They were back to that again. Heat rose in her cheeks. If she hadn’t stopped him last night, if she had shown more passion . . . Perhaps she ought to try again now, before he set his mind to leaving. But he was already rising and preparing to go, and as much as she loved him, she could not make herself follow and go into his arms as a wife to her husband. She had offered herself to Cash for this man’s sake. Why in heaven’s name could she not offer herself to Jonathan for her own sake, and for his?
The awful truth of it burned humiliatingly in her heart. Refusing to believe it, Laura rose and followed Jonathan to the parlor, where he donned his coat. She kissed him with as much vigor as she could summon and felt his response, but it wasn’t enough. He smiled sadly, chucked her chin, and walked out after extracting her promise to send for her belongings. There would be no returning to the sticky web of Stone Creek, but she could envision no future either.
Cash was the one who came bearing Laura’s possessions in a few ragged trunks. She didn’t want to think about how Sallie had come to call on her new neighbor for this duty. She ignored the question in his nearly black eyes as she thanked him for carrying the cases in, and she left Jonathan to deal with him as she retreated to the bedroom under the excuse of unpacking.
It was apparent that Jettie Mae had done the packing. Instead of the few crushed petticoats Laura owned, a new petticoat and crinoline that Sallie had decided didn’t suit her gowns overflowed the first trunk that she opened. Sallie would never miss the garments, but she never would have considered packing them, either. The other trunks revealed similar surprises, and Laura was smiling by the time she had rifled through them. The only black Jettie had allowed her was the one she was wearing. And she suspected the only reason the gray had been allowed was for the extravagant lace trimming and the fine silk of the shirt, for it had once hung in Sallie’s wardrobe too.
When Jonathan called her, Laura returned to the parlor with the smile on her lips. To her surprise, Cash was still there. The smile fled as she saw the expression on the faces of both men, but Jonathan smoothed the way with perfect calm.
“The youngest Chatham boy has fallen out of a tree and broken his wrist. I’m going to ride over there. Cash has some messages from Sallie, so I’ll leave you to entertain him, if you don’t mind.” There was nothing in his look or voice to say anything more than his words, and he kissed her cheek before he parted, just as if she truly were his wife.
Laura scarcely saw him go. She was too busy avoiding the tall man filling the small parlor. Cash was wearing a fawn frock coat today, with a gold-and-white-striped waistcoat and tan trousers. He needed only a gold watch fob and a silk top hat to complete the image of wealthy planter, but instead, he carried that light-colored Stetson and wore boots that showed evidence of having walked a field not too long before. It was touches like these that set him apart in her mind, reminding her that he was not all that he seemed. And neither was she.
Calling upon the ingrained etiquette of her upbringing, Laura gestured toward a chair. “Won’t you sit down? I’ll fetch some coffee if you’ll wait a minute.”
“Don’t trouble yourself.” His voice was as deep and warm and full of life as she remembered it. “I won’t keep you.”
Laura forced her a polite expression of interest. “I trust Sallie is not too disappointed in me. I know she will never understand, but I don’t wish hard feelings between us.”
Cash perused her face as he would a book, his gaze lingering on the telltale redness at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t suppose you’ll explain any of this better than Doc. You belong at the farm, Laura. That’s your home. Why are you running away this time?”
“You’ll not believe me even if I could explain or understood it myself. Just take Jonathan’s word and leave it at that. If Sallie’s angry with me, she’ll get over it. She always does.” When she wants something, Laura added in her mind, but there was no sense in disillusioning Cash about the golden girl he envisioned. He would find out soon enough, and she suspected it wouldn’t matter.
“She’s too upset to be angry. Now isn’t exactly the time to be deserting her. I don’t understand you, Laura. I thought you were grateful to be home again. Would it hurt to stay at the farm a little longer, just until Sallie knows what she’s doing? All you’ve succeeded in doing is causing a scandal. And now Doc says you’re not getting married. I think you owe me a little more explanation.”
