Annette glanced around the dark, dreary storeroom, not quite repressing a shiver. “This place needs some windows.”
“Hard to keep it cool and dark with windows.”
“It’s the kind of place where secrets grow.”
Puzzled, he wondered about the hidden meaning of her words. “Any in particular?”
She gazed at him for a long moment, then looked away. “I’m just being fanciful, I suppose.”
“Doesn’t sound much like you.”
“I’m not sure you’d know whether it did or not.”
He cocked his head in question. “Meaning?”
“You don’t know me well enough to judge.”
Morgan smiled ruefully. “I try to keep my business and private life separate.”
A hint of sadness and knowledge flickered over her face. “Do you?”
He decided it was time to vacate the place. He didn’t intend to discuss his feelings for Katherine with Annette. “How ’bout some coffee? Then I’m going to spar with Jake.”
“That might be something to see.” She got up gracefully, not acknowledging his attempt to end the conversation.
“Then come along. We haven’t been in the ring for a week. We’ll probably look like a couple of old ladies.”
She followed him. Noticing that he had failed to lock the door of the storeroom behind them, she kept silent. Conflicting emotions skirted across her face, but as he turned to her, only a smile remained.
There were more spectators at the sparring ring than ever before. Katherine and Beth stood to one side while Annette and Daphne took opposite positions across the yard.
“Do they do this often?” Beth asked curiously, her eyes riveted on the men.
“Almost every day usually.”
“Does it bother you?”
Katherine slanted her glance at Beth. “What?”
“All the time Jake takes away from you and Morgan.”
Swallowing, Katherine realized the situation had grown far out of hand, especially since Beth refused to return home. Katherine had tried to reason with her, pleading, finally ordering her to return to Boston. Nothing had worked. She could hardly pick Beth up and tie her on the next train. She was now an adult, capable of making her own decisions, whether Katherine was ready to believe that or not. “Jake doesn’t interfere with my time with Morgan. He and I have a business to run.”
“And a marriage.” Beth could not hide her concern. “Oh, Katherine, I can see you’re having problems. I may be young, but I’m not blind. It’s obvious things are not as they should be, and I can’t help but believe your minister is at the root of the problem.”
Funny, Katherine had never thought of Jake as her minister. Beth was proving far too perceptive. What had happened to the child she’d been?
Katherine remembered her sister as a toddler, her plump tiny hand held trustingly in her own. Such initial faith and complete dependence had bittersweet rewards. Pride at Beth’s independence was tempered by a tinge of sadness that she no longer needed or wanted her guidance. Katherine shook her head, trying to vanquish the wealth of memories. One thing was certain. Beth had grown to be a highly intelligent and opinionated woman.
The sounds of Daphne’s applause and shouted encouragement to Jake distracted her. Their upper bodies glistening with sweat, Jake and Morgan circled the ring. An uppercut was returned with a jab. Their footwork grew trickier, and when a shout rang out, everyone turned in surprise.
“Morgan Tremaine! Katherine O’Shea!”
Jake and Morgan stopped boxing abruptly and turned at the sound, as did Katherine. Able Browning stalked forward, a sheath of papers clenched in his hand. Morgan moved from the ring, ducking between the ropes to come and stand beside Katherine.
“This is your notice,” Able announced.
“Notice?” Katherine echoed.
“Legal proceedings have begun to terminate your lease.”
“You don’t have a leg to stand on. We signed a bulletproof contract guaranteeing this land for five years.” Angry, Morgan challenged the other man, whose beard quivered righteously.
“Then maybe you’d better watch out for buckshot, Tremaine, because you’re in for a load of it.” Shoving the papers at him, Able turned on his heel and stomped away.
An unhealthy silence tinged the air as they all watched him leave. Stricken, Katherine turned to Morgan. “He’s bluffing, isn’t he?”
Morgan’s gaze remained on the papers, his expression sober. “I don’t know, Katie. That bad feeling I had about this town just came to roost.”
Jake made his way to stand beside them. “We’ll fight this.”
Soberly Morgan stared at him. “This may be one fight even you can’t win, friend.”
Chapter 29
Katherine paced the confines of the parlor. “I simply can’t believe that Able can shut us down.”
“I’m sorry, Miss O’Shea, but the town is within its rights to bring the matter before the court.” Mr. Stanlin, their solicitor, had been apologetic, effusive, but ultimately pessimistic about their chances to avert a legal battle. “Of course, that doesn’t mean Mr. Browning and the town council will prevail. I will instruct my office to turn its complete attention to the matter immediately, and you will have the best legal representation available.”
“How long do we have to wait before our case comes to trial?” Morgan asked.
“Six months at the most. Of course, I’ll be spending that time researching all applicable statutes and precedents.” The attorney’s portfolio bulged with pertinent papers, but Katherine’s instinct told her the outcome would be biased. Experience told her it was time to consider pulling up stakes and calling her business in Browning a loss.
Six months. To decide whether to tear down the saloon and find another town to start over. To decide whether she had a future with Jake Payne or whether that, too, would be torn apart.
She knew from the start that Able would not accept her harboring his son and new bride without retaliation. She simply hadn’t expected such a vicious reaction.
