Marry Me (48 page)

“She would have loved you,” he said. “She would have loved everything about you, but she would have especially admired your spirit. I think she must have had one such as yours. There were glimpses of it when she performed, but away from the stage …” He shook his head. “I never knew the breadth of it. That flame was barely a flicker when we met. I can’t even say with certainty that Judah quashed it. Look at you. He never was able to take it away from you.”

The judge pressed a knuckle against his lips, stilling the quiver that appeared without warning. “She must have surrendered it,” he said when he could speak. “She must have given it up.”

Rhyne had no idea what to say. The judge was talking about someone she didn’t know. “Cole believes she understood that something was wrong with Judah. He thinks she said things to my brothers about it, told them stories to frighten and protect them. She made certain that they did the same for me. That doesn’t sound like a woman who lost her courage.”

“I would have taken your brothers with me.”

“You see her responsibility too narrowly, Judge. She had her neighbors and friends to protect, not only her family. I think you are selfish. She was not.”

Rhyne’s softly spoken words had the power to knock Wentworth off center. He rocked back on his heels. “I wanted to be everything to her,” he said when he recovered. “As she was to me.”

Rhyne merely nodded. She did not try to stop the judge as he stepped away and returned to the stool. He had the look of a man who needed to sit. “Would you like a drink? There’s whiskey.”

He thanked her but shook his head.

“Then perhaps you’d join me for lunch. I was going to heat soup from last night’s supper. There’s the fresh bread to go with it.”

His smile appeared briefly. “Yes, I’d like that.”

“Well, come with me then. We don’t stand on ceremony here. We’ll eat in the kitchen.”

Wentworth returned to the chair he’d occupied earlier and contributed very little to the conversation as Rhyne prepared the meal. She told him how she and Cole came to believe that Judah was the source of the fever outbreak. He’d come too late to Cole’s exchange with Wyatt to know the particulars. He listened, intrigued by Rhyne’s description of events as a mystery that required attention to detail, specific knowledge, and sudden leaps of intuition.

“Pinkerton detectives,” he said when she finished her story. “You and Cole are medical Pinkertons.”

Rhyne set a bowl of vegetable soup and a thick slice of bread in front him. “That’s a compliment, isn’t it?”

“I meant it as one.”

“Then you’re kind to say so.” She sat and picked up her spoon. “I hope you will tell Cole. I believe he would like to hear it from you. He deserves some recognition for his work these last weeks.” Her eyes lifted briefly as she thought about Whitley lying abed upstairs. “The circumstances … well, you know they have been difficult.”

“For you also.”

She acknowledged the truth of it with an almost imperceptible nod. “I suppose it is God’s small grace that no one has died. I want to believe that Cole’s mistaken about the inevitability of it. I reckon that’s poor judgment on my part, since he hasn’t been wrong yet about the typhoid.”

Rhyne saw the judge’s hand hitch when the spoon was halfway to his mouth. Dread filled her empty stomach.

“What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

Wentworth carefully set his spoon back in the bowl. “Jack Beatty. He moved in with his mother after Sarah Ann and the baby died. She found him this morning. Says his heart just gave out.” He pressed his lips together for a moment. “Probably true more ways than one.”

All color vanished from Rhyne’s complexion. She stared across the table at the judge without really seeing him. She thought she meant to nod, but when she lowered her head, it seemed too heavy to lift again. “So Cole was right.”

“Yes. I think he’d prefer it was otherwise.”

Rhyne knew that was true. Thinking aloud, she said quietly, “Jack didn’t show signs of the fever as early as Whitley.”

“I know. I heard Cole tell Wyatt that some people would tolerate it better than others.”

“He told me that as well.” She glanced up. “Eat,” she said. “Your soup will get cold.”

He looked pointedly at her untouched bowl but refrained from saying the same to her. He dipped his spoon into the soup and took his first taste. Finding the broth was richly seasoned and dense with carrots, onions, beans, and corn, he quickly took another.

Rhyne fiddled with her spoon, turning it over and over beside her bowl. “Do you know if Cole went to see Evelyn Beatty?”

“Wyatt was the one that told him about Jack. I don’t know if Cole intended to visit Evelyn.”

“He usually comes home for lunch. Even if he has to go out again, he likes to drop in for a time.”

