The Devil You Know (28 page)

“Yes,” he said with the same gravity as before. “I can still see you.”

“Good.” She approached the tub, dragging the towel by her fingertips. “It pains me to remove this, but I really have no choice.” She dropped the towel on the floor and unwound the scarf, careful to keep the tails out of the water. She hung it over the folded screen. “Move over.”

Israel barely had time to comply before she was disturbing the water. In spite of the length and height of the tub, it was a tight fit, but they made the necessary compromises until she was mostly cradled between his legs and the back of her head lay against his shoulder. His arms rested on either side of her along the rim of the tub, while her hands rested on his bent knees.

“Thank the Lord for floating soap,” he said as the bar of Ivory bobbed on the rippled surface of the water. Laughter rumbled in his chest when Willa made a halfhearted grab for it and it jumped out from between her fingers, as slippery as a frightened hop toad. “I don't suppose anyone's figured out how to keep it in your hands.”

The soap drifted away, and she let it go. She set her palm over his knee again and gently massaged it. “Tell me why you had to leave. You said you would when you got back.”

Amused, he asked, “The presents didn't move you off the scent?”

“Not for a moment. Is that why you brought them?”

“No. I'm ashamed to admit they were all an afterthought.”

“Even the scarf?”

“Afraid so. Not that I didn't mean you to have it as soon as I saw it, but I didn't go looking for it. Maybe that makes a difference to you.”

She was quiet, thoughtful, and then she leaned her head a little to the side and looked up at him. “No. No difference. You saw it, thought of me, and decided to have it. You know, Israel, you are a better man than you credit.”

He started to deny it, but she cut him off when she stopped
massaging his knee and squeezed it as if her fingers were pincers. “Ow!”

Willa released her grip. “Accept that I believe it,” she said. “Even if you don't.”

Israel tried to remember if anyone had ever spoken up for him as she had. No one came to mind. He waited until she was no longer looking at him before he said, “I left so I could post a couple of letters.”

“Post letters? But Cutter or Zach or even Happy could have done—” She stopped. “Oh, I see. I don't suppose they could, not if you didn't want anyone to know where the letters were going. That's it, isn't it? You didn't want any of us of to know.”

Israel did not deny it. “One of the letters was to my parents. The other one was to Quill.”

“You told me your parents live in Herring. I could have written to them at any time, but I respected your wishes, and I—” She sighed deeply, shaking her head. “They don't live in Herring at all. That was a lie.”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe your lies?”

“Sometimes. It's easier if I do.”

“Do they even live in Illinois?”

“Yes.” She had stopped massaging his knee for the second time, but at least she wasn't pinching it. “I couldn't trust you then, and when my back is to the wall, I lie.”

“Forgive me, but it seems as if you don't trust me now.”

Israel said nothing.

“Israel?”

“What about you?” he asked quietly. “Do you think you will ever trust me with your secret?” Holding her as he was, all but surrounding her with his body, he felt the tremor that slipped under her skin.

“Why not secrets?” she asked. “It is not particularly flattering that you think I have only one.”

As a defense, it was good. Israel almost said as much because he admired her for not folding her hand right there. “You think a woman should be more mysterious?”

“Something like that.”

“All right,” he said.

“Why are you so agreeable? It's aggravating.”

“Yes,” he said dryly. “I can appreciate how agreeing with you would set your teeth on edge.” He tilted his head to look down at her. A muscle ticked in her jaw. “And they
are
on edge.” Before she snapped at him, he said, “You didn't allow me to finish. I was going to say, with no expectation that you will follow suit, that my parents live in Evanston. Quill lives on a spread near a little town called Temptation.”

When she showed no reaction, he guessed she had never heard of it and probably did not know it was in Colorado. The state was full of little towns unknown to one another. “He owns the place, has for a few years. Calls it Eden. I've never seen it, but I've been imagining that it must be a lot like Pancake Valley.”

“Not a lot like,” said Willa. “A little maybe. There is no other place a lot like Pancake Valley.”

“At the risk you of aggravating you, I'll agree.”

“Those letters, Israel. What did you write?”

