Over the Edge (9 page)

She hoped to explore all winter, but she had to get him started first. And she’d found bad weather could be the goad behind getting almost anything done.

“I should ride out next time.” Rafe closed both hands gently over her chilly fingers. “Seth needs time at his place to get settled.”

“It’s been wonderful building here and helping at Seth’s.” She had gotten so she appreciated Seth, too. He was full of stories about her cavern and she’d taken extensive notes. She’d written some more articles and sent them off and she’d started her book. She knew a lot, but she hadn’t begun to learn everything. They were close enough to town that she got Rafe to take her in to check the mail quite often for a reply about her articles.

Seth went back and forth between the three cabins. Hers and Rafe’s. Ethan and Audra’s. His own—which was still a bit raw, but he could live in it.

“I wonder where his wife’s gotten to.” Rafe tightened his hold on her hand and lifted until he kissed her fingers.

“I hate thinking about her out in the wilderness somewhere.” It distracted Julia from the gnawing need to explore that cavern. “Maybe hurt or lost. She should have been here by now.”

Rafe was silent, and it drew Julia out of her worry and her impatience. “What are you thinking?”

“I shouldn’t have let Seth go.”

He wanted to take care of his little brother. She should have known. “He’s gone before.”

“Yes, but never for this long. Every time I worry that he might not . . .”

Into the silence, Julia said, “He might not come back.”

Their eyes met and Rafe nodded. “He still doesn’t think straight all the time.”

“He’s been pretty good. Mostly.” They’d ridden over to his cabin early one morning and found him sleeping in his barn, cuddled up next to his horse. It was bitterly cold, and he’d said his horse was warmer than his cabin with his fireplace roaring. It might’ve been true, though it was just plain strange behavior.

“What about the nightmares?”

Julia hated to think of Seth alone fighting those dreams. He had one nearly every night when he stayed with them, and it stood to reason he had them at his place, too. “He might always have them, Rafe.”

“It seems like he shouldn’t be staying alone in his cabin until he can shake those ugly dreams about burning up.”

“But you said he had to stay, to prove up on his homestead.” Julia decided that since her husband was worrying about his brother, she’d just drag him toward the cave and hope he was distracted enough to not think up one of his endless excuses.

“He’s been gone too long this time.” Rafe’s feet were moving.

Julia remained silent, not sure if this was cooperation . . . and not wanting to remind him if it wasn’t.

“You were away more than a week once when Seth was still laid up with his broken leg. Ethan was gone almost that long. And two other times you left for three days.”

“There’s a trail from Rawhide to Denver, but it’s a sidewinder, and not well marked. There’s another one that angles west that some mule skinners use, and if she was determined to ride to Rawhide, she’d be coming on a freight wagon unless she’s riding horseback. And probably she’d be on the most likely one to Colorado City. She could take a train to Denver, then a stagecoach to Colorado City, then find a wagon coming from there to Rawhide. But if she got to Colorado City and asked after the Kincaids, there are plenty of folks there who know us. They’d send her straight to Ethan’s house.”

“Seth’s only been gone a week. It’s too early to start worrying.”

“It’s never too early to start worrying about my little brother.” Rafe quit walking and spun Julia around to face him. “And I’ve noticed you’re walking toward the cavern.”

She smiled.

He kissed her. When he was done, she was almost as distracted as Rafe.

“Let’s go.” He surprised her by walking on toward the cave entrance. “I’ve put it off long enough, and you’ve been a mighty nice wife not to nag at me.”

Which Julia was pretty sure wasn’t true. She’d been nagging real steadily. So it might mean Rafe wasn’t listening to her at all when she talked about the cavern, which was annoying.

Rafe paused to look up at the sun. “The day’s gettin’ on. I don’t think we can get to that room Seth was leading us to, but we can go to the one you’re always talking about, with the fish on the wall.”

“Really, Rafe?” She was so surprised she threw her arms around him.

