“I’ll bring your bath water as soon as the water heats, Mr. Cassidy.” Miss Bowen announced from the bottom of the stairs. When he didn’t reply, his brother gave him a sharp poke in the rib with his finger. He gave his brother a sharp look and replied to the woman’s offer. “Thank you.”
Was that surprise on the woman’s face? Did she think all Yanks were rude, illiterate bastards? Probably. How could she not? She was a pampered southern miss with an ingrained hatred of anything northern. Hell. He wouldn’t be surprised if she took it upon herself to scald him to death with the hot water and feign her innocence.
Although he deserved death, he did cringe at the thought of pain and suffering that might come with it. That’s why he chose to drink himself to death. After all, he was a coward, wasn’t he?
He shook his thoughts away and headed up the stairs to follow his brother down the hall and into a doorway.
By the time Colin caught up with his brother, Quinn stood in a room, clearly a nursery, holding a little baby. So this was his namesake. His heart ached at the sight of his brother holding his son. He had wanted a family of his own. At least, at one time he had. Now, he didn’t deserve one.
“Colin, meet Colin. I’d offer to let you hold him, but—” Quinn wrinkled his nose.
“Yeah, I get it. I don’t smell nice. Point made.” Colin was embarrassed by his hygiene…or lack thereof. It hadn’t seemed important back in Tennessee while living over the saloon in a rented room. It still wasn’t important, he reminded himself. He was only staying long enough to gather his wits and his strength, and find a way to escape without any traces that his determined lawman brother could follow. When he left again, he did not want to keep looking over his shoulder for what was left of his miserable life.
He knew it wouldn’t be as easy leaving now that Quinn knew he was alive. But it was his life and he would decide what was best for him.
Colin studied the chubby little baby. “How old is he?” The question was out of his mouth before he knew it. What did he care how old the little guy was? The baby wouldn’t remember this moment. Besides, he would be better off without any memories of his Uncle Colin. Memories would lead to questions and questions demanded answers. But those answers would never see the light of day if he had anything to do with it.
“He’s two and a half months. Isn’t he a handsome fellow? He has the Cassidy dimples when he smiles.” Quinn stated proudly and chucked the baby on his chin eliciting a toothless grin for about half a second and his deep dimples were evident on each cheek. “So he does,” Colin admitted.
Quinn wrinkled his nose again. “Okay, let’s get you cleaned up. The bathroom is down the hall. The tub is already there so as soon as Emma brings the water, we—”
“There ain’t no ‘we’ in this, Quinn. I’m fully capable of washing myself without your help.” Colin rolled his eyes at his brother’s insistence to lead the charge in his rehabilitation.
In typical big-brother fashion, Quinn snorted. “Well, you could have fooled me, but I will admit I don’t relish the idea of overseeing your bath time. Follow me and I’ll show you to your room. You’ll be right across the hall from Emma so I assume you will watch your manners and language around our houseguest.”
Colin followed his brother, who was still cradling his son in his arms, back down the hall to a door at the top of the stairs. He tugged the waistband of his baggy pants higher for fear he would lose them altogether in the hallway. He was certain he would never hear the end of that.
Quinn opened a door to the right and stepped inside. Colin followed him into a small bedroom with a window facing the rear of the house overlooking the backyard. “You’ll be comfortable here. You can wear some of my clothes until we can get you some of your own. I’ll give you a few days to rest and get settled in before we talk about what’s been going on with you since…”
Colin saw his brother hesitate and he gave his son a quick kiss on the forehead before he returned his gaze to Colin. “Colin…I don’t know what happened to you and I won’t profess to know how you feel. Just know that I love you . . . so damn much. Please. Let me help you. Let me and my family help you heal from whatever has happened to make you feel you don’t deserve to live.”
The sharp stab of pain returned without warning and punched Colin in his gut. As memories of that day returned in full, anguish forced him to shut down his emotions. He wished he had a bottle of whiskey to numb the pain.
