"I like it. Buddy sounds a lot like Puppy, so he won't get confused."
"Gee! I didn't think of that!" Jamie grinned, causing the freckles on his cheeks to collide. "No wonder Collie says you're the only girl in this town with smarts."
Sera winked. "Don't tell Aunt Claudia that."
By this point, Luke had descended from his ladder and was strolling across the street toward his son. A lean, athletic man with a swarthy complexion, he was dressed in a neatly pressed, white dress shirt, well-tailored silk vest, and black trousers. Jesse tensed a little, wondering if Luke was a U.S. Marshal. Or maybe some fancy gambler.
But Luke wasn't wearing a Big Iron on his hip, and he didn't sport the subtle bulge to indicate that a derringer was hiding beneath his shirt cuff. In fact, the man looked completely unarmed.
"Jamie, I can't very well re-hang my shingle without a hammer or nails. Now can I?" Luke asked dryly.
"Sorry, Mr. Lu—er, I mean, Papa."
A wedding band glinted on Luke's manicured hand as he ruffled Jamie's hair. "Go on. Pick those nails off the street. Doc Jones is busy enough these days, without needing to attend to a punctured foot."
"Yes, sir."
As Sera began Jesse's introduction, he locked stares with a curious pair of intelligent, brown eyes. Luke's gaze was frankly appraising, but it wasn't hostile.
"...And Luke is our legal expert," Sera concluded. "We turn to him for land purchases, city ordinances, last wills and testaments—that sort of thing."
Luke shook Jesse's hand. "Welcome to Blue Thunder."
Jesse nodded. "You've got a fine boy, there."
"Soon he'll have two," Sera quipped.
Luke reddened. "Bonnie's hoping for a girl."
"Yes, but Jamie is hoping for a brother. That makes the voting two to one, I expect."
Luke chuckled. "Oh, no. Don't think you're going to get me to cast a ballot. I'm staying neutral."
"As if you didn't have the biggest vote of all," Sera teased, making him grow redder. "I hear your papa's running unopposed again for mayor. Think he'll ever retire and give somebody else a fair chance?"
Luke shot her a sideways look. "Have you been talking to Mama again?"
"About voting? And Equal Rights? Pshaw. I would never."
"Uh-huh," Luke drawled gamely. He winked at Jesse. "The women practically run this town. They just want to make it official."
Sera grinned. "Having more girl babies is our nefarious way of assuring the majority vote. Eden wants a baby girl, too."
Luke chuckled good-naturedly.
"I was wondering," he interjected a tad too casually. "Have you heard from Kit?"
She avoided his eyes. Jesse had spent enough time with Sera by now to recognize ways in which she tried to hide embarrassment or uneasiness. One way was to fidget with the cuff of her glove. Like she was doing now.
"Like I told Jamie," she retorted, "I haven't seen hide nor hair of Kit McCoy since last autumn. Why is everyone so interested in Kit all of a sudden?"
"Maybe for the same reason that folks are interested in Collie," Luke countered quietly.
Her gaze snapped back to his. "No one in this town ever cared about Collie MacAffee except me. Not until Eden came along. And just because Collie is missing doesn't mean he's off stealing livestock again."
"I'm more concerned that Collie had an accident in the woods."
Sera's chin raised a notch. "Then you should pray for him every night like me and Jamie do."
Luke's jaw twitched. He stared at her square-heeled riding boots for a moment, as if reining in his temper.
"Well. I daresay Collie will show up eventually." His eyes strayed to Jesse when he added, "MacAffees and McCoys always do."
Luke nodded his farewell, and Jesse watched narrowly as the law wrangler strolled back to his office.
"What was that all about?" Jesse demanded the minute Luke was out of hearing.
"Petty gossip," Sera bit out. "The kind that Bonnie Harragan Frothingale likes to spread. Pay it no mind, Jesse."
"If it's not important, than why are you so sore?"
"Because you and I just met! And I don't want you to get the wrong idea about—" Her chest heaved. She bit off her sentence, seeming to think better of the words.
"If you haven't figured it out already," she continued bitterly, "Blue Thunder is a very small town. You can't keep a secret around here. Not even a harmless one. Everybody knows everybody else's business from the cradle to the grave. And folks don't let you forget about it, either. That's why Rafe left. And Collie too, I suspect. Sometimes I wish..."
