Buck thought he was going to lose his tongue right out of his mouth when he saw the lone beauty standing beside Judge Travis in front of the Clarion. He put a hand to his chest, begging his heart to slow down as she smiled at Mary Travis after they kindly shook hands. Buck balanced himself on the wagon before him, trying not to lose what he had left of his manhood in the dark of the stranger’s beauty.
“What are you doin’?” JD snuck up behind the ladies’ man and he about jumped out of his skin.
“You know her?” Buck jutted his chin in the direction of the Clarion as they watched the Judge, Mary, and that beauty talk. Only the woman wasn’t talking---just listening.
“Never seen her before? But she sure is pretty!” JD said.
Buck crossed his eyes and belly laughed, “She’s too old for you, JD. Don’t even think about it.”
“And she’s too young for you, Buck. So don’t you think about it.”
“JD, when you know what I know, you’ll know age is nothing but a number.” Buck said and patted the young gunslinger on the back and walked away.
“I’m working on it, Buck.” JD murmured and turned back in the direction of the Clarion to see Judge Travis making his way toward him with that beautiful girl with him, and Mary.
“JD, have you seen Chris anywhere?” the Judge asked.
JD shook his head, “Nope. I haven’t, sir. He might be in the saloon.” He pointed over his shoulder. “I was just makin’ my way there. You want me to check?” JD looked from the Judge to the woman standing behind him, waiting patiently.
“How about we go together? I want all seven of you to hear this.” The Judge said, and had JD lead the way to the saloon. JD wandered what the matter was but figured he’d have to wait to hear it as a group and save the Judge some breath.
Moments later, they all four walked in and met Chris in the corner of the saloon, nursing his whiskey shot on the brim of his lips.
Mary took a deep breath as she approached the unstoppable gunslinger, who had stolen her heart, but had yet to tell him her feelings. She stood to the side of her father-in-law as the woman stood behind them both, still quiet as a mouse and JD behind her.
“Uhh.... Chris? The Judge needs to speak to you— to all of us actually.” JD announced.
Chris looked up from his drink and nodded for the Judge to take a seat at the table, and as he did, Travis motioned for Mary and the woman to join them.
“Nathan’s takin’ care of a broken ankle, and Vin is out on a trip for a local. I couldn’t tell you where Ezra is,” Chris mumbled. “And I last saw Buck walking past the saloon doors, not botherin’ to come in. Josiah is most likely in his church. Just say what you gotta say, Judge, before I head out and get some sleep. I haven’t had any today.” He said as a matter-of-fact as if he was waiting for the Judge to come in and tell him some bad news.
“You do know where your men are, don’t you, Chris?” the Judge said.
“It’s better that way.” Chris said, then looked across the table at the young woman, then at Mary sitting beside her, waiting for the story to be told. “So, what is it I can do for you?”
“You aren’t goin’ to like it. I can already guarantee you will not,” the Judge said.
Chris breathed in a loud, irritated deep breath and looked over at the girl again. “Does it have something to do with her?”
Judge Travis nodded. “She’s been running from her husband for some time now. Eating out of dumpsters, wearing rundown clothes, taking a beating by anyone she looked at wrong. She’s innocent, and she wants to live and not in hiding for the rest of her life.”
Chris looked at the girl again, this time keeping his stare on her. She was hiding underneath a layer of dark, used clothes, and she had her hair twisted back in a tight braid. He almost laughed off the Judge’s words when he said she was homeless and looking for a new life. The woman was beautiful. Pure and simple. Her flawless skin reflected the sunlight outside the window; her nails were clean as if she hadn’t been digging through trash for scraps of food. In fact, her whole body was perfect. He locked his jaw and went back to stare at Travis until he finished his story that included hiring Chris to take the girl to the town of Denver’s Curve, have her name changed, and help her start a new life.
Chris scoffed. “Denver’s Curve is a three day ride.”
“I know that, Chris. I have everything covered. All the backgrounds, the negatives, the reasons of unknown, and I wouldn’t be asking anyone else for the trip other than you.” Travis said.
“Then why did you want the others to hear?”
“I wanted them to hear because Angelina has a hunch that her husband will tear down every town looking for her. They needed to be prepared for any sudden attack while you and she are gone.”
