Kit Gardner (18 page)

“What are you so damned afraid of?” he murmured, his lips all but buried in her hair next to her ear, his hand molding her waist in the most intimate of caresses, yet retaining a hold on her as if he’d never let her go. “Relax, Jess.” How his voice tempted her, so cajoling, so wicked, as the world spun by in a sun-dappled blur. “Just dance with me. Give in to feeling, just for a time, Jess. Let yourself.”

Oh, yes, she could lose herself to this man, all his unspoken promises. It was very clear to her now. Since the moment he’d come into her life, she’d been perched upon the edge of this yawning precipice, a mere thought away from plunging herself into the unknown. Yet how natural it was to relish the feel of his arms about her, the sturdy wall of his chest brushing against her breasts, the sinewed thighs pressing into her muslin skirts, the blood thumping vibrantly through her veins.

“Kick off your shoes, Jess. Let your hair loose. Feel the dirt beneath your toes. Roll around in it until you’re covered with it, then come swimming with me in the stream. Come with me, Jess. Let me put sunlight in your soul.”

She gulped in huge breaths. “No... You’re... I’m—”

“You’re what, Jess?” he rasped into her hair. “You’re like a fragile rosebud that needs sunlight to blossom, if only you’d allow yourself. What do you think you might find if you stop fighting it all? Shackling yourself with responsibility and drudgery isn’t some penance you have to pay for your husband’s misdeeds. You know this. And still you’re willing to condemn yourself to the same life with a man like Halsey.”

“This has nothing to do with Avram. Or Frank. I’ve all but forgotten—”

“The hell you have. You beat yourself up with it every damned day, blaming yourself, when the man was nothing but a fool.”

“Stop. You speak as if you know him, when you couldn’t possibly. He—”

“If you defend him, by God, I’ll—” His breath left him in a growl. “No, Jess, I’m not going to stop until I have you screaming with it, not until that animal you’ve got all locked up tight inside you is out of its cage. I want to see it, Jess. Let it out. Give it to me, if you’re going to give it to anyone.”

She stared up at his face, seeing the lines of tension now deeply ingrained about his mouth, between his brows. Such strength in that face, strength a woman could depend upon...if she was but willing to risk it. But she had been a big enough fool once. “Give it to you, Stark, and then what would you do? I am but a curiosity for you, aren’t I? You wish to stir the witch within me, do you, to taste of it heartily, to get your fill in the stream, and rolling about in the dust? And then what? You shall hammer your last nail and paint your last stroke and mount your horse without the least remorse, and move on to yet another little curiosity awaiting you on the prairie. And what then shall I be left to do, once no man would have me, wanton that I would become—”

“Don’t—” He swallowed heavily and seemed about to crush her head against his chest, only to think the better of it. His fist caught in her hair. “God, don’t cry. And don’t look at me that way. I only wanted to dance with you, to see you smile just once for me. I want to see joy in your eyes. I want—hell, I don’t know what I want. I only know you turn me inside out, Jess, upside down and sideways, and I find myself saying things and doing things no fool would do. And it’s all happening too fast...too fast, and I—”

And then he tensed, at the precise moment a gunshot rang out. Or was it a gunshot? It couldn’t be, on such a lovely day, and her dancing in the arms of such a man. He was telling her she turned him inside out.

No one would dare shoot a gun now.

Another shot rang out, unmistakable this time as its retort echoed off the church. The fiddles squeaked to a discordant halt. Someone screamed, a hysterical woman. The men started shouting, and utter pandemonium broke loose.

She screamed for Christian.

Stark grabbed her hand, pulled her along behind him several paces, uttered a vivid curse, then spun about and grasped her roughly by the shoulders.

“Find Christian and get inside the church.”

She blinked up at him, at the grim set of his mouth, the barren coldness in his eyes, felt the roughness of his hands upon her. He was like another man. A chill crept through her. “What is it?”

“Just once,” he growled, hoisting her like a sack of flour and slinging her over his shoulder. “Just once, I want you to listen to me without question.”

“I will!” she shrieked as he set off with her toward the church. “Put me down— I—oomph!” Her feet jarred to the ground, and then he yanked her hard against him.

“Promise me, Jess,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get Christian and stay in the church, no matter what.”

“I—I promise.”

And then he turned and darted through the crowd. Another gunshot rang out, and another. She spun about and screamed for her son.

