“You—” she tried to keep her voice steady “—are easily p-pleased.” It was just a jest, but she heard his voice change with his reply.
“The hell I am.”
She had said exactly the wrong thing. But it did not seem to matter because he scooped her up, poncho and all, and tramped up the porch steps with her in his arms.
Rooney, with Manette hanging about his neck, ushered them through the front door with a shout. “Sarah, they’re here!”
Wash set Jeanne down and lifted off the poncho and her rain-soaked shawl, then wrestled Manette’s arms out of her red coat.
He rolled all the wet garments together in one bundle and looked at Jeanne. “You want to add your wet skirt and petti—?”
“Certainly not!” A bubble of laughter escaped, and the next thing she knew he was down on one knee, un lacing her boots.
Opening the door briefly, he tossed her shoes and his own boots and the pile of wet garments out of the front door onto the lawn swing.
Mrs. Rose had the dining table set with flowered china bowls of warm bread and milk at each place. One bowl had what looked like gingerbread floating in it; Rooney plunked Manette down in front of it. “You like gingerbread, don’tcha, Little Miss?”
Manette did not answer because her mouth was already full.
“Well,” Rooney said. “Turned out to be a nice day for a ride, huh?”
Wash snorted. Hiding her smile, Jeanne dropped her head to concentrate on the bowl in front of her. Wash clanked his spoon back into his bowl and eyed Rooney. “Worst damn picnic I’ve ever been on.”
“Yeah?” Rooney eyed him with a perfectly straight face. “What was wrong with it?”
“Ants,” Wash said.
At that, Jeanne laughed aloud. She felt giddy, as if the last few hours had been just a bad dream. But it was over now. She and Manette were safe and dry. While Mrs. Rose fluttered in and out of the kitchen, replenishing their supper bowls, and Wash got the horses warm and dry in the livery, Jeanne’s spirits rose until she felt like dancing. Heaven help her, she could not live without this man!
Oh, yes, she could. She would soon have her own farm, her own house. Her heart might shrivel up, but she could go on and make a new life for herself. Vraiment, she had no choice. Even if she wanted it to be different, she could not rope and tie the man down; it would kill him.
Rooney stood up suddenly, scrabbled at the sideboard and produced a bottle of amber liquor and two shot glasses. “Sarah musta forgot this when she dusted this mornin’.”
He poured both glasses full. Before Jeanne could stop herself, she reached over and claimed one.
Rooney’s thick eyebrows shot up. “Didn’t know you was a drinkin’ woman, Jeanne.”
“But I am not,” she confessed. “It is an American custom I am just learning.”
Both men chuckled.
“But it is true,” she insisted. “I have never tasted spirits or whiskey or whatever it is called.”
Rooney poured a third glass and shoved it in front of Wash. “Down the hatch.” His head tipped back and he downed the liquid in one gulp.
Wash raised his brimming glass. “Down the hatch,” he echoed. He gulped it all down, then sat back in his chair waiting to see what she would do.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “I will do it just to prove that I can.” She lifted the liquid to her lips. “Damn the match,” she announced. She held her breath, poured the whiskey into her mouth and swallowed.
Sacre bleu! Her throat burned as if she had eaten a red-hot coal! She couldn’t take a breath, couldn’t talk. Her eyes watered. And both Wash and Rooney were guffawing!
Manette stared at her with widening blue eyes.
She waved her hands in front of her, trying to draw in some air, but nothing helped. Finally Wash stopped laughing, leaned close and pounded her back with the flat of his hand.
She coughed, then choked. At last she could speak.
“Gentlemen,” she announced in a raspy voice. “I have now damned the match.” Both men stopped laughing.
“Is that not what one says?” she asked.
That set them off again. Jeanne ignored them, finished her bowl of bread and milk and waited for Wash and Rooney to stop chortling. Rooney exchanged a look with Wash, then solemnly poured another shot of liquor for each of them.
Both men raised their glasses in a salute to her. “Damn the match,” they said in unison.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Bathwater’s hot,” Mrs. Rose called from the kitchen. “Who’s first?”
