Beauty From Ashes

by Lynnette Bonner

  He wasn’t sure how long he had been working, but it had been at least an hour, when Liora poked her head out of the cabin door to announce dinner was ready.

  He rested his arm on the shovel’s handle and used his bandana to wipe the sweat from his face.

  She still watched him, hands tucked behind her and leaning against the wall next to the door, when he started toward the house.

  He paused, then resumed his course.

  She didn’t move, simply watched him with those soft blue eyes of hers.

  He propped the shovel against the porch railing and folded his arms, unsure how to begin the conversation they needed to have, or even if this was the right time for it.

  She made the decision for him. “I’ve made you angry.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers, surprised to see a glimmer of moisture in her eyes before her rapid blink whisked it away.

  And just the sight of her near to tears made him feel like the lowest of any low-down scoundrel he’d ever run across. He was a cad. He adjusted his hat, took the steps up to her level, and looked down at the porch boards beneath his feet. “Only because I felt so terrified when I came up over that hill and saw Pike with his gun trained on you.”

  He heard her sniff. And then a dry chuckle escaped her. “I confess to being a mite terrified myself.”

  “What were you thinking?” The words were out before he could consider better of them. And the hardness of his tone compounded the mistake.

  She spun to yank open the screen door, tossing her retort over her shoulder as she disappeared inside. “Best come in before dinner goes stone cold.”

  Instead of following her immediately, he turned to face the yard, leaning into the rail. Lord, I don’t know why you stuffed me full of these feelings that I can’t do anything about. But I can see that if I’m going to reach her, I need to take a step back and approach this with a lot less fire. Just help her to see that my main concern is for her safety. And help me to know how to best protect her and keep my reputation intact.

  With that, he turned and opened the screen door, paused to wash up at the kitchen sink, and then stepped over to the table. He set his hat on the end of the bench Liora indicated, and sank onto his seat.

  From the pinched-lip looks on both women’s faces, this would be just about the longest meal he’d ever endured.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Liora forced herself to think of anything but how discomfited she felt over Joe’s anger. She’d expected him to be hurt that she hadn’t taken him to the camp with her, but she hadn’t expected him to be so angry about it. In fact, if the truth were told, she’d halfway expected him to admire her desire to help girls like Tess.

  It pleased her that the blouse she’d given to Tess fit her well. The girl would eventually need more clothes, but for now, she was taken care of.

  Tess squirmed in her seat, making Liora realize she hadn’t yet made introductions. “Teresa Trenton, this is Deputy Joseph Rodante from Wyldhaven. Joe, Teresa prefers to be called Tess.”

  Seemingly all politeness now, Joe tipped Tess a nod as he tucked his napkin into his lap. “Miss, nice to meet you.”

  “Yessuh,” Tess murmured, her eyes never leaving the tabletop, and awkward silence settled as Joe looked back to Liora. With Joe’s focus no longer on her, Tess seemed to take in every detail of the room, the table, the silverware set at each place, even the material of the tablecloth which she fingered with a bit of an awed expression.

  Liora realized it had probably been a good long time since the girl had sat down to a properly set table. Why, she herself wouldn’t even have known what a properly set table looked like, had she not worked at Dixie’s boardinghouse.

  Tess’s stomach rumbled loudly through the stillness and her face pulled into a grimace of embarrassment.

  Chagrinned that she’d delayed dinner due to a dread of facing Joe, Liora fidgeted. “Joe, say the blessing, would you?”

  His blessing was short and to the point, and Liora was left to once more fill the quiet. Fine, she didn’t have to talk to Joe. She didn’t quite know what to say to him anyhow. What had spurred his anger? He’d said he’d been terrified. But there had to be more to it than that, didn’t there? Surely, his anger didn’t stem from her desire to help women who were fallen, like she had been? The thought was too painful to consider. She pushed it away and focused her attention on Tess as she passed the bowl of potatoes to her. “I hope your room is satisfactory?”

  Tess nodded, and quickly swallowed the bite of biscuit already in her mouth. “Yes’m. Thank you, kindly.”