If possible, Cash’s eyes had darkened, and Laura could almost feel the anger in him. What right had he to be angry? Crossing her arms across her chest, Laura backed away from that all-knowing gaze and returned his glare with false bravado. “I cannot imagine why. Jonathan and I are both adults capable of making decisions on our own without the aid of anyone else, and you’re certainly in no position to tell us what to do. I had hoped you would stand our friend in this, but no one is asking you to do anything. I will be happy to help Sallie in any way, but you can be certain that the Breckinridges will be much more efficient at operating the farm than I am, and they will be only too happy to step in. I will only be in their way.”
A gleam of enlightenment reached through the obsidian of Cash’s eyes. “I see. You and Sallie’s in-laws have never been on the best of terms, have you?” Cash offered a smile as she stiffened and looked away. “And now Doc decides to be honest for the first time in his wicked life and leave you to your own devices. I’m sorry, Laura. I didn’t mean to add to your troubles. Will you forgive me?”
She steeled herself against the tears engendered by the sympathetic tone of his voice. She didn’t want his sympathy. She didn’t know what she wanted from him, but it certainly wasn’t sympathy. Clenching her hands until her nails dug into her palms, Laura met his gaze. “There is nothing to forgive. I thank you for bringing my trunks. Will you accept some coffee now, or did you have other errands to do?”
She was dismissing him with all the grace and command of a queen—a tiny, irate, brokenhearted queen. Cash couldn’t resist tilting her fragile chin upward until he could read the flash of green and gold in her glare. “I know a gentleman would forget and never mention what happened between us, Laura, but we can both agree that I’m no gentleman. If that is what has come between you and Jonathan, I expect you to tell me, because Doc won’t. I can make him understand what happened where a lady might be reluctant to.”
Laura shook free from his touch. “That has nothing to do with anything, Cash. And if you’re no gentleman, I’m no lady, and I’m quite capable of doing my own talking. We’re still betrothed, and we’ll still marry. He simply has some foolish notion that he doesn’t want me to nurse an invalid. You might try to dissuade him of that, if you wish—otherwise, there is nothing else to be done.”
Cash frowned at the evasion in her voice, but her words were sensible and what he wanted to hear, so he let it go. He gave a sardonic grin as he lifted his hat in parting. “I’ll tell him I’ll woo you and win you if he doesn’t have the sense to take you with him. See if that doesn’t get some action out of him.”
He thought he was making her feel better, but as Cash placed his hat on his head and walked out the door, Laura felt worse than she had ever done in her life. Watching his straight proud back walk away from her, the Stetson tilted at a rakish angle over his ebony hair, she thought she just might die of anguish and shame.
Would she never learn from her mistakes? Or would she spend the rest of her life repeating them? Cash was not for her, would never be for her. Unless she wanted to be his mistress.
Chapter 13
Grinning to himself, Cash took the wide veranda steps to the old Watterson house two at a time. Inside the foyer of his new home, he threw his hat in the direction of the hall tree and whistled a note of greeting. His boots resounded loudly on the planked floor as he strode toward the newly resurrected kitchens at the rear of the house.
He hated this house. Built around a two-room log cabin, it had no style or grace, not to mention anything so prosaic as modern conveni
ences. He had ordered the new kitchen connected by a covered breezeway so his food wouldn’t arrive cold at the table, but there was no indoor plumbing and the privy out back served as a deterrent to any large-scale entertaining. Trying to install anything resembling plumbing through the two-foot-thick log walls inside their plaster-and-clapboard casings was an undertaking he was not yet ready to tackle. He still had hopes of better things to come.
Which was why he was whistling as he strode through the breezeway to see if there was a cut of cold meat and some buttermilk to tide him over to dinner. He was a sight better off than he had been in his youth, so he couldn’t complain, but he wasn’t content yet. He wouldn’t be happy until he had all his dreams properly in place, and at the moment they seemed to be stacking up nicely. There was still a chance they might come to nothing. The whim of a woman could never be relied on. But he had confidence in his own abilities. He would bring her around, one way or another.
