The Kissing Stars (21 page)

He purposefully rustled a bush or two as he approached, not wishing to startle her. She didn’t speak, but he could tell she knew he was there. He drew a deep breath, let it out in a rush, and said, “Hello, Tess.”

“So, you came back,” she said flatly, not bothering to turn around.

Gabe grimaced. Not exactly an auspicious start. Maybe he’d best ease into the topic another way. “What are the spooklights doing tonight?”

She waved her hand toward the flats. “See for yourself.”

Gabe figured this was as good a place to start as any. Tess always had been a sucker for vulnerability. “I would if I could, but you know I don’t see your stars, Tess.”

She didn’t respond.

Gabe scooped up a handful of pebbles and started launching them one by one out into the air. “I wish I did see them. I wish I could share that with you.” He sent her a sidelong look and thought,
What the hell!
Then he laid his heart right out between them. “I want to share everything with you. I love you, Tess. I always have. I imagine I always will.”

Gabe waited for her reaction. Then he waited some more. Silence stretched between them like miles of empty desert.

A serrated blade of emotion twisted in his gut. Gabe had not honestly expected her to return his declaration, but he had hoped.
Sonofabitch
. This war might be harder to win than he’d thought.

Tess shut her eyes and said softly, “I’m so angry at you.”

Well, it wasn’t exactly the response a man likes to hear following a declaration of love, but at least she was talking to him “Do you want to push me off this hill?”

“Part of me does, yes.”

“In that case I reckon I’ll take a seat.” He sat beside her, legs crossed at the ankles, and leaning back on his hands. “But part of you still wants to keep me around.”

“That’s the problem, Gabe.” She turned her head and looked at him, her eyes round shimmering pools of blue. “You’re not around. You’re never around.”

Tess always had been one to cut right to the nut.

Gabe let another rock fly and debated the best way to respond. “I have lots to feel guilty about where you’re concerned, but I do have a defense in this case. Remember, Tess, I wasn’t around because you sent me away. Back then I believed you meant it.”

“And now?”

“Are you trying to send me away?”

She sighed. “No.”

“Good. No way in hell I’d go, but I wouldn’t want to have to fight you on it.” After a moment’s pause, he said again, “I love you, Tess.”

The wicked woman ignored him again. Even worse, her next comment involved another man. “Lionel Robards paid me a visit yesterday.”

The Ranger. He must have brought word about Monty. Wonderful. Gabe took a cue from his wife and didn’t respond.

She didn’t seem to care. “He asked me to marry him. Do you know that it was the fifth such offer I’ve received in the past twelve years?”

Gabe felt torn. Which got to him worst? Robards or the four unknown suitors? He shot her a disgruntled look and said, “I trust you told the Ranger to fork his saddle and hit the trail. Who were the others, Tess? You never mentioned any others.”

She gave a frustrated groan. “You are such a man, and I mean that in the worst sense of the word. What does it matter who the others were? Isn’t it enough to know I’ve had to put my life on hold because I’m married to you?”

“If you’ve had five marriage proposals it doesn’t sound like you were holding on all that tight.” When she didn’t reply, he clamped down on his irritation and grumbled, “I love you, Tess.”

“You are starting to sound like Twinkle doing one of her spirit-summoning chants.”

Gabe’s temper flared “That’s a helluva response, woman.”

“What do you expect from me, Gabe? Do you want me to bow at your feet and say I love you, too? Well, guess what? It’s not gonna happen. I waited for you for a dozen years, and what good did it do me? At the first sign of trouble, you leave.”

He uncrossed his ankles and sat up straight. “At the first sign of trouble
you lash out and tell me to leave
.”

“I can’t trust in your love, Gabe,” she said bitterly. “I’ve finally figured it out. I can’t trust in your love, and it’s an anchor around my neck keeping me from living my life.”

A tremor of something that might be related to fear rumbled around in Gabe’s gut. This wasn’t turning out at all like he had planned. He’d figured Monty to be the stumbling block. Hell, he could declare war against that man, but how could he fight Tess? He couldn’t fight her. He loved her.

And apparently, she couldn’t care less.

Shoving to his feet, he began to pace. With every step, the knot in his stomach grew harder. “Are you telling me you wanted to marry the others? Do you want to marry Robards?”

She didn’t answer.

Gabe halted abruptly. Fury whipped over him like a brush fire. Had he been totally mistaken? Had it truly come back to this? “Are you asking me for a divorce?”

“It depends.”

“It depends? What kind of answer is ‘it depends’? Do you love him? Is that the problem?”

