Ana Seymour (10 page)

Moments after Carter had left, Jennie still sat on the bed without moving. He’d called her sweetheart. The endearment had affected her almost as much as the kiss. The
kisses,
she amended. It had definitely been more than one. She’d lost track.

For a while, in fact, she’d lost track of everything except the feel of Carter’s mouth on hers and the peculiar
yearning
inside her. She suspected that she’d been quite close to finding herself in the same kind of predicament Kate had with the unscrupulous Sean. If she hadn’t used every ounce of will she could muster in her brandy-fogged brain, she’d have let Carter have his way with her, regardless of the consequences. Part of her wished he was still back here on the bed with her.

Thank goodness for sanity. And, she felt obliged to add, for Carter’s restraint. If he’d continued his devastating onslaught of her senses instead of pulling away at her slight demurral, she didn’t know what might have happened. Sean Flaherty had obviously been less principled than Carter, and look where it had put Kate.

Slowly she stood and made her way over to the marble-topped dresser to-light the lamp. Her body was still oddly sensitive as she removed her clothes and prepared to sleep in her shift, since she didn’t have
any nightclothes with her. By the time she’d washed her face and neck at the carved nightstand, embarrassment had begun to set in. She would have to face Carter tomorrow in the cold light of day with memories of their heated encounter fresh in both their minds.

He’d been a gentleman, yes. This time. But drawing from her sister’s example, she’d be a fool to trust his restraint a second time. His or anyone else’s. She’d better concentrate on running Sheridan House and comforting Barnaby through his childhood heartaches. Men and love and kisses were for other women, not for her.

She’d learned a lesson Carter had said. Yes, indeed.

“So am I going to order you that steak?” Carter said as they sat down in the hotel’s now sunny dining room.

Jennie smiled. The meeting had not been as awkward as she’d feared. Thanks, once again, to Carter. He’d made no mention of how they’d parted last night. He’d escorted her to the dining room with his usual courteous charm, offering with a grin to ask the elevator attendant to let them ride up and down again.

“No steak, thank you. I’m not sure I want anything to tell you the truth.”

Carter quirked an eyebrow. “Are you a little under the weather today, Miss Sheridan? Could this have anything to do with the imbibing of a certain alcoholic beverage?”

“Don’t remind me, please.”

“A plate of eggs will fix you up.”

Jennie’s stomach rolled. “I don’t think so.”

“Porridge, then. You can’t ride all the way back to Vermillion on an empty stomach.”

The waiter came and Jennie made no protest as Carter ordered eggs and ham for himself and porridge and honey for her.

“Can we stop to see Kate again before we start back? I mean, do you have the time? You didn’t intend to take two days off.”

“Of course. Spend as much time as you like. I’m sure you have a lot to talk about.”

She couldn’t tell if he was referring to last evening. “We always do,” she said simply.

When she didn’t rise to his bait, he evidently decided to be more direct. “What will you tell her about your night at the hotel?”

Jennie hesitated before answering. She wanted to be fair. Carter had certainly been a gentleman. He’d had an opportunity to take advantage of her and he’d not pursued it. But she’d lain awake a long time last night cementing her resolve that this would not happen again. “I’ll tell her that I rode the elevator, that I had a wonderful dinner, that I drank two glasses of brandy, that I asked you to kiss me and you did.”

Carter looked surprised. “You’ll tell her that?”

“Kate and I usually tell each other everything. Which is why I’ll also tell her that I’ve now learned my lesson and I don’t intend to play with that kind of fire ever again.”

The waiter arrived with their breakfasts, giving Jennie’s words a chance to sink in. When he’d left, Carter asked with a touch of irritation, “Play with fire? Does that mean you never intend to let a man kiss you? Or just that you never intend to let
me
kiss you?”

“You’re the only one I’m worried about. No one else has ever asked.”

“That doesn’t mean that they won’t ask, Jennie. You’re talking crazy—a beautiful woman like you is going to have men wanting to kiss her.”

“Well, they’ll be disappointed.”

Carter took an angry stab at one of his eggs. “You’ve let one scoundrel sour you on the whole male gender.”

“Maybe so. But I’ve got a family to think about and a new baby to prepare for. I don’t have time for hearts and flowers foolishness.”

