West of Heaven

by Victoria Bylin

  Curled against the rough wall, he wrapped the blanket around his feet. The fire had burned down to embers and the cabin was nearly black. Sleep came slowly, bringing with it vivid pictures of his family. But instead of recalling happier times as he usually did, he relived the day they died. Vivid and harsh, the memories followed him into an exhausted sleep until the gray light of dawn filled the cabin.

  Waking up with a jolt, he thought of the widow.

  Boiling mad, he tossed back the blanket and pulled on his clothes. Just as he did every morning, he stood straight and stared at himself in the heart-shaped mirror hanging over the bed, trying to remember the man he had once been. It was a hopeless cause, and today it was worse because of the woman in his barn.

  Guilt burned in his belly like a banked fire as he hunched into his coat and tugged on the gloves Laura had knitted back in Missouri. Pushing down on his hat, Ethan opened the door and groaned at the sight of knee-high snow. His gaze rose to the barn. Half buried in the drifts, it looked like a sinking ship, and his heart sank with it. The trail to Midas would be impassable for days and muddy for weeks.

  The thought of having Mrs. Dawson on his property for another minute, let alone a week, turned his mood from sour to rancid. Fighting his temper, he stomped across the yard and stormed into the barn. He expected to see the widow wrapped in her heavy cloak in the pile of fresh straw, but she wasn’t there.

  “Mrs. Dawson?”

  The silence accused him of being a coldhearted son of a bitch. Had she wandered into the storm to die? He knew how it felt to fight that temptation. Only his pride and a sincere fear of hell had kept him from eating a bullet when Laura and the children had died. If Jayne Dawson had chosen that path, the decision was hers. They would both have to live with the choices they had made.

  The thought gave Ethan no comfort. He made his voice louder. “Mrs. Dawson!”

  A low moan drew him to the back of the barn. Peering into an empty stall, he saw a filthy horse blanket and the bottom edge of the widow’s navy-blue cloak.

  “Lady, get up.”

  She stirred beneath the blanket, then bolted upright as a chest-deep cough erupted from her throat. She covered her mouth with both hands, but the air still shook with the ferociousness of the coughing spell. Fever burned in her cheeks.

  Ethan wanted to look away, but he couldn’t. Her eyes were the color of the sky at high noon, and her straw-blond hair had frozen into a tangle. Remorse burned from his heart to his head. He treated his two horses better than he had treated this woman. What if it had been Laura in need, or his daughter?

  He cleared his throat to soften his gravelly voice. “Ma’am, you need help.”

  Struggling to breathe, she clutched at the blanket. “I am so sorry…to do this to you…I shouldn’t have—”

  “Don’t waste your breath.” He couldn’t bear that high-pitched wheeze. “Can you wait while I do chores?”

  Nodding, she struggled to her feet and stood while he filled the feed bins and used an old broom handle to poke through the ice covering the water buckets. He needed to muck out the stalls, but it would have to wait. Mrs. Dawson looked ready to faint.

  He leaned the stick against the wall. “We need to get inside.”

  Instinctively he held the door for her, just as he had done a thousand times for his wife. The widow’s skirt brushed across his boots, then she waited for him to take the lead. Her eyes barely reached his shoulder. She’d never be able to match his stride, and so he swung his boot from side to side to kick a path for her.

  He couldn’t hear her footsteps, only a light wheezing and the swish of her skirt. When she fainted, he barely heard the thump of her body sinking into the drift.

  “Oh, hell,” he muttered.

  Dropping to his knees, he yanked off one glove and touched her cheek with the back of his hand. Feverish heat burned straight through to his bones, and he saw that the collar of her shirtwaist was wet with perspiration. He shook her shoulder and called her name, but she didn’t make a sound.

  The last thing in the world he wanted to do was to carry her, but what choice did he have? Sliding one arm beneath her shoulders and the other under her knees, he rocked back on his heels and lifted her from the snow.

