Wanton Angel

by Linda Lael Miller

  The nerve of that man, she simmered, trying in vain to cover lingering passion in a guise of anger. Katie had already retired to her room, weary from a long night of keeping up with Rose, and Bonnie was anxious to go to bed, too. To sleep and thus to forget that Eli had sworn to seduce her the very next day.

  “I won’t let that man within ten feet of me,” Bonnie vowed to her reflection in the bedroom mirror. Her reflection looked singularly unconvinced.

  Annoyed, Bonnie blew out the lamp and undressed in the darkness. Her breasts felt heavy and their peaks throbbed, and that familiar, warm wanting was pulsing in her middle.

  “Damn Eli McKutchen anyway!” she ranted, in a whisper, as she flung back the covers and crawled into bed.

  Bonnie slept very badly that night.

  The sunny weather held and, when Bonnie arrived at Genoa’s house with Katie and Rose Marie, there were already a number of buggies and wagons parked along the driveway. There were so many, in fact, that boys were marking them with chalk numbers in order to keep track of which rig belonged to which guest.

  “Miss McKutchen must have invited everyone in Northridge,” Katie observed as they walked around the huge house and into the side yard, and she was glowing with a young girl’s pleasure in such merry events.

  The decorations did give the yard a festive look. The colored lanterns swayed in the mild breeze and there were guests everywhere, some in elegant clothes and some in the shabby calicos and cambrics of Patch Town. Bonnie had struck a diplomatic medium by wearing the summery dress of floral lawn left over from her time in New York.

  A juggling clown had been recruited from the vaudeville circuit to entertain the children, and Katie took Rose Marie to watch him. Just for this day, Rose had been persuaded to part with her splendid new doll.

  Genoa approached, looking almost pretty in her dress of bright blue eyelet. Her wheat-gold hair was fetchingly arranged and she even wore a bit of lip rouge on her mouth. “I’m so glad you’re here, Bonnie,” she trilled. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming.”

  Bonnie had considered staying home, because of what Eli had told her the night before, but in the end she’d decided that parties such as this one were too rare and too delightful to be missed. Besides, if she’d remained in the store, Eli would probably have joined her there. “I had to have some alterations on my dress and it wasn’t quite ready when I sent Katie to pick it up,” she explained.

  Genoa took her arm in a gloved hand. “Come and speak with Mr. Callahan,” she pleaded in an odd and breathless voice.

  Bonnie had been presented to Seth Callahan years before and, of course, encountered him many times since, but it would have been silly to point up so obvious a fact, so she kept her peace and allowed herself to be dragged across the lawn.

  Genoa propelled her past a rousing game of croquet and four tables burdened with refreshments. “I’ve got to distract him,” Genoa hissed. “That hussy Eva Fisher has been flirting with him ever since she arrived!”

  “If you think Eva’s a hussy, why did you invite her?” Bonnie asked reasonably.

  “Hush!” replied Genoa, shouldering her way between the widow Fisher and Mr. Callahan and pulling Bonnie along with her. “Seth, doesn’t Bonnie look wonderful today!”

  The twinkle in Seth Callahan’s bespectacled blue eyes told Bonnie that Genoa’s tactics hadn’t fooled him. Nonetheless he went through the motions of greeting Bonnie formally, even going so far as to kiss her hand. Genoa maneuvered Eva Fisher away to one of the refreshment tables, and Bonnie again puzzled over the announcement that hadn’t been made.

  “It’s grand to be sought after,” Seth confided, ruddy with self-consciousness and a certain pleasure in Genoa’s obvious favor.

  Bonnie smiled, but her words were serious ones. “Do be very thoughtful, Seth. Genoa is a very special woman and it would be unkind to trifle with her affections.”

  Seth went redder still, and his chest swelled. Men, Bonnie thought wryly. That scoundrel is pleased that someone considers him capable of trifling with a spinster’s heart. “You may be sure, Mrs. McKutchen,” he finally said in a very hoarse and earnest voice, “that I hold your sister-in-law in the very highest regard.”

  By this time the croquet match had caught Bonnie’s eye, and she excused herself to go and watch. Lizbeth Simmons, dressed quietly but attractively in a black sateen skirt and white shirtwaist with a bib of ruffles, was being taught the proper way to swing her mallet by an attentive Forbes Durrant.

