“Why didn’t you tell me?”
His features didn’t change. “Tell you what?”
“About… about Jeremy and… and Harry.” The memory of what she’d learned still made her ill.
He tossed her a quick glance before concentrating once again on the road ahead of them. “What about them?”
He was being evasive, and it irked her. “I… I’m sorry, but I think you know very well what I mean.”
“You’re sorry?” he asked with disbelief.
With an impatient shake of her head, she amended, “I… I didn’t mean it that way. And don’t change the subject. Why didn’t you tell me what you knew about Jeremy and Harry Ritter?”
He was quiet for a moment, his face pensive. “What did you hear?”
Anguish battered her insides. “Do I have to repeat it? I can’t… I can’t. I don’t want to believe it—” She finished the sentence on a sob, then cleared her throat, regaining control.
“If you heard that your husband treated the Indians badly, then you heard right. If you heard that Harry Ritter was a weak little pissant who deflowered virgins and enticed married Indian women into barns, you heard that right, too.”
Even with the harshness of his language, Rachel felt he was holding back. If there was more to this than she’d learned, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. She sighed, swinging her gaze to him again. “Why didn’t someone tell me sooner? Why didn’t you?”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t up to me. Would you have believed it? Do you believe it now?”
She felt empty, tired. “I wish Ivy would have told me.”
He gave her a derisive snort. “Would it have been more credible coming from a White?”
She whipped around on the seat and stared at him. “No, that… that’s not what I meant, I—”
“Never mind what you meant,” he interrupted. “If Dixie didn’t convince you, go ahead and ask Ivy. Ask Earl. Ask any damned White in Pine Valley, and you’ll get the same answer. Harry Ritter was a rapist, and your husband was a thief and a cheat.”
He meant to hurt her, she knew that. Neither the words nor the sound of his voice held any gentleness or sympathy.
“So,” she said softly, “everyone in town is painting me with the same brush. Guilt by association.” She smiled wanly. “It hardly seems fair.”
He gave her an insulting laugh. “Just as fair as assuming all Indians are murdering savages.”
The implication hit home. He was right. Until her visit to the reservation, she’d viewed Indians as all alike. Had she known Jason was an Indian, she’d never have gone to work for him. She would have avoided him as she’d tried to avoid every Indian she approached on the street. But she didn’t think he’d believe her if she told him that had all changed.
Suddenly the buggy lurched sideways, sending the horses into a wild frenzy. Rachel clutched the seat with both hands but was thrown against Jason anyway.
“Whoa, Bell, whoa, Midnight,” Jason soothed as he tried to get the horses back under control.
The horses snorted and whinnied, then stopped, prancing in place like marchers in a band. The buggy leaned dangerously to one side, and Rachel was pressed hard against Jason’s body. She tried to move away, but it was useless.
“Hold on.” He slipped from the seat onto the ground, bringing her with him.
“What happened?” she asked as she quickly moved out of his embrace.
He hunkered down next to the wheel. “I thought this had been fixed.” He fingered the bent wheel rim.
“Is it broken?” She stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the lopsided wheel.
“No,” he barked. “All wheels roll at a forty-five-degree angle, hadn’t you noticed?” he added, his voice laced with sarcasm. “Of course it’s broken.” He stood and shrugged out of his jacket. “There are some tools in the back. Get them for me.”
“Yes, master,” she muttered under her breath. “I hear and I obey.” Before turning away, she realized he’d heard her. Feeling herself blush, she knew that even a week earlier she wouldn’t have dared say things out loud that she’d been saying to herself. As she rummaged through the bit of clutter on the floor behind the seat, she marveled at how she’d changed. She wasn’t sure it was for the better. Some things were better left unsaid.
“Is it a box with a green handle?” she asked, spying it way in the back.
“Is there more than one back there?”
She made a face in his direction, recognizing his ever-present sarcasm. Reaching back, she pulled the heavy box toward her, then lifted it out of the carriage. She gripped it tightly with both hands and hauled it to his side, dumping it unceremoniously beside him. Dust sifted into the air as the box came to a heavy stop… dangerously close to his foot. He glanced up quickly, giving her a suspicious look.
