Marry Me (30 page)

On Monday night she returned to his bed and all the rest of that week. Sometimes he was awake and made space for her. Sometimes he slept and she found her own place beside him. If she wanted to talk, he obliged her, answering her questions about his childhood, his family, the singular moments he recalled as a cadet. If she only wanted his arms around her, he never objected. She liked feeling his breath ruffle the fine hairs at the nape of her neck and the light caress of his palm along her forearm.

And if what she wanted was to feel starbursts of pleasure skitter across her skin, he gave her that too, then maddened her by asking for nothing in return. He let her know every joy for herself and wanted none of it turned about. If she searched for him with her hands, he firmly removed them. If she was too insistent with her mouth, he broke off the kiss. Even when she was brazen in her need to have him inside her, he avoided that end.

He steeped her in pleasure and filled her with emptiness.

Rhyne thought she might go mad.

“I’m not climbing in your bed tonight,” she told him, slipping into his room.

Cole glanced up from his book. “I know. It’s Saturday.”

She shut the door and leaned against it. “That’s not the reason.”

“All right.” He continued reading.

Rhyne stayed where she was and waited for him to realize she wasn’t leaving.

“You’re still here,” he said, looking up. He turned the page, but didn’t return to it. “Is something wrong?”

She was tempted to throw up her hands and repeat his words, but in a less friendly and inquiring tone. She kept her hands where they were and walked over to the chair and sat. “Why don’t you read over here?”

“Is that what you came here to ask?”

“No, but now I want to know. You have a chair and a footstool, a table for a lamp if you’d like, and the warmth from the stove, yet you’re reading in bed.”

“And if I fall asleep, I’m where I want to be.”

Rhyne nudged the footstool closer and dropped her heels on it. She studied him a moment, but he merely returned her inquiring gaze. “I know what you’re doing.”

“I thought I was reading. Or at least making the attempt. Is there something else?”

He was doing it now, pretending he didn’t know. How was she supposed to explain that to him without sounding like a lunatic? “It’s what you’re
not
doing.”

“I have to put the book down.” He closed it and set it on the table. “Now, is it something I’m doing or something I’m not?”

“It’s both. And stop laughing at me. I know you are.”

He hadn’t made a sound, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t guilty. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“Why? You wouldn’t mean it.”

“I still thought I should make the gesture.”

Rhyne snorted and turned her head away.

“Tell me what it is, Rhyne,” said Cole.

She heard gravity in his voice that hadn’t been there before. She stared at the stove because looking at him made her go queer in the head. “I don’t like the way you’re twisting me up inside,” she said quietly. “It’s a regular Gordian knot in there. You know what that is?”

“I do.”

“I figured you probably did. There will always be that gap between us. I only learned about it while I was helping Whitley study Alexander the Great.”

“You think there’s a gap?”

“Sure there is, and don’t insult me by pretending otherwise. I know there’s times that I’m foolish, but I don’t think I’m a fool.” She laid her hands over her stomach as it began to churn. “See? I’m all twisted again, and you don’t own a scalpel that’s sharp enough to cut through it.”

Rhyne braced herself and turned back to look at him. “I never feel much like a woman except when you’re holding me. I’ve never made the acquaintance of my own body until you introduced us. Mostly, I was ashamed, and I carried that feeling around long before I met up with …” The acrid taste of bile rose in her throat. She swallowed hard and amended what she had been going to say. “Long before what was done to me was done to me. You understand that? It’s hard to be plainer.”

“I understand.”

She nodded and continued. “So when I come in here and you put your fingers in my hair like it was some kind of fancy silk, and you kiss me like you’re sucking the sweetness from a berry, well, it’s the shamefulness that you wash away. It’d be hard to let Pastor Duun catch a glimpse of me from his pulpit on Sunday morning after spending Saturday night with you, but that’s because he’ll see all the way to my shameless heart. I don’t want to feel bad about what feels so good.”

Rhyne tilted her face and regarded Cole from slate gray eyes that were suddenly plaintive. “You keep denying yourself what you give so generously to me, and it’s not right. In fact, it’s selfish.”

