Kit Gardner (14 page)

Good grief! Was she doomed never to look upon even her closest friends without wondering if they, too, had found that deeply sensual part of their souls?

“I do so detest unexpected visitors,” Louise said with a gentle tweak of Jessica’s arm, as though she sensed her friend’s distraction. “Particularly when my dearest friend is quite obviously keeping something from me. Hmm?” Louise gave her a meaningful look. “Something quite tall, oozing virility. Something that would have a great likelihood of fitting divinely into those pants?”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Jessica sniffed, maneuvering around her friend and stalking swiftly toward the house without favoring Louise with a reply. “Good afternoon, John. Miserable weather we’re having.”

Poor man, trussed up in all those garments on such a day, solely for the sake of propriety. Just like Avram, a man who’d rather die than shed a layer of his clothes. No doubt he believed it his duty to endure the elements with a smile upon his beaded upper lip. Better to succumb to heatstroke with a noble aplomb than to give hint of any weakness of body or spirit.

The irony of her thoughts. She, who had forever sought to dedicate herself to the noble, right thing to do, to remaining here in Twilight, where she belonged, on this farm, never to venture forth in body, thought or spirit, for fear of what? And what had she found? An existence as stifling and as smothering as five layers of heavy clothes and deception by a philandering husband.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Wynne,” John French said with a forced smile. He leaned slightly toward her and lowered his voice. “Would you mind exercising a bit of your sway with my wife and reminding her of the supreme fragility of her condition?”

Jessica gave a sympathetic smile, realizing the futility of arguing with John French. “She looks rather hardy of constitution to me.”

John French threw his wife a fearsome glower that brimmed with husbandly protectiveness. “Rubbish, I tell you. For God’s sake, she’s having a baby in less than six months. But has this slowed her down a pace? Not my wife. All this insisting that she simply had to come have a look-see no matter that my Aunt Aggie up and surprised us. Why, I simply
had
to bring her here, lest she work herself into one of her frenzies. And for what?” He swept one arm about. “Nothing out of the ordinary, to my eye. In fact, the place hasn’t looked better in quite a while. Yes, new fence, I see. Fine-looking. Just as I thought. Positively no reason to get herself all in a dither and— Why, look there, isn’t that your buckboard wagon barreling down upon us now? And isn’t that your— With a— Who the devil? Why, he’s...they’re... If I didn’t know better, I’d think they were quite without their—”

Jessica watched the blood drain from John French’s heat-flushed countenance as the words stuck in his throat. She almost couldn’t look when she heard the buckboard’s wheels approaching and Christian’s boisterous bellowing and hooting. And yet she couldn’t help herself. Surely the conjurings of her imagination couldn’t be half as bad as—

Into the yard and toward the barn the wagon sped, Jack’s racing hooves churning a billowing cloud of dust that thankfully hid most from view.

“Jessica, who is that man there with—?” Louise asked. “Are they... I can’t quite see, but I think— No, it can’t possibly be—”

Jessica licked parched lips and had a devil of a time keeping her eyes from the bare curve of Logan’s hip, where it met with his thigh. And the length of his torso. All of him, actually. He was quite magnificent, after all, even at such a distance, half-hidden by dust. And then they disappeared into the barn, thankfully, sparing Jessica further explanation.

Jessica found herself staring at the clothes she was clutching, as if seeing them for the first time. “I—” She glanced from a frowning Louise to John and back. Both stared at the clothes she carried. With a calm smile, she asked, “Lemonade, anyone?”

R
ance sensed the movement behind him even before the footfall registered on the barn’s hay-strewn floor. He glanced over his shoulder, stuffing his shirttails into his pants as he did so. A sliver of warning shot through him when his eyes met with the man’s. Though the sunlit barn door at the man’s back shadowed most of his features, Rance didn’t recognize the fellow. Too dapper and respectable to have ever done business with Spotz. Too keenly observant, and brimming with a noble sort of antagonism. Simple curiosity, or something more? Suspicion lurked there in the quick shifting of his eyes.

