Although Emma knew he’d be back in two weeks or so, she was as filled with grief as if he were leaving forever. Still she bridled. “You needn’t think that troubles me,” she lied. “I’ll be glad to see you go.”
Steven chuckled. “I suppose you will,” he agreed. “But I dare say, Miss Emma, that you’ll be happy to see me come back, too. Maybe I’ll take you over to the island again and have you in the daisy field.”
Color pulsed in Emma’s cheeks, for he’d evoked a tangle of sensations within her just by reminding her of the wild pleasure he’d shown her on the island that day. She bit down on her lower lip and looked at him despondently.
“Two weeks isn’t that long,” he reasoned gently, drawing her close again and resting his chin on the top of her head. “Besides, when I get home, it’ll be summer.”
Emma trembled, imagining more of Steven’s deft kisses and caresses beneath a gaudy midyear moon.
“It’ll be better for you next time,” Steven went on hoarsely, his hands moving lightly, soothingly up and down her back. “There won’t be any pain. Only more pleasure than you’ll know what to do with.”
Emma looked up at him, wondering if he knew the ecstasy he caused her had been so intense that it was nearly pain instead. “Couldn’t you stay?” she whispered. “Couldn’t someone else go on that cattle drive?”
He shook his head, then bent to kiss her lightly on the mouth. “Be ready,” he told her, when it was over, “because when I get home, I plan to take you wherever I find you.” With that, he gave Emma a little pat on the bottom, put his hat on, and went whistling down the walk to the gate.
Emma rose from the swing to stand on the porch, her fists clenched at her sides, the blood burning in her veins. Steven wanted her to think of him the wle time he was gone, and he’d made sure she would with his kisses and his words. She longed to spite him for his arrogance, but she knew she’d spend the next two weeks wondering where she would be when Steven returned, and what she’d be doing. And which delicious things he would do to her.
Whirling on one heel, Emma hurried into the house and turned sharply into the large parlor, where she caught Chloe and Big John Lenahan in the middle of a kiss.
They parted, none too hastily, at Emma’s appearance.
“I suppose you’ll both be happy to learn,” she announced, “that Fulton and I will probably never speak to each other again.”
Chloe looked up at Big John for a moment, then stepped away from him to approach Emma. “You’re not to be a Whitneyville Whitney, then?”
Emma thought of all she might have had, if only she’d loved Fulton, if only he hadn’t turned out to be such a rounder. Sacrificing the fine clothes, mansion, and trips to Europe—that part wasn’t difficult, for she lived fairly well with Chloe. It was the invitations to afternoon teas she mourned, and a place of honor in the church choir. And the warm smiles as she passed other young wives on the sidewalk or encountered them in the mercantile.
Chloe read the pain in her face and took her hands. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry,” she said.
Emma recalled the episode with Fulton in the dark hallway of the hotel. “I couldn’t have borne to have him touch me,” she confided, forgetting for a moment that Big John was in the room.
Chloe kissed her forehead lightly. “Just go to bed and put the whole night out of your mind.”
Emma’s gaze drifted to Big John, who watched her with a father’s fondness, then she went to him and kissed him, too. “Good night.”
In her room Emma stripped off her clothes and put on a wrapper. Then, taking a fresh nightgown from her bureau, she went down the rear stairway and made her way along the hall to the bathroom. A long soak in a hot tub would make her feel better.
After carefully bolting the bathroom door, Emma filled the tub with steaming water and added some of the perfumed salts Chloe had given her at Christmas. The air was redolent with the scent of wildflowers.
Emma wound her braid into a coronet and stepped into the tub to sink slowly, luxuriously, into the water. Memories of Steven making love to her in that field of flowers filled her mind. She remembered how she’d responded, and her cheeks flushed. She closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to that tiny, crowded flat in Chicago, where she and Caroline and Lily had lived with their mother, Kathleen.
She could see Kathleen as clearly as if she were standing in front of her now, her dark hair a-tumble, her brown eyes dancing. Oh, but she’d been beautiful—when she wasn’t drinking, that was. And the men had gathered around her, willing to buy baubles and bottles, anything she wanted.
