Separate Roads (31 page)

Jordana had returned to work, the immediate need for finances overtaking her distaste for Damon. Hezekiah Chittenden avoided Jordana, which made her think he was as much under his son’s thumb as everyone else. But he didn’t upbraid her for her departure from work the other day, and when contact was unavoidable, he was civil, if not his usual warm self. Damon, on the other hand, did not avoid her at all. He seemed to go out of his way to be near her and to make sure she saw his gloating expression.

Jordana hated to admit it, but he might just win out. Caitlan continued to be beside herself with worry, and Jordana knew her friend would be comforted by nothing else but the sight of her brother, alive, if not well. More than once in those terrible days, Jordana asked herself just how much she was willing to sacrifice for stage passage. When her parents wired the money necessary for the trip and expressed their grateful encouragement of the plans, Jordana knew she must do
something.

Perhaps she didn’t have to agree to marriage. There might be another way to get to Damon. Since her discovery of those discrepancies in the ledgers some time ago, Jordana had been subtly investigating, redoubling her efforts in the last few days. She still had not come up with anything specific, but she was almost certain that something crooked was going on. And she was just as certain that the elder Chittenden was unaware of the inconsistencies in the bank’s books. She had approached him about some of her discoveries, and he had responded with genuine surprise, but he had assured her there must be merely an error.

But Jordana had gone over the items too many times for that to be the case. She had also mentioned to Hezekiah—casually, of course—about Damon’s several meetings with the man from the Union Pacific, whom Jordana had learned was named Albert Scoffield, and Clayton. Hezekiah had little reaction to the name of Scoffield, but he did rankle at the mention of Clayton, whom he said was a scoundrel and one of his longtime rivals. He had no idea what Clayton had to do with his son or the bank, but he also seemed disinclined to dwell on the matter.

If Damon was up to no good—and she was almost certain he was—then perhaps she had a small trump card to play against her would-be suitor. Of course, the idea of taking such an action was at best distasteful to Jordana, but she saw little other choice. Had she seriously believed Damon was even vaguely involved in Stanley’s demise, she would never have considered using such means to get to Damon. But she had convinced herself that, although Damon was a lot of nasty things, he was not a killer.

So, taking up the second ledger, she knocked on Damon’s office door.

“Come in,” he said.

She chided herself when her hand trembled a bit as she grasped the door latch. She was being absolutely foolish. There was nothing to worry about. Damon was a romantic fool and a hard-edged businessman, but that was all. He wasn’t going to bite her head off. He hadn’t thus far even with her numerous rebuffs, so why should he now?

“Mr. Chittenden, do you have a moment?” Jordana’s throat was dry despite the bravado of her inner encouragements.

“Always, for you, Jordana.” He smiled. It was the nice smile she remembered from before. His friendliness disarmed her. What had she been thinking? Perhaps she had the man all wrong.

“Listen, Damon, I—”

“Ah, so you have decided to be familiar after all! I am pleased.” This time his smile was just a tad oily.

“I wasn’t thinking . . .” But she guessed she was probably thinking just fine and had spoken in this manner, albeit unconsciously, to wheedle her way onto his good side. “Mr. . . . uh . . . Chittenden, I still have some questions about this ledger.” She held out the book in question.

Damon’s expression noticeably fell. “And here I thought you had finally come to your senses about my marriage proposal.” His tone was dead serious.

“I haven’t changed my mind about that.”

“You should, Jordana . . . you really should.” Each word was even and well studied, his look as sharp as a dagger. This was no request by an eager suitor. It was a warning.

Jordana swallowed and continued to tell herself she was overreacting. “Do you wish to discuss this ledger?” she asked with a resolve she did not feel.

“Why should I?”

“Because if you don’t make an attempt to satisfactorily explain it to me, I might be forced to take it to someone who can.”

“Do I detect a threat?” He smiled. “Will you show it to my father, then?”

“I have taken it to your father, and he is ignorant of it all and wishes to remain so. I think he refuses to believe ill of his son. I, on the other hand, have no such compunction. Your father may not be interested in this matter, but I’ll wager I can find men who are. Have you heard of Peter Dey? Or Colonel Silas Seymour? Or perhaps a Mr. Durant?” Jordana hoped she was wearing her best poker face. These men were on the UP board, but they hardly knew her from Adam. Even Brenton would be hard pressed to get an interview with them over this matter. No doubt they would think her nothing more than a silly woman should she attempt to approach them. She was gratified to see that Damon, at least, was taking her seriously. His expression fluttered slightly at the mention of these UP officials, who would surely consider Damon’s schemes, whatever they were specifically, to be opposed to their own.

“What are you getting at?” His voice rose slightly.

“I believe you are doing something, if not outright illegal, then certainly underhanded. You are going to bring this bank to ruin, and though I don’t give a fig about you, it pains me to see your father ruined as well, because he has been kind to me—”

“I have been kind to you also, Jordana,” Damon cut in, not sharply, but with a soft tone that so contrasted with previous moods it made Jordana jittery. She wondered more and more about a man whose moods and expressions were so mercurial. “I have loved you,” he added with emphasis.