“G
ood gracious, it’s outlaws, right here in Twilight. Who would’ve thought? But with that railroad comin’ through here, it was just a matter o’ time ‘fore we got our due o’ rabble. Look, Elly, they’re comin’ right this way, shootin’ off their guns, lookin’ to make trouble, sure as hellfire. A wicked-lookin’ bunch, drinkin’ their devil’s brew. There’s three of ‘em.”

“Four.”

“You’re right, Elly. I wasn’t countin’ the one on the black horse, and everyone’s breathin’ so hard they’re foggin’ the winderpane. That one there, right outside the church here—see him? No, he’s not one of ‘em. He’s got a gun, Elly?”

“Cain’t see one.”

“I don’t see ‘em, neither. My, but he don’t look outright like an outlaw, does he? Why, Elly, you don’t think he’s gonna try ‘n’ drive ‘em off all by hisself? Someone should go get the sheriff, don’t you think? One man can’t scare off riffraff like that all by hisself, can he? Who the devil could he be? Seems tall ‘nough. Can’t see too good without my bifocals, but he looks to be the handsome sort. Right fine, from here. Seems to me I seen him somewhere... Oh, Elly! He’s the one Sadie’s been talkin’ ‘bout. The one what was dancin’ with Jessica Wynne, an’ Avram Halsey right there to see it all. I don’t recall ever seein’ dancin’ such as they was doin’, but then, I’m gettin’ on in years. Can’t seem to recollect the feller’s name—”

“Logan Stark,” Jessica said, her gaze never wavering from the window and the scene beyond, not even when Elly Shaw and her busybody spinster friend Nellie Blythe swiveled from the window with mouths sagging and eyes popping. “He’s my farmhand.”

Nellie sucked in a huge breath that tested the sprigged muslin binding her enormous bosom. “
Farmhand?
Then what in blazes is he doin’ out there? He should be in here with all the rest of the menfolk, protectin’ us.”

Jessica stared so hard at the back of that black head in the distance that her eyes hurt. He sat astride a skittish Jack, no guns visible in his hands, directly in the path of the three men approaching on horseback. Each of those outlaws wielded a pistol, which they waved about and fired at random, replete with much hooting and howling and tipping of bottles to their lips. Their shots roused terrified yelps among those crouched inside the church and sent jolts of pure terror through Jessica. What the devil was he doing out there, moments away from being gunned down by those outlaws, and she to witness the entire bloody thing from a church window?

“Jessica! Thank heavens I found you! Are you quite all right? Yes, yes, you appear to be, and the boy—? Yes, he’s here, and fine, a bit dirtied up, but fine, just the same. I’m here to soothe your fears, ladies, rest assured, yes, indeed. I’m here.”

“Avram.” Jessica laid a hand upon Avram’s sleeve and looked up at him. His face was pale, drawn, his upper lip twitched, and his eyes darted skittishly about. The hand he’d managed to lay upon her shoulder trembled. “Calm yourself, Avram. Has someone gone to fetch the sheriff?”

“The sheriff? Why, yes, I believe John French volunteered. Should be here any moment, yes, any moment, to handle this ungodly affair. Who the blazes would have thought, Jessica, that an outlaw gang would find its way into our peaceful Twilight? It’s that confounded railroad, I tell you, linking us up with wicked towns like Wichita. Cowpokes with nothing better to do coming to wreak their brand of devastation on us innocent folk. Didn’t I tell you that railroad was nothing but trouble since the day they laid the first track and—?”

“Oh, dear, did you see that?” Nellie Blythe said, her nose squashed against the windowpane. “Jessica, your Logan Stark just got off his horse.”

Jessica, on tiptoe, craned over the other ladies’ heads, drawing a curiously silent Christian closer against her skirts. Her pulse hammered a violent beat in her ears. No...get on the horse...and flee. Yet he stood there, a lone silhouette against a blazing sun and the three advancing men.

“I can’t see if he has any guns,” Nellie said. “Can you, Elly?”

“Nope. No gun.”

Jessica forced a swallow down a throat gone bone-dry. She should close her eyes, stoutly refuse to watch him die and then have to live with the memory for the rest of her days. Yet she could only watch like all the others, safe within the church, jammed together against the three windows facing the street.

“Jessica—” It was Avram, a decided disbelief in his squeaking tone. “What is Logan Stark doing out there?”

