by Jodi Thomas
“Cherish!” Margaret shouted above the thunder. “Load up. We’re going to try and outrun the storm; otherwise, I’m afraid we’ll be trapped by mud.”
Cherish helped hitch the horses, then climbed onto the seat as the first drops of rain splattered against her cheeks. Clutching her cape, she fought the whipping wind as Grayson slapped the horses into action.
They moved as fast as the road would allow, but within an hour the rain caught them full force. Without a word, Grayson handed Margaret the reins and climbed down. He walked to the horses’ heads and began guiding them through the muddy river that once had been the road. Cherish’s knuckles whitened around the seat as the rain grew worse.
Margaret finally passed the reins to Cherish. “I’m going to help Grayson!” she shouted over nature’s wrath.
Cherish nodded. She’d been caught outside in storms before and knew they would certainly suffer more if they didn’t keep the wagon moving in this open country. Fort Worth couldn’t be much farther. With supplies low and only wet gunpowder, they were better off braving the storm than risking the danger of stopping.
Maggie’s lean body twisted like an elm branch as she battled the wind and rain. She bent and pulled the back hem of her skirt between her legs as she and Cherish had done many times in their childhood. Then she tucked the hem into her belt, making her full skirt more like pants. Grabbing the bridle of one of the horses, she shouted at Grayson to move ahead.
Cherish’s hands grew frigid and raw from holding the reins as she watched Maggie and Grayson plow through the knee-deep mud. The hours and the rain seemed like endless torture as they measured their progress from one hole in the road to another.
Again and again Cherish watched her aunt slip into the mud, and always Grayson’s arm was there to pull her up.
The gray day had turned black by the time they reached the outskirts of Fort Worth. Stores and homes were boarded up against the storm, transforming the town into a near-abandoned settlement. The small city had obviously suffered during the war from lack of manpower. Now it was hard to tell if the town had been half-built, or lay in half-ruin.
They went past several houses before Margaret saw a man running from his barn to his house. She yelled out, asking directions to Hell’s Half-Acre, but he only stared at her as if she were a devil and then turned to run inside. Margaret’s harsh rebuke was not lost in the thunder.
Finally, they found a tattered pole of street signs. Grayson lifted Margaret’s exhausted, muddy body onto the wagon. Cherish handed him the reins and snuggled into her hopelessly wet cape as he climbed up beside her aunt. Wordlessly he took the reins in one hand and pulled Margaret beneath the protection of his free arm. He drove through the streets until finally they saw a large, two-story home set back from the road. An old sign was nailed to the gate: “Hattie’s Parlor.” It stood like an aging, defiant warrior atop a small, barren hill. Silently, it faced the wrath of the storm alone.
Staring through the curtain of rain, Cherish looked closely at her new home. The house dominated a rise with barns and chicken yards gathered around its skirt. With fallen shutters and broken porch steps it looked more like a beggar than the king of the mountain. A screen door flapped in the wind, seemingly pushing away all who might wish to enter. Grayson maneuvered the wagon around back and into an empty barn.
They were all too tired even to talk. The women knew that the horses must be attended to before any comfort could be sought. While Grayson unhitched the team, Maggie carried grain and water. Cherish found a worn blanket and began rubbing first Grayson’s bay and then the team.
Finally, Grayson pulled the blanket from her hands and pointed toward the house. The women linked arms and made a run through the rain to the back porch.
Cherish left her soaked cape’s protection as they reached the steps, then shoved the back door open with her last bit of energy. A single light blinked, blinding her for a moment.
As the room came into focus, she froze in fear. Exhaustion drained from her body like blood oozes from a shot man. Her fingers fumbled for her bag as her gaze concentrated on the end of a long rifle pointed directly at her heart.
“One more step and I drop ya!” a young voice yelled.
Margaret’s arm tightened around Cherish’s waist as she ordered, “Wait!”