“Rhyne.”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, you’re not allowed to say my name like that, like maybe you’re trying to reason with a child. You’ve got me so churned up I’m liable to turn to butter. If you’re doing it because you think I might have a disease on account of me not being a virgin, then you need to tell me that.”

Cole pushed his hand through his hair. “Jesus, Rhyne.”

She ignored him. “If you’re doing it because you’re afraid you might put a baby in me, then I expect there’s something you can do to see that it doesn’t happen, you being a doctor and all.”

He stopped holding his head in his hand and gave her a withering look.

“But if you think what you’re doing is going to hitch me to your wagon, you need to visit Adele Brownlee’s fancy house and choose another filly.”

Cole threw off the covers and crossed the cold floor in three long strides. He grasped Rhyne by the elbows and pulled her to her feet. Before she could form a protest, he swung her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed. He dropped her on it unceremoniously and then turned away.

From the bed, Rhyne watched Cole fling open his armoire and take out a shirt, trousers, a vest, and his jacket.

He tossed all of it over one shoulder, shoved the armoire closed, and stalked to the door.

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Where are you going?”

“Miss Adele’s,” he said. “To see a madam about a horse.”

“Why, Dr. Monroe, I own that this is a pleasure.” Adele opened the front door wide enough to let him in. “Here, step in a little more, would you? Ain’t none of us that bite. The only nip is the one that’s in the air, and I’d prefer you leave it outside.”

She looked around and motioned to Susan Fry. “Susan. You come here and take the doctor’s hat and coat while I fix him a drink. What will you have, Doctor? I’ve got some real Kentucky bourbon if you have a taste for it.”

“Bourbon would be fine.” He let Susan brush snow off his shoulders before she removed his coat. He beat his hat against his thigh to clear the dusting and gave it over. Susan smiled coyly as she took it. Yellow ringlets as tight as springs framed her face and bounced when she bobbed her head. Cole knew the color was not her own, and he was fairly certain the same was true of most of the springlets. He returned her smile without committing himself and followed Adele into the parlor to find that drink.

Raymona Preston was sitting at the piano fingering the keys. She hummed a tune instead of playing one. Her silky robe was mostly open, revealing a chemise and pantalets. She wore black kid boots and stockings that matched the pink roses on her robe. “Hey, Dr. Monroe,” she said as he passed.

Cole recognized the man sitting next to her on the bench as the town’s wheelwright. With his heavily muscled shoulders and broad back, Ed Kennedy dwarfed Raymona, but Cole noticed it was Ed that sat at the edge of the bench to make sure there was room for the lady.

Cole went over to the sideboard were Adele was standing. She was delicately featured with a narrow face and leaf-green eyes that were tilted exotically. Her fiery red hair was tamed in a smooth coil at the back of her head. She wore emerald earrings and a pearl choker with a silverplate inlay that was engraved with her initials. Her satin gown looked as if it had come from a Paris salon, but Cole suspected the design and construction was all Mrs. Cooper’s doing.

“You’re looking very well,” Cole said, taking his drink.

“I’ve had better compliments,” she said, “but at least I know you mean it sincerely.” She leaned her head toward him and spoke confidentially. “Now, who can I get for you tonight? Raymona’s taken, but Susan’s free. Some of the other girls will be finishing up directly. Nora’s in the kitchen fixin’ a plate of gingerbread cakes, but I know she’d love to show you off on her arm.”

“If you don’t mind, Adele, I’d just like to sit for a while. Take my drink over there. Maybe listen to Raymona play.”

Adele put her hand on his arm and invited him to laugh with her. “Darlin,’ Raymona can’t play two notes together that don’t sound like they’re having an argument. That’s why she’s hummin’. Maybe in a little while she’ll sing something. Ed likes that and she’s got a pretty voice. If he doesn’t take her upstairs for a solo, there’s no reason you can’t enjoy it, too.” She pointed him in the direction of the far corner of the room. “Go on. Settle yourself in. I won’t let the girls bother you until you tell me otherwise.”

Cole thanked her and crossed the parlor to the two empty leather chairs in the darkest part of the room. At first he thought the chairs were situated to invite conversation between patrons–this brothel’s version of a gentleman’s club–but after he was seated and realized that what the angle really did was encourage him to take in all of the room at once, he understood the chairs were for men who found their pleasure in watching.

