An Unlikely Lady (16 page)

It gave her small comfort to see his stiff dismount. Then he rolled his arm in its socket, and a sliver of sympathy cut through her anxiety. “Is your shoulder paining you?”

“Sometimes the weather stiffens it up.” He shrugged off her concern and flipped his saddlebags over one shoulder. “Did you pack any food in that bag?”

Food?
“Uhm, I think I have a few biscuits left.”

His drawn out sigh made her realize how ill equipped she was for this venture. She'd left with little more than a few changes of clothing and her money jar. “I wasn't expecting to feed an army on this trip, Mr. Jones. I brought just enough to tide me over until I reached Canon City.”

“We aren't going to Canon City.”

Honesty paused in mid-dismount. “Not going to—but it's on the map!”

He turned and pinned her with a narrow-eyed look. “What map?”

Oh, blast it! She'd never meant for him to learn of the map she'd coaxed a peddler into drawing soon after Deuce's death, for that might lead to more questions. Now that she'd let its existence out of the bag, she couldn't very well hide it. “The one I got off a troupe of actors,” she improvised, then reached into her skirt pocket for the folded slip of paper. “They said they saw George with another troupe headed for Galveston.”

“What are all these stars?” he asked, pointing to the marks that indicated Canon City, Rocky Ford, and the old Dripping Gold Mine.

“Their stopping points.”

Jesse raised his gaze and studied her face with an intensity that made Honesty squirm. “Who else knows about this map?”

“Only the man I got it from.”

Then he gave her a grim smile. “Sorry to disappoint you, darlin', but we aren't going to any of these places. In fact, we're going to avoid towns altogether for a while. We'll head south, then hitch up with the first train into New Mexico.”

“But how am I supposed to find my brother if you plan on avoiding the places he might be?”

“The train will take us to Trinidad. If his troupe was there, we'll hear about it, and cut over into Texas. If he hasn't shown up yet, we'll hole up there till he does.”

Honesty seethed. “I don't recall agreeing that you would be the one to call the shots. If you expect me to pay for your protection, then you'd best take me where I want to go.”

“Fine. As long as it isn't Canon City.”

She resisted the childish impulse to stomp her foot. “What do you have against Canon City?”

“It's the second place they'll look.”

Honesty felt the blood drain from her face. She didn't need to ask who “they” were. “What's the first?”

“Last Hope.”

Oh, God, she'd known he'd say that.

A sudden horrifying thought occurred. “Do you think they'll hurt Rose?”

“She's a tough lady. She can take care of herself.”

The implication that Honesty couldn't made her bristle.

“I'm going to see if I can scare up a few trout. Go ahead and set up camp if you think you can manage it, and while you're at it, try to get a fire started. Keep this with you just in case.” He tossed her the Colt from his holster. “Don't shoot yourself.”

As he walked away, she curled her lip and mimicked, “Don't shoot yourself.”
Arrogant ass.
She'd pitched so many camps and started so many fires, she could do it blindfolded. Just be
cause she hadn't expected to be accosted by a pair of murdering fortune-seekers, and hadn't packed enough food to feed a blasted army, didn't mean she was completely incompetent.

And, by God, she'd prove it.

J
esse stared grimly into the ripples in the stream, his thoughts on Honesty and that map she'd produced. The marked route closely resembled the trail he'd set for himself, stretching from Colorado through New Mexico and across Texas to the coast.

She said she'd gotten it from a troupe of actors. It was a logical explanation, considering George Mallory was a traveling thespian, and one he might have bought hook, line, and sinker if his nose wasn't itching up a storm. Honesty was lying, and for the life of him, he couldn't figure out why. What was she hiding from him?

He'd bet his boots it had something to do with George Mallory. Damn, but he wished he
could remember where he'd heard that name before. In Denver? Leadville? Down in Durango? No, for some reason, he felt it hadn't been in recent months.

