She moaned and tugged his shirt from his trousers. Stroking the smooth skin of his back, she delighted in the ripple of the muscles beneath her fingers. Her breath strained against his mouth as she quivered.
He reached for the back of her shirt. Something pinged against her back.
“Ouch!” she cried. “What was that?”
He smiled. “Don’t worry, honey. Just a button.”
“A button?” Gypsy shook her head and stared up at him. What was she doing? Was she mad? If she had any sense at all, she would take him off the stove watch for good. She had not known what temptation was until she discovered his touch.
Pushing him away, she sat up to stare down at his fingerprints in flour along her skirt. She brushed her skirt down over her legs, not wanting to see the marks from his touch along her skin.
He tilted her face up toward him. “Gypsy?”
“I can’t.” She shoved his hand away and jumped down from the table. Heat scored her face as she imagined what would have happened if someone had come in and seen her and Adam on the kitchen table. She beat at her skirt with her hands, trying to knock the flour off the black wool. When Adam bent to help her, she pulled back. “Please stop.”
“I was just trying—”
“I know what you were trying to do.”
He put his hands on her shoulders. When she tried to shrug them off, he whispered against her ear, “And do you know how splendid it would be to toss aside caution and surrender to passion?”
She closed her eyes. “I know.”
“Do you?” He spun her to face him. “Do you?”
Gypsy backed away from the naked longing in his eyes. If she faltered, if she let him closer, if she forgot her pledge not to let anyone near her and her battered heart, she would be lost in that desire.
Moaning, she raced to her room. His heated gaze followed, tempting her to turn around and give herself to her craving. She closed the door and leaned against it. From the other side, she could hear his uneven steps as he settled himself on the bench.
She slid down to sit on the floor. Resting her head on her folded arms, she tried to catch her breath. How many more times could she tell Adam no? It must be every time, or she would put him in peril.
It’s just a coincidence. You’re seeing a pattern of murder where there isn’t one.
How many people had told her that? How many of those people were now dead? She did not want to count.
Not hearing any other sounds from the kitchen, she guessed Adam’s nocturnal wanderings were over … for tonight. She could go to him and have him hold her in his arms all night.
No. She must not think of that. She must think about what he was up to.
Her breath caught painfully. The threatening notes had begun to arrive just when Adam came to the camp.
No, she could not believe he had sent them. Not because he held her so sweetly, but because he had Daniel’s recommendation.
Adam was involved in something that had nothing to do with the threatening letters. She hoped he found what he was looking for soon. Very soon, because she was unsure how long she could resist the craving to surrender to passion … no matter what the cost.
CHAPTER NINE
Gypsy grabbed her coat off the peg. With a quick glance to be sure the firebox door was secure, she hurried out into the windswept day. She trudged through the well-packed snow, keeping her head down and her hands clenched in her coat pockets. She stamped her feet on the narrow porch of the wanigan. A bell clanged as she opened the door.
The small building was as crowded as her larder. Boxes were stacked on every flat surface and along the shelves on the back wall. A cast-iron stove overheated the space, and she unbuttoned her coat as she walked to where the inkslinger was working. His thinning hair draped over his collar. He smiled, his eyes bloodshot from long hours of work.
“Howdy, Gypsy.” Chauncey leaned his elbows on the counter. “Didn’t expect to see you in the middle of the day.”
“The flunkeys are delivering lunch to the jacks. Supper’s started, but it can wait a minute or two while I get some thread to sew on a button.” She looked past him, as if interested in something on the cluttered shelves. She did not want him to guess how the button had come off.
Had she been crazy? To let Adam hold her that way was an invitation to heartbreak. She wanted him, but it could not be.
“What color?” asked Chauncey.
“I doubt if you have white,” she said with a weak grin.
“When’s the last time you saw a jack in a white shirt?”
“What’s the palest shade you have?”
Rummaging in a box, he shook his head. “Seems all of ’em are black, Gypsy.” With his finger, he pushed the wooden spools about. “Say, here’s a pale one.”
