The barn was clean and fresh hay lay in all the stalls. All the animals munched on their morning food. Neither of the milk cows bawled to be milked.
Was that why the Jones boys had been here? Had Laura given up early and asked them for help?
He finished unsaddling his horses, then rubbed each down and fed them. In the tack room he laid out the furs to continue drying, then carried the venison to the root cellar.
Outside he noticed repeated wagon tracks and footprints from them to the barn in the snow. From the house to the barn and root cellar the new snow lay undisturbed. Then he glanced at the chimney. No smoke.
What the hell was going on?
Tightness clutched his gut. Not again!
He hurried to the back porch, sliding on the ice covering the steps, then slammed open the back door.
“Laura!”
The house lay as silent as a tomb. Nothing moved.
He cleared the stairs two at a time. Laura’s bed was made and her quilt lay folded across the foot. Her precious books stood in a pile next to the bed. Most of her clothes, however, were gone.
She’d left!
“She took her damn book money and went to town,” he said as he slammed her bedroom door. “Probably laying around at the boarding house letting someone else wait on her hand and foot, just like Kirsten did. I should’ve known I couldn’t trust a woman. I thought she’d be different.”
Clenching his jaw, he stomped down the stairs to the pantry where he kept his bottle of whiskey. He guessed he should be happy she didn’t leave Rachel out here by herself. That was something Kirsten would’ve done.
He poured himself a whiskey and downed it in one gulp. Tears filled his eyes as the fire burned its way down his throat. It seemed to fuel his temper more than quench it. He poured a second one and stepped out onto the back porch to sip it slower.
As soon as his temper cooled, he was going to go find his wife and daughter. He’d pack Laura on the first mule wagon back to Denver. If he couldn’t trust her to stay where he left her, no way was he putting up with her for a day longer.
At that moment, movement up the road coming from the direction of town caught his eye. A wagon lumbered into his view. Frank Jensen was driving. Seated next to him was Laura, holding Rachel.
Good. That would save him a trip. Frank could take his useless wife back to town along with all her belongings.
Chapter Nine
Laura carried Rachel up the porch stairs, trying to stop her heart from beating so wildly.
Nathan was home!
She hadn’t realized how much comfort she took from that. Even though she had known him such a short time, his mere presence seemed to give her back some of the strength the past weeks had sapped from her.
When she stepped onto the porch, Nathan moved in front of her. He reeked of whiskey. The same cold contempt she’d seen in his eyes the day they’d met had returned. She took an involuntary step backward. His lips parted in a sneer.
“Finally decided to give up the world of ease and come back to being a farm wife?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “How did you know I was back already? Your hired help didn’t see me ride in from the back.”
“What are you talking about?” Laura set Rachel down on the porch and stared at him. The man was deranged. “What hired help?”
“Sarah’s boys. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. How much did you pay them to come out here and do the farm work while you laid about at the boarding house in town?”
He thought she’d abandoned the farm because she was lazy and the work too hard for her?
Despite her exhaustion and the fact that sheer willpower was the only thing keeping her vertical, her temper flamed to life. He thought so little of her character, after living with her for days? Couldn’t he see the deep, dark circles beneath her eyes?
“For your information, I wasn’t at the boarding house in town.”
The information seemed to catch him off guard for a second. Then he arched a brow. “Where have you been?”
The arrogant ass deserves this.
“I’ve been lounging at The Golden Slipper for the last two weeks. I spent so much time at the bar that I haven’t slept a whole night in all that time.”
Her head held high, she marched past her now furious husband, into the house and up the stairs to her room. She grabbed the door by the wood and slammed it as hard as she could.
How could he think so little of her?
The dam burst and she hurled herself onto her bed. So many things had died this week—children, adults, families and now her trust in him.
“What the hell…?” Nathan started in the kitchen door after her, stopping when he felt Frank’s iron grip on his arm.
“Nathan, you’d best stay out here and listen to me for a minute.”
