A Wife for Breed
- 1 -Vin turned sharply when his companion lost her footing on the loose shale of the trail down the canyon. Even if he'd moved as fast as he could, she would have fallen before he reached her. As it was, he fumbled with the horses' lead reins before lunging back to help her. It was, he thought as he pictured her body plummeting into the rapids far below, the second time that he'd let her slip away and the second was no easier than the first. Mindful that his shock must be visible, he surrendered to the chaotic thoughts swirling around his brain.
He drifted back eight years, to a happy time when he was a young man, hunting buffalo and sharing the carefree lives of the plains tribes before they were forced onto reservations. He could still recall the precise moment when, on his return from a hunting trip with friends, he set eyes on the odd couple. A head shorter than him and almost spherical, Professor Buxton Green was an extraordinary sight, with a wild thatch of salt'n'pepper hair constantly bent as if by a gale blowing in another world. The mousy young woman at his side was as slim as he was fat and as neat as he was rumpled. Only the shrewdness of their identical gray eyes betrayed their kinship then, although he later discovered that they also shared two other characteristics: a fierce intellect and total mutual adoration.
He'd evaded them for days, although it became increasingly difficult to avoid an introduction without offending his hosts, who clearly thought that he should socialize with the new guests from his tribe. He hadn't attempted to explain what a few overheard words instantly told him: the Greens were no more like him than a Kiowa was like a Mohawk. They were British.
Then everything changed one afternoon, just before the fifth full moon of the year, when the sun was smiling down from a cloudless sky. He was wandering along beside the creek where the women of the village drew their water, debating whether the time had come to move on, when he almost tripped over the person that he by then knew to be Naomi Green. She was stretched out beneath a willow tree, her head resting on a folded shawl tucked between its roots and her dark dress lost in its shade. The hand he threw out to stop himself from stepping on her found the willow's trunk with a thud that woke her.
She smiled when she saw who it was, her features achieving an appeal in motion that they lacked in repose. Even so, while his eyes were automatically noting the detail, his legs were already moving on. She made no attempt to hide her disappointment but he was still surprised when she tackled its cause directly, with none of the reserve that he might have expected.
'Why do you dislike me, Mr. Tanner?'
'I never said I did.'
'But you do. What have I done?'
Her tone was more confident than a woman would normally use to address a man who had declined to notice her, and yet he detected no trace of arrogance. She was puzzled by his lack of manners, not by his lack of interest, and he supposed she had a right to question the rudeness that he promptly demonstrated.
'I ain't got much time for missionaries interferin' where they ain't needed.'
His curtness was probably ruder than his former silence but she took no offense. Instead, she first looked at him in disbelief and then laughed heartily. It was his turn to feel disadvantaged.
'What's so funny?'
'Bux - a missionary? Oh, he'll love that.' She laughed louder. 'Don't you need faith to be a missionary?'
Irritated by her amusement, he tried again to leave. She grabbed at the leg of his pants, still laughing.
'Bux is an anthropologist.'
With no idea what that was, and irritation fast giving way to anger, he pulled his leg roughly from her grip. The abruptness of his response swept the smile from her face and she scrambled to her feet. When she caught his arm, her face was serious and he saw in the depths of her gaze how well she could read a person. She knew that he didn't understand, and how defensive that made him, and she didn't judge him for either the ignorance or the reaction. That was the beginning of his change of heart about her.
'I'm sorry.' Her voice was earnest. 'I shouldn't have laughed. Bux studies cultures. He's here because he thinks it's important to understand the tribes and record their beliefs before their culture is destroyed. He hates what is being done to them. As do I.'
Vin wavered between his prejudice and the possibility that there was more to her than met the eye.
'Have you heard any Bible-thumping? I promise never to pester you again if you do.'
Before he could stop it, he felt the beginnings of a smile on his face. 'Now you come t'mention it, I ain't.'
'You won't,' she told him. 'Please, sit with me a moment.'
Then, he had hesitated before slowly doing as she asked and, in the months that followed, he never regretted the decision for an instant. Now, he hoped that he would not regret a far harder decision, one that they'd made jointly in the hope of freeing her but with the knowledge that it might kill her. Her scream still echoing in his ears, he raced to the precipice as fast as he dared, balancing the need for his reaction to look reckless with the need for it to be safe. Even to his critical eye, the accident had been all too plausible and he now needed to play his part as well as Naomi had played hers.
- 2 -
Reaching the edge just as she entered the water, he shouted her name. It took an effort to project his voice into the void, raising it to a volume that he had rarely - if ever - used, but there was no need to simulate the desperation that lurked, all too genuine, beneath his self-control. He'd chosen the spot carefully, knowing that the overhang would conceal the neat dive that he hoped had ended her fall but also that, like him, their pursuers would see her body tossing in the foaming torrents. It was easy to look anguished while wondering whether she had escaped serious injury, but much harder to judge how long to delay before going after her.
Had things been as they seemed, he might well have dived in right after her. He'd have known the folly of such a strategy but his nature was such that he would not have left her close to death below for a moment longer than he must. However, walking in the shoes of a man with none of his skill and courage, he began a hurried and yet hopelessly slow descent. His progress was hampered further by the fearful horses that he was dragging heartlessly behind him, knowing that he would need them to search for and recover the body. He doubted his pursuers would follow him into the canyon. They could monitor his activities more safely from above, expecting him to return the body to town - exactly as he intended to do.
The next half an hour seemed longer than any other thirty minutes in his life. Not normally given to brooding, he was unprepared for the unrelenting turmoil inside his head. He wondered how he would live with her death, especially if the evidence indicated that she had lived long enough for rescue to be an option, but, irrevocably committed to their plan, he could do nothing but carry it out. Even his usual sense of place seemed to abandon him. Convinced that the small beach he'd pointed out to her was around each bend, every disappointment left him more agitated. Then, unexpected for all his expectation, her body was there in front of him, sprawled across the sand. Letting the reins fall from his hand, he ran to her side.
Her skin was pale, lending anger to the shallow gash across her forehead. He studied the purplish cast to her brow, hoping it would not betray them. Live bodies bled differently to dead ones and a livid bruise might tell tales they did not want told. For the moment, he was content that the coloring was consistent with a wound sustained shortly before death. He held her close, pressing her cheek to his own, and rested one hand on her breast and one on her neck. Hoping that he looked like a poor wretch caressing the remains of his lover, he waited for his pulse to slow and the rushing of blood in his ears to fade. The lightness of the slim figure in his embrace, not much more than a hundred pounds of flesh and bone, seemed only to emphasize the precarious position in which they'd put themselves. Suddenly there seemed no connection between the body he held, and had desired with such intensity, and the personality that he feared might already have departed.
Perhaps, in a way, there never had been any connection. Nothing about Naomi's looks or attire demanded attention, favorable or unfavorable. She didn't fascinate like a woman of Mary Travis's beauty, or even intrigue as someone like Casey Wells perhaps did, instead looking ordinary in every way. It was her mind, her inquisitive nature and finely honed intelligence, that had captivated him - something he might have thought impossible, had he considered the prospect before meeting her. The thought sent him into the past again.
'But you have other experience of that kind?' she'd asked.
Her frankness would once have surprised him but, by that time, they were friends. He didn't use the word lightly, even then before he hunted - and later carried - bounties, but the Greens went from acquaintances to friends within weeks. Perhaps that was partly down to circumstance, given that they were the only other white people within a hundred miles, but it was surely hastened by the joy of their open-minded and knowledgeable conversation.
