Deborah Camp (10 page)

Jewel went to the stove and stoked the embers in it before adding a handful of wood chips. Cassie studied the other woman for a few moments, wondering where her affections lay and what form they took. Could it be that a woman of Jewel’s age had designs on a man so much younger?

“You in love with that scoundrel in there, Jewel?”

Jewel looked surprised; then she laughed lustily. “No,
but I’m fond of him. This old world would be a lot less pretty without him in it.”

Cassie rolled her eyes heavenward but kept a civil tongue in her head. Jewel was blind when it came to men. Blind as a bat.

Rook stood by the bedroom window and watched her. Watching her had become his only recreation of late. She never stops, he recited in his mind. She never rests until she drops.

Just watching Cassie made him tired. He yawned and leaned his forehead against the window frame.

At sunup he awakened to the sounds of her making breakfast in the kitchen. She brought him a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal, then headed for the garden. Jewel had brought the seeds three days before, and Cassie had most of the garden planted. Three rows remained, and she was sowing them this afternoon, shoulders rounded and head bowed. Rook knew her routine. Soon she would abandon the garden and attack the chicken coop. Jewel had promised chicks by next week, and Cassie was determined to have the coop in shape in time for their arrival.

An hour or so before sunset she would leave the coop and devote the rest of daylight to the lean-to she was building off the outhouse. The lean-to, Rook assumed, was going to be shelter for Irish.

Hard-working girl, he thought with a mixture of admiration and irritation. She didn’t have a lazy bone in her body, but he knew that most of her energy was fueled by fear. She was scared to death of tomorrow, afraid of facing it alone. Most of all, she was scared of him.

Rook hated the way she darted into the bedroom, performed her duties as nurse and cook, and then sprinted out again as if she were afraid he would grab her and defile her. When she looked at him it was with abject terror and, sometimes, total disgust. Would she ever trust him? Had she ever trusted anyone?

What had her pa been like? he wondered as she straightened her spine and pressed the back of her hand to her
flushed cheek. Her pa had been shot dead. Had he been innocent, or had he run with the wrong pack like Blackie?

As he looked on she lifted the front of her blouse away from her skin, pursed her lips, and blew cooler air down her blouse. Rook smiled, then wet his dry lips with the tip of his tongue. Suddenly he wanted her company, wanted to hear her voice. He examined his wavy reflection in the cracked mirror over her dresser and ran a hand over his cleanly shaven jaw. More civilized looking, he thought and wondered if she’d even notice. She never looked at him for longer than a couple of seconds. Sometimes he felt like Medusa, as if he had the ability to turn Cassie into stone when she glanced at him. Yes, he was Cassie’s monster. He was living out an odd version of the Beauty and the Beast.

He looked toward the window and sunlight. He couldn’t spend another day in this room. Not when the sun was shining and that girl was working her tail off out there. He wasn’t the type of man who could watch a woman toil while he lay flat on his back.

He sat on the bed and began the task of putting on his boots. Pain shot through him as he tugged and pulled. When the chore was done, he peeked at the bandage beneath his shirt and frowned when he saw a dot of crimson. If Cassie saw that she’d throw a fit, but what was done was done. He stood up and escaped the confines of the dingy cabin, feeling reborn when the sunlight poured over him and through him.

She was heading for the chicken coop, determination in each step she took, arms swinging like pendulums. Rook grinned and shook his head in respect. No matter what, she kept going, full steam ahead.

“Hullo, doc!”

Her boots slipped on the freshly turned sod as she spun around, her eyes wide and fearful. Rook grinned, trying his best to look friendly, boyish, and completely harmless for her.

“What are you doing out of bed?” she barked, her voice strident and choppy.

“I’m sick of that room and that bed. The sunshine will
do me good. I thought I’d help you out with that chicken coop.”

“Don’t need no help,” she said; then she glared at him as she realized she’d spoken the same words to him that first day he’d ridden up.

“Did you hear that echo?” he said, teasing, but she refused to smile. He shrugged and surrendered, staring at the tips of his boots as his grin fell away. “I know you don’t need anything from me, but I want to do something besides lie in bed all day and night.” He continued in her direction, and she hurried ahead to the stack of planks she was using to repair the disintegrating coop. “How long has it been since you’ve had livestock on the place?”

