Claudia Dain (24 page)

He wished he'd been there. Miss Daphne outtalked was something he'd yet to see.

"Umm, Reverend Holt," Anne said, trying to ease into what she had come to say. She sat for a few moments in strangled silence. There didn't seem to be a way to ease into this kind of conversation.

"Is there a problem, Anne?" he said, saying the words for her.

"Not what you'd call a problem, more of a question."

"I'm here to serve, Anne, fire away," Holt answered, leaning back in his chair.

Anne leaned forward in hers and folded her arms across her chest. "Just how bad is it, in God's eyes, to... to..." She couldn't say it. How could she admit to using one man to keep her family happy and another man to keep everything upset? She was using people for her own ends. There was nothing very Christian about that. "To... disobey your elders." She'd done that, too. And meant to do it some more, when she left Abilene.

"How old are you, Anne?" he asked.

"Nineteen."

"Getting close to marriage, I'd guess," he said, smiling.

Anne dropped her gaze to rest on the spine of his Bible. "I suppose so."

"Well, any girl who's old enough to marry probably doesn't need to worry overmuch about obeying her elders, not when she's as sweet and agreeable a girl as you are."

He clearly hadn't heard about her daylight kiss with Jack.

"My grandmother—"

"I know all about your grandmother and I know all about you," he said with a warm smile. "You're as obedient a daughter as I've ever seen."

"But... Jack..." Anne dropped her eyes to her lap and sat fidgeting with her fingers.

"Jack?" he repeated, his expression showing his confusion.

"I kissed him," she whispered, the words so soft they barely moved the air.

"
You
kissed
him
?"

She nodded.

"What did he do?"

Anne looked up. "He kissed me back."

"And your family knows about this kiss," he said, slowly putting it together.

"Everybody knows," Anne said.

"So Jack Scullard is courting you?"

Would she let a man kiss her who wasn't courting her? She knew the answer to that, but she wasn't prepared to admit the bald truth to Reverend Holt. Some things were better left unsaid. Most things, actually, were better left unsaid. It made for a more peaceable life.

"Yes, he is," she said. And he might be. She didn't know for certain. She was no expert at courting styles. Maybe they did things like courting different down in Texas. They did everything different down in Texas.

"You like Jack?" he asked.

"Yes, I do," Anne answered.

"What about Bill?"

"I like him, too." She knew that made her sound flighty and shallow and even a little fast, but it was better than sounding manipulative and calculating. Probably.

"I've been hearing that Bill's starting to talk marriage. Have you been hearing that, too?"

"He hasn't said anything outright," Anne said.

"Does Bill know about that kiss with Jack?"

"Everybody knows," she said again.

"And he's still coming around?"

"Yes," she said.

"That says a lot about his intentions, doesn't it?"

"I suppose."

"Does Jack know about Bill?"

"Yes."

"What does that say about him?"

Anne's color came up, two spots of warmth on her cheeks, and she looked the reverend in the eyes. "I'm not married, Reverend Holt. Jack's free to court me. In fact, it was Sarah who told him I was... available."

"Sarah?" He seemed surprised. Well, she had been surprised, too.

"What I came to ask you, what I need to know," Anne said, "is that, can you, is it possible for a person to... be damned for kissing?"

Miss Daphne had implied it, the whole town was talking about it, and it was all she was going to admit to. She just couldn't ask the reverend if she was going to be damned for selfishly using two men to deceive her only blood kin. She knew the answer to that. He wasn't going to be able to tell her anything that would give her any comfort.

"Are you asking about Jack's kiss?"

"Yes, I am," she said.

"It is absolutely not possible for a person to be damned for a kiss," he said firmly. "Give it no more thought, no matter what anyone else tells you. You just enjoy your courting season, Anne. You'll be married soon enough. But be careful how many kisses you pass out in the meantime," he said with a grin.

* * *

In the long cold light of a spring dusk, they stood. They faced west, watching the lavender sunset of a cool sky, she delicately fingering the gift he had just given her, he with an arm about her waist. He turned her in his arms as the sun cast its last golden light and she went willingly, eager for the kiss he would give her. She had only been kissed once before and that the awkward kiss of an overeager boy.

These kisses were of a man.

He had trained her to his kiss, teaching her the feel of him, the size of him, the taste. She knew him and delighted in it. He was all she'd ever dreamed a man could be.

They were to be married in the morning.

She hadn't asked her ma yet, her ma had hardly seen him, just at a distance. He'd said he needed to keep his presence in the area a secret. He traveled in his work so she hadn't seen him more than two days in all the weeks she'd known him. But he was the man for her. Her ma would say yes, had to say yes when she understood that she'd have no other.

This was the man she'd spend her life with. This was the man she'd face death with. And all the days in between.

She threw herself into his kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and sighing her delight into his mouth. She was dizzy with the taste of him, breathless with yearning, suffocating.

Chapter 17

"Yeah, heard about it when I was in Junction City. She was from there, ya know. The place was hopping when I caught the train this morning; the sheriff over there, Gates, was sending a wire off to the U.S. Marshal and trying to keep folks away from her body, both at once. No deputy over there, too small. Doc was away on a birthing so the body was just laid out in the saloon. Naturally, they closed the place down because of it. Some folks were riled at that; folks got a right to drink even when there's been a murder. Maybe more."

"But was it the same as the gal here, that Mary that was found?" John Wells, the owner of the hardware and tinware shop, asked.

"The same kind of murder, you mean?" Bill asked. "Yeah, same as same. Something pulled tight around her throat, her face bloated and discolored. Nice-looking gal, from what you could tell of what was left. Blond and busty with a little snub nose."

