“Huh.” That was it, then. His offense. Not only had he come close to their holy-water creek, he’d been on his hands and knees getting set to drink his fill.
“I’m sorry. Did you say something?”
Nothing she needed to know. Trying to get a word in edgewise was like trying to split a playing card front from back, not worth the trouble.
“I know, I know—I talk too much. It’s a failing I’m working to cure.”
Jed had to chuckle at that. Nearly killed him, but he laughed and groaned, and then laughed some more.
Alarmed, she jumped up, set her plate aside and leaned over to try and keep him from hurting himself. Although how she thought throwing her arms around him could help escaped him.
Her hands were all over him, supporting his shoulders, jabbing those twist sticks into his chest as she pressed him back against the pillows. He had three pillows now. Hers, dead Devin’s and a third one to replace the rolled-up quilt. Must have plucked her hens and stuffed a pillow slip.
“I’m all right now,” he told her reluctantly. Having her hands all over him, her face practically brushing against him—that was kind of nice. Took his mind off the fact that while he was lying in bed being waited on hand and foot, Sam Stanfield could be closing in on George, fixing to drive him and his family out of Foggy Valley with no more than they could carry off in a gunnysack.
“What was funny?” she asked, taking her place in the chair again.
Nothing was funny, not one damned thing. Or rather, you are, he wanted to say, but didn’t. She wouldn’t understand, and he wasn’t up to explaining. Instead, he asked a question of his own. “How did your husband die?”
In other words, did you talk him to death, or did one of the village witch doctors do him in? Or maybe he ran afoul of the same gang of maniacs that nearly put out my lights.
“He blew himself up.”
Well, he thought, using her most oft repeated word. Can’t get much deader than that. He was mildly curious, but he could do without hearing all the gory details. He was more interested in this plan she claimed to have conceived for getting them safely out of the territory. “Mm,” he said thoughtfully.
It was all the encouragement she needed.
“He was blasting right near the adit—that’s the entrance to the mine—trying to widen the drift in another direction. Some of the others said his fuse wasn’t long enough. Anyway, we buried him sort of in the same place, since that’s where most of him was. Hector poured cement over his grave so nobody would dig there. I wrote his name and the date while the cement was still wet. It was the best we could do. It’s shady there, of course, so flowers won’t grow.”
Jed closed his eyes, at a complete loss for something to say. He’d been called glib a time or two—especially when a game turned sour and the other players were a whole lot bigger than he was, not to mention better armed. But in all the learning he’d done since he’d left Foggy Valley, broke, beaten and branded, too dumb to know when he was licked, he had never learned the proper way to deal with a genuine lady.
Especially when he happened to be lying in her bed.
“Looks like rain,” he said finally. Let’s see what she could do with an opening like that.
“There’s not enough grass up here to keep a cow, that’s why the only animals I have are my two layers. I can’t even raise frying chickens, because I can’t grow enough feed and someone would have to cart it up the hill, so it’s just easier for them to raise all the meat down in the valley and bring me whatever I need. Well…within limits.”
It was a perfectly reasonable response to his own observation, Jed thought, amused. Used about five times as many words as she’d needed to do, but none he’d needed to look up.
“I took a course in economics,” she said, trying to hide her bare toes under the hem of her pretty blue frock. She thought he hadn’t noticed. He could have told her that even groggy with pain, there was little that escaped him. She’d been wearing pointy-toed shoes when she’d brought in his tray. Left ’em behind when she’d brought in her own.
“That’s why I can’t boil my hens. You see, it’s a matter of interest and principal. My hens are the principal and the eggs they lay are like interest. If I eat the principal, there’ll be no more interest, it’s as simple as that. That’s why it came to me when I was collecting eggs—a way we could both get away with no one noticing. Only first, we have to get you well enough to travel.”
Chapter Eight
Maybe, Jed mused, he wasn’t as far along as he’d thought. The swelling on his head had gone down, his headache little more than a distant pounding. Evidently, though, he’d managed to shake loose a few important parts under his thick skull. Just when he thought she was making sense…she wasn’t.
He closed his eyes and pretended to be sleepy, and after several long moments—moments during which he felt her gaze moving over him, either measuring him for a shroud or trying to gauge whether he’d be more of a help or a hindrance—she left.
He opened his eyes and breathed in the lingering scent of greens, lye soap and some intangible essence that was hers alone.
The next morning—the third day? The fourth? Jed had lost count. He waited until she was hanging her laundry on the line before he tried to get out of bed. It was a slow and painful process, but it had to be done. Lying in bed was making him weaker, not stronger. There was an outhouse about ten yards behind the cabin. He would either make it or he’d die trying.
He damned near died trying. She’d handed him her broom to use as a crutch that first day, so he collected it again on his way out. It helped. Couldn’t put much weight on it, but it helped to steady him. The swelling had gone down some on his ankle, but it was still tender.
It was his ribs that bothered him most, though, and there wasn’t much he could do about it except walk straight, try not to cough, sneeze or twist, and hope he wasn’t doing any permanent damage. Cracks would mend, given enough time.