  Despite the lingering discoloration of his bruises, Forbes looked handsome in his dark trousers and open-throated white shirt; he had already discarded his jacket. And how he was enjoying standing behind Lizbeth, his arms around her as they shared a grip on the mallet’s handle.

  Bonnie shook her head, amused at yet another display of masculine ego.

  It was then that she spotted Eli, standing behind Earline Kalb and demonstrating repeated croquet strokes in the same intimate manner. This time Bonnie was not amused.

  Eli must have felt her gaze, for he immediately looked up from the back of Earline’s neck. The brazen wretch, he actually winked!

  Bonnie turned in a whispering whirl of lawn skirts to look in vain for Webb. When she failed to find him among the many guests, she went to watch the juggler, who was really very deft, keeping no less than six rubber balls coursing through the air while balancing a seventh on the tip of his nose.

  Rose Marie and all the other children were delighted by this feat, while Bonnie saw wry similarities between the juggler’s act and her own hectic life. Wasn’t she performing a sort of emotional sleight-of-hand, keeping everything moving?

  She sighed, turned about and came up hard against a broad masculine chest.

  “Care for an hour of concentrated croquet instruction?” Eli asked.

  Bonnie’s every nerve leaped in response to his presence, but outwardly she appeared calm, even flippant. “I already know how to play croquet,” she said. “Whyever should I want instruction from you?”

  Eli smiled, yet for all the merriment of the day, Bonnie knew that deep inside he was no more whole than she was. She recalled what Seth Callahan had said about her former husband’s emotional state and wondered what could be done to heal him. Indeed, how could she herself be healed?

  The silence lengthened and Eli’s smile faded away. “About what I said last night—”

  Bonnie thrust out her chin, braced to deal with an indecent proposal. “Yes?”

  Eli lowered his head for a moment, as if shamed by what he’d said and what he’d done, and Bonnie was surprised to find that she had mixed feelings about his remorse.

  “When it comes to you, Bonnie,” he said, “I’m forever doing and saying the wrong things. I forget that you’re no longer my wife and act accordingly.”

  Bonnie understood what Eli was saying. Intellectually, she knew that the marriage had ended. But her body and spirit seemed bonded to him, as much as if there had been no divorce. A remnant of Scripture ran through her mind. What God hath joined together…

  She opened her mouth to admit to a similar failing but, before she could speak, Tuttle O’Banyon thrust himself into the invisible circle surrounding both Bonnie and Eli and squawked, “Ma’am—Mr. McKutchen—somebody’s got to help—”

  Eli took the gangly young man by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. “Calm down, boy, and tell us what’s wrong.”

  A flush moved up Tuttle’s face. “Somebody’s gone and beat Mr. Hutcheson senseless! I ain’t sure he’s alive!”

  Bonnie’s knees weakened and she swayed slightly before catching herself. “Dear Lord—” she breathed, on the verge of real panic.

  Eli spoke calmly. “Where is he?”

  “At the office!” Tuttle cried, fitful in his despair. “The presses are turned over on their sides—”

  Eli had heard enough; he was striding toward the front of the house, where horses and buggies were readily available, and Bonnie hurried behind him a
fter a hasty word to Katie. By the time she reached the driveway, her former husband had commandeered a dapple gray gelding from someone’s team and purloined a bridle from one of the wagonbeds as well.

  “I suppose you want to come along,” he said, extending a hand to Bonnie even as he spoke.

  She took the offered hand and allowed herself to be swung up behind him. The gelding danced nervously beneath its double burden, tossing its head.

  “Hold on,” Eli said, and they were off at a gallop.

  Bonnie clung to Eli’s solid midsection, her forehead tucked between his shoulder blades, her breath sawing at her throat. She had never been a horsewoman, but this was no time to give in to fear. Reaching Webb was all that was important.

  She pictured his house and the garden plot behind it, and she despaired. Oh, Lord, she prayed silently, as they raced through the main part of Northridge and down the great hill, let Webb live to marry and father children. He wanted a family so much!