“Did I tell them I was married? No. And I didn't tell them where I am. I wrote that I regretted not writing to them earlier, which you will know is a lie, and I explained that I was detained by unavoidable circumstances, which you will know touches on the truth. I told them I was well—true—and that no one in law enforcement was after me—also true, at least as far as I know—and that I would write again when I was certain my situation was settled.”

“And isn't it settled?”

Israel's hands moved from the rim of the tub to Willa's shoulders. His thumbs caressed her damp skin. “I think we need to dust the cobwebs off those secrets. If you don't send me packing, then it's settled. It will be up to you. I know I'm not leaving.”

“You can't know that.”

He gave her shoulders a gentle shake. “I
know
, Wilhelmina.” Then more quietly, “I know.”

She closed her eyes. “Tell me. If you think you're ready, tell me.”

“I love you.”

Willa simply ceased to breathe. Her heart stuttered once and then began to thump hard against her chest. She felt her face flame and heat rush to her fingertips and then to her toes. Her skin was suddenly so hot that the bathwater was like ice. She would have jerked around in his arms so that she could see his face, but the close confines of the tub and Israel's hands on her shoulders prevented her from hurting them both with wild thrashing.

In spite of Israel's heat, and her own, Willa shivered. She was grateful when he began to rub her upper arms.

“Of all things you might have said . . .” She did not finish the thought, and he did not press her.

Once her heart quieted, she felt his. It thudded dully, a heavy sound against her back, and she imagined she could hear the echo of it in her ears.

“Are you wondering if it's true?” he asked.

“No.” She closed her eyes. She felt his chin move back and forth against her hair. It was as intimate as his kiss. “I believe you.” It seemed to her that he went perfectly still, not frozen precisely, just still, and she understood then the depth of his uncertainty. She doubted that he thought of himself as particularly brave for uttering those words, but he had made himself vulnerable, and that was not the act of a coward. “It matters,” she said, “that you told me.”

Israel nodded but said nothing.

Willa covered one of his hands with hers. “I had no expectation that we would ever come to this pass.”

“That was fairly clear during the ceremony.”

“I hardly knew what I was saying then.”

“I understand.”

“You were in possession of yourself.”

“Perhaps it seemed that way.”

“Weren't you?”

“I was merely ready. I don't think you were.”

“I was the one who proposed.”

Israel placed his lips against her hair and kissed her lightly. “I haven't forgotten, but I don't think you prepared yourself for me to say yes. In the end, you were the one who was forced. I wasn't.”

“I don't know why you would say that.”

“Do you recall your father muttering something about the shotgun being for you?”

“Yes. And I pretended not to hear.”

“So did I, but I never believed he was speaking tongue-in-cheek.”

“More like foot-in-mouth.” She immediately regretted her attempt to make light of the moment because Israel responded with gravity.

“Yes. From your perspective, I'm sure it was.”

“You're talking about my secret again, aren't you?”

“I am.”

“My secret is not that I love you.” She felt his heart thud once and then thrum steadily. Her fingers tightened infinitesimally between his before she went on. “It couldn't be my secret unless you understand that it was one I was keeping from myself. I didn't know, Israel. I didn't. It's what I meant when I said I had no expectation that we would arrive at this pass. Can you appreciate that it's a revelation to me? To feel this way . . . to realize that someone feels this way about me . . . it's beyond overwhelming.” She released his hand and sat up to the degree she was able. She turned her head to look at him and met the arrested expression in his blue-gray eyes fearlessly.

“I've known love, Israel. I have loved and been loved in return by my grandparents, by my parents . . .” She drew in a small, silent breath and said, “And by my daughter.”

Nodding slowly, Israel laid his fingertips against her flushed cheek. “There it is,” he said gently.

She searched his face. “You knew.”

“I suspected.”

“And the other?” she asked. “That I love you? Did you know what I didn't?”

“No. Does that surprise you?”

“A little. Sometimes it seems as if you know my mind before I do.”

“Not about this, and probably not even as often as you think I do. I'm not a mind reader, but there are ways to read a face. I suppose you could say that I've made a study of it, and I've learned that you cannot give away what you don't know.”