She'd been checking her notes with him, something she often did, making sure that she and her father had not misunderstood the customs that they'd observed and discussed with the Kiowa in broken language. She'd interrogated him without a blush about their sexual customs and he'd replied honestly, finding that her ease with the subject quashed any embarrassment that he might otherwise have felt. His admission that he had not personally participated in the subject of her research prompted her question about his wider experience.
He'd shrugged. One of the easiest things about her company was her ability to hear what was not said.
'Of romance? Or just the act?'
He'd hesitated before giving his answer, neither proud nor ashamed of it. 'Just the act.'
It was the truth. All he'd known of love back then was a five-year-old's love for his mother and a precious memory of her love for him. He'd appreciated the dutiful care he'd received at an orphanage that was better than most, but no one there had loved him and he had loved no one in return. He'd tried hard to love God, as the minister had said that grateful orphans should, but he could not force an emotional response to the shadowy figure that refused to speak to him, as the minister had promised it would.
Part of the reason he delighted in his long conversations with Professor Green - Bux to everyone, even his daughter - was the way that they revealed people to him, enabling him to understand relationships that had often remained a mystery. No talker by nature, he slowly discovered that words could foster empathy and, eventually, ease with people. He always felt at ease with Naomi - it was the most special thing about her.
'Did you pay for it?'
'I ain't one of Bux's projects,' he'd reminded her gently, unoffended by her curiosity.
She'd waved at the notebook and pencil on the grass beside her. 'I'm not taking notes.'
'Y'reckon I'd need to pay?'
'Perhaps. You have lived in many places where there were few women.'
The reply was typically factual but her brief hesitation before giving it, accompanied by a sudden interest in the tip of her right shoe, spoke volumes about her reasons for taking the opportunity to question him about his personal affairs under the pretext of her father's research. He'd opted for honesty.
'Now and again. When my charm lets me down.'
She'd smiled, secretively he thought, making him suspect that his charm was working just fine right then.
'Think less of me for it?'
'No. I'd think less of you if you lied about it.'
'That don't hardly seem fair.' By then, he'd learned enough to fence with her. 'My culture likes me to lie about it.'
Her broad smile and twinkling eyes acknowledged that his defense was fair.
'You looking for some experience then?'
He would never have spoken that way to any woman but her. She'd looked at him, uncertainly, for a few seconds and then looked away. It wasn't girlish shyness but an adult reluctance to make a fool of herself.
'Of more than just the act?' he'd prompted gently, knowing that her observation of cultures more open than the Kiowa had left her well acquainted with the mechanics of what they were discussing.
Her gaze had leaped back to him, hopeful and yet doubtful. She was so like him in that regard, self-confident in most things and yet diffident in some.
He'd shifted closer and then, steadying her face with one finger against her jaw, touched his lips lightly to hers. After all the time that had passed since, he could still remember the jolt that the simple contact had sent through his body. He'd known long before her question, of course, that he desired her body in the same basic way that a healthy male usually desired a presentable female, but it was not until he touched her flesh that he knew he wanted to touch her soul as well.
The feel of that flesh lying limp in his arms now, cold and wet with no guarantee of life, brought back the full force of that earlier discovery. He touched his lips to hers again, finding them unresponsive where once they had molded themselves instinctively to his, and knew that their brief reunion might prove to be only a cruel reminder of a loss to which he'd reconciled himself once already.
'Aw, Nom,' he whispered. 'Don't leave me again.'
Finally, unable to detect even the faintest sign of life, he had no need to act dejected while he bound her to the chestnut mare they'd hired. He tried to make her comfortable, wrapping her in a blanket and using its folds to cushion her, but she was going to have more bruises by the time he reached town. He only hoped that she would be alive to worry about them.
- 3 -
The ascent was even harder than the descent. It was all he could do to get the horses, one laden with its precious cargo, up the treacherous slope. When he eventually reached the top, three men were waiting for him as he had known they would be. His gut was tense, twisted in knots by his concern for Naomi and then pulled tight by his fear that the accident would not satisfy the audience for which it had been so carefully staged.
The leader of the group, his status obvious from his bearing, was taller, older and darker than Vin. By a cruel coincidence, he had the same penetrating gray gaze as Naomi. His close scrutiny left Vin unnerved, or perhaps he was already unnerved by his fear of her death, but then downcast eyes might convey just the right combination of despondency and stubbornness.
'You shoulda turned back, like I said.'
Vin recalled the warning: 'Hey, Tanner! Give it up. I'm here to take Mrs. Ryan home. The name's Bannon.' He'd ignored it, leading the horses on while Naomi followed behind. She ducked at the shot that followed, whereas he knew instantly from the report that it had been fired over and not into the canyon. 'You hear me?' Bannon had called and Vin's reply had set events in motion: 'I hear you. She ain't going back.'
On the verge of regretting his earlier bullishness, he said sullenly, 'You coulda let her go.'
Bannon looked levelly back at him. 'That was never on the cards.'
'This Ryan want his wife back dead?' Vin was interested in the answer to that.
'Accidents happen.'
'Hope he sees it that way. For your sake.'
The steadfastness of Bannon's gaze, without so much as a flicker of doubt, confirmed his confidence that a corpse would satisfy his employer. As shocking as that might be, it gave Vin the chance to move things on.
'You ain't takin' her body.'
Bannon said nothing, perhaps considering the veiled threat, perhaps not.
'He payin' you enough to get a price on your head? The only way you'll take her is over my dead body.'
The threat of self-sacrifice was a bluff. Somewhere, out of sight but definitely within range, Vin had the best backup in the territory but he hoped his friends would not be needed. He needed Bannon to take a document, not a body, back to Denver. Watching the reaction that his words provoked, he suspected they'd been too confident for the kind of man he was pretending to be. He was finding it hard to put on another skin, a skill that he now realized he'd undervalued in Ezra.
Bannon stepped forward and turned the blanket back from Naomi's head. Vin couldn't tell whether he'd noticed how carefully it had been wrapped, clear of her face, at a time when she should have no need of air and when propriety demanded that her face be covered. Bannon studied her intently, then leaned closer still. When he looked up, something in his eyes - Vin couldn't have said what - declared that he'd seen through their deception. Had all that trouble, and all that risk, been for nothing?
After what seemed like an eternity, Bannon turned back to his men.
'She's dead. We'll get proof in town and head back. It's over.'
Vin exhaled silently, careful not to give voice to his relief in a sigh.
Bannon must have had a sharp brain, to spot the tiny signs which, together, might betray that Naomi yet lived. Perhaps pursuing desperate wives was not his usual stock-in-trade. Sometimes a man had to take whatever work was on offer, even when he found it unpalatable. Vin restored the cocoon around Naomi's face, protecting her as best he could from the dust of the journey, and then mounted his restive bay. He hoped that Bannon had seen some small sign of life that he'd missed - not just the mere possibility of it.
He rode ahead, followed by Bannon and his men, regretting each jolt that Naomi's prone form endured and hoping that she had not been wrong to seek his help. He had been out at the reservation on the day that she arrived in town, keeping Nathan company on a trip to offer his assistance to an expectant mother who'd already lost two newborns, and he'd been taking a purification ritual when he heard Buck outside the tipi.
