The Stranger by Suzy

Louise didn’t get her way over a quick wedding.

Buck refused to rush into the wedding and wanted the guests to enjoy themselves while they can so he could manage to suck down all his fear into his gut and continue to prepare for this big step ahead of him. He was getting married, he said over and over, believing the truth that it was in deed real. Chris tried to talk some sense into him. He couldn’t believe he had the nerve to listen to JD’s advice about women. What went through his head when the young gunfighter first suggested marriage? Yes, Buck knew he was in love with this woman, all women in fact, but this woman he will soon marry he loved more than life itself.

And from Maude Standish’s personal opinion on marriage she laid out to him last night, Buck didn’t know what he got himself into. A chance to be happy with one woman for the rest of his life, and the chance to move on from the guns, the fights, the loud-cackling drunks in the night… the chance to have a family.

Chris walked out of the jailhouse after exchanging words with Vin inside. He had to get some fresh air as the wind blew through his clothes, cooling down from tension he didn’t noticed he had. And the sun wasn’t helping him either. He moved his hat further down his forehead and leaned against a wooden post as he watched guests take seats as the wedding was about to begin.

He saw JD and Casey in the front row, talking and Casey laughed at what JD whispered in her ear. Nettie Wells sat beside her and she kept a chair open for Vin. He moved his stare across Ezra and Nathan hanging out by the alter in conversation with Josiah. Chris knew this was going to be a very long ceremony because everything Josiah did, he’d take to the heart. Every word spoken, it’d carry onto another word, another prayer ending with how weddings were important, the most important part of anyone’s life, and how rarely it happened anymore.

He saw everyone else he’d usually see within a day’s time except Mary. He hadn’t spotted Mary yet. Above all people with this wedding taking place and the preparation, Chris figured she’d be the one standing with Josiah or Ezra but she was no where in sight…not in plain sight that was.

The jailhouse doors opened and Vin walked out. “Lively bunch we got here today.”

“Hope they’ll get what they came here for,” Chris said.

“Yeah, Mary’s done good. Maude too.”

Chris grunted, “I reckon.”

Vin looked crossways at the gunslinger, “You’re not for weddings?”

“Never knew what the big deal was.”

“Is that how you felt when you married your wife?” Vin asked. Chris looked at him. Of course that’s not how he felt. He felt as if the world was on his side that day, that every enemy rejoiced him, forgetting how they were mistreated. His wedding day was something to remember, to cherish. And he remembered every breathing second of Sarah standing before him with a ring of white roses on her head, her small bulge where their son grew with life. How he laid his hand on her belly and gave her their first kiss as husband and wife.

“You ready for this?”

Mary. Chris recognized her voice immediately. And his memories of his wedding disappeared.

He turned and watched her make an approach toward him. “It ain’t my weddin’.”

Mary huffed out a breath and glanced over at Vin. “Oh, I know that. I mean for Buck. You ready for him to get married?” Mary asked and between he and Vin, letting the sun’s heat stroke her face and blond curls.

“He didn’t need my say whether this was right or not.” Chris said as he turned his attention back on the crowd.

“Then what do you think?”

“I don’t.”

He looked at Mary then and she looked right back at him. Something between these polar opposite people struck Chris hard in the chest and he had to look away. He didn’t want to look at Mary that way. Thoughts he didn’t want to invite in his head while other misguided thoughts about the lady stranger he had yet to see again.

Mary crossed her arms over the white satin dress that covered her shoulders and wore low around the neck. She took a deep breath and looked beyond the crowd, admiring her work with the setup and thinking about nothing in particular except Chris. “Well, I think if you are truly in love with someone you won’t be able to imagine your life without them. To know this is the one you were born for and why you waited.”

Chris’s mouth twitched to a grin, but he quickly tossed it before she saw. And thinking about what she just said about waiting for the right love, he had to ask her, “Think that happens for a second time?”

Now Mary put her attention on him, “Yes.” She spouted out, almost in disbelief that he’d ask her that. “Don’t you?”