Willa cupped one hand and swept water toward her. The bar of soap floated in her direction. She caught it and carefully handed it to Israel. “My back,” she said, leaning forward to present it to him. “Before the water cools. You can tell me about this study of yours. Why would you do it?”

“Then there's nothing you want to say about Annalea?”

“No.”

“Or about love?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

“Are you laughing?”

“No.”

Willa did not believe him, but he was already rolling the soap down her spine so she did not try to catch him out. “About the study,” she prompted.

“It wasn't a formal study, you understand, just something I did because it was useful in the course of meeting people, especially when it was necessary to maneuver and manipulate them.”

Willa lifted her head so sharply that her neck cracked. “You held an elected office! That's it, isn't it? You were part of a corrupt political scheme.”

Israel pushed her head back down so he could lather her nape. “Lord, you say it as if you've found the Holy Grail. No, I have never aspired to be on anyone's ballot. Right church, Willa, wrong pew.”

“Then what?” she asked plaintively. “Why would it be
necessary to influence people so they don't suspect they are being influenced?”

“For no other purpose than getting something I wanted, and mostly what I wanted was their money.”

She fell silent as his words penetrated. “Oh,” she said.

“Oh,” he repeated just as quietly. “Do you know what a confidence man is?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think I understand now.” She reminded herself that she had invited him to tell her, that she had wanted to know, but it now felt like a lie she had told herself and made him believe.

“Then to be clear, Willa, I will say it so you do not have to. I made my living—a relatively good living—gaining people's trust in order to relieve them of at least some of their worldly goods.” He stopped soaping her back and waited.

Willa set her hands on either side of the tub and lifted herself out of the water. Still without speaking, she stepped out of the tub and then chose a warm towel from the stack on the stove and wrapped it around her. Aware that Israel was watching her but unable to meet his eyes just yet, she dragged the rocker within a few feet of the tub and sat down. Folding her hands in her lap, she stared at them.

“Are you praying?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Perhaps you should.”

Willa's head came up. “And who should I be praying for? You? Me? All of my worldly goods?” She saw her words strike him as if she had used a whip, but his flinch was confined to his eyes. He accepted her rebuke as a stoic might or as a man who owned that it was deserved. “Was it all lies? Am I one of your marks? That's what a man like you calls a person like me, isn't it? A mark. What can I expect now that you own my heart? Have I risked Annalea by putting that truth in your hands?”

Israel did flinch then, all of him. The rapidly cooling water rippled. He dropped the soap and started to rise.

Willa put out a hand. “No. Stay where you are.” When he neither raised nor lowered himself, but remained where
he was as if caught, she added, “Please. It is a small advantage to be where I am and you to be where you are. I need that right now.”

Israel eased back into the water. “All right.”

Willa lowered her hand, and she set it on her lap without folding it into the other. “Start anywhere.”

“Then I will begin with Annalea,” he said. “If you cannot put the idea to rest that I would betray that confidence, that I would use her to hurt you, or hurt her to use you, there is no reason for me to go on. You will never be able to hear me out if you believe I could do that.”

“You have yourself to blame,” she countered. “From the beginning you warned me you were a liar. You told Annalea you were a villain. You made certain we knew you were not a good man.”

He fell silent but did not turn away.

Willa found the quiet as unbearable as staring into his eyes. “Say something!”

“What do you want from me, Willa? A defense? Words that will explain it all away? I have nothing like that to offer. No excuses. That is the promise I made to myself when Annalea found me. It doesn't mean that I haven't lied, only that I am not going to justify it.”

Willa rolled the rocker forward and sprang to her feet. It was still rocking when she retrieved a second towel from the stove and threw it at him. Without sparing a glance to see if he caught it, she stalked to the window and stared out, wrapping her arms around her in a hug that she hoped would be comforting but only made her feel alone. There was some part of her thoughts dedicated to wondering why she was dry-eyed when she wanted nothing so much as to dissolve into a puddle of her own tears.