Jeanne could not wait to escape the laughter around the dining table. She grabbed Manette and marched out to the back porch where the landlady had filled the tin bathtub. She had scented the water with a sprinkling of lavender leaves, and Jeanne smiled at the gesture.
She sponged off Manette and wrapped her sleepy daughter up in a towel Mrs. Rose had heated in the oven. Manette curled up on a wood bench beside a stack of wicker laundry baskets, pulled her head down inside the warm towel like a turtle and nodded off to sleep.
The door into the kitchen stood open, but the door leading to the dining room was closed; even so, Jeanne could hear Rooney and Wash talking in low tones. Quickly she unbuttoned her wet skirt and petticoat, dropped them onto the floor, and cocked her head to be sure the men were still occupied. Satisfied, she stripped off her chemise and pantalettes and stepped into the tub.
The water barely covered her nipples, but oh, how wonderful it felt, easing the ache in her thighs and soothing her frayed nerves. How, she wondered, did men manage to ride horses all day long, day after day?
Wash’s tall form loomed in the kitchen doorway, and with a squeak of surprise, Jeanne clasped her hands over her breasts. “I have not finished bathing!” She thought she shouted the words, but ever since that glass of spirits she’d downed, her head had felt funny and her mind kept circling in a dreamy haze. Perhaps she had only whispered.
“Got mighty quiet in here all of a sudden,” he said. “Wanted to be sure you hadn’t drowned.”
“I am not drowned,” she said, praying her voice sounded matter-of-fact. “I am dreaming of floating down the Garonne in a little boat on a warm summer afternoon, and the lavender fields—”
She gave a cry and jolted upright. “My lavender! The flood will sweep it away into the creek!” Suddenly frantic, she stood up in the tub, realized she was naked and sat back down with a sploosh.
“What are you looking at?”
Wash took his time in answering. He walked on into the kitchen, shut the door and returned to crouch beside the tub. “What I’m looking at,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice, “is you, Jeanne. Not touching, just looking.”
“What right have you—?”
“None at all,” he said quietly. “Just feeling grateful for two good horses, and for two shots of good whiskey, and for Mrs. Rose and her milk cow. And…” He held her gaze. “I’m grateful for a woman who doesn’t scare easy.”
She gave him the oddest look, and his belly did a slow somersault.
“And…” He did not finish the thought because Jeanne was pressing her lips to his.
“Oh, Jeanne,” he said when their lips parted. “Could we…?”
“Non.” She said the word so decisively he knew he couldn’t push her. He wouldn’t anyway. Given the damage he’d already done to the bond between them, one more misstep and she’d likely shoot him with that derringer she carried.
But to his surprise what she said was, “And I am grateful for you.”
Wash tried not to grin.
The following morning dawned so clear and bright it was hard to look at the sky. When Wash rode out to Green Valley, the endless expanse of blue arched overhead all the way to the distant mountains. Yesterday’s rainwater had soaked into the parched ground so completely the layer of mud was already starting to dry up in a tracery of cracks.
Rooney had stayed behind this morning to repair the fence blown down by the storm
winds. He’d volunteered his services at breakfast “as long as Little Miss and Sarah’s grandson Mark would be his helpers.” Wash had to smile at the thought of little Manette wielding a hammer.
Today should be an easy day laying the iron track the rest of the way through the Cut; he hoped the storm hadn’t washed out the smoothed bed his crew had labored over. As soon as the tracks reached the level ground outside Green Valley, Rooney would take over supervising the Chinese crew and Wash would move on to Gillette Springs as Sykes had ordered.
He gazed up into the hot sunshine and closed his eyes. Usually he looked forward to readying a new site, bossing the survey crew, organizing the graders and powder monkeys. This morning a pang of regret nibbled at him; he wanted to spend another night with Jeanne.
When she had kissed him on the back porch last night, his brain had gone into another crazy spin. She’d looked so enticing, even wrapped up in an old plaid bathrobe Mrs. Rose had lent her. But when he’d made a move toward her she had pressed her arms over her rib cage.
“Non. There is Manette to think of. She is well now, and she…she sleeps lightly.”
