Kit Gardner (15 page)

“What the blazes are you doing, Hubert?”

“What was that, Sarah?” came the muffled response.

Sadie’s eyes widened, and her tiny mouth pursed with outrage. “Blasted man. Always up to no good when he calls me that.” She swiveled about as best she could in corset and all that taffeta. “I say, Hubert, surely you’re not rummaging about looking for that shooting contraption again.”

“Can’t hear ya, Sarah,” came the reply, along with the sound of much rummaging. “Hell and damnation, woman, where’d ya hide it this time?”

“
I
did not hide anything, Hubert, particularly that contraption.
I
wouldn’t lay a finger upon it for fear of blowing myself up. Perhaps you misplaced it. Be thankful you did, Hubert. Your uncle Chester will now rest in peace, what little he deserves. You could have killed us all with that—”

“Aha!” Hubert whooped. He appeared in the parlor doorway, a smug grin creasing the doughy folds of his face. The few hairs his head boasted poked directly skyward, as though he’d just searched head down in some enormous trunk. In his fist he clutched what looked to Jessica to be some sort of short-barreled firearm with a strangely flaring muzzle. “I found it,” he boasted in a manner that somehow reminded Jessica of Christian. “And all the gunpowder, as luck would have it.”

“Hubert, I forbid you—”

“We’re off!” Hubert boomed, producing a peculiar three-cornered black hat, which he jammed upon his head before scurrying off, coattails flapping behind him.

Again, porcelain rattled beneath the slam of the door.

Sadie shuddered and closed her eyes.

“That was a gun,” Louise observed.

“A blunderbuss,” Sadie corrected with a weary sigh. “Inherited by Hubert, along with that silly hat, when his English uncle Chester passed on many years ago. The family jewels and all the money went to the
other
nephew, in Boston, of course. Hubert got the blunderbuss. And I do believe he prefers that he did. The man thinks himself some displaced English country gentleman. What he wouldn’t do to mount up and go off to shoot fowl and fox. That’s why we came here, of course. To shoot all the wild animals and pretend we’re English country folk. No, Hubert wants nothing to do with steel and railroads and managing the family business in Boston. English country gentlemen don’t bother themselves with such nonsense, do they?” A certain sadness invaded Sadie’s drooping eyes, as though she’d long ago grown weary of such things. “Dear heavens, what a woman must endure—and him a New England McGlue. We could be in Boston, dining with the Rockefellers—”

A tremendous explosion shook the house. Jessica leapt from her chair, shoved the lace curtains wide and poked her head from the window. A cloud of black sulfur engulfed her, choking her, and bringing tears to stream from her eyes. She spun about, collided with Louise, and all but tripped over a chair.

“They’re shooting—” she croaked.

Another explosion rocked the house and sent Sadie flapping from the room like a squawking chicken, Jessica and Louise at her heels.

They found the men in a cloud of sulfur not twenty feet beyond the back door, pointing at something shiny, about a hundred paces farther out into the open prairie.

The gun discharged in another belch of smoke and a tremendous boom that nearly sent Hubert McGlue to his backside.

“Get the hell back in the house, Sarah,” Hubert said, without even glancing at his wife. “Damn and blast, but I missed.” Adjusting his hat entirely lopsided upon his head, he stuffed something down the muzzle of the firearm and handed it to Stark. “Here ya go, Stark. Take good aim, now. I got a buck says ya don’t come closer than I did. And that’s about a foot.”

Sadie gave a vociferous gasp. “Hubert,
how dare you?
To shoot the gun is one thing, but to...to... Why, y-you’re
gambling
and in our very yard!”

“Quiet, woman. After this we’re going to play cards. Stark is going to teach me to play faro. Now, go back inside and drink your tea.”

“Make that two bucks,” John French added with a boyish grin.

This behavior, of course, compelled only one response in the women, and that was a goodly amount of annoyance, replete with clucking tongues. Even from Louise.

“John, might I ask why you’re engaging in such shenanigans?”

But John’s grin only widened, and he pointed out into the prairie. “See there, Louise? I nearly hit the can. Came closer than Hubert, even. Ah, but Stark here, something tells me he’s a master, even with an old relic of a firearm like this, beauty that she is.”

“Then why did you wager against him?” Louise said through her teeth.

John all but thumped his swelling chest. “Competitive spirit, my dear. Alive and well, as it should be in all men. You wouldn’t want me to be outdone now, would you?”

“Good heavens, no,” Louise replied, decidedly unimpressed, as she shot Jessica a sideways glance. “We women can’t have that, can we, Jessica? By all means, John, anything...just so you won’t be outdone in sport.”

