Over the Edge (26 page)

“But there were more of them going back north.”

“I wish we’d’ve seen who was with that party. I didn’t even hear them go past while we were eating. We should have just trailed after them when their tracks showed up on the road, but I wanted to see where Gilliland lived.”

“Seth Kincaid owns the cabin we stayed in last night. He’s the one I saw in town. He’s the one they say isn’t right in the head. He’ll be there alone with his wife and child. That’s a man I could make talk.”

The day was wearing down as Jasper looked back at the trail to Seth Kincaid’s spread. Then he looked at the new cabin, standing empty.

“One more night on the trail, Bea. Tomorrow we’ll go have a little talk with Seth Kincaid. We’ll end this and go on back to Colorado City.” He turned and looked her in the eye. He saw the shadows of greed and temptation, and it fed those very things in himself.

“We might as well use another Kincaid cabin tonight.” Bea gestured toward the tidy house. “They don’t even know we’ve been living off them for two days now.” A hard laugh escaped from Bea.

Hearing her laugh left Jasper with a strange feeling he couldn’t quite identify. Unpleasant, like guilt. Like maybe . . . sin. He himself was no stranger to sin, but causing Bea to sin when she was trying so hard to change—that was a different kind of sin altogether. Jasper couldn’t tell if God was poking at his long-sleeping conscience, or the devil was poking him straight into the flames of Hades.

Chapter
24

The long day was over and they settled around the fireplace.

Just like a family.

Which they were, Seth admitted—even though all three of them had been sprung on him in the last week.

Seth owned a single rocking chair and he waved Callie into it and placed Connor on her lap. Heath took a spot near the hearth, his back resting against the warm stones. Connor squirmed to get down, and Heath moved just enough so as to block the boy when he crawled toward the fire.

Seth grabbed a chair from the table, dragged it to Callie’s side, and sat down. The crackling and flickering of the fire, the warm scent, eased his tired muscles.

“Can you turn the lantern light up, Seth?” The crinkling of paper drew Seth’s attention to what Callie held in her hands.

“What’ve you got there?”

“Those maps Julia had me draw.” Callie thumbed through them, then frowned. “I’m missing a page.”

“What page?” Seth rose from his chair and dragged it closer.

“The one that shows what’s right below that pit by Julia’s old house. I drew it that first day along with several others.”

“Maybe you left it at Rafe’s?”

With a jerk of her shoulder, she said, “Maybe.” She was silent a few seconds. “No, I had them out when we were at the line shack; when we stopped for Ethan today I remember studying them with Audra while we waited for the others to pack up. I must have dropped it. I never went down through the pit entrance. So I don’t really know what it looks like down there.”

“I know it really well. I can tell you what that part of the cavern is like.”

Callie gave him a worried look, then turned back to her papers. “Okay, let’s draw another one.”

“Can I see what you’ve done already?”

Seth looked at Heath, who was concentrating on Connor. Yet there was a sadness about the boy that made Seth feel guilty for wishing the youngster would go away. “You want to look at the maps of the cave?”

“I don’t care about that stupid cave.”

“I’m sorry things aren’t how you’d hoped, Heath. I’m still trying to get the notion that Pa had two families settled in my head.”

The boy met his eyes, his brow furrowed. “I don’t like living off you. I want what’s mine.”

Looking at him, Seth wondered if the kid weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. He was mighty small to think he was up to being on his own.

“I know you do, Heath. I . . .” Seth glanced at Callie, the brains of this family.

Callie had stopped studying her papers. “There isn’t anything much to give you right now,” she said. “For the winter at least, you need food and a roof over your head.”

Heath sighed until Seth worried the boy’s body might deflate.

Callie extended the maps to Seth, and he took the stack of papers and studied them. “You really are good at this. These are all rooms I recognize. Like this one.” He pointed to the tunnel with the hole. “You really show what it’s like there.” He shuffled some more pages until he found her fish fossil. “And you did a great job with the fish bones.”

