Cactus Flower (29 page)

      
“I
think I’m going to go to bed now,” said Patsy, patting a yawn. Nick
suspected she’d actually lifted her hand to hide that scar.

      
Eulalie
rose, too. “Do you need any help, Patsy? I know you’ve had a difficult
day.”

      
“No,
thank you. I’m fine.” She hesitated for a moment, then Nick saw
her straighten her shoulders, as if she were bracing herself for an
ordeal to come. He realized he was the ordeal when she turned, faced
him directly, and held out her hand to him. “I can’t thank you enough,
Mr. Taggart, for helping Eulalie and me. You’ve been wonderful. And
so has your uncle.”

      
He
rose and took her hand. “It was nothing, Miss Gibb. Truly. Junius
and I were glad to help.”

      
After
another couple of pleasantries, and after Patsy refused to allow Eulalie
to follow her into the house (“For heaven’s sake, Eulalie, you can’t
leave your guest.”) Nick and Eulalie were alone at last under the
starshine and moondust. Nick gazed up into the night sky and a sense
of infinity enveloped him. For all the suffering people caused each
other, the cold, sparkling universe didn’t give a rap. Men were such
fools—and women were, too—to think they mattered much when compared
to all that up there.

      
Neither
of them spoke for a few minutes. Then Nick’s curiosity got the better
of him. Softly, he said, “Is that scar on your sister’s cheek the
result of her accident?”

      
He
heard Eulalie sigh before she spoke. “Yes. She’s very sensitive
about it. It is awfully noticeable, isn’t it?”

      
“Well
…” he thought about lying, and decided against it. Eulalie Gibb
was the only woman he’d ever met who didn’t need to be pacified
with soothing fibs. “Yeah, it’s noticeable, but it doesn’t detract
from her looks any.” He thought that sounded crude, so he muttered,
“If you know what I mean.”

      
He
was surprised when Eulalie reached for his hand. “I do know what you
mean, Nick. Thank you.”

      
Feeling
a little unequal to her gratitude, he shrugged. “It’s the truth.
I’m … sorry it happened, but she’s still a beautiful woman.”
Just like you
, he silently added to himself.

      
“Yes.
She is, isn’t she?” Eulalie was clearly pleased by his assessment,
and that made him feel better. After a moment, she added more softly,
“But the scar on her face is only one of them. She has other scars
on her body. Not to mention her soul.”

      
“She
does?” Nick was horrified to hear it. The story behind Patsy’s so-called
accident was beginning to sound less accidental with every piece of
information Eulalie leaked to him. “What kind of accident was it,
anyhow?”

      
Eulalie
hesitated, and for a second or three Nick thought she might actually
tell him. He was disappointed when she only said, “We don’t like
to talk about it.”

      
“Guess
I can’t blame you for that,” he growled, although it was the truth.

      
“It
was horrid,” said Eulalie somewhat defensively. “We didn’t think
Patsy would survive for a long time.”

      
He
only shook his head, imagining how horrid it must have been, and wondering
when it would be suitable to ask Eulalie if he could spend the night.
He didn’t expect she’d appreciate the question right now, since
she was still plainly recalling the tragedies of the past. He sighed
deeply, wishing he knew more about good women. Until he met Eulalie,
he hadn’t been sure such an animal existed, but he’d almost changed
his mind.

      
“Um,
Nick?”

      
“Yeah.”

      
“Would
you like to come inside with me?”

      
The
question so startled him, he nearly fell out of his chair. Because he
didn’t want to demonstrate too plainly how thrilled he was that she’d
asked, he paused for a heartbeat to catch his breath before he slipped
up and hollered
yes
at the top of his lungs. Damn. He had it
bad. He was acting like a schoolboy, for God’s sake. Feeling like
one, too, if it came to that.

      
“Sure,”
he said, hoping he didn’t sound as eager as he felt. “Don’t mind
if I do.”

