Stay With Me (22 page)

“Please?” he begged. “Two minutes. That’s all
I ask. Then I won’t bother you again.”

She sighed and nodded. He reached out, gently
took her elbow, and guided her down the sidewalk. He could feel the
stiffness in her body. “I went to see Fred today,” he said.

She stumbled and he tightened his hold.

“I think he might have broken one of my
ribs.”

She stopped, turned toward him. “Are you all
right?” she asked.

“Man’s fist is as hard as an ax.”

“Oh, John,” she said, her voice filled with
concern.

It gave him hope. “I’m fine,” he said. “Looks
like I’m an idiot, too.”

“What?”

“He told me about Suzanne. He told me
everything.”

She started walking again and he moved
quickly to catch up. “Stop, Sarah. Please.”

She turned and looked at him.

“I’m sorry. I said hateful things and if I
could take the words back, I would. I can’t. All I can do is ask
for your forgiveness.”

She stared at him. After a minute, she gave
him a small smile. “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “None of it
matters.”

“How can you say that? It matters that I hurt
you.”

She shook her head. “I’m glad Fred told you
the truth. Not for me, but for him. He’s carrying a burden and he
needs a friend to help him shoulder the weight.”

“You paid the price for his silence,” John
said.

“Once again, it doesn’t matter. I’ll be gone
tomorrow.”

“Don’t go.”

She looked startled. As startled as he
felt.

“What are you saying, John?” she asked.

What the hell was he saying? “I want you to
stay.”

“Why?”

What possible reason could he give her?
“Suzanne still needs you,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she
said. “She’s much stronger today.”

He could not let her go. Alice Hooper was
right. Sarah seemed different. “What if she slips back?”

“She has Fred.”

John resisted the urge to look over his
shoulder, just to make sure his friend with the rock-solid fists
hadn’t sneaked up behind him. “I’m not so sure of that,” he said.
“Fred can be kind of slippery.”

“Fred? Your friend, Fred? Big guy? Lots of
red hair?”

“You don’t know him as well as I do.”
Sorry, Fred
. “In any case, I don’t believe he’s thinking all
that clearly right now. He might not mean to hurt Suzanne but
there’s no saying that he won’t.”

She looked even more distressed. “You’ve got
to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said.

“Fred won’t listen to me. Not about this. I’m
not saying he won’t come around. I just think Suzanne might be too
fragile to understand right now.”

“I’ll talk to her,” she said.

Not if he had anything to say about it. “I
just came from Hooper’s. Alice asked me to send you back that way.
She said it was important.”

She glanced down the street toward Hooper’s,
as if she could tell by the air what it was that Alice Hooper
needed to tell her. “I have to work tonight. I’ve only got a few
hours to get packed.”

He glanced at the items in her sack. “Besides
that and the clothes you have on your back, what else is
there?”

She shrugged. “I suppose I could take a few
minutes and see what she needs.”

Thank you, Jesus. “I’m sure she’d appreciate
that.”

Sarah stared at him. She looked very serious.
“Thank you for telling me that you’d spoken to Fred.”

“I’m truly sorry, Sarah.”

“I am, too,” she said. “More than you
know.”

What did she have to be sorry for? “I don’t
understand,” he said.

She shook her head. Then she lifted her
fingers to her lips, brushed them with a kiss, and gently placed
them against his lips. He felt the warmth seep into his soul.

“Goodbye, John,” she said. “I’ll miss
you.”

No way was he letting her get on that stage.
He watched her walk toward Hooper’s, still feeling her burning
touch. Then he walked into the hotel, bolted up the stairs, and
pounded on Suzanne’s door.

“What?” she asked, opening the door a
crack.

“Let me in,” he said. “Please. I don’t have
much time.”

Suzanne whipped the door open and looked
around him. “Where’s Sarah?”

“I sent her back to Hooper’s. Look, I need a
favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“I need you to lie in bed and pretend you’re
sickly.”

Suzanne frowned at him.

“Sarah’s leaving on tomorrow’s stage. The
only thing that will keep her here is if she thinks you need
her.”

