Lady Sundown (#1 of the Danner Quartet)

by Nancy Bush

Lexie glanced around. There were several other rigs aboard the huge raft. Horses snorted anxiously and Lexie wondered how often Tremaine made this trip.

  She stole a look at his forbidding features. His eyes were hooded. The wind tossed his black hair across his forehead. She longed to reach out and erase the lines of worry that bracketed his mouth. There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but she sensed this was not the time. Tremaine had a job to do, and he wasn’t in the mood for explanations. Right now, after he visited this mysterious patient, she would be able to find out why he seemed to push her away, even though he said he wanted her.

  The front logs of the ferry bumped lightly against the wooden pier. Horses and buggies clattered onto the dock and up the rutted banks on the opposite side. Tremaine and Lexie were just leading Fortune off the ferry when a young fellow darted between the wheels of one buggy and the horse of the next, trying to sneak aboard.

  “Hey! You!” the ferry master bellowed. “You can’t ride for no fair, you bleedin’ stowaway!”

  “Billy!” Tremaine said in surprise.

  The lad stopped short. Lexie saw a dirty-faced boy of around ten with straggly brown hair and bright suspicious eyes.

  “Dr. Danner?” the boy asked, sliding around the back of the buggy, keeping out of the way of the grossly fat, sweat-stained ferry master who had given chase and was thundering toward them. “Ah came to git you! Grace is real sick.”

  Tremaine collared Billy before the ferry master’s hamlike hands could reach him. “The boy’s not going across,” Tremaine said to the panting giant, handing the man their fare. “He’s coming with us.”

  “The little bleeder’s stole passage before! He should be jailed, that’s what! You care to pay for them times, too, mister?” The ferry master licked his lips. Rather than arguing, Tremaine tossed him some more money.

  “What’s wrong with Grace?” Tremaine asked tersely as he, Billy, and Lexie led Fortune up the riverbank. “I was just coming to see her.”

  Billy reached up to stroke Fortune’s neck and Lexie’s heart jerked painfully. Two of his fingers were gone.

  Her gaze flew to Tremaine for an explanation, but his whole attention was on Billy.

  “She’s real bad,” the boy whispered in the scared, awed voice. “She don’t move except for the coughin’. I’m afeared she’s gonna die.”

  Tremaine’s lack of encouragement made Lexie realize young Billy wasn’t making more of the situation then there was. Tremaine wasn’t offering false hope; his dark, somber features bore witness to his own fears.

  Lexie instinctively sidled close to Tremaine. The wind threw his black hair in front of his eyes as they reached the main road. “Who’s Grace?” she asked. “His mother?”

  “A friend. She has consumption.”

  “Will she…?” Lexie licked her lips, unable to finish.

  Tremaine’s arms stole around her shoulders and he folded her into his chest for a moment before urging her and Billy to climb into the buggy.

  With a groan, Tremaine’s hands plunged into the thickness of her mane and he crashed his mouth to hers. Lexie gloried in his unexpected assault. The heat of his breath filled her mouth; the warmth of his tongue inflamed her. I love you, she thought, her heart aching painfully. Her hand crept up his neck. She would have loved for him to keep on kissing her forever. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes. She wanted him so much.

  Reluctantly, Tremaine drew back, a shudder passing through his tall frame. Billy was already scrambling into the buggy. With a strong heave, Tremaine set Lexie up beside him. Soon they were lurching up the last few feet of track to the road.

  The smells of the river were soon replaced by the stench of garbage and sour milk as they wound through the rows of ugly tenements. A skinny child appeared out of the gloom. As soon as Tremaine pulled his rig up in front of one particular building, and, as if this transaction had taken place a million times before and required no words, the boy silently took Fortune’s reins.

  Tremaine grabbed his medical bag, then pulled Lexie down, clasping her hands with a fervency that spoke more clearly than words. She sensed how he felt about this part of town, how he despised the ever present poverty and filth.

  She followed him up a narrow foul-smelling stairway, Billy at their heels. At the third-floor landing Tremaine rapped lightly with his free hand against the panels of a chipped and peeling door.