He was walking now, slowly, toward those men, arms dangling at his sides. How sure his strides, the nonchalant swagger, as though he’d walked a similar path many times before. Of course he’d faced men like this before. What sort of man could so boldly confront such a gang alone without the benefit of experience? A brave man with glorious golden eyes, a man who’d held her close and whispered into her hair that he wanted her to smile for him.

She watched the dust kicked up by his boots and thought of that day she’d shot him, the day she’d thought him an outlaw come to destroy her life.

No, he’d never been a stranger, not even then.

She bit down hard on her lip to keep from screaming. Fingers clamped onto her upper arm, and then Louise’s rasping whisper drifted into her consciousness.

“Jessica, are you quite certain he knows what he’s doing out there?”

Her lips trembled with a silent reply. And then she breathed, “Y-yes. Of course. He’s protecting us.”

“This might be a rather bad time to mention this,” Louise whispered hoarsely, “but I was of the distinct impression Logan Stark wasn’t the best of shots. I believe I just overheard someone say Hubert McGlue dashed off to get his blunderbuss. Perhaps Logan Stark should wait for him and the sheriff, hmm? If we could just call out to him before they shoot him dead right here.”

“No,” Jessica said woodenly, feeling the threat of tears at the backs of her eyes. Tears. At such a time, when a will of iron was needed. She believed in him. She did. In some lost and lonely place deep inside, she clung to that instinctive knowledge that this man would forever protect her and her child.

“The odds are definitely not with your Logan Stark,” Nellie said, graciously pointing out the obvious. “Elly, has the sheriff ever shot his gun?”

“Once.”

“Thank heavens,” Nellie murmured, deriving whatever comfort she could from this. Jessica instinctively knew it mattered very little whether the sheriff or Hubert McGlue and his blunderbuss ever arrived. It would all be over by then.

“They’re sayin’ somethin’ to him,” Nellie said. “An’ he’s talkin’, too. Real casual-like. Maybe he knows ‘em.”

“Aha!” Avram piped up. “I knew it. Didn’t I tell you, Jessica, the man should never have been trusted? Consorting with ruffians—perhaps he’s been in league with them all along.”

Jessica ground her teeth to keep her tongue in check.

A pistol shot seemed to sway the very earth.

Tears filled her vision, and then Nellie Blythe’s wide, scalloped-edged bonnet blocked out the entirety of the window.

“One of ‘em shot into the dirt,” Nellie breathed. “Right at Logan Stark’s boots, an’— Did you see that? I think they’re gonna shoot him. Nope, Elly, good gracious, he has a gun—no, two guns! He musta been hidin’ ‘em. A clever fella—an’ he’s firin’ ‘em right at those outlaws!”

Gunfire popped, rapid shots, one after another, echoing madly in Jessica’s mind. She clutched Christian to her, solely to keep herself from dashing out there to help him....

And then she couldn’t bear it another moment. Shoving wide Nellie Blythe entirely from her path, she pressed her face to the glass, then gripped the sill to keep her legs from crumpling beneath her. Stark stood in a settling cloud of dust, his pistols pointed at the men still on horseback. His shirt billowed in the breeze, a wondrous span of white cotton unblemished by gunshot wounds.

“They ain’t holdin’ their guns no more, Elly.”

“Nope. No guns.”

Jessica watched the outlaws slowly raise their hands into the air.

“He shot their guns right out of their hands, he did!” Nellie said. “I saw it. Did you see it, Elly?”

“How the devil did he manage that?” Avram muttered.

“Jessica...” Louise whispered.

“‘Fore they could even see him, he shot those pistols right from ‘em!” Nellie continued, her voice rising, in a frenzy. “See there? The guns is lying in the dust. Tell me, how’d they get there, Elly, if’n he hadn’t shot ‘em clean from ‘em? I never seen nothin’ like that in all my years. Nothin’ like it. He saved us all, he did. No tellin’ what those outlaws woulda done to us poor folks. Coulda burnt down the church, and us all in here. An’ that woulda been the least of it— Oh! Here comes the sheriff, and ol’ Hubert McGlue kickin’ up a cloud o’ dust behind him.”

At the thunder of approaching hoofbeats, the outlaws let loose with tremendous whoops, spun their mounts about and raced back up Main Street without once looking back. The sheriff and Hubert McGlue thundered past Stark, in hot pursuit.