“It was heavy,” she said in her defense.
He mumbled something she didn’t understand, then set to work on the wheel.
“Is there anything else I can do?”
His gaze bounced warily from her to his foot. “I don’t think so.”
Shrugging, she wandered away, settling herself against a boulder. The sun was warm, sending a feeling of lethargy through her as she watched him work. Beneath his shirt, his back muscles bunched and relaxed. A slight breeze ruffled his hair, causing the sun to find threads of gold among the dark waves.
She wondered what his father had looked like. Remembering pictures of Castilians she’d once seen in a book, she let herself imagine that his father had been one of them. Tall, blond, incredibly handsome. Her imagination went further, to picture his attractive, blond father wooing a beautiful Indian maiden. The best of both races had been brought out in Jason, she decided.
The sun’s warmth sent her lethargy into lassitude, and she no longer fought to keep her eyes open. She drifted into sleep, her thoughts focused on the man in front of her.
Jason had stripped off his shirt, finding the heat of the late morning sun a welcome balm on his skin. Glancing over his shoulder at the napping Rachel, he allowed a half-smile to touch his mouth. Her head lolled a little to one side, and her lips, those sweet, soft lips, were parted slightly as she slept.
He thought about how much she’d changed in the week they’d spent at the reservation. Dixie, Matthew, Joseph, and half a dozen others had warmed to her. It hadn’t surprised him. Who wouldn’t, once they got to know her? She was sweet, gentle, almost innocent in her reactions to life—and love.
Swearing, he went back to work. In that respect, she still puzzled him. Days ago, maybe even earlier than that, he’d given up pretending she was an evil woman merely acting naïve. From the day she’d learned that her bastard of a husband had had a mistress, she’d unknowingly convinced him that she was an innocent pawn in one of Jeremy Weber’s cruel games.
He swore again, remembering how he’d shouted at Dixie after learning that she’d divulged so much of the truth to Rachel. Dixie had refused to back down, meeting him toe to toe, scolding him for keeping the truth from her. But they’d parted amicably—as they always did. He’d never understand how the women he knew could have been blessed with so much good sense. Most other women, with the exception of his mother, Summer, Nell, and Ivy, were vacuous and foolish.
His job finished, he turned in time to catch Rachel stretching lazily against the rock.
“You snore,” he teased, momentarily forgetting that they were at odds with one another.
She gave him a dimpled grin. “You lie.”
A warmth that had nothing to do with the sun invaded his chest. He wanted to take the distance between them in two strides, pull her into his arms and kiss her, hold her, caress her… continue where they’d left off the night of the dance.
He suddenly realized she was no longer smiling. She seemed frozen with fear, her gaze fixed on his torso. Frowning, he looked down at the mass of deep, crooked scars that zigzagged across his chest.
&
nbsp; The horror of understanding sped through him. The morning of the massacre played out in the theater of his mind, and he saw himself stripping off his shirt to cover the bloodied bodies of the victims. He envisioned a frightened woman staring at him through a small hole next to the fireplace, a woman who’d just witnessed the brutal murders of her husband and his best friend…
“You!” She still hadn’t moved, but her eyes accused him of everything.
He let her stare, refusing to cover up, wanting her to know that he had nothing to hide.
“You were there,” she whispered, her eyes still filled with terror.
“Of course I was there. I don’t deny it.” Her unspoken allegation regarding his guilt didn’t surprise him. It angered him.
She continued to stare at him, her chest heaving. “Why… why didn’t you tell me it was you?”
He scowled, his pride holding firm. “My being there had nothing to do with what happened.”
“No,” she said, not even listening to him as she backed away. “No, you wouldn’t have told me, anyway. It was you all along. You’re one of them. You’re one of them,” she repeated, her voice filled with shaky loathing. “It’s no wonder they can’t find the murderers. You… you’re probably hiding them—”
“Don’t be a fool.” He reached for his shirt and shrugged into it. She was almost hysterical. It would be impossible to reason with her.