“I’m confused.” Suzanne sat down on the edge
of the bed. “Why is it so important for Sarah to stay? I always
heard that you couldn’t stand her.”

“I couldn’t,” John admitted, pacing around
the small room. “Before. I don’t know what’s happening now. All I
know is I need time to figure it out. All I want is a week. Seven
days.”

“So I have to lie in bed for seven days?”

“No. Just a day or so. Then you can gradually
start to bounce back. We don’t want to make it obvious.”

“This is crazy,” Suzanne said. “She’ll never
believe it.”

“She will. She’s very concerned about you. A
little nudge from you will make all the difference.”

“I don’t feel right about this,” Suzanne
said.

“She’ll never know,” John promised.
“Please?”

She gave him a long, considering look before
settling her stare on her hands. She had them clasped so tightly he
could see white where she pinched her skin.

“You better not hurt her, John Beckett.”

“I won’t. I just want the chance to know
her.”

***

When John walked into the saloon, Sarah lost
her place. Confused, she stared at him, her fingers poised above
the ivory keys. What the heck was he doing here? They’d said their
farewells. She’d managed to do it without blubbering. Barely.

Nobody needed to know that. Least of all
him.

“Evening, Sarah,” he said, walking past her.
The heels of his boots clicked against the wooden floor, echoing
through the quiet room. He had on a long riding coat. The scratched
and worn leather fell past his knees and made his broad shoulders
look even broader. He took a seat at the bar, two stools away from
George. When Thomas Jefferson poured him a whiskey, John pulled
some coins from his coat pocket.

Thomas looked from Sarah to John and then
back to Sarah. “You want to take a break?” he asked.

She took a breath. God, she was such a fool.
“No,” she said, forcing her eyes back to the music. She started the
piece over.

And with every strike of a key, she resolved
to ignore him, to pretend he wasn’t there. It reminded her of a
book she’d read as a child. Something about everyone trying to
ignore an elephant in the corner of the room.

Twenty minutes later, she ended her first
set. She pushed back her piano stool and walked outside. She stood
there less than a minute before John joined her.

“Here,” he said, handing her a glass of
water.

She took a small sip, wondering what to say
next.

“Drink it. If you need to take a trip to the
privy,” he said, “I’ll go with you.”

Was it really just twenty-four hours ago that
he’d rescued her from Toby? It seemed like a lifetime. “I’ll be
fine,” she mumbled, embarrassed to be talking to him about bodily
functions.

He nodded. “You’re really good,” he said. “I
had no idea. Where did you learn to play like that?”

“I took lessons as a child,” she said.

“Did Peter know you could play?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

He fumbled with the edge of the blue bandanna
he wore around his neck. “I miss him,” he said.

The lump in her throat seemed a bit bigger, a
bit harder to swallow around. “I’m sure you do,” she said, thankful
that Pastor Dan had filled in some of the blanks. At least she knew
how Peter had died.

John leaned back against the building, one
knee bent with the sole of his boot flat against the weathered
wood. He tilted his head back and looked up at the quarter-moon. “I
wonder what he’d think if he saw the two of us standing here?”

“He’d be surprised.” She figured that was a
safe bet.

John chuckled. “All that and more. He’d be
amazed.”

Had Sarah One and John really hated each
other that much? “Do you think so?”

“I’d like to think he might be happy,” John
said.

“Happy?”

“He wanted us to be friends.”

Friends? Sounded nice. Unsatisfying, but
nice. Kind of like taking second place in a two-person race.

“I’d like it if we could be friends,
Sarah.”

She didn’t want to be his friend. She wanted
more. “Have you noticed anything odd about Alice Hooper?” she
asked, hoping to change the subject.

“No. Why?”

“It’s the strangest thing. I went back to her
store today, but when I asked her what she needed me for, she just
looked at me, like she didn’t understand. I explained that you’d
sent me back. She sputtered a bit and then she walked over to the
sewing section. She asked me to pick out the material I liked
best.”

“Material?”

“I was surprised, too. But she looked very
serious. I didn’t know what else to do so I pointed at a pretty
pink cotton. She cut at least ten yards off and wrapped it up for
me.”

