Fair Is the Rose (40 page)

"Tell me about your uncle."

She opened her mouth, but the words wouldn't come. She was damned by the picture of his eyes; of the betrayal she would find in them when they took her away, back to the asylum, back to her uncle looming in the shadows of death.

"Christal, tell me about him." His voice brooked no disobedience.

She clasped her hands to keep them from shaking. Still the words wouldn't come.

He finally faced her. His features seemed carved in stone. "Christal ... if you'd just taken Terence Scott's money and left town with the rest of the passengers, I might have let you alone. I would have figured you just couldn't fall in love with a man who'd played outlaw with you, kidnapped you, and held you against your will. But you didn't let things work out the way they were supposed to. You took my money and left behind even more of your own, and you ran away, as if something had terrified you out of your mind. ... So I couldn't let it be. I had to find you." He was quiet for a very long time, studying her, his eyes glittering with need.

"I want to tell you," she whispered, her voice full of unshed tears, her heart so tired of fighting alone. "But— but you're a sheriff. Your duty—the war—you need to do the right thing—I want to tell you . . . but I can't. I just can't." She dropped her face in her hands. The game was up. He knew just enough about her to telegraph New York. The scar would give her away. He could find out anything he wanted to in a matter of hours. In the end, it would be better just to confess. What he would find out from the authorities in Manhattan would be much worse than her explanation. And maybe, just maybe, he cared enough about her to believe her.

She looked down at the rumpled sheets all around her. Her heart felt heavy in her chest. One thing was certainly true: If he didn't care for her now, he never would.

"Tell me," he demanded again, chiseling away at her resistance.

She choked on a sob, unable to face him. "You want to know this terrible thing about me, and I'll tell it to you. But first answer me this: Would you still want to know if it meant I would be taken from here, taken away never to be heard from again? Would you still want to know if it"—she swallowed a sob—"if it caused my death?"

He became gravely quiet. He didn't move. He didn't touch her. He offered no comfort, only cold, calculating silence.

She broke down in choking sobs, but to her shock, she felt his hand run down the tangled length of her hair.

"Then it's my choice, isn't it?" he said in a voice husky with emotion. "It's my honor as a lawman, or it's you."

He was silent for a long time. She couldn't bear to look at his face. Finally, in a whisper, he said, "So I choose you, Christal. God save me, but I choose you."

She began to weep quietly into her hands, relief washing over her like waves from the ocean. It was not a moment for celebrating; there was no need for him to hold her or for her to rush into his arms. It was a melancholy time when a man gave up all he believed in for a woman who might turn out not to be worthy of the honor.

He watched her forlorn figure and ran his hands once again down the long golden strands of her hair. "Get dressed," he said solemnly. "There's a lot to do. I got to talk to Faulty."

He walked to the door. But before he left, he spoke what seemed to be pressing on his mind. He paused and choked out the words. "I just want you to know, girl, that one day you're gonna tell me. I'm gonna believe you and then we're never going to speak of it again. I just want you to know that." He left the room as if anything else that needed to be said could wait until they were again holding each other.

Minutes later, Christal rose from the bed, her thoughts fearful and unclear. She wasn't sure what to do next. It tore through her insides to see Cain turn his back on all he believed in. Her instinct was to flee, to run as far away from him as she could and lose herself in another territory where they could forget they had ever known each other. But that would never happen. She would never run far enough away to forget him. When Macaulay had first arrived in Noble, she was scared and shocked and crazy with the need just to get away. But now she had ties to him that would not break. She loved him, and with nowhere to go and no way to get there, she resigned herself to dress and wait for his return.

He came within the hour and took her to Faulty's. The saloon was empty of drinkers save an old miner named Brigtsen and Jan Peterson. Dixiana was up in her room; they found Ivy in the kitchen and she served them dinner. Conversation was sparse. Christal could see Ivy was terrified of the sheriff and whatever Macaulay had said to Faulty had scared the hell out of him. The old saloonkeeper nearly bowed as she entered the kitchen. There'd never be any more talk of her taking customers to her room; in fact, by the look on his face, she thought Faulty would kill her if she even suggested the idea.

Ivy quickly departed and Faulty went into the saloon to tend to his customers. Christal and Macaulay ate their supper without exchanging a word. It was not Delmonico's; there were no virgin-white linen tablecloths or silver candelabrum, just a rough wooden table, a sputtering lantern, and a warm seat by the stove, but strangely, Christal didn't mind. The future frightened
her,
it was an unformed specter off in the horizon. One day she would know what it was, but for now she looked into Cain's eyes and saw no coldness there. And for the moment that was all she needed.

When dinner was over with, Macaulay took her to her bedroom. They could hear Dixi with a customer talking and giggling through the rough board walls. Quietly Cain undressed her and made love to her in silence, as if he was so unwilling to share their coupling, he wouldn't even allow another to hear their sighs. But his silent caresses brought her fulfillment quickly, and by the second time, her heart burst with greed for him and with the bittersweet joy of experiencing something wonderful that she knew couldn't last.

