The Kissing Stars (22 page)

Bodine stuck out his chin and attempted to act tough. “What makes you so certain you could find me?”

“Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy. Don’t be a fool. It’s not my nature to boast, but I can track a minnow through a swamp if I so choose.” He turned his horse toward the north road, saying, “Once you can prove Montana’s demise, leave word for me at the Cactus Cafe in Eagle Gulch. I’ll find you.”

As he nudged his horse forward, Bodine called out, “Wait a minute. You never told me who to ask for. Who are you, mister?”

The visitor smiled and said, “Well, Jimmy Wayne, since we are now partners, you can call me Doc.”

Aurora Springs

“GABE CAMERON is a dead man.” Tearing her gaze away from the window, Tess stormed from her star shed mad enough to out-spit Pollux. Trailing on her heels, like a pair of chicks running to keep up with mama hen, came Jack Baker and Colonel Jasper.

“Now Tess,” said Jack, hurrying to catch up as she marched across the yard toward the barn. “No sense getting all huffy.”

“That’s right,” added the colonel. “We’re just looking out for you.”

She stopped abruptly. “Looking out for me? As if I can’t look after myself?” The afternoon breeze whipped her hair into her eyes, and she shoved it impatiently out of the way.

Jack gave a frustrated sigh. “Of course you can look out for yourself. The problem is you don’t because you are so busy taking care of us.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yes, it is, Tess.” The colonel folded his arms and frowned. “Montana is right about that. You’ve taken care of us for years now and it’s time you did something for yourself.”

“Fine. Then the thing I’m going to do for myself is to kill my husband.”

“Tess!” Jack and the colonel said simultaneously.

She threw out her arms. “I can’t believe he went to you, too. When he talked to Amy, I gave him what for. When he bent Twinkle’s ear, I warned him to keep his mouth shut. The man completely ignores me.”

“The man loves you.”

“I’m going to kill him. I’m going to make him listen to me this time if it’s the last thing I do.” Changing directions, she headed for her home.

Jack and the colonel followed, arguing on her husband’s behalf all the way. At least they stopped short before they entered her bedroom. Tess didn’t know how she’d explain her anger in the light of Gabe’s very obvious presence in her bed. She couldn’t even explain it to herself.

Sixteen days had passed since her husband asked her to leave Aurora Springs with him. Sixteen days since he’d made his accusations against Doc, accusations that baffled Tess, confused her. Charges she simply didn’t want to believe. But despite her doubt and bewilderment, she had allowed the man to spend the past sixteen nights in her bed.

Sexual relations might be a glorious boon for the body, but they certainly had a deleterious effect on the mind.

She threw open the lid of an old trunk and dug to the box in the bottom. Inside lay the few keepsakes of her brother’s that she’d managed to acquire before her father threw her off the Rolling R. At the bottom she found the pistol she sought, an old double-barreled flintlock Billy claimed had been used at the Battle of San Jacinto. He’d kept the gun for its historical value, not for its usefulness. The pistol didn’t work. Still, it would suit Tess’s purpose as a prop because even though Gabe most likely would recognize the gun, in that split second before he did, she would snag his attention.

The man needed to listen to what she had to say. She was determined he’d do just that.

She stuck the pistol in her skirt pocket and exited her bedroom. Jack and Colonel Jasper waited in her parlor. Seeing her coming, they jumped in front of the doorway, blocking her exit.

Jack held his hands palms out signaling her to stop. “Tess, don’t be angry with us. We’re simply trying to help. Besides, it’ll upset Amy if you’re angry and that’s not good for the baby.”

“Jack, I—”

Colonel Jasper interrupted, “We are thinking of Will, too, Tess.”

Her heart clutched. “You haven’t said anything…?”

“No, of course not. That’s not our place. But the boy needs—”

“Will doesn’t need anything. He has Doc. Doc has always been there for us both, and I won’t do anything to ruin that. It wouldn’t be right.”

A troubled frown creased Jack’s handsome face. “Was it right for Doc to keep your whereabouts a secret from your husband? I don’t think so. As a husband myself, I have to side with Gabe on this one. I think Gabe has every right to his upset.”

“I agree,” the colonel said with a definite nod “I sure would like to know what Doc was thinking when he paid all those visits to his boy and kept it a secret from you and kept you a secret from Gabe.”

