Schulze, Dallas (29 page)

“I really don’t think—”

“Is there a problem?” Despite the way they’d parted earlier in the
day, Lila had to admit that the sound of Bishop’s voice was not unwelcome.
Apparently he’d seen what was happening from across the street and come to her
rescue. Not exactly a knight in shining armor, Lila thought, viewing his plain
black coat and pants. The brim of his hat cast a shadow across his upper face,
leaving just his mouth and chin exposed. To tell the truth, he looked
considerably more dangerous than the miner standing in front of her.

“I’m not causing any trouble,” the other man said as Bishop
stepped onto the boardwalk next to Lila.

“That so?” Though the question was directed to Lila, Bishop kept
his eyes on the miner.

“He was ... perfectly polite,” Lila said truthfully. Something
told her that it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell her husband why the man had
stopped her.

“I don’t want no trouble,” the miner said. Though he was as tall
as Bishop and outweighed him by at least thirty pounds, he seemed anxious that
Bishop not misunderstand him. “I didn’t mean any harm to the lady. Or to the
little one,” he added, casting a quick glance at Angel who was watching the
proceedings from behind the shelter of Lila’s rose-colored skirts.

“The lady is my wife,” Bishop said softly. There was nothing
overtly threatening in his tone, but the bigger man actually paled. At least
Lila thought he did. It was difficult to tell when his face was covered by so
much hair.

“I didn’t know. I heard tell you had yourself a wife but I didn’t
know she was it.”

“Now you do,” Bishop said quietly.

“I didn’t mean no harm, ma’am,” the miner said, throwing Lila a
quick look.

“I believe you,” she assured him. She actually found herself
feeling sorry for the man. He seemed so anxious to reassure her.

He bobbed his head nervously then turned and hurried off down the
street, suddenly looking much smaller than he had only minutes before.

Bishop turned his head to look at her. Though his eyes were in
shadow, she could guess their expression. And he didn’t have to say anything
for her to know that he was thinking of the discussion they’d had about the differences
between Paris and the towns she’d known. Certainly she’d never been accosted by
a man who just wanted to look at her nor could she imagine such a thing
happening in Beaton, but, strange as the incident had been, no harm had come of
it. Nor was she convinced any harm would have come, even without Bishop’s
intervention.

“I was handling things just fine on my own,” she told him,
forgetting how grateful she’d been to hear his voice. “He was really quite
harmless.”

“And you recognized that right away?” he asked. She saw one black
brow lift in sardonic question. “It must have been his civilized appearance
that reassured you.”

Despite her desire to remain annoyed with him, Lila couldn’t
prevent her mouth from curving in a reluctant smile. “Civilized wasn’t quite
the word I would have used. But he was polite and I could have discouraged him
without your help.”

“Maybe,” Bishop conceded. “But you’ll be safer if everyone knows
you’re mine.”

“Yours?” She bristled at that.

“Mine,” he repeated without apology.

“I’m surprised you don’t just slap a brand on me,” she muttered.

“Don’t tempt me.”

Before she could respond to that, Angel interrupted them.
Releasing her hold on Lila’s skirts, she held up her arms to Bishop. “I’m
tired. Carry me.”

Lila held her breath, wondering what Bishop’s reaction would be.
She remembered making similar requests of her own father but the situation was
hardly the same. She didn’t doubt that Bishop cared for his children—their
presence in Colorado was proof of that. But he didn’t have much contact with
them.

He looked surprised and disconcerted but he hesitated only a
moment before lifting Angel up. He balanced her against his hip with an
awkwardness that Lila found oddly appealing. He always seemed so completely in
control of every situation. It was amusing to see him thrown off balance by a
five-year-old child.

Her earlier annoyance with him forgotten, she walked home feeling
almost in charity with him.

It would have been impossible to say whether Lila or Bishop was
more surprised to find the first few days in their new home passing quite
peacefully. Lila had assumed it would take her some time to adjust to living
with Bishop, let alone to become accustomed to sharing a bed with him. But it
was pleasantly easy to accept the new arrangements.

After that first night, he waited to come to bed until after she
was asleep. Lila didn’t know whether this was out of consideration for her or a
matter of personal preference. Either way, it made life easier for her. And
since he was always up and gone when she woke, it was almost as if she had the
bedroom to herself. Still, it was a little disturbing to wake and see the
imprint of his head on the pillow and know that she’d slept soundly with him
there.

When she thought about it, she told herself that she was adapting
to her new life with relative ease because there had been so much change in her
life these past few months that she was numb. The problem with that theory was
that she didn’t
feel
numb. She actually felt more alive than she had in
years. She was filled with energy.

Perhaps it was some mysterious effect of being pregnant. Or maybe
it was that, after so many months of uncertainty, things had finally settled
down. Her life might not be exactly the way she’d once imagined it would be.
She couldn’t
possibly
have imagined all that had happened in the past
few months. But good, bad, or indifferent—and there was a bit of each— things
were settled, at least for the time being. There was a certain relief in that.

She preferred that theory to the possibility that she actually
liked
being married to Bishop. Though, aside from his flat refusal to have separate
rooms, he had not been difficult to live with. There was the matter of his
sleeping attire—or lack thereof. She’d purchased a nightshirt for him. Buying
such an intimate piece of male apparel at Fitch’s had been one of the most
embarrassing experiences of her life. But she would be severely remiss in her
duties if she allowed her husband to continue his barbaric habit of sleeping in
the nude, not to mention that it would add considerably to her peace of mind to
know that he was decently clothed.

