Divided Heart Read online

  That was a mistake.

  The Reverend twirled the pistol around his trigger finger and dropped it again.

  Nate jumped back as a bullet chipped a good chunk off the tree the Reverend’s horse was tethered to. The animal snorted as though it had grown accustomed to these close brushes with death.

  “I’m learning how to shoot,” the Reverend said.

  “From what I can tell so far,” Nate said, “all you have to do is drop your gun.” Nate looked at the bottles set up on barrels in the far distance. Even he couldn’t hit one of them. “Your targets might be a bit too ambitious for a beginner.” Frankly, only an expert could hit one of those bottles from this distance. Nate asked, “What do you plan on killing from this far away?”

  “Rattlesnakes. I thought it prudent to have some means to protect myself from them.”

  “And you think you’re going to see them from this far off?” Especially with those eyeglasses? “Don’t you think rattlesnakes would be crawling on the ground and not flying four feet up in the air?” Nate rubbed his jaw.

  Was this the same man Hattie had said was courting her? Or did someone switch preachers since she’d last seen him?

  “How long have you been in Ramsden?”

  “I’ve been here about seven years.”

  This was indeed Hattie’s man. And he was just figuring out now that they had rattlers?

  Nate found something else odd as he picked the gun out of the dirt again. This wasn’t any old revolver. “You bought a Colt .44 to kill snakes?”

  “Do you think it’ll do the trick?”

  Nate shook his head at the man’s stupidity. “It’s enough to kill a snake and all its relatives.” If you can hit it. “You might be better off with a shotgun.” A long-barreled weapon that fired a spray of bullets might be more practical. And if the Reverend still couldn’t hit a snake with one of the bullets, maybe he could bludgeon it to death with the stock.

  Nate handed the revolver back.

  The man held it as though it were a hot biscuit. He was more of a danger to himself than the snakes were.

  “I don’t recognize you,” the Reverend said as the revolver settled in his hand. He aimed for one of the bottles. His eyeglasses were in the right direction, but the barrel of the Colt was a good twenty degrees off.

  “I’m Nate Powell. The man who hired you.”

  “Reverend Everton.” The man absently offered the gun instead of just his hand for Nate to shake.

  Nate raised his hands. “Hold on. I’m just passing through. Maybe you should take the bullets out and get used to the gun first.”

  “Oh. Yes.” It seemed to take him a moment to realize he had the barrel pointed straight at Nate. “How do I…?”

  Nate snatched the revolver and emptied the bullets out of the cylinders. He handed it back and then poured the handful of bullets into the man’s palm.

  The Reverend dropped them like a handful of red ants. “I’m afraid weapons make me nervous.”

  “How about women?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t see a woman around.” It was a roundabout way of inquiring about how the Reverend felt about Hattie.

  “I’m afraid I’m worse with women than I am with guns.”

  Well, that explained why he and Hattie hadn’t gotten further than courtship.

  ~*~

  “Let’s get this off you,” Hattie said to her old mare when they’d returned home.

  The bandage wrapped around Hattie’s arm was soaked with fresh blood from reopening the wound. She ignored the bleeding as she released Nellie from her harness, led her into the barn, and then watered her. Hattie wasn’t ready to go into a lonely house yet, so she lingered in the barn. She gave the horse some oats. “You’re happy being a single gal, aren’t you, Nellie?”

  The old horse was calm and content. Any more docile, and it would be dead.

  “Do you ever think about the past? Do you ever have regrets?” She looked at a creature whose only interest was eating, but Hattie kept talking. “It seems that turning to God saves the soul, but it doesn’t always save the mind from wishing you’d done things right in the first place.

  “I remember a time when I wore my dresses low on the shoulder and high on the leg.” Hattie started brushing the horse. “Yup, Nellie, my job was to flirt with men and keep them drinking so Boss could get their money. I was good at what I did, too. Always smiling and hating every minute of it.

