The Ruination of Essie Sparks (Wild Western Rogues Series, Book 2) (19 page)

He turned his face self-consciously. "This? This is no secret. It is common knowledge hereabouts, in fact. It happened a long time ago."

She waited for him to go on.

His jaw worked as she watched him wrestle with whether to tell her the truth. "All right. I was seventeen. My mother was dead by then. My father had shipped me off to a white boarding school back East."

"A boarding school?" Nothing like the boarding school she'd just left. "You?"

He laughed. "Imagine it."

With a shake of her head, she disagreed. "I can imagine that quite clearly, as a matter of fact."

Did he wince at that?
Possibly
. But that, too, was erased from his expression quickly.

"Anyway, there I was, a half-breed amongst Boston's best."

"Don't call yourself that."

His eyes were hooded as he turned to her. "Why? Everyone else does."

"I don't. And you shouldn't. Now, go on."

"
Seáa
. Are you always this bossy?"

She smiled. "Sorry. Please, do go on."

He took a deep breath, then draped his wrists across his bent knees. "After I'd been there a few months, my... heritage came out at the school. Behind my back, they called me a breed. To my face, they were much too polite for that. Still, I was a curiosity. I intrigued them. Especially the girls at the sister school down the road. They were spoiled, rich girls who liked their boys wild and a little dangerous. Being a
wild
Indian
, I fit right in."

"You must have been quite the thing, then. Handsome as you are." Essie glanced up at him through her lashes with a smile.

His cheeks actually took on color at that. "Believe me when I tell you, I was little more than a"—he searched for the word—"
mascot
to any of them. A sideshow animal to be seen with. And there were more than a few who wanted to be 'seen' with me. I was young. Foolish. At first, I didn't care if I fit in. But there was this girl..."

He paused, staring down into the water as if he might find the memory of her face there.

"Her name was Delilah. And like the fool boy I was, I actually thought I was in love with her. Even knowing better. I would have done anything for her. She was wilder than most. Richer than most. She could ride a horse as well as any Cheyenne brave and we would ride together at breakneck speed across the grounds. There was nothing she feared. Nothing. Except her father.

"And all that wildness pulled me to her. She made me feel like I was... somebody. Like I mattered. And for a while, I allowed myself to believe I did.

"But her father got wind of rumors. About the half-breed boy she was secretly seeing. And he burst into her room one night, catching us... together. Before I could even react, Delilah had grabbed a knife from somewhere she'd kept hidden from me and slashed me across the cheek, crying
rape.
I can still hear her screaming. Rushing to her father's arms..."

"Oh, Cade—no."

He shrugged. "Naturally, I was arrested, expelled. My father fixed things somehow and wired me train fare home without a single word to me. And when I got home, he refused to hear my side of it. He barely spoke to me except to warn me not to leave the ranch or show my ruined face in town. I had shamed him. So I did the only thing that made any sense to me. I left. And I never went back."

All that explained so much, and yet left a hundred unanswered questions. Questions to which she wanted answers. But what she said instead was, "I'm sorry, Cade. About all of it."

"It is in the past now. I hardly think of it anymore."

"Or her?" she asked.

"Her, least of all." He lifted his gaze to her again, allowing it to travel along the lines of her shoulders, her neck, her face.

"What?" Self-consciously, she smoothed down the wild mess of her hair.

"I was thinking of... you just reminded me of a deer I once saw."

Her fingers paused in her hair. "A deer? I remind you of a deer?"

He laughed. "Oh, she was a beautiful doe. All sleek and pretty, standing under the New Planting Moon, ready for summer. But it was her eyes I was remembering."

She began to separate her hair into three strands for braiding. "Her eyes? They were blue?" She sent him an ironic half smile.

"Brown. A deep, dark brown."

"Ah." She frowned at him. "That clears things up."

"I was just a boy that day I was hunting her. She didn't know I was there. I had her in my sights and had the bow primed at her heart. But then she looked up at me. Straight at me. With those eyes."

"What about them?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. She lifted her head and stared right at me, sure that I wouldn't hurt her."

"And... did you?"

"No."

Her fingers faltered in her hair and she turned to face him. "And what about that deer reminds you of me?"

"
É-hetseváhe.
She was brave. Fearless."

"She was just a deer. Perhaps she didn't know what you intended. Or, if she did, perhaps she was hoping you would find the good in her. To save her."

Cade glanced up through dark lashes at her. "Like you, she didn't need saving. She took her freedom with that look. And then... she was gone."

"It's strange you think I'm either brave or fearless. I'm neither of those things. On the contrary. And there are many who would argue that I
do
need saving, if from nothing else, from myself."

"Says who?"

She stared down at her hands. "Well, in his infinite wisdom, the good Reverend Dooley. And, of course, there was Nathan."

"Your husband?"

She bit her lip. "Yes. My late husband."

"The one who deserted you."

His words hit her like a gust of wind. Why she'd never thought of it exactly that way, she couldn't say. But yes. He
had
deserted her when she'd needed him the most. But by then he'd had nothing to give her.

"Your turn."

She'd almost forgotten they were trading memories. "All right." It took her a moment to work up the courage to speak of it. She had told no one about Aaron since she'd come West. She supposed it was time. "We... we had a child, Nathan and I."

Surprise etched a line between his eyes.

"Our son, Aaron, was the sweetest boy. Perfect, if small, with eyes like mine and his father's blond hair. He was very young when he died. He'd hardly lived, really. One hot summer afternoon, he simply didn't wake up from his nap. There was no fever, or sickness. No bedclothes over his little face. No obvious reason for him to be dead. He just—one minute, it seemed, he was learning to smile at me and the next, he was just... gone."

