Impatient, Melissa nodded. She thought Mr. Williams was awfully thick at times, for a lawyer, but she didn’t say that aloud. One had to be on fairly intimate terms with a person in order to insult him outright.
“Gillian’s in a meeting with Quinn,” he finally said, as though there were no reason for anyone in the world to be upset by such news.
But Melissa was upset. In fact, it was all she could do not to jump out of the buggy, race back to the hotel, and burst in on their conference, demanding to be a part of it.
Mitch had noticed her troubled expression, and he tilted his head to look into her eyes. “It bothers you that Gillian and Quinn are alone together?”
Melissa swallowed. There was no sense in lying, for she knew her face betrayed her completely, but she hated having anyone know. “I realize that they’re business partners,” she began miserably, expecting Mitch to take that tack in comforting her. Her voice trailed away.
It soon became apparent that reassuring Melissa was not a duty Mitch cared to assume. “The sooner you accept the way things are between those two,” he said seriously, “the better off you’ll be. Quinn and Gillian go back a long, long way.”
Melissa grasped the edges of the narrow buggy seat to steady herself. “What do you mean?” she asked, almost in a whisper.
“They grew up together,” Mitch answered, sounding surprised that Melissa hadn’t known. “You’d find their initials carved in the trunk of more than one tree, if you knew where to look. Quinn and Gillian must have been engaged half a dozen times—things just have a way of stopping and then starting up again, when it comes to those two.”
A wild feeling possessed Melissa, a need to escape that rolling, pitching buggy and Mitch’s kindly, hurtful words. “Why didn’t they marry?” she ventured when she could trust herself to speak.
“Gillian’s daddy founded this town,” Mitch replied. “He’d already made his fortune in California back in ’forty-nine, and he was a rich man when he came here. In short, he never thought Quinn was good enough for his baby girl, the Raffertys being what they were, and he did everything he could to keep them apart.” He paused and sighed heavily. “It’s common knowledge that Quinn made his fortune just to show that old man he could do it.”
Melissa was broken inside. It was such a romantic story, but she had no place in it. She lowered her head. “That still doesn’t explain why they never married.”
“They were planning to,” Mitch responded affably. “But then Quinn up and married you.”
Melissa lowered her head. She’d known that Quinn and Gillian were engaged when she and Quinn met, but somehow the significance of that had escaped her until now. Thinking of her husband’s reaction to the possibility that she might be pregnant, she fought back tears of utter despair.
When they reached Quinn’s house Melissa babbled something incoherent, jumped out of the buggy, and ran up the walk without looking back. Her vision was blurred and she was gasping for breath when she burst into the entryway.
A strange woman in very plain clothes was just about to start up the stairs with a tray, and Melissa’s appearance apparently startled her so thoroughly that she nearly dropped her burden.
“Land sakes!” cried the woman, dragging horrified eyes from Melissa’s head to her feet. “Mrs. Wright, come quickly! There’s a vagrant here!”
At that Melissa began to laugh, despite her complete despondency. She laughed until weakness overcame her, until she was forced to grip the newel post at the base of the stairs in order to stand. Strangely, at the same time, tears were streaking down her face. Mrs. Wright, when she arrived, was so concerned that she put her arms around Melissa and said, “There, now, Mrs. Rafferty, everything will be all right.”
With that the housekeeper started ushering Melissa up the stairs. She brought her to the master suite and seated her on the settee facing the empty fireplace.
“Shall I bring you tea, Mrs. Rafferty?” she asked.
Melissa had regained her composure by that time, except for periodic gasping hiccups, and she nodded. “Yes, please,” she said, with as much dignity as she could muster. “But before you go—who was that woman downstairs?”
Mrs. Wright smiled. “That’s Miss Alice. She was a sister to Mr. Rafferty’s mother, and she looks after Mary.”
“I thought Mary attended a private school,” Melissa said.
The housekeeper was easing toward the door. “She did, but she didn’t board there. She and Miss Alice had an apartment within walking distance.”
