Desperate Hearts (34 page)

He stood behind a big oak and studied the
house. It had a forsaken feel about it, as if the character of
latest occupant had spread a pall of gloom over place. He was
certain that Hardesty was inside.

“
Okay,” he said under his
breath, “let’s find out where you are.” From his pocket Jace
withdrew a few pebbles, and emerged just long enough to pitch the
one at the window in the kitchen door before ducking behind the
tree again. Almost immediately, an answering shot was fired from
the house. Jace smiled. He let a moment pass, then he tossed
another pebble, this time at a metal washtub that stood next to the
back door. The stone made a sharp pinging noise it struck. This was
followed by two more shots, recklessly fired, each hitting nothing.
They were coming from behind a curtained window on the first floor,
which was opened a crack to allow the width of gun
barrel.

Jace tossed pebbles at a washboard, at the
side of the house, at a box of canning jars that stood on the
porch. In response, wild, unaimed shots hit the fence, the
windmill, a wagon. Jesus, the man acted as if he were blind. Or
struck with consuming, judgment-robbing jitters. This was going to
be easier than he thought. As long as he stayed out of the path of
one of his reckless shots.

Remaining behind the tree, Jace tightened
his grip the Henry. “All right, come on, Hardesty, it’s time to
show your face,” he yelled at the house. “We’ve got business to
discuss, you and me.”

Still more shots. Then a long moment of
silence fell. Finally from within Jace heard, “The only business
I’ve got with you, Rankin, is the red-haired woman. Where is she?”
The voice was demanding, vicious.

After everything he’d done to her, the son
of a bitch still wouldn’t let up on her, Jace thought. “I’ve got
her, you’ll have to come out to the porch if you want to talk about
her.”

“
You must think I’m pretty
goddamned stupid if you believe I’m going to fall for
that.”

“
No, Hardesty,” Jace called
in a light, sarcastic tone. “I just think you’re a goddamned
coward.”

There was a crash from within the house, as
if chairs or some other furniture had been tipped over. Suddenly,
the back door flew open and Tom Hardesty appeared in the frame,
carrying a shotgun and wearing a two-gun rig. His eyes were
red-rimmed and bloodshot, his dark hair greasy, and down one side
of his beard-shadowed face a long, purple scar, newly healed,
cleaved his jawline. Just as Jace had guessed, a red-hot temper was
one of Hardesty’s chief failings. It impaired his judgment and made
him act foolishly, and brutally. Apparently no one, not even Luke
Jory, had curbed him. That was over now.

“
I’m not afraid of you,”
Hardesty growled, reminding Jace of a stupid, vicious
dog—untrained, snapping at anything, everything. The notable
difference, however, was that this dog was a raping
murderer.

Jace stepped from behind the tree, then as
if it were a formal proclamation, he stated, “I’m calling you out,
Hardesty, for two people. For my friend Hank Bailey, the man you
killed. And for his widow, Kyla Springer Bailey, one of the women
you raped. I’m sure there are other people, dead or alive, with
grievances against you, but these two are my business.”

Hardesty hooted, “You can’t prove a thing,
Rankin. No one is going to listen to you. The Vigilance Union is
even bigger than you are. They’ll get rid of you, and Kyla will be
on her knees begging to give me whatever I want.”

God, the man was crazy, Jace thought. He
might as well have held a target between his own eyes for Jace to
shoot at. He felt a slow, hot flame ignite in his belly, a hate so
profound he wished he could step away from it. He’d faced a lot of
desperate, big-talking men his career, men who when cornered had
boasted of ridiculous things or had pelted him with insults. He had
been able to ignore them. This time, he felt his control slipping
away from him.

“
Don’t press me, Hardesty,”
he warned, and took deliberate steps toward the porch. “I have no
reason to see you live another minute.”

Hardesty squinted at him. “You know, close
up, don’t look like such a big man. You just look like a runt.”
Then, without warning, he pulled out his revolver and pointed it at
Jace.

Jace took one step back and raised the Henry
to pull trigger and to his horror, the weapon jammed. Extending the
revolver, Hardesty laughed, sounding jubilant and relieved. “You
blinked, Rankin! I out-stared the angel of death,” he laughed and
cocked the pistol. “You blinked and I won!”