“Yes, I’ve been dragging my heels because I just plain flat out don’t like that cavern.”

“You’ve been busy, too.”

“I have for a fact. But I could have taken a few hours to go in there. I promised you. Today I start keeping that promise.”

Julia had lanterns just inside the cave. She had rope and a stack of torches and paper and pencils to take notes. When the day finally came that Rafe would go down with her, she didn’t want to give him time to change his mind.

Rafe had matches on hand as always. Julia did, too. They’d learned the hard way to plan ahead so they never got stuck in the dark. They set out and turned to go down the steeply sloped tunnel toward the hole Seth had fallen through so many years before.

“Can you believe this?” Rafe asked.

“Believe what?” Julia got a little shiver up her spine when her voice echoed.

“We’ve been in here, what? Five whole minutes? And no one has shot at us. No one has kidnapped you. No one has even jumped out of the dark tunnel to surprise us. It just don’t seem natural.”

Julia couldn’t deny that the tunnel had given them a lot of trouble.

The tunnel was a tight one, and Rafe walked with his head bowed and his shoulders hunched to pass through.

They emerged into a big room. “Where’s this fish?”

She pointed at the first one, high on the stone wall.

He walked to the fossil. “And the layers in these rocks. What do you think caused that?”

“Something else to study and write about.” Which she found thrilling. “I think the fossil is some kind of shark.”

The fossil was at eye level. She ran her hand over the clearly outlined jawbones. “I’ve studied fish fossils. The bone structure and the shape of the teeth are similar to a shark’s. Look at the curved jaw and the triangular teeth. I can’t be sure without more study, but if it’s a shark, then what’s he doing so far from the ocean? How did it get in here? How did any fish get in this deep? If it’s a shark, that’s interesting in itself. But any fish is very interesting.”

“In one piece, too. No one was eating this fish for dinner.” Rafe turned from the fossil and smiled at her. Gracious in admitting he’d been wrong. If she hadn’t already been deeply in love with her husband, she’d have fallen right then.

“It had to swim up there.” Her voice rose with the excitement and echoed back at her. “This cavern had to be full of water, up this high. How could that have happened?”

“Noah’s flood. This is what’s got you so excited. To write about floodwaters so high that they must have covered the whole earth.”

“I believe God led me here, to this place, to the cavern, to write about that fossil.”

“I can’t look at that fish up there and not take you seriously.”

Which was somewhat insulting—that he hadn’t taken her seriously without proof, but Julia didn’t let it bother her.

“And named after the discoverers?”

A light laugh echoed in the chamber. “I’m not going to insist they name it a
Julia-fish-osaurus
.”

“I am.” Rafe leaned down and kissed her soundly on the lips. “This is your discovery. I’ll help you however you need me to, to get your papers written, to explore more, to get more things mailed off. I wonder if Seth or Ethan can draw worth a lick.”

“I could try and chisel the fossil out of the wall, but where it is here is as important as what it is. Let me show you something.” Julia pulled out a sheet of paper and went to the fish fossil and laid it over the fish’s head. With her pencil she began drawing back and forth covering the paper, rubbing the skeleton’s shape into it.

When she finished, Rafe looked closely at her rubbing, and the attention he was paying warmed her heart.

“Are there more fish fossils?”

Nodding, Julia said, “There is so much more, Rafe. I could write about the wonders of this one cave room for a year. I’ve already started a book. Can you see how exploring down here could last me a lifetime?”

“I can indeed. Now show me the rest.” He switched his lantern to his left hand and reached out his right to her. She took it and pulled him between the stalagmites and fossils, talking as they went.

Julia smiled. “Thank you.”

She tugged on his hand until he turned to face her. She stretched onto her toes to kiss him. His strong hand sliding around her waist drove out the shivers and the dark imaginings. “I love you, Rafe Kincaid. Thank you for understanding about this cavern.”

