Page 5 of West Wind

When they did finally stop, relief coursed through her body like a wave. How would she ever make herself get back into the saddle again?

What choice did she have?

“We can sleep here for a couple of hours,” Shelley said, lifting the saddle from his horse and laying it in the grass. He removed his rifle from its sheath and placed it close at hand. He arranged the bedroll for her before he lowered himself to the ground and rested his head on the saddle, crossing his ankles and making himself comfortable.

She remained standing. “We’re going to sleep out here in the open?” It wasn’t safe. Not here, not anywhere. Not for her.

He opened one eye. “Yep. It’s not like we have a lot of choices. You’d better get used to it, Mrs. Brown. There are precious few decent hotels between here and San Francisco.” With that he closed his eyes and went to sleep.

She stretched out on the bedroll, but sleep wouldn’t come for her. She didn’t expect it would. Time passed slowly; her thoughts spun wildly in all directions.

Eventually she sat up and looked to the east. She wasn’t sleepy. How could she be? She’d stayed in Brayton too long, had gotten much too comfortable. Her room had been clean and private, and Oscar saw to it that she was left alone. Still, she’d been found. If not for Shelley...

A smile, tentative at best, crossed her face as the sky turned pink. How many nights had she stayed awake until dawn? One of the many reasons she loved her chosen profession was the excuse it offered to stay up all night, if she desired. Even as a child she’d often laid in bed wide awake, long after everyone else was asleep. It was her nature to embrace the night, and to sleep away half the day.

How many nights had she danced and drunk champagne until the sun rose over Paris? Even when she visited New York, or San Francisco, or New Orleans, there were always parties following the opera.

Her smile faded. Those days were gone, maybe forever. She was a different person. Now she was Ann Brown, a widow from St. Louis, and if she was lucky she’d find another singing job in a saloon. Once she’d been Annabelle St. Clair, world-renowned mezzo-soprano, known for her unforgettable performances of light opera.

Three months. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed in that time. She’d had everything a woman could possibly want, and then had been reduced to nothing better than a common thief.

She told herself again that she’d had no choice. She was easily recognizable, given her celebrity and her picture being plastered all over the newspapers. Panic-stricken, she’d wanted only time. Time to think, to hide, to disappear. The black dress and stage makeup she’d taken... borrowed... stolen from the theater took care of that.

Annabelle plucked at the heavy silk sleeve and pulled a handful of material away from her waist. At one time the dress had almost fit. She’d lost so much weight she bore little resemblance to the woman whose face had graced every newspaper in the country in the past three months. No wonder that man at the Silver Palace had been uncertain about her identity.

She, however, had no doubt about his. He’d been at the Denver railway station with three similarly clothed men who shared his determination to find her. They’d stopped passengers and shown her picture to everyone. Even though the passengers had shaken their heads and moved on, she was afraid to show her face there again.

As the sun came up she studied the man who’d saved her. That was certainly what he’d done. He slept soundly, hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d drifted off. His head rested against the saddle with practiced ease. He had a new beard a shade or two darker than the light brown hair on his head. Shelley, the man with the name of a poet, was tall, well over six feet, and though he’d disdained her assumption that he was a cowboy it was obvious he was no stranger to physical labor. There was no fat on his lean body, and he’d lifted her on and off the saddle as if she weighed nothing at all. His long legs, encased in tan twill pants, were still crossed at the ankles. The man hadn’t even removed his boots, or the holster that housed a six-shooter at his right hip.

Realizing she knew nothing about this man chilled her. What if he was one of them and was taking her in? If that were true he could’ve handed her over to the man in Brayton. Still, three months ago she wouldn’t have considered riding away in the dead of night with a man she’d just met. A man who was a bit too comfortable with that gun at his hip, and a bit too good with his fists. A man who knew that horrid Cherry Red well enough for her to throw herself into his arms. Annabelle had been watching from the shadows of the side doorway when he’d come in, all swagger and smiles. A charmer. A man to be wary of.

“Mornin’, Annie.” He watched her through barely opened eyes. “You should’ve given me a shove when you woke up.”

Annabelle smiled, a little. “I haven’t been up that long.” She couldn’t tell him that she hadn’t slept at all, or that she’d spent most of the morning watching him sleep.

He sat up and stretched his arms over his head. Tawny hair stuck out at all angles until he combed the mess with long fingers. “All I’ve got for breakfast is some jerky. We’ll stock up on supplies in the next town.”

She took the jerky he offered her with no comment. She’d been living on so little food that even the dried meat tasted good. It was more important to save her money to get to San Francisco than it was to eat. It was no wonder she’d lost so much weight.

Shelley saddled the horse and lifted Annie onto it as he had the night before. Even with the volumes of silk in his hands he could tell that she was a tiny wisp of a woman. That wasn’t shocking. Her hands were delicate, and her face...

Her face was almost sickly looking, unnatural white with black circles under her eyes and shadows on her cheeks. But it was a well-shaped face, with high cheekbones, full lips, and big brown eyes. He tried not to look at her face too closely. He didn’t want to be caught staring, but even her lips were colorless, gray and pasty.

As he joined her on the roan’s back, he hooked his arm around her waist. “I don’t suppose you’re ready to tell me why that man was looking for you?”

“I can’t.”

“And I don’t suppose I can take you to Denver and put you on a rail to San Francisco?”

“No.”

“I don’t suppose you can tell me why?” His voice remained calm throughout the frustrating conversation.

There was a short pause before his passenger answered. “That man, the man at the Silver Palace. I saw him a few weeks ago at the Denver Rail Station.”

“Looking for you?”

She nodded. “Yes. He wasn’t alone.”