Wanton Angel (24 page)

Bonnie knew what Eli meant, and a delicious shiver went
through her before she turned and fairly hurled herself into the passenger car. The train was so crowded that Bonnie had trouble finding a seat, but she didn’t give much thought to the matter, assuming that the other passengers were bound for Colville, where there were several sawmills and a man could find work.

For a time she mourned the joys of the two days just past, but when the train finally shuddered and rolled into Colville, making its customary stop, none of the rough-looking men disembarked. Bonnie began to wonder about them and watch them surreptitiously.

They were a coarse lot, swearing over card games and filling the car with swirls of blue-gray cigar smoke, but they didn’t look like sawmill workers or even people Seth might have sent for to help build the new cabins. It was their clothes that made them different, Bonnie thought; they wore cheap, ill-fitting suits—but suits, all the same—and bowler hats. They were city men, from far away, and they had to be on their way to Northridge.

What would such men find to do in that small town?

Bonnie raised one hand to her throat as the answer occurred to her. These were union men. Professional troublemakers.

One of them was starting toward the vacant seat beside Bonnie’s when suddenly a small blond woman came sweeping down the aisle, fanning herself with a magazine as she moved, and fell into that same seat.

Bonnie gave a sigh of relief. “Hello,” she said.

Eyes as dark and velvety as the center of a pansy returned the greeting. “I nearly missed the train, you know,” the young woman announced breathlessly.

Bonnie thought of the huge, smelly male that had been making his way toward her and shuddered. “Thank heaven you didn’t,” she answered as the train chugged out of Colville again, whistling its farewell.

“I’m Lizbeth Simmons,” the blonde offered brightly, setting her magazine in her lap. She was about Bonnie’s age and dressed in a gray flannel skirt and a pristine white shirtwaist, and her pale hair was a fluff of softness around her flawless oval face. The pansy eyes widened. “Who are you?”

Bonnie thought sadly that this woman would make an excellent friend, whoever she was. But once she reached Northridge and was taken under the collective wing of the Friday Afternoon Community Improvement Club, Lizbeth Simmons would be shown the error of her ways and henceforth refuse to speak to the likes of Bonnie McKutchen.

Reluctantly Bonnie gave her name and mentioned that she owned Northridge’s only mercantile.

“How admirable—a woman in business for herself!” observed Lizbeth, very pleased by the idea. “I’m a teacher, so I barely manage to keep alive, from a financial standpoint. Of course, I do feel that one can accomplish much in my profession, given the proper chance.”

Bonnie hadn’t known that a new teacher had been hired for Northridge’s one-room schoolhouse, and she was surprised, especially since the term was about to end. “May I ask who engaged you?”

Lizbeth smiled warmly, showing a row of small, pearl-like teeth. “Of course. A Miss Genoa McKutchen—why, she must be a relative of yours!”

“She is—was—my sister-in-law.”

A slight frown, one of puzzlement, wrinkled Lizbeth’s alabaster brow, then smoothed away. “I’m to teach adult classes over the summer—there is a problem of illiteracy in Northridge, according to Miss McKutchen’s letters. In the fall, she—Miss McKutchen, I mean—plans to open a new school, just for the children of the smelter workers. She seems to feel that they’re getting short shrift under the present system.”

Bonnie was delighted, though a little miffed that Genoa hadn’t confided this ambitious plan to her. “It’s a fine idea,” she said sincerely. “The Patch Town children are regarded as second-class citizens by the more—prosperous residents.”

“Those who don’t work at the smelter, you mean?”

Bonnie shook her head. “Practically everyone depends on the smelter for a living in one way or another, but there is a social hierarchy all the same. Some of the crew bosses and shipping clerks and such have their own homes.” An old bitterness tightened Bonnie’s lips for a moment and sparked
in her eyes. “They look down on those who have to live in Patch Town.”

“Patch Town? Miss McKutchen didn’t mention such a place in her correspondence—”

“It isn’t a place that anyone—especially the McKutchen family—could be proud of.” Bonnie sighed, suddenly feeling very dispirited and very much an outsider. Now, through some strange mental alchemy, Northridge and all the people there were real again, while the time in Spokane seemed but a fantasy. With the toe of her slipper, she nudged the side of her valise, tucked beneath the seat ahead, to remind herself that the music box was packed away inside, solid proof that Eli, for two days and two nights at least, had loved her as a husband loves a wife. “In all fairness,” she added belatedly, “the McKutchens are making an effort to correct the things that are wrong.”