“What about a change of venue?” Morgan asked.
The solicitor shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid not. The matter will go before the territorial court. I can’t have it moved.”
Morgan stared out the lace-curtained window, a calm expression hiding his emotions, but Katherine could see the frustration and anger in his clenched fists. He had been right all along, and she’d refused to listen to him.
“Morgan, unless you have more questions for Mr. Stanlin, I believe our business is concluded.” Katherine waited for Morgan’s response. Seeming to draw inward, he turned from the window and offered the attorney his hand.
“Thank you for making the trip from Denver. I imagine we’ll be seeing you in court next.” Morgan ushered the man to the door while Katherine waited on the settee, absently petting the cat that purred quietly under the pressure of her hands.
“You were right,” she said when Morgan returned.
“Don’t expect me to gloat.” He sank into a chair facing her.
“What chance do you think we have?”
“Depends on whether the legislature has a moral sticker up their—”
“I see what you mean,” Katherine interrupted. She poured Morgan a generous portion of bourbon and offered it to him. When she glanced up again, David and Rebecca’s timid faces peered around the door. “Come in,” she called to them. Morgan straightened up and followed her gaze, hiding a groan.
“We don’t mean to interrupt,” David began.
“You didn’t. We’re finished,” Katherine replied, trying not to sound as discouraged as she felt.
“That’s for certain,” Morgan muttered.
“Rebecca and I are going to leave. We’re the reason my father’s giving you all this trouble.” David’s voice quivered as he tried to fill it with bravado.
“And where would you go?” Morgan pinned him in his intense gaze. “To spend the winter in a barn? This
legal business won’t go away even if you leave.”
“He’s right,” Katherine said. She couldn’t let pride stand in the way of their welfare. In truth the damage was done. She couldn’t honestly say she would have decided differently had she known taking them in would cause such trouble.
“But we never intended this to happen!” Rebecca looked to be on the verge of tears. Katherine wasn’t sure whether her youth, her condition, or the abandonment by her family was the cause. One or all had combined to reduce the girl to weeping quite easily these days. She scarcely resembled the flushed, happy girl who’d given David a surprise party a few months earlier.
“None of us expected a legal battle. But we’ve engaged a capable solicitor who has assured us that we won’t go to court for about six months. I’m certain by then your families will have reconsidered their positions.” Katherine tried to keep her own confidence high by inflating theirs.
“We’re not pulling up stakes just yet.” Morgan’s tone was blunt. “And you won’t be out on the streets if we do.” After knocking back the remainder of his drink, he left them.
Knowing how upset Morgan was, Katherine didn’t try to detain him or explain his abrupt behavior to David and Rebecca. By choice or not, they were destined to be prematurely thrown into an adult world that bulged with problems such as their own.
Suddenly she wished to be free of all of them. She knew that Jake waited impatiently to hear the outcome of their meeting with the solicitor. Anxious to see him, she dreaded imparting the news at the same time—news that was as uncertain as their tenuous relationship.
“Katherine?” Beth’s voice reached gingerly into the room. Sheer will kept Katherine from dropping her head in her hands and screaming in frustration. Too many problems with no solutions needed her attention, and she no longer wanted to be a font of wisdom. She wanted to escape. Jake’s presence beckoned even stronger.
“What is it, Beth?”
“I just wanted to see how everything turned out,” Beth said hesitantly. After voicing her concern about the state of Katherine and Morgan’s marriage, her boldness had given way to an adolescent timidity once she’d heard Able’s announcement. Since then she’d concentrated on staying out of the way and keeping her opinions to herself. The woman in her had retreated, leaving a frightened child behind.
Katherine considered the notion that the lawsuit could be a mixed blessing. Perhaps the harsh reality of her own life would send Beth running back home. Still, Katherine didn’t want to face that reality. Not without Jake. Beth settled next to her on the settee, and Katherine offered a comforting embrace. But she no longer concentrated on the conversation in the parlor. Seeking solace of a different sort, her mind drifted beyond the confines of the walls and through the ones next door.
The small cabin didn’t look as dank and unlived in this time. Certain that Jake had spent time cleaning and repairing the hideaway, Katherine smiled in appreciation. Fresh whitewash brightened the walls, and a huge pile of firewood and kindling lay stacked in a newly roofed alcove. The hearth was neatly laid out, and all of the old bedding had disappeared. Katherine suspected it had been burned along with the rugs that had carpeted the floor. An oak bed covered with a quilt she recognized from the general store now stood on equally new rugs.
Knowing he hadn’t purchased the bed from the store in Browning, she wondered where it came from. Most probably, he had ordered it from a catalog and had it shipped out on the train. Still unaccountably shy about certain things, she declined asking him. She’d seen his flushed cheeks when he’d ushered her in the newly renovated cabin. Obviously he’d given the thought of privacy great consideration, also.
“I have real coffee,” he offered.
Remembering the dried carrot substitute they’d drunk the first time in the cabin, she smiled. “It might banish the chill.”