  “Of course. I’m happy to help. At some point there will probably be one or two more girls who will need to share the room with you—”

  Joe’s fork clattered against his plate, and she felt the hardness of his dark gaze settle on her.

  She pressed ahead, pretending she didn’t notice. “But we’ll arrange for more beds when that time comes. After dinner, I’ll show you around the place, but there’s really not much here yet, except for this cabin. Joe and the other men from Wyldhaven helped build it for me. For us.” Liora picked up her fork and lifted a bite of mashed potatoes and gravy.

  Tess’s gaze darted to Joe, but rebounded to study Liora’s movements. Instead of adding to the conversation, she carefully lifted her fork in mimicry of Liora and tasted the mashed potatoes and gravy. Her eyes closed and Liora couldn’t help but smile at the look of heavenly bliss on Tess’s face as she savored the flavor of the food.

  She would be utterly enjoying this, if only the silence didn’t ring with Joe’s disapproval! He was usually easygoing and a pleasure to converse with, but today he was all prickles and spines. Not even when he paused for a moment to take in Tess’s enrapture, did a smile reach his face.

  Liora searched for something else to talk about. She’d seen the girl eyeing the small bookshelf near the cabin’s front door earlier. “Can you read, Tess?”

  Tess came out of her reverie and looked down at her plate. She pushed her fork into the potatoes but didn’t lift another bite. “If I can’t, do I have ta go back?”

  Liora’s gaze collided with Joe’s across the table, and then she rushed to reassure the girl. “No! Of course not. But I can teach you to read, if you’d like.” That was one thing she’d been blessed with. Ma at least had taught her how to read before their lives had gone all to pieces.

  Such a look of wonder filled Tess’s features, that Liora couldn’t suppress a smile. “I’d like that, ever so much, Miss Liora.”

  Liora took a moment to compose her voice, because her throat had suddenly tightened and gone a bit scratchy. She took a sip of water, then she nodded. “You can dispense with the ‘Miss’ and just call me Liora, and I’ll be more than happy to teach you to read. We can start first thing after morning chores tomorrow.”

  Liora gave up on keeping a conversation going after that, and simply allowed the rest of the meal to play out in silence.

  When she and Tess had cleared the last of the dishes, Joe stood. “Tess, you mind washing up those dishes while I talk with Liora outside?”

  Tess nodded, blue eyes bright. “I’m right good at dishes, yessuh.”

  Liora glanced from Tess to Joe, wondering if he understood how amazing it was that the girl seemed so comfortable around him despite how irritable he’d been since meeting her.

  Tess continued. “Stella from Stella’s Spirits used ta hire me ta wash the dishes at her saloon on the nights she served food. Was better ’n…” Her face flamed, and her gaze suddenly fastened to the floor. “Well, better ’n workin’ for Missah John.”

  Liora couldn’t withhold the question that had been plaguing her for most of the afternoon. “Where are your parents, Tess?”

  Pain pinched the girl’s features. She pressed her lips together before finally lifting her gaze to Liora’s. “My pa, he owed Missah Hunt money. He done borrowed it so’s we could plant our fields. But some men came, middle o’ the night, and rousted up all the seed soon af
ter it sprouted. Pa ’spected Hunt’s men, though he could never prove it. Then Missah Hunt had him killed when he didn’t pay on time.” Tears brimmed on the girl’s lower lids. “Missah Hunt, he was gon’ make my ma work for him. But she done took her own life ’fore he even got one night outta her. Then he done come for me.”

  Liora reached out and pulled the girl into an embrace. “How long ago?”

  Tess pushed back and swiped at her cheeks, obviously uncomfortable with the offer of comfort. “That be last month.”

  “Thank you for telling me. I know that must have been hard.” Liora gave the girl’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. She hesitated to leave her alone after such a revelation. Her stomach churned at the injustice of her story. But more than that, she knew that Hunt wouldn’t want such a one left alive to spread her story to the world. What were they going to do?

  Joe’s feet shuffled.

  Tess pulled back and Liora let her go.