John, obviously missing the entirety of her sarcasm, gave a swift, satisfied nod and folded his arms over his chest.

“I shot the gun, Mama!” Christian whooped, appearing from behind Stark’s legs.

Jessica snatched her son close and whisked a lace kerchief from her reticule to wipe the smudges of smoke from his face, a task made all the more difficult when he squirmed away from her.

“Logan helped me, Mama.” He was beaming, gazing up at Logan Stark with unabashed adoration. “We almost hit the can.”

Jessica stared at the back of that tousled black head and felt annoyance drain like water from her limbs. He stood with booted legs braced wide, thighs bunched. She watched his white cotton shirt flatten against his belly beneath a sudden gust of wind, felt her own chest compress when that ridged length tightened into etched ripples. Her breath was trapped somewhere in her chest as she felt his catch, sensed the surety of his fingers about that gun, the expertise of his aim, a century’s worth of knowledge...

On tiptoe, she peeped beneath the length of the gun, directly at the tin can glimmering like some forbidden jewel out there on the prairie.

He would hit the can, obliterate it with his one shot, send it spiraling into the sky....

And then she saw it—or perhaps it was merely the sun vanishing behind a cloud, then reappearing to reflect off the barrel of the gun. But his aim seemed to shift ever so slightly to the right.

The gun exploded. Stark barely flinched with the gun’s tremendous retort.

“Right!” Hubert whooped, peering through the smoke. He then commenced dancing his version of some sort of English country gentleman’s jig in the dust. “A good two feet to the right. Pay up, Stark.”

“I’ll be damned,” John French muttered with a lighthearted chuckle. “Are you sure you once rode shotgun guard for the Wells Fargo line, Stark? Must have been years ago, when you still had all your eyesight. Little wonder you’re only fit to be a farmhand. Damned barn’s going to end up crooked if you don’t get yourself some eyeglasses.”

Stark shot French a lopsided grin then shrugged and muttered something half to himself as he dug several bills from his pocket. He stared for a moment out at the can. And then he hoisted the gun to his shoulder and aimed so swiftly, with such surety of movement and intensity of spirit, Jessica felt something peculiar wriggle through her. Suspicion.

He’d purposely missed.

He lowered the gun. And his eyes met hers. She looked away, her fingers wrapping with a mother’s firm gentleness about Christian’s upper arm.

“But, Mama, I don’t want to go yet. I want to shoot the gun again. Mama...”

Jessica didn’t even glance back at Logan. “Mr. Stark. Shall we?” She heard his unmistakable footfalls behind her, and quickened her pace toward the buckboard.

“Good heavens, don’t you dare leave now!” Sadie McGlue huffed, panting along beside Jessica. “We cannot allow the men to spoil our fine afternoon. I shan’t allow it, I tell you.”

“The men had nothing to do with it,” Jessica replied, pausing to face Sadie. “Those clouds out west look like a storm to me. And with heat like this, it’s certain to be bad. I’d like to get home before it hits.”

Sadie McGlue whirled to the west, saw the advancing mass of purple-black and let loose with a yelp. “Go, go, dearie!” she panted, urging Jessica along to the buggy. “Yes, get yourself and the little one home. Can’t stand the storms myself. Scare the devil out of me.”

“Me too,” Christian mumbled, clutching at Jessica’s thigh, beneath layers of muslin. “Hurry, Mama. Tell Logan to hurry, Mama.”

“I will—” Jessica’s voice caught in her throat when she turned to glance at Stark, only to find him directly at her back. With one sweep of his arm, he hoisted Christian to his shoulder and grasped Jessica by the elbow, helping her along faster.

“I have sheets on the line drying,” Jessica said softly. “And all the windows are open.”

“We’ll outrun it,” Stark assured her, placing Christian upon the buckboard’s seat. And then his hand slid with a certain familiarity about her waist to assist her aboard.

In her haste, her foot caught in her skirts and she stumbled. God help her, but she all but fell into his arms, nearly swooning when they tightened about her, and for one dizzying moment all else ceased to exist but this man and the lovely torment he inflicted on her. And then her feet left the ground and her rump landed soundly upon the seat.

“Good heavens, get the poor dear home before she faints dead away,” Sadie McGlue graciously advised Stark. “I, too, feel quite overcome with terror.”

“You’ll lay where you fall, woman,” Hubert McGlue warned her with a tip of his three-cornered hat as Stark swung up close beside Jessica. They bade a hasty farewell and Stark slapped the reins.