"I am sorry."

She stared at the water, watching it tumble over the rocks. A breeze ruffled the water and swirled a leaf inside a little eddy there. "Nathan blamed me, of course. Because who else was there to blame? God? Far be it from Nathan to blame Him. So I was at fault, for not watching closely enough, for doing the laundry that afternoon instead of sitting over my son's cradle to be sure"—tears suddenly clogged her words—"to be sure he didn't stop breathing. And Nathan was probably right. It
was
my fault. What mother doesn't notice her child is dying?"

Cade swallowed thickly beside her.

"And Nathan couldn't forgive me. Maybe he couldn't forgive himself, either, for trusting me with our son. Maybe that was why he walked into the sea. Those who didn't outright blame me tried, in some backhanded way, to comfort me. They told me it was simply Aaron's time. At two months. God's will. That my little boy was in some better place than right here in my arms. That I would become stronger for this loss or that losing him was some trial sent by God to see if I had faith enough. If I was brave enough. And I wasn't. I'm not. And I don't."

She stared at the moccasins in her hands and rubbed her thumb over the beadwork on them.

"So I ran away. Came here. To that school. And now, I'm here in a camp full of strangers, with you." She lowered her eyes.

He shook his head. "Perhaps you didn't run away. Perhaps you ran toward something."

"It would be nice to think so."

"He did not see you, your husband. Or he could not have blamed you."

She blinked up at him. "Ah, but how could you know? You hardly know me."

One side of his mouth lifted in a gentle smile. "I see you, Essie Sparks."

And in his own quiet way, he absolved her. Gratitude welled up in her and the emotion filled her eyes. For the first time, she wondered what it would be like to be with a man who wanted to see her. Really know her.

"I have to take you back," he said before she could fantasize more about the impossible. "We must go soon, before those men follow us here."

"Yes," she answered.

He pulled a small beaded pouch from the back waistband of his leggings. Daniel's medicine bag.

Her eyes widened. "Where did you find that?"

"They did." He gestured to two braves who were walking toward the horses. "Two days ago, before the rain. They were hunting just southeast of here. When they heard I was looking for White Owl's son, they feared it might be his."

"You know it's his. You gave it to him."

Cade nodded. "There are only two ways he would part with it. If someone took it from him, or if he left it behind him intentionally for someone to find."

"By someone... you mean,
us
? But he doesn't even know we're looking for him."

"He dropped the bag at a fork in a hunting trail this band has used for years. There were hoofprints of two other horses beside his pony's. I do not think it was the men tracking us. They were too far west then. Whoever was with him, they were heading down the mountain, toward Magic City."

Oh, no.
She pulled her feet out of the water and brushed them dry. "If we know that much, we have to go after him. God knows who's got him or why. But at least we have an idea now of where to look."

"Where
I
will look," he corrected. "You can't come."

What?
"Of course I'm coming. I will not just... He was my—"

His eyes darkened to a steely gray. "Being with me isn't safe for you. They can't see us together."

"Not safe? Do you think being back with them will be safer for me? They want to put me down like some... some rabid dog!"

He got unsteadily to his feet, favoring his injury. "I will get you on the train. I will find the money somehow. I owe you that much."

She blinked up at him. His words pricked her heart. What an idiot she was, imagining... Of course he'd simply been keeping her warm last night, keeping her safe out of some sense of duty the last few days. He wanted her gone, too. Fine. She knew perfectly well how to be alone, how to stand on her own two feet without any help from a man. Especially a man like him.

She turned away and stared downstream where one of the men from the camp stood, fishing in the shallow pools. "You can do what you want, but once we get back, you can't make me go anywhere."

"Essie—"

She got up and started to walk away.

"Essie!"

She turned to him. "What? I told you I am through letting men choose for me. If I decide to look for Little Wolf when we get to town, then that risk is mine. Not yours. If you don't want to go with me, then that's your choice."

He grabbed her arm and tugged her closer, holding her by the shoulders. He stared off over her head at something. "If I had chosen well, I would never have brought you into this. You would not be barefoot up here in a poor Cheyenne hunting camp, wondering if you will die tomorrow." He lowered his gaze to her, his gray eyes searching hers. "If I had chosen well, I would have met you on another road. One that did not lead to disaster. But we are here, on this broken road now. And we can only make the best of it."

"Oh. Is that what we're doing?" She tried to pull her arms free but he held her firmly.

"If things had been different—"

"What? You wouldn't treat me like a child?"

He dropped his hands, irritation burning in his eyes. "Maybe if you didn't act like one."

Her mouth fell open in indignation. "Oh, really? A child?" She glanced around to see if anyone had heard her and she lowered her voice. "Says the man whose life I saved twice!"

They were beginning to draw stares and, with a flash of annoyance, he dragged her fifteen feet away, putting a thick pine tree between them and the others.

"Let go of me!" She twisted in his arms.

"Yes, you saved me. Twice. And I saved you. That is not what I'm talking about and you know it."

"Then what exactly are you talking about?"

"You know what I mean." He braced one hand above her on the tree, frustration tightening his expression. "We should not even be having this conversation."

"You mean the one where we discuss all the things we can't possibly have in common? With you cast as the villain and me as the poor damsel in distress? Where you explain that whatever we've come to mean to each other is strictly based on circumstance? And for that reason and a thousand others, like your bloodline, like the scar on your face, that we're as alike as fire and kerosene?"