Chasing the Sun (11 page)

When he reluctantly nodded, she continued.

“I cannot share a marriage bed without pain. I cannot bear children. You heard him say that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said again.

“It does to me.”

“I swear I don’t care about that, Elena. I just want you safe. And with me.”

But in truth, he did want more than that. He wanted all the things a man shared with the woman he loved. He wanted more than prayers and pious looks and a cold bed. He wanted everything he’d dreamed his life could be.

And he wanted her in it.

Elena’s pale hand brushed along his cheek, sending a warm pulse all the way to his heart. “I am unsuited to be a wife,
querido.
But I can still do other things. Good things. Things that will bring meaning to my life and perhaps help others. Would you deny me that?”

Unable to answer, he looked away from her searching gaze. He could feel them coming—the final words—the words that would kill his last remaining hope and change everything forever.

Dread perched like a demon on his chest.

“Dear one,” she said softly. “My love for you will dwell inside me forever. I will never forget that no one on this earth has ever cared for me as you have. But all of my life I have sensed that I did not belong in this place. Over the years, every tie that has bound me to it has been broken—my parents, my brother, your kind and generous family. You are the last thread and the hardest to break. You are wrapped so tightly around my heart that parting from you will tear a hole in it that can never be filled.”

He watched tears well up and course down her cheeks. Yet she smiled. How could she smile when he was dying inside?

“You are the very best of all that I leave behind,
mi hermano
.
Te quiero para siempre.
I will love you forever.”

“Then why—”

“But I love God more,” she cut in gently.

Jack’s throat ached. His chest burned. Every fiber in his being rebelled against her words.

“I can’t accept that,” he said hoarsely.

“You must.”

“I won’t.”

Then because he didn’t know what else to say or do, he picked up his crutch and left the cemetery.

It wasn’t until he was near the bottom of the hill that an odd thought came to him. He’d wanted to shake some sense into her. He’d wanted to hold her and comfort her when she wept. He’d wanted to stroke her fine, silky hair and take her pale hand in his. But he’d never had the urge to kiss her. Or taste the tears on her cheeks, or feel her body pressed against his.

And he didn’t know why.

Six

“HEARD YOU WERE LOOKING FOR A RIDE TO THE WILKINS place?”

Hitching Kate higher on her hip, Daisy turned to see a well-dressed gentleman picking his teeth and watching her from the doorway of the Val Rosa Hotel situated next door to the Overland Stage Office.

“Maybe I can help.” Flicking the toothpick into the street, he moved toward her. “As it happens, I’ve got business out that way. You and the little one are welcome to ride along.”

Daisy frowned, so exhausted after a week of travel with a restive toddler she could hardly think, much less make coherent decisions. “Well, I ...”

“Franklin Blake,” he said, tipping his broad-brimmed hat. His eyes flicked over her, small eyes, set a bit too close together, but sharply intelligent. “You a friend of the family?”

“Not exactly.” Kate twisted in her arms to study Mr. Blake. She didn’t usually take well to strangers. Especially men, and especially after that horrid scene when Bill Johnson had tried to take her away. But the child was as weary as Daisy and offered no reaction other than to stare at him with solemn smoky blue eyes.

Ignoring her, Blake smiled at Daisy, showing an abundance of small crooked teeth the color of aged ivory. “Ask around. Anyone can vouch for me.”

Daisy tried to think. He seemed kindly enough—a smooth-shaven, middle-aged man with the hands of a banker and the sound of authority in his voice. He was mannerly and clean and seemed to pose no threat.

She had little choice in the matter anyway. The trip from San Francisco had taken longer than she had anticipated, and the extra two days had severely depleted the last of her savings. Without enough money left to cover the cost of a hotel room, she couldn’t wait around on the hopes that someone from the ranch would come to town. Nor could she hire anyone to ride to the ranch with a request to send a wagon back to get her. Not that she had any assurance they would honor such a request from a complete stranger.

Well, not a complete stranger—to Jack anyway. Although he’d been so drunk the last time she’d seen him, and for most of the time before that, in fact, he might not even remember her name.

Ridiculous
. Of course he would remember her name.

If he was even at the ranch.

“When would you be leaving?” she asked, hoping she was doing the right thing. At least she was younger than Mr. Blake, and fit, and Lucy had shown her a few tricks on managing a rowdy male, so she wasn’t completely helpless. Although she did wish she still had her little derringer, just in case.

“I was on my way to the livery to get a buggy.” He motioned to the small valise at Daisy’s feet. “Can I carry that for you?”

Reluctant, but not sure how else she could get to the ranch, Daisy nodded. Picking up a pouch of baby items with one hand, she resituated Kate on her hip, checked to be sure her daughter still held her stuffed cat, then set out after Mr. Blake.

“Do you know how far it is to the ranch?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with his longer strides. The day was warm enough, but if they had to travel far, it might turn cool later, and she wanted to have ample clothing on hand for Kate.

“A good twenty-five miles,” he said over his shoulder.

That far?
Daisy was already bone-sore from spending two days in a bouncing stagecoach. The thought of hours more in a jostling buggy almost made her weep. And what if they wouldn’t see her and she was forced to suffer another twenty-five-mile trip back to Val Rosa?
No, by God
. They would see her. She would insist.

Blake slowed so they walked side by side. “Are they expecting you?”

“No.”

For some reason that made him smile. “Not to worry. The Wilkins brothers will always welcome a pretty little thing like you.”

That comment almost stopped Daisy in her tracks. “I thought they were married.” The older two anyway.

“That they are. The two I’ve met, anyway. Kids and all. Quite a clan they’ve got going out there.”

Well, that sounded ominous. “What do you mean, clan?”