Damn, but he should have laid low for a while, not gone to town like he had for all his supplies, not shown his face around, like some kind of fool tempting fate. Not used Logan as any part of his name. He hadn’t been using his head with that one. Then again, he’d never thought to linger here long enough to allow anyone to get suspicious of him.

The fellow’s arm extended from the shadows to shove a glass of lemonade at him. “Mrs. Wynne sent this out for you, Stark.”

Rance nodded his thanks and took the glass, draining its contents before glancing at the man again. The hackles rose along his neck, despite the oppressive heat, his guard amply roused by the man’s interest in the stacks of lumber and, next to those, Rance’s saddle and gear.

He stared hard at Rance. “Who the hell are you, Logan Stark?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“Union-issue rifle you got there. Memento?”

Rance could barely keep the derision from seeping into his voice. “Hardly.”

Silence encroached as the man seemed lost in his own thoughts or memories. “You decorated?” he asked at length.

Rance nodded, entirely ill at ease with any talk whatsoever of the war, particularly with a stranger, a man with whom he would need a clear mind uncluttered of sour memory. No matter that he sensed that the same images of the war haunted this fellow.

“And after that?” the fellow asked.

To probe a man’s innermost thoughts, his true purpose. Had there ever been a time when Rance wished to more than now? Yet some instinct told him honesty would prove the best course with this man. “Ran shotgun guard for Wells Fargo gold shipments for a few years.”

The man seemed to ponder this before glancing again at Rance’s saddle. “Farmhands don’t own gear like that. Pretty fancy stuff. You don’t find workmanship like that around these parts.”

Intelligent man. “I got it in Mexico a couple years back, after I got paid.”

“For doing what?”

“Driving a herd.”

“For who?”

Rance smiled, slow and even. “I didn’t catch your name.”

“John French, attorney-at-law.” French displayed an even smile that never quite reached his glittering eyes. “A close friend of Mrs. Wynne’s.”

“A fine lady,” Rance said, moving to the pile of lumber to examine several newly cut pieces.

“The finest,” French echoed. His footfalls stirred the hay as he moved behind Rance, lingered, then paused beside him to run a black-gloved finger along the length of one piece of lumber. “Hell of a job you’re doing rebuilding the barn here.”

Rance felt a stab of pride, then dismissed it. John French, attorney-at-law, would know precisely how to lower a man’s guard. Stooping, Rance hauled one long, flat piece of lumber onto his good shoulder and moved to the side of the barn and all his works-in-progress. To his surprise, French and his starched finery followed him, one hand supporting the end of the board. Unease squirmed like a living thing in Rance’s gut. He grunted his thanks and set the plank against the bowed wall. Then he turned to French, hands planted on his hips. A belligerent stance, true, certain to stir the man, which was precisely what Rance intended. Hell, he still had a full day’s work to do, something he wasn’t about to let some pompous lawyer sort keep him from.

“Dammit, French, what is it that you want?”

French narrowed his eyes. “Ornery, aren’t you, for a man who just rode naked into a lady’s backyard. You do realize I may never be able to wipe that image from my wife’s mind. That alone should make me loathe you for the rest of my days. However, Mrs. Wynne came as close as she ever will to confessing in the small matter of your missing trousers. It appears that you, sir, are innocent in the matter. And Mrs. Wynne’s reputation is still as unblemished as always, as far as Louise and I are concerned. A bit of mischief never damaged anyone, I would think.”

“A remarkable woman.”

“All the same, she’s a grieving widow, newly engaged to our local—”

“I’ve met him.”

“Ah.” French seemed to choose his words with care. “A good man. Stood right by her after her husband was killed, and afterward, when all the—er, well, it was nasty business. Creditors can be horrible people. The reverend will make her a fine husband. A good, fine husband. Rather unlike the other. And a father to the boy. Just what she needs, I say. He—” French jerked his chin at Rance. “He hasn’t tried to run you off yet, eh?”

“I believe Jess has dealt with that.”

French nodded slowly, a curious frown puckering his brow. “I see. Rather odd, to my eye, but then again, I’m the sort who would have poked a shotgun into your ribs and escorted you to the next state before you could even bid my wife a by-your-leave.”

