Always You (14 page)

Something about this house, this tight-knit little family so devoted to one another, filled a void inside her. Perhaps because Cal, in his determination to take care of them, reminded her of herself, of the way she intended to take care of Jinx. It was a familiar protectiveness, an understandable kind of love.

And to her amazement, as she wandered through the parlor and then into the kitchen, she felt a bond with him, a bond with the man she thought of as her enemy—but he was the most bewildering enemy she’d ever thought to encounter.

No longer tired, Melora brewed coffee. Restlessness seized her as she uncovered the supper plate Cassie had saved for her and proceeded to devour cold fried chicken and beans and potatoes. She had just finished her coffee and was carrying her empty plate to the sink when she spotted Cal through the kitchen window.

She’d remembered all along that he’d promised to come back after everyone was asleep and tell her “the sad saga of Rafe Campbell and the Holden family.” But she’d been trying not to think about it; she’d been trying not to think about anything. Deep down, she was all too aware that she would have to make a decision soon about where she stood and what she believed.

When she recalled the man she knew as Wyatt Holden, it seemed impossible that Cal’s claims could be true. Wyatt’s arms had been gentle, his lips soft and reassuring. Everyone thought him upright and fine. Everyone!

But when she stared into Cal’s intently determined eyes and saw the sweet faces of his brothers and sisters, she was compelled to believe Cal’s words. Yet his story sounded so incredible, so terrible that she shuddered at its implications.

Now she watched him as he leaned against a tree, silhouetted by bright, full moonlight. He rolled a cigarette and began to smoke, each movement thoughtful and deliberate, and she remembered the first time she’d seen him. She hadn’t thought him especially handsome at the time. How strange. Now he looked vitally handsome, with his dark chestnut hair glinting in the moonlight and his stern, hard features illuminated enough to reveal their somber expression.

A powerful urge to soothe the careworn lines from his face overtook her. She almost started forward. Then she gripped the kitchen counter, stopping herself.

Think, Melora. Don’t be impulsive. Use the brain God gave you. And consider.

Was this man who had carried Will on his shoulders, ridden pell-mell for a doctor for Lou, rescued her from Jethro and from Strong, and kissed her with such rough thoroughness she’d trembled in places she hadn’t even known existed—was this man a liar, an outlaw, a
murderer
?

Or was her fiancé?

Suddenly she turned and left the kitchen. She strode into the bedroom, to the shelf with the books, and took down the Bible. And holding her breath, she opened it to the first page.

In fine, curving black script she read the inscription written there: “THE HOLDEN FAMILY BIBLE.”

Hands shaking, she closed it. Replaced it on the shelf. And moved like a sleepwalker, passing through the kitchen door and out across the neat little yard without seeing its vegetable garden or the well or any of the dark-petaled larkspurs growing in profusion among the trees. She saw nothing, heard nothing. Her mind was filled with memories: of words, embraces, glances exchanged, plans made, moments shared.

All jumbled together in a jarring cacophony that swelled through her brain.

Cal turned as she approached. Silently he watched her glide through the moon-dappled darkness, thinking that no other woman he’d ever met had moved quite like that, with such unconscious grace, such artless sensuality.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He wanted to catch her in his arms as she paused before him because she looked as if she might fall down at any moment, but he forced himself to continue blowing smoke calmly up into the night sky, to continue standing there as if nothing of import were about to be discussed between them.

“I’ve seen your family Bible,” Melora whispered.

Cal threw down the cigarette and crushed it with his boot. The heart-rending catch in her throat clawed at his gut.

“The Holden family Bible.” She continued so low he had to duck his head forward to hear her. “So it appears you’re telling me the truth.” She spoke carefully, each word like a shard of glass that could shatter at any moment. “Your family name is Holden.”

“That’s right.”

“So that man back in Rawhide... is not a Holden—”

“Right again.”

“He’s... Rafe Campbell. Just like you said.” She fought to breathe normally, to keep the stars and the sky from whirling dizzily before her eyes.

“Take it easy, Melora.” Cal put a hand on her arm, but she shook him off.