The other man’s voice was unusually grim. Nathan stooped to pick up his daughter. Leaning back on the porch rail with Rachel in his arms, he studied his friend. “You want to tell me my wife hasn’t been staying at a saloon while I was gone?”
“No, ’cause that’s exactly where she’s been.”
Nathan surged up off the rail.
Frank held a hand to his chest to stop him. “Now don’t go getting riled at me. We’ve had some trouble in town since you’ve been gone. Almost everyone in town came down with a case of the measles, your Rachel included. When the doc got sick, your wife came to town and nursed over forty people through it. The only place big enough to house them all was Bobby Bailey’s saloon. It wasn’t pretty. People coughing, puking, dying. She did it all with hardly any help, food or rest.
“Then to top it off, she helped bury the dead yesterday. We lost fifteen people in all, including most of the preacher’s family. So before you say another word, remember, if it weren’t for that little lady inside your house, there might not be a town for you to have come back to.”
With that said he set Laura’s bag in the kitchen and lumbered down the stairs to his wagon.
The afternoon sun slipped closer to the horizon while Nathan thought about everything that his friend told him. He hadn’t felt this much shame since the day his mama caught him watching his girl cousins bathing back home in Virginia.
Finally he took Rachel up to her room and put her to bed for her nap. Then he walked to his wife’s room to apologize.
It would have to wait. She’d fallen asleep on her bed with her coat and shoes still on.
He fetched the buttonhook off her dresser and began unbuttoning her shoes. After they were off, he unfastened her coat, slipping it off her body. In her sleep, she tried to fight him off as he undressed her down to her chemise.
“Laura, darlin’, you’ll sleep better without these on.” He held her in his arms as if she were a baby. “I don’t know if you’ll remember this, but I’ve acted like an ass today. When you wake up I’m going to make it up to you.”
He pulled back the covers and laid her in the bed.
She clutched at his shirt to stop him from letting go. “Cold…don’t go. They were so cold. So dead. You’re so warm…don’t go.”
“I won’t go away, darlin’.” He eased her over in the bed, then stretched out beneath the covers next to her, pulling her into his arms. She snuggled closer as he rubbed her back and arms with his large hands. “You just relax and go to sleep. I’ve been told you deserve the rest.”
Soon the gentle sound of her breathing told him she’d fallen back to sleep. He lay there holding her against him, her breath lightly fluttering over his skin above the open top of his shirt. Frank’s words haunted him.
Almost single-handedly she’d saved a town. Yet when he’d accused her of things she hadn’t done, she didn’t even try to use the information to defend herself.
No, not his feisty wife. She got her dander up as if she were a cat hissing for a fight. She’d hurled more damning information at him, then let him hang himself with his own thoughts.
He chuckled softly and pulled her closer
. Then he sobered.
Today he’d arrived home to discover what he thought was history repeating itself. The empty farmhouse had reminded him of when Kirsten had left him while he was in Denver on business trying to save his farm.
His first instinct had been one of survival—the survival of his pride and his heart. He’d struck out at her before she had a chance to strike first. But even in her exhausted state, she hadn’t cowered at his righteous wrath and sarcastic insults—not his Laura. She took his words and threw them back in his face with a flourish.
Pulling the quilt around her bare shoulders, he held her close.
“Rest, Laura. You’re safe here with me. Nothing will hurt you.”
* * * * *
St. Louis teemed with life—most of it rough and ugly. A man could hide from trouble here and if he was lucky that trouble moved past without noticing him trembling in the dark corners of man’s inhumanity.
Otis prayed that he’d be one of the lucky ones.
He was wrong.
His luck just ran out.
“You’ve disappointed me, Otis.” The boss stood in the door of the third-floor room where Ruthie brought her customers in order to ply her trade. “I’d hoped for more of a chase.”
Swallowing hard, Otis stared over Ruthie’s lush, naked body in the bed beside him, his heart beating a double-time cadence. Sweat suddenly pooled on his palms. He wiped them on Ruthie’s silk-clad bottom. “I wasn’t hiding from you, boss.”