She closed her eyes and swayed back against the rock. “You… I should have known it was you,” she answered, her voice quivering.
Her hatred continued to eat at him. He understood her clearly now. “If you hadn’t just learned that I was a half-breed,” he began as he buttoned his shirt, “you wouldn’t have jumped to such a stupid, ridiculous conclusion.”
She still refused to look at him. “If you’re so innocent, why didn’t you tell me you’d been there that morning? You… you’ve had weeks to do it. Weeks.”
His own anger and frustration grew. “What good would that have done? By the time I got to your cabin, they were both dead. Believe me, I checked.” His pride severely battered, he added, “Who do you think reported it to Tully? Who do you think arranged for your husband’s funeral? You sure as hell didn’t have the sense to do it.”
He tossed the toolbox into the back of the carriage, suddenly not caring what he told her. “Did you ever wonder why so few people came to the funeral? Did it even dawn on you that it was because everyone hated him?”
He tucked his shirt into his denim jeans. “You’re lucky anyone in Pine Valley would give you the time of day, considering how they felt about Weber. If Ivy hadn’t picked you up as she does all strays, I’d hate to think what might have happened to you that morning.”
He turned and studied her. “I’d hate to think what might have happened to you if whoever killed your husband would have found you, too. Did you even think about that?”
She stared at him, all the color draining from her face. Bringing her hand to her mouth, she let out a shuddering breath and slid to the ground.
Swearing to himself, he knew he’d said far more than he’d meant to. For some damned stupid reason, she brought out the worst in him. He knew better than to let his emotions rule his head, but ever since he’d first seen her, she’d drawn from him a response too deep for him to understand. Now, all of the hot, exciting notions he’d nurtured about the two of them suddenly seemed impulsive and ludicrous. His weakness for her had made him a fool.
“Get back in the buggy. We have to make it back before dark.”
She pushed herself away from the boulder and, like a sleepwalker, moved woodenly toward him. Her face was stunned into a mask of horror and disbelief. Recoiling dramatically, she refused his hand when he offered to help her up.
They rode back to town in painful, uncomfortable silence.
Chapter Nine
Rachel threw back her covers, padded to the window seat, and curled up on the cushion. The moon illuminated the shed and the outbuildings behind the cafe, carving a sharp delineation between earth and sky. The clock in the restaurant had just struck two. She’d heard it strike midnight and one as well.
Her mind whirled with her recent discoveries. First, she’d learned that Jeremy’d had a mistress, and everyone knew about it but her. No doubt the whole community had laughed at her behind her back, but she knew that what other people thought wasn’t all that important.
But Jeremy’s betrayal was something she’d never get over. She still felt his infidelities were her fault, but she couldn’t do anything about that now. It just continued to hurt, deep down inside where it was almost impossible to heal.
Then there was her confrontation with Jason yesterday morning. Because of his anger, she’d been forced to see herself as others saw her: a shy, naïve, helpless, pathetic, artless, unsophisticated—Oh, damn, but she could go on and on heaping adjective upon pitiful adjective and it wouldn’t get any better.
Drawing in a deep sigh, she thought back to the funeral. Just who did she think had made the arrangements? Ivy? The marshal? Yes, probably. She hadn’t really given it much thought. Someone had always taken care of those kinds of things, things that required thought and planning. If they hadn’t, they just wouldn’t have gotten done, and that was that. She had no initiative. No one had ever asked her to do anything truly important, because she hadn’t been important enough to carry out the task. This wasn’t self-pity, this was fact. At least, it was what she’d been told when she lived with her aunt and uncle.
All of the words Jason had flung at her in anger were true. He’d thought he was hurting her. But she was beyond that. What had bothered her so very much more was her reaction to his scars. She’d dredged up a picture of Elbee, the ultimate traitor, and immediately decided Jason was a traitor as well.