“I’m not in love with Lionel, although this would all be so much easier if I were. Then I wouldn’t care if you breezed in and out of my life.”

“So you do care about me.”

“I never said I didn’t.”

“Well, you never said you did. Not tonight, anyway. I thought you did, you know. We made love the other night. You know we did. It was more than just scratching an itch. A helluva lot more. And then you poured your heart out to me. And I listened and I—”

“Left,” she snapped. “You left again, damn you.”

It was the cuss word that did it, that clued him into the real problem. She’d said it before but fool that he was, he hadn’t picked up on it. Tess didn’t want a divorce to marry that slick, smarmy Ranger. What she wanted was a fight. Tess was spoiling for a good, old-fashioned Pecos promenade. And because Gabe remembered just how his little wife went about fighting, he was more than happy to oblige.

He dropped to his knees on the quilt and got right in her face. “Yeah, I left. I left and I stayed away a whole four days.”

“You always leave.”

“Uh huh. But I always come back.”

“No, not always. Four days could have been four years just as easily. Fourteen years.”

“I love you, Tess.”

She balled up her fist and hit his arm Gabe wanted to laugh out loud. Yeah, he remembered these fights. Tempestuous Tess. “You can do better than that. I hurt you, didn’t I? You opened up your heart to me. You shared your feeling?”

Her chin came up. “And you ran away. Like a coward.”

“Like a man.” It earned him another punch, this time to the stomach. He might have felt that one had he not been prepared “Tell me, darlin’, do you get this angry at anybody other than me?”

“No!” she said her tone sharp as the stone digging into his kneecap.

“So what does that tell you?”

Anger blazed in her eyes and she spoke through gritted teeth. “It tells me that you’re loathsome.”

“No, it tells you that you love me.” He flashed her a victorious grin, leaned forward, and whispered, “I win.”

He read the reaction in her eyes before she moved.
Damned if I can’t play this gal like a hundred dollar fiddle
. Then she was flying toward him, fuming and fussing and falling into him. She took him down and he reveled in it. Her mouth seized his and he surrendered gratefully.

Tess in high passion was a glorious being. Her kiss was aggressive; her hands bold. Her hunger savage.

Her tongue invaded his mouth, plunging and plundering, even as she grasped the neck of his shirt and tugged, yanking the buttons free and baring his skin. With rough hands, she pushed his shirt from his shoulders and her mouth—her wet, warm, magic mouth— trailed kisses down his chest before capturing his nipple in her mouth.

All sense of victory, of smug triumph, went up in flames beneath the hot, primitive arousal Tess incited to life inside him. He went hard as the rock here on Lookout Peak, and his senses grew sharp even as the heat pulsing through him clouded his ability to think. When her wicked, wonderful hands swept down his torso, tore at his pants and found his aching, throbbing shaft, he groaned aloud and relinquished the last threads of his control.

Primal need fueled him. He had to get inside her.
Now
.

Gabe’s hands went to work. With Tess’s anxious assistance, he freed himself from the restriction of his pants, then reached for the final barrier between them. The sound of tearing cotton ripped through the air and finally he had access.

Shuddering, his breaths coming in harsh pants, he attempted to roll her onto her back. But Tess resisted.

“No,” she said in a harsh, raspy whisper. “My way. I want you my way.” Her skirt billowed around them as she straddled his thighs.

Gabe arched upward, seeking, desperately needing. Finally, she took him in her hand positioned him at the entrance of her warm, moist channel, and took him. A wild guttural groan wrenched from his mouth as her slick sheath surrounded him.

He thought he might die from the pleasure of it.

She rode him hard and fast and furiously, battering him with greedy, delicious demands. Tension coiled in his loins, the pressure building…building…building. “No,” he moaned urgently. Too fast. It was happening too fast. He wanted it to last, to last forever.

The orgasm exploded through him.

“Damn,” he muttered gripping her hips and grinding her hard against him, wringing every last zing of pleasure from the moment. “Damn.”

And Tess, the dratted woman, laughed. She laughed even as she shuddered with her climax, her muscles contracting and releasing, milking him.

Then, still holding him deep inside her, she threw back her head and lifted her face toward the heavens.

“Oh, Gabe,” she said breathlessly. “The Kissing Stars. They’re above us. Look.”

And, depleted and replete, he forgot his own rules. Lying on his back on a quilt beneath the wide Texas sky, his body still joined to the woman he loved, Gabe forgot not to look.

Above them, moving in tandem, two brilliant balls of ethereal gold light danced across the sky. Gabe’s heart pounded. His mouth went dry as old dirt. He could see them. The spooklights. And behind them, surrounding them, a sky fall of stars.