She hadn’t said anything to him about her purchase, thinking it
better to just set the nightshirt and matching nightcap out for him. According
to
The Lady’s Journal of Home & Hearth,
it was best to lead a
man into proper behavior by gentle example rather than by confrontation.
It’s
never a good idea to demand that a man do anything, even when it’s clearly the
right choice. Their natural inclination to direct can sometimes lead to a
certain balkiness when thus approached. Better to gently point them in the
proper direction and allow their feet to take the right path of their own
accord.

Lila wouldn’t have applied the word “balky” to Bishop. Pigheaded and
stubbornly unreasonable were the phrases that came to mind. Still, the advice
seemed sound. Surely, when he saw the nightshirt, he’d realize that civilized
people did
not
sleep in the nude. The first night she put the nightshirt
out, she went to bed pleased at having found a simple solution to a tricky
problem. The next morning she found the nightshirt and cap, still neatly folded
and obviously unused, on top of the dresser.

Some women might have accepted this as a sign of defeat. But Lila
was made of sterner stuff. Given time, Bishop would see the error of his ways.
Every night since then, she placed the nightshirt and cap on his pillow. Every
morning she found it, still folded, on the dresser. The only variation in the
pattern was the morning she found the nightshirt on the dresser and the
nightcap in the trash. Though her mouth tightened a little, she took it as a
positive sign. He could have thrown them both out.

Other than that ongoing conflict, she was reasonably content with
the pattern of her life, at least for the moment. Considering the rocky start
of her marriage, things were better than she had any right to expect. She was
starting to get used to the whole idea.

***

Bishop couldn’t imagine ever getting used to the idea of himself
as a husband and father. Though he’d been married to Isabelle for almost a
decade, they’d lived together for a total of less than two years. During that
time, she’d wanted him to be all father—to her as much as to the children.

Lila showed no sign of needing him to be a father to her. Of
course, she didn’t show much interest in him being a husband, either, Bishop
admitted ruefully as he let himself into the kitchen through the back door. The
house was dark and quiet. Though it had long been a habit of his to make one last
circuit of the town after dinner, the last few nights, he’d been lingering over
that last stroll, giving Lila plenty of time to be in bed and asleep before he
got home. He didn’t know what interpretation, if any, Lila put on his absence
every night. Maybe she was too relieved to care. Maybe she thought he was doing
it out of consideration for her. But the truth was, he delayed his return home
for purely selfish reasons.

Sleeping with Lila without touching her was difficult enough
without lying next to her knowing that she was awake and as aware of him as he
was of her. If he waited until she was asleep, the torture was not quite so
acute. A man with more sense and less stubbornness might have been willing to
admit that the idea of sharing a bed yet keeping a distance between them was
not as good as it had at first seemed. Bishop’s mouth tilted in a
self-deprecatory smile as he silently shut the door behind him. He’d certainly
have gotten more sleep if he’d agreed to Lila’s request that they have separate
rooms, but he was damned if he’d back down now.

The smell of roasting meat lingered in the air, along with the
slightly earthy scent of biscuits. He winced a little at the memory of those
biscuits. He hadn’t expected Miss Lila Adams of River Walk to have spent much
time in a kitchen, so he’d been surprised when she turned out to be a more than
decent cook. Her stews and roasts were as good as any he’d ever eaten, but her
biscuits were another story. Bridget Sunday was teaching her to bake, and he
sincerely hoped there were more lessons on biscuit making. The ones she’d
served tonight had looked fine but the golden brown exterior had been a trap
for the unwary. The interior had been the color of old glue and roughly the
same consistency.

“I think these biscuits are much better than last night’s,” Lila
had said as she pried one open.

Bishop’s eyes met Gavin’s across the table and a rare moment of
communication passed between them. Without a word being spoken, they agreed to
lie through their teeth.

“Much better,” Bishop said. If he put enough honey on the biscuit
maybe he wouldn’t notice that it was only half cooked.

“They’re good,” Gavin said, managing to look as if he believed it.

Angel poked a finger into the doughy center of her biscuit. She
gave her father and brother a dubious look but refrained from comment.

Bishop shook his head as he hung his hat on one of the hooks
beside the door. A few months ago, he’d had no one to answer to but himself.
Living in a room at the jail, his life had been relatively simple. He did his
job and kept to himself with no one expecting anything more of him. Now he was
lying about biscuits and avoiding nightshirts and having dinner with the
minister’s family.

Looking around the tidy kitchen, Bishop had to remind himself that
he lived here. After so many years of living in rented rooms when he had money
or sleeping under the stars when he didn’t, he felt oddly out of place in this
homey atmosphere. He’d been too long without roots to feel completely at ease
with the idea of putting them down now. He’d already been in Paris longer than
he’d stayed anywhere in more years than he cared to think about. His
peripatetic ways had been a matter of necessity as well as preference.

One disadvantage of having acquired a reputation for being a fast
man with a gun was that, if he stayed in one place too long, it was all but
guaranteed that some kid would show up, packing a brand-new Colt, anxious to
prove himself faster than Bishop McKenzie. He’d avoided the fights he could and
handled those he couldn’t. A combination of skill and luck had kept him alive
this long, but he knew that the day would come when he’d be a little too slow
or the luck would turn against him and he wouldn’t be the one walking away.
Over the years, he’d found it easier to move on before the next kid had time to
show up and get himself killed.

He’d been drifting for so long that he’d forgotten what it was to
stay in one place. He’d always assumed that he’d just keep moving on until a
bullet found him. But a man with a wife and children didn’t drift from town to
town, blowing where whim and wind took him. A family meant putting down roots,
making plans for the future.

A future. Hell, who would have thought he’d even have one? He was
suddenly aware that he’d been standing in the kitchen for several minutes,
staring at nothing in particular. Shaking his head, Bishop walked through the
silent house. He must be getting old. He was spending too damned much time
thinking these days.