“I am sorry about that, Damon,” she said earnestly. And she truly was, for she believed he did love her. She didn’t understand it, nor did she understand the sudden fear that realization caused in her.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” He rose from his desk and walked to where she stood. He placed his hands, feeling heavy and hot, on her shoulders. “You also ought not to fight this any longer. You will marry me, Jordana. Of that I am certain. I will not take no for an answer.”

“I . . . I don’t see how—”

“Shush . . . I said don’t fight it.” He laid a finger against her lips. “I’ll be patient, you know. Very . . . very patient.”

She knew then she had to get out of Omaha any way she possibly could. She had to get away from this man. He wasn’t safe. But it also wasn’t safe to soundly reject him. She must be subtle.

“Damon . . . you know, I must get to California. I must go comfort my sister. I can’t think of anything else until I see for myself that her husband is well.”

“You’ll forget about that ledger? You’ll forget about Homer Stanley?”

She blinked. She had said nothing about Stanley, had she?

“H-Homer Stanley . . . ?” she stammered. For one rare moment in her life, speech was nearly impossible. His eyes were boring into hers . . . his hands felt like hot irons on her shoulders, his voice as slippery as ice. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“I told you once before, I get what I want. Nothing stands in my way.” He was so close to her, his hot breath made her eyes tear up.

“Yes, you did. But I have to get to California, Damon. I have to . . . first.”

“First?”

“Before I can think of anything else. . . .”

“You give me your word?”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He grimaced. “That’s not a very direct answer.”

She tried to smile and sound coy. “Why, Damon, if you can’t believe me, who can you believe?” She prayed he wanted her enough to accept her vague response. She would not be able to tell him an outright lie.

“I will think about it,” he said just as vaguely.

And he dropped his hands from her shoulders and returned to his seat. She left the office not quite sure what she had agreed to, hoping she hadn’t sold her soul to the devil.

But when she returned to her desk from an errand later in the day, she found an envelope containing three tickets for passage on the westbound stage.

The celebration at home was short-lived when she confided to Brenton about the scene in Damon’s office. Brenton was ready to challenge the man to a duel. At the very least he was going to report him to the police. Jordana agreed this must be done, especially if Damon had anything to do with the death of Homer Stanley. However, she felt traitorous in doing so. She hadn’t actually given her word to Damon about anything, but she had let him believe she had. Brenton assured her that she had merely acted in self-defense. Even if Damon were innocent of their suspicions, he hadn’t acted honorably in preventing them from getting tickets, so Jordana was justified in her actions.

The irony was, after all that soul-searching, when Brenton spoke to the sheriff, the man all but laughed in his face. The Chittendens were one of Omaha’s finest families. Surely Jordana’s accusations were all in her imagination. The man even intimated that Jordana might be attempting to discredit Damon because he had rejected her! The sheriff did say he would look into the matter, leaving the distinct impression that he would do it as soon as he saw a Nebraska pig fly through the sky.

Jordana could not have been more ready when, two days after her confrontation with Damon, she and Brenton and Caitlan boarded the stage and jerked away from the Omaha depot.

27

Even Kiernan’s spirits had lifted briefly from his morose mood that first day he had been able to get up and walk. He had taken it slowly at first, but now, almost four months since his accident, he was getting around quite well. His left arm was weak, but he was using it and religiously exercising it so it would return to full capacity. Only his eye continued to evade improvement, still seeing only shadows, and it was so sensitive to light he continued to wear the patch. The doctor hinted it might be a permanent fixture. Victoria told him it made him look rakish and mysterious.

“I look like a silly pirate,” he had countered. “And there’s nothin’ rakish about a redheaded pirate!”

“That’s your opinion.” She bent down as he sat on the sofa in the front room of their borrowed house and kissed him passionately. “I rather like it.”

“Victoria, me love, I don’t deserve a woman like you.”

She opened her mouth, and he knew she was about to give him her usual lecture when he made such statements, telling him what a good and fine man he was, how handsome, how loving, how he was the best husband a woman could want . . . and so on, and so on. He wanted to believe her. And most of the time he at least acted as if her words encouraged him. But today he was feeling especially useless. He had tried to do too much, helping Victoria and Li in the laundry, but after an hour, he had been exhausted and had flopped down on the sofa like an old man at the end of his years.

Nevertheless, Victoria was forced to save her lecture for another time as a visitor knocked on the front door. It was Charlie Crocker. Kiernan appreciated that the man paid regular visits and attempted to keep Kiernan up-to-date on the happenings with the railroad. The man was trying to make Kiernan feel useful, but the visits only made him feel restless and more helpless than ever—not that he would ever tell his friend that. No matter what the visits made him feel like, he didn’t want them to stop, because they were his only outlet in an existence that had become excruciatingly dull.