Devil take it! He liked Manette—quite a lot, in fact; he wouldn’t want to disturb her. But dammit, he couldn’t take Jeanne to his own room upstairs because Rooney was already snoring like a crosscut saw in the one bed. The night before, Wash had slept on a pallet on the hard floor.
He yanked his thoughts back to what faced him today. The site was wet, and the railbed the crew had graded had washed out in a few places. But by midmorning, Sam and his crew had the damage repaired, and by noon shiny silver rails ran the entire length of the valley and through the Green Valley Cut onto level ground. His job at the valley site was finished.
He should celebrate. Instead he stacked wood for the Chinese cook’s stove and walked the entire length of track, checking whether the spikes were pounded in level with the metal rails. He then reversed his direction to double-check each joint bar. Hell and damn, the truth was he wanted to delay his leaving as long as possible.
When the silver-and-black locomotive engine fired up its boilers and chuffed through the Green Valley Cut, pushing the three-tier bunkhouse and the cars of railroad ties and rails ahead of it, Wash knew his time in Smoke River was over.
What he didn’t know was how to say goodbye to Jeanne.
After the lunch break, Sam shouldered him toward his horse. “Job finished here, boss. You go to next place.”
Wash took a last look at what had once been Jeanne’s lavender farm and kicked General into a canter. On his way through town, he stopped in at the Golden Partridge. The redheaded bartender poured a shot of his favorite whiskey and slid it down the length of polished mahogany. He sipped it in silence and was grateful the barkeep wasn’t in a talking mood.
With each passing minute he thought more and more about Jeanne, and his throat grew tighter and tighter. Finally he drained his glass, signaled a goodbye to the barman and headed for the boardinghouse to say goodbye. He felt worse with every step he took, as if a black mist was settling over his heart.
Jeanne was out in the front yard, hunched over a section of fence with a hammer in her hand, pounding nails while Rooney and Manette and Mrs. Rose’s grandson propped up the collapsed slats.
He felt like he always did when he first saw her, like a horse had kicked him in the chest with all four hooves. The sensation increased to agony when he realized he’d be leaving within an hour.
Jeanne looked up, her lips closed around a mouthful of nails. She tried to smile, then clapped her hand over the nails to keep them in place. He wanted to laugh but he didn’t have the energy.
While Jeanne watched, her face white and pinched, he dragged the saddlebag off his horse and forced himself to turn away from her and mount the porch steps. Mrs. Rose was in the kitchen, peeling a sinkful of potatoes. He paid Jeanne’s board for the next six months.
“Chances are she won’t be here that long, Colonel. She won’t say why, neither.”
Wash stepped back. He guessed Jeanne had some sort of plan up her sleeve. He didn’t want to know what it might be. At least he knew she had money, and beyond that he couldn’t let himself think.
With slow steps he hefted his saddlebag up to his room and began packing his things. When he finished, he walked across the hall and laid on Jeanne’s bed a small engraved medal he’d carried with him since the War.
Rooney spied him coming out of the front door, his bulging saddlebag over his shoulder. “Leavin’ now, are ya?”
Jeanne dropped her hammer with a clunk and turned toward him. She wasn’t smiling.
Wash shook hands with Rooney, then with Sarah’s grandson Mark, then with Rooney again. “Pick us a place that serves pancakes for breakfast,” his partner ordered.
Manette sprinted across the yard and flung both her arms around Wash’s knees. He ruffled her flyaway hair and she hugged his legs even tighter. Wash swallowed hard. He would remember this moment for the rest of his life.
Jeanne stood watching him in silence, her eyes anguished. He slung the saddlebag onto his horse and turned to her.
“Jeanne.” He stepped toward her just as she moved forward toward him. “I’ll take a week off come Christmas,” he murmured. “I’ll come to see you then.”
She raised her head to look into his eyes. “Do not,” she whispered. “This is difficult enough.”
“I want to come. I’ll want to see you.”
“Do not,” she repeated. “Please do not.” Her voice broke.
She cleared her throat and looked up at him. “Besides, I have…I am buying a farm, Wash. My life will go on.”
She stepped into his arms and lifted her face to his. “Kiss me,” she whispered.