“You’re just hirin’ me?”
The Judge eyed the girl, “That was the plan.”
JD stepped up and into the conversation. “Judge, I wouldn’t mind keepin’ Chris and the lady company. That is a long trip to make alone. They could run into trouble on the way.”
“No trouble,” Travis said. “Dover’s Curve is just outside the crossing between Arizona and Colorado. It’s a perfectly safe trip from there and back.”
“But Judge....the way home.”
Chris shot JD an evil glare, “I’ve lived on my own the past three years, and ten before I married. I don’t need the company.”
Taken aback, JD hunched over and took a step back. “Okay then. I’ll go alert the others you’ll be leavin’ soon.” And he was gone.
Mary saw the tension in Chris’s shoulders and decided to act upon the matter. “Chris, there’s no reason to be nasty about the situation. He just wants you take Mrs. Moore to a safe location and hurry back home as if nothing had ever happened.”
“No, Mary, you’re askin’ me to travel for three days alone without help from the others and with a madman on my heel. A man I don’t know, don’t wanna know, and have no reason to kill if he catches up to us.”
“He won’t catch up,” the quiet voice between Mary and the Judge said. Chris switched his glare from Mary to Angelina, and quickly shook away his glare to softer eyes.
“How can you be so sure?” Chris asked.
Angelina studied the man Judge Travis had hired a little longer before saying, “I just know. If we leave now, he’ll never know where we’ve gone.”
Chris shook his head, “Don’t count on that.” He stood then and adjusted his hat. “Just let me get some things together for the trip. Come find me within the hour.” He looked once at Mary, then at Judge Travis, and looked hard at the small woman wedged between them. There was something about this woman that struck him with the idea of not to mess with her. She was quiet, reminded him of himself, but he knew from experience and his own ways of life that you should never mess with the quiet ones. He erased the thoughts about Angelina Moore from mind completely, went back to protector mode, and tipped his hat at his uninvited guests and left the saloon without a look back for at least an hour.
He didn’t get his wish as he heard Mary calling out his name. Chris glanced over his shoulder to find her hurrying toward him.
“It’s not what you think, Chris.” Mary said out of breath.
“And what am I thinkin’?”
“You don’t have to go through this alone. Have Buck or Vin go with you for the trip home. To keep company. JD offered, why did you refuse?” she searched his dark eyes, pain and guilt washing through her.
Chris looked away from her concerned glare, the glare he’d seen so many times before, and looked off in the distance at the bustling town. “Why couldn’t he ask Vin or Buck to do it instead of me? Why is it always me who’s picked for these situations? I might know a thing or two about the wilderness and what to expect, but it’s always me.”
Mary was stricken. She couldn’t believe the words the man she had fallen hard for was acting in this childish manner. “Are you whining, Mr. Larabee?” she blurted.
Chris shot his glare right back on her, “Hell....” He waited for her to say something else but when she didn’t, he turned his back on her, shaking his head as he walked away.
The hour came and went like day and night. Chris packed his horse, gave Pony a nice, long drink for the first few hours of ride without stop, and gave the Judge standing on the Clarion steps a heads up that he was ready for take off.
“You don’t have to do this alone, Chris.” Buck said from behind him. Chris brushed his comment off and saddled his horse, adjusting a few times to get comfortably seated.
Angelina Moore came walking out the Clarion doors with her bags in tow, JD behind her assisting, as she walked to the stagecoach that was hooked up to Pony and another random horse Chris needed to borrow from the livery.
“This all for you, miss?” JD asked and Angelina nodded under the lace curtain shading her eyes. The young gunslinger stepped back, rubbed around his neck, and wondered how old this woman was. She didn’t look any older than him. He wondered what kind of life she had with her husband, and if she was forced to marry him. He found himself gawking at her remarkable beauty under the lace guarder’s hat, her ash blond hair pinned back underneath and her curls popping out the sides, dangling down behind her ear.
Chris grunted when he thought about the long trip ahead of him and the long trip back home alone. He looked at Mary standing by the Judge, thinking about their last conversation about him whining. He laughed off the word to himself. He turned to his men standing around him, with the woman in the stage coach behind him. The woman was the reason all this started.
He tipped his hat to everyone staring at him, and clicked his tongue to get this ball rolling.