The judge smiled and tore off a chunk of warm bread. “I can think of several reasons why he’d do that, and your good cooking isn’t first among them.”

The compliment barely registered in Rhyne’s mind. “It’s already late for him.” She frowned a little. “I know there’s nothing he can do for Whitley that I haven’t, but I wish he knew that she–” Her hand slid from the spoon to the butter knife. She picked it up and pointed it at the judge. “Did Cole send you here this morning?”

Wentworth avoided looking directly at the knife. She wasn’t holding it like a weapon but rather as an extension of her accusing finger. “Why do you ask?”

“Whitley would tell you immediately that you haven’t answered my question. It seems like something a judge should know.”

The judge did. He was hoping not to get snared so easily. “Apparently Whitley has some influence with you.”

“She does, yes.” Rhyne raised an eyebrow, waiting.

Sighing, Wentworth sopped his bread with broth. He put it in his mouth, swallowed, and then wiped his lips with the napkin. “It’s easier to be on the bench,” he said. “There, at least, I’m not distracted by an excellent meal.”

Rhyne’s eyebrow didn’t falter a fraction.

“I offered to come and sit with you,” he said.

“Why?”

“You know why. We’ve discussed the reasons.”

“No, that’s not what I mean. We discussed them because you’re here, but they’re not the
reason
you came. Not today. If you hadn’t made the offer, who would have shown up?”

He was a long time in answering. “Very well,” he said when the knife didn’t waver. “Rachel was the likely choice.”

Rhyne nodded, expecting to hear just that. What she still didn’t understand was why. “Where is my husband?” she asked. She observed the direct question caused the judge some discomfort. He lifted the spoon to his mouth more slowly, and while he continued to eat her soup, she doubted that he was still enjoying it. “I have a right to know.” “He’s with Wyatt.”

“Of course he is.” She realized she had only wanted confirmation of her suspicions. It made her wonder how long she had hidden the knowledge from herself. Had she known something at the moment of the judge’s arrival, or had the first hint come later when he didn’t leave? “They went to see Judah, didn’t they?”

Wentworth nodded. “That’s right.”

“I reckon they both had some notion that I’d try to interfere if I knew.”

“Apparently there is precedent.”

She scowled at him. “I don’t suppose they mentioned that I might well have saved their necks that time.”

“That didn’t come up.”

“I just bet it didn’t. Cole doesn’t even own a gun.”

“I believe Wyatt intended to give him one. You said yourself that Cole could hold his own with a rifle.”

“I don’t know about one he’s never fired before.”

“He seems like a careful man. If I had to guess, I’d say he’d take in some practice before he and Wyatt got as far as Judah’s.”

That didn’t settle Rhyne’s jangling nerves. Realizing she was still pointing her butter knife at the judge, she set it back on the table and folded her hands in her lap so they would be out of sight. “How long ago did they leave?”

“I couldn’t say. We parted ways at the sheriff’s office. Wyatt was going to deputize your husband.”

Rhyne’s eyebrow had just fallen in place. Now both of them shot up. “Deputize him? Why?”

“Cole insisted. He wouldn’t take a gun otherwise.”

“No, he wouldn’t,” she said softly. “The Lord has a deep well of humor to make a man so smart and not give him a lick of common sense. He knows Judah has no respect for the law.” She gave him another pointed look but didn’t underscore it with further blame. “I hope Joe Redmond gave him a decent horse this time.”

“I’m sure Wyatt would see to that.”

“Well,” Rhyne said with an air of finality. “There’s nothing to be done, is there?” She stood and took up her plate, bowl, and silverware. “Nothing except the chores I still have to do.” Standing at the sink, she glanced over her shoulder at the judge. “It’d be a help to me if you’d read to Whitley for a spell. I do that every afternoon, but I’m already late starting the ironing. I do miss taking the linens and Cole’s shirts to Maggie Porter.”

“It’d be a pleasure to read to her.”

“You know not to expect her to respond.”

“I understand.” He pushed his dishes and cutlery across the table where Rhyne could reach them easily. Wiping his mouth and beard a final time, he stood. “Is there a book in her room?”

“The Three Musketeers.
I marked it where I stopped reading.”

“Dumas is a favorite of mine,” he said. He dropped the napkin on the table. “I’ll enjoy it. Thank you for asking.”

