Prairie Fire

by Catherine Palmer

  And Jack Cornwall? Well, he could rot away in the storage room for all she cared. She couldn’t spare a second thought for a man with a cruel tongue, a troubled past, and a fiancée languishing after him. So much for the notion that he had lingered in Kansas out of fascination for Caitrin Murphy. That was a grand joke on her, but she was the better for learning the truth.

  Whisking the popcorn out the front door, Caitrin straightened and leaned on the broom handle a moment. At the edge of the barnyard, Seth held Rosie in a farewell embrace. Oblivious to the two waiting men, he tenderly kissed her lips. Then he whispered against her ear, and she nodded eagerly in response. Reaching up, she touched the side of his face and straightened his hat. He kissed her on the cheek before mounting his mule. And then—as if he couldn’t bear the thought of a single minute away from her—he leaned over, took her hand, and kissed her fingers.

  Caitrin watched as Rosie stood on tiptoe to wave good-bye. Seth turned half around in the saddle, letting his mule follow the others across the pontoon bridge. As the men headed off, Rosie hugged herself, hardly able to contain her joy. Then she lifted her skirts, raced across the barnyard, grabbed up Chipper and swung him around and around.

  Caitrin turned away. There was work to be done.

  Jack Cornwall sat on the pickle barrel trying to read the text of The Pilgrim’s Progress by lamplight and wondering if Caitrin Murphy would come. He had heard her in the barn just after noon that day. She and the little girl had opened a big wooden trunk and sorted through dresses, hats, and gloves until Jack thought he was going to climb the walls of the tiny storage room.

  Their chatter about voile, tulle, satin, and silk hadn’t bothered him. He didn’t mind the endless discussion of fringe, ribbon, and lace. And he even held up under the lengthy debate about which kind of sleeves were the most flattering—flared, tiered, puffed, or capped. In fact, he could now declare himself a veritable encyclopedia of ladies’ fashions. As if such knowledge were worth a plugged nickel.

  No, it wasn’t the female babble that had stretched his nerves. It

  No, it wasn’t the female babble that had stretched his nerves. It was Caitrin Murphy’s voice. Musical, it sang in his ears and sent his heartbeat stumbling like a dancer with two left feet. He craved the sound—the roll of the r’s, the hint of laughter in every word, the lilt that made each sentence she spoke like the verse of a song.

  Risking discovery, Jack had knocked out the center of a knothole and peered out at the two. Caitrin Murphy glowed in the dingy barn like a stained-glass window in a darkened church. Her hair flamed in shades of rust, cinnamon, and copper. Against the conflagration of auburn curls, her skin was as white and pure as snow. And her emerald green dress swished and swayed around her hips until Jack’s head spun.

  The image of the woman had burned in his thoughts all afternoon. Certain his decision to stay at the O’Toole place to recuperate had been wise, he spent the silent hours washing, shaving, and cleaning up. He focused his attention on medicating his shoulder and exercising the stiff joint. During the weeks of pursuing his nephew, Jack had tried to ignore the wound. But now he knew his recovery was crucial. If Bill Hermann found him, he’d need his wits and his strength. And a job in blacksmithing promised the only hope he had of caring for his parents and Lucy in the years to come.

  Moving his arm in circles, he stared at the words on the book in his lap. I would advise thee, then, that thou with all speed get thyself rid of thy burden; for thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till then… .

  Jack slammed the book shut. Thee, then, that, thou? What kind of garbage writing was this supposed to be? The only wilt he knew anything about was a piece of soggy lettuce—and it never settled anybody’s mind or stomach either.

  He glowered at the book’s green cover. Where was Caitrin? Was she going to leave him out here to starve? He glanced at the shelves stacked high with jars of apple jelly, beef and venison jerky, and dried apricots. Okay, maybe he wouldn’t starve. But didn’t she want to see him? Wasn’t she even curious about whether he’d left yet?