'Hey, Nathan. Baby all right?'
'Long haul, but they're doin' fine now. What brings you out here?'
'Got a message for Vin. Where is he?'
'In there.'
'Hell, I don't wanna see him in his birthday suit.'
Nathan's deep laugh reverberated. 'Vin! Buck's got a message for you.'
Vin had already draped a blanket around his nether regions and, nodding his apology for the interruption to the men sweating alongside him, headed out.
'What's up?'
'There's a woman in town looking for you.'
Buck's curiosity would have been plain at twenty paces, Vin noted, which wasn't surprising given that he was curious himself. He hadn't been aware that any women were after him.
'She said to say that Naomi Green needs you and that it's important.'
He'd started at the name. It had once been so precious to him but years had passed since he last heard it. Naomi? In Four Corners? Now? Why? Needing him... needing his help...?
'Give me five minutes.'
He'd been ready in less.
They had ridden for a while before Buck gave in to his curiosity and asked who Naomi was. It was a simple question but Vin couldn't think of a simple answer. The Greens lived in a world of their own, one that he'd never imagined before he met them and never encountered again since. For all the women that Buck had known, Vin doubted that he could imagine one quite like Naomi and, even if he could, that he would appreciate how enticing she might be to a man with different tastes to his own. Not ready to explore those possibilities, he settled for an answer that, although insufficient, was true.
'An old friend.'
Buck, fine friend that he was, had let it go at that. Vin could no longer remember what his plan had been then, or even if he had one, but any intentions would have fallen by the wayside the instant that he saw Naomi come out of the dry goods store. He reined back, eyes fixed on her.
It would have been a lie to say that she hadn't changed but, apart from what he took to be fatigue, he liked the changes. Her figure was fuller but that was no disadvantage given how thin she'd been. He judged that her breasts, though still small, would now fill his cupped hands and he hoped for a chance to find out.
She turned towards the sound of their approach, and then froze when she recognized him. She appraised him as he had just appraised her and, judging by her sudden smile, must have liked what she saw as well as he did. She dropped the packages she was carrying and ran out to meet him. He was drawing her into a tight hug even before her arms closed around his neck, their lips crushed together in a kiss far too passionate to pass for greeting. As his nostrils filled with the fragrance of crushed rose petals, her presence finally became real to him.
'Oh, Vin, I missed you so.' Her soft whisper buzzed against his ear.
Far too choked to speak, he nodded his agreement. From the corner of his eye, he saw Buck lean forwards, resting his forearm across the pommel of his saddle and making his own assessment of what kind of old friend she was. His broad grin to Chris and Ezra, watching from the saloon door, warned Vin to expect a rough ride about it later but he couldn't have cared less.
His delight at that moment was just a dim memory during the long and lonely ride back to town, with only her inert body for company. Worry for her gnawed at him, as he pondered the effects of the water and the hours wrapped in a damp blanket, but he clung to Nathan's reassurance that the cold might be to their advantage.
- 4 -
Hours passed with nothing for him to do but contemplate the events that had led to the present sorry pass. All his friends had done so much to help, and he knew he would not be the only one hurting if the scheme failed.
It was testament to how tight the bonds of friendship had grown that, once he'd got over the shock of seeing Naomi again, he'd thought nothing of letting Chris, Buck and Ezra hear her story with him. Guessing they would not have introduced themselves to a stranger looking for him, he'd introduced her.
'Nom, this is Chris Larabee, Buck Wilmington and Ezra Standish.' Turning to them, he'd said, 'Me and Nom go way back, to when I was living with the Kiowa. Her Pa was workin' with them.'
Buck had raised an eyebrow. 'A missionary?'
He and Naomi had looked at each other and laughed.
'That's what he thought,' she said. 'He wouldn't speak to me for a week because he didn't approve of missionaries interfering.'
'And when she told me he was an anthropologist, I didn't know what one of them was.'
He'd seen Naomi's pleasure at how relaxed he was in front of his friends. He'd never given it much thought, but there had been a time when he wouldn't have admitted not knowing something like that.
Ezra smiled. 'One who studies mankind and culture, I believe.'
Naomi nodded. 'You're keeping educated company these days, Vin.'
'Only Ezra,' he'd assured her. 'We're not sure how we came by him. How is old Bux?'
Her smile faded. 'He died two years ago. A seizure.'
He'd squeezed her hand. 'I'm sorry.'
'It comes to us all. You know that he never worried about death. He'd just finished his last book, so he was ready to go. He said that the timing was most convenient.'
'But I thought you'd gone back to England.'
'We did, but the Kiowa book was so well received, he decided to write another on the Comanche and we came back. That was thanks to you - he'd recorded all the things you told him and wanted to take it further.'
'So how come you're still here, now he's gone?'
She shifted uneasily in her chair. 'Ah, well, therein lies a tale. That's what brings me here.'
'Private?'
'Not really. I'm looking for ideas so perhaps the more the merrier.'
She rested her left hand on the table and looked at him. He noticed the wedding band there for the first time.
Nodding, she said softly, 'Big mistake. You're going to see the irony in this: it all turns on wanting children.' She looked at the others. 'Vin and I parted because I had more conventional plans for marriage and children than he did. Quite sensibly, I thought, I found a man who also wanted a home and family. Only to find that I can't have children.' She smiled at him. 'You have no idea how much I've wished I'd just followed you off into the back of beyond six years ago.'
Underneath her smile, he saw her regret for the missed opportunity.
'Not half as much as I have, I reckon,' he admitted.
After a moment's reflective silence, she resumed her story.
'Anyway, George, my husband, is a Roman Catholic. I converted to marry him.' As if guessing how surprised he would be, she added hastily, 'I... I wanted to fit in. After living on the edge of societies for so long...'
'I can't see Bux being too thrilled about that.' Her father's words on the subject came back to him vividly and, although he probably wouldn't have voiced them in Josiah's hearing, he doubted that the present company would care one way or the other. 'I remember him saying once that it was his least favorite religion - a load of superstitious bunkum.'
Her face lit up at the echo of her father's voice but then fell at the memory of his wisdom.
'No, he wasn't. He warned me not to underestimate the difference between living alongside people's beliefs and living with them. As always, he was absolutely right, though it was one time he'd have wanted to be wrong.' She smiled again. 'Of course, he never tired of telling me what a fool I was to let you go either.'
Chris and Buck exchanged amused glances but said nothing.
'The point about the Catholicism is that they don't accept divorce. George now wants to be rid of me because he has a new wife waiting in the wings, one he hopes can give him the children he longs for, but they must be acceptable to the Catholic church. As far as he's concerned, there are only two options: annulment or my death. He tried to get our marriage annulled… and what a humiliation that was. Needless to say, he couldn't get the evidence he needed honestly so he tried bribes and, when that failed, paid a man to threaten some poor doctor. When he finally got the certificate, the church wouldn't accept it. They were suspicious of a man who had been married for more than two years before claiming the union hadn't been consummated.'
Buck grinned. 'I can understand that. I can't see a man waiting a week in your case.'
'Buck!' Vin had snapped protectively, even though a moment's thought would have told him that the remark was meant as a compliment, given that Naomi had none of the obvious charms that set Buck chasing.
She laughed. 'There's no point being prudish about this, Vin. I've been poked about by doctors, first to try to establish why I can't have children and then to show that I'm still as pure as the driven snow. Different doctors, of course. My private life has been dissected by church committees. I'm past caring.'
