Beauty and the Bounty Hunter (33 page)

“I hadn’t decided,” she said.

“You are magnificent.” His gaze warmed her. Cat hadn’t realized she was cold. “Strong and capable. Smart and canny. Willing to risk everything, do anything, to have your vengeance.”

I wasn’t willing to risk you,
she thought.

Then, unable to remain still any longer, Cat crossed to the creek, tore off another section of her shirt and dampened it. She came back and began to wash the blood from his skin.

“I woke up,” she said quietly, “and you were gone.”

“How did you like it?”

Cat met his eyes and told him the truth. “I didn’t.”

“I could no longer bear the lies.”

“Lies?” she murmured, confused. “You mean what Larsen said? I couldn’t—I didn’t—”

He made a sound of exasperation, then took the now-bloody rag from her hand and tossed it over his shoulder. “I am not a fool. From the moment I found you standing on my doorstep in the rain, I knew.”

“If you knew…” She stared down, gathering her courage before once again meeting his eyes. “How could you touch me?”

He lifted a hand to her cheek. Her breath, the very air around them, stilled at all she saw in his eyes. “How could I not?”

For an instant Cat wasn’t sure what to say and then—“Wait a second. You knew what that bastard had done to me, yet you made it a condition of helping me that I sleep with you? That’s…That’s…”

His hand dropped away. “Wasn’t it better to face what you feared? Not doing so only makes that fear loom larger.”

“Says the man who carries empty guns.”

“We aren’t talking about me.”

“We will,” she muttered.

“Aren’t you better now?”

“Better?” she repeated, as if the word were foreign.

“You think I was wrong to require your body as payment for my help? You think I did so because I couldn’t resist your allure?”

“Well…yeah.”

“
Durochka,
when you arrived in Omaha you were a skinny, hollow-eyed wreck. I could have resisted you.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“You were so brave, so determined to make things right. Or as right as they could be, considering nothing would ever be right again.”

Cat swallowed. He’d taken one look into her eyes, and he’d known everything. Yet still he had touched her. Protected her. Been willing to give his life for her. Even while she was doing her best to die for a dead man, Alexi Romanov had stood by her. Did that mean he loved her too?

She didn’t know, and she wasn’t sure how to ask.

“Besides,” he continued, “I thought I could fix you.”

“With make-believe?”

“It had worked for me. Why not for you?”

“You still puke when you shoot a gun.”

“You still pretend to be anyone but yourself when I touch you.”

There was something in his voice that made her sharp retort die. “Is that what you meant by the lies? Is
that
why you left?”

“I couldn’t stand it anymore. I wanted you to
see
me. To
touch
me. And not Jed or the prince of Persia or whoever else you pretended I was.”

Cat bit her lip. She could let him continue to believe that, or she could take a chance and tell the truth.

“My parents called me Catey.”

Confusion darkened his eyes from sapphire to midnight. “What?”

“I was born Cathleen. Billy and his family always called me that. But
my
family called me Catey.”

Alexi stared at her as what she had said sank in; his smile slowly blossomed. “You weren’t pretending.” She shook her head.

The moment stretched out. They were on the edge of something new, something frightening, but also very important.

“I meant to leave,” he said. “Would have. Then I saw the sheriff coming into the hotel, heard him asking questions. I glanced down, saw I’d put on your shirt and—”

“You became me.”

“It is what I do best.” Alexi got to his feet, though not without a little help from Cat when he almost fell back again. Once upright, he kept his arm around her shoulders, and she kept hers around his waist.

“You could have died.” Cat swallowed. The thought of what might have been caused her to tighten her grip, to hold him even closer. They’d been given another chance, so she took it. “I don’t think I could live in a world without you in it, Alexi.”

He lifted his gaze to the sky. For an instant Cat thought she’d misjudged everything. Then his eyes met hers; in his smile she once again found hope. “I guess
the dead bastard was right.” At her curious expression, he continued. “Only love could make us behave like such fools. Practically tripping over each other to be the first in line to die.”

