Shelter from the Storm

by Patricia Rice

  Cash would be devastated. What would happen to Stone Creek? As Laura finally slipped off into sleep, she envisioned a weeping Cash turning to her for comfort. She would open her arms and take him in, and together they would find that ecstasy they had once shared in a barn in a thunderstorm.

  The crash of a dropping tool jarred her from dreams of thunderstorms. Laura lay there staring at the gray gloom of a strange room, slowly orienting herself to this new situation. She had learned to adapt at an early age. She could gauge from the lack of light that she had slept all afternoon. She knew she was in the sewing room on a crude straw-stuffed mattress. She could hear voices, and her inner ear sought the one she most wanted to hear. And finding it, she filled with enormous guilt and fear.

  She wanted Sallie to divorce Cash. Because she wanted him for herself. She, Laura Kincaid, the nondescript dependent relative, longed to be the woman on Cash Wickliffe’s arm. And in his bed.

  Shuddering, she realized just how far she had fallen. She would have Cash in her bed even now, with Sallie in the other room, if he wanted her. She would do that for him if he asked it of her.

  It was a humiliating thought. Her only saving grace was that Cash scarcely knew she existed. And she would have to see that it stayed that way.

  Chapter 27

  “Just get the damned thing covered so we don’t drown in our beds. We’ll worry about the walls this winter.” Cash shoved his hat on his head and strode angrily toward the door.

  The workmen waiting for his orders exchanged glances behind his back. This wasn’t the same man who had made them go back and redo a ceiling earlier in the summer when it wasn’t completed to his satisfaction. They shrugged and turned to their ladders and lumber.

  Well aware of the exchange of glances behind him, Cash strode out into the humid August heat with a simmering fire inside him to match anything the weather could throw his way. He’d be damned if he lost everything he’d worked for to a yellow-bellied bunch of scoundrels like those renegades under Marshall Brown. He had enough contacts to know his enemies. Raiders hadn’t done this, no matter what Laura thought. Marshall’s marauders had.

  Cash ground his teeth and calculated his losses. The tobacco was a serious setback, particularly after he’d expended so much cash on the damned house. But there were still the corn and hemp, and he had several promising yearlings that would bring good money in a postwar economy starving for horses. It was just that it would take a year or two to see real money out of the foals in the field now, and corn and hemp wouldn’t bring the same prices as tobacco. There would have to be economies.

  Not that he could make Sallie understand that. The thought of his wife darkened Cash’s already grim expression. He almost wished he had ignored Mrs. Breckinridge’s scandalized hints and left Sallie to make a fool of herself with that man-milliner she had taken up with. It would have kept Sallie out of his hair awhile longer. She was raising holy cain and keeping the house in a constant uproar at a time when he really didn’t need the aggravation.

  What he really needed to do was find Brown and wring his neck. Cash derived great satisfaction just from contemplating the thought. A lynching suited him right down to the ground.

  It hadn’t taken long to verify his suspicions. A few nights down at the tavern drinking with some of his old gambling buddies had pried loose enough tongues to get the name of the culprit. Cash had half a mind to join the crusading vigilantes calling themselves the Regulators, who had slipped him the information. But he had a loathing for acting outside of the law that had something to do with the women and children in his protection.

  Gaining his horse, Cash swung into the saddle and set out to supervise the cultivating of the burned-out field. He couldn’t use that field for tobacco again for another few years. Perhaps he’d try a crop of winter wheat.

  But thinking of the fields and what he would do with them didn’t keep his mind from dwelling on the topic of women and children. He had one child in this world and another one coming. For their sakes he had to recoup his losses, if nothing else. The respect he had hoped to gain for his family seemed highly elusive. He had hoped Sallie would aid him in his goal, but he knew now that she would only work to destroy it.

  Her demand for a divorce was the hysterical whim of a pregnant woman, Laura had assured him, but Cash wasn’t so certain. If it weren’t for the child, he’d be sorely tempted.