Buck stepped out in the street, watching Chris ride away, his back straight and firm all dressed in black.
“He didn’t have to go alone,” he mumbled.
“No, he didn’t,” Mary said as she moved beside him also watching the stagecoach disappear around the locals and finally gone from the town.
“Mr. Larabee?” Angelina Moore called from the stagecoach open window. She held onto her hat as the wind blew in her face, the sun gone from the sky above, covered by dark rain clouds. When Chris didn’t answer, she took it for herself to speak again. “Mr. Larabee?”
“What?” his throat scoffed.
“Pardon me, but do you mind if we stop for a bit? I’m a bit famished, and I need sit still without constant jumping from the ride.”
Chris kept the ride going, at his desired pace, and Angelina thought he ignored her request and was ready to poke her head back in the window and live with the ride until everything slowed and steadied.
She watched the gunslinger unsaddle his horse and come around the stagecoach and open the door for her. A gesture she was not expecting but took his quiet kindness and stepped out.
“We’re stopping here?” Angelina asked, looking around the open land. The distance ready to turn black from the clouds.
Chris released a breath of hot air, “You said you just needed to be steady for a moment, and eat.” He pointed up to the clouds. “The sky is getting darker by the minute. If we stay out here too long, I won’t know where the hell we’ll be. So, enjoy your stillness. We’re moving again soon.” After he was through ruling her out, he took her eyes into his, watched the tension fade as she took small, quiet breaths taking in everything he said.
Angelina Moore was innocent....but not that innocent.
Chris again erased the uncomfortable thoughts and turned away from her glowing beauty and walked to the horses to see if everything was in place as when they left town.
He wasn’t even prepared for it. After the first raindrop on his hand, then sprinkles on his clothes and hat, he looked up in the skies and saw nothing but coming darkness and one hell of a storm. He shook his head, suddenly angry and annoyed that he agreed to do this job in the first place.
“Get back in the coach, Mrs. Moore. The storm’s comin’ and I gotta get us outta here before we’re stuck in it.” Chris ordered and Angelina hopped into the coach without question and everything began to move and jumble her insides again.
Chris barked for the horses to get a move on and as they were headed back on track with five hours behind them at again his desired pace, lightning struck just ahead of them, and the horses went crazy.
Chris mumbled a colorful phrase under his breath as he tried his best and hardest to control the horses. Lightning hit the open land again, the rain poured, soaking his clothes to his body, and with his horses going mad scared, Chris had no other way or idea than to just pull off to the side and wait out the storm.
When he saw a clearing just ahead, he managed to control the horses until he reached it. He called to his back and told Angelina Moore they had to stop again because of the rain. When he heard nothing in her response, Chris took it as if she was more than glad to stop given she had just complained a few minutes ago about needing to for a break.
He pulled the reins on the horses to a halt just before a cliff dive with nothing but rock below the fifty foot drop. With swaying, rained down trees to the north of the stagecoach, Chris figured he had no other choice to put them elsewhere. The hard rain poured thickly on his back like little pin pricks and he hurried around the horses, pulled them to a patch of wet grass, and yanked the stagecoach door open and threw himself inside to get out of the downpour.
Angelina hid the terror in her eyes when she watched the gunslinger get seated in the seat opposite her, and she held onto her beaded handbag that much tighter. She knew in her heart what she was set out to do and why the journey to Dover’s Curve was so important for her mentally and physically. She moved her hands over her bag, feeling the body of a blade, and she ran her fingertips along it to the tip, wondering what destructions it was doing to the interior of her bag.
“Didn’t have a chance,” the gunslinger mumbled and Angelina shot her head up and looked at him to see what he was doing. He looked at the now closed stage coach window, moved to the other side and closed that one shut and locked them in place so the rain and wind couldn’t break in. He moved the curtain to look outside, but he could hardly see anything in the off distance. He looked up in the dark skies and knew they wouldn’t be setting off anytime soon. The sun had set, the rain poured, and daylight wouldn’t show until morning. They were stuck.