"She have kin?" Neil McShay asked.

"Her ma was crying full out, but silent." Bill shook his head in grief. "Terrible to see it."

But he didn't have any trouble talking about it. Had been talking about it since getting off the morning train. And folks had been listening. As well they should.

"You know, Jack Skull was over there, in Junction City," he said as a carefully planned afterthought.

"Thought I saw him leave town. With you," Isaiah Hill said, spitting out a stream of brown tobacco juice to pattern the dirt street.

"Yes," Bill said easily, "I had business there with Widow Blake. Been meeting with her for a few weeks. But what business did Jack Skull have in Junction City?"

A small crowd had grown around Bill and a crowd did not work to his purpose; he had hoped to spread his tales of suspicion quietly, one man to one man, and then have the story of murder take root in the dirt around Jack Skull's feet. But Abilene was too small a town and the people too willing to believe the worst of a man they already instinctively disliked to let the story spread slowly. Where there was a crowd, Sheriff Lane would appear. He didn't need that.

"Jack's business is his own," Lane said from the edge of the crowd.

"But he didn't tell you, did he, Sheriff, why he was leaving?" Isaiah pressed.

"A man's business is his own, Hill, until he breaks the law. Then it's my business. Jack didn't break no laws by leaving Abilene."

"You two are getting thick, it seems," Douglas Currie, the banker, noted, puffing on his slim cigar.

"As thick as it takes to find the one who's murdering these girls."

"You heard about that gal in Junction City?" McShay asked.

"Got a wire from Sheriff Gates."

"What's he know about this?" Currie said.

"About as little as anybody," Lane said slowly, the weight of his words and the authority of his presence shifting the crowd until he stood at its center and Tucker at its rim. Tucker was just as glad; he didn't want to be noted as the source of this tale, he just wanted people to know that a girl had been killed in a town where Skull had been. He'd accomplished that. "Her name was Elsa, new to this country with her ma. Pa died somewhere east of the Mississippi. She was working as a baker, made the lightest pies for miles, Gates said. Spoke the language fine, though her ma is slower to it. She's having a tough time of it now, doesn't understand half of what's said, can't answer questions, doesn't seem to know anything."

"Convenient for the killer," Tom Monahan said, his wife at his shoulder.

"Yeah," Lane said, "he's not stupid, that's for sure, leaving a pretty thin trail."

"How about Skull? He on the trail?" McShay said.

"Jack and I are working on this together and I think you should know that he's been working on finding this man for months."

"All he need do is look in a mirror," Hill said, spitting for emphasis.

"Now, that's enough, Isaiah," the sheriff said forcefully, fingering his gun belt gently. Of all the things he did, his gunplay was the only thing gentle and easy about him. Treated his guns like polished eggs, drew them out with whispered movement, fondled the hammer like a lover, and fingered the trigger like a silken thread. And hit what he was aiming at with delicate precision; first time, every time. "The man has a hard reputation, but he's earned it being tough on outlaws. He ain't no lawbreaker himself."

"You ever know him? Before he came here?" Monahan asked.

"No," Lane answered truthfully, "but you get to know about a man, word gets around."

"No word seems to have gotten around about that killer," Nell said from the edge of the crowd.

Charles turned to face her and said plainly, "It will."

The air was so thick between Charles and Nell that the crowd thinned out to give them room to tangle. Most went back to their business, some stayed out of range but within earshot. They weren't disappointed.

"I never thought to see the day when Charles Lane would defend a known killer, especially knowing that he's living in my house—"

"Nell"—he cut her off sharply, his black eyes hard as basalt—"you playing with a man's life, a worthy man at that, just because he up and kissed Anne, is a shameful thing."

"There's nothing shameful about protecting my own child from a well-known killer!"

"That man has never once killed anyone who didn't need killin' and a man don't deserve to hang because he's courting your girl. I thought better of you, Nell. Personal dislike ain't no excuse for injustice. Ma'am." He tipped his hat and marched off down the boardwalk, boots scuffing against the wood.

Never, in all the years she'd known him, had Charles Lane shown her such disrespect and disregard. It shocked her into leaving her mouth hanging open for just a moment as she watched him walk away from her; she shut it with a snap of teeth and marched herself on home, her own booted feet raising a muffled clatter from beneath her swinging skirts.

The train whistle sounded just then and Anne was there to meet the train. She'd met Bill's train earlier that morning, heard his story about the murdered girl, heard also his carefully spoken belief that Jack had done the killing. She didn't believe a word of it. She didn't believe it and she knew she was a fool. There were two dead girls now, and the killer was as free as he had been yesterday, but she trusted a bounty hunter with a reputation as hard as gun metal. She didn't know anything about him except that he made her legs feel like melted butter whenever he looked at her and that he had a name for killing. Both of those facts meant trouble, yet here she was, hoping he'd get off the next train.

She was in real bad trouble.

How long since she'd met him?

Nine days. Nine days exactly. She'd counted. Nine days and three kisses. It sure didn't amount to much, yet she was in deep, thick trouble anyway. He had got ahold of her somehow and she couldn't shake him loose.

Somehow? Oh, she knew how. She just hadn't understood that a kiss could be such a deadly thing coming from the right man. Or the wrong one.

She was remembering each and every moment of those three kisses when he stepped off the train. He looked tired. His hair was tangled, his face stubbled, and his eyes reddened. He looked wonderful.

He looked glad to see her, his head lifting at the sight of her on the platform, a smile coming into his eyes. And then he looked plain mad. He still looked wonderful.