yet.”
She nodded and patted the pocket sewn into the side seam of her lavender gown. “I haven’t been to your town of Boston,” she remarked. “Are there sights I might like to see after my tour of the West?”
Bart’s expression sobered. “Of course, Nat. Much history was made there. High society is alive and well there, too.”
She didn’t have time to ask, but she sensed from his comment there were drastic reasons why Bart had pulled up stakes and moved to Texas. The sparkle had disappeared from his alert green eyes in nothing flat. She suspected she would loose the sparkle in her eyes, too, when someone mentioned Crow.
Which made her wonder if the tortuous memories Bart had stashed away from the world had something to do with a woman who meant a great deal to him.
When she returned from purchasing her ticket, the Rangers were waiting with Bart. After a quick round of fare-thee-wells, Bart assisted her into the coach.
“Be careful, Nat,” Bart warned.
She leaned out the window to smile playfully at the four men. “And miss all the excitement I’m used to? Where is the fun in that?”
Bart snickered. “Ah yes, I forgot. You live for thrills and danger these days, don’t you?”
The Rangers and Bart were still smiling at her when the stagecoach pulled away, taking Natalie to her future. She glanced out the window to wave her final goodbye, then looked toward canyon country. Still, Crow was nowhere in sight.
It doesn’t matter, she told herself as she settled back on the padded seat to share the confined space with two men who looked to be wastrels or gamblers, judging by the cut of their clothes.
She carried with her the image of Crow for he had taken up permanent residence in her heart and in her soul. He had turned out to be a little too perfect as a husband. Letting go of her deep-seated feelings for him was going to take the longest time, she predicted.
Natalie frowned pensively, wondering if putting a hundred miles between them would make the lonely ache in her heart easier to bear. But honestly? She doubted one mile or a thousand miles would make the slightest difference.
Van rode Durango into town and caused a commotion because of his war paint and clothing. But once the bystanders on the street realized who he was, they went their own way. Leaving his gelding at the livery, with instructions to brush him down and give him an extra portion of feed, Van headed for the hotel. The cleansing ritual he’d performed at the creek in Phantom Canyon served as a bath, but the war paint had to go.
Van stopped in his tracks when he opened the door to his suite and felt the empty silence sweep over him. When he walked into the bedroom to pour water into the basin so he could wash his face, he saw the discarded yellow gown draped over the end of the bed. Natalie’s luggage was gone. Had she moved back to the single room he had rented for her when he thought she had lied to him about the money and jewels she carried with her?
Van scrubbed off the war paint, then quickly changed into his everyday clothing. He strode down the hall to check on Natalie. She deserved another lecture for poking her head above the boulder to blast away at Willy when Van already had the situation well in hand. Damn it, she could have gotten her gorgeous head shot off, since all three Harper boys had been packing pistols. But had she listened to his instructions? Had she ever? She just kept thumbing her nose at his commands.
The thought annoyed him as he rapped loudly on the door. He was met with silence. “Natalie? Open the door so I don’t have to break it down.”
“She isn’t there.”
Van spun around to see Bart exit from his suite. “Then were the hell is she? Getting into more trouble?”
Bart shook his head, then readjusted his wire-rimmed spectacles. “She took the stagecoach to Dodge over an hour and a half ago. Since we skipped breakfast this morning I thought you and I might have lunch together.”
“She’s gone?” The word echoed around the hollow place that suddenly opened inside his chest.
“The Rangers stopped to say goodbye and we put her on the coach. I’d say that is about as gone as a woman can get.”
She had time to tell everyone else fare-thee-well, but not me? he thought, incensed. Is