Lady Lavender (7 page)

“N
o, Colonel Halliday,” the pinch-faced clerk said. “She's not here at the hotel. Drove off before sunup with her daughter and an empty wagon.”

Wash stared at the hotel desk clerk. “Wagon?”

“Yes, sir. Wobbly looking old—”

He was out the door of the hotel before the man had finished. He knew instinctively what Jeanne was up to; she would try desperately to harvest her lavender crop before the clearing crew could reach it. He should have planned this better, should have made the clearing crew listen to him yesterday.

At the livery stable, he borrowed Rooney's roan. The mare wasn't as fast as his own horse, but he'd left General tied up out in Green Valley where the chicken house had been. He walked the mare outside and squinted up at the sun. Just past noon. He climbed on, dug his spurs into the animal's flank and prayed to God he wouldn't be too late.

From the ridge he spotted the pile of boards that had been Jeanne's cabin and felt a knife rip into his gut. At the upper end of the valley the five-man clearing crew was felling pine trees and slashing their way through the surrounding brush, moving forward toward the spreading lavender field a square foot at a time.

When he spied Jeanne, the knife in his gut twisted. She was deep in the field, bent almost double, cutting the lavender stalks close to the ground with a hand scythe. When she had an armload, she trudged to the wagon parked where the cabin used to be and heaved it up over the side. Manette did a little stomping dance on top of it to tamp the load down. The wagon was one-third full; she'd harvested only about a quarter of her crop.

As he watched she leaned against the slat sides of the wagon and wiped her forehead with a corner of her apron. Manette offered her mother a glass jar of water, and Jeanne tipped her head back and gulped like a field hand. Then she patted her daughter's knee and turned back to pick up her scythe.

Wash spurred the horse forward to climb the hill to speak to the crew. “Cain't do it, Colonel. We gotta finish today. Gotta be at another site tomorrow, by order of Mr. Sykes. Can't afford to get behind, even by one day. You know how it is.”

“I hate to ask this, boys, but could you work real slow? Give the lady time enough to gather in her crop.”

 

Hell would be no worse than this, Jeanne thought. The merciless sun had beat down all morning, and now it was so hot even the sparrows were silent. She wiped
her sweat-sticky face, glanced up to see how far the clearing crew had advanced, and sucked in her breath. The men were almost halfway down the hill to her field.

She swiveled toward the sound of horses' hooves.

She recognized Rooney's horse, but the rider… The rider turned out to be Wash.
“Mon Dieu,”
she muttered. “What next?”

He had not shaved, but his dark-shadowed face made her heart jump. Without a word he dismounted, took a hand scythe from his saddlebag and set to work beside her cutting lavender.

Holy Mary, forgive me for kicking him in the stomach yesterday.
Truly she had never known a man such as this.

A few minutes later the tall man in faded jeans tramped past her on his way to the wagon with a load of lavender balanced in his arms. “Smells good,” was all he said.

She straightened. “Is Spanish lavender,” she said in a purposely matter-of-fact tone.

They spoke no other words from that moment on, just cut and gathered, cut and gathered as fast as they could wield their scythes. By midafternoon the wagon bed was only half-full and Jeanne began to wonder how she could keep going. The intense heat was so suffocating she could scarcely breathe. Clouds of tiny gnats swarmed around her face and her hair felt itchy, as if something were crawling on her scalp.

Three rows over, Wash worked on, in spite of the stifling air, the gnats, even the bees. He must be as
miserable as she was. He'd brought two canteens of water; every so often he dribbled some out and sloshed it over his face. Once he poured some on his shirttail, strode over to where she was working and wiped the cool, wet fabric over her face.

Wash shot a glance at Jeanne. Her face was gray with exhaustion but she gave him a wobbly smile and his heart floated free in his chest. It would be a real horse race to finish the field before the clearing crew reached it, but he knew he had to try.

Twilight fell. The clearing crew had reached the bottom of the hill and were moving relentlessly toward the lavender field. They labored on, heedless of the fading light and buzzing insects until Jeanne gave a yelp. She'd swiped at a section of lavender and hit her foot instead. Good thing she was wearing boots.

By dusk, the field was almost completely mowed, and the clearing crew was bearing down on them. All that remained were a few square yards of growth near what had been the cabin. Wash knew she'd want every last frond of the stuff; he stood up and signaled the clearing crew to take a break.

They worked until they couldn't see clearly in the growing darkness, and Wash lit a kerosene lamp and walked the valley perimeter. Every last stalk of lavender had been cut. It made him feel so good he laughed out loud.

