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Feeling helpless at best, Delaney just stood there. Rather than stare at Hannah’s fragile form on the bed, he let his gaze wander around the room. Her room, to all appearances. Hers alone. There wasn’t a single masculine touch he could discern. Not a pipe rack or an errant boot or so much as a cuff link on the dresser.
Instead there were silver hairbrushes, delicate tortoise combs, perfume bottles that captured the sunlight in prisms and sent it spilling across the carpet and over stray garments of cream-colored silk tossed here and there. The lamps were painted with roses to match the paper on the wall. The whole room, in fact, smelled like a rose garden. Lush and sweet and... Well, pink. No, not pink. It was richer than that. It smelled rose. A rich, deep and full-bodied rose.
The door to the wardrobe stood slightly ajar, and Delaney could see yard upon yard of fine silks and serges. He saw an inch or two of green plaid and recognized it as the dress Hannah had worn the evening he’d met her at the lemonade social. He remembered how the deep green garment had set off her eyes and how the gloss of her red hair had rivalled the shine of the taffeta.
And then he’d been introduced to her husband. Ezra had shaken his hand with great gusto, and Delaney had hardly looked at Hannah again. Until now.
God almighty. He had no business here in her room, he told himself, then strode to the door, down the hall and down the stairs without looking back. If Doc Soames hadn’t been coming through the front door just then, Delaney would’ve been gone.
“What’s this I hear about Ezra?” the elderly doctor asked. “Dead by his own hand?”
“It looks that way,” Delaney said.
Abel Fairfax joined them. “He took a turn for the worse yesterday, Doc. You know how sick he was. I expect Ezra wanted to go on his own terms, not wait till he was too weak to open his eyes much less pull a trigger.”
The doctor nodded somberly. “And Hannah? Have you told her yet?”
“She knows,” Delaney said.
“Fainted dead away,” Abel added. “She’s upstairs, lying down.”
“Well, in my experience it’s best to put a goodly amount of sleep between bad news and reckoning with it.” The doctor patted his black bag. “I’ll just go on up and give her enough laudanum to let her get a healing rest.”
Delaney almost stopped him. In his opinion, facing tragedy was far better than sleeping through it. He sensed that Hannah would agree. But then it wasn’t for him to say, was it?
“Well, I guess that’s that,” he said. “I’ll be getting back to the office now.”
“Thanks for your help, Sheriff,” Abel said. “I’ll be sure and let Hannah know.”
“That’s not necessary, Abel. You just give her my sympathies, will you?”
“I’ll do that, Delaney. I’ll surely do that.”
The undertaker’s buckboard rattled past Delaney as he walked back to the sheriff’s office. Ezra Dancer’s body lay in back, covered by a dark wool blanket.
. “Dum shame,” Seth Moran called down from the wagon seat as he passed.
“Yep.”
There wasn’t anything more to say, so Delaney veered left, out of the cloud of dust the undertaker kicked up. Once inside his office, he aimed his hat at the hook on the wall and propped his shotgun against the desk before he settled in his chair. It felt like noon, but it was barely nine o’clock. Death did that, he mused. Made time feel different. Slowed it down. Speeded it up. He wasn’t sure which.
In the war, some battles seemed as if they were going on for several days when in fact they only lasted from dawn until dusk. Others, when they were over and the casualties counted, seemed to have taken place in the blink of an eye.
Hell, it seemed like months ago that Ezra Dancer had dropped by the jailhouse, poured himself a cup of coffee, and sat just to chew the fat with Delaney, to ask him how he liked Newton after his six-month stint as sheriff, if he meant to stay or if he thought he’d be pulling up stakes once his year’s contract ran out. But that visit had taken place a mere two or three weeks ago. And Ezra hadn’t even struck him as all that thin or ill.
Now the man was dead by his own hand. Delaney closed his eyes a minute, refusing to entertain any thought of what he might have missed in the man’s conversation or an expression of hopelessness he might have failed to recognize on the older man’s face.
The truth was that Ezra had seemed just fine to him. He wasn’t a damned mind reader, after all, and he’d been directly responsible for enough deaths himself over the years to know that in this case he wasn’t to blame at all, either for what he did or failed to do.
Sick or not, Ezra Dancer struck Delaney as nothing but a damn fool to leave a woman like Hannah a minute, a single second, a mere blink, before he absolutely had to.
Chapter Two
Hannah wasn’t sure if she was alive or dead. Sometimes it felt as if she were deep underwater, struggling against strong currents, not drowning so much as already drowned, breathing water now rather than air. Then sometimes it felt as if she were soaring, lighter than air itself, invisible as wind.
