Damn it, Jessi. Why won’t you give up and go back where you belong?
Yet even as Wolfe formed the thought, he was smoothing back Jessica’s hair from her face with a gentleness he was helpless to combat. She looked like fine porcelain, defenseless against a world more harshly made than she was.
With no warning, Jessica’s eyes opened and looked full into Wolfe’s. Even the dawn couldn’t conceal her shock at finding herself held so intimately.
«W-Wolfe?»
With more speed than gentleness, Wolfe set Jessica on the bench seat opposite him, yanked his hat down over his eyes, and ignored her. Shortly, he was asleep.
Dazed by her own fitful sleep, stunned by awakening in Wolfe’s arms when she had fallen asleep slumped in a hard, drafty corner of the seat, Jessica simply stared at her husband and tried to remember where she was, and why. Finally she opened the side curtain in an effort to orient herself.
Dawn was simply another, lesser shade of darkness spreading across the sky. In all directions, the land was flat, bleak, and featureless but for the icy ruts that marked the stage road. No smoke lifted into the sky, announcing man’s presence. No fences marked off pastures. No roads led to distant houses or farms.
At first, the lack of trees and habitation fascinated Jessica, but after a time the unbroken monotony of the landscape numbed her as much as the cold wind pouring through gaps in the side curtains.
Jessica braced herself against the uncomfortable seat and fought to stay upright. Since they’d left St. Joseph, time had been a blur to her. She couldn’t remember whether she had been traveling three days or five or fifty-five. Hours and days ran together without anything to separate them, for Wolfe had insisted that they travel constantly, sleeping upright, getting down from the stage only to use the privy when the horses were changed at one of the miserable stations that dotted the long route west.
Other passengers came and went at various stops, and ate or slept in the low, rudely built stage stations. Jessica and Wolfe did not. He brought her food to her and they ate inside the stage, where they also slept. At least the past night had been spent in privacy, for no other passengers had chosen to endure frigid hours on the stage. But the result of the relentless travel was to make Jessica feel as though she had been born into the jostling, jouncing, pounding stagecoach box and would die in the same place.
She hoped it would be soon.
Wearily, Jessica stretched and rubbed her aching neck. With cold hands, she took down her hair and attempted to brush and braid it into submission. Wolfe’s stinging comments about girls who were too useless to comb their own hair had rankled deeply, as did the memory of his laughter when he had found her long braid trapped in the trunk.
By the time Jessica had managed to make two uneven braids and pin them in a coil on her head, the stagecoach began slowing. With a flurry of shouts and curses, the driver pulled the horses to a halt alongside a crude sod building that appeared, at best, uninviting. Despite that, Jessica looked forward to the stop as a break in the punishing ride.
Wolfe woke and stretched. His long, powerful arms and wide shoulders seemed to fill the interior of the stage. The necessity of completing the journey to Denver without spending a night in any of the station houses had eaten into even Wolfe’s endurance. At least Jessica assumed it had. It certainly had shortened his temper to a hair’s breadth.
Yet Wolfe showed no sign of discomfort. He climbed down from the stage with the muscular grace that was as much a part of him as his high cheekbones and blue-black eyes. Jessica both admired and resented the resilience of her husband’s body. She felt like a carpet after a spring beating.
Nonetheless, Jessica smiled cheerfully at Wolfe when he glanced her way, for she was determined not to lose her temper with him again. No man wanted to live with a shrew, and to be fair, Wolfe hadn’t even had the chance to choose his wife. It was up to Jessica to be unfailingly sweet, gentle, and pleasant to be around. Then Wolfe would be less irritable, less difficult, and more like the wonderful companion of Jessica’s memories.
When Wolfe turned and held out his hand for Jessica, she leaned on his strength in a distinctly unladylike manner as she descended stiffly.
«A lovely morning, is it not?» Jessica asked, smiling into the teeth of a cold wind.
Wolfe grunted.
«I don’t know when I’ve ever seen so many delicate shades of gray,» she continued cheerfully. «Quite enough to put a dove to shame.»
Wolfe shot Jessica a look of disbelief. «I’ve heard a cold March morning called a lot of things out here. Lovely wasn’t one of them.»
She sighed. Perhaps Wolfe would feel better after he had the wretched coffee Americans so admired. As far as she was concerned, there wasn’t enough sugarcane in the world to sweeten that evil brew.
There was no more conversation while Wolfe strode alongside Jessica to the privy’s miserable comforts. When she emerged, clutching her scent-drenched handkerchief, the cold prairie wind cut through her wool cape and dress as though they were sheerest silk. She looked longingly at the smoke streaming from the canted chimney pipe of the stage station.
The thought of being close to a fire’s warmth made Jessica shiver with pleasure. Ever since Wolfe had set her so abruptly on the far side of the coach, she had been getting steadily colder. Even worse, the sound of the wind had been gnawing at her nerves, eroding her self-control.
«Wolfe, let’s eat inside this time.»
«No.»
«But why? We’re the only passengers. Surely —»
«See those horses?» he interrupted curtly.
Jessica looked. There were indeed horses tied on the lee side of the rudimentary barn, which was more a lean-to attached to the station than a true barn.
«Those are saddle horses,» Wolfe said.
She schooled her expression into one of cheerful interest. «Why so they are. You can tell by the number of legs.»
Wolfe started to speak, gave a crack of laughter, and shook his head. How anyone who looked so worn and fragile could be so full of mischief was beyond him. He reached out and gently tugged a wisp of mahogany hair that had unraveled from Jessica’s crown of coiled braids.
«That means the station is full of men who are waiting for the stage,» Wolfe explained.
«Why? They have horses, after all.»
«They could be borrowed. In any case, they’ve been hard used. A smart man wouldn’t set out for a hundred-mile ride on a played-out horse.» Wolfe shrugged. «But even if the station were empty, I wouldn’t let you go inside. This is Cross-Eyed Joe’s place.»
«Do you know him?»
«Everyone between St. Joseph and Denver does. His station is the worst of a sorry lot, and he’s the sorriest of all. He’s a crude, blaspheming, drunken son of a bitch whose breath could back down a wolverine.»
Jessica blinked. «Then how does he hold his job?»
«He cares for horses the way a mother hen cares for her chicks. Out here, being afoot can be a death sentence. You can forgive Joe’s smell when he puts strong, eager horses in the traces.»
«Why would being afoot be so dangerous? Lord Robert never mentioned danger when we were here before.»
«Lord Robert’s ‘native guides’ fought even better than they tracked game,» Wolfe said dryly. «No Indians or outlaws were going to take on the kind of trouble twenty well-armed men could offer, no matter how tempting the prize.»
Broodingly, Wolfe looked at the unusually well-bred, obviously trail-weary horses tied in the lee of the station. Perhaps those horses belonged to honest men rather than to men whose lives depended on the ability of their horses to outrun the law.