"Fish!" she squeaked.
"They'll swim away from you. They wouldn't be so hard to catch if they came right up for a kiss, would they?"
"Turn back, turn back," she ordered, and he realized he'd been inching his chin over his shoulder to speak to her. He stared at the back of the soddies.
"Does Chumani do this?" she asked.
"I'm sure she does."
"God, it's cold."
"Just jump all the way in and get it over."
A second later a splash sounded and her gasp echoed across the water. Cooper chuckled to himself. The girl had pluck.
Water splashed and dripped and rippled and he imagined her washing her hair and body. A thunk sounded on the ground behind him. "What was that?"
"My soap."
"You done?"
"Not quite." Water splashed again. "This feels wonderful!" The splashing sounds receded.
Cooper didn't like the difference, and turned. The crazy woman had swum away from the edge. "Come back here! It's too dangerous out there!"
"I can still reach the bottom."
"All the fish are in the middle!"
She shrieked.
"Grizzly fish!"
"Now I don't believe you."
"Come back or I'll come get you!"
"All right, all right." She paddled back toward the bank. "Turn around."
He faced away.
Grass rustled as she climbed the bank behind him. He counted stars while she dried.
"All right," she said.
He turned. Her wrapper clung to her damp body. She worked at drying her hair with a length of flannel.
"Now I wait for you?" she asked.
He didn't really want her to see the fiery effect she had on his body. "Sounds fair."
She found a flat stone and seated herself with her back turned to him. Behind her, Hallie listened to DeWitt undress and plunge into the water. Impatiently she worked tangles from her wet hair. No wonder he liked to bathe out here. The water had been invigorating. Swimming naked under the stars had given her a feeling of freedom and wholeness she'd never experienced before.
Her mother would turn purple if she knew.
Unable to resist the temptation, Hallie shifted on the rock and peered behind her. He soaped himself in thigh-high water, the moon illuminating the planes and curves of his muscled body. She'd seen his body that morning and had been too timid to look. Or maybe she hadn't wanted him to see her looking. In any case, she looked now, appreciating how marvelously he was made, wishing the moon was a little brighter or that she was a little closer.
He was a mystery, a marvel of sinew and muscle wrapped in sleek, smooth skin. He was everything she resented and everything she envied. How could she find him so fascinating? Why did looking upon him gratify her in some delightful way?
Hallie discovered her breath gusting in tight little pants between her parted lips. She placed her palms over her quivering stomach and forced herself to turn back. Men were men. Water splashed behind her. Weren't they?
She heard him leave the water and approach. He appeared at her side in the scrap of leather he'd worn that morning, his damp flannel toweling slung over his shoulder. Again Hallie marveled at the length of his tangled hair. She offered her comb. "Can we do this again?"
He nodded. With a careful expression he accepted the comb and ran it through the tangles. He handed it back. "Ready?"
She stood and followed him, less closely this time, more aware of him as a man and herself as a woman. As they climbed the bank, the wind returned and dried their hair. DeWitt opened the door and ushered her into the house.
She stopped in the doorway to her room and asked, "You never looked?"
He shook his head solemnly. "I never looked."
"You're a real gentleman, DeWitt."
"I try."
"For a savage," she added, teasing.
He raised one brow in unmistakable amusement. Quickly she shut the door. She leaned against the back, closing her eyes and seeing still the moonlit image of his glistening body. "A real gentleman."
Chapter Six
Two days later DeWitt finally had time in the afternoon to take Hallie to the freight building with the purpose of going over the record situation. They passed Jack, untangling a pile of harnesses and leads. He grinned at her, stretching one suspender out a foot with his thumb and all but rocking on his heels. "Howdy, missy."
"Hello, Jack."
As though proud she'd remembered his name, his gap-toothed grin split his face wider. He watched her walk into the back room.
"You weren't exaggerating," Hallie said softly.
DeWitt raised a questioning brow.
"About the men not being used to seeing women. You could probably sit me in one of those stalls out here and charge admission to gawk."
