CHAPTER 6

Jared made camp as dusk settled over the earth, shadows long and the temperature already falling. It promised to be a cold night. He was thankful for the fire and for the windbreak provided by a wall of rocks about fifteen or twenty yards from the road.

He’d finished eating his supper when he heard something, a sound that didn’t belong with the night. The hair on the back of his neck rose. At the same moment he got to his feet, he saw the horses lift their heads and look toward the west. He stepped away from the fire, his right hand hovering above his gun.

“Mr. Newman?”

The sound of a woman’s voice was the last thing he’d expected.

“Is that you, Mr. Newman?” Silver Matlock moved into the firelight, leading a horse behind her.

He should have been surprised to see her, but he wasn’t. Not really. He lowered his hand to his side. “What are you doing here, Miss Matlock?” He didn’t have to ask how she’d found him. There was only one road leading from Twin Springs up to Central City, and his campfire would have been easy to see, even for an untrained eye.

“I . . . I’ve decided to join you.”

Now he was surprised. “You what?”

She lifted her chin in a show of determination, squinting into the shadows where he stood. “I’ve decided to go with you to find Bob.”

Was she joking? “No, you’re not. That wasn’t part of our agreement.”

“It’s something I must do.”

Jared stepped closer to the fire, allowing her to see more than his shadow.

“Please, Mr. Newman. You said yourself the photograph isn’t very good and my description could fit a lot of other men. But I’ll know Bob when I see him. If I’m along, you won’t overlook him by accident. Besides, I . . . I can’t stay behind. I need to help. I must do something or I’ll go crazy.”

Jared knew when someone wasn’t telling the whole truth. The years had taught him to read people. Without a doubt, Silver Matlock was holding something back.

“Surely, Mr. Newman, two of us looking for Bob would be better than one.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You’d probably be in my way. Besides, I can’t believe your parents would agree to this.”

“You’re wrong. They would rather I went elsewhere. At least my stepmother would. She wants me anywhere else than in Twin Springs. I’m an embarrassment to her. She cannot bear the gossip.”

Jared knew what a person said aloud had to be weighed along with facial expression, the tone of voice, even body movement. And what he saw when he looked at Silver was a wounded spirit. He was convinced that was due less to Bob Cassidy’s jilting of her than to her stepmother’s acid tongue. Mrs. Matlock had directed several cutting remarks at her daughter within Jared’s hearing before he’d ridden out of Twin Springs.

He cleared his throat. “Coming with me would expose you to even more gossip. Your father seems a caring man. He wouldn’t want more hurt heaped upon you.”

“My father is caring, but he usually does whatever my stepmother wishes in order to keep peace in our home. And for the present, she wants me gone.”

The desperation and heartache in her eyes weakened his resolve.

“Please.” She took a step closer to the fire. “I need to do this, Mr. Newman. I can’t go back. I can’t be shut away in shame while my father loses all he’s worked for.”

He tried to harden himself against her desperate plea. “This isn’t a Sunday ride in the country I’m going on, Miss Matlock. I’ll be moving hard and fast, and you won’t find much comfort on the trail.”

“I’m not a hothouse flower, sir. I can take it if you can.”

“You don’t have the faintest notion what you’d be getting yourself into.”

“I know it won’t be easy, but I’m strong. I won’t hinder you. I swear to you, I won’t.”

He raked the fingers of his left hand through his hair, more irritated with himself than with her. Because he should be able to send her away without even a tiny twinge of conscience or remorse. He should, but he couldn’t seem to do it. “All right, Miss Matlock. Can’t do anything about it tonight anyway. You can go with me as far as Central City, and we’ll have to see after that. But if you give me any trouble, I’ll send you packing in a heartbeat. Understood?”

“Understood.” A faint smile whispered across her lips. “I won’t be any trouble. I promise.”

He wasn’t fool enough to believe that was the truth.

Silver lay with her back to the fire, listening to the sounds of the night. One of the horses stomped a foot at regular intervals. A breeze rustled the tall pine trees nearby. An owl hooted in the distance. And softer than all the other sounds—and yet somehow more resounding in her ears—she heard Jared Newman’s slow and steady breathing from where he lay on the other side of the campfire.

She shouldn’t have said her father did whatever his wife told him. While it was mostly the truth, it painted her father in an unfair light. He was a good and decent man. Just not strong when it came to standing up to his second wife’s iron will.

Silver also shouldn’t have said her parents wouldn’t care where she went. Her father would care. He would worry. And to be fair, her stepmother would worry too.

However, her parents had sent her away. They’d sent her to Denver, her buckskin mare tied to the back of the stagecoach. But before the stage traveled far, Silver had insisted the driver stop so she could get off. She’d had to. She couldn’t be sent to stay with her stepsister. Doing nothing would have driven her mad. Better to be here, with this bounty hunter, helping to find Bob, helping to rescue her family from the looming financial disaster, than sitting around feeling guilty.

She rolled onto her back and stared through the tree limbs at the star-spattered sky, the moon having passed beyond the mountains in the west.

Unwelcomed, the recollection of another night when the stars had ruled the heavens entered her thoughts. The night Bob had kissed her for the first time. The night he’d asked her to marry him. She remembered the swirl of emotions sweeping through her. Had any of those emotions been love? No, she thought not. At least not the romantic kind as portrayed in novels and poetry. Not the kind of love Rose felt for her husband. But Silver had thought her affection for Bob—and his for her—would be enough to build a marriage on, and so she’d accepted his proposal, not knowing how deeply she would come to regret it.

She had only one chance to make it right. And she was taking it.