Emma and her sisters had tried to keep out of the way when there was a man in the flat, but the quarters were close—there weren’t many places to go. Kathleen’s bed had been separated from the one the girls shared by only a canvas curtai fend practically every night there had been shadows melding and coming apart against the cloth.
The men usually left before the sun rose. Some of them were kind enough to build up the coal fire before they left, and there was always money on the table. For a few days, things would be good. Kathleen would buy fresh fruit and maybe a piece of corned beef for Caroline to cook with cabbage, and sometimes they all four went and watched a revue, with dancers and jugglers and men who ate fire.
But then, inevitably, Kathleen would be overtaken by that odd despair that always dogged her from a little distance, and she would spend the last of the money for brandy, drinking until she couldn’t even get off the bed. During those times, Caroline had to take care of their mother as if she were a baby.
When the soldier came, everything seemed to change. Kathleen said she was in love, and she was going to marry Matthew Harrington. Life was going to be different for all of them.
Well, Emma reflected with a sigh, Kathleen had surely been right about that. With the coming of Matthew Harrington, in his handsome blue uniform, came great changes.
Kathleen didn’t want to do anything but drink and lie behind the curtain with Matthew. Caroline took to swiping money from the pockets of his trousers, just so they could have food to eat.
“He wants to touch me,” Emma remembered telling Caroline one bleak winter day, as they walked along the sidewalk, Lily a few feet ahead, kicking a tin can.
“Matthew?” Caroline had asked, her brown eyes filled with concern. She was only eight years old, but now that Gramma was dead, she had the concerns and responsibilities of a grown woman. “What did he say?”
“He tries to get me to sit on his lap when Mama’s not around.”
Caroline became angry. “Don’t you go near him,” she warned.
As it turned out, they hadn’t had to worry, because the next day, when the shopkeepers were hanging Christmas wreaths in the windows, Kathleen announced her decision. Matthew wanted the girls to go west on something called an orphan train, his theory being that they would be better off in the wide open spaces than the city, and Kathleen thought the idea was a good one.
Emma closed her eyes, remembering how little Lily, only six, had cried and begged their mother not to send them away. She’d promised to be a good girl always, and to polish Matthew’s boots for him, if only Kathleen would let them stay.
Tears burned on Emma’s lashes. Where was Lily now? Was she happy? Was she searching for her sisters, as Emma was? Was her hair still that lovely silver-gold? Was she even alive?
Emma dried her eyes with the back of her hand, and turned her thoughts to her older sister, Caroline. She felt certain that Caroline had survived, because she’d been the strongest and the most resolute of the three. She was searching, too; Emma knew that in her bones.
One day, Emma thought, they would find each other again, and all their questions would be answered.
Marshal Woodridge was getting old. He admitted as much to himself as he sat behind his desk in the jailhouse and scratched the stubborn itch beneat the band of his hat.
He was just glad there hadn’t been any problems at the dance tonight. Sometimes a few of th
e boys got riled up over some pretty bit of ruffle and started in to fighting. He wasn’t up to dealing with no trouble, ‘specially if it involved young fellers that were handy with a gun.
To distract himself from the disturbing thoughts that followed, the marshal opened his desk drawer. It was stuffed with letters and wanted posters he’d never gotten around to reading. He was going to have to go through that stuff, one of these days.
Resolutely, he took out the wanted posters, carried them over to the stove and stuffed them inside. He was about to do the same with the letters when guilt stopped him. There was one in a pretty blue envelope, with neat handwriting on the front. It wasn’t too old, either. Just a week or two.
Curiosity overcoming laziness, Marshal Woodridge opened the envelope with a fingernail and pulled out a single page.
To the marshal of Whitneyville, Idaho Territory, it read, in tidy loopy letters. I am seeking to learn the whereabouts of my sisters, Emma and Caroline Chalmers, who were separated from me thirteen years ago…
The marshal folded the letter and scratched his chin. Emma Chalmers… That was the little redheaded gal Chloe Reese had raised, if he wasn’t mistaken. He stuffed the page back into its envelope, thinking he ought to walk on over to Chloe’s place and deliver it.
