He swam through layers of darkness, the pain in his flesh as nothing compared to the ache in his heart. “Shaye. Shaye?”
“I’m here.”
He groaned softly as he opened his eyes. Shaye was kneeling beside him, her brow lined with worry, her eyes filled with anxiety. Dawson and another man were staring down at him.
Alejandro tried to sit up, only then realizing that his hands and feet were bound. A sharp pain stabbed through his left side when he tried to move. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Norland, here, rode in from Aurora last night. He overheard me mention your name, and told me there’s a nice reward out for you. Fifteen hundred dollars.” Dawson looked at Shaye and grinned. “And another hundred for the woman. We aim to turn the two of you in and split the take.”
Alejandro glanced at Shaye. This was all his fault. He remembered seeing Norland in the saloon, playing cards with Dawson.
“I’m gonna turn in,” Norland said. “Wake me in a couple hours, and I’ll relieve you.”
Dawson nodded.
Norland tossed Dawson a length of rope. “Best tie up the woman. Keep her from getting any ideas.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
Alejandro glanced around. “Where are we?”
“Couple miles south of the hideout. We’ll be leaving for Bodie first thing in the morning. Norland put some supplies together while I dug the bullet out of your hide. Better get some sleep. Gonna be a long day tomorrow.”
Anger boiled up inside Alejandro as Dawson grabbed Shaye’s hands and lashed them behind her back.
“That oughta hold you ‘til morning,” Dawson muttered, and turning away, he walked over to the fire and poured himself a cup of coffee.
Alejandro’s gaze moved over Shaye. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. How do you feel?”
Guilt ate at his soul. He had kept her with him when he knew he should let her go, and look what it had gotten her. He was a man on the run, and now, because of him, because she loved him, there was a price on her head, as well.
They would hang him, and all his troubles would be over, while hers would just be beginning. They’d lock her up, who knew for how long. The thought of Shaye behind bars was like a knife, sharp and deep. She would probably curse the day she had met him for the rest of her life. Dammit, he had to get her out of this mess, one way or another.
“Rio, what are we going to do now?”
“Scoot over here.”
She did as he asked, felt his fingers tugging at the rope that bound her wrists.
Dawson was on his second cup of coffee when Alejandro managed to free her hands.
Shaye kept her arms behind her back. “Now what?” she whispered.
“I want you to get the hell out of here.”
“What?”
“You heard me. If you get a chance to escape, take it.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Listen to me. Do you want to go to jail?”
“Of course not, but…”
“Dammit, Shaye, we can’t have any kind of a life together. You must know that.”
“But…but we just got married.”
“It was a mistake.”
“I love you, Rio. Do you love me?”
He wanted to say yes, wanted to tell her he loved her more than his life, but the words stuck in his throat. She loved him, and what had it gotten her? A price on her head. “No.”
“Then why did you marry me?”
He shrugged, his expression blank. ‘Seemed like a good idea at the time.”
She stared at him, her hurting turning to anger. She had been a fool to love him, a fool to think he loved her. She had been nothing but a diversion, just one more woman in a long string.
“Yes, it did,” she said. “But I can see now that it was a mistake.” She took a deep breath. “I wish I’d never met you,” she said, choking back her tears. “Don’t worry, if I get a chance to make a break for it, I’m gone…”
And she was gone, just like that.
* * * * *
“Alejandro!” She cried his name as he vanished from her sight, the sound of gunfire still ringing in her ears. “Alejandro! Where are you?”
Where are you….where are you…. The sound of her voice echoed and re-echoed in the thick darkness.
Frightened and uncertain of what had just happened, she turned in a circle, looking for him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Turning, she ran back toward the saloon, but it was gone, too, with only a part of one wall and a sagging corner of weathered roof to show it had ever been there at all.
She shook her head, not wanting to believe the proof of her own eyes. “No,” she murmured. “No, it can’t be.”
But it was. She was back in her own time. But how? Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew the answer.
I wish I’d never met you. The words she had spoken in such haste roared like thunder in her mind.
“Oh, but I didn’t mean it.” She stared up at the night sky. “I was hurt and angry. I didn’t mean it.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and rocked back and forth while grief splintered through her.