It was at that moment that the woman called Emma returned. “Mr. Cassidy, I have some heated bathwater. I’ll pour it into the tub and go back for the other buckets.”
Colin couldn’t speak through his grief without giving in to his emotions, so he remained silent. Quinn answered for him.
“Thank you, Emma. We appreciate your help. I’ll put my son back in his crib and help you carry up the rest of the water. Colin, you head on down to the bathroom and…take off those clothes. We’ll be along to bring more water and soap…lots of soap.”
Colin waited until his brother left the room then turned without a word to follow the woman down the hall to the bathroom. He stood in the hallway and watched her pour the water from the bucket into the metal tub surrounded by an ornate wooden frame.
She passed him with her empty bucket on the way back to the kitchen for more and offered him a sad smile and another look of pity. He looked away. His emotions were much too raw at the moment to even muster a snide remark to hide his pain.
Without a word, he stepped inside the bathroom and closed the door with a quiet click. He stood alone and watched the steam from the hot water rise into the air like ghosts from the past. The steam rose and floated through the air as if to mock his situation. He wanted to run from this house and find the nearest bottle of whiskey to drown in. But he knew his brother would cut off his escape. Best to save what little dignity he had and stay where he was—hiding in the bathroom—until he could devise a better plan.
Colin shucked off his filthy clothes and kicked them into the corner by the chamber pot cabinet. It was where they belonged. It was where he belonged. If Quinn would just let him go back to his well-deserved misery, everyone would be spared his acrimonious rebellion at being forced to live.
“Mr. Cassidy?” A soft knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts. “Colin? It’s me, Emma. I have more hot water for you. Are you decent?”
“Decent? Hardly.” He barked to himself. He grabbed a towel from the shelf above the bathtub. “But if you are going to wait until I’m decent to bring in the hot water, you’ll be waiting a long time.”
The silence that greeted him from the other side of the door told him she didn’t get his sense of humor. That was understandable. Most people didn’t see the irony that was his life.
He was getting chilled standing in the bathroom without benefit of clothing and his sense of self-preservation, along with an uncomfortable shiver that gave his entire body a wave of goosebumps, pushed him into action. “Come in,” he growled.
Chapter 6
Emma stood in the hallway and pondered Colin’s words from the other side of the bathroom door. He said he wasn’t decent, but he had invited her to come in? What kind of woman did he think she was? She hesitated a moment and then stiffened her spine. She wasn’t gonna let this wreck of a man frighten her away with his bluff and bluster. Quinn said he was getting a bath so a bath it would be.
She tried the doorknob expecting it to be locked out of spite. But it opened freely. Cautious, she stepped inside and gasped when she saw Colin standing beside the door wrapped from his waist to his knees in a towel.
“I—” she stumbled over her words and averted her eyes from his naked chest. “I have more water. Hot water,” she offered.
“I heard. Do you need help dumping it into the tub?” he offered, but from the bones protruding from his rib cage, she doubted he had the strength to lift the weight of the bucket.
“No, I can manage.” She walked the few steps to the tub and emptied her bucket.
“Um, Quinn is on his way up with two more buckets of hot water. I will bring up a couple of buckets of cool water to tepid the heat and then you can… bathe.”
“Don’t bother with the cold water. I’m good with the hot. By the time I get the rest of the hot water from Quinn, it will be the right temperature for scrubbing this dirt off. Got a wire brush?”
She watched him struggled to offer her a half-hearted smile at his attempt at humor. She could tell his heart wasn’t in it, but his dimples pocked his cheeks in a way she found charming in spite of his appearance.
Emma offered him a smile in return and a bit of humor of her own. “I doubt even a wire brush is going to help you there. I’d be happy to cover you in lye soap. It’ll take the entire top layer of your skin off. You’ll be as clean and smooth as a baby’s bottom.” She saw a spark of life in those blue eyes of his before he spoke. She should have known he was a charmer.