Her hands fluttered, conveying volumes in her silence. He wondered if she was thinking of Kit McCoy.
"That you could run away too?" he murmured.
She nodded, her gaze straying wistfully to the top, open buttons of his shirt.
Jesse's humor was restored. Hired hand or not, he knew then that he could rival this Kit McCoy. He didn't know why the idea should please him so much, except that Sera was White and he was Colored. And he needed her to like him enough to trust him.
He pulled open the trading post's door for her. She rewarded him with a mouth-watering smile.
Thus distracted, Jesse didn't notice the twenty-something blonde woman in daffodil-colored skirts or the lollipop-licking child with sausage-styled ringlets, as they emerged from the store's shadows. They nearly plowed into him.
He doffed his hat, murmuring an apology. He heard the woman's sharp intake of breath. He smelled a vaguely familiar whiff of perfume.
But he didn't suspect how much trouble he was really in until her husky, Texas accent exclaimed:
"Jesse Quaid? Land sake's, it is you! I thought you were dead!"
Chapter 5
Jesse's heart stalled.
His neck grew clammy, then hot by turns.
For an endless moment, he simply stared into the eyes of the woman whom he had once fancied himself in love with. Little Allie Ainsworth, who'd refused to spare him a second glance once Cass's older cousin, Bobby, had started sniffing around her skirts.
After Bobby had gotten her in the family way, Allie had begged Jesse to help her flee Pilot Grove and her vengeful father. Allie was the reason why neither Cass nor Jesse could ever set foot again in northeast Texas.
"Jesse," she breathed, a trembling hand pressed to the white cotton bodice of her high-collared, mutton-sleeve shirt.
When her cornflower blue eyes misted over with genuine welcome, Jesse didn't know whether to be flattered or incensed.
The power of the Lynx lies in its wisdom to stay silent, he reminded himself harshly.
His situation was precarious. Allie knew that he was one-quarter Cherokee. She knew that he was wanted by the law—or at least, by the Ku Klux Klan, thanks to her lies. She'd been trying to protect Bobby when she'd told her blacksmith father that a "Darkie" had raped her.
Unfortunately, that lie had backfired. Ainsworth had gotten wind of Allie's flight and Jesse's involvement. He'd sent the Klan to torch the home of Jesse's grandmother. While Hiawassee—too sick to leave her bed—had burned to death, they'd trussed Jesse up like a pig and carted him back to the blacksmith, who'd planned to torture him with branding irons.
Now, 11 years later, Allie stood before him like a paragon of virtue in her fancy matron's dress. Not since she had traded dolls for boys could Jesse remember seeing Allie ragged out in such conservative duds. She'd fastened every button on that schoolmarm's blouse practically up to her ears.
He glanced at Sera. She'd halted beside the candy jars, her sky-blue eyes riveted on him in a mixture of speculation and disappointment. Jesse swallowed an oath. He liked to think that a trace of female jealousy was to blame; still, he couldn't afford to let anything that had passed between him and Allie alienate Sera.
"Miss Ainsworth," he greeted Allie gruffly.
"It's... um... Cassidy now. Mrs. Robert Cassidy. But my husband passed on a few years back," she added quickly.
Her eyes plead
ed with him to understand. To forgive.
Uncomfortably, Jesse glanced at the youngster holding Allie's left hand—the hand with the wedding ring. He guessed the freckled child to be around 10 years old, since she was blinking curiously up at him with Bobby Cassidy's hazel-green eyes.
But Bobby's skull had been smashed by a fire poker wielded by Allie's vengeful father long before marriage had ever crossed Bobby's mind. Apparently, Allie was hiding a few secrets of her own from the good people of Blue Thunder.
"Mrs. Cassidy," he corrected himself grimly.
Meanwhile, several shoppers had crowded forward, as if to get a look at him. Also watching his every move was a gnarled old gnome of a woman—undoubtedly the notorious Aunt Claudia—who was smoking a pipe and resting a shotgun on the knee of her ridiculously oversized bib overalls. She sat on a tall wooden stool behind the cashier's counter, which featured a ménage of oddities, such as mechanical clacking teeth, fishing floats that looked like eyeballs, and a stuffed beaver that sported antlers and spectacles.
