Always You Page 14

  Everyone stared at them as they entered the lamplit farmhouse. Jesse fixed her with a wary glare, Will smiled tentatively as he clutched a fistful of brightly colored marbles, and Cassie hurried from Louisa’s room, her lips trembling.

  “It’s all my fault, Melora,” she said in a tiny voice, and hung her head. “I don’t blame you for wanting to leave after I upset you.”

  “No, Cassie. It isn’t your fault at all. I’m the one who’s been worrying you.” Melora went to the girl and embraced her, squeezing her thin shoulders. “I do want to help you—all of you.” She sighed. “It’s just that—”

  “Melora and I had a squabble before we got here—just like one of our own family squabbles,” Cal interjected from the doorway of the farmhouse. “But now everything’s all straightened out.”

  “Did you hug and kiss?” Will asked.

  “Uh, well...”

  “You know the rule,” the boy insisted. “After every squabble we have to hug and kiss and make up.”

  “He’s right.” Cassie nodded, her eyes sparkling suddenly, and even Jesse grinned, his intent green gaze flicking back and forth with amusement between Melora’s delicately pinkened cheeks and Cal’s red ones.

  “Go ahead.” Will trotted to Cal and tugged him into the cozy parlor, where a fire burned pleasantly in the hearth and everything looked tidy and inviting. “Give her a hug and a kiss.”

  “Can’t right now, have to go check on Lou,” Cal growled, and started for the bedroom door, but it was Jesse who jumped up and, grinning even wider, put a restraining hand on his arm.

  “Lou’s fine. She woke up, had two cups of tea, and some bread we dipped in the soup broth, and she fell back asleep. Fever’s gone.”

  “So go ahead.” Cassie gave Melora a gentle push. A giggle escaped from her lips. “Show us that you’ve worked out your squabble.”

  This is ridiculous, Melora thought, blushing like a schoolgirl about to stand up at a dance with a boy for the very first time. Neither Cal nor I need to do this to satisfy these silly children.

  But as her feet dragged across the floor, Cal came forward to meet her. A sweet pounding started inside her chest.

  To her surprise he looked nearly as uncomfortable as she. Though he was trying to appear casual and kept his expression determinedly neutral, there was something sheepish in the way he held his arms out toward her that tugged at her heart.

  But there was nothing sheepish about what happened next.

  Cal seized her, swooped one arm around her waist, the other around her neck in a graceless but powerful hold, and planted a kiss on her lips that scorched through to the tips of her toes. The room spun in a dizzying circle that made her hold on to him for dear life.

  It was a long kiss, a very long kiss.

  At last, faintly, she heard the sound of hands clapping. Dimly she realized that he had let her go.

  Slowly her dazed glance scanned each person in the room. They all were staring at her. And grinning from ear to ear.

  Except Cal. He stood with his thumbs hooked in his gun belt, looking perfectly nonchalant and quite pleased with himself,

  “Haven’t you ever been kissed before?” Cassie piped up, giggling.

  “Yes... of course, many times.” Flustered, Melora tossed her head. This was getting to be more ridiculous by the moment. To salvage her pride, she began to speak quickly. “But I didn’t expect to be kissed quite so enthusiastically by Cal because I thought he was going to kiss me the way he kisses the members of his family to settle a ‘squabble,’ not like... like—”

  “Not like you were his girl.” Jesse finished for her helpfully, and for the first time, as she met the youth’s gaze, he smiled at her with no trace of either suspicion or hostility.

  “Cal’s never had a girl,” Will informed her importantly. “Till now.”

  Melora regarded Cal from beneath the sweep of her lashes, a pert, inquisitive glance. It pleased her to see that at last he looked as flustered as she felt.

  “And I don’t have one now either,” he pointed out quickly, striding to the fireplace and adding another log. “Melora is just a friend.”

  “But she’s so pretty.” Disappointed, Will pushed his lower lip out in a pout. “If you don’t want her for your girl, she can be mine.”

  Everyone laughed, including Melora, who threw her arms around the little boy. “I’d be proud to be your girl, Will.”

  “You would?”

  “Yes. Proud and honored.”

  He beamed and tossed his older brother a triumphant look.