He’d spent most of his pay, but his mouth was dry. Some of that whiskey he had tucked away in his room over at Miss Higgins’ place would taste mighty good.
Being a firm believer that a man should never do today what he could put off until tomorrow, Woodridge poked the envelope back into his desk drawer.
The old buckboard jogged and jostled over the dark country road. Joellen Lenahan sat as close to Steven as she could. “I feel safe with you, since you’re wearing that Colt,” she said, linking her arm through Steven’s.
Suppressing a grin, Steven brought the reins down on the horses’ backs, making the aging buckboard move a little faster through the star-spattered, moonlit night. “How old are you, Joellen?” he asked, knowing full well that she was sixteen. He wanted to make her think about the difference in their ages, without actually pointing it out.
“I’ll be seventeen in six and a half months,” she said.
Steven chuckled, but made no comment.
“That makes me just three years younger than Emma Chalmers,” Joellen reasoned.
Again, Steven said nothing.
“Do you think she’s prettier than I am?”
Steven sighed. “I think she’s prettier than any woman alive,” he answered.
Joellen disengaged herself from his arm and slid over to the far side of the seat. Steven figured she was pouting, but he didn’t look to see. “You in love with her?”
“Maybe.”
“Well,, sincan’t marry her because she’s spoken for.”
Steven didn’t bother to tell Joellen the facts of the case. It was none of her business anyway.
Joellen scooted back. “I know you think I’m young,” she said, “but I—well—I understand things. How it should be between a man and a woman, and such as that.”
The conversation was intriguing, though Steven doubted that Big John would approve of the turn it had taken. “Oh?” he said, with a smile in his voice.
“I’m experienced,” Joellen confided.
“That’s a real shame,” Steven answered. “A beautiful girl like you ought to save herself for one special man.”
Joellen subsided, staying quiet for over a half a mile. Then she went on. “Well, I’m not exactly experienced. But I have been kissed.”
Steven smiled in the darkness. “I see.”
“Do you really think there’ll be a man for me someday?”
“I’d bet my bankroll on it.”
“Maybe I’ve already found him,” Joellen purred.
Steven could see the lights of the ranch looming in the distance, and he longed to reach Joellen’s front door and deposit her there, just as Big John had asked him to do. He urged the team to a slightly faster pace. “That so?”
Her arm slipped through his again, and she rested her head against his shoulder. “I’ll be scared, staying in that big house all alone. My daddy’s going to be at Miss Chloe’s till morning, you know. Why, one of the ranch hands could sneak in and rape me!”
Steven didn’t like the turn her thoughts had taken. “Big John must have thought you’d be all right,” he said. “You can lock the doors, after all.”
“I want you to sleep inside the house,” Joellen insisted. “That way, nobody’ll be able to—”
“I’ll be sleeping in my own bed tonight, Joellen.”
“I want you to protect me.”
Steven let out a long sigh. “No.”
“I could stay with you—in your cabin.”
“Big John would be after me with a horsewhip come morning, and I wouldn’t blame him.”
Joellen sighed as the surrey rolled through the open gateway that arched over the road leading to the sprawling ranch house. “I never figured you for a coward, Mr. Fairfax.”
Steven’s patience had been taxed to the limits. He’d never in his life laid a hand on a female in anger, but he was sorely tempted to haul this one off to the woodshed and blister her backside. Gratefully, he drew the rig to a stop in front of Big John’s house, set the brake lever, and got down to walk around and help Joellen. And in all that time he didn’t say a single word.
He winced at the protest in his ribs as he set the girl on her feet.
Lights streamed from the lower windows of the house, and the door opened. The housekeeper appeared, a silhouette in the doorway, holding the edges of her apron in both hands and babbling in rapid Spanish. It was clear she wanted Joellen to waste no time getting inside the house and away from the gunslinger who’d brought her home.