“I see,” Melissa replied, although she didn’t see at all and, furthermore, didn’t care. She was too full of misery to sort out the situation or even to ask what Miss Alice’s presence in the house signified.
Quinn longed to escape the small office he’d set aside for himself at the hotel; between Gillian’s perfume and her outrage, he was suffocating.
“How can you permit her to organize baseball games and run about dressed like a boy?!” His partner’s shrill voice intensified Quinn’s headache. “Do you know that she recruited those players from among our guests?”
Quinn allowed himself a wan grin at the memory of Melissa diving for home plate. “They seemed to be enjoying themselves,” he said. “Maybe we should make baseball a regular part of our schedule.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of croquet,” Gillian said petulantly. “It’s far more—dignified. A game a lady can play in good conscience.”
Quinn left the window, from which he’d seriously considered jumping, and sank into the swivel chair behind his desk. “Spare me the dramatics, Gillian,” he said. “I know you, remember? As far as I’ve ever been able to discern, you don’t even have a conscience.”
Gillian was facing the desk, grasping its edges in immaculately gloved hands, and she leaned forward to provide Quinn with a glimpse of her cleavage. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?” she demanded in an acid whisper. “Damn you, Quinn, you’ve gone and gotten that little idiot pregnant!”
In his mind Quinn saw his mother giving birth to baby after baby, year after year, only to bury them, along with a part of her own dwindling spirit, a few months later. He hated himself in those moments for not shielding Melissa from the possibility of that ordeal. “Go away and leave me alone,” he said with a dismissive gesture of one hand. “I’ve got problems enough without you adding to them.”
But Gillian lingered, her words rife with bitter accusation. “You never loved me, did you? That’s why you could marry a total stranger—someone you found running down a railroad track, for God’s sake.” She paused at the murderous expression on Quinn’s face and then blurted out, “You’re half-sick with worry over that little hoyden, aren’t you? Tell me, Quinn Rafferty—where was all this concern seventeen years ago, when I had to go away and have your baby?”
Neither of them had raised that subject in a long time, and Quinn was incensed that Gillian would bring it up now. “I was sixteen when that happened,” he said coldly. “Believe me, I was concerned—especially after my dear father found out and beat me senseless in a drunken rage—but there wasn’t a hell of a lot I could do. Beyond asking you to marry me, of course. You declined, if you’ll remember.”
“I was only fifteen!” wailed Gillian.
Quinn got up and thrust open the window, dragging fresh air into his lungs. He felt besieged on every side, like a deer being torn apart by wolves, and he knew he was going to have to sacrifice a dream to survive. “I want out, Gillian,” he said evenly.
“Out?” Her voice was soft, breathy, and full of delicate injury. “What do you mean?”
He turned to face her, bracing his hands behind him on the windowsill. “I’m offering to sell you my half of the hotel,” he said flatly.
Gillian stared at him. “But that would sever our last tie, except for—”
“Except for Mary,” Quinn finished for her, his voice ragged. “It has to be this way, Gillian.”
Her violet eyes glimmered with desolation.
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because I love my wife,” Quinn answered, and the words surprised him as much as they did Gillian.
She swallowed visibly and then nodded, her eyes still swimming. “I-I’ll consider your offer to sell,” she said, and then she reached for her handbag and left.
Mary held onto the banister with both hands as she made her way carefully down the stairs, her beautiful face alight with pride. “See, Quinn? Are you watching? I can do this and a lot more!”
As Quinn looked upon this lovely child who had been raised believing herself to be his sister he felt a thickness in his throat. “Of course I’m watching, pumpkin,” he said with an effort. “In fact, I can’t take my eyes off you.”
She reached the bottom of the stairs and waved both arms until Quinn moved into her embrace. Then, with a squeal of delight, she half choked him with the exuberance of her greeting. Her soft, fair hair, just the color of Gillian’s, was like silk against his cheek.
He set her back from him and tried to sound stern. “I don’t remember giving you permission to leave school,” he said.
Mary laughed, her sightless brown eyes shining with the pure joy of rebellion. “I’ve learned everything those people can possibly teach me,” she said. “I want to stay here in Port Riley from now on.”