“I don’t doubt that for a moment, French.”

French shifted his neck inside his stiff celluloid collar. “Call it what you will. My wife Louise is inclined to think me a bit, well...overprotective, as though that were some sort of vice, dammit all.”

“What sort of man wouldn’t feel that way about his wife?”

French arched a brow, and his chest puffed up measurably. “A man who’s no man at all. Indeed, Stark. Damned females, how’s a man to know what to do with them?”

Rance shrugged, and the image loomed of Jess standing in the yard, clutching his clothes. What the hell had prompted that?

“Take my wife, for instance. For days she’s been insisting I bring her here, and now I know why, of course. Folks in Twilight don’t take to strangers, you see. Not many pass through here that we don’t know right off. Most going east continue on up to Kansas City or west to Wichita. Naturally, we like to find out as much as we can about the strangers, the womenfolk in particular, of course. Can’t stand not knowing positively all there is to know about everything. But what’s a man to do while she’s in there—” He tossed his head toward the house and grimaced. “Do you realize they’ll be chattering till long past sunset, and that’s if we’re lucky? Could be midnight. Do you ever wonder what they have to talk about, Stark?”

No, he’d never wondered, perhaps because he’d never taken a close interest in a particular female’s behavior, which made his curiosity about Jessica Wynne all the more disturbing. Then again, she was no typical female. Still, to his mind, were he Jess’s husband, say, he would derive intense comfort from knowing where his woman was, knowing that he could, if he so desired, storm into that kitchen—knowing it was
his
kitchen—interrupt all that conversation, haul her over his shoulder and take her to
his
bed and spend the entirety of this sultry summer day with her there.

“There’s still comfort in knowing that, French,” he muttered, struggling to keep those taunting images at bay by measuring wood. “It doesn’t matter to me what she’s talking about.”

“You’ve never been married, have you, Stark?”

“That obvious, eh?”

French snorted his agreement. “What am I doing here? My wife’s got herself all but apoplectic about some God-almighty savage-looking fellow out at the Wynnes’ and I find a man running around the prairie without his pants, lost in romantic delusion.”

Rance scowled and shifted his shoulders. “The hell I am,” he growled, distinctly uncomfortable with all this.

“Call it what you will, Stark,” French replied, examining Rance’s book of poetry, left upon a nearby hay bale. “Keats and Byron. An educated, romantic farmhand. Odd. You’ve got me wondering why you’re here, Stark, a man like you.”

“To do a job,” Rance replied, retrieving his hammer and nails from beneath the makeshift sawhorse, where Christian had last played with them.

“What the hell? There’ll be getting no answers out of you that you don’t want to tell me. Why is it Louise finds that so difficult to understand? What do you say I give it up for the day, take off this damned coat, and help you out. Truth to tell, I’ve never built a thing in my life.”

“That’s fair. Neither have I.”

French stared at him a moment, then grinned. “I’ll be damned. So what do you think, Stark, couple hours of this and then we can go back to that stream and take a good long swim. The women will never know. We could even fashion a couple poles and fish awhile. Good fishin’ around here, or so they say. I never can seem to find the time.”

Rance found himself agreeing. He had to, of course. Making friends with the local attorney seemed the sound thing to do, given his circumstances. Yet it was difficult to deny that he liked the fellow. Even more difficult to recognize the tightening in his gut for what it was. He’d never imagined deception could weigh so heavily upon him.

* * *

“Are you quite certain your Mr. Stark wouldn’t care for some tea, Jessica?”

For the fifth time in as many minutes, Jessica assured Sadie McGlue that no,
her
Mr. Stark would rather linger outside, despite the heat and the sun and Sadie McGlue’s firm insistence otherwise. Funny, but both Hubert McGlue and John French had taken themselves from the stuffy parlor and outside, as well, soon after they’d arrived, leaving Jessica alone with Sadie and Louise French to weather the heat and the vapid conversation indoors. The tea was tepid, thankfully, and was served on the most delicate white-and-pink porcelain tea service by a charming older gentleman who’d discreetly removed himself once he deposited iced cakes upon the lace-covered table. Sadie had proceeded to devour one after another of these cakes, between bites firing all the pertinent questions at Jessica regarding, of course,
her
Mr. Stark. Every now and again she would pause to peer through the sheer lace curtains at the tallest of the male figures just beyond.