“Let’s figure out the one that’s lost.”

Seth talked quietly in the warm room, pointing and describing the cavern. Callie asked good questions, and soon a clear map took shape on the page. Going back over details, Seth helped her make it realistic looking. Then a yawn broke off his description of the tower room.

It drew her attention and their eyes met. The crackling fire was the only sound in the room.

Which shouldn’t be true. Connor was never quiet. Just as Seth thought that, Callie looked away while at the same time nudged him. A smile bloomed beautifully on her face and he almost couldn’t look away.

But he did, and saw Heath and Connor sound asleep. “Guess we wore ’em out. Let’s get them into bed.”

Callie set the drawing aside and picked up Connor. Seth shook Heath awake, gently, remembering the times he’d run so hard all day with his brothers, he’d fallen asleep the second he quit moving.

Before long the house was settled for the night, Heath in a bedroom by himself, and Connor in a drawer in Seth’s room, which was padded with a thick blanket. Seth was eager to build a cradle for the boy. Put a cradle in the room he shared with his wife—he liked the sound of that.

Seth and Callie went back to the main room and sat together by the fireplace.

“I’ll work on this picture more tomorrow.” Callie picked up the sheets of paper she’d left on her chair.

“Just give it a few more minutes.” Seth was thinking fast. Trying to come up with an excuse to keep her with him. “Tell me what happened to your pa. I never met him, right?”

Callie’s eyes narrowed, and Seth wished he’d’ve picked something to talk about that didn’t remind her of the missing chunks of his memory. Hurrying on, he said, “I’m sorry he died. What happened?”

The anger then went out of Callie’s expression. “Things didn’t go like they should’ve when Pa got Luke home.”

Seth had no idea if he’d heard of Luke before or not, but he didn’t admit as much. Instead, to keep her talking he said, “What do you mean?”

“Luke always loved the ranch when growing up. There was never any question that he’d stay on the ranch with Pa. But then Luke went off to war and fought for the North against Pa’s wishes. Pa was firmly for the South.”

“Texas was with the Confederacy, wasn’t it?”

“Yep, but we had neighbors, free black men, two brothers, who owned a nice ranch. Luke grew up being best friends with one of their sons. Pa got on with them, too. And one of them had a real nice wife who came over and helped a lot after Ma died and I loved her, we all did. They were good folks.”

“So Luke couldn’t see backing slavery?”

Nodding, Callie went on, “It’s hard to put it into words because there was so much ugliness with the war, but our whole family just knew those folks were regular human beings. They weren’t a color; they were people. It never made sense to any of us that there was slavery.”

“So why did your pa get upset about Luke?”

“To Pa that war wasn’t about slavery. I heard him explain it to Luke, and Pa never flinched from admitting it to our neighbors, either. It wasn’t about slavery. It was about government thinking it ruled over the people instead of serving the people. And he didn’t think the president in far-off Washington, D.C., had the right to make decisions for the states. He thought the South was being true to the Constitution more than the North.”

“And he wouldn’t forgive Luke after the North won?”

“Pa welcomed Luke home and there was no talk of anyone needing forgiveness. Pa knew Luke had done what he thought was right. It was Luke who couldn’t get over Pa picking the South over the North. Luke was in Andersonville same as you. And it changed him. He didn’t have nightmares like you do, but he was mixed up in his head, angry all the time—even in the hospital. We thought we’d lose him for a long time, which is why I ended up working in that hospital, because Luke was too sick to take home. He was starved near to death and he’d had a job at the prison camp working in the infirmary because there was trouble in the camp and the warden knew Luke would be killed if he didn’t get out of the prison yard. Luke had seen so many awful things. Watched so many men die. He was like a stranger to us.

“As soon as he was able to travel, Pa took him home, just to get him away from all the ugly memories. Pa didn’t even think it was a good idea for me to travel with them because Luke was unpredictable and sometimes violent. Since the doctors asked me to stay at the hospital, we agreed Pa and Luke would go and I’d come home later. It wasn’t a hard choice to stay; the need was so great.

