A full day passed after the story of his death, and Rachel’s imprisonment was printed in the paper. Rance’s deputies sat at the train station two at a time, studying each and every person who stepped onto the train. So far, nothing had come of it.
It was enough to make him wonder if he’d missed the mark. Was he too full of his own cleverness? Was it possible that Liam had gotten the better of him after all?
The most difficult aspect, of course, was keeping Rachel’s spirits high. For all of his anxiety, hers was ten times worse.
He hardly knew what to do for her. It was one thing to inhabit the mind of a criminal, to think as he thought, to react as he reacted. Two anticipate his fears and his triumphs.
It was another to get into the mind of a woman. Especially a woman of whom he was rather fond.
No, fondness wasn’t the word for it. He wasn’t certain he trusted himself to put the true name to it, suffice it to say, he was fond of her sisters. He was quite fond of young Jesse. What he felt for her went far deeper than that.
How was he to comfort her?
He couldn’t exactly reach out and hold her, though that was his immediate impulse. To stroke her hair, to hold her close and whisper encouraging words in her ear. There were times when it seemed he would burst from his skin with the need to touch her. Just to show her he was there.
Ever since he had reached for her hand the first day they had really talked, after he’d woken up from the shooting, he’d been unable to get the softness of her skin out of his head. There was no forgetting the warmth of her hand in his, how well they fit together. As though they were meant to be clasped that way.
These were mere flights of fancy, and this was hardly the time to allow imagination to get the better of him. He needed to have his faculties in order if he was to conclude his mission satisfactorily.
Still awaiting word from the group on whether the leader is returning. That was the last telegram he’d gotten from his uncle, delivered to him that morning by an anxious and breathless Cate.
“What does he say?” she asked, eyes wide. He could only imagine the tremendous excitement going on in her head, as she spun fantastical tales and terribly dramatic situations out of what was really quite serious.
Yet like her sisters, he had already become accustomed to these tendencies of hers and had no wish to destroy her enthusiasm.
“Only that he has heard nothing yet.” He’d crumpled the slip of paper and thrown it into the open stove, where it had caught fire and turned quickly to ash.
“You mustn’t lose hope. Perhaps this Liam character isn’t keeping his men abreast of the situation. Perhaps he has not been communicating as he should. Perhaps, now that they are aware of the leak which existed months ago, they are more hesitant about sharing their plans with anyone but a few key members.”
She made good sense. “I don’t believe your sisters give you enough credit.”
The smile spreading from ear to ear brought to mind the rising sun. It lit her entire face until she was radiant. “If you wouldn’t mind, could you let my sisters know you feel this way? They’ll be more likely to believe it when it comes from someone who isn’t me.”
He’d laughed gently. “I’ll do just that.”
Yes, she had provided him a slight bit of relief, but did little to calm his frustration. The sense that he would begin climbing the walls soon if the situation did not come to a head.
If it took prowling the streets to find the man, he would do just that. Anything to have this over with. Anything to know she no longer had anything to fear.
What if he was determined to hide? What if he’d brought with him enough money to support himself for an unlimited amount of time? What if he’d found some sort of work and did not need to make a hasty return to Baltimore?
If Liam didn’t show himself soon, the only other option would be to take Rachel elsewhere.
It was one thing to plan for this before he’d met her family. It was quite another to imagine broaching the topic with her sisters. They would tear his head from his shoulders if he so much as suggested taking her away from them.
And he respected this. He even admired it. He wanted to believe that, had the good Lord blessed him with siblings of his own, they would look out for each other the way the Reed sisters did.
Still, they hardly made his job easier. How would he explain it to them? When he had been so certain that his plan would flush Liam out into the open and make it easy for Rachel and the others to go on with their lives?
How could he admit how wrong he’d been?
In the end, what mattered was her. If that meant facing four screaming women—five, actually, counting Rachel—that’s what would have to do.
He’d recovered from a bullet in his shoulder. Far be it from him to shrink away from angry women.
It was that evening, after dinner had been enjoyed and dishes washed and put away, that he pulled Rachel aside. The house which Rance and Phoebe shared was modest by all standards, but it did feature a small study opposite the sitting room. Rance used it when he was not at the jailhouse but had work to attend to, or simply when he wished to be alone, as solitude was difficult to come by at this time.
Mason had the sense that Sheriff Connelly valued his privacy and his peace, neither of which he had been able to enjoy since this whole affair began.
He was at the jailhouse at that moment, his sister having stopped in to pick up supper to take to him. With his deputies constantly on patrol, he wished to be closer to the train station that they might deliver the news of Liam’s departure to him directly.
Once he and Rachel were in the study, Mason shut the door behind them. He drew the drapes against any passing neighbors, then lit the oil lamp which sat on one corner of the desk. The cut-glass shade sent beams of light dancing across the ceiling and over the walls. It was almost mystical, the way the light transformed the room.
The way it played over her features, the way it made the flecks in her eyes stand out brighter than ever. The way it made her thick hair shine with a radiant luster.
