The thumb of his other hand ran across the whiskey bottle’s firmly seated cork, and he pressed against it. He could pop it off if he pushed with a little more oomph. The aroma, the wet glass against his lips, the fire down his throat, all those tempting sensations were seconds away. Only a few ticks on the clock separated him from relief—and being as hooked as ever.
One drink would free him to ignore the rules, ignore the despair, ignore the need to care. The indigestion and next day’s headache? Minor things to overcome. All he had to do was drink again, and again, and again . . .
He tried to pull out the bottle so he could throw it away before Kate noticed him, but his fingers wouldn’t cooperate. He stepped out of the shadows before his brain insisted he flee and flagged her with his free hand.
When she caught sight of him, she hurried his way, a slight smile on her face.
The whiskey in his pocket would give her good reason to scowl at him like she used to.
He’d known better than to buy it, but his fingers only clenched the bottle neck harder.
Kate stopped in front of him, her dark auburn hair covered with a shawl glistening with drizzle.
Would she help him? If he didn’t get help now . . .
She looked up and snatched her shawl before it slid off her head. “When did you get back?”
His jaw refused to unclench. He could keep the bottle hidden.
“The weather’s gotten nasty.” She rubbed her hands together. “I was thinking—”
“Take this”—Silas forced his hand to pull out the whiskey—“from me.”
Her lips puckered. She reached for the bottle but stopped. “Carrying that around town won’t help my reputation any.”
“If you don’t, I’ll drink it.”
She glanced over both shoulders, then grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him into the alley. Not a good place for any passersby to see them go, but she was right, liquor in her hand would look worse than in his. He gripped the paper-wrapped bottle tighter. “Maybe you shouldn’t take it. Don’t want you getting in trouble.”
“Why are you shaking?” She stopped and eyed his white knuckles.
“I shouldn’t have bought it.” His fingers wouldn’t yield. “I need you to take it from me.”
She pried the whiskey from his hand.
His empty fist clenched, driving fingernails into his palm. “Pour it out, please.”
“On the ground? Right here?” Her pretty hazel eyes blinked in confusion.
His lips were as dry as the tongue he poked through them to unseal the word, “Yes.”
No one was in the alley, but she glanced toward the street. “I’m not sure I should, but—”
She looked into his eyes, and he tried to let her see inside them. The misery he’d almost inflicted on himself, the desire to stop her from doing what he’d asked, the desperate need for her to do what he couldn’t.
She pulled down the paper and twisted the cork. She’d obviously never opened whiskey before. “I can’t get it out.” She pointed the bottle neck at him. “Could you open it for me?”
“No.” He stepped back and knocked into some discarded boxes. “No.” He couldn’t touch it again. “If you can’t open it, maybe Mr. Logan can when you get home, or maybe he’d want to keep it.”
“As if letting Mr. Logan open a bottle of . . .”
“Whiskey. Good whiskey.”
She hiked her other eyebrow. “Having him open your whiskey wouldn’t make the Logans any happier about the time I’m spending with you.”
“Please.”
She scrunched her lips sideways and looked deep into his eyes. He held her gaze, not hiding the desperation.
Pulling the bottle close, she wriggled on the cork until it finally popped. She watched him as she tipped the bottle over beside her. He tried to hold her gaze, but . . .
The amber liquid ran straight into the grooves between the alleyway’s red brick. Each glug turned his stomach.
“Kansas prohibition has been good to me. I haven’t been tempted to enter a tavern for years now since there aren’t many and I don’t like to go against the law.”
Halfway through the bottle, his drinking hand started to lift of its own accord. If he stopped her now, there’d be a glass or two left to consume. . . . That wasn’t too much.
He closed his eyes, dreading the last glug. “But I’ve crossed the threshold of too many bars looking for Anthony the past few weeks. I’ve been asked what I planned to drink, offered a swig . . .”
The terrible, wasteful glugging ceased.
Kate shook the last drops of whiskey onto the ground.
No more quandary over whether to taste or not, whether to sip, to consume, to binge.
Over.
His heart fluttered free. “Thank you.”
She handed him the empty bottle, her head tilting a bit as she took in his face. “You couldn’t do that yourself?”
Surprised her voice held concern rather than the disdain he’d expected, he met her eyes. “I tried, but then someone poured me a glass on the house this afternoon. After my visit to the orphanage yesterday, and the message I just received . . .”
He stared off into space, the vision of that glass full of golden liquid taunted him. “I left the drink behind. I didn’t pick it up, didn’t touch it, but at the next place I wanted a drink something fierce. The bartender would surely see it in my eyes, so before he offered, I asked for a whole bottle—I could pick that up without drinking it, as long as I didn’t uncork it. Figured I could . . . Well, I don’t know what I figured I could do with it besides the inevitable.”
“An expensive drink to give the pavement.”
“It would’ve cost more if I’d consumed it.” He threw the bottle in a heap of trash next to a side-door stoop. “I’m sorry I made you do that.”
“It’s all right.” She patted his arm, then snatched her hand back to catch her slipping shawl. “If only my brother-in-law had the strength to hand over his liquor to my sister years ago.”
