He hesitated a moment at the foot of the stairs, then bounded up them and knocked hard on the door.
Jessica answered, of course, looking surprised and damnably beautiful, even in her plain brown woolen dress. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she was holding a baby in each arm, he would probably have bolted, like some shy kid, rather than risk a rebuff from her, but the twins won him over. He just couldn’t walk away from them.
“Put your cloak on,” he said, taking both bundles from her with a grace that surprised him as much as it did her, and speaking rapidly, as if that could stop her from changing her mind, saying she wouldn’t go. “It’s cold out.”
She stared at him. “I was planning to walk to the pond,” she said.
“Walk? With two babies? Miss Barnes, it’s a mile to the springs, and even though the cattle have worn paths through the snow in some places, it’s still hard going.”
She blinked. He knew she wanted to snatch the babies back and refuse to have anything at all to do with him—it wasn’t hard to figure why, given the political differences he’d had with her brother—but he’d be damned if he’d return to that sleigh without her.
He gestured with his head, since his arms were full. “The whole town’s waiting down there,” he told her impatiently. “So you needn’t fear for your virtue.”
That brought a blush to her cheeks, a phenomenon he thoroughly and shamelessly enjoyed. She might be a prickly little bluestocking with an icicle for a heart, but she sure made a man want to warm her up and smooth her out.
“Very well,” she said, putting on her cloak and snatching up a pair of well-used skates. “I guess I have no choice.” She stepped out onto the stair landing, and winter stars caught in her eyes as she looked up at Gage, her expression uncertain, rather than saucy. “I—perhaps we could be civil to each other—just for tonight?”
He wanted to laugh. She might as well have gone on to say that hostilities would resume in the morning, so he shouldn’t let himself get too comfortable. “All right,” he agreed, with hard-won solemnity. He turned and led the way down the stairs, kicking himself all the way for not coming up with something memorable to say. So much for his reputation as an orator.
He sat close to her aboard the sleigh, ostensibly because he still had charge of one of the babies—June-bug had immediately claimed the other—and was annoyed to find that his heart was beating against his rib cage like a fist. He felt light-headed, as if he were suspended somewhere between the earth and the sky, and he hoped to God it didn’t mean what he thought it did.
The last time he’d felt this way, he’d made the mistake of a lifetime, a mistake that had cost him virtually everything he held dear. The sizable trust fund left to him by his maternal grandmother had been—and still was—paltry comfort, compared to the loss of his family, his dreams, and Liza.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Jessica’s face was alight; she enjoyed the company of neighbors, if not his company in particular, and knew even then that she would find her heart’s home in Springwater. In no time at all, she’d be somebody’s wife, deeply cherished.
The idea left a sour scowl in its wake.
Jacob was at the reins, which lay easy in his big hands, and when he glanced back once, his Indian-dark eyes smiled on Gage and Jessica, taking them both in as one, even if his mouth stayed still.
By the time they arrived, both babies had been absorbed into a cluster of chattering, admiring women. Having his arms empty gave Gage the excuse he needed to catch hold of Jessica by her narrow little waist—she didn’t weigh much more than a mail sack—and lift her down from the edge of the sleigh. She looked surprised, all right, but he didn’t give her a chance to comment. He just took her arm and steered her toward the huge, waiting bonfire, built earlier by Toby and the Kildare boys.
All the while, he wondered what in hell he was doing. Jessica had made it plain that she didn’t like him, and he was just asking for trouble by hanging around. He couldn’t seem to help it, that was the discouraging thing. It seemed to him that history was repeating itself: he was falling in love with a woman who’d sooner watch him burn than spit to put the flames out.
*
“This here’s Rachel Hargreaves,” June-bug said, tugging at Jessica’s cloak to get her attention. Jessica turned to see a small, dark-haired woman smiling at her. “Rachel, here’s Jessica Barnes. Michael’s sister.”