Well, maybe someone at the agency could shed a little light on the mystery. It had been weeks since he'd sent in his last report to McParland, so as soon as it was safe to slip into a town, he'd wire him an update on the McGuire case and tack on an inquiry about Honesty's brother.

In the meantime, Honesty was like a child's puzzle with too many pieces missing, and the pieces he did have just didn't fit. The harder he tried to make it happen, the more it fueled his appetite for answers.

Forty-five minutes and two scaled trout later, Jesse headed back to camp. He found Honesty sitting on the ground in front of a pile of dried logs, a saddle blanket around her shoulders to ward off the chill.

“Why didn't you start the fire?” he asked.

She glared at him over her shoulder. “You didn't leave me any matches.”

Jesse's shoulders slumped. Jesus, this was going to be a long trip. He reached into his pocket with a sigh, dug out a small tinderbox, and tossed it to her.

She caught it one-handed. “Nice box. Where'd you get it?”

“My mother gave it to me last Christmas.”

“You have a mother?”

“Of course I have a mother! Did you think I sprouted from the ground?”

“I don't guess I thought much about it at all. I just never pictured you as a man with ties.”

She was right on that mark. Few agents he knew had ties with anyone.

“Well, I do. My mother used to sing. You sound a lot like her.”

“Why did she stop?”

He paused for a moment to choose his words. “Reckon she couldn't hear the music anymore.”

Honesty studied him closely, and Jesse turned away lest she see more than he wanted her to and start asking more questions.

It wasn't until she turned the tin box over that Jesse remembered the symbol etched into the bottom. He lunged forward and swiped the tinderbox from her grasp before she could see it.

Honesty gasped and cast him a startled look. “What did you do that for? I was just trying to figure out how it opened!”

“The catch sticks sometimes,” he answered shortly. He made a show of popping the clasp, then presented her with the flintstone and steel stick inside, making sure to cup the bottom of the container in his hand.

Honesty took the items with a disgusted
shake of her head, then struck the flint and the steel against each other. After several unsuccessful tries, she handed the items back to Jesse with a grimace. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

“Your mother,” she said, sitting back on her heels to watch while he took over the chore. “Where is she now?”

“Probably still raising hell in Montana with my grandmother.” Sparks flashed from the tinder as Jesse struck the flint against the rock. “Last I heard, they'd joined up with a bunch of women lobbying for their right to vote. If I know my mother, she'll be leading the pack.”

“I never knew my mother.”

“Did she die?”

“When I was very young. My father never talked about her. I think it was too painful.”

Holding the tangled strands of her hair out of the way, Honesty leaned forward and blew gently on a mound of dried grasses, fanning not only the glowing embers, but a banked memory of those pursed lips beneath his, and her soft, willing participation. His stomach twisted into a tight knot and as the tinder burst into a tiny flame, Jesse became painfully aware that unless he was careful, the same thing would happen to him.

He tore himself from the spell Honesty was winding around him, whether by accident or
design, and strode toward his saddlebags to fetch a frying pan. If he hadn't already agreed to escort Honesty to the Texas border, he'd have kept right on walking.

When he turned around, he found Honesty waiting with her hand outstretched toward him.

“What?”

“The pan,” she said. “You caught the fish; I'll cook them.”

Jesse laughed and shook his head.

“Look, I might not have gotten the fire started, but I think I can manage to fry a couple of fish.”

A few minutes later, much to his surprise, she presented him with a plate of trout cooked so tender that it melted in his mouth. He finished off his share quickly, then closed his eyes in bliss. “That was the first decent meal I've had since leaving Last Hope.”

“See? I'm not completely helpless.”

“I never said you were.”

“You didn't have to.”

A sliver of guilt once again crept into his conscience. Had he really been that hard on her? Recalling his behavior since her escape from the Treat brothers, Jesse realized she'd taken more off him than she deserved. What kind of man yelled at a woman, drove her past her endurance, then treated her like an imbecile after an ordeal such as the one she'd endured?
“Look Honesty, I know you've had a rough few days of it, and I probably haven't made it any easier—”

A soft snort told him he'd get no argument from her there.