“He’s nothing but a liar!” she cried, her teeth beginning to chatter. “An impostor. He was lying to me all along!”

“Yeah, Melora, he was.”

Melora braced herself against the tree, growing pale in the moonlight as she accepted his unhesitating, straightforward answer.

Something died inside her. Something like a seedling. A seedling filled with false, sickly sweet dreams. She lifted a hand to her throat, which ached with unshed tears, and stared off into the hills, her eyes unfocused.

Crickets chirped in the darkness. A nighthawk swooped and rasped out a harsh cry from the sky. “He never loved me.”

She felt so empty and bereft inside that she could have wept, but she was too hollow for tears. “It was all... some kind of ruse. All a trick.”

“Maybe not all of it,” Cal said quietly. “But some. It’s possible he does love you in his way—as much as Campbell can love anyone. As a possession.” Cal’s brows swooped together. “Something that belongs exclusively to him.”

He frowned because he knew Campbell’s possessive streak. They’d been friends once, and he’d observed firsthand how the man valued money, gold, fine things. And Melora was as fine a woman as any man could hope to possess—except you couldn’t possess another human being. He doubted that Campbell understood that point. That was exactly what Cal had been counting on all this time: that Campbell would become so incensed at losing his woman—his personal, hand-chosen possession, and someone who had something he wanted, to boot—that he would follow her anywhere to get her back.

Even into the Black Hills.

Even into a trap.

That was the key to Cal’s plan. Yet as he spoke the words, he could see how much they hurt her. And that stoked the embers of his fury. Rafe Campbell was a low-down son of a bitch who didn’t deserve one drop of Melora’s love.

Cal’s mouth tasted bitter with the knowledge that she had truly cared for that bastard. And what he’d said was true enough. Campbell might love her in his own selfish, scheming way, but not in the way she deserved.

What sane man wouldn’t fall in love with her?
he asked himself jeeringly.
What man could resist such fiery golden beauty, a smile that could melt the sun, a spirit that refused to give up, even under the most trying circumstances?

Not you,
a hard, mocking voice answered inside him. And he knew he was a fool. She’d twist him around her finger like a string if he gave her half the chance, if he let on what she did to his insides, his concentration, his self-control every time he came within twenty feet of her.

So he’d better not let on.

Melora Deane had lethal charm. Plenty of it. And he’d wager his hat and his saddle and his boots that she knew better than most women how to use it.

When it came to flirting and courtship and falling in love, he was no match for her, the belle of the territory.

It was almost funny that he’d fallen for her.
Her.
Because as Will kept reminding him, he’d never even had a girl. Any girl. Much less one who’d been wooed and courted as Melora Deane had been wooed and courted all of her life.

Forget it,
Cal warned himself.
Don’t even let yourself think about going after her in that way. You’ve already been Campbell’s victim. Don’t become hers.

Playing the fool was something Cal Holden couldn’t abide. He’d already done it once in this lifetime. He’d been Rafe Campbell’s fool, believing in a friendship that had been false all along, letting himself get bested by a snake in gentleman’s garb.

He wouldn’t let anyone lure him into making a fool of himself again. Especially not Melora Deane.

“Look, Princess, we have to talk,” he said urgently, trying to take his mind off this train of thought. Besides, she looked dazed. And sick. Another score to settle with Campbell, he told himself grimly. “You probably have some questions. If you want to know more about Campbell—”

“I do have questions—one question. Is Campbell dangerous?”

“Very.”

Her face crumpled then, and she sprang forward, clutching at his vest. “I have to go home!”

“Melora—”

“At first light,” she cried, her voice rising with panic, “My sister is there alone, Cal. She can’t even walk! If anything happens to her, it’ll be laid at your doorstep. You must take me home!”

Cal pulled Melora to him. One hand caught her chin and gently tilted her head back. He noted how the moonlight bathed the delicate planes of her face. Her eyes looked huge—and frightened. Frightened for her sister, as she had never been for herself.

“What do you mean that your sister can’t walk?”

