High Mountain Drifter (33 page)

"Yeah." He wasn't fooled, but he was smiling. The star shine cast enough polished-silver light to make out the lines and angles of him, the masculine curves and hard planes. He plunked the tray on the carpet. "They worked hard to make me feel comfortable tonight. Not many proper ladies would have done it."

"Oh, my sisters aren't so proper. Except for Iris." She imagined them all rolling her eyes at her comment, if they'd been in the room. "I'm glad you felt comfortable with us. We all think pretty highly of you."

"No need for that." One corner of his mouth tugged higher, wryly, as he handed her a steaming cup radiating a rich coffee scent.

"That self-depreciation doesn't work with me anymore." She cradled the cup, stole two lumps of sugar from the little bowl on the tray. "I know your story now. You had a gentle ma."

"She was." He sounded surprised, looked away, took a sip from the manly mug Rose had thoughtfully poured for him. "How did you know?"

"I can see it in you." She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing her heart didn't show in those words. But they had. Maybe it was what Zane most needed to hear.

In the near darkness, he hung his head. Didn't say a word, just sat there. She set down her cup and laid her hand on his shoulder. Rock-hard, as if invincible, but the man was only human, after all. He had a heart, just like anyone.

"I was lucky." She thought of how hard his life had started, that he'd had so little. Really, only his mother and then his baby brother. "Although my sisters claim I was abandoned by gypsies and left on the doorstep, that I'm not one of them at all, it's only a joke. I had everything growing up. Parents who loved us and did their best for us. Sisters to play with and to argue with and play princess tea parties with. We had love. We still do."

"Next you'll be telling me that's worth more than all the treasures in this house." Another wry smile. He moved, caught her hand, took it in his.

"Yeah, I'm sentimental that way. Not really that materialistic." She smiled too. She wanted to be closer to him. Love so strong it hurt ached in her chest. "I gather from the berry and bear story, that you spent the rest of your growing up years with your father. The one you had to hunt down. He was an outlaw."

"Yes." He set his cup down too, turned toward her, and the shadows claimed him. The darkness became stronger than the light, seemed to dim the stars. His hand engulfing hers gave a caring squeeze. "Here's where I should change the subject. Where I skip forward and leave out the worst part of my past."

"How come?" She leaned in, trying to see him in the shadows, but he was lost to her, just a silhouette against shadow. "I don't think being a bounty hunter is a bad thing. You protect people."

"I hunt dangerous men and bring them in so they can't hurt anyone else, that's true." His breathing hitched, his head bowed forward a little more, as if humble or ashamed. "I do it because I'm good at it. And maybe because I have something to atone for."

"What do you mean?"

"I was a lost kid. Orphaned, alone, angry. I wish I could deny it." Grief filled those words, and such powerful regret the night vibrated with it. "I resented having to live with my pa. He was terrifying, and I had no choice."

"Of course not." Understanding, gentle. That was Verbena. "It wasn't right that he was anywhere near you."

"There were about a dozen men in his gang. We camped in the summer, holed up in abandoned shanties or cabins in winter. Sometimes Pa's men even threw out the owners or killed them for shelter." He felt hollow again, worthless, remembering that confused kid he'd been. Hating his father, fighting not to be just like him, giving up the battle. "When I turned fifteen, that was the day Pa initiated me into the gang."

"Y-you were an outlaw?" She went rigid, startled, but not pulling away. It was too early for that. She was probably too shocked, needed time to process before she showed him forcefully to the door.

"You deserve the truth." He owed her that. He loved her in a way he never thought possible. "It's no secret. Most folks see me coming and cross the street, mostly because of the guns, but there are some people who remember the truth about my past."

"I see." She withdrew her hand, quieter now, pulling back, biting her bottom lip in thought. She shook her head, retreating into denial, but that wouldn't last long.

"I rode with my pa for three years." He hated that about himself, but he'd been young beaten and abused, he saw no other option in life. Felt too worthless to believe he had any. It took all his inner strength to muster the dignity to keep going. "I robbed, I stole, I threatened, I took victory in other's pain and losses. Unlike everyone around me, including my pa, I didn't like it. I hated myself more than anyone could."

He stopped, focused on the windows, on the play of starlight on the mountainside, on the limbs of the trees. "One day history repeated itself. Pa took a liking to a pretty young woman in the stage we were robbing, shot her family dead, tied and gagged her, and brought her back to camp. Tossed her in his tent. He'd beaten her so badly, she was unconscious, so he was waiting for her to wake up."

"That's terrible," she whispered, aghast.

"While he was celebrating with whisky around the campfire, I snuck into his tent, cut her bindings, and escaped with her. She was fifteen. She didn't deserve what was waiting for her. I took her to the sheriff in the nearest town, Pine Bluffs, got there before sun up praying every step of the way Pa wasn't close on my tail. I told the sheriff where to find him, and he and his men went hunting. I stayed behind."

"You were an outlaw." Verbena repeated, as if needing to be sure of the truth.

"Yes." Nothing on earth hurt worse than having to say that one word. He hung his head, face to face with his past. No man could change what he'd done, erase the mistakes he'd made. Only go forward trying to do better, to make up for them.

"The sheriff located the girl's relatives and reunited her with them. He put me in jail too. I deserved it." That was just the truth. "I served less than five years for robbery and assault. Got a short sentence for the testimony I gave on the gang. I wasn't popular, I tell you that. Barely survived prison. But when I got out, didn't have any skills. That's when I started bounty hunting. But I wanted a better life, so I looked up that sheriff. He said he'd help me, if I wanted to change. I was an assistant deputy for a year in Bear Hollow, promoted to deputy for another. But it was too much. I couldn't escape my reputation. The sheriff took a lot of criticism for hiring me, so I left. It was better that way."