There was a brief and respectful silence at the mention of Michael’s name, but then, to Jessica’s profound relief, the conversation continued.
“And this is Savannah Parrish,” June-bug went on, indicating a beautiful woman with red-gold hair. A little girl stood beside her on minuscule skates, clutching her mother’s skirts. The child was lovely, pretty as a porcelain doll, and dressed all in rich blue velvet.
This, then, was the woman who wanted to adopt little Mary Catherine and Eleanor. Jessica felt a pang, for it was clear that Mrs. Parrish cherished her own child, and would have been good to the twins, as well. “Hello,” Savannah said.
Jessica nodded in response, captivated by the little girl, who displayed her father’s dark coloring and her mother’s exquisitely formed features.
“I’m four,” the child announced.
Jessica smiled. “My goodness,” she marveled.
“And I can count.”
Savannah bent and kissed her daughter’s dark head through her hood of white fur. “Hush, now, Beatrice,” she said softly.
Other introductions were made after that, but Jessica soon lost track of who was who. There were so many faces to remember, so many names. And besides, she was almighty nervous, with Mr. Calloway staying so close by the way he was. She was conscious of him in every snippet and fragment of her being.
It was indeed a relief when they finally reached the pond, where the skating party was to take place. A gangly blond boy was already there, sweeping snow off the ice with a straw broom. The light of the fire, some fifty feet away, danced orange over the snow, and wood smoke rolled toward the dark, star-speckled sky, filling the air with a pleasant scent.
Later, Jessica could only account for that night by believing that a passing angel had cast a spell over her. She might have stepped outside the ordinary world for a little while, leaving her sorrows, her doubts, her struggles all behind.
When she sat down on a log to pull on her skates, Gage appeared and knelt before her in the snow. She knew she should refuse to let him unlace her shoes, run his hands lightly over her ankles, but she couldn’t. She was in the grip of some foolish, wonderful magic, and because she was certain it would be brief, she meant to enjoy it.
They skated together, arm in arm, and Jessica even laughed. She felt a part of things—part of Springwater, part of the world and the universe. Part of a couple, however silly that idea would turn out to be, in the harsh light of a winter morning. For that night, she could pretend to be Cinderella on the arm of her prince.
Later, he brought her hot cider, and they engaged in a friendly snowball fight. There was more laughter all around, and Jessica’s heart, held to the ground for so long, soared against a dark sky shimmering with stars.
Finally, in the shadow of a tree, one of the few that grew below the foothills, Gage kissed her. She thought she ought to struggle, for the sake of principle, but the plain fact was, she didn’t want to. She allowed the kiss, even responded to it, and when it was over, she felt as though east and west, north and south had gotten all mixed up, out of their right places.
She took a handful of snow from a low branch and tossed it playfully into Gage’s face.
He laughed, his arms still resting lightly around her waist. “What makes you such an ornery female?”
“I am not an ornery female.”
He chuckled. “I see. What are you, then?”
She was stumped for an answer, at least for the moment. The fresh, chilly air—at least, she told herself it was that—made her breathless, and she was feeling slightly intoxicated,
the way she had one Christmas Eve, on shipboard, when old Mrs. Covington had persuaded her to have a glass of wine with dinner.
She was starting to remember things, though—that this man had ordered Michael’s loans called in. That he wanted the newspaper for himself, was probably only trying to sweettalk her into selling it. The spell was fading, and she felt an inestimable sorrow, quite different from the loss of her brother and sister-in-law, sweep over her as she stepped back.
“It won’t work, Mr. Calloway,” she said.
He knew what she was talking about; she could see that in his face. But of course, being a lawyer, and practiced in the various ways and means of turning others to his way of thinking, he tried to keep up the pretense. “Why do you have to be so suspicious?”
“You destroyed my brother. You persuaded the bank in Choteau to call in his loans. He died because of you and others like you.”
