The Heart's Pursuit (12 page)
And besides, dreams were meaningless.
Jared turned in his saddle to look back at her. “There’s a creek up ahead. We’ll rest the horses and eat.”
Her breath caught in her throat. She hadn’t remembered it until now, but the man in her dream had been riding a black-and-white pinto. Just like Jared’s. The man had sat on his horse in the same way. Those shoulders. The way he wore his hat.
Merciful heavens! Jared Newman was the man in her dream.
He slowed his horse, allowing her to ride up beside him. “Is something wrong, Miss Matlock?”
“No.” She gave her head a small shake. “But I think a rest is a good idea.”
Jared wondered what was going on in Silver’s head. Since stopping to rest the horses and eat, she had avoided looking him in the eyes, almost as if she were afraid of him. But why? He hadn’t spoken a harsh word to her all morning, and he hadn’t threatened to send her back to Twin Springs in at least two days. But something was bothering her. She was as skittish as a green-broke colt.
While the horses grazed, Jared and Silver sat on opposite
ends of a log near the stream and ate a lunch of hardtack and beef jerky. Silver sat with her back angled toward Jared. It surprised him to discover how bothered he was by her cool silence.
Deciding to put an end to it, he cleared his throat. “We ought to reach Laramie by day after tomorrow.”
“That’s good.”
“Maybe we’ll be lucky and someone will have seen Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Carlton when they passed through there.”
“
If
they passed through there. And we don’t know for certain they’re traveling together. Isn’t that what you told me?”
“If Bob Cassidy is headed for Nevada—and I have reason to believe that’s the destination—he’ll have passed through Laramie.” He was lying to her again. But what else could he do?
She twisted on the log, meeting his gaze at last. “Even if they’re together, they might have taken a southern route.”
“It’s possible, but not likely.”
“We may have lost any trace of Bob and his friend already.”
“True enough.”
Her cheeks paled. “Do you really believe so?”
He could have told her that he’d been searching for one fugitive from justice for six years, that he’d lost and found that particular man’s trail numerous times over the course of those years. At least she knew what Bob Cassidy looked
like. Jared had only the vaguest of physical descriptions of the man he sought. Except for the scar . . . and what he did to his victims.
“Is it hopeless, then?” Silver asked softly.
Maybe he’d be rid of her if he answered in the affirmative. Maybe she would give up and go home to Twin Springs. But oddly enough, he didn’t seem to want that. “No, Miss Matlock. I don’t believe it’s hopeless.” The words were true, as far as they went. Jared would ask about the two men traveling together, even though finding them was no longer his first priority.
Silver sighed as she raised her eyes toward the sky. “How I wish I’d never met Bob Cassidy.”
Jared found himself wishing the same thing. “Can’t any of us undo our past.” He remembered all too well the thoughts that had haunted him after he’d discovered his murdered parents and dying sister. Perhaps if he’d been at home, he could have stopped the killer. Or perhaps he would have been the fourth victim. More than once he’d wished he had been. He’d even begged God to strike him dead rather than let him live with the pain, rage, and loneliness.
The Almighty hadn’t answered that prayer, and as far as he could recall, that had been the last time he’d asked God for anything.
He stood. “We’d best be on our way again, Miss Matlock. The sooner we reach Laramie, the sooner we might have answers.”
L
aramie had appeared on the Wyoming prairie in the 1860s, a tent city near the Overland Stage route. By the time the first Union Pacific train arrived there in 1868—close to a year before the transcontinental railroad was completed at Promontory, Utah—more permanent buildings had begun to appear. But even five years later, with a school and churches, homes and stores, Laramie retained its reputation for lawlessness.
It was late in the afternoon when Silver and Jared guided their horses across the railroad tracks beneath the shadow of the towering windmill and water tank. Silver looked at every building, wondering if Bob might be inside one of them. Could she be lucky enough to find him this soon? Even if she found him, would she recover what he’d taken from her
father? And would recovering what Bob stole be enough to redeem herself in her parents’ eyes? If people in Twin Springs learned she hadn’t been with her sister in Denver but instead had been alone on the trail with a bounty hunter—
Well, that didn’t bear thinking about. And besides, she didn’t care what they thought. Nothing inappropriate had happened. Nothing inappropriate
would
happen. How could it? Jared Newman hardly seemed to know she was alive, let alone that she was a woman. Which was fine with her.