Chris wanted to shake his head yes, but knowing he could only love one woman, and Sarah was gone. “No, I don’t.”

And her smile dropped, the breath taken from her lungs. Chris turned away from her and with that end note, his last comment; Mary could do nothing but smile. Was he lying? Was he telling the truth? Could she ever manage to give him the love that was stolen from him those four years ago? Right now, no. She could wish that she might be able to sometime down the road, but what mattered now was this wedding.

“Mary?”

She turned to where her name was spoken and she found Vin standing before her. She smiled from ear to ear when she watched him extend his arm for her to take as an escort to the wedding.

“Would you?” he asked.

“Yes, Vin. Thank you.” And Mary took that arm, looked at Chris one last time, then left with Vin.

Chris winced from the sun’s powerful light as he watched Vin take Mary to the wedding. He didn’t feel wrong for saying he didn’t believe love could happen twice. He felt no pinch of regret. She needed to know and he let her know without hesitation. And it was the truth. He leaned off the wooden post knowing he had to get down there at the alter for Buck; all he had to do was move his legs, do the motions, and be done with it. Easier said then done, he thought. He did a quick run over the town’s crowd one more time, looking down the stretch of town and across the lot and when he did he saw her again.

Natalie watched the guests and folks involved with the wedding ceremony. She was in awe as she held a bag of supplies she purchased in Mrs. Potter’s general store. With her cape covering her body the shape of the dark violet gown molded every inch of her chest, her belly, her long legs.

Chris noticed: those legs, those hips, her beauty.

Natalie stopped in front of Trevor’s Hardware store to admire the wedding with unyielding soft eyes. From across the lot, Chris couldn’t make out if she was pleased or in a great deal of pain as she watched the guests whisper and listen to the soft wedding hymns. And then those brown eyes circled over at him. Heart skipped a beat, Chris watched her watch him. And then her eyes lightened up and the sparkle disappeared. She set her jaw tight; her lips dry as she couldn’t look away.

The connection of that damn attraction leaped again from his heart to hers and Chris was the one to look away before it took a hold of him and he’d find himself walking over to her. Asking her to take his arm and allow him to escort her to a wedding she wasn’t invited to. A wedding she happened to fall upon on her travels.

No, he couldn’t do that. Not after having that talk about marriage with Mary, the second chance at love. And none of that fancied Chris. He had to get rid of this woman who so willingly captured his eyes, made him forget about the real world and do nothing but drown himself in her sweet scent.

“Mr. Larabee?”

Chris turned and he saw Maude looking at him. “Ma’am?”

“It’s time, son.”

Chris heaved himself off the boards and into the threatening sun. He looked back at Natalie but she was gone suddenly. Not in his view, not anywhere. A wave of misguided emotions stung into the pit of his gut but he managed to keep his cool long enough to walk up to Buck at alter standing in front of the guests. He removed his hat then and set his hands behind his back and waited for the ceremony to begin.

Then when he thought things couldn’t get any worse bringing up old memories, about his wedding— the first glimpse of the bride walking out of the Clarion doors caught not one, but every male’s attention…even Chris’s.

To take this woman as your awfully wedded wife. To love her, honor her; cherish her for all the days of her life. Louise walked off the boards into the dusty street and the two seamstresses followed, holding her satin veil. With the brightest smile, tears in her eyes, the dizzied mind that she was alas getting married to a man she’d been waiting for all her life.

Taking those tiny unwedded steps down the isle, Louise gazed at Buck, the short distance she had before she’d be in his arms. He’d take her hands and help the rest of the way to the alter and stand before Josiah and do this thing. And from here on out, things did not cool down and Buck and Louise were married under the broad blue southern sky and Chris smiled the whole time.

Natalie walked down the lot so she could get a better look at the married couple giving their first kiss as man and wife. She wrapped her arm around the wooden post and held on tight. And for what… so she wouldn’t cry in front of these people? So she could show these people that she was a soft woman beneath the rough talk? To see how much she wanted that love with a man again.

