Lady Lavender

by Lynna Banning

  In the hotel dining room, he caught Rita’s eye and ordered a picnic basket with a jar of chicken soup, half a loaf of bread and three hard-boiled eggs. Then he tramped back up the stairs and left the basket outside Jeanne’s door, tapped softly and fled. He could break a horse in half an hour, but right now he hadn’t enough grit to face Jeanne again.

  The next morning, Wash found the burned remains of Montez’s campsite but no sign of the man. Maybe he’d been spooked by the deputy who’d seen him, but had the Spaniard hightailed it out of the county?

  Wash didn’t think so. The man seemed to have a grudge of some kind against Jeanne.

  He rode out to Green Valley to supervise the clearing crew in cutting timber and laying the split logs onto the four-foot-wide cleared track the men had leveled in preparation for the iron rail sections. The rolling bunkhouse for the workers had already reached the town of Colville, twenty miles to the west; another week of laying the three miles of track a day credited to the Chinese laborers Sykes hired and they’d be at the rim of Green Valley.

  On the site, it was turning into another scorching day. By noon, Wash and the five-man clearing crew were tired and sweaty and thirsty. By quitting time they were hot and cranky. When they straggled back to town, he bought the men cold beers at the Golden Partridge, had himself a bath and a shave at the barbershop and decided to visit the hotel to check on Jeanne and her daughter.

  He was not prepared for the shock he got when he spoke to the desk clerk.

  “Sorry, Colonel Halliday, Miz Nicolet checked out this morning.”

  “Checked out! Where’d she go?”

  “Over to the livery stable, I think. Said something about finding a place to live. That’s the last I saw of her.”

  A place to live? What kind of place can she find with not one red cent to her name? He’d sure as hell find out in a hurry. He headed for the livery stable.

  One of the wagons—the one loaded with Jeanne’s household items—was gone. The liveryman shrugged and raised his hands, palms up. “How should I know where some stubborn female spends her time?”

  Wash started asking questions. Someone at the barbershop had seen her drive off to the south, but it wasn’t until Wash cornered storekeeper Carl Ness in the narrow aisle between men’s boots and seed corn that he learned the truth.

  “The MacAllister ranch out on Swine Creek!” Wash thundered. “That old place was run-down six years ago when I left. Unless they’ve discovered gold in the creek, it can’t be worth a hill of beans now.”

  “Ain’t worth a hill of beans, Colonel,” Ness replied. “Thad MacAllister’s growin’ barley. Yessir, he’s had four or five years of good crops. In fact, his threshing crew left just last Sunday.”

  Wash remounted his horse and headed south, toward Swine Creek. What did Jeanne want with an old used-up barley field? He kicked General into a gallop.

  Jeanne saw the man riding toward her across the shorn barley field and her stomach knotted. What would he think about her decision?

  Alors, it did not matter what the tall man who bossed the railroad crews thought. What mattered was what she thought. Mr. MacAllister had been surprisingly nice; she and Manette were safe here in his empty bunkhouse, sheltered under a weathered but sturdy roof. She could draw water from the nearby creek and she could cook supper over the potbellied stove. At this point she asked for nothing more.

  She watched Wash circle her new abode, a scowl on his face. He dismounted with jerky motions and came striding up to the open door.

  “Jeanne!” he yelled.

  “I am here,” she said quietly. “Inside.”

  He stomped into the tiny building and stopped short in front of her. “What the hell do you think you’re doing out here in MacAllister’s bunkhouse? Where is Manette?”

  She met his angry look with a calm voice. At least she hoped it was calm; inside she was most definitely not calm.

  “Do not shout, please. Manette is asleep.”

  “Where?” he shouted.

  She gestured to the upper bunk bed behind her. “She is tired from yesterday. I, too, am tired.” She looked pointedly at the lower bunk where she had just finished laying out sheets and quilts on the thin cornhusk mattress.

  Wash glanced at the small stove that sat at one end of the room. She had not quite finished starting the fire; a thin spiral of smoke escaped from the iron firebox into the room.

  “Jeanne, you can’t stay here. This is a bunkhouse, for farm crews, not a hotel. Not even a cabin.”