Allie tried to laugh off the tension. "Well, I must say, this is a real surprise, having you visit Blue Thunder. I know it's silly of me to ask after all these years, but... is William still riding with you? He's the last surviving relative of my husband. I always hoped that William would be pleased to know he's got a little cousin, Becky, in Kentucky."
Allie placed her hands protectively on her daughter's shoulders. Jesse's jaw twitched.
So Allie had heard that he and Cass had hooked up? She must have been corresponding with one of her female relatives back in Pilot Grove. No doubt that kinswoman had also told Allie that certain politically connected people in Grayson County still wanted Cass, alive or dead, for gunning down Allie's father to avenge Bobby's murder.
Jesse groaned inwardly. Of all the people from Texas, whom he could have possibly encountered in Blue Thunder, Allie Ainsworth had to be his biggest nightmare.
This is why you reconnoiter towns after sundown, he reminded himself harshly. Otherwise, you get thrown in the hoosegow for being dumber than a fence post—and rightly so.
"William and I parted ways awhile back," he said, which was true, if one considered five days ago 'a while back.'
"Oh. That's too bad."
Despite the platitude, she looked relieved. Jesse couldn't blame her. Jesse wouldn't have trusted Cass to keep his head on straight if he learned that Allie was masquerading as Bobby's widow.
Great. Now I have to worry that Allie will sic the law on Cass if he tracks me to Blue Thunder.
Jesse struggled with his sense of impending doom. He began to question the sanity of his plan: posing as a horse trainer, befriending Sera, asking for her help to restore his memory, trusting that she wouldn't betray him in a fit of conscience or fear.
Why had Great Spirit led him to Sera? What was he doing in this backwoods Kentucky town?
Sure, he wanted to get the price off his head. Sure, he wanted to live the semblance of a normal life, putting down roots in a place where he was respected. Maybe even loved.
But was he kidding himself? Was a "normal life" even possible for a mixed-blood like him?
And then, as if Great Spirit was whispering in his ear, Jesse's head turned. He found himself staring straight at the notched, pinewood wall above Aunt Claudia, where a row of picture frames had been arranged beneath the words, "Our Town Heroes."
Staring back at him from the anticipated array of 16 White men were four remarkable faces: a White schoolmarm who'd traveled through Appalachia, educating indigents about the newly developed cholera vaccine; a Negro blacksmith who'd fashioned leg braces for crippled toddlers at the county orphanage; a Quadroon midwife who'd saved the leg of a hemorrhaging White hunter after he'd been gored by a wild boar; and last, but not least, a Cherokee scout, who'd tracked and rescued a party of lost White women during the worst thunderstorm of the decade.
Goosebumps tiptoed down Jesse's spine.
A hero memorial that honors Colored folk?
His gaze traveled lower. He stared past Aunt Claudia's pungent cloud of smoke; past her coonskin cap and frizzing, gray braids; past her corncob pipe, wrinkled butternut skin, and prominent cheekbones.
He stared beyond all the carefully contrived trappings and illusions straight into the woman's cagey brown eyes.
That's when Jesse knew.
The proprietess of Blue Thunder's general store—the wealthiest landowner in the town—wasn't entirely White.
* * *
Sera sighed, closing the journal into which she'd been pouring out her heart. She was seated near Tempest in the late afternoon sunshine, minus her gloves for writing purposes. The daisies and blue grasses of Aunt Claudia's corral poked up like a miniature fortress around her yellow calico and muslin lace. Sitting Indian style, Sera had dared to allow her white stockings to peak scandalously above her brown ankle-boots—not that anybody was anywhere near the cedar fence to be suitably shocked.
And by anybody, she did mean Jesse Quaid. He'd found some urgent reason to visit the commercial district. Again.
Sera liked to tell herself that she was annoyed with Jesse because his visits to town were interfering with his responsibilities as Michael's hired hand. But the truth was, Sera was jealous. Ever since she'd spied Jesse and Widow Cassidy together one month ago, whispering and nodding outside of church, Sera had begun to wonder if Jesse was sparking Allison.
