Holt's Gamble (36 page)

In frustration, he turned on her. "I didn't
want
any of this, but I've damn well got it, haven't I?" He started to walk away but she caught him by the sleeve.

"And you're all alone in this I suppose?" she accused, making him stop short. "What about me? What about us? I... I love you, Clay. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

Clay stopped and bent his head. "Yeah," he answered slowly. "That's what makes this whole situation so damned impossible."

She shook her head at his logic. "Impossible? Don't you see that's the only thing that makes it bearable?"

His look to her was fierce and foreboding. "But it doesn't change the facts, does it?"

"If you're determined to go, I'm coming too."

"No. If I do this, I do it alone. I'm not going to get you any more involved than you already are."

She stamped her foot, sending up a cloud of reddish dust into the stifling air. "Involved? Ooh-h, you're a stubborn, bull-headed mule, Clay Holt, and you can't see the desert for the
sand.
I'm already involved up to my eardrums, in case you hadn't noticed."

Clay glanced at the people hovering nearby and pulled Kierin off beside the front gates of the fort where they could have more privacy. "You're not coming. You'll stay with Jacob and Dove until I get back."

His commanding attitude irked her and she raised her chin defiantly.
"If you
get back. And what shall I do while you're gone?" she argued, fighting the tears of frustration that burned behind her eyes, "Spend the next year worrying that Talbot has had you killed? Didn't he come close enough the first time?"

He took her shoulders in his hands. "Don't you see I'm doing this for you? For us?"

"No," she replied, with a despairing shake of her head.

"I don't. And I think... you're wrong."

He dropped his hands—resigned, but determined. "Maybe I am. I don't know. I guess I won't until I get there. I just know I can't live my life this way, dodging the law and always looking over my shoulder. For the past year or so, I've had two hired guns after me, because I was getting too close to the man they worked for—the bastard who killed my wife. Obviously," he sighed, "never close enough. They even tried to bushwhack me in St. Louis, just before I came to Independence, but I managed to get away. I'm tired of living this way, Kierin. I won't ask you to do it either."

Kierin frowned as the realization dawned on her. She looked up at him. "Did you say... two men?"

Clay nodded silently.

"Was one tall, prematurely gray and the other short and paunchy?"

Clay stared at her. "How did you know that?"

She shook her head. "It's probably nothing."

"What?"

Visibly shaken, she went on. "The same day you won me in that game, I accidentally overheard a conversation going on in Talbot's office between him and two men he'd hired to... kill someone. They'd botched the job in St. Louis for him and he was furious. He fired them on the spot and told them... well," she amended, "I won't repeat what he said.

"He was very angry with me when he realized I'd overheard it. He... he hit me." She focused on a button in the middle of his shirt. "It wasn't the first time, but he scared me. I guess I'd tried to put it out of my mind, but... is it possible they're the same men who were after you?"

"It's more than possible." Clay turned away, absorbing the implications. He plunged his fingers through his long hair. "He recognized my name. I remember now... his reaction at the table when I said it. He practically choked on his cigar. Damn. How could I have missed it? It was Talbot all the time. He was trying to kill me... he wasn't after you at all..."

"You said your wife was killed three years ago. Talbot only settled in Independence a little over two years ago."

"It all makes sense now. It
had
to be him. Damn it. If I'd only known..."

"You'd have done what?" Kierin asked. "Killed him? Is that what you planned to do?"

With his back still to her he answered, "Yes."

"How does that make you any different from him?" she asked.

Clay whirled on her. "I didn't burn his goddamned house down around his wife, did I?"

Kierin took a steadying breath. "No. And that's my point. You're not a murderer. I know this thing has eaten you up for three years, but vengeance won't take it away. It won't bring back your wife."

Pain flitted across his expression. "I know that. But I can't risk losing you the way I did Amanda. I want us to be free to live the way we want. Without fear. Now that I know he's still alive, I have no choice but to finish it with him."

Kierin turned away and looked out on the flat sweep of prairie outside the fort's gates. "And if he kills you?"

He hesitated for a long moment. "Then... you'll be taken care of. I'll make sure of that." He swallowed and looked away. "At least... I won't leave you a widow."

She shook her head in disbelief. "Is that supposed to make me feel better about all of this? Do you think I'll grieve any less without that certificate in my hand?"

His pain-filled eyes rose to meet hers, but he couldn't answer her.

She glared at him, knowing that to fight him was to do battle with a wall of granite. Yet, with her last available weapon, she had to try.

"Perhaps, if I'm lucky," she said, pressing a hand to her belly, "you will leave me with something more than a piece of paper to remember you by."

Clay didn't miss her meaning and she left him staring after her as she stalked out the fort gates toward the wagons.

* * *

It was decided that Clay would stay with the wagons until they neared the South Pass, for between there and Laramie was a difficult stretch of land that rose steadily upward toward the craggy peaks of the Great Divide. It took nearly three weeks of grueling travel to get there—past the Black Hills, whose starkly silhouetted buttes were often lined with Sioux keeping a keen eye on the wagoners' progress; past Poison Springs and a vast alkali flat which, despite their best efforts, claimed several head of cattle from the train. They stopped at Independence Rock, or as some called it, "The Great Register of the Desert" where they added their names to the thousands already inscribed on the great sandstone monolith.

Farther on came Devil's Gate, a nearly perpendicular gash in a towering rock which marked the headwaters of the Sweetwater River. A few of the emigrants fell sick with mountain fever, but remarkably, they dug no new graves on its account.

