Call took a breath. “I shouldn’t have. That was wrong.” He observed that she was not particularly placated by his admission, but her mouth flattened and that meant she was going to allow him to finish. “And I have no right to ask you not to act on what you’ve said, but I’m asking anyway. Maybe you don’t believe it, but to my way of thinking, you deserve so much more than what you say you want. That’s worthy of a conversation on the porch swing or at the corral or even at the falls, but it’s not something for here.”
Laurel stopped stroking Abby’s neck and lowered her hand. “All right,” she said simply.
Relieved, Call nodded. “All right.”
She removed her gloves from the saddlebag and put them on before she swung into the saddle. “How long before you reckon you’ll be back?”
“A week at the outside.”
“I probably can’t find anyone inside of seven days to teach me the particulars of what you wouldn’t, but give me that eighth day and I’ll be lying down with one of the passengers in the hayloft. You think about that.” Laurel was not at all unhappy to leave Call standing in the middle of the trail a little more slack-jawed than when she’d come upon him.
16
When Laurel returned to the station, no one asked her if she’d caught up to Call on the Cabin Creek Trail. That was a given. She could see they were curious about the outcome of that encounter, but they remained silent and waited to see if she would say anything. She didn’t.
Stages came and went, and Laurel went about the business of operating the station. She hired the preacher’s son to lend a hand doing odd jobs and running errands. Jellicoe Palmer, forever known as Jelly, was a gangly youth of fifteen with a cowlick that stood at attention no matter how many times he licked his palm and pressed it down. Laurel gave him an old hat on his second day so she didn’t have to bear witness to what had become an unfortunate habit.
Laurel kept herself busy during the daylight hours, purposely avoiding thinking about all the things she’d said to Call. At night, though, there was nothing she could do to keep the conversation from rolling through her mind. Rather than try to force sleep that wouldn’t come easily, she got out of bed and made a cup of tea that she drank on the porch swing or went for a walk with starlight as a guide. Sometimes that activity settled her mind.
Sometimes it didn’t.
Call had two days yet before the week was up. She hadn’t found a candidate to teach her what she wanted to know, and more important, she had no intention of doingso. It had been an idle threat, one of the few things she’d said to Call that she perhaps regretted. She was of two minds about it because the look on his face as she turned to go was satisfying, but that was hard to reconcile with the mean-spirited way she felt when she’d said it, or now, when she thought about it.
Laurel sat sideways on the swing, her back against the arm, one leg stretched out along the seat, the other bent over the side. She used her bare toes to give the swing a gentle push now and again. She’d come outside in her nightgown, a plain white shift with wide straps and a scooped neckline. The hem was rucked up to her knees and fluttered against her legs in response to the intermittent breeze. A light rain was falling. The air was fresh and clean and cool. The skin on her arms prickled but she was too comfortable to bother going inside for a blanket.
Rooster had been right to name her coward for letting Call leave without a reckoning, and so she’d set off to make her apology and lay out the truth of what she felt. What she’d said, though, was a revelation.
To her.
Every word she’d uttered tumbled through her mind now. It was as if she could taste them on her tongue. They were cold and bitter, but did that matter if they were also honest?I’m not interested in you courting me. I’m not looking for a marriage proposal. I don’t have a need to be a wife. And there is no danger of falling in love with you.For whose benefit had she said those things?
Had she spoken them to ease his mind or her own? McCall Landry had opened a door for her, and she was prepared to step through it and damn the consequences. She wanted what she’d never had, the intimacy of a man’s touch, the heat of his body, whispered endearments against her ear. The things that embarrassed also excited. She hadn’t fully comprehended that until she stood facing him on the trail. Shewouldhave thrown herself at him if he’d come too close after their encounter at the falls. She’d been truthful about that. Hearing him say he would havebeen flattered but also had sense enough not to take advantage was lowering. Call was just that much of a gentleman that he probably thought he was being gallant.
She didn’t want gallant. Not now. There was a time when her head would have been turned by a chivalrous, unselfish gesture. Surely she was not the only girl who dreamt of armored knights jousting for her affection or braving the king’s wrath to ask for her hand in marriage. But she was not that girl and hadn’t been for a very long time. She just hadn’t known it.
Call bore some responsibility for her realization. For once she was not taking it all on her shoulders. Whether he’d intended it or not, his presence had provoked an awakening. What she felt was more basic than that. It was a want. Perhaps a need.
It was necessary. How had she not understood that? McCall Landry had uncovered some vital part of her, a part that she’d buried so deeply she’d forgotten its existence. He was no kind of gentleman not to make good use of it.
She would tell him that.
She would make him believe she meant every word of what she’d said. It would be all right, then. He would understand.
***
Call took off his hat long enough to slap it against his thigh and be rid of the accumulation of raindrops clinging to the brim. It was no longer raining, but the wind was still stirring the trees. As the leaves turned over, heavy drops fell on his hat and the caped shoulders of his duster. He was mostly dry. Occasionally a trickle of water found its way under his collar and slipped down his spine. He could have been annoyed by it, but he chose not to be because it kept him awake.
Earlier, he’d fallen asleep in the saddle and woken when Artemis sensed his inattention and stopped cold. He couldn’t even say how long he’d slept. He doubted it wasmore than a few minutes, but to keep it from happening again, he dismounted and began walking. Artemis deserved relief from the burden of carrying him. She’d been an admirable companion these last five days, standing at the ready whenever he needed her, nearly indefatigable even when their journey went sideways.
Running Digger Leary to ground had never been part of his plan. Call didn’t know why he hadn’t expected Digger to try to escape. The man had made every effort to avoid him at Morrison Station, and there was no reason to suppose cornering him elsewhere was going to be any easier. Still, Call had been caught unawares, and when Digger disappeared at the last living station before Denver, Call was late discovering it.
The most obvious destination for Digger was Denver, and Call was not at all confident he could find the shotgun rider if he got that far. It didn’t come to that. The mount Digger stole from the living station was more horse than he could handle. Digger’s skill was shooting, not riding, and when his horse proved reluctant to move off the familiar trail, Digger was forced to stay on the main route and hope that speed, if not strategy, would keep him out of Call’s sights.
Call was tempted to shoot the man partly for the aggravation he caused, but mainly for the fact that Digger’s run meant Call was that much farther from Morrison Station and the time for returning was growing steadily shorter. Hauling Digger into the offices of Henderson Express on Larimer Street turned out to be a wiser tactic than frog-marching him to the county sheriff. Sheriff Dave Cook had a fair reputation as a law-and-order man. Sam Henderson was only interested in getting the job done.
It took two days, but it got done. Digger Leary held out longer than Call had anticipated, but then the man had quite a bit to lose. There was his share of the payroll money, which he swore he had yet to see, but there was also the matter of finding his neck in a noose, given the fact that he’d stolen a horse from the stage line. The lawlooked on that as unkindly as Sam Henderson. By the time the sheriff arrived to take custody of Digger, the shotgun rider was visibly shaken, some because he hadn’t had a drop of liquor in several days, but more because he saw his fate come to get him.
Call spent another full day in Denver trying to track Josey Pye. The sheriff even spared a few deputies for the search, but it came to nothing. Mr. Pye was in the wind and so was the Stonechurch payroll.