  Suddenly the horse came to a stop and Eli dismounted, lifting Bonnie down after him. She felt a stinging ache in the balls of her feet as they struck the ground.

  The door of Webb’s newspaper office stood open, as Tuttle had probably left it, and Eli bolted through the shadowy chasm. “Hutcheson?” he called.

  Bonnie followed, pausing to grip the door’s framework with both hands and draw a deep, steadying breath. The instant it took for her eyes to adjust to the dimness seemed like an eternity.

  The presses lay on their sides, and type was scattered everywhere. Ink drenched the walls, like blood, and Eli was crouching beside a body lying prone on the floor.

  “Is he dead?” Bonnie made herself ask. Her heart was pounding in her throat; she’d had to force her words past it.

  Eli shook his head. “He’s alive, but not by much.”

  Tuttle had apparently spread the word among Genoa’s guests, for there were wagons approaching and Bonnie could hear men calling to each other. She moved out of the doorway and went to kneel beside Webb.

  His face was streaked with blood and so battered that Bonnie could barely recognize him as the Webb she knew. His clothes were in a like state, and his skin was gray as paraffin wax.

  She gently stroked his hair off his forehead, her tears falling unchecked and unheeded. “Webb? Webb, it’s Bonnie —can you hear me?”

  Webb groaned and stirred a little on the ink-sopped floor, but he did not open his eyes.

  Just then, the men from the party burst into the small office, swearing in raucous undertones and crowding around. One of them was Doc Cowan, and Eli rose and moved aside to give the physician room.

  Bonnie remained where she was, only half conscious of the townsmen, the doctor and even Eli. Webb and his dreams and hopes were all that mattered to her then—her grief was awesome—and she wondered distractedly if she did not love this man after all.

  An elderly fellow, somewhat testy but very competent, Doc Cowan crouched to examine Webb, running his hands along his rib cage, checking his arms and legs for fractures.

  “How bad is it?” one of the crowd of men wanted to know.

  “Bad enough that we’ll lose him if we aren’t careful,” the doctor answered. His eyes were not on his patient, but on Bonnie’s face. “Webb’s going to need a lot of care.”

  “Bring him to my place,” she said, her voice little more than a whispery croak.

  “It was my understanding,” the doctor replied kindly, “that Webb lived over at Earline’s.”

  “I don’t want him there,” Bonnie argued, rising awkwardly to her feet. She’d spoiled her last New York dress—splotched now with Webb’s blood and ink and torn as well—and maybe that was fitting. That part of her life was over and done with, wasn’t it? She’d tried to hold onto it, by dallying with Eli McKutchen, but the truth was that she didn’t belong in that world anymore. Maybe she never had. “Bring Webb to the store.”

  She turned to leave, pressing her way through the throng of muttering men, gasping river-scented air when she reached the sidewalk. For a moment, she clung to a hitching rail with both hands, fearing that she would faint.

  “Bonnie.”

  She knew the voice belonged to Eli, that he was standing beside her, but she could not look at him. It took all the strength she could muster just to keep from swooning dead away. “It’s because of you,” she said. “It’s because you neglected the situation here for so long. If Webb hadn’t taken your part—”

  Eli’s words were ragged, defeated ones. “Bonnie, don’t.”

  At last Bonnie felt strong enough to let go of the hitching rail and stand unaided. Behind her, inside the ransacked office, she heard voices. “Easy there—that’s it—”

  “Help them, Eli,” she said, without looking at the man beside her. “Help them bring Webb home.”

  Eli lingered for a moment, then turned away and walked back inside the newspaper office. Bonnie set her course toward the store and somehow she reached it before Doc Cowan and the other men did. She was waiting, dry-eyed, when they brought Webb to her door in the bed of a wagon, his long frame carefully balanced on an enormous slab of wood.

  Eli and several other men carried the unconscious editor and publisher of the Northridge News through the quiet store, up the stairs and into Bonnie’s apartment. She led them into her bedroom, her eyes daring any one of them, including Eli McKutchen, to comment. No one took the challenge.

  At Doc Cowan’s order, they placed Webb, slab and all, on Bonnie’s bed. He moaned softly and then quieted as Bonnie covered him with a warm blanket.

  “Tell me how to take care of him,” she said, addressing the doctor.

