and don’t move a muscle.”
“Who’s Jesse?”
He shook his head. “Just do what I say.”
It wasn’t in Jayne’s nature to obey anyone, but being stark naked put her at a distinct disadvantage. She scooted lower on the bed, flattened herself against the mattress and listened as her husband stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him.
She strained to hear through the thick oak, but the tinny music from a nearby saloon masked the voices in the hall. She lowered the sheet an inch and peeked over the hem. The oil lamp flickered against the ivory wall, casting shadows through the gloom as a sinister chortle reached her ears. Her gaze narrowed to the doorknob just as it began to turn.
Was it Hank? Or the stranger with the rasping cough? She would have given a month of Sundays to have been wearing her best dress, or any dress for that matter, but she settled for leaping out of bed and shoving her arms into the cotton wrapper Hank had tossed on the floor. There hadn’t been time for a fancy trousseau like the ones she had stitched for the Lexington well-to-do. A week ago she’d been disappointed. Now she was just glad to be covered.
Clutching the flaps of the garment around her middle, she dropped to a crouch in front of her trunk and rummaged for her mother’s sewing shears. If the stranger came at her, she’d fight with her last breath before she’d let him touch her. And she had a few things to say to Hank, too. He owed her an explanation.
As her fingers gripped the scissors, Hank slipped back into the room, turned the lock and braced both hands high against the door. With his wheat-colored hair and slim build, he reminded her of the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike.
Still clutching the scissors, she pushed up from the crouch. “Who was that man?”
Her husband raised his face to the plaster ceiling, blew out a breath, then dropped his arms to his sides and faced her squarely. “Do you remember when I told you I had a past?”
How could she forget? They’d been alone in the tiny sitting room above her mother’s dress shop. He’d told her she was the best thing that had ever happened to him and that he wanted a fresh start in life. That’s when he had revealed that he’d been a lawman in Wyoming and that he’d killed a good man by mistake.
“There are things I can’t tell you,” he had said. “But if you can see fit to forgive me for my secrets, I’ll love you forever.”
Forgiveness sprung from her soul as easily as water from an abundant well. She’d met him in church just two months earlier on Christmas Eve, and never before had she seen a man with such soulful eyes. His sun-bleached hair had been tipped with gold, like the ornamental angels hanging in the snow-crusted windows of the sanctuary.
“God can forgive anything,” she’d said. “And so can I.”
Until tonight, not once had it occurred to her that the past might not be ready to forgive him. How naive she’d been. But thoughts of California had stirred her blood. She had wanted to see more of the world than the streets of Lexington, and so she had trusted Hank with her dreams. At least until now. Tying a knot in the belt to her robe, she made her voice firm. “You have to tell me everything, Hank. Right now.”
His shoulders rounded as he blew out a breath and faced her. “I will, Jayney, as soon as I get back. But I have to go with this man. I’ve got something he wants, and that means I’m going to be gone for a few days.”
“A few days? This is crazy. We should go to the sheriff right now. He’ll help us.”
He shook his head. “Going to the locals will just make things worse.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m positive. We’ll talk as soon as I get back, but until then, stay in the hotel. If I’m not here in three days, that’s when you need to go to the law.”
She watched as he slipped into his old brown duster. A week ago she had stitched a packet of money into a secret pocket for safekeeping. “Hank, our savings—”
“Trust me, Jayney. I’ll be back, but I might need something that’s in that pouch.”
She understood how it felt to be poor and friendless. She wanted to grab her scissors and cut out the money, but his eyes were pleading with her to believe in him. Besides, she’d spoken her wedding vows from the heart and she believed in keeping promises.
“All right,” she said. “But hurry. I’ll be worried.”
After he lifted his hat off the bedpost, Hank brushed his lips against hers, a soft kiss that tasted like goodbye.
Which is exactly what it turned out to be.
Chapter One
“L ady, face it. Your husband’s dead and you’ve got to go.”
Jayne pushed to her feet from the crouch she had assumed next to Hank’s body and scowled at the rancher blocking the light from the barn door. The day was as gray as pewter and just as hard. She was standing in a falling-down barn on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a filthy man glaring at her as if she’d just spit in his face.
Where were his manners, not to mention his compassion? Granted, he’d found a dead man in his barn and he had a right to be upset, but couldn’t he show a bit of sympathy for a new widow? Almost anyone else would have offered a kind word, even a cup of hot tea to take off the chill, but not this man. He was looming in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and one dirty boot draped over the other, staring at her as if she were vermin.
She’d eat dirt for a week before she would let him intimidate her. A wife had duties, and she intended to fulfill them. She also needed the greenbacks in Hank’s duster.
The sheriff was standing just inside the barn door, tapping his boot as if she were wasting his precious time. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dawson, but Mr. Trent is right. We’ve got to leave.”
“Surely we can wait a few minutes. I’d like to be alone with my husband.”
The rancher huffed like a bull getting ready to charge. “You don’t have a few minutes. A storm’s coming, and I want you and Handley out of here.”
“It’s April,” she said reasonably. “A little rain is nothing. I need some time—”
“It won’t be rain, dammit. It’s going to snow like hell and if you don’t leave now, you’ll be stuck here for a week. I want you gone.”
The sheriff grunted. “Settle down, Trent. You’ve got no call to yell like that.”
“Like hell I don’t.” The rancher narrowed his gaze to her face. Gold flecks burned like a campfire at dusk and his lips thinned to a bitter sneer. “Do you understand, ma’am? You cannot stay here.”
With the silvery sky at his back, he was more of a shadow than flesh and blood, but she’d gotten a good look at Ethan Trent earlier in the day. His face was lean to the point of gauntness, and he was wearing the most ragged clothes she’d ever seen. He needed a bath and a shave, not to mention a few good meals, but it wasn’t her place to march him down to the creek with a scrub brush and a cake of soap. Hank had left her with
