Jillian Hart (17 page)

The bell above the door tinkled as they left the store. Chad walked ahead slowly, too busy to run as he licked one end of a peppermint stick. Lissa turned the envelope over and studied the writing. Sunlight glinted across the paper and she stopped, turning to stand in her own shadow so she could read the return address.

John Murray.
Her heart stopped at the sight of his familiar handwriting. Maybe it was a letter lost in the mail and then found. Maybe—

She tore at the envelope with nervous fingers, the pound of coffee tucked beneath one arm. She tugged out the folded parchment, smoothed it enough so she could read the words written there.

Dear Lissa,

As you must have surmised by now, I chose not to board the train as we agreed. I could not, in the end, take a wife. I am still grieving my beloved Jane. I wish you the best, Lissa, and I am truly sorry.

Her knees buckled. Emotion sliced through her, knocking the air from her chest. She sat down on the steps to the boardwalk.

"Mama." Chad bounded back to her, his fist still clutching the candy stick. "Want some?"

She read the concern in his big blue eyes—Michael's eyes—and she couldn't breathe. The parchment rattled each time she trembled. She shoved the letter into her skirt pocket, every one of her hopes, of her dreams, dying with each beat of her heart.

She hadn't married John Murray. She'd married a stranger, a man keeping promises not his own.

"Looks like we have trouble, Murray." The sheriff dropped the letter he'd been reading on top of his desk. , He stood with a scrape of his chair and a hard, cold glitter in his eyes.

"We had trouble." Jack closed the jailhouse door. "But I stopped it. You'll find the bodies of the men Will and I shot and killed at the undertaker's."

"The men you murdered." Palmer clenched his beefy fists, drew broad his shoulders. "I told you to let me handle it, Murray. But you didn't listen."

"I did what I had to do."

"You took matters into your own hands. Without a badge on your chest, killing those men makes you a murderer."

"How do you figure that, Sheriff?" Jack wasn't fooled. It didn't take a genius to read the malevolence in the lawman's eyes or sense the danger ahead. Something told him he knew a lot about such men—too much. As if he'd been one of them.

"I told you to leave the rustlers to me." Venom stung the sheriff's words.

"You haven't lifted a finger to stop those outlaws. They nearly killed my wife and son today. You can't expect me to stand by idle while I could lose my family."

A muscle jumped along Palmer's jaw. "Is Lissa all right?"

"She will be." Jack strode forward, holding back as much anger as he could, but it rolled through him, unstoppable, a black-red wave of fury that tasted harsh in his mouth. He'd committed no crime. He'd protected his wife, son, and property.

Concern changed the man, resonated in his voice. "What happened to her?"

"She and Chad were caught in the middle of the stampede started by the men I killed." He'd had enough. Jack threw open the door and strode out into the sunlight. "Next time think of that."

"Murray. I'm not through with you yet." The sheriff filled the threshold, a sheet of paper clutched in one hand. "I just got notice of an outlaw loose in this area. Been missing since the same day you rode into town. Or rather, the same day Lissa found you on the road where the old Indian trail leads straight to the territorial prison. Do you think that's a coincidence?"

Anger punched in Jack's guts. "I'm no outlaw. You know it."

"I know that you shot and killed men no one in this county has been able to take down. I don't know one lawman who can shoot like that. Only wanted men have that fine a skill."

"We both know who I am, and why I'm here. Don't think you can scare me away from Lissa. It won't work."

Palmer's mouth was a hard, tight line. "Not yet, Murray. But I can throw you in jail. Don't forget that."

Jack clenched his fists. "Shooting a criminal in self-defense is not murder. We both know it."

"Did you ever regain your memory?" The sheriff strolled down the boardwalk, not blinking, as unrelenting as a Montana blizzard.

"None of your business, Palmer."

"Then there ain't even a small chance you're this criminal who killed a U.S. Marshal in these parts? I'm glad for your sake." Palmer's smile turned bitter. "Because if you were Dillon Plummer, hiding out in my town, then you would be a dead man."

Dillon Plummer.
The name burned like a candle in the dark night of his mind, a faint whisper of memory, yet nothing more.