  “You can see to the dishes now. We’ll only be a moment.”

  Joe met Liora’s gaze and tipped his head toward the porch.

  She willed down her irritation over his high-handedness and the fear that mingled with it at the thought of his departure. What would she do if John Hunt and his men returned in the middle of the night to finish the job Joe had prevented them from finishing earlier? Her gaze darted to the mantel where she’d put the pistol he’d given her earlier this year. If only she knew how to use the thing. Maybe then the thought of the long dark hours between now and morning wouldn’t hold so much terror.

  Joe cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him.

  She sighed. Fine. He didn’t seem to be offering a choice in the matter. He lifted her shawl from the peg by the front door and held the door open. A swing of his hat indicated he would follow her out.

  She settled her shawl around her shoulders, but didn’t remain on the porch. Still half hoping to hurry him on his way and half dreading his departure, she started toward the place where she’d last seen his horse. She reminded herself to be strong. She’d gotten herself into this mess—and at the urging of the Holy Spirit. Surely, God wouldn’t abandon her now, just when she needed protection!

  And it would certainly be better if Joe got going right away. Come morning Mrs. Hines would already be full of juicy tales. Liora had taken note of that certain gleam in the woman’s eyes when she’d seen her walking to the camp earlier today. She didn’t want Joe embroiled in any of the kerfuffle sure to follow. And if anyone found out he’d even had dinner here, things wouldn’t go well for him.

  Maybe walking over to his horse would do the trick. But his horse was not waiting for him. He’d stripped it of its saddle and staked the mustang in the middle of the field to the east. Her brow furrowed. But before she had time to register why that gave her a bit of unease, Joe spoke.

  “He needed some rest. I’ll ride out to the camp and poke around a bit tonight, but then I’m going to need a blanket…”

  The words, paired with the sight of the picketed horse, sent realization coursing through her and a jolt of shock to her core. She spun to face him.

  He blinked at her abrupt movement, but kept going. “At least for tonight, if you have an extra? Tomorrow after I escort you into town and drop you off at work, I can get my own things from McGinty’s.”

  A tremor threatened the solidity of Liora’s knees and she tightened her grip where it clasped the shawl closed at her throat. “You can’t stay here.”

  He would lose everything! Besides, where would he sleep? She didn’t even have a barn to offer him, and the lean-to barely offered enough room for the wheelbarrow it contained.

  A muscle bunched in his jaw. “You may not want me around, but John Hunt is not a man who will take a seat while being crossed. And like it or not, cross him you did. Not to mention that apparently you witnessed a murder. I’m assuming Tess saw it too?”

  Liora nodded.

  “Well if you think I’m going to simply ride back to town and leave you defenseless, you don’t know me very well.”

  Liora whirled away from him, pressing one hand to her forehead. “Joe, I know we’ve danced around this issue in the past. But associating with me can bring you nothing but heartache. It’s not that I don’t want you around. It’s that I care about you too much—as a friend, you understand.” She hoped he would believe the truth of that statement. “The town won’t stand for it.”

  “And I care about you too much to let a few town gossips put your life in danger. But if it bothers you that much, there’s one thing that would make them move on to gossiping about some other poor souls. Marry me.”

  She heard him swallow, even as her astonishment spun her to face him once more.

  He couldn’t seem to meet her gaze. In fact, he looked a bit taken aback and his face pulled into the briefest of grimaces—he tried to hide it with the swipe of one hand, but she saw it nonetheless—like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just said. His feet fidgeted as he lifted his Stetson and ruffled his fingers through his just-this-side-of-too-long brown curls. Then he spent a few seconds resettling the hat on his head and kicking at a clump of bunch-grass near his boot. After a long moment of taut silence, he lifted his gaze to hers. “Well?”

  Liora’s jaw gaped. She couldn’t help it.

  She looked up at the hills surrounding her cabin, needing to break eye contact and give herself a moment to think. Marry him? A man who’d obviously only made the offer out of duty? She would rather die from one of John Hunt’s bullets piercing her heart. And yet what other sort of offer was a girl like her ever going to get? Especially from a man as good as Joseph Rodante? And yet marriage would mean…intimacies. A thought that made everything inside her crawl with dread.