  He was curious about Caitrin Murphy. So curious his brain fairly itched. What had brought a woman with so much life in her all the way from Ireland to the barren Kansas prairie? What spurred the ambition that drove her to tend a mercantile day after day? Where had she come up with the notion that God considered any man precious? The first battlefield skirmish he’d witnessed had taught Jack that human life was as fragile as a cobweb. If God thought people were precious, why did he let them die so easily? And what had possessed Caitrin to utter those amazing words—words that fluttered around in Jack’s head like crazy butterflies? I love you. I love you.

  “So, you’re still here, pooka,” Caitrin’s musical voice said in the semidarkness.

  Jack jerked upright. The woman was standing a pace away just outside the storeroom door. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “Sure, you were too busy reading that book. What is it?” She leaned across him and studied the cover. “The Pilgrim’s Progress. Good, perhaps it will scare some religion into you.”

  “What makes you so sure I don’t have religion already?” Jack stood, hoping to catch another whiff of the sweet scent that had drifted up from her hair a moment before. “Maybe I’m a preacher in disguise.”

  “A devil more like.” She shoved a basket into his stomach. “Here, pooka. It’s all I could gather without the others taking notice. There’s a chicken leg for you and some corn. I trust you won’t mind eating it off the cob in the American fashion—you being such a fine citizen of this country, while I’m merely Irish.”

  She brushed past him and went to her money jar. Jack watched in amazement as she emptied her pockets and refilled her stash. Obviously it would be a simple matter for him to steal everything she’d earned that day and add it to the cash she had given him earlier. Either she didn’t care about money at all … or she trusted him. An odd thought.

  “The Irish don’t eat corn on the cob?”

  She swung around. “We eat potatoes, don’t you know? We dance little jigs and search behind every bush for leprechauns with their pots of gold. We’re Irish.”

  Bemused at the hostile tone in Caitrin’s voice, Jack studied the woman in silence. She was arranging and dusting her shelves with enough steam to power a locomotive. He knew he should try to figure out what might have set her off, but his attention wandered to the more interesting fact that a single tendril of fiery hair had escaped her topknot and drifted down onto her long white neck. What was the scent in her hair? Some kind of flower, but he couldn’t put a name to it. He took a step closer.

  “I trust your shoulder’s healing, Mr. Cornwall,” Caitrin said, stacking and restacking small paper sacks filled with coffee beans. “Perhaps you’re well enough to be off tonight. We’ve Rosie Mills living with us now, and it was all I could do to keep her from spending the night in that very loft above your head. She’ll be staying here with the O’Tooles until her wedding, and if you think I can stop her from having a look in this room, you’re wrong. If anyone is stubborn, it’s her. In fact, I’d wager Rosie Mills is a great deal more mouthy—”

  Caitrin caught her breath, and her hands paused on the coffee sacks. “A great deal more what?” Jack asked, wondering whether that auburn curl would feel silky or coarse to the touch.

  “Talkative,” Caitrin finished. “She talks a good bit more than I do.”

  “I don’t mind your talk.”

  “Don’t you?” She whirled around. “I suppose now you’ll tell me you have all manner of fine opinions about me.”

  “I might.” He took the tendril between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ve been thinking all manner of fine things about this particular curl.”

  Silky. He stroked down the length of the tress until his fingers touched the bare skin at her nape. “As a matter of fact, I’d have to say that this is the finest curl I’ve ever seen on a woman. And it smells nice. What is that scent, Miss Murphy?” He bent his head an
d traced the side of her neck with his breath. “Flowers. Roses?”

  “Lily of the valley,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  He could feel the tension emanating from her as she stood motionless, barely breathing. But she didn’t run. Didn’t protest. So he took the tendril and feathered it against her earlobe. “This is a fine ear, Miss Murphy. A perfect ear. And as for your neck …”

  He trailed his fingertip down her velvet skin to the high collar of her dress. “It’s a fine neck you have, Miss Murphy. What you said a minute ago was right. I believe I do have all manner of fine opinions about you.”

  “No,” she managed. “No, you don’t, and may the good Lord forgive you for your wicked lies.”

