Prairie Fire (2 page)

“Aye then, I’ll be back in a flash.”

“Take care now, Erinn! Don’t run!”

Jack heard the child’s footsteps on the beaten earth of the barn floor as she dashed toward the soddy. From his position on the hay, he studied the shadowed silhouette moving through the gloom. The woman was tall, straight, and as big around the middle as a freight wagon. It appeared she was expecting twins.

“Too ra loo ra,” she sang, her voice meandering between words and humming. She bent over a large square trunk below the barn window, then she straightened again. “Too ra lay … now where did I lay that pink bonnet?”

She waddled straight across the floor and stopped in front of the hay pile. Jack held his breath, willing himself to remain motionless. Leaning down, the woman began to grope around in the darkness. Her hand brushed against the toe of his boot, and she jerked backward.

“Oh, my goodness—”

“Don’t scream.” He caught the hem of her skirt. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Who-who-who—”

“Nobody. Just a traveler. I need a place to sleep.”

“Take your hands off my—”

“Auntie Caitrin?” The child’s voice sounded at the barn door. “I’ve brought the lamp.”

“Don’t let the girl see me,” Jack hissed. “Send her away.”

The woman wavered. “But I—”

“Let me rest in your barn tonight,” he went on, “and I’ll be on my way at dawn. I’m wounded.”

He could hear her breath heavy in her throat. “Are you … are you that man? That Cornwall?”

“Auntie Caitrin?” the child called again. “Where are you? Even with the lamp, I can’t find you.”

“Protect me tonight,” Jack whispered. “I’ll never trouble you again.”

Caitrin squared her shoulders. “I’m here, Erinn, my love,” she called. “Set the lamp on the shelf there by the barn door, and then you’d better go back to the house. ’Tis so late I’ve decided to repack the trunk myself. I’ll be home in time to hear your papa read the Bible.”

“But I wanted to help you.”

As the light moved closer, Caitrin suddenly dropped the bulk of her immense girth on top of Jack—a pile of dresses and petticoats! He stared in surprise as a lithe woman danced across the barn and swept the lamp away from the child.

“There now, will you disobey your auntie, Erinn?” Caitrin said. “Scuttle back to the soddy, and tell your mama I’d adore a cup of hot tea before bed. Sure, we’ll work on my trunk tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow I have chores!”

“We’ll look through it right after lunch, so we will. I’ll show you all my gowns and hats. I promise.” Caitrin set her hands on her hips. “Now to bed with you, my sweet colleen.”

“Oh, but you said—”

“Indeed I did, and my word is my vow. I wasn’t thinking about the hour.” She lowered her voice and cast a glance in the direction of the hay pile and the intruder shrouded in darkness. “What if there’s a
pooka
in the barn?”

Erinn threw her arms around her aunt’s waist. “Oh, Auntie Caitie! Could it be? I’m terrified of goblins!”

“Now then, I’m only teasing. Of course there’s naught to fear. We’ve the good Lord with us always, and his strength is our shield. But ’tis never wise to wander about in the night. Go set the kettle on the stove to boil—there’s a good girl. I’ll be home before you can wink twice.”

The child detached herself from her aunt and raced out of the barn, pigtails flying behind her. The woman strode to the back of the building and held the lamp aloft, bathing Jack in its soft yellow light.

“Now then,
pooka
,” she said. “What do you mean by trespassing into Jimmy O’Toole’s barn?”

Clutching his shoulder, Jack struggled to his feet. “Look, I said I wouldn’t cause you any trouble.”

“No trouble? You’re Cornwall himself, are you not? Sure, you’re the very devil who caused such a ruction with our Seth tonight. You’re the wicked fellow who’s been chasing after poor little Chipper and trying to steal him away from his rightful papa.”

She held the lamp higher. “Look at you standing there with your rifle and pistol and a knife stuck through your belt. Why then, Mr. Cornwall, you’re trouble itself. You’re the very man who—” Frowning, she peered at him. “Are you bleeding, sir?”

Jack glanced at his shoulder. “The fistfight tonight. An old wound tore open. A few weeks back your precious Seth Hunter pulled a gun on me. He shot me.”

“Of course he did,” she retorted. “As I recall the story, you were trying to shoot him first. Oh, this is an abominable situation. How can I go off to my tea and my warm bed if I must leave you out here bleeding? How can I sleep in God’s peace tonight if I’ve abandoned one of his creations to a night of pain? Wicked though you are—and just one glance at your woeful condition confirms it—I can see I’m to play the Good Samaritan. Sit down, Mr. Cornwall.”