  As her face rolled against his chest, he saw bits of straw stuck in her hair and sleep creases on her cheeks. He wanted to scream at the heavens as he trudged to the cabin, pried the door open with his elbow and carried her to his bed. The unwashed sheets still bore the mark of his body and the torment of his dreams. It seemed wrong to set her down in such a private place, but he did it anyway.

  She moaned and muttered how sorry she was, whispered Hank’s name and called for her mother. He had to get her into dry clothes, but the cabin was barely warmer than the barn, and it made sense to leave her in the cloak until he had a fire roaring in the hearth.

  He poked the coals and added two handfuls of kindling so it would catch fast and burn hot. The scrap box he kept by the rock fireplace held next to nothing and he kicked himself for being lazy about filling it. Hunching in his coat, he made a quick trip to the woodpile behind the cabin, stacked the logs on the hearth and laid a piece of dry pine on the embers. It caught with a whoosh, pushing heat into the room as Ethan looked at the woman on his bed.

  She hadn’t moved a muscle, and he honestly didn’t know which would be worse—undressing a live woman or burying a dead one. All he knew was that he didn’t want to touch her, and he would have to do just that if she didn’t wake up. “Mrs. Dawson?”

  No answer.

  Ethan took off his coat and rested his palm on her forehead as if she were a child. Her fever shamed him. He imagined burying her next to her husband and waiting for the spring grass to wipe out the graves so that he could forget this moment, but he knew he would never forget.

  He couldn’t see her chest moving beneath the cloak, so he touched her throat in search of a pulse. He found it in an instant, a strong beat that told him she wasn’t a quitter. “Lady, wake up,” he said.

  Moaning, she struggled to open her eyes.

  “Your clothes are wet from the fever. Can you get undressed?”

  “This can’t be happening,” she said, almost whimpering.

  “Here, let me help you, love.”

  Love. His pet name for Laura. Horrified, Ethan shot to his feet, snatched his nightshirt off a nail and tossed it on the bed. “Wake up now. You’ve got to get out of those damp things.”

  “I’ll try.” She raised her head and tugged on her cloak, but she didn’t have the strength to pull it free. Weaker than before, she fell flat against the mattress.

  Steeling himself against the heat emanating from her body, Ethan wrapped his arm around her shoulders, removed the cloak and dropped it on the floor. “We have to get your shoes off, too.”

  Nodding, she pulled her feet to the side of the bed. Her soles brushed his thigh, and he stepped aside as he unbuttoned the fancy boots and slid them over her ankles. Gritting his teeth, he rolled her stockings down her slender calves and tugged the cotton over her toes. They were small and pink and pretty. His stomach clenched, but he touched them anyway, just to be sure they were warm.

  The woman was shivering now, struggling to undo the front of her jacket with her half-frozen fingers.

  “Here, let me,” he said.

  “I can do it—” But a racking cough stole her breath.

  Forcing himself to look down, he slid his fingers beneath hers and undid the buttons. He pulled at the jacket sleeves until her arms broke free, revealing a white silk shirtwaist blotched with perspiration. Bravely, he worked those buttons, too, this time discovering rosy-gold skin and a chemise made transparent by a feverish sheen.

  He tried not to look directly at the widow’s breasts, but he couldn’t stop himself from taking in the differences between her body and Laura’s. His wife was the only woman he had ever known in that way. She had been soft and round, a dark-eyed beauty with a complexion like cream. Mrs. Dawson�
��s skin made him think of the summer sun. On its own, his gaze roamed downward, where he saw her firm breasts and the shadow of brown nipples beneath the cotton.

  A rush of desire made Ethan hard and angry. That ache belonged to Laura, and he didn’t want to feel it ever again, especially not now. He wanted to get the widow undressed, in bed and out of his head as fast as he could.

  Her damp underthings needed to come off, but a man had his limits. He’d help her with the skirt, but that was all he could manage. Growling, he said, “Raise up your hips.”

  Strangling on a cough, the widow did as he ordered, though she failed miserably to work the button at the waist. Ethan took over, looking at the ceiling as he maneuvered the skirt down her thighs and past her knees. As she curled into a tight ball, he dropped the garment on the floor, covered her legs with his quilt and shoved an old nightshirt in her face. “You can finish without me.”

