by Jo Goodman
Raine sat on the rim, catching her breath. The corset did not help. “Thank you,” she said. “I forgot about it.”
“It was the least I could do.”
“The very least,” she said dryly.
Kellen made himself comfortable in this new doorway, setting his shoulder against the frame.
Raine waved him out. Her gesture had no effect. “You can’t stay there.”
“I can,” he said. “I doubt that I will, but I don’t doubt that I can.”
Shaking her head, Raine stood. She retrieved two towels from the cupboard beside the sink, aware all the while that his eyes were following her. “If you truly want to be useful,” she said, “you could stoke the fire in the stove. Add coals if you think it needs more.”
“All right.”
He moved out of the doorway and bent to open the grate. Raine immediately ran to the door and pulled it shut.
“I knew you were going to do that.” He grinned when he heard her laugh. She had a husky laugh made more intriguing by its edge of wicked amusement. “What about your corset?”
“I will manage.”
His grin deepened when she responded with a certain amount of prickly in her voice. When they were young, his sister Kitty would have answered in just that fashion, and then tattled to their mother that he was teasing her again. “You stay confident,” he called through the door. “I will remain hopeful.”
He heard her swear softly, and he didn’t stray far. Two minutes did not pass before she opened the door and presented her back to him.
Kellen did not say a word. He applied himself to the Gordian knot she had made of her laces.
Raine tried not to show her impatience, but she could feel his fingers at the small of her back and it was frankly unsettling. “You’re taking an extraordinarily long time.”
“I assume you don’t want me to use scissors.”
“No.”
“Or my teeth.”
Raine craned her neck to try to see over her shoulder. “No!”
He stopped what he was doing to gently push her head back. “Then you will have to be patient.”
She faced forward and pressed her lips together.
“Almost…” He managed to snag one of the laces with a fingernail and loosen it enough to pull. “There. Just a moment.” He quickly finished separating the laces.
Raine heaved a sigh, not only because he was finally finished but because she could finally breathe. Her thin muslin shift still clung to her skin. She held the corset in front of her as she turned to thank Kellen. “I need to get my robe. I left it in here.”
He stepped out of the way and watched her pass. If she had turned then and caught him staring, he would have acknowledged guilt but no remorse. His hands had spent enough time at the small of her back to come by an itch to be there again.
Raine retrieved her robe and went back to the bathing room. Kellen let her go unmolested. In truth, she did not know how she felt about that. She didn’t think she would have turned him away, but neither was she sure she would have welcomed him. She found her confusion disturbing, a state of being that made her head feel thick and her stomach knot as tightly as her laces.
Raine poured lavender-scented salts into her bathwater before she sank deeply into the tub. Hot water lapped the rim. She rearranged her hair so that it was loosely secured closer to the crown of her head. That allowed her to lean back comfortably and rest her head against the tub. Sighing softly, she closed her eyes.
When the door opened a few minutes later, Raine did not stir.
Kellen stayed in the doorway. Ribbons of fragrant steam rose above the tub and curled the copper halo of hair around Raine’s face. Her splendidly realized features were composed, even serene, and shone golden in the lamplight. She looked otherworldly, the stuff of fairy stories and legend. She might have been the Lady of the Lake holding her magical secrets as closely as she held the sword Excalibur, or one of the sirens who trapped Ulysses with her beauty and her song. Kellen caught the drift of his thoughts and reined them in, but not before he had to clear the wry chuckle that lodged itself deep in his throat.
Raine opened one eye and looked askance at him. “Will you not even allow me the luxury of pretending you aren’t there?”
“I am profoundly sorry.”
He did not sound contrite in the least, but Raine let it pass. She closed her eye and slipped a fraction lower into the water. “You will keep your distance, won’t you?”
“Reluctantly.”
That had the ring of truth, she thought. “Why are you still here? I told you where the key is.”
“I am confounded by the problem of what to do with the key after I unlock the door. If I leave it behind, then I’m leaving you alone, in your bath, I might add, with no way to immediately lock the door after me. If I lock the door after I exit, not only am I in possession of your key, but you have no simple way to get out. You see my quandary.”
“What I see is that you are riding on the longhorns of a pretty big dilemma.”
Kellen’s brow furrowed. “I am doing what?”
“Something Rabbit said. At least I think it was Rabbit. It might have been Finn.”
It was all the explanation Kellen required. “I see.”
“They did not endear themselves to Mr. Jones,” Raine said. “He made that clear.”
“Several times,” said Kellen. “What were you doing out while I believed you were safely tucked in for the night? You understand, don’t you, that I can’t provide protection when you’re eluding it.”
“I understand, but the Burdicks were with you. I didn’t expect a confrontation.”
“Perhaps not, and that’s a serious miscalculation.” His tone was devoid of humor. “You know, or you should know, that the direct threat is not the Burdicks. It is the men the Burdicks hire. Stay close, Raine. I mean it.”
She felt vaguely threatened and thought it was his intention to make her feel that way. “There are other people you have to consider,” she said. “I explained that to you. I cannot be your sole concern.”