Angelina ignored the curses coming from the strange man across from her, and she gripped her handbag that much tighter. She looked up and made sure Chris wasn’t looking at her then back down at her hands on her bag and when she knew was she, too, being ignored, Angelina turned her hands over and peered down at the cuts on her wrists. The deep, embedded gashes on each wrist were horrifying, and any man or woman who saw them knew she wasn’t a well woman. Fact of the matter was, she not a well person, and hadn’t been for the past three years of her young life until one older woman took her into her care, and showed her a world from beyond suicide. But Angelina would never stop thinking of committing the ultimate crime of taking her own life.
She listened to the rain peppering the rooftop of the coach and relaxed her hands, turned her wrists over again and covered them up with her dress sleeves. She didn’t want this man to know her troubles. Not yet. Not until she finished what her lady boss demanded her to do. Chris Larabee would have no idea what he was in for when he agreed to take her across the country.
Angelina had to get this show on the road or she would be stuck out here in the rain forever with this daring, good-looking man. To start anew in the stillness between them, Angelina started to hum a tune.
Chris gritted his teeth, mumbling words to himself about the weather, about his agreement with the Judge and this woman when she started to hum sadly. He left the stare of the window and looked over at her and watched her fiddle with her beaded handbag.
“Stop,” he mumbled.
Angelina was startled, and looked up to meet his eyes. “Pardon?”
“Hummin’— stop it.”
To lose the shock from her face, Angelina shook her head and dismissed his rudeness. “No.” She said matter-of-factly.
“I don’t wanna hear it for the rest of the night.” Chris barked.
“And I don’t want to listen to your mumbles either.” She fired back. She closed her eyes to keep out his harsh glare, then opened them and looked back down at her handbag, tracing the blade again. Chris watched her hand movements, but snorted it off and looked back outside at the rain.
Angelina Moore was a beautiful woman but she was almost snippy and wrong in all the right places. She had piercing, icy blue eyes, her lips puffy, and her body piety. Chris knew it was going to be hard to stick in this stagecoach for as long as they had to be and not think about what he could do to her in the meantime just to kill the time. But she was young like Casey Wells back in Four Corners, and getting to the likes of her was a little much than Chris wanted to take. He shuddered off the sensual thoughts and kept still on his side of the coach.
“How old are you?”
Her voice startled him this time, wondering how in the hell she knew what he was thinking, and looked her way again.
“Why?”
“I’m just wondering. Are you older than me?”
Chris looked her up and down. “I’d say so.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Okay....” Angelina said then bit on her bottom lip to try and think how to say what she was thinking next. “And your son….how old was he when he died?”
Chris wanted to jump up in the coach and strangle this beauty and scream why she wanted to know about his son and how in the hell did she know anything about him! He kept his cool, tightened his fists, and glared hard at her.
“How do you know I had a son?”
Angelina smiled softly, “You wouldn’t believe me.”
“Try me,” Chris growled.
She looked away, down at the blade after she opened her bag and pulled it out a little for her eyes only, then said, “Ella Gaines.”
Chris choked on his surprise and when he did he had the nerve to jump across the coach and wrap his hands around Angelina’s neck. “What about Gaines? Did she hire you to kill me? Did she set you out here to find me? What?” He yanked on her throat, and she clawed at his hands. “You tell me now!”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Angelina gasped. Just when Chris wanted to strangle her harder, she found strength in her legs and pushed him away with her foot. He slammed back into the seat cushion and again tried to leap at her, but Angelina was so quick, her hat flying off her head, as she pulled the blade from her bag and aimed it for Chris’s throat.
Chris leaned as far as he could in the seat cushioned, stared in the depths of her blue eyes that were so close to his, and waited to what she would do with the blade at his throat.
“You move, Mr. Larabee, and I swear I will cut you here,” she moved the blade closer to his Adam’s apple. “And won’t stop till there will be nothing left of your face. Do you understand me?”
Chris rolled his eyes as he had been in this situation before. What mind-boggled him was it was never with a woman, always a man who tried to threaten him, but never a gorgeous woman. He had to admit he was more than aroused by her threats, and the steam in her eyes.
“You won’t kill me,” he said in a low, sensual voice.
“Try me....” Angelina mocked him from earlier when he said the very same words.
Not thinking about the blade at his throat, Chris smiled. “There is no raging husband, is there?”