Great cheers filled the church as everyone scrambled for the door. Even Avram reluctantly muttered something before he, too, hurried from the church. Yet Jessica remained at the window, even when Christian wriggled from her grasp and charged after the others. For many long moments, she remained at that window, looking out at the broad-shouldered silhouette standing alone in the settling dust. Something in his stance, the casual manner in which he held those pistols, then swiftly tucked them in his waistband, sent a shiver through Jessica. A warning...a whisper of chilling suspicion, a flutter of instincts gone awry... But no, this was merely relief washing over her like a gentle spring rain, leaving the last traces of terror to quiver inside her.

She rubbed her hands over her upper arms as the crowd of mostly women enveloped him, Christian at once launching himself into Stark’s arms. Several of the men pumped his hand vigorously until Dolly Terwilliger shooed them from her path and flung her plump arms about him, no doubt in effusive thanks for saving her wedding day from near disaster.

Several of them, Avram and the Easterners included, stood on the fringe of the group. They all watched Logan Stark and murmured among themselves. All save Avram. He glared at Stark with a look of unabashed loathing and suspicion, chest puffed up, fists balling at his sides, as though he were but moments from hurling himself into some foray that would only prove embarrassing for him.

Jessica thought it most prudent to leave the church then. She gathered up her son and managed to convince Avram that her head ached mercilessly and she needed to get home. Her gaze met Stark’s only once, when Avram assisted her into the curricle and she dared a sideways glance beneath the sweep of her hat at the throng still enveloping Stark. Heat shot like quicksilver through her when those golden eyes immediately captured hers, as though he’d been awaiting the opportunity, then drifted over her with an uncommon leisureliness, at once weakening her limbs and setting her pulse on fire. A maddening desire to leap from the curricle and into his arms almost got the better of her, before Avram slapped the reins and the curricle leapt forward.

Madness. Utter madness for a man to look at a woman thus, and she with her betrothed.

Yet what madness had beset her that she derived positively no annoyance from this, no stirring of indignation, no ruffling of feathers...that joy, simple, pure and sweet, bubbled to life within her and showered the day with glorious light?

* * *

Rance shoved his empty glass at the barkeep and nodded. For the fifth time since he’d entered the saloon, he drained his glass and waited for the liquor to work its way into his mind and sufficiently numb him. Again he nodded to the barkeep.

He’d ridden west until he found the first town that boasted a saloon. He hadn’t gone far. Pawtuck Corner was everything Twilight was not, which suited his mood. The place catered to the cowboys, the drifters and the gamblers, as did all these one-horse towns that aspired to be the next Wichita or Dodge City. Rance had seen many like it. Saloons lined the main street. Not a church to be found. The place teemed with cowpokes eager to lose all their pay on cards or one of the overeager saloon girls. Smoke choked the overheated air. A tinny piano belched out a discordant tune from one corner. Someone bumped into Rance’s elbow, slurred an apology and stumbled on. Gunfire erupted from the darkened street, serving to hush the boisterous din of the crowd, but only for the briefest moment.

Rance stared into his whiskey and thought about a time, not so long ago, when he would have settled comfortably on his bar stool in such a place. A time when he would have tried his luck at the tables, then sought whatever surcease he could find upon a squeaky-springed bed upstairs with a dark-haired saloon gal. A time when he’d needed no one, nothing...a time when the life of a drifter had held a certain lonely appeal for him, when he’d never once thought of himself as a man
on the run,
from his past, from Cameron Spotz.

It was as though he suddenly had something he couldn’t bear to lose.

What the hell had happened to him out there on Jessica Wynne’s farm? Better yet, why was the whiskey only making him all the more surly, all the more eager to return to that farm and that town, no matter that he’d given all those fine folk every reason to suspect him of harboring great secrets? The least of which being his identity. No matter that he’d be far better off mounting up and riding north until he could ride no farther, never to return.

He’d been fool enough to linger here, so close to Twilight. Any sane man would have ridden until sunrise, not felt some strange compulsion to delay. A wiser man might think he was baiting temptation.

His breath hissed through his teeth. Yes, he could damn himself to hell and back for foolishly displaying his prowess with a gun, even if he had saved them all from certain terror by that gang. But instinct was a damnable thing, surfacing at the most inopportune times, when levelheaded thinking was required, not the beckonings of ghosts of the past and memories of a time when just such a gang had wreaked slaughter upon innocents in the depths of night and he had been powerless to stop it.