“We’ll discuss that later.” Quinn shoved a hand through his hair and started up the stairway, his arm around Mary’s waist. He wanted to introduce her to his wife, or at least mention that he had one, but he was hesitant, having no idea what state of mind Melissa might be in.
It turned out that Helga had spared him the trouble of making an announcement. “The maid tells me that you’ve taken a bride,” Mary said. She sounded hurt, though she jutted out her chin and added defiantly, “I’m glad you didn’t marry that dreadful Gillian. I don’t like her.”
Quinn allowed himself a smile at the irony of that and spoke gently. Since the accident that had blinded her a year before, Mary had been prone to emotional outbursts, and he was always careful not to upset her. “Maybe you won’t like Melissa either,” he teased as they moved along the upper hallway. “Did you ever think of that?”
Mary shook her head purposefully. “I know I’ll adore anyone with the nerve to wear bloomers and buy her own printing press,” she insisted.
They reached the master suite, and Quinn was just about to knock when Helga came out of another room and said quickly, “Oh, please don’t wake her, sir! Mrs. Rafferty’s plumb done in!”
“I’ll meet her later,” Mary said considerately. “Right now it’s time for Auntie to read aloud from Mr. Shakespeare’s sonnets.”
Quinn helped Mary across the hallway into her own room and was greeted by an ominous look from his aunt. She sat in a rocking chair near the cold fireplace, a thin woman with scraggly red hair that had once been a rich auburn, clad in a sensible serge dress of faded blue.
Quinn inclined his head to her and would have slipped out but for the fact that she made one of those imperious gestures of hers that invariably froze him in his tracks.
“Your brother and I will have a word, Mary,” she said, rising from her chair, “and then we’ll read.”
In the relative privacy of the hallway Alice gripped both Quinn’s hands in hers and looked up into his eyes. “I have wonderful news,” she told him in a whisper.
Quinn was weak with relief. Given the way the day had been going, he’d expected more trouble.
“There is hope for Mary, Quinn. Real hope.”
Quinn rested against the wall and gave an exasperated sigh. “You’ve been to another phrenologist? Another faith healer?”
“Dr. Koener is a physician,” Alice said. “A surgeon. He’s examined Mary’s eyes, and he believes that a simple operation could restore her sight. However, there are risks.”
Mary had visited virtually every doctor between Seattle and San Francisco, all to no avail. Quinn believed that it was time for her to accept her limitations as a blind person and make what she could of her life. He glared at his aunt and ground out, “You shouldn’t have done it. You know what I think about—”
Alice met his gaze squarely and folded her arms. “I know what you think, all right. The truth is, Quinn Rafferty, that when it comes to that child you’re just plain cowardly!”
“What’s so special about this Dr. Koener?” he hissed, ignoring his aunt’s last remark. “What makes him different from the nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine other doctors she’s seen?”
“He has had special training in Austria, that’s what. Quinn, he is a very fine doctor—I know he can help Mary!”
“He can disappoint her, you mean,” Quinn retorted, furiously weary. “Not to mention putting her through hell and maybe even killing her!”
Alice gripped her nephew’s arms firmly in her thin, strong hands. “At least go and talk to the man, Quinn.”
He felt his face contort as he imagined what Mary could be forced to endure. “What if it doesn’t work?” he demanded.
Alice was intrepid. “What if it does?” she countered, and when her words had had time to sink in she reached up and touched his cheek with one hand. “His name is Albert Koener, and his office is on Third Avenue.”
Quinn turned away and, having nowhere else to go, slipped quietly into the rooms he shared with Melissa. She was not lying on the bed, as he’d expected, but stretched out on the settee, both feet propped on the arm. Her lashes lay thick and dark on her pale cheeks, and her hair was coming loose from the heavy braid trailing down over one shoulder.
Unable to resist, Quinn bent and kissed Melissa’s forehead. If he’d gotten one thing out of this crazy day, it was the realization that he truly loved this woman, and that was something to hold onto.
