An Unlikely Lady (21 page)

“Truth for truth. Why are you so bent on getting to Galveston?”

She thought about the answer for a long while. She could continue with her story of a long-lost brother, but Jesse had made sacrifices for her and he deserved more than that. At the same time, experience was a harsh teacher; her very survival relied on secrecy.

“Because there's something missing in my life,” she finally said, choosing her words care
fully. “And I can't rest until I find it.” Once the confession was out, she wished she could take it back. It made her sound weak and pitiful and dependent. She tossed the chicken into the dirt and brushed her hands on skirt. “I don't expect you to understand that, of course . . .”

“I understand it a whole lot more than you give me credit for.”

The breath damned up in Honesty's chest as she looked into his changeling eyes and saw an unspoken history in the somber depths. And a bond formed between them, a tentative friendship, a fragile awareness that perhaps in another time, another place, under different circumstances, she and Jesse might have had a chance for something more. Something lasting and unique and indestructible.

Something she'd once longed for with every fiber of her being.

She almost laughed at her own foolishness. What kind of relationship based on lies and half-truths and vague admissions ever lasted? It would be wiser and so much safer to stay within the boundaries they'd set. Anything more was far too dangerous to contemplate.

“I'm tired, Jesse. I think I'll go lie down with the horses for a while.”

“Just make sure you're still there when it's time to leave, Honesty. I won't waste my time looking for you.”

Whatever peace they'd managed to attain in the last few minutes was spoiled by his harsh words. “Don't worry, Jesse. I wouldn't want you wasting anything on me, much less your time.”

As she walked away, her spine so stiff it looked as if someone had shoved a steel rod down the back of her dress, Jesse cursed his careless tongue. Why did he say things like that to her?

The clatter of approaching wheels stopped him from examining the question and alerted him that he was about to have company. Jesse rinsed off the last of the soap, heaved himself out of the barrel, and reached for his pile of clothes.

His hand froze atop bare stone. “Aw, damn it! Honesty, what did you do with my clothes?”

With nothing but silence for an answer, a growl rose up in Jesse's throat. He wouldn't put it past her to have shoved them into the well.

“So help me, Honesty, if you don't bring back my clothes, I'll tan your fanny black and blue!”

A sudden screech behind Jesse spun him around. He froze, then clapped both hands over his privates to hide himself from the two nuns watching him from the wagon that had just arrived.

It got worse.

Behind the nuns loomed a face Jesse hadn't
seen in over ten years, and hadn't expected ever to see again. J. B. Cooper had once been the top tin in a tiny Kansas cattle town, and his purse had always seemed to exceed a lawman's salary. Suspicions within the town council had resulted in Jesse appearing on the scene, posing as a down-on-his luck drover to bust up what turned out to be a profitable rustling ring.

“Did you hear him, Father?” the taller nun gasped. “Did you hear how he threatened that poor lamb?”

Poor lamb? “I hardly know her! I met her in a saloon in Colorado—”

The sister gasped in horror. “Heaven have mercy, he is defiling her, too.”

“I'm not defiling anyone.” The righteous faces staring at him with disapproval told Jesse that defending himself was pointless. “Look, I'm taking her to her brother. That's it. Then I'm heading back to Colorado.”

“No doubt to corrupt the morals of another young woman,” the vocal one accused. “Father, you must do something. We are but shepherds for the Lord, entrusted to protect His innocent lambs.”

Innocent lambs? They couldn't be talking about the same girl.

“Sisters, wait for me in the chapel while I have a word with our brother.”

Jesse almost thanked the man for dismissing
the women. Standing stark naked in the presence of two nuns wasn't his idea of a Sunday picnic. The sooner they left, the less awkward he'd feel.

With a final sniff, the taller of the nuns spun on her heel and started toward the chapel. When her companion did not immediately follow, she paused to hiss, “Sister Marguerite!”

“Oh! Yes, Sister Agnes. Right away.”