  “The men who came in always smelled like skunks, and I’d swear Boss would signal me to flirt with the one who stank the worst. The saloon was like a big crate I was stuck in, and I didn’t think there was a world beyond the walls. At least, not a world that wanted me in it. The only pleasant thing that ever came through the door was Nate.”

  Nate had left Ramsden, and she’d left the saloon because she’d come to realize something about being a saloon girl. It might have been the right way to show off to a man that she was a woman, but it was the wrong way to let him know she was also a lady who wanted to feel safe and protected in his arms—and his arms alone.

  Nate.

  She stared off into the past where she could see him in the corner of the saloon in the same old chair watching her. She gazed out the barn door as though she might see him heading back to Massachusetts and half grinned at the fancy life she could have had.

  “The Lord, Nellie. I reckoned He’s what saved me from leaving with Nate.” She paused a moment, lest a tear come, because she’d discovered there was a world outside the saloon that wanted her in it. “Most everyone here’s become like family to me. Especially Zachariah.” Her love for him ran deeper than blood. There was no person she admired more. No one who’d helped her out as much as he did.

  She looked at her stained bandage. “Reckon I ought to get a fresh rag and stop aggravating this cut.”

  Nellie munched, oblivious to everything but the oats.

  “Reckon I also ought to stop telling my troubles to a horse.”

  Hattie pushed the loneliness away and gave the horse a pat on the neck. “Better not die on me, Nellie, because I’ll have to turn to those nasty chickens to tell my troubles to.”

  She went into the house to clean up the morning’s baking mess. Her cookery was crusted with dried-up potato starch and the bench was still caked with flour. Overwhelmed at a chore that suddenly seemed too big to tackle, she sat down, seeing what she’d been trying not to feel inside.

  The mess Nate had left behind.

  It was hard to pray because her heart and her head had different petitions. I love Nate, Lord, but he’s brought me nothing but heartache. Besides, I’m not his saloon girl anymore. I’m Yours now. And I know You’ve got another fish for me to fry.

  The Reverend.

  If she wanted a man who could help her stay on the straight and narrow, he was as devout as they came. But she hadn’t done much to bait the hook on her fishing line to catch him. The folks in town who knew her secret, kept it. But the Reverend deserved to know about her past. But that wasn’t as lousy as the other predicament a romance with the Reverend presented to Hattie.

  Frankly, she found her one fish to fry as attractive as a flounder with eyeglasses.

  6

  “There’s no way on this earth a woman like you can respect a man like that.”

  Hattie crossed her arms because Nate was right, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know it. “But I can respect a two-timing weasel like you?”

  Once again Nate was at Hattie’s door. This time he’d come at a more considerate hour. Instead of the middle of the night, he’d come just after nightfall.

  Though she was still dressed, the door was closed between them. In fact, she’d made double sure it was locked, because it wasn’t so much Nate she wanted to keep out. She wanted to keep herself in.

  “I didn’t say you should respect me.”

  “Then what are you saying? That you think you’re better than him?”

  “I
didn’t say anything of the sort. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

  Arrogance and conceit. That’s what she’d wanted to hear from him. Not sensibility. “I thought you left. Why are you back?”

  “Because I know you can’t be in love with the Reverend. The man’s a clumsy oaf. He wouldn’t know what to do with a wife even if she came with instructions.”

  He’d hit the truth dead center.

  That does it. Hattie threw open the door. She had something to say to Nate, and he would hear it loud and clear. But the moment she saw him in the glow of her lamp, she regretted opening the door. He was so handsome and refined that she almost forgot what she meant to say. “At least I can trust him to stay out of the arms of another woman.”

  “That’s because the Reverend couldn’t aim his way to her house, let alone her arms. And you still have it fluttering around in your head that I was with another woman.”

  No, it wasn’t “fluttering in her head,” it was lodged in her heart. She should have gnawed on him for talking to her like that, but she wanted him to prove her suspicions wrong. “You want to convince me otherwise?”