Clearly, the Texicans shared some secret history. Even if Allison hadn't clutched her heart in misty-eyed relief five weeks earlier to learn that Jesse was alive, his stammers and blushes had cued every female in Aunt Claudia's store that Jesse was more than casually acquainted with Widow Cassidy.
But of course, Jesse wasn't a "kiss-and-tell" kind of man. Sera had to admire him for that. He would change the subject, no matter how cleverly she tried to quiz him about his relationship with Allison.
Sera kept telling herself that she shouldn't care whom Jesse spent his free hours with. After all, he was just her brother's hired hand. A savvy wedding-bell chaser should be able to accept that there could never be a future with a drifter, like Jesse Quaid. In a month, maybe two, Jesse would have Tempest suitably trained, and then he'd ride on. That's how waddies earned their living.
But Sera's whole world had changed with Jesse's arrival. She wasn't lonely any more. She had a real friend again—or at least, she liked to think she did.
Of course, she hadn't actually suffered an Episode since Jesse had arrived in Blue Thunder, so the jury was still out about whether he would come to think of her as sick or demon-possessed.
But until one of her visions betrayed her, Sera planned to enjoy Jesse's camaraderie like any normal belle would. Call her selfish, call her foolish, but she looked forward to flirting with him each morning, while he put Tempest through her paces.
That's why Sera searched for reasons to spend her afternoons with him, too. For the last week, she'd concocted dire kitchen emergencies that couldn't be repaired by the canned provisions in Aunt Claudia's general store.
This ingenuity had paid off. As soon as Jesse would finish training Tempest, Sera would prevail upon him to wander through the woods with her, hunting blackberries, hickory nuts, paw-paws, wild onions, parsnip, chickweed, chokecherries, wild yams, mushrooms—or whatever else her fertile imagination invented as necessary ingredients to the Founder's Day recipes that she was practicing.
As it turned out, her dimpled, virile Texican possessed an impressive knowledge of edible and medicinal plants. More than that, he was a gentle and respectful steward of nature. He seemed to have a reverence for flora and fauna, rather than a need to conquer them, like lumberjacks, fur trappers, and railroad men. Sera liked the gentle side of Jesse.
Sera also liked her Texican's sense of humor. With a little patience and a lot of encouragement, Jesse overcame an endearing shy streak to reveal volumes of wilderness lore. For instance, he assured her that the only way a grown man could out distance a charging grizzly was to run side
ways around a hill.
He told her that skunk cabbages and alpine snowbells generated heat, and that's why their stalks were often the first plants to burst through the snow as harbingers of spring.
He confided that he'd once seen a puma leap 20 feet into the air, and that a pronghorn antelope—especially a doe—was a long-distance runner that could outrace any Kentucky thoroughbred.
But strangely enough, Jesse never talked about himself. In all their time together, Jesse had never mentioned a family or a pet—other than his mare, Kavi, of course. He never talked about places where he used to live, or people whom he used to know. If Sera asked him about such things, he'd distract her with a compliment, a question about Blue Thunder, or an observation about some wonder of nature that was sitting right under her nose. Sera was beginning to think that she'd have to quiz Allison if she wanted to learn more about Jesse's past!
Seeking comfort, Sera stretched her fingers toward Tempest's sleek, black head. The filly was grazing contentedly at her side, near the gate of Claudia's corral. As Michael's backyard neighbor, Claudia allowed Michael's gelding and Sera's filly to share the pasture with Nag. At the moment, Nag was dozing in the sunshine about 30 yards away, her scraggly, brown tail swishing every so often to disperse the flies that buzzed around her rump.
"With Collie gone," Sera told her horse, "you're the only person I have to talk to. Eden's always so busy dividing her hours between Michael's medical office, Michael's kitchen, Michael's bedroom—oh yes, and let's not forget Michael's seat on the orphanage council."
Tempest stomped a foot.
"That's right! Sometimes I feel like an orphan! Well, technically I am an orphan, I suppose."
Tempest fixed one chocolaty-brown eyeball on her.
"Oh, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that I can't go on living with Michael and Eden forever. Especially with the baby coming. But what am I supposed to do, Tempest? My visions make me privy to things that I don't want to know about people—and especially Blue Thunder's bachelors.
Seduced by an Angel (Velvet Lies, Book 3) Page 6