“Did you ever think that a man might be a help to you in taking care of that unusual family you’re planning?” Then Jennie laughed, almost spitting out her bite of porridge, as he added in a horrified voice, “Not me, of course.”

“Don’t worry, Carter. I won’t demand that you make an honest woman of me after our tryst last night. And if it will make you more comfortable, I won’t tell Kate anything about it.”

“That might be best,” he said, sounding relieved.

They lapsed into silence, lost in their own thoughts. Carter may be more of a gentleman than Sean Flaherty, but he was still a man, cut from the same cloth. He didn’t want anyone to know that he’d been kissing one of the notorious Sheridans. His life and his ambitions would always be more important to him than any woman.

She’d learned more than one lesson on this trip, and she didn’t intend to forget them.

C
arter had told the livery owner only that he’d decided to keep the rig an extra day. The miners didn’t talk much with the rest of the people in town, so there was a good chance that no one else would ever have to know that he and Jennie had spent an unchaperoned night in a hotel.

After they’d arrived back at midday, Carter had spent the rest of the afternoon in his office, cleaning his desk and moving papers from one pile to another. He accomplished nothing, and by the end of the day, stopped pretending that he might

What he needed to do—urgently—was move out of Sheridan House. The situation was simply untenable. He never should have moved there in the first place. He’d convinced himself that the decision was due to a real desire to help Jennie out and also to his boredom with the hotel menu. But deep down he’d known that the move had really been due to his desire to be near Jennie.

The encounter in Virginia City had left him shaken. He’d acted with uncharacteristic recklessness. What
would have happened if Jennie hadn’t had that slight hesitation? Would he have continued his seduction of her, taken her virginity? Perhaps left her with a bastard child? Like father, like son, he thought bitterly. He grabbed three sharpened pencils from the box in front of him and cracked them in two as if they were toothpicks.

It wasn’t going to happen. He was a better person than the unknown man who had left his seed to grow inside Carter’s mother and then disappeared from her life. Carter had always taken care in his sexual encounters to avoid that possibility. And he’d never, ever touched a virgin. Until now.

He’d be late to supper. He stood and stuffed some papers into his briefcase. After doing no work for two days, tonight he’d tell the miners that he was too busy to join the card game. He’d sit in his room and use his work to keep his mind off the fact that Jennie was alone in her room just three doors down.

Tomorrow he’d pack up his things and move back to the hotel.

There’d been a bit of teasing by the miners at supper over the overnight stay, but when neither Jennie nor Carter seemed much in a mood for raillery, the subject was dropped. The miners had taken to offering to help with the cleanup after supper, but tonight Jennie insisted that she could handle things. She even sent Barnaby off to do his schoolwork. She wanted to be alone.

Carter hadn’t offered to help. He’d disappeared the instant supper was finished, which was just as well.
Twenty-four hours had only heightened the embarrassment she was feeling about the previous night. She’d had trouble meeting his eyes when he’d come in late to supper. He seemed to be feeling the same way. He hadn’t addressed two words to her.

It was obvious that Carter Jones was not about to sully his reputation by letting anyone know that he had developed some kind of affection for “one of those Sheridan girls.” Or perhaps that was putting things too favorably. She’d heard that men had sexual urges that were not necessarily connected with feelings. It could be that Carter’s kissing her last night had had nothing to do with affection.

She sighed and reached to put the last of the clean plates in the cupboard. Well, heck. Perhaps it had been purely physical on her part, too. She’d wanted another one of those kisses. As an experiment. It could have been any number of men doing the kissing.

But as she slowly walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her room, she was forced to admit that that was a lie. It wasn’t the kiss she’d wanted. It was
Carter’s
kiss. And for all her sane and sensible arguments, she
still
wanted it.

She might have predicted that he’d be there at the top of the stairs, a towel in hand, heading toward the washroom. That seemed to be the way fate had decided to treat her recently.

He could have continued on his course, but he stopped and said, “I forgot to thank you for supper.”

“You seemed to be in a hurry.”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do tonight. I got behind.”

Jennie bit her lip. The hall was lit only by the light coming from downstairs and from the open door of his bedroom, but in the dimness she could see that his starched white shirt was unbuttoned, hanging open to reveal a sculpted chest, lightly covered with hair. Jennie’s stomach plunged.

“You got behind in your work by doing me a good turn. I thank you again.”