Sound asleep, Melissa squirmed a little, fluttered one hand in front of her face, and said, “Stop it, Ajax!”
Quinn grinned and shook his head. “How brief is glory,” he said, and then he carefully rearranged the blanket that covered her and left the room.
He made his way through Sunday-quiet, sunny streets to the little building that housed both the Western Union office and the operator himself, and he knocked on the door.
Charlie resented being made to send wires on Sundays or after hours, and he made his feelings clear, but he sent out the message Quinn dictated and waited patiently for the response.
A full forty-five minutes had passed when Adam Corbin wired back from Port Hastings:
ALBERT KOENER IS A GOOD MAN. YOU CAN TRUST HIM. HOW IS MELISSA?
Quinn wasn’t sure how to answer that question. To say that she was fine wouldn’t be entirely honest, and he didn’t want her family worrying unnecessarily, either. Finally he responded:
YOUR SISTER IS AS ORNERY AS EVER. THANKS FOR EVERYTHING.
After that Quinn went back home, but instead of entering the house he walked around to the stables and saddled his horse, a temperamental gelding he’d never taken the trouble to name.
An hour’s ride brought him to the falling-down cabin where he’d been raised. Smoke was curling from the chimney, and while Quinn was tying his horse to the hitching post Eustice came out, grinning.
“This a social call?” he crowed. The look in his eyes told Quinn he’d guessed what the visit was about, and that he was relishing his son’s discomfort.
Even now, after so many years, Quinn hated to set foot inside that place. “Sure it is, old man,” he said in a cold voice. “I can’t think of anybody I’d rather pass the time of day with.”
Eustice howled with laughter at that and stepped back inside the one-room cabin. Quinn followed, unable to keep from glancing up at the loft where he’d spent so many miserable nights as a boy.
“You knew Mary was coming back, didn’t you?” he made himself ask, facing his father over the huge cable spool that served as a table. “That’s why you’re here.”
The old man sighed and scratched his protruding belly through a layer of flannel. “She’s my daughter,”
he reminded Quinn expansively. “I reckon it’s my duty, so to speak, to know her whereabouts.”
“She’s not your daughter,” Quinn bit out, “and that’s exactly the point. And if you go near her, you poisonous old bastard, I’ll boil your gizzard and feed it to the squirrels!”
Eustice chuckled and shook his head. “Still ain’t told her the truth, have you? I’ll bet that sweet little wife of yours don’t know, neither. My, my, but that does sweeten the pot. It does indeed.”
“Melissa would understand,” Quinn said flatly. The fact was, however, that he wasn’t all that sure of her reaction, and Eustice knew it. Still, something compelled him to try and bluff his way through. “As for Mary, she’s no prouder of being yours than I am. I’ll risk losing her and Melissa, too, before I’ll let you blackmail me again.”
Eustice’s expression had turned solemn. “You know somethin’, boy? You’re an ungrateful whelp—I didn’t take the strap to you near often enough!”
The cabin was suddenly filled with ghosts. His mother was there, weeping and pleading with Eustice to show mercy. Quinn could hear the shaving strap slicing through the air, could almost feel it making contact with his flesh.
He dashed outside to stand gasping for air, struggling against a hatred so deeply ingrained that it made him yearn to kill. With his father’s laughter ringing in his ears—whether he was remembering that or hearing it then, he could not tell—Quinn untied his horse, mounted, and started back down the mountainside to Melissa.
Sixteen
Sunday dinner would have been a glum affair, as far as Melissa was concerned, if it hadn’t been for Mary Rafferty’s insistent good spirits. Quinn had just returned from a ride, and he was in a distracted, uncommunicative mood. After systematically dividing the food on his plate into heaps he muttered an excuse and left the table.
Melissa immediately rose and went after him, stopping him in the hallway with an urgently whispered “Quinn!”
He paused, and Melissa could see the muscles go tense beneath the white fabric of his shirt, but he did not turn to face her. “I’m tired,” he said. “I’m going to bed.”
My Darling Melissa Page 20