Well, Cole decided, he had engendered very little in the way of gossip since arriving in Reidsville. Perhaps it was time. He sat back, sipped his drink, and enjoyed the view.

“They’re quite something, aren’t they? Prettiest girls in one place outside of a sheik’s harem.”

Cole jerked upright, realizing he’d nodded off. His tumbler was still a quarter full of bourbon. He glanced down at himself to make certain he’d drunk what wasn’t there and not spilled it.

“Susan. Nora. How about one of you gals refilling the doctor’s glass?”

Neither the booming voice nor the looming shadow belonged to Adele Brownlee. Cole rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger and looked up, comprehending at last what had interrupted his sleep.

It was Susan who hurried over with the bourbon. “Adele says we were supposed to just let him sleep, Judge. Now you gone and woke him up.” She topped off Cole’s glass and did the same for the judge when he held his out. “Why don’t you come over and sit by me? We can look at those stereographic pictures together.”

The judge waved her off. She pouted prettily, but she didn’t argue. “She didn’t really want to look at pictures with me,” he told Cole. “I’ve been upstairs once tonight. Doubt there’s any pictures in their collection that would provoke me to climb those steps again.” He looked Cole over, head to foot. “You’re the new Doc Diggins, aren’t you?”

Cole stood and offered his hand. “Coleridge Monroe.”

“Elijah Wentworth.” He pointed to the chair beside Cole. “May I?”

“Please.” Cole sat after he saw Wentworth made himself comfortable. “You’re the circuit judge.”

“That’s right. I’ve been traveling these parts for twenty years. Lord, it’s twenty-five now. I wish you hadn’t made me think of that.”

“Sorry.”

Wentworth dismissed the apology. “Bah! What can you do? The alternative’s death, so counting up the years is better all the way around.”

Cole agreed. “It’s hard to believe you have so many years on the bench.” It wasn’t flattery that made him say it. The judge still had a thick head of dark hair. The threads of silver he did have were almost entirely isolated to his temples, lending him a distinguished air, not an aging one. His beard was neatly clipped and only lightly salted with silver. He carried himself well, shoulders back and head erect. There was no evidence of curvature of the spine. He was of average height with a narrow frame that Cole suspected had only recently begun to spread at the middle. Putting aside the fact that they were meeting for the first time in a brothel, each of them with a drink in their hand, it was Cole’s opinion the judge was not a man of many vices or indulgences. His features showed no dissipation, and in fact, remained largely unlined. He had a friendly smile and gray eyes that hinted at deep thinking and consideration. Those two characteristics explained better than any how Elijah Wentworth had been elected to his office again and again.

“Are you on the stump now?” asked Cole.

“Next election’s two years away. Haven’t decided if I’m going to run again, but then I almost always think that. I was hoping for a federal appointment after we declared statehood, but Grant couldn’t find his way out of a bottle long enough to remember there were favors owed.” He shrugged. “If it’s going to happen, it’ll be under this new president.”

“I take it you endorsed Cleveland.”

Elijah Wentworth laughed. “Between you and me, I did everything but raise my robes and do a fan kick.” He settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. “He’ll take office in March, and then we’ll see.” “Well, good luck to you.”

“We’ll see,” the judge said again. He sipped his drink. “So how do you find Reidsville? You’ve been here long enough to have an opinion. What is it?”

Cole did not have to think about his answer. “I’ve been struck almost from the first by its self-sufficiency. Most everything a person needs for a comfortable life is already here, and what isn’t, is brought into town on the Calico in very short order. Naturally there are other places that can make similar claims, but they’re almost always cities of a certain size. The scale of this town’s industry and prosperity seems out of proportion to its population.”

“You know they’re mostly miners, don’t you? Sure, there are folks that operate businesses, but they exist because of the miners. One way or another, everyone serves at their will and pleasure.”

Cole was very aware that his contract made him one of those people. “Yes, but I never hear anyone talk about a new strike. Most of what my patients tell me is that one mine after another seems to be playing out.”