“It was nothing.”

They stared at each other a long moment. They both knew it had been considerably more than nothing.

Finally she said, “Well, I appreciated it all the same.”

He nodded. “If you feel the need to go again, let me know. I’ll arrange it. On a sunny day,” he added with the ghost of a smile.

“As I told you, Dr. Millard’s offered to loan me his rig. I can probably get Dennis to take me.”

“Fine.” The flicker of smile disappeared. “I…ah…wanted to let you know that I’ll be moving out tomorrow.”

Jennie gave a start of surprise. “You’re leaving?”

“I thought it would be best.”

She felt a swift pang of sadness, followed closely by anger. “I can assure you that’s not necessary, Carter,” she said stiffly.

“Not necessary, but easier on us both.”

“If that’s what you want.”

The anger in her voice was now clear. But he misinterpreted its cause. “I’ll pay the next week’s rent
and you can keep the rest of this week’s, as well, since I didn’t give any kind of proper notice.”

She shook her head. “I’ll see that you get back the money for any unused days.”

“I won’t take it It’s not fair,” he protested.

“You’ll have no choice. This is my business, after all. I’ll send Barnaby to your office tomorrow with the money.” He looked as if wanted to continue the argument, but she turned away and started walking toward her room, saying over her shoulder, “If you need any help with your packing, let me know.”

The wire had come Tuesday, and she’d resisted going to town for two days, but in the end she had to face the fact that money was not going to suddenly start growing in her vegetable garden. She’d have to find a way to earn it. Kate would not have sent the wire if the situation were not serious.

Hospital needs payment. Lyle offered but I said no. Please advise.

She’d read the words over and over, and in her weaker moments she was tempted to wire back to Kate and tell her to accept Lyle’s offer of help. But that would be tantamount to selling her sister to Lyle Wentworth, which she wasn’t about to do.

She’d have to get some kind of job, and she had no illusions that that would be an easy task in this town. The first person she approached was Margaret Potter, not because she thought the old schoolteacher would be among the more sympathetic townsfolk, but because she figured teaching was the job she’d be most suited for. But she hadn’t been inside the walls
of the schoolhouse more than three minutes when she realized that to come here had been a fool’s quest.

“Teachers
and their families
have to set an example for the rest of the community,” Miss Potter said, squinting her eyes to look at Jennie through tiny gold-rimmed glasses. Her implication was unmistakable.

“Thank you anyway, Miss Potter,” Jennie said through tight lips as she turned to leave. Beggars did not have the luxury of speaking their minds. She couldn’t afford to alienate one of the town’s leading citizens.

She walked slowly up the shady street from the schoolhouse and headed toward town without much enthusiasm. Her encounter with Miss Potter had left her discouraged. How many of the shopkeepers in town would feel the same way as Miss Potter? If they had nothing against the Sheridans, their wives probably would, which would amount to the same thing.

Perhaps she should try talking with the Wentworths. Harmon Wentworth had not been at all sympathetic when he’d broken the news about the sad state of their finances to the sisters after her parents’ funerals. He’d implied that it had been disgraceful for parents to be so irresponsible as to not have provided for their daughters’ well-being.

But now the Wentworths’ only son was staying in Virginia City to be near Kate. They must realize that he was in love with her. And Lucinda, though she had the reputation of being a bit scatterbrained, had always been a staunch supporter of her baby boy. For that reason alone, she might be willing to support Jennie’s
request. The Wentworths employed several part-time clerks and Jennie was good with sums. She turned toward the bank.

Her cheeks were flaming as she sat ramrod straight in the high-backed chair and wondered if she dared bend over and bite the tip of the finger Harmon Wentworth continued to jab toward her face as he leaned toward her across his desk.

”…when it has come to this shocking state of affairs. That a shameless girl, already suffering the consequences of her licentious behavior, can entice an honorable young man to reject his family, defy his parents…”

Jennie slowly put her fingertips on the edge of the desk and stood with as much dignity as she could muster. To heck with the consequences, this she would not let pass. The banker’s diatribe trailed off as she stood looking down at him. “Mr. Wentworth, in the future I will look more kindly on Lyle, since I now understand that he has been able to turn out to be a more or less acceptable and decent human being, in spite of being subjected to the influences of a father who is a bigot and a blowhard.”

