St. John, Cheryl

by Prairie Wife

  She was the woman who'd cut him from her life as though he were a loose thread. And day by day something inside Jesse was dying.

  Chapter Three

  Bless Mrs. Barnes, she never minded extra work or additional mouths to feed. Earlier in the week a wagon train had camped to the west, and the female travelers had been eager to pay for hot baths and fresh vegetables. Truth be told, Mrs. Barnes seemed to welcome the chance to talk with other women, and often made herself a profitable exchange for the scented soap she made and kept wrapped for such occasions.

  Jesse had dealings with the Army that same week, and a cavalry troupe sent to obtain horses had camped overnight at the station while Jesse trained the soldiers in special commands and care of his stock.

  Mid-morning of the second day Amy browned rabbit parts in two enormous skillets, then dropped the meat into a pot of bubbling water, which would be stew by dinner. She'd waved down Pitch Gittleman that morning and asked if he could spare a few hours to hunt rabbits. The stocky bowlegged ex-cooper was always ready to hunt game when the need arose. He had a knack for finding sizable rabbits, and didn't mind skinning them before he brought her the meat.

  She'd rewarded him with a napkin full of doughnuts she'd just fried. He'd grinned a broad smile that showed a gold front tooth.

  "I'm gonna hide these and make meself a pot o' coffee."

  She had wondered if he'd enjoy his coffee and doughnuts before any of the other hands sniffed him out.

  At supper the soldiers raved over her stew and dumplings, told Jesse that they regretted having to leave that afternoon, and thanked her profusely as they filed out of her kitchen, picking up their guns from a pile outside the door.

  Amy dropped to a trestle bench and caught her breath.

  Mrs. Barnes was already scraping dishes and shaving soap into the dish pan. Adele, too, had stayed to help clean up.

  From the yard came a familiar call. "Stage a comin'."

  "Oh Lord," Mrs. Barnes muttered.

  Wearily, Amy stood. "There's still stew in the pot and I can add potatoes in a hurry to make it stretch."

  "I'll whip up a pan of corn bread, Miz Shelby," Adele offered.

  Amy nodded her appreciation and Mrs. Barnes bustled to clear the table and reset it.

  After she'd added the potatoes to the pot, Amy dipped water from the bucket beside the house and filled the two washbasins kept on crates along the porch wall for travelers.

  She glanced across the distance to the stable yard, where the coach was stopped and Hermie and Pitch were changing teams. Where was Jesse? He always helped with that task and his absence was unsettling. She frowned when she saw him standing at the opening in the fence that separated the yard from the stable area. A boy who barely came to Jesse's shoulder stood beside him.

  Something was wrong. She knew it from the way her husband held his shoulders.

  Amy gathered her skirts and descended the porch stairs, making her way to where Jesse stood. Before she reached him, he moved and took the boy into his arms in an awkward embrace.

  "Jesse?" she called.

  He released the boy slowly and turned to watch her approaching. "Amy."

  The boy quickly swiped his face and raised his chin to look at her. He had hair a little darker than Jesse's and eyes the same color of blue. Cay? So Jesse's mother had arrived? Amy glanced toward the coach.

  "Amy, this is Cay."

  She stepped forward. "How do you do?"

  The boy didn't respond, and her gaze raised to Jesse. His eyes held a peculiar sheen.

  She experienced a twinge of fright in her chest. "Where's your mother?"

  Jesse looked out across the north pasture and grimaced before composing his expression. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "She died on the skirts of Manhattan and they left her in town. I have to go get her."

  Amy couldn't think for a moment. Her hand rose to her breast on its own. "Oh my—oh, Jesse."

  "It's a day's ride," he said. "I'll leave first thing in the morning."

  "I wanna go with you," Cay said immediately.

  It was the first she'd heard him speak, and his voice was childlike, with a hint of the change soon to come.

  "You can go with me," Jesse replied easily.

  Should she offer to accompany him? She wasn't good at knowing what to do or at offering solace.