“When I got back home, Luke had already left. Pa had no idea where he’d gone, and it took the heart out of him. Then there was a lot of trouble with renegade soldiers and carpetbaggers. Just a new kind of trouble every time we turned around. Pa was killed in a shootout. There were witnesses who called it a fair fight. I know Pa was goaded into that shootout, but the sheriff wouldn’t act. And the gunman vanished and had no known connection to the land-grabber.”

“When you needed a husband, I wasn’t there. I could have backed your pa and held the ranch, maybe saved his life. Maybe kept Luke on the ranch.” Instead he’d run off and left Callie on her own.

Callie said nothing that would ease Seth’s guilt. “Within hours of Pa dying, a man who wanted to buy our land came out to the ranch and told me he’d bought up the mortgage at the bank and owned every acre, every cow, every building free and clear. I couldn’t fight him. I knew if I did, I’d end up dead and leave Connor alone in the world. All I could think of was you talking about Rawhide, Colorado. I hoped maybe you’d gone home. And if you weren’t there, I hoped Rafe and Ethan would take in their brother’s widow and his child.”

“How long ago did your pa die?” Seth asked.

“Been about four months now. I knew I had to get away. I couldn’t hold the ranch or protect Connor, so I wrote those letters to you and Rafe. I took what little cash money we had in the house and set out on horseback. When I got to a town with a train, I sold my horse and bought a train ticket. I walked away from everything because I knew I wouldn’t live to turn it into cash.”

“I’m sorry, Callie. I’m so sorry.” Seth stood from his chair and pulled her into his arms. Wishing he could take away all her pain. She held him so close it hurt. When she finally let go, it seemed like her eyes were a little brighter and her chin a bit higher.

“We’ve talked enough for one night. Let’s get some sleep.”

Callie gave him a sweet, tired smile. He saw the scratch on her forehead and knew she still had some stitches to cut out. But she was beautiful. Perfect.

He hoped he wasn’t seconds away from finding out he was sleeping out here in front of the fire.

“Go on in and get ready for bed,” she said. Her cheeks might’ve been red from the fire, but Seth thought she was blushing. “I’ll wait here while you change.”

Her blush made him hope he wasn’t the only one thinking on marital happenstances. It was past time to see just how hard his wife was going to make him work to earn her trust.

With a nod he stepped past her into their room, then stripped off his clothes and quickly pulled on a set of clean long underwear. He went to the door, opened it and said, “Ready.”

Though she was much slower going about it, Callie was soon ready for bed, too. Connor remained asleep in the drawer. Seth went over, lifted the baby, drawer and all, and carried him out of the room.

“What are you doing?” Callie asked.

After setting Connor down just outside the bedroom door, he turned back. “I want to talk to you and I don’t want to disturb the baby.” Yep, this was
all
about not disturbing the baby.

“Oh . . . well, all right. But we need to bring him in here when we’re done talking. He can crawl out of that drawer. He could get into the fireplace and get burned. We have to get him a better crib.”

“I’ll build one tomorrow.” Seth wondered if they didn’t need another bedroom, as well. Or maybe he could move Connor into Heath’s room.

Seth went to Callie and took both of her hands in his.

“Now, Seth, I told you . . .”

He didn’t want to hear what Callie had to say, so he kissed her.

Seemed likely that she didn’t have much interest in what she had to say either, because she kissed him right back.

Sliding both arms around her waist, he pulled her closer, enjoying the touch of her lips against his. He angled his head to deepen the kiss just as her arms slid up to encircle his neck. A shudder of relief went through him. She wasn’t going to push him away. The tug of attraction between them was so powerful that Seth knew it was why they’d ended up married so quick. It ignited with such force that he hooked an arm behind her knees, swept her into his arms, and carried her over to the bed. He lowered her and followed her down.