Then she turned without haste and made her way out into the afternoon sunshine, tears in her throat and a weight the size of a boulder on her chest. It was hopeless. There was no way anyone in this town was going to give her a respectable job. At least not until the furor over Kate died down, which would probably be months, and which would not help with hospital bills now.

It was one of those moments when she wished with all her might that she could go home, crawl into her mother’s lap and cry. Her mother used to croon to her in her pleasant alto voice and tell her that everything was going to be all right. And then it usually was.

She walked aimlessly up the street, heading almost without thinking toward Dr. Millard’s office. It was probably some kind of subconscious search for a substitute parent, but as she neared his office she remembered how he was always joking about how he wished he had someone to tidy up after him. She had too much pride to take money from friends, but she wasn’t too proud to do some hard work in exchange for pay. And perhaps come of the townspeople wouldn’t object to her doing something as menial as cleaning.

She’d hire on with the doctor one afternoon a week and post a notice offering her services. Dr. Millard would let her place the advertisement in front of his office, as she had the notice for the fourth boarder. She’d have to hope she had better luck than she had with that flyer. Her only alternative would be to go house to house asking directly for the work, and after her encounters with Miss Potter and Mr. Wentworth, she didn’t think she could quite bear it.

As she anticipated, Dr. Millard was indignant at first, insisting that he would help her without accepting her labor in exchange. But after she patiently explained for the third time her determination to do this on her own, he reluctantly agreed that she could come every Tuesday afternoon.

“But I won’t be particular about whether you come or what you do when you get here,” he told her.

“I’ll come,” she told him, “and I’ll leave this place spotless. You’ll wonder what you ever did without me.”

She used the doctor’s pen and paper to make up a notice, then left his office, smiling, and crossed the sidewalk to the awning post to tack it up. This might work. If she could find two or three more places, she’d start bringing in enough extra to send the required payment.

“What in the devil’s name do you think you’re doing?”

Her bubble of optimism burst as she heard Carter’s voice behind her. She closed her eyes as if hoping it would make him go away. “I have permission from the property owner, Mr. Prosecutor,” she said, without turning around. “So take your ordinances elsewhere.”

“I don’t give a damn about the ordinances. What does that mean—
maid service, fifteen cents an hour, contact Jennie Sheridan
?”

She opened her eyes and turned to face him, the notice still in her hands. Unlike the last time she’d seen him with his chest bare, today he was neatly starched and proper in his most formal attorney garb. She found it almost impossible to believe that those stiff arms had ever been around her. “I think the sign is fairly clear,” she said.

“You’re not hiring out? Hiring
yourself out?
”

He stepped up on the sidewalk to bring himself level with her, which made her have to look up at
him, shading her eyes from the sun. “Yes, I am, if it’s any of your business.”

He let out a long, angry stream of air through his nose. “It is my business. You’re doing this because you wouldn’t take my rent money.”

“You’re not renting from me anymore.”

“But I should be. I mean, I
would
be if I’d been able to.” He looked up and down the street to see if anyone was in earshot. There was no one, but he lowered his voice anyway. “If I’d been able to keep my hands off you that night. It’s my fault.”

The more agitated he grew, the calmer she became. “If I recall, I more or less invited you to put your hands on me. So I guess that makes it
my
fault that I no longer have a fourth boarder, which is why I’m planning to earn the money another way.”

As she turned again to tack the flyer up, he reached over and ripped it out of her hand, tearing the paper in half. He’d seen her leaving the doctor’s office as he left his own office down the street, and, though he wasn’t exactly sure why or what he’d say to her, he’d found his feet taking him in her direction. But as he approached, admiring the way her green dress tucked in sharply at her trim waist, he’d caught a glimpse of the paper she held. His blood had begun to boil the minute he’d seen the word “maid.”

“What are you doing?” she protested, grabbing the two halves of the paper back from him and staring down at them wrathfully.

“You’re not putting up that flyer. And you’re not working as a maid.” He could tell her a thing or two about maids. About how they picked up other people’s
messes and scrubbed their dirt and in return were treated as less than sticks of furniture. He’d seen his mother literally shrivel up through the years of backbreaking work and humiliating treatment. He couldn’t begin to count the times he’d seen her wealthy employers stare right through her as if she didn’t even exist until it seemed by the end of her life that she wondered the same thing herself.