“Are you offering to give me a bath, Miss Bowen?” This time his grin was genuine.
“What? No. I—” It was then Emma realized what she had said, and she felt her embarrassment heat her face. “No, I was just trying to be funny, but it seems I missed the mark. I’m so sorry.” She did her best to apologize for her remark. She didn’t want the man thinking her a loose woman.
Quinn entered the bathroom with two more buckets of hot water. Emma could tell by his frown he noticed the awkward silence between her and his brother. He set one bucket on the floor and emptied the other into the tub all the while watching them. “Is my brother behaving inappropriately, because if he is, I’ll—”
Emma watched Colin’s jaw set and all traces of humor disappeared. “You’ll do what, big brother? Whip my ass? Tan my hide? Sit me in the corner? You might try, but I can assure you I can hold my own now that I know you’ll take advantage of a man who’s down—”
“A man who’s down doesn’t usually sucker punch his only living relative who is trying to save him, now does he?”
“I don’t need saving. I told you, I’m not—”
“Yes, you told me. But I can see for myself what needs to be done. Now, stop acting like a spoiled brat and get into that tub.”
Emma stood quietly and watched these two brothers war with each other. Neither gave quarter and she wasn’t convinced they were not going to come to blows. She wondered what she should do if they did, when the front door slammed, and Becca’s voice called out. “Hello? Momma? Emma? Where is everyone?”
Quinn shot an angry look at his brother. “Becca’s home from school. I don’t want you to scare her so get in the tub and clean up before you come downstairs.”
Again, the two men glared at each other. Quinn turned to head downstairs and greet his daughter after his long absence when he stopped and turned to her. “Emma? Do you know how to cut hair?”
“Yes, of course, I do.”
“When my brother is done with his bath, would you please cut that mop of unruly hair of his and at the very least trim up that disgusting beard. Try to make him look a little more presentable, will you? And if he doesn’t want to cooperate, let me know.” Quinn shot a look of challenge to Colin then turned and left the bathroom to greet his daughter, leaving Emma to figure out what to do next.
The silence left by Sarah’s husband’s words felt awkward. Emma had no idea what to say. Lucky for her, Colin did. “Well, it’s clear my brother hasn’t lost his hard-headed stubbornness since I saw him last.”
Emma gathered the water buckets and turned toward the door. “I’d say that’s a trait that runs deep in your family, wouldn’t you?” She tossed a bar of soap at him and sent him a cheeky grin.
He shrugged. “It might have come up in conversation once or twice.”
“If you need anything else, just call out. Someone will hear you…eventually.
“Well then, I suppose if you don’t want to be a willing party to this attempt to reclaim my humanity, I suggest you leave the bathroom right away. Otherwise, your sensibilities may be sorely compromised.”
“I’m going.” Emma hurried out of the bathroom and turned to close the door behind her. She caught Colin watching her backside. She sent him a look that told him she knew exactly what he was up to. He smirked and the knowing look in his eyes gave her a tiny hint as to what he intended to do just before he turned toward the tub and dropped his towel. She gasped and quickly closed the bathroom door, but not before she caught a good look at the man’s backside.
In shock and disbelief, Emma stood outside in the hallway, staring at the door trying to make sense of what just happened. A splash from the other side of the door indicated Colin had decided a bath might be warranted after all.
Emma gathered up the rest of the water buckets and headed back downstairs. She grinned to herself as the image of the man upstairs came back to tease her. So, Mr. Colin Cassidy wasn’t as dead as he pretended to be.
A sudden thought poked at her amusement. What if the reason she was brought here—to Angel Creek—was to help save someone? And what if that someone was a lost soul? And what if that lost soul was none other than Colin Cassidy?
She allowed herself a moment to think about this new revelation on her way to return the buckets to the back porch. Colin needed help. That much was certainly true. And she needed to help. She needed something—or someone—to take her focus off herself, her losses, and her regret at having survived when there had been so many others who deserved to live too.
