by Jodi Thomas
‘‘But by law am I married to him?’’
Winter laid his hand on her shoulder, and she fought not to pull away. His eyes were guarded now, unreadable. The granite man was back.
‘‘I don’t think so, but I have to know something more important than what the law will say,’’ he said with the formality of a judge. ‘‘Do you love the man? Or did you ever love him?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘Does he love you?’’
‘‘I don’t see how he could,’’ Kora answered. ‘‘If it turns out that I’m his wife, I’ll leave, but I won’t go back to him. I’ll run. I never want to see the man again as long as I live.’’
Winter gripped her other shoulder and turned her to face him directly as he lowered his voice. ‘‘I still expect you to hold to our agreement. At the end of six months from our marriage I’ll buy your tickets to California.’’
Kora looked confused. ‘‘Our bargain still stands?’’
‘‘It does.’’ His grip loosened.
‘‘All of it?’’
Win refused to act as if he misunderstood what she was talking about. ‘‘All of it. As far as I’m concerned you’re my wife, just as before; but the marriage bed doesn’t have to be part of the bargain. I’ll stay in the study. But as far as everyone knows, you’re still my wife, my true wife.’’
‘‘But I lied to you.’’
‘‘I figure you had your reasons.’’
The lines in his face were hard and unyielding, but he’d settled her toppling world once more with his words. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t love her; he was offering her a harbor, a solid ground she’d never known. A shelter from the witchin’ luck if only for a while.
‘‘Thank you,’’ she whispered, wondering how a man so kind could seem so cold. She’d never love him, or any man, but she’d be his wife if he wanted. She’d stay here until the house was legally hers forever, and then she’d give it to him. Not because he paid Andrew, but because he was willing to fight for her. No one had ever done that. ‘‘I was so frightened,’’ she whispered. ‘‘Not of Andrew Adams, but that you’d make me leave.’’
Winter’s arms closed around her shoulders and pulled her suddenly against him. He should have, he told himself. The one thing he couldn’t stand was a liar. But he couldn’t make her leave, and he didn’t even want to think about why.
She hugged his waist as if holding on for life. Neither said a word as they held each other.
Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek against the wall of his chest. With her lie, she’d ended what they’d started between them, but he would still stand at her side.
THIRTEEN
‘‘MORNIN’, WYATT.’’ WINTER DROPPED HIS ARM FROM Kora’s shoulder as Wyatt Mitchell stepped through the back door. His greeting was short of friendly, but Kora’s nearness managed to take the edge off his anger. He couldn’t very well start swearing at the gambler when Kora’s arm still rested around his waist.
Dear God, he thought, does the woman have any idea of the effect she has on a man? Just as she’d misjudged the amount he’d offer for marriage, she’d mismeasured on how much he’d forgive to keep her. He’d been angry with her lie last night, but all it took was one look at her eyes this morning, and he knew he wanted her to stay.
He told himself she belonged to him. She’d made the deal for six months, not him. And he never gave up anything that was his. But Win knew it was far more. Just the thought of Andrew Adams getting close enough to touch her made Win furious. He’d keep her from the man even if he had to send her out of Texas.
‘‘Mr. McQuillen.’’ Wyatt nodded nervously as he twisted his hat in his hands. ‘‘Mrs. McQuillen.’’ His expression left no doubt that breakfast was the last thing he thought he’d be doing with Win McQuillen after last night. ‘‘I’d like to apologize, sir. I assure you the stop Jamie and I made on our way back from town wasn’t planned. We just thought to rest the horses a few minutes and enjoy the stars.’’
Winter fought the urge to say that he didn’t know it was necessary to remove one’s clothing to enjoy the night sky. But, again, Kora’s nearness stopped him. She probably had no idea of what went on with Jamie and, it appeared, any man Jamie could hold still long enough to undress.
As Wyatt and Jamie moved to the table, Kora stepped away from Winter. She gave him the ‘‘be nice’’ glance males learn to recognize from a woman’s eyes by the time they walk until they’ve settled into their graves. Winter wasn’t going to be fool enough to ignore the look.