  Turning his back, he added a log to the fire and poked the coals. Only when the bed stopped creaking did he dare turn around.

  What he saw shattered his lonely world like a splitting maul in a round of pine. The woman sleeping in his bed was beautiful. Wrapped in his blanket with her gold hair tangled on his pillow, she didn’t look to be much more than twenty years old. Ethan had a good ten years on her, and the past two had turned him into an old man.

  He strode into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat near the fire to muddle through his thoughts. He had a woman in his bed burning with fever and coughing like a lunger. He didn’t want her here, but Mrs. Dawson hadn’t given him a choice or even a say in the matter.

  Guilt sluiced over him. Laura, I’m so sorry for taking you away…

  Laura had been content in Missouri, but he had wanted a change. She had supported his dream of owning land because she loved him, but deep down he knew she would have been happier to spend their lives in the same small town where they had grown up. He’d promised her a bigger house and a good life for the kids, but he had failed them all. They hadn’t made it past Raton.

  Ethan didn’t want to think about that lost part of his life. The immediate problem at hand was Mrs. Dawson. As much as he hated having her in his house, he was stuck with her until the trail cleared and she recovered enough to ride.

  Staring at the fire, he listened to the thud of snow falling from the trees. It was a lonely sound, but one he welcomed in his silent world. Today, though, other sounds filtered to his ears. Mrs. Dawson whimpered like a kitten in her sleep, and her cough rasped like sandpaper on fresh-cut wood. When she rolled to her side, the bed creaked and he thought of Laura filling the spot next to him.

  Gulping the last of his coffee, Ethan rose and walked to the kitchen. As he passed the bed, the widow moaned and flung the blanket aside, muttering something about missing a train and calling to her mother. Sweat beaded on her forehead and he saw half moons of dampness on the nightshirt just below her breasts.

  He picked up the blanket intending to cover her, but common sense told him her body needed to cool as the fever spiked. Not knowing what to do scared him, but what scared him even more was not wanting to look away.

  Disgusted with himself, Ethan tugged the quilt up to her chin and turned to the kitchen. His boot caught on the clothing he’d dropped on the floor, and he caught a whiff of the barn. Bending low, he picked up the riding skirt, the jacket and the blouse. She’d have to wear them again. Hoping it would be soon, he hung the suit on the nail where his nightshirt had been and shook out the blouse.

  Her scent filled him with a hunger that was both unwelcome and sharp. Closing his eyes, he buried his nose in the silk where he smelled honeysuckle and a woman’s skin. He ached for Laura, and yet this wasn’t her scent. She preferred lilacs and the feel of his clean-shaven face. Clutching at the fine silk, Ethan touched it to his cheek until his stubbled whiskers snagged it, hurling him back to his senses.

  What kind of a man sniffed at a woman’s clothing? Appalled at his behavior, he draped the blouse over the suit and hung her cloak by the door. Stooping down, he picked up her shoes and set them on the hearth to dry.

  Scouring his memory for home remedies for fever, he surveyed his stock of canned goods. Laura had given the children soup when they were ill, but his own mother dosed him with whiskey to settle a cough. He decided he would try both when Mrs. Dawson woke up.

  She needed to rest and recover, but Ethan vowed to get her out of his house just as soon as she could ride. She had already taken everything he had to give.

  Chapter Three

  J ayne woke up with whiskey on her breath. Tasting the pungent sweetness, she remembered the rancher ordering her to swallow. It was the same remedy her mother had used, and she had downed the cure without arguing.

  The whiskey helped her sleep, but she had lost track of time. Days and nights had blurred together in waves of prickly fever followed by violent chills. Had she been here a day? A week? She didn’t know, and the gloomy cabin offered no clues.

  She needed to look out the window to see if the snow had melted, but before she could stand, a ferocious cough nearly cracked a rib. Pressing a rag to her mouth, she gasped for breath until the coughing stopped.