"I'll be watching you, John Murray," the lawman promised. It was a threat, bitter and undisguised.

Jack walked away, and he was not worried, was not afraid of a small town sheriff.

While Chad napped safely in his bed with his puppy, Lissa did what she had to do. She couldn't feel sorry for herself, or for her situation.

She was the one who'd found Jack unconscious and bleeding on the road. She had been the one who assumed he was Michael's cousin.

Charlie dodged a gopher hole in the meadowland floor as he obeyed the pressure of her knees. He swung left, easy and smooth, cutting the few heifers from the milling herd and driving them back to the fenced pasture.

"Lissa!" The wind carried the distant sound of her name. She looked hard at the dark spot on the road, saw the smudge of a bay horse and rider as they loped closer, still too far away to recognize clearly.

Knots twisted in her stomach. She thought of the letter she'd left on the kitchen table—thought of the husband and father she and Chad stood to lose.

"What are you doing?" he asked when he rode close enough for her to see the good-natured tilt to his mouth as he spoke to her.

"What does it look like?"

"Rounding up cattle is my job around here. Where are the men?"

"I sent them into town to take soup to Will. He's going to be able to walk again." She knew her voice sounded strained, knew she was avoiding his gaze.

"I'm glad to know that." Jack's beautifully shaped hand clasped over her wrist. "Let me take over."

Her chin went up. "I can take care of my own cattle."

"The animals are my job. That's our agreement, right?" He took the whip from her hand, but the look in her eyes, in her cool eyes, stopped him. "You have every right to be angry with me. I didn't keep my word. I didn't stop the rustlers before they put you and Chad in danger."

Her face crumpled. She looked ready to cry. Then her jaw lifted, clenched tight. Tears stood in her eyes, but they did not fall. "You've done more than keep your word, Jack. I don't find fault with you for that."

"Something is wrong." He coiled the whip, watching the snaking leather slide through his gloved hands. He felt her move away before he heard the plod of Charlie's big hooves on the ground, felt the distance as wide and deep as a canyon.

"I shouldn't have killed those men in front of you. I wasn't thinking. I acted on pure emotion."

"You are no mild mannered cowboy." Her gaze met his. Curls which had escaped from her braids whisped around her face, made her look vulnerable, fragile, but he was not deceived.

Lissa was a woman of strength. She could drive cattle, use a whip, and face a stampeding herd to protect her son. "You are not the man I thought you were."

His chest tightened. He thought of Sheriff Palmer's words, remembered the shocked expression on Lissa's face after he'd shot the rustlers. He'd charged the outlaws, known how to draw their fire, how to corner them, how to kill them. He'd reacted without blinking, without fear, without remorse.

What kind of man had he been before he'd lost his memory? Before he sought out Lissa in faraway Montana? Jack didn't know what life he'd left behind in St. Louis, but he suspected he might not have been the best of men.

"I did what I had to do." He lowered his voice, rode his gelding near her so he could lay his hand along her jaw, see the bruises on her face and the pain in her eyes.

"I can't swear to the kind of man I've been before I met you, but I will promise you this—I will never show you violence. I will never hurt you."

Tears remained, but still did not fall. He brushed his thumb across her cheekbone, felt the wonder of her silken skin. How could he make things right? He was falling in love with her.

No matter what, he would comfort her, do anything so she knew there was a better side to him. He had a heart, and he would show it to her. Make her know the best he had inside him.

"The cattle can wait." He hung the coiled whip over his saddle horn. "You've been hurt."

"Nothing serious." A smile trembled along her mouth, a tremble he wanted to kiss away until there was only passion and need and her. Only her. "Let me take care of you."

"You are. You have been." She tipped back her head to gaze up at him, and curled tendrils breezed across her face, teasing him closer. "You saved Chad. You saved my ranch. I owe you more than I can ever repay."

"You have it all wrong. I owe you for everything you've given me." He swept her up in his arms, lifting her from the saddle and onto his thighs.

She melted against him, her silken hair catching on the stubble of his chin. She smelled like sunshine and sweet mountain air. She felt like heaven—warm, willing female in his arms. "Let me show you how much."