      
So
he carried the chairs back into the kitchen, and the two of them retired
to Eulalie’s bedroom, which he’d been careful to build an entire
hallway away from Patsy’s.

      
She
came to him sweetly and passionately and with total abandon, and before
the night was over, Nick had come to the melancholy realization that
he loved Eulalie Gibb. What’s more, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t
survive if she ever decided to move back to Chicago again.

      
He
was also sure she’d laugh at him if he told her about his condition.

      
Pitiful.
He was totally pitiful.

Chapter Thirteen
 

Eulalie was delighted that
Patsy fit into what passed for society in Rio Peñasco without any trouble
at all. Her sister was a beautiful person inside and out, and as warm
and generous and openhearted as a woman could be, so it wasn’t surprising
that the citizens of the town loved her. It was more of a surprise to
Eulalie that Patsy seemed to overcome her embarrassment about her facial
scars with relative ease, although Eulalie knew how much it cost Patsy
to appear in public without her veil.

      
“I
can’t hide forever,” said Patsy when Eulalie squeezed her hand one
day as she left the house to do the marketing.

      
“You’re
being very brave,” Eulalie told her.

      
Patsy
shook her head. “I’m being practical. It’s too hot here for veils.”

      
And
she smiled. Eulalie could only imagine the pain behind her façade,
but she honored her for her grit and determination.

      
Gabriel
Fuller helped. Although she’d never admit it aloud, Eulalie hadn’t
honestly expected the handsome lieutenant to be so gallant. She’d
pegged him for a man who wouldn’t appreciate a woman with defects
of beauty, and had rather expected him to disappear once he saw Patsy’s
scarring. Perhaps she’d become too cynical during her life on the
stage, but she’d noticed more than once that men didn’t much care
about a woman’s character as long as she looked good.

      
But
Fuller surprised her, and she was mightily gratified. As often as he
could, he rode into town, and he always visited Patsy, even taking her
for rides to explore the desert and the surrounding countryside. In
fact, it seemed to Eulalie as if the two might be forming some kind
of attachment. She prayed that Patsy wouldn’t be hurt again.

      
“Lieutenant
Fuller seems to have taken a shine to Patsy,” she observed one day
as she and Nick ate lunch in her kitchen. He had just finished whitewashing
the fence and laying rocks out back so that she and Eulalie would have
something akin to a veranda on which to place chairs and watch the sun
set in the evenings. Patsy had proved herself to be an admirable cook,
and this day Eulalie and Nick were feasting on sandwiches made with
chicken left over from supper the night before. What’s more, the sandwiches
were made with bread Patsy had kneaded and baked her very own self.
Eulalie, who had always assumed bread came from bakeries until she moved
west, was impressed with how well Patsy had taken to their new life.

      
As
soon as she’d asked her question, it occurred to her that she and
Nick were becoming as comfortable together as a pair of old shoes, and
she acknowledged that he had become necessary to her emotional well
being. Was it wise to have allowed herself the luxury of loving him?
She chided herself for her astounding stupidity. Of
course
it
wasn’t wise.

      
But
what had wisdom ever to do with love? Not a blessed thing, and she knew
it. How discouraging.

      
“Yeah?
Well, I guess he’s not a bad fellow,” said Nick.

      
She
eyed him closely as she chewed and swallowed a bite of sandwich. “I
thought you thought he was an ass.”

      
“He
is an ass. But he’s not a bad sort of an ass.”

      
“You’re
silly, Nick Taggart.”

      
“Maybe.
I don’t like it when he goes to the Opera House and drools over you.”

      
The
statement startled Eulalie. “He doesn’t drool over me!”

      
“He
does, too. They all do.”

      
“Nonsense.
Anyway, I suppose that’s part of the act. I’m supposed to look good
on stage. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

      
Nick
squinted at her. “Huh.”

      
Eulalie
rolled her eyes. “Would you like a piece of peach pie?”

      
“Yeah,
thanks.”