Joellen stood on tiptoe and kissed Steven’s cheek. “Good night, Mr. Fairfax. And thank you for a wonderful evening.”
Steven rolled his eyes and the housekeeper came waddling down the walk, still carrying on like a hen trying to gather in chicks from a rainstorm.
No renegade Indian or drunken cowhand was going to wander into that house and rape Joellen Lenahan, not if he was in his right mind.
Because his ribs were still hurting, Steven climbed back into the surrey cautiously and drove it toward the barn. When he’d tended to the horses, he walked slowly back to his small house. There were lights burning in the bunkhouse when he went past, but he didn’t stop to join in the card game that was probably going on.
He needed his sleep.
Inside his own quarters, he struck a match to light a lantern and then hung up his hat. There was a pot of coffee on the stove, but it was cold and strong, and the thought of how it would taste made him grimace.
He stripped off his suitcoat and shirt and washed up in the tepid water he poured from a kettle on the stove into a chipped enamel basin with a red rim. He went to the door to throw the water out, a toothbrush jutting out of his mouth, and his eyes were drawn to an upstairs window in the big house. It was the only one with light, and there was a shapely, slender form moving against the shade.
Being fully human, Steven watched the little drama for a few seconds. Joellen was taking off her clothes, and she had a damned good idea he was watching.
With a half-grin, Steven shook his head, tossed his wash water into the yard, and went back inside. His groin was uncomfortably tight, but it wasn’t Joellen he was thinking about. It was Miss Emma Chalmers, lying naked with her hair catching fire in the sun.
He bolted the door, blew out the lantern, and after laying his .45 within easy reach on the night table, unbuckled his holster. Tossing that aside, he kicked off his boots, peeled away his trousers, and slid into bed.
He couldn’t help thinking what it would be like to have Emma lying there beside him, all sleek and soft and willing. The result was a pain he couldn’t relieve.
Steven cupped his hands behind his head and gazed up at the ceiling while he imagined how it would be if everything was a
ll right in New Orleans, if he could take Emma to Fairhaven and make a life with her there. He even went so far as to think about the children she might bear him, to picture them playing on the green lawns and sliding in their stocking feet on the slick floor of the ballroom.
He sighed heavily in the lonely darkness. He couldn’t expect Emma to spend her life moving from one town to another, seeing her man draw his gun at every unexpected sound or sudden movement. She deserved a home and a family. She deserved peace.
ight=“0em” width=“1em”>Louisiana called to him in a whispery, seductive voice, but Steven had no intention of heeding it. With or without Emma, he’d hang within thirty days after setting foot over the border.
The bawling of disgruntled cattle mingled in the first light of dawn with the curses of cowboys and the nickering of horses. Tobacco and wood-smoke tinged the air, along with food smells from the cookshack, manure, and the sour sweat of unwashed cowboys. Steven felt a certain excitement leap inside him at the prospect of the drive, even though he would have preferred to stay near Whitneyville, and Emma.
At the sound of his name, he reined his horse around and saw Big John Lenahan striding toward him. The rancher was still wearing his party clothes, so it was a good bet he’d spent the night in town.
Steven swung his right leg over the saddlehorn and slipped deftly to the ground. The resulting stab of pain in his ribs made him grimace.
“About ready to start?” Lenahan asked good-naturedly.
Steven’s first impulse was to say “Yes, sir!” but he overrode it and nodded instead. The day he’d left General Lee’s army he’d sworn to himself he’d never address any man that way again, with one exception: his grandfather, Cyrus Fairfax. “We’ll be heading out at sunrise.”
John surveyed the horde of restless cattle with a look of proud approval. “Don’t mind telling you, Fairfax—I wish I could go make this trip. Somewhere along the line, when I wasn’t looking, I turned into an old man.”
Out of habit rather than forethought, Steven took his pistol from its holster, checked the chamber, and put it away again. “You could still ramrod a drive if you needed to,” he answered, with a total lack of sympathy. His hands rested lightly on his hips.
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