The elegantly dressed man—such a contrast to the room’s shabby surroundings—stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. “Pity. Since you really should have.”
Ruthie picked that moment to roll over, her dark-rimmed eyes swollen and red from her night’s work. “Hey, you. I’m not taking no work this mornin’. Get outta my room.”
Otis slipped a hand over her mouth. “Now’s not the time, Ruthie.”
“You really should’ve said no to my friend Otis last night, my dear.” Blackwood lifted his lips in a sneer as he removed his gloves. “I suggest you remain quiet while we discuss…business.” He pulled the ladder-back chair over and sat in front of the door, casually crossing one leg over the other. “Now, Otis, suppose you tell me about Miss Melbourne.”
The benign words, asked so easily with the boss’s English accent, sent another shiver of dread over Otis. He struggled away from Ruthie’s body to sit up in bed. He felt as if he was a naked worm dangling in front of a giant shark.
“I followed her just like you said, boss. First to Baltimore, then here to St. Louis.”
“I received your telegram saying as much. That was over a month ago.” Blackwood studied the fingertips of his right hand. “What have you learned since?”
“The bird just vanished, boss. I checked with every hotel and boarding room in town. No one has rented a room to a single lady named Melbourne.”
Otis breathed hard around the lump of sawdust that suddenly formed in his throat. He hoped Blackwood didn’t ask exactly when he’d searched for the woman. How was he supposed to know that twenty-four hours would be enough time for her to completely disappear?
“And the train station?”
“She didn’t buy no train tickets, neither.”
“And did you bother to search any other cities?”
Damn, why hadn’t he thought to do that? He gulped and shook his head.
“I see.” Blackwood stood and wedged his chair under the doorknob, preventing anyone entering from the hallway. Then he moved to the dresser and lifted one of Ruthie’s colorful silk scarves. “You know your little liaison has become a liability for us, Otis.”
He wasn’t sure what liability meant, but Otis nodded anyway. On more than one occasion he’d witnessed the boss’s wicked temper. The coldness in the boss’s voice warned he meant business.
Blackwood leaned past him to caress Ruthie’s cheek. The woman’s pale face blanched whiter, her eyes opened in fright, but she had the sense not to make any noise. He slipped the scarf around her neck. She didn’t flinch or bat an eyelash, just kept her eyes on the boss.
The boss handed him the ends of the scarf then leaned in and whispered in his ear. “No loose ends, Otis.”
He swallowed again, knowing exactly what was expected of him. Not Ruthie—she’d taken him in and cared for him when he’d been drunk in the bar downstairs. Drunk and senseless, because he knew this day would come. The day Nigel Blackwood came to call in the marker on his life because he’d just become as much a loose end as sweet Ruthie.
His eyes closed, Otis slowly pulled on the ends, tightening the scarf.
* * * * *
Something soft touched Nathan’s face. Reaching up, he caught a small hand in his. He opened his eyes to see Rachel’s blue ones staring back at him. Her other thumb was in her mouth, her rag doll hung loosely in the crook of her elbow.
“Hello, little darlin’.” He smiled at his daughter. “Did you sleep good?”
Nod.
He stared at her in awe. He couldn’t believe it. She’d actually answered him. “Did Laura teach you how to nod?”
Nod.
He glanced at the woman curled on her side asleep next to him with renewed appreciation. Even while she’d cared for the sick and dying in town, she’d managed to spend time with Rachel and help her communicate with the world around her.
“Would you like your supper now?”
Nod.
“How about the two of us going downstairs by ourselves to eat and letting Laura sleep a while longer?” He eased himself out from beneath his wife’s warm body. Lifting his daughter, he softly slipped out of the room.
Bacon sizzled on the stove as Nathan poured batter onto another hot skillet for griddlecakes for the two of them. He turned his head to watch his daughter pat and rock her doll. Rachel’s progress during his absence amazed him.