She’d always prized her ability to judge people, but obviously she wasn’t a good judge at all. All of the natural sense she’d thought she had acquired over the years had been just dumb luck. She couldn’t automatically weed out right from wrong. That had been painfully clear when she’d learned about Harry—and Jeremy. She’d been quick to come to their defense, even though the facts had been laid out before her. Yet, when she saw Jason’s scars, she’d also jumped to the conclusion that he was involved in the murders.
Although she knew she was falling in love with Jason, the memory of Elbee’s betrayal all those years ago hadn’t faded. She’d trusted Elbee, and he’d killed her parents. She loved and trusted Jason, yet briefly, because she’d discovered he was an Indian, she’d felt betrayed.
Of course, she’d regretted her outburst immediately, but it had been too late to take it back. With every sense she possessed, to the depths of her soul, she’d known Jason wasn’t capable of murder. But her memory of that morning was still too fresh; she couldn’t just brush it aside. And because she couldn’t, the recollection had taken hold of her and pushed her face in it, forcing her to scream out loud and gasp for breath, or she would have suffocated.
But it had been the surprise, the shock of seeing those scars—the same scars that had frightened her that terrible morning. Now, she knew the fear she’d felt had been simply a response to the whole gruesome morning—and her horrible past.
But there were still so many other things about that morning that kept her awake at night. Every so often, she’d get a whiff of some smell, and the musty, woody odor of the crawl space where she’d sat, her knees to her chin, would rush back at her.
Shivering, she reached for her robe, then changed her mind. As she groped for and found her underwear, she thought back to what she’d told the marshal weeks before about the face of Jeremy’s killer. She hadn’t been able to remember it then, and she couldn’t now. But she could still see that man standing there, bare chested, the scars gleaming white against his brown skin. With the kind of clarity that sharpens as time passes, she remembered thinking the man might discover her and hurt her. Yet she also knew, even then, that he wasn’
t a man she should fear. Fright, trepidation, and innocence had prevented her from being rational. Those feelings had come back to haunt her yesterday.
Sighing, she slipped her arms from the sleeves of her flannel nightgown, using the garment as a cover against the cold as she pulled on her drawers and fastened them at the waist. She also slipped into her camisole, buttoning it up the front. Sucking in a deep breath to prepare herself for the invasion of cold air on her skin, she pulled off her nightgown, shivering and hunching her shoulders as she rummaged around in the darkness for her clothes.
Once she’d dressed, she went back to the window and curled up on the cushion. Craning her neck, she peered through the buildings behind the cafe. She’d discovered weeks ago that if she stretched far enough, she could see the front of the building that housed Jason’s office. Not the office itself, but the rooms next to it, where he lived. With a little shock of surprise, she realized that one of the windows showed signs of lamplight. A tiny thrill darted through her.
Closing her eyes, she rested her back against the wall and brought back the image of his wide, bronzed shoulders as he worked on the buggy wheel. She remembered wondering how it would feel to trace his muscles with her fingers, dipping into the grooves, swooping over the bulges. Even though she’d worked as a nurse, she didn’t have that much experience with the human anatomy.
She opened her eyes and shook her head at her foolish musings. Considering how they’d parted, she knew that he probably wasn’t thinking about her at all.
The clock bonged three times. She glanced at the window again, making a decision. Bounding off the seat, she hurried to the coat rack. With her cape over her arm, she quietly opened the door and stepped into the hallway. After listening for sounds of movement from Ivy’s rooms and hearing none, she fastened her cloak around her shoulders and left the cafe.
Jason grunted in disgust and put the leather-bound edition of Hamlet facedown on the table beside his bed. He was in a brooding mood and felt Shakespeare could appease it. But tonight it didn’t work. Tonight, instead of seeing a faceless Ophelia moving through the script, he saw Rachel. And, although it really didn’t apply, he found himself in the role of Hamlet, telling the lovely, beguiling Ophelia-with-Rachel’s-face to “get thee to a nunnery.” A wry smile cracked the edges of his mouth.… And quickly, too.
Heat of a Savage Moon--The Moon Trilogy--Book Two Page 14