  “Well, good for you, Will. Looks like you’ve got yourself a girl.” Cal clapped him amiably on the back. Then he glanced at the window, noting the deep, thick darkness that had settled down like a fine wool cloak over the hills. “But now it’s time for everyone to get to bed. Cassie, you’ll come and get me right away if Lou wakes up in the night and needs something?”

  His sister nodded and ran obediently to him for a good-night kiss. Then Cal turned briskly toward Will and scooped the boy up and onto his shoulders. “You and me and Jesse are moving into the barn, pardner, so’s Melora can sleep in that second bedroom and have some privacy. Unless you want me to fix you up a bedroll in the corner, right here in the parlor.”

  “No, Cal—I’m going with you. I want to sleep in the barn with you and Jesse and Brownie.”

  Cal grinned up at the small boy atop his shoulders. “Sure thing, pardner. Hang on tight.” He headed out the door, waiting for Will to duck before he crossed the threshold. “Jesse, bring some blankets and pillows,” he said over his shoulder. “Night, ladies.”

  Later, as Melora peeked into Lou’s sickroom and saw both Cassie and Louisa peacefully asleep in their beds, an odd, comfortable feeling washed over her. There was no denying it: This was a homey little house. Despite missing Jinx and Aggie she didn’t feel lonely here.

  She’d been lonely when she was away at school, desperately lonely for her home and family, though she’d hidden it well and concentrated on her studies, because Pop had insisted she get a good education. But each night in Boston she’d had to fight against the ache of loneliness in her heart. Here she wasn’t lonely at all.

  Something about this house, this tight-knit little family so devoted to one another, filled a void inside her. Perhaps because Cal, in his determination to take care of them, reminded her of herself, of the way she intended to take care of Jinx. It was a familiar protectiveness, an understandable kind of love.

  And to her amazement, as she wandered through the parlor and then into the kitchen, she felt a bond with him, a bond with the man she thought of as her enemy—but he was the most bewildering enemy she’d ever thought to encounter.

  No longer tired, Melora brewed coffee. Restlessness seized her as she uncovered the supper plate Cassie had saved for her and proceeded to devour cold fried chicken and beans and potatoes. She had just finished her coffee and was carrying her empty plate to the sink when she spotted Cal through the kitchen window.

  She’d remembered all along that he’d promised to come back after everyone was asleep and tell her “the sad saga of Rafe Campbell and the Holden family.” But she’d been trying not to think about it; she’d been trying not to think about anything. Deep down, she was all too aware that she would have to make a decision soon about where she stood and what she believed.

  When she recalled the man she knew as Wyatt Holden, it seemed impossible that Cal’s claims could be true. Wyatt’s arms had been gentle, his lips soft and reassuring. Everyone thought him upright and fine. Everyone!

  But when she stared into Cal’s intently determined eyes and saw the sweet faces of his brothers and sisters, she was compelled to believe Cal’s words. Yet his story sounded so incredible, so terrible that she shuddered at its implications.

  Now she watched him as he leaned against a tree, silhouetted by bright, full moonlight. He rolled a cigarette and began to smoke, each movement thoughtful and deliberate, and she remembered the first time s
he’d seen him. She hadn’t thought him especially handsome at the time. How strange. Now he looked vitally handsome, with his dark chestnut hair glinting in the moonlight and his stern, hard features illuminated enough to reveal their somber expression.

  A powerful urge to soothe the careworn lines from his face overtook her. She almost started forward. Then she gripped the kitchen counter, stopping herself.

  Think, Melora. Don’t be impulsive. Use the brain God gave you. And consider.

  Was this man who had carried Will on his shoulders, ridden pell-mell for a doctor for Lou, rescued her from Jethro and from Strong, and kissed her with such rough thoroughness she’d trembled in places she hadn’t even known existed—was this man a liar, an outlaw, a murderer?

  Or was her fiancé?

  Suddenly she turned and left the kitchen. She strode into the bedroom, to the shelf with the books, and took down the Bible. And holding her breath, she opened it to the first page.

  In fine, curving black script she read the inscription written there: “THE HOLDEN FAMILY BIBLE.”