She leaned the side of her face against the post, just watching and admiring. The wind blew like mad in her face, pushing back her brunette hair. The sensation of the warm summer breeze trickled down her spine, causing a throbbing rush of emotion to clog her throat.

It’d been too long since she’d drown herself in love and passion. She wasn’t use to this charge of emotional bliss that soared through her veins, shooting out her heels. How she longed to be kissed the way Buck kissed Louise.

But those were mere illusions of her past, and she needed to leave the past with the people who were stuck there. She closed her eyes and thought how she could push away what she had with her husband. The love he gave the past six years, and the last love he scorned on her body. One treasured memory following a tragic one was not healthy on her soul and she could do nothing but push back.

Then suddenly what she heard she never thought she’d hear again.

“Mrs. Rose?”

When the wedding chimes rang and the guests cheered after Buck and Louise pulled away from the kiss, Chris could do nothing but smile. From ear to ear, he couldn’t contain the grin and he couldn’t help but clap and cheer with the others. You owe this much to Buck if not more, he told himself.

Then to keep the sun off his eyes he put his hat back on and tipped it down further on his forehead for the usual comfort. He watched Buck and Louise walk down the isle and a disarray of yellow, brown, and white beans were tossed.

Chris laughed too, but held it in as he watched his friends. Too caught up in the joy of marriage, he hadn’t noticed Natalie standing off in the corner until he looked over and saw a man stand next to her. And her expression and the way she moved her body away from this man warned Chris this wasn’t good.

“Randall McArthur…” Natalie stumbled and took a step back from the roaring faintness she suddenly felt. She blinked a few times to get rid of this man she knew for a long time now but no matter how many times she did, he’d stay. “Randall…how did you find me?”

“It wasn’t hard.”

What? Natalie shook her head, knowing what he said couldn’t be true. She’d been so good keeping scarce from town to town, pushing forward when something was too suspicious. She was good at that.

“Mrs. Rose-”

“Please!” she shot her hand up to stop him from speaking her name again. “You must not speak my name. Understood?”

Randall stared at her long and hard. He saw the scare in her whiskey eyes, the fragile attempt of her hand to make sure he didn’t say what she’d kept secret for so long. But he had to tell her why he was there, and why he had been looking for her and he needed to tell her now before the rush of brutal memories vanished and she’d turn and stalk away.

“Listen to me, okay? Listen. Alex is only two towns away. At least a night’s ride from here. You have to get out now!” He said and put the wooden cane he held on the floorboards for balance.

This man didn’t like Natalie or her husband Alex from what she remembered when they were neighbors and ranching, and sharing cattle, horses, food, and welcoming invites into their home. Randall never accepted their generosity. Even after he knew Alex lost his cool, and his mind…he never once helped her when she needed somebody, anybody, and he was the closest one there, and that night when he heard her screams for help. So what was he doing here now?

She had to ask.

“Why are you here, Mr. McArthur? What brought you to find me?”

Randall shook his head and released a hot breath of air. “Because he did this to me.” And he pointed down at his right leg and hit the shin with the cane and the hit was hard and hollow. He looked back up and saw the fear in Natalie’s eyes and then he lifted his pant leg and revealed a wooden post in exchange of his leg.

“He shot up my leg and I had to have the damn thing amputated.” Randall scoffed, and abruptly rolled the pant leg back down. “And I’ll spit on his grave when that man’s dead.”

Natalie leaned up and took a step back to the harsh of his tone. “And I thought he’d be better by now.” She figured he would be after she’d gone. Maybe alone he was better off to heal his own wounds. But now…

Randall laughed, “Better!” the cane wobbled in his hands as he continued that hideous laugh.

“What is it then?” Natalie shot back, irritated with this dirty old man that use to care what he looked like, how clean he’d always treat himself. He was just the opposite of what she remembered. Had those two years really changed not only her but everyone she knew also? And he wouldn’t stop laughing, or shaking, aw hell! “Mr. McArthur!”

