Deborah Camp (18 page)

“When are they leaving?” Elise asked, knowing she was rude to do so.

Blade grinned and started to say something, but James chose that moment to round the corner and approach them. Blade let go of Elise.

“She bought me a new pair of gloves and I was thanking her properly.”

Elise felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment. She drew in a long breath before turning to face James, who was grinning like a drunken sailor.

“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” he said, giving Blade a sly wink.

“That’s okay,” Blade rejoined; then, to Elise’s utter astonishment, he swatted her backside as he walked past her. “Better get supper on, woman. My belly’s so empty, it’s rubbing my backbone.”

He and James ducked around the corner before Elise could recover sufficiently enough to form a protest. She touched her hip where his handprint could still be felt, but then she remembered his fevered kiss and her irritation melted away.

Oh, dear. She might have underestimated Blade Lonewolf. He might be more dangerously charming than even Darby Rourke back in Baltimore! In
fact, he could probably give Darby lessons in the art of seduction.

After all, when she’d been with Darby, she had defended her virtue with gusto, but when she was with Blade, her virtue seemed a trivial thing.

Oh, dear.

A
fter feeding the mules and checking on Janie, Blade sat on the milking stool and examined the harnesses and lines for signs of wear. A gray tabby cat rubbed against his pant leg and purred loudly. Violet shadows pooled at his feet and dust motes danced in the hazy sunlight.

He examined his new gloves and thought of when Elise had given them to him two days ago. Smiling, he recalled how she’d asked when his cousins would be leaving. He’d been wondering the same thing. Planting was almost done. Guilt bit at him. Usually he longed for visits from his family, but it was different now … now that Elise was in his life.

“Blade?”

Glancing up from the leathers, he nodded at James, a silhouette in the doorway.

“You’d better look at this,” James said, switching to the Apache language.

Blade stood and hung the riggings on protruding nails in the barn wall, grateful for the intrusion. Although he wanted Elise, he couldn’t allow himself to imagine that she would be happy with him. His mother hadn’t been happy with his father and
Julia hadn’t been happy with him. He needed no further examples.

He followed James outside and around to the back, his curiosity piqued. James stepped aside and Blade stared in disbelief at the pile of splintered and broken farm tools. Shovels, rakes, saws, axes and hatchets lay in a jumbled stack, their handles deliberately broken and busted.

“What do you make of this?” James asked in his native tongue.

Anger, hot and quick, flared in Blade. He kicked at the heap and one name smoked in his mind. “Looks like someone is out to do me harm.”

“You know who?”

“Yes.” Blade knelt and examined the destruction more carefully. “Must have happened last night. I haven’t been around here since yesterday.”

“You think it’s Judge Mott?”

Blade glanced up, struck by his cousin’s intuition. “Wouldn’t be surprised.” He picked up some of the metal parts he’d save to make new tools. “I threatened him, and he probably got his back up over it.”

“Threatened him about what?” James retrieved the broken handles.

“About Adam. Elise wanted the boy in school, but the judge had decided to keep him out.”

“You will have more trouble along these lines,” James said. “This is only the beginning. You could avoid your neighbor until you took this wife. Now you will be forced to confront him, or your wife will make even more trouble for you. Does she know about your agreement with the judge?”

“No.”

“You haven’t told her of this?” James asked, surprise lifting his voice.

“I told you, she’s not really a wife. I owe her no explanations. The agreement I have with the judge is private and something I don’t share with just everyone.”

“It doesn’t matter that you don’t share a marriage bed with Elise,” James said. “She is family now.”

“I don’t think she’ll hang around here long.”

James carried an armload of the broken handles to a wheelbarrow a few steps away and dumped them in. He brushed dirt off his hands. “Why do you think she will leave?”

“She won’t be happy here.”

“She won’t leave her sister and brother.”

“She can find work in town.”

James crouched beside Blade and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It might be better if you looked at things as they are instead of how you think they will be. She is here now and not making plans to go anywhere.”

Blade rose to his feet. “I don’t know what goes through her mind or her heart.”

James shrugged. “Ask her. She seems to be a woman who likes to talk.”