Sometimes she thought that she was in her bed because she recognized the smell of sunshine in the linen sheets and felt the familiar caress of her favorite pillow, the way it tucked so perfectly between her shoulder and her chin.
Her bed, perhaps, yet every time she attempted to open her eyes, her room seemed different. It kept changing. Once the curtains were open and there was sunlight on the elm outside her window. Then it turned somehow to moonlight. And then the curtains were drawn tight, and the only light was the pale flicker from the lamp on the nightstand.
There was always someone in the rocking chair across the room. Once it was Miss Green. Hannah saw her clearly. Once it was Abel Fairfax. For a moment it seemed to be Ezra.
Ezra. Something about Ezra.
Then she envisioned Delaney, tall and somber at the foot of the stairs. His arms were going around her and she could feel the rough touch of his wool vest and all the warmth beneath it. There was the sudden scrape of his cheek against hers.
Hannah tried to speak, but she was under water again and the current was stronger than before, pulling her down relentlessly.
“There,” whispered Miss Green. “There, there. Just sleep now, you poor dear. You’ll feel ever so much better in the morning.”
Two days later, sitting beside Ezra’s casket in the darkly draped front parlor of the Moran Brothers’ Funerary Establishment, Hannah had to remind herself once again that Ezra was no longer in pain. She’d watched the cancer eating away at him, dulling the light in his eyes, creasing his forehead, and weighing down the corners of his mouth, especially when he thought she wasn’t looking.
But now he had freed himself of all that agony, hadn’t he? Rather than allow his illness to waste him away over the course of the next few months, Ezra had mastered his own fate. He had mastered his own death. Above all else, he had vanquished the terrible pain. That alone should have given her great consolation.
Hannah edged a hand beneath the folds of her black veil to wipe away one more tear.
How like Ezra to take fate in hand. His suicide shouldn’t have surprised her. She should have been prepared. She should have read it on his face the night before he shot himself or tasted goodbye on his lips when he kissed her good-night.
Or perhaps somewhere deep inside she had suspected Ezra’s intentions, yet had chosen to deny if not completely ignore her knowledge. Life without Ezra, after all, was unthinkable. They’d been together fourteen years, half of Hannah’s life.
“Mrs. Dancer, please accept my deepest sympathies on your loss: If there’s anything I can do for you—anything at all—you only have to say so.”
Through her veil, Hannah recognized the brown checkered suit and polished brogans of Henry Allen, the young banker who’d been boarding at her house for the past year. She hadn’t seen Henry since Ezra’s death, having kept to her room until the house was quiet and all the boarders were asleep. Now the young man stood gazing at her with his brown puppy eyes. If he’d had a tail, Hannah thought, he’d be wagging it. Instead he was dragging the brim of his bowler hat through his fingers while he rocked back and forth in his glossy shoes.
“Thank you, Henry. It was kind of you to come. Ezra would be very glad and grateful.”
His puppy eyes grew darker, more glossy. His voice lowered to the intimacy of a whisper. “Shall I wait and see you safely home?”
The boy’s sweet on you, Hannah. Suddenly she heard Ezra’s voice as clearly as if he were standing right behind her, chuckling as he always did whenever Henry Allen said something particularly syrupy, or something punctuated by undisguised sighs.
Can’t say I blame him, either. You’re a fine-looking woman, Hannah Dancer. You don’t see it in yourself, honey, but others surely do.
A chill edged along her spine, and Hannah sat up a little straighter. “Thank you, Henry. I expect to be here quite a while until everyone’s paid their respects.” She looked across the parlor where her other boarder, Florence Green, sat with a teacup and saucer balanced on her knee. “Miss Green’s been here a long time. She looks a bit tired to me. You might offer to see her home, Henry. I’d consider it a favor.”
He sighed a rather boyish, recalcitrant sigh.
“I’d appreciate it enormously,” Hannah urged. “Oh, and you might leave a light burning in the vestibule for me, too. I believe I forgot to do that earlier.”
“Are you quite sure I can’t...?”
“No, thank you, Henry.”
Hannah let out a small sigh of her own when he walked away, and was heartened, even relieved, when the young man approached Miss Green and apparently offered to escort her home. The plump schoolteacher put aside her teacup, then rose and took Henry’s arm quite somberly. Then, after a last lingering glance toward Hannah, the young man escorted his companion out the door.
People came and went during the next few hours. People who were sorry, shocked, saddened, oh so sad. By ten o’clock Hannah was nearly numb and thankful, not only that her veil hid her reddened eyes, but that it disguised an inappropriate yawn or two. She hadn’t had a good sleep since she woke from her laudanum-induced stupor two days ago. When the final mourner shook her hand and murmured his sympathies, Hannah was eager to get home, to take off her black bonnet, her black dress and stockings and shoes, and to fall into a deep and unworried sleep.