He sprung forward and roughly grabbed her arm. “Listen to me! He’s coming for you. You have to leave now, Natalie!”

“Let go,” she hissed, and tried to pull off from this man she didn’t know anymore. But he wouldn’t and he kept explaining why he traveled her all this way. He told her about her husband’s battles with guzzling beers. The severe damage he’d do in each town just looking for her. How, her husband she once thought never harm a living soul unless it was business, would threaten every man, woman, and child until he found her. And she had to start and ask him why.

“You have to leave!” he shrieked, the grip tightened on her arm. “Or you’re dead!”

“Okay, Randall, just let me go.” Natalie pleaded. She couldn’t back him down with words, or the spice of her tongue she’d use occasional to get rid of the drunken men. It didn’t work on this man. She didn’t have the strength to pull away and run.

“You leave now then!” he barked. His old man scowl didn’t let up, the voice aching with nerves, or the rasp of his heavy breathing.

“Okay,” Natalie breathed and tried again to lift from his hold but he still held on until a dark shadow cast over her eyes and she now stared at a pair of broad shoulders of a man and Randall was forced to release her.

“I think the lady said let go,” Chris said, his voice low and guff.

Randall looked over the man’s shoulder at a terrified Natalie Rose. “I hear her, mister.”

And Natalie only heard Randall talking. The strong presence of Chris’s protection wouldn’t allow her to see him. She heard Randall start to jabber again, the sound of someone losing their mind about which word to say that’d sound better than the other choices. Adamant that he might stumble across the wrong word, she eased around the masculine build and stepped between Chris and Randall.

“Mr. Larabee,” Natalie said calmly. “I’m fine. He let me go and I’m fine.” She smoothed down her silk dress then put the cape’s hood over her head. “Really, there’s no problem. Mr. McArthur was just leaving.” She glared at Randall, their stare smacked and heat boiled, and then she nodded stiffly, letting him know she heard him clearly about her husband.

Randall accepted the nod then looked at Chris, “Everything’s fine ya see.”

“Tonight Mr. McArthur,” she said evenly.

Chris narrowed his gaze at Natalie after her last comment.

“Better you do before it’s too late,” Randall said.

Chris didn’t like this talk and he didn’t like the way this elderly man treated this misgiving woman he knew so little about. But when their little exchange of misguided secrets about tonight the comments left an unsettling spill of wonder in his gut.

“Tonight,” she said tightly, her jaw locked.

“Good day to ya then miss.” Randall tipped his hat and walked away and when Chris turned to look at Natalie she too had the urge to leave the scene before he had questions.

The night was going about as well as Chris had imagined. He went through the motions, talking to whichever of the locals cared to seek him out in his corner in the outskirts of town where Buck and Louise’s wedding reception held. Mostly they wanted to thank him for the invitation—apparently, he’d invited them! Not Buck or Louise— and to congratulate him for handing the organization of the celebration over to Mary.

Apparently she was a sensational hostess.

Rick Johnson raved about her barbecue marinades. Sasha Lambert gushed about the fairy candles and asked if she could borrow them for her husband’s surprise fortieth.

“Surprise?” her husband muttered. “The only surprise is that none of you noticed that feminine stranger walking amongst us. When did she arrive?”

“Who is this woman?”

“Are you all blind?”

No, Chris wasn’t blind. He could see the woman who miserably haunted his dreams these last few nights. The women he tried to resist but couldn’t. Mary popped in his view now and he had the respect to see her now when the other woman with secrets was no where in sight. He watched Mary walk amongst the crowd, laughing, pouring empty wine glasses, holding her stomach as she listened intently to whom she conversed with. She wore the white canvas buttoned shirt and a rosy colored prairie skirt that sketched every curve of her legs, and a gentle sway when she moved. He swore beneath his breath, every time she’d lean over to pick up a piece of food from the buffet table, to stop watching her.