How had Laura managed to break through the barriers surrounding the little girl? Was it something she’d learned? Some special skill she’d developed in her past? And what was it about Laura that Rachel so instinctively trusted?
After feeding his daughter, he bundled her up and took her to do the farm’s daily chores. They went out to the barn to check on the animals and the furs he’d gotten on his trip. When Rachel tried to pet a piglet that had wiggled under the fence, Nathan laughed so hard that tears came to his eyes. Finally she was starting to act like a normal child, and he had his wife to thank for the transformation.
True, Rachel had yet to utter a word, that he was aware of, but given the progress she’d made since Laura arrived at their home, he hoped it was only a matter of time before she did. Would she regress once Laura left?
His reaction this morning to her absence had surprised him. He supposed he could blame it on panic or déjà vu. Yet the pain he’d felt at her apparent betrayal nearly felled him. Would he be able to let her leave at the end of five years, even though he’d promised her she could?
Laura continued to sleep through the evening, so after he’d finished the chores he sat simply enjoying holding and rocking Rachel in the big oak rocker in front of the fireplace. His voice clogged with such raw emotion, he couldn’t read her a story.
Once he had Rachel tucked in for the night he went back to the barn to finish the nightly milking. He’d missed this work while he’d been gone. The Jones boys did a fine job, but he still needed to check the horses’ hooves and ended up re-shoeing one of his draft horses, which had broken part of his shoe.
His muscles ached from the repetitive motion of the work, but soon he’d settled all the animals in for the night. Mopping the sweat off his brow, he shrugged into his sheepskin jacket. Before stepping out into the night, he turned down the lamp. Outside he glanced at the clear sky and all the stars above, letting the crisp night air cool his skin. He lit a cigar and leaned against the corral fence, enjoying the tobacco flavor.
Peaceful. A man could get used to this. It’s what he’d wanted years ago. The possibility that he’d finally found i
t loomed over him. Now if he could just convince the woman asleep in his house he wanted her to stay, he might just achieve his dreams.
A terrified scream rent the night’s silence.
What the hell?
He stomped out his cigar and sprinted across the yard to the house. The sounds continued from Laura’s room. He cleared the stairs two at a time.
She stood in front of the window clawing at it as if she were trying to shred the glass with her fingers.
He rushed over and wrapped his arms around her. Trapping her arms up against her chest to prevent her from breaking the window and injuring herself, he pulled her away. She fought him, trying to bite his arm.
“Let me go! He’s coming for me!” She screamed again and thrashed her head back and forth, still caught in the web of her nightmare.
“Laura, wake up. You’re dreaming,” he whispered in her ear, then backed onto the bed, dragging her with him. “Laura, you have to wake up before you scare Rachel.”
That seemed to get through the fear gripping her. She stopped screaming and flailing against him.
“They’re dead. They’re all dead. I failed. I couldn’t keep them safe from him.”
“Who, darlin’? Who couldn’t you save?”
“Nathan and Rachel. Sarah, Billy and Belle. Claudia. They’re all dead. He wanted me, but now they’re all dead.”
What the hell is she talking about? Who does she think is after her?
“Easy. Easy, darlin’.” He continued to hold her close to him with one arm, smoothing the sweat-dampened hair back from her face with his other hand in a soothing fashion. The tension and anxiety slowly ebbed from her body and she relaxed against him.
“No one’s dead. We’re all fine. Rachel’s sleeping in her room. Sarah and her children are fine in town. I’m here with you. Wake up and feel me holding you. Feel my heat, feel my touch.” He leaned forward, planting soft kisses on her face and neck, his hand stroking her arms.
Laura turned her face up to him, her eyes finally focused on his.
“I thought you were all dead. Your skin was so cold. I kept calling. No one would answer me. I thought he’d killed you all. I was so frightened of being alone. I couldn’t feel you and no one could feel me. I want to feel people. I want to feel you.”
CantrellsBride Page 14