A Lady of the West (44 page)

The next day Ben asked, “What happened?”

Jake tersely explained.

Ben shook his head. “Damn. I don't understand women. Whatever you expect, they'll do the exact damn opposite, even when you expect the opposite from what you first thought anyway.”

Jake grinned in sympathy. Ben had gotten exactly nowhere with Emma. “Are you giving up?”

“Might as well. Yeah, I guess I am. Saloon girls are a lot simpler than ladies. I'm going to take a trip into Santa Fe before winter gets here, and have myself a good time.”

* * *

Garnet had moved back toward Santa Fe, lying low and watching his back. Nothing was going to happen very soon, anyway. Winter was coming on fast, and spring would be a better time for what he planned. He had parted company with Bullfrog several weeks back; the other man was going to try to round up some of his old cronies in time to meet up again around the end of February. Garnet felt better with Bullfrog gone; he hadn't trusted the bastard not to put a bullet in his own back and carry on with Garnet's plan by himself.

He always sat close to the back door of a saloon, because you never knew when a quick exit might be needed. He was at just such a table when a tall, dark-haired man sauntered in and headed toward the bar. The well-worn pistol tied low on the man's thigh bespoke his ease with the heavy weapon, as did the easy, self-confident walk. It wasn't a strut; only hot-tempered kids looking to make a reputation felt the need for that, or for cutting notches in their guns. This man walked like he knew he could handle whatever got in his way. He had a presence about him that was strangely familiar.

Garnet peered at the stranger's face and a cold chill ran down his spine. For a minute there the man had looked like Jake Sarratt, but then Garnet saw that it wasn't. The resemblance, though, was strong. It was damn eerie.

A dark-haired saloon girl with a painted face and tired eyes perked up a little as she ran her experienced eyes down the stranger's tall form. She sashayed up to him, batting her eyelids and letting her hand trail down his thigh. He looked down at her and grinned, then nodded.

They turned away to go up the narrow stairs. Garnet quickly ducked his head so that his hat hid most of his face. He heard the stranger say, “What's your name, sugar?”

The voice was familiar, too, but not real familiar. It
was like he'd seen the man once or twice, but hadn't gotten to know him. Damn if he didn't look like Jake Sarratt, though. Garnet kept his head down. It could be the other one, the brother. Wild elation shot through him. God, what a chance this would be! Give him five minutes to get started humping, then when he was going at it hard, kick the door in and put a bullet in the bastard before he knew what hit him. The only thing that kept Garnet in his chair was that he didn't know if Jake Sarratt was anywhere around.

Where had he seen the man before?

Then it came to him, and he turned pale. He'd had a beard when Garnet had met him, but there was no doubt it was the same man. It was Tanner, the gunslick who had ridden in late one afternoon and hired on, but only stayed a day or so before leaving as quietly as he'd come. But his name wasn't Tanner; it was Sarratt, and he would know Garnet on sight.

Garnet gave the room a good look, but didn't see anyone he knew. That didn't mean anything. The Sarratts had hired a lot of new men. There could be any number of Sarratt men in here right now, surrounding him.

There was no way he was going to go up those stairs. There'd be another time, and a better chance.

Being careful not to catch anyone's eye, he got up from the table and slipped out the back door. When he was in the sour-smelling alley he started running, slipped and almost fell, but caught himself at the last moment with his hands. His left hand was in something foul-smelling and squishy. Garnet cursed viciously as he got up and scraped the sticky crap off his hand the best he could, rubbing it against the rough side of the building. That was just one more grievance he had against the goddamn Sarratts.

He waited until he was a piece down the street before washing his hand in a horse trough, then he hurried to the crib where he was sleeping. It wasn't
anything more than a lean-to built against a stable, and the walls were made of unfinished planks nailed across some logs. The cracks were big enough to shoot through, and it had started getting damn cold at night. He'd have to find something better soon.

He was sharing the crib with Quinzy, who was already rolled up in his blanket and snoring his head off. Garnet nudged him with his boot. “Quinzy! Wake up. One of the damn Sarratts is in town, maybe both of them.”