“A knockout dress, huh?” Buck said at his side.
Chris scowled, not because Buck noticed Mary, but because he’d noticed him noticing Mary. Continuously. He had to stop staring.

“Enjoying your celebration?” he asked.

“Of course.”

Chris lifted a curious brow at that answer. “Well, I suggest you get back to it then.” His gaze slid back to Mary, the stranger’s vibrant opposite. She was talking to Mr. Jacobs, her head tilted as she listened intently, and in the muted garden moonlight, she practically glowed.

He turned and looked away, and when Buck wandered off to check on his wife, he moved to a shadowy corner where he couldn’t see Mary anymore. She could talk till she was blue in the face about loving this place, her work, what mattered. Before his mind began contemplating about a life with this woman who strongly believed in morals of each new dawn, he stood glowering in the shadows, wondering how quickly he could execute a round of farewells when music started up.

A few couples took to an arbitrary dance floor and he knew he’d missed his moment for a quick-leave-taking. He watched the dancers, drawn by the image of coupledom and unable to look away. He watched their hands connect and their bodies brush, saw their shared smiles and moments of eye-meet, and felt a restless emotion swell inside him, a pain he didn’t want to name or know. A loneliness he thought he’d learned to control.

Abruptly Chris turned to leave and stalk out of the loving dancers, their lives, the celebration of united love and he disappeared into the shadow of the trees.

Natalie sat on a body rock by the pond watching the moon’s reflection upon the calm water. She held a wine glass she deliberately took from the beverage table at the reception she walked by and no one saw her make the steal. For a woman who never drank in her life, she figured one glass of the richest scarlet wine wouldn’t hurt this one time. For a night when she needed it desperately.

She swished the drink around in the glass but she didn’t take her eyes off the water. Randall McArthur rang in her ears, the sound of his voice quenching her beating heart to a quick, rough rapture. He scared the life out of her after her name was called out in a town she was a stranger in. Never had she thought she’d hear her name spoken aloud like that again.

The words he told her about her husband. The nasty details about his amputated leg and how Alex lost his mind completely… she was forced to hear it all.

Not a good man, Natalie! She heard Randall scream in her ears, grabbing her arm, squeezing and getting up real close. He warned her to get out of this town and get out now. And she planned to as soon as she finished her wine and her gaze, and the last moment of freedom she’d knew she’d never have again if Alex caught her…

But her freedom didn’t last and although her husband was nowhere near, Natalie sensed another presence lurking towards her from a shadow of trees. “How did you know I’d be here?” she asked taking her eyes off the water, watching Chris walk up, taking each step at his desired slow pace.

“I didn’t.”

She accepted his quiet approach. Her bottom jaw trembled and a tear fell from her blurry vision as she gazed at him. What was she crying for? Oh, she had to get rid of the tears before he came any closer.

Chris, five feet from her, gazed down at the stilled pond. She moved her eyes to look over his rigid body frame with a glass of whiskey in his hand, the fitted pants he wore so well, the long duster, and the midnight beard. This was, indeed, a good-looking man.

Natalie shook her head to get rid of those thoughts and she felt a cool breeze scrape across her face that wasn’t the midnight wind. Was she still crying or did the tears ever go away? She wiped at her eyes again and blinked hard before he turned his gaze on her and watch her actions, the tears falling.

“What brings you here, Mr. Larabee?” she asked, dabbing her wet fingers on her dress.

He took a navy handkerchief out of his coat pocket and handed it to her, which meant he had to get even closer to her than he’d like. More than she’d like. “It’s Chris.”

She lifted a hand and gladly took his handkerchief. Her mind was in a whirlwind to the sound of his husky voice, the tightness in his throat when he watched her dab at her eyes with his handkerchief. He had to look away before his emotions grabbed hold of his joints and he’d run over to her and caress her, hold her to him, ease down the tears that came out so willingly. Chris didn’t even have to know the reason for her tears. He had an urgent need just to hold this woman. He didn’t know whether or not she felt the same need, but she must have known what he was thinking when she turned from his stare back at the pond.