  Her green eyes assessed his, and her voice grew in strength as she faced him. “Though we both may be fiery of spirit,” she continued, “you and I could not be more different in the way we have chosen to live our lives. You are a treacherous man, Mr. Cornwall, and I have great compassion for the poor woman who trusts you with her heart. You are not worthy of Jimmy O’Toole’s sheltering barn. You do not deserve one kernel of the kindness I have shown you. From this moment, I shall pray that you will mount your black horse and ride as far from this place as possible. Your words disgust me. Your touch repels me. And though you may wither away in this room, you will never see me again.”

  Caitrin marched past Jack with her jaw set. He let her get as far as the storeroom door. “What was it you told me last night, Miss High-and-Mighty?” he said. “Those three little words?”

  She stopped and faced him. “You’ll be fortunate to ever know the honest love of a good woman. If you don’t rid yourself of your burden of wickedness, you’ll never receive the great blessings of our Father in heaven. And for those two losses, sir, I give you these three words: I pity you.”

  Caitrin was gone as quickly as she had come. Jack stared after her into the darkness. Pity? He clenched his fists, torn between desire for the woman whose scent still lingered in the room and fury at her bold rejection. She had labeled him a treacherous, wicked liar. What did she know about Jack Cornwall?

  He yanked up his book and hunkered down on the pickle barrel again. Nobody was perfect, and Jack had his fair share of flaws. Sure, he possessed a lightning-quick temper, and he’d rather settle a score with a gunfight than a debate. He could hold a grudge better than any man he knew. He liked to do his work well, and he wouldn’t tolerate imperfection in himself or anybody else. And he didn’t have a lot of patience for nonsense.

  Maybe he hadn’t set foot in a church for years—but that didn’t make him some kind of sinner condemned to the everlasting flames, did it? He’d sure prayed plenty of times on the battlefield. Caitrin had referred to his burden of wickedness. What did she know of the burdens he carried?

  With a snort of disgust, he opened his book and took up where he’d left off. “‘Get thyself rid of thy burden,’” he read aloud. “‘For thou wilt never be settled in thy mind till then; nor canst thou enjoy the benefits of the blessing which God hath bestowed upon thee till then.’”

  As the words sank in, Jack flung the book across the room. The movement tore through his injured shoulder like wildfire. Standing, he clamped a hand over his wound and stalked out of the room. Enough was enough. It was time to get on with life.

  CHAPTER 4

  HAS JIMMY accepted the notion that Jack Cornwall has finally gone?” Rosie asked as she sat stitching beside the O’Tooles’ warm stove with Sheena and Caitrin. “I noticed he went out after supper tonight to check on the black horse.”

  Sheena grunted. “Aye, after the men found no sign of the villain the other day, Jimmy vowed to keep combing the land. But he gave up on it today. The horse is ours, though we have no desire for it.”

  “No desire for a good horse, Sheena?” Caitrin asked, looking up from a wool sock she was darning. Any talk of Jack Cornwall made her uncomfortable. She had kept her word and stayed away from the storage room the past five days, but she couldn’t seem to stop fretting about him. Though his horse remained, surely without fresh food or water the man himself had gone.

  “Why wouldn’t Jimmy want a fine horse like that?” she wondered aloud. “’Tis better than a mule, so it is, and there’s no reason to hate the horse just because its owner was rotten. The trouble over little Chipper is ended. Cornwall must have surrendered the boy to Seth and Rosie and gone on his way. I can’t think the horse is anything but a gift.”

  “A gift from a Cornishman?” Sheena spat out a snippet of thread. “I’d prefer a wheelbarrow full of rotten potatoes from a friend over a fine horse from a Cornishman.”

  Rosie looked up from stitching her wedding dress—a pale yellow gown with a row of pearly buttons down the bodice. “How do you know Chipper’s uncle is a Cornishman, Sheena? Did Jimmy speak to him?”

  “His name is Cornwall, isn’t it? I should think that settles the matter.”

  “Cornwall is a county in England,” Caitrin explained. “It lies along the western coast. A rough place, so it is.”

  “What’s wrong with Cornishmen?” Rosie asked.

  “The Cornish are the very pestilence of the earth,” Sheena spoke up. “Tell her, Caitie.”

  Caitrin sighed. “Here we are in Kansas, Sister, and half a world away from the shores of Ireland. What use is it to hate the Cornish?”