“She can’t walk! When our pop was shot by rustlers, Jinx found him. She fell off her horse and now her legs won’t work, and we don’t know why. Cal, I have to get home and protect her!”

“Your sister isn’t in any danger, Melora. Calm down. Campbell—”

“Campbell must have only wanted to marry me to get his hands on my ranch,” she cried desperately. This was no time for pride or false dignity. “The Weeping Willow is valuable property—even with all the losses we’ve suffered lately, and it adjoins—” She froze and stared at him. “The Diamond X. Dear Lord, the Diamond X—it’s not his. It’s not his at all. If what you say is true, Jed Holden bequeathed it to—
you
?”

“That’s right. To me and Joe.”

“Dear Lord.”

“Campbell stole the deed Uncle Jed’s lawyer sent us, took it right off Joe’s body after the posse shot him down. He also stole our pay—money we were planning to send home to help keep our own ranch going.”

He didn’t add the rest. That when Campbell and the sheriff arrested Cal and threw him in jail after they’d killed Joe, Campbell had proceeded to steal every cent in Cal’s pocket as well—and a silver-handed pistol and the cameo necklace his grandmother had given Cal as a gift for his future wife.

He could spare her that at least. Melora had enough to deal with right now without thinking about Campbell’s giving her that same cameo.

He released her, watching the shock register on her face. Melora sank down upon the cold, hard ground and buried her face in her hands.

It was true. All of it, true. The resigned bitterness in Cal’s face and in his quietly spoken words could come only from deep pain—pain caused by the truth. Each word he spoke drove another nail into the coffin that was all she had left of her betrothal.

Cal lowered himself to sit beside her in the darkness. He was aware of her shoulders trembling, of her hair whipping about her, loose and wild in the wind.

Not looking at Melora, he plucked a wildflower that had been growing along the root of the tree and studied its delicate petals, frosted by starlight.

“You need to know this, Melora. All of it. But it’s not a pretty story.”

“Go on. I want to hear.” No, she didn’t. She wanted to run away and hide and shut out the world, shut out the truth, and the knowledge of her own stupidity, but she couldn’t. She had to know all of it. She had to listen good and hard.

“Campbell knew all about the deed,” he said softly. But Melora shivered at the cold steel she heard in his voice. “All about how Uncle Jed left us his ranch in good old Rawhide, Wyoming. Because Joe and I were fool enough to tell him. We’d been working for him up near Tucson, trying to earn enough money to pay off the mortgage on our family ranch in Nogales. It was a small place, a few hundred head of cattle—nowhere near as grand as the Weeping Willow—and it was a struggle to keep it profitable, but it was our home.” His voice hardened. “We lost some of our cattle to disease the year after our mother died of the fever, and then the bank wanted to call in the loan. So Joe and I left Jesse and our old foreman in charge and took jobs as ranch hands for a big spread up near Tucson to make extra money. We sent nearly every penny home.”

“Cal. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s cold out here,” he said abruptly, getting to his feet. “You’re shivering again.” He took her arm and helped her up, then started back to the house. Melora walked beside him in numb silence. She
was
chilled, inside as well as outside. She’d never felt so icy cold and miserable in her life.

“Campbell was the foreman of the ranch Joe and I worked at near Tucson.” Cal continued when they were seated at the kitchen table with steaming cups of coffee before them. “When we heard about Uncle Jed passing on and about the Diamond X, we made a decision to go back to Nogales, to sell the ranch while we could still get something for it and move Jesse and the younger kids on to Rawhide for a fresh start on the Diamond X. We gave Campbell notice we’d be leaving soon and showed him the deed.”

Cal picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without drinking. His eyes were faraway. “He congratulated us. Wished us well. Which was to be expected, since we were friends, the three of us. Friends,” he grunted, shaking his head.

“He can be very... charming. And caring.”

Cal’s laugh was harsh. “He damn well can.”

Melora sipped desperately at her coffee, needing something hot and bracing to break the chill enveloping her. “What happened then, Cal? How did things go so terribly wrong?”