  Nate hesitated. “Come on, Hattie. The Reverend’s as clumsy as a drunk with two left hands.”

  So you can’t prove me wrong. He’d avoided answering what she needed to know. I wish at least you could be honest with me, Nate. And speaking of honesty, Nate’s astute blue eyes and his smart, polished appearance were hard to ignore—especially when he was right about the Reverend. So Hattie mussed him up. “I’d rather lay my heart on the ground for the Reverend to trip over than for you to trample over. Again.”

  His clamped jaw ended that discussion.

  Hattie wanted to end them all. “Now, I already told you I don’t want you coming around. So tell me something. What will it take to get you to stop knocking on my door at night?”

  “Knowledge.” Coming from Nate it wasn’t so odd.

  “What kind of knowledge?”

  “The knowledge you’re happy, or at least have a chance to be. Because I know you’re not.”

  “And you think I’ll be happy with you?”

  He fell quiet again, his blue gaze drawing her in.

  She blinked away and stared into the night beyond where he’d left her seven years earlier. “Let me tell you a thing or two, Mr. Nate ‘Ain’t You Just Rich and Wonderful’ Powell. I’m a lot happier without you than I’d ever be with you. And you can take that back East with you.”

  His voice softened. “I’ll give you everything, Hattie.” In his solemn face, she saw the promise of a fine home, beautiful dresses, and the best a man could give. That is—until another woman came along who was just as infatuated with him as she was. She knew because he’d cheated on her once before. Cheated? Who was she fooling? He’d become downright engaged to Lillian right under Hattie’s nose. So, who else did he have nibbling on his line now? “I’ve already had your everything. I’m better off without it. Now, as I recall, I’d told you to get out. Stay away from the Reverend, too. Don’t you dare come near me or him, or I’ll go straight to the sheriff.” She glared him down to sear in a final statement. “Get out of my life, Nate. I don’t ever want to see your face again.”

  His response was bittersweet. Sweet because of the long, tender look he gave her. And then bitter because of the way he quietly looked down.

  Her love wasn’t worth fighting for. Not like Lillian’s had been. Hattie slammed the door. She leaned her back against the wooden barrier. I want to marry a pious man, Lord. She raised her eyes. So I’m doing the right thing, aren’t I?

  She had to admit the Reverend was a bumbler. Actually, he was worse than a blindfolded bull in a china shop, and she could never imagine him being the man she needed him to be.

  Only Nate had ever caught her fancy. But it wasn’t Nate’s good looks that had held her in awe of him. It was how a gentleman like him once cared for a woman like her.

  She shouldn’t have accused him of being arrogant, because he’d never kept their relationship secret. Everyone in town knew about them. He was rich; she was poor. He was white; she was…mixed. He didn’t care about any of that. He just cared about her.

  That stopped the day Lillian had come to town.

  Hattie hugged her shoulders, remembering what it was like being in his arms. There was something in his smile that had once steadied her. Something serious, something compassionate, something so tender it made her feel not so much as a woman who’d gone bad but as a woman who’d had things go bad.

  She dropped her hands. She hoped for better days ahead with the Reverend. I don’t trust you anymore, Nate. I wish I could. She put her hand on the door, imagining for a moment that Nate might be doing the same.

  ~*~

  Nate stood on the other side of the door, held fast there by the yearning in his heart. I wish I could convince you of how sorry I am, Hattie. I wish I could plead with you to trust me, to believe me. I wish I could prove to you the man I’m becoming.

  There was a time when she’d smile at him, and he wished he could go back to those days when he’d go to the saloon just to catch a glimpse of her. She’d been the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, and she’d chosen him over every man in Ramsden.

  I held everything in my arms when I held you, Hattie. Why hadn’t he seen it then? If only he could go back in time, he’d hold her as if she were made of fine porcelain, because that’s what her love was: a rare vase with fine, scalloped edges rimmed with gold.

  And he had flung it to the ground by taking her for granted.