“Pink?” She took the spool. “How in heaven’s name did that get in here?”
“Fool clerk in Saginaw must have made a mistake.” He pulled a ledger sheet from under the counter. “Shall I put you down for it?”
Peering at the account sheet, which showed the number of days she had worked as well as what she had purchased at the wanigan, she asked quietly, “Can I see the ledgers for my flunkeys?”
He frowned. “Those ledgers aren’t supposed to be passed around.”
“Chauncey, I’m not about to send a letter to a flunkey’s family and tell them he’s wasting his money on tobacco or playing cards.”
He hesitated, then nodded. Reaching beneath the counter, he pulled out a box. He searched and plucked out a handful of papers. “All here but Per’s card. Maybe that’s out back ’cause he was in the other day for some tobacco.”
“Don’t worry about that one. Just let me see the others.”
He glanced at the door. “Make it quick, Gypsy. If Farley came in here, he’d have my hide.”
She pretended to look at each page, but she was interested only in one. As she had suspected, Adam’s was different. She wanted to believe his sheet was not like the others because he had come so late in the season, but Bert Sayre’s matched the rest, although she could not read his illegible signature. Yet this confirmed what she had already guessed. Adam was not a jack. So what was he doing here?
“Problem with Lassiter’s ledger?”
Raising her gaze from the page, she asked, “No, should there be?”
He put the box of spools on the shelf. “You look displeased.”
“I have a white blouse to repair with pink thread, and I should be happy?” She congratulated herself for her frivolous tone. “Oh, you took my sheet. I need to sign for the thread.”
With a lighthearted wave, he urged, “Take it. Wasn’t supposed to be in the box anyhow. Let the clerk in Saginaw explain it to his boss.”
“Thanks, Chauncey.”
“Any time. I like to do things for my friends.”
She wagged a finger at him. “Is this going to cost me?”
“If I can convince you to make more cherry pies, then it is.”
When she started to reply, the bell over the door rang. Her eyes widened as she saw who was entering. Only one other woman lived in the logging camp, but Rose Quinlan was seldom seen beyond Farley’s house. She was dressed in a scarlet gown bedecked with silk flowers along its wide skirt. The crisp lace of her petticoats rustled as she swept up to the counter.
Gypsy fought her irritation. There was no reason to be vexed because Farley’s private whore snubbed her. Rose Quinlan was a fool to think she was better than Gypsy Elliott. She was no better than Nissa’s working girls.
Looking past the blonde in her crimson bonnet, Gypsy’s eyes narrowed as she saw Chauncey regarding Rose with loathing. His hands fisted on the counter, and he had lost his bright smile.
She understood when Rose demanded, “I want the material Mr. Farley ordered for me.”
“As soon as I finish helping Gypsy.”
“Gypsy?” She gave a delicate shiver, making it clear she found being in the same room with the camp’s cook distastefu
l. She drew off her leather gloves one finger at a time and glowered.
Wondering how Rose could not sense the inkslinger’s fury, Gypsy took the spool of thread and pushed the ledgers toward Chauncey. At the beginning of the winter, she had felt sorry for the woman who fit into the camp as well as the loggers would have fit into a palace, but all her attempts at friendship had been repulsed.
Quietly, Gypsy said, “Chauncey, I’ve got to get back to work. Thank you.”
“Any time. I’m always glad to help my friends.”
Rose’s back stiffened and Gypsy decided to leave before things got worse. She hurried back to the cookhouse and put the thread in her room.
Checking that everything was cooking as it should, Gypsy sighed as she sat and put her feet up on the wood-box. She was too tired too much lately. With her skirt dropping away to reveal her black cotton stockings and midcalf-high shoes, she leaned against the table and closed her eyes. Getting food out to the hillside was wearing out her and her crew. Farley had promised her only a week or two more before he moved the jacks closer. Then they could serve lunch at the cook shack.