  Hands shaking, she closed it. Replaced it on the shelf. And moved like a sleepwalker, passing through the kitchen door and out across the neat little yard without seeing its vegetable garden or the well or any of the dark-petaled larkspurs growing in profusion among the trees. She saw nothing, heard nothing. Her mind was filled with memories: of words, embraces, glances exchanged, plans made, moments shared.

  All jumbled together in a jarring cacophony that swelled through her brain.

  Cal turned as she approached. Silently he watched her glide through the moon-dappled darkness, thinking that no other woman he’d ever met had moved quite like that, with such unconscious grace, such artless sensuality.

  “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He wanted to catch her in his arms as she paused before him because she looked as if she might fall down at any moment, but he forced himself to continue blowing smoke calmly up into the night sky, to continue standing there as if nothing of import were about to be discussed between them.

  “I’ve seen your family Bible,” Melora whispered.

  Cal threw down the cigarette and crushed it with his boot. The heart-rending catch in her throat clawed at his gut.

  “The Holden family Bible.” She continued so low he had to duck his head forward to hear her. “So it appears you’re telling me the truth.” She spoke carefully, each word like a shard of glass that could shatter at any moment. “Your family name is Holden.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So that man back in Rawhide... is not a Holden—”

  “Right again.”

  “He’s... Rafe Campbell. Just like you said.” She fought to breathe normally, to keep the stars and the sky from whirling dizzily before her eyes.

  “Take it easy, Melora.” Cal put a hand on her arm, but she shook him off.

  “He’s nothing but a liar!” she cried, her teeth beginning to chatter. “An impostor. He was lying to me all along!”

  “Yeah, Melora, he was.”

  Melora braced herself against the tree, growing pale in the moonlight as she accepted his unhesitating, straightforward answer.

  Something died inside her. Something like a seedling. A seedling filled with false, sickly sweet dreams. She lifted a hand to her throat, which ached with unshed tears, and stared off into the hills, her eyes unfocused.

  Crickets chirped in the darkness. A nighthawk swooped and rasped out a harsh cry from the sky. “He never loved me.”

  She felt so empty and bereft inside that she could have wept, but she was too hollow for tears. “It was all... some kind of ruse. All a trick.”

  “Maybe not all of it,” Cal said quietly. “But some. It’s possible he does love you in his way—as much as Campbell can love anyone. As a possession.” Cal’s brows swooped together. “Something that belongs exclusively to him.”

  He frowned because he knew Campbell’s possessive streak. They’d been friends once, and he’d observed firsthand how the man valued money, gold, fine things. And Melora was as fine a woman as any man could hope to possess—except you couldn’t possess another human being. He doubted that Campbell understood that point. That was exactly what Cal had been counting on all this time: that Campbell would become so incensed at losing his woman—his personal, hand-chosen possession, and someone who had something he wanted, to boot—that he would follow her anywhere to get her back.

  Even into the Black Hills.

  Even into a trap.

  That was the key to Cal’s plan. Yet as he spoke the words, he could see how much they hurt her. And that stoked the embers of his fury. Rafe Campbell was a low-down son of a bitch who didn’t deserve one drop of Melora’s love.

  Cal’s mouth tasted bitter with the knowledge that she had truly cared for that bastard. And what he’d said was true enough. Campbell might love her in his own selfish, scheming way, but not in the way she deserved.

  What sane man wouldn’t fall in love with her? he asked himself jeeringly. What man could resist such fiery golden beauty, a smile that could melt the sun, a spirit that refused to give up, even under the most trying circumstances?

  Not you, a hard, mocking voice answered inside him. And he knew he was a fool. She’d twist him around her finger like a string if he gave her half the chance, if he let on what she did to his insides, his concentration, his self-control every time he came within twenty feet of her.

  So he’d better not let on.

  Melora Deane had lethal charm. Plenty of it. And he’d wager his hat and his saddle and his boots that she knew better than most women how to use it.

  When it came to flirting and courtship and falling in love, he was no match for her, the belle of the territory.

  It was almost funny that he’d fallen for her. Her. Because as Will kept reminding him, he’d never even had a girl. Any girl. Much less one who’d been wooed and courted as Melora Deane had been wooed and courted all of her life.

  Forget it, Cal warned himself. Don’t even let yourself think about going after her in that way. You’ve already been Campbell’s victim. Don’t become hers.

