by Lynda J. Cox
Even though she didn’t lift her gaze to him, she nodded. Jon waited for her to look at him, and when she didn’t, he said, “I need you to see me. Not him. If this is going to work, you have to trust me as much as I’m trusting you.”
In degrees she raised her gaze. So much pain and uncertainty filled her expression Jon felt it knife into his own chest. She caught her lower lip between her teeth as she studied his face. Hesitantly, she reached her hand out to run a fingertip down his nose.
“Your nose is a little different.”
He cocked his head to a side. “It’s been broken several times over the last few years.”
She blanched and pulled her hand back. “What else?”
“My collar bone, my arm, several ribs.” He wanted to take her hand into his again but didn’t. Instinctively he knew she had to come to him.
Her gaze dropped to the glass balanced on his knee. “How did you get here?”
“After I escaped, I traveled in a creek. I waded or swam for what I’m guessing was about a mile.” Jon lifted the glass and drained it. The rain swollen creek had almost taken his life more than once on that arduous swim, hampered as he was with both wrist and ankle shackles. “I found a homesteader’s place and tried to break the shackles off. They had a dog, so I had to run again, though I managed to break a link in the chain between the ankle shackles. A little farther on down, I stole a horse and I backtracked, hoping to throw the search off. I let the horse go after a couple of hours, stole another one, and headed straight south. I let that one go, too, after a couple of hours, and followed another creek.”
“How long did it take you to get from there to here?”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing about two weeks. I kept backtracking, doing anything I could to throw the searchers off.” Jon heaved out a deep breath. “I did things I’m not proud of. I stole three horses—the last one went lame. I stole food when I came across a farm or homestead. That wasn’t often because I stayed far away from people.”
Victoria lifted her gaze to him again. “Why here?”
He had asked himself that same question so many times over the course of his flight from Watonga. “I don’t know. I don’t even know why I kept both your locket and letter. Somehow, when things were at their worst, your letter gave me a little bit of comfort, that there was a woman waiting for her man to come home and there was still decency and gentleness and kindness left in the world. Maybe, I came here to tell you he wasn’t worth waiting for. I don’t know why I came here. I just knew I had to be here.”
Jon startled with a sudden knock and sought an avenue of escape. Victoria stood. “That’ll be Curt.”
He forced himself to relax.
She paused before going to the front door. “You said we have to trust one another. Trust me.”
When she pulled the door open, she announced brightly, “Curt, thank you. I do appreciate you bringing this here for Jonathan.” Victoria led their visitor into the parlor. “Jonathan, I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Curt to bring a few things for you from the general store. If you don’t like what I asked Curt to put together, I’m sure we can exchange it, right, Curt?”
Everything in her demeanor had changed, as if somehow a mouse had taken her place. The slender, dapper-dressed man shot a pointed glance in his direction, and Jon knew her greeting had been too cheerful, too bright. What was this? Jon struggled to push himself to his feet. Victoria was at his side before he could manage to stand, assisting him. “I can manage,” he repeated.
“I’m sorry,” she said on a whisper so bare he almost missed it.
“It’s all right, Victoria.” If he hoped his assurance would calm her, it did the exact opposite. Every vestige of her color drained from her face and she ducked her head even as she scrambled a few steps away.
“Jonathan, you don’t look like you’re up to having any visitors. I’ll stop by in a few days.” Curt dipped his head to Victoria. “I can show myself out.”
Before the door closed, Jon fell into the chesterfield again. Victoria stood in the doorway between the foyer and the parlor, arms wrapped around herself. He stared at her for several long moments. “What in the name of heaven was that performance?”
Victoria shook herself as if she had been startled from a daydream. Or a nightmare. “Please, don’t yell,” she whispered, then turned on a heel and fled deeper into the house.
A door in the back of the house slammed. As much as he wanted to follow her and demand an explanation, he didn’t have the energy or the strength. He threw his head back onto the chesterfield and waited.
