Hummingbird (28 page)

Her chair scraped back into the silence at the same moment he finally decided to speak.

"Abbie, I think—"

"What?" She halted, half up, plate in hand.

He stared out the far front door, not trusting himself to look at her. "I think I'd better get out of here before we do hurt each other."

She stared at the plate in her hand, suddenly very sorry she'd hurt him.

"Yes," she said meekly. "I think you had better."

"Would you get my crutches from the bedroom please?" he asked, very politely.

"Of course," she agreed, equally as polite, and went to get them. She wanted to say she was sorry, but thought he should say it first. He had started it. Silently, she handed him the sticks.

"Thank you," he said, again too politely, pulling himself to his feet, then stumping off toward his room, gingerly favoring the right leg again. There followed a long, deep sigh as he lowered himself to the bedsprings.

Abbie stared out the back door for the longest time, seeing nothing. Finally, she sighed and put the room in order, then crept off to her upstairs room to discard the floral blouse.

But she slumped to the edge of the bed disconsolately, burying her face in her hands. Oh, she was so confused by everything. Nothing seemed simple like it had before the two men had entered her life. She could no longer deny her attraction for Jesse. At times he could be so warm and sympathetic. Like yesterday, when she'd told him things she'd never told another living soul and had begun to trust him, only to have him do what he'd just done. Why couldn't he be like David? David—so much more like her.

David—a gentleman whose values ran parallel to hers. David—who had kissed her so sweetly on the stairs but would never have tried anything like Jesse had just pulled on that chair downstairs. But thinking of it, she felt that odd, forbidden exhilaration that would not be quelled. Why was she unable to resist the dark, foreboding charms that drew her into Jesse's web time and time again?

She tried to imagine her father ever carrying on with her mother in that fashion but simply could not. Why, her mother would have left home. Yet Abbie wondered now why her father and mother never touched or kissed. She had always assumed that their polite way was the way all well-bred married couples acted.

Abbie pressed her hands to her heated face, remembering her mother saying that all men were beasts.

She remembered Richard tackling her in the livery stable one time and how she'd slapped him. She remembered Jesse grappling with her on that chair, and that night in the bed with his tongue all over her breasts and belly. She shivered, there in the heat of the upstairs bedroom, assuring herself that what she'd felt that night and today was fear and nothing more. For anything else would be sinful.

She pulled herself up sharply, changed into proper clothing, and made up her mind she must offer him some apology for hurting him and would go down and make lemonade, which would suffice if she could not bring herself to utter the words.

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She was just about ready to pour the lemonade when there was a knock at the front door. There, on the porch, stood a swarthy, well-dressed man of perhaps forty-five years. Everything from his cordoban shoes to his Stetson hat was impeccably crisp, clean, and correct. He doffed his hat with a flawlessly groomed hand and bowed slightly, adjusting a package he held beneath an arm.

"Good day. Miss Abigail McKenzie?"

"Yes."

"I was told in town that you have a Mr. DuFrayne here."

"DuFrayne?" she repeated, confused.

"Jesse DuFrayne," he clarified.

She was momentarily taken aback by the name. Jesse
DuFrayne'
? Jesse DuFrayne. It rhymed with train and had a rhythmic, beat-of-the-rails motion to it. Of its own accord, the name repeated itself in her mind, as if steel drivers churned out the message:

Jesse DuFrayne

Rode in on a train…

Jesse DuFrayne

Rode in on a train…

Still, somehow she thought the name could not belong to the Jesse she knew. To lend him a genuine surname would be to afford him unwarranted validity.

"Is he here, Miss McKenzie?"

Abruptly she twitched from her musings.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Mr—?"

"Hudson. James Hudson, of the Rocky Mountain Railroad. We have, Miss McKenzie, as you've probably already guessed, a vested interest in Jesse DuFrayne."

So, she thought, Mr. Jesse DuFrayne is no train robber; is he not? This was the moment she had waited for; vengeance was hers. But it somehow lost its savor.

"Come in, Mr. Hudson, please do come in," she said, opening the screen and gesturing him inside. "I believe the man you're looking for is here. He refused to tell—"

But at that moment his voice came from the bedroom. "Hey, Doc, is that you out there? Come on in here."