As he chewed on the bread and cheese the cook handed him, Cash returned to his study and the ledgers that told him just exactly where he stood in everything but the one thing money couldn’t buy. Swinging his boots up to the desk, he pored over the ledgers as if they were a Bible from which he took his lessons.
He wouldn’t sell the California ranch just yet. He still had income from other sources to keep him in funds, despite the constant drain from the improvements on the Watterson farm. The town thought him wealthy, and he went to a lot of trouble to keep them thinking that, but there was a limit to everything. By anyone’s standards, he had made good, but he intended to do even better.
Throwing back his head to rest on the high leather chair, Cash stared at a cobweb dangling from the distant ceiling. Energy charged through him, energy that he could turn to a number of different uses besides sitting in this chair and daydreaming. But just for a moment he wanted to savor the prize that awaited him if he played his cards right.
He was a natural-born gambler; there was no mistaking that. But he had learned to control the fever, knew how to play the odds, knew when to walk away. He had all the cards this time, and he gloated over them for a little while. He was young, healthy, with all his wits about him, in a country bereft of men, young or old.
He had money to spend in an economy still torn and bleeding from the onslaughts of war. He knew the ladies liked to look at him. His mixed blood could be a blessing as well as a curse in that it gave him the darkly exotic look that women seemed to favor. Of course, the gambler’s blood and the touch of tar that gave him these advantages also worked against him. They were the jokers in the deck that he had to watch out for. But on the whole, his wealth and his looks weighed heavier under present circumstances.
He reached for a cheroot and allowed a sardonic grin to lift the corners of his mouth. “Under present circumstances” said a mouthful. His weren’t the classically handsome features of the gallant white knights of Sir Walter Scott’s tales, but add the hint of gentlemanly sideburns, a stylish coat, and a polite bow, and he was suddenly acceptable, for lack of anyone better to compare him to. The war had put an end to the exclusivity of polite society.
Cash had only to consider his courtship of Sallie Kincaid Breckinridge to know the truth of that. He wouldn’t forget the cool disgust in her eyes when he had first pushed his way into her drawing room. But that look had disappeared as he had displayed his best manners, flattered her as she had been accustomed to being flattered.
Just the thought of having Sallie Kincaid in his bed and Stone Creek Farm as his home was sufficient reason to burn all his energy in their pursuit. Stone Creek would belong to a Wickliffe, then, and his sons would work those lands. They would have what he had never had from this town—respect.
All that was almost within his reach. Glancing at the calendar, Cash marked the date. December 24, Christmas Eve. He pulled out the desk drawer to admire the Christmas gift he meant to present to the Widow Breckinridge. He knew it was too soon. Ward had barely been in his grave three months. But he would only show it to her, let her think about it.
The glitter of that diamond would give Sallie plenty to consider while her brother-in-law argued over the allowance she demanded. Ward’s brother wasn’t the lovesick fool that Ward had been. He knew the farm didn’t have any resources to meet Sallie’s demands. And Steve Breckinridge wasn’t about to dip into his own to supply his sister-in-law with the frills and furbelows that she required. But Cash could.
He reckoned it would take only another month before Sallie would surrender to the inevitable. Maybe not even that long. She was bored with staying home, forbidden the outlets of all the holiday partying out of respect to her mourning. She couldn’t fill her boredom with shopping, since she had already exhausted her quarterly allowance. Besides, she hated black and buying black. Cash had already been the recipient of all these confidences, and he had relished them, knowing just how to use them.
Cash used the heel of his hand to adjust himself more comfortably in his tight trousers as his body responded to the mental images he was creating. By the new year of 1866 he would have Sallie Kincaid as his bride and Stone Creek Farm as his own. He’d never had many Christmas presents, but this was one worth waiting for.
