The Fire of Home (A Powell Springs Novel) (23 page)

But Bax carried a heat with him that made her wonder what it would be like to feel his hands and mouth on her bare skin. To erase the formality of landlady-boarder in the soft gray light of his bedroom, on crisp sheets that smelled of sun and fresh air, which she herself had laundered and laid. To find, if just for a while, comfort in the touch of another person. One who wouldn’t yell, or hit, or belittle. A person who knew what it was like to be rejected, lonely, a casualty of his own decisions. A man of honor.

Her crochet hook moved faster and the rows of picot trim on the pillowcase she was edging increased apace.

“What are you working on there?”

Torn between her daydream and concentrating on her project, she nearly jumped off the sofa at the sound of his voice.

“I thought you were asleep!”

He pushed himself upright. “I was. Now I’m awake. What is that?” He nodded at her crocheting.

She put down the pillowcase. The action of the hook was making her wrist ache. “Nothing special.”

“My mother used to do some kind of needlework. I was a boy—I didn’t pay much attention to what it was. It might have been knitting or some kind of sewing—probably knitting. She made our socks.”

“You’ve never tried to reach her in all these years?”

“Nope. I never went back to Cedar Mill after that first time. I wasn’t as brave as you are.”

“Brave! What makes you think I’m brave? I came to Powell Springs to hide.”

He stood up and sat on the sofa, leaving about a foot of space between them. “So did I. But you knew what might happen when you got here, and you came anyway.
I’d
thought my family would be glad to see me. Of course, you didn’t spend time in prison.”

“Hmh,” she huffed thoughtfully, smoothing the lace edging against her knee. “I did, but it was a different kind than you experienced. And
no one
was glad to see me.”

The clock ticked four or five times in the silence.

“I am.”

Her head came up and she caught his gaze. It was as if he could see past all of the hurts and lies and posturing sh
e’d
once done to find the terrified girl inside. With a fingertip, he reached out and stroked the back of her hand, leaving a trail of what felt like invisible sparks, a match striking emery on the side of a matchbox.

“I think it took a lot of courage to come back to a place where you knew you would be, uh—”

“Shunned?”

“Well, yeah. Most people wouldn’t do that.”

“I came back only because I inherited this house. But I’ve been here long enough to get a different view of what I did to my sister and . . .”

He pulled her hand into his and rubbed his thumb lightly over the space between her thumb and forefinger. She realized she was leaning toward him. Then he worked his way up to her forearm, running the backs of his fingers over the soft, tender part. Goose bumps erupted there and she looked away from the drowsy intensity she saw in his face. “You’re a beautiful woman, you know.”

No one had told her that in years. And she didn’t believe it was true anymore. “Pfft. I was once, maybe. A long time ago.”

“You still are.

“I went to see Daniel Parmenter,” she said, as if h
e’d
willed the admission from her. Her pulse thumped up and down the side of her throat.

“Really?” He brought her hand to his mouth and put a kiss in her palm. Sh
e’d
never felt anything like that before.

“Oh—um, yes. I told him I want to file for divorce.” She had trouble staying on the subject with him making her attention stray. “He—he’s begun the paperwork.” What would he say? Would he want to escape from her, and treat her the way people treated divorced women? Open season on damaged goods?

“It’s about time.”

She felt the tip of his tongue on her hand and it was as if an electric wire had branded her. She pulled her hand away and he searched her face, looking for what, she didn’t know. But he found it apparently, because he took her into his arms and kissed her, a slow, lazy invasion of her senses that touched off a fire in her.

How could she feel so close to this man, someone she never laid eyes on until a few months ago, when her own husband had been a stranger by comparison? Bax was not merely attractive and very male. She felt comfortable with him, a new experience for her. Cole was also attractive and very male, but his heart had never been in their courtship, and now she knew that had been because h
e’d
never stopped loving Jessica. And he had never been hers. Those two were meant to be together.