Blade smirked. “That’s true enough.”

“Having a wife to take care of your new daughter is good. Her cooking is not so bad, and she’s a pretty white woman.”

“All that’s true,” Blade conceded. “But I didn’t want another white woman. I wanted a woman like Mary.”

“Apache.”

Blade nodded.

“You could have stayed with the tribe and married one, but you went with your mother to live
with the white eyes. You think an Apache wife is easier to please?”

Blade chuckled. “No woman is easy to please, but I might understand an Apache woman better.”

“My cousin, I must be honest with you.” James gathered the last few pieces of wood. “Women of all colors can bring joy or sorrow. You married this woman—”

“To adopt the child,” Blade reminded him.

“Whatever the reason, you married her and you have a duty to her.” James squeezed Blade’s shoulder. “Instead of waiting for her to grow unhappy and leave you, perhaps you should use this time to understand her.”

Blade glared at the wheelbarrow full of broken tools. “She already brings trouble to me. She preys on my mind.”

James issued a sharp bark of laughter. “What you need is exactly what a wife can give, my cousin, and the color of her skin doesn’t matter. Who knows? Maybe
you
prey on
her
mind.”

Blade frowned. “She’s an innocent. If I tried to find pleasure with her, she’d fight like a wildcat.”

“I don’t think so. That’s not what I see in her eyes when she looks at you. I think she might purr like … like that pussycat.” He nodded at the tabby that had followed Blade outside and was pressing its lithe body against his bent knee.

Blade stroked the cat’s small head. Images of his time with Julia came back to him and he mentally winced. “If we bedded together, she would only feel beholden to stay, no matter how unhappy she might be.”

“When did you begin to dwell on the darker side of life?” James asked with exasperation. He gathered the splintered pieces of wood and threw them
into the wheelbarrow. “She is sunshine, while you are darkness. It would be good if she pierced you with a ray or two of light. Otherwise, you won’t be fit for any woman—especially not a woman like my Mary.” He strode away, his footsteps muffled, his movements jerky with frustration.

Blade pushed aside the cat and went to stand by the wheelbarrow. He figured the judge had sent a couple of his hired hands to do this damage. Just a reminder that he wouldn’t take any backtalk from Blade without retaliation.

Pushing the wheelbarrow, Blade guided it into the barn and left it there. Tonight, after supper, he’d come out and start to repair the tools. It would take him several days to make and attach new handles. Damn the old coward.

Blade went to the house. The aroma of fried chicken drifted through the front door and his stomach responded with hunger. Penny sat at one end of the porch with her dolls. She smiled at him.

“Smells like supper’s on,” he said.

“It’s chicken and gravy,” Penny told him.

“My favorite.” He paused to run a hand over the top of her head. Fondness for the child wove through him like a bright ribbon. He always made time for her in the evening, sometimes telling her stories, sometimes having her tell him one. He couldn’t imagine life without her sunny smile and gleeful chattering. “You’re speaking better and better.”

“I practice, and my teacher helps, too.”

He entered the aromatic cabin. Mary and Elise were at the stove, talking and laughing as they dished up chicken and potatoes and gravy. A big pan of baked biscuits and a jug of milk were already on the table.

“Blade, wash up,” Elise said, flashing him a smile. “Supper’s almost ready. I was talking to Mary about the letter I received today from a friend.”

“You got mail?”

“Yes. I stopped by the post office this morning when we took Penny to school. I’d written my friend, Donetta, several letters and she finally answered. She also sent me an article that appeared in the Baltimore newspaper, about the orphan train and how Adam and Penny were placed on it.” Her blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “Donetta said my grandmother was mortified by the article.”

She took out a newspaper clipping from her apron pocket and waved it like a flag. “It was in the society section, and the writer—Donetta’s cousin, as it turns out—questioned how the Wellbys could allow their only grandchildren to be taken to the wilds of America and given to complete strangers.” She laughed and tucked the article back into her pocket. “Isn’t that grand?”

Blade removed his gloves, rolled up his shirtsleeves and slipped his suspenders off his shoulders. The fact that she was keeping in touch with her friend in Baltimore sent mixed feelings through him.