She heard a commotion in the main room and recognized Sarah’s squeal of delight in finding her husband home once again. Now, this little family was all under the same roof again, safe and sound. The joy she heard made her feel happy and content. Perhaps one day she would have this kind of happiness and joy with her own family.
Emma stayed in the kitchen to allow the family to have their happy reunion. She smiled at Becca’s giggles, and Willie’s barks, and Quinn’s deep laughter. All cries of elation at being reunited with each other.
This town was the kind of place she wanted to rebuild her life. Get married. Raise children. And, according to Sarah, this town was a place full of caring people. A place surrounded by love and respect. And a place where miracles could happen, and hope could grow into something real and solid and lasting.
Sarah had been right when she had told Emma on her first day in Angel Creek that she was where she was supposed to be, and it was up to her to make a new life out of this opportunity and to find her purpose.
She thought about the troubled man upstairs. God had, indeed, delivered him right to her front door. And while she was confident that she had found her purpose, all she had to do was figure out how to save a man who didn’t wish to be saved.
An hour later, Emma waited downstairs in the kitchen for Colin to reappear. When he suddenly appeared at the kitchen door, dressed and ready for his haircut and shave, he still caught her off guard. The change in his appearance was…astonishing.
“Oh, hello. I see you are back in the land of the living.”
“Against my will, I might add.” He groused and walked into the kitchen, careful to hold up his pants with one hand.
Dressed in his brother’s clothes, he looked like the men in Charleston who had come home from the war to find nothing left of their former lives. With no place to live, they begged, borrowed, and stole anything they could to survive. Sometimes the clothes they found belonged to someone twice their size, but they were grateful for anything, so they never complained.
Colin’s gaunt frame had given Emma the impression he was shorter than he was. Standing next to him now, Emma estimated him to be a little more than six foot. She liked the fact that she didn’t have to hide her own height of five feet, nine inches in her flat-heeled shoes.
“Come sit in this chair. I’ll drape a sheet over you to minimize the hair falling onto your clothing. I would hate for you to have to take another bath. Two in one day might be the death of you,” she teased.
She watched him hesitate for a second and then he slowly made
his way to the kitchen chair she pointed to. “I think I’ve made it clear that I would rather take my chances with death than give in to another forced bath today.”
Emma nodded and stepped back to give him access to the chair. “Well, then I shall do everything in my power to assure that your contentious grudge match with the grim reaper does not take place today. Now sit and let me get at that unruly mop of hair.”
He studied her for a moment, then sat without further discussion. Afraid he would change his mind at any moment, she quickly wrapped the sheet around his neck and held the corners together with a clothespin, careful to cover his legs, arms, and feet with the sheet.
“Ready?”
“As ready as I can be, considering I have a confederate woman standing over me with a pair of scissors and a straight razor.”
Emma stepped back and saw the humor in Colin’s eyes. Humor again. Another sign the man wasn’t dead. She could give as good as she got.
“I can’t make any promises, Yankee Blue, but I’ll do my best to keep my scissors and razor from your throat. I wouldn’t want to shock your niece’s sensibilities by leaving her uncle’s body on the kitchen floor…at least not before supper. It would ruin everyone’s appetite. Now, be still if you know what’s good for you.”
Her comment brought a raised dark eyebrow and a scowl to his face, but she could see a spark of humor in his deep blue eyes. A piece of his overlong damp hair fell across his forehead and she had to admit, his scruffy appearance made her think of a very handsome pirate she’d read about once in history book many years ago.
“Well, are you going to cut my hair or not.” His deep voice penetrated her thoughts and she realized she had been standing over him staring.
“Of course, I’m going to cut your hair. I was just giving you a moment to…get settled. That’s all.” She cupped his jaw in her hand and pushed his head straight ahead to face the far wall. He didn’t resist.
Emma Page 4