  Billy had no such qualms. He thrust open the door and barreled inside. Tremaine, with Lexie’s hand still clutched tightly in his larger one, followed him into the dim, candlelit room.

  A woman lay on the narrow, dusty couch, her eyes glassy and unseeing, staring fixedly at the cracked ceiling as if there were some message written there. Before they could cross the room, she doubled over in a spasm of coughing that left her weak and retching, only to flop back on the couch with a shudder and stare once more at the ceiling.

  “I brung the doctor,” Billy said to her, pathetic in his anxiety.

  The woman didn’t respond.

  Tremaine finally released. Lexie’s hand. He walked over to the woman — Grace, Lexie remembered; Billy’s friend — and rested his palm against her cheek. “Can you hear me, Grace?” he asked.

  A rattling wheeze sounded from her throat. “I have seen the Lord, and He is merciful,” she whispered.

  Tremaine set his medical bag down beside her. He glanced back at Lexie. “Are you all right?”

  She nodded. “Is there something I can do?”

  “Take Billy back to his mother. She lives across the hall.”

  Lexie gently touched Billy’s arm, but he could have been carved in stone. Carefully, she twisted him toward her, but his young face was rebellious — and full of tortured pain. Soundlessly, Lexie guided him toward the door, but once they were in the oppressive hallway. He seemed to gather his wits.

  “Ah haf to go to work,” he said.

  “Work? Tonight?” Lexie attempted to move him toward his own door, but his feet were planted firmly on the grimy floor.

  “Dr. Danner tol’ me to git a job. Ah got a duty at the livery.”

  He was gone before Lexie could offer another word of protest, clattering down the stairs as if the devil himself were snapping at his heels. Thinking of the sick, dying woman in that dirty room, Lexie understood his need for escape.

  She let herself back inside and saw Tremaine sitting in a chair beside Grace, holding her limp hand. A bottle of laudanum stood in evidence on the floor next to Tremaine’s chair. There was precious little else to do.

  Lexie, quiet as a churchmouse, walked through the door to the next room, closing it softly behind her. It was pitch-dark save for a sliver of light spilling through the cracked window. The room must have been the woman’s bedroom, yet there was no bed. Closing her eyes, Lexie leaned against the wall, then slid silently to the floor. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Sometime in the dark, Lexie awakened from fitful slumber to find Tremaine sitting on the floor beside her, his head against the wall, his eyes closed. “Tremaine?” she asked quietly. He opened his eyes and stared down at her. She couldn’t see his expression, but she could feel his weariness as if it were a tangible entity. “Is she going to die?”

  “Probably sometime this morning,” he rasped.

  Lexie, whose heart was full of love for him, laid her hand against his rough-hewn cheek, feeling the prickly edge of his beard. He dragged her into his arms, his face buried in the scented glory of her hair.

  When he kissed her it was with the fervent passion of a man who wants to block reality. Lexie dropped all pretense. She wanted him just as desperately. His mouth moved on hers, hard and demanding, and her lips parted wantonly. She whimpered softly when his tongue dove into her mouth, plunging in and out.

  Not a word was spoken. His hands were rough with need. He pulled her leg over him and she was astraddle him, a highly exciting position that took Lexie’s breath away. She could feel the hardness of him
, and she ached between her legs in response.

  “Lexie,” he groaned, his kisses maddeningly elusive as he tried to drag his mouth from hers.

  “Please, Tremaine,” she begged. Her pride was in tatters already. She had nothing to give but herself.

  “Oh, God.” He clamped down on her thighs and held her rigidly against him. “This is not — the time — and place,” he gritted.

  Lexie closed her ears. She wanted him too desperately to listen to reason. He strained against her and she wriggled, gasping when his hands moved beneath her skirt, his thumbs daringly rubbing the juncture between her thighs. She wanted to rip off her drawers, for even their delicate barrier was too much.

  Another time she would have been ashamed at her abandon. For now, with death looming like the jaws of hell, she wanted to celebrate life. “I love you,” she whimpered against his hot mouth.

  For Tremaine. Those three little words were a cold dash of sanity. His heart wrenched. “Lexie…” he groaned, dragging his mouth from hers.