Kora lifted the platter of bacon and eggs from the warmer above the stove. ‘‘I’m glad you could join us for breakfast, Wyatt. Since it’s only the four of us this morning, I thought we’d sit in the kitchen, like family.’’
‘‘Thank you,’’ Wyatt said, nursing his arm.
‘‘That shoulder still bothering you?’’ Kora asked. ‘‘I could take a look at it.’’
‘‘No!’’ Wyatt almost shouted. ‘‘It’s doing fine.’’
Wyatt smiled at Kora with a mouth that looked to Winter as if it had a few too many teeth. The gambler made a grand effort of helping her with the platters and pulling out her chair while Winter watched. It didn’t take much thought to know what Kora was doing. Winter knew she hoped the gambler would marry Jamie. But Winter wouldn’t bet a cathouse token on that possibility.
Reluctantly he took his place at the table. He knew he should probably do something like offer to let Wyatt call him by his first name. After all, the man was probably only five years his junior and he might be in the family soon. Assuming he was still ‘‘in the family,’’ Win thought.
Winter ate without tasting the food as Jamie rattled on about her trip to town, and Wyatt divided his time between openly flirting with Jamie and subtly flirting with Kora. Winter frowned, thinking he seemed to be the only one at the table aware that a range war could break out at any point.
Suddenly he jerked and shoved himself away from the table. ‘‘I have to go,’’ he mumbled. ‘‘It’s time I was in the saddle.’’
Looking at Wyatt, Winter offered his hand. ‘‘I assume you’ll be going back with the doc now that Cheyenne is out of danger.’’
Wyatt stood and took the offered hand. ‘‘I will. But I may be back if I’m welcome.’’ His gambler’s polish gave little away.
Glancing at Kora, Winter said, ‘‘You’re welcome here.’’
Kora winked at her sister.
‘‘I’ll be back a little after dark.’’ Winter reached for his hat.
Kora walked with him to the door. ‘‘I’ll keep supper warm no matter how late and don’t worry about Cheyenne. I’ll look in on him often.’’
Thanking her with a nod, he walked out of the house. She was doing it again, he thought, playing the perfect wife. He fought the urge to reach for her. She had a kind of quiet strength that fascinated him.
The next few days passed in a maze of work. He had a fresh horse brought to him by midafternoon so he could stay in the saddle sixteen hours or more. Kora was up each morning by the time he dressed and had a huge breakfast ready for him, but he’d ride in so late at night that the evening meal was usually waiting for him on the kitchen table. He’d eat alone and fall asleep most nights without even undressing.
Winter wasn’t aware of her coming into the study every night, but he couldn’t help but notice the signs that she’d been there. Clean clothes were always on the chair. An extra blanket appeared the night it turned colder than usual. The fire never died as it would have if not tended.
At breakfast she was formal. She told him of Doc Gage’s visits every few days and of how Wyatt always accompanied him. Cheyenne was getting restless, but strangely didn’t seemed to mind her brother, Dan, dragging his chair up the stairs and sitting in the corner of his room each day. The two men had one thing in common. Both liked to be alone, and somehow that bonded them.
During the third week of Kora’s stay, the weather turned warm. No more reports o
f riders or shootings happened and Winter began to relax. He even started to believe that the ranchers south might have killed their infected herds, or found another way besides crossing the Panhandle to get them to market.
Winter decided to ride in early and have supper with Kora. He’d sent a man over to Adams’s farm and learned that Adams had spent half the money he’d gotten from Winter to stall the bank’s foreclosure and the other half on supplies, including a large share of whiskey.
Logan had checked around enough to know that Andrew Adams would not make a fit husband for any woman.
The lawyer in town told Logan that since Kora hadn’t signed the same name to the proxy it was worthless. The old man had been dead set against Winter picking Kora, but somehow she’d won him over.
At sunset when Winter walked through the back door, Kora was in the kitchen. She glanced up at him with those bluer than blue eyes and smiled. For a moment it was hard for him to imagine himself ever being without her. She looked so much like she belonged not only in the house, but in his life.