The rifle barrel was shaking noticeably as a boy of not more than ten stepped into the light. “I got orders to kill anybody breakin’ into this house. Don’t remember bein’ told any different if it were women.”
“Put down that gun, boy,” Margaret directed. “We’re not breaking into the house. I’m Margaret Alexander and this is Cherish Wyatt. I own this place.”
The boy lowered the gun a few inches. “You be the Maggie and Cherish that old Tobin talked about?”
Cherish laughed with relief. “Yes. Who might you be?”
“I’m Barfield Jefferson Parker. Bar for short.” He lowered the gun to the table. “I live here with old Hattie. My ma was Miss Hattie’s housekeeper, but Ma died last year. I stayed on so there’d be a man around the house. Miss Hattie kind of comes with the house and I kind of come with her.”
Amid a round of thunder, Grayson’s massive bulk shadowed the doorway. Bar jumped for his gun, but Cherish blocked his path. She laid her hand on the boy’s shoulder, feeling the fear he wouldn’t allow to show in his face. Patting him reassuringly, she whispered, “He kind of comes with us.”
Bar straightened. His dark gypsy eyes looked up at Grayson. Only his bobbing Adam’s apple gave away his nervousness.
Grayson removed his wet hat and slapped it against his thigh. He gave a nod toward Bar, and Cherish thought she saw the hint of a wink.
The boy stood his ground like a little rooster having his territory questioned. Cherish allowed her hand to glide lightly along his shoulder and felt the bone beneath his clothes. “If you’ll take me to this Miss Hattie, I’d like to meet her. We’ve had a very hard day and would love to get into some dry clothes and perhaps eat supper, but we’ll need your help.”
“The boy can help you,” came a voice from the shadows, as cold as the wind outside, “but all we got to eat is a pot of beans and some sweet-milk corn bread.”
Everyone in the room turned toward the hallway as a woman entered. She was dark and ageless with bright scarves of red and gold tied around her hair and waist. “I’m Azile, the housekeeper. I’ll tell Miss Hattie you’re here, then bring food up to your rooms.” Where the boy’s complexion hinted of gypsy blood, Azile’s left no doubt of it with her dark skin and eyes as black and shiny as sable. “I was Bar’s mother’s cousin so I came to help with the housework.”
Cherish could feel the boy’s shoulders tighten and decided either Azile was lying, or the boy wanted no part of being her relative.
Azile looked both of the women up and down and sighed as though she found neither of any interest. “We cleaned up the two-bedroom suite with a sitting room in the middle when we heard about old Tobin’s will.” She nodded toward the boy, silently commanding him to show them the way.
“That would be nice …,” Margaret began.
“Weren’t expecting no man.” Azile looked up at Grayson as though he’d just been left on the doorstep. “I ain’t got a room ready for him. And I don’t plan on doing no cleaning this time of night. He’ll have to sleep in the barn.”
Margaret straightened slightly. “He’ll sleep in the sitting room. Bar, can you find him dry bedding?”
Bar watched Azile for a moment before nodding. No one missed the smile that spread across his face when Azile whirled her full skirt and disappeared as silently as she’d appeared.
Cherish felt a chill all the way to her bones as they moved down a mahogany-paneled hallway toward the front rooms. “This is a beautiful house,” she whispered more to herself than to anyone else. She noticed several blank walls and empty spots where furniture should have been. Even run-down and dusty, this was one of the finest homes she’d ever been inside. Most houses i
n Texas were small-little more than dugouts—but this one was as grand as some she’d seen in New Orleans and Austin.
Bar carried the lantern before her. “I was born here. I know this place like a mole knows his hole. There’re more rooms than you’d guess.”
They passed one room after another filled with draped furniture. “Miss Hattie stays downstairs ‘cause she’s too sick to be moved much.” He pointed to a closed door. “That’s her room.”
As he spoke, Azile stepped through the door. Unsmiling, she whispered, “Miss Hattie is already asleep. You’ll have to talk to her tomorrow.”