  But she wouldn’t give up. Her tongue touched his lips. Innocently, experimentally. Her grip on his shoulders was full of tormenting need. He understood that need; he’d been faced with the cruel reality of death too many times not to have felt it himself. He’d even used women to help assuage the awful helplessness of it.

  But he couldn’t now. Not here. Not with Lexie.

  A fit of convulsive coughing came from the other room and finally made Lexie give up her assault. With a long, shuddering sigh, she pulled herself away from him, gazing at him soberly.

  Tremaine, from long practice, wearily climbed to his feet to see what modicum of relief he could offer Grace, if any.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Fortune clip-clopped tiredly along Nineteenth Street toward the West End Hotel. Faint gray fingers of dawn crept over the fashionable villas and townhouses. Lexie sat quietly next to Tremaine, feeling gritty and limp from lack of sleep. She thought she might collapse from emotional exhaustion, but the memory of Tremaine closing Grace’s eyes and muttering a soft prayer was too powerful to forget.

  Tremaine touched her thigh. “We’re here,” he said, reining Fortune to a halt. The stallion stopped instantly, snorting what could only be viewed as a sigh of relief.

  “I’m still awake,” said Lexie, gathering her skirts.

  “Here, let me help you.”

  Lexie waited until he came to her side of the buggy. Instead of taking her hand, he placed his palms around her waist and hefted her easily to the ground. For a moment, his touch lingered, and she looked up directly into his dark blue eyes.

  “What about Billy?” she asked.

  Tremaine reluctantly let her go. “I’ll make sure he’s all right. I’ve got to get back and take care of Grace’s burial anyway.” He drew a breath. “Someone has to.”

  They didn’t speak of Billy’s mother; both of them knew she would do nothing more useful than offer a goodbye toast to the woman who had meant so much to her son. This bothered Lexie terribly. But, as Tremaine had pointed out earlier, there were some things one just had to accept.

  Lexie was still pondering the sober truth of Billy’s plight when she walked into the hotel lobby and nearly ran into Miss Everly. Pa and Eliza rose from the settee where they’d been seated — Pa, looking worried sick, Eliza white and pale.

  Lexie stopped short so quickly that Tremaine, who had been following behind, collided into her. His hand dropped lightly on her shoulders, steadying her.

  “Miss Danner,” Miss Everly greeted Lexie rigidly, her arms crossed around her middle. Gone was the benevolent smile.

  “Yes?”

  “It has come to my attention that you have not been honest about your relationship with Dr. Danner.” Tremaine slowly lowered his hands, as Lexie’s heart sank. “Celeste Monteith told me, just yesterday, that you are not truly related. When you did not come home last night, I assumed you’d spent the night in the hotel with your parents. However, now I find that you and—” Here she shot a withering look at Tremaine. “—your stepbrother have been out all night with no chaperone. I am sorry, but as I just told Mr. and Mrs. Danner, I have no choice but to rescind your diploma.”

  Lexie’s embarrassment turned to wonder, then, to incensed outrage. How dare this woman pass judgment on her? Her conscience twinged a bit at the knowledge of the pleasure she’d shared with Tremaine, but Miss Everly had pronounced her an unfit lady for such a minor infraction that Lexie was filled with burning injustice.

  “You may keep your diploma,” she stated evenly. “I wouldn’t want it now anyway. How do you live with yourself, Miss Everly? Your piousness must be a great burden to you!”

  “Lexie!” her mother gasped.

  “I’m not through,” Lexie kept on, ignoring the chuckle of male amusement she heard from behind her head. “Tonight I watched Tremaine offer peace and encouragement to a woman during her last hours. She died about an hour ago. If you cannot reconcile my conduct to your own moral code, I’m afraid I have no interest in being a Miss Everly Lady.”

  Two high spots of color stained Miss Everly’s cheeks. “Well,” she said after several minutes. “Well.”

  Lexie could feel Tremaine’s shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. In a tone so low that only she could hear, he said, “Very nice delivery. You didn’t swear once.”

  Lexie had to quell the urge to stomp on his foot, along with the equally unforgivable need to shout with laughter. She felt she’d been freed!