Angelina straddled his lap harder, moving her legs on either side of his hips, and sat down on the bulge in his pants. Chris moaned from her swayed hips upon him, but didn’t leave the glare from his eyes.
“What about Ella Gaines....how do you know her?” he asked next.
“She took me in.” Angelina finally answered.
“What do you mean?”
“She cared for me when no one else would.”
Chris snorted. “She took care of you all right. She turned you into her.” He figured the woman wasn’t going to let up on the knife or the short answers to his demanding questions. He had to figure out a way to get her off him so he could take charge of the situation and make Angelina tell him where Ella Gaines was hiding. This way he could kill two birds with one stone: end his search for the woman who killed his family, and throw Angelina Moore in jail for getting involved.
With her straddling his lap so hard, there was only one solution to his problem. Whether he agreed he’d to do it or not, he’d do just about anything to find Ella Gaines and put her six feet under. This trip was turning into a well-deserved one after all.
Angelina held the blade tighter to his throat and Chris had to swallow from the pressure.
“If I don’t kill you, Larabee,” she whispered. “She’ll kill me.”
Chris grabbed her free wrist and yanked it to his face. When he couldn’t see the deep gash, he moved his finger across it to understand as if he were a blind learning to read with his hands. “And you haven’t tried that yourself?”
His question and movement shook her body, and she held back the rushing tears, and swallowed down her fear that he discovered her darkest secret.
“She took me in,” Angelina said again. “Ella knew I was not a well person and she—“
“She took advantage of you,” Chris interrupted. “You’re not a well person, I can feel that.” He released her hand, and it fell lifeless as well as her pride and strength to kill him. “Don’t turn to the dark side. Don’t give your soul to the devil. And don’t kill me just because Gaines ordered you to.”
“But she’ll kill me.”
“Not if you stick with me she won’t.”
Angelina renewed her anger and pulled the knife tighter to his throat again. “I will not turn my back on the only person in this world who gave a damn about me. What she has done to you, or anyone else, I will not turn on her!”
Chris wanted to shout but knew that would only cause the blade to slip and make him bleed his life out. He had to keep what he planned to do, and he had to act now.
With his hands hanging loosely on her arms, he slowly moved them down the length of her sides, to her hips, and moved under her blue dress, and cupped his palms on her plush bottom.
Angelina tried to rise from his lap but if she did he would escape underneath her grasp and everything would be over.
“Get your hands off me,” she said.
“Only if you get yours off me,” he mumbled and moved his hands from her bottom to the front of her flat stomach, massaging her hips and just above her panty line. Her breath skipped, and her eyes fluttered but she stopped the silly girl act and glared at him.
“Mr. Larabee....” Angelina said then swallowed as his hands worked their way into her most private, sensitive spot on her body. With the blade still locked on his neck, her eyes began to roll in the back of her head when Chris found what he was shooting for and slowly stroked her. Before she knew it, he pulled the blade from his throat and out of her hand and kissed her sweaty palm as she leaned her head back in total ecstasy. When Chris thought he should end the pleasure now and get on with picking out every emotion, every little detail he could get out of her about Ella Gaines and her whereabouts, he didn’t. Her open, creamy neck was out for him to ravish and he leaned down and kissed the top of her dress where her breasts set pouched. If she as young as he thought earlier, he was mistakenly wrong when he saw the full figure of her mature body in his arms.
Angelina was beyond caring as she reached her point of pleasure, and Chris removed his hands from her panties. He made sure to move whatever he was feeling slowly so he wouldn’t wake the beast inside her. She lifted her head when she felt herself come down from the high she just experienced. Her body went limp in his arms and Chris laid her down on the seat cushion and placed his body over hers. Frantically in the heat without thinking, Angelina searched for the buttons on his pants and found the zipper.
Chris caught his breath just before it escaped his mouth when Angelina’s cold hands brushed against his skin. Before he knew it, he was out for all to see, and he didn’t wait another second and shifted her legs to allow him access to her body. He shivered as his hand slid over the satiny surface of her skin, and when he felt the heat, he moved and made them one.
“Oh....My....God....” Angelina breathed, and wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer. Blindingly, without caution, his hands moved on their own accord. Clothing shifted, then dropped to the padded flooring, hearts stopped, and then jump-started again with the first touch of skin against skin.