  But there was the child she was carrying to consider, and the effect of the scandal, and Cash pushed temptation to the back of his mind. He knew enough about the law to know Sallie couldn’t obtain a divorce on her own. He would have to accuse her of adultery before the wheels could even be set in motion. Knowing Sallie, adultery would be damned hard to prove.

  Snorting at that cynical thought, Cash turned his horse down the row the men were working. Even a daguerreotype of his wife and that fop in bed wouldn’t prove the case. They would probably both be fully dressed in their finest garments.

  He had a need for a woman. He had fully intended to be faithful when he had said those vows at the beginning of the year, but the very few times Sallie could be persuaded into bed were scarcely sufficient to last him through the nine months of her pregnancy and whatever time she would demand afterward. Perhaps if he thought he would be welcomed with open arms after such a drought, he might have the stamina to withstand temptation. As it was, the torment seemed purposeless. Sallie would undoubtedly prefer it if he took his needs to the hired women in town.

  Cash certainly could understand why Ward had taken that rascally Jettie Mae to bed. But Jettie had shown no interest in enriching herself in Cash’s bed, and to be perfectly truthful, he had no interest in entertaining her there. And as much as he wanted a woman, he couldn’t bring himself to return to the whores in town. Sallie hadn’t exactly been a joy in bed, but she had been clean and lovely.

  Cash did his best to ignore the images of another woman who had welcomed him into her arms, a woman more responsive to him than any other he had ever known. Instead of fading with time, the images came more frequently now, but he was certain that was only due to his unanswered lust. Laura was a gentlewoman in every sense of the word. She would be horrified if she knew he thought of her in such a manner. And if she ever learned of his thoughts, she would leave, taking Mark with her.

  He couldn’t insult her like that. Maybe after harvest he could go into the city and find one of those married women who liked to court danger. A few good romps and he would be himself again. Then he could turn his full attention on bridling Sallie and regaining his lost profits.

  One of the hands in the far pasture caught his eye. At his frantic wave, Cash cantered dangerously across the rutted field. Even before he slid out of the saddle, he knew what he would see, and his heart sank deep into his boots. Not the horses, God, please not the horses.

  ***

  “Well, that’s what happens when you hire those ignorant darkies to do a white man’s work.” Dignifying the dinner table with her presence for the first time since her return, Sallie daintily cut into her chicken without wasting a smug look at her husband.

  At the brooding fury darkening Cash’s face, Laura desperately tried to think of a way of diverting the confrontation, or at the very least escaping from it. The news of the knifing of one of Cash’s prized yearlings crackled the household tension. Sallie did no one any good by tightening the screws.

  “No black man I know of would kill a horse. It’s tantamount to killing a baby. Only a white man would commit such a heinous crime.” The calm with which Cash uttered these words revealed the depth of his fury.

  Through thick lashes Sallie gave her husband a shrewd look, then, exercising a pleasant smile, turned to Laura. “Didn’t I hear the new deputy sheriff’s mighty interested in you, Laura? P’raps we ought to ask him out to investigate. Someone has to put a stop to these depredations.”

  Laura’s heart froze, and she heard the sudden intake of Cash’s breath. She had hoped Sallie wouldn’t have heard about
Marshall, or that she would ignore the gossip, as was only polite, but that had been wishful thinking. Sallie might pretend not to know about such scandals as Laura’s running away to marry Marshall or Cash’s whipping the beast through the streets, but Sallie wasn’t stupid. Sallie simply used only that knowledge that could be used to her advantage.

  “I’ll not have that piece of white trash set one foot on my property. Don’t take your sour grapes out on Laura, Sallie.” Cash had quit eating and was making inroads on his wine as he sat back in his chair and waited impatiently for dinner to be done.

  Sallie finally raised her head and deigned to give him a glance, even if only a mocking one. “How droll. Little Laura has finally found a protector. I should have known it would be my husband; she’s coveted everything else I own.”

  Laura’s meal curdled in her stomach. The black storm in Cash’s eyes did not bode well, but she feared the flash of lightning in Sallie’s gaze even more. Sallie was dangerous in her unpredictability.

  Before Laura could open her mouth to object, Cash intruded with bored mockery.

