Dancing With the Devil (17 page)

“Where is she?” He tried to brush by, but Ernest grabbed his jacket and held on. Deacon stopped, looking at the bunched edge of his new garment clutched in Ernest’s fist and then up into the boy’s face.

What looked back at him was no longer a boy; Ernest seemed to have grown from boy to man in the fifteen seconds since Deacon walked in.

“I know somethin’ ain’t right with you and her,” Ernest said, his voice calm, yet bordering a little too close on threatening. “But if you ever make her cry again, you and me are gonna have words. D’you hear me?”

There was something oddly familiar about that glare and the way he held himself so straight.

“Ernest,” Deacon said slowly. “Let go of me.”

After another few seconds of glaring, Ernest released his jacket and shook his fist out a bit.

“Thank you.” Deacon pressed his palm over the creases. “While I’m sure Rhea appreciates how protective you are toward her, I am her husband, not you. What ever happens between us is none of your concern.”

Ernest’s expression held. “If you’re gonna keep upset-tin’ her this way, then I’m gonna make it my concern.”

“I appreciate the warning,” Deacon said, reining in his frustration. “Now if you’ll excuse me…”

They stared each other down for a few more seconds before Deacon pushed past him and headed to the back. As far as humans went, Ernest seemed to be one of the more likeable ones—if there was such a category—and if he was looking to protect Rhea, then Deacon would let him win that round.

He mounted the steps to their room two at a time
and pushed the door open so fast, it banged against the slanted ceiling.

Empty. Her clothes still hung on the pegs and her hairbrush lay on the table next to the washbasin, so at least she hadn’t moved out.

Where would she be? He hurried back downstairs and marched right up to Ernest, who was helping a woman at the counter.

“How will you be paying?” he asked.

“On account.” The woman looked up, and Deacon almost groaned. Mrs. Hale. There was more money Rhea would never see.

He stepped right up to Ernest. “Where did she go?”

“Good day to you, Mr…. um…Deacon.” Mrs. Hale frowned a little as she tripped over his name, then took up her parcel and scurried out of the store.

Ernest finished writing up her purchase as though Deacon wasn’t even there.

“Where did she go?” If Ernest didn’t answer him this time, he was going to clean that boy’s plow but good.

“I don’t know.” Ernest closed the account book and slid it back in place on the shelf beneath the counter. “And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“She wouldn’t just leave without telling you where she was going or how long she’d be.”

“She never has before.” The look Ernest leveled at him was one of ice-cold anger. “Which just goes to show how much she don’t want to be found.”

The door jangled open and in walked Mrs. Foster, her white hair covered by a truly awful brown-and-green plaid bonnet, and wearing an equally horrid dress of the same pattern.

Deacon cursed under his breath and made for the door.

“Hello,” Mrs. Foster called out. “It’s so nice to see you again.”

“Yes,” he hurried to answer. “Thank you.”

She started toward him, but Deacon ducked down a different aisle.

“I’m taking some fabric, Ernest,” he said, “and I’ll pay for it when I get back.”

Mrs. Foster went right on talking. “I saw you coming out of the old feed store earlier. Are you planning—”

“My apologies,” he offered, grabbing a large folded piece of white cotton fabric. “I’m in a terrible hurry. Another time, perhaps?”

“But—”

Without giving her time to finish, Deacon yanked open the door and stepped out onto the walk. Of all the people to have seen him this morning, it had to be her. Did the old bat ever stay home?

He needed to find Rhea. She was all that mattered. If he could just—

“I see you found something to bandage yourself with.” Kit stepped up beside him, looking as innocent as she could, which wasn’t saying much. “Need some help?”

He tried to ignore her, but Kit was nothing if not persistent. Her hair blew around her head in wild chaos, and her hands were wrapped around her suspenders as if she were a common farmhand.

“In case you haven’t noticed, Deacon, your plan isn’t working.” She skipped a few steps to keep up. “Telling her the truth isn’t making her feel better, and it’s not doing you a whole lot of good, either.”

Deacon ground his teeth together. He knew it wasn’t working; the last thing he needed was someone—especially Kit—pointing it out to him.