Rubbing her forehead, which was damp with sweat, she tapped her toes to a song rumbling through her mind. She smiled when she realized it was the raucous melody the jacks had been singing about Paul Bunyan this morning. The tales of the gigantic lumberjack were becoming even more outrageous. She needed to have someone explain exactly how a blue ox named Babe fit into the silly story.
As she gazed at the logs, her chuckles became an indulgent smile. Perhaps it was not so silly. The men were lonesome for the wives and families they had left behind. Each of those “babes” was as precious as the huge ox was to Paul Bunyan.
She rose to get a cup of the strong coffee waiting on the stove’s warming shelf. The aroma knit her memories together, binding before and now. The fragrance meant mornings, whether in the camp or far to the south.
Coughs abruptly overpowered her. Nearly retching, she leaned on the table. The coughing sapped her, but she had no time to be sick.
Taking a sip, she let the coffee drip along her ravaged throat. She sighed when it washed away the pain. In only a few weeks, the camp would close. If she could stay healthy, she would see a doctor in Lansing and endure his horrible powders.
At a furtive knock on the back door, Gypsy frowned. No one knocked on doors in a logging camp. She opened it, and her eyes widened in surprise.
“Nissa!”
Dressed in a flamboyant gown of royal blue, Nissa Jensen did not smile. “Can I come in?”
“Nissa, I—” Farley had rigid rules that the jacks were not to have visitors from the Porcelain Feather Saloon, and she was unsure if that edict extended to the kingbee cook and the brothel’s madam.
“Gypsy, we’ve got to talk. Just you and me. Heard you’ve been sending your flunkeys out at midday, so I decided this was the time.”
She stepped back to allow Nissa in. When Nissa glanced over her shoulder, Gypsy realized she still held the door open. She closed it and motioned for Nissa to sit on a narrow bench.
“Don’t stare, Gypsy,” she chided with a throaty laugh as she brushed the modest coat that closed at her throat. “I’m different away from work just as you’re different when you take off that apron.”
“I don’t get to do that often.” She smiled.
“You should. Glenmark will work you into an early grave if you let him.” Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a cigar and lit it.
“No smoking in the cookhouse,” Gypsy said as she put a cup of coffee on the table for Nissa.
“Those rules are for the jacks. What’s Farley going to do? Tell me to pack my turkey sack and walk?” Her amusement vanished as a haunted expression filled her faded eyes. “Gypsy, I need this cheroot now. After what happened last night …”
“What happened last night?”
“Do you have something stronger than swamp water?” She pushed the cup aside. “I need whiskey.”
“Farley allows no liquor in the camp.”
She snorted and picked up the cup. “How can you live with all these stupid rules?”
“You have your own rules at the saloon.” Folding her hands on the flour-coated oilcloth, Gypsy asked, “What happened last night?”
Nissa took a deep puff on the noxious cigar and followed that with a long swig of the coffee. Sighing, she balanced the cup in one hand and the cheroot in the other. “One of my girls was murdered.”
“Murdered?” Gypsy choked on the word. When a cool hand patted her clasped fingers, she raised her gaze to meet Nissa’s eyes.
“Should’ve told you better,” Nissa said, her smile sad.
“How?”
“Got no idea. There’s no way to ease such news.”
Gypsy shook her head. Fighting the coughs tickling the back of her throat, she choked out, “No, I mean how was she murdered?”
“Smothered by a pillow. Right in her crib. That’s why we didn’t realize Lolly was dead until this morning.”
“Lolly? Lolly Yerkes?”
“Why—oh, that’s right. You had a run-in with her at the Porcelain Feather.” She took another draw on her cigar. The gray-blue smoke surrounded her, but could not hide the pain pulling her lips into a straight line. “Yesterday was Wednesday. The men aren’t supposed to be out in the middle of the week.”
“But there’s no one else within a dozen miles.”
“That’s why I came to speak to you, Gypsy. Your crew sleeps in the bunkhouse, don’t they?”
“All except the one who has to keep the fire up in the stove.”
“Who was that last night?”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. Not to speak the truth was insane, especially when it might lead to the identification of a murderer. “Adam Lassiter watched the kitchen last night,” she whispered.