“Fascinating.”

“When I asked her why, all she could say was
that she expected I could use a new dress soon.”

“Did she say why?”

“No. I tried to explain that I didn’t have
the money. She said it was a gift. I didn’t want to offend her so I
took it.”

“Guess you got yourself a new dress?”

Sarah shook her head. “I’ll leave it for
Suzanne.”

He frowned at her. “So you’re still planning
on going tomorrow?”

She shrugged. She needed to leave. Every day
she stayed it would be that much harder to leave. “I have to.”

“What about Suzanne?”

Sarah glanced in the saloon window. Her break
was almost over. “When I got back from Hooper’s, Suzanne had gone
back to bed. She hardly said three words to me. She seemed so much
better earlier in the day. I can’t figure it out.”

“Maybe she’s not quite as strong as you
think?”

“She’s strong. I don’t have any doubts about
that. I think she loves Fred and after seeing him with her, I’m
convinced that he loves her, too. If he comes back to town tonight,
I’m going to try to convince him that he needs to make his feelings
clear.”

“I don’t think you’ll see Fred tonight,” John
said.

“Did he say that?”

John shook his head. “No. I just know Fred.
He needs his sleep. If he doesn’t get at least eight hours a night,
he’s useless. I’ll bet he’s already in bed. I wouldn’t worry about
him showing up.”

That surprised her. “I guess I can’t force
him.”

“No. Fred Goodie isn’t the type to want
someone meddling in his private life. He’d hate it if he knew we
were even having this conversation. You know what I mean?”

“I understand. He won’t hear it from me.”

“Good.”

No. There wasn’t anything good about the
situation. If only she knew why she’d been sent back. During the
middle of the night, when she’d watched Suzanne sleep, she’d prayed
for answers. There had to be a reason why she’d been whisked back
more than a century. Was it to protect Suzanne? Had the stars
somehow aligned so that she would be in the next room when Mitchell
Dority tried to beat the hell out of Suzanne?

If so, how could she leave without finishing
the job? How could she leave without making sure Suzanne was
okay?

“I’ll make my decision tomorrow,” she said.
“I need to talk to Suzanne first.”

Sarah woke up the next morning with a stiff
neck, cold toes, and a heavy heart. She tucked her feet back under
the blanket, gently turned her head from side to side, and accepted
that heartache would be harder to shake.

“Suzanne,” she said, pulling herself into a
sitting position, one vertebra at a time. The wooden floor hadn’t
gotten any softer. She rested her elbows on her friend’s bed. “It’s
time to wake up.”

Suzanne mumbled something in response but
didn’t turn over.

Sarah stood up, careful to keep the blanket
wrapped around her. She walked over to the window and pulled back
the curtain. Two wagons, each with two brown horses, were parked in
front of Hooper’s. Four other horses, their reins draped over a
rail in front of the restaurant, patiently waited for their riders
to return. Two women, holding up their long skirts to keep them
from dragging in the dirt, crossed the street.

The town already bustled with activity. She’d
slept later than she’d planned. She had John to blame for that.
He’d waited until she’d finished her last song and then walked her
back to the hotel. His strong hand had cupped her elbow as he’d
guided her across the street.

He’d walked her up the stairs, unlocked the
door, and then ever so gently, kissed her. It had been short,
sweet, and it had kept up her for hours. Long after he’d given her
one of his smiles, tipped his hat, and walked away.

It had been a friendly kiss. Just a peck
between pals. Almost familial. Sort of like the kisses Uncle
Salvador used to give her at Christmas.

However, Uncle Sal had never made her heart
thump or her knees weak. John Beckett did both. Pre-contact. When
he’d kissed her, when his lips had brushed against hers, she’d felt
a rush of excitement, a spike of adrenaline.

Later, as she’d sat by the window and looked
out at the moon and the star-filled sky, she remembered what it had
reminded her of. The year before she’d driven two hours north to go
downhill skiing. When she’d stood at the top of the slope and
contemplated letting her body, supported only by two slim pieces of
waxed lumber, fly down a two thousand foot ski run, she’d felt the
same way. Like she couldn’t quite get her breath.