But why wasn’t it working? Why couldn’t Rhea just
believe what he’d told her about Salma? It would sure make things easier.

“Do you have any idea where you’re going, or are you just hoping she’ll pop out of one of these buildings and surprise you?”

He knew exactly where he was going and couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it right away.

“Don’t you have some poor downtrodden soul to drag back to Hell or something?”

“No,” she answered airily. “It’s kind of slow today.”

On the other side of the street, Colin stepped out of the sheriff’s office and stood there, his thumbs hooked into his gun belt, watching Deacon and Kit with narrowed eyes.

The urge to kick something was almost too strong to ignore. Didn’t anyone have anything better to do than watch his every move?

“You have that look,” Kit said cautiously.

“What look?”

“The one you get when you’re up to something.”

He kept walking, lengthening his stride with each step. “I am,” he said, not bothering to hide his irritation. “That’s no secret.”

She didn’t look convinced. “There’s something else.”

“The only other thing going on right now, Kit, is you getting in my way and making everything harder than it needs to be.”

“Who, me?”

For a split second, as they neared the livery, Deacon considered renting a buggy again. But there was no way Travis would rent him anything after the way he’d returned the buggy and horses yesterday.

When Rhea walked away from the lake, she’d left him to harness the animals alone, and he didn’t have the first idea what he was supposed to do. It stood to reason that
harnessing the animals would simply be the direct opposite of releasing the harnesses, as he’d done with Rhea. But no matter what he tried, the straps didn’t want to fit the way he thought they should, and the horses, sensing his unease, had been less than accommodating about the whole thing.

He ended up walking the horses back and leaving Travis to go fetch the buggy.

No, Deacon was going to have to walk all the way to Colin’s. It was only a couple of miles, but it also meant a couple miles worth of dust covering his boots, and step after step of stretching his wounds open.

“Are you going to tell me where you’re going?”

“No,” he answered as he jammed the cloth inside his pocket. “But if you keep following me, you’ll end up there about the same time I do.”

She seemed to think on that a second. “Is it far?”

“Seems like a million miles away right now,” he groused.

Kit walked along beside him for a long time, keeping pace with him even though it meant she often had to jog a bit to do so. When they rounded the bend about three quarters of the way out, she disappeared without a word.

He tried not to wish he could still do that and tried even harder not to think about where she’d gone or what she would do once she got there.

All he could do was hope Rhea was strong enough to withstand it until he arrived.

“Hello, Rhea.” Even before Kit stepped up beside the coop, the chickens scattered in a frenzy of clucking and flying feathers.

“Hello, Kit.” Rhea spread the rest of the chicken feed
around the pen, then set the bucket upside down near the gate. “What do you want?”

“Can’t a girl stop by to say hello to her sister-in-law?”

“I’m sure under normal circumstances that would be perfectly acceptable.” Part of Rhea’s brain chastised her. She had no reason to be cross with Kit—she hadn’t done anything to Rhea. But the other part of her brain, the louder and more judgmental part, continued to fire anger at the woman. She was, after all, only there to take Deacon away again.

She stepped out of the pen, closed the gate behind her and moved toward the barn. Colin had at least milked the poor cow regularly, but that was all he’d done. The second the poor beast sensed Kit’s presence, its eyes widened and it pulled against its tether and tried repeatedly to sidestep away.

“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” Kit moved airily behind Rhea, as though she didn’t have a care in the world, but Rhea knew Kit’s kind didn’t hang about dirty barns unless they had a good reason. And, obviously, Rhea was part of that reason.

“You can’t come in here,” Rhea said flatly. “So if you’re not going to tell me what you want, either get out of my way or take that pitchfork and get to work—in the farthest stall.”

While Rhea positioned herself on the milking stool beside the twitchy cow, Kit picked up the pitchfork and moved to the far end of the barn, but made no attempt to use it. Instead, she leaned against it, watching as Rhea set to milking the bawling beast.

“You’re really not afraid of me, are you?”

“Should I be?”

“Most humans are.” The pitchfork scraped against the
floor. “Do you have any idea what I could do to you? Or what our father could do to you?”