Cat’s chill returned at the memory of how close they both had come.

“I’ve never loved anyone before,” Alexi admitted.

“I have.” Cat released a long, sad sigh, and with it she let go of Billy. It was time. “I didn’t think I could love again.”

“There are a lot of things you didn’t think you could do again.”

“You taught me differently.”

He stared at the creek, but she didn’t think he saw the flowing, muddy water at all. “I’m not sure if I know how to be the man you need.”

“Alexi.” She waited until he met her eyes. “You already are.”

Together they walked between the towering rock walls that led out of the gorge. As soon as Mikhail saw them, he pulled back from the edge and headed down to meet them. Bodies lay strewn in their path. The only one Cat was concerned about was Larsen’s.

He’d been shot in the head. Alexi was a very good teacher.

She stared at the man for quite a while. She liked looking at him this way a little too much, and that made her realize something else. “I was wrong.”

“Again?”

Cat cast him a dry glance before returning her attention to the lovely hole in Larsen’s head. “You were right.”

“Not only were you wrong, but I was right. How lovely. What was I right about?”

“It doesn’t matter who killed him.” Cat stepped over Larsen’s dead body and moved toward the sunlight at the end of her darkness. “As long as he’s dead.”

A
month later, Cat stared at the ceiling and tried to count backward. However, as she and Alexi had just finished a rousing bout of “princess and the pauper,” she was having difficulty remembering anything, let alone anything backward. But she was fairly certain that she’d been wrong about more than Larsen.

Alexi kissed her, then rolled out of bed. The sun had set, and it was time for him to work.

They’d ridden out of the Rocky Mountains and into the first decent town they saw, bought a square of main street, and opened a gambling hall. While Alexi was a gifted cheat, he was even better at spotting those with the same talent. With Mikhail as the strong arm, they became known quite quickly as an honest house.

Cat filled in where she was needed—behind the bar, dealing poker, even sweeping up when the night was through. She’d considered taking a bounty or two when the urge arose. But just as Alexi had thought he would never be able to stop the dodge, then suddenly, he did, Cat’s urge to help the helpless had faded. Her being wrong might have something to do with that.

“You’ll be down soon?” Alexi reached for his pants. Cat set her hand on his wrist, and he glanced up, curious. Even with the permanent crook in his nose, he was still so beautiful he made her breath catch.

She hadn’t married him yet. She probably should.

“Sit.” Cat patted the bed.

He frowned. But he sat.

Cat stroked his shoulder, her fingers sliding over his wound. It really had been no more than a scratch. But the thought of what could have been had kept her up several nights after they’d left Devil’s Head Mountain.

“I was wrong,” she began.

Alexi’s lips curved. He loved it when she admitted that. “What were you wrong about this time,
moya zhizn’?
”

Annoyance flared. That had been happening a lot lately, and for very little reason—or so she had thought. “Is now really a good time to call me a silly fool?”

“I may have made a slight mistake in the translation.”

“How slight?”

“
Moya zhizn’
means…” He reached out and cupped her cheek. “My life.”

Life.
Cat lifted her hand and set it atop his. Just what she wanted to discuss.

“Remember when I said I was barren?” Cat asked.

Alexi’s eyes went wary. “Yes.”

Cat lowered his hand from her face to her stomach.

“I was wrong.”

T
he mob gathered on the street below. Ethan Walsh hurried from his bedroom on the second floor, down the staircase and out the front door.

“Doc!”

Ethan nearly ran into the leader of the pack, Jeb Cantrell, a fellow old enough to have been the first settler of the great state of Kansas. He was certainly the first settler of Freedom, or at least there was no one left alive to contradict his claim.

“No need to shout, Jeb.” Ethan shut the door firmly behind him. “I’m not deaf.” Too bad Jeb couldn’t say the same.

“Sheriff done fell out yer window!”

“I’m well aware.”

“Aye?” Jeb cupped his hand to his ear and leaned closer.

“Move outta the way.” Jeb’s wife shoved him aside. “Who’s up thar?”