With a firm shove on his chest, she pushed him down onto a milking stool. Then she hung the lamp on a nail that protruded from one of the barn’s rough-hewn beams. Seizing his collar, she ordered, “Take off your jacket, sir. Quickly now, I don’t have all evening. If you want Jimmy O’Toole traipsing out here with his shotgun, just dawdle.”

Jack had barely begun to struggle out of his jacket when the woman grabbed a lapel and yanked off the garment. She took one look at his tattered shirt and seeping wound, and she clapped her hands against her cheeks. “But this is terrible, sir! Is the ball still in your shoulder?”

“No, it came out the other side.”

He bent forward to show her the even greater wound on his back. At the sight, she gasped and sank to the floor, her purple-red silk skirts puffing around her. Covering her face with her hands, she let out a moan.

“Wouldn’t you know?” she mumbled. “Papa was a fishmonger, and I nearly swooned every time he gutted one of those poor … miserable … and now this. Now
you
.”

Jack studied the mass of auburn curls gathered at the woman’s crown. Her hair was crusted with little trinkets—paste diamonds, silver butterflies, bits of ribbon. A delicate gold necklace hung with a heavy pearl draped around her long white neck. The scent of sweet flowers drifted up from her silk gown. Jack swallowed.

A beautiful woman. Jewels. A dark night. Common sense told him to take advantage of the turn of events. At the very least, he should snap the choker from her neck and ride away on his horse. If it was genuine, the pearl alone would feed him from here to Kansas City.

So why did he want to stroke a hand down the woman’s back, whisper reassuring words, fetch her a drink of cool water?

“Ma’am?” he began, reaching out to her.

She pushed his hand away. “No, I can do this. Truly I can. And I will
not
swoon.” Getting to her feet, she gathered up the clothing she had dropped earlier. “First I must pack the trunk as I promised Erinn. Then I’ll fetch you something. Water. Medicine. Heaven help me,” she moaned as she threw her garments into the open trunk, “I am not a nurse. What to do? Sheena would know, but of course I can’t—”

“Ma’am,” Jack cut into her agonized monologue as he rose to his feet again. “I’m not asking you to do anything for me. Just leave me alone here. Let me rest. I’ll be gone at dawn.”

She slammed down the lid of her trunk and faced him. “How can I leave you here with such grave injuries? I am Caitrin Murphy. I would never walk away from a person in need.”

“Yeah, well I’m Jack Cornwall, and I don’t need anything from anybody.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “Everyone needs
something
. You more than most, I should think. Even if you didn’t have that … that awful bleeding shoulder … you’re clearly in need of a good hot meal. Clean clothes. A haircut. A razor.”

She took a step closer and looked him up and down. “Mr. Cornwall, if the condition of your flesh is any indication of the state of your soul, you are in need of a thorough cleansing both inside and out.”

“What?” he said in disbelief. “Who gave you the say-so to judge me?”

“I always speak my mind. Now sit down.” She pushed him back onto the stool. “Wait here.”

Lifting her skirts, the woman stalked out of the barn. The scent of her fragrance lingered a moment in the air. Jack drank it in as he reflected on how long he’d been without female company. Too long. During the war, he’d spent months at a time on active duty or living in the woods with his vigilante friends and struggling to keep the Confederate cause alive. Then he had returned to find his home burned and the family farm sold to a Yankee out of failure to pay taxes. Mary was dead, Lucy suffering, and Chipper stolen away by a man who claimed to be his father. There had been no time for courting.

The auburn-haired beauty who had penetrated Jack’s solitude stirred something inside him. Women had a certain softness about them, he recalled. A musical sound to their voices. A magic to their walk. He remembered now the whisper of silk skirts against petticoats. The fragility of a single curl at rest against a blushing cheek. The touch of a slender finger to the hollow of an ivory throat.

Miss Caitrin Murphy was certainly among the prettiest women Jack had ever seen. In fact, she might be perfect—except for that tongue of fire. Clearly she was no velvet-petaled flower just waiting to be plucked. The woman had thorns. Sharp, prickly spikes.

She had labeled him wicked. Called him trouble.
Sit down, Mr.
Cornwall. Wait here, Mr. Cornwall. Don’t be ridiculous.
And what was that business about his soul needing a good cleansing?

High and mighty is what she was. Bossy, too. Just the sort of female to avoid.