The days spun by, and she and Clay continued to share a bed, but they'd not made love since that last day at the Fort. He'd watched her carefully for signs that she was with child. Her hopes soared as first one week passed then two, with no sign of her monthly flow. Dove had counseled her about the signs of pregnancy. She waited anxiously to feel the first signs of morning sickness or dizziness that were wont to accompany it. The thought that she might bear Clay's child even took some of the sting out of Matthew's death.

During the third week, without warning, her flow began and she knew she'd lost him. Clay's obvious relief at seeing the flutter of white rags drying in the wagon only served to darken her mood. She watched the bond of love between Dove and Jacob grow stronger with each passing day, while she and Clay grew more distant.

Bit by bit, she'd watched him withdraw emotionally from her. And while she yearned for the closeness they'd shared in those first days together, she understood his wisdom in doing it. Leaving would be a hard thing. Letting him go, she knew, would be nearly impossible.

Soon, the rugged terrain funneled the wagons into the welcoming valley of the Sweetwater River, making traveling considerably easier. Kierin's heart grew heavier with each passing day because Clay's certain departure loomed ever closer.

Ringing the sheltered headwaters of the Sweetwater were the towering jagged peaks of cold, blue-gray granite that reached toward the sky like ancient claws. The wagons had made camp here, among the sliver-leafed Aspen and squat stands of hearty pine. Water and grass were bountiful and the animals and the travelers took a much needed break from the grueling climb.

On the morning Clay was to leave, dawn stole over the camp like a thief. The pink-tinged light filtered into the wagon, urging Kierin from a fitful sleep. One glance told her Clay was already up. Despair weighted her movements as she dragged herself from the comforting warmth of the blankets.

It was cold. So cold, she guessed there would be ice on the top of the water bucket again today. The air was pungently scented with pine and she could hear the rushing sound of the Sweetwater nearby as it tripped along its banks. Outside, she found Clay, tying his saddlebags to the cantle of Taeva's saddle. A mule Dove had given him stood alongside, packed for the trip. The stallion blew out a clouded breath, announcing her, and she pulled Clay's oversized wool coat tightly around her.

"Were you going to leave without saying good-bye?"

Clay turned at the sound of her voice. "You know I wouldn't."

"Maybe it would have been easier," she allowed, staring at the frost-tipped grass at her feet.

Clay drew her against him. "There's nothing easy about this."

She wrapped her arms around him tightly. "Is there nothing I can say to change your mind?"

Clay shook his head slowly. "I've looked at it from all the angles and it always comes out the same. I have no choice. I have to go."

"I wish..."

Clay dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "So do I, Princess, so do I." His chest tightened with regret.

Jacob ducked out of the tent he now shared with Dove and rubbed his hands in the morning chill. He stopped mid-yawn when he saw Clay already packed and ready to go and he crunched across the frosty grass to meet them.

"You fixin' to light out now?" he asked, reaching his hand out to Clay.

Clay nodded grimly. "I guess I am." He clasped Jacob's forearm in a two-handed gesture that bespoke the powerful emotion behind it.

"You thinkin' to make the Wind River by nightfall?" Jacob asked.

Clay looked at the jagged walls of stone behind him. Just beyond them lay the snow-capped peaks of the Wind River range. "I'm hoping to."

The darker man nodded, scuffing the toe of his boot into the nearly frozen ground. "Good luck, then. Watch your backside, you hear?"

"I will. Tell Dove good-bye for me and thanks for the mule. Tell her I'll be paying her back next spring."

"I'll do that."

Clay gave Kierin's shoulders a squeeze, and a tacit look of understanding passed between the two men. Clay was counting on his friend to make sure no harm came to her until he could clear up this mess back East.

"Well," Jacob drawled awkwardly, wiping at his nose, "I'll be lettin' you two get your good-byes said. Take care, Clay-boy."

"You too," he said, lifting his chin in a final salute. He didn't want to say the words that made the parting seem so final.
Why did it have to be so damned hard?

When Jacob had left them to tend to the stock, Clay looked down at Kierin again. Her nose and cheeks were rosy with cold, but her expression was grim. "I left Jacob with enough money to see you through the year."

She pulled away, not wanting to hear the way he'd so carefully arranged her life.

"We need to talk about this," he insisted, forcing her to look at him. "If you decide you don't want to live with Jacob and Dove, there should be enough for you to rent a little house in town until I get back. If anything should happen to me, the ranch will be in your name. Jacob has the papers on it."

Kierin pressed her head against his chest miserably and tears wet her cheeks. "I don't want your money, or your ranch."
All I want is you,
she thought, but her pride kept her from saying it.

Clay swallowed the lump at the back of his throat. "It's your security. I have to know you'll be all right, whatever happens to me. Promise me you'll do as I ask."

Her jade eyes glittered with sudden anger. "Will you promise to come back to me?" she asked.

He stared at her, hemmed in by his impotence. "I promise to do my damnedest," he said finally.

Her head snapped down. "Then, so do I."

He lifted her chin with a forefinger, tears burning at the back of his eyes. "I know what this is doing to you because, God knows, it's doing the same thing to me. Don't leave it this way. Kiss me. Just once before I go."

His mouth hovered inches away from hers, waiting for acquiescence. It came when her tortured eyes met his in the cloud of mingled breaths that stirred the air between them. She reached up to meet his waiting lips and he pulled her into a tight embrace. His kiss, like hers, was urgent and hungry, not gentle at all. It symbolized everything they'd left unsaid over the past weeks and all the things they would never say.

He wrenched his mouth suddenly from hers and he searched her eyes for a long, painful moment. Their breaths came in short ragged puffs and hung in the air between them like the misery they felt. "I love you, Kierin, and I'll be back for you." With those words, he turned, gathered up the reins, and mounted Taeva.

"Clay-wait."