Rhyne saw that he meant it. He wanted to help. There were all sorts of ways a person could assuage guilt, she reflected. She hoped this one gave him some relief. Setting the flatiron on the stove to heat, Rhyne thanked him in turn and waved him off.

Elijah Wentworth read for upward of an hour at Whitley’s bedside before his parched throat made him close the book. He smiled at Whitley, begged her pardon for the interruption, and excused himself to seek libation. He recalled that Rhyne had offered him a whiskey earlier. It sounded good to him now. He decided he’d bring it back to Whitley’s room and read some more. The girl never stirred once during his rousing recitation, but he liked to think she heard his voice and kept one foot on this side of heaven’s door because of it.

Heading downstairs, he ran his hand along the polished banister and let it rest on the newel post while he glanced down the hallway to the kitchen. His angle allowed him to see a small stack of folded linens on the table and a sheet draped over the end of the ironing board. Choosing not to disturb Rhyne, he went straight to the parlor in search of the drinks cabinet.

He poured two fingers of whiskey, held his glass up to the light, and then poured a bit more. He sipped, letting the whiskey slide smoothly over his tongue and down the back of his throat. It was immediately soothing.

He closed the decanter, put it away, and then stepped back into the hall. His view of the kitchen was better, and he stood where he was for a time to see if Rhyne would notice him. He could admit that he wanted to be noticed. He liked her, liked her fine, and he hoped someday she could say the same of him.

They’d made a good beginning, he thought. The mistakes were all his, and she’d been right to hold his feet to the fire, but he believed she had her mother’s forgiving heart, not Judah’s bitter one.

He wasn’t certain how long he stood there, long enough, though, to recognize that something was wrong. The sheet on the ironing board didn’t move. Nothing was added to the stack of linens. He never glimpsed her hand pushing the flatiron to the end of the board. Cocking his head to the side, he held his breath and listened. From the kitchen, there was only silence.

Certain now of what he would find, Elijah Wentworth walked the hallway with as much enthusiasm as a man headed for the hangman’s noose. He balked when it came to crossing the threshold. He could see everything at a glance from the doorway.

The folded sheets had never been pressed. The flatiron was as cold as a stone. Its only use had been to keep the draped sheet centered on the board. The laundry basket on the table was more than half full. There was a note pinned to the sleeve hanging over the side of the basket. He could read the bold scrawl from where he stood:
Please mind Whitley.

Raising his glass, he saluted Rhyne in absentia.
“Fortes fortuna juvat.”
Behind his beard, his smile was faintly wistful. “Fortune favors the brave, my dear. It always has.”

Chapter 16

Rhyne tethered Twist out of sight of the cabin and made her way slowly along the ridge, staying low and using the cover of scrub, pine, and rock to make sure she wasn’t spotted. It was the same approach she used the last time she visited Judah, and as on that occasion, she had the advantage that no one was expecting her.

There was a large expanse of open ground to cover before reaching the cabin and she paused, dropping down on her haunches to survey the route she wanted to take. The Winchester lay across her knees.

Irregular patches of snow dotted the valley likes pots on a cow. The cycle of melting and freezing had created a glaze of ice on each one of them, and as Rhyne turned her head she had to squint against the sparkle of sunshine glancing off the thin crust.

Sheep and their new lambs grazed on the far side of the stream. There the steep angle of the hillside in relation to the sun meant the quilted landscape was temporarily more green than white. The animals kept their heads down, chewing their cud, intent on filling all four of their bellies. Rhyne suspected they wouldn’t notice her when she left the ridge, or if they did, they’d make less noise than if they were penned.

Chickens scratched the ground near the coop, but they hadn’t moved close to the cabin. She imagined that meant Judah hadn’t taken eggs for his breakfast because he only ever fed the hens at the coop when he was stealing from them. If he could be bothered to do the chore at all, it was his usual practice to throw feed from the porch and watch the furious rush that followed. If he had a hankerin’ for chicken that night, the winner was dinner.

Rhyne moved again so she had a wider view of the corral. She’d been bothered from the first that there was no sign of the horses that Wyatt and Cole rode. She’d expected to see them tethered at the front porch. Now that she could see the entire corral, she knew they weren’t there either. She scanned the ridge and the hillside, looking for evidence that they were taking as cautious an approach as she was.