Colt stiffened. To even think of comparing what he had shared with Amy to the cheap and tawdry acts he had once performed with a whore set his skin crawling.
“Maybe, then again…you shouldn’t do that.” Bear shrugged. “It was just a suggestion. You know, like the hair of the dog.”
“Hair of the dog…yeah. I don’t think so, Bear.” Colt slumped in his chair, tugging his hat down lower over his eyes. “Can’t even think about doing that. It’s just her I want.”
“You do have it bad, son. I never thought I would live long enough to see it. Colt Evans undone by a woman.”
Colt could hear the grin in Bear’s voice. “Go to hell,” he said, no malice in his voice. “Just shut up and go to hell.”
****
A knock on the door startled Amelia. She rushed over and flung it open. Disappointment knifed through her. Rachel Taylor stood on the small porch, a heavy cloak wrapped around her. The bitter wind howled over the house and into the doorway, driving tiny pellets of snow in front of it.
“May I come in?” Rachel asked after a long moment.
Amelia stood aside. “I’m sorry. Please, come in, Mrs. Taylor.”
Rachel walked into the warm house. As Amelia shut the door, she pressed her hand into the small of her back. With the new distribution of her weight, her back ached more and more. Dr. Archer had assured her that was normal.
“I came out here to check on you and Saul and Jenny,” Rachel said. “Are you all right?”
Amelia nodded. “You shouldn’t have come out today. Everyone says we’re supposed to have another blizzard today or tonight. It’s been a winter of blizzards this year.”
“I didn’t come out to discuss the weather with you.”
“To answer your question, we’re fine. The money Colt left for us has helped.”
Rachel pulled off her black woolen cloak and draped it over a chair back. “That isn’t what I meant, Amy, and I think you know it.”
Amelia crossed to the stove, ignoring Rachel’s unspoken question. “I don’t have any coffee to offer you, but I do have some tea left. Would you care for a cup of tea, Mrs. Taylor? I also baked some cookies.”
No coffee? How about some whiskey, then?
Amelia closed her eyes, trying to silence the whispered memories and banish the recollection of Colt’s roguish grin.
“It’s Rachel, and hot tea would be nice.” Rachel said. “Where are Saul and Jenny?”
“They’re at the Running Diamond with the Archers today. Rebecca came out here to get them this morning.” Amelia broke a small portion of leaves from the tea block and placed it into a silver tea ball. She pumped water into a kettle and set it on the stove before she turned back to Rachel. “I guess if it starts to really snow, they’ll be staying with the Archers for a couple of days.”
Rachel nodded and sat at the table. “Amy, are you all right?”
Again that hidden question, buried in such an innocuous query. Amelia braced her arms on the counter and dropped her head. She was never going to be all right again, but she couldn’t tell Rachel that. “Dr. Archer says everything is going fine.”
“Amy, I could have asked him that myself. That is not what I am asking.”
Amelia straightened. “What do you want me to say? Do you want me to tell you I’ve forgotten all about Colt? Dr. Archer says the way I feel will be healed with time. I’ve heard from other people in town that I have to move on, that I have to be strong for Saul and Jenny and even for this baby I’m carrying. Dr. Archer said that life goes on and that I’ll get through this.”
“Yes, you will.”
The simple words angered Amelia. “How can I go on when I’m still waiting for him to come back?” Her voice cracked. “Do you know, a few days after he left, I gathered up everything of my father’s Colt had worn. They smelled so much like him, and then the truth hit home. He is gone and he won’t be back and I couldn’t even tell him one last time that I love him.” Amelia dashed her hand against her eyes, wiping away tears she refused to shed and added, “I don’t think I will ever stop loving him.”
The kettle whistled, rapidly rising to a shriek. She poured the boiling water into a cup, and then set the tea ball in to brew. “So, tell me, Mrs. Taylor, how should I feel? How do I go on?”
“You go on because there isn’t any other thing to do. If you love him, how much do you also love his child? Dr. Archer is right and so is everyone else who has said you have to go on. Time will heal this, and for Saul, Jenny, and that baby’s sake, you have to be strong.”