Her words filled him with a profound sorrow, almost grief-like, for the love they might have shared during the years that had been wasted on a travesty of a marriage.
'George seems to have settled on widowhood now. After suffering strange illnesses and accidents over some months, I decided to come and look for you, not realizing how hard you'd be to find.' She drew a deep breath before finishing her tale. 'There are three men behind me, by nearly a week the last time I crossed my own tracks. The drawback of leaving Denver is that it's less important for it to look like an accident - or suicide - out here. I don't know that there's much you can do, but I so wanted to see you again, before it was too late.'
'You're sure about this?' Chris spoke for the first time, his level tone revealing nothing.
'It sounds fanciful, doesn't it? But I'm not a fanciful woman.'
Vin nodded his agreement with that assessment: Naomi had a lively imagination, but fact and fantasy had always been totally distinct in her flint-sharp mind.
'To an extent, I can understand it - I'd never have given Vin up if I hadn't wanted children so much - but it's strange to find dogma making covert murder seem more acceptable than a divorce.' She looked around at them. 'My last hope is to go back to England. I've tried leaving before and he's sent people after me, but I wonder if he'd cross an ocean, if I could get to a ship before being stopped. Perhaps he'd just say I'd died.'
Ezra had been watching Naomi throughout the conversation, appraising her carefully without ever appearing to stare. Vin knew that she had convinced him when, looking thoughtful, he finally spoke.
'What you need is not an annulment. It's a death certificate.'
Certain that Ezra was not suggesting they kill Naomi, Vin guessed he was thinking in terms of his former profession but he was slow to see the potential of a death certificate.
'How's that?'
'A new identity. Let the lady's husband think that she is dead and he is free to marry his new wife. Meanwhile, she carries on with her life under another name.'
Clearly intrigued, Naomi asked, 'Is that possible?'
With a wink, Ezra reassured her. 'Anything is possible. A con of that kind is merely a matter of a convincing scenario and some persuasive paperwork. May I ask whether your husband knows about Mr. Tanner?'
'He didn't - I never mentioned Vin at all - but the men following me must know by now that I've been asking about him.'
The admission told Vin nothing of her feelings for him: he could have been too insignificant to mention to a wonderful new lover, or he could have been her one true love whose name was left unspoken out of concern for a poor replacement's feelings. Her eyes, however, told the whole story, from her uninterrupted love for him to her sudden fear that he might have moved on since they parted, as she had tried to do.
'But I've launched into this without even asking how you are, Vin.' He'd rarely seen her look as flustered as she did then. 'I'm sorry. You've probably got your own commitments, without worrying about my problems.'
He'd given the hollow laugh of a man who'd learned to be careful what he wished for.
'No commitments. Just how I always said I wanted it.'
His bitterness made her look up sharply but he chose that moment to excuse himself, preferring to let his friends summarize the wreckage of his life for him. It had taken a while out back to compose himself and, when he returned, she'd looked up with concern before seeming to decide that he was back in control.
'Chris was just asking how you got on with Bux.'
He grinned, relieved to be back on firmer ground.
'Sharpest man I ever met.' It was true, and it taught him a valuable lesson about the stupidity of judging people by their appearances. 'Looked like a big ol' watermelon with a tuft of prairie grass on top, mind. I won't forget the sight of him gettin' on a horse till the day I die. The horse musta felt the same.'
Naomi chuckled, but her smile faded as she drifted back to the matter in hand.
'Mr. Standish, why did you ask if George knew about Vin?'
'Because any incident that might befall you would need to take account of why you were here, whom you came to see, and the nature of your relationship with that person.'
She nodded slowly. 'I have the impression that you know something of such matters.'
Ezra's gold tooth glinted in the afternoon sun that streamed through the dusty windows.
'You could say that I learned it at my mother's breast. Perhaps I might give your predicament some thought?'
Showing confidence in Vin's choice of friends, she'd given her permission and Ezra had been as good as his word, coming up with the scheme that they were now enacting. If it failed, Vin hoped he'd be man enough to accept that he'd supported Naomi in her desire to pursue it and that a bad outcome was no fault of Ezra's.
- 5 -
It was an hour after dusk when his lonely journey finally reached an end. He was dog-tired, hardly having slept since they set out early the day before, not to mention suffering agonies of doubt and anxiety. He wanted to gallop into town and put Naomi straight into Nathan's care but, instead, he must look like a broken man delivering a body to be buried. Hoping that exhaustion would pass for broken at a distance, he slumped in his saddle as he walked the horses to the rail outside the undertaker's office that Josiah had created and dismounted wearily.
Not until he was about to thump on the door for the third time did Josiah emerge to help with the body, yawning cavernously and scratching the back of his head. They'd all agreed that their plan would be best served by concealing their collective presence unless it was needed. Only Josiah and Ezra would reveal themselves, as undertaker and doctor respectively.
'Is she all right?' Josiah asked under his breath.
'Don't know,' Vin muttered back. 'Couldn't see no sign of life.'
Josiah frowned. Nudging Vin gently out of the way, he lifted Naomi easily from her horse. Vin stepped back gratefully. In all likelihood, in the state he was in, he would have collapsed under even her modest weight. He followed Josiah inside, bolting the door behind him, and went through to the back where Nathan was waiting. Josiah had barely set her down before Nathan began his examination, repeating Vin's checks and scowling.
'I couldn't feel nothin',' Vin said, trying to keep the fear out of his voice.
'We need to get her dry and warm. I've got flat-irons on the stove. Josiah, wrap 'em up and warm that cot, will you?' Josiah was on the move before Nathan had finished speaking. 'Vin, we need to rub her down hard, like a horse, get her blood moving again. You all right with that?'
Vin shrugged helplessly. He would let Nathan do anything that was needed to try to revive Naomi.
Nathan stripped her methodically, in a fraction of the time that Vin would have taken to do it. Only then did he realize that he'd rarely seen Nathan strip a patient, even the men. Indians thought nothing of it but white folk set a lot of store by decency, even after they were dead. He took off all the wet clothes, leaving her as naked as the day she was born and revealing a far more recent purple weal that marred her right side. He tossed a towel to Vin, grabbed another and then demonstrated what they needed to do. Vin stirred himself from his shock at the bullet wound and, together, they worked until the sweat ran, trying to massage life into her cold flesh.
Josiah busied himself with warming the bed, averting his eyes, Vin knew, through tact rather than modesty.
Vin had almost lost hope when Nathan gestured for him to stop. Leaning over Naomi's face, he pressed two fingers to either side of her throat. Vin listened to the blood rushing through his eardrums. Each tick of the wall clock spanned two, or even three, of his heartbeats. Nathan's huge brown eyes rolled upwards and fixed on him. Another second or two... then he nodded.
'She's alive.'
The whisper was a statement, not a promise. She was living at that moment. There was as yet no guarantee that she would live beyond it, or that he would recognize the person that lived if her mind was affected by the ordeal. From underneath the table, Nathan produced a bag that Vin recognized as one Naomi had packed before they rode out of town. He pulled out a woolen nightgown and, once he'd worked that over her supine form, followed it with knitted gloves and socks. When he was done, Josiah lifted her gently into the snug cocoon he'd created for her.
'You think she'll make it?' Vin asked, afraid of the answer.
Nathan rested a hand on her forehead and considered the question.