With steady pressure, Bax pushed her back against the cushions with her head resting on a needlepoint feather pillow, until he lay half on her and half on the sofa. His arms around her kept her from tumbling to the floor while he laid a line of kisses that began just behind her ear and on down her throat. She was certain he must feel her heartbeat throbbing there. The scent of him, leather and denim and his own chemistry, filled her head and drew her in as deftly as the feel of his warm mouth on her. Finally she looped her arms around him and arched her neck against his touch, thrilled by the fierce tenderness of his ministrations and the heated length of him pressed against her thigh. He wedged his knee between her legs and instinctively, she bore down against it.

In the back of Bax’s mind, the dual-voiced enemy of impetuous behavior—logic and reason—called to him with a warning that he must have lost his mind. Lying here, kissing Amy, and running his hand up her ribs to her breast and covering its soft curve with eager fingers, what the hell did he think he was doing? He was trying to make love with her, so logic and reason could just shut the hell up. He hadn’t lain with a woman in months and she was no ordinary female. She was soft and tenderhearted, and as thorny as she had been, h
e’d
wanted to do this the first week sh
e’d
gotten here. But a vulnerable woman with an uncertain future? He didn’t know all the legal ins and outs of divorce, but what if Jacobsen, or the law, fought her? And what if the good people of Powell Springs heard about his history and weren’t as accommodating as Whit Gannon? Then what? He didn’t feel like he could tell her about that yet. Not until he knew for sure.

He pulled back and gazed at her half-shuttered eyes and flushed cheeks, hairpins falling out, and felt her breath coming swiftly. “Amy.”

Her eyes flew open, and she looked at him. He propped himself up on one elbow. “This isn’t right. Not now. Not yet.” God, it was agonizing. Why was doing the right thing always so damned agonizing? With great regret and no little discomfort, he sat up and pulled her with him.

She exhaled like a suddenly deflated paper bag. “Why, because I’m married?”

“No. Well, partly, but not for a reason that simple. I don’t want to take advantage of you. You’re still lost and hurting. You don’t need me to make things worse. If we made love, it would change everything between us. Complicate things.”

She looked down at her lap. “I see.”

He put his index finger under her chin. “No, maybe not. I don’t know how the town will take it if word gets out about me. Where would that leave us?”

A flash of apprehension crossed her face, followed by resignation. “You’re right, of course.” She wriggled away from his arm around her shoulders.

His expression was wry. “If you’re mad at me now, think of how yo
u’d
feel if things don’t go right for us. Yo
u’d
hate me as much as you do Jacobsen.”

She whipped her gaze back to him. “I couldn’t hate
anyone
as much as I hate him.” Rising to her feet, she smoothed her dress and left the room.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Amy climbed the back steps to the kitchen, her flower basket filled with snapdragons and greenery, still sparkling with lingering raindrops, to arrange in a bouquet. It was nice to have a yard with flowers again. The colors were beautiful—pink, deep crimson, bright yellow—and the stems of laurel would be a pretty complement when she gathered them all in the china vase sh
e’d
found in the sideboard. It would look good on the table in the entry. Maybe Mrs. Monroe wouldn’t think they were so uncultured, after all.

Mae had sent the woman to her the day before. Tabitha Monroe wasn’t running away from something, as Amy had been, but toward something. She said her husband was missing and the authorities had been no help. So sh
e’d
decided to come to Powell Springs based on a flimsy rumor, desperate to find him. Sh
e’d
be along soon and had hired a boy to bring her luggage from the hotel.

Grabbing a paring knife from a kitchen drawer, she stood at the sink nipping off a leaf here, a wilted bloom there, when she heard footsteps on the same back steps she had just climbed. The instant she heard the rattle of the doorknob she remembered that she hadn’t thrown the lock. Now Bax would come in and give her a well-deserved reminder about keeping the doors secure.

“Well, Amy, I don’t suppose you expected to see me again.”

Still holding the knife, she turned her head to stare at the man in her kitchen, unable to believe her eyes. He carried a large suitcase, which he dropped with a thud. Her heart beat so hard she heard it throbbing in her ears, and for a moment she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe.