  “I beg your pardon, my dear, but you own nothing, least of all me. Now, I suggest you put your claws away before I take it in mind to cut them.” Cash rose from his chair and stalked from the room.

  Laura quietly folded her napkin and started to follow his example. Sallie’s contrite voice was almost not enough to stop her, but years of obedience took precedence, and reluctantly she turned to face the stunningly lovely woman at the table.

  There was a bitter smile on Sallie’s lips as she met the accusation in Laura’s eyes. She lifted her wineglass in toast. “You could at least say ‘I told you so’ like anyone else, but you ever were the grimly polite sort. Don’t you think life might have been much simpler if you had just once pulled my hair and scratched my eyes and fought for what you wanted?”

  Laura studied the question, but seeing the pain and emptiness in her cousin’s eyes, she just shook her head. “Not when what I want hurts too many other people. I can’t be that selfish, Sallie.”

  “But I can, you mean.” Sallie emptied the glass and set it down, watching the glass and not Laura. “Well, as Ward would say, I’ll take that into consideration.”

  When she said nothing else, Laura hurried away, heart thumping. She didn’t want to know what was going on in Sallie’s head when she talked like that.

  In the days that followed, Cash’s refusal to spend any more money on repairing the fire-damaged house caused Laura a great deal of concern, but Sallie took it in stride. It was as if she had already turned her back on Stone Creek and was looking in a new direction.

  Laura tried to persuade herself that Sallie was finally thinking about the arrival of the baby to the exclusion of all else, but her cousin’s behavior was not that of a new mother feathering her nest. Rather than ordering children’s gowns and cradles and tiny blankets and booties, Sallie was browsing through ladies’ magazines and ordering the latest patterns and sending for swatches of material to be compared to the pictures in the books.

  She had already ordered a bolt of blue taffeta and insisted that Laura sew it to the dimensions of one of her New York dresses, but Laura had ignored her request.

  She returned to the sewing room that now served as bedroom for both herself and Mark. The nursery had been damaged by water, and Cash’s reluctance to deal with it had made it simpler to work around the nuisance. She certainly didn’t mind keeping the infant with her, but once Sallie’s baby was born, life might grow a little more complicated.

  Taking the restless infant to her breast, Laura sat in the rocking chair and stared out over the stable roof. She wasn’t accustomed to looking over the farm from this angle, but she liked seeing the rolling hills of emerald with the horses gamboling in the pasture. Except now Cash had men patrolling the fence lines, watching for trouble.

  It was like living in an armed camp anymore, and she didn’t like it. She thought about the letter in her pocket, the long-awaited letter from Jonathan. He was coming home. She had feared that he would say that. Despite all his assurances that he was perfectly healthy and capable of making the trip, she had fervently prayed that he would just send for her.

  She didn’t want to dread Jonathan’s arrival, but she did. He would understand that she would have to wait for Sallie’s baby before leaving.

  But he wouldn’t understand if she insisted on staying after the new arrival. Neither would anyone else. And she couldn’t stay, not after discovering her feelings about Cash. She wasn’t precisely sure what they were yet, but she knew enough to recognize their unhealthiness. Cash was a married man and she wasn’t an adulteress. For her own good, she had to leave. But for Cash’s good . . .

  That was the stumbling point. Whatever her feelings for Cash might be, they included a large dollop of concern and protectiveness. It was as if, once having saved his life from Watterson’s whip, she must spend the rest of her life looking after him.

  Cash certainly wasn’t a man who needed protection from the normal run of things. She was fully convinced he would know how to deal with the Raiders and return the farm to profit and any of those other things that life threw his way. Her concern was for something more elusive, something beautiful she had seen in his mother’s eyes, knew existed in Cash’s soul, something that was in great danger of dying.

  Laura didn’t like the way he went to town every night and came home drunk. When she took his clothes for laundering, they smelled like cheap perfume and whiskey, and she knew of only one place where that combination could be found. He was selling his soul to the devil, and she didn’t know how to stop him. But depriving him of his son wasn’t the way.