The passion died slowly. Eventually he gathered her in his arms and fell asleep. His breathing was deep and comforting, and she nestled against his sure, strong heartbeat, content with the lie that tomorrow would be just as fine. And that an honorable man could abandon his honor forever.

Macaulay was gone when Christal awoke. She opened her eyes to another morning of sun. The light reflected off the snow and blazed into her room, forming window-pane shadows across the blankets. Outside she could hear the familiar
drip, drip, drip
of water as it melted off the icicles on the eaves. Today would be warmer, but there would be no promise of spring yet.

She reached across the mattress and touched the pillow still bearing die concave depression where Macaulay's head had lain. The indentation was cold. He'd been up for a while.

She rose and dressed quickly, anxious to see him again, but hesitant. At some point she would speak about what she knew must finally be confessed. Pondering this, she sat for a long while by the window and stared at the daguerreotype of herself and her sister. It was difficult even thinking about telling him of her past, but only because of the bad things. The good things, the joy, she was anxious to share with him.

She touched the picture as if stroking her sister Alana's cheek. In truth, there had been much joy.
Maybe
too much.
Maybe God was so
cruel,
he had wanted her to pay for all that happiness.

She shook off the notion and returned her gaze to the daguerreotype. A small bittersweet smile tipped her lips as she remembered one of the better times when she and her sister were still little girls. Their mother would come home with the latest edition of
Godey's Lady's Book.
Mrs. Van Alen made her girls promise every time to be neat with their cutting, then she would pass them her sewing scissors and allow them to cut out the paper dolls in the back. Even now Christal could remember the elaborate fashions created for their dolls: blue velvet riding habits with pert top hats frothed with netting, pink taffeta ballgowns flounced with alengon lace, and best of all, wedding gowns made with yards and yards of white satin. With the old-fashioned caged crinolines, her bridal paper dolls had looked like the tiny bellflowers of lily-of-the-valley. She'd loved them. But especially she loved her mother for bringing them home to her girls every month and never forgetting.

Christal's eyes glittered with memory. The day the magazine arrived was made even more special. If she and Alana were very careful with their cutting and didn't slice through a concoction for a cure for gout or the latest chignon style from Paris, their mother rewarded them by sending tea up to their rooms. They would have a tea party with all their dolls, including Mary Todd, the doll her father had bought for her after he returned from Paris. He brought back a very expensive gown of blue satin for Alana, which their mother had made Alana promise not to wear until next season—the Knickerbocker tradition of aging their possessions so that no one could mistake them for the nouveaux riches—but he'd forgotten to bring something back for Christal. Crushed,
Christal had silently longed for the day when she, top,
j
would be old enough to wear gowns from Paris. Though she never let anyone see her disappointment, her father must have sensed it. The next day he surprised her by bringing home Mary, a fashionable doll with a china: head, kid body, and a gown of blue satin, one very much like Alana's. Christal remembered loving the doll until its clothes were threadbare and there were tiny cracks in its porcelain face. She also remembered naming it after the president's wife, and when her father found out, he'd come into the parlor, kissed her on the forehead and hugged her in a tight grip, his voice shaking as he told her that he was proud of her patriotism-She never knew until later about the terrible loss of Union boys at Antietam reported in the
Chronicle
that day. And she never knew what he meant about being quiet around Mrs. Maloney, their laundress. She only remembered the poor lady weeping all day into her apron. She found out later both of her grandsons had died in the battle.

But Cain had not. Christal took a deep breath and tried to hold back the hope blooming deep inside her. Cain had been at Antietam and lived to tell. A Confederate, he called the place Sharpsburg, but it was all the same battle. The bloodshed had scarred him but he had survived . . . and found her. They'd both been through so much. It couldn't all end with betrayal and Baldwin Didier. It couldn't.

She reverently placed the picture back on the bureau. She closed her eyes and made a wish, then went to seek out her lover.

White Wolf stalked his prey like his namesake, but whereas the wolf used scent and hunger to drive him toward his victim, White Wolf used cunning and anticipation of the kill. He was most times successful. He had an instinct for the hunt, but it was his particular mix of blood that drove the instinct awry and made him a ruthless assassin.

The sun broke the horizon of the prairie and yellowed the grasses with the first watery light of dawn, and he could feel the draw of his prey. It was like a knot in his gut that tightened and released depending on how close he was. He cast his gaze down on the wanted poster, touching every curve of the rose as if he were touching the girl's hand. She would not be hard to find. He was already on her trail. There weren't many women in Wyoming Territory. As he'd thought, one as beautiful as she was had been noticed by everyone.

He stuffed the paper beneath his rabbit fur vest. The knot was easing; a good sign. Laramie was far behind him and he continued moving west, toward the mountains, toward his game.