Jeanne staggered toward him, her scythe dragging from her hand. “What is funny?” she demanded.

“We're finished,” he said.

“The entire crop?” Her voice turned hoarse. “I cannot believe it is true.”

Wash nodded. “Every last bush.” He pointed to the wagon, where a tower of lavender stalks rose from the bed and spilled over the sides.
“C'est t-très beau,”
he stammered.

She stared at him, then laughed.
“Votre francais c'est très mal.”

“Shouldn't have switched to Latin, I guess. More use for a lawyer than French.” Wash spread his saddle blanket over the loaded wagon and roped it down tight. Then he climbed onto the bench and shoved over to his left to make room for Jeanne and Manette. He drove the creaking wagon up to the ridge. At the top, the clearing crew waited with General, Rooney's horse, and Jeanne's gray mare. They tied the horses to the tailgate.

The crew rode on ahead, and the wagon rattled and groaned its way into town. Every few minutes Jeanne reached one hand behind her and stroked the fronds of lavender.

Watching her made his throat tight.

He drove the wagon straight into the livery stable, nodded to the liveryman and jockeyed it into place next to the smaller wagon they had filled yesterday with Jeanne's belongings. Manette lay sound asleep with her head in Jeanne's lap. She smoothed her daughter's red-gold hair and for a moment the three of them sat in silence. The warm air smelled of horses and fresh straw. And lavender.

Never in her life had she been this tired, not even walking day after day alongside the wagons that had
brought her to Oregon. Her arms ached, her legs were wobbly with fatigue. And her face, her hair—she must look like a sunburned scarecrow.

But she'd harvested all her lavender! She would have meat and milk for Manette, and at this moment that was all she cared about.

Wash half turned to her. “You all right?”

She nodded, and he climbed down and began to unhook the rig. He kept his head down but she thought a smile touched his mouth. He was pleased, then, with their day's work? Or was he pleased that his precious railroad could now roll its iron tracks over her farm?

Men liked nothing better than to win. Henri had bragged that he was the best swordsman in New Orleans; it would have been better had he spent his time practicing marksmanship with his rifle. And this man, Wash Halliday…well, she could not say what she thought of him.

She was so weary her thinking was confused, but she was not so weary she could not feel the inexplicable pull toward the man who was now lifting her sleeping daughter into his arms. She stumbled down from the wagon seat to walk close beside him, up the stairs to the hotel's second floor. He paused at the door to her room while she unlocked it. Light spilled in from the doorway, illuminating the room she and Manette slept in.

He entered as if expecting to be ambushed, then gently deposited Manette on the big double bed. When he straightened Jeanne laid her hand on his muscled forearm. He flinched the tiniest bit, and somehow she
guessed he was weighing his reticence about her against his masculine need. That pleased her.

“You have been very kind,” she said. “You are a good man, Monsieur Wash. I am sorry that I kick you, and I thank you for today.”

The oddest expression crossed his face, and in his gray eyes she suddenly saw both wariness and raw de sire.

“Are you hungry?” he whispered.

“It does not matter. I cannot leave Manette.”

Then he did a strange thing. He reached out and laid his hand against her cheek. For a moment she did not move and then an irrational yearning tugged at her. She wanted to turn her mouth into his palm.

She leaned toward him. Oh, if he would only hold her in his strong arms and make her fears go away. She hadn't known a woman could be so desperately lonely at times; perhaps he would talk with her? God knew she had no one else to talk to—no friends. No family.

But he dropped his arm and stepped away. Something in him held back.
Alors,
she should not have kicked him in the stomach yesterday.

Mon Dieu,
would she never learn not to strike out first and questions later?

W
ash moved through the open hotel-room door and closed it decisively behind him. No use prolonging it; he'd accomplished what he set out to do, even though it had cost this woman everything she had. Now his mind was rolling up all his doubts in a ball and bouncing it off his heart.

Was it worth it? No one was paying a higher price for this damn rail line than Jeanne, not even Grant Sykes, who was shelling out hundred-dollar bills like Christmas candy canes. Just thinking about Jeanne's cabin and the look in her eyes when she'd seen the pile of boards at the site made him feel rotten.

He hadn't felt like this since the War. Sykes would probably give him another raise for being an efficient instrument of destruction. And on top of everything, Rooney was right: he was falling in love with Jeanne Nicolet.

What was he going to do?

He decided to pay a visit to the sheriff and ask about Joe Montez. The answer unsettled him.

“Sure, I ran into Montez couple of days back. Said he was leaving town, but my deputy spied him setting up camp in the woods somewhere near River Fork Road.