“Nine of the twelve men who sat on the jury were in your saloon last evening. Did you know that?”
Her frown gave her away. She hadn’t known. “Nine? You’re sure?”
He ticked them off. “Sample. Rogers. Allen. McCormick. Faber. Pennway. Reston. Jack Clifton and Howard Wheeler went to their own corner as soon as the Burdicks arrived. Considering that John Hood is dead and that Hank Thompson is missing, the only person unaccounted for was Matthew Sharp.”
“Matthew is a Mormon,” she said quietly.
“Pardon?”
She opened her eyes and carefully sat up, drawing her knees close to her chest. She looked over at Kellen. “He’s a Mormon. He doesn’t drink. That’s why you haven’t seen him around, and why Walt never gave you that tidbit. Matt lives on land annexed to the town. He and his wife and children mostly keep to themselves.”
“Wife? Only one?”
She nodded. “Beatrice. Bea. She works the farm side by side with Matthew. If he decides he wants another wife, they’ll leave. No single man in Bitter Springs is going to let him have two.”
“No, I don’t suppose they would. That was his farm I saw when I rode south yesterday? The one with all the chicken coops?”
“Yes. Bea and Matthew have the best chickens and the best eggs. That’s where we buy ours.”
Kellen did not care about that. He cared more that the Sharps were isolated, and that Matthew Sharp had a good reason for not joining his fellow jurymen at the Pennyroyal. “Are you aware of any threats made expressly to Mr. Sharp or his family?”
“No. But I don’t know that they would say anything if there were.”
“I’ll speak to them.”
“Speak to them? How—” She stopped, remembering what Mr. Jones told her. “Are you telling people you are writing a story?”
“I have to tell them something, don’t I? I told Eli I was researching a story for th
e New York World.”
“Well, that explains the little notebook I saw you take out. Were you actually making notes?”
He nodded. “I think they would have noticed if I drew pictures.”
She blew out a breath. A puff of air stirred the copper fringe of hair at her forehead. “But the New York World? A newspaper everyone knows? What made you choose that?”
“A moment’s inspiration.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
She reached for the soap that was sitting on a metal tray between the faucets. The water was cooling rapidly, and she needed to wash and get out. She searched around for the sponge and found it beside her feet.
“I wish you had told me what you were saying to people,” she said. “I didn’t like learning it from Mr. Jones.”
“You were talking about me?”
“He was talking about you. I told him I don’t discuss my guests with other guests.”
“Wise. What did he say?”
She made a prim line of her mouth while she lathered her shoulders. “I don’t discuss my guests with other guests.”
He gave her a wry smile. “Amusing.”
Raine rubbed the back of her neck with the sponge. “He is thinking about hiring you for his survey group.”
“Hiring me? To do what?”
“To beard the lion in his den. In this case, the lion is—”
“Uriah Burdick.”
“That’s right. I imagine he’s thinking that you can go in first, offer some reasoning that will make Uriah agreeable to the survey, and if he doesn’t run you off or kill you, then Mr. John Paul Jones has his foot in the door.”
“And his equipment and men all over the Burdick ranch.”
“Yes. It’s a clever idea.”
“You’re saying that because he’s not trying to throw you to the wolves.”
“Lions.”
Kellen’s dismissive grunt remained at the back of his throat. He fell silent, thinking.
Raine tipped her head back and squeezed the sponge so soapy water ran down her chin and into the hollow of her throat. She continued washing, first one arm, then the other. She ran the sponge along the length of each leg, outside and inside, keeping them under the water the entire time. She only raised her feet long enough to attend to her toes.
When Kellen’s silence lasted an inordinately long time, Raine looked over at him. She thought she might find him watching her, but all of her discreetly performed ablutions appeared to have been unnecessary. He was staring at the floor, and whatever was occupying his mind had cut grim lines on either side of his mouth.
“Please tell me you are not considering his offer,” she said.
Kellen was slow to meet her eyes. Her voice came to him as though from a great distance. “Did you say something?”
“Mother of God,” she said, sighing. “You are considering it.”
He did not understand her reaction. “Of course. That’s why you told me about it, isn’t it?”
“No. I told you so that you could prepare an excellent reason for turning Mr. Jones down.”
“That part of your plan does not seem to have worked.”
She threw the sponge at him. It was heavy with water, but she pitched it with enough force to carry it all the way to the door. Her aim was true. She had only neglected to account for his reflexes. He dodged it easily, and it fell harmlessly to the floor with a loud thwack.
Kellen studied it for a long moment, contemplating his retaliatory strike before he bent and picked it up. He hefted it once in his palm, judging its weight and potential to harm, and when he decided there would be no injury, he launched it at Raine, choosing a line that made it sail above her head.
She responded predictably, throwing her arms up in the air and rising to her knees to catch it. She was gleeful as she brought it back to her chest until she realized that he’d been the victor in the encounter. He hadn’t wanted to hit her with the sponge at all. He’d wanted to see her breasts.