"Pity I didn't think of it."
"Might earn my way home faster."
Their eyes met and amusement passed between them. DeWitt gestured to the room. "This is what I've set up."
Hallie held her skirts aside and swept past him. A heavy desk sat beneath a window; behind it shelves and a flat working space had been built along the wall. She touched the desk's bare, unblemished oak surface, a pang of homesickness fluttering in her chest. The desks at The Daily were scarred and stained, littered with blocks of lead type and enough paperwork to fill all the empty shelves behind her. For an instant she could almost smell her father's cigar smoke.
In all likelihood, her letter to him could take weeks to arrive. For all he knew, she'd been kidnapped or killed somewhere en route. Hallie sat up a little straighter. Maybe she was making headlines back in Boston. Wainwright Girl Still Missing.
Lord, if Indians or stage robbers or grizzlies didn't get her first, her father was going to kill her.
"I ordered a lamp with a milk glass shade," DeWitt said, and gained her attention again. "Should arrive in a week or two."
Hallie sat in the straight-backed chair. "Okay, where are the books?"
DeWitt stepped beside her, opened a drawer and withdrew two ledgers. He placed them on the desk.
Hallie opened the first one and discovered the pages blank. She set it aside and opened the other. Nothing. "These ledgers are blank."
"They're new," he agreed.
She glanced aside and back in confusion. "Well, where are the records?"
Slowly he raised his hand and tapped his temple with one blunt finger.
Realization snapping her last slim hope for the job in half, Hallie cocked her head and looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "It's all in your head," she said.
He nodded.
"All the figures, all the sales, all the merchants."
He nodded.
She closed her eyes against the seemingly insurmountable task. Had he been so busy he couldn't have jotted them down? Silence stretched between them.
"That's the other reason I sent for a wife," he said. "I told you—I need help."
"I've never been an accountant. I don't know the first thing about freighting." No, that was no way to look at this. She opened her eyes and studied the books in front of her. If a man could do it, she could. "Most women haven't had any experience with this type of thing," she said, thinking out loud. "Even though they teach a little bookkeeping at Miss Abernathy's."
"Who's?"
"That's where Tess was from." He was darned lucky she wasn't a simpering female like most of the girls she knew. He could have ended up with someone who couldn't add a postscript. "But you know," she said, glancing up, "there is the Wesleyan Female College in Georgia. The Methodists are quite modern. Women get to study the same things men learn in other institutions."
Cooper nodded without comment.
"I suggested once that my father send me there."
"And what did he say?"
"A lot about men letting their wives and daughters run wild, but it all boiled down to him burning in hell first."
"Ah."
He'd given
her a little more freedom to pacify her after that, though, so the suggestion had been beneficial. "I've had access to The Daily's ledger books, so I've seen how it's done. I'll be able to figure it out."
He brought another chair from near the door, sat it backward alongside the desk and straddled it. "Let's work, then."
Hallie drew her pen and ink from a deep pocket in her skirt and opened the first book with a sigh. "Where do we start?"
DeWitt amazed her with his vivid recall of facts and figures. He knew shipment dates, amounts due and amounts received, even locations and names as if he was reading from a list inside his head.
By the time Yellow Eagle shouted for Cooper and appeared in the doorway, they had quite a bit accomplished. Yellow Eagle spoke to DeWitt, gesturing at the same time.
DeWitt replied.
"What did you both say?" Hallie asked with a frown.
DeWitt spoke to the child again. The boy cupped his hand upside down and moved it downward before his mouth a few times.
"Eat!" Hallie exclaimed proudly.
DeWitt pointed to her and then drew his hand, palm up, in front of his stomach in a sawing motion. Hallie shook her head. "What?"
"Are you hungry?" he asked.
"Yes!" Her smile vanished. "How do I say yes?"
DeWitt pointed his index finger up then quickly down. "Yes."
Hallie repeated the gesture.