Wash felt his belly turn to ice. He had to find Montez; he had a feeling the Spaniard meant bad business.

In the hotel dining room, he caught Rita's eye and ordered a picnic basket with a jar of chicken soup, half a loaf of bread and three hard-boiled eggs. Then he tramped back up the stairs and left the basket outside Jeanne's door, tapped softly and fled. He could break a horse in half an hour, but right now he hadn't enough grit to face Jeanne again.

The next morning, Wash found the burned remains of Montez's campsite but no sign of the man. Maybe he'd been spooked by the deputy who'd seen him, but had the Spaniard hightailed it out of the county?

Wash didn't think so. The man seemed to have a grudge of some kind against Jeanne.

He rode out to Green Valley to supervise the clearing crew in cutting timber and laying the split logs onto the four-foot-wide cleared track the men had leveled in preparation for the iron rail sections. The rolling bunkhouse for the workers had already reached the town of Colville, twenty miles to the west; another week of laying the three miles of track a day credited to the Chinese laborers Sykes hired and they'd be at the rim of Green Valley.

On the site, it was turning into another scorching day.
By noon, Wash and the five-man clearing crew were tired and sweaty and thirsty. By quitting time they were hot and cranky. When they straggled back to town, he bought the men cold beers at the Golden Partridge, had himself a bath and a shave at the barbershop and decided to visit the hotel to check on Jeanne and her daughter.

He was not prepared for the shock he got when he spoke to the desk clerk.

“Sorry, Colonel Halliday, Miz Nicolet checked out this morning.”

“Checked out! Where'd she go?”

“Over to the livery stable, I think. Said something about finding a place to live. That's the last I saw of her.”

A place to live? What kind of place can she find with not one red cent to her name? He'd sure as hell find out in a hurry. He headed for the livery stable.

One of the wagons—the one loaded with Jeanne's household items—was gone. The liveryman shrugged and raised his hands, palms up. “How should I know where some stubborn female spends her time?”

Wash started asking questions. Someone at the barbershop had seen her drive off to the south, but it wasn't until Wash cornered storekeeper Carl Ness in the narrow aisle between men's boots and seed corn that he learned the truth.

“The MacAllister ranch out on Swine Creek!” Wash thundered. “That old place was run-down six years ago when I left. Unless they've discovered gold in the creek, it can't be worth a hill of beans now.”

“Ain't worth a hill of beans, Colonel,” Ness replied.
“Thad MacAllister's growin' barley. Yessir, he's had four or five years of good crops. In fact, his threshing crew left just last Sunday.”

Wash remounted his horse and headed south, toward Swine Creek. What did Jeanne want with an old used-up barley field? He kicked General into a gallop.

 

Jeanne saw the man riding toward her across the shorn barley field and her stomach knotted. What would he think about her decision?

Alors,
it did not matter what the tall man who bossed the railroad crews thought. What mattered was what
she
thought. Mr. MacAllister had been surprisingly nice; she and Manette were safe here in his empty bunkhouse, sheltered under a weathered but sturdy roof. She could draw water from the nearby creek and she could cook supper over the potbellied stove. At this point she asked for nothing more.

She watched Wash circle her new abode, a scowl on his face. He dismounted with jerky motions and came striding up to the open door.

“Jeanne!” he yelled.

“I am here,” she said quietly. “Inside.”

He stomped into the tiny building and stopped short in front of her. “What the hell do you think you're doing out here in MacAllister's bunkhouse? Where is Manette?”

She met his angry look with a calm voice. At least she hoped it was calm; inside she was most definitely not calm.

“Do not shout, please. Manette is asleep.”

“Where?” he shouted.

She gestured to the upper bunk bed behind her. “She is tired from yesterday. I, too, am tired.” She looked pointedly at the lower bunk where she had just finished laying out sheets and quilts on the thin cornhusk mattress.

Wash glanced at the small stove that sat at one end of the room. She had not quite finished starting the fire; a thin spiral of smoke escaped from the iron firebox into the room.

“Jeanne, you can't stay here. This is a bunkhouse, for farm crews, not a hotel. Not even a cabin.”

“I know very well what it is,” she shot back. “Monsieur MacAllister offered it and I—I took it.” She did not add that it was only a temporary lodging until she earned some money from her lavender crop. Or that she had swept and scrubbed all morning to get rid of the dirt. Or that she was frightened about the future and uneasy about camping out here alone. Instead she pointed out the gingham curtains she had tacked over the single window and the work skirts and aprons hanging on wooden pegs along one wall.