“I’m sorry.” Her apology woke him out of a dozing, not-awake and not-asleep state. She stood in the doorway, judging by where the words sounded, to aid in her escape, should it be needed.
Jon’s stomach sank. He didn’t open his eyes or lift his head. “Stop apologizing for everything and tell me what just happened.”
“Before the War, Curt and Jonathan argued politics a lot.” She fell silent and the weight of that silence grew. Apparently, his doppelganger had a nasty temper, in addition to being a drunk, and when he couldn’t vent his anger in one direction, he heaped abuse onto his wife.
“And, after the political discussions, Jonathan mistook you for a punching bag.” He finally looked over at her. If misery was personified, it was Victoria. “Let me guess, Curt was pro-Union.”
She shook head, staring at the floor. “Curt favored states’ rights, but he was opposed to slavery. He felt if the South could win, there were enough in the South who could abolish slavery. Jonathan was very pro-slavery and he hated anyone who wasn’t white.”
“Are you telling me, I now have to act as if I was in favor of fighting a war to preserve slavery? Worse than that, I have to assume the mantel of one who favored that sickening ideology?”
“I’m sor—yes, if people are going to believe you’re him, you’ll have to do that.”
Jon stared at her. “I was an abolitionist and because I felt so strongly about preserving the Union and ending that utterly abhorrent practice, I enlisted in violation of the strongest tenant of my Quaker beliefs and was shunned and disowned by my very family for violating that tenant.”
The recollection of his mother tearfully pleading with him not to leave, reminding him he would no longer be a part of his own family, and that he would be alone clawed at him, still with enough power to leave him feeling bloodied.
Victoria twisted the badge pinned to her blouse, an action he recognized as a nervous gesture. Jon managed a long, deep breath and eased it out and then said, “I guess war changes a man and his way of thinking.”
VICTORIA EASED THE front door open and crept into the house. A quick survey of the parlor and her sight fell on Jon, sound asleep on the chesterfield, one arm over his stomach, the other wrapped around the top of his head. She studied his still form in the dim light of a low-pitched lamp. In spite of his claim he was ravenous before supper, he had merely picked at his food, and fallen asleep at the table halfway through the meal. As she pushed the door closed, Jon said, “Where did you go?”
Jon. Not Jonathan. She calmed her racing heart. “I make one last round of the town about this time of night.”
“You take that badge and position seriously, don’t you?” Springs in the chesterfield creaked as he sat up.
“Yes, I do.” She closed half the distance between them and twisted the stem on the lamp, raising the illumination in the room.
He shaded his eyes against the raised light and pulled a hand down the lower half of his face. He shook his head and when that didn’t move the long strands off his brow, he shoved his hand through his hair. “Would it be too presumptuous of me to ask if there are any leftovers from supper?”
“No, not at all. You fell asleep before you could try my peach cobbler.”
He shoved the hair off his brow again. “Coffee, too?”
“Of course. I’ll go start a fresh pot—”
“You don’t have to do that. If
there’s any left on the stove, that’ll be fine.” The sleep roughened rasp from his voice faded. “I’ll come into the kitchen in a few minutes.”
Victoria crossed the room and set her hand on his shoulder. Her impression when she assisted him that afternoon to walk from the jail to the house was he was no more than skin and bones. She hoped she hid her dismayed reaction when her fingers curled over his shoulder. Her impression was accurate. “I’ll bring your coffee and cobbler to you.”
A smile broke through his facial hair. “Keep coddling me like this and I might get used to it.”
She recognized the smile for what it was, an attempt to hide his own dismay at his physical short comings. “I’m not coddling you. I’m merely assisting in your recovery.”
The smile grew and crinkled the lines at the corners of his eyes. “Cream and sugar for that coffee, too?”
“Yes.” She walked to the kitchen and pulled a bowl from the cabinet. She was spooning a generous dollop of the cobbler into a bowl when Jon’s unsteady steps entered the kitchen. She spun around and raced across the floor, catching him as his knees buckled. “What were you thinking?” she demanded as she helped him into a chair. “I said I’d bring the cobbler and coffee to you.”
