Secondhand Bride (23 page)

H
olt’s desk was strewn with open books, and Chloe and Lizzie sat side by side, with their backs to Jeb, poring over them. He watched them, his good shoulder braced against the framework of the door, imagining that Chloe was truly his wife, and Lizzie their child, and that this spacious ranch house was the one he had already begun to build, on the secret landscape of his mind.

The pain in his wounded arm jolted him out of the dream. It came and went, that ache, bone deep, following a schedule of its own, and ambushed him in unwary moments.

He thrust himself away from the doorframe, turned, and walked away.

The house was empty, except for him and, of course, Chloe and Lizzie, who might as well have been in the next town as the next room, they were so absorbed in words written by dead people. Chloe was still put out with him from the night before, anyway, and probably wouldn’t have spared him a kind word even if he’d spoken first, and politely.

Holt had left for the range before dawn, and most of the ranch hands were gone, too. A couple of the older ones puttered around, doing the kind of busywork that was left to their sort on any large spread.

Restless, Jeb took his gun belt down from the top of a high cupboard, where he’d set it when he came in the house, to keep it out of Lizzie’s reach, and strapped it on. This was no mean undertaking, with one useless hand, and there was sweat on his upper lip and the back of his neck by the time he’d finished it.

He went back outside, and the cool air hit him, braced him up a little.

He waved to the broken-down cowboys, one sitting on a bale of hay, mending a harness, the other picking a horse’s hooves. They nodded, cordially enough, but remained intent on their work.

He found a case half-full of empty bottles in the well-house, and managed to hoist the crate off the packed-dirt floor and balance it against his left hip. The task was frustrating, and it brought out more sweat, not to mention a few good twinges to his wounded arm, but he set his teeth and managed it.

Well away from the house and corrals, he set the bottles up, one by one, balancing them along the length of a fallen tree. He walked back about thirty paces, turned, and drew the .45 across his belly.

It was an awkward motion, and slow. Even worse, when he fired, he missed.

He cursed, unlaced the holster from his thigh, and twisted the belt so the gun rested against his other hip. Tying it in place again was one mother of a job, but he was double-damned if he’d give up.

The pistol grip was backward; he’d need a southpaw’s rigging to do the thing right, but for the time being, he’d have to make do. He drew again, flipping the .45 end over end, meaning to catch it in midair, like he used to do with his right hand, when he was showing off a little. The thing slipped through his fingers, landed on the ground, and discharged, belching fire and damn near blowing off his foot.

He bent, cussing under his breath, which was rapid and shallow, and replaced the spent cartridge with a new one from the supply on his belt. Tried again, with a similar result, though this time, at least, he didn’t drop the gun. The shot went wide of the bottles, though, and took a nick out of a mesquite tree well to the left of his target.

He was fixing to draw again when Chloe spoke from behind him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, in a hands-on-the-hips kind of voice.

He holstered the .45, turned his head to look back at her. She was holding her skirts, probably to keep from snagging them on the thistle-strewn ground, and Lizzie stood at her side, big-eyed and sober. It troubled him that he hadn’t heard them coming.

“Practicing,” he said.

Chloe trundled toward him. Spoke in a terse undertone, no doubt hoping that Lizzie wouldn’t hear. Fat chance of that; the kid was listening with every pore in her body.

“Have you lost your mind?” Chloe sputtered. “Only a little over a week ago, you were shot!”

Jeb had been watching Lizzie, and he took his time shifting his gaze back to Chloe’s pink, earnest face. He thought how much he liked her freckles, and that made him want to smile, but he didn’t give in to the urge.

“Yes, I recall it clearly,” he said. “Go back inside, Teacher. You’re not needed here.”

She flinched visibly, almost as if he’d struck her. He felt ashamed, but he reined that in before it could show, just like the smile. “Will you listen to reason for once in your life?” she whispered.

“I am listening to reason,” he replied. “My own. There’s somebody out there who means to kill me, and if I can’t shoot, he’ll probably succeed.”

He saw something flicker in her face then, something that reflected the shame he’d stifled in himself a few moments before, but it was gone so quickly that he decided he must be imagining things. The annoying part was, as mad as this woman made him, without half-trying, he wanted to put his arm around her and pull her close. Hold her there.

“You’d be safer in the house,” she persisted, but with less spirit than before.