Stars. He was actually looking at the stars.

His chest went tight with emotion. He blinked, clearing his vision. Golden Kissing Stars against a midnight sky.

“Do you see them this time?” Tess asked, her face still lifted toward the heavens. “I want so badly for us to share this.”

He cleared his throat. “They’re gold.”

Even as he acknowledged them, the two lights moved together, fusing into a single star that glowed bigger and brighter for a good ten seconds. Then in a brilliant flash, the Kissing Stars disappeared.

“Oh.” Tess gave a disappointed sigh.

Gabe didn’t share her disappointment. He was too enthralled by the sky the spooklights left behind. “God, Venus, look at all the stars.” He mentally named the constellations he drank in with his sight. Hercules, Cepheus, Cassiopeia. He gazed from Vega to Polaris across the Capella, then to his old favorites, the Pleiades.

He felt such wonder, such youth. A sense that he had reclaimed his place in the universe, that the world was once again complete.

Now he needed to do what he could to keep it this way.

He blurted out, “Tess, come live with me and be my wife. Come to Austin with me, would you?”

CHAPTER 12

“SO TO AUSTIN WITH you?” Tess repeated, her tone incredulous.

“Yeah. While I do the job for the governor. It shouldn’t take more than six months or so.”

She rolled away from him, sat up, and began to right her clothing. “You want me to leave Aurora Springs? Leave my work?”

“Just until my job is finished.” He paused long enough to get his pants back on, then continued, “And I’ll bet you have six months worth of analysis to do on your data, anyway. I’m not asking you to give up your work, Tess. Don’t think that. I know how important it is to you.”

“What about my family?”

“Let me be your family. They’ve had you for years. Can’t they spare you for six months? I love you, Tess. Make a family with me.” He reached out and took hold of her hand. “If we’re lucky, we can make another baby. Maybe we already have.”

Another baby. Tess yanked her hand away. As if she didn’t have enough trouble as it were. “I don’t need another child to raise on my own, Gabe. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Tess. You won’t be on your own this time. I’ll be with you.”

“Uh huh.” Doubt dripped from the two words. “For how long? A week? A month? Until the baby gets sick and you run off rather than face an illness?”

“Dammit, Tess. I ran off to deal with the fact my wife had borne then buried a child I didn’t know existed. Now, unless you have another secret of that magnitude up your sleeve, I don’t foresee anything making me leave you again.”

She clamped her teeth against a bitter laugh. No sense giving away the game at this point. “What about Doc?”

Gabe was but a shadow in the darkness, but the stars and slivered moon cast enough light upon his form to illuminate his flinch when she mentioned his father’s name. “What about him?”

“Doc is part of my family. Where I go, he goes. Are you prepared to accept that?”

“You are my wife, not his.”

“I love him. He stood by me.” She felt Gabe’s shape, frustrated gaze, but she refused to capitulate and say what he expected of her. The stakes in this battle were high, and if she needed to use the love she felt for Gabe as a weapon, then so be it. And she wouldn’t feel one bit guilty, either.

“Tess?” he said, a slight note of hint in his voice.

Well, maybe just a little bit guilty
. “Your father earned my love and loyalty, Gabe. I told you everything he did for me.”

He snorted. “The man used you, Tess, and he’s slick enough to hide the fact from even someone as smart as you. Monty always did want someone else taking care of him. I’m sure you’ve suited his purpose just fine.”

“He didn’t use me. He saved my life. When, I might add, you weren’t there to do it.”

“I wasn’t there because he killed your brother. Have you forgotten that little detail?”

“Doc didn’t kill Billy. The explosion did.”

“And Monty’s carelessness caused the explosion. How can you disregard that, Tess? How can you forgive him?”

“It was an accident, Gabe. A terrible accident, but an accident nonetheless. We put it behind us years ago and so should you.”

“Why should I? He cost me so much. My mother, Billy. You. We lost twelve years together, Tess. I never got to see my little baby girl. And while I’m glad Monty was around to help you, I can’t forget the fact that you wouldn’t have needed his help if it weren’t for him to begin with. Besides, he may have told you he came looking for you, but I’d put my money on the notion he just stumbled across you. Monty Cameron isn’t as good a friend to you as you think.”

“Oh really? And why do you say that?”

“Because if he truly cared about you, he’d have told me about you when I asked.”

“When you asked? You’ve seen Doc?” Alarm whipped through her. “He’s home? He’s come home with Will?”

“No. This was before now. I saw him last spring. In fact, I’ve seen him once a year for the past four years. Has he bothered to mention that to you?”

Her stomach felt queasy. “No.”