  Four dusty passengers were heading toward the house. "Do you want to eat, Cay?" she asked.

  He shook his head.

  He'd lost his grandmother and Jesse'd just learned he'd lost his mother—and all she could do was offer food. Should she ask how it had happened or should she leave them alone?

  "She knew she didn't have long," Jesse said. "I thought she'd make it here, though. I figured we'd have time to take care of her."

  Amy tamped down whatever it was that had started to rise in her chest. She filled her lungs with the sage-scented breeze and pressed her fingernails into her palms.

  Cay shifted his feet and didn't raise his gaze. "She din't look good ever since we left Fort Wayne."

  Amy needed to see to the guests who had reached the house. She hadn't put out extra towels yet. "I'm sorry about your grandmother." She couldn't look at Jesse again, couldn't bear to see his face and his pain and feel inadequate over her inability to share it. "I'm sorry, Jesse." She caught up her hem. "I'll go see to the guests. Have Cay bring his things to the house. He can stay in the room I got ready."

  She buried her feelings by showing the travelers where to wash, slicing bread and filling cups. She and Mrs. Barnes worked compatibly, their relationship comfortable and familiar. Amy collected payment for the meals, and the pocket of her apron grew heavy with coins from the day.

  Afterward she used her key to let herself into the small locked room behind the kitchen, where she recorded the amount in a ledger and placed the money in a metal box. At the end of each week Jesse paid the employees, set aside enough for groceries and supplies and took the rest to the bank.

  A while back he had mentioned his desire to make a trip to Indiana to see his mother, but there never had seemed to be a good time. He was probably regretting not acting on that wish.

  By supper the stage was on its way, and only two passengers had stayed over for a night's lodging. Jesse brought Cay in to eat with the hands, but the boy barely touched his food. Cay watched Amy with a mixture of resentment and blame in his expression, and she wasn't sure why he would feel either toward her.

  When night fell, Jesse accompanied him back to the house. Cay's hair was wet and his clothing wrinkled, but clean. He'd apparently been to the bathhouse at Jesse's prompting.

  Amy should have thought of it.

  "You didn't eat much at supper," she said. "Would you like something now?"

  Cay didn't look at her, but replied, "I could eat."

  "Sit down and I'll fix you something."

  He took a seat at the kitchen table, while Jesse removed himself to the locked room, probably to look over the day's earnings.

  After slicing bread and ham, Amy placed a sandwich and a cup of milk before the boy.

  He reached for the food.

  "'Thank you' is called for," Jesse said from behind Amy, surprising her, because she hadn't heard him return.

  He too had bathed, and she inhaled the fresh clean scent of his skin and hair, smells that triggered responses over which she had no control and caught her off guard.

  "Thanks," the boy said sullenly and bit into the meal.

  Amy poured Jesse a cup of coffee and cut him a narrow slice of apple pie. She knew he liked something sweet with his coffee at night, but lately he hadn't been coming in during the evening.

  He thanked her and took his place at the end of the table. Amy sat across from Cay, while the two ate.

  "We'll leave at first light," Jesse told her when he'd finished.

  "I'll pack food for you. How long do you think the trip will take?"

  "With the wagon, probably a day to Kansas and a day and a half taking it
easier comin' back."

  They'd be returning with his mother's body. What a difficult trip that would be.

  Earlier in the day Jesse had deposited both his mother's and Cay's bags in the parlor. Amy thought of their belongings now. "Will you carry Cay's bags upstairs, please?"

  Cay stood. "I can do it."

  "Okay." She removed her apron, folded it and placed it on top of three others to be laundered. "Jesse can help you put things away and get settled in your room."

  "I don't need any help. Just show me where."

  After Cay found his bags, she picked up a lantern and climbed the stairs ahead of him. Jesse followed with the other lamp. He hadn't been upstairs for over a week. She had wondered what he would do when his mother arrived. Now it was Cay staying in the other bedroom, and she was still anxious. Would Jesse leave and have the boy speculate as to why he didn't sleep in the house?