“That’s probably true,” he retorted dryly. “I guess I could hide in there forever, read books, maybe, or put together those little ships that unfold inside a bottle. While I’m at it, I might as well sit in my coffin to do it, since I’ll already be dead.”

She subsided a little. Hoisted her chin up a notch. “You are absolutely impossible,” she said, not for the first time.

Lizzie pulled up alongside her, like a little boat bouncing against a dock. “Do you really know how to build ships inside of bottles?” she asked, in wonder.

The eager look in her eyes made him wish he possessed that skill, though he knew it was a temporary yearning. He grinned at her and shook his head. “Just a figure of speech, Lizzie-beth.” The nickname was Angus’s invention, but it was a way of showing affection, so he used it.

“Darn,” she said, sighing not just with her lungs but her whole being.

Chloe was watching him, her mouth slightly open, like she wanted to say something else, but thought better of it.

“If you ladies will excuse me,” he said, watching her right back, “I’ve got shooting to do.”

“You need a different holster,” Lizzie informed him.

“You
need
,” Chloe interjected, leaning in close, so that he could feel her warm breath on his face, and narrowing those sapphire eyes of hers to slits, “a good kick in the behind!”

“I got that when I met you,” he replied, equal to any stare-down. And then he turned his back on her, pulled in a deep, resolute breath, let it out slowly, and drew the.45 again. That time, he hit a bottle, even if it wasn’t exactly the one he’d had in mind, and when he turned to thank Chloe for her inspiration, she was making her angry way back to the house, dragging Lizzie along by the hand.

He shrugged, without thinking, and the resultant flash of pain almost brought him to his knees. After sweating it out for a few moments, he went back to the bottles, and every time the brown glass splintered, he felt a little stronger, a little more like himself.

“He was out there all morning,” Chloe whispered to Holt, while the two of them put together a modest supper of bread and cheese and leftovers that evening, in the kitchen. “
Shooting
.”

Jeb and Lizzie were well out of earshot, playing checkers on the front porch, which made Chloe wonder why she’d taken the trouble to lower her voice.

Holt set the coffeepot on the stove, filled with fresh water, and measured in ground beans. “I reckon he knows what he’s doing,” he said. “This is rough country, Chloe. A man who can’t use a gun doesn’t stand much of a chance.”

“Nonsense,” Chloe countered, slamming plates down onto the table. “My stepfather doesn’t even carry a gun.”

“Your stepfather lives in Sacramento,” Holt said. “There’s a difference. Sacramento is well settled, and Indian Rock is still a frontier town, for the most part.”

Chloe considered Mr. Wakefield. He was a portly man, and probably wouldn’t have been able to buckle a gun belt around his middle if he’d tried. The whimsical thought sidetracked her from the point she wanted to make, but only temporarily. “If Sacramento is more civilized than Indian Rock, it’s because so few men go about armed.”

Holt’s eyes twinkled. “So you up and left and headed straight for the OK Corral,” he teased. “That is a mystery.”

Before Chloe could respond, the inside door opened and Jeb appeared, effectively putting an end to the conversation. He looked from Chloe to Holt, then back again, and there was a glint of challenge in his eyes.

He was still jealous.

Chloe wondered why this lifted her spirits the way it did. She smiled warmly at Holt, even fluttered her lashes, though just once. “Thank you for your help,” she said. “It’s nice to meet a man who knows his way around a kitchen.”

Holt rolled his eyes.

“All he lacks is a ruffled apron,” Jeb remarked, so intent on Chloe that he probably didn’t see his brother’s reaction.

“Where,” Chloe inquired sweetly, “is Lizzie?”

Jeb didn’t smile at the mention of his niece, the way he usually did. “She’s upstairs. Said she wanted to put a ribbon in her hair, so she’d look nice at supper.”

“I’ll see if I can hurry her up a little,” Holt said judiciously, and left the room.

Jeb and Chloe stared at each other for a few moments. She wasn’t willing to back down, and it was a pretty good bet that he felt the same way.

“Maybe
you should
have set your sights on my brother,” Jeb said. “The two of you seem to get along pretty well.”

Chloe felt her cheeks go pink, but she wasn’t about to retreat. “Sit down,” she said stiffly, and with great effort. “Supper is almost ready.”

Presently, Lizzie came in, followed by Holt. Only then did Jeb take a place at the table, but his glance told her it wasn’t because she’d asked him to.