Angelina was instantly lost in his eyes so dark that she couldn’t see past the passion. And when he lifted her up, and then let her back down, her breath thickened as their bodies merged. As he shut his eyes in momentary ecstasy, he groaned against her ear, and she forgot what she’d been about to say.
At first, there was only the feeling of being made whole, of being complete when, for so long, she’d known that there was a part of her missing. And then other, more subtle sensations began to take hold. The strong, constant ebb and flow of their bodies moving against and then with each other, the way the muscles across his back bunched beneath her hands as the tension stretched between them.
Chris couldn’t think. There was nothing in his life at this moment except the feel of this woman in his arms. The way her body softened and warmed, accepting him into herself without caution, or much less a fight. He knew these kinds of women, but Angelina wasn’t like that. She said so herself she was sick, and the idea of taking her just to get the blade away from him was starting to turn into something different and indescribable. She was the only link he had to ever finding Ella Gaines, he couldn’t be thinking about having a life with her.
To rid his thoughts in their lovemaking, he began to move faster, in and out, over and over, until her breathing changed and he felt her tightening around him. Angelina shook, whispering soft, almost nonexistent promises against his cheek, begging him to finish what they’d both begun.
“Oh God,” he groaned, and slid his hands behind her hips and lifted her up closer to his groin. It was time.
Heat spiraled, breath melded, and Chris covered her lips with his own. And when she arched against the final thrust of his body and then collapsed on the cushion, he swallowed her sigh, and knew a pleasure unlike anything he’d ever experienced.
Spent passion left them weak and shaking, helpless and unwilling to move. Chris winced in pain as the last drips of his pleasure leaked into her body, and from the ache in his right shoulder where Angelina had clawed and bit him over and over.
“Larabee....Larabee....” Angelina whispered and put a hand over her eyes to shut out the joys in her face. “What have you done to me?”
After moments of silence, Chris collected himself and steadied his breath back to regular and calm. He sat up, shifted his clothes back to normal and zipped up his pants, his manhood still throbbing. He moved to the other side of the coach and took another deep breath to reassure himself he was going to be okay.
Angelina choked on her quiet sobs of joy and pain. She was in pain for letting this man get under her skin and make what little love he had for her. If any at all. She sat up, adjusted her dress and covered her legs back up just before he had her by the neck again.
“Ella now....” Chris mumbled. “Where is she?”
There were painful tears in her eyes, and Chris almost wanted to let her go from here. The rain had let up and to Chris’s surprise, the sky lightened to late afternoon. He would be able to tell which direction to head from here.
“I won’t tell you,” Angelina cried, and easily smacked away Chris’s limp hand on her neck. “I will never tell you.” Thinking about what had just happened between them, Chris found out so quickly how to get rid of the sensation and go back to game face and demanding answers. He hurt her in so many ways; Angelina didn’t even know how to think straight anymore. And to her horror, the nightmares of committing suicide banked hard in her memory again, she found strength in her shaky legs and jumped out of the stagecoach without a look back.
Chris found his legs, remembered the plan again, and went after her in the light rain that now sprinkled the land.
“Angelina!” he called out to her as he watched her running away from the stagecoach, the horses, and away him toward the cliff. “Angelina!” Chris shouted, making himself run faster as she headed straight for the cliff. “Stop! Wait!” when he thought he was going to lose her and she’d jump off and kill herself, he grabbed her arm and yanked her away just before they both went over.
“Let me go, Larabee!” Angelina screamed, trying to pull free. “You have no idea what I’m capable of! You have no idea that I never wanted to do this to you in the first place!” Controlling her hysterics to break free from him and end her life so quickly, she dropped to her knees in the wet grass and cried out.
Chris watched her, wondering what the hell she meant by what she said. To find out, he had to dig deep down to his lost emotions and care. He dropped to one knee, grabbed her by the shoulders, and made him look at her.
“What are you talkin’ about?” he asked, searching her lost eyes.