  She entered the room she had readied for Jesse's mother and placed the oil lamp on the bureau. "You can put your things away in these drawers. When you need your clothing laundered there's a basket by the door— just set it out in the hall. If you should need anything tonight..." She paused, confused over saying I or we would be close by.

  "...we'll be right across the hall," Jesse supplied softly.

  Amy's stomach knotted at his words. "Good night, Cay."

  He didn't respond.

  Jesse handed her the other lamp, and she carried it to their room. She had removed her shirtwaist and washed before Jesse opened the door and entered.

  He walked to the window and stared out at the darkness through a slit in the curtain.

  Something wild fluttered in Amy's stomach at her husband's nearness.

  "I remember when your mama died." His voice was rough with emotion.

  She removed her underclothing and quickly donned her nightdress. Without sitting at the dressing table, she loosened her hair, picked up her brush and made quick work of brushing and braiding. Her mother's death had been the first loss she'd experienced. She'd been brokenhearted and Jesse had been there for her. He'd offered silent compassion, as well as companionship to her father.

  "There'll be one more marker on that little hill."

  She hadn't been back to the pair of graves on their land to the east since last year, and she didn't want to think about them now.

  "Both of Tim's grandmas will be there with him."

  Amy dropped the jar of glycerin she'd been rubbing into her hands, and it hit the wood floor with a resounding crack.

  Jesse turned from the window.

  She looked from the jar on the floor to his weary face and bent to pick up the glycerin. A knot of anger formed in her chest and she took a deep breath to dispel it.

  She was angry with herself—furious over her inability to dredge a scrap of feeling from her dead soul. She didn't know how anymore. She'd nailed everything up and lost the tools to let anything out. Some of her anger seeped over toward Jesse, as if he were to blame for making her feel so empty inside.

  Anyone with a heart and blood in their veins would go over and touch him, offer him some small measure of comfort. She could see herself doing just that, imagined crossing the room and placing her hand on his firm chest, drawing him close to her body and sharing her warmth. She imagined his heartbeat against her breast, steady, strong, pictured her head on his shoulder and smelled his familiar scent.

  Pain knifed across her chest and sucked the breath from her lungs. She set the jar on the dressing table and practically staggered to the bed, where she turned back the covers and slipped between the sheets, drawing the top one to her breast.

  Jesse removed his clothing and she didn't look away. The sharply defined muscles of his chest and shoulders flexed with each movement, and his body tapered to slim hips and strong hair-dusted thighs. Memories of touching him, lying with limbs entwined and pulses racing kept her attention fixed. He was a good man, not greedy, not selfish. He was kind and gentle, yet strong in all the ways she'd ever needed him to be strong.

  She had failed him so many times, had let him down, shut him out, hurt him. Yes, hurt him. And that was the worst. The shame she couldn't bear was that of her own wrongdoing.

  She watched as he folded his pants over the back of a chair and moved to blow out the lamp. The bed dipped, and Amy squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden panic that threatened to find a crack in the armor around her heart.

  She smelled him. Soap. Man. Jesse.

  She heard his breath. Ragged.

  She sensed him turn to look at her. Felt the length of his body stretched out beside her, though he wasn't touching her anywhere.

  Jesse needed her.

  Without further thought, but with a purpose born of her self-loathing, she turned toward him and placed her hand on his chest. His skin felt warm and supple, as she'd known it would.

  His hand came up and wrapped around her wrist, bringing her fingers to his lips and kissing them. His lips were hot and moist, and though she didn't want to, she remembered the feel of them on other places on her body.

  He rolled toward her then, cupped her face, and she imagined he could see her in the shadowy darkness. "Amy?"

  There was no scent of liquor on his breath this night, only coffee.

  He needed her.

  He moved close to gently touch his lips to hers. The kiss was too sweet, too tender, leaving too much room for thought and choices, so she pressed harder. His lips parted and his tongue sought hers. Along with his desperation, she tasted the coffee and her pie.