“Long time.”

He threw her an irritated scowl. “You do know how to raise chickens and the like, don’t you?”

“I ain’t as dumb as I look,” she groused as she grabbed a plank, a couple of rusty nails, and a hammer. She threw him another murderous glare, which turned to one of surprise. She pointed the hammer at him and her eyes narrowed. “What did you do to yourself?” she asked, wonderingly. “You look different.”

Rook grinned and ran a hand across his chin. “I shaved. I thought I might look less scary to you.”

“I ain’t scared of you,” she grumbled, turning away from him. “I can deal with the likes of you, and don’t think I can’t.”

“I’m shaking in my boots, Cassie Mae.” He stood back, observing her squared shoulders as she tore off a loose board and positioned the new board in its place. She ignored him, but he knew that she was aware of his every move, his every breath.

“Do you think I look better now that I’ve shaved?”

“I dunno.” She frowned, obviously displeased with his question.

“I did it for you.”

She turned her big blue eyes in his direction. “Did not.”

“Did too.”

She stared at the nail she was about to pound. “Why for me?”

“So you’d see what a kind-looking, handsome man I am.”

“Hah!” She almost smiled but kept herself from it.

He sat down in the sunlight and plucked a sprig of sweet clover from the earth. Chewing on it thoughtfully, he worried about her fear of him and wondered if he was making progress.

“You haven’t had a garden on the place in a spell,” he said after a few moments. “What did you and your pa do for food?”

“We hunted for our food.”

“What about vegetables and flour and—”

“We managed.” She speared him with a glare. “It ain’t none of your business anyhow.”

“ ‘Isn’t’ any of my business,” he said patiently.

“That’s right,” she agreed.

“Cassie, let’s make peace, what do you say?”

“I say you’re plumb nuts.”

He grinned, shaking his head again at her acid tongue. “That’s kind of you, but what about my suggestion? I’m not going to do you any harm, and—”

“I know you’re not. If you lay a finger on me, I’ll—”

“Listen to me, damn it!”

His sharp command got her attention. She whirled around to face him, plastering herself against the rickety coop. She raised the hammer, making it a weapon against him. Her knuckles were white as she gripped the hammer and her breasts rose and fell beneath the shapeless shirt.

“Thank you kindly,” Rook said after a few moments of blessed silence. “For your information, I don’t want to lay any part of my anatomy on you.” He saw her momentary confusion and strove to enlighten her. “I wouldn’t touch you with a ten-foot pole. Understand? There’s no use in you being scared of me or threatening me with bodily harm. You’re helping me out, and I’d like to return the favor as much as possible. I don’t mind work. I’m used to it.”

She surveyed him a few moments. He sat with his knees bent and his elbows propped on them. He was chewing a blade of grass but threw it aside while she continued to
evaluate him. She looked at his hands, remembering that they were unblemished and unscarred.

“You work for a living, do you?” she asked, lifting one brow in haughty disbelief.

“I do,” he intoned, slightly resentful of her dubious tone.

“To support your family back East?”

“My fam—” He squinted one eye and regarded her smug expression of satisfaction. “Who said I had a family somewhere?”

“Jewel did.”

“Jewel.” He pondered this statement a moment, glancing up at the fleecy clouds and a sky that was the exact shade of her eyes, then decided to let her go on thinking he had a wife and children. She might trust him more if she thought he had a devoted woman waiting for him somewhere. “Yes, to support my family. When I get my strength back I can do more to help you.”

“When you get your strength back you can get on your horse and get. That’ll help me a bunch.”

He sighed laboriously as she turned back to her work. With great care he rose to his feet, stood still for a moment until his dizziness subsided, and then went to stand beside her. He held the plank while she nailed it into place.

“Have you lived out here all your life?”

“Mostly.”

He craned his head forward to glimpse her face beneath the bonnet. “Just you and your pa?”

“Yep.”

“Your ma died when you were little?”

“Yep.”

The hammer came down right alongside his thumb and he jerked his hand away and stared at her, wondering if her aim was intentional.

“Hey, look out! You might have smashed my thumb!”

“I know what I’m doing,” she said, giving the nail one more whack. “If you don’t want to help, then get back to bed and leave me to my work. I got things to do.”