If Blake sensed Daisy’s growing doubts, his smile didn’t show it. “Why, not a thing. Not a single thing.”

They spoke no more until they reached the livery. Once there, he told Daisy to wait beside a four-wheeled buggy with a fold-down top, then went inside the barn to speak to the hostler.

Kate was becoming fidgety again, so Daisy let her climb around in the buggy to wear off her restlessness while they waited for Blake’s return. He seemed to be taking a long time. At one point, she thought she heard raised male voices coming from inside, but when Blake emerged a few minutes later, he was smiling. However, the livery owner, a muttering, sour-faced elderly man leading a spiritless horse with a runny nose and drooping head, didn’t seem as pleased.

“Clem will have us ready to go in no time,” Blake assured her.

Daisy eyed the listless animal the hostler was backing between the shafts of the buggy. “You sure the horse is up to the trip?” She’d heard about the horse flu sweeping the country. As it hadn’t yet reached San Francisco, she hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, but she recognized a sick horse when she saw one. “That horse looks ill.”

Blake laughed. “He’ll be fine. Just a little dust in his lungs. Right, Clem?”

Clem continued to mutter under his breath as he buckled the horse into the harness then attached the harness to the buggy. A few minutes later, after Daisy made a spot for Kate behind the front bench where she could move around without risk of falling out, Blake reined the horse back down Main Street.

As they passed the Post Office, a man came out and waved them down. “Heard you were heading out to RosaRoja,” he said, approaching the buggy after Blake reined in. “Mind delivering this?” He held out a string-tied bundle of mail.

At first Blake seemed reluctant, but finally he took the parcel and threw it under the seat. Ignoring the other man’s thanks, he slapped the reins on the horse’s rump, and they were off again.

For the first two hours they made good time. Then they started up into rolling foothills, and from that point on, the road climbed steadily and the horse began to struggle. Several times it stumbled, coughing and wheezing, and Blake had to use the whip to get it moving smartly again.

Daisy felt bad for it. The horse was obviously quite ill, and it angered her that Blake would abuse an animal that was already suffering. “Please don’t do that,” she said as Blake drew back the whip again.

“You want to get there or not?” The whip popped. The horse crouched away from the sting on its rump and picked up its speed.

“I can’t believe the livery didn’t have a sounder horse,” she complained, aggravated with both the hostler and Blake for their callous disregard of the animal, and with herself for coming along even after she had seen the condition of the poor creature.

“Oh, he’s just the horse I wanted,” Blake said, then laughed as if he knew something she didn’t.

Barely able to hide her growing disgust and irritation, she gave up trying to talk to the man and stared stonily ahead. She wished she had never come.

She wished she had never left San Francisco.

She wished a lot of things.

Disheartened and weary, she tried to ignore the horse’s struggles and focused instead on entertaining Kate until finally the exhausted child fell asleep on her blanket behind the bench seat. Daisy was about to doze off as well when Blake’s voice roused her.

“How do you know the Wilkins brothers?”

Blinking groggily, she looked around. It felt like they had been traveling forever, but if she read the position of the sun correctly, they still had miles to go. Keeping her voice low so she wouldn’t wake Kate, she told Blake the only one of the family she knew was Jack.

“The youngest?”

Daisy nodded.

“Haven’t met him. They say he’s the wild one.”

Wild?
The Jack she knew had been brooding. Lost. Almost desperate for something that seemed just beyond his reach. It wasn’t until that last bitter argument that she had found out the “something” was another woman.

“Heard he was back,” Blake went on, pulling her from her dark memories.

“Back?” Her stomach seemed to drop to her feet. “Jack’s at the ranch?”

Something in her voice caused him to look over at her, his close-set eyes narrowed in speculation. “You didn’t know that?”

“Well, I ...”

“So it’s not him you’re going to see.” With a sly smile, Blake faced forward again. “Interesting.”

Jack was at the ranch
.
Daisy didn’t know what to think or how Jack’s return would impact her reasons for coming here. She didn’t know what name to put to the tumultuous emotions pounding through her. But suddenly the journey that had felt interminable a moment ago now seemed to be moving along too rapidly.

“How much farther is it?’ she asked.

“The boundary line? Not far. Things will start happening real soon.”

“What do you mean?”

Instead of answering, he leaned forward and started popping the tasseled snapper on the end of the whip against the horse’s rump. “Get on! Get on, you!”

The buggy lurched forward as the horse broke into a labored gallop.

Alarmed, Daisy grabbed the roof support for balance. “What are you doing? Why are we going so fast?”

The buggy rocked wildly as they picked up speed. Behind the seat, Kate awoke with a cry. Clinging to the support with her right hand, Daisy reached back with her left to pin the child to the floor as the buggy careened along the rocky road.

“Slow down!” she shouted at Blake. “You’ll tip us over!”

He swung faster, the whip whistling through the air, making sharp snapping sounds as it struck the horse.

Up ahead, a man ran out of the brush and into the road. He waved a rifle over his head and shouted something she couldn’t hear. She looked at Blake, waiting for him to slow down.

Instead, he laughed and struck the wheezing horse harder.

Daisy tried to grab the whip.

He blocked her with his shoulder, almost knocking her from the buggy.

Two more men ran into the road, shouting, their rifles raised to their shoulders and aimed at the buggy bearing down on them.

Terrified they would start shooting, Daisy made a desperate grab for the reins.

Cursing, Blake jerked his hands aside, causing the horse to stumble. As he sawed on the reins, the horse whipped its head side to side, slinging streamers of bloody foam from its mouth.

“Stop!” Daisy grabbed Blake’s arm.

He shook her off, slamming his elbow into her cheek, driving her hard into the roof supports. Behind them, Kate clutched at the backrest, shrieking.