How beautiful she was. How he longed for the chance to tell her just how beautiful he found her to be.
That was not his place. He had not earned the right. Perhaps if he was the young man he had pretended to be back in Baltimore, friendly, cheerful, perhaps a bit enamored with her but one who lived a simple life, unaware of the darker side of man, he might by then have earned the right to call her his.
Now, as it was, he could hardly imagine drawing near enough to breathe in the fragrance that rose from her hair and her clothing. Her rather simple work dress—a pretty, sprigged calico which fit her complexion and her normally cheerful demeanor—may as well have been velvet and ermine.
In his eyes, she was a queen. Nothing less.
She ran her fingers over the spines of numerous books. Law, most of them, though some contained information about the history of Carson City and the surrounding areas. He supposed it was important for men in Rance’s position to know the area, to say nothing of the laws which he sought to uphold.
“What did you bring me in here for?” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, moving around the room in a quiet flurry of activity. Adjusting this, straightening that. Using the end of her apron to dust a figurine.
“I thought it was about time for the two of us to come to an understanding. I think we ought to discuss our next steps.”
Her brows lifted, and she finally favored him with a look in his direction. “Next steps?”
He perched on the edge of a small, horsehair sofa and patted the other side of the cushion. “Please, have a seat.”
She did not move at first. “Why? What is it you want to say? If you have something on your mind, you can just as easily say it while I stand here as you could while I was sitting.”
Did she have to be so difficult about everything? No matter how alluring he found her, no matter how desperately he wished to take her in his arms, there were still moments when she drove
him to the brink of insanity.
After drawing a deep breath which he hoped would calm him, he managed to reply, “I thought it would be best if you were seated. If you would rather stand, so be it. I only wanted to broach the subject of your safety and what it means if Liam does not, in fact, leave town.”
She swallowed. Her chin trembled, though she did her best to keep it from doing so. “What do you mean? I thought it was all but guaranteed that he would leave town once he saw that I was imprisoned. Even if he doesn’t know you to be the man I shot, he will know that there is little trouble I can cause for him while I am locked away somewhere. Isn’t that so?”
He nodded. “Yes, that is so. But if he does not, there is still another way. Something which I discussed with my uncle prior to ever leaving Pittsburgh, after I secured the transport of Mr. Byrne from Baltimore to his secret location.”
This was not a foolish young woman. He understood the depth of intelligence behind her lovely face. Had she not displayed the sharp side of her tongue when they met at the saloon? She had all but flown into a rage when he’d implied her being disinterested in his line of business. She’d accused him of not believing her to have a brain in her head.
It was with this in mind that the look of understanding which slowly dawned over her face came as no surprise.
“You want to take me to secret location.” It was not a question.
“If need be, yes.”
“Somewhere far away?” Her voice broke, betraying the depth of emotion she struggled to conceal. The sound of it was like a red-hot poker digging into his chest.
Or a red-hot bullet piercing his body.
“I wish I could say,” he replied, apologetic.
“Will my sisters be able to visit me?”
He’d never so wished to hold her. She sounded like a lost little girl, suddenly faces with a startling reality of which she wanted no part. She’d never been without her sisters before, and now he was about to break her heart.
He did so with a shake of his head. “It is best we don’t discuss this with the rest of the family.”
“Why not?”
“I think you understand why. The purpose of this is to take you away and keep you safe, but it is imperative that none of them know. A secret isn’t a secret if everyone knows it. While I know your sisters would never wish to betray you or harm you in any way, they might easily do so without intending to. It is very easy to let a secret slip when one isn’t paying attention.”
“You don’t give them enough credit.”
“This is nothing to do with them. It has to do with you, getting far away from here so that you might live in peace. It has to do with keeping away from him.”
“When would I be able to come back?”
“I cannot say. Perhaps soon, perhaps not for a long time.” Perhaps never, but he didn’t dare speak the words aloud. He couldn’t bear the thought of crushing her that way.
She drew nearer, leading him to believe she might sit down after all. Yet instead of sitting, she remained standing, merely leaning against the back of the sofa with one hand gripping the carved wooden decoration running along the top. For a moment he thought she might swoon.
He should’ve known better.
“You mean to tell me I might never see my sisters again? That I might always have to hide?” The weight of her gaze threatened to crush him, along with the accusations therein.
“I never said—”
“You didn’t have to,” she whispered. Her grip on the carved wood tightened until her knuckles stood out bone-white against her skin. He could only imagine the carving digging into her palm, yet she gave no hint of any pain. “No, I understand your meaning all too well. Need I remind you whose fault it is that I was ever considered a threat to these people? That I would have no understanding of this if not for you? Was there no way you could have sent those messages without using names? Did you ever think about the people you might be placing in harm’s way?”
His jaw dropped at this turn of events. While he’d always suspected her to be of a fiery nature, no one without such a nature would have shot him as she had, he’d never witnessed it blossoming into fullness.