The man in the seat just ahead—he wore the standard dusty bowler and dung-colored suit—turned to glare at Bonnie. His eyes were accusing brown beads, looking out of an acne-scarred face.

Bonnie felt threatened, though she met the ugly man’s gaze with an intrepid stare of her own. When he had turned around again, she said in a voice meant to carry, “North-ridge’s problems will be worked out fairly, provided there is no more interference from outside factions.”

The union man stiffened, but did not look back at Bonnie again. Nevertheless, she was very much aware of the sudden heavy silence that filled the car. “I’m forever saying imprudent things,” she confessed to Lizbeth, in a near whisper.

Lizbeth laughed. “Oh, but you’re honest, and I like that in a person. Isn’t it fortunate that we had each other to ride with? I fear I might have turned and gotten right back off this train if I hadn’t spotted you sitting here, a port in a storm.” She wrinkled her pert little nose and added in an undertone, “The smell! Mercy me, it’s insufferable, don’t you think?”

“There is a certain air,” Bonnie answered pointedly, and the ears of the odious man in front of her turned crimson at their tips.

For the rest of the trip, Bonnie and her temporary friend chatted about fashions, the pros and cons of living in
Northridge, and the virtues of Miss Genoa McKutchen’s plan to upgrade the local system of education.

It was a sad relief to reach Northridge, to part with Lizbeth Simmons, who would have made an exemplary friend, to return to the realities of daily life. There would be no more staying in gracious hotels, no more elegant restaurant meals, no more ecstasy in Eli McKutchen’s arms.

On the cheerful side, though, Bonnie was looking forward to seeing Rose Marie again, for she had missed her daughter terribly. It would be nice to chat with Genoa—though she would have to be very careful not to let on what had really happened in Spokane—and have tea with Katie, who would no doubt be able to give a full accounting of all that had taken place during Bonnie’s absence.

The mood in Northridge was suspenseful; Bonnie sensed that the moment she stepped down from the train. The river looked to be swollen well beyond its normal levels and the sky was a formidable, glowering charcoal color. Mud sucked at the soles of Bonnie’s shoes and stained her skirts as she stepped down from the platform. Samuel, the son of Genoa’s cook, was on hand with the carriage, to fetch Lizbeth, but Bonnie didn’t want to ride. She needed time to gather her thoughts and feelings and drive them back into their proper places.

“Would you mind bringing Rose Marie and Katie to the store as soon as you can?” Bonnie asked Samuel, after politely refusing his offer to drive her home to the mercantile.

Samuel, a homely adolescent who would one day be a homely man, nodded. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. McKutchen. I’ll do that.”

Was there a hint of a smirk on Samuel’s face and lurking in his tone?

Bonnie couldn’t decide and didn’t really care, one way or the other. There would be speculation, just because she and Eli had left town on the same train, but she couldn’t help that, so she wasn’t going to worry about it. She set her course for the top of the hill, the mercantile, home.

The board sidewalk leading up to the main part of town was slippery with streaks of mud, and the grain of the wood showed clearly, wetted by a recent rain.

Uneasily Bonnie looked back over one shoulder, toward the temperamental river. When she turned her face forward again, she saw Webb Hutcheson’s buggy, headed down the hill, make a broad turn in the street and come to a stop beside her.

Even though she didn’t look directly at Webb’s face, Bonnie sensed his quiet fury. He’d heard, then, that she and Eli had left Northridge on the same train. God knew what he was thinking, but whatever it was, it couldn’t have been worse than the truth. Bonnie’s throat ached and she shifted the handle of the heavy valise from one hand to the other and back again.

“Hello, Webb,” she finally managed to say.

The answer was stony. “Climb in, if you want a ride.”

Bonnie hadn’t wanted a ride when Samuel had offered one at the depot and she didn’t want a ride now, but she felt so guilty over her rendezvous with Eli that she put the valise behind the buggy seat and got in.

Webb did not say a single word during the brief journey to the mercantile, but he followed Bonnie up the side stairs and waited behind her as she rummaged through her handbag for the key and opened the door.

