Page 10 of West Wind

“Annie Laurie,” he requested, and then he closed his eyes.

Her voice was as perfect as he’d remembered, clear and strong and lilting. She sang while he drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

He woke hours later, when the moon was high in the sky. She still sat there, cross-legged on top of the bedroll, watching him. It was disconcerting.

“Don’t you sleep?” he asked as he folded his bedroll.

“Not much,” she whispered, as if afraid to disturb the stillness of the night.

They rode away from the pond with the moon lighting their way. At the top of the hill Shelley turned the roan around to look over the glade. Moonlight danced on the water, bright against the blackness of the landscape.

“I’ve never seen another place more perfect, Shelley,” she whispered.

He didn’t answer. Why in hell did she have to say his name like that? A whispered caress, as if they’d been lovers for years. He turned the roan and headed northwest, toward the pass that would take them over the Rocky Mountains. With every step he felt closer to whatever party might be able to take her to California. He could hand over his responsibility to the head of a wagon train and be done with her.

They hadn’t gone very far when he felt her relax completely against his chest.

“Jesus, woman,” he whispered. He got no response, and expected none, since she slept soundly. “I’ve never known anyone who would prefer to sleep riding horseback than on a perfectly good bedroll.”

He kept the pace steady and held her close so she could sleep. Her cheek rested against his chest. His gaze was drawn downward. Long eyelashes brushed against her cheeks, fluttering now and then. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up, lost in the folds of her mother’s dress, falling asleep utterly exhausted.

Annabelle woke as the sun was rising as she had the day before, with a start that threatened to throw her from the saddle.

“Bad dreams, darlin’? I mean, Mrs. Brown?” Shelley amended.

She wished she hadn’t told him to call her Mrs. Brown. The name sounded unnatural to her ear. Annie was much better, even darlin’, the relaxed way he said it. It was too late to change that now.

“Sometimes I have nightmares,” she explained. “Usually not two nights in a row, though.”

She lifted herself up and forward, away from the comfort of his chest, and stayed in that uncomfortable position for hours, Shelley’s hat shielding her face from the sun, the heavy silk growing more and more cumbersome as the temperature rose. He made several attempts at starting a conversation, but she was uncooperative.

They stopped in a small settlement, little more than a general store and a saloon in the middle of nowhere. She waited on the boardwalk while Shelley did the shopping. She would’ve waited there until he finished if a man hadn’t come riding down the dusty street leading another horse. A horse with a man’s body draped across it. As soon as she saw the dead man she ran into the store.

“Come over here,” Shelley called when he saw her. “Do you like dried apples?” His smile disappeared. “What’s wrong?”

“There’s a man outside. With a dead body.”

He put the supplies down and stepped out onto the boardwalk, while she stayed in the general store. She walked down the aisles and examined all the goods, wishing Shelley would return. She ended up at the front counter, staring into the face of an elderly man who wore an impossibly thick pair of spectacles.

“Afternoon, pretty lady,” he said.

She smiled at him in response while her gaze strayed to the wall behind his head. Wanted posters, at least a dozen of them, hung there, but she saw only one.

Her own.

The drawing, not a very good one, was her likeness just the same. She’d been heavier then, her hair elaborately styled, and in the drawing her eyes had an unnatural, evil slant.

Annabelle St. Clair. Wanted for murder and attempted murder. Brown hair, brown eyes. One thousand dollars. Dead or alive.

“You all right, miss?” the old man asked, squinting through the thick spectacles. “You look a bit peaked.” She turned away from him and walked down the center aisle. There, as she remembered from her earlier perusal, were several sunbonnets. She grabbed the one with the largest brim and returned to the counter. The springy yellow check bonnet had bright yellow ribbons to tie under her chin.

Before she could put on the bonnet, Shelley walked through the door with the ragged-looking man who’d scared her.

“The Widow Brown was right concerned,” he teased. “Mrs. Brown, this is John Prather, but I’m sure he’ll let you call him Beans, like everybody else does.”

She nodded, looking down at the floor. “How do you do, Mr. Beans?”

That caused all three men to burst into laughter; she continued to stare at the floorboards.