Jace worked the Henry’s trigger, but it
wouldn’t budge. He hadn’t bothered to bring his revolver—he
depended on this rifle that had never let him down. Events did not
slow, but instead seemed to speed up, moving too quickly for him to
act upon. For first time in the last ten years, he knew without a
doubt that he was going to die. His heart thumped like hammer in
his chest. Images of his life darted through his mind . . . Lyle
Upton reaching for his belt . . . a woman and a little girl in the
Bluebird Saloon . . . Travis McGuire and his wife Chloe . . . a
scared kid hiding under a soap crate, crying . . . and there was a
red-haired female who talked tough but had the power to heal his
soul . . .

“
Good-bye, little
man.”

Hardesty fired—it might have been a wild
shot. In the back of his head, behind the sound of his pulse
rushing past his ears, Jace thought he heard a scream. Another shot
rang out and he tried to figure out where he was hit. Time and
events flickered past as quickly as his memories, as fast as the
blades turned on a windmill. He felt nothing but he knew that
wouldn’t last. He looked for blood . . . where was the blood? But
then he glanced up at Hardesty just in time to see the hole in his
forehead before he tumbled facedown off the porch.

Whirling around, Jace saw Kyla emerge from
behind the wagon across the yard, her pistol extended with both
hands, her eyes huge in her blank, white face.

“
Kyla!” He ran to her on
legs that felt numb, but she stood rigid and paralyzed, with the
gun still pointed at Hardesty. “Honey, put the gun down,” he said,
but he didn’t touch her.

“
Is he dead?” she asked.
Her voice sounded flat and emotionless.

“
Yeah, he’s dead.” He put
his hands on her stiff arms to lower the revolver. “Kyla, come on,
give me the gun.”

She stared at him without
comprehension, then finally allowed him to pry the weapon out of
her hands. “He would have killed you,” she said and looked from
Jace to Hardesty’s lifeless form, and back again. Twilight began to
come on but it was easy to see her chalky pallor in sharp contrast
with her hair. “He was going to kill you. It all happened so fast.
I had to shoot him.
Had
to
.”

And it was one hell of a shot, Jace thought
grimly. “I know you had to, Kyla. You did exactly what I would’ve
done in your place. And you saved my life.” But now she would have
to live with the deed, and it might not be easy.

She began to tremble then, with shivers so
violent could no longer stand. She fell against him. Dropping his
useless rifle, he swept her up into his arms carried her to the
front porch, away from the grisly scene. They huddled there,
clinging fiercely to other for several moments—Jace wasn’t sure how
long. The silence was broken only by Kyla’s gasping sobs. She
gripped his coat in her clenched fists and he rocked her, even as
he took comfort from her warmth.

Finally Kyla lifted her head and gazed into
Jace’s eyes. He looked haggard and bloodless, so different from
earlier that afternoon. She didn’t bother to stem the tears
streaming down her own face, and her words came out in jerky snips.
“I-I’m not sorry that he’s dead. And I’m so glad that you’re alive.
All those nights I dreamed of pointing a gun at Tom Hardesty and
pulling the trigger. I pictured that nasty smirk wiped off his face
forever. But it’s not—it isn’t the way I thought it would be. I
don’t . . .” She let the sentence trail away unfinished, not sure
how to phrase what meant. She was confused, disappointed.

“
You don’t feel
satisfaction,” he said, his voice low and reflective. “Not like you
expected.”

She shook her head and dragged her sleeve
over her cheeks.

He took her icy hands in his and pressed
them to his lips. Then, as if searching for the right words, he
glanced at the first stars of the evening where they hovered above
the distant hills. “I tried to tell you about this early on but the
truth is, I guess no one can understand it until they’ve been
through it. Anytime you take another person’s life, no matter what
the reason, you lose a little of your own life, too, a little of
yourself. Some people, like Hardesty, are so empty and dark-hearted
to begin with, they don’t notice what killing does to them. And
even if they knew, wouldn’t care. But the rest of us”—he
shrugged—“we have trouble sleeping afterward. It’s like I said
before. Nothing will be different just because Hardesty dead. You
still have to live your life, and shooting him didn’t bring back
Hank, or change what he did you.”