She could feel the trembling of his tall frame even before his mouth touched hers. She gave herself up to his lips, his scent, his strength, his being. She knew what his leaving meant; she would never see him again.
And in a flash of clarity she also knew that she loved him.
Without speaking, he kissed her again, then deliberately set her apart from him. When she glanced up she saw that his eyes were wet.
She carried the image of his face throughout the remainder of the day while she hammered nails into the broken fence. That night she found the silver medal Wash had left on her bed. On one side was engraved “To George Washington Halliday.” She turned it over. “For Valor.”
She didn’t stop crying until breakfast the next morning.
It was forty miles to Gillette Springs, a ten-hour ride. After saying goodbye to Jeanne, Wash didn’t have the stomach to push hard, so he camped out under a stand of cottonwoods near the Santiam River. The next morning he rode on into the town.
He remembered Gillette Springs as a pretty little place, with whitewashed storefronts and wide, clean-swept boardwalks on both sides of the main street. Sure didn’t look that way now. The false building fronts looked weathered and gray even in the hot midday sunshine, the noon whistle at the sawmill had a gritty sound and the yellow roses that used to ramble over the lattice in the town square were withered and dry.
He ate a lunch of ham and fried potatoes in the Gillette Hotel dining room and inquired about boardinghouses.
“Got three,” the shiny-faced young waitress told him. “One takes in ladies only. One has a—” she blushed all the way up to her hairline “—shady reputation. And one’s all right except the landlady is crabby. Which one do you fancy?”
“Crabby,” Wash said. “If she can cook.”
“Oh, Mrs. Zwenk can cook, all right. Third house from the corner.”
The place looked immaculate—matching curtains in every window, two bright redbrick chimneys, even the orange zinnias along the front walk were identical to each other. He knocked at the glass-paned door.
A tall, angular woman with her gray hair caught in a bun and wearing a stiff-starched white apron jerked open the door.
“Mrs. Zwenk?”
“I am Eleanora Zwenk, ye
s. What do you want?”
“I’m Wash Halliday. I work for the Oregon Central Railroad, and my partner and I will be spending a month here in Gillette Springs. We’d like to rent a couple of rooms.”
“Railroad, eh? Gonna run it right down Main Street?”
“No, ma’am. The railroad doesn’t own that land. Most likely the tracks will run alongside the river.
She firmed her mouth. She didn’t look welcoming, but the longer Wash stood there on her tidy front porch the less he cared. Might as well get down to essentials.
“Do you serve pancakes for breakfast? My partner is partial to pancakes.”
“Who’s your partner?” she snapped.
“His name’s Rooney Cloudman.” He didn’t think it prudent to mention Rooney’s half-Comanche heritage.
Mrs. Zwenk looked him up and down with narrowed gray eyes. “Got a jail record? I don’t rent to outlaws—” she studied him again “—no matter how tall and handsome they are.”
“We’re both working men, Mrs. Zwenk.” He tried not to let his exasperation show, but he was developing a powerful thirst for a shot of whiskey. “Ma’am? About the room?” He peeled a bill out of his wallet and thrust it into the woman’s knob-fingered hand.
Mrs. Zwenk’s eyebrows went up and she blinked at the money.
“Dollar a day. Each. No breakfast on Sundays.”
“Deal. I’ll bring my things over later.” He grasped her dry hand, shook it and headed for the saloon across from the hotel.
Polly’s Cage. Funny name, but it didn’t matter. He felt miserable. He ached all over, especially when he thought of Jeanne.
The barkeep was even more crabby than Mrs. Zwenk. “Make up your mind, mister. I’ve got other customers.”
Wash was beginning to feel out of place. And running out of patience. He didn’t much like the town anymore. He felt something inside him ignite, and if he didn’t do something about it, he was going to explode. It was like a short fuse was smoldering in his gut and if he stood still for very long it would detonate.
He’d never felt this unsettled, not even after Laura. Maybe he was getting old. Burned-out. Maybe he was tired of moving on every month or so. A brimming shot glass slid in front of him, and Wash hunkered over it. Then he shoved it out of the way with his elbow and dropped his head in his hands. He needed to think.
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