“Two days before Joe and I were due to go home, we stumbled onto the truth. That Campbell was rustling from our employer, a man named Ed Grimstock. And from everyone else in that valley,” he added, pushing back his chair. He paced around the kitchen with long, restless strides like a long-caged panther.

“He and Sheriff Harper were working together. Rustling the valley dry.”

Rustling. She’d heard him say the word before, she’d seen it in the wanted poster, but this time it struck her like the claws of a hawk scratching deep into her skin, tearing through to her very blood and bones.

There was rustling in Rawhide too. But it had been going on a long time, she told herself, long before “Wyatt Holden” had come to town. Yet her hands shook a little as she lifted her cup.

Melora finished her coffee, her thoughts whirling like the grounds in the bottom of the coffeepot as she poured more of the hot, sustaining drink for Cal and then for herself.

“I think I’d better hear exactly what happened next.” She took a deep breath, then glanced up at Cal. “If it’s not too painful to tell.”

“I lived through it, Melora. Reckon I can talk about it. And I reckon you have a right—hell, no, you have a
need
to know. So you can understand exactly what kind of man we’re dealing with.”

She watched him rake a hand through his hair, then sit down again and stare at his coffee cup. She couldn’t tell how much of the ache in her heart was for herself and how much was for him.

“When Joe and I caught on to what Campbell and Harper were up to, we rode straight to our employer and filled him in. We were planning to head to town and wire the federal marshal, but Campbell got wind of the fact that we were on to him. He and Harper showed up at Grimstock’s ranch right after we left for town. They murdered Grimstock, and then they rode into town and announced that Joe and I had killed him.”

“Cal, no!”

“They said we’d killed him because he and Campbell had caught us rustling.”

She touched his arm. She felt sick, shocked, furious. She couldn’t understand how he could tell her all this so calmly, with such quiet steadiness. But the harshness in his face as he turned his gaze to her quickly brought home to her that his anger ran deep and deadly. He kept it locked within him, but it was there, and when he faced Rafe Campbell again, it would come out.

“They caught you in town?” She prompted him, needing to hear the end of the story, needing to stop the assault of terrible words.

“Almost, but not quite.” Cal ran a finger back and forth across the wood table. “There was this saloon girl who was sweet on Joe. Every girl he met was always sweet on Joe,” he added with a rueful grin. Then his lips tightened. “But this girl saw Campbell and Harper rounding up a posse, and she warned us. We barely made it out of town alive.”

It seemed that the insects had gone mad outside the farmhouse. The wild chirping chorus poured through the darkness beyond the windows, filling the night. But there was no other sound in the house as Cal stood, strode to the window, and stared out.

“Campbell and Harper and their posse rode us down. On the third day they set up an ambush, and Joe was shot. Killed. I got away, but they caught me a few miles later.” He swung back to stare at Melora, every muscle in his tall frame coiled with tension. “I didn’t even get to see my brother buried. They put me in jail, right next door to Ray and Zeke, and that was that. Oh, there was a trial, with a lot of trumped-up evidence, and I was sentenced to hang. Campbell packed up and left town a few days before the hanging—no doubt moving on to greener pastures, figuring I was as good as dead. I didn’t know at the time he was eventually going to lay claim to my inheritance, and use my name to get it.”

Melora hugged her arms around herself, fighting the nausea in her throat. Her body trembled.

Was it possible that the man who’d gone down on his knees to beg her to marry him was the same man who had rustled cattle, killed the rancher Grimstock, and framed two innocent men?

“I still... can’t quite believe it.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean.” Cal stood over her, his eyes hard. “I was taken in too, Melora—by the easy, upstanding way he talked, by his fine smile and booming laugh. Joe and I had been around enough to recognize most card sharks and flimflam men, but we didn’t nail this one. We trusted him; we thought he was our friend. Some friend.”

“Some fiancé,” she echoed in a hoarse whisper.

Cal yanked her up out of the chair so suddenly she gasped, and he held her roughly by the shoulders. “So you see now why you can’t go back. I’m leading him here—to Deadwood actually. And he won’t have time to bother with Jinx because he’ll be too intent on getting you back. To do that, he has to follow my instructions.”

