Denver (49 page)

He said her name hoarsely, and she rose to meet him while passion burst in release. She cried out in ecstasy, her eyes squeezed shut as she held him, feeling his heart pounding with hers, feeling a union that was more than physical.

Passion ebbed, and Dan’s weight came down on her. She held him close, relishing the feel of his strong body pressing so hard against hers. She traced her finger along his smooth-shaven jaw, thinking it had been the perfect wedding day, a promise for a glowing future.

They stayed shut in their train car in seclusion all the way to Cheyenne. They dressed to go to the hotel, and as soon as they were in their suite, Dan undressed her, his hands moving with haste, dropping clothes as he led her toward the bed.

“Dan, I barely saw the train and I didn’t see any of the towns we passed. I haven’t seen Cheyenne, and I haven’t seen the hotel, and I’m starving right now.”

“The hotel is sending up food, love. I fed you on the train, but I can’t help it if you wouldn’t eat.”

She giggled. “How could I eat, sitting naked on your lap?”

He grinned, drawing his finger down her bare hip. “So you want to get out of bed and go somewhere?”

“No!” She sat up, her red hair cascading over her pale shoulders as she looked down at him. He put his hands behind his head, gazing at her openly. Her voice was breathless as she tangled her fingers in the soft curls on his chest. “No. I don’t want to go anywhere. I was simply making an observation. We could have stayed home.”

“No, we couldn’t have. Michael would have had a crisis, or one of my houses would have needed some attention, or Brian would need you, or Paddy would
blow up the boardinghouse. No, I want you without interruptions or interference.”

“Dan, is there any chance you might change your mind about going back to New Mexico Territory?”

He sobered instantly and reached out to wind his hand in her hair. “Yes. If you don’t want me to go back, I won’t.”

She looked down, running her fingers over him. “I couldn’t bear it if they found you guilty. On the other hand, I understand why you want to go.”

“We don’t have to worry about it now. Mary, Reuben Knelville knows who I am.”

“How do you know?”

“A hunch, but I’d bet everything I’m right.”

“Everything?”
she asked, unable to keep her mind on problems or people or anything except Dan. Instantly worry left his expression as his gaze raked over her and his fingers drifted across her bare breasts.

“No, not
everything,”
he said, letting his hand drift down across her, moving between her legs.

She gasped and closed her eyes as he kissed her.

They came home two weeks later. Michael had made them a table for their dining room as his wedding present, and they knew he was still working on the chairs. In Cheyenne they had ordered two new chairs for the parlor and a rocking chair for their bedroom. They settled into a routine, and Dan stopped work promptly at half-past five every afternoon, hurrying home to her.

He waited for a month, and then one night as they lay in bed, he tightened his arm around her. “Mary, I’ve thought about it constantly. I want to go back to New Mexico and I’ve written Luke. I go in October. He’ll meet me at the border and go with me.”

“I want to go.”

“No.”

She sat up and gazed down at him in the moonlight. “You have to let me,” she said quietly.

Dan heard the determination in her voice and knew he had married a strong woman. Mary would be a
comfort. He nodded. “I don’t think it’s wise, and I’d like to protect you, but if you want—”

“Thank you,” she said in satisfaction, lying back down beside him. She stared into the dark, thinking about Dan on trial for murder, and suddenly she was afraid. She turned to him to wrap her arms around him and cling to him tightly.

He felt her tears on his bare chest. “Hey! Mary, honey, if you cry, I won’t go.”

“Yes, you should go. You have to win, Dan. You just have to!”

Mary went out the next morning, hunting down Michael. “Michael, I need to talk to you alone. I didn’t want Dan to know I was coming.”

Michael scowled and turned to stare at her. He stood beside the horses, feeding them. “Isn’t he good to you?”

She laughed, for a moment forgetting the problem. “Of course. He’s wonderful!” She sobered, dreading what lay ahead. “He’s going to give himself up in New Mexico Territory and stand trial.”

“Why?”

“Because it will always hang over him. If you and Brian hadn’t come along that night, he would have been killed.” She carefully explained, and finally Michael nodded.

“I guess I understand why, but damned if I’d want to go back.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about. If they find him guilty and they try to hang him, I want someone to get him out of jail and safely away.”

