The Heart's Pursuit (23 page)

Silver grew worried when Jared didn’t return to the hotel after several hours. Finally, she sent Dean to look for him. The waiting was pure agony. She wanted to
do
something.
Lowering her legs to the floor, she tried to stand, but her ankle couldn’t support her. She dropped back onto the bed with a small cry as pain shot up her leg.

As if in answer, the door opened and Dean stepped into the room. “Couldn’t find Mr. Newman anywhere.” He looked at her foot where it rested on the floor, then glanced down at his own feet, his hands shoved into the pockets of his overalls. “Cinder an’ the pinto are in the livery, but the man there said he bought the packhorse I was ridin’.”

“Jared sold the packhorse? But why would he—”

“Fella said he seen Mr. Newman get on the stage.”

“The stage?” It wasn’t possible. He wouldn’t leave them there. She used to fear he might do that, but not anymore. The information had to be wrong. Jared wouldn’t take the money from her necklace and the sale of the packhorse and desert them.

“I asked at the express office. He’s gone, all right.”

The betrayal burned hot in her stomach. She swallowed back the rising panic and tried to think logically. He hadn’t sold his saddle horse along with the pack animal. He had to be coming back. But where had he gone, and why had he left without telling her? How long would he be away? If he was headed for somewhere close by, he would have ridden there, not bought a ticket on the stage.

He’s abandoned us. He wants the reward money all to himself.

After all this time, after all those miles, he’d left without
a word or a backward glance. In the beginning, she would have thought him capable of it. But not now. Not after he’d won her trust . . . and her heart.

And yet he’d done it.

She drew her injured ankle up from the floor, propping it high with an extra pillow and blanket. She forced her voice to sound calm. “Let’s get some sleep, Dean. We’ll worry about what to do in the morning. If you’re hungry, there ought to be something left to eat in the saddlebags.”

“I ain’t hungry.”

Jared had betrayed the boy too. Dean had believed Jared would find and capture the man who’d killed his parents. Now what?

She closed her eyes.
Lord, please help me to know what to do next. Help me take care of Dean too. Give me strength to do this alone.

Alone. She didn’t want to be alone, but that’s where she’d found herself once again.

The stage bounced and rocked on its leather springs, jerking its inhabitants from side to side. Holding on to the side panel of the coach, Jared stared out the window. The setting sun cast a reddish hue across the desert floor, making the sage look like bushes of fire.

Jared wondered how Silver had taken the news of his
going. No, he didn’t wonder. He knew. She would be angry that he’d left her and Dean behind. She wanted to be a part of the capture of Matt Carlton. She would have declared herself able to take this journey. And that would have led to an argument. He didn’t want to argue with her. Not ever.

Maybe he shouldn’t have entrusted the note of explanation and the remainder of the money from the sale of his horse to the Wells, Fargo agent. But that’s what those agents did. They delivered mail and gold all over the West. Why not down the street to the hotel?

Yes, she’d be angry with him today, but hopefully she’d be over it by the time he returned. And if he came back with the news of Matt Carlton’s capture, all the better.

Jared leaned back and drew his hat brim down low, hoping to get some shut-eye.

    
CHAPTER 24
    

L
eaning on Dean, Silver entered the livery stable. She waited a moment for her eyes to become accustomed to the dim light. At the back of the building, she saw the red glow of a fire and heard the roar of a bellows and the clang of metal as the blacksmith pounded an iron shoe against the anvil. She and Dean moved slowly in that direction.

“Excuse me, sir,” she called, but her voice was drowned out by the noise. The smithy hammered away. “Excuse me,” she hollered a second time.

Still no reaction.

She reached out and touched the man’s shoulder.

He startled. Swearing a blue streak, he turned toward her with his hammer raised. He lowered it when he saw her. “What’re you doin’, sneakin’ up on a man like that?”

“I’m sorry. I called to you, but you didn’t hear me.”

He gave an abrupt nod. “What can I do for you?”

“I . . .” She tried not to think about what she was about to do. It hurt too much. “I understand you buy horses.”