But she could see by his expression that he was not impressed. From the deepening frown on his tanned face, he was far from approving of what she had done. Well, so be it.

“Jeanne you can't live out here.”

“I can. And I will.”

“Alone? It's not safe.”

In answer she lifted the rifle leaning beside the door
and aimed it out the door. He shifted quickly away from her line of sight.

“Look, MacAllister isn't going to keep an eye on you. He lives in the ranch house a mile up the road. He can't even see the bunkhouse from his place.”

“But I do not want his eye on me.”

“Jeanne, dammit, listen to me. You're a woman—”

“That does not mean I am helpless.”

He barked out a laugh. “No one would ever think of you as helpless! Misguided, maybe. Hardheaded as a Sioux brave on the warpath. But not helpless.” He sighed and shook his head.

“Not—”

She held up one hand to stop his speech. “I will make it all right. I
must
make it all right. Do you not see that, Monsieur Railroad Man? It is necessary for me and my Manette to survive. When I sell my lavender, when I have money, then I will find another place.”

Wash clumped twice around the little stove, then halted and propped his hands on his hips. He looked so angry she took a step backward.

“I can't look after you. During the day I'll be out in Green Valley supervising the crews.”

“There is no need to—”

“Oh, yes, there is! I will be here at night.”

“You need not be here!” It came out a bit harsher than she had intended, but she knew she was right. She did not need Wash Halliday to protect her.

“I'll be here,” he growled. “Just don't shoot me when you hear my horse.”

“I will not feed you,” she warned. “I have enough only for Manette and myself.”

He took a step toward her. “I'll eat in town.”

She raised her chin. “You will not wake Manette.”

“Not unless you shoot me. She'll wake up when she hears the shot.”

“I will not shoot.”

He looked up at the ceiling, his fists opening and closing. “You are more trouble than any woman I've ever known.”

“
Oui,
that must be true. Otherwise, you would not make such a noise.”

Wash gave up. He pivoted away from her and stomped outside to his horse. How in Heaven's name had he been brought to his knees by this slip of a woman in a blue gingham dress?

He found Rooney lingering over his coffee at the Rose Cottage boardinghouse; Wash poured himself a cup of the brew and explained the situation.

“I can't rest easy while she's out there alone.”

“Yer even less easy when she's
not
alone. 'Specially when you're the one who's with her.”

“Rooney, how 'bout you keep a watch over Miz Nicolet and Manette during the day? I'll take over at night.”

Rooney sent him a wry look. “You mean days I get to bust my knees huntin' for bugs with Little Miss and nights you get to sleep on her doorstep?”

“Damn right.”

“Deal,” Rooney shot.

Wash reached the railroad site in time to start the
crew hacking the roadbed down the hillside into the canyon. All that day he couldn't erase the picture of Jeanne, so mad at him she looked like a fluffed up banty chicken, her green-blue eyes studying him with that wary look he'd come to know. Who was it she didn't trust? Him?

Or herself?

 

At supper in the boardinghouse that night Wash was the last one to sit down at the table. He took an empty chair across from Rooney and dug into the fried chicken and mashed potatoes Mrs. Rose had saved for him while his partner pared his fingernails and then cleaned them with his pocketknife. Rooney was wearing a new shirt.

“What's up?” he inquired, his mouth half-full of mashed potatoes.

“Hell, man, it's Saturday night.”

“So?” Wash gulped down a mouthful of coffee.

Rooney tapped his folded blade against Wash's chest. “You dead or alive in there? Big barn dance out at the Jensen place tonight. Sarah—Miz Rose, that is—invited me to go with her.

Wash stared at him, a drumstick halfway to his mouth. “‘Sarah,' huh? If I live to be two hundred I'll never understand your appeal to women.”

Rooney chuckled. “I'm halfway handsome and all the way smart, that's why.”

Wash chewed in silence.

“Now you, on t'other hand, are all-the-way hand
some but only half smart! If you was
all
smart you'd see what's starin' you in the face.”

“And what's that?”

“Jeanne Nicolet, that's what.”

Wash shoveled in potatoes and said nothing.

Rooney waggled his salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “She 'n Little Miss will be goin' to the dance tonight. Jeanne's figurin' to make friends with some of the townfolk and try to sell some of her lavender sacks.”

“Sachets,” Wash corrected.

“French, huh? Figures.”

“Yeah? Well, my friend, I won't be going to the dance tonight.”

“Wouldn't count on it, son.” Rooney straightened the collar on his new shirt, smoothed down the cuffs, and headed for the kitchen.

“Sarah? You 'bout ready?”