Gage stared at her. Apparently he’d thought she hadn’t known, and his denial came too late. “I was Michael’s friend, whether he knew it or not. One of the best he ever had.”
Jessica squared her shoulders and hiked up her chin. The man was stark raving mad; surely he’d seen Michael’s editorials. Surely they had exchanged heated words, Gage and her brother.
Well, now the brief idyll was over. It was time she and the babies went home, where they belonged.
CHAPTER
5
JESSICA WAS UP even before the twins the following morning, and after feeding and dressing the pair, she wrapped each one in a wooly blanket and then carried them downstairs, one and then the other, to the newspaper office. They rested comfortably in their separate and well-padded apple crates, which Jessica had scrounged from the shed out back specifically for that purpose. It wouldn’t be easy, raising two babies and running the Gazette at the same time, but then, she’d never expected anything to be easy. Nor had she been disappointed, at least in that respect.
The office was so cold that a layer of hoary frost covered the floor, and the woodstove was stubborn that morning, filling the whole lower floor with smoke and setting the twins to coughing and wheezing. Half panicked, Jessica threw open the door to the street and tried to shoo the smoke outside by flapping her printer’s apron.
Gage Calloway burst in, followed immediately by a woman Jessica had met briefly at the skating party the night before. Her name was Cornucopia, and it suited her well, for she was lushly made, with her shapely figure and dark red hair, the sort men generally took to right away. She ran the general store and, despite Alma’s low opinion, seemed to Jessica to be a nice person.
“Good Lord,” Gage demanded, “is the place on fire?”
The babies started to wail, and Cornucopia crooned to them, making her way past Gage and Jessica. “I’ll take the little darlings over to the store,” she said. “They’ll be perfectly safe there.”
Jessica was grateful for Cornucopia’s offer, but she had her hands on her hips as she looked up into Gage’s face. It shamed her now, to remember that she’d let him kiss her the night before. Conversely, she wished he’d kissed her again, which only went to show that he was a bad moral influence.
“I do not need your help, Mr. Calloway,” she said, suppressing a violent spasm of coughing. Cornucopia went by with one of the babies wailing in its crate, with a murmured promise to return for the other twin in a minute. “Something is wrong with the damper, that’s all.”
Despite her subtle effort to block his way, he went around her and bent to pick up the other apple crate and, thus, the baby inside. The little traitor immediately stopped crying.
“There, now,” he said.
“Put that baby down,” Jessica commanded.
Fortunately, Cornucopia returned just then and claimed little Eleanor. “I’ll bring them back soon as you’ve got the place aired out a little,” she said, and made a hasty retreat.
Gage looked at Jessica squarely. The air was clearing a little, but it still stung her nose and eyeballs. “I’m not your enemy,” he said. “I wasn’t your brother’s enemy, either. Michael’s mind took a strange turn when Victoria died—he thought everyone was against him.”
Jessica was mobilized by the mention of Michael. She marched over to the worktable and grasped the page of newsprint her brother had set before his death. She stabbed at the headline with one finger, the one warning that Gage Calloway was out to buy his way straight into the territorial governor’s office. “How, then, do you explain this?”
“Ah,” he said. “The gospel according to St. Michael.”
“Don’t you dare impugn my brother’s honesty!”
“Your brother was crazy with grief over his wife when he wrote those words. He was about to lose the newspaper—” His voice broke off, and she saw regret in his face.
“Because of you. Because you made the bank in Choteau call in his loans!” Tears scalded her eyes; she told herself it was because of the smoke, and not because she cared for a man and it was hopeless.
He grasped her shoulders. “Listen to me, Jessie,” he said. “Michael and I had our differences, there’s no denying that. But I sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with the bank calling in his note. The fact is, it’s in my safe right now.”
She felt as though the floor had opened up, as though she were dangling over a dark precipice and would surely fall if Gage merely flexed his fingers. “What?”
