so flatly she knew he lied. She wanted him to roll over and open his arms to her, but she understood why he didn’t.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, brushing his shoulder with her fingers once more as though she could brush away the pain the question had caused him.

“Why? Because I’m not hurt or because you aren’t sure I’m not a criminal?”

“I’m sorry for ever asking the question.”

“You’ve only known me days. Maybe I asked too much thinking you could believe in me. After all, I’m only the husband you chose from a hat, one choice better than staying in jail.” His words were hesitant, rehearsed, meant to hurt.

Bailee fought back tears. She deserved his anger, but that didn’t make the pain any less. Could it have been only hours ago that he’d spoken to her with passion and told her he wanted her? Now, not the world, but her words had made him pull back from everyone, including her.

“Carter, I—”

“Hush up in there!” Ludlow yelled. “Or I’ll gag you both. Ray’s forgot about relieving me tonight, so I plan to sleep here, and I don’t want any noise bothering me.” The sound of whiskey being gulped followed.

Bailee leaned her forehead against Carter’s shoulder, but he didn’t move. He’d pulled away from her, locking himself in a cell she could never enter.

She stood and moved to the other cot. There was no use trying to talk to him.

An hour passed, then another. By now Lacy, Samuel, and Rom must be wondering where she was. She stood and looked toward the lantern. Ludlow was sound asleep at the desk, his Colt resting across his legs.

Silently she crept to the window and waited. If they were looking for her, one of them would check the jail eventually, and the only window safe to peep into was the barred one.

She didn’t have long to wait. Rom’s dirty fingers wrapped around the bars, and he pulled himself up the outside wall.

When she touched his fingers, he stiffened. Slowly he pulled high enough to meet her gaze. He didn’t bother with unnecessary words.

“Tell Lacy and Samuel I’m fine,” Bailee whispered. “Tell them to get some sleep. There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Carter is all right for now.”

Rom nodded and slowly disappeared from view. His fingers slipped from the bars.

Bailee pressed her back against the cool adobe wall and relaxed. There was nothing to do until morning. She knew Carter was all right, and she was probably safer than anywhere else she could be. Zeb Whitaker wouldn’t think to look here. She closed her eyes and tried to remember to breathe.

The warmth of Carter’s nearness pressed against her a moment before his body leaned into her.

Bailee stiffened, startled that he’d moved so close without making a sound, then relaxed as his fingers slipped into her hair, destroying the bun she’d tied at the base of her neck.

She opened her mouth to speak, but his lips covered hers before she could get a word out. His kiss was hard and demanding without the tenderness she’d grown to expect.

His fingers twisted into fists, tangling her hair inside them as his body pressed her against the wall, boldly telling her of his need for her.

Shock and passion pumped through her veins. She could almost taste his anger at her as his kiss bruised her lips, but there was something more, far more.

He needed her. Far down in the very core of his being, he needed her ... and her world crumbled about her when she realized he hated himself for it.

F
ROM HIS CELL WINDOW CARTER WATCHED THE moon disappear behind shadowy buildings. The night had grown cold as it always did on the plains. Another few hours and it would be daylight. Another few hours and he’d have to say something to Bailee.

Rubbing the wrinkles from his forehead, he tried for the hundredth time to remove the smells and noises of the town long enough to sleep. But it was hopeless. The only relief from the horrible odor of too many people living too close together had been when Bailee came near. Then his senses filled only with her.

The ugly town, the stench, even the constant rumbling of sounds vanished when he pulled her close. The memory of her was stronger than all the reality he’d known before she tumbled into his world.

He glanced over at her sitting on the cot, her eyes still wide open. She needed sleep, he reminded himself, and he had to think, but at this rate neither would reach any goal tonight.

When she glanced in his direction, their eyes met and held as if they no longer had the strength to look away. The longing for each other was so great, it hung in the air like hundred-year-old spiderwebs, distorting all else around them.

She stood, a dream walking toward him. He waited until she was only inches away, before he pulled her to him as he had earlier.

She responded like clay in his arms as he touched, letting him mold her, handle her. And he touched her boldly, almost angrily at first, then with more passion than he’d ever known. The memory of every embrace they’d ever shared washed against his body in a tangible wave of pleasure as he stood before her collecting the nearness of her with every sense.

She made no protest when he moved his hands over her clothes, cupping her breast tightly in his fingers as he kissed her, daring her to object. His last words had been spoken in anger, yet she accepted his silent hunger with a longing that matched his own.

They stood beside the barred window, oblivious to all but each other. His hands claimed her as his with the daring of a man betting all he had on one roll of the dice.

He broke the kiss suddenly, bracing himself for her reproach.

She’d whispered his name, driving him more insane than he thought it possible to be and still breathe. He heard no objection to his actions, only a need for him to continue.

There would be no casual embrace, no friendly kiss. Their longing for each other had gone far beyond such. She’d become a basic need to him, and her responses told him she felt the same.

He’d pulled her deeply into the blackness of the cell and kissed her more gently.

Vaguely Ludlow’s snoring registered, and he knew they were alone, blanketed by night. Long, lazy kisses followed as she relaxed against his body. Their movements became a slow dance that flamed a fire building inside each.

Giving her time to breathe, he buried his face against her neck and tasted her throat, unbuttoning her collar until he could feel the swell of her breasts. Then he returned, hungry for her mouth, not giving her time to speak as he took her breath away once more.

When he moved to her throat, he felt the pounding of her heart against his lips as he unbuttoned another button of her blouse. The knuckle of his first finger slipped between her breasts and he pushed the material low, longing for the feel of her flesh in his hand.