when he’d return home from work each night—she balled her hands into fists. They were tingling, remembering what it was like to bury themselves in his dark hair, too brown to be called black and too black to be called brown. His eyes were a unique shade, too, not quite green or brown, but a combination of the two, and parts of her melted when he looked at her just right.
“I didn’t mean to shoot him, Clara. It was an accident, I swear.”
Catching Nathan’s words moments before the wind carried them off, she asked, “Shoot who?”
“Me.”
Though Blake’s tone was sharp, she had to blink a couple times, trying to calm the way the sound of his voice had other things leaping to life inside her. It had been that way the first time he’d spoken to her in the park in Chicago, where she’d been feeding the pigeons, waiting on the lawyer to deliver the papers she had to sign. She hadn’t known he was the lawyer. Not at first anyway. They’d talked of other things—the weather, the birds, the lake—before he’d asked her name and then started laughing and explained he was who she was waiting for.
He’d pulled out the paperwork then, and they’d both laughed again, as they did so many times in the weeks following.
He wasn’t smiling now.
Neither was she.
Pulling her gaze from his face, air lodged in her lungs at the splotches of red covering his brown pants. Her first instinct was to reach out for him, but she stopped herself in time. She couldn’t react to him—not even to his injuries—not if she hoped to save herself.
“Your little friend shot me right off my horse.”
Bracing for all she was worth, she forced herself to remain still. Didn’t let even an eye wander, though both eyes wanted to, from the toes of his boots to that thick hair. He was too tall and broad to be a lawyer, that’s what she’d thought the first time she’d seen him, and of course before she’d come to know every flawless curve, every muscle and dimple of his hard, perfect body.
Clara lifted her chin, rallying her courage to remain intact. “It doesn’t look too bad to me.”
“What?” Blake barked.
It would take more than a little buckshot to bring him down. She’d known that from the first time they’d met—how strong and potent he was—and all of a sudden she understood what it meant—for her that is. “Get the gun, Nathan. We have chores to do.”
The grasp that snagged her elbow was firm, but not hurtful, other than the way it made her skin heat up. It, too, remembered him. His touch. How it had made her feel special and loved. A person didn’t forget that. No matter how hard they tried.
“Clara,” he said in that smooth way he had.
She told herself his voice was no different from any other man’s. That it didn’t affect her. She wouldn’t remember how it had sounded when he whispered in her ear late at night, especially on their wedding night when he’d made promises. He’d kept those ones, that night and many nights afterward. Many wonderful promises. It wasn’t until—
“Uh, Clara?” Nathan interrupted her thoughts and whatever Blake had been about to say. “Shouldn’t I chase down his horse first? It seems only right after shooting him and all.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Blake said, though his eyes—full of ire—never left her.
Clara bit her lips against the fire in her throat, and all the other things going on inside her. Even with his anger, she wanted to wrap her arms around him, be held close, just one more time.
“It only ran as far as the creek,” Nathan assured. “I’m sure I can catch it.”
Breathing past the sting, knowing touching Blake could never happen, Clara nodded at Nathan.
The boy uttered a response before he took off in a dead run, while Clara closed her eyes and dug into the last dredges of salvation. “What are you doing here, Blake?”
“I’d think that would be obvious.”
Hostility laced his voice. It should increase the opposition inside her, but everything about her was dissolving. She had to stay strong. Had to. “I told you I never want to see you again.”
“No you didn’t,” he insisted. “I went to Springfield for a trial and you left while I was gone. I came home to an empty house. No wife. No explanation.”
“I left a note.”
“That didn’t explain anything.”
It was strange, how calm and, well, dead, she suddenly felt inside, as if none of it mattered anymore. Perhaps because nothing did matter anymore. “It said I granted you a divorce.”
He spun her around then, tightening his hold when her knees threatened to give out, and stared down with clear, bitter eyes. “That’s not how divorces work.”
Her animosity was back, too. As was an image, burning all over again. Him and the blonde. Hugging. It hadn’t been the first time she’d seen that scene, but that day, decided it would be the last.
“The divorce papers you need to sign are in my saddlebag,” he said.
An intense chill slowly encompassed her from her toes upward. Little shivers joined the icy sensation until her entire being frosted over, dowsing the little flicker of hope she’d harbored these past months—that tiny part of her that had refused to believe Blake didn’t love her.
“Clara!”
The far-off shout caused a different kind of dread to rise up inside her. A groan formed and rolled around in her throat, not quite escaping and burning as if it held shards of glass.
“What happened?” William asked moments later, arriving at their sides. “I heard a gunshot. Was anyone injured?”
Running came to Clara’s mind. Fast and far, but the hold on her arm prevented her from taking a step.
“Me,” Blake snarled. “Clara’s husband.”
“Husband?” William’s tone and glance held much more than disbelief.
The groan in her throat escaped.
Chapter Two
Blake fought a mighty battle against the pain of the older woman digging into his flesh with her scissors. He wouldn’t let it show, not how much it hurt, nor would he let it overpower him. If he blacked out, Clara might be gone when he awoke and he wouldn’t let that happen. He’d looked too hard and long to find her.
The woman—Mrs. Sinclair—kept giving him swigs off a bottle of whiskey, which blistered his throat almost as bad as it did his leg when she poured it over another hole. He’d never been shot before, so didn’t have anything to compare it to, but knew one thing. Getting hit with the buckshot hadn’t hurt as much as having it dug out. His only iota of comfort came from Clara, when she dabbed a wound dry and covered it with a bandage before moving on to the next, and that was grating his nerves. He didn’t want anything from her, except her signature—a clearly defined end that would prevent her from ever entering his life again.
“There we are,” Mrs. Sinclair said, dropping another pebble into the basin. “That’s the last of it.” A clang was still resounding against the metal as she lifted the whiskey bottle again. “Here now, a little more of this and then you can rest.”
Blake was already flat on his back with his head propped just high enough that the whiskey she poured into his mouth flowed down his gullet. He closed his lips, gulped down the bitter brew and shook his head when she came at him with the bottle again. Nothing should taste that bad.
“All right,” she said. “I have to put it up high with the children in the house, but Clara knows where it’s at. Let her know if you need more.” Additional wrinkles appeared on the woman’s aged face as she drew her