Cherish sighed. The dream of a hot bath was the only thing that kept her from curling up in the hall and falling asleep.
Bar turned toward the stairs. “Your rooms are up here where it’s quiet.”
Margaret opened her mouth to ask what he meant, but Azile spoke first. “We all hear things—ghosts screaming, spirits walking. This house has seen a great deal of evil and sometimes at night the walls cry in mourning.”
Margaret huffed and motioned Bar forward. “I don’t believe in ghosts. If folks could come back from the dead, I’m sure my Westley would have returned to me. He died in the war. Shot down in his youth by a damned Yankee bullet.”
Cherish agreed with her aunt about the ghosts, but still caught herself turning her head to listen as they climbed the stairs.
An hour later all thoughts of ghosts were forgotten as she slid into the hot tub. She smiled as she heard Maggie talking to Grayson a doorway away in the sitting room. Her aunt was yelling as though the huge man were deaf to the language and not simply foreign to it.
“Take off those wet clothes!” Margaret shouted.
Grayson stood his ground, staring at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about even though his coat was dripping wet from his trips back and forth to the barn.
Margaret tightened the belt of her wool wrapper. “You need dry clothes. Take off those wet ones and I’ll hang them by the fire.”
Grayson fought back a smile and continued to stare. Only moments before, he’d thought he was too tired and cold to feel anything, but that was before Margaret walked through the door all fresh and blushing from her hot bath.
Margaret huffed impatiently and moved closer. “I don’t understand how you sometimes read my mind and now can’t seem to hear a word I’m saying.” She touched the top button of his coat and loosened it as she spoke. “You’ll catch your death if you don’t get dry.” Her fingers moved nervously yet with determination to the next button.
Fighting to control his breathing, Grayson let her continue. He could feel the hesitancy in her fingers as she slid her hand along the wall of his chest, opening his coat. For days he’d been near her, watching her move, listening to the softness in her voice when she talked with Cherish, feeling her every touch like a whip to the raw flesh of his memory. And even now, with his muscles too tired to ache, he still wanted to be near her. It had been so long, so very long, since he’d been around a lady. This strong, tall woman standing so close to him was driving him mad with her touch. He could almost feel the steam rising from his wet clothes as she pulled his coat away from his shoulders.
“I swear, Grayson. How can you just stand there dripping?” Her hand slid over his chambray shirt. “Even your shirt is wet.”
Grayson stood like an oak against the storm of his need to touch her in return. Sam McMiller, back in Bryan, wouldn’t have called her a cold crow if he could see her now in her royal blue dressing gown with her mass of hair damp and tumbling down her back like a midnight black waterfall. There was nothing hard or petrified about her once she’d removed her tight stays and laces, for Grayson had trouble keeping his eyes off her long, slender curves. The fire her nearness was stoking was almost consuming him as her fingers moved along to the last button of his shirt. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted to crush her against him or turn and run.
“We’ll hang your things by the fire.” Margaret draped his coat over a ladder-back chair. “Grayson, you’re acting like I’m trying to steal your clothes. I wish you could understand more of what I’m saying.” She moved closer, tugging at his shirttail as though he were a child. “We have to get these off you.”
Grayson’s huge hand covered hers, stopping her progress. He imprisoned her fingers between his own and the muscle over his heart.
For the first time, she raised her eyes and looked into his stormy gaze. She could talk all she wanted to about him catching cold; she could even treat him like a child. Yet in that moment Grayson saw a hunger in her indigo blue depths, a hunger she wouldn’t have admitted to him or to herself. A need basic to all men and women. A need she’d deny to her dying breath. But he saw it in her eyes for one long moment and her hidden desire touched his soul.
She looked away as if frightened, not by him, but by her own thoughts. “I asked Bar to bring a cot in here but I don’t see one. You may have to sleep on the couch.”