“Looks like that’s it, Miz Dancer.” One of the Moran brothers—Hannah wasn’t sure if it was Seth or Samuel—plucked his watch from his pocket and clicked it open. “Ten o’clock. Pretty late. Your husband had a lot of friends.”
“Yes, he did.” Hannah wasn’t sure what to do or say next. She’d never had to preside in a funeral parlor before.
“I’ll send a boy around tomorrow with all these flowers,” Moran said, gesturing toward the many vases that decorated the room. “Just let me lock up and I’ll see you home.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Moran. It’s only a little way. I’ll be safe enough.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, I’m very sure. After such a throng of people, I think I’d prefer being alone for a while. Will you be picking me up tomorrow for the ride to the cemetery?”
“Yes, ma‘am. Nine o’clock, if that suits you.”
“Nine will be fine. Thank you, Mr. Moran. Thank you for everything. I’ll see you then.”
Hannah took a last look at the closed casket and felt her tears welling up again. Ezra was dead. The notion kept surprising her somehow. The hurt kept feeling fresh. Raw. She wondered how long it would be before she truly accepted the fact that Ezra was gone, that she was alone.
A soft breeze riffled her black satin skirt and bonnet when she stepped outside onto the planked sidewalk. The night was warm. She breathed deeply, cleansing herself of the smell of funeral bouquets and the lingering camphor and cedar that scented the mourners’ best clothes.
Beyond the brass carriage lights that flanked the Moran Brothers’ doorway, Newton was bathed in silver moonlight. Even the dirt of Main Street glistened here and there where moonbeams pooled. Down the street, Hannah could see the elm-shadowed facade of her own house. There was a lamp burning in the vestibule, turning the stained-glass fanlight over the door to glittering jewels.
For a moment everything was beautiful, almost magical. Then Hannah remembered Ezra was dead, and the beauty of the night seemed to mock her. Everything silver suddenly seemed to tarnish. A feeling of such loneliness engulfed her that she had to reach out to the hitching rail to steady her liquid knees.
“Kinda late for a lady to be walking home alone.”
Delaney’s voice—its deep, rough music—came out of the darkness. Hannah would have known it anywhere. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of moonlight on the badge pinned to his black vest and the dull sheen of his ever-present shotgun.
“I’m sorry about Ezra, Mrs. Dancer.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.” Hannah stepped off the sidewalk, into the street. Without asking permission, Delaney fell into step beside her, so close at first that their sleeves brushed, causing both of them to veer slightly—Delaney to his right, Hannah to her left—leaving a foot or so of moonlit road between them.
“I understand you were the one who kept me from pitching down the stairs the other day. I’m very grateful, Sheriff.”
“It was nothing,” he said, his gaze directed straight ahead. “Glad I was there to help.”
They walked in silence then. Well, not total silence. There was the clash of piano music coming from several saloons behind them, a bright peal of laughter drifting out a window somewhere, and a chorus of crickets on the edge of town. Hannah’s satin skirts rustled softly while Delaney’s spurs kept up a gentle, metallic beat.
When they passed the jailhouse, Hannah caught sight of the chair where this man usually sat, shotgun at hand, casually keeping watch over the town. It seemed odd to stare so boldly at that chair now. Ordinarily, when she walked into town, she riveted her gaze on the opposite side of the street. The sight of him forever flustered her.
They were halfway up the flagstone sidewalk to her house when Delaney halted.
“I’ll wait till you’re safe inside.”
For a moment Hannah wanted to stop, too, rather than continue, alone, toward the huge house. It was happening again—that magnetic pull she always felt whenever she was near this man. She’d been intensely aware of it from their very first meeting last winter. At the first, surprising sound of his well-deep voice and the sight of his serious face with those frank hazel eyes, Hannah’s heart had quickened inside her.
Then, after the lemonade social to welcome the new sheriff to Newton, there had been the Valentine’s Day dance and a similar tug at her heartstrings seeing Delaney across a crowded room. It had confused her in the past, even irritated her, but now it shamed her—feeling that same pull—with Ezra just a few days dead.
“Good night, Delaney.” She said it almost stiffly as she forced herself to walk the final yards to the front steps, and then up to the door. With her hand on the knob, Hannah was tempted to turn and take one last look at the tall man in his black vest, black trousers, and boots. She feared, though, that if she did, she might turn to a pillar of salt.
So she went inside and softly closed the door behind her.
Delaney didn’t go back to his room at the National Hotel. Instead he pushed through the doors of the Longhorn Saloon and settled himself at a table in the back. In a matter of minutes, Ria Flowers had brought him a tall, wet glass of beer and had planted her bountiful self in the chair next to his.