  “First thing you can do, missy,” the physician immediately responded, “is get yourself out of here so I can bind Webb’s rib cage and tend to some of these cuts of his. Eli, you stay right here and help me.”

  “I want to help!” Bonnie protested.

  Doc Cowan’s look was a quelling one. “I don’t care what you want, young woman. Mind what I said and take yourself out of here.”

  “But—”

  “Now!” barked the doctor.

  Flushed, but still buoyed by her dignity, Bonnie went out. The men who had helped bring Webb upstairs were gone.

  Making a great clatter to show her indignation at being ordered out of her own bedroom, Bonnie pumped water into a kettle and set it on the stove to boil. She rattled the stove lids as she replaced them after starting a fire inside, and she muttered words that wouldn’t have been acceptable even in Patch Town.

  She reached for the fat yellow teapot and, when she took it in her hands, she remembered how near she’d come to clouting Webb over the head with it. A new crop of tears spilled down her face but she set the teapot down with a thump and dried her eyes with a dish towel snatched from its peg.

  Eli’s voice made her backbone grow rigid, and she pulled in a deep, sniffly breath. “The doctor needs cloth for the bindings. A sheet or something.”

  Bonnie kept her back to Eli. “There are linens in the bottom drawer of my bureau,” she said.

  Eli didn’t answer, merely went back to the bedroom, leaving Bonnie to stand helpless in the middle of her kitchen, wishing sorely that she’d married Webb when she had the chance. Things might have been different if only she hadn’t wasted so much time fretting about love.

  She thought of the pleasures she’d taken in Eli McKutchen’s bed and winced. Perhaps the wages of her sin would be death. Webb’s death.

  CHAPTER 19

  THE RAIN BEGAN sometime during the night, arriving too late to spoil Genoa’s party. It hammered at the rooftops and windows of Northridge and crackled like fire upon the angry, swirling surface of the river.

  Sitting beside the bed where Webb lay, still unconscious, Bonnie paid no mind to the torrential storm. The cup of tea Katie had brought to her earlier was still in her hands, cold and untouched.

  She started a little as Katie pried the cup from her grip and confided, “Lord, ma’am, do you hear th
at rain? I declare, it’s coming down hard enough to frighten Noah himself.”

  Bonnie looked up questioningly. “Katie?”

  The young woman touched Bonnie’s forehead with a cool hand. “And who else would it be?” she countered, in a voice that was, for all its brightness, full of concern.

  Katie, wearing a rumpled flannel wrapper of light blue, left the room with Bonnie’s cup. After a long time, she returned with fresh tea.

  Thrusting the cup into Bonnie’s hands, she ordered, “This time, drink up.”

  Bonnie took a cautious sip, her eyes fastened on Webb’s waxy, misshapen face. “Look what we’ve done to him,” she said.

  “What ‘we’ve done,’ ma’am?” Katie challenged in a quiet voice, as she sat down on the floor beside Bonnie’s chair. “It was those union men that did this, if you ask me. The whole town thinks so.”

  Bonnie couldn’t bear to explain, couldn’t bear to think. “Go back to bed, Katie. It must be late.”

  “It is late,” Katie responded but she didn’t move. “Have another sip of that tea.”

  Obediently Bonnie lifted the cup to her lips and drank. “It’s raining,” she remarked.

  Katie made a wry sound. “Indeed it is. Every able-bodied man in Northridge is down at the river, stacking sandbags.”

  At last, Bonnie came out of her stuporous reverie. Her eyes flew to Katie’s pale face. “What?”

  “Patch Town’s going to go if they can’t hold back the water, along with the railroad depot and the Brass Eagle and”—she paused, nodding toward Webb—”Mr. Hutcheson’s newspaper office, too.”

  Bonnie’s heart hammered and the teacup rattled dangerously in her hands. Quickly she set it aside on the nightstand. She rose from her chair and rushed to the window, but she could see nothing, for it was dark out and the glass was sheeted with rain.

  The sound of the storm was awful: It roared like some great beast, it battered the walls and the roof and the windows of the mercantile like a barrage of bullets.

  Bonnie paused to lodge a formal protest with God before turning back toward Katie. “Sandbags won’t hold back that river,” she said.