As she pulled her hand free from his grasp, he felt a gaping hole in his chest as though she’d pulled his heart out with her slender fingers. He closed his eyes and reminded himself that he was a Union officer with a job to do, not some lovesick cowhand who’s been on the trail for three months. If this lady was involved with the Knights, he was obligated to see her behind bars and not anticipate her in his bed.
She moved near the fire, unaware of his longing. “There’s no sense heating up the entire house.” She pulled her robe together as though the fire gave her no warmth. “You can sleep here. I put no stake in ghost stories, but I’ll sleep better knowing we’re all close enough to hear one another.”
Grayson watched her walk away, thinking he’d have to move his cot to the Oklahoma Territory to be able to sleep.
“Good night.” Her whisper and the door’s closing sounded in harmony.
Grayson stared at the closed door that barred him from the first woman he’d wanted since his wife died. How many doors? he thought. How many doors in both our pasts will I have to break down to get to her?
He yanked off his wet clothes and twisted inside the blanket Margaret had left on the long couch. “Get a grip on yourself,” he whispered. “This woman is as hard as they come. Any man would be crazy to try and woo a widow away from her memory of the perfect husband. A husband killed, not by just a bullet, but a damned Yankee bullet.”
It’d been ten years since he’d done more than hand over money to get a woman in his bed. He had a job to do and that job might just mean having to arrest Margaret and her niece. If they were connected to this house, they had to be somehow connected with the ring of outlaws who went by the noble name of Knights of the Golden Circle. Even if there was some argument among Grayson’s superiors to let the Knights die away, Grayson wasn’t ready to give up the fight. The war couldn’t just end for him; it was all that had kept him alive. It couldn’t be over—not yet.
But, by God, he’d seen her eyes and in them a need that matched his own. Yet he couldn’t even tell her who he was or she’d hate him for the fool he’d played her. However, remaining silent was going to be as hard as standing still had been while she’d removed his shirt.
Chapter 5
Cherish awoke with a start. The candle beside her bed flickered in a pool of wax and the tub’s water was icy. A low creaking echoed through the high-ceilinged rooms as though the house were groaning in its sleep. She quickly dried off and slipped into her cotton nightgown. She had no idea how late it was, for the storm kept any hint of stars or moon from sight.
Crawling beneath the sheets, Cherish tried to get warm enough to sleep, but lightning jabbed at the blackness outside her window, making rest almost impossible. The constant roll of thunder reminded her of that night on the train. In the stillness of her room she could almost feel the stranger’s presence. Any moment, he would fall on her with the smell of dust and blood and danger surrounding him. She closed her eyes and remembered how he’d kissed her with a hunger deeper than she’d ever known.
Frustrated, Cherish climbed from her still cold bed. “I have no time for foolish dreams,” she said to the silence, trying to convince herself. “No time at all.” Lighting the lamp, she wished she could push away the chill as readily as she banned darkness into the corners of the room. She pulled a blanket from the bed, curled up beside the tiny fireplace, and rested her head on her knees. Firelight had always fascinated her, calming her troubled thoughts with its bright dance and warm breath. Her mind wandered to her family’s farm. She thought of her childhood, when love filled her home to overflowing. The vision of her mother, angry and stoic as she waved good-bye the day Cherish and Maggie had left, played across her mind. How many times in the past four years had she wished she’d heeded her mother’s advice and stayed home? Cherish tried to visualize one of the local boys kissing her the way the stranger had. But the vision wouldn’t come. She would always love her parents, and visit them when possible, but she didn’t think she could ever go home again.
Time passed slowly as her mind wandered, barely listening to the sounds around her … the storm, the crackle of the fire, the creaking of a door long unused.
Cherish stiffened. The sound came again: a door slowly opening, its hinges crying from age and neglect. Afraid to breathe, she turned her head from one entrance in her room to the other. The one leading to the hallway was locked, and the door opening into the sitting room was closed with the bolt still in its nest.