“Oh, I know. You’re a busy little woman.” He rested his hand against the tender area across his shoulder, covering
it in an instinctively protective gesture. “Someday you’ll have to stop and face what’s happened.”

She made a sniffing noise of contempt.

“Go ahead and make fun,” he said. “But mark my words, you can’t keep running on fear. You’ll run out of it sooner or later.”

“Hope I get some good layers,” Cassie said, standing back from the coop and letting him know that she wasn’t listening to a word of his advice. “My luck, I’ll get some lazy hens who’ll do good to lay an egg a week.”

She pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead and sighed. Rook smiled to himself, finding the gesture familiar now and endearing. She did it often; that limp wrist pressed to a furrowed forehead that spoke fathoms about her mental and physical condition. For a few moments he wanted to embrace her and let her rest her head on his shoulder, but he knew better. She’d scratch his eyes out first.

“Best get supper started,” she murmured in that tone she used when she was speaking for her own benefit. Then she turned and started trudging toward the cabin.

Rook stared after her, realizing that she’d forgotten him completely. She was so wrapped up in her little world—her frightened little world—that she thought of nothing else but surviving in it. He followed her, feeling pity for her and wishing he could lighten her load. She was rattling pans when he stepped inside. Busy, busy, busy. Always busy.

“What was your pa like?” he asked, leaning his good shoulder against the front-door frame. He was feeling weaker, but he couldn’t stand the thought of that bed again.

“He was a good man.” She hauled out the iron skillet and let it drop onto one of the burners. “Didn’t deserve what he got.”

“Did you know your mother?”

“I don’t recall much about her. They say she was sickly.”

Rook rested one hand against the pile of bandages on his shoulder. His gaze moved from her hair down to the gentle swell of her hips. She had a good shape. Damn good. If
she’d wear something besides those voluminous skirts and blouses, she might not look half bad.

“She was a handsome woman,” Cassie went on. “Pa said that Ma looked like a swan. Long necked and graceful. She had light-colored hair and blue eyes. She was taller than Pa.”

“You must look like her.”

“Naw.” She swept the bonnet from her head and hung it on a peg. Her hair was gathered into a thick braid that hung down her back. “Ma was pretty. Ladylike, I was told.”

“You’re not a lady?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “Not like her. My life’s been harder. Can’t be a real lady and last long out here.” Her eyes narrowed a fraction. “But I ain’t like Jewel neither. I know where to draw the line.”

He averted his gaze and stared at the toes of his boots, unhappy with her assessment of his mother. “You don’t think much of Jewel, is that it?”

“I think a lot of Jewel. She’s a fine woman, but she’s no lady. I owe Jewel. She’s my onliest friend now that Shorty’s gone.”

“I’d be your friend, if you’d let me,” he ventured, then wished he hadn’t when she looked at him with renewed suspicion. He heaved a sigh and straightened up from the door frame. “Forget it. Being your friend is too much trouble. What’s for supper?”

“Beans and bacon. You can set the table and light the lamps. I can’t see my hand in front of my face, it’s getting so dark in here.”

“Beans, beans, beans,” he grumbled, reaching for the tin plates and utensils. “I’m sick of beans.”

“When the garden comes in and the chicks are growed we can—”

“ ‘Grown,’ ” he interrupted. “Not ‘growed.’ ‘Grown.’ ”

Her gaze darted to him and away, and her skin turned a deeper shade. “Just like Jewel. I can’t talk good enough to suit nobody these days.”

“ ‘To suit anybody.’ ”

Something snapped inside Cassie and she clamped her lips together and faced him, hands on hips, chin trembling. Nothing she did pleased anyone anymore, and she was tired, so tired, of trying to keep things together and face one day after another. She was alone and penniless, and this varmint was correcting her speech! It was too much … much too much!

In her hand she held a spoon she’d used to stir the beans: in a blink of the eye, she sent it across the table and straight into his face.

“There! Fix it yourself,” she said between clenched teeth. To her surprise, she felt much better for having struck out at him and all the rest of the bad luck in her world. “I’m not cooking and cleaning and fussing over you for nothing but one insult after another! Why don’t you go back to your family? I bet you don’t have to tell them how to talk!”