"And you went back to bounty hunting. You can capture outlaws so well because you understand them." She sounded distant, hollow, the denial gone. "Because you were one of them."

"Yes. I didn't know much about working in a store or on a farm. I didn't know how to be a cowboy or a schoolteacher. I had no other skills, I hadn't continued my education outside of the orphanage. Bounty hunting has been a good fit for me." He stood, a giant above her in the dark. "But I'm not like the outlaws I hunt. I'm a different man. Not many people see it, but it's true. I thought it was only fair that you know the truth before I leave. The way rumors travel, it might come up one day. I don't want you to feel like I was trying to fool you, the way Ernest was, by pretending to be someone I'm not."

"I would have never guessed your past." She hung her head too, feeling empty, spent. She should be angry at herself for falling in love with a man who was capable of violence against the innocent, she should be furious she'd made an exception to her no man vow, but she wasn't. She swiped away the tears seeping from her eyes. Hurt, loss, disillusionment, it all tangled up together.

"I wanted you know the man I really am," he confessed. Affection--no, love--rang in his words. So did regret. "That way you know the reason why I'm moving on come morning. It's why I can't stay."

"Because I wouldn't want a man like that?"

"Yes. Besides, I'm used to leaving." He strolled toward the door, blending with the darkness, becoming one with it so there was no sign of him, just the knell of his steps. "Thank you for how you treated me. I'll never forget you."

His words touched her, wrenched her into pieces. She opened her mouth with the words on her tongue.
Don't go
, she wanted to say,
I'm in love with you,
but she held back. She felt tinny with fear, suspecting if she bared her heart to him and told him of her love, he would walk out the door anyway. That she wasn't enough to hold him here.

He opened the door, bathed in lamplight for the few seconds it took for him to cross the threshold and stride out of sight. When she heard the front door close, she knew he was gone forever. The tears came.

She hadn't been wrong about him. She knew that to the bottom of her soul. He might not be the man she thought he was, but he was more.

Much more.

He'd rebuilt his life, changed everything he'd been. She couldn’t imagine how hard that was. He'd walked a hard, straight life without friends to help him, without family to love him. He'd made himself into a noble man. All by himself. That took courage and a noble soul.

"Did he leave?" Rose asked from the hallway, sounding puzzled. "What about the cupcakes?"

"I don't think he wanted them." Scalding tears turned the world blurry. Thank goodness her heart was too numb from shock to feel anything. The love of her life had just walked away, he'd left her so easily. How was she supposed to feel about that?

"Are you crying?" Rose rushed into the room, alarmed. "What happened in here? What did he do to hurt you?"

"He's leaving tomorrow." That wasn't the whole story, she couldn’t bring herself to repeat the horrible ordeal of his past, of what he'd been through, of the man he'd once been. That story was one reason her heart was shattering, cracking into painful, irretrievable pieces. There were others.

"It's for the best," she said, unable to fight the sobs racking through her. "I always knew he was going to leave."

But somewhere down deep, in a secret place she'd dared not admit, she'd hoped he might stay. That his love for her would be enough. That when the time came, he wouldn't be able to ride away from her.

She'd been wrong. Inconsolable, she bowed her head, trying to hide the tears streaming down her face, dripping off her chin, and plopping onto the carpet. From this moment on, her heart was never going to recover, not ever. She would never be okay again.

A bleak, pre-dawn hush settled over the hillside. Everything was so still, like a predator waiting. Zane's boots crunched and crackled on the frozen hard ground as he circled the buckboard and horses, checking rigging and wheels, making sure everything was secure for the long journey. He felt as iced up as the world around him.

Don't look back, he thought firmly. That was the only way he could go. To make himself as cold as the darkness, not to think of her, to keep his feelings for her frozen. He climbed into the buckboard, shivering, and gathered the reins. In the bone-numbing cold, he gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering and chirruped to the horses.

"Let's go," he said more to himself than them. Definitive. Sure. A man doing what he had to do.

The buckboard jerked forward, rolling away from one of the barns. Winchester and Scout, heads up, walking briskly, carried him past the dark kitchen house, where no one was up yet, and down the curving lane to the county road below.

Just keep going, he thought. He summoned up every scrap of willpower not to glance over his shoulder and search for the faint hint of a shadowy roofline through the trees near the crest of the hill, Verbena's home. Proof of how hopeless it was, him and his fierce longing for her. He gritted his teeth, kept his eyes on the road. Shivered against the bone-numbing cold and felt exhaustion settle in.

He hadn't gotten more than a few winks of sleep last night. There had been no physical reason for it. His room in the bunkhouse had been quiet, the mattress comfortable with more than enough blankets, but he'd been fitful, not able to settle. Guess it was hard to drift away when your heart was broken. When you knew you'd hurt the love of your life by doing the right thing...telling the truth. If he hadn't told her, then one day it would come back to haunt him and it would hurt her more.

Besides, he was a drifter. A man who had no ties, wouldn’t know what to do with them if he did. The good thing in all this was that the sunroom had been dark enough so that when he'd been honest with her, he couldn't clearly see what was on her face. He'd been smart to walk away before those loving looks she gave him died. At least he still had the memory of her gazing up at him raptly with high regard, and her smiles, her touches, those kisses. The only saving grace.

The horses clopped along, brisk and dutiful. The fields and forests of the Rocking M whisked by in dark glory backlit by the first haze of lighter shadows from the east. A break in the trees came up on his left, a lane that led to Verbena's home. He steeled himself, hands fisting, jaw clenching, to keep from reining the horses up that driveway.