  Playing the fool was something Cal Holden couldn’t abide. He’d already done it once in this lifetime. He’d been Rafe Campbell’s fool, believing in a friendship that had been false all along, letting himself get bested by a snake in gentleman’s garb.

  He wouldn’t let anyone lure him into making a fool of himself again. Especially not Melora Deane.

  “Look, Princess, we have to talk,” he said urgently, trying to take his mind off this train of thought. Besides, she looked dazed. And sick. Another score to settle with Campbell, he told himself grimly. “You probably have some questions. If you want to know more about Campbell—”

  “I do have questions—one question. Is Campbell dangerous?”

  “Very.”

  Her face crumpled then, and she sprang forward, clutching at his vest. “I have to go home!”

  “Melora—”

  “At first light,” she cried, her voice rising with panic, “My sister is there alone, Cal. She can’t even walk! If anything happens to her, it’ll be laid at your doorstep. You must take me home!”

  Chapter 14

  Cal pulled Melora to him. One hand caught her chin and gently tilted her head back. He noted how the moonlight bathed the delicate planes of her face. Her eyes looked huge—and frightened. Frightened for her sister, as she had never been for herself.

  “What do you mean that your sister can’t walk?”

  “She can’t walk! When our pop was shot by rustlers, Jinx found him. She fell off her horse and now her legs won’t work, and we don’t know why. Cal, I have to get home and protect her!”

  “Your sister isn’t in any danger, Melora. Calm down. Campbell—”

  “Campbell must have only wanted to marry me to get his hands on my ranch,” she cried desperately. This was no time for pride or false dignity. “The Weeping Willow is valuable property—ev
en with all the losses we’ve suffered lately, and it adjoins—” She froze and stared at him. “The Diamond X. Dear Lord, the Diamond X—it’s not his. It’s not his at all. If what you say is true, Jed Holden bequeathed it to—you?”

  “That’s right. To me and Joe.”

  “Dear Lord.”

  “Campbell stole the deed Uncle Jed’s lawyer sent us, took it right off Joe’s body after the posse shot him down. He also stole our pay—money we were planning to send home to help keep our own ranch going.”

  He didn’t add the rest. That when Campbell and the sheriff arrested Cal and threw him in jail after they’d killed Joe, Campbell had proceeded to steal every cent in Cal’s pocket as well—and a silver-handed pistol and the cameo necklace his grandmother had given Cal as a gift for his future wife.

  He could spare her that at least. Melora had enough to deal with right now without thinking about Campbell’s giving her that same cameo.

  He released her, watching the shock register on her face. Melora sank down upon the cold, hard ground and buried her face in her hands.

  It was true. All of it, true. The resigned bitterness in Cal’s face and in his quietly spoken words could come only from deep pain—pain caused by the truth. Each word he spoke drove another nail into the coffin that was all she had left of her betrothal.

  Cal lowered himself to sit beside her in the darkness. He was aware of her shoulders trembling, of her hair whipping about her, loose and wild in the wind.

  Not looking at Melora, he plucked a wildflower that had been growing along the root of the tree and studied its delicate petals, frosted by starlight.

  “You need to know this, Melora. All of it. But it’s not a pretty story.”

  “Go on. I want to hear.” No, she didn’t. She wanted to run away and hide and shut out the world, shut out the truth, and the knowledge of her own stupidity, but she couldn’t. She had to know all of it. She had to listen good and hard.

  “Campbell knew all about the deed,” he said softly. But Melora shivered at the cold steel she heard in his voice. “All about how Uncle Jed left us his ranch in good old Rawhide, Wyoming. Because Joe and I were fool enough to tell him. We’d been working for him up near Tucson, trying to earn enough money to pay off the mortgage on our family ranch in Nogales. It was a small place, a few hundred head of cattle—nowhere near as grand as the Weeping Willow—and it was a struggle to keep it profitable, but it was our home.” His voice hardened. “We lost some of our cattle to disease the year after our mother died of the fever, and then the bank wanted to call in the loan. So Joe and I left Jesse and our old foreman in charge and took jobs as ranch hands for a big spread up near Tucson to make extra money. We sent nearly every penny home.”