A smile suddenly covered Mr. Hudson's face, and he made a move toward the voice, then halted—

properly if impatiently—asking, "May I?"

She nodded and pointed to the bedroom door. "He's in there."

James Hudson did not conceal the fact that he was in an overjoyed hurry to hit that bedroom doorway.

Six or seven long strides across the living room and their voices were booming.

"Jesse, Gol-damnit, how did you end up here?"

"Jim! Am I glad to see you!"

Abbie tiptoed timidly to the door. Jesse'd been shaving, but even through the suds she could tell that he had absolutely no fear of Jim Hudson, was instead elated to see him. To her amazement the two bear-hugged and affably pounded each other's backs.

"Goddamn if you aren't a sight for sore eyes!" DuFrayne exclaimed, pulling back.

"Look at yourself! I could say the same thing. Word came along the line that you'd been shot. What happened? Somebody take your moustache off with a stray bullet? It looks kind of ragged."

DuFrayne's laughter, genuine, spontaneous, filled the room while he glanced in the mirror he held. "I wish that was all a stray bullet had bothered."

"Yeah? What else got hit?"

"My right leg, but it's doing fine, thanks to Miss Abigail here. They hauled me off the R.M.R. coach and plunked me down here and she's been stuck with me ever since."

"Miss McKenzie, how can we thank you?" Jim Hudson asked, but as if to answer his own question lifted the package he'd brought and came to her, extending it. It was wrapped, but even so the shape of a bottle was evident. "This isn't much, but please accept it with my heartfelt thanks."

She stood in startled confusion, reached for his proffered gift with the hands of an automaton, quite stunned by what all this seemed to mean, but Hudson immediately turned back to DuFrayne.

"What happened, Jesse? We were worried as hell. You turned up missing and the boys down at Rockwell found your gear on the train, and no Jesse! Then somebody from the depot in Stuart's Junction wired down a description of an alleged robber they pulled off a train up here and it sounded like you: coal black moustache and tall as a barn door. I said to myself, if that's not Jess I'll eat my fifteen-dollar Stetson."

Jesse laughed again from behind the lather and sank back onto the bed where he'd been when Hudson came in. "Well, you can wear your fifteen-dollar Stetson out of here because I'm all right." He cast a cautious glance at Abbie. "Leg's been acting up a little this afternoon so I thought I'd sit down while I shave is all."

"So… what happened? Are you going to keep me in suspense all day?"

"No, not all day, but just a little longer. This shaving soap is drying up and starting to itch. Mind if I finish this first?"

"No, no, go ahead."

"Come on in, Abbie. No need to hover in the door. Jim, this is Abbie. She's done a damn fine job of keeping my carcass from rotting for nearly three weeks now. If it hadn't been for her, I'd be crow bait by this time. Miss Abigail McKenzie, meet Jim Hudson."

"Mr. Hudson and I met at the door. Won't you have a seat, Mr. Hudson?" she invited, pulling the rocker forward. "I'll leave you two alone."

"Wait a minute, will you, Abbie?" Jesse had again taken up razor and hand mirror but was having trouble executing everything at once, needing both hands for the straightedge. "Hold this damn thing, so I can finish." The request was made so amiably that she forgot to take offense and came to do his bidding.

Watching the two of them, Jim Hudson thought this little domestic scene quite unlike his friend Jesse and wondered what had taken place around here during the last few weeks.

"Jess, what in the heck happened to your moustache? Looks like you took the blade to it," he observed.

"I never thought I'd live to see the day."

Jesse's and Abbie's eyes met briefly over the mirror before he replied, "Neither did I. I just decided I'd see what I looked like plain-faced. I guess you can tell what I thought of myself. One day without it and I was growing it back as fast as possible. Abbie agrees I look best with a moustache too."

She felt her face flush and was grateful that her back was to Jim Hudson. Jesse swabbed off his face, then his eyes merrily met hers again while she knew a profound confusion at the very different way he always treated her before others, always respectful, hiding any trace of her transgressions, blaming only himself. What manner of man is this, she wondered, while his eyes danced away again.