Her hands became fists in the fabric of his shirt. "Jack, put me down."

"That's the whole idea." Seeing her in danger today, feeling terror at the reality of losing her, still tore at him. He wanted to hold her close, snug in his arms, and love her until the fear and the shadows in his heart melted away. "Is Chad still taking his nap?"

"Yes, but Jack—"

"And the ranch hands are in town. We're all alone." He pressed a kiss to her temple, breathed in the cinnamon and sunshine fragrance of her hair. Desire beat in his blood, hot and thick, making him hard. Already he wanted her. "I want to make love to you, Lissa."

"We need to talk." She looked so serious. He knew he had to make her forget seeing him kill those men.

"We can talk later. Afterward." He brushed his lips across hers, felt the ready willingness, felt the tension in her jaw. "I'll tether the horses and be right in." He lifted her gently to the ground. "Wait for me."

"Jack, I can't." Her spine straightened. With clenched fists and tight mouth, she looked ready to do battle, not make love.

"Well, then we can have some apple cider and some of your angel food cake." Dessert didn't sound as satisfying, but he didn't care, as long as he was with her. "We can talk. Then we'll see about the lovemaking."

That made her smile. Jack dismounted, snagging Charlie's reins, too, and tethering the horses to the small white fence, well out of reach of Lissa's flowers. Blues and yellows and whites danced in the breezes, reached up to catch the sun, green stems and fragrant petals brushing against Lissa's skirt as she gazed up at him. Shadows haunted her eyes. What had he done that could make her look at him this way?

Jack's heart clenched. "Have I done something wrong?"

"You haven't done anything wrong." She bit her lip, looking very lost. "You're not my husband."

"I know you were still grieving Michael, but I had hoped—"

"No. You don't understand." Her hand caught his wrist, tight as a steel band. "You aren't John Murray."

"What are you talking about?" Ice clenched around his chest. The confrontation with Palmer, the gunfight with the rustlers, the need to round up enough of the herd to salvage their year's profits, all congealed in his throat, choking him.

None of it mattered as much as this woman before him, the tears in her glimmering eyes, so full of pain. His knees buckled, but still he could not believe what she was saying.

"John Murray wrote a letter apologizing for not coming to marry me as he promised to do." Her grip on his wrist tightened, but it was the fear he felt, solid and real.

"You aren't him, Jack. I found you in the road and I just assumed, I just thought, you were him. You've seen how secluded we are. Who else would be using that road? And on the same day? If I'd had any inkling, I wouldn't have married you until you were certain of who you were. And now Chad—"

She released her hold on his arm, covered her mouth with both hands. She sat down on the bottom porch step, all bunched up, looking as if she'd lost her world.

Because if you were Dillon Plummer hiding out in my town, then you would be a dead man.
The sheriff's threat rumbled through his memory. A cold shakiness settled in his abdomen. He sat down on the step next to Lissa and tried to make sense of what she'd told him.

"You said John Murray is in St Louis?"

"According to his letter."

"Then if I'm not John Murray, who am I?"

She paled, but when her hand touched his jaw it was tender. "I know the kind of man you are. I know you are good with my son. I know that you're a fine husband, that you're a man of your word."

"That isn't enough. Our marriage may not be legal." Ramifications thundered through his head, but the emotional blow shook him more. He loved the woman he thought was his wife, wanted nothing more than to be the man she needed. But now—

He didn't know who he was. He didn't know where that left him. And he could not deny the sheriff's threat.

Could he be that outlaw?
Dillon Plummer
—how that name sounded familiar, the way those dreams felt when they'd brought him back pieces of memory. He remembered a sheriff, remembered hunting men in a meadow, the gun heavy and familiar in his hands.

How had he known how to corner those rustlers? How to draw their fire and shoot them dead? He hadn't even considered letting them live, bringing them to the sheriff for justice to be done. He had enacted his own brand of justice, imposed his own law—just as an outlaw might.

Knowing those things didn't make him an outlaw. All it meant was that his memory was gone, just like before.

The growing wind scattered the scent of daisies and roses and asters, and brushed through Lissa's hair the way his hands ached to. He didn't know who he was, but his feelings were still the same.