“As a matter of fact, I have.” That much, at least, was true. The orphanage had had its own dairy barn and kitchen, and Anna had worked long, drudging hours in both.
“Could you pull a pig out of the quicksand or stick a calf that’s bloated on too much spring clover?”
“Could your wife do those things?”
Malachi’s breath sucked in as if he’d been gut-punched. “This has nothing to do with Elise,” he said in a raw-edged voice. “I was asking about you.”
Anna drew herself up, fueled by a slow-welling anger. “Whatever else you may think of me, Mr. Stone, I haven’t had an easy life. There are a good many things I can do if I have to.”
“Yes, I can well imagine.” His cold voice dripped innuendo. Anna recoiled as if he had struck her. She had surmised what he thought of her, but hearing the words spoken, and with such contempt, stung her like an openhanded slap in the face.
She was still groping for a retort when he cleared his throat and continued his assault on her character. “The message Stuart telegraphed to Kanab mentioned you were widowed in a Comanche attack. Is any part of that story true?”
“No.” Anna was too angry to lie. “I thought the story might win Mr. Wilkinson’s sympathy, and I suppose it did. I’m here.”
His eyes narrowed as if he were looking at her down the barrel of a rifle. “So what’s the real story, Anna, or whatever the blazes your real name is?”
“It’s Anna.” She stared between the dark V of Lucifer’s ears, biting back the urge to spill out the whole truth. How could she tell this man that her face was on Wanted posters in three states, and that Louis Caswell himself had put up one thousand dollars of the reward money? How could she tell him about the lawmen and bounty hunters that dogged her trail, the fear-filled days, the sleepless nights?
“I was desperate,” she said, settling on a half truth. “I was out of money, out of work, had no place to go.”
Malachi sighed, his powerful shoulders shifting in the deep indigo twilight. “I wish I could believe you,” he said. “But your kind isn’t exactly known for veracity.”
“My kind?” Anna glared at him, her stomach churning.
“I think you know what I’m talking about.”
She fought the nauseating rage that rose like bile in her throat. “Would it make any difference if I told you I’m not a—” She hesitated, staring down at her pale hands. No, she could not even bring herself to say the word whore. She had known too many of those poor, lost girls. And she had come all too close to sharing their fate. In those homeless, hungry days, only the gift of her voice had saved her from the hell of those upstairs rooms.
“I’m not what you think I am,” she said, recovering her poise. “But of course, I can’t expect you to believe that, can I?”
His silence answered her question, and for the space of a heartbeat Anna was tempted once more to tell this man the whole true story and beg for his protection. But no, she reminded herself, he would not believe her. And even if he did, he would not like what he heard. The upright Malachi Stone would not take kindly to the fact that the woman on his hands was wanted for murder.
Beyond the winding, narrow thread of the road, the canyon was a darkening wonderland of castle-shaped buttes, spires and buttresses. Colors changed with the changing light, deepening from sienna to violet, from indigo to midnight. The wind moaned as it funneled down the arroyos, a lonely, haunting sound that was broken only by the rush of the river and the steady, plodding hoofbeats of the two mules.
Anna gazed upward at the darkening gap of sky. Her spirits sank even deeper as she saw the flicker of lightning and heard, a heartbeat later, the distant roll of thunder.
Malachi had not spoken. Glancing at his stubborn profile, she knew that this was one contest of wills she could not win. Her breath slid out in a long sigh of defeat. “Very well,” she said. “I understand and accept your position, Mr. Stone. If you’ll consent to give me shelter until your wagon is repaired, I’ll be on my way. I assume your cousin Mr. Wilkinson will take care of the contract cancellation…and the divorce.” How strange to say the word, when there had been no semblance of a marriage between them. They were strangers to one another, and would remain so until the end of their days.
Malachi stirred at last, as if awakening from sleep. He shifted his seat on the mule, cleared his throat and spoke. “Where will you go?”
“California, as soon as I can manage the fare. There are plenty of opportunities there for my kind, as you so generously described me.”
She sensed the tightening of his jaw as the irony sank home. “The buckboard shouldn’t take more than a day or two to fix,” he said wearily. “Then I’ll take you as far as Kanab and put you on the stage for Salt Lake. It’s the least I can do to compensate you for your trouble.”
“That’s very kind. Thank you.” Anna spoke through a haze of disappointment. If only he would offer to pay her way to California. She could get work there, maybe even a singing engagement if she changed her name and dyed her hair. If things went well, she could save her money and go anywhere she wished—Mexico, even Europe. But Salt Lake City was too small, too isolated for safety. Sooner or later, she was bound to be noticed. Her face would be matched with the face on the poster, and then the bounty hunters would come.
The wind had picked up, carrying the first elusive drops of rain. Anna licked the moisture from her dusty lips, savoring the coolness as Malachi pushed ahead of her once more. “Let’s get moving,” he said. “Storm’s going to break soon, and this stretch of the road is prone to slides.”
He kneed his mule to a brisk trot. Not wanting to be left behind, Anna jabbed her heels into Lucifer’s flanks and was rewarded by a sudden burst of speed. She gripped the collar, her teeth clenched against the pain that jarred her pelvis and chafed her thighs with every bounce. Walking would be agony tomorrow—if she survived that long.
Lightning cracked across the sky, casting buttes and mesas into stark blue relief. The earsplitting boom of thunder echoed across the canyon, and in the next instant the rain began to fall. Not a gentle shower but a stinging, lashing torrent. Within seconds it had plastered Anna’s clothes to her body and turned the road into a seething river of mud.
Startled by nature’s sudden savagery, the perverse Lucifer stopped dead in his tracks and began wheezing like a ruptured steam calliope.
“Come on!” Malachi swung back toward Anna and yanked the frightened animal into motion again. “There’s an overhang about a mile down the road!” he shouted above the rain. “We can stop there till the worst of this passes!”
He swung ahead of her to lead the way and was at once swallowed up by darkness and rain. All but blinded by the stinging raindrops, Anna gripped Lucifer’s collar, trusting her life to the erratic beast. The mule knew the way home, she reminded herself. As long as she stayed on its back, she would be safe. All the same, it was hard not to be terrified when water was gushing over the road with a force that threatened to wash away the entire hillside.
“Keep him away from the edge!” She could hear Malachi’s voice shouting from somewhere off to her left. “This way!”
Another lightning bolt split the sky above the gorge. In its ghostly flash she saw him plunging toward her, one arm outstretched in an effort to grasp her mount’s harness. Then thunder broke like the roar of cannon fire, and Lucifer lost his footing. Squalling and kicking, the mule went down and began to slide.
Anna screamed as she felt herself flying through the black rain, felt the twisting jerk as Malachi’s powerful hand caught her wrist, wrenching her upright. She slammed into the side of his mule and hung there, her breath coming in hard little sobs.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Malachi was hauling her upward. Wild with terror she fought against the pull of his arm.
“Lucifer!”