  “What use? For a start, Jack Cornwall’s behavior toward us shows the very reason the Cornish are such a wicked people. They’re a greedy, selfish lot. They’ll lie and cheat an honest person into utter poverty if given half a chance. Tell Rosie about the Cornish, Caitie. Go on.”

  “The troubles go back hundreds of years,” Caitrin said, unwilling to dispute the elder sister she always had loved so dearly. “The Cornish are a Celtic people, as are we Irish. They’re clannish and warlike, and their tales of King Arthur are as ancient as our legends of Bran the Blessed. Sure, the beloved green sod lies but a few miles from the coast of Cornwall, divided only by the Irish Sea.”

  “And there’s half the trouble,” Sheena cut in. “Fishing.”

  “The Irish claim certain fishing grounds, and the Cornish claim others. But it’s never quite settled which is which and whose is whose. We’ve battled over fishing rights for centuries.”

  “Tell Rosie about the mining, Caitie.”

  “Tin mining,” Caitrin explained wearily. She could hardly believe the scarlet hue that had risen to her sister’s cheeks over this discussion of a trouble so far removed. “Ireland has few precious things to dig out of the ground beyond peat and tin. We burn the peat, but we can sell the tin for a profit.” She thought for a moment about Sean O’Casey and his new wife, the daughter of a wealthy mine owner. “A man with an interest in a tin mine can earn himself a fair measure of riches.”

  “And those wicked Cornishmen are tinners, too,” Sheena said, tucking pins into her unruly red hair. “Sure, they try to undersell us, don’t they, Caitie? They set their prices just a tad lower than ours, and all the market races after Cornish tin. Ooh, they’re a scheming, nasty lot, those snakes. I knew Jack Cornwall was as wicked as the rest of them, so I did, the very moment I heard his name. ’Twould be just like a Cornishman to chase after a poor, wee child and try to steal him away from his rightful papa. Viper! I do believe if I ever clap eyes on Jack Cornwall or any of his breed, I’ll wring their necks with my bare hands, so I will.”

  “Sheena!” Caitrin jabbed her needle into the toe of the sock. “Would you be so cruel yourself, now? And you here in Kansas without a mackerel or a tin mine in sight?”

  “A Cornishman is a Cornishman is a Cornishman,” Sheena said. “Take one of them out of Cornwall and put him in the middle of a desert—and he’ll try to cheat you out of the very sand you’re standing on.”

  At that moment Jimmy stepped into the soddy and tugged off his boots. Caitrin eyed him in silence. She had no desire to continue this ridiculous discussion. Good or bad, a man should have the chance to prove himself by his ow
n actions … and not be judged by the entire history of his race.

  Jack Cornwall, of course, had shown himself a liar.

  In his letter he had called Caitrin mouthy and stubborn. But fancying himself at an advantage in the barn, he had tried to woo her with all manner of pretty words. And then he had touched her. Caitrin shut her eyes, willing away the memory of the man’s fingers against her skin. Every time she thought of that moment, a shiver ran straight down to the tips of her toes. But Jack Cornwall had promised his life to another woman, a creature who even now sat waiting for him to come and make her a wife. How cruel of him to use two innocents for his own pleasure.

  No, the man had proven himself unworthy—not because he was Cornish—but by his selfishness and troublemaking in both Missouri and Kansas. And why couldn’t Caitrin remember those things, instead of the tingling caress of his fingertips sliding down her neck … and the way his broad shoulders gleamed in the lamplight … and the look in his gray eyes when he spoke to her … ?

  “You left a lamp burning in the storage room, Caitrin,” Jimmy said, crossing in front of the stove. “I spied it when I was seeing to that horse.”

  “A lamp?” Caitrin swallowed and glanced out the window.

  “No fear. I went in and blew it out.” He settled down on a stool with his pipe. “You’d left the door unlocked.”

  “Caitie, that’s unlike you,” Sheena said. “You always lock the storeroom.”

  “She’s been working too hard on my wedding,” Rosie put in. “You must be exhausted, Caitie. I’ll go lock up for you. Where’s the key?”

  “No!” Caitrin stood quickly, almost knocking over her own stool. “I’ll do it. I … I want the fresh air.”