Me too
, Tess silently agreed. “I’m sure he had a good reason. Gabe on the other hand has no good excuse for pestering you all like he’s done.”

“He hasn’t pestered us.”

“Hah!” She stepped forward, brushing past them. “He has sung his tune to everyone but Andrew, and the only reason Andrew has missed out on it is because he’s been away from home on the trail of the white horse.”

Outside, her gaze went immediately toward the barn where Gabe was tackling another task on Twinkle’s list of chores, the construction of new stalls for Castor and Pollux.
The mule-headed fool
. Maybe she should suggest that Gabe “Whip Montana” Cameron build himself a new place to sleep right alongside the camels. He might smell better, but heaven knows he was just as stubborn. When Castor or Pollux got it into their heads to sit down and stay down, nothing and no one could change their minds. Gabe was acting just the same way with his idea for her to move away with him. “If he tells me he loves me one more time, I’m going to shoot him dead,” she muttered.

Somewhere deep inside, Tess knew she wasn’t being exactly rational about this situation. Being told she was loved by the man she loved in return wasn’t a good argument for murder. But her emotions were in a turmoil; her mind in a dither.

He wanted her to postpone her studies. He wanted her to leave her home and her family.
What kind of love was that?

One thing the past dozen years had taught her was the value of extended family. True, the Aurorians weren’t family by blood, but they were by choice. Every day one of them added a little gift to her life and to Will’s. Gabe thought to deny them that treasure. He thought his love should be enough. But why should she settle? Why couldn’t she have both?

“I can have both,” she muttered, stepping around a “gift” Rosie had left in the yard. “We can all have so much if only Gabe will let go of his anger.”

But at the moment, it was Tess’s anger that needed tending to.

She reached the barn and stepped inside. What she found brought her up short. Gabe stood shirtless and sweaty, hammer in hand. He wasn’t working. He was talking to Rosie.

“…you’ll agree that female human beings know how to be stubborn. Well, Tess has stubborn down to a science. You’d think she studied it just like astronomy.”

Rosie, the traitor, snorted as if in agreement.

Then Gabe turned to Castor and Pollux. “What’s a man to do? The woman has always been smart as a fox. Why, you should have seen the way she used to wile her way around me and Billy years ago. From the time she turned fifteen I have found her irresistible, and now that she’s all grown up I damn near swallow my tongue every time I look at her. Not only is she a vision to look at she’s a vixen in bed, too. Such talented hands. Why, last night when she—”

“Don’t you dare.” she exclaimed, her anger once again nursed to a fevered pitch. She drew the gun from her pocket and demanded, “You shut your mouth. And keep it shut I am at the end of my rope with you, Gabe. It’s not enough you go after my family, now you try and corrupt my animals, too. Maybe I should shoot you and put us all out of our misery.”

He eyed the flintlock and arched a curious brow. “Do you always carry a pistol in your pocket darlin’?”

“Only during times of elevated stress.”

“You know, of course, that you won’t be shooting anybody with that particular weapon. It’s Billy’s old San Jacinto gun, isn’t it? I doubt that flintlock has been in firing condition for half a century.”

“And you should be glad of it,” she grumbled. “The fact this pistol won’t shoot is the only thing keeping you alive at the moment.”

He grinned with delight and said, “I love you, Tess.”

She cried with frustration and flung the gun at him, missing by a hair. He glanced down at Rosie and said, “Did I mention cantankerous?”

Tess ran at him, her hand curled in a fist and ready to sock him in the stomach. She knew all she’d do was hurt her hand, but she was too frustrated to care.

Gabe reached out and grabbed her arm at the wrist, then he pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her. “Ah, darlin’, don’t be mad. Or else get really mad and tumble me here in the straw.”

He nibbled at her neck even as she pounded weakly on his back. “You don’t play fair, Gabe.”

“I’ve told you before that
fair
is the party they throw in Dallas in the fall. And I’m not playing at anything, angel. This is serious business.”

She arched her neck in offering. “I can’t believe I let you do this to me.”

“You love me, Tess. That’s why. You want me to wear you down and make it easy to say yes.”

“It’s more complicated than you think, Gabe. Besides, bothering my family won’t do you any good. Our problem isn’t my family. It’s yours. You’re going to have to make your peace with Doc for us to have a future.”