“Sometimes. If I like what I see.” He set aside his hammer, then wiped his hands against his leather apron. “What you got?” The man’s face was darkened by soot and reddened from the heat of the fire. He was about the same height as Silver but would have tipped the scales at more than double her own weight. His eyes seemed rather small in his large, square face, showing entirely too much white around them. She hated the idea of selling Cinder to him, but she had no other choice.

She turned toward the stall that held her horse. “The buckskin mare. She’s mine. I’d like to sell her if you’re interested.”

“She’s yours?” he asked, his tone suspicious.

Silver straightened and tried to speak with authority. “I was traveling with Mr. Newman, who brought in three horses. He sold you the sorrel gelding yesterday, correct? Did he sell you the pinto as well?”

“Might have done. What business is it of yours if’n he did?”

“None at all.” The answer stung her heart. “But the buckskin is mine, and I should like to discuss a fair price for her.”

The blacksmith drew his arm beneath his nose as he
sniffed. “She’d be a good mount for a woman, I reckon.” He moved toward the stall.

“Yes, she is.” Silver followed him, still leaning on Dean. “She’s a good saddle horse for anyone. Man or woman. And she’s strong, with plenty of endurance. She’s carried me all the way from Colorado.”

“Hmm.”

“If you don’t want her, I’ll ask around town.”

“Don’t get your nose in the air, little lady. I never said I wouldn’t buy the mare.”

We should be headed for Colorado. I shouldn’t be doing this on my own.

Silver and Dean stepped from the station platform onto the westbound train. Using the money she’d obtained from the blacksmith for Cinder, she’d purchased two tickets for Carson City, where they would change passage from the Central Pacific Railroad to the Virginia & Truckee Railroad for the final leg of their journey.

But what would they do when they got there? Heaven only knew. She knew nothing about finding a fugitive from the law. But she hadn’t made it all the way from Twin Springs, Colorado, to Winnemucca, Nevada, just to turn around empty-handed. Jared Newman may have deserted her—it felt even worse than when Bob left her at the altar—but
she wasn’t letting him claim any reward alone. She wanted and needed it, and she had some right to it. Jared owed her a share.

She plopped down onto the seat in the passenger coach. Hard as a rock. At least the trip wasn’t long. Her ankle throbbed too, but she’d put up with worse over the last month.

As for Jared, she hoped he was miserable, wherever he was by now.

Dean shoved the saddlebags beneath the seat, then sat opposite her. It might not have been the best thing, bringing him with her, but she wouldn’t leave him behind the way Jared had left her. Dean belonged with her now. Whatever came, he belonged with her.

The boy squinted at her. “You doin’ okay, Miss Silver?”

“I’m fine, Dean. Thank you.”

Please, God, take care of us. Keep us from danger. And have mercy upon my family. Please let there be a reward or enough of Father’s money left.

Jared stepped out of the Silver City jail. He was disappointed but not surprised to find the prisoner and suspect of three murders wasn’t Matt Carlton. The man had, indeed, fit the physical description, but he didn’t have the distinctive scar, nor had he been in Colorado in recent months. Jared had
confirmed all of that with the sheriff. The man had been right there in Idaho for the past year.

Jared placed his hat on his head, then stepped off the boardwalk and started across the street toward the hotel, hoping to find something to eat and a cheap room for the night. The southbound stage wouldn’t be through Silver City until the next afternoon. The wait would be intolerable, especially because his coming had been in vain.

As he ate, his thoughts drifted to Silver. Had she forgiven him by now, seen the wisdom in his decision to come to Silver City without her? When she got mad, she turned as cold and unyielding as an iceberg in the Arctic. Luckily for him, she usually thawed before giving him a piece of her mind. Her impulsive nature could get her into trouble too. She needed someone to keep that impulsiveness in check.

She needs
me
to keep it in check.

But did she really need him? She deserved someone better than a bounty hunter. He had nothing to offer her, even after they caught up with Matt Carlton. If they caught up with him.

Reality was the guns strapped to Jared’s thighs and days spent in the saddle as he chased one fugitive from the law after another. It wasn’t the gray-eyed beauty from Colorado. He’d best remember it.