The buckboard leapt forward so suddenly, Jessica clung to that which was nearest at hand, which proved to be her son’s narrow waist and Stark’s biceps, as her luck would have it. The realization that she clutched at him, and with a glorious abandon, at that, hit her the precise moment he covered her hand with his own, anchoring it there upon that swell of sinew.

“Don’t be afraid, Jess.” His voice was so close above her, as if spoken into her hair, even as the buckboard raced out into the open prairie, directly into the jaws of the advancing storm.

Oily black clouds descended from the heavens, their roiling underbellies stirring the dust into a wall of choking dinge. Jagged sticks of lightning sliced through the inky black farther out on the horizon. Thunder grumbled in a low, wicked promise.

Jessica swallowed, gathered a trembling Christian close against her, and pressed herself the slightest bit nearer to Stark’s side. “I’m not afraid. Truly. Not the least bit. Why, this sort of thing happens all the time. Just worried, is all.”

“About your sheets, of course,” he replied.

“Indeed. Nothing more. Just the sheets. But do hurry, Stark.”

R
ance shoved the back door open, took one step, and slammed one toe into a kitchen chair. He growled a curse into the bundle of sheets he carried, kicked the door closed with his injured toe, and attempted to navigate his way around the chair and the table and through the kitchen without allowing one bit of sheet to drag on the floor.

“You’re dragging the sheets on the floor.”

He planted his feet, certain his muddied boots now trod all over the sheet, then glowered over the top of the bundle at Jessica, lingering in the shadow of the hall. “Dammit, woman, move the table so a man can walk.”

She gave him that slightly befuddled look, softly illuminated by the dim lantern she carried. “But there’s no better spot for the table. When the sun comes in the windows, it’s quite lovely. You see, a neat, cheerful and sunny kitchen is imperative to raising children with good domestic habits and bright dispositions.”

“So is a storm cellar,” Rance muttered. “Where is it?”

Jessica blinked, then jumped when a sudden flash of lightning sliced through the dimness. “I—” She swallowed, and all color seemed to drain from her face. “We don’t have a storm cellar.”

The floorboards beneath Rance’s feet reverberated with the thunder. From every drafty corner of the house came the haunting howl of the incessant wind. Intermittent gusts threatened to shatter the windows, and beyond those panes, where dusk should have cast its pink-hued cloak, nothing but unfathomable murky gray swirled.

“No storm cellar,” he repeated, very much aware of the terror shining in her eyes. He watched the flame quivering in the lantern she carried. “I guess I’ll have to dig one out for you, then. Where’s Christian?”

“Under my bed,” she replied, in that deceptively calm voice. Her bottom lip quivered. “He’s terrified. Excuse me—” She brushed past him, efficient and determined, and set about filling a kettle with water.

“What the hell are you doing, Jess?”

“Boiling water, of course. For tea.”

“Damned crazy woman—” He dropped the sheets in a forgotten pile and caught her by the arm just as she heaved the kettle onto the stove. He felt the trembling deep within her slender limbs as she tensed, and he was besieged by the sudden urge to wrap her close within his arms, to protect her, to soothe every last hurt that ached inside her. “Jess.”

“No, I have to make tea. It calms my nerves, you see.”

“It’ll take a hell of a lot more than tea.” He pried her fingers from the kettle. This proved relatively easy when a jagged bolt of lightning set the world ablaze with blue light and a crash of thunder shook the earth. Jessica went instantly rigid, then collapsed back against him. “That’s better,” he said, lifting her easily in his arms. He scowled into her wide eyes. “Damned stubborn woman. You can be afraid, Jess, and still hold your head high.”

“No, I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not afraid. Truly, I’m not.”

“Fine. Then wrap your arms around my neck to make me feel better. That’s it. And put your head on my shoulder. I’m in need of comfort.”

He kicked the sheets from his path and moved into the hall. The lightning came now in spasmodic bursts, almost continually, splashing the short length of the hall with an eerie, flickering blue light. He lowered her feet to the floor and felt her arms clutch about his neck, the supple length of her pressing against him, as if instinctively seeking him. His hand caught in the tumble of her hair, and he couldn’t keep himself from burying his face in that lemony cloud. He closed his eyes and filled his lungs with her scent, her softness now like an exquisite haven. What kind of man allowed his base desires to rule him when a woman clung to him solely out of fear, in all her innocence seeking him merely for the strength and comfort he provided? How could she know she snuggled like some hot little wanton against him?

He pressed her back against the wall, with his hands on her narrow shoulders. Luminous eyes peered up at him, her soft lips parting...begging. Flickering shadow played upon the high swells of her breasts and the narrow sweep of her ribs, expanding with every deep breath she took. He gripped her shoulders to keep his hands from straying, clenched his teeth to keep himself from crushing her beneath him against that wall.