“I never wanted to hurt you, Larabee. Ella forced me to come to you, hire only you and no one else for this trip. She made me listen and understand that I was to kill you along the way, and she would meet up with me in two days to see if I’ve done it so she could have your body.” Angelina confessed, and wouldn’t look Chris in the eyes. “I told her I didn’t want to do it. After she told me what she had done to your wife and son, I told her I wanted no part in taking your life too. That you’ve suffered enough! She told me if I didn’t do it, she’d finish what I started with my wrists.” She looked up at him this time, and saw the pain and anger flushed in his green eyes. “You have to believe me. I never wanted to hurt you.” She touched his bottom lip and traced the curve. “I only wanted to hurt myself and put an end to my relationship with her. She’s an evil woman, Larabee. You know this.”
Chris did believe her and by God he wanted to take her back to Four Corners with him and protect her from the crazy lady she had worked for and hired by to kill him. He tightened his hands on her shoulders again, urging him to look at her when she tried to look away.
“I know this is hard,” he whispered, his voice soft. “But you have to tell me where Ella is. When will she meet up with you?”
Angelina shook her head, “Just go back home, Larabee. What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her and she won’t come find you because of what she did those four years ago, and now that you know the truth. She’ll only come find me and kill me for what I’ve revealed.”
“She won’t, Angelina, if you come back with me and confess this to the Judge. We’ll make him understand.” Chris said, feeling awful for this woman and what she had to put up through with Gaines for who knows how long. “But tell me now where she is.”
Angelina’s bottom lip shivered and she held her breath, thinking whether or not she ought to. Ella Gaines hadn’t done wrong to her in the past, but she had done many things wrong to this man who had loved her for just a few moments of bliss. For that and what he did, she will forever love him and never forget. But truth, she didn’t want to face Ella and tell her what had happened and why she was unable to kill Chris Larabee. The last thing she would see would be a knife lashing her wrists or gorging out her eyes. She didn’t want to face it so she had to put her life in her own hands and before she would, she had to tell Chris what he wanted to hear.
She took another shaky breath and leaned forward so she could whisper. “If I hadn’t killed you, Ella plans to find you at gunpoint just over Dover’s Curve. She’s hired three gunmen to take you down.” Angelina looked into his eyes, and this time really looked before she said. “But turn back and go home. Please.... do it for me.”
She grabbed his hands, gave them a little squeeze, then stood. Her dress blew in the chilly wind, her hair falling loosely around her shoulders, down her back, and she looked around the open land before setting eyes on Chris again who remained kneeled at her feet. She took a deep breath, then without thinking, she turned around and jumped off the cliff to her death.
Chris locked his jaw, watched the place where Angelina stood seconds ago, remembered the painful tears locked in her eyes, and the plea she begged of him. She wanted him to turn back and go home. Problem was Four Corners wasn’t his home. Only a place he worked at, found friends, and a little boy he would go to the end of the world and back for. If it wasn’t his home with Sarah and Adam once upon a time ago, then it would have to settle for him now.
Ella Gaines would have to wait until the right time strikes. He wasn’t about to go into an army of three gunmen alone. With the knowledge Angelina Moore gave him, he had enough fury inside him to last for a while. He stood up, let the cool wind sweep by him before he turned around and headed back to the horses. He unhooked the stagecoach from them, saddled Pony, and led the other horse away from the left stagecoach as he rode quietly, slow, and steadily back to Four Corners.
Five hours later in the middle of the night, Chris was home with only a few stops behind him. He dropped the horses back in the livery, stretched his legs and back, and headed for Virginia’s Hotel when he was stopped by Buck sitting outside the jailhouse.
“You’re back,” Buck said surprised and met up with Chris in the street.
“I am,” Chris mumbled.
“I thought it took three days to get to Dover’s Curve.”
Chris ignored his friend’s question and kept on walking to the hotel.
“Hey....” Buck caught up with him. “Where’s the girl?”
His question caught Chris off guard and he smiled. Before he looked at Buck, he removed the smile and the joy from his face after he remembered making love to Angelina Moore was the last ounce of joy she got. And he was somewhat satisfied he was the one to give it to her when the thought of taking her was just a game in the beginning.
“She’s safe, Buck.” Chris said and left him behind, wondering what he meant by that. But his questions would have to wait for Chris’s answers till morning. Buck saw a light in Chris’s eyes he had never seen before since the death of his family. Something had happened on this faithful journey, and he didn’t know whether Chris would tell him or not.
For now....it was goodnight and sweet dreams for the quiet gunslinger.
THE END