Michael stared at her. She faced him squarely. “I know it would mean putting yourself in jeopardy, so if you want to say no, I’ll understand. There are others I can ask. Brian is too young, but Dan has a brother, and a brother-in-law, and Ta-ne-haddle.”

“Forget them, Mary. I’ll go and I’ll do it, but Brian isn’t too young. We can do better together.”

She bit her lip. “If something happened to either one of you, I don’t think I could live.”

He grinned. “We’ll be okay. And don’t you worry. We’ll get him out.”

“Michael, don’t sound so happy over it.”

“Leave it to us and forget it. When does he go?”

“We go—”

“You’re going?”

“Yes, and you can’t keep me from it, Michael. Dan has already agreed.”

“All right. When?”

“In two weeks,” she said woodenly, the future suddenly becoming a giant unknown. Her gaze ran over her brother’s solid shoulders and chest and she felt a little better. “Michael, Dan may have to shoot his way out. He’s been practicing again, and he’s a good shot. He doesn’t know I’ve asked you to do this.”

Michael grinned. “I heard about his shooting in camp from Jethro when he came through here. And I’ve seen Dan shoot. I know he can. Better than anyone else I’ve seen.”

“He says his brother Luke is as quick.”

“Don’t worry, Mary. I promise we won’t let him hang,” he said, but she knew Michael was young and an optimist, and he couldn’t keep such a promise with certainty. She went back home, dreading each day and clinging to Dan and loving him at night with desperation, praying that Luke Danby was as good a lawyer as Dan claimed he was.

Catalina paced the floor of the bedroom, waving a letter in the air. “You have to stop him!
Madre de Dios!
”

“He’s a grown man, Catalina. I can’t stop him.”

“If you won’t defend him, he won’t do this!”

“How can I refuse to defend my brother?”

She threw up her hands and whirled around to put her chin on her hand, her elbow resting on the chiffonier. Smiling, Luke crossed the room to face her. “He’s doing what he wants, so calm down.”

“He just got married. He will hurt his sweet little wife. She’s a baby.”

“No, she’s not,” Luke said gently. “She’s as strong as you are, and probably as feisty. He told me a little about her. Mary has run a boardinghouse for years.”

“That’s cooking and cleaning.”

“And she’s taken care of a tipsy father and raised two younger brothers.”

“Hmpf. He will break her heart! And what if you can’t get him off? It will divide the family again!”

“I’ll do my best.”

If I had just married you, I would not want you turning yourself in for a trial where you might hang!”

“Honey, it’s something he’s tired of living with. And he’s afraid someone may kill him one day. There’s a reward whether he’s dead or alive, which makes shooting him in the back mighty tempting. Would you want to live with that? Or explain that to your sons?”

“Luke, I’m frightened for him. We never see him
much, but he’s so much like Hattie, and I know he’s good. He’s part of the same blood as you.”

“You have a soft heart,” he said, hugging her. She clung to him, her head against his chest.

“I wouldn’t be able to stand it if I were Mary.”

“You’ve stood a lot of things.”

“I want to go with you.”

“Catalina, trials like that can get people stirred up and angry. And it’s in an area that’s very remote. It won’t be in a city. It’ll be a little adobe jail surrounded by the local people.”

“I want to go. Mary will need a woman with her.”

“Hattie will probably be there.”

“I want to go,” she persisted. “It will look better if he has family there. It will make him look like a better character.”

“That’s true. Why do I win courtroom battles and lose in the bedroom?”

She wiggled her hips against him and held him tightly around the waist.

Luke laughed. “That’s why?”

She slid her hand over his thighs. “I think the boys should go with us.”

“Dammit, no! They don’t belong in a courtroom.”

“They can go with us the first day. It will look better if he has a lot of family.”

Her hands moved over him, sliding along his legs, and he shook his head. “What an unfair, cheating way to win an argument!”

“And you like it, Luke Danby. You know you do. Tell me to stop if you don’t.”

“You’re going to get what you’ve asked for,“ he said in a husky voice, bending down to kiss her and wrap his arms around her.