Natalie rested her hands in her lap holding the handkerchief as she took a deep shaky breath. She remembered he said something about his name. Small talk? She wondered. He told her his first name. It wasn’t only Mr. Larabee it was Chris Larabee now. Not so formal, she assumed, as that was not the kind of man he was. And she could tell that by just looking at him and how he lived in that small shack in the hills. This was a rugged loner. The loner who could only work in those fitted pants, who wore layered clothes to shield of what real beauty he had beneath it all.

Natalie bent over to pick her wine glass beside the rock, “Figure you know my name by now.”

“No,” Chris mumbled and looked over at her.

“You heard that man say it this afternoon. Hell, he shouted it.”

“Wasn’t payin’ much attention to details.”

That wasn’t true. He heard Randall right and clear. Everyone in town probably heard him. So it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference if she repeated her name again…even if he was lying.

“It’s Natalie.” Immediately she regretted that, and ached to the sound of her own name coming right of her own mouth. Silence, awkward, too uncomfortable, ready to stand and run off to the hotel and drown myself in sleepy sorrows. She had to do something before she’d make another fool out of herself in front of this man. But she couldn’t move. The pond’s mesmerizing beauty wouldn’t let her leave.

“You always wander off like this, Chris?” she asked then her mind snapped to the sound of his name humming through her lips. A smile curled now and she had to look away when she became too giddy for words. She shook the new thoughts from her head and already forgot what she asked him.

“Sometimes,” he muttered then gulped down the remains of his drink. By the time he finished his edginess had escalated to an acute tension that held his backbone and shoulder muscles rigidly straight. He thought about her name, how well it fit her curved female figure. The kindness in her eyes now that were once spiced with edge and a voice that no longer sounded rough, but soft and welcoming. “Sometimes it’s better to be off alone. Nobody tells you what to do or how to think.”

“You prefer it that way? It has to be the loneliest feeling in the world.” She fixed her eyes back on the surface of the pond that glistened silver in the late night moon.

“Wasn’t given a choice.”

“Then you and I have the same bad dreams.” Natalie hadn’t wanted to talk about this, what she was feeling, but she found she couldn’t stop and with the gunslinger looking at her like that: his head crooked to the side, his lips a thin tight line, his jaw locked, those green eyes slit. And if he stopped looking at her that way, she might have the nerves she had the last time they’d talked and get up and leave before too much was spoken.

But she needed someone to talk to, someone who knew what she might be feeling and those thoughts wiped out any odds to leave. “We weren’t given the choice to be alone. Your life changes in the blink of an eye. And you’re powerless to stop it.”

“You don’t know how I grieve.” Chris went completely still. He was forced to look away from her teary eyes and down at the wet mildew soaking his black boots. He couldn’t put a finger on what he was thinking, what went through his mind now at this point in the midnight air that willingly filled his lungs with toxic. And he wasn’t drunk…at least not yet to indulge into a conversation such as life changing events, a woman’s tears, thinking about the past.

Aw hell, she was just like Buck when it came down to talking about what really happened to his family. Buck wouldn’t let it go, and even if this woman didn’t know why he suffered, the pain in her eyes wouldn’t let him let it go either.

Chris swore softly, and she huffed out a breath.

“My sentiments exactly, Mr. Larabee,” Natalie stood and walked over to the pond’s edge and picked several pebbles from the ground at her feet and ran them through her fingers, and despite the intensity of the moment he couldn’t stop watching the play of her hand, the slow stroke of her thumb. “But I need to get it out one way or another. Just as good as you are here otherwise I’d be talking to the wind.”

“Get what out?” he watched her study the pebbles another second. “Is this about that man earlier?”