He did it again, pointed to himself, then made the sawing motion in front of his stomach. "Yes, I hungry."
Hallie copied him. Between the freight building and the soddy he showed her the signs for walk, sun, river, house and wind. Inside, Hallie signed to Chumani that she was hungry.
Chumani laughed, pointed to her chair and made a downward motion with her fist.
"I'll bet that means sit."
After they finished and DeWitt left, Hallie helped Chumani with the dishes, then walked to the house.
She opened the door, surprised to find DeWitt and another man standing inside.
"Mrs. Lincoln," Wiley Kincaid said, stepping forward, the recovered hat in hand.
"Why, hello, Mr. Kincaid. How nice to see you."
"I'm pretty tired of my own company," he said. "Didn't have anyone but my mules to talk to all the way from Duluth."
She smiled. "Would you care for a cup of tea?"
"That'd be nice," he replied.
"You two have a seat and I'll make it." She stopped in the process of picking up the tin coffeepot and stared at the stove for a long minute. "Mr. DeWitt, may I see you for a moment?" she asked in a sugary voice.
He stood and walked toward her, his broad-shouldered form blocking out the man in the room beyond.
"How do you light this thing?" she whispered.
Without comment he opened the door, built a pile of kindling, placed a few dried disks on top and struck a match underneath.
"What are those things?" she asked.
He put the index finger of each hand to his forehead, pointed outward, and made another quick motion.
"What's that?"
"Buffalo chips." He smiled and walked away.
Flustered, Hallie turned and took stock of the situation. The water buckets were empty.
Mr. Kincaid had taken a seat facing away from her. She held the empty bucket up high so DeWitt could see it and turned it over. He made a discreet motion with his hands. She understood perfectly well. River.
She pointed to him, but he deliberately ignored her, listening instead to something Mr. Kincaid was saying. Hallie grabbed the buckets and left, mincing her way toward the river in the dark. If there had been any real danger, he wouldn't have let her go alone. She hoped.
From the night before, she knew the spot where the bank was free of debris, and she made her way down the slope and filled the buckets.
The night was cool and the wind not as harsh as usual. She remembered her bath and imagined what anyone would think if they knew. Mr. Kincaid would think her a woman of loose character. Her mother would faint of mortification. Her father would—she didn't even want to consider what her father would do. DeWitt was the only person who knew. And did she particularly care what he thought of her?
Hallie lugged the buckets back, sloshing water on the floor as she tried to close the door behind her. She cleaned it up, heated the water, and much, much later served Mr. Kincaid and DeWitt cups of sweetened tea. She seated herself on the clean wide hearth and held her tin cup, realizing she'd given herself the new one DeWitt had brought for her.
As though he noticed, too, he met her eyes with his cool blue stare.
"When did you say your husband is coming, Mrs. Lincoln?" Kincaid asked.
"Well, I—did I say?" She glanced at DeWitt and back. Her mind raced, trying to remember what she'd said. "Actually, I'm not quite sure how long it will take."
"What's your business here?" The question was polite, but obviously undershot with burning curiosity. How was she going to explain staying with DeWitt?
"Mr. DeWitt is my cousin. On my mother's side. Aren't you, Coop? He's lending me his hospitality while my husband is afield."
"Wasn't there someone back East for you to stay with?" Kincaid asked. "It would have been a lot safer than out here."
DeWitt's penetrating stare burned into the side of Hallie's face. "I had to get away from the city," she said, the story coming more and more easily, and looked away sadly.
"Oh." Kincaid's round brown eyes were sympathetic. The air in the room crackled with expectancy.
"I lost a child, you see."
"Oh, dear," Kincaid clucked.
"Oh, dear," DeWitt echoed.
"The city—the entire East, for that matter, since we moved around so much, you know—was full of painful memories," she lamented as convincingly as she could. "I needed time away. Time alone."
She wouldn't look at DeWitt. She couldn't. From the corner of her eye she saw him twist his upper body away from her and run his hand over his face.