Once they left, Cooper gave him an intense up-and-down study. Any hope that the man wouldn't remember the grief Jesse had given him all those years ago was dashed the instant he folded his hands before him and flashed that smirk Jesse remembered so well.

“Goodness. Look how far the mighty have fallen—or should I say, the mighty's clothing has fallen?”

“What are you doing in that get-up, Cooper?”

“It's Father Cooper. I am a man of the cloth now—which is more than you can say.”

“You? A priest? Since when did hell freeze over?”

“I'll thank you not to use profanity, Brother Justiss,” Cooper chided him imperiously. “And for your information, three years in prison gave me plenty of time to reflect on my sinful ways and turn my life around.”

“Yeah, and I'm an angel come to give you your wings,” Jesse scoffed. Cooper seemed to
forget that he'd been caught with his pants down—so to speak—a heck of a lot more times than Jesse, and usually while in the company of another man's wife. “My guess is you stole the suit off a dead man and are passing yourself off as a priest for a free meal and bed.”

That got the man's temper rising. “I can see that you haven't changed a bit, Justiss. You're still the same cocky upstart you've always been, showering your judgment upon the heads of others. So I'll tell you what I'm going to do for you—I'm going to return the favor you granted me.”

“And what favor is that?”

The smile should have warned him. “I am going to place you under arrest—”

“What?”

“For public indecency and immoral conduct.”

The gravity of the situation became unmistakable when Cooper clapped his hand on Jesse's shoulder and pushed him toward the outer edges of the mission grounds. “You can't arrest me—you're a priest, not a sheriff.”

“Who now wears the badge of the Lord. Let's see if a month will be enough time for you to repent of your sinful ways.”

“Oh, Sister Agnes, that was wonderful,” Honesty praised the woman beside her after
swallowing one last bite of cake. “You are truly a gifted cook.”

“God blesses us all with talents to glorify His name.” She clasped Honesty's hands with bony fingers. “I am so pleased that you came to us, child.”

“I wish I could stay longer, but I had better get back to Jesse before he starts to wonder where I've gone to.”

“Have no fear, child, you are safe from him.”

“Him? As in Jesse?” Honesty almost laughed at the absurdity. For all his bluff and bluster, she'd never felt safer with anyone than him, with the exception of her heart. “Jesse would never hurt me.”

“Such a brave child,” Sister Agnes crooned in sympathy, then gave Honesty's hand a pat. “But you needn't be brave any longer. We often give sanctuary to women in danger of those heavy-handed individuals who seek to punish. You will come to no harm here. Father Cooper is seeing to it.”

It took a moment for the words to register. When they did, Honesty felt her cheeks pale. “Oh, no, what have you done to Jesse?”

The penance chamber was exactly four paces wide, five strides long, and six and a half feet high, with nothing more than a bucket in the corner that Jesse couldn't bring himself to use,
and a small square window cut high into a solid wooden door through which, if he stood on the tips of his toes, he could peer outside into the waning light of day.

He alternated between pacing the cell and squatting on the floor with his hands draped loosely atop his knees. The inactivity left him with ample time on his hands to do nothing but ponder his situation. He'd always known that the choices he'd made in his personal and professional life might have a later impact, and he'd thought he'd prepared for any occurrence.

But he sure hadn't prepared himself for this.

Cooper hadn't even given him the benefit of clothes, and the dampness of his surroundings clung to his skin.

He paced the beam of sunlight on the floor, eroding a path into the dirt with his heels. As the day wore on, the beam got shorter. The adobe walls shrank around him, pressing against his brain, closing around his lungs. Shapes shifted behind his eyes. A sense of desperation clawed its way up his throat. He had to get out.

No escape, no escape.

Hell and damnation, where was Honesty? If Cooper decided to use her against him, he'd be powerless to do anything to stop it. Or maybe Honesty had planned this, and somehow conned Cooper into getting him out of the way.
He couldn't imagine Honesty betraying him that way, but he hadn't dreamed Miranda would do so, either.