Amelia sucked her breath in. “Do you know how people look at me now? So many of those women in town actually pull away from me, as if carrying a child is contagious, or as if I’m filthy and beneath their contempt. I’ve heard them saying my parents would be rolling in their graves if they knew what I’ve done and what I’ve become. I’m carrying Colt Evans’ child, and worse than that, the baby will be born out of wedlock.”
To Amelia’s surprise, Rachel grinned and a laugh bubbled from her. “Amy, pregnancy often has nothing to do with marriage. You weren’t old enough when you moved here, and I know you aren’t old enough to know all of the gossip this town has ground out its grist mill, but I know exactly what you’re facing.”
“How could you know?”
“Because I wasn’t married when I was carrying Joshua.” Rachel crossed the room and took the brewing cup of tea from the counter. She spooned sugar in and stirred the steaming liquid.
“But you married his father.”
Rachel smiled and shook her head. “No, I didn’t. Harrison is not Joshua’s father.” She sipped from the cup. “So I know the whispers behind your back that you’re hearing when you come into town, and I know the looks that are sent in your direction. And believe me when I tell you that you will survive this. Everyone who has said life will go on is right.”
“Everyone was right about Colt too?” Amelia couldn’t stop the sarcasm boiling in her voice, but if it had any effect on Rachel, it didn’t show in her expression. “They all said he was trouble for me and Saul and Jenny. No matter that Jenny adored him…”
You had chocolate ice cream, didn’t you, Miss Jenny?
Memory flickered, and she saw that soft, gentle smile Colt had reserved for Jenny.
You don’t talk like that to any lady, but especially not to your own sister
.
“…and Saul is trying to be the man he thinks Colt would have wanted him to be…”
Damn the woman. Until Rachel arrived, Amelia had been able to keep most of the memories at bay, except for late at night, when she would sob into her pillow, so that Saul and Jenny wouldn’t hear her heartache.
“…and I will always love him. Your husband wasn’t right about him. Marshal Taylor was dead wrong about him. Those gossiping old hens in town weren’t right about him, but they wanted to believe what those horrid books said about him and not what I know of him. They wanted to believe his past would show up again, and we’d be hurt or killed.”
Rachel lifted her brows. “His past did show up, Amy.”
“Other than being frightened, I wasn’t seriously hurt. Jenny is talking again because Colt was here. Saul is always asking if the things he does would make Colt proud. So tell me again how right everyone was about Colt.”
Rachel sipped her tea before she asked, “Are you through with your tirade, Amy?”
“No, I’m not, but I was also raised better than I want to be at the moment. This town is the reason Colt left, not his past. No one in this damnable little, two-horse town,
no one
, would believe that Colt Evans could be a decent man. Everyone wanted to believe he was a ruthless, cold-blooded killer.”
“It was his past, not what anyone believed or didn’t believe he was capable of, that made Colt decide to leave.”
I can’t turn you down because I’m not that noble or that strong
. Her eyes slid shut again, but this time she didn’t try to banish the memory. She let it wash over her, the moonlight playing over Colt’s face, the smell of him, the warmth of him, the feel of him, the amazing contradiction of tenderness and strength in his caresses and embrace.
“He is a decent man, but practically everyone in this town refused to believe that.” Amelia rounded on Rachel. “If they had given him a chance, maybe his past wouldn’t have mattered so much. But because no one would give him a second chance, his past mattered more than it should.”
“Are you through now?” Rachel set her tea cup on the table, her steady gaze never leaving Amelia’s face.
Anger shot through Amelia. “Do not talk to me as if I am a spoiled child having a tantrum, Mrs. Taylor.”
“Rachel,” she said. “Harrison said that more than once you’ve pointed out the day your parents died, you were forced to grow up immediately.”
“I did,” Amelia said through clenched teeth.
“Then grow up, Amy.”
Amelia recoiled. “How dare you?”
“Very easily, as a matter of fact. No one is denying that your burden at this moment is not a light one, and those gossips in town do not make this any easier for you.” Rachel lowered her gaze to the table and slowly twisted the cup around by its handle. “No one is denying that you love Colt. I don’t think anyone who really thinks about it would deny that Colt cared deeply for you and Saul and Jenny. And if that’s true, stop for a moment and consider how he must feel.” Rachel lifted her head, her intense gaze pinning Amelia. “If he cared for you, if he still cares for you, he is just as lonely, frightened, and heartsick as you are. He doesn’t have what you have, though. He’s all alone and you’re not.”