When he found his voice, he said, “If you think I haven’t considered that every single day, you are mistaken. And if you think I haven’t had that in mind all throughout this journey, you are further mistaken. Why do you think I put everything aside to come out here? Why do you think I’ve hidden myself here? Do you believe this is easy for me?”
“Spare me your heroics,” she spat.
That was too much. There was a line, and she’d crossed it with that. Heroics? How dare she?
“Perhaps it was heroics that compelled me to tell your brother-in-law to release you from jail, when I had every right in the world to press charges.” He stood, staring her down. “Perhaps I should have spared you those heroics, as well.”
Her face flushed. “How cruel, throwing that up in my face. Have you no shame?”
“I would ask you the same question, as it is I who’ve done everything in my power to make things right.”
“You should have done everything in your power to keep me out of this from the first!”
“Had I known the trouble you’d cause me, I would have! Do you think this is my idea of a restful respite from work? Do you think any man would choose to be cooped up here with nowhere to go, nothing to do, and a screaming harpy in my ear?”
Her eyes bulged. “Screaming? Harpy?”
“That’s what I said,” he snarled, already wishing he hadn’t. There was no taking back the words they had just shouted. Why couldn’t he get a hold of his temper? He’d never lost control of it on a woman before.
There was something different about this woman, no doubt about it.
Her lips disappeared in a fine line, nostrils flaring. Her breathing was that of a vicious animal moments from attacking. She swayed slightly as if under the strain of keeping herself contained.
“What’s happening in here?” Phoebe burst in, standing between them. One look to her sister, then to him, seemed to do the trick. “I see. Come.” She held a hand out to Rachel.
Rachel continued to glare at him. “You are cruel,” she whispered.
“I said, come. I’m certain you both said things you wish you could take back.” Phoebe glanced his way, her face unreadable. So long as she separated them, he cared little for whether she believed he’d earned her sister’s ire.
She took Rachel by the arm and all but dragged her from the room. He had the sense she would rather have continued fighting, and in the mood she’d put him in, he nearly wished they could.
Yet that would be a terrible mistake, and he knew it. All the righteous indignation in the world did little to ease his conscience.
He shouldn’t have said it. Any of it. Whatever chance they had of building something, anything, might have just been dashed by their tempers.
15
Rachel managed to stop crying long enough to cast a doleful eye on her older sister. “Do you still find the situation romantic?”
It was her turn to share the bed in the one remaining bedroom, this time with Cate. Molly and Holly would sleep on the makeshift beds they’d set up on the floor.
Phoebe sat beside her, where she’d thrown herself down and wept until her chest ached and her eyes felt as though they might swell shut. “I’m sorry, dear. These things happen sometimes.”
“What things?”
“Quarreling and the like. It happens when men and women are forced to spend a good deal of time together. There are bound to be cross words.”
Rachel’s hands tightened, gathering the quilt in her fists. “Stop making it sound as though we’re something we aren’t. He called me a screaming harpy.”
“Do you want to know some of the things Rance has called me when we’re at each other’s throats?” Phoebe asked.
“Or what Lewis has called me, and I have more time as a married woman than she has.” Molly s
tepped into the room, sitting on the other side of the bed and patting Rachel’s back. “Still, he was a brute to speak to you that way.”
“I find it hard to believe that either of your husbands has ever spoken to you so crossly,” she insisted.
The pair exchanged a look before bursting out into gleeful laughter.
“Forgive me,” Molly chuckled, wiping a tear from her eye. “It isn’t that we’re laughing at you. It’s merely that you haven’t the first idea what it’s like to be married.”
“Not that our husbands are ever cruel,” Phoebe pointed out.
“Oh, heavens no,” Molly was quick to agree. “But heated moments lead to heated words. Arguments. Things you wish you could take back. I know I’ve had to eat crow on more than one occasion after letting my tongue get the better of me.”
“So have I,” Phoebe admitted with a rueful expression. “I always wish it wasn’t so.”
“As do I.”
“You all seem to be so… in love,” Rachel marveled.
“Who says we aren’t?” Molly smiled. “I love my husband and would do nearly anything for him. He’s a good man, and I know how fortunate I am to have him. Does that make him perfect? Good gracious, far from it. Then again, I am not perfect, either.”
“What we mean to say is, an argument doesn’t have to mean the end of the world. I’m certain he didn’t mean what he said any more than you did.”
“I did mean it,” she snapped. “Every word.”
“You’re still angry,” Molly murmured, smoothing back the hair which sweat and tears had plastered to the side of her face. She imagined herself as looking quite a fright, all tear-swollen eyes and red-faced.
“What brought it about?” Phoebe asked.
This wouldn’t be easy. Should she say anything? He’d mentioned secrecy, though it wasn’t as if she would tell them where she was going. She did not even know, herself.
Before she could explain, Cate burst in. One look at her horror-stricken face spoke volumes. “He told you, did he?”
An Undercover Detective's Bride Page 11