  He held his palm to the door, wishing he could touch her one last time. He closed his eyes, imagining their hands almost touching. If only I could reach through wood.

  So close.

  Only an explanation away.

  An explanation he couldn’t give her.

  Letting you go is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. But I’d rather let you think I was with another woman and lose you to your jealous suspicions than lose you to the shame of knowing where I’d really been. Because if she thought he was with another woman, she’d simply hate him. But if she knew the truth, she’d disrespect him more than she did the bumbling Reverend.

  The Reverend. Nate shook his head with regret. It was a well-deserved twist in fate that the man Nate had hired to perform his farce of a marriage to Lillian would likely wind up marrying the woman he really loved.

  Craving the touch of her hand and wishing he could reach through the door, he pressed his palm against dry, splintered wood. Are you on the other side of that door, Hattie? Do you feel the same way I do, like your chest is so crushed you can barely take your next breath?

  After the way she’d spoken to him, the answer was probably no.

  I hope you can find happiness with him, Hattie. I really do. He pulled his hand from the door.

  Nate spent another night under the stars. Though his parents lived in Ramsden, in a house big enough to accommodate the U.S. Cavalry and all their relatives, and though he longed to see his mother, he’d rather sleep on a cactus than see his father again. And so, he spent much of the night staring up into the speckled black.

  The next morning, he set out in the direction of the dawning sun on a journey he’d hoped he’d be taking on horseback with Hattie, with her arms around his waist and her head resting against his back. He had the money and would have sent her to rent a horse, but he couldn’t risk going to town and coming across Zachariah.

  Nate’s trip back to Massachusetts involved a stagecoach to the train station and then a long ride back to a job where his employer had told him, “You’re good at what you do, Mr. Powell. The best I’ve seen, and that’s why I hired you. But you’re no good to me if you’re not here. Two weeks. That’s all I can give you.” Nate was still on track with a few days to spare, but that track began with a long walk on the outskirts of town.

  Bang!

  It also took him within earshot of where he’d found the Reverend practicing the day before. Apparentl
y, the Reverend was so determined to defend himself from “flying rattlesnakes” that he’d gotten up even earlier to practice shooting.

  He’d also ignored Nate’s advice to get used to handling the pistol before loading it with live bullets.

  Bang!

  Nate shook his head. Is the man’s poor horse still alive?

  Some people just plain had no business touching a gun. Especially a Colt .44. How could Hattie have any respect for that stumblebum?

  But however miniscule the pebble of appeal that drew her to the Reverend was, it was a mountain compared to what she saw in Nate.

  Since he had some time to spare, maybe if he gave the Reverend some more pointers, something might sink it and earn some respectability from Hattie. Or at least spare her from getting shot in the foot by a stray bullet from a dropped gun.

  Bang!

  Nate walked toward the faraway sound and recognized the Reverend’s horse grazing obliviously where it was tethered. The animal must be deaf. But at least it was still standing on four legs.

  Wary of stray bullets—and of startling a man clumsy enough to shoot the one thing he wasn’t aiming at—Nate circled wide and came around from behind, until he spotted the back of the man clad in black. Since it was best not to startle a jittery man, he’d wait until the Reverend needed to reload the pistol before saying something. Nate drew close enough to see what the Reverend was shooting at.

  That same far-away row of bottles only a sharpshooter could hit.

  Why bother giving pointers to a man who ignores every one of them? He started to walk away, until he heard Bang! Crash!

  Was that the sound of a bottle breaking?

  If it was, it had to be dumb luck. But then—he heard it again.

  Bang! Crash!

  Nate stopped and turned. The Reverend twirled the pistol on his trigger finger and dropped it with precision into his holster. A split second later, he drew again.

  Another broken bottle.

  What the….?

  Three for three, and those were no ordinary shots.

  That can’t be the Reverend.

  But if not him, then who? Who else would be wearing a black suit and riding the Reverend’s horse?