As they rode past a hotel, her thoughts changed abruptly. What she wouldn’t give for a hot bath and a night between real sheets on a soft mattress. It felt like a year rather than days since they’d stayed at the Colorado Hotel in Central City.
Jared stopped his pinto in front of Mabel’s Restaurant in the center of town. “You go in and order us some dinner. I’ll ride over to the train station and see what I can find out.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. I prefer to do this alone.”
Too tired to argue with him, she stepped down from the saddle. “What do you want to eat?”
“Doesn’t matter. Whatever you decide you want, I’ll have the same.”
She wrapped the mare’s reins around the hitching rail, then reached for the packhorse’s lead rope and did the same. Jared nudged his gelding toward the depot and rode away without another word.
Silver was on the boardwalk, about to enter the restaurant, when she heard a woman’s voice exclaim, “Jared Newman! As I live and breathe!”
She turned in time to see Jared stop his pinto, then quickly dismount. A moment later he embraced the petite woman. Silver couldn’t see her face, but she wore a pale brown dress, and her strawberry blonde hair peeked from beneath a straw hat. Jared’s expression as he released his hold said that he was more than a little glad to see her.
Something twisted in Silver’s belly.
The woman took hold of Jared’s hand and led him toward the nearby saloon, pausing only long enough to let him tie up his horse.
Silver’s mouth dropped open. Hadn’t he been in a hurry to go to the train depot to ask questions? And why so quick to go with that woman into the saloon? Did a pretty face make him forget his hunger and his mission? Obviously so. Well, Silver hadn’t forgotten what needed done. It didn’t take a genius to inquire if someone had seen Bob. She could do it herself.
She set off in the direction of the train station.
It had been better than four years since Jared had seen Whitney Hanover and her husband, Tom. They’d lived in Kansas at the time. The Hanovers were two of the few people Jared could call real friends and not just acquaintances.
“What are you doing in Laramie?” he asked Whitney as she drew him through the swinging doors of the saloon.
“We live here now.” She motioned with her hand. “We own the Red Dog Saloon.”
Jared swept the room with his gaze. “Where’s Tom?”
“Over at the bank. He’ll be back soon. Please, sit down and wait for him. He wouldn’t forgive me if I let you get away before he could see you.”
Jared obliged, taking a chair beside a green felt–covered card table. He looked around the room a second time. Since it was empty of customers, it appeared the Red Dog was not a popular establishment. “How long have you been here?”
“About three years now. Nothing was the same in Topeka, even after you helped clear Tom’s name. So we decided to pack up and start over again farther west. Tom worked for the railroad for a while. That’s how we came to be in Laramie. When we had the chance to buy this saloon, we decided to stay for good.”
“A lot different from owning a millinery shop, isn’t it?”
She laughed. “Very. But more profitable. A woman can always find a reason to put off buying a new hat, but men seem to like their liquor no matter what.”
Jared glanced toward the bar. How could it be profitable without customers?
Whitney must have read his mind. “We’re closed today because of a funeral in town. We’ll open up at seven tonight.”
He looked at her again. She wore a simple and prim brown
dress, and her face still had the innocent, well-scrubbed appearance that he remembered. “I can’t quite picture you working in a saloon, Whitney.”
“I don’t work in it. I keep the accounts upstairs while Tom tends to business in the saloon. We’re happy here. It suits us.”
“I’m glad to find you so content. It’s obvious that leaving Kansas was a good decision. Your smile tells me that.” He grinned. “And Tom’s a wise man. If you were my wife, I’d keep you out of sight too. Much too pretty for your own good.”
She blushed a pretty pink. “The saloon isn’t why I’m so happy. It’s motherhood that’s done that. Tom and I have a son. Thomas Jr. We call him TJ. He’s two and keeps me running all the time.”
A son. Jared grinned at the news.
Four years ago Tom Hanover’s life had been a total shambles. Accused of murder, he’d depended on Jared discovering and bringing in the real killer and clearing his name. Whitney had sold her hat shop and their home to pay for her husband’s legal defense and Jared’s services. But the tide of public opinion had turned against Tom the same way some so-called friends had turned away. Many of those same people, after Tom was cleared of the crime, were too embarrassed by their behavior to act like friends again.
But from Whitney’s look, they’d put that dark time
behind them. They’d started over, with new hopes and new dreams and even a new family.
He was surprised to realize he envied the Hanovers.