“Yes.” She tossed the pebbles into the water. Chris watched the disturbance of their entry ripple across the water in ever-increasing rings until they disappeared altogether. And when Natalie looked up again, her eyes were as mirror flat as that silver-blue surface. “I need help.”

It took a moment for her meaning to gel, it was so unexpected. Chris swallowed hard—he had to in order to speak. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I knew how to handle him, but I don’t.” She said after a beat of pause.

“Him?” he asked carefully.

“My husband,” she said curtly.

Throbbing tooth, pull it, get it over with. “What’s he done to you?”

“He saw me. We fell in love. He gave me a son.” Natalie looked up, and although her voice was flat, even, controlled, the look in her eyes was raw. “And then he took my son away from me. He shot and killed our son by his accident, by his own hands, his gun and he was drinking.” A drunk, Chris guessed, and why she didn’t much like to drink.

To make the pain go away he assumed after what her husband did, but in her situation, she told Chris he was drunk when he did it. That knowing lodge heavy in his throat and he tried to control the sudden rage he felt occurring in his gut.

Natalie knew she captured his attention and as she continued her voice shook with the depth of her emotion. “And I heard the gunshots. Still everyday I hear them. And I ran…” Her eyes widened and, to his horror, filled with moisture again. Damn, but he’d rather face a herd of enraged horses than a woman in tears. Especially a woman like Natalie, whose tears meant something.

“I ran so fast through the fields to where his gunshots were fired and I saw my baby. And screaming, that’s all I did was scream.” She sucked in a shaky breath, thick with those brimming tears. “Alexander…he didn’t do anything. He didn’t say, or do a thing expect rant about how he thought it was a thief stealing the stock. That it was an accident.”

“You believed him?”

“He’s my husband. I had no choice.” She made a low growly sound in her throat, a sound of struggled and exasperation that kicked him hard in the gut like that herd.

“You did have a choice, Natalie!” Her name sounded almost perfect coming up his vocals, shooting out his mouth with how angry he was in that moment.

“You don’t know him, Chris! You weren’t there two years ago. You have no idea what he and I have been through after Robbie’s death.”

He wanted to tell her he had an idea. That he knew how she never wanted to wake in the mornings, never wanted to get out of bed and start the day. How she couldn’t look at another child and not think of her son. To have to live without him, move on…Yeah, Chris had an idea of what she went through.

He curled his hands into fists and waited for her to stop and walk away, or stop the crying before his resistance gave in and pull her into his arms so she could cry. But he stayed put and kept his distance as far from her as possible.

“What does this all have to do with that man you saw today?”

Natalie shot him a quick glance over her shoulder, “He was our neighbor.”

“Miss,” Chris murmured, looking at the ground away from her stare. “If this man, or your husband is a threat by any means to the town, you let me hear it now.”

“Mr. McArthur will not be a threat to you, but I can’t promise what my husband will do if he learns I’m here.”

Anger boiled Chris’s blood knowing this woman brought another enemy into town. He knew her beauty was too good to be true. It was back to business now, but business he didn’t want to get involved in. Not tonight anyways. A good gunfight might sound good tomorrow but not tonight when everything and everyone was having a good time celebrating love.

If he was going to do this, he had to do quietly and alone. “Can you tell me anything specific about him?”

“It’s not your problem, Chris! I’ll be gone and if he comes into this town, he’ll be gone just as quick when he finds I’m not here.”

“And then you’ll keep running until fate catches up to you?” he asked and something uncoiled deep in his gut. Natalie wouldn’t face her husband and she’d just keep running.

“Tonight I’m leaving. This is not your business.” She turned to leave but he caught her by the arm before she had the chance to sweep by him.

“What did he do to you that you’re runnin’ from?”

They locked eyes then, hard and strict without so much of an ease up on his grip holding her. Her breath seethed through her nostrils, tears falling down her cheeks, their shine reflected off the moonlight. Natalie couldn’t hide from this, not from the glare in his eyes, the concern for either her or the town’s sake.