‘‘I was hoping you’d make it in early tonight.’’ She wiped a strand of hair away with a floured hand, leaving a white streak across her cheek. ‘‘I made a special dinner. Cheyenne thinks he can make it down to the table. He’ll be happy you’re here.’’
‘‘And you?’’
‘‘I’m glad, also. I hoped to have a chance to talk to you tonight.’’ She paused and pulled a pie from the oven. ‘‘ Supper will be ready by the time you wash up.’’
Winter took a step back out the doorway. ‘‘I’ll only be a minute.’’
‘‘Win?’’
It was the first time she’d said his name, and he liked the way she used his nickname, as Logan and Cheyenne did. ‘‘Yes?’’ He waited.
‘‘The washstand’s ready in our room if you want to use it. I could bring you up clean clothes.’’
He started to say ‘‘don’t bother.’’ He could wash on the porch. She didn’t have to wait on him. But instead he
nodded, silently agreeing with her, and walked across the kitchen and up the stairs to the attic.
He took his time dressing, enjoying the room. When she’d suggested moving a bed up to the attic, he’d thought it was a fool idea, but now it seemed like home. She’d made some changes since he’d seen the room. A low shelf of books lined one wall between the north windows, and she’d made nightstands out of boxes. He noticed the books were all ones he’d read as a child. They started with his McGuffy Readers and went all the way to Mark Twain and Jules Verne.
Win smiled as he looked around. He could send to Dallas for a real bedroom set and buy leather-bound books finer than any in the study. The room could have all matching wood like they advertised in the Dallas paper with bookshelves as high as the rafters between each of the windows.
Surveying the room, he thought she sure didn’t look like a woman ready to pull up stakes. She’d even brought up the little writing desk the captain’s wife had in the sunroom. Kora had placed it in a corner so she could look out the windows in two directions.
He moved over to her dressing area and peeked behind the folding panel. Everything was in order. Her clothes, her comb, a perfume bottle. He moved closer and lifted the corner of the hankerchief she used to cover her dresser. Miss Allie had given him the fancy hankerchief one Christmas years ago, and he’d forgotten where he put it. Now it seemed to have found a home.
Kora’s soft footsteps only gave him a moment to move before she was on the landing.
‘‘I brought you clean clothes, but they’ve been mended several times. Would you mind it if I picked out a few new shirts for you the next time I’m in town?’’
‘‘I wouldn’t mind.’’ He took the shirt. ‘‘But I’ll be in town tomorrow for a meeting. Make a list and I’ll pick up anything you need.’’
Their words were natural, things any husband might say to any wife, but Winter was very much aware she didn’t think of him as truly her husband. He was just another way, like Adams, to survive. Every morning when he rode out, he wondered if she’d be waiting for him when he returned. Or would she load up her sister and brother and the few things they’d come with and leave? Could she swear never to return to him as easily as she had Andrew Adams?
The possibility had turned over in his mind again and again. He’d told himself that if she left he’d close the house and never open it or think of her again. But he knew he’d probably go after her. Something about this woman fit him as perfectly as kid leather. Just as he would have offered far more to get her to marry him than she’d thought, he’d do more to keep her than she might imagine.
They drifted through the meal with talk of the ranch. Cheyenne rapid-fired questions until he grew tired and declined dessert in favor of bed. Jamie had gone back to town with Dr. Gage when he’d visited that morning, and so the room seemed suddenly empty.
‘‘Would you like dessert on the porch?’’ Kora asked when Winter returned from helping Cheyenne up the stairs. ‘‘I made apple pie.’’
He followed her to the long porch running the length of the back of the house. They moved away from the side where the sunroom’s light shone across the porch. Dan sat in his room beside a half-eaten meal.
Kora hugged herself, as if cold, as she looked in on her brother. ‘‘He’ll start his night walk soon, then turn out the light. Sometimes he sleeps in the chair, sometimes in bed. Once in a while he even goes to the barn and curls up in the back of a wagon. But he’ll be up by dawn for his morning walk. If I don’t have his breakfast waiting for him when he returns, he won’t eat a thing until dark.’’
