Chapter Five
Jess stood there, his back still against the tree, those blue eyes narrowed and fixed on her.
"That was a mite closer than I like to cut it," he said, a little breathless, and then he gave her a one-sided grin and took a step toward her. "You're my kind of woman."
Callie kept her still-smoking gun aimed at his heart. "Don't try it. I don't trust you no matter what sweet lies you tell."
He held up his hands. "Smart, too. Yeah. My kind of woman. So what now? You going back to Scott or what?"
"Just don't rush me."
Her heart was running a mile a minute, and she didn't know why. It wasn't as if she hadn't killed before. A time or two anyway. When she had to. And she'd wanted to kill that weasel Welles almost as long as she'd known him. Maybe it was the idea of facing Hawk with what she'd done that made her blood skitter like water drops on a hot frying pan. Or maybe it was the idea of never having to face him again. Of running free. Free from want. Free from fear. Free from stuffing down every bit of herself when he treated her like she was nothing but a pack animal to fetch and tote for him and not sass or be contrary whenever he decided he wanted a woman's comfort.
She looked over at Jess, and her heartbeat sped faster. His eyes were still on her. Still not afraid. Still not pleading. Just wondering what she was going to do.
"Might be if we were anyplace else, any time else. Maybe if Welles wasn't coming back."
Welles wasn't coming back. He wasn't coming back ever again. And it could be Hawk was dead by now. He'd been hit bad. Sure, the old lady had patched him up, but that didn't mean he'd lived. Or that he had to live. Then there'd be just the old lady to see to. She'd lived long enough already anyway. After that it'd be just little Callie Beth and the money . . . and Jess.
She thought back on when she'd watched him washing up. Had it been just that morning? It seemed an age ago, but she could see every tantalizing move he'd made, every corded muscle under that taut skin, every wet curl of his hair. She could hear the deep, drawling rumble of his voice, like black velvet in her ears, and imagine how that rumble would feel if she had her head pillowed on his chest, and what it would be like if the smolder in those eyes was something she had put there.
"I don't like being pushed to do anything," he'd said in that riveting, husky voice. "Especially something I mighta liked otherwise."
He wanted free as much as she did. Free from cows and chickens and chores and that Sunday-school rancher who thought he was the all-fired Almighty. Free to start on his own with money enough to never eat dirt again and maybe with someone standin' proud beside him instead of cowering at his heel.
"If I had a woman like you, I wouldn't be such a fool as not marry her."
A respectable woman that nobody'd look on like dirt, even him. She'd make sure he'd have no cause for that. She'd make sure after today that he couldn't no more be free of her than she could of him. They'd go into this even or not at all.
Still keeping her eyes and her gun on him, she dropped to one knee and rolled Welles over onto his back. His eyes were open, and so was his mouth. There was a little trickle of blood from his nose and that was all. Her bullet had gone through his back and into his heart and stayed there. Right where it belonged.
She rummaged in his coat pockets, found the jerky he still had left, and stuck it into her own pocket. She found a couple of rawhide thongs in there, too, and took them. Maybe she'd need those for a little insurance sometime or other. She wasn't at all certain of this Jess yet. He'd said all along he was a liar. Maybe he was. Maybe just a little time with him would be better than all this while trailing along with Hawk anyway. Maybe she'd just find out.
She took the gun from Welles' stiffening fingers and stuffed it in her belt. Then, still with her eyes on Jess, she patted down his coat one last time. There. She took the little white paper bag he had in his inside pocket and clutched it close. She'd have those. Whatever else happened now, this one time she'd have something sweet.
"So what's it gonna be?" Jess asked.
Wary of what he would do, she took a lemon drop from the bag and offered it to him. He took it from her and put it in his mouth, not crunching it, just letting it melt on his tongue. She took one for herself and then stuffed the bag into her coat pocket.
"What would you do?" she asked, still holding her gun on him.
"You mean if I had the chance to take off with enough money to keep me the rest of my life or give it up and keep eatin' dirt?" His mouth turned up a little at the corners, and there was the devil in his eyes. "One thing I know I wouldn't have to do is think on it very long. But that's just me. You're the one with the fiddle now. You call the tune."
"Hawk'd come after me."
She'd almost said us.
"Dead men don't come after nobody."
He said it coolly. He'd seen her kill Welles. Maybe he thought she'd as easily kill Hawk. She wasn't gonna be the only one with skin in this game.
"No," she said. "I don't care if he's dead, but I can't do it. Not to him. We— we been together a long time." She lifted her chin. "You do it."
"I ain't no killer."
"Right." She laughed harshly. "You just want somebody else to do it for you."
"What about Daisy?" he asked. "I ain't killin' her. She never did me no wrong."
"We can't leave either of 'em to tell what happened. You know we can't."
She'd make sure he had blood on his hands, too. He'd never be able to lord it over her about that after this. They'd be the same.
She moved closer to where he still stood with his back to the tree. "Not and get away with that money," she whispered. "Together."
She smiled to herself to see that now he was the one trembling and breathless.
He stood there, caught in her eyes, and then he licked his lips. "All right," he said low. "I'll see to Scott. You do the same for— for her."
Still with her gun in her hand, her finger on the trigger, she stepped closer and lifted her mouth to his. For an instant he was still, and she knew he wasn't hers, not quite yet. Then his arms went around her, crushing her close. She clung to him, her gun pressed to his back as his mouth found hers. Glory, he tasted like lemon drops and she didn't know what else. She felt the tug as he wrapped her braid around one hand, holding her head back, holding the kiss until she thought she'd drown, until she was sure she'd drown and knew she didn't care. Hawk nor anybody else had never kissed her like this.
