Five

Warren shifted, carefully drawing his limbs away from Honey’s warmth. He risked a glance to confirm what he’d suspected—that she’d fallen asleep almost as soon as he had withdrawn from her. Her skin was a soft gold in the low light, her features were relaxed and gentled by sleep, and her long blond hair was a tousled mess across the pillows.

A fist squeezed tight in his chest.

At seventeen, Honey Prentice had been open and joyous. Her easy love of life and quick smile had been an inexorable lure. Her unbridled heart and generous passion had bewitched him.

Though the last hour proved that her passions were fiercer than they had ever been, he’d sensed the wall between them. She didn’t trust him.

Wariness flowed from her dark gaze. She claimed it was because of him, but it had been her choice to marry Freeman while he’d been attending his father’s deathbed.

It made no sense.

And there was something else troubling him as he dressed quietly. The memories of that summer had not been exaggerated in his imagination. Whatever power had drawn them to each other then was still present, as strong and consuming as ever.

How was that possible after all this time and everything that had happened? He wanted to lay their past out on an exam table and dissect every little piece of it to find out what had gone wrong, why she hadn’t waited for his return.

But he feared it would do no good. The past was done. This was now.

And right now, he needed to check on his patient.

It was hard to turn his back on Honey lying in that bed, but he did. He entered Luke’s room two doors down to find the injured man awake and struggling to rise. Honey’s brother looked up at Warren’s entrance and his expression turned hostile.

“What in goddamned hell are you doing here?” he muttered with a menacing snarl.

Warren crossed his arms over his chest and returned the younger man’s glower with a calm stare. “I am your doctor. I am here to see that you don’t die from that gunshot wound in your leg. Toward that purpose, I suggest you lie back down so I can be sure you didn’t tear open the stitches.”

Luke grimaced in pain as he propped himself on one elbow.

“I don’t want anything to do with your doctoring, Reed. Get yourself out of here before Honey sees you.”

“She already has.”

Luke lifted a brow at that. “And you’re still alive.”

“For the time being,” Warren replied as he stepped forward. “She, at least, understands that my services are needed to keep your reckless hide alive.”

“Well, shit,” Luke muttered, “it’s not like I planned to get shot. Damn cowards shot at me as I rode away.”

Warren reached the bedside and gestured for Luke to roll to the side so he could loosen the bandage and get a look at the wound.

“I suppose you thought they’d be grateful to you for robbing them.”

“Course not, but there’s a code out here that says you don’t shoot a man in the back.”

“You were shot in the leg.”

“From behind.”

“As you made off with their valuables. I doubt the code of honor you describe applies to outlaws.”

Luke snorted at that, then cringed as Warren probed around the stitches to find that they all held well and there had been no fresh bleeding. Fortunately, there were no warning signs of infection just yet.

Warren rewrapped the bandage and wordlessly helped Luke to a more comfortable position in the bed. He would have given the wounded man something to help him sleep, but Luke shook his head.

“I can’t take any of that mind-dulling stuff,” he said with a grimace toward the small green bottle of laudanum. “I gotta stay alert.”

Warren debated arguing with him and decided to point out the obvious. “Even if you are alert, you won’t be able to go anywhere.”

“I’ve still got a working gun hand,” Luke replied.

Warren replaced the laudanum in his bag. “Try to get some rest on your own then. If the pain gets to be too much, give a yell.”

“Where is she?” Luke asked with tension bracketing his mouth.

Warren hesitated only a moment. “Sleeping.”

“Here?”

“Yes,” Warren answered, tipped his head in curiosity. “Does she usually sleep elsewhere?”

Luke shook his head. “I’m not telling you that if she didn’t. But I’ll tell you this.” The outlaw’s expression shifted, showing a hardness the young man had not possessed seven years ago. It made him look dangerous and unpredictable. “Before she wakes up, I want you gone from here. Head back to your Eastern city and never come back this way again. You’re not gonna get another chance to break her heart, you understand me, Reed?”

Warren didn’t understand. In fact, his confusion was only increasing. But Luke wasn’t the one to ask for clarification. He turned and walked away, shutting the door behind him.

Honey was still asleep.

Warren stood at the side of the bed and tried to make sense of what Luke had just said and the way Honey had reacted to seeing him again.

Something was off.

“Honey, wake up.”

He didn’t expect her to stir so easily, but her eyes came open before he even finished speaking. She blinked a few times in rapid succession, then sat up with an incoherent mutter of annoyance as she grabbed at the bedsheets to cover herself. The grumpy little frown she turned on Warren might have made him smile if not for his determination to get to the bottom of what was bothering him.

His emotions coalesced into a rock, sitting heavy in his gut as he finally asked her the question that had been burning in his brain for years.

“Why did you marry John Freeman so soon after I left?”

“What?” The shock and incredulity in her face might have been residue from her sudden awakening.

Warren didn’t think so.

“Why did you marry him, Honey? I thought you hated the man. Did he hold something over you? Did he threaten you?”