Her wind came back in fits and starts. Tucking the blade into her apron pocket, she demanded, “What—what do you want, Adam?” She forced false courage into her tone, although she knew it was a stupid question. His expression mirrored her thought, but his eyes shone with a strange feral gleam she had not seen before. He looked unkempt, with a three- or four-day beard and red-rimmed eyes. His clothes were rumpled, as if h
e’d
been living in a cold-water flophouse. Or a tent.

He crossed the floor like a lightning bolt and grabbed her wrist. It was the same one h
e’d
gripped and broken in the past, and she winced. “Did you really think you could just walk away from me, from our marriage, and that
I’d
let you go? It took a bit of doing, but I tracked you down. I’m surprised yo
u’d
have the nerve to come back here.”

She worked to maintain a brave face even though terror flooded her veins and her hands turned icy. “Let go of my arm. You have no right to barge in here. Do you realize the deputy sheriff lives here? He’ll be home any moment.”

He scowled. “He’s not here now, and you know damn well that as your husband, I have every right in the world. I can take you away, or I can move in here. I heard about that deputy, and the little romance you’ve got going with him. That ends now. He’ll answer to me and I’ll throw him out myself. Now you and I are going to talk.” He began pulling her toward the living room, the site of his fussy, determined courting so long ago.

She pulled back. The adrenaline rushing through her dulled the pain in her arm. She almost blurted out that she had begun divorce proceedings, but started didn’t mean finished. And she knew that information would only escalate the level of his anger. “We are not going to talk. There is no romance with anyone, and I have nothing to say to you. Besides, we’re not alone here. There is another boarder—”

His expression grew more threatening. “No there isn’t. Milo Breninger has done a good job of keeping an eye on you, even though it’s cost me a fortune. One of your lodgers moved out, and the other one is in a new grave at the cemetery. And now your husband is moving in.”

She gaped at him. How long had Breninger been spying on her? And how much more did Adam know?

“Adam, don’t you realize how unwelcome you are in this town?”

“No more unwelcome than you are, I’m sure. Let’s not forget your participation in that drama between Braddock and your sister.”

Frantic, she scrabbled for excuses. “You can’t move in here. There is no space.”

“Of course there is—in your room.” His smile was sly. “Besides, Laura Donaldson likes me. She always thought I could walk on water.”

She nearly bit off her tongue. He didn’t know as much as she thought. Obviously, he didn’t realize that she owned this house. Her thoughts raced. “Mrs. Donaldson isn’t here, either. But I’m expecting a new tenant this morning!”

“You used to be a much better liar, Amy. Now, we’re going to straighten out some things.” Still clamping her arm, he pulled her along, stopping once to backhand her, then started heading for the main stairs.

Amy’s ears rang, and for a moment lights flashed in her head. She tasted blood where her teeth had cut into her lip.

But she knew what he meant, straighten some things out.

He was finally going to kill her. He was going to take her upstairs and beat her to death, and no one would be here to stop him. All the things left unsaid and unsolved in her life, all the wrongs she had hoped to mend and make right, the tiny spark of hope that Bax gave her—it would all be lost when he punched her insensible, broke her bones, and kicked her after h
e’d
thrown her on the floor. If he used something like a lamp or a table leg again, this time there would be nothing left of her face or head. And she wept inside, in terror, and for the opportunities wasted because of her own selfish foolishness.

But she couldn’t let him drag her like a cow to the slaughterhouse, without trying to save herself. She pulled hard against his grip on her arm, the pain making sweat pop out on her forehead, but she couldn’t get free. Then she remembered the knife in her apron and closed her hand on the blade’s hilt in the pocket.

Just as she was about to raise the knife over her head and stab him in the arm the doorbell rang. She tucked the knife away again.

“Who’s that?” he whispered, glaring at the door.

“I told you, I’m waiting for a new lodger,” Amy replied, unable to hide the relief in her voice.

He shook his head and kept trying to pull her up the stairs. “Shut up!”

“I said
I’d
be here. If I don’t answer, it will seem like something is wrong!”

The bell rang again, followed by knocking.

Right now, Amy didn’t care who was on the other side of that door, as long it was someone who wouldn’t make things worse, like that Breninger devil.