      
So
Eulalie brought him a piece of peach pie. She decided not to have one
herself, since she’d eaten one last evening after supper, and she
was attempting to regain her self-control regarding food. It was a difficult
thing to do, Patsy being such a good cook and all, but she didn’t
want to get fat and have to get new costumes.

      
Oh,
whom was she trying to fool? She didn’t want to get fat, because it
would break her heart if Nick decided he didn’t want her any longer
because she was a tub of lard and eschewed her company for that of Violet
or one of the other girls at the Opera House.

      
She
was absolutely pathetic.

      
The
ubiquitous Bernie Benson helped Patsy to fit in, too, although both
sisters wished he’d desist. He not only wrote about her arrival in
town, but started writing about both sisters as if they were a team
or something. He sent articles entitled
Sisters in Beauty Grace the
West
and
Cactus Flower and Prairie Rose Bloom in the Territory
and
Delightful Duet Dare Desert
, and after Eulalie and Patsy
sang a duet in church,
Songbirds Soar on Sunday
. Eulalie couldn’t
think of a way to still his pen, short of murder, so she only prayed
that Bernie’s prolixity wouldn’t ever get anywhere near Gilbert
Blankenship.

      
One
day Patsy, looking up from the article she’d been reading, said, “I
wish he’d stop writing these articles.”

      
Eulalie
heaved a big sigh. “I’ve thought about telling him why we’d rather
he didn’t, but …”

      
She
got no further. Patsy paled visibly and whispered, “No!”

      
Reaching
out and patting her sister’s hand, Eulalie said, “I won’t.”
And she despaired.

      
Three
weeks after Patsy’s arrival, the sisters received a communication
from back East that delighted them both. They’d gone to the Loveladys’
mercantile and dry goods store, which also served as Rio Peñasco’s
post office, to retrieve their mail and pick up supplies Patsy needed
in the kitchen. Eulalie took one look at the envelope in her hand and
felt her spirits soar.

      
“It’s
from Uncle Harry!” she cried to Patsy, who was eyeing some bolts of
fabric.

      
Patsy
instantly turned her attention away from tablecloth material and hurried
over to her sister. “Oh, good! He writes the most entertaining letters.”

      
“Glad
you’re happy about it,” said Mrs. Lovelady.

      
Eulalie,
who knew how people were in this out-of-the-way corner of the territory,
smiled at her. “Oh, our uncle Harry makes everyone happy. He’s such
a charmer.” Because she knew western etiquette by this time, she opened
the envelope then and there, so that Mrs. Lovelady wouldn’t be left
to speculate about the contents of Harry’s letter.

      
She
was glad she’d done it when she read the first paragraph. “Oh, my!
He and Aunt Florence and the cousins are going to visit us!”

      
“They
are?” Patsy’s eyes went as round as saucers, then filled with tears.
She hastily yanked a handkerchief out of her pocket, mopped at her eyes,
and whispered, “How wonderful.”

      
Eulalie
felt a little bit like crying herself, although she didn’t. She’d
missed her family
so
much. “I wish we had a hotel in Rio Peñasco.”
Then she smiled at Mrs. Lovelady so that good woman wouldn’t think
she was belittling her town.

      
“Funny
you should say that,” said Mrs. Lovelady. “‘Cause the mayor and
the sheriff are talkin’ about building us a hotel in town, right across
the street.”

      
“Really?”
The news came as a huge surprise to Eulalie, who couldn’t imagine
why anyone would do such a thing in so small a community.

      
“Yep.
Seems as to how the railroad’s coming to town, and pretty soon we’re
going to be having us a lot more business.”

      
“The
railroad?” This news came as rather a shock. Eulalie had expected
Rio Peñasco to have remained isolated from the rest of the United States
for a good deal longer than this. “That’s … er … wonderful.
When is it expected to be built?”

      
“Hear
tell they’re going to start next month. They’re hopin’ to get
the tracks laid before next summer. It’s not a long stretch they have
to lay down. Only about forty or so miles between here and Roswell.”