  “I know very well what it is,” she shot back. “Monsieur MacAllister offered it and I—I took it.” She did not add that it was only a temporary lodging until she earned some money from her lavender crop. Or that she had swept and scrubbed all morning to get rid of the dirt. Or that she was frightened about the future and uneasy about camping out here alone. Instead she pointed out the gingham curtains she had tacked over the single window and the work skirts and aprons hanging on wooden pegs along one wall.

  But she could see by his expression that he was not impressed. From the deepening frown on his tanned face, he was far from approving of what she had done. Well, so be it.

  “Jeanne you can’t live out here.”

  “I can. And I will.”

  “Alone? It’s not safe.”

  In answer she lifted the rifle leaning beside the door and aimed it out the door. He shifted quickly away from her line of sight.

  “Look, MacAllister isn’t going to keep an eye on you. He lives in the ranch house a mile up the road. He can’t even see the bunkhouse from his place.”

  “But I do not want his eye on me.”

  “Jeanne, dammit, listen to me. You’re a woman—”

  “That does not mean I am helpless.”

  He barked out a laugh. “No one would ever think of you as helpless! Misguided, maybe. Hardheaded as a Sioux brave on the warpath. But not helpless.” He sighed and shook his head.

  “Not—”

  She held up one hand to stop his speech. “I will make it all right. I must make it all right. Do you not see that, Monsieur Railroad Man? It is necessary for me and my Manette to survive. When I sell my lavender, when I have money, then I will find another place.”

  Wash clumped twice around the little stove, then halted and propped his hands on his hips. He looked so angry she took a step backward.

  “I can’t look after you. During the day I’ll be out in Green Valley supervising the crews.”

  “There is no need to—”

  “Oh, yes, there is! I will be here at night.”

  “You need not be here!” It came out a bit harsher than she had intended, but she knew she was right. She did not need Wash Halliday to protect her.

  “I’ll be here,” he growled. “Just don’t shoot me when you hear my horse.”

  “I will not feed you,” she warned. “I have enough only for Manette and myself.”

  He took a step toward her. “I’ll eat in town.”

  She raised her chin. “You will not wake Manette.”

  “Not unless you shoot me. She’ll wake up when she hears the shot.”

  “I will not shoot.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, his fists opening and closing. “You are more trouble than any woman I’ve ever known.”

  “Oui, that must be true. Otherwise, you would not make such a noise.”

  Wash gave up. He pivoted away from her and stomped outside to his horse. How in Heaven’s name had he been brought to his knees by this slip of a woman in a blue gingham dress?

  He found Rooney lingering over his coffee at the Rose Cottage boardinghouse; Wash poured himself a cup of the brew and explained the situation.

  “I can’t rest easy while she’s out there alone.”

  “Yer even less easy when she’s not alone. ’Specially when you’re the one who’s with her.”

  “Rooney, how ’bout you keep a watch over Miz Nicolet and Manette during the day? I’ll take over at night.”

 
Rooney sent him a wry look. “You mean days I get to bust my knees huntin’ for bugs with Little Miss and nights you get to sleep on her doorstep?”

  “Damn right.”

  “Deal,” Rooney shot.

  Wash reached the railroad site in time to start the crew hacking the roadbed down the hillside into the canyon. All that day he couldn’t erase the picture of Jeanne, so mad at him she looked like a fluffed up banty chicken, her green-blue eyes studying him with that wary look he’d come to know. Who was it she didn’t trust? Him?

  Or herself?

  At supper in the boardinghouse that night Wash was the last one to sit down at the table. He took an empty chair across from Rooney and dug into the fried chicken and mashed potatoes Mrs. Rose had saved for him while his partner pared his fingernails and then cleaned them with his pocketknife. Rooney was wearing a new shirt.

  “What’s up?” he inquired, his mouth half-full of mashed potatoes.

  “Hell, man, it’s Saturday night.”

  “So?” Wash gulped down a mouthful of coffee.

  Rooney tapped his folded blade against Wash’s chest. “You dead or alive in there? Big barn dance out at the Jensen place tonight. Sarah—Miz Rose, that is—invited me to go with her.

