Page 70 of West Wind

Yea, he’d been blind. But she hadn’t been able to pull the trigger of the derringer even when her life was in danger. She’d panicked at the sight of the scratch on his arm. He grudgingly admitted, she’d saved his life by stopping Swift Eagle’s knife. The pretty knife he’d returned to her after he stabbed the Pinkerton agent. The pretty knife she still wore strapped to her hip. It had never occurred to him not to return it to her, because he couldn’t imagine her using it.

Does a woman who relies on a child’s dreamcatcher for a decent night’s sleep cut a man’s throat? Could a woman who cries her heart out for a little girl she didn’t know take a life so easily?

He buried the child beside her father, while Annie fashioned a crudely carved marker. She used Swift Eagle’s knife to write PEARL on a scrap of wood. The wood shavings collected in her lap as she sat on the ground and focused on the task. Her frown was deep; an occasional single tear trickled down one cheek.

Her tears had dried by the time they rode away from the shack, leaving behind two freshly turned mounds of dirt. Shelley said nothing as they continued their journey, but the anger that had consumed him for days faded. He hated to admit it, but the little girl’s passing had affected even his stony heart.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Shelley glanced over his shoulder at the woman who rode silently behind him, her face pale and glum.

They’d been following the Truckee River Pass for days, their progress slower than he’d anticipated. Alone he could’ve traveled faster, but he knew Annie’s limits, sensed them even though he never let on that he cared how the journey across the Sierra Nevada tired her.

The death of little Pearl had affected her deeply, but he’d expected her to shake off her melancholy after a day or two. She hadn’t. After they’d ridden away from the shack he’d reassured her tersely that there was nothing more she could’ve done. She’d agreed with him, her voice little more than a whisper.

After that she hadn’t mentioned the child again, or complained to him that life wasn’t fair. Her silence was profound. She followed him. She ate. She slept. That was all.

He set up camp by the river while Annie sat tiredly by the fire. They’d taken to sleeping on opposite sides of the campfire, his head in one direction and hers in the other, so if either of them happened to glance to the side they saw nothing more than boots and tan-encased legs. They traveled like two strangers who just happened to be headed in the same direction.

He was more anxious than ever to get her on the ferry and be rid of her. In spite of everything—her lies, her blatant manipulation, the accusations he tried to convince himself were false—he still felt something for her. He wanted to comfort her, he wanted to touch her. More than anything, he wanted to make love to her just one more time before he sent her on her way, to whatever fate awaited her in San Francisco.

“Shelley?” The softly spoken single word from the other side of the campfire surprised him. He’d believed Annie to be asleep, she’d been still for so long.

He rolled onto his side and looked at her red boots, crossed at the ankles. “Ummm,” he murmured as if he’d been asleep.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” Her voice was like a gentle caress. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

He twisted around slowly, placing his head on the opposite end of the bedroll so he could see her face. As he moved, she turned her head to look at him.

“How much longer?”

“Couple days.” He shrugged noncommittally. That was all she wanted, to know how soon she’d be done with him.

The firelight flickered on her face, soft in the undulating light. Strange shadows gave her an eerie look, reminding him of the woman he’d found crouched beneath the stairs behind Oscar’s place.

“I’m going to tell you what really happened.” There was an odd, dreamlike quality to her voice. If she hadn’t been looking right at him he would’ve believed her to be talking in her sleep. “Don’t interrupt me, no matter what I say.”

“All right, darlin’, but you don’t⁠—”

“Please, Shelley. Just listen. I haven’t told anyone what happened that night. The night Henri died.” She faced him with her head resting childlike on her hands instead of on her saddle. “It’s important to me that you know the truth, and it is the truth. I swear.”

She told him every detail, from the moment she walked off the stage to her dressing room and found Albert Gibson with the knife in his hand, and her fiancé, Henri Cuvier, dead. She told him about the accusing faces of those present at the theater. Even Pierre and Lisette, the couple who looked after her home in Paris, who traveled with her, who’d become more than servants, had looked at her with stunned surprise and fear in their eyes.

She told him about stealing the black dress and the makeup from the wardrobe room. Her expression never changed, her voice was never excited. It was almost as if she were talking about someone else.

“I don’t really care anymore if the world believes me or not. But I want you to believe me. You do, don’t you?” she asked, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“I do,” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

She gave him a weak smile. “I was scared. I told you I was scared of everything.”

“Even me?”

She pondered his question seriously for a moment, even though he’d delivered it with a smile. “No. I was never frightened of you. I… I don’t regret anything. No matter what happens, I don’t want you to think…”

She stopped abruptly when he stood and made a move toward her.

“No!” she said sharply. “You stay on your side of the fire, and I’ll stay on mine.”