No, dammit, this was terror, the pure, unadulterated terror of a woman who simply could not bear the burden alone a moment longer. A woman who had endured such storms alone no doubt crouched with her son under a bed or busied herself boiling water solely to keep her own fear abated for the sake of her son. No decent man took advantage of a woman like that...no matter that he was almost certain the flames of desire stirred in her eyes, no matter that her hands now seemed to move in a caress over his chest.

His teeth slid together. “Stay here.”

“Don’t leave us.”

All breath fled his lungs. Never had a woman wielded such power over him with three simple words uttered so breathlessly. “Jess...” Her name left him like the last breath of a dying man. He ached all over to taste the softness of her mouth, to know the surrender of all of her. “Listen,” he ground out. “I’m just going to get Christian. You’ll be the safest here in the hall, where there are no windows.”

Her palms splayed over his chest, stoking fires centuries old. “You’re not going out to the barn. Y-you have to stay here with us.”

“No, Jess, I’m not going out to the barn. I’m not that noble and self-sacrificing. If this keeps up, there won’t be a barn come morning.”

A curve swept over her lush mouth. “Then you’ll simply have to build another.”

He’d stay until he’d built her a hundred barns, if she kept this up. “Stay” was all he said before he ducked into her room. He found Christian curled in a tight, trembling ball beneath the bed. Even with the storm raging, the boy didn’t move, didn’t utter a sound until Rance crawled under and pulled him into his arms. And then the boy clung with all his might to Rance’s neck, buried his face in his throat and began to whimper. A huge lump lodged itself in Rance’s throat when the child sniffed and hiccuped and clung all the harder, wrapping his legs like miniature vises around Rance’s waist. What the hell was this? Huge lumps in his throat. This peculiar tightening in his chest. This overwhelming urge to protect. What the hell had happened to cool and aloof, to the man with no heartstrings, no emotion whatsoever?

Rance yanked a pillow and the white coverlet from Jessica’s bed and moved back into the hall.

“That’s my—” Jessica began, her arms immediately extending to take her child.

“Put the coverlet over your heads if the house starts to shake or your ears pop. Or if you hear glass breaking.” Rance pried Christian’s legs from about his waist and handed the boy to her, along with the pillow and coverlet.

“B-but where are you—?”

“I’m going to get a drink.” He moved into the kitchen as the small house shuddered and groaned beneath the force of the wind. Rain battered against the panes, hammered upon the roof and dripped rhythmically from a multitude of leaks onto Jessica’s scrubbed floor. He rummaged through all the kitchen cupboards without success, then moved into the pantry, prying lids off jugs and bottles and sniffing the contents. Frank Wynne had to have stashed some whiskey somewhere...somewhere Jess would never think of looking.

On the floor, in a back corner of the pantry between a flour barrel and a sugar bucket, he finally found it: a dusty jug, its frayed, crude label marked Turpentine.

He gave a smug smile, untwisted the cap and sniffed. Definitely not turpentine.

He moved back through the kitchen. Pebble-size ice pellets hurled against the windows and hammered new leaks in the roof. A hell of a storm. The house would be lucky to withstand it, though some part of him wished the wind would howl all night, keeping him here until morning.

He settled on the floor across from Jess and Christian, boots braced against the opposite floorboards, knees bent up. In this position, his whole body would be asleep in less than fifteen minutes.

She watched him, one arm draped over her son’s body, one hand brushing in whisper-soft strokes over the child’s downy cheek, nestled upon the pillow next to her. Every so often she brushed back the fringe of blond bangs spilling over his forehead and bent to press her lips there, perhaps to murmur softly to him. She hummed, low, husky, a supremely comforting sound even to Rance, though she seemed unaware that she did so, so effortlessly did the sound spill from her lips.

Rance listened to the rain and Jess’s humming. After a time, the lump half buried beneath the coverlet next to her emitted a soft, even drone. Christian slept. An odd intimacy, indeed, fostered by a violent storm and a child’s deep breathing.

Rance’s eyes met Jessica’s as he finally tipped the jug to his lips.

“Stark, good grief, no!” She surged toward him, half straddling his thigh in her haste. “You can’t drink— That’s turpentine!”

“Is that so?” Rance drawled, taking one long gulp deep into his belly. A satisfied groan rumbled through his chest, and he licked his lips and gave her a wicked look through hooded eyes. “Never tasted better.”

She blinked at him, her lips parting in stunned disbelief.