Of course, Jessica found herself doing the very same, as if her eye were drawn by some mysterious power—or perhaps it was simply maternal instinct. After all, Christian was out there with Stark, playing some game that necessitated scrambling about on all fours beneath the buckboard, in the dust, of course. Dressing the child in something the least bit presentable never failed to provoke him to muss it beyond repair within minutes of putting it on.

A hot promise of a breeze barely ruffled the lace curtains. A trickle of sweat worked a torturous path down Jessica’s back and between her breasts, beneath her high-necked muslin dress, which she’d washed and pressed three times just for this occasion. Too heavy, it was, and she’d known it, for so miserable a day, but she had nothing better in which to attend her first afternoon tea. Though she doubted even the filmiest capped-sleeved cotton frock could have eased the heat pulsing like a living thing within her. This fire
he
stirred.

Her eyes again found him. The manner in which his legs moved in those denims roused a pagan hunger in her that had absolutely no business here at Sadie McGlue’s lovely tea table. The way the sunlight set the loose curls of his hair aflame with blue-black, his affable manner with the other men, the relaxed curve of his full lower lip as he smiled.

Jessica squirmed and recrossed her legs.

So at ease he was. How natural to find herself staring at him and not, as she might have expected, at the multitude of collectibles gracing every available space in Sadie McGlue’s parlor, enough to make any woman who was the least bit proud of her own parlor insanely envious.

Something pinched her arm, and she jumped and looked entirely guilty of a most heinous crime. Louise, of course, slanting Jessica her hundredth wicked glance of the afternoon from beneath her lace-fringed bonnet as she sipped from her tea. She’d given Jessica the same impish glance when Jessica told her that Stark would be accompanying them to the McGlue’s, as Avram had taken to his bed for the day with dyspepsia. An overindulgence in the widow Mabel Brown’s gingerbread, his note had said. It made perfect sense, after all. Nowhere in all of Twilight was the stomach of a man put in such constant peril as in Mabel Brown’s kitchen. Odd that Jessica wasn’t positively brimming with her usual concern for Avram and what was becoming chronic dyspepsia. Indeed, she’d felt a certain relief at the news, a relief that had no doubt managed to affix itself upon her face. Little wonder Louise was slanting her all these curious looks.

Dear friend that Louise was, and despite her insistence that something was definitely afoot, Jessica still couldn’t confide in her that she’d been beset with thoughts better suited to women of ill repute and little or no morals. That she was betrothed, and not to the man who inspired such thoughts, was actually the least of it. Who would possibly forgive or understand such a thing? How she had somehow managed to reconcile this within herself, she hadn’t a notion. Perhaps she
hadn’t
reconciled it, but simply refused to contemplate it. An easy enough task, when Stark’s presence was sufficient to keep her mind fogged for the better part of the day. Yet that knowing gleam in Louise’s eye disturbed her to the extreme, as much as it stoked a deep ache for a woman’s guidance and experience. Surely her friend wouldn’t wish her to dishonor Avram, risking a certain future with him, all for the sake of a whiskey-eyed stranger who’d never promised her a thing? And this would surely be the case if she refused to marry Avram. Dishonor. Scandal, no doubt. Even more of all that twittering of gossip. Postponing the wedding indefinitely, however...now this seemed the proper course. If only it didn’t require a certain duplicity on her part.

Avram, I simply cannot marry you. You see, I ache with every fiber of my being for another man.

The banging of a heavy door shook the house, rattled every porcelain cup in its saucer, and jerked Jessica from her thoughts. Footfalls pounded down the hall, and then Hubert McGlue’s bulbous figure ambled past the parlor and down the hall, not even pausing at his wife’s shrill command.