“I haven’t seen you for over a week, Delaney, darlin’. Don’t tell me you’re loving up some other girl.” She leaned forward, a seductive smile on her redglossed lips and a significant amount of cleavage shimmering above her crimson laced corset.
Delaney found himself oddly and uncharacteristically immune. Ria was a beautiful young woman still on the spring side of twenty, blond and blue-eyed and finely constructed even without the unnatural allure of her tight-laced corset. Of all the women who made their livings in the saloons of Newton, she still had a softness about her, not the sulky demeanor of most whores.
It had become Delaney’s habit over the last several years, as he went from one wild town to another in Kansas, to take his pleasures in each place with just one woman. So, there’d been Joy in Abilene, Josette in Wichita, Fanny McKay in Dodge, and now pretty young Ria Flowers in Newton. It was a sort of monogamy, he thought, unsanctified as it was, unholy perhaps, but ultimately a necessity Delaney could not deny or do without.
Besides, since he never intended to get married again, it wouldn’t have done to get cozy with a proper single lady who had... well... expectations. Not that it was always easy walking away from a whore he’d had an affection for, but it was legal. Unlike Wyatt and Doc, he’d never lived as man and wife with such a woman.
In Delaney’s view, his two friends might just as well have been married to their paramours for all the grief they cost one another. He’d seen Mattie crying more than once over Wyatt. And if Doc’s Kate never shed a tear, still he thought he could read chapter and verse of sadness in her eyes.
“You tired of me?” Ria asked him now, her pink tongue glossing over her lips and her fingers smoothing up and down his arm.
“Just tired, honey.” Delaney took a long draft of the warm beer in front of him, then set it down again. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”
It had to do, he thought, with a red-haired widow whose face and form seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his mind these last few days. The smart thing to do now, he knew, would be to take Ria upstairs to bed, to lose himself if only for a night in her arms and her giving flesh. That was, after all, why he’d come to the Longhorn instead of returning to his room.
But he didn’t feel particularly smart at the moment, and somehow being with Ria Flowers didn’t seem like such a good way to rid his mind of Hannah Dancer. It struck him as dishonest. Damned if he’d ever coupled honesty and lovemaking in the same breath. And damned if he’d ever turned his back on a warm and willing female.
He drained his glass and set it on the table with a thump. “I think I’ll just turn in for the night,” he told her.
“Well, if that’s what you want.” Ria’s lower lip slid out. Worry flickered in her eyes. “I could come with you to the hotel, Delaney. Harry wouldn’t mind.” She angled her head toward the bartender. “Here. There. It’s all the same to him as long as he gets his cut.”
He stood up, reached in his pocket for a silver dollar, and pressed it into her hand. “Harry doesn’t need to take a chunk of this, honey. You keep it. I’ll see you later. Tomorrow maybe.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” He bent to kiss her forehead, then caught a whiff of her orange-blossom talc and nearly changed his mind. Nearly. “Good night, Ria.”
His room on the second floor of the National Hotel was similar to all the other hotel rooms where he’d resided during the past decade of lawing. This one had new wallpaper, though, unlike the fly-specked patterns of some of his former residences. The mattress was decent enough and there were fresh sheets every two weeks.
He propped his shotgun against the wall between the nightstand and the bed, then took off his clothes without bothering to light the lamp. There was still plenty of moonlight coming through the window to keep him from cracking a shin on the rocker or tripping over the worn Oriental runner.
Delaney dropped onto the bed. It was true, what he’d told Ria. He was tired. God, he was tired. Of his present circumstances. Of Newton. Of living in this hotel. Of a job that paid him just enough to keep on being poor.
Out of habit, he flexed his right hand—the hand that had once been fast and deadly accurate. That hadn’t been the case since he’d been shot last summer in Dodge by a fool kid who wanted to earn a reputation by killing an Earp. But the boy had winged Delaney instead, then found himself pistol-whipped by Wyatt and Virgil both and promptly tried and sent to jail. If it hadn’t been for the kid’s bad aim, Delaney would probably be in Arizona now.
He’d come to Newton last winter less by choice than by default. With his gun hand out of commission, he knew he couldn’t pull his weight with the Earps. It was all well and good that he was still pretty lethal with a shotgun, but then anybody was that. With enough buckshot, even a blind old granny was a threat to life and limb.
Hell, he’d even quit wearing his gunbelt and holster when he’d come here because he’d felt like a damn fool when he knew they were pure decoration. So he’d locked the leather and iron in the bottom drawer of his new desk, then he’d spent the next couple weeks feeling like a gelding. Just half a man somehow. Not that he thought wearing a gun made somebody a man, but not wearing his had taken a definite chunk out of his pride.