“The stuff has a hundred uses, Jess. Surely Miss Beecher has mentioned that a good, kind and worthy wife must imbibe generous quantities of it, particularly during raging storms.” He arched a brow. “No? Surely you’re not neglecting Miss Beecher, Jess.” Again he tipped the jug and took a long drink, watching her closely. Heat spread through his limbs...or maybe it was the feel of her against his thigh, the way she leaned so close to him, concern plaguing her delicate brows as she watched him drink. Her tongue moved slowly over her full lower lip, and he almost groaned with the torture of it.

“I— Avram has always used it for cleaning his shoes.”

He couldn’t suppress a harsh laugh. “The good reverend would be the first to waste such fine turpentine on his shoes.”

“He detests the smell of it. I doubt he would ever think to taste it.”

“No, he wouldn’t. But you—” He held the jug closer to her, leaning toward her until the heat of their bodies and their breath melded. “You’re not at all like Avram Halsey, are you, Jess?”

She stared at his mouth. “I—I believe I like the smell of it.”

“Taste it,” he murmured. “Trust me, it won’t kill you. It will take your fear from you.”

“You’ve already done that,” she whispered. She swayed toward him, as if at his silent bidding. “Stark...I...”

“Taste it,” he whispered, lifting the mouth of the jug to her lips. “It vanquishes all the demons. I know.”

Her eyes glowed in the flickering light. Tentative fingers wrapped about the jug, brushing his, then tipped the brew to her lips. She swallowed a huge gulp, blinked tearing eyes, and gave a shuddering breath. “That’s truly awful. Your demons must be the tenacious sort.”

He grunted, drew another gulp deep into his belly, and regarded her through a soft haze.

“Perhaps another taste.” Her eyes fluttered closed, and she took a noisy swallow of the whiskey. Another laborious breath spilled from her. “Miss Beecher would surely recommend some recipe for making the stuff burn less. Although I must say, the warmth—” Her fingers splayed over her belly, then clenched into a fist when their gazes met and held.

Rance felt his pulse, hot and insistent, and every fiber of his body responded to her slightest movement. Her lips glowed dewy and swollen in the soft lamplight. Whiskey glistened there, begging to be tasted.

“Stark...” she breathed. “I want to— Oh, this is truly awful for me, but I cannot seem to take this from my mind, so I just as well should have at it and get it over with. Perhaps then I might put it from my thoughts for good. That’s what Louise would do, I’m quite certain. Would you...that is...” She placed a tentative hand upon his chest, light as a will-o’-the-wisp, and then another. “Stark, please kiss me.”

His teeth met, and his head fell back against the wall. “Jess...” he groaned. She might well have been flogging him.

“Just one. One small kiss.”

“Don’t do this. I’m not capable of it, Jess. Trust me.”

“Yes, you are. You do it rather divinely. And I want you to do it again...like we did out by the fence. Just once more.”

He closed his eyes and wondered if a man had ever been so tortured. Thunder seemed to grumble its agreement.

“I see.” Her hands slipped from his chest in a whisper that left him hungering all the more for her. He almost reached for her. “You needn’t explain yourself. I’m well aware that a man like you has no doubt had...that is...and I am...well, a widow, and not at all as desirable as some virgin who has never—”

“Stop.” His fingers wrapped around her delicate wrist and hauled her up against his chest. “Whoever put that notion in your head should be shot...because you’re wrong, so very wrong.”

“We may very well die in this storm,” she said softly. “And I might never again know what it’s like to...to... Oh, dear, you think me some woman of loose morals.”

“Hardly,” he rasped, some part of him wishing to thrust her from him, the other, much stronger, bidding him to pull her closer. His mouth hovered so very near hers. It would take little movement at all for their lips to meet. “I’m more likely to think you’ve never been kissed before.”

“Well, I haven’t, really. Not like...like...not precisely on the mouth, you see. Avram much prefers my cheek, or no kissing at all. And my husband, Frank—” Her lids lowered over her averted eyes. “I do believe he preferred other women.”

His finger beneath her chin lifted her gaze to his. “Fools,” he murmured. “Damned stupid fools.”

“No,” she said slowly, her eyes drifting past him, clouding with memory. “I believe I was the fool. You see, I never once guessed that a man could so deceive his wife. His friends. Everyone who knew him here. What sort of man can live like that...I can’t fathom it. He died a vicious death. At the hands of a ruthless man. A hired killer, a man who still roams free. And yet—” She stared at Rance then, with such intensity he felt all that guilt engulf him like a flame, and the desire to spill it all out for her, before he deceived her another moment, became almost too much to bear. “I think nothing of this man, this murderer, and exacting some sort of revenge upon him. My loathing I reserve solely for my husband’s memory. A pity, in all truth. He was Christian’s father, after all.”