“No one anymore,” Ethan muttered. He’d made certain of it.

Sadie Cantrell squinted her one remaining good eye. “You shove the sheriff out yonder window?”

“No, ma’am.”

Her eye narrowed further. As Sadie Cantrell had been the schoolmarm in Freedom for more years than
Ethan had been alive, she’d perfected “the look” long ago. When Miz Cantrell asked a question, you answered truthfully or she would know the reason why. As Ethan had not thrown the sheriff out yonder window, his answer rang true. She nodded once, then shoved
him
aside.

The Cantrells and assorted Freedom folk, all of whom Ethan knew—he’d been the doctor here since shortly after Lee had surrendered to Grant—hurried into his place. He let them go. They’d find nothing but broken glass. Unless—

Ethan stiffened. Unless they went into the spare room.

He whirled and followed, reaching the landing as they all filed into the first open doorway. “Fool,” he muttered. They had no reason to go in the spare room. The broken window lay in his own.

Several people crunched over the glass on the floor so they could peer into the night. Ethan waited for the outcry, but none came. He crossed the distance himself, glancing over their much shorter heads. The sheriff still lay dead on the ground.

A man could survive a fall like that, but he might walk with a limp forever, if he were able to walk at all. Unfortunately it had been the sheriff’s bad luck that he’d landed on his head. His neck was cricked at an impossible angle, and his wide-open eyes shone now and again as the moon played hide-and-seek with the clouds.

“What happened to your visitors, Doc?” Sam Gifford, the busiest busybody in Freedom, posed the question.

Sam was the local barber, and he didn’t much care for Ethan. While Ethan had been away, Sam had done all the doctoring. Now he had to settle for just cutting
hair. The loss of income, and respect, was enough to make a man cranky. It had certainly made Sam so. At least when he was around Ethan.

“Left a few hours back.” Ethan didn’t expect anyone to question his lie. He’d once lied for a living—or at least lied to
keep
living. Lying was what he did best, next to doctoring, although sometimes Ethan wondered if his life’s work had become little more than a distraction from the biggest lie of all.

He moved closer to the window, crowding everyone else back. In the distance, six figures appeared beneath the murky gray light of the overcast moon—three horses, three people. If Ethan kept the mob occupied a little while longer, his visitors would be gone. If Ethan could outlie anyone, those three could outrun them. All they needed was a decent head start.

“I could have sworn I saw that big feller race in here right after the glass broke.”

Ethan ground his teeth. Mikey, nearly a foot taller than most men and weighing close to three hundred pounds,
was
hard to miss. Nevertheless—

Ethan turned, letting his gaze meet that of every person in the room. “You know I treated a sick woman this past week.”

Nods ensued. Small town. Not much went unnoticed. Which had been the trouble. The sheriff had noted that the woman was more shot than sick. Thankfully, no one else had, and that knowledge, along with who she’d been and why she’d been shot, had died with him.

“She and her husband left earlier today for Texas, where they’re from.” And in a different direction from where they were going.

They weren’t husband and wife either, yet the lie tumbled from Ethan’s tongue like Gospel.

“And the big fella?” Sam reminded him.

“His brother.” Not a flicker of his eye betrayed how painful those words were. “He stayed behind to wait for her medicine. I had to mix another batch.”

Heads continued to nod. Ethan began to relax. His talent at creating believable untruths held.

“How come he ran
in
here when the sheriff fell down?” Sam asked.

“Wouldn’t you?”

Sam blinked. “Huh?”

“If you were sitting outside and heard glass breaking upstairs, wouldn’t you hurry in?”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it again, scowled. “I saw that other feller, the husband, run in too.”

“You must be mistaken. He left before sundown, along with his wife.” Ethan shrugged. “When tragedies happen, it’s difficult to remember the circumstances surrounding them.” He bowed his head. “I found this was often the case during the war.” He’d also found that bringing up the war turned attention away from…pretty much anything.

“You callin’ me a liar?”

Ethan should have known that Sam would not be easily distracted. “I was under the impression you were calling me one.”