The Devil You Know (14 page)

“Yes.”

Israel had to lean in to hear her reply. “Did you say yes?”

This time she nodded.

“Well, if I understood your objections this afternoon, then you'll tell him no and that will hold him off. How long since he last proposed?”

“Six months ago, perhaps a little longer than that.”

“Then it will hold him off for another six months or so.”

Willa finished off her drink and set the tumbler down. It thumped dully against the tabletop. “What if I don't want to hold him off this time?”

Israel wondered if he blinked. He didn't think he had but in every other way he was at attention. The hairs at the back of his neck were standing up, and something cold that might have been his blood was slithering under his skin. There was a breath lodged in his throat, and he felt his heartbeat stutter to a stop, then resume a moment later with a thud loud enough to concuss him.

“You're going to tell him yes?” he asked, carefully neutral.

Willa blew out a breath, all exasperation this time. “No, I'm not going to tell him yes.”

“But you said—”

“I said I don't want to hold him off any longer. That
doesn't mean . . .” She paused, hearing the words again. “Oh, I see why you're confused . . . I wasn't clear, was I?”

“Not remotely.” Israel was moved to consider what method might work best to encourage Willa to stop talking. Choking her was undeniably a solution to the problem, but kissing her would give him so much more pleasure. He had just decided on option two when she started talking again. He poured another measure of whiskey in his glass and sat back to listen.

“I don't merely want to hold him off,” she said. “I want to stop him altogether. I am weary of the shadow he casts. It has weight and substance and darkens my thoughts, my life. I've had enough. I want to be done with his proposals once and for all. I want to be done with him. Is that clear enough?”

Israel was struck by her vehemence, but he did not allow himself to respond to her urgency. Calmly, he said, “I think so, but don't forget I told you I wasn't good with a gun. If you're asking me to kill him, I might not be—”

Willa snatched the glass from his hand and set it down hard beside hers. “I am not asking you to kill him. Are you truly recovered from your concussion? I am asking you to marry me!”

This announcement was followed by a profound silence. Israel did not know how long it was before he heard the sound of his own breathing. Sometime later, he heard hers. The thrum in his ears came after that, dull at first, then louder, clearer, like the rush of water spilling from a pump, intermittent in the beginning and finally steady with no hint that it would ever stop.

He stared at Willa, watching her mouth, waiting for her lips to move around the words she would use to take it back. There were no words, though. Her lips did not so much as twitch.

Israel spoke because he decided one of them had to and it seemed the onus was on him at the moment. “Are you certain you don't want me to kill him?” He dodged the tumbler she threw at his head, but then she picked up the glass and droplets of whiskey splattered his shoulder as it sailed past his ear. He threw up both hands to defend himself even though she
had no more weapons within easy reach. “All right,” he said. “I'm sorry. I misjudged your sincerity.”

“Misjudged my sincerity,” she muttered, glaring at him. “And stop laughing.”

He knew he wasn't laughing. The opposite was true. He'd purposely set his mouth in a flat line to smother any hint of amusement, and his jaw ached because he was holding it so tightly. His breathing was controlled, steady and even, and he did not look away once. He was presenting her with his soberest look, and she was accusing him of . . . well, perhaps it was only his mostly sober look because his shoulders
were
starting to shake.

He sucked in a deep breath and fought to hold it.

“Go on,” Willa said, resigned to the inevitable. “Just let it go.”

Oddly enough, her words had the opposite effect. The pressure in his lungs eased and the urge to laugh went with it. He was able to find the gravity of the situation that had eluded him before.

“I apologize,” he said. “I should not have . . .” He shook his head, and for the second time that day, words failed him. “I apologize.”

Willa studied him for a long time. Finally she nodded.

Israel said, “I realize I am about to state the obvious, but it still needs to be said. You don't know me, Willa. It begins and ends there. It is hard for me to imagine that you are so desperate, so lacking in choices, that you see no alternative except to make a proposal.” He pointed to himself. “And to put that offer to me? You'd make a better match with Zach. You like him.”

“I asked him. He said no.”

That effectively shut Israel's mouth.

“That's right. I asked, he said no, and I sent him to the bunkhouse to get you.”

“Zach didn't mention that I was your second choice.”

Willa's jaw slid sideways as she regarded him unbelievingly. “Are you really going to pretend that you're wounded? You
laughed
at me, and you've been furiously trying to think of a way to say no that will end this. Well, you did, and it's
ended. I won't ask again. I believe the feeling you're groping for is relief.”

Israel waited a few moments to be sure Willa was not going to come out of her chair or at the very least, order him to the bunkhouse to send Cutter back. Before she looked away, he caught and held her gaze. There was a glittering sheen in her dark eyes that reflected the lantern light, but he had no way of being certain what provoked her tears. Frustration with him? Disappointment in him? Regret that she had posed her question?

So she would be sure to hear him, or more important, so she would be sure to listen, he spoke quietly, gravely. “I did not say no.” He waited then for his words to have impact. The change in her features was subtle, but whatever she had been expressing before was being replaced by uncertainty. A small vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows as they pulled together. Her mouth parted just enough for her to suck in the lower lip. She worried it with her teeth. A flush crept up from her collar and spread slowly across her face, and her nostrils pinched slightly as she breathed deeply through her nose.

“You did not say yes.”

“That's right. I didn't. But what's important here, at least as I see it, is not to get ahead of ourselves.”

Willa continued to regard him warily, but she did nod.

Israel took a breath and released it slowly. “The order of events here is that a very short time ago Zach returned from Jupiter and related a conversation with Eli Barber that alarmed you.”

“Concerned,” she said. “I was concerned.”

“Uh-huh. Seems that it raised every one of your hackles, but if you want to characterize it as concern, I'll accept that.”