“—but we'll find your brother.”

“Soon, I hope.”

No sooner than he did.

Jesse leaned back and patted his pocket for a cigarette. After lighting it with a twig, he leaned back against his saddle and rested his hand on an upraised knee. “Have you given any thought to what you'll do when we find him?”

She lifted her head.

“He's a traveling actor, right?” he asked. “Do you plan on traveling with him?”

The question caught her noticeably off-guard. “I guess I never gave it much thought. I suppose I'll decide that when I find him.”

If
they found him, Jesse thought, but kept it to himself.

“It must have been tough losing your father.”

She shoved a bit of flaky trout into her mouth. Eating was never a function Jesse considered evocative, but by God, that was before he'd seen Honesty do it. She took delicate bites, pushing each morsel partway into her mouth, drawing the rest in with her tongue, then licking her fingers. One long, slender finger at a time. Then she'd repeat the process.

Oh, damn.

He shook his head and crossed his legs at the ankles to conceal the growing bulge between his thighs. “How did he die again?”

“He was shot.”

“I thought he caught a disease.”

Her fingers stilled on the last bite of trout and her gaze snapped to his. “Who told you that?”

“Rose. She said you went to work in the mining camps after you lost your family to diphtheria.”

She glanced away and wiped her hands on her pant legs. “You probably misunderstood. Are you finished with that plate?”

There she went again, trying to veer away from the subject. “What part did I misunderstand? You working in the mining camps, or the way your father died?”

“Since when is my personal life any of your business?” she snapped. “Do you hear me flinging questions at you left and right? Do you hear me prying into your affairs? No, you don't. So unless you're willing to spill all your little secrets, don't go drilling for mine.”

She got to her feet and strode down to the stream. Jesse watched her, fighting an insane urge to go after her and apologize. Why, he couldn't figure. She'd done nothing but turn his life upside down since the day he'd met her. If
anyone needed to apologize, it was her. She was the one dragging him into her problems, keeping secrets, delaying his own mission.

Even if he did owe her an apology, he wasn't sure he could find the words. Apologies had never come very easily to him—maybe because he'd spent so many years turning off his conscience to get the job done, that he found it hard to believe he had a remorseful bone left in his body.

She was right, though. He'd agreed to be her protector, not her interrogator, and he had no right digging up her secrets unless he was willing to make her privy to his. The day he'd been carried out of that old coal mine on a corpse's cot and discovered Miranda had sold him out, he'd sworn never to make himself that vulnerable again.

So why did he feel as if he was in the wrong?

It must have been about three o'clock in the morning when his dozing senses came wide awake. He thought he'd heard a sound, but it was quiet as a lullaby, with only an occasional cricket's chirp and the lonesome babble of the stream. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing he wasn't used to.

Just the same old quiet he'd dealt with every day of every year since he'd been seventeen.
There wasn't a part of the night he didn't call friend. Often he'd felt as if he were the only one in the world.

Except tonight he had company.

His head angled toward Honesty's still form across the fire. He couldn't see her clearly, with the night wrapped around her as tightly as the woolen blanket around her shoulders. But he was aware of her. Her scent. Her shape. Even her heartbeat.

He looked up through a tunnel of branches to the diamond-speckled sky. Was she the reason for his waking up at such an ungodly hour? It was possible. It felt strange, having someone share his blanket of stars. Strange in a disturbing, comforting kind of way.

Hell.

He rolled onto his side and closed his eyes.
Just go to sleep, Justiss.
This regrettable little venture was complicated enough without him letting his thoughts drift down a road he hadn't traveled in years.

Again the sound came, the barest of whispers, a muffled whimper. Jesse's eyes snapped open and he strained to listen. Was she crying? Dreaming?

With an impatient sigh, he flipped off the blanket and rolled to his feet. Three steps around the fire pit brought him to her side. The embers cast a red glow against her creamy
cheek and turned the golden brown strands of hair around her face an auburn hue.