Over the Edge (17 page)

He’d seen flashes of temper but not when she was at full strength. Which she almost was now.

“Heath needs a home. We need the help.”

“We don’t even have any of the herd on my land yet. The house is done. I’ve got two horses and a milk cow and a flock of chickens. What help do we need?”

“There’s plenty to do.”

“It’s because of my nightmares. Seems like that’s a good reason to
not
have him around.”

Callie looked at him long and hard, as if she was searching his eyes, hoping to see inside his head. “How are you feeling? Did you have bad dreams last night?”

He studied right back. The smaller scrapes and scratches had faded, but she still had a mean-looking slice on her temple and, though they didn’t show, the stitches on her scalp. Her color was better. Now that she wasn’t as pale as milk, her skin was a warm tan.

“I never woke up. So I must—wait.” A memory flashed through his head. He dug around trying to focus on it. “I . . . I dreamed about you last night.”

“Really?” Her gaze sharpened. “Your nightmares were about me?”

“Yes, I mean, no—it wasn’t a nightmare. Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was a memory.”

“You mean a memory of before I showed up here?” She sounded young when she asked that. She mostly acted all grown up and then some.

“I think . . . we met when I was in the hospital. In my dream I was lying in a hospital. But it wasn’t a hospital exactly.”

“It was a big old house, a plantation the Union Army took over to care for the sick.”

“I dreamed that I woke up in a room, lit by lanterns. You were there, bending over me, with a cloth on my head.” Seth reached for her hand and drew it to his face. “You said you cared for me.”

It struck Seth that “you cared for me” could be taken two ways. The way a nurse cared for her patient or the way a wife cared about her husband.

“You were so sick. Feverish. The buckshot in your back was infected. You couldn’t have been in Andersonville very long or you’d’ve died.”

Unable to resist, Seth drew her along, past an ancient oak tree with a massive trunk, out of sight of the cabin. They were swallowed up by trees still bearing the last of their bright fall colors. The snow had melted in most places and their feet crunched and crackled in the fallen leaves. He was surprised she came along.

“You were like an angel leaning over me. I hurt so bad and you stayed. You were there every time I woke up.” He felt his brow furrow as he tried to remember. Their eyes met. Seth’s breath hitched.

“I helped care for all the patients, not just you.” A gust of wind stirred the trees and some of the last leaves still clinging overhead rained down like an orange and red blizzard. The pines stirred and their scent wrapped around Seth, giving him the solid feeling of home. It wouldn’t be much longer until winter would settle on their heads. And he’d be holed up with Callie for long months with weather that drove a man to stay inside, close to the fire, close to his woman to stay warm in the night.

“There was something between us from the first, wasn’t there?” Seth touched her black-as-midnight hair and couldn’t believe anything was as soft and silky. “It had to be strong for me to feel this connection now.”

“I don’t know what was between us. I thought there was something, but if you forgot me so easily—”

Seth kissed her quiet. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t slug him, so he kissed her again, longer this time. Deeper. “I don’t know how I could ever forget someone as beautiful as you.” He buried his hand in her hair. He had to remember this, the silky weight, the lush curls.

Callie pressed against his shoulders, gently but relentlessly. “Stop, Seth. We aren’t going to . . . to be together as man and wife until I know I can trust you to stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’m home. Before, something must have been driving me home. But I’m fine now.”

“I’m sure you didn’t
plan
on abandoning me before.”

Seth slid an arm around her waist and eased her forward. She shook her head but let him draw her. He spoke soft enough to soothe a skittish filly. “How long did we know each other before we got married?”

Callie jerked one shoulder. Seth was learning she did that when there was something she didn’t want to say.

“How long?” His arm tightened on her waist as if he could squeeze an answer out of her.

“Not long enough, I reckon.”

“Callie, how long?” He shook her gently.

“A few weeks.” She looked confused and sad and enticed.

“A few? How many? Five? Ten?” Seth had another flash of them standing side by side in . . . it seemed like the same room he’d dreamed of last night. A parson was there. While he was still in the hospital?

She clamped her teeth shut, looking for all the world like a woman who wasn’t going to let a word slip past her lips.

He let his hand slide up her backbone. He remembered something else. He could get around her, earn her cooperation with closeness, touch, as if she craved it. “Tell me.”

“Two! Two weeks!” she snapped. Shoving at him, she fought her way out of his arms.

“Two weeks? And I was sick the whole time?” She probably should have had better sense than to marry him, but he didn’t think it was wise to say that out loud.

“I probably should have had better sense than to marry you. We needed to open up a bed for someone else. You were past the worst of it, but you weren’t well enough to just turn out on your own. You needed somewhere to go, someone to take care of you. You were having nightmares in the hospital.” Her jaw clenched, but she forced the words past. “We’d shared a kiss or two and the connection was so strong. You said you wanted to be with me, marry me. I believed all your pretty words, when it was just the fever talking. Once you remember me—if that ever happens—you won’t even want to be married. If it wasn’t for Connor, I’d have just let you go. Pretended like nothing ever happened.”

What if she had? What if she’d burned their marriage license, kept quiet about it? Lied. Married someone else. It made him mad enough to punch someone. Before she could speak any more nonsense, he shut her up by dragging her against himself and kissing her.

When her arms crept up to circle his neck, a soaring happiness swept over him. If it had only been a few weeks, and he’d been sick, then he hadn’t forgotten all that much.

And if he’d kissed her a single time, of course he’d married her. “It was like this between us from the start, wasn’t it?” He kissed her before she could deny it. “That’s why we got married so fast.”

She turned her head aside far too late to be persuasive. “I let myself get carried away.”

Seth still couldn’t remember the actual
carrying
away
, but he hoped to remind himself of it real soon.