“I’m thinking you hugged me.”
Victoria gaped open-mouthed at him, snapped her mouth closed, and gaped again. He couldn’t walk from the parlor to the kitchen without shaking in exhaustion, but he was flirting with her? “I stopped you from falling flat on your face.”
“You can tell it that way. I prefer my version.”
The amusement in his voice lowered the timbre, added a warmth to the words that settled deep in her and set her stomach fluttering. Sparks danced in the depths of his eyes. She admitted she liked how the laugh lines at his eyes deepened with his amusement. With that admission came a sudden rush of anger for her foolish reaction to the charm oozing from the man sitting at her table. Jonathan had been just as charming. “Your version is a blatant lie.”
A low chuckle broke from him. Even angrier for how quickly her heart raced—and certainly not with fear—with that laugh, she stabbed a spoon into the cobbler and then slapped the bowl onto the table in front of him. “Stop flirting with me.”
He didn’t even glance at the cobbler. Instead, he unleashed a blazing smile. “You can’t deny you had your arms around me.”
A chipped tooth marred his smile, but it made him even more dangerous to her equilibrium and her heart. She gaped at him again, cursing her fluttering stomach, her racing heart, even the warmth pooling in her.
“You forgot the coffee.” His smile flashed again.
“I should tell you to get it yourself, but you would try.” Victoria poured the brew. She made the mistake of meeting his gaze when she set the cup on the table. Despite the exhaustion lining his face, it wasn’t exhaustion warming his eyes and deepening the blue.
He caught her wrist before she could move away. “If it would guarantee your arms around me again, I certainly would try.”
To her relief and surprising disappointment, he let her easily extract her wrist. Hoping to hide how flustered he made her, she muttered, “Oh, eat your cobbler.”
Chapter Eight
Victoria woke, not sure what had jarred her from her slumber. She stared into the darkness, listening for anything that might be out of the ordinary and wondered if she should go to the parlor and determine if what woke her had woke Jon, as well. Her thoughts roamed over the past two weeks.
The first few days it seemed all Jon did was sleep, though it was far from a deep sleep. The slightest sound woke him in an absolute panic, fists drawn back, ready to fight whatever threat—real or perceived—might be present. A wild animal caught in a leghold trap wasn’t as frantic as he was in those first moments after waking. When he finally did slip into a deep sleep, he slept for twenty hours straight.
In the past three days, he made much needed repairs to the house. He fixed the leak in the ceiling over the kitchen, even though she protested he should not be on either a ladder or the roof in his weakened condition. He climbed up anyway. He replaced the rotting steps on the back porch, repaired the hand pump in the bathing room, and rigged up an ingenious system of a large boiler and copper wire to heat the water in the bathing room, rather than either of them being forced to carry buckets of hot water from the kitchen. With the convenience his water heating system provided, Victoria hinted to Jon he could shave off his facial hair.
She rolled onto her side, hugging a pillow. Her surprise when he went to the barber the next morning turned into dismay on his return. With his hair neatly cut and both beard and mustache trimmed tight, Jon’s resemblance to Jonathan was more pronounced, so much so that when he started shadowing her three days ago, not one person questioned his identity. Abigail appeared visibly shaken when she saw Jon.
Victoria had almost drifted back to sleep when she heard a creaking of the floorboards on the back porch outside her window. The darkness didn’t hamper her unerring reach for her revolver left prominently on the night stand. The smooth walnut of the grip warmed as soon as she took it into her hand. Keeping as quiet as possible, she slipped from the bed and padded on bare feet across her room.
She eased the door open and cautiously peered into the kitchen. The back door stood partially ajar. Avoiding the floorboard that creaked in the kitchen floor, she made her way to the opened door, flung it open and burst out, gun drawn up and pointed into the chest of the shadow in the far corner of the porch.