Remembering another gift hidden in his drawer, Cash drew it out and considered it more thoughtfully. Anything too personal would not be proper and would be refused, if he judged his little Laura rightly. But he suspected her Christmases had been as bleak as his in the past, and he wanted to do something to brighten this one. He could afford to be generous with all the future held out for him. But she would never accept much more than a token plus a little of his time. The ivory combs would set off the golden highlights of her thick cafe au lait hair. She ought to have something pretty to show off those thick honey lengths.
He didn’t know if she would be going out to the Breckinridges’ for Christmas dinner, and in any case, it wouldn’t be politic to present her with a gift beneath Sallie’s nose. There was time to ride into town and back before dinner.
Were he a lesser man, he would be considering relieving the ache in his loins with the passionate little “widow” who had welcomed him once before. But as he saddled his horse, Cash only remembered that day with a broad smile. Little Laura had the makings of a full-grown, sensuous woman, but she belonged to Doc, and Cash owed Jonathan Broadbent his life. Laura had known that when she had bedded him, known that he would not go back to her again out of loyalty to Jonathan once he found out about the engagement. So he knew better than to pursue her, but he could still hold fond memories. The thunderstorm had added to one of the most erotic experiences of his life.
Cash frowned at the memory of Laura’s face as he had last seen it. She had not seemed well, and he was concerned, although she wouldn’t let him express it. Surely by now the worst of the gossip had subsided. The whole town was talking about the violence of the Raiders and the outrages perpetrated in the name of justice by the Regulators. The fact that Doc Broadbent had gone to Arizona Territory to cure his consumption, leaving his fiancée behind, was a subject that had been hashed to death.
There were those who said Laura Kincaid was no better than she should be for staying with Doc while the yellow fever was in town, but there were too many who had felt the benefit of her healing hands for this talk to go far. Jonathan had covered his trail well, building up a wall of protection around his young betrothed until the town had taken her in as one of their own. So it shouldn’t be gossip that caused the drawn look under her eyes.
In the interest of returning all Laura’s little favors, Cash presented himself on Jonathan Broadbent’s doorstep that Christmas Eve, package in hand. He admired the scrubbed cleanliness of the small painted porch, the hand-tied wreath of evergreen, holly, and pine cones on the door, and the welcoming candle in the window. Perhaps Laura did not outshine her beautiful cousin, but she knew how to make a man feel at home.
Laura opened the door and gaped in surprise at the sight of the tall booted figure on her step.
The cold wind had burnished Cash’s dark cheeks to a brisk shine and blown his black hair into a tangle at his nape, but the elegance of his long navy coat and tight buckskins distracted from his wild appearance, rather like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, she surmised.
“Cash! Is something wrong out at the farm? I wasn’t expecting you.”
He doffed his hat, and those penetrating eyes scanned her face, even as his normally taut features softened into a smile. “There’s nothing wrong at the farm. Can’t a fellow come to call just because he wants to? Are you going to let me in, Laura, or do I have to stand here and make a fool of myself on your doorstep?”
Immediately apologetic, Laura ushered him in. It was akin to inviting in a hurricane, but the fresh rush of wind and pent-up energy that was Cash Wickliffe added life to her sober walls, and she hid her nervousness at his presence. “Come in. Let me take your hat. Take a seat and let me fetch you something to drink. I’ve discovered Jonathan’s secret hoard of liquor, if you’d like a bit of bourbon to take the chill off.”
Cash threw his hat on the nearest chair and started for the kitchen at the rear of the house. “I found where he hides it when I was a kid. I doubt that his habits have changed. I can fetch my own; you needn’t wait on me. Are you going out to the Breckinridges’ for Christmas dinner?”
He threw this last over his shoulder as he reached to the top of the pantry cupboard and brought down the bottle. Making himself at home, he found a glass in the cabinet and poured a finger or two while Laura made tea.
“I hadn’t planned on it. Some of the ladies at the church are putting together a little dinner and entertainment for the children who lost their parents during the fever. I told them I’d help out, since I didn’t have family of my own to tend to. Have you persuaded Sallie to invite you?”
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