“You're laughing at me again.”

Dead calm, he said, “No, I'm not.”

She was quiet, thoughtful, and then, “I do not know how to take you sometimes.”

“I understand. And that speaks to my earlier point that you don't know me. That's something you need to consider carefully. I was trying to say that there hasn't been much time between when Zach spoke to you and when you put
your proposal to me. ‘Hasty' is one word that comes to mind. ‘Impulsive' is another.”

“You probably have a lot of words at the ready, you being a writer and all.”

The absolute aridness with which she spoke made him grin. “Well done. You see how you can poke at me and I don't take offense?”

“I don't know why not. I was trying to offend you.”

That merely broadened his grin. He watched her eyes drop to the dimpled corner.

Willa dragged her eyes away from his mouth. “Can you be offended?”

“Mr. Roundbottom,” he said. “That stung.”

“Of course. You think a lot of your good looks. That was a poke at your vanity.”

He shrugged carelessly and cocked an eyebrow at her. “My Achilles' heel.”

Willa slumped back in her chair and shook her head. Laughter bubbled. “Do you recall what you said about me making a better match with Zach?”

“Because you like him. I remember.”

“Mm-hmm. Well, I suppose you should know that I don't dislike you.”

“Ah. You don't dislike me. That's a tad left-handed, don't you think?”

“I prefer cautious. You've warned me about hasty judgments.”

“So I did.” Israel knuckled his jaw. “Do you need my answer now, Willa? If I say no, will you ask for Cutter? If I say yes, will you have a preacher here in the morning?”

“No,” she said. “No to both those things.”

“Then there's still time to think this through. For both of us. You might decide that turning down Eli Barber's regular proposals is preferable to marrying me. I might decide it's better to move on than put you and your family in danger.”

She stared at him but said nothing.

“Well? I have to tell you, I'm not used to being the sensible one in the room. I don't know if I can hold out. I wanted to kiss you real bad a little while ago.”

“That's as good a reason as any to wait.”

Israel's mouth quirked to one side. “That's not flattering.”

She ignored that. “You're right. There are things I haven't thought through.” She held up a finger as one of them occurred to her. “Are you married?”

Apparently he did not answer quickly enough to suit because he heard the tattoo of her boot against the floor.

“It's yes or no,” she said with a touch of impatience.

“It's not.” In any other circumstance, he might have been flattered when her face fell, but he reminded himself that Willa was not necessarily eager to marry him, she was eager to be done with Eli Barber.

“It's not?” Puzzlement defined her features, and she stopped tapping her boot. “Oh. I see. Of course. You're engaged.”

With careful attention to his intonation, Israel said, “No, you don't see. The short answer to your question is I don't know. The longer version is that I was not married—or engaged—when I was walking along Wabash. What happened between Wabash Avenue and Pancake Valley still isn't clear. I have no reason to believe I got married on the journey, but you need to know that I've wondered now and again if avoiding marriage is what got me into trouble. I'm leaning toward that being unlikely, not because I am man of good character, but because not that many days passed between the last thing I remember in Chicago and showing up here.”

Willa rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. She closed her eyes briefly. “That's a lot to consider.”

“It is.”

“I've been foolish,” she said.

“I don't think that.”

She snorted lightly. “Then you're too kind or you're a liar.”

“If you have to choose, choose the latter.”

Her head lifted and she stared at him, frowning. “Do you mean that? Are you a liar?”

“I do mean it. And yes, I am. Frequently.”

“But—”

“But I was not lying when I said that. You are perhaps the least foolish woman of my acquaintance, and I know that because I have a tendency to seek foolish women out.
I didn't find you. You found me, and I still don't know what accounts for the attraction.”

“I never said I was attracted to you.”

He gave her an arch look, one eyebrow lifted, his mouth similarly slanted. “I was talking about what attracts me to you.”

“Oh.”

“Mm-hmm. Oh. And there is another thing I think you should know.” She did not flush, he noticed, no pink blossoms in her cheeks this time. She went white. He was afraid it confirmed something he had begun to suspect about her proposal. “I am attracted to you, Willa, and if you have some idea that I would marry you under any conditions that do not include consummation, then there is no reason for us to continue this conversation.”

She smiled a shade weakly. “Yes, of course. Consummation.”

He did not take that as agreement. Israel believed she was only repeating the word, testing the taste of it on her tongue. He had the sense that she found it bitter. “You understand what I'm saying, don't you?”

Willa nodded. “I understand.”

“And?”

“I don't know. I wasn't thinking that it would have to be a real marriage. I mean it would be real in the sense that we would be married by law, but in—”

“But not in the eyes of God?”

“God? How can you speak of the eyes of God when you just finished telling me that you're a liar?”

“I'm not sure what one has to do with the other,” he said. “Do you think I don't know He's watching? Judging?”

“It seems to me that you brought up the Lord's name to make a point in your favor, not because you are a Godly man.”

“And you would be right, but I am the son of a minister so it comes fairly easily to me. For instance, ‘A man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.' That's from the book of Genesis, chapter two, verse twenty-four.”

Her lips parted but she had no words.

“I know,” he said. “It astonishes me sometimes. That was not a verse the good reverend insisted that I learn. As a very
young man, the idea of one flesh was intriguing.” He shrugged. “So I learned what I could about it.”

Willa made a strangled sound at the back of her throat.

“Are you all right?” Israel asked. She threw out an arm to stop him when he was moved to clap her on the back. He waited for her to catch her breath and relax before he said, “Here is another one. From Proverbs. ‘It is better to live in the corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife.'”

“Hmm. I don't know about a corner in
this
housetop, but there's always a bunk for you across the way.”