“Please,” she murmured, “please let him be all right. Please send me back to him. Please, please, please…”
She repeated the words in her mind over and over again as she huddled against the weathered boards that had once been part of the saloon. “It can’t end like this,” she whispered. “Please, don’t let it end like this…”
The tears came then, sobs that wracked her body until her eyes burned and her chest ached, and still she cried, unable to stem the tide of tears.
And always, in her heart, the urgent plea… Don’t let it end like this…
* * * * *
Dawson looked around, frowning. “Where’s the woman?”
Alejandro shook his head. “I don’t know.” But he did know. Despair settled on his shoulders as Shaye’s voice echoed in his mind. I wish I’d never met you. The pain in his side throbbed with each breath, each movement, but it was the pain in his heart, his soul, that tormented him now, because he knew, in that moment, that what he had feared most had happened. She had gone back to her own time. And it was his fault.
“Well, hell, she can’t have just disappeared.”
A faint smile crossed Alejandro’s lips, because that was just what she’d done. And it was no more than he deserved.
* * * * *
His arms were warm around her, his breath fanning her cheek as he whispered that he loved her, would always love her. She clung to him, afraid to let him go as she told him of the horrible dream she’d had. He laughed softly, his kisses filled with reassurance as he whispered that they would never be parted. And she believed him, even when his body shimmered and he began to disappear, she believed him because she couldn’t imagine life without him.
“Alejandro!”
She woke with the sun in her face and his name on her lips, hoping it had all been a bad dream, but the sight of a jet passing overhead proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was back in her own time.
Please, please, send me back…please, I love him so much…I’ll do anything…I’ll stay with him forever…please, please…
Heavy-hearted, she pulled herself to her feet and glanced around. Nothing but desert as far as she could see. This was California, she told herself. There had to be a road or a freeway somewhere close by.
She glanced at the rising sun. Okay, she thought, that’s east. Bodie was to the south, as near as she could tell. Turning, she started walking. Nikes might not be good for horseback riding, she mused, but she was glad to be wearing them now. After a mile or so, she fervently wished she had that last bottle of water in her backpack, that her dress had a shorter skirt, that she had a broad-brimmed hat to shield her face from the harsh desert sun. Her stomach growled loudly, her mouth was as dry as the desert around her. How long could a body go without water anyway? One day? Two? Certainly not more than three or four.
She put the thought behind her, her spirits lifting as she came upon a rutted road.
She had to get back to Bodie, had to find Clark McDonald, had to find out if Alejandro had been hanged.
She shook her head. She had been so certain she had gone back in time to save him. Could she have been wrong? She remembered the noise and flash of the night before. It occurred to her with startling clarity that it had been gunfire, and that, if she hadn’t been yanked back to her own time, she might have been killed. Had Alejandro been shot? Oh, Lord, what if he was dead?
She felt a burst of hysterical laughter rise in her throat. Of course he was dead. He had been dead for more than a hundred years.
She quickened her pace in spite of the growing heat of the day. She had to know how he died, if he had been killed by Dawson or hanged for Daisy’s murder, or miraculously died of old age. She had to get back to Bodie. Had to find her way back to the past. And if she couldn’t find her way back to his time, then she would just have to stay in Bodie. Maybe she could become a park aide, she thought desperately. Alejandro’s ghost would be waiting for her at the jail. If she stayed in Bodie, she would be able to see him. She didn’t care if he was a ghost, didn’t care if she sounded crazy. She couldn’t live without him.
Gradually, her pace slowed. Sweat trickled down her back. She tripped over a rock, almost falling when her feet got tangled in the hem of her skirt, a skirt that seemed to grow heavier with every step.
She looked skyward, her heart heavy and aching. “I need him,” she said. “And he needs me.”
It seemed as though she had been walking forever instead of only a few hours when she became aware of a rumbling noise that bordered on a low whine. Glancing behind her, she saw several small dark shapes. As they drew closer, they took shape and she saw three men on dirt bikes riding in her direction.
“Here!” she hollered. “Over here!” It was hopeless, she thought. They would never hear her over the roar of the bikes. She jumped up and down, waving her arms like a mad woman. “Here!” She screamed at the top of her lungs, felt a surge of relief as the bikes turned in her direction.
She watched them move toward her, then lost sight of them as they descended a small hill. Help was on the way. Maybe they would give her a ride into Bodie, or at least drop her off in the nearest town.
