Digger Leary evinced no interest in Call at all. Once again, Call was struck by the shotgun’s recovery from his bout of drinking the night before. It was possible that Digger’s age accounted for his ability to avoid the consequences of overindulgence. In Call’s estimation, the shotgun wasn’t more than twenty-five, certainly young enough to throw off the effects of heavy consumption that bedeviled most people.
Call held Artemis back as the stage began another winding descent. The coach’s progress was slow enough that he decided to dismount and walk beside his mare for a while. As it happened, it was a good decision because it allowed him to hear the approach of a horse and rider coming up behind.
Hand poised to draw his gun if needed, Call turned to face the rider. “Jesus, Laurel, I might have shot you.”
It was not the greeting she had hoped for. “Hardly.Your gun is still holstered.” She thought he might approach, but he stood in place, looking at her without expression now that his initial exasperation had vanished.
“You should be glad I’m cautious.”
“Yes. I was depending on that.” He didn’t move. Neither did she. It was a standoff.
“What are you doing here?”
So much for him knowing her mind. Laurel realized an explanation was in order, an explanation that she did not have at the ready. In spite of the miles traveled, the words had never come. She dismounted and led Abby forward, holding up the mare when they still were ten feet distant. She removed her riding gloves and put them in her saddlebag and then turned to face him again. Her delaying strategy hadn’t softened his features. His eyes, the ones she sometimes thought of as translucent as moonlight, were as opaque as a mountain glacier. “Why do you think I’m here?”
“No,” he said. “I asked you. Has something happened at the station?”
She shook her head. “Nothing like that.”
He waited. “Well?”
Laurel shifted her weight from foot to foot. Beside her, Abby stirred and snuffled. This was not precisely the location for this conversation that she had imagined, but then there was not another private setting like the falls between her station and the next one. She was standing in the middle of a narrow and dusty trail, holding on to her mare’s reins as though grasping a rope that was meant to pull her free of quicksand. Six feet to her right the trail was edged by rocks and scraggly pines and nothing else but air. A drop over the side was almost certain death. No more than eight feet to her left, the side of the mountain rose almost vertically. She had only two routes open to her, retreat or forge ahead. Laurel chose the latter.
“Rooster called me a coward,” she said. “I suppose I’m here to prove I’m not.”
“I’m not sure I understand.” Watching her, observingher discomfort, he amended his previous statement. “No. I take that back. I’m sure I donotunderstand.”
Laurel looked down. She chuckled softly, uneasily. “I thought you would, you know.”
“Did you?”
“Uh-huh.” She stole a glance at him. “I’m here because I haven’t been fair to you.”
“In what way? Look at me, Laurel. What is it you’re wanting to say?”
She did look at him. Holding his gaze just then was harder than it ever had been. “I’ve treated you badly these last few days, ever since we came back from the falls really. I shouldn’t have done that. I behaved like a child, worse actually, because I’m not a child. Avoiding you, not speaking to you, acting as though you didn’t exist. When I think back on it, I’m ashamed of myself, but I wasn’t at the time. At the time it seemed right. More than that. It seemed necessary.” Now it was Laurel who waited for a response and it was a long time coming.
“I know what you did,” he said finally, flatly, loath for her to see his hurt. “What I don’t know is why.”
“You don’t?”
Call could give her no quarter. He wasn’t ready. After what she had been doing to him, his response seemed justified. “I just said so, didn’t I?”
Laurel sucked in a breath. In the back of her mind, she heard Rooster call her a coward, and that more than anything else prompted her to tell him the truth. “I was afraid.”
“Of me,” he said.
Her eyebrows lifted. “No! Of course not. Of me.”
“What?”
“I didn’t trustmeto be around you. I was afraid of making a fool of myself. And I would have, too. There’s a reason I’m standing a good ten feet from you now. That’s by design. I am done embarrassing myself.” She raised a hand, palm out, in the event he thought he should be the one to move.
He stared at her hand for a moment then his remoteeyes returned to her. “You can put that down. You’re in no danger from me.”
Laurel lowered her hand. “I know that. I’m trying to explain that you’re the one in danger.”
“Laurel. That’s ridiculous.”