“I didn’t think so. I asked him about you. Every time. He told me he hadn’t seen you since Billy’s funeral.”

Tess’s stomach dropped. “What are you saying?”

“The man looked me up. I saw Monty on eight different occasions, and each and every time, I asked about you. He denied having seen you.”

“No, you’re wrong.”

“Tess,” he chided. “I’m lots of things, but I’ve never been a liar. You know that. I’m telling you the gospel truth. Monty Cameron claimed to know nothing about you. He sure as hell denied living with you. And he does live with you, doesn’t he? That’s his bed I’ve been sleeping in?”

“How did you…?”

“One of the books stacked on the bedside table has a note written on the title page. It’s his handwriting. I put the two together once you connected your Doc and Monty.”

Tess shook her head, baffled by Gabe’s claims. She didn’t understand. “Why would Doc do something like that?”

“I don’t know. Does it really matter? He lied, Tess. I looked for you. Every city. Every town. I was always on the lookout for your face, even when I denied it to myself.” He again reached for her hand. “Now that I’ve finally found you, finally figured out what I want, I don’t intend to let you go again.”

“But—”

Leaning over, he gently kissed her lips. “Come to Austin with me, Tess. I love you.”

She wanted to run. She was ready to run or fly or fall off this mountain to get away from Gabe and all the turmoil he’d planted in her mind. Instead, she stood and wrapped her arms around herself. “I have to think about this. I have to ask Doc. I don’t know…There are things you don’t know.”

“I know I love you and that whether you’ll admit it or not, you love me, too.”

“No, I can’t.” She backed away from him. She believed Gabe. He’d told the truth when he’d said he wasn’t a liar. But as far as Doc was concerned…well…she needed the chance to think it all through. Surely Doc had a reason for what he’d done. He would explain if she asked. Then everything would come clear. “I need to go,” she said to Gabe. “To go home. I need to think this through.”

She was ten steps down the path when he called out for her to stop. “What are you feeling right this moment?” Gabe asked.

Confused. Disillusioned. Worried as all git out
.

Although she didn’t reply, he continued with his point. “Think of how you feel, then ask yourself what you are doing.”

“What I’m doing?” she repeated.

“You’re running away, Tess. You’re upset and bedeviled and you’re running away.” After a brief pause, he added, “So I’m not the only one who runs, am I?”

Huntsville, Texas

TINNY PIANO music drifted from the tavern’s outer room as the prison guard carefully counted a stack of bills. After starting over twice, he finally worked his way to the end. He folded the notes, tucked them into his jacket pocket, then flashed a toothy grin. “Paper money sure carries easier than coin. I miss the chink, though. Love that sound.”

“Quiet,” replied the visitor. “You worry about doing your job, not the money I’m paying you. Otherwise, you’ll end up dead.”

“Nah, I’ll be fine. I make sure to buy ‘em a round of drinks every Saturday night.” Reaching for a bottle of whiskey, the guard added, “They won’t fire on me.”

The visitor grabbed the fellow’s arm short of the bottle. “Maybe not, but I will.”

The guard scowled, but wisely made no further comment. Nor did he make another try for the liquor in the face of the visitor’s coldest stare.

Lips twisting in a sneer, the visitor gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

The two men made a stealthy departure from the tavern through the back door, then snaked their way through the deeply shadowed alleys headed for the “Walls.”

A fiddler’s waltz drifted on the crisp winter air, a pleasing contrast to the stench of refuse rising from waste pits and corners. The visitor picked up his pace, anxious to put this part of the mission behind him. He didn’t like exposing himself to danger this way, but as usual, he’d been the best man for the job. Less than ten minutes after leaving the tavern, he spied the intimidating walls of the Texas State Penitentiary.

The prison sat smack dab in the middle of Huntsville. The red brick walls were thirty-two inches thick and varied in height from eighteen feet to twenty-six feet above ground. They surrounded a yard of sufficient size to accommodate cellblocks that currently housed around three thousand prisoners, a cotton mill, wool mill, warehouses, outbuildings, a library, and a chapel.

Thin clouds drifting across the moon cast eerie shadows on the prison walls. The visitor shuddered. He had long nursed an aversion to jails, and the thought of entering one—even voluntarily—created a nauseous sensation in his stomach.

“Ready?” asked the guard.

The visitor yanked his hat down low on his brow, then pulled a badge from his pocket, and pinned it to his vest. He nodded at the guard and together, they sauntered toward the prison gate.