Which was something he didn’t have to spare.
She was still outside when he emerged from the privy. Leaning against the rough plank door, he took stock of his surroundings, never losing sight of the woman on the far side of the clearing. There was a worm fence, four rails high, running across the back of the clearing where there’d been a sizable slide at one time. Recently, from the looks of it. At least, it hadn’t stared to grow over yet.
In the edge of the clearing he spotted several bee gums with the tops missing that were overgrown with vines. The old man who’d built the cabin might have tended them, but it didn’t look as if anyone had in recent years.
He tried and failed to picture Eleanor raiding a gum for honey.
Hard to picture such a woman living alone here at all, much less doing all that needed doing to survive. In that blue dress she’d worn last night, she’d looked fine enough to grace any parlor, bare feet and all. Pretty as a picture, in fact, with her hair bundled up on top of her head. Started out that way, at least. Hair like that, wild and thick and curly, was never meant to be confined.
He watched as she tossed a handful of corn to her hens. Any minute now she was going to see him standing here and run clucking like one of her chickens, shooing him back into the house.
Levering himself carefully away from the outhouse door, he took a few unsteady steps toward the cabin. With any luck he could make it back before she spotted him.
She stayed outside, messing around in what she probably called a garden. His mother could have showed her a garden. Bess Blackstone had grown the finest vegetables in all Foggy Valley, enough to feed her family and lay away for the winter months.
Another lifetime, he thought sadly. Mostly he didn’t think about the past, but from time to time something would remind him. He still carried the letter he’d received from Vera, forwarded by George nearly eight years ago. He’d been rescued by a traveling preacher, who had made him get in touch with his family and tell them where he was. George had forwarded the letter to the
preacher’s address, and Jed had carried it ever since, to remind him of who he was, of what he had barely escaped, and of how much he had to accomplish.
After about six weeks, he had parted company with the preacher, and as it turned out, he’d ended up accomplishing more than he’d ever dared hope, more from luck than any earnest labors. But he still had one task before him.
Loran Dulah had treated him fairly. He’d been a stern man, a cold man, showing no more affection for his oldest son than he had for the son he’d had with his Cherokee housekeeper. Jed had been seventeen when his father had died. He’d left a will, leaving the farm and all he possessed to his oldest son, with no mention at all of his younger son.
That’s when Jed had gone to work for Sam Stanfield. No one in the valley had liked the man, but Stanfield, who’d owned half the valley at the time, had been the only man hiring. He’d begun to increase the size of his herd of blooded cattle, thus the need to run miles of new fencing.
Determined not to let George see how much it hurt to have been overlooked completely by his own father—he didn’t care about the property, but dammit, they were blood kin—Jed had hired on with Stanfield.
And met Stanfield’s only child, Vera, home for the summer from boarding school.
Eleanor brushed the corn dust from her hands and turned to go back inside. That’s when she spotted him, her broom tucked upside down under his arm, hobbling back toward the house. Anger mixed with the urge to rush forward to catch him if he started to fall, but she held back. Putting herself in his place, she would probably have done the same. It had to be galling, having a strange woman helping him with the most intimate tasks.
He reached the back stoop with no trouble. Due to the way the land sloped it was higher than the front entrance. Four steep steps instead of three shallow ones. She waited with mixed emotions, a few that didn’t bear close examination, to see what he would do.
When he glanced up and saw her watching him, she merely lifted her eyebrows as if to say, “Well? What’s your excuse, other than a total lack of wit?”
He grinned at her. The arrogant, black-blue-and-purple devil grinned at her.
And darned if she didn’t grin right back.
Shaking her head, she left him to get in as best he could, knowing his pride had to have suffered these past few days. It was bad enough to lose a fight without having to be rescued by a woman. In some ways he reminded her of the little boys she had known in her brief teaching career.
“I can run faster than you can.”
“No you can’t!”
“I can jump higher than you can.”
“Cannot!”
“I can pee farther than you can.”
“Boys,” she muttered, washing her hands and drying them on a freshly laundered towel that still smelled of sunshine.
It took him nearly five minutes to climb the four stairs and let himself in through the back door. She didn’t offer to help. Breathing heavily, he leaned against the doorjamb, watching her as she put a bowl of beans in to soak and refilled the kettle.
“Something to do with chickens,” he said, and she blinked at him.
“What about chickens?”
“My escape.”
“Our escape,” she said, stressing the pronoun.
“My mistake,” he said, echoes of that impudent grin lingering on his grizzled, multicolored face. At the rate his beard was growing, that intriguing cleft in his chin would soon be totally hidden.
“You’re as bad as I am,” she said, flustered for no real reason other than the fact that seeing him vertical instead of horizontal, she was aware of what a splendid creature he must be when he wasn’t bruised and swollen and strapped up all the way to his armpits.
“Got your pants on, I see,” she said, and felt herself growing warm with embarrassment.
“I did.”