  “I suppose allowances must be made once in a while,” said a rather flustered Miss Everly.

  Pa, a smile threatening the corner of his lips, came forward to take Lexie’s arm. “I suppose they must,” he agreed, shooting a glance at his son. “Come on, daughter. Let’s go home.”

  Tremaine’s hand lingered on her arm. “I’ll see you there later,” he said, softly. Then he was gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jace Garrett settled more comfortably into the leather cushions of Conrad Templeton’s chair and crossed his ankles on the Half Moon Saloon manager’s desk. Scratching a match across the bottom of his shoe, he lit a cheroot and eyed Conrad, who was standing by the office door and wearing an uneasy smile, with tolerant amusement.

  “Sit down. Sit down,” Jace invited expansively.

  Conrad did as he was bidden, albeit reluctantly. Jace couldn’t understand the man. Since they’d reconciled the books last Christmas, Conrad paying back in full — with only a modicum of interest tacked on — the amount which had mysteriously disappeared, their relationship had been a friendly one. Why Conrad still felt so uncomfortable Jace couldn’t imagine.

  “I ought to tell you,” Templeton said now. “There’s a man in the saloon who’s been asking questions about the Danners. Lots of questions.”

  Anger flickered inside Jace. He didn’t want to think about the Danner’s. Since Lexie’s rejection, he’d been nursing his injured pride with any woman who was willing. He’d even gone so far as to make another play for Betsy Talbot, but that bit of baggage had actually turned him down flat! She been too long under Jenny’s suffragette influence, Jace concluded darkly, and had then had the good fortune to collar some horny lumberman just down from the hills and talk him into marrying her. She’d left Rock Springs soon after and, since Jenny kept an eagle eye on any poor woman who should arrive in town alone, Jace had been forced into the humiliation of paying for the Half Moon’s whores.

  “He can ask any damn questions about the Danners he wants,” Jace snapped irritably. He climbed to his feet, walked to the window on the backside of Conrad’s office, and threw open the sash. Instantly he heard the rush and tumble of Fool’s Falls, and the chatter of the stream as it flowed along the rock wall beyond the back of the saloon. The noise reminded him of Tremaine’s ignominious treatment of him last winter and he swore under his breath. But it was a hot June night so he left the window open. Thinking of Lexie made the night even hotter, he reflected bitterly.

  “I don’t like
him in here,” Conrad muttered. “His questions are strange.”

  “Like what does he want to know?”

  “The layout of the farm, how many children are in the family. If Joseph Danner has any other occupation besides farming.” Conrad shrugged.

  Jace was growing intrigued in spite of himself.” Show him in here,” he said in sudden decision. The fellow’s interest in the Danners might be worth investigating after all. Jace was still smarting over being made to look a fool. What he wouldn’t give to find some way to get even with Tremaine.

  The man Conrad ushered into the room was rather nondescript and Jace lost enthusiasm almost instantly. Whoever he was, he couldn’t be anyone important. But the cut of his slacks was expensive, the way he held himself remarkably refined. And the amused slant to his mouth said he was used to getting his own way.

  “What’s your name?” Jace asked abruptly after Conrad left.

  “Victor Flynne,” was the smooth reply. “I’ve been rather anxious to meet you, Mr. Garrett. I believe we have a common goal.”

  “And that is?”

  Flynne smile, his teeth straight and even. “We want something from the Danners.”

  “Sit down, Mr. Flynne,” said Jace. “And start talking.”

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Jenny McBride fanned herself with one hand and considered the dismal prospect of her future. She’d been a widow for over five years and a lonely woman for even longer. Women’s rights were fine, but she would be the first to admit life was pretty empty without a man sharing her bed.

  Hot, she stepped through the screen door to the back porch of the rooming house and grasped the handle of the pump. A spray of water gushed out and Jenny dipped in her hand, running the water over her face and throat.

  The pounding crash of Fool’s Falls beckoned her as she walked along the bank of the stream, behind the false-fronted Rock Springs businesses. Nearing the Half Moon Saloon, she recognized Jace Garrett’s voice drifting from the open window of Conrad Templeton’s office.