The guard vouched for him to the gatekeeper and moments later, the men were inside. Sweat trickled down the newcomer’s spine, but he hid all outward sign of nervousness. Twice he made a point of stopping for an introduction to other guards, once to a prison official. Come morning, he’d be well-remembered.

Come morning, he wouldn’t look a thing like he did now.

According to his research, the man he had come to see currently and conveniently resided in solitary confinement. Without further delay, the guard led him to cell block eight and his quarry.

The solitary cells were small, dark, and primitive, and the stench of urine and hopelessness permeated the air. As he walked down the cell block corridor, his boot steps echoing off the cold brick walls, he once again shuddered.
Better to die than live like an animal in this place
, he thought. Then, his gaze snagging on the guard’s back he silently added,
and what a horrible place to die
.

The prisoner whom he had come to see lay snoring in his cot. Setting his lantern down on the dirt floor, the guard rattled the iron bars before sliding the key into the lock “Wake up. Got a lawman here to see you.”

The prisoner rolled over. “Like I give a good damn.”

As the door swung open, a rush of excitement flowed through the visitor’s veins. Danger always aroused him. He fed on it, reveled in it. Gloried in it.

He followed the guard into the cell, reached down and drew the cudgel from his boot then blithely whacked the man across the back of his head. When the guard slumped to the ground, the visitor bent over and struck the man hard four more times until the skull cracked.

“Shit!” exclaimed the prisoner, scuttling to sit up. The visitor laughed softly. Power surged through his body like a current and as he slipped the small metal club back into his boot, he regretted that the prisoner wasn’t a woman. He was hard as a fence post; he could use some relief.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Your language offends me,” said the visitor. “I suggest you clean it up.”

“Who are you?”

The visitor retrieved the stack of bills from the dead man’s pocket. He tossed the currency to the prisoner. “As of this moment, I am your employer. I’ll have twice that amount waiting for you when the job is done.”

The prisoner stared at the money lying in his lap. “What job?” he croaked.

The visitor pulled a folded newssheet from his pocket. Paper crackled as he shook it open and turned it toward the light. “I trust you are familiar with this story, Mr. Bodine? He read the headline aloud. “Hero of Cottonwood Hollow Brings Criminal to Justice.”

Jimmy Wayne Bodine sputtered in anger, “That da— I mean that goldam Whip Montana. I’d like to kill that sonofabitch. I dream about it.”

“I thought you might. In feet, I am counting on it.”

Eyes lighting, Bodine asked, “Are you saying Montana is here at the Walls?”

“No.” The visitor shook his head. “He’s in southwest Texas. I want you to go there and kill him.”

“You mean you’re breaking me out of here?” Bodine shoved to his feet.

The visitor nodded toward the body on the floor. “Put his clothes on. We’ll need to time our departure carefully.”

Bodine grinned a hungry coyote’s leer and started stripping away the dead guard’s clothes. “Sprung from the Walls to go after Montana. A man can’t get luckier than this.”

“Hurry,” said the visitor. As the thrill of murder faded the prison walls started closing in on him.

The two men hoisted the dead guard onto Bodine’s cot and yanked the thin blanket over the body. Then, after instructing Bodine how to act on the way out, the visitor led him from the cell block and into the prison yard. There they paused while the visitor lit a cigar, taking the opportunity to check the position of the guards.

One of the men he’d spoken with earlier stood speaking to the guard at the front gate. The visitor waited until the man moved on, then motioned for Bodine to follow him. They made the front gate without incident, at which time Bodine pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and started blowing his nose as instructed. The visitor exchanged goodnights with the gatekeeper, and moments later, they exited through the huge iron gate.

The jailbreak was a success. Now to get safely out of town.

He’d stashed horses in the stable of the First Baptist Church earlier that evening, so he led Bodine in that direction. Ten minutes later, they mounted their horses and headed out of Huntsville. They rode west for almost an hour before reaching a fork in the road. The visitor called for Bodine to halt. “This is where we split up,” he said withdrawing an envelope from his pocket. “Here is your train ticket and detailed instructions on where to find Montana and how to deal with him.” He paused a moment, frowning. “But you don’t know how to read, do you? That’s a problem I didn’t anticipate.”

Bodine took the envelope saying, “I’ve got a good memory, though. Tell me what you wrote, and I won’t forget it.”

Seeing no other way around it, the visitor verbally relayed the contents of the envelope. When he was done, Bodine cocked his head to one side and inquired, “Aren’t you worried I’ll run out on you?”

“No, Jimmy Wayne, I’m not. I know enough about you to be certain you want your revenge upon Montana. I also believe you want to stay alive. Kill Montana and you’re a rich man. Cross me and you’re a dead man. It’s a simple choice.”