‘‘Has it always been like this?’’
‘‘Pretty much. I don’t remember what he was like at first. I was too young. He and Mother somehow worked out the pattern, and it hasn’t changed no matter where we move or what the weather. I’m not even sure he knows Mama died. During the day he takes his chair places to sit… usually where the least people are. I was surprised when he moved it upstairs to Cheyenne’s room.’’
‘‘What happened to him?’’
‘‘We have little idea. Mom said once he was just a boy when he left, and for a while he wrote of battle after battle. Then not a word for over a year. The man who brought him home said someone told him they just found him sitting in a battlefield among the bodies.’’
‘‘There are hospitals for people like him, Kora. Doctors who might help.’’ Winter sat on the porch railing and shoveled a large piece of warm apple pie into his mouth.
‘‘Would they have clean clothes laid out every morning in the same place where he left the dirty ones? Would they only feed him things he’ll eat like eggs and bread? Would they let him walk, never interrupting his path?’’
He couldn’t see her face, but he guessed the things she didn’t say and suddenly he was voicing them aloud. ‘‘Would they check on him every night? Would they put a log on the fire so it wouldn’t go out? Would they cover him with an extra blanket?’’ Winter set the pie down forgotten. ‘‘Would they kiss him good night in his sleep?’’
‘‘I don’t kiss him good night!’’ Kora snapped as she walked farther away from the window’s light.
Winter was suddenly angry. All the special attention he thought she was paying him was nothing more than she was doing for her war-scarred brother. She’d made the pie for him because she knew he loved apples. She laid out his clothes. She kept him warm.
He looked across the wide yard to the barn and bunkhouse. Several lights were still on. More than likely a few of his men were in the dark on the porch of the bunkhouse smoking one last cigarette before turning in for the night.
Glancing at Kora in the dim light, he knew this was not the place for private talk. Their voices could drift on the breeze too easily.
He leaned against the porch banister and pushed all emotion aside. ‘‘You said you wanted to talk to me?’’
Kora was as far away from him as the porch railing would allow.
> ‘‘If we’re to get through the next few months, you have to stop avoiding me,’’ she whispered.
‘‘What?’’
She moved a few feet closer. ‘‘I said, you’re avoiding me.’’
‘‘What?’’ he answered again.
‘‘You heard me,’’ she said as she came closer. ‘‘You’re not as deaf as Dan.’’
Winter smiled. ‘‘I’m glad you recognize some difference.’’
Kora was within three feet of him now. ‘‘Jamie says you’re sorry you married me with all the trouble over Andrew Adams, and you’re trying to ignore me away.’’
‘‘That doesn’t work.’’ Winter laughed. ‘‘If it did, Jamie would be weeks gone.’’ He unfolded his arms. ‘‘Are you aware you always call the man Andrew Adams?’’
‘‘Answer my question first,’’ she replied.
‘‘All right. No. I’m not avoiding you. I’ve got a lot of work to do. With spring comes a great deal of work on top of watching for sick cattle.’’ He knew even as he said the words that they were a lie not only to her, but to himself. He had been avoiding her. Not with much success. Logan always managed to find him and give him a rambling report of all she’d done. In the old man’s eyes, Kora was becoming a saint.
She moved to the railing a foot away from him now and stared out into the night. ‘‘Jamie says you don’t want to get used to me being around. She doesn’t know about our bargain, but she’s guessing.’’
‘‘Jamie’s only rattling,’’ Winter said, very much aware of her nearness. ‘‘I’m not much interested in what Jamie says.’’
Kora leaned on the railing, arching her back slightly. ‘‘I’ll try to be considerate.’’
Win was starting to hate that word.
The far-off sound of a horse and buggy chimed through the night. Winter slipped his arm around Kora’s waist as they both watched the darkness. There were a hundred things that needed saying between them, but the feel of her back resting lightly against his chest was enough for the present.