  After several earthshaking moments, he paused to bury his face against her neck and wrap his body around her. "God, I miss you, Amy," he said, his voice a low rasp.

  It had been so long that it felt awkward, but she raised her hands to his hair and found it thick and silken beneath her fingers. He groaned at the simple caress, and her shame grew to a beast that filled every shadowy corner of the darkened room.

  He touched her through the cotton nightdress, stroking her hips, her belly, her breasts and against her thigh she felt his desire. She didn't resist when he raised her gown and touched her skin in all those same places. With a minimum of urging, her nightdress ended up in a puddle beside the bed.

  She had spent the past year erecting barriers and shields, and to her bewilderment they served her well now. The furious trembling that had begun inside her subsided. A small sound came from her, like a sigh, but she didn't connect it with herself.

  The faint sliver of moonlight that came through the curtains cast a sheen on his hair and a glow across her skin when he pulled back the sheet to look at her.

  Jesse rose over her then, his weight achingly familiar and yet disturbingly foreign at the same time. Deliberately initiating a long deep kiss, he entered her body the same way... with purposeful, yet slow movements... too tender... too intentional.

  He needed her.

  Amy had a lock on her emotions. Her body was another matter. Jesse knew her body. And he used his knowledge to woo a physical response. He knew she liked a long, slow buildup, so when she tried to hasten his movements, he held her still and played her nerve endings with patient fingers and coaxing lips.

  He knew kisses across her shoulders and her collarbone made her shudder with heightened sensation, so when she tried to duck her chin, he held her jaw aside with his thumb and touched his mouth to her skin in enticing nips and plucks.

  She closed her eyes and tried to escape the onslaught of sensation, but he was unwavering, and ardent and good... oh so good. He cupped her head to kiss her and his fingers snagged in her hair. A ripple cascaded across her scalp while another pulsed from the recesses of her body and engulfed her, his sought-after goal coaxed and fed and grasped.

  And he knew he'd brought her release, so he pressed his lips against her cheek, grasped her hips and spent himself inside her.

  His heart beat like a war drum against her breast, and their damp skin cooled in the air. Jesse moved his cheek against hers, and she felt wetness. Had
she cried? She didn't think so. A person had to feel to cry.

  She sensed an awareness that slowly bled into Jesse's body, in the nearly imperceptible tightening of his limbs and the turn of his head. He raised himself, found the sheet to cover her nakedness, and moved to lie on his back at her side, one arm flung over his head.

  She wanted to say something. He expected it. But it was his expectations she couldn't deal with.

  "I'm sorry about your mom, Jesse."

  When his voice came, it was hard. "Is that what this was, then? Pity?"

  She shrank inside herself at his accusation. At her shallowness. She couldn't give him more, she couldn't. "I would say comfort."

  He sat up, stretching the sheet taut. "Well, shit, Amy. How about love, huh? That word drop out of your vocabulary?"

  She hated it when he placed demands on her this way. She didn't know what to say.

  He bolted out of bed and was yanking on his pants before she could think of anything.

  "Where are you going?"

  "Away from here."

  She sat up. "Where?"

  "To the boardinghouse."

  "So you can drink?"

  "Maybe. There's more fire in a bottle of whiskey than I've found in this bed for a long time, Amy."

  "What did we just do?"

  He slipped his arms into his shirt and left it hanging open to glare at her in the darkness. "What did we do?"

  As she held the sheet pressed to her breasts, he came toward her and leaned forward, one hand on each side of her hips on the mattress, his face inches from hers.

  "I know what it used to be—lovemaking."

  Her chest tightened.

  "Do you even love me anymore, Amy?"

  Her head roared with confusion and fear. He was her husband. He was Jesse. He'd just known her body intimately for the thousandth time, and yet she couldn't say what he wanted her to say. He needed her.

  His need terrified her.

  Slowly, he straightened. While he put on his boots, she consciously admitted her faults to herself, knew he deserved more and curled into a ball on her side.