"Callie Beth," he breathed, nuzzling along her cheek and to her ear. "You gotta be sure. If we do this, you gotta be a hundred percent sure. I ain't never—"
"We'll be free, Jess." She kissed his neck and the line of his jaw until she reached his mouth again. "Once they're gone, once we have the money and nobody knows, we'll never have to do anything like this anymore. We'll be free."
He kissed her again, fierce and hard, and then he stepped back from her, both of them shaken and breathless.
"All right then." He set his mouth in a hard line. "Let's get it done. No use thinkin' about it too much now."
Still holding the gun on him, she gave him the saddlebags and nodded for him to go ahead, to lead them to the road and then back to where Hawk and the old woman waited. She never once looked back at Welles as, open mouthed and unseeing, he stared at the sun.
"You said you been a tracker for the army," she said after they'd walked a little way. "Which way do you think we'd best go to get us out of here?"
"I been thinkin'. I been up the Lolo Trail almost to Canada. It ain't an easy way to go, but nobody's like to follow us, at least not close enough to catch us before we're out of the country. After that, I figure Canada's got enough big open that we can find us a quiet place to settle and not be bothered ever again." He walked on a little while longer, and then he slowed to come alongside her. "How much do you think there is?"
He patted the saddlebags hanging over his shoulder.
"I guess I never heard for sure," she said, her blood tingling at the thought of how much it might be and what they might do with it. "Welles said a lot. So did Hawk. Ought to be enough to keep us pretty well a good long while."
"Did you ever see it?" he asked. "I never saw more'n a few dollars all in once place before."
"Yeah, me neither. Hawk never let me handle much money. Tell truth, I don't know as he ever had much himself all at once. If he did, he never wasted any of it on me."
"The more shame on him," Jess said, his eyes on her face and then moving down the length of her braid, and then settling on her lips. "You'd look fine in one of them silk dresses and your hair all done up."
"And diamonds?" she asked.
"Yeah, diamonds." He touched one finger to the hollow of her throat. "One of them diamond collars like I seen." He moved his hand over her shoulder and down her arm to her wrist, sliding his fingers around it. "And a diamond bracelet two inches wide." He slipped his hand over hers until he could trace the third finger of her left hand. "And a ring."
"Liar," she whispered when she saw the burning look in his eyes.
"If we're gonna do this," he said huskily, "I want to see what we're doin' it for."
He glanced at the saddlebags, and she gestured with her gun. "Well, go on ahead and look. I'd like to see myself."
He slid the saddlebags off his shoulder and undid the buckle. There was a sudden hunger in the blue eyes when he looked inside. "I don't know how much this is, but I think it'll do us just fine. Look."
She leaned closer to see the money, and he flung the saddlebags into her face, throwing his shoulder against her as he did, slamming her to the ground. In another second, he wrenched the gun from her hand and pulled the other one from her belt. He pointed both of them at her as he got to his feet and stood looking down on her.
"All right, get up."
"Liar!" she shrieked, launching herself at him, raking at his eyes with her nails, not caring about the guns in his hands. "Liar! Liar!"
He turned his face, ducking his head to avoid her attack until he could holster one gun and use his free hand to grab her wrist and spin her around with her arm pinned behind her back.
"You are a wild one," he said with a humorless laugh.
He stuffed the other gun into his belt, and she cursed him as he held her there.
He tightened his hold, making her cry out. "Don't waste your breath. I've heard it all before."
"You're a liar," she gasped, tears of rage springing to her eyes. "You've been lying all along. All of it, lies. Even over by the pond, you knew all the time I was watchin' you!"
"Every second of it," he spat. "And you dadgum took the bait."
She bucked against him, but he only shoved her arm up higher, making her bite her lip to hold back a cry. She'd let him break it before she'd whimper again.
"Now get movin'." He dropped swiftly to one knee and grabbed up the saddlebags again and then shoved her along ahead of him on the road. "And don't give me any trouble, or I'll find something to tie you up with."
"You're a big man," she said, rubbing her aching shoulder. "Takes a big man to rough up a girl, don't it. To lie to her over and over. To make her think just maybe she meant somethin' to somebody after all." She glared back at him. "You must be proud just now."
"What did you expect me to do? Run off with you and leave Daisy with Scott? She's as near a ma as I had since I was a kid, and I'd do what I done and more to keep her safe from hellcats like you. And even if it wasn't her, I'm still not standin' by and letting you and Scott go around killin' and takin' whatever you want like there's nobody in the world that matters but you."
"That's all you men know. Lyin' and usin' women, treatin' 'em like they got no feelin's at all. Yeah, you must be proud."
"No," he said. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry to have to treat any woman like that. And I'm sorry you ain't had no better shake in life. But far as I can see, you picked your own way. You robbed and killed and sold yourself for what you could get and ended up with nothin' all the same. That makes me sorry. But usin' whatever weapons I got to get myself and Daisy outta this mess, no, I can't say's I'm sorry about that the least little bit."
She spun, her hand raised to slap his smug face, and he grabbed her wrist and spun her back, shoving her forward.
"Go on."
She'd see to him for this. And before he died, he would be sorry. She'd make sure of that. Maybe he thought he had all the weapons now, but she had weapons, too.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Please remember that this story will be posted chapter by chapter until it's finished. I will mark it "complete" for those of you who prefer to read a completed story all at once. You can either follow the story so you'll get an alert when new chapters are posted and can see when it's marked complete, or you can simply check the Laramie "Just In" page. When the last chapter is posted, it will pop up at the top of the list as complete, and then you can start reading.
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