And they fit just fine, she thought, noticing the narrow line of skin showing between the top of the denim and the bottom of his bindings. She’d noticed it before—the lovely golden tint of his skin, but seeing it when he was clothed—from the waist down, at least—was somehow different. As if he were no longer her patient, but her guest. That had to be what brought on this fluttery feeling inside her bodice. Maybe she needed binding.
“Sit down before you fall,” she said gruffly.
“Can’t.” The grin was still in place. “Shot my wad.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, here—let me help you back to bed.” She moved to position herself under his left arm, first taking the broom from his hand and propping it against the wall. “Say when you’re ready.”
“Sofa.”
“Sofa,” she repeated. “You’re as bad as I am.” She’d be the first to admit her conversations were inclined to be hit-and-miss affairs. When there was only one participant, the rules flew out the window.
She tried to steer him toward the bedroom, but he refused to be steered. He smelled good—like soap. She’d left a bar of soap, a dipper and a basin out by the rain barrel, for cleaning up when she’d been digging in her garden. Evidently he’d taken advantage of it on his way inside.
“All right, the sofa, then,” she said, “But just for a little while. After we eat lunch, you’ll have to go back to bed. I need you strong and well again if we’re going to get away anytime soon.”
This time it was tacitly accepted that they would leave together. She could hardly go off and leave him to the mercy of the Millers, unable to fend for himself. She would like to think he wouldn’t leave her behind, either, but they had yet to discuss the details of her plan.
“Chickens?” he prompted again once she helped him get settled with his left foot propped on a cushion.
“I’ll tell you about it while we eat. I’d better see what I can put together.” Her larder was all but empty. The beans wouldn’t be ready until suppertime. “Would you like a book? I have several books of poetry and two collections of essays. You might enjoy looking through Myrven’s Book of Knowledge. I’ve found it exceedingly helpful.” She had noticed him that first day, when he was barely conscious, staring at her bookshelf.
Jed could have told her what would please him most at the moment. For once, it wasn’t books. Not that he was in any condition to follow through. Besides, she’d probably be shocked right out of her pretty striped stockings if he invited her to share the sofa so that he could feel her and smell her faint fragrance.
Funny woman, he thought, watching her march across to the kitchen area. She could talk the ears off a jackrabbit, but she meant well. If it weren’t for her, he’d have been carrion by now. The least he could do was behave himself, listen while she rambled on and hope to hell no one found him before he could protect them both.
He tried to watch her, but most of the time she was out of his line of vision. Then he would picture her, knowing from the sounds what she’d be doing. Dragging the kindling box out from behind the range, lifting the lid to poke up the fire. The way she put one foot behind the other when she bent over reminded him of a dance step, the kind he’d seen in pictures where a fancy-dressed gentleman held out his hand and a lady wearing half a mile of shiny skirt bent a knee and held up her wrist.
He guessed it was called dancing; he’d never asked. Shuffle, slide and squeeze your partner, that was the only kind of dancing he knew about.
Did she dance? Had she ever dressed up in one of those low-necked gowns he’d seen women wearing when they went into some fancy place on the arm of a gentleman in a boiled shirt and a black tie? He’d seen that in Raleigh, right there in the hotel where he was staying. Band music and everything. Stayed awake all night, listening and wondering what was going on…and why.
He was pretty sure Eleanor didn’t wear one of those stiff corselets, because he’d had his arm around her a few times when she was helping him walk. Didn’t need one. Her waist was no bigger than a gnat’s ass as it was.
Of course, those things also served to push up a woman’s bosom, and she didn’t have much
to push. Had enough though, he conceded. Just about right, matter of fact. He was all for stout, shapely women, but there was something about a delicately built woman that was…
Elegant was the word that came to mind.
“Here we go,” she said brightly, her skirts swishing around her ankles as she brought in his plate and cup.
“Looks good,” he said, eying the ambiguous stuff in the plate. Whatever it was, he would eat it because he needed his strength.
And because she was anxiously watching him take the first bite, and he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.
“Delicious,” he said. “What is it?”
“Um—there’s some chopped egg and some wild onions, and I cooked the cornmeal with a tiny strip of ham skin I found in the cool house. I don’t think it’s old enough to have gone bad.”
He was sorry he’d asked.
“About my boots,” he said, “I don’t know much about this plan of yours, but walking out of here barefoot doesn’t seem like such a great idea. I mean, sharp rocks are one thing, but you step on a pine seed or a holly leaf and it hurts like the very devil.” He took another bite. It wasn’t that bad, once you got used to the taste. He wondered if she knew how to make fry bread. His mother’s fry bread had been the best in all Foggy Valley. It beat that dry, white-flour brick she’d served him earlier all to hell and back.
“Yes, well…I’ve been thinking.”
He braced himself. When Eleanor Scarborough—plus all the rest of her names—got to thinking, a man would do well to be on his guard.
“I told you about all the other times I tried to get away, didn’t I?” She had told him six dozen times by now.
“I believe you might have mentioned it,” Jed said, suppressing a grin that would probably have hurt more than it helped. His split lip had healed, but there weren’t many areas of him that weren’t black-and-blue.
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