  The time would have to come when some decision had to be made, but that time wasn’t now. Sallie’s baby wasn’t due for another three months. Anything could happen in three months. It would just be nice having Jonathan’s sensible head to help search for a solution. She would look forward to his arrival and not borrow trouble by imagining the worst.

  As she rocked, Laura heard a fumbling at the door. She hadn’t bothered with a lamp in the early-evening gloom, but it was full dark now. Mark was peaceful in her arms, occasionally making sucking noises, but essentially asleep. She didn’t want to disturb the calm she found in his company. Questioningly she turned her gaze to the door and murmured a quiet welcome. Jettie Mae was the only one with enough temerity to disturb her at this hour.

  When the door opened to reveal the tall silhouette outlined against a lamp in the hall, Laura felt a tug of panic. But he came in without a word, shutting the door behind him, and she tried to still her trembling nerves. Cash had never harmed her; she had no need to fear him. She need only fear herself.

  “I didn’t know you were still awake,” he whispered, halting just before her chair. “I just wanted to see if everything was all right.”

  And she knew he spoke the truth. She had heard him countless times in the nursery in the middle of the night, checking to see if the baby still breathed, roused by some unexplained noise. Cash slept lightly, and lately she doubted that he slept at all. She hadn’t heard him return from town. Perhaps she had dozed off a little herself.

  “We’re fine. He’s asleep. Would you like to hold him?” It was too late to be embarrassed at his finding her here with her bodice unfastened and the child at her breast. He certainly had to know how his son was fed. She was counting on the darkness to conceal anything else.

  When he leaned over the chair, Laura could smell the whiskey on his breath, but he didn’t seem drunk. His arm was strong and sure as it balanced on the back of her chair and he touched a wondering hand to the child’s face, not inches from her bare breast. Laura held her breath, but Cash merely pushed the blanket back to better inspect his son.

  “He’s lucky to have a mother like you.” The words were said so low as to be scarcely audible, but Laura heard everything he thought with a sensitivity attuned to him. She lifted Mark so Cash could take him, but said nothing to acknowled
ge his remark.

  “There’s a chair over by the table,” she offered as Cash lifted the child. This evening visit was highly improper, but as long as he was here, she wouldn’t turn him away. She would never turn him away, she acknowledged wryly to herself.

  Cash brought the straight-backed chair around and sprawled his long legs in the narrow space between Laura’s rocker and the window. With deft hands he removed his son’s blanket and placed it over his shoulder, then laid the infant’s head there, rubbing his back gently as Laura had taught him to do. The scene was so homely that Laura almost cried at the sight.

  “He’s grown so big,” Cash murmured, loud enough to be heard this time.

  “He doesn’t take after my side of the family, that’s for certain,” she said with a hint of irony. Cash’s chuckle warmed her too much, and Laura hurriedly sought a distraction. “He’s already crawling, and the other day I could swear he was trying to pull himself up like Taylor does. He’ll be running before we know it. You’d better construct a cage before that happens. I can tell right now we’re going to have our hands full with the two of them egging each other on.”

  Cash smiled in this tiny oasis of calm. Laura accepted his need for this peace.

  “I’ll lasso them both and keep them corralled until they’re manageable since it seems Jettie and her young ones are going to be a permanent fixture here. If this next one’s a boy, we’ll have to hire a lion tamer.”

  Cash’s jocular words hit a note too close to one of her worries, but Laura didn’t think it appropriate to introduce the subject so soon. If Sallie’s baby wasn’t a boy, how would they make it understood that the new baby was a sister, and not someone Mark might grow up to love as a man does a woman? That was one more reason Cash would have to understand why she had to leave.

  Instead, she introduced a different subject. It was no less worrisome, but certainly more pertinent. “Cash, I hate to bother you, but I wish you would talk to Sallie. I’ve tried to persuade her to call in Dr. Burke, but she refuses to see him. I’m afraid something isn’t right. I’m not a midwife and I don’t have much experience, and I could very well be wrong, so don’t go getting yourself all shook, but I would feel better if she saw a physician.”