“Strength? I caved and bought a bottle.” He shook his head. “I picked it up.”
“Once you did, it was a hundred times harder to put down, yes?”
He searched her eyes. Understanding mingled in the golden flecks sparkling in her hazel irises. Did she have a similar problem? “Yes.”
“Testing yourself with no one around is a dangerous game, Silas.”
“How do you know?”
She shrugged. “My sister drinks too. She struggles with the same problem . . . or did.” Kate looked toward the busy road, her mouth puckered. “We ought to leave the alley.”
He blew out a breath and followed her onto Cedar Street. He figured she’d look down on him for his weakness, figured her opinion of him would sink. But she didn’t seem to look at him any worse.
He ran his hands through his hair. He wasn’t strong. No one should admire anything about an addicted, God-disappointing man. But no condescending pity filled her eyes, which eased the pain of wasting an entire bottle of good whiskey. They walked a half a block in silence before he found his voice. “So you still have family?” Hadn’t she said she was an orphan?
“A much-older sister and a drunk brother-in-law. I went to live with them after my parents died when I was twelve. My sister tried to help me, but she drank too. She quit . . . many times . . .” She looked up at him. “How many times have you quit again?”
“Three. The last time was four years ago. The first time was after I left Hall’s Home for Boys—about a day’s ride from here.” He pointed in the general direction.
“Do you know why your mother gave you up? Was it during the war?”
“I was at the boys’ home then, yes, but I wasn’t an only child—just the only one she gave away.” His one memory prior to the orphanage was climbing high in a tree with a brother, and a voice calling them to supper. How many other siblings might he have that he’d never meet?
“I wonder why.”
Yes. Why? What
could he possibly have done as a four-year-old to lose his mother’s love? He closed his eyes and fought against the hollowness begging for the whiskey she’d dumped on the ground back in the alley. He’d promised God he’d never go down that rat hole again . . . but did it matter?
He drew a hand across his face. Of course it mattered. But now with Anthony gone, and Jonesey not remembering him, and the telegram forcing him to decide between staying in Breton to look for Anthony or keeping everything he’d ever worked for, the hole was calling to him.
He was weak. Kate might be sympathetic, but how could she possibly think well of him now? Everything Lucy had said about him must be playing through her mind, reminding her of how terrible he really was.
Her hand patted his arm lightly. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
He forced his eyes open, letting in the light. “I don’t know why she left me.” He shook away the image of his mother pinning his name to his coat before sending him inside the orphanage. “I was offered alcohol for the first time not long after I ran away from my second set of foster parents. Sobered up when I met God. Then after Lucy came, I went back to the bottle.”
“Did you say you visited the orphanage? Did you learn anything about Anthony?”
He let a smile slip onto his lips at her change of subject. Whether she could tell he was uncomfortable with talking about his past or he was making her so, her focus on finding Anthony was endearing—even though it became more hopeless every day. “Yes, I visited the orphanage. Anthony hasn’t been there.” And the new owners hadn’t found a single piece of paperwork on any boys named Silas.
“So what do we do now?”
He heaved a sigh and stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. Where were they going anyway? He pulled out the crumpled telegram. “Not much. I got another telegram. My friend says the man I had watch the place ransacked it before he left.”
“Can’t somebody else watch it for you—fix it up while you’re gone?”
He shrugged. “Will won’t let my animals die—the ones left, that is. But he’s busy with his doctoring. I can’t ask him to do more than that. The real question is, should I bother to stay?”
“Of course you should.”
“What can I do here that you can’t?”
She pressed her lips together and stared off into space. “What you’re really asking is when do we give up?”
“I’ll never give up wanting him back, never give up praying. If someone said they saw him somewhere, I’d be off in a heartbeat, but what’s a man to do when his livestock needs feed and the last of his garden needs tending? When the ability to eat this winter’s at stake?”
Silas joined her in looking out at nothing. So much easier to keep his voice in check if he wasn’t looking into her eyes. “There’re too many places he could be. He could’ve hopped a train to New York, hid in a wagon traveling to Arkansas, found work in a mill under an assumed name. He could be . . .” He didn’t want to say the word, but he’d known for years Lucy could’ve died and he’d never have found out.
The black hole in his chest was roughly the size of the puddle of booze Kate had poured between their feet. How long until he fell back in?
Standing still on the sidewalk with Silas, Kate rubbed her numbed hands together, the frosty gray air promising more cold rain. She nodded to a few people, hoping her casual smile would ward off their curiosity. With Silas’s face so haggard, so broken, so lost, she couldn’t imagine him being able to answer anyone who might ask what bothered him.
Would anybody in town care to keep him out of the taverns? She didn’t have the right to order a grown man not to drink, but if he didn’t want to, who else would care enough about him to help?
Strange that the man she’d once wished had never come to Breton was the only one who didn’t seem to think poorly of her.
If only he thought more of her.
Though she’d known from the beginning her attraction was impractical, she wanted to grab his crumpled telegram and burn it—as if that would allow him to stay.