The food was good, nourishing fare, and Chloe knew she should have relished it, and been thankful, but every bite tasted like gall, and landed as a lump in her jittery stomach.

When the ordeal was over, she rose to clear the table and wash the dishes, but Holt stopped her, putting a hand on her arm. “You were hired to teach, not keep house,” he told her quietly, indicating the inside door with an inclination of his head. “You need some time alone, Chloe. Go read or something.”

She nodded, turned, and walked out of the kitchen, without sparing Jeb McKettrick so much as a glance. Upstairs, she closed herself in her room and paced until some of her fury at Jeb was spent, and presently, she heard Lizzie call a bemused “good night” from the corridor.

“Good night,” she called back, as cheerfully as she could.

Good night, hell,
she thought. With Jeb around, there was no such thing.

Unless, of course, they were making love.

I
t was still light out when Chloe returned to Indian Rock Sunday evening, having been escorted by two of the ranch hands from the Circle C, one driving the buckboard, the other riding alongside, with a rifle resting in the curve of his arm. Holt had intended to bring her back to town himself, but at the last moment, there had been some crisis involving a cow, and he’d stayed behind.

She’d looked forward to being back in the cottage, but it seemed strangely lonely, rather than peaceful, as she lit the stove, put water on to boil for tea, and busied herself unpacking her things. Because she’d left the crate of books and supplies at the Circle C for Lizzie to work with through the coming week, she’d had only the reticule to carry, so she’d excused Holt’s men, with her thanks, when they offered to help.

A knock at the door jarred her out of her musings.

“Who’s there?” She’d forgotten to lower the latch, so she put some bravery into the words.

“Tom Jessup,” was the polite answer. “I’ve come about Walter and Ellen.”

Chloe hurried to the window beside the door, pushed the curtain aside, and peered out. Her preconceptions of Mr. Jessup—someone brutish and probably ignorant— didn’t quite match up with this large, red-faced man, sporting a balding pate and a temperate manner. He held a battered hat in his hands.

She opened the door, stepped out into the twilight.

He seemed to understand that she wasn’t going to invite him in and stepped down into the grass, looking up at her with an air of such guileless expectation that she felt shamed for counting him an uncaring father.

“I’m Miss Wakefield,” she said, putting out a hand.

He shook it. Nodded. His eyes were large and watery, putting Chloe in mind of an ancient and well-loved dog. “Walter and Ellen,” he began shyly, “they’re mindin’ you all right, ain’t they?”

“Yes,” Chloe said quickly, eager to reassure him on that score, if no other. “They’re wonderful children.”

“Then I reckon this is about them livin’ in the wagon,” he said, and the slope of his broad shoulders seemed more defined.

“I know it’s hard, Mr. Jessup,” Chloe said carefully, hugging herself against a chilly night breeze. “Earning a living, I mean. But Walter and Ellen shouldn’t be alone that way.”

He looked so pained that Chloe almost wished she’d never brought up the subject, though of course she’d had no choice. “My wife died three years ago,” he said, “and we ain’t got no folks anywhere near here. Mr. Kade McKettrick, he told me I could bring the kids to the ranch, that he’d find a place for them, but that would mean they couldn’t go to school, what with the distance and all. It mattered the world and all to my Annabel that they get their learnin’.”

Pity struck deep in Chloe, but she masked it behind a smile. “I see the problem, Mr. Jessup,” she said. “But winter’s coming, and little Ellen gets frightened at night. Walter probably does, too, though he won’t admit it.”

Jessup looked away. Blinked. His throat worked, but no words came out.

“Suppose I found them somewhere to stay,” Chloe ventured.

“That would be charity,” he said, his gaze still fixed on the woodpile, as though he found something of interest there. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

“No,” Chloe said softly. “It would just be people, helping other people.”

“I don’t have money to pay.”

She was hurting this man, probing deep into his pride, and she didn’t like it, but she had to keep Walter and Ellen in the forefront of her mind. “I’m sure they could help with chores or something.”

“Where?” Mr. Jessup asked, searching her face now. “Where would they stay? This here’s a little house—you don’t have room.”

“I’d set up cots for them before I’d see them spend the winter in a wagon, Mr. Jessup,” Chloe persisted. “But I think I can do better than that. Indian Rock isn’t very big, but there are good people here. Surely someone could take them in. Please—just let me try.”