  On the other hand, she didn’t want to remain single for the rest of her life, did she? And yet, to saddle a good man like him with her past? Did he realize what it would mean for his future? Being known as “the man who has the former whore for a wife.”

  Behind her, his boots scuffed over gravel. “I can see your mind turning every which way. Despite my bumbling words, I mean to care for you like you deserve. Neither of us is getting any younger. And I feel we’ve grown into good terms over the past few years. I’d even consider you a friend. Many a marriage is built on less. You’d have my protection and our reputations will be salvaged. And well, I guess I’d get some land out of the deal.”

  A hot little lump started to roil in the pit of her stomach. He made it sound so practical. Dutiful. Businesslike. And for some reason she couldn’t quite fathom, that made her more than a little angry. She marched toward the house. “No, Joseph Robert Rodante, I won’t marry you! And you can’t have a blanket! Go home!”

  Something pinged off the ground at her feet, kicking up a puff of dirt. She heard the report of the rifle as Joe dove on her. The hard and unyielding ground took the breath from her. She coughed for air and scrambled on all fours toward the house with Joe yanking her forward and yelling indecipherable commands in her ear.

  She barked a shin against the steps, and then he was shoving her through the front door. He locked and barred it. “Tess, lock the kitchen door. Now!”

  Liora was thankful to see Tess scramble to do as instructed because all she could seem to do at the moment was stand and stare and feel numb.

  Joe took her arm and gently pushed her onto the settee in the sitting room. “Tess, bring Liora a cup of coffee, would you?”

  His words snapped her out of it. She didn’t want to be the one needing to be coddled during a time of crisis. She shook her head. “No. I’m fine. Truly. What do we do now?”

  Joe’s mouth firmed into a grim line. He stalked to the mantel and took down her pistol and the box of shells. Striding back to her, he thrust them into her hands. “You’re going to need these. Which reminds me, why didn’t you take the gun with you to the camps?”

  Liora swallowed. “I don’t know how to use it.”

  With a huff, he took the pistol bac
k. “Come over here and I’ll teach you how to load for me. We’re going to be in for a long night.”

  Aurora McClure worked her fingers over her long braid, one shoulder planted into the support post of the shanty, as she watched Dr. Griffin working over Ma. Her insides were all aquiver. And her knees felt a bit like the pudding Ma had made for her once when she was just a tyke. She could still remember the creamy sweetness as the delicious warm treat had spread across her tongue. Even now it made her mouth water, but that might have something to do with the fact that she hadn’t eaten since Ma had taken this turn for the worse two days ago.

  Mr. Hunt’s man, Pike, had come by yesterday morning and let her know that Ma had fallen a week behind on her rent and that if Ma passed, Mr. Hunt had said Aurora could work off their debt herself.

  At the recollection of the way the man’s eyes had lit up and skimmed her, ever so slow, from head to foot, her stomach churned.

  She’d gone for Doc Griffin herself, after that. But now she almost wished she hadn’t. It was the look on his face that told the truth. The weary droop of his shoulders. The way he wouldn’t look at her as he packed his things back into his black bag.

  She chewed the side of her finger. A nasty habit that Ma would reprimand her for, but the anxiety was about to be her undoing. “Well, Doc?”

  The puff of air that escaped him hammered home the final nail in the coffin of her hope. “Aurora, I’m sorry to be the giver of such news, but I’m afraid your mother won’t likely make it through to morning.” The gentleness in his eyes let her know he truly did feel sorrow at the news he’d just imparted.

  In that moment, all the dismay and trembling just sort of melted away. A numbness moved in to take their place. Her focus returned to Ma, barely budging the coverlet with each shallow breath. Gone by morning?

  John Hunt would come. He would make her work in Ma’s place.

  Her attention flitted back to the doctor, who still watched her with that soft sorrow in his gaze. She forced strength into her voice. “What’s she got?”