Quinzy came awake without any of the mumbling and wiping his eyes that most men did. He sat up. “Is it Jake?”

“I didn't see Jake. It's the brother, I don't remember his front name. He's the son of a bitch who rode in calling hisself Tanner, and left right after that. Guess he came to talk to Jake about something. Goddamn bastards were planning it right under our noses!”

Quinzy was silent. This latest plan of Garnet's was stupid, but there was no talking sense to him. He had it in his mind that the little gal was his, and that he had a right to the ranch. Damned if Garnet hadn't gone as loony, in his way, as McLain had. Quinzy had drifted along with Garnet out of habit, but it looked like the time had come to part.

“Don't look like I'll be riding back to the kingdom with you, Garnet,” Quinzy said. “Heard tell the land up along the Snake is mighty pretty and mighty lonesome, a good place for me to lay low for a spell. Reckon I'll do that. Twenty years ago I was game to take on the Sarratts, or anybody else come to that, but I'm twenty years older and twenty years slower. It's time for me to think about retiring.”

“I hate to hear you're not going with me, Quinzy,” Garnet said. “We been together a long time, but a man's got to do what a man's got to do.”

“Glad you're being understanding about it, and all. I'll ride out early in the morning, before anybody gets
a good look at me. Don't know if any of the Sarratt men know who I am, but iffen they don't I'd like to keep it that way.”

Quinzy rolled back up in his blankets and listened to Garnet doing the same. After a while Quinzy began to snore again. He never heard the quiet snicking of a hammer being pulled back. If there was a fraction of a second after the trigger was pulled that he heard the explosion of the shot, it was too tiny a slice of time for it to do him any good. Garnet's bullet plowed into the back of Quinzy's head, splattering a big portion of the front of it across the wall.

Garnet rolled up his blankets and got his gear. There wasn't much chance of a single shot in this part of town being investigated, but it was best to clear out anyway. He looked down at the body. “Like I said, a man's got to do what a man's got to do,” he said in an undertone. “If you ain't with me, you're against me.”

It snowed early that year, a light dusting that barely covered the ground but gave hint of the coldness to come. That morning when Victoria left the bed to look out the window at the layer of white, she felt the child move for the first time. She went very still, her hand pressed to her lower abdomen as she waited for it to come again.

Jake looked up from stamping his feet into his boots, noticing her stillness. “What's wrong?”

“The baby moved,” she replied in a low tone.

He came over to stand beside her. She had donned a shift but nothing else, and he felt a surge of lust as he looked at her. She lifted her hand and his replaced it on her belly, while his other arm circled her and pulled her against his body. They stood motionless and finally it came again, a flutter so faint that Jake barely felt it. He caught his breath, his heart pounding at this evidence of life. Until now, the baby had been defined by symptoms, most of them unpleasant for Victoria. But this was different; this was
life.

She let herself lean against him, knowing it would do no good to try to put distance between them. He made love to her whenever he wanted, just as he had before, with a searing sensuality that became more intense with time, rather than weakening. There was no part of her body that was sacred from his touch, and pregnancy seemed to have made her that much more responsive. Even her skin felt sensitized. Sometimes she felt she would drown in sensuality, but the loving playfulness that she had found with him before their fight didn't return.

Instead she resented his physical power over her, because he wielded it without love. Even after all that had happened, she still loved him; he would not have been able to hurt her so deeply if she hadn't. He cared for her, she thought, but she was carrying his child, so why wouldn't he feel some concern? And he enjoyed sleeping with her, that was plain enough. But not one word of love ever crossed those hard, chiseled lips.

She bitterly resented his lack of faith in her. It still rankled every day that he could believe her capable of such betrayal. His accusation had sprung from the legacy of hate he still carried around with him; even though McLain was dead, the hatred in Jake hadn't dissipated. Sometimes Victoria could almost feel McLain still in the house, with the ghosts of Jake's parents, keeping the hatred alive.