Nissa cursed through the malodorous smoke. “I had hoped I could point to the man here as the murderer, but it can’t be him.”
“Why not?”
“That’s a strange question to hear from a woman who was cozying up with Adam a few weeks ago.” A flash of a wicked grin lit her eyes. “Lovers’ quarrel, Gypsy? Think twice before you get rid of him. He may be limping around now, but Adam Lassiter is just what you need.”
“Adam and I haven’t had an argument.”
She tapped ashes into her cup. “No matter. It couldn’t be Lassiter. It’s a good two miles between here and the saloon. With that cast, he would have had to start before you finished up here and wouldn’t be back yet.”
Gypsy pretended to listen as Nissa continued. What the madam said was true. Adam could not have managed the long walk through the heavy snow with his cast. She clenched her hands in her lap until her whitened knuckles protested.
Adam was lying about his ankle, but she did not believe he had killed Lolly. Murder was the act of a madman. Whatever else Adam might be, he was sane.
When Gypsy coughed, knife-sharp pains cutting through her chest, Nissa demanded, “How long have you been sounding like that?”
“A while. It’ll go away.”
“Sounds bad.”
Although she wanted to retort that the cough’s sound was not as horrible as its pain, she said, “I’ll be fine.”
“You should be in bed.”
“Nissa, I can take care of myself! I—” She pressed her hands to her chest as more coughs refuted her words.
Nissa went to the stove. She poured a cup of tea from the kettle. Pulling down two boxes from the shelves, she mixed a pinch of the ingredients into the cup, and placed it in front of Gypsy. “Drink it.”
Gypsy’s hands trembled so, she was afraid she would not be able to lift the cup. She let the oddly fragrant steam wash over her. It eased the tautness of her throat, and she was able to breathe. She took a sip and gagged.
“What is it?”
“Drink it,” repeated Nissa. “It’s good for you.”
Grimacing, she tried again. Her stomach threatened to revolt.
“I can’t!”
“Peppermint tea and garlic is my granny’s sure-enough recipe for getting rid of a cold on the chest.”
“Peppermint and garlic?” Before Nissa could answer, more coughs overwhelmed her. “The flavor may kill me.”
“Drink it all.” Nissa slipped on her coat. “I’m going to bend Farley’s ear. He’s got to know what’s happened. The girls are afraid. They want to leave.”
Gypsy stood, keeping a hand on the table to steady her wobbly knees. “Will you go?”
She hesitated. “I like the money I make, but I like being alive more. The season’s almost over. The jacks will be able to visit us in Saginaw when the log drive is done.”
“If there’s anything we can do to help, let me know.”
Nissa went out the main door. Gypsy forced her rubbery legs to carry her to the window. The madam was ignoring the men who stopped to watch her cross the camp, but having Nissa Jensen here was sure to create all kinds of rumors.
Gypsy leaned her shoulder against the wall and took a deep breath. Keeping the kitchen running smoothly and food on the tables in the dining room would prevent the loggers from overreacting.
She set the soup pot on the stove. Within minutes, she had chicken broth bubbling, and she began to collect the ingredients for pies. She was getting the salt box from the rafters when the door opened and the flunkeys blew in on a puff of cold wind and their laughter.
“Sit down,” she ordered before they could greet her. Putting salt into the soup pot, she stirred it.
Knocking snow from their boots, the men sat on the benches around the table. She saw the uneasy glances they exchanged.
She continued to stir the soup. “Nissa Jensen just came here with the news that one of the girls was murdered last night.”
A jumble of questions was shot at her, but Bert’s voice was loudest. “’Oo was it?”
“Lolly.”
Oscar hid his face in his hands. Pain swelled through her as, too late, she recalled how Bert had accused him of being smitten with the prostitute.
Looking from him to the soup she could not let burn, she faltered. When a strong hand covered hers on the ladle, she stared at Adam in silence. His face was as frigid as the rocks along the river and as roughly sculpted, but she saw no surprise.
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