'I told you I didn't know much about the leaves you two collected, Vin. It was a hell of a risk.'
Vin nodded. Nathan had made no secret of his concerns about the plan.
'But it looks promising. I can't say better than that.'
'I know.'
'We need to keep her warm and get some water into her.' Nathan paused. 'You reckon they were fooled?'
Vin gave a slight shake of his head. 'I don't know how, but I'd swear that Bannon fella knows.'
'So she took a chance like this for nothin'?'
'Mebbe not. He wants to take his money and move on. Could be we all get what we want.' Nathan grimaced. Vin knew that he would have preferred more direct action against Naomi's pursuers, as he would himself, but it wouldn't have solved the problem, just delayed the inevitable. 'He goes away happy, she's free and clear.'
Nathan's expression declared that he thought they were a very long way from being able to reach that conclusion safely, but he said nothing as he ministered to his patient.
Josiah rested a heavy hand on Vin's shoulder. 'I'll keep the hot irons coming, Vin. You sit with her.'
Nodding gratefully, Vin moved a chair to Naomi's side and sank onto it. Holding her gloved hand, he stared into her face. It was now as pale as her body, of which he'd explored every inch way back in that Kiowa village. Although prudence prevented them from fully consummating their love, she'd been raised with no beliefs that made the physical expression of her feelings wrong. Her father knew more about religion than anyone Vin had ever met, fascinated by and impervious to all its manifestations. He knew his daughter was smitten with a rootless buffalo hunter but, far from objecting, seemed delighted by the prospect, even going so far as to drop heavy hints about how he'd hoped for a son until his late wife's untimely passing.
Even if those past intimacies had not been etched indelibly into Vin's memory, there'd been a more recent reminder. After she explained her marital difficulties in the saloon, he'd walked her to the hotel. Strolling along Main Street, her arm in his, she'd confided that she'd hoped for something else from him.
'As you say you have no commitments, I'll tell you the other reason that I came to find you.'
He'd looked down at her and inclined his head in a gesture of encouragement.
'You remember how careful we always were?'
He nodded.
'The one thing I'd really like, if I'm in danger of shuffling off this mortal coil, is to lie with you properly.'
He covered her hand with his own, moved that she still wanted him after so much time had passed.
'I reckon I can run to that.' His reply did not do justice to his desire but he knew she would read it with her usual perceptiveness. 'But try not to worry about shuffling nowhere. Ezra's nearly as sharp as Bux was, in his own way. Don't tell him I said so, though, or I'll never hear the end of it.'
After seeing her to her room, he lingered on the threshold, unsure when she wanted to lie with him.
She smiled serenely. 'It was always outdoors. It wouldn't be the same here.'
That need to have things just so came from her work with her father, no matter that the specific situation was different, from years of setting up studies so meticulously that few would dare to question his conclusions. Far from irritating Vin, the thought gave him comfort, letting him hope that they could pick up where they'd left off once George Ryan was out of the picture.
'We'll take a ride in the morning. About ten?'
He'd sealed the promise with a kiss, and then left her to get some rest. Back in his wagon, he'd pondered their past. Lying on his cot, wondering why he'd let her go, he suddenly found himself in the clearest daydream he'd ever experienced, a memory of a summer's day by a creek that was so sharp he could smell the grass. Naomi was beside him, her hand in his, having just used it to give him a more personal service.
'What do you want, Vin?' she'd asked. 'In the future?'
The question made him uneasy. Seeing a lifetime ahead at only twenty-four, he was wary of commitment.
'Ain't this enough?'
'For ever?'
'For now.'
She'd sighed, and he'd known why. He would never discuss anything beyond the next week, and she couldn't believe he loved her when he held on to his independence so fiercely. She was wrong: she meant more to him than his own life but he was afraid to depend on her, afraid to need anyone who might then let him down.
'Don't you ever wonder about a home and family?'
'No,' he lied. 'That ain't for me.'
'Then perhaps I'm not for you either.'
He'd hesitated, arguing with himself. In hindsight, he knew he'd given the wrong answer.
'Mebbe not.'
They hadn't parted immediately, and she never raised the subject again, but he knew that, when Bux was ready to move on, she would go with him. It was the beginning of the end.
He suspected that their parting had something to do with the intensity of his emotions during his affair with Charlotte Richmond. After years of regret for a wasted opportunity, he threw himself into the new romance with far less circumspection than usual and, despite the public humiliation that came his way, had no real regrets. He'd learned that regret for chances missed had far sharper teeth than regret for mistakes made.
The day after Naomi's arrival in Four Corners, he hired a horse from the livery and called on her as he'd promised. They couldn't afford to squander too much time, with her pursuers closing in, but Ezra was still investigating the papers needed for a woman to fake her own death. He'd wired an acquaintance in St. Louis, a man who had forged contracts and certificates for his mother in the past, and he was confident that such skills could be - and probably had been - applied to other requirements. His concern was how little time they had, making it impossible for documents to reach them from St Louis. Meanwhile, unable to contribute anything useful and feeling that some things needed to be said and done, Vin began with his regrets.
'Nom.'
'Mmm?'
'You remember that day by the creek?'
She looked over at him. There'd been many days by many creeks, some passionate, some romantic. She must have known from his expression which day he meant because she nodded sadly.
'Biggest mistake I ever made. I lied about what I wanted. I was scared to depend on you, in case you let me down, so I let you leave. Stupid, huh?'
She gave a sad little sigh. 'I was so desperate to get more from you that I didn't realize how precious what I already had was. So I left. Stupid, huh?'
'We were kinda young,' he said, by way of excuse. 'Did y'love your husband? Afore all this?'
'Yes. Not like you but I cared for him. We'd probably have been as happy as most married couples, if I'd given him a son. He was a good man, until his need for an heir overshadowed everything else.'
Vin would like to have heard that Ryan was a cruel man, deserving to be beaten within an inch of his life, but wasn't surprised by Naomi's answer. He doubted she'd have been fool enough to marry a brute.
'Can happen,' he conceded. 'Things get out of proportion.'
She nodded. 'If Mr. Standish can do something like he said, I'll be more than happy. I'm not looking for revenge - I just want a way out.'
'That fella sure as hell don't deserve you.'
To his surprise, she blushed but she waved a hand to dismiss what he'd said.
'I meant to tell you something. While you were away from the table yesterday, I said that you'd always been a real sweetheart. I didn't think until later that you might not appreciate my saying so to the others.'
'They'll get it out sometime - I don't care.'
'You have good friends here, don't you?'
'The best.'
'Mr. Larabee told me about the murder charge. I'm so sorry.'
'My own fault. I was stupid to let it happen, and more stupid not to sort it out sooner.'
'Do you think they'll catch up with you? He said you'd gone after bounties - you must have some idea how many people get caught.'
'There're a lot of wanted men. I ain't well known, the reward ain't that high and I'm just one man alone - not that tempting for a bounty hunter. I'll probably be okay, unless I'm unlucky and a lawman stumbles onto me.'
'Good. You'd hate to hang, wouldn't you? Remember you're a Tanner?'
He smiled and nodded.
'You've always been a credit to her. Bux would have been as proud as punch if you'd been his son. He was so disappointed that you and I…' Her eyes filled with tears. 'He spoke of you at the end.'
'You know what I thought of him.'