He considered for such a long time that Chloe was sure he’d refuse, but when he heaved a great sigh, there was resignation in it. “All right,” he said. “I don’t want my little Ellen scared at night, or any other time.”

She started to touch his hand, hesitated, then went ahead. “Thank you, Mr. Jessup,” she said.

He nodded; it was one more humbling, his manner seemed to say, in a long line of them. “ ’Night to you, ma’am,” he said, and walked away, vanishing into purple shadows.

Chloe met Doc Boylen first thing the next morning, on her way to the hotel dining room, where she planned to have breakfast with Becky.

“You look thoughtful this morning, Miss Wakefield,” he said, with a smile. “Must be pondering a lesson on the Roman Empire, or something even more complicated.”

She smiled, though perhaps a bit wanly. “I was thinking about a couple of my students, Walter and Ellen Jessup. They’re living out of a wagon, you know.”

Doc nodded. “It’s been the topic of considerable conversation around town,” he admitted. “Becky wants to take them in, but, as her doctor, I’ve advised her against it. She works too hard as it is, with that weak heart of hers, and she’s still getting over losing John Lewis. Mamie Sussex has the room, but she’s got all she can do to keep her own kids fed, even with my help.”

Chloe found herself with a new worry to chew on. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong with Becky’s heart,” she said.

“She’s not one to complain,” Doc replied. He put one foot up on the side of a water trough and sighed. “Seems like there ought to be a way to provide for those kids.”

“I’ll do it,” Chloe said, “even if I have to write to my stepfather’s attorney and beg him for money.” It was not a comfortable prospect, for she had never really gotten along with Mr. Wakefield or his minions, but some things were more important than pride.

“Angus McKettrick would probably help,” Doc suggested. “I’ll have a word with him, next time he’s in town.”

Chloe looked away. “I suppose it’s my place to ask him,” she said, with a reluctance she couldn’t hide. She admired her father-in-law greatly, and got along well with him, but asking him for money, no matter how good the cause, would be far more difficult than approaching Mr. Wakefield.

“How is Jeb?” Doc asked, giving her his arm and squiring her along the board sidewalk, toward the Arizona Hotel.

“Mean as ever,” she said darkly, but then, to her own surprise, she laughed. “I have never, in my life, encountered a single person as stubborn as he is.”

Doc’s eyes were merry. “Look in a mirror,” he said.

Chloe balked, but good-naturedly. She liked Doc, and she was grateful to him for saving Jeb after the shooting, and for her job. “I don’t believe you said that,” she marveled.

He chuckled, opened one of the hotel doors, and gestured for her to go through. “Go and have your breakfast,” he said. “I’ve got rounds to make.”

Chloe wanted to protest—stubbornly—that she wasn’t stubborn. The idea made her laugh again. She shook her head and went inside.

There was no sign of Becky in the dining room, but Sarah Fee was there, as usual, waiting on customers. Her baby sat in a laundry basket, out of the way of traffic, gurgling and playing with her toes.

Chloe paused to greet the child, and when she turned around to look for a table, Sarah was standing right behind her, smiling broadly. Even beaming.

“Why, Sarah,” Chloe said, “you seem especially happy this morning. What’s the good news?”

“Sam and I are going to have another baby,” the woman whispered. Her face glowed, translucent.

Chloe was thrilled, but she also felt the faint sting of envy she’d come to expect, when met with such announcements. “That’s wonderful,” she said. “Congratulations.”

Sarah frowned. Maybe she’d heard something in Chloe’s voice, or glimpsed it in her face. “Are you troubled, Miss Wakefield?”

“Please, Sarah—call me Chloe.” She took the other woman’s hands, squeezed them in her own. “I’m a little worried about the Jessup children.”

“The ones living out of that wagon?”

Chloe nodded.

“I think that’s a shame,” Sarah said, steering Chloe toward a table and practically willing her into a chair. “I told Sam it ought to be against the law, and he said it probably is.”

“I suppose they could stay at the jailhouse,” Chloe mused. “Even that would be better than a wagon.”

Sarah’s eyes widened. “With drunken cowboys in there every other night? That wouldn’t be proper, Miss— Chloe. Not proper at all.”