  The feel of the rough muslin against her lips filled her with memories. In the mix of lantern light and shadows, she had imagined her mother at her side, but then the dream had faded and she’d recognized the rancher’s rough fingers and the smell of snow that clung to him. In near silence, he’d brought her clean rags for her cough, emptied her chamber pot and fed her hot soup for strength.

  For strength…

  She almost laughed out loud. Pneumonia had made her as burdensome as a baby. It was the most demeaning circumstance she could imagine, and Ethan Trent’s cabin was the last place in the world she wanted to be.

  The rancher had taken good care of her, but he didn’t have a kind bone in his body. Lying in his bed, she wondered if he shouted at children and kicked dogs who didn’t get out of his way fast enough.

  And yet he could be gentle, too. A plug of mucus had lodged in her throat last night. Close to suffocating, she had raised her hands over her head. The rancher had hurried to her side, braced her chest with his muscular forearm and thumped on her back. When she croaked for water, he’d brought it to her in a tin cup small enough for a child.

  The distant ring of an ax and the smell of burned coffee gave the room a distinctly male air. Had a woman ever put wildflowers in a jug just to make the place pretty? Jayne doubted it. A square of rough logs, the cabin had a corner kitchen with a dry sink, a rock fireplace and two small windows, each covered with a sheet of boards instead of glass.

  With the exception of the bed, the furniture was roughly made, and there wasn’t much of it. She saw a small table, two chairs, a rocker and a long shelf holding books and a cigar box. Work shirts and dungarees hung from nails on the wall, and he’d left a roll of wire and a pair of leather gloves on the hearth.

  Curious, she twisted in the bed and peered into the kitchen where she saw a cookstove and a long-handled spoon dangling from a hook. Jayne’s heart clenched at the picture of the rancher standing at the stove and eating straight out of the pot.

  As she turned her head, a heart-shaped mirror hanging above the washbowl caught a ray of sun. The feminine glass shone bright, as if he wiped it every day. The bed troubled her, too. The carved oak frame belonged in a Midwestern farmhouse rather than a mountain cabin.

  Had Ethan Trent made love to a wife in this bed? It seemed more than likely, and her cheeks reddened with embarrassment. She had invaded this man’s privacy in the worst possible way.

  Beyond the cabin walls, a log groaned as it split in two. Her bones ached with a similar misery and it hurt to breathe. She wanted to curl up into a ball and grieve for Hank and all she had lost, but she had to think about her future.

  When she returned to the hotel, she would retrieve her trunk and the tools of her trade. She’d also have the ten silver dollars she’d stitched into the hem of a
skirt. The money would be enough for a room in a boardinghouse. She’d find a job, save for a train ticket and go back to the life she’d always lived. It wouldn’t be hard. Her mother had given Jayne the skills to support herself and she had earned a reputation of her own.

  “All women like pretty dresses,” her mother used to say. “As long as you can sew, you can take care of yourself.”

  Jayne didn’t want to think about her mother’s store and the sweet memories it held. Her father had died in a riding accident, leaving his wife alone to support their baby daughter. It hadn’t been easy, but by the time Jayne was old enough to ask questions, her mother had made a name for herself and their simple needs were met.

  Jayne closed her eyes and hugged her knees. She ached to be standing behind the familiar counter, but instead she was in Ethan Trent’s lonely cabin with more questions than answers. Every muscle in her body tensed. The time had come to read Hank’s letter. Still wobbly from illness, she shuffled to the wall where her cloak was hanging. Plunging her hand into the pocket, she found Hank’s papers and turned to go back to bed.

  As she took a feeble step, an ominous tickle swelled in her throat. Too weak to cough and stand at the same time, she lurched toward the bed, but her lungs exploded before she reached the mattress. As she collapsed to her hands and knees, Hank’s letter fluttered to the floor, just out of reach.

  She heard the door fly open.

  “Dammit!” The rancher wrapped his muscular forearm around her waist and brought her upright so that his chest was pressed against her back. As the coughing eased, she smelled pine shavings and male perspiration. His hands shook as he spun her around.

  “What the hell are you doing out of bed?”

  “I just—” Her chest shuddered again. She couldn’t breathe, much less talk.