After dabbing at her tears with a handkerchief, she gave a mischievous grin and urged her mare into a head-start before challenging him to race to the next ridge. He still beat her by a length, jumping lightly clear of his gelding and then reaching up to help her down. She tumbled into his arms and let him carry her to a secluded spot, backed by rocks and looking out over the landscape.
Feeling like he'd cleared his conscience, even though his burden had been regret not guilt, his spirit soared. The wasted years, the failed romances and even Naomi's pursuers faded in the full force of the realization that they were together once more. He caressed her cheek tenderly, preparing to take what he'd always denied himself and wishing that his mistake had not meant that another man had already taken it.
Naomi rested her head on his shoulder and whispered, 'I wish you'd been the first.'
So, they were as much in tune as they'd always been.
'Me too. But it don't matter.'
He didn't want her to think that he saw her virginity as a trophy. His yearning was purer than that: he wished he'd been her first, last, best and only lover. Holding her close, he looked into her eyes, losing himself in their depths. They weren't the cold gray of a fish's eyes but more like the polished perfection of a pebble in a creek bed, touched with just the faintest hint of green where algae couldn't take much of a hold in the current. He reached behind the coiled braid at the back of her head and began to pluck out the pins that anchored it. He'd always preferred her hair loose but it invariably started out neatly braided. Thinking back, he guessed that the state of her hair probably told Bux all he needed to know about what his daughter had been up to.
'You're beautiful,' he told her, as he combed through the light brown twists with his fingers.
'When did you become such a silver-tongued devil?'
'I mean it,' he said. To him, she was beautiful. 'Like a flower, warmed by the sun, opening just for me.'
He touched his lips gently to hers, recalling again the first time that he'd done it and realizing that he had been first - in every way that mattered - and now he had a chance to be last as well. With that happy thought, he banished George Ryan from his thoughts. It was Naomi Green, not Naomi Ryan, who'd needed him and now it was Naomi Green who wanted him.
And how he wanted her! He unbuttoned her bodice and pushed it back to expose her shoulders. She wore a corset but it wasn't overworked, the laces barely stretched. He liked the way it made something of her breasts, though he hadn't realized then that it also hid the ugly scar of a bullet. He leaned over to kiss the soft curves pushed up above its harsh lines.
'Better dressed than in the old days?' she murmured into his hair.
It was true that all her clothes then were well-worn. Neither she nor Bux much cared for squandering their scarce funds on replacements, although every hole was neatly repaired with her tiny stitches. She often wore outfits she'd made herself, on the Indian pattern, rather than soil the few dresses she had that were fit to be seen in towns. At the time, he'd liked being able to reach up inside the simple garments and stroke her bare flesh at a moment's notice. In the years since, he supposed his loving had become slightly more sophisticated.
'Mebbe I'm gettin' old,' he smiled. 'I kinda like the trimmin's these days.'
She giggled. 'You have more experience now?'
Deftly unbuttoning her skirt, he nuzzled her cleavage. 'You sure used to come out with some questions.'
'And you used to answer them.'
'Yeah, I got more experience.' He raised his eyes to let her see that it was of more than the act.
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. It was good while it lasted.'
She shifted to let him remove her petticoats. 'I don't know why I used to think it was strange you and Bux got along so well. You were peas in a pod - always down-to-earth, pragmatic about life.'
The thought tickled Vin, as he pictured Bux as a big fat pea in the middle and himself as a small one squashed in the end. But she was right: in every way that mattered, they had been alike and it might have been knowing Bux that taught Vin to be true to himself, rather than pay too much mind to other people's expectations.
'She only went back to her husband, anyhow. It ain't like she died.'
'That won't be happening this time.' She gave her commitment quietly.
He nodded, realizing that he'd needed to hear it, and then studied the results of his labors. She was a picture, so trim in her white chemise and lace-trimmed knickers. He began to strip himself, slowly and methodically, just the way she'd always liked him to do it.
'You're beautiful, too,' she said, rising to her feet. 'I know men aren't supposed to be, but you are. Even more on the inside. You always were.'
He stood facing her, naked but unabashed, and felt beautiful. If he saw in her a flower, he saw in himself a butterfly, ready to touch her damp depths with his sticky sex, knowing that when he drank of her nectar he would leave part of himself behind rather than take part of her away.
'I ain't sure you can understand how much I always wanted t'do this.'
'You think that you needed to give it more than I needed to take it?'
'No,' he said slowly. 'I guess not.'
'Give it to me now,' she whispered.
He sank to his knees, sliding down the snowy cotton as he did so to reveal two tiny smudges of downy hair separated by the narrow cleft that he'd stroked, kissed and sucked so long before. Moving closer, he let his tongue taste her once again. She was soaking wet, the nub of her desire like a little stone to his touch. A shudder shook her whole body and she all but collapsed onto him. Far from needing to restrain himself, he realized that the thought of what they were about to do had excited her as much as it had him.
He guided her descent, letting her body swallow him as she reached his lap and then cradling her head with one hand as he pushed her backwards. He was pleased at how smoothly he managed to lower her onto the ground and shift position before plunging into her. He groaned, unable to give any other voice to the feelings surging through him. Naomi whimpered against his shoulder. It was hard to contemplate pulling out of her again, even for a moment, but just as hard to resist the urge to thrust. Impatient with his hesitation, she grasped his hips to push him backwards. Spell broken, he began to pump in a steady, powerful rhythm.
She bit his shoulder, stifling her whimpers. She'd always been a noisy lover and he wondered why she would suddenly hold back. In a choked mutter that barely came out as words, he told her to relax - no one was going to hear her way out there. She stared up at him, startled, confused, and then gave a raw laugh that turned into a deep moan as he pushed deep inside her. He pumped harder, wanting to hear the passion that husband must have deemed unladylike. Vin had no problem with ladylike most of the time, but sex and dignity didn't go together and it was no use pretending they did. She was nearly howling by the time he flooded her with his essence.
He was still panting against her, spent, when she began to cover him with kisses. He had no need to be told how it had been for her and knew it was equally pointless trying to describe how it had been for him. He held her tight, crushing her against his body as if by sheer force of will he could stop her from ever leaving again. His muscles were cramping long before he reluctantly let her settle into a more comfortable embrace, where she slept until noon. When she woke, she snuggled closer, her head on his shoulder and her hand on his chest.
Something had been bothering him and he'd been thinking about it while she slept. He decided that the present was as good a time as any to voice it.
'How'd y'husband know you was t'blame for there bein' no baby? Mebbe his new wife won't do no better.'
The question hadn't occurred to him for a while, a delay that gave him pause for thought. He knew that childless men often blamed their woman, but observation of the natural world had long since convinced him that male or female could be the weak link in reproduction. He'd even seen evidence that both members of a pair that had mated many times without issue could succeed with other mates. He thought it might be possible for animals to be somehow incompatible, rather than barren, or maybe they needed a more fertile mate if they were not so fertile themselves. Whatever the reason, experience had taught him that most things that were true of animals could also be true of people, no matter how much men of the cloth might deny it.
'He'd been married before. His first wife died in childbirth, along with their son.'
That was a tough break, making Ryan's desperation easier to understand. It underscored for Vin the dangers of setting goals over which you had no control, running the risk that you'd be disappointed and frustrated when you might have found happiness in some other way, if you'd kept an open mind.