“Maybe they’ll send for you.” He glanced back at her.

“Who? The Wellbys?” Elise laughed. “That’s doubtful, and I wouldn’t go back to them anyway.”

“You say that now, but if it really happened, you’d go back—back to your old life.” He poured water into the shallow wash pan and lathered up the soap ball. “Even if you couldn’t take your sister and brother with you.”

Elise set a large platter of fried chicken on the
table and delivered a snapping glare to him. “If you believe that, Blade Lonewolf, then you don’t know me at all.”

As he washed the grime from his arms, hands, neck and face, he thought of how her statement harmonized with James’s advice. He didn’t know her. He assumed much about this woman he’d married, and that wasn’t fair or prudent.

Clad in a blue dress, Elise wore her hair in a long tail tied with a white ribbon. Her colorful patchwork apron cinched her waist, accentuating her slim figure. Blade dried his arms and hands as he watched her pour milk into tin cups. He remembered the feel of her skin and how her eyes had grown luminous right before he’d kissed her.

“You don’t have to wait for us to be seated, Blade,” Elise said. “I have to find Penny and get her washed up for supper.”

“She’s out on the porch.”

“Penny, come inside,” Elise called, poking her head out the door. “Hurry and wash your hands. Supper’s ready. Now, where’s James?”

“I’ll get him.” Mary went to fetch her husband.

Blade sat at the head of the table, struck by the feeling of family. The wholesome food, the cheery cabin. Cheery cabin?

Things were different, he thought, looking around at the rearranged furniture. The chairs were closer to the fireplace and on either side of the round, woven rug. The table was near the window, and a pretty tablecloth—he vaguely recognized it as belonging to Julia—draped the table. Pots of flowers and ferns sprouted at every corner and on every shelf. Silver-framed photos of Penny, Adam, Elise and two other people—their parents?—stood on the mantel above the fireplace. He sniffed. He
couldn’t smell Julia anymore. Now he smelled Elise.

“Am I done?” Penny held out her clean hands for Elise to inspect.

She tweaked Penny’s cheek. “You’re done. And here’s James, so we can sit down to supper now.” She took the chair on Blade’s right. “Is it my turn to say grace?”

Penny nodded, clasped her hands and bowed her head. James and Mary closed their eyes. Blade followed suit.

“Dear Lord, thank you for our family and friends. Blade is almost finished planting his crop, so please bless the seeds and help them grow. Amen.”

Her sweet, thoughtful prayer nudged his heart. He lifted his gaze to hers and a moment of understanding and gratitude passed between them.

“Adam loves the school. I saw him again today.” Elise handed Blade the platter of crisp, fried chicken.

“I’m glad.” He selected a drumstick.

She placed another drumstick on his plate. Blade saw her secret smile and his heart expanded. Did she know how pretty she looked in that blue dress? Did she have any notion how her dimpled smile shot hot blood to his loins?

“You want me to work on carving out new handles for your tools?” James asked. “I’m good at carving.”

“I remember.” Blade watched with amusement as Elise piled potatoes onto his plate. He liked getting special treatment from her. “I thought we’d both work on them in the evening. It will take several days to replace all of them.”

“What happened?” Mary asked. “Did you leave the tools out and the wood rotted?”

“No.” James looked to Blade for an explanation.

Blade grimaced, wishing James hadn’t mentioned the tools. The supper had begun pleasantly, but he suspected it wouldn’t stay that way now. “We found them in back of the barn. They were all busted.”

Elise regarded him carefully. “You mean someone deliberately destroyed your tools?”

“Looks that way.”

She sat back as if the news had winded her. “What is wrong with the people around here? I never saw such a bunch of back-stabbing cowards in all my life!” She flung a hand toward Mary. “First the Keizers at the dry goods store and now this! I was hoping this town would be a good place to raise Adam and Penny, but I have serious doubts. How will they turn out, growing up around all this hate?”

“I like my school,” Penny said around a mouthful of potatoes.

“That’s good, Pen. Don’t talk until your mouth is empty, please.” Elise sighed and sat back in her chair, abandoning the food on her own plate.