At that, Gabe let her go. Scowling, he looked at Pollux and said, “Stubborn.”

The dromedary batted her eyelashes and spat. Tess glared at her and said, “Traitor.”

Gabe turned his attentions back to the stack of lumber he was using to build the camels’ new shelter. The set of his jaw and the jerk in his movements proved the man to be far less than happy.
Well, good
. If she had to be upset, she thought it only fair that he be aggravated, too.

“You’re not being sensible about this, Tess.” He placed the point of a nail against the pine board and brought the hammer down with a whack. “There is enough water under that particular bridge to turn all of West Texas into a swamp.”

“No, Gabe,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the pounding. “You are the one talking nonsense. All you have to do is to let go of your anger and give your father a chance. He’s a good man, Gabe. Truly he is.”

He cut her a stare as hard as the head on the hammer. “And you define ‘good men’ as liars, thieves, and killers?”

“He’s not a killer or a thief.”

“Depends on one’s point of view. But even you can’t deny the lying, though, can you?”

Tess closed her eyes, totally sick at heart. “Gabe, we must stop this. We keep going round and round with the same argument and it never gets us anywhere.”

“So give it up.” He gave the nail one last pound, then tossed the hammer to the ground, braced his hands on his hips, and turned toward her. “Give it up, Tess, and come be my wife. I love you. I want a future with you. I want a home filled with children.”

Her heart started pounding and the words formed on her tongue before she had time to consider them. “Aurora Springs can give you that if you’ll only let it happen.”

“I told you I don’t mind living in Aurora Springs part of the year. Give me six months in Austin to revamp the Rangers for Governor Ross, and I’ll be happy to come back here and live with you. All I ask is that you send that old worthless rogue packing.”

It hurt Tess to hear the vitriol in his voice, and it was that hurt that kept her from elaborating on her previous statement. That and the need to protect the one person she loved in this world as much as she loved Gabe.

Jack Baker’s excited shout grabbed both Tess’s and Gabe’s attentions. Gabe grabbed the rag hung over a nearby railing and wiped his hands as he headed for the barn door. Tess stepped around Rosie and followed, stepping out into the mid-morning sunshine.

The sight that met their eyes left Tess gasping. A slow smile spread across Gabe’s face as he folded his arms and said, “Well, I’ll be a suck-egg mule. Look at that.”

Andrew Ross rode proudly into Aurora Springs. Atop a snow white stallion. Bareback. Without a bridle.

“It’s Pegasus,” Tess breathed.

The white horse stood sixteen hands high, had a long mane and tail that flowed like the sweep of an eagle’s wing. He was without obvious blemish, his muscles powerful and his coat sleek. He held his head high as though he knew what a magnificent animal he was.

“Finest damned horse I’ve ever seen,” Gabe observed.

As the citizens of Aurora Springs surrounded him, Andrew slid off the horse. Ignoring the buzz of questions the Aurorians posed, he patted the beauty’s neck, then whispered something in his ear. A ripple passed across the horse’s skin like small waves in a pond, and his ears perked forward as if he were listening intently and understood Andrew’s every word.

Tess felt a nudge against her legs and looked down to discover Rosie hiding beneath her skirts. “Now, now. Don’t be afraid. It’s just a horse.” Throwing Gabe a questioning look, she said, “Right? It’s just a horse?”

He stuck his hands in the back pockets of his pants and studied the stallion. “Calling that animal ‘just a horse’ is like saying the Chihuahuan gets a tad bit hot in August.”

“But he is real, right? Not a figment of our imagination?”

Gabe nodded. “I reckon so. Otherwise, wouldn’t our minds have gone ahead and given Pegasus his wings?”

Finally, Andrew quit communing with his horse and turned to face the crowd. “Not Pegasus,” he corrected, a beatific smile spreading across his face. “Regulus.”

“The heart of the Lion,” Gabe observed, referring to the constellation Leo.

“Regulus does have a lion’s heart. He also has the strength of a bull, the ferociousness of a mother bear protecting her young, and the canny intelligence of a coyote.”

Jack Baker appeared skeptical. “If that’s the case, then how come he let you catch him.”

“He didn’t. He caught me. Saved me, actually.” When the Aurorians demanded an explanation, Andrew continued. “I had followed a trail deep into the Chihuahuan. I was three days from nowhere when the fever came back.”