The water felt even colder after Raine’s deep flush suffused her skin with heat. She watched water slosh over the edge of the tub as she dropped back. The sponge and her folded arms preserved her modesty after the fact.
“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked.
“No. If you’re sorry, it’s only because you didn’t throw it higher.”
Laughter rose from deep in his chest, and it required some effort to keep it moderately restrained. “Where are your other towels?” he asked. “I’ll wipe up the floor.”
“You don’t have—” She didn’t finish because the look in his darkening blue-gray eyes said he did. “In the cupboard over there,” she told him, using a finger to point to the sink. “Would you allow me a few minutes to finish?”
His answer was to back away from the sink and disappear into the bedroom.
Raine completed her bath quickly, not confident that he wouldn’t reappear, and even less confident that she did not want him to. She dried off without much attention for it, and reentered her bedroom still slightly damp.
Kellen barely looked at her as he passed. He took the towel she held out to him and carried it into the bathing room. As soon as Raine’s hands were free, she undid the belt on her robe, shook out her shift to keep it from sticking to her skin, and then settled more comfortably into her robe and secured the belt. She could hear Kellen moving around and let him be.
Raine put on slippers, picked up her brush, and went to the sitting room. Kellen joined her before she had finished unwinding her hair. She invited him to sit.
“We will have to speak quietly,” she said. “Voices sometimes carry to and from this room.”
He nodded, taking the armchair opposite the small sofa where Raine sat. She was curled in one corner, her legs drawn up to the side, most of their impressive length hidden by the claret-colored robe.
“Would you like a drink?” she asked. “I have whiskey, of course, but I can put a pot of water on one of the stoves and make coffee or tea.”
“Nothing, thank you.”
“All right.”
He looked around the sitting room. In addition to the furniture he and Raine were occupying, there were two more chairs, one of them wide and overstuffed, the other a delicate cabriole with an embroidered seat. A small, round table was situated between the sofa and unused chair. Another table, large enough to use for dining, was positioned near the window. The walls were painted white.
There were touches in the room that made it homey but not personal. There were several plaster figurines on the end table, the kind that were mass-produced by the thousands and available by mail order. A tall, heavy vase made of cut glass was at the center of the larger, gate-legged table. Like the vase on the entry table, it held no flowers. Yarns in a rainbow of hues, embroidery hoops, needles, and threads filled a basket that rested at the foot of the sofa. Several books, all of them dime novels, lay on the floor beside the basket, but built around the window on the far wall were shelves that were crowded with more books, some of them expensively bound. He could not read the titles from where he sat, but he spied the thin, colorful spines that were characteristic of the Nat Church adventures.
He could only shake his head.
Raine caught the movement. “What is it?” she asked, following the direction of his gaze.
“I thought I saw some of the Nat Church novels over there.”
She smiled faintly, nodded. “Adam liked them. I think there are twenty, maybe twenty-one, in the series. He read the first five or six before he died. Ellen read them, too.”
“You?”
“Yes.”
“What did you think when you realized you’d made your arrangement with Nat Church?”
Her mouth screwed up at one corner. “I thought about ending it. You knew him. Even if he wasn’t your friend, you knew him better than I did. Was Nat Church truly his name?”
“It was the only name he ever told me.”
Nodding thoughtfully, Raine slo
wly pulled the brush through her hair. “Do you know there are people in Bitter Springs who think Nat Church is a real person?”
“I was confronted with that view of Nat Church when I met your station agent. Mr. Collins is one of the believers.”
Raine sighed. “It’s no wonder Rabbit and Finn have the imaginations they do.”
“Don’t the boys go to school? There’s a schoolhouse. I saw it.”
“We haven’t had a regular teacher for a while. Hank Thompson was the schoolmaster.”
“Oh.”
“Precisely. We have several people willing to teach until we can find someone, but they all have other responsibilities as well. There’s no one regularly there. When someone can give a morning or afternoon or both, Pastor Robbins rings the church bell and the children who can, go.”
“Are you one of the volunteers?”
“No,” she said regretfully. “I simply have too many things to do here. Sometimes I help Rabbit and Finn with reading and sums. Their granny doesn’t have the patience for it, and they are able to distract Mr. Collins too easily.”
“Imagine that.”
She chuckled softly. “It’s too bad you told the Burdicks you wrote for the New York World. You might have done admirably as a teacher.”
“Oh, no. This apple does not fall anywhere close to that tree.”
“You never wanted to follow in your father’s footsteps?”
“Never.” He pointed to himself. “Black sheep, remember?”
She regarded him, making her own assessment. “I wonder if that’s true.”
“My family will provide you with references.”
Raine gave him a mocking smile and continued brushing.
Kellen watched, finding her movements hypnotic and calming. He was struck by how easy it was to be with her. That was rarely his experience with the women of his acquaintance. Those who shared the society and the interests of his mother and sisters wanted him to be, if not something different than he was, then something more. There were other women, those who had little in common with the females he knew well, but they could not hold his attention outside of a bed, let alone a bedroom.