She shuddered again. “I’ll have to bury him,
suppose.”

He kissed her knuckles again, and then took
into his arms. "No, we’ll put him on his horse and take him to the
undertaker’s. There’s no point in hiding any longer. If Luke Jory
didn’t know I was in town before, he will now. His right-hand man
is dead.”

Yes, and she was
responsible. She could not shake the hollow feeling. "At least I
stopped Hardesty from killing
you
.”

“
You did, honey, and I’m
not sorry about that. That makes us even now.”

Even. And over with. A torrent of emotions
sluiced through Kyla, including shame. Not for what she’d done,
because in that, she’d had no choice. But had had believed Jace to
be a cold-blooded killer, and in fact, had sought him out because
of that. She had supposed it was easy for him, and that issues of
conscience or morality never came up to haunt him.

Searching his handsome face, she gripped his
lapels again and desperately hoped that he would listen. “Jace,
please give—give this up. Give up bounty hunting and stay in
Blakely. You’re not a killer, and have nothing left to prove. No
one would dream of questioning your courage.”

He gave her a wobbly smile and shook his
head. “We talked about this before, Kyla. I can’t quit now. I’m not
trying to prove anything, but it’s way too late. I don’t fit in
anywhere.”

She released his coat and sat back. “It’s
never too late. Not if you’re still alive. Not if someone loves you
way I do!”

His blue eyes fixed on her, and it seemed
that suddenly and briefly he looked five years younger. She felt a
dull flush creep into her own cheeks. God, she hadn’t meant to
blurt it out like that. After everything they had been through and
had done together, after all the sides she had revealed to him, she
shouldn’t feel self-conscious about baring her heart. But she
did—it the most risky thing she had done yet. And oddly, most
freeing.

Though he had been a good man, when she
could not love Hank, she’d worried that, like Jace, her life had
robbed her of the ability to give and feel love. Thank God, neither
her disapproving father, nor Tom Hardesty, alive or dead, had done
that to her.

“
I
love you, Jace,” she repeated, this time more emphatically.
“Stay in Blakely.”

He held up his hand. “Kyla, I don’t want you
to love—”

“
Or take me with you,” she
said, hurrying on before he could stop her, terrified of his
rejection. “We could go some place and start a new life where
nobody knows you.”

He shook his head and waved his hand in the
general direction of the range. “You’re happy here. This is
handsome land . . . really handsome.” His expression turned pensive
as he scanned the quiet, rolling plains. “This is where you belong.
Since I’ve promised to help you with the vigilantes, I’ll do it,
but then I’ll be leaving. You and I had a deal and it’s
finished.”

“
A deal,” she repeated
dully, feeling a wave of anger and pain roll over her. That was all
it had ever been to him, she supposed, all he would let it be.
“Yes, we had a business deal. Of course, you’ll want to be
paid.”

He gripped her upper arms. “Kyla, that’s not
what I meant.”

“
I know what you meant,”
she replied, trying to keep her tears in check. She batted away his
hands and stood up on legs that felt like lead. Trudging to a back
corner of the porch, she yanked up two loose boards and peered down
to the darkness beneath. Good, there it was—Hardesty hadn’t found
it.

She detected the vague shadow of her
strongbox and dropping to a crouch, she closed her hands around it
to bring it up. It was small but heavy, and she struggled with
it.

“
Let me give you a hand.”
She heard Jace’s quiet voice, felt his boot steps vibrate through
the boards under his feet.

“
I don’t need your help, I
can do it,” she snapped from behind gritted teeth, and turned her
back to him. “I learned to do for myself long before I met
you.”

Jace backed up as she hauled the box to the
porch floor. Her cold anger was as sharp as a newly stropped razor,
and it sliced through him, a clean, swift stroke. He was almost
surprised to see the box under the floorboards. So she really did
have money. She had talked about it often enough, but he’d doubted
its existence from the outset. Besides, he had long ago decided
against accepting any pay from her. He looked down at the top of
her russet head and had stop himself from caressing her hair.