The Heart's Pursuit (6 page)
Silver straightened her shoulders. What did she care what those two busybodies said? At least Bob had abandoned her before the wedding. It would have been a far worse fate to be married to a thief and a liar. Her family should thank God for saving her from that end.
Holding her head high, she walked down the aisle and stepped behind the counter, stopping beside her stepmother.
Hazel looked at her with concerned eyes. “How are you, Miss Matlock?”
“I’m well, thank you, Miss Rathdrum.”
“How was your visit with your dear stepsister?” Celeste chimed in.
“We had a lovely visit. I adore my nephews.”
Hazel leaned forward, as if about to share an intimate secret. “Was that him? Was that the man you hired to find Mr. Cassidy?”
Silver felt her stepmother stiffen.
Celeste said, “Wherever did you find a bounty hunter?”
Her stepmother whispered an apology and retreated through the doorway to the back room before Silver could answer the question.
Hazel glanced at her sister. “There was something rather frightening about him, don’t you think?” Her gaze returned to Silver. “Gracious. I don’t know where you get the courage to do some of the things you do. Going to Denver without a chaperone. Hiring a gunfighter.”
“Mr. Newman isn’t a gunfighter. He tracks down people who are running from the law. The sheriff himself recommended him to me.” She forced a smile. “Is there anything else I can help you with, Miss Rathdrum? I wouldn’t want to keep you if you’ve finished with your shopping.” Her invitation for the pair of young women to leave was as obvious as she could make it without actually saying the words.
Hazel understood. “Come along, Celeste.” With a huff, she turned and hooked arms with her sister. Then the two of them left the store.
Good riddance.
Silver never had liked those two. The Rathdrum sisters were mean-spirited. Much like scavengers in the animal kingdom, they liked to attack the weakest, the easy prey. Now they thought Silver was vulnerable. Perhaps so, but she wasn’t going to lie there and take it. She wouldn’t allow her present or her future to be defined by the mistake of succumbing to Bob Cassidy’s charms.
Drawing in a determined breath, she turned and followed the sound of her parents’ voices to the office.
“She must go,” her stepmother said as Silver entered the room. “Silvana must go at once. Today.”
Her father glanced toward the doorway.
Silver stopped. “Where must I go today?”
“Your mother wishes for you to return to your sister’s.”
“For how long?”
“Until the talk dies down,” her stepmother answered without looking at her.
“Gossip doesn’t bother me.” The lie tasted metallic on her tongue. It did bother her, but it would bother her more to be sent away in disgrace. It seemed so . . . so cowardly. It made her feel even more of a disappointment and failure.
Her stepmother drew herself up, her hands folded before her waist. “I don’t want to argue with you, Silvana Matlock. Go to your room and pack your things. You will leave for Denver on the afternoon stage. We shall brook no argument from you this time. You will not shame your family’s good name any further.”
J
ared made camp as dusk settled over the earth, shadows long and the temperature already falling. It promised to be a cold night. He was thankful for the fire and for the windbreak provided by a wall of rocks about fifteen or twenty yards from the road.
He’d finished eating his supper when he heard something, a sound that didn’t belong with the night. The hair on the back of his neck rose. At the same moment he got to his feet, he saw the horses lift their heads and look toward the west. He stepped away from the fire, his right hand hovering above his gun.
“Mr. Newman?”
The sound of a woman’s voice was the last thing he’d expected.
“Is that you, Mr. Newman?” Silver Matlock moved into the firelight, leading a horse behind her.
He should have been surprised to see her, but he wasn’t. Not really. He lowered his hand to his side. “What are you doing here, Miss Matlock?” He didn’t have to ask how she’d found him. There was only one road leading from Twin Springs up to Central City, and his campfire would have been easy to see, even for an untrained eye.
“I . . . I’ve decided to join you.”
Now he was surprised. “You what?”
She lifted her chin in a show of determination, squinting into the shadows where he stood. “I’ve decided to go with you to find Bob.”
Was she joking? “No, you’re not. That wasn’t part of our agreement.”
“It’s something I must do.”
Jared stepped closer to the fire, allowing her to see more than his shadow.