“Instructions?”

“Zeke and Ray sent him a wire after they split up from us. The wire informed him that if he wanted to see you alive again, he’d better get to Deadwood pronto. They signed my name to it. I’ll wager that came as a nice little shock.”

She swallowed. “Did he really believe you’d been hanged? Didn’t Sheriff Harper send word to him after you escaped?”

“No,” Cal said. “Harper’s dead. I shot him during the jailbreak as he was about to plug Jesse in the back.”

Melora closed her eyes.

“So I reckon when that wire came, my good old pard Campbell got the shock of his life.”

Cal watched as she opened her eyes, visibly struggling to take it all in. He let her go when she wrenched away from him. Then it was her turn to pace, a churning restlessness driving her from the countertop to the stove, to the pantry, and back again to the table.

“What makes you think he’ll come for me?” she demanded, her fingers splayed on the wood surface. “He’ll probably just cut his losses and run.”

“No way.”

“How can you say that? Now that he knows you’re alive and on to him, he must know that you could show up in Rawhide and challenge his identity! That you could not only take back the Diamond X, but get him thrown in jail to boot!”

“Campbell’s smart enough to know I can’t take that chance, Melora. What if everyone believed him and not me—just like you did? I need proof. Proof that he was the one involved in rustling in Arizona, proof that he was the one who murdered Grimstock. Proof that he framed me and Joe. I need him to confess—fully and in front of a reliable, completely trustworthy witness. And besides,” he added, giving her a hard, level look that made her heart pound faster, “there’s something else. Something personal.”

She held her breath as he studied her, his expression unreadable. “I wanted Campbell to lose something he cared deeply about. I wanted him to see what it felt like to have something stolen from him. Not just something,
someone.
Someone important. Because he stole not only the Diamond X but my brother’s life. And he stole our good name.”

For some reason she took a step back as he advanced on her. He caught her chin between his fingers and forced her to look up, directly into the green depths of his eyes.

“So I stole his fiancée,” he said as calmly and coldly as an undertaker. “I stole the incomparable Melora Deane.”

There was a silence. Wind soughed through the pines above the farmhouse, and the distant wail of coyotes rent the night.

“Perhaps he won’t care.” Her tone was equally hard. “It seems clear enough that Wyatt—I mean, Campbell—never loved me. He was merely using me. For all I know he’s been planning to take over the Weeping Willow and sell it or—or... I don’t know what, but I’m damn sure going to find out.”

“We’ll both find out.” Cal’s hand moved from her chin. It slid across her cheek, brushing aside a stray lock of golden hair. “Soon as he shows up in Deadwood and walks into my trap.”

“You’re so sure he’ll come?”

“He’ll come.” His gaze traveled from her wide eyes to her full, trembling lips. It dipped down to the swell of her breasts outlined beneath the green and blue flannel shirt, then returned to lock once more with her eyes. There was a roughness in his voice and, at the same time, a kind of gentleness. “He’ll come.”

The wail of a coyote blasted close, so close Melora jumped straight into Cal’s arms. He steadied her, his hands sure and strong. “Campbell’s a skunk, Melora, but he’s made of flesh and blood. He’ll come for you all right. He won’t let go of you without a fight. There’s something in him that makes him always want to be the best—to have the best and flaunt the best.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” she asked lightly, teasingly, half embarrassed by his implication, yet fascinated by it at the same time.

Any other man she had ever known would have taken her in his arms and told her in flattering detail exactly what he meant. Any other man would have kissed her and complimented her and made it all too clear how beautiful and desirable and irresistible he found her.

But Cal did none of those things. He appraised her with eyes as clear and keen as the sharp edge of a knife.

“You damn well know,” he replied coolly, and suddenly he stepped back, away from her. Turning on his heel, he stalked to the door.

Melora felt as though he’d upended a bucket of icy spring water over her head. Twin blotches of color brightened her cheeks as she watched him twist the knob of the kitchen door.

Melora Deane was not accustomed to being rebuffed. For the second time that night shock poured through her.