“And how long did we . . . uh, carry away before I took off?”

“I took you to my rooming house. You were still so weak, plagued by nightmares. You stayed only a few days and vanished.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I searched for you. I knew you weren’t well enough to be on your own.”

He’d made it home, though, crossing most of the country. He’d been well enough for that. Of course he couldn’t remember that, either.

“I stayed awhile longer. There was plenty of work still to do at the hospital. I kept thinking you’d come back. I spent every spare minute searching for you. I was afraid you’d gotten worse and maybe you were back in a hospital somewhere. There were so many injured men, we took over several houses. Finally I went home to my pa’s ranch in Texas. I didn’t know what else to do. You’d said Rawhide, Colorado. Told me your brothers’ names. But I couldn’t set out across the country alone, or at least I didn’t think I could then. I changed my mind when Pa died. I didn’t even know if you’d be there.” She grabbed the collar of his shirt. “I thought you died.”

“And then you found out there was a baby on the way.” He pulled her long black curls forward so they danced around her shoulders. She’d had a braid when she came out, but he’d freed her of it.

“I was well gone with the child by the time I’d traveled home. I knew I was tired and sick, but I blamed that on rough stagecoaches and long days. I didn’t even tell my pa I was married at first. I wasn’t even sure if it was legal to marry a man who was out of his head.”

It twisted in Seth’s gut to think a less honorable woman might’ve forgotten the vows she took, counted it a stupid mistake. But she couldn’t do that, even if she was so inclined because . . . “Connor made it real legal, didn’t he?”

A sudden burst of wind gusted leaves down on them and rattled the branches.

With a jerk of her chin she said, “My pa had a housekeeper. She told me I was increasing.”

Seth didn’t know much about women, so he didn’t ask how a woman could tell such a thing. He feared it was an extremely female thing and he didn’t want to know. Except . . .

“Seth, get back here!” Rafe interrupted in time to stop him from asking her. It was the first time in a while he’d been grateful for his bossy big brother.

Of course it also meant their chance to talk privately was over. But it had served a purpose. “I do remember you, Callie.”

“Just barely.”

“I know when I hold you, what I feel isn’t new. And I know the connection between us is strong. It survived my run for home and the time that separated us.” And his time living down in the cavern. Short miles from home but hiding instead of going the rest of the way. No, he hadn’t been well.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do before supper.” Rafe sounded bossy, but there was a thread of worry under it. Seth knew he’d given his big brother cause to worry many times.

“Looks like we’ll have to continue this talk later.” Seth grabbed another kiss and then slid his arm around her and guided her back toward the cabin.

“Seth, where are you? Are you all right?” Rafe would be coming into the trees in another few steps.

“I’m coming. I’m fine, Rafe. I’m just talking to my wife for a few minutes.” A few precious minutes. He wondered when in the world he’d ever get more of them.

“We’ve always been able to create a spark between us, Seth. But we need more than that to make a marriage. While my father was alive—”

“How’d your father die?”

“There was . . . trouble and he was killed.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“There were renegades after the war. Grabbing up land. Pa controlled a lot of acres, but he didn’t own them, just the water holes. Pa didn’t back down and he ended up dead. And I couldn’t hold the land. So I cut and ran. I took all the money I could scrabble together and left the rest of it to the vultures and came west looking for you, or at least your family.”

“I’m sorry you lost your pa, Callie. He’s gotta been a good man if he raised you up so tough.”

“I’m not tough. I told you I couldn’t hold our ranch.”

“I was thinking of the stagecoach shootout. That’s pretty tough.”

With a shrug Callie said, “I’ve got nowhere else to go, Seth, so I’m staying. But I’m not going to be with you as a wife would be, not for a while.”

“Isn’t a wife supposed to obey her husband?” Seth swallowed hard on that wonderful thought. Then he had one even better. “And meet his needs?”

Oh, yeah, he had himself some needs.

“Read that Bible passage about obeying again, Kincaid.” All Callie’s warmth dried up and blew away like autumn leaves. “The husband makes more promises than the wife, and you haven’t kept a single one of them. When you do, maybe I’ll give some thought to obeying you. And as for meeting your needs, that won’t happen until I’m sure you’re a man to count on. You’ve got a ways to go to prove that to me.”

She jerked out of his arms and stalked toward the house. She had on a black riding skirt that moved like magic when she walked, and Seth remembered that he’d always been a little wild. A little reckless, and not a very patient man.

A sudden slap on the back drew his eyes away from his fast-retreating wife.

Rafe.

“Having trouble concentrating, little brother?” Rafe smiled. A happily married man. Seth was starting to understand just what that meant.

“Nope, not one bit.” He concentrated on Callie until he ached all over. She walked over to the basin and bent to pick it up, and he didn’t waste one single second looking at his brother.

“I mean on work.”

“Supper’s ready,” Julia called from inside the house just as Callie swung the door open to enter.

“Let’s go in.” Seth did his best not to run for the cabin. He noticed Rafe moved right alongside him. Ethan came around the cabin at a fast pace, heading for a warm meal cooked by the strong, gentle hands of a woman.

All Seth had to do was figure out a way to get his wife to trust him, and all three of the Kincaid men would be well and truly and happily married.

It was time to finish things with the Kincaid men.

In recent years, Jasper had lived one step away from all the crime done in his name, with a nice sheen of respectability. But he hadn’t started there. He’d clawed his way to the top, and he had all the skills he’d been using hired guns for. He’d lived off the land, too, after his pa had thrown him out. True, it was land in the swamps of Louisiana, but Jasper knew how to rough it. He knew how to move quietly and not leave a trail. He knew how to watch someone and pick his moment.