The Beloved Woman (39 page)

“Mister!” the boy called. “Be careful! My pa says she’s got a devil on her shoulder!”

Justis almost smiled. And another about to come back into her life.

K
ATHERINE TILTED HER
head toward the faint sound of hooves on wet ground. The shadows were so deep she
could hardly see past the clearing to the narrow trail that led to the settlement. The hooves came closer, moving fast, sucking into the soil. Now she even heard the soft clink of the rider’s gear.

She leapt up from her sitting place by Mary’s grave and ran to the church. She hid behind a back corner and watched carefully, her breath short. Slowly she withdrew her knife from the sheath in her belt, then pulled her shawl over her head like a hood, draping the ends down her back where they wouldn’t hinder her arms.

The man who rode into the clearing was a dark, indistinct form in the dusk, but his height and the outline of his wide sombrero were enough to confirm her suspicion.
Vittorio
. Who else would come so boldly to her sacred place? This was no missionary.

Her hand tightened on the knife’s handle as she watched him halt his horse and sit very still, only his head moving as he surveyed the church and the dark woods on the hillsides that formed the small glen. Ghostly white mist swirled around his horse’s hooves. He climbed down, and by the angle of his head she knew he’d spotted Mary’s grave. He knelt on one knee by the roughly carved wooden marker.

Strength and rage surged through her. Good, she thought. Let the monster read the epitaph for her child.
Mary Jessica Gallatin. Beloved Daughter of Justis and Katherine
. Let him enjoy one last cruel laugh before she killed him.

His face was hidden by the tilt of his sombrero, but he seemed transfixed by the marker, even tracing the letters on it with his fingertips. Katherine moved forward quietly and raised the knife. She would wait until he heard her and jerked his head up in surprise. Then she would plunge the knife into a vulnerable spot above the neck of his brightly striped serape. Nothing would save him after a throat wound such as that.

She crept to within a few feet of him. Still he stared at
the marker. Slowly he reached up and grasped the brim of his sombrero.
Now
, she screamed silently as he removed it and let it fall on the rain-soaked ground.

“
Die
,” she commanded in a ringing voice. She lunged at him and thrust the knife downward just as he raised his face in the twilight.

CHAPTER 18

K
ATHERINE
screamed and tried in the last second to tuck the knife under so that it wouldn’t hit home. It sliced across the front of his serape as he jerked back from her assault. He grabbed her wrist and she fell to her knees in front of him.

Wrapping his other arm around her waist, he trapped her against him from thigh to chest. Together in that tight, stunned embrace, they stared into each other’s eyes. Katherine’s hand went limp, and the knife fell to the ground.

“You hate me enough to kill me, gal?” he demanded, his voice low and hoarse.

The sound of his dear, deep drawl brought him to life in her shocked senses.
Justis
. He was no ghost conjured by love and memories. After fourteen months, after traveling thousands of miles, he was holding her in his arms. And she had nearly killed him. She saw anguish in his eyes.

“Not you,” she whispered. “I didn’t know it was you. I swear that.”

He searched her face for a second, then his grip slowly relaxed on her wrist. “Katie.” His tone was filled with relief.

Finally she noticed the tears on his face. They had been there when he raised his gaze from their child’s grave. She lifted a trembling hand to the rugged features she knew by heart and caught the wetness on her fingertips. She had never seen him cry before.

“Justis?” she asked in desperate confusion.

“We had a daughter? And she died?”

Katherine nodded, stunned.
He had been crying for Mary
. “Oh, Justis!” Her arms went around his neck. He gasped in surprise, then dragged her even closer. He held her as if he could make her a part of him. They stayed that way for a long time, clinging to each other silently, arms tightening into quick hugs, then relaxing, then holding on fiercely again.

Darkness grew around them and Mary’s grave just beyond their feet. Justis reached out with one hand. Katherine twisted, her head against the crook of his neck, and saw him rest the hand on the mound of dirt. Tears slid down her face.

“I was carrying her when you left for Gold Ridge. She wasn’t part of our agreement, so I didn’t tell you.”

“My
daughter.
” His voice was hoarse. “And you kept it from me.”

“I planned to tell you later. You never came back.”

“I came back. You just didn’t wait long enough. You didn’t want to wait.”

“You married Amarintha Parnell.”

The silence stretched between them, full of tragedy. He held her tighter. “Yeah, I did,” he said wearily.

She reeled inside. Hearing him admit that he had betrayed her brought all the pain rushing back. She inhaled the scent of him—tobacco, leather, sweat. Warmth. Kindness.
Laughter. Good memories. All she had left. Despair caught in her throat. “Why have you followed me again?” she asked bitterly. “I thought you were done with me.”

“You can’t rid yourself of me that easy. When was our daughter born? When did she die? How?”

Katherine told him. Then, her voice cold, she added, “You almost sound as if you wouldn’t have been ashamed of her. As if you wanted her.”

“Did you?”

The question sank too deep for pretense. She groaned softly. “Oh, God, yes.”

“But you said you didn’t want a half-breed.”

“You said the same.”

“But I would have—”

“If you could only have seen her, Justis! She was beautiful! Dark, like me, but her eyes, oh, she had your eyes, the most amazing shade of green.” She dug her hands into his damp woolen cape. “I did everything I could to keep her well and safe. I tried so hard.”