But if she hadn’t captured his interest already, it didn’t matter if he stuck around any longer. At least she’d be useful to him here, waiting for word of Anthony. She hadn’t the strength to convince him to stay when her own hope was dwindling, when everything seemed to point to them never knowing what happened. How could she tell him what to do when he’d already gone through something like this before?
“I’m sorry, Kate. I shouldn’t keep you out in the cold.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “I doubt there’s anything left for me to eat at the boardinghouse, so maybe we could—” He shrugged. “Never mind.”
“What?” Had he about asked her to eat at the hotel? Could she invite him to the Logans’? They were already put out with her, so what was one more thing to add to their list of grievances?
Silas stood as if someone had beaten him. “I was going to ask if you’d eat with me, but maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea, considering what people think.”
She tried not to frown. “It’s all right. Thank you anyway.” Probably best.
Silas sighed and wiped a hand down his jaw. His newly clipped beard and mustache might be more attractive if he’d smile again.
Why did Lucinda leave you?
“Why? I thought I’d told you.”
She slapped a hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I said that aloud.”
A small flutter of a smile kindled a spark she hadn’t seen in his eyes for a while, but the glimmer died quickly. “She came to Kansas at harvest time, and I expected her to work as hard as any other woman in Salt Flatts. She wasn’t thrilled, and well, whiskey dulled the pain of hearing how my farm and I did not live up to her expectations. And who wants to live with a drunkard?” He seemed to wilt in place. “Nobody—that’s who.”
“But you don’t drink now.” She’d broken off her engagement to Jasper Goldwater because of his addiction to alcohol, so why was she still so drawn to Silas after seeing him struggling to let go of a whiskey bottle?
“You can’t have forgotten what I just asked you to do. Just one bad day and I could . . .” He snapped his fingers.
“Would you drink with Anthony around?”
“No,” he spit. “Or rather, I’d do everything possible to avoid even the smell of liquor. I’ve lived with a drunk, I’ve been a drunk, and no child of mine will endure that. I’d chop my hands off first. But then, Anthony’s gone and I’ll go back home—” He pulled up short and blinked at her. “You’re probably glad I can’t take him home knowing what you know about . . .” He held out his empty hand in front of him—the one she’d had to pry a bottle out of.
And that was the difference, he knew just as well as she what liquor could do to a person and didn’t want to live with or be a drunk.
She reached for his hand to give him a reassuring squeeze but stopped short when Richard turned the corner and walked toward them on the sidewalk. “You’ve got a good reason to keep away from drink now. Whether Anthony shows up today or next year, he needs a sober father waiting for him.”
Silas nodded and opened his mouth to say something when Richard called from behind him. “What are you doing over this way?” He stopped next to them and took stock of Silas. “You finally going to join me for a round of cards?”
She looked around and realized they’d stopped between two taverns. The sign on the left dangling by one hook read Lucky’s.
“No. I told you I don’t play.”
“Seems as if you like to play with a certain woman’s affections.” He sneered at her. “While you’re parading Miss Dawson through the seedy part of town without an escort, she’s looking up at you like you’re the doggone moon. And you pretend you’d be the best father for the boy.”
“I told you, he’s my son.”
“You can say whatever you want to say—I’m the one with the paper proving he belongs to me.” He eyed Kate. “And don’t you forget it. I told the sheriff to watch you. The se
cond that boy shows up, you’re to turn him in. I can’t stay here much longer, and I’m assuming Mr. Jonesey can’t either, so if I were you, little lady, I’d send this dallier home before he ruins you.”
“He’s not ruining me.”
“Oh yeah?” He pointed at Silas’s face. “You and I both know what people think of you two running around. You going to make an honest woman out of her?”
“An honest woman?” she sputtered. “There’s no reason to make me an honest anything.”
“So you’re marrying her, then?”
Her insides quaked too much to retort. Of course Silas wasn’t, but then why did she all of a sudden wish he’d answer Richard with something other than a vehement “No!”
Of course, there was no reason to answer Richard at all. Silas had been searching with her to keep her safe. It was Richard who wanted to make that into something more than it was.
Silas gave Richard a scrutinizing look. “There’s no reason to push her toward marriage just because you gossip like an old woman.”
“It’s not gossip when it’s what I’ve seen with my own two eyes.”
Silas raised his hand in disbelief. “Can’t you find something more productive to do than follow us around? Look for Anthony, perhaps. Or at least learn how to play a hand of cards decently enough you don’t need a boy’s nimble fingers to make up for your lack of skill.”
Kate took a step toward Richard, making sure she captured his attention. This conversation needed to stop before one of them threw a punch. “Let’s not fight.”
“The little lady’s standing up for you now.” The smell of alcohol wafted off of Richard in waves. “She’s besotted, and you tell me I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Come on.” Kate stopped short of taking Silas’s hand and pulling. “All he wants to do is pick a fight. Don’t give it to him.”
She didn’t bother to tell Richard good-bye as she strode away, praying Silas would indeed leave without an altercation.
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