West of Heaven. Victoria Bylin
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through the hills like a tangled thread. Her livery mare was surefooted. She would lag behind and then race back to the Trent ranch. The sooner she left with the sheriff, the sooner she’d be back.
Slipping Hank’s letter into her pocket, she pushed to her feet. “I’m ready, Sheriff.”
As he marched out the door, she hunched against the cold, following him to the pine tree where their horses were tethered. A distant thump drew her gaze to a grassy slope about fifty feet from the barn. There she saw the rancher in profile as he raised the pickax high above his head. The blade sliced through the air with a whoosh, then struck the hard earth with a thud.
She winced.
The sheriff gripped her arm. “Ma’am? Come along now.”
“I’m all right.” Shaking off his grasp, she pulled herself into the saddle. Handley mounted his bay and led the way down a path that cut across the meadow near Hank’s gravesite. As they rode past the brown gash in the grass, Ethan Trent pushed back his filthy hat and looked at her with eyes as unyielding as petrified wood.
The remnants of a life lurked in that hardness and her heart pulsed with understanding. She knew how it felt to be alone and in pain. But she also knew how it felt to drag herself out of bed in the morning and face each day. She’d done it when her mother died and she’d do it again tomorrow, without Hank.
She believed in herself and in God, and no matter what difficulties came her way, she’d find a way to survive. She always did.
Trust God and stay strong.
Louisa McKinney had used those words to stitch her way to success. In spite of being a twenty-year-old widow without family or resources, she had established herself as Lexington’s leading dressmaker. Jayne vowed to follow in her footsteps.
Today she would bury her husband. Tomorrow she’d find work in Midas and put every penny aside for the train fare back to Lexington. She’d cry for Hank, but it wouldn’t stop her from cleaning up the mess he’d left, nor from helping the authorities find his murderer. His letter chafed in her pocket. She would show it to Handley in the morning, but tonight she wanted to be alone with her husband’s last words.
Her mare followed the sheriff’s bay into the forest without being nudged. Silent minutes passed as the temperature dropped with the coming storm. The path wound through thick pines, then dipped into a ravine and climbed up a slope littered with pine needles.
Handley had almost reached the top of the hill when his horse lost its footing. Righting the animal took all his attention, and Jayne saw her chance. She turned the mare, dug in her heels and took off for the Trent ranch at a gallop.
Chapter Two
“M rs. D-a-a-a-w-s-o-n!”
Jayne sat tight in the saddle and gave the mare full rein. The hood of her cloak slipped from her head and her hair collapsed in a tangle. When a shower of sleet burst from the sky, icy needles crackled through the trees and stung her face. The wind howled, masking the mare’s hoofbeats as they rounded the first curve. In another minute the road would be slick with mud, but for now it was safe for the mare to gallop.
“Mrs. D-a-a-a-w-s-o-n!”
The shout was fainter now. Surely the comfort of a warm bed and a hot meal would draw the sheriff home to Midas. The trail steepened and then veered east. Listening for Handley, she heard nothing but the storm and slowed the mare to a fast walk.
As suddenly as the sleet had started, it stopped. She raised her face to the sky where snowflakes as big as teacups were collecting on the trees. In front of her eyes, the pines were changing from towering sentries to lacy white angels.
Taking the greeting as a sign that coming back to bury Hank was right, she nudged the mare into a trot and rode straight into Ethan Trent’s meadow.
The rancher was nowhere in sight, but the grave was deep and surrounded on three sides by freshly turned earth. Snow mottled the brown mounds, and a loamy fragrance drifted to her nose on the stiffening wind. The scrape of canvas against dirt drew her eyes down the slope where she saw the rancher dragging a burlap sack past the splintery wall of the barn.
He could have been pulling a child’s sled, but she knew the sack held Hank’s body. She reined the mare to a halt, sat straight in the saddle and watched as Ethan Trent dragged his burden up the hill. His steps were slow and measured, his back rounded and his gloved hands knotted in the frayed weave of the burlap. When he reached the grave, he aligned the body with the long edge of the rectangular hole, paused for breath and bowed his head.
He was probably avoiding the snow, but she wanted to think he was showing respect for the act he was about to commit, if not for the man he was laying to rest.
She was grateful for that small comfort, but then he knotted his fists at his heaving sides, stared straight into the heavens and shouted a curse she would never repeat. With his oath ringing in the air, he dropped to his knees and rolled the corpse into the grave.
Jayne stared in horror. The veil of snow erased all color from her world except for the red flush burning across the rancher’s cheeks. Through the mist, she watched as he crossed one arm over his chest, rested his elbow on his forearm and pinched the bridge of his nose. His wide shoulders started to shake, and a low groan cut through the air as he raised both hands to his face and pressed them against his eyes, as if to hold in tears.
Stunned by a grief that matched her own, Jayne climbed off the mare and walked in his direction. As the horse clopped to the barn, the rancher’s gaze drifted to her face. Rising slowly to his feet, he blinked as if he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Golden hope flickered in his irises like a candle in an empty window, but it died as suddenly as it had appeared. In place of that hope, she saw a loathing as deep and lasting as the grave at his feet. Sneering, he picked up the shovel and hurled more dirt into the hole.
Fresh tears scalded her cheeks. “I’ve come to help you bury my husband.”
“Help me? God Almighty,” he said, heaving more dirt into the grave. “Where the hell is Handley?”
“On his way to Midas. We parted ways at the ravine.”
From beneath the brim of his hat, he assessed her with a cold stare. “You’re stubborn, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m strong-minded.”
“What the hell’s the difference?”
“A stubborn person just wants her own way. Someone who’s strong-minded has principles and lives by them.”
He looked down at the dirt thumping into the hole, lifted another load and sent it flying. His gaze shifted back to hers. “So what damn principle gives you the right to invade my privacy?”
If he wanted an apology, he wasn’t going to get it. “Common decency is what gives me the right, Mr. Trent. How would you feel in my shoes? What if this were your wife?”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Jayne realized that she had made a terrible mistake. The shovel stopped in midswing, hanging over the grave as the rancher stared blindly into the hole. She’d once seen ice break apart on the Ohio River. The fractured planes of his face were no less treacherous.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know you. I shouldn’t have presumed—”
“Damn right.” He slowly turned the blade of the shovel so that dirt and snow fell together in a tarnished mist.
Trying to be respectful, she said, “I should have realized—”
“You should’ve gone with Handley.”
“But—”
“Dammit, lady. Mind your own business.”
“I’m trying to apologize.”
“Don’t.”
Taking a step back, she bowed her head and kept quiet. She owed him