“Please, Mr. Newman. You said yourself the photograph isn’t very good and my description could fit a lot of other men. But I’ll know Bob when I see him. If I’m along, you won’t overlook him by accident. Besides, I . . . I can’t stay behind. I need to help. I must do something or I’ll go crazy.”
Jared knew when someone wasn’t telling the whole truth. The years had taught him to read people. Without a doubt, Silver Matlock was holding something back.
“Surely, Mr. Newman, two of us looking for Bob would be better than one.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You’d probably be in my way. Besides, I can’t believe your parents would agree to this.”
“You’re wrong. They would rather I went elsewhere. At least my stepmother would. She wants me anywhere else than in Twin Springs. I’m an embarrassment to her. She cannot bear the gossip.”
Jared knew what a person said aloud had to be weighed along with facial expression, the tone of voice, even body movement. And what he saw when he looked at Silver was a wounded spirit. He was convinced that was due less to Bob Cassidy’s jilting of her than to her stepmother’s acid tongue. Mrs. Matlock had directed several cutting remarks at her daughter within Jared’s hearing before he’d ridden out of Twin Springs.
He cleared his throat. “Coming with me would expose you to even more gossip. Your father seems a caring man. He wouldn’t want more hurt heaped upon you.”
“My father
is
caring, but he usually does whatever my stepmother wishes in order to keep peace in our home. And for the present, she wants me gone.”
The desperation and heartache in her eyes weakened his resolve.
“Please.” She took a step closer to the fire. “I need to do this, Mr. Newman. I can’t go back. I can’t be shut away in shame while my father loses all he’s worked for.”
He tried to harden himself against her desperate plea. “This isn’t a Sunday ride in the country I’m going on, Miss Matlock. I’ll be moving hard and fast, and you won’t find much comfort on the trail.”
“I’m not a hothouse flower, sir. I can take it if you can.”
“You don’t have the faintest notion what you’d be getting yourself into.”
“I know it won’t be easy, but I’m strong. I won’t hinder you. I swear to you, I won’t.”
He raked the fingers of his left hand through his hair, more irritated with himself than with her. Because he should be able to send her away without even a tiny twinge of conscience or remorse. He should, but he couldn’t seem to do it. “All right, Miss Matlock. Can’t do anything about it tonight anyway. You can go with me as far as Central City, and we’ll have to see after that. But if you give me any trouble, I’ll send you packing in a heartbeat. Understood?”
“Understood.” A faint smile whispered across her lips. “I won’t be any trouble. I promise.”
He wasn’t fool enough to believe that was the truth.
Silver lay with her back to the fire, listening to the sounds of the night. One of the horses stomped a foot at regular intervals. A breeze rustled the tall pine trees nearby. An owl hooted in the distance. And softer than all the other
sounds—and yet somehow more resounding in her ears—she heard Jared Newman’s slow and steady breathing from where he lay on the other side of the campfire.
She shouldn’t have said her father did whatever his wife told him. While it was mostly the truth, it painted her father in an unfair light. He was a good and decent man. Just not strong when it came to standing up to his second wife’s iron will.
Silver also shouldn’t have said her parents wouldn’t care where she went. Her father would care. He would worry. And to be fair, her stepmother would worry too.
However, her parents
had
sent her away. They’d sent her to Denver, her buckskin mare tied to the back of the stagecoach. But before the stage traveled far, Silver had insisted the driver stop so she could get off. She’d had to. She couldn’t be sent to stay with her stepsister. Doing nothing would have driven her mad. Better to be here, with this bounty hunter, helping to find Bob, helping to rescue her family from the looming financial disaster, than sitting around feeling guilty.
She rolled onto her back and stared through the tree limbs at the star-spattered sky, the moon having passed beyond the mountains in the west.
Unwelcomed, the recollection of another night when the stars had ruled the heavens entered her thoughts. The night Bob had kissed her for the first time. The night he’d asked her to marry him. She remembered the swirl of emotions
sweeping through her. Had any of those emotions been love? No, she thought not. At least not the romantic kind as portrayed in novels and poetry. Not the kind of love Rose felt for her husband. But Silver had thought her affection for Bob—and his for her—would be enough to build a marriage on, and so she’d accepted his proposal, not knowing how deeply she would come to regret it.
She had only one chance to make it right. And she was taking it.