It would be best if she took the child and left. She didn't want it to grow up surrounded by hatred; she wanted it to grow up happy, in a house without shadows. The idea of leaving teased her mind every day, but the difficulty of it defeated her. How could she leave? Where could she go? Moreover, neither Emma nor Celia would want to leave. Emma might watch Ben with great sad eyes whenever he wasn't looking, but the ranch had become her cousin's home. She wouldn't want to leave it or Ben, even if he had apparently lost interest.

Celia was growing up, rapidly leaving her helter-skelter
ways behind. She was calmer, more dignified, more thoughtful. Her hair was usually neat now, her dress tidy, and she walked instead of skipping. She still spent a lot of time crooning to Rubio and trying to make friends with the great stallion, but she no longer seemed so obsessed by it. No, Celia wouldn't want to leave.

Jake turned her in his arms, his hand sliding up to cup her breasts. Victoria looked up at him, her eyes grave. He looked back at her with his intention plain. He'd just finished dressing, but the clothes came off as easily as they went on. He led her back to the bed, and it was another hour before they left the room.

The winter months came with a vengeance, with more bitter cold than snow, though there was enough of both. Victoria grew increasingly rounder, her pregnancy immediately apparent to anyone who took the time to look. Her mood changed, becoming both calmer and a bit dreamy as she was increasingly preoccupied by the changes in her body. Everything was out of her control. At least the last of the morning sickness had gone and physically she felt wonderful, though she still tired easily.

She would have thought that her increasing bulk would dampen Jake's carnal desires, but not so. He handled her with increasing care and made love to her in various positions that put none of his weight on her body, but he seemed to find her as desirable as ever. If she had thought about it she would have been reassured, but it never occurred to her to wonder if other men remained as attentive to their wives during pregnancy.

In the middle of December, Angelina gave birth. The woman had been in hard labor for over an hour before any of the men paid heed to the cries they heard coming from her small, cluttered room. Both Carmita and Lola were reluctant to attend the woman. Despite her own distaste, Victoria felt that she had
to do something for her. Perhaps it was her own pregnancy that made her feel more deeply for Angelina's plight. For whatever reason, she wrapped herself in her warmest shawl and trudged across the yard to the far buildings. Carmita threw up her hands and followed.

Angelina turned her head on the soiled pillow as Victoria entered. Her teeth drew back in what was meant to be her usual insolent smile, but it became more of a grimace. “So! You want to see how it will be when it's your turn?”

The lack of cleanliness in the room was appalling. There was a small fireplace but the fire had burned down and Angelina hadn't been able to replenish it, so the room was decidedly chill. Despite that, sweat beaded on Angelina's grayish face as she suddenly contorted in another pain.

“Quickly, rebuild the fire,” Victoria instructed. She wasn't herself too certain what to do, but warmth and cleanliness seemed a good place to start. With Carmita, she managed to get clean linens on the bed, though the mattress beneath was grimy. Carmita was the experienced one and took over with Victoria's blessing. The soiled negligee Angelina had been wearing was removed and replaced by one of Carmita's own, as hers were voluminous enough to fit over Angelina's swollen breasts.

The woman strained in labor all afternoon and into the night. Her lovely dark eyes sank back into her head and her lips were raw and bleeding from the scrape of her teeth.

Jake knocked on the door and tugged Victoria outside when she opened it. He pulled her within the folds of the heavy sheepskin coat he wore, wrapping her inside his own warmth. “Let Carmita handle it,” he growled. “You don't need to be out here.”

The wind bit through her skirts, and her breath fogged the air. “If it were me I would want all of the help anyone could give.” She leaned against his muscled
body, and his child moved strongly within her. “I think she's going to die,” she whispered, strangely desolate. It wasn't just that she would be enduring childbirth herself in a few months, but that Angelina was so alone and would die so unloved.

If Angelina was truly going to die, Jake didn't want Victoria in there watching it. He tried to bully her back into the house, but she refused to budge. He was on the verge of physically carrying her when she lifted her wan face and said, “How can I expect anyone to help me if I'm not willing to help when I can?”