“I think the cavern is finally safe. We’ll be careful in unexplored caverns, in case the floors might be thin, but the rest of it is
finally
safe. No half-blind tracker thinking he can force some secret about treasure from you.”

“A secret treasure I know nothing about.” Julia wondered what fortune her father had taken and where he’d hidden it.

“No wandering, confused brother to scare us all to death.”

“Well, except he’s still confused and he’s wandering right now.”

“But not in the cavern,” Rafe pointed out.

“No outlaws to threaten Audra.” The outlaws had mentioned a boss, but Julia didn’t remind Rafe of that.

“Now all we need is to get someone who can draw.” Rafe’s brow furrowed.

“We’ll worry about that later. Let’s go home. It’s suppertime.”

They walked out together, and Julia caught herself grinning to realize that the cavern was in fact safe now.

“Jasper, wake up.” “Jasper, wake up.”

The jab in Jasper’s ribs sent him grabbing for the knife. It wasn’t there, so he attacked and had things under control before he was fully awake.

And looked down to see his wife glaring at him—with his hands wrapped around her throat.

He shook his head to clear it of the lingering nightmares and let her go.

“You want to go after your money, then go. I can tell it’s making you crazy.”

“What happened? I thought you . . . someone . . . was stabbing me.”

“You were dreaming. You were yelling about your treasure. I tried to wake you up and you attacked me. I mean it, Jasper. Go if you’ve a mind to. I’m not going to sleep at night afraid my husband might use me to punch out his frustrations.”

“I punched you?” Jasper’s stomach lurched.

“No,” she said grudgingly, as if she wanted him to feel guilty.

Jasper sat up on the edge of the bed. The dream swirled in and out of his thoughts. He’d been hunting. Searching everywhere. His money. It was driving him mad. He’d put the derringer back in the box last night. He’d done the right thing. Then in his dream he’d gone to the hotel to have it out with Kincaid.

Jasper had nothing to do but let the frustrated anger build.

“I thought I was over it.” He buried his head in his hands. “When I saw Kincaid in town . . . it’s been . . . been eating at me. All that money. The work of a lifetime. I’m going after it, Trix.”

———

“What would a fortune do for you? A bigger house? Silk shirts? We don’t dare draw attention to ourselves, not now that we know there are wanted posters out on you back in Houston. Living quietly is our best chance to be happy.”

“I wouldn’t hurt anyone, Bea. I’d sneak around. I lived by my wits in the Louisiana bayou country after my father kicked me out. I know how to slip around unseen and how to follow a trail.”

“You haven’t done any of that since you were a boy.”

“I was good. I can do this, Bea. I can listen, get the lay of the land. Figure out where that money is, grab it, and come back. No one will be the wiser.”

“I told you once, Jasper, you leave to go after that money, don’t bother coming back.” She turned away as if to go to sleep.

“You’re my wife.” He grabbed her shoulder and slammed her onto her back. Her hands came up to block her face and he saw fear.

Jasper thought of how he’d left her to a terrible life for years, when he should have married her. “I’m not going to hit you, Bea. How can you think that for a second?”

She lowered her hands. “You’ve never been like that. It was just a reflex. Plenty have, you know. In my old life a lot of men had plenty of evil in their hearts.”

Jasper pulled her close. She didn’t fight him.

“Bea, why don’t you come with me?”

“No. I told you, I’m not going to live like that anymore. I want a decent life.”

“Then come with me and keep me on the straight and narrow. I am not going to hurt anyone. I promise you that.” Jasper suspected he was lying, but honestly, if Bea came along . . . “You can help me, darlin’. You can stop me if I stray.”

“You can stop yourself.”

Jasper kissed her long and deep. “Please. For better or for worse, you promised.”

“For richer or for poorer, you promised that.”

“Sure, but why not try and be richer if we can?” Jasper kissed her again and felt her love for him. He used that. “You can save me. You can be the judge of what we do.”