Blaze (57 page)

"Never again, bia," he replied with his own casual smile, but instantly shuttered his gaze when he realized what he'd called her. Rising abruptly, he moved over to his seat opposite and lapsed into the moody silence prevalent since New York.

When Blaze complained of the boredom several hours later, he bought some books for her at their layover in Chicago. When she complained of his silence, he only looked up and said, "I'm thinking."

On the following afternoon, Blaze opened the window, dropped the books out, and demanded, "Talk to me."

Hazard opened his eyes and uncurled from the green and crimson upholstered seat which turned at night into a fine linen-covered berth. In extremely slow motion, he eased himself partially upright from his dozing sprawl. He'd been up at each stop during the night checking on passengers boarding. The closer they came to St. Joseph, Missouri, the more apt they were to run into Yancy. St. Joe was the jumping-off point for trails west. Yancy knew that, and although alternate routes existed overland, they were either too far south or passed through Lakota territory. Hazard might chance the Lakota on his own, but would never attempt it with a pregnant woman.

So the logical choice was stage west from St. Joe; not only a logical one but the only option. Yancy would be aware of the limitations, he knew, and that was why Hazard slept very little last night.

"Talk to me," Blaze repeated. "We've been on this train two days and you've barely said a dozen words." He had been either uncommunicative or abrupt to the point of discourtesy.

"We don't have much to talk about." He didn't seem inclined to change his pattern.

Blaze wasn't about to be ignored for a third day. "Are we going by stage from Council Bluffs?" she persisted.

"Most likely." He was lounging on one elbow, his voice as lazy as his pose.

"I heard you leave last night, more often than usual.

Why?" And when his eyes seemed on the verge of closing again, she firmly added, "I want an answer."

Slowly dropping his feet onto the deluxe compartment carpet, Hazard finally sat up. Apparently Blaze wasn't going to be denied today. "Checked who came on board."

"Yancy?"

"Not yet."

"Do you really think he'll follow us? Wouldn't it be more sensible for him to stay in Boston and spend my money?"

"Yancy never struck me as a moderate man. More greedy than most and more vengeful. I'm sure he'll come after you. And me. And our child."

"Can we get to Montana?"

He shrugged. "We'll make a damn good try."

"I could ride."

"Not now."

"I'm only about four months pregnant."

"This wouldn't be a leisurely cross-country jaunt. You can't hold up to eighteen, twenty hours in the saddle. It's too dangerous for the child."

"Only the child?"

"You, too, obviously."

"Thanks for the concern."

"For someone found at the most expensive abortionist in the country, don't question my concern." His answer was spiny-tempered and curt.

"I wouldn't have gone through with it."

"And then again you might have changed your mind; women have been known to change their minds. I couldn't take that chance… again." His eyes were suddenly internally focused. And pained.

"Again?" Blaze breathed, the word conjuring up un-revealed mysteries.

Recalled to himself, to the green and crimson decorated railway compartment, to the wide-eyed woman opposite him, Hazard simply said, "There're other ways besides the Madame Restells of the world. All cultures have their methods."

"Your wife," Blaze whispered, understanding suddenly about the dresses carefully packed away as reliquaries.

He didn't move, hardly breathed. When he spoke at last, his voice was disembodied, speaking from the distance of time. "She mortally damaged herself and our child… my child," he said very softly. He paused, all the old memories and pain vivid as bloodstains on snow. After a long while he looked up. "She was sixteen, and strong." He went on quietly, "It took her a week to die. I held her hand and watched her slowly leave me." And he saw her features again as though it were yesterday, saw her dying slowly in agony. He swallowed and exhaled gently. "We were young. I loved her very much. We were inseparable after our marriage. She'd come with me on the raids. When she discovered she was pregnant she didn't tell me. I wouldn't have allowed her to come along anymore. So she tried to abort herself—very crudely, it turned out." His eyes drifted up and caught Blaze's horrified gaze. "So don't," he said gently, a lifetime of regret in his voice, "do anything foolish. And don't talk to me about riding the way we'd have to, to stay ahead of Yancy. I won't let you."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know; I'd never have mentioned it had I known. Please, Hazard, don't hate me." Blaze murmured in a small, pained whisper. Don't hate me, she thought, because of another's mistake.

Hazard sighed and watched the landscape slide by.

"Can we be friends, at least… for now?" she coaxed, wishing it were possible to hold him and give him the comfort he needed.

"I'll try," he slowly answered.

It wasn't much, Blaze thought, but a concession of sorts, the first harsh anger mitigated, a step in the right direction. And Hazard always kept his word, so he would try.

It was better for the remainder of the day; they were able to talk a little, and when he locked her in, he apologized. He even smiled faintly—the first hint of a smile since he'd found her.

He'd been careful, during their days on the train, to leave when Blaze readied herself for bed and when she rose and dressed in the morning. He'd learned his lesson well—learned it the hard way. Almost died from the education. And he didn't intend to be lured or enchanted again by Blaze's beauty or sensuality.

ALL hell broke loose in Boston when Yancy returned with the news that Blaze had disappeared.