“Now then, Mr. Cornwall,” Caitrin Murphy said as she stepped into the barn, a wicker basket looped over one arm and a pail of water in the other hand. “I shall set you right, as a good Christian woman should. And then I’ll rejoice at the sight of your backside heading out of Kansas.”

“My pleasure,” Jack returned. “I wouldn’t live in a place like this for love nor money.”

“And we wouldn’t want you.” She set down the pail and basket. “All the talk in the soddy is about you, so it is. ‘That wicked Jack Cornwall attacked our Seth and tried to steal little Chipper,’ says Sheena. ‘Good riddance to bad rummage,’ says Jimmy. You can thank the good Lord there’s a flurry of tucking the wee
brablins
into bed or I’d never have made off with this food. Here, I brought you a loaf of bread, some apple cider, and a sausage.”

She set the food in Jack’s lap and busied herself with the water pail. He stared for a moment in disbelief. He had left home with twelve dollars in his pocket. When that ran out, he had resorted to eating what he could shoot or pick from kitchen gardens. But fresh bread? A whole sausage? And apple cider?

He picked up the loaf and tore off a hunk. The yeasty aroma beckoned, the crisp brown crust crackled, the center was spongy to his touch. He put the chunk in his mouth and closed his eyes.
Bread.

“You like it?” Caitrin asked.

When he looked up, she was studying him, her head tilted and her eyes shining. Green eyes. Long dark lashes. He took another bite.

“It’s good,” he said.

“I baked it myself.” Her lips curved into an impish smile. “Wouldn’t my sister have a fine fit if she knew I was feeding our bread to Jack Cornwall? Sheena and I bake the loaves for sale, you see. There’s a little mercantile across Bluestem Creek on the Hunter homestead. Rosie and I market goods to the travelers passing down the road.”

“Rosie?”

“Rosie Mills. She’s to be Seth’s wife, so she is.”

“Wife?” Jack frowned, thinking of his sister Mary and how deeply—and foolishly—she had loved Seth Hunter.

“Sure, it happened tonight after the
ballyhooly
died down,”

Caitrin explained. “Rosie loved Seth all summer, and he loved her, too. But they were both too blind and stubborn to admit it. This evening she tried to leave on the stagecoach, but Seth fetched her back again and announced to everyone that she was to be his wife. So all is well, and in a few weeks’ time, Seth will have a lovely wife, and Chipper will have a mama to call his very own.”

Jack stiffened. “Chipper’s mama—his
one and only
mama—was my sister Mary.”

Caitrin wrung out a rag and took a step closer. “Take off your shirt, Mr. Cornwall. And while you do, I trust you will bring to mind the sad circumstance of your sister’s death. Seth told us about the loss of his wife and your sister, and I’m sorry for it. But life does not always unfold as we wish.”

“What do
you
know about life?”

Her eyes flashed as he shrugged off his shirt and tossed it onto the hay pile. “I know a great deal about life,” she said. “Life is about losing, letting go, and moving on. I have lost more than a man like you could ever understand. I have lost love. Hope. Dreams. Everything I had lived for. But I did not go off in a rage of bitterness and revenge as you did, Mr. Cornwall. I am Caitrin Murphy. You destroy. I create.”

She pursed her lips and began washing the bloody wound on Jack’s shoulder. At the touch of the wet rag, flames of pain tore through his flesh, searing deeply into muscle and bone. He knotted his fists and stared down at the tips of Caitrin Murphy’s shiny black slippers. Could this sharp-tongued snippet of a woman possibly be right? Had his life become a path of vengeance and destruction—a path so narrow he could find no room to turn around?

“You’re a fiery little thing, you know that?” he said. “Aren’t you the least bit afraid of me … big ol’ blazing Jack Cornwall roaring into town and scaring the living daylights out of everybody?”

She gave a shrug as she began working on his back. “Fiery Caitrin Murphy and blazing Jack Cornwall. Sure, we’re a matched pair, the two of us. But where I’ve given myself to God to be used as his refining fire, you’re naught but a swirling, raging, blustering prairie fire bent on destroying everything in sight.”

“Fire’s fire,” Jack hurled back. “I’m a blacksmith by trade, and I know my business. Don’t pride yourself, Sparky. One flicker of that refiner’s fire can set a prairie aflame.”

“Or draw precious gold from raw ore. ’Tis all in how a person chooses to make use of his fiery spirit, Mr. Cornwall. A contained blaze is a good thing, but you’re a wildfire out of control. You need taming.”