The darkened kitchen had that musty smell that comes of emptiness, and Bonnie quickly opened the small window over the sink to let in some fresh air.

A chair scraped behind her and she knew that Webb was sitting down at the table. He meant to stay.

She closed her eyes for a moment and then started putting wadded pages of the
Northridge News
into the stove. She added kindling to this and lit a fire, then pumped water into the teakettle. All this was accomplished without so much as one glance in Webb’s direction.

“You might at least have told me you were going away,” he said quietly, when it was clear that Bonnie wasn’t going to take the initiative and speak first.

Bonnie took her yellow crockery teapot from a shelf, along with a fresh tin of tea, and measured in several scoops of the aromatic blend. Still she didn’t look at Webb. “I’m not your wife, Webb Hutcheson,” she said kindly in even tones, “and I don’t have to report my whereabouts to you or anyone else.”

“Damn it!” Webb exploded, one hand striking the tabletop with such force that Bonnie jumped, nearly dropping the yellow teapot. “Every busybody in this town is talking about you and McKutchen running off together—”

Slowly, clutching the teapot so that she wouldn’t drop it, Bonnie turned and looked directly into Webb’s furious blue eyes. “Don’t you dare lecture me, Webb. What I do is none of their business, and none of yours.”

Webb flushed, and it was clear by the white line edging his jaw that he was still angry. “By God, Bonnie, it is my business if you’ve been—been giving yourself to Eli McKutchen!”

Bonnie spoke softly, but she was just as furious as Webb. Maybe even more so. At that moment, she’d have loved to crown him with her teapot, but she was too fond of the piece to risk breaking it on a rock-hard skull. “Giving myself to Eli?” she echoed sweetly. “The way you give yourself to Earline Kalb, Webb? Is that what you mean?”

“Damn it all to hell, Bonnie,” Webb exploded, shooting out of his chair, sending it clattering backward to the floor, “I’m a man and that makes it different!”

Of course, she could always get another teapot out of another sack of flour. Bonnie spoke with acid sweetness. “It does?”

Webb sank back into his chair, running one hand through his hair. “I know it seems unfair,” he conceded generously.

Bonnie turned away, setting the teapot down on the counter with a thump, her shoulders rigid. “Only because it
is
unfair,” she said evenly.

Webb’s voice was hoarse, broken. “So you were with McKutchen?”

“I didn’t say that,” Bonnie replied. God help her, she couldn’t say it, though that would have been the kindest thing to do.

Eventually the water boiled and the tea was properly brewed and Bonnie joined a despondent Webb at the kitchen table. Not a word had passed between them in several minutes.

Unable to tell Webb the painful truth, Bonnie avoided the subject of Eli, pretended that it had never come up. “There were hordes of union men on the train, Webb,” she said,
remembering the threats that had been made following the last article her friend had published concerning the strife at the smelter works. “They’re a rough bunch.”

“I saw them,” Webb sighed, staring down into his tea, which was still untouched despite the fact that he had laced it with measures of sugar and milk in his careful, methodical way. He had the look of a man who needed something stronger to drink than orange pekoe. “Stay out of their way as much as you can, Bonnie.”

Bonnie sat up a little straighter in her chair, ruffled by the implication that she couldn’t take care of herself. “I will not be a hostage simply because a pack of ruffians are roaming the town, Webb Hutcheson.”

The royal blue eyes were snapping when they rose to Bonnie’s face. “You are so damnably stubborn. Sometimes I’m tempted to paddle your backside!”

Bonnie couldn’t have been more surprised or more insulted if Webb had called her a name. There was no humor whatsoever in his gaze; he was totally serious. “Heaven help you if you ever try!”

Webb pushed back his chair and folded his arms across his broad chest, and that ominous glint was still clearly visible in his eyes. “I wouldn’t need any help from heaven, Bonnie. I can handle the job all by myself.”

Perhaps things would have been different if Bonnie hadn’t lost her temper, if she hadn’t openly challenged Webb with a saucy “You touch me, Webb Hutcheson, and I’ll scratch your eyes out!”

The expression on his face told Bonnie that she’d pushed the man too far. She opened her mouth to apologize, but it was too late. Webb reached out and caught Bonnie by one arm and the next thing she knew, she’d been flung across his lap. She struggled, of course, but Webb scissored her thrashing legs between his own and held her motionless.