Millicent had hoped Hazard wouldn't get to Madame Restell's in time, had even vaguely hoped he couldn't find the place. But she had never considered he'd get past all of them to Blaze and manage to elude them as well. Millicent went so far as to feelingly declare, several decibels louder than those considered genteel, "You are a goddamned fool, Yancy Strahan. And if you don't find her, I can't imagine supporting you on my dower portion."

"He's back," Yancy brusquely replied. "It's not going to be easy," accepting her negation of their marriage plans with blunt agreement. He'd do the same to her under the circumstance.

"How much!" Millicent snapped, well aware, with Hazard's finger marks on her neck, that he was back. "Tell me how much it's going to cost."

They were partners in a venture that could have realized millions. It still might. Neither was willing to give up yet. She needed him and he needed her: his brawn, her money, and between them a plain, bare-faced predisposition to let nothing stand in the way of the fortune they coveted. Like duelists they had politely parried those early weeks in Montana, dropping a word or tentative hint here and there, waiting to hear the other's response, then moving to the next position, like calculating professionals until they were engaged fully, both understanding the other's strengths, both sure after the initial moves, that they would make better partners than adversaries.

And beneath their callous exteriors, they held each other in a strange respect, tempered at times with a curiously erotic attraction. Wickedness attracted to vice.

"I need trackers, horses, supplies. He's ahead of me, but if I can hire Hyde in St. Joe, he won't get away. Neither will get away. Hyde can track anything."

"Give me a figure and get packed. I'll have the bank draft ready when you come down. They are not to escape this time. Understand?"

Yancy nodded briefly. He understood perfectly.

"How far ahead of you are they?" Millicent briskly inquired, already moving toward her desk.

"A day or so by the time I'm organized, but Hazard's not going to be able to travel fast with her."

Millicent's silk skirt brushed the carpet as she half turned back. "What makes you so sure they're heading west?" she pointedly questioned.

"He's an Injun," Yancy matter-of-factly replied.

was the one who insisted they stay overnight in St. Joseph. She pleaded fatigue, the pregnancy, and a half-dozen other symptoms to make him agree. "I want to sleep in a real bed, not a poorly padded shelf attached to the wall."

He didn't want to stay. Speed was their only hope of staying ahead of Yaney, and he told her so.

"I'm so tired, Jon. Would one night really matter?" They'd transferred twice in the last leg of their rail journey—the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad first, and then the ferry to the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad—and the travel was beginning to exhaust Blaze.

They were standing in a sheltered alcove near the carriage stand, and the sight, sounds, and smells of St. Joe in the afternoon bustled around them. Hazard would only feel safe hiring a stage and leaving in the next five minutes. But he cast an appraising glance at Blaze and noted the smudged half-circles under her eyes, stark with fatigue, and the lack of color in her cheeks; swiftly calculating the possible danger against her frail health, he nodded his agreement.

He wasn't expecting the sudden hug she gave him. If he had, he would have avoided it, as he'd deliberately avoided any physical contact with Blaze since New York. She felt warm and soft and very familiar against his body, and he only hesitated briefly before his arms closed around her back. He looked down at her in his arms and instantly felt desire burn his heart.

Blaze lifted her face, their eyes met, and she smiled. "Thank you," she said.

"You're welcome," he answered, crushing the smoldering longing, offering only a constrained reply. Here he was in St. Joe, on the run, in broad daylight, on the busiest corner in town, his entire life in the balance, and all he could think about was wanting her. It was madness. He couldn't afford it. "We should go," he said.

Blaze shook her head, leaning into him, his arms around her giving her new strength and joy. Make it last.

The crowds of passengers pushed past them, church bells began chiming somewhere in the heart of the city. "It's not safe here." And she felt his grip slacken. "This is the first place they'll look," Hazard said in a tone calculated to persuade her of the danger. He extricated himself gently from her arms. "We have to go."

NEITHER spoke in the carriage. Hazard's rejection, while gentle, was obvious and Blaze, hurt at the rebuff, turned her head away while tears silently splashed on her cheeks. Hazard was being his most calculating self and in that mood was virtually unapproachable. For the first time since her happiness at seeing him in New York, she began to doubt her ability to move him. All the old arguments were still cogent, and now the additional one of her alleged complicity with Yancy was seeming insurmountable.

It was a subdued wife Hazard introduced to Lydia Bailey at her small farmhouse north of town. Subdued, paler than usual and looking fragilely small next to Hazard's large form.

"Shame on you, Hazard," Lydia said the second she met Blaze. "This poor child is practically falling over. I don't know why you men never understand you can't drive a woman like an Indian pony."

Hazard looked sheepish for a moment. "I guess I need you to remind me occasionally," he confessed with a penitent tip of his head.

"Darn right you do." And Lydia Bailey, who even at sixty stood straight-backed almost eye to eye with Hazard, cast him a stern, scolding look. "Now you go unload that carriage and have something to eat," she ordered, "and I'll put this poor mite to bed." And Lydia shooed Blaze down the hall. "Now you eat," she said to Hazard before following after Blaze. "You look a bit peaked yourself."