He let her go, and she didn’t fall. She just stood there, stricken to the soul. He thrust a hand through his hair and heaved a great sigh, while the cold Montana wind swept in and chilled them both.
“I hold the note on the newspaper, Jessie,” he said at long last. “Legally, it’s mine. Morally—well, that’s another question.”
This time, her knees did give out. She groped for a chair and sank into it, just in time. Gage closed the door and crossed the room to adjust the stove damper.
He owned the Gazette. God in heaven, she had nothing, except for a few hundred dollars tucked away in a St. Louis bank account. Once that small legacy was gone, she and the babies would be destitute.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me think—?”
“You had just lost your brother. You were in no condition to hear news like that.”
“But you were going to buy something that was already yours. Or were you offering me charity, Mr. Calloway?”
He drew up another chair, with a scraping sound, and sat astride of it, facing her, his arms resting on the high back. His eyes, far from pitying, were snapping with annoyance. “You’ve got the same kind of stiff-necked pride your brother had,” he said evenly. “He couldn’t accept help, either. I was his friend, and I believed in him.” He paused, sighed. “Michael wanted to be a part of Springwater, but at the same time he held himself apart, just like you’re trying to do.”
While what he was saying had a certain ring of truth, it was entirely beside the point, as far as Jessica was concerned. “I do not need your charity.”
“Oh, no? Where do you intend to go?”
She was stymied, but only briefly. “I can find work someplace.”
“With two babies tagging along? I doubt it.”
“What do you propose?”
“That you get married.”
“Oh, that’s a wonderful solution,” Jessica raged. “To whom?”
“To me.”
She couldn’t believe it—couldn’t believe, either, the fiery sensation the suggestion sparked in the deepest regions of her femininity. “You … are … amazing. Stubborn, Insane.” And, for all of it, so damnably appealing.
His face did not soften. She was seeing another side of him now, the ruthless, unbending side that Michael had probably known all too well. “What other choice do you have?”
He’d probably said those same words to her brother. God, what fury he stirred in her—how he intrigued and confused her! And oh how desperately she wished things could be different between them.
“Very well,” she heard herself say,
from somewhere in that storm of conflicting emotions. “I’ll marry you—I have no real choice, do I? But I promise you, Mr. Calloway, that I shall make your life utterly miserable!”
He laughed—actually laughed. “Fair enough,” he said. “The nights will compensate more than adequately, I’m sure.”
Her mouth fell open. He reached out and closed it by pressing one finger under her chin.
“You expect me to … to share your bed?”
“As my wife? Most certainly.”
“Then I won’t marry you. I’ll—I’ll”
“What?” he taunted, but not unkindly. He sounded genuinely curious, damn his hide. “What will you do?”
She bit her lower lip. As an unmarried woman—and a poor one at that—with no family to turn to, her options were severely limited. Furthermore, she had no other offers in hand, and none on the horizon, either. The men of Springwater, it seemed to her, were all married. Even Mr. Brody was courting a woman in Seattle, by telegram, according to Alma.
“I don’t love you,” she said. Unfortunately, she wasn’t at all sure that was true, but she wasn’t about to leave herself open to still more trouble by saying so.
He arched an eyebrow. “I don’t love you, either.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we—if I went on living here, while you lived in your house—just until we get to know each other a little better?”
He immediately shook his head. “I’ve sold the house,” he said. “Some woman back East bought it. She’s on her way here right now.” He lifted his gaze briefly to the ceiling. “Looks as though we’ll have to share the upstairs, just till we’ve got a place of our own.”
She was, for a long moment, tongue-tied. He’d made a case, all right, one she was finding it hard to argue with. Aside from throwing herself and the babies on the mercy of the McCaffreys or one of the other families in Springwater—and she was far too proud to do that—she had no respectable alternatives. She’d heard of women in just such a position becoming prostitutes, and it seemed to her that if she was going to sell herself, she might as well confine her favors to one man. He was not entirely unattractive, after all.
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