Put him in the Hastings shaft. Let him see what happens to people who try and cross me.

And Miranda's face, with that small smug smile, that spiteful glitter in her eyes. She'd played him all along. Plotted and planned from the moment he'd told her who he was, just to save her own skin.

Sliding his back down the wall, he fell hard onto the floor, sweat dripping down his brow. His heart slammed in his chest with bruising force. He drove his fingers through the hair at his temples and bowed his head. Of its own will, his body started rocking.

From somewhere above, the call of his name reached into the recesses of his mind.

“Jesse, are you in there?”

The voice seemed to beat at the fog around him, a distant beckoning that changed in tone and pitch, becoming hollow and distorted.
“Are you in there, darling?”

“Jesse, answer me!”

“Answer me, darling.”

He peered into the thick darkness but saw nothing. The stink of coal and mildew and bitter surrender filled his nostrils. “Was this your plan all along?” he asked hoarsely.

“Plan?” came a confused reply. “What are you talking about?”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about, Miranda. I might have fallen for that innocent ruse before, but not this time.”

For several moments, silence ruled the night. Then she spoke again, slowly, distinctly. “Jesse, you're talking nonsense. I'm Honesty, and I've come to help you.”

Honesty.

His mind latched onto the name, took it apart, tested each syllable. His heart rate dropped to a slow, emphatic thump. The stink of defeat receded.

“Did you hear me, Jesse? I've come to help.”

Jesse blinked and came to full awareness. Honesty. Cooper. The penance chamber . . . “Go away, Honesty. I don't need your help.”

“Really? Who else is going to get you out of here?”

“Let me rephrase it—I don't want your help.”

“Come now, Jesse, you're being childish.”

Jesse stared in her direction in astonishment.
“I'm
being childish?
I
am being childish? You stole my clothes! You have those mercenaries in black habits believing that I beat you!”

“I took your clothes to Sister Agnes for washing and was bringing you back a clean set. And
they're not mercenaries, they're missionaries who are keeping my virtue at heart.”

“Virtue? That's a joke. Do they know what you do for a living?”

After a moment's pause, she asked in a small, timid voice, “Are you telling them?”

A blade of guilt sliced through the tangle of helpless fury and humiliation that churned in Jesse's gut. “They wouldn't believe me if I did.”

Honesty couldn't prevent the tears that welled up in her eyes. It was her fault he was in there. She'd thought that leaving him naked and defenseless would be a harmless and fitting retaliation. She'd had no idea her moment of satisfaction would see him punished, and in a manner that obviously took a deeper toll on him than she'd ever imagined. She wouldn't have blamed him if he shouted her sins to the world if it would save him. But even when she least deserved it, he maintained a sense of honor that moved her beyond words.

The need to touch him, to assure herself that he was all right, compelled her to reach through the window. Her hand met only the blackness that concealed him from view.

“I'm going to get you out of here, Jesse.”

He snorted, and Honesty couldn't tell if that meant “don't bother” or “yeah, right.” Either way, she'd get him released.

An hour later, she sat primly in a tiny room off the chapel across from the one man who could grant Jesse his freedom. Father J. T. Cooper was a tall, slender man with a beaked nose and narrow eyes, who looked more like an undertaker than a priest. The odds in Jesse's favor didn't look promising.

Still, she refused to give up. Jesse had saved her life more times than she wanted to remember; she owed it to him to do whatever it took to set him free. If it meant making a full confession to a man of God, then so be it.

“So you see, Father, this has all just been a misunderstanding. Jesse has not compromised me or defiled me or done anything to harm me. If anything, it's the other way around. I am the one who should be punished, not him.”

Father Cooper leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his prominent chin. “Let me see if I've got this straight,” he mused aloud. “In the last three weeks, the two of you have been traveling alone, slept in houses of sin, engaged in premarital behavior, and deceived one another on more occasions than you can recall.”

Having her many sins recapped made Honesty realize how compromising the situation sounded. She bowed her head in contrition. “Yes, Father.”