He slipped a hand under the hood made by her shawl and cupped her head gently. She felt his lips brush her forehead. She whimpered in defeat, needing his tenderness too much, and turned her face upward. He kissed her. His hand slid down her hair and jerked to a stop at the end of the braid, just a little below her shoulders. He tugged the shawl off her head and lifted the pitiful remnant of her long tresses.

She sensed his shock and bewilderment. “It was all I could do for her,” she said, her voice breaking. “I couldn’t put her in the ground without something of myself to keep her … keep her from being so cold and alone. I wrapped my hair around her.”

He groaned and rested his cheek on her head. His big hand knotted around the short braid, caressing it. Katherine sagged against him. “What now?” she asked. “Our partnership is over. I don’t understand your curious
brand of determination. Your lack of honor destroyed even the friendship and affection we shared.”

“Then why are you so close and quiet in my arms? Why did you hug me? Why did you want to be kissed?”

She clenched her teeth together. “I crave a fire’s heat but I won’t ever let it burn me again.”

He drew back and looked at her. Though her expression was hidden by the growing darkness, he seemed to sense every confused emotion running through her. “Who did you want to kill? Salazar? Why aren’t you livin’ with him?”

She crumpled inside as the truth struck her. “Now I understand. You crossed a continent simply to punish me, because you thought I deserted you for Salazar. You had to take revenge even though
you
deserted
me
to marry a crazy woman who could barely stand your touch. A respectable white wife who had neither my intelligence nor, probably, my passion in bed. Your ambition warranted that sacrifice, I suppose. But this—this holy grail that has brought you clear to California—it is made of more vanity and pride than I ever imagined!”

“God damn your tongue,” he said fiercely. “I came to make certain you were all right.”

She wavered for a second. “I am
quite
fine.”

“Liar! Hiding behind a shack in the wilderness with a knife in your hand, waiting like a wild she-wolf to murder somebody! Who? Salazar? What happened? Did you love the Mex sonuvabitch, but he wouldn’t have you? What?”

She dug her hands deeper into his serape and tried to shake him. “I won’t listen to your accusations! Not by our daughter’s grave!”

He muttered a curse and rose to his feet, pulling her with him. She didn’t have time to protest before he picked her up and strode with her to a massive black horse that looked strong enough to carry easily its heavy Spanish saddle weighted with saddlebags and other
travel gear. He set her sideways on the saddle, then, holding the horse’s reins, led it close to Mary’s grave.

He scooped the knife up and handed it to Katherine. “Your scalpel, Doc.”

The gentle taunt loosed a flood of emotion. Her hand shaking, she slipped the knife into its sheath. Nothing made sense right now. But Justis was here, here with her. He had come thousands of miles for revenge, but he had cried for their lost daughter, then offered both strength and tenderness. So many questions, so much to say. She could not trust him, but for now she had to be with him. “I live in the cabin at the near end of the valley.”

“The one off by itself.”

“Yes.”

“I figured the lonely one was yours. If you’ve got room, I’ll make a bed on the floor.”

“For how long?”

“Until you and me get some things settled.” He stood by his horse, almost lost in the darkness, but she felt his eyes searching for her reaction.

“All right.”

“Good. Good, Katie.” He turned and looked down at the little grave, fading into blackness now, with only the ugly stumps to keep it company. “I would have loved her. I love her now.”

Katherine cupped her shawl over her mouth and cried silently as he led the horse away.

H
IS PRESENCE FILLED
the tiny one-room cabin. Katherine was still in shock, and she was silent as she built a fire. Justis had hobbled his horse on a patch of grass outside and now arranged all his gear by the wall near her bed. She kept her back to him as she put a kettle of coffee among the flames.

He dropped his hat and serape on the thing she called
a table, though it was only a wide slab of redwood with legs made from the small limbs of an oak tree. Standing in the center of the cabin, he frowned at it, the dirt floor, and her rudimentary bed—a pile of dried grass in one corner, covered with a blanket.

A sense of humiliation fueled her dull anger. She snatched her only mug from a nail. Goose bumps rose on her arms as he sat down on a split-log bench less than a foot behind her. She had always been able to tell when he was watching her; the scrutiny of those drooping, deceptively lazy green eyes was a searing force. She felt it now.

“You dress like a Mex peasant,” he commented.

“I am a peasant. And glad for it. There’s a great deal of freedom in having nothing and wanting nothing except to live and be left alone.”

Without looking around, she tossed her shawl onto the pile of grass and blankets. She refused to give in to the urge to straighten her stained, much-mended white blouse. She tucked her bare ankles and crude leather sandals under the coarse brown material of her skirt.

He swore softly. “You were too damned proud to take the finery I bought for you in New York?”

“Too proud to take what Blue Song gold had purchased? Hardly. I took what I liked best and left the rest behind. I also took twenty thousand dollars from our bank account. Don’t worry—there’s many times that left.”

He leaned forward. She felt his blunt fingers on the back of her neck. The contact made her blood race even more swiftly. She twisted halfway around and grabbed his wrist as he pulled the gold nugget from inside her blouse. “Don’t touch me again,” she warned.

His eyes glittered with emotions she couldn’t read. He knotted his hand around the sturdy leather necklace and pulled slowly. She cried out in dismay but had no choice except to face him. She looked up with a mixture of defiance
and despair. “It is mine. You gave it to me. Just as”—she winced inside—“you gave me your name.”