Shaving done, Jesse stayed on the bed while the men continued talking.

"What's wrong with your hand, Jess?"

"It got jimmied up somehow on that train."

"Come on, I've waited long enough. Tell me what happened here."

"There's nothing much to tell. It was a damn fool mistake is all. I was headed up to Rockwell, as you know…" While Jesse told his account of the incident on the train, Abbie leaned over the bed to collect his shaving equipage. As she did, he absently laid a hand on her waist, then gave it a light pat as she straightened and moved away. Jim Hudson noted the touch with interest. The heedless gesture was as intimate as a caress might have been, for while he did it, Jess kept right on talking, and Jim was certain he was oblivious of the fact that he'd touched the woman at all. Hudson did a good job of concealing his surprise. Miss McKenzie wasn't Jess's type at all. It hadn't taken more than thirty seconds at her front door for Hudson to recognize that fact. He watched her leave the room, puzzled by what he'd just witnessed.

While Jesse was unconscious of what he'd done, Abbie was not. The spot on her spine where his palm had rested seemed afire. In her entire life no man had ever laid a hand upon Abigail McKenzie in so casual a fashion. It was totally different from the many ways in which Jesse DuFrayne had touched her before: sometimes teasing, sometimes daring, sometimes angry, but always for a reason. No, this touch was different. It was the kind she'd wondered about between her parents, the kind she'd never seen between them, and it raised her bloodbeat by its very offhandedness.

All the while she prepared more lemonade in the kitchen, the thought rang through her mind—Jesse DuFrayne has just touched the small of my back before his friend…

In the bedroom, Jim Hudson said, "Now listen, Jess, we'll have all of this straightened out in no time. You know there's no beef with the railroad." He laughed, shook his head good-naturedly, and continued.

"Why, hell, we know you weren't robbing any train. But this Melcher fellow is raising a stink. He's up in arms and out to sue us for everything he can get, because of his permanent disability."

"Just what do you think he'll get?"

"We'll find out tomorrow. I've got a meeting set up right here in town for noon and we'll settle it then if we can. Melcher will be coming in, but I'll be there to represent the railroad, so you don't need to come unless you want to, of course, and only if you're feeling up to it. Melcher will have his lawyer present, I'm sure. It'll be best to settle this thing with as little publicity as possible, don't you agree?"

"I agree, Jim, but it still riles me to think what that little shrimp can get by pointing an accusing finger at the railroad and walk away two days later while I lie here with a hole as big as a goose egg blown in me."

"And that's the main thing you should be concerned with. Let me handle the legal stuff. Hell, everybody's more worried about you than about what Melcher plans to ask for as a payoff. He'll probably turn out to be more bluff than threat anyway. But how about you? Just how is that leg healing?"

"Oh, it's stiff as hell, so's the hand, but I couldn't have been luckier if the shot had blown me straight into the arms of Doc Dougherty—he's the local medic. Abbie's got remedies up her sleeve that Doc Dougherty never dreamed of. He fixed me up that first day, but it was Abbie who kept me alive afterward."

"Which reminds me," Hudson put in, "did she get our message saying we'd compensate her for putting up you and Melcher?"

"She got it… and Jim?" He lowered his voice, even though they'd been talking in low tones already. "See that she gets plenty. I've been a regular son of a bitch to her."

In the kitchen Miss Abigail heard a burst of laughter, though she didn't hear what prompted it.

"I take it you're impressed with the lady?" Jim Hudson asked quietly, with one eyebrow raised.

"Have you ever seen a lady that didn't impress me, Jim?"

"Hell, I don't think I've ever seen you with a
lady
before, Jess." There was good humor written all over both of their faces.

"I admit she's something of an oddity for me, but all in all I'm not having a half bad time of it here, other than the fact that she considers me a robber of trains, a defiler of women, a teller of lies, and the blackest of blackguards. And she's doing her damnedest to reform me. I put up with it because I like her cooking

—watery broth, slimy eggs, and lethal liver." Jesse laughed, remembering it all.

"Sounds like she's just what you've always avoided, Jess—a straight woman. Maybe she's just what you need."