Jon flung his hands up. “Don’t shoot.”
Victoria stared at him. He was fully clothed, right down to the shoes on his feet. “What are you doing out at this time of the night?”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He stepped out of the darkness, his hands still held shoulder high, palms toward her. “Would you mind lowering your weapon?”
She eased the hammer home, and then let the revolver down. Jon dropped his hands but didn’t come closer. “What are you doing out at this hour of the night?” she asked, again.
“I hoped some fresh air would alleviate the headache that woke me. I couldn’t go back to sleep, so I came out here.” The white of his shirt was a stark contrast to the darkness while he paced in the shadows, reminding her of a caged tiger she had seen in a travelling circus, pacing the perimeter of his cage, never still. “I feel useless. It doesn’t help everyone in town looks at me like I’m some sort of monster.”
The words to soothe whatever angry beast raged in his chest wouldn’t come. Jonathan had been a monster and not only to her. She tried to distract him. “I could always use a deputy and I haven’t gotten an answer from Curt.”
A derisive snort filled the humid air. “I don’t have the temperament for that job.”
“What does that mean?”
“To be able to effectively operate in that role, a certain amount of trust is involved.” His agitated pacing slowed to a stop, and he gripped the railing. “Perhaps, that’s the answer. I need to do something. For the last three years, I was woken before the dawn, carted to a quarry, and worked until there wasn’t enough light left to see to swing a sledge.” As if the memory of that time goaded him, he started pacing again.
Rather than offering suggestions, Victoria sat on the swing suspended from the porch ceiling and looked out across the open expanse between the house and the end of town. Shadows shifted and danced while clouds scudded across the face of the moon.
“I know how to work cattle.” He stood stock still, his back to her. “I could work for one of the ranches around here.”
“The Brokken Arrow needs help. Deb’s brothers are good with figures but not so good with cattle.” The ribbon lacing at the wrist of her nightdress drew her attention. The end was fraying, a long thread begging to be pulled. And, if she did that, the whole ribbon would unravel. She plucked at it anyway, the thread unraveling in a zig-zigging manner. “I could talk to Isaac.”
“No. I’ll talk to Isaac.”
That w
as the problem. He chafed at his dependency on her. However, Jon talking to Isaac presented another serious issue. “Jonathan hated Isaac. He didn’t understand why the Brokken family gave so much authority to a black man or how they could trust him around their daughter. He was also certain Isaac’s intelligence was no different than teaching a difficult trick to a well-trained dog. Those were his exact words.”
“I suppose Jonathan’s miraculous transformation can start with Isaac.” The thick cloud covering the moon slipped past and Jon’s posture visibly slumped. Lines of black scored the back of his hand, dripping from his fingers. A soft pattering, like the first raindrops of a rain shower, tapped a slow cadence. To her horror, she realized it was blood dripping. “What happened to your hand?”
Jon looked down and flexed his hand. “Those bite wounds haven’t fully healed. I must have scratched a couple open when I walked into the climbing rose over there.”
Victoria’s sight shifted immediately to the rose staking its claim to the corner of the porch. There were times, when she was trimming it, she wondered if the heady, fragrant blooms were worth the deep scratches she got. She knew, from first-hand experience, just how painful those thorns were. “You didn’t notice you were scratched?”
“Not until right now.”
Victoria unsuccessfully stifled a yawn. She stood, the glider slowly moving behind her. “Are you going to be out here for long?”
He paced the floor again. “I don’t know. I’m restless, and I don’t think I could manage to fall asleep again.”
“Do you want me stay up with you?” If he did, the first thing she needed to do was make a fresh pot of coffee.
His pacing came to a halt, and he slowly turned to her. In the silvered darkness, his resemblance to Jonathan was uncanny. And terrifying. “Are you asking so you can make sure I don’t bolt and run?”
“No.” She hated the tremor in her voice. An old, sickened sensation invaded the pit of her stomach. A cold sweat dripped the length of her spine. “I was...I just asked...”