The fire leapt in the hearth, warming the room against the early winter frostiness, still the never-ending wind eased through the chinks of the outside walls. Jake left the pot on the stove to boil, offering his hand to her. The table and chairs were the only furniture in the cabin other than the bed, so Jake pulled her down beside him on the new collection of rugs that covered the floor.
Tendrils of warmth from the fire reached them as they sat together in silence. “It’s time to tell me, Katherine.”
Sighing, she removed her head from its comfortable position on his shoulder. Recounting the solicitor’s words, she ended with a plea. “We have time to decide what we’re going to do.”
“Am I going to be part of that decision?”
Helplessly she gazed at him. She wasn’t certain how much of the decision could be based on him. She had to consider her partner, her sister, her employees, and now an expectant couple. The truth was, if she left Browning, Jake could continue as minister. She felt she’d stolen that position from him by loving him. Despite his protests, she knew he’d come under heavy criticism for befriending her. And some people had already begun to suspect that he was courting her, not simply being her friend.
“So, you don’t know whether I’m part of your decision.” Jake’s voice was flat.
“It’s not that. Jake, there may be no decision. If we lose in court, we have to move.”
“And how long until you go to court?”
“Six months at the longest.”
“Which doesn’t give us much time.”
“Jake, if we have to close the Crystal Palace, you’ll have your chance to know whether you can succeed as a minister without fighting your church members about a saloon, or about me. We wouldn’t have to say goodbye.”
“You’ve already decided.” Jake grasped her arms, unconsciously tightening his grip. “You were simply going to walk away.”
“Simply?” Tears glistened in her eyes, tears she usually never allowed to surface. “There’s nothing simple about it. Do you think I want to leave you?”
His eyes darkened with a combination of pain and desire, she realized as he broke their gaze to cover her lips with his own. Gentleness disappeared as he clutched her close as though trying to meld their bodies together permanently. She could feel his desperation, his desire to make sure he was the one she chose.
Unhurried wooing was dispensed with as clothes were shed with alarming speed. Katherine gasped as naked flesh collided, then drew together of one accord. Like a drowning man grasping a disintegrating lifeline, Jake covered her body with his own, and Katherine accepted his strength, yearned for it.
Crying out in pleasure, Katherine heard her voice echo through the cabin and cascade into the endless prairie. Heat replaced reason, and passion enveloped the heat. Despite the lean, sinewy lengths of Jake’s muscles, Katherine was consumed by the feel of skin that resembled silk and velvet. Abrading her own, she reveled in the sensations, both euphoric and torturous at once. The thought of never feeling this way again made her bereft. Knowing the possibility existed, she clung even closer.
His lips trailed over her breasts, lingering on her nipples. Puckering beneath his touch and the still cool air of the cabin, they came to life, intensifying the warmth that pooled between her legs. His mouth continued its journey, trailing over the sensitive skin between her breasts and down her stomach, pausing as he reached her hipbones. When he wandered farther, inflaming the tender flesh of her thighs, she arched in pleasure and then drew him nearer.
Jake moved upward and gazed into her eyes, which had captivated him from the first moment he’d seen them. They still mesmerized him. Gazing into the need he saw mirrored in their depths, he knew he was lost. Like a wanderer searching for a new land, he had trespassed from his own life into hers. Seeing the beauty of both her body and her soul, he was shattered, both by what they shared and what he sensed he would lose if she left. That possibility was stronger than she had voiced because he knew her loyalty was torn. Inhaling the scent of her porcelain skin, he wondered if even now she was weighing her choices and her loyalties.
He stroked the tendrils of
hair that had escaped their confining pins. Now damp from the exertion of their lovemaking, the strands curled away from her heated skin. Flushed, her face seemed to shine from within. Unable to resist, he skimmed his thumbs over her cheekbones and down to rest on her lips. When her eyes questioned him, he couldn’t answer, could only hold her tightly, willing her to choose him.
Knowing he had yet to tell her the entire truth about himself, he wondered if the truth could persuade her to stay and fight. And if he could tell that truth.
Chapter 30
The words were painful, but Jake knew he had to utter them. His story unfolded with the familiar torment he remembered. In the glow of the fire’s soft light, Jake and Katherine rested together, wrapped in blankets and the quilt that adorned the bed they’d never quite reached.
She listened, then twined her hand in his. Jake haltingly confessed what had brought him to Browning and to this occupation.
“It was a regulation fight. Kingsbury rules, prescribed three rounds,” he explained.
“It wasn’t in the back of a saloon, then.”
“No, a legal bout with gloves for a decent purse.”
“Decent?”
“About ten thousand,” he said. Her eyes widened, and he could see what she was thinking. No wonder he’d never had a problem with money.
“And?”
The rest was more difficult to impart. “I did a series of jabs and then followed with an uppercut. The boy fell. I assumed I’d knocked him out.”
He paused. Katherine squeezed his hand reassuringly. “And?”
“He was dead.”
“Dead…” Katherine echoed his pronouncement, disbelief tingeing her words. “But how?”
“My blow apparently killed him.” Jake couldn’t keep the anguish from his voice, and Katherine remembered suddenly that he’d raised those fists to protect her. It must have brought back a horrifying array of memories.
“But surely you didn’t intend to kill him?”
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