I’m coming, Alejandro, wait for me…wait for me…
She frowned as the hum of the motors seemed to take on a new sound, like that of…no, it couldn’t be…hoofbeats?
A dark cloud of dust filled the sky, blotting out the sun. She stared at the motorcycles, now indistinct in the swirling dust. For a moment, she thought she saw men on horseback. She shook her head, wiped her eyes, hoping to clear them. “You spent too much time in the past,” she muttered, then gasped, choking, as the cloud enveloped her, smothering her. The sound of hoofbeats grew clearer, more distinct. As from far away, she heard a voice mutter, “What the hell?”
And then she heard another voice, a voice that proved that prayers were answered.
“Shaye?”
The dust cleared and she found herself in the middle of the three riders. But she had eyes only for the one in front of her. “Alejandro, thank God.” Her gaze swept over him, widening when she saw the blood stain on his shirt. “Are you all right?”
“I am now.”
“Well, well, look who’s here.” Norland glanced at Dawson and grinned. “I told you she’d come back.”
Dawson dismounted and walked toward her. “Let’s go, girlie. You ain’t worth much, but a hunnerd bucks is a hunnerd bucks.”
“Get your hands off me!” Shaye exclaimed as he grabbed hold of her.
Dawson dropped his hands from her waist. “Fine. Walk.”
“Shaye, come here.”
She hurried toward Alejandro. He took his foot from the stirrup. Grasping his arm, she put her foot in the stirrup and pulled herself up behind him, then wrapped her arms around his waist and held on tight.
Dawson swung into the saddle and urged his horse forward.
Alejandro followed, and Norland brought up the rear.
Shaye pressed her cheek against Alejandro’s back, a silent prayer of thanksgiving rising in her heart as she clung to him, determined never to be parted from him again. He felt warm, she thought, too warm.
“What happened?” he asked quietly. “Where’d you go? And why the hell did you come back?”
Before, his question would have upset her, but not now. “It doesn’t matter what happened,” she said. “All that matters is that we’re together again.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thanking the Fates that had returned her to him. “Are you all right?” He nodded. “Nothing to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about, she thought. He had been shot. They were on their way back to Bodie to face a trial where he would be found guilty, and then hanged, and he told her not to worry! She wished she had kept her derringer with her. Even though Alejandro had told her that the gun was too small to be of much use at a distance of more than two or three feet, it might have come in handy. Unfortunately, she had left it in her backpack back at the hideout.
They rode for hours. Shaye dozed, her cheek resting on Alejandro’s back, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist. Drifting in and out of sleep, she thought about what had happened, trying to find some logical explanation, but none was forthcoming.
In the end, she decided she had been zapped back to her own time in order to spare her life, and that she had been sent back to Alejandro because his was still in danger, or maybe, she thought, because she simply couldn’t face life without him.
The sun was high overhead when Dawson reined his horse to a halt beside a shallow stream. Shaye slid off the back of Alejandro’s horse, resisting the urge to offer him her hand. He dismounted slowly, his jaw rigid. She knew he was in pain and trying not to show it.
Norland dismounted. Taking up the reins of all three horses, he led them to the stream to drink.
Alejandro moved upstream, and Shaye followed him. He lowered himself slowly to the ground and took a drink, then buried his head in the water.
Shaye quenched her thirst, then laid a hand on his arm. His skin was hot.
“You’ve got a fever.”
He nodded. “Be careful, Shaye. If you get a chance to make a run for it, take it.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Shaye…”
“Forget it! I’m not leaving you.”
His expression softened. Lifting his bound hands, he stroked her cheek. “It damn near killed me when I thought I’d lost you.”
Reaching up, she covered his hand with her own. “I know. I felt the same. I’ve never prayed so hard in my life.”
His smile, though faint, warmed her clear through. “I did a little praying of my own.” He shook his head. “You’d probably have been better off to stay in your own time, darlin’.”
“I know. But you’re here.”
She glanced up as Dawson appeared beside her.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He reached down to grab her arm, but she jerked away. “I don’t need any help.”
“Suit yourself,” he growled.
She gained her feet, hovered near Alejandro while he stood up.
A short time later, they were riding south, toward Bodie and an uncertain future.