"I'm sorry," Kincaid said.
"Thank you."
DeWitt's chair creaked and she let herself glance over. Arms crossed over his broad chest, his mouth twisted to the side, he was studying a spot on the ceiling with rapt concentration.
"Well, I'd better call it a night," Kincaid said, handing her his cup.
"Do you have to leave already?" It seemed as if she'd just sat down. Hallie blinked. She had just sat down.
"Don't wanna wear out my welcome," he replied. "There aren't too many folks to visit."
"Where are you staying?"
"Set up a tent southwest a bit. I'm puttin' up my building beside it. Your cousin offered to gather up a few fellas and help me."
"My who? My—oh, yes. Coop's such a considerate fellow. Always willing to help out. Come again. Good night."
DeWitt walked outside with him and returned a minute later. Hallie turned from rinsing the cups.
He dropped the bar across the door into the brackets and looked at her.
"That went well, don't you think?" she asked. Without waiting for a reply, she busied herself drying the cups and placing them back on the shelf, then blew out the lantern and headed for the bedroom.
He had rolled out his furs and extinguished the other lamp. His low voice came from the darkness behind her and sent a shiver up her spine. "Night, cousin."
"Good night. Oh." She paused with her fingers resting on the handle. "Wake me up if Mr. Lincoln arrives." Hallie shut the door softly and undressed. She scampered into bed and buried her head under the covers. And then, after she was certain he couldn't hear her, she laughed.
Cooper didn't want to like Hallie Wainwright. He didn't want to hear about her family's lack of appreciation. He didn't want to experience the slightest scrap of understanding as to why a foolish young woman from a good family would take an outrageous risk and endanger herself by traveling alone in this harsh land. She was impetuous and irritating. She was naive and foolhardy and full of herself.
/> And she drove him crazy.
A week passed in which he didn't think about Tess Cordell's rejection. Neither did he think of sending a new letter and placing another advertisement. He spent a lot of time concentrating hard on not thinking about Hallie Wainwright.
He started to look forward to their afternoons—only because he was finally getting the company pulled together in the businesslike manner he'd craved for a long time. She was the means to an end, and he meant to see that the project was finished before she left. It had begun to bother him what would become of the bookwork after she'd gone.
At their scheduled time he found her in the office, staring out the window at the cloudy gray day. Wind buffeted the puttied pane of glass. She didn't hear him approach, pointing out her defenselessness and affirming his opinion. She lacked the skills to survive in this country.
Some devilish inspiration spurred him to pick up one of her writing pens lying on the desk. With his usual stealth, he moved directly behind her and placed the slender wood against her back. She didn't give him a chance to speak.
Instead of the shriek he expected, she spun and sharply kicked him in the knee. In both surprise and pain, he bent over at the same time she recognized him and moved forward with a regretful expression of horror. Their heads butted so hard, Cooper saw stars. His knees buckled and he knelt on the plank floor, the pen falling away.
"Oh, Cooper!" Hallie said, and his vision cleared enough to see her grope for his shoulder and lower herself. Her hand cupped the side of her forehead. She plopped beside him with a rustling flurry of skirts, her feminine scent rising to his nostrils and clearing his head.
Blinking, he focused on her. Her eyes watered and she rubbed her head. Her startled gaze met his, more gold than green or gray today, and her fingers slipped down to cover her mouth.
Too deceived by her girlish frame and lack of experience, he'd forgotten Ferlie's account of Hallie taking on the stage robbers. He was the one who was too soft!
"Oh, get it over with," he said.
She dropped her hand, threw back her head and laughed out loud.
He wanted to feel humiliated that a skinny city girl had dropped him to his knees, but the absurdity of the situation got the best of him and a chuckle erupted from a long-untapped reservoir deep in his chest. His knee throbbed and his ears rang, but he couldn't remember ever thinking that anything was so hilarious. He laughed. He laughed until he lost his breath. He laughed until the sound came from a newly discovered place deep inside him.
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