A choked sob broke from Amelia. She spun away from Rachel’s compelling gaze. “He shouldn’t have left us,” she managed on a choking breath. Angrily, she dashed welling tears away. “We could have managed to do something to hide his past. His past shouldn’t have mattered. I should have told him that the night he left. I should have told him…I should have told him anything so he wouldn’t leave. I couldn’t even tell him that I love him.”
“His past mattered to him, Amy.” Rachel’s voice was softer, filled with a gentleness that drew more tears from Amelia’s eyes. “It mattered greatly to him because it could hurt you. It did hurt you.”
Amelia stared at the low ceiling, rapidly blinking in a fruitless attempt to keep her tears in check. “What if he’s dead? What if he’s been killed? I’ll never know, and I will just keep on waiting for him to come back to me. Those animals didn’t change the fact I love him. What if he can never come back to me? I will wait the rest of my life for him, because I know there will never be any other man for me.”
Rachel drew Amelia into her arms. That simple gesture of concern and caring broke the dam in Amelia and she sobbed in earnest against Rachel’s shoulder. “Even if he never comes back to me, I know the last thing in this life I will listen for will be the sound of his voice.”
Colt Evans learned at an early age never to sit with his back to a door. Any door. He sat at a poker table in the corner of the room, his back protected, and turned a card up in a losing hand of solitaire. He stared at the queen of hearts, shook his head, and glared at the queen of spades, the only black card facing him.
He had come to the conclusion that any luck he’d had at cards left when he rode away from Amy. Since that day, he could count on one hand the number of times he had won at any card game.
A commotion near the door drew his attention. Colt glanced to the doorway where a burly figure stood silhouetted by the harsh, mid-afternoon sun. The man walked into the saloon and scanned the room. He had a badge pinned to his shirtfront. Colt dropped his gaze to the cards, secure in the knowledge he wasn’t the object of the tin star’s search.
“Keep your hands on the table, Evans, and stand up real slow.”
Colt looked up into the barrel of a Navy Colt, less than a foot from his face. His gaze slid slowly along the barrel, to the badge, and up to the wearer’s face. “George Matthews?” A chill traced up Colt’s spine. “When did you take to wearing a badge? A better question would be what fool town hired you?”
“Shut up.” Matthews grabbed Colt’s shirt. “Stand up and keep your hands where I can see them.”
Colt allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “Where are we going, George?”
“I’m taking you to the town jail until I can make arrangements to take you back to Red Deer.” He shoved Colt out the door. “Keep your hands well away from your sides, Evans. If I even think you’re dropping your gun hand, I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”
“In the back?” Colt’s boot heels echoed with a dry, hollow thudding on the boardwalk of the curiously empty main street. “Where the hell is everyone?”
“I warned the locals that I was going to be taking a very dangerous man out of the saloon and it would be better for everyone to stay indoors.”
“That was thoughtful of you, George,” Colt said. “Convenient too, so there won’t be any witnesses.”
“Just keep walking, Evans, and keep your gun hand away from your side.” George shoved him again.
Colt stumbled and forced himself to regain his balance. “Wouldn’t it be easier if I just took off my gun belt? That way you don’t have to worry about me reaching for my gun.”
The sound of George’s boot heels seemed to fall farther behind him. Colt’s instincts thrummed, and the hair lifted on the back of his neck. Judging by the sound, George had fallen at least five feet behind. Why?
George barked, “Step out into the street, Evans.”
An icy calm settled over Colt. He stopped, keeping his gun hand several inches away from his revolver. “Why? So you can shoot me in the back, claiming I tried to escape?”
“Step out into the street, Evans.”
Without moving his head, Colt scanned the empty street. Sunlight threw a brief, but telltale glint off the barrel of a gun perched on top of the building across the street. A shadow moved behind the plate-glass window in the mercantile.
Two other guns. Hell. The odds weren’t getting any better.
A third man rounded the corner of the building, a rifle pointed casually into Colt’s belly. “Do as he says, Evans. Step out into the street.”
For a second, Colt closed his eyes. A deep regret filled him.
I’m sorry, Amy
. He could probably take George and the rifle out, but the other two across the street would finish him.