Rhea snorted. “I have spent twenty-four years of Sundays down on my knees in Reverend Goodwin’s church,” she said. “So yes, I have a pretty good idea of what your kind is capable of.”

Another scrape, then the smell of dirty straw filled the air. “And that doesn’t frighten you?”

Rhea’s hands paused on the udder for a moment, then resumed their pumping. “No.”

It was Kit’s turn to snort. “Deacon was right—you are a firecracker.”

“The way I look at it,” Rhea said, “your kind works on fear. Everything you do and everything you know is built on what you’re afraid of and what you can make others afraid of. Am I right?”

“Partly.” Kit came around the corner of the stall and leaned on the pitchfork again, just inside Rhea’s peripheral vision.

“You prey on the weak and the lonely because they’re easy. And when others see what you’ve done to these poor souls, they become more afraid themselves. Fear leads to weakness, which leads to more fear, which leads back to—”

“Okay,” Kit interrupted. “You made your point. But that doesn’t explain why you’re not afraid.”

“Simple.” Rhea released the cow and lifted the pail into her arms. “I’m not weak.”

At least not in the way Kit was looking for.

Kit’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “No, you’re certainly not, but being lonely is a whole ‘nother thing, isn’t it?”

The reply Rhea started to fire back died on her tongue. There was no reason for her to be lonely. She had Colin, she had her store and she had plenty of folks who cared enough to stop by to say hello every day.

It was more than a lot of people had. And yet, buried deep in her heart, in the place she’d never shared with anyone, was a profound longing no one but Deacon had ever been able to satisfy.

For a while, she’d tried to believe any husband and children could fill that void, and she could have had both easily enough.

But it would have meant marrying a man she didn’t love, and that simply wasn’t an option. The only man she would ever love could not be hers; even if Judge Hicks married them, Deacon wouldn’t be hers like a real husband. Because of that, the gaping hole of loneliness remained.

In short order, Deacon would be gone again and she would have to push that ache down deeper, until she could muffle it beneath the other aches she’d silenced.

“He’s got you tied up in knots, doesn’t he?” Kit’s voice held a touch of awe. “You know you can’t have him, yet you refuse to let go of that fragile thread of hope.”

When Rhea didn’t answer right away, Kit shrugged. “You humans are a strange lot. Why don’t you just give up on him?”

Rhea sniffed softly. “What I do is none of your concern.”

She walked out of the barn and headed for the cabin, with the milk pail clutched tightly in her arms.

Kit hurried behind her. “But it just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “You’re a smart girl, and you know he’s going to leave you again.”

Of course she knew, but that didn’t mean she was going to discuss any of this with the likes of Kit.

Rhea sighed and pushed open the door. “Would you like some coffee?”

“You want to make me coffee?” Kit’s perfectly arched brow furrowed.

“No,” Rhea answered. “I’m making myself coffee, but you’re welcome to have some if you like.”

Inside the dingy little room, Rhea set to work on the coffee while Kit wandered slowly, seeming to study every inch of the four walls.

“Did you and your brother live here with your parents?” she asked. “It seems awfully small.”

“No.” Rhea tried to stall the sadness from her voice. “We used to have a house a ways out behind the barn, but it burned.”

“Your parents?”

“Y-yes.” With shaking hands, she poured water into the coffeepot and set it on the stove to boil.

“That must have been horrible for you.” If Rhea didn’t know who Kit was, she’s almost think the woman was being sympathetic. “You and your brother survived, though.”

The grinder slipped from Rhea’s hands. She lunged, caught it, then juggled it two or three times before she finally slammed it down on the table.

“Pa went back for Ma. Neither one made it out.”

Kit stopped moving and tipped her head toward Rhea without actually looking at her. “That’s rather curious, don’t you think?”

“Stop it.” Rhea pressed her hands flat on the table. “I’m not going to discuss this with you. My parents are dead, and while that doesn’t mean anything to you, it means a great deal to me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.” It was an extreme effort to keep her voice low and even, but somehow she managed.

The door banged open, and in walked Deacon. Sweat trickled down his forehead, and his fine black suit was covered in a thin layer of Texas dust.