Even so, in the long hours while he waited with Nathan and Josiah for her recovery, he was almost as much a hostage to fate as his predecessor. It was hard to envisage a happy future without her alive and well at its core. Still, he was willing to compromise if he must: he didn't demand that she stay with him or bear his child, only that she survive in good health. He would give anything in his possession to ensure that outcome.
- 6 -
When they'd returned to town that afternoon, Ezra was waiting outside the saloon with barely disguised impatience. He waved them to join him at the table he was sharing with Chris. Had Vin been alone, his prolonged absence would surely not have passed without a caustic comment but Naomi's presence put a stop to that. As soon as Ezra started to speak, Vin knew that the news was good. It turned out that he'd heard from his contact's wife, saying that her husband was much nearer than St. Louis, doing business in Oklahoma City, and Ezra had already wired him there. Vin felt a pang of guilt that a friend had been working so hard on Naomi's behalf, while he wasted time on his base desires. That faded instantly, in the knowledge that he'd do the same for Ezra and think nothing of his need for private time with a woman after such a separation, and with the sudden revelation that there was nothing base about his feelings for Naomi anyway.
'I believe it would be best to arrange an accident soon after these men arrive,' Ezra was saying. 'It would be safest to avoid involving them too directly so that we have fewer variables to control. However, they need to witness the event to ensure that they are convinced. In my judgment, we should be candid about Mr. Tanner's involvement: having the lady abandon her marriage in favor of a former suitor will cast her husband in a better light at home, making him less likely to ask difficult questions. That's important from your point of view, Mrs. Ryan, because the last thing you want is to have him disrupting your new life.'
She nodded. 'That sounds very reasonable, Mr. Standish.'
'So, you come to find Mr. Tanner and tell him that you are being pursued. What is his reaction?' Ezra's eyebrows rose expressively. 'Without the benefit of my skills and experience, he goes on the run with you.'
Vin rolled his eyes at Naomi in a you-wonder-we-don't-tell-him-how-good-he-is way.
'Of course, the one aspect of life in which Mr. Tanner excels is traversing this untamed country. I am thinking that it would be easy for him to overestimate your abilities, resulting in a tragic accident.'
Naomi smiled broadly. 'He wants you to throw me off a cliff, Vin.'
'I wouldn't put it so crudely but, yes, something of that nature.'
Vin considered the suggestion. It could work, provided that they could make it look good without hurting Naomi. He looked at Chris, uncertain of the wisdom of what he was about to say, and then voiced his idea.
'Red Canyon.'
Chris frowned.
'F'I wanted to lose someone, Chris, that's the way I'd go. It'd be real easy to have an accident there.'
'Too easy,' Chris said, significantly.
Vin thought some more but could come up with nothing else half so promising in the vicinity.
'It's high, Nom, but the water's good and deep.'
'If you think I can do it,' was her trusting reply. Her total confidence in him was chastening.
Chris's features registered an expression that Vin didn't recall seeing on him before: astonishment.
'You're not seriously suggesting that she jumps, are you, Vin?'
'I've seen her go from higher.' He squeezed her hand with more than a little pride. 'She's a lunatic when it comes to water. Only woman I ever knew to take a canoe down the Moon Valley Rapids - not too many Kiowa'd want to try it.'
Naomi laughed, sharing his memory of an amazing trip. 'It was exciting though, wasn't it?'
'Exciting don't hardly cover it.' Vin could still recall how his gut had churned as she followed him, carefully navigating her little craft between the whirlpools in his wake. 'That was the only time I ever saw Bux mad - I thought he was gonna kill me for lettin' you talk me into it, an' I felt so bad I'd've let him.'
Ezra looked uneasy. 'I am not familiar with the suggested locality. Chris?'
Chris's face was back at its most unrevealing, but Vin could detect indecision behind the tense mask. When no answer was forthcoming, Ezra returned his attention to Vin.
'I'm assuming that you would not suggest such an extreme scenario unless you were very sure of Mrs. Ryan's capabilities in this area. However, that still leaves us with two problems. One is the paperwork that we discussed before - I should like it to be of sufficient quality to permit the lady to return to England in the future, should she wish to do so. I believe my contact will achieve that. The other is that we will need to retrieve a body that can pass for dead. That is giving me more difficulty.'
'That's easy,' Naomi said brightly. 'One of the plants that the Kiowa use in meditation induces a deep stupor when administered in larger doses. That would deceive most people, wouldn't it, Vin?'
He knew which plant she meant. He'd seen it used to alleviate pain and to subdue patients during medical treatment. Of course, back then he'd had no cause to wonder whether it would fill the role they had in mind.
'I reckon it might,' he conceded, 'It should be okay, if you took it after you'd hauled ashore safe.'
Chris shook his head slowly. 'I can't say I'm happy about this, Vin. You don't want to kill her for real.'
'Don't worry, Mr. Larabee.' Naomi's smile confirmed her confidence in their plan. 'Vin's right - water is easier for me than some alternatives. I've already been shot in a hunting accident and I didn't like that at all.'
Her assurance was met with silence, but Vin wasn't afraid to let it ride. He already knew that Chris would support him in the plan, if he wanted to go through with it, and Ezra would get there soon enough. Another few seconds passed.
'Well, if you decide to proceed,' Ezra began noncommittally, 'I believe we have three immediate tasks: I must complete the paperwork, Vin must find the plant and, Chris, perhaps you would contrive an arrangement by which we shall have notice of these men's arrival. They may be closer than we realize.'
When a minute nod signaled Chris's agreement, Ezra continued.
'The other point to consider is how many people are to know of our plan. I am assuming that we may need to go through the motions of a burial to satisfy the lady's pursuers. If she intends to remain in town after the event, her resurrection may cause some distress to the townsfolk.'
That was the least of Vin's worries but Naomi looked anxiously at him. He saw that she was concerned, even after what he'd already said, that it was unfair to expect him to plan for the future so soon after her sudden reappearance in his life. He smiled at her.
'We'll give it some thought.'
With those words, he'd embarked on the piece of insanity that had put Naomi into the catatonic state from which he now waited for her to awake. He held her hand to his cheek, hoping that it was growing warmer inside its glove, and closed his eyes.
Aw, Nom, please.
His eyes flew open. Had one finger twitched? He stared into her face.
'Josiah,' he said hoarsely. 'I think... she moved...'
Josiah was out of the chair where he'd been dozing and at Vin's side in a flash. Nathan had left to get some breakfast and so Josiah took it on himself to dampen a cloth and dab it tenderly across Naomi's brow. Vin watched, rapt, desperate for a sign that he'd been right.
Her eyelids fluttered.
He leaned forward, longing for her to live, aching for her to return unchanged from her ordeal.
She drew a shaky breath.
'Nom?' he asked faintly.
'..........Vin?'
Barely a rush of breath but she'd spoken his name. Josiah turned to him, teeth bared in his broadest grin.
'Praise the Lord.'
A huge hand closed on his shoulder and then Josiah let himself out, no doubt to pass the word around quietly but also giving him a moment of privacy to welcome Naomi back to consciousness.
- 7 -
By the time that Nathan came back, with Ezra behind him, Vin was confident that Naomi's recovery would be complete. She seemed to know who she was, who he was and how she'd been hurt - enough to persuade him that neither the fall nor the leaves had done permanent damage. He stood to let Nathan check her. Although he'd done so once already, Vin knew he'd want to do it again now that his patient could tell him how it felt.