Later he lay in bed, staring into the darkness, mulling over what she had wanted. It would look better for Dan if some family members were present. He didn’t want the boys in it, yet Jeff and Knox were growing, and Luke had taken both the older boys to trials before. He looked down at Catalina, who lay in the crook of his arm, and smoothed her black hair away from
her face. He was thankful he didn’t have to face the trouble Dan did. And coming so soon after his marriage would make it doubly bad, but Luke suspected Mary wasn’t the child Catalina thought she was, and he hoped she would be there at her husband’s side.

As Dan packed the night before they were to leave, Mary stepped in front of him. “I’ve waited until the last minute to tell you something, because I don’t want you to argue about it.”

He grinned at her. “And what’s that?”

“My family is going with us.”

His smile vanished. “Aw, Mary, no! I don’t want them involved.”

“They’re already involved, and if they didn’t go, I don’t think I would ever speak to them again! But I didn’t threaten them. They said they’d go. Pa and Michael and Brian.”

“Look, if something happens to them, I’d never forgive myself.”

“Shh. I don’t want to hear that. They’re going. They’ll be here to go with us when we leave in the morning. They have their wagon.”

He crushed her to him, wanting to hold her and never let go. He dreaded going back. It brought back too many bad memories, and he could still remember being in jail and how he had hated it. And he was afraid of hanging. Bending his head to kiss her, he knew they both felt desperate to keep what they had found. He picked Mary up to carry her to bed, prolonging their lovemaking, trying to stop time while he held her in his arms.

They met Luke at the New Mexico Territory border. He rode forward to meet them, standing in the stirrups, shaking hands with the men, giving Mary a quick hug, and moving around to Dan’s side of the wagon. “I left Catalina and the boys in town.”

“Catalina and the boys came?”

“Yes. I think it’s good. It was her idea. The whole family is there. Hattie and Javier are waiting at the hotel. April and Noah are there. Ta-ne-haddle said he
didn’t think a Kiowa would weigh things in your favor since there’s so much trouble right now, but he’s in town with Lottie and Dawn.”

Dan felt his throat tighten as emotion gripped him, and for a moment he couldn’t answer Luke. He nodded. Luke clasped him on the shoulder. “Here we go.”

He turned to lead the way, and Mary leaned close to Dan to hug him. “See, they all came because they love you,” she said. “They won’t hang someone who has all these good people with him.”

He squeezed her tightly to him. “One thing, I have the best wife and family a man can have.”

They rode into a sleepy little town, settled years earlier, called Santa Rosita. Adobe houses lined the roads, and cacti grew among the dirt. Chickens ran across the road, and a goat ambled slowly past, a bell jingling around its neck. People sat in shadowed doorways and watched them until they reached a small one-story adobe building that said “H
OTEL Y
C
ANTINA
.”

They dismounted and went inside. “Let’s unpack, get settled, and then you and I’ll go over to the sheriff,” Luke suggested. “I’ve already checked. The judge will be here tomorrow or the next day. That’s why I picked today for us to arrive. I’ve heard about this judge, and if it’s the one we’re supposed to have, he’s fair.”

Dan nodded, hoping the Craddocks weren’t as powerful now.

They paid and got a key to a room, then went down a wide hall. Luke knocked on a door, and it opened on a roomful of people. Dan and Mary entered to find the rest of his family and Ta-ne-haddle and Lottie, and while everyone hugged and greeted each other, for a short time Dan could forget the grim purpose that had brought the family together. An hour later he and Mary stood in the tiny sparsely furnished room they had rented, and he kissed her long and hard.

Her heart pounded with fear for him and she clung to his hard body. “Whatever happens, my brothers will get you away from here!”

He held her away. “Dammit, you have to promise me you won’t ride with them if they try to get me out of jail. Promise me, Mary, or I’ll tell Luke to lock you up.”

“You don’t have to do that. I’ll leave it to the men…but I
would
be willing.”

He gave her a crooked grin that made a knot come in her throat as he crushed her in his arms for a final hug.

“It’ll be over soon,” he said. He unbuckled his gunbelt and took Mary’s arm. “Come down the hall and stay with my folks.”

He left Mary at the door where Luke waited. Then Dan walked away with Luke, without looking back at her. Grimly the two men crossed the wide, dusty road. Dogs barked and two boys ran across the road. Dan and Luke entered the jail. Just inside the door was the sheriff’s desk. Dan stepped up to it and unfolded a wanted poster. “I’m Tigre Danby Castillo.”