  Wash stared at him, a drumstick halfway to his mouth. “‘Sarah,’ huh? If I live to be two hundred I’ll never understand your appeal to women.”

  Rooney chuckled. “I’m halfway handsome and all the way smart, that’s why.”

  Wash chewed in silence.

  “Now you, on t’other hand, are all-the-way handsome but only half smart! If you was all smart you’d see what’s starin’ you in the face.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Jeanne Nicolet, that’s what.”

  Wash shoveled in potatoes and said nothing.

  Rooney waggled his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “She ’n Little Miss will be goin’ to the dance tonight. Jeanne’s figurin’ to make friends with some of the townfolk and try to sell some of her lavender sacks.”

  “Sachets,” Wash corrected.

  “French, huh? Figures.”

  “Yeah? Well, my friend, I won’t be going to the dance tonight.”

  “Wouldn’t count on it, son.” Rooney straightened the collar on his new shirt, smoothed down the cuffs, and headed for the kitchen.

  “Sarah? You ’bout ready?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Wash took his time riding out to MacAllister’s, trying to sort out his feelings about Jeanne Nicolet. She was annoying as hell and prickly as a cactus. But he liked her. In addition she was so good to look at he hadn’t stopped wanting her since he’d laid eyes on her.

  He gazed up at the beginning of a colorful sunset. The shorn barley fields glowed with a rich, golden light and purple-tinged clouds hung over the mountains in the distance. He’d always thought this part of the country was beautiful. Hadn’t realized how much he’d missed it in the years he’d been away.

  He let General pick his way slowly toward the bunk house where a spiral of smoke curled from the stovepipe on the roof. The empty wagon sat next to the structure and…dammit, there was another clothesline draped with lacy undergarments flapping in the breeze. Wash groaned aloud. This woman would try a man’s patience until it snapped.

  Before he could dismount the door swung open and Manette sprang out, dressed in a crisp white pinafore. She tipped her face up, watching him slip out of the saddle. He bent his knees and hunched down to her level, ignoring the stab of pain in his wounded hip.

  “I wanna look for grasshoppers, but Maman says I can’t cuz we’re going to a dance.”

  “You ever been to a dance before?”

  “No. And I don’t want to.”

  Wash had to laugh. At what point in a young girl’s life did she get interested in dances?

  “I see,” he said. “You’d rather hunt for grass—”

  Jeanne appeared in the doorway and he broke off. She wore a yellow dress made of some kind of soft-looking stuff. She’d let her hair down and it brushed her shoulders in dark waves. He’d like to run his fingers through it. In the gauzy almost-evening light she looked like an angel. Over her arm she carried a basket of lavender sachets.

  “Bon soir,” she called.

  Very slowly he rose to his feet and snaked off his wide-brimmed hat, his mouth suddenly dry as tumble-weed. He had to clear his throat twice before he could utter a word.

  “Manette says you’re going—”

  “Oui, to the dance at Peter and Roberta Jensen’s barn. They were very kind to invite me.”

  “How’re you going to get there, walk?”

  “But of course! It is only one half of a mile. Ten minutes!”

  His mouth opened and before he could close it, words he hadn’t expected came tumbling out. “I could drive you in the wagon.”

  What was he saying? He didn’t want to go anywhere near that barn dance. He especially did not want to be anywhere near Jeanne in that yellow dress. Every time he looked at her, his britches felt too tight.

  She gazed at him, considering his impulsive offer, probably weighing all the reasons she would prefer to walk. Apparently she didn’t want his help. Well, let her walk if she was so independent. He hoped she’d get cockleburs in her stockings.

  He looked skyward where the moon floated above them like a fat orange pumpkin sailing close to the earth. He guessed she was still mad enough about the railroad to spit nails. She wouldn’t want to be within a mile of him, much less sitting next to him on the wagon bench.

  “Bon,” she said abruptly. She gestured toward the slat-wood vehicle pulled up next to the bunkhouse. “Would you hitch up my horse?”

  Wash stood motionless, wondering if he’d heard right. Hitch up…? Yeah, he’d heard right.