Israel heaved himself out of the tub and wrapped the towel around his hips. Water droplets spattered the floor as he walked to the stove. He took another towel, rubbed his hair and chest dry, and then slung it around his neck. He did not approach Willa.

“I employed several different schemes,” he said, his voice pitched low. “I secured small loans and used them as
collateral to secure larger loans and used them to secure . . . you see where that is going. I gathered investors to purchase property that was not mine to sell. I oversold shares in projects doomed to fail so when the bubble burst, I did not have to return money to the speculators. My most successful play, in terms of money collected, was also the one that eventually put me behind bars. I was a Bible-thumping, gospel-quoting, brimstone-and-fire-raising preacher to seven different congregations in three different states, and I raised money every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening on the promise that each tent church would be replaced by a permanent house of worship on a foundation so solid that Simon Peter himself could not have found it wanting. When I judged that I had collected as much as a congregation could offer, and not a penny more, I fled. I reasoned that I was not greedy; after all, I performed a service for the worshipers by presiding at births, deaths, weddings, baptisms, and delivering sermons that kept them to the right of every wrong. Also, I arrived in their communities with my own tent and left it behind when I went.”

Wincing, Willa hugged herself tighter. Outside the window, the sky was still gray with no hint that the sun would show itself. That was fine with her; it matched her mood perfectly. Across the street, a mother with an infant in her arms and a toddler in tow stepped out of a dry goods store and started toward the apothecary. The child was giggling and the mother was smiling at her wriggling baby. It hurt Willa's heart to watch them. “What you've done, Israel. It's wicked. Shameful.”

“Yes,” he said. “And yes.”

“Is that the worst of it?”

“That is for you to decide. I also spent a great deal of time playing cards on Mississippi riverboats.”

“Are you a cheat?”

“No, not since I was bucking the tiger in my youth. I don't need to. I'm just that good.”

Willa heard no pride in his voice. He said it merely as a statement of fact. “Then stealing from your parishioners is worse.”

“Do you think that will be God's judgment?” he asked.

“I don't know, but it's mine.” She breathed in and out once. Slowly. “It seems as if a judge and jury somewhere agreed.”

“Well, they didn't know the totality of my crimes so it would have been difficult for them to compare. Different victims. Different jurisdictions. Some people never knew they had been gulled. Some people are too proud to report that they were.”

Willa hung her head. “I have no words. None.”

Even though she could not see him, he nodded. “Do you want me to go?”

Instead of answering, Willa stepped closer to the window, and dropped her palms to the sill. Hunching her shoulders, she pressed her forehead against the glass. Behind her, she heard Israel step away from the stove and pad softly to the bench seat. He began to dress and she did nothing to stop him. She stood exactly as she was until the door closed behind him.

The soft click of the lock sliding into place was the thing that moved her toward the bed. She pushed the parcels and packages aside with a sweep of her hand and then turned back the covers. She lay down, not in the space she had previously occupied, but in the space that had been his. She breathed in deeply, filling her nostrils with every nuance of his male scent, spicy with sweat and leather and sex, and then, overwhelmed by the ache in her chest, she began to weep.

In time, she slept.

*   *   *

Israel walked without purpose or direction, numb to the cold, numb to feeling. His aimless tour of Lansing would have brought him back to the hotel in less than thirty minutes if it hadn't been for January's Saloon and Saint Luke's Church.

The saloon was not crowded. Two or three men sat at just a third of the tables. One table was occupied by a single man, and another stood alone at the long bar. As a stranger, Israel expected to be watched, and he sensed eyes following him as he made his way to the bar and ordered a whiskey. Except for the barkeep, no one spoke to him, and he appreciated that. He did not desire conversation. The one he was
having with himself was equally unwelcome. It was his hope that the whiskey would put that voice to rest.

He finished the drink at the bar and ordered another, which he took to one of the empty tables. He removed his hat, dropped it on a chair beside him to discourage company in the event someone decided to make his acquaintance, and nursed the whiskey. Voices droned on around him; occasionally there was laughter. It barely penetrated his consciousness. That was why Israel gave a start when someone appeared at his elbow as though materialized by some magician's trick and spoke to him.