He stepped outside with Ezra, who handed him something wrapped in a napkin.
'I thought that you might realize you were hungry, once...'
When his stomach growled obligingly, Vin appreciated - not for the first time - that Ezra was far kinder than he usually chose to reveal.
'Thanks, Ezra. How'd it go?'
Ezra shrugged. 'I share your opinion. Bannon knew, but it appears that our charade enabled him to accept a compromise that would suit all concerned. He has a most convincing certificate from the illustrious Dr. Simpson to support the story he plans to tell. Not quite the result we'd hoped for, but adequate.'
Vin swallowed the mouthful he'd been chewing. 'I owe you for this.'
'Indeed you do. Such skills do not come cheap.'
'I got a bit put by. You can have it.'
Vin counted Ezra as a close friend, but he expected him to take the money and be disappointed with the sum.
'To accept payment from a friend for a favor would be vulgar.'
Vin studied him. 'You sure?'
'You may have need of your reserves for other purposes. Becoming a husband can be expensive.'
'Yeah, well, I ain't so sure I'll be gettin' wed.'
Ezra's gaze was steady and penetrating. 'Defying convention can also be costly, particularly for a lady. I am sure you would not wish to disadvantage your paramour unnecessarily. Her new papers will be quite adequate for a plausible, if perhaps not entirely legal, marriage to take place.'
Vin was saved the need for a reply by Nathan's return.
'She's fine, but don't you ever try something like this again, Vin - you might not be so lucky next time.'
'Wasn't plannin' on it,' Vin assured him good-naturedly, knowing that he'd put a friend on the spot by taking such a risk with a life.
'Is the patient awake?'
'Yeah, but don't go tirin' her out, Ezra.'
'On the contrary, I thought I might put her mind at rest,' Ezra looked at Vin, 'If you'll allow me?'
Vin waved him in. He'd have helped Naomi, with or without support, but he doubted he could have achieved such a good result by himself. Inside, Ezra was as courteous and considerate as he always was to women.
'Good Morning, Ma'am. I hope you are feeling better now.'
'Hello.' Naomi's voice was still faint and her complexion pale but she was already looking better than she had when she came around. 'I'm very well but please, tell me, did we succeed?'
'Even as we speak, your pursuers are returning to Denver - your life is no longer in danger.' He took a sheet of folded paper from his jacket pocket and sat on the edge of the bed to show it to her. She studied it eagerly.
'Norma Buxton. I like that.' She smiled at Vin. 'You can still call me Nom. But doing all this must have been very expensive. How much do I owe you, Mr. Standish?'
'I must have taken ten times the amount off Mr. Tanner over the past year or two. If he can't be prudent with his money, I'll have to do it on his behalf. One disadvantage to our scheme is that you will be unable to retrieve anything from your former life, so you will start with nothing.'
She smiled. 'It doesn't matter. There wasn't much - any money that my father made always went into his next project. Thank you so much for all you've done for me.'
Still thinking on the conversation outside, Vin said, 'You better reckon without my contributions to your lifestyle for a while, Ezra. Looks like I've got commitments now, leastwise till my responsibilities get fed up with me.'
Naomi beamed at him, perhaps starting to understand that his idea of commitment wasn't so much short-lived as open-ended, but then assured him, 'You needn't worry. I'll find a way to support myself.'
- 8 -
To Vin's surprise, Naomi managed just that. Perhaps he'd forgotten how resourceful she was, always far more than just her father's assistant, but, even without the Professor's name and contacts, her knowledge of publishing opened doors. Her articles about the West, and its people, were soon appearing in the English newspapers under the byline 'Vincent Green', a cause to which he was only too happy to lend his given name.
Four months after their reunion, they were lying naked in one of several remote spots he'd found where they could be intimate without fear of interruption. She was on her back and he was holding himself over her, his weight on his forearms and legs, nuzzling her body in the hope of another round of loving before their return to town. He passed her breasts, tempted by their swollen nipples but mindful of the pain that the tenderest ministration to them had inflicted earlier, and then moved down to her belly, tracing its contours with his tongue and wondering if it wasn't just a little more rounded than it had been. He tried to remember the last time that her monthly bleeding had inconvenienced them. Deciding that he could ignore his suspicions no longer, he moved back so that his face was above hers.
She met his gaze openly, admitting both doubt and puzzlement.
'It's not possible.'
That made him smile. Even someone with her background, so well versed in human defenses, could not resist the urge to deny unexpected discoveries. He touched her left nipple with the very tip of his tongue, pressing lightly but only until he felt the first nerve tense in her.
'Ain't it?'
'But I told you the truth-'
He silenced her with a kiss to the lips that pouted around the last word.
'I know,' he assured her, before pointing out the conclusion he'd reached in his own ponderings. 'But you don't know that baby boy was his.' He'd settled on that as the most likely explanation, given the speed with which she'd conceived his child.
She looked up at him wide-eyed as she took in what he was saying.
'You think his first wife...?'
He managed half a shrug, his position making the movement awkward.
'Mebbe she got some of the same treatment you did. S'pose you hadn't known about her baby. Might y'have tried lyin' with another man? Just to make him happy?'
He wasn't worried about asking such a question, knowing she would take it in the same objective spirit in which it was asked. In truth, he doubted that she would have taken such a step, not so much because it would violate her vows as because it would make the marriage itself a lie.
'I don't know. But I can see that a wife might. So, all this time...' She shook her head. 'And his new wife...'
'S'different this time. She musta had some idea what he was about. Seems t'me she deserves all she gets.'
'Poetic justice?' He saw her thoughts shift back to their relationship, and the dramatic change that it would undergo. 'But are you all right about this? It wasn't part of our deal.'
'That's why I ain't so sure about makin' deals for this kinda thing. A man can't promise how things'll pan out - or how he'll feel about 'em when they do - he can only do his darndest t'stand up to his obligations.'
She nodded. 'You might have been young, but you weren't as naïve as me.'
He smiled and kissed her forehead. 'I probably woulda been, f'I hadn't lost my Ma like I did. You always had ol' Bux. You didn't know how sudden something like that can change. Leastwise, you hadn't felt it.'
'No, you're right. I hadn't.' She took a deep breath. 'But I wouldn't want you to stay out of obligation.'
He knew how hard it was for her to tell him that, and how much she was dreading that he would decide that a family still wasn't for him.
'S'part of me inside you,' he said in a low voice. 'That ain't just an obligation. S'part of you too. That sure as hell ain't just an obligation.'
She pressed her lips to his, the intensity of the kiss conveying her relief and rekindling his passion. As yet undaunted by the role he would shortly be required to adopt, he was excited by the image of his seed rooted in her body. Not yet a child in his mind, he bore it no fondness but felt something more akin to satisfaction or maybe even pride. As stupid as that was, he was pretty sure he wasn't the first man to feel it.
'Anyhow, since we got some time yet with it just the two of us,' he rubbed the dewy tip of his length down her thigh. 'There's another part of me that wants t'be inside y'again right now.'
Almost before he'd finished speaking, her legs were around him and he was sliding back into her body, still slick from his last visit. For their child's sake, there would have to be a wedding - no matter what either of them might think - but that would be a small price to pay for the years of loving that he hoped lay ahead.
The title comes from The Toilette, written in 1716 by the English poet and dramatist John Gay:
Mistress and wife by turns supply his need; A miss for pleasure, and a wife for breed.