Warren had witnessed Freeman’s bullying techniques when his uncle had refused to sell his small ranch to the man. The wealthy land baron had been willing to go to extremes to get what he wanted.

Honey angrily pushed her tangled hair back from her face as she turned to swing her feet down to the floor on the opposite side of the bed, giving him an excellent view of her slim, naked back.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Warren. Has your mind gone soft?” She stood, letting the sheet fall to the bed as she reached for her chemise and drew it over her head, then pulled her dress on over it. “I never married that pig. I never married anyone.”

Warren’s heart stopped. His brain lit up with a thousand questions.

“But you said your husband was dead,” he said in a flat tone as a horrid suspicion began to form.

She made quick work of pulling her stockings and boots back on and was buttoning her dress as she replied. “I just got used to saying that whenever…” She stopped, then shook her head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. But where did you ever get the idea I went and married Freeman?”

“From the letter I received from you the day of my father’s funeral. It said you didn’t want me to come back. That you had married Freeman and were starting a new life.”

She spun around, breath held and eyes wide. “I never sent any letter, Warren. Not a one.”

The mayhem erupting inside him at her words nearly felled him.

They had been manipulated.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, shock set in her features. “Did you send me a letter saying you were marrying a girl out East? That I was nothing but a good time to fill your summer?”

Warren’s hands curled into fists so tight, his knuckles ached. “No. I did not.”

“Freeman! That good-for-nothing sonofabitch! I’m gonna kill him. I’m gonna ride up to Montana and put a bullet in that man’s gut.”

She turned and left the room in long furious strides.

Warren caught her by the arm just before she reached the front door, apparently intending to head out into the snowstorm as she was.

“Honey. Stop.” He held tight. She still strained to get away, but twisted her head to look at him with all her pain and fury showing plain in her face.

“Don’t you see what he did?”

Warren nodded. A furious tornado of heartache and rage spun wildly inside him.

“He deserves to die,” she growled.

“And he will someday, but not by your hand or mine.”

She stared at him, disbelief written all across her face. “How can you be so calm about this? He tricked us to try to get what he wanted.”

“I know.” He forced the words through a tight throat. He knew the loss and anger she was feeling. He felt it too, down to his very bone marrow, but he knew something else as well. “But he didn’t get what he wanted, did he? He’s hundreds of miles away. We are here now.”

His low murmured words seemed to have some effect on her as she stopped straining against his hold and turned toward him instead.

Was there hope in her eyes, mixed in with all that sadness?

“It’s way too late,” she whispered.

He frowned and lifted one hand to sweep some of her hair back from her face, letting his thumb brush gently over her cheekbone, where the golden freckles spread in a delightful pattern. “How do you know that?”

“Too much has happened, Warren.”

He would have argued that it didn’t matter, but something moving in the periphery of his vision caught his attention. A small girl-child shuffled in from the hallway. She was dressed in a long flannel nightgown, and the woolen socks on her feet slouched down around her ankles. She was rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she made her way into the kitchen.

Warren froze at the sight of her. An odd prickling sensation claimed every nerve.

His hand tightened involuntarily on Honey’s arm, alerting her to the newcomer. Noticing the girl, she stiffened like a board. The panic on her face told Warren nearly as much as the fact that the girl was right around six years old and had thick black hair tied into a messy braid that fell over her shoulder.

He got a feeling like his chest was caving in. He couldn’t breathe.

Finally, the girl lowered her small fists from her eyes. Shock hit Warren like a train going full speed as he looked into the same silver-blue eyes he saw every morning when he shaved in front of his mirror.

A sleepy scowl hovered over the little girl’s innocent eyes. “Why are you shouting, Mama? What’s wrong?”

“Holy shit.”

The curse was uttered by the outlaw named Jackson, who had just entered the front room.

“What?” Eli followed behind him, rubbing at his full beard. “What?” he asked again as he came to a stop and took in the scene.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jackson muttered beneath his breath.

Honey slipped from Warren’s slack grasp and rushed toward the girl. “Nothing’s wrong, baby. You should still be sleeping.”

“But it’s morning and I’m not tired anymore.”

Warren glanced at the window over the kitchen counter. She was right. A muted white-gray light was expanding beyond the window. Snow covered everything.

“Let’s get you dressed and we’ll go home,” Honey said as she began to shoo the girl back down the hall.

“Honey.” Warren finally found his voice, but once again he was stopped short, this time by the appearance of Luke stepping from the hall between him and the two females. His shoulder was propped firmly against the wall to keep himself upright, and his expression was fierce with pain and determination. One hand grasped a handful of the blanket he’d wrapped around his hips for the sake of modesty, while his other hand held a gun pointed at Warren.

“You’ll stay right there, Reed, if you know what’s good for you.”

Warren would have charged past that gun regardless of Luke’s threat if two more weapons weren’t instantly drawn on him by Jackson and Eli.

Apparently, they weren’t going to give him a choice in the matter.