“I’m not so sure I give a whistle for what’s proper,” Chloe fretted. The letter she’d written to her mother, her first night on the Circle C, was in her pocket, ready to post. In her mind, she was opening it, adding a pitiful plea for funds.

“What’ll you have for breakfast?” Sarah wanted to know. Chloe was hungry, and she’d need food to sustain her through a rigorous morning of teaching, but her stomach was uncertain. Whether this was because of her concern for the Jessup children, or the prospect of writing her stepfather for money, she couldn’t say.

Chloe decided on a poached egg, a slice of toasted bread, and a cup of tea, and sat gazing out the window, composing and recomposing her request to her stepfather. Even if he granted it, and there was no guarantee that he would, he and her mother were probably still in Europe. Winter could conceivably come and go before they even read the letter, let alone made a decision.

Sam came in, speaking to cowboys here and there as he passed their tables, but headed all the while toward his daughter. He crouched beside the basket, and Chloe watched, touched, as he chucked the child under the chin, making her chortle with delight.

Sarah brought the egg, then went to speak to Sam. Both of them glanced in Chloe’s direction periodically, throughout the discourse, and she tried to pretend she hadn’t noticed.

Finally, just as she was finishing her tea, Sam stepped up to the table. “Mind if I sit down?” he asked.

School would be starting soon, and Chloe didn’t have much time, especially if she was going to post her letter before class, but she smiled and nodded. “Please,” she said.

Sam took a seat. “Sarah tells me you’re looking for someone to take in those Jessup kids,” he said.

Hope stirred inside Chloe, but she tried to push it down. It was preposterous to think the Fees could accommodate two children—they had a daughter of their own, and another baby on the way. Their house, though sturdy and new, was small, and they probably didn’t make much more money, with both of them working, than she did.

“Yes,” she said. “Do you know anyone who might—?”

“Sarah and I will make room for them at our place,” Sam interrupted. “At least for the winter. Maybe by spring, their pa will be able to work out some other arrangement.”

Chloe put a hand to her heart, fingers splayed. “Oh, Sam, how kind. But won’t it be a hardship?”

Sam glanced affectionately at his wife, who apparently felt his gaze, for she met it, though she was busy serving pancakes to a couple of ranch hands at a nearby table.

“Hardship’s nothing new to Sarah and me,” he said. “Those children could be a help, too, I reckon. We’ve got a cow and some chickens now, and frankly, what with our jobs and the baby, we can’t keep up with the chores.”

Tears filled Chloe’s eyes. “Oh, Sam, thank you.”

He cleared his throat, obviously embarrassed. “Not that we’d work them hard, or anything like that. They’re just little, and I know their studies are important.”

Chloe stood up, laid her napkin on the table, and went around to Sam’s side. She leaned down and kissed the marshal smack on the cheek, and he turned an even deeper shade of crimson. “
Thank you
,” she repeated, patting his shoulder, before she rushed over to hug Sarah.

She mailed the letter from the mercantile, profoundly grateful that she hadn’t had to add a plea to it, and fairly danced back to the schoolhouse, so high were her spirits.

Jesse Banner was already there, waiting on the steps, with his big, rawboned wrists protruding from the sleeves of his shirt. He stood when he caught sight of her, and smiled shyly.

“Ring the bell, Jesse,” she said. “Ring it hard. It’s time for school, and this is a very happy day.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, and followed her into the little entryway, to undertake the task. He gave the dangling rope a good yank, and the bell chimed, and Chloe imagined the sound resounding off the far hills.

She took sticks of kindling from the bin beside the stove and got a good fire going, driving back the chill, turning the frost on the windows to mist.

She was dusting off her hands when her gaze caught on the blackboard and the cramped scrawl waiting there.

I will come for you.

Chloe’s good mood seeped right out of her, as if draining into the floorboards beneath her feet.

Jack. That was Jack’s handwriting. Jack’s message.

She hastened to the board, grabbed up the eraser, scrubbed the chalked markings away. But the words were still there, ghosts of themselves, mocking her.

“Teacher?”

She turned, knowing her face was bloodless, and saw Jesse standing close by. He was staring, squinty-eyed, at the blackboard.

“Who wrote that?”

It wasn’t the first lie she’d been forced into, Chloe thought sorrowfully, and it wouldn’t be the last. “I don’t know,” she said, straightening her spine. “Please put some more wood in the stove, Jesse. It’s going to be cold today.”