  His hands shook when he nudged the bridle over her gray mare’s head. By the time he’d linked the traces to the wagon axle, he was so nervous the horse sidled away from him.

  What the devil was wrong with him? He’d be sitting next to Jeanne for maybe five minutes while he drove the wagon to the Jensen place. Five minutes, that was all. And he would position Manette between them.

  He lifted the girl up onto the wagon bench, then offered a helping hand to Jeanne. She ignored it, stepped up on the axle and settled herself into place beside her daughter. Wash tramped around to the other side, climbed up and flapped the lines. The mare started forward.

  Jeanne smoothed out her soft yellow dress and sat in rigid silence while Manette clapped her hands and began to hum a tuneless song. Jeanne leaned sideways to put her arm around her daughter and he caught a whiff of that indefinable scent that rose from her hair. Like lilac blooms, with a dash of…cloves? Whatever it was, it made him ache with an old, old hunger he thought he’d never feel again.

  The Jensens’ barn, actually their threshing barn, was lit up like a Kansas City carnival. Candlelit lanterns lined the path; music poured out the double doors which stood wide open as townsfolk crowded to get inside.

  The interior was warm, smelling of pine planks and coffee and tobacco smoke and ladies’ scented powder. At one end of the room a long table was laden with cakes and pies, glass bowls of lemonade punch, two speckleware coffeepots, and even a few bottles of whiskey for the men. Jeanne set her basket of sachets next to the lemonade.

  In the opposite corner Thad MacAllister and Whitey Kincaid sawed away on their fiddles, and Seth Rubens jauntily plucked a washtub bass. Upturned wooden boxes served as chairs along one wall, and an area behind the refreshment table had been set aside for makeshift beds for young children and a few cradles for infants.

  Wash felt suddenly out of place in the overwarm, noisy atmosphere. For some reason the friendly spirit of the gathering grated on his nerves. He knew almost everyone. Some folks he’d known since he was in knee pants on his dad’s ranch, but he still felt he didn’t belong.

  Jeanne was whirled away into a square dance set and Rooney strode across the polished floor and bowed before Manette.
“Now, then, Little Miss, I’m gonna teach you how to dance.”

  Wash found himself standing against the far wall, trying not to watch Jeanne lifting her arm to make a Ladies’ Star in the center of her square. She was clearly working hard to mend some bridges with the townsfolk. Instead he concentrated on Rooney and Manette. The girl placed her feet on top of Rooney’s big boots, so that when he stepped, she stepped. Together they moved about the floor in a dance of sorts, Manette grinning up at Rooney, her eyes shining. Rooney, the big galoot, was one big smile.

  Wash blew out a pent-up breath. He was surrounded by a bustling crowd of people yet he felt lonelier than he could ever remember. He edged toward the whiskey on the refreshment table. He downed one hefty slug, and then another, and began to feel more alive.

  The music changed to a polka. He searched the dancing couples for Jeanne, found her with Carl Ness, the mercantile owner. Looked like Carl had warmed toward her; he was teaching her the steps. She looked distracted and kept stumbling over her partner’s feet. He guessed they didn’t polka in New Orleans.

  A tall young cowboy cut in on Carl, and then another fellow with a handsome blond mustache cut in on the cowboy. The mustache held her too close, and Wash clenched his jaw. Don’t manhandle her, you big oaf. This one is a Lady with a capital L.

  He watched as long as he could stand it, then shouldered his way onto the waxed floor. When her partner swung her close enough, Wash reached out, snagged his arm around her waist, and spun her out of Mustache’s arms and into his own.

  “Merci!” she whispered. “I thought he was going to eat me!”

  “I thought so, too.”

  She said nothing, and their conversation died. Wash tried to concentrate on moving his feet. The fiddles moved into a slow waltz, which made it easier in one way—he knew the steps—but harder in another: he was holding her in his arms. Her hair smelled of flowers and under the billowy yellow dress she was warm and soft. He held her slightly apart from him, afraid he would crush her.

  Which was exactly what he wanted to do. After a slight hesitation he pulled her closer, so close her tumbled hair brushed his bare hand splayed against her back.