“Maybe some other time.” He rose and, after dropping a few coins on the table, strolled out.
Carlotta’s eyes hardened as she watched him. She only offered herself to a privileged few. And she didn’t like to be rejected.
With the puppy snoozing at her feet, Sarah closed her father’s journal. He’d written about an Indian attack on the wagon train and his own narrow escape.
In simple, often stark terms, he’d written of the slaughter, the terror and the waste. Yet even after that he’d gone on, because he’d wanted to make something of himself. For her.
Shivering a bit despite her shawl, she rose to replace the book beneath the stone. If she had read those words while still in Philadelphia, she would have thought them an exaggeration. She was coming to know better.
With a half sigh, she looked down at her hands. They were smooth and well tended. They were, she was afraid, woefully inadequate to the task of carving out a life here.
It was only the night that made her feel that way, Sarah told herself as she moved to check the bolt on the door. She’d done all she could that day, and it had been enough. She’d driven to town alone, stocked the cabin and replanted the vegetable garden. Her back ached enough to tell her she’d put in a full day. Tomorrow she’d start again.
The lonely howl of a coyote made her heart thud. Gathering the puppy to her breast, she climbed up for bed.
She was in her night shift when the dog started to bark and growl. Exasperated, she managed to grab him before he could leap from the loft.
“You’ll break your neck.” When he strained against her hold and continued to yelp, she took him in her arms. “All right, all right. If you have to go out, I’ll let you out, but you might have let me know before I went to bed.” Nuzzling him, she climbed down from the loft again. She saw the fire through the window and ran to the door. “Oh, my God.”
The moment she yanked it open the puppy ran out, barking furiously. With her hands to her cheeks, Sarah watched the fire rise up and eat at the old, dry wood of the shed. A scream, eerily like a woman’s, pierced the night.
Her father’s horses. Following instinct alone, she ran.
The horses were already wild-eyed, stamping and screaming in their stalls. Muttering a prayer, Sarah dragged the first one out and slapped its flank. The fire was moving fast, racing up the walls and onto the roof. The hay had already caught and was burning wildly. Eyes stinging from the smoke, she groped her way to the second stall. Coughing, swearing, she fought the terrified horse as it reared and shoved against her. Then she screamed herself when a flaming plank fell behind her. Fire licked closer and closer to the hem of her shift.
Whipping off her shawl, she tossed it over the horse’s eyes and dragged them both out of the shed. Blinded by smoke, she crawled to safety. Behind her she could hear the walls collapse, could hear the roar of flames consuming wood. Gone. It was gone. She wanted to beat her fists in the dirt and weep. It could spread. The terror of that had her pushing up onto her hands and knees. Somehow she had to prevent the fire from spreading. She caught the sound of a horse running hard and had nearly gained her feet when something slammed into her.
Chapter Four
The night was clear, with a sharp-edged half-moon and white pinpoint stars. Jake rode easily, arguing with himself.
It was stupid, just plain stupid, for him to be heading out when he could be snuggled up against Carlotta right this minute. Except Carlotta didn’t snuggle. What she did was more like devouring. With her, sex was fast and hot and uncomplicated. After all, business was business.
At least he knew what Carlotta was and what to expect from her. She used men like poker chips. That was fine with Jake. Carlotta wouldn’t expect posies or boxes of chocolates or Sunday calls.
Sarah Conway was a whole different matter. A woman like that wanted a man to come courting wearing a stiff collar. And probably a tie. He snorted and kicked his mount into a trot. You’d have to see that your boots were shined so you could sit around making fancy talk. With her, sex would be…
He swore viciously, and the mustang pricked up his ears. You didn’t have sex with a woman like that. You didn’t even think about it. And even if you did…
Well, he just wasn’t interested.
So what the hell was he doing riding out to her place in the middle of the night?
“Stupid,” he muttered to his horse.
Overhead, a nighthawk dived and killed with hardly a sound. Life was survival, and survival meant ruthessness.
Jake understood that, accepted it. But Sarah… He shook his head. Survival to her was making sure her ribbons matched her dress.
The best thing he could do was to turn around now and head back to town. Maybe ride right on through town and go down to Tombstone for a spell. He could pick up a job there if he had a mind to. Better yet, he could travel up to the mountains, where the air was cool and smelled of pine. There wasn’t anything or anyone holding him in Lone Bluff. He was a free agent, and that was the way he intended to stay. But he didn’t turn his horse around.
When he got back from the mountains, he mused- if he got back-Miss Sarah Conway, with her big brown eyes and her white shoulders, would be long gone. Just plain stubbornness was keeping her here now, anyway. Even stubbornness had to give way sometime. If she was gone, maybe he’d stop having this feeling that he was about to make a big mistake. As far as he could see, the biggest mistakes men made were over three things-money, whiskey and women. None of the three had ever meant enough to him to worry or fight over. He didn’t plan on changing that.
Even if this woman was different. Somehow. That was what bothered him the most. He’d always been able to figure people. It had helped keep him alive all these years. He couldn’t figure Sarah Conway, or what it was about her that made him want to see that she was safe. Maybe he was getting soft, but he didn’t like to think so.
He couldn’t help feeling for her some, traveling all this way just to find out her father was dead. And he had to admire the way she was sticking it out, staying at the old mine. It was stupid, he mused, but you had to admire it.
With a shrug, he kept riding. He was nearly to the Conway place, anyway. He might as well take a look and make sure she hadn’t shot her foot off with her daddy’s rifle.
He smelled the fire before he saw it. His head came up, like a wolfs when it scents an enemy. In a similar move, the mustang reared and showed the whites of his eyes. When he caught the first flicker of flame, he kicked the horse into a run. What had the damn fool woman done now?
There had only been a few times in his life when he had experienced true fear. He didn’t care for the taste of it. And he tasted it now, as his mind conjured up the image of Sarah trapped inside the burning house, the oil she’d undoubtedly spilled spreading the fire hot and fast.
Another image came back to him, an old one, an image of fire and weeping and gunplay. He’d known fear then, too. Fear and hate, and an anguish he’d sworn he’d never feel again.
There was some small relief when he saw that it was the shed burning and not the house. The heat from it roared out as the last of the roof collapsed. He slowed his horse when he spotted two riders heading up into the rocks. His gun was already drawn, his blood already cold, before he saw Sarah lying on the ground. His horse was still moving when he slid from the saddle and ran to her.
Her face was as pale as the moon, and she smelled of smoke. As he knelt beside her, a small brown dog began to snarl at him. Jake brushed it aside when it nipped him.
“If you were going to do any guarding, you’re too late.”
His mouth set in a grim line, he pressed a hand to her heart. Something moved in him when he felt its slow beat. Gently he lifted her head. And felt the blood, warm on his fingers. He looked up at the rocks again, his eyes narrowed and icy. As carefully as he could, he picked her up and carried her inside. There was no place to lay her comfortably but the cot. The puppy began to whine and jump at the ladder after Jake carried her up. Jake shushed him again and, grateful that Sarah had at least had the sense to bring in fresh water, prepared to dress her wound.