“The last time I saw Alexander, the last ounce of affection he gave was when he forced himself on me. Held my neck and had him a great time. And of course I let him.” She swallowed down hard tears, “Fighting him off would have done me no good. He’d just go faster, do it harder. Then he left.”

That instant Chris’s grip on her arm eased and he let her pull away. He watched her hold her gaze on him and for solitude second, their connection flashed with ready heat. Too mesmerized by this appealing woman, and as much as he wanted to strip her down right then and lay her down in the grass and wash away all her emotions, kiss the tears away, he had to stop and rethink the sudden fantasy that lurked through his blood right down to the throbbing manhood aching for her touch. He didn’t need to have her like that, not after what she confessed to him. The very thing that caused to her run away in the first place.

All he could do was end their emotion converse as quickly as possible so he could get the hell out of this mess he’d been trying to keep back for three years now. Chris had to make sure this woman was speaking the truth and if she were, he had to prepare for another battle.

“Natalie, understand, all right? You have to tell me what Alexander looks like. Who he rides with, what he does, and how he does it.”

“Chris—“ Resisting already, Chris had to grab both her arms and make her look at him straight in the eye. “You’re not runnin’ anymore, you hear?”

“You’re no match for him!” Tense, she tried to wedge out of his grip.

“You don’t know me,” he told her directly.

Natalie looked right at him, not daring to look away. He held the eyes of a serious gunfighter, the best in the west appeal. This was no game; she knew that from her travels the past two years. Then she started to have second thoughts about confessing all that she had to him. Did he even care? Was there care in this man she stood staring at? Was he just as callus and life-taking as her husband?

“No, I don’t know you.” She told him back with the spice in her tone Chris recognized from their previous run-ins. And then he let her go and she grabbed a fistful of her dress and walked away.

Natalie was able to sneak away from the celebration without so much being noticed by the guests. She walked the short distance back to town, and as she entered, she turned back and over her shoulder at the dark shadowy trees where she left the man who wanted to help her, who tried to help her. And when she wanted to accept his help, she couldn’t. This was her business and her business alone. If Alexander ever caught her, she had to deal with him. It wouldn’t matter how scared she was, she had to face him, face down the fears that stabbed her gut. A pain she had to get rid of one way or another, and the results would not be wasted or painless.

She turned back around with full force, strong willed and big-headed, back to being filled of confidence as she was the day she walked into town. She lifted her cape’s hood and placed it over her head and began the distant walk toward Virginia’s hotel.

Keeping her space from the locals who decided not to join in the festivities of the wedding celebration, Natalie was close to her destination until she landed eyes on another man she recognized just a few buildings down from where she stopped dead in her tracks.

Andy Scout… Alexander’s right hand man. Andy Scout— who never left her husband’s side during their gun fighting years, their plays, and their down right dirty combination of death and liquor. Andy was always rotten from the beginning. She could tell then when Alexander was happy and overwhelmed with all he had with her and Robbie. But since now that was gone, and she’d run off…Alexander would not be the man she fell in love with and Andy would have had a hand with his insanity.

Then suddenly Andy’s cold blue eyes looked her way, and in the dark Natalie turned abruptly hoping to herself, to God, he didn’t see her. She grabbed the hood covering her head still and away from the corrupt gunslinger. No noise yet, that was good. She didn’t hear the shuffling of boots on the floorboards or the soft sway of the dirt coming at her. To turn and check, that would be a definite catch, and she had more brains than to do something stupid like that.

Her stomach churned, her eyes began to well up again with heated tears, and her legs shook that she had to buckle them to quit. Taking a few deep breaths then releasing those moments later, she found the strength she needed and quietly and ever so slowly she began to move her feet then she quickened her pace as fast as they would take her to the back entrance of the hotel she needed to store herself so she could think about what to do next.

Leaving tonight? Not so much. Natalie would surely be caught if she gave the idea an attempt. She had to stay hidden for the rest of the night. At daybreak, she contemplated, she’ll be gone.