Adam dithered for an instant. “Get rid of whoever it is.” That gave Amy a chance to wrench her arm free with a sickening crack, but she barely felt it. She ran to the door, her hair loose and flying around her shoulders. She swiped at the blood pouring down her chin, then turned the knob and opened it wide.

“Mrs. Jacobsen! My goodness, are you all right? I was afraid
I’d
confused our meeting time,” the woman said.

“No, no, please come in.” She stepped back and inclined her head toward Adam, hoping to indicate a problem.

“I’m so glad to be moving into such a charming—” Mrs. Monroe hesitated in the entryway, looking Amy up and down, at the drops of blood on the bodice of her dress. Then she glanced at the stairs and the color left her face.

“Harlan!” she shrieked.

“Who?” Amy asked, confounded.

“Tabitha—” He looked poleaxed, and stared at them both with his jaw hanging.

“What!” Amy blurted, and gazed at Adam.

“That is my husband!” Tabitha Monroe pointed an accusing finger at him.

“Husband!”

“What are you doing here, Harlan?” Mrs. Monroe demanded. “Is this where you’ve been all these months while I’ve been fending off lawyers and the police in Portland because of your scheming? With this—this woman?”

Amy recognized her implication and her blood heated up another twenty degrees. “Now, just a minute. I have been married to Adam for four miserable years!”

Mrs. Monroe swung on her. “Who is Adam?”

“He is!” She pointed at the guilty party. “Who is Harlan?”

Adam froze on the bottom step and stared at them, looking for all the world like a rabbit cornered by a pair of starving wolves. Without warning, he reached into his jacket, pulled out a small silver revolver, and pointed it at both of them.

“I’m leaving,” he said, wild-eyed but keeping his voice low, menacing. “You two are not going to make any more noise about this. May God help me for ever getting involved with either of you, you ungrateful, complaining bitches.” He came down the one step and circled them in a wide arc, keeping the gun trained on them. Moving toward the open front door, he kept his back to it so he could watch them while the women stared at him, paralyzed. He was so unstable, Amy knew he could shoot them both.

Suddenly, Bax Duncan’s frame filled the doorway and Adam backed up against him. Bax grabbed Adam’s gun arm and twisted it in its socket until he dropped the weapon.

It went off when it hit the floor and skidded across the hardwood. Mrs. Monroe screamed. Bax wrestled Adam to his knees and reached for the manacles hanging from his gun belt. Adam put up a furious struggle, swearing, spitting, and kicking—he snarled and even tried to bite Bax.

“Stop it!” Bax roared at him. He whacked Adam hard in the face with his heavy suede gloves and pulled Adam’s head up by the hair and bashed it once on the floor. Then he put a knee in his back and forced him facedown over the threshold to keep him still. Adam, a soft man accustomed to a soft life, was ultimately no match for someone of Bax’s size and lean-muscled build. “Amy, call Whit at the office, right away.”

She wobbled on jelly legs to the telephone in the hallway. “Birdeen, this is Amy. Get Sheriff Gannon over to my house right away.”

“Is it serious?” the operator asked.

“Yes, of course it’s serious! It’s a desperate emergency!” she snapped and hung up.

When she came back to the living room, Bax said, “Yo
u’d
better see to your guest, there.”

She turned to Tabitha Monroe and saw her lying on the floor. The sleeve of her lovely ivory suit was ripped at the upper arm and blood soaked the fabric. “Oh, dear heaven,” she said, horror-struck, and knelt beside her. “Mrs. Monroe—Tabitha! Can you hear me?”

Tabitha murmured something, and began crying weakly.

Remembering the knife in her apron pocket, Amy cut open the sleeve to determine the severity of her injury. Fortunately, it was just a nasty graze—no bullet was lodged there. She reached up to grab a needlepoint feather pillow from the sofa and pushed it under the woman’s head. “You’ll be all right, Tabitha. Your suit is ruined, and you’re going to have a scar, but my sister will take care of this. She’s a physician.”

Her own wrist gave a tremendous throb, and she looked at it. The joint was swelling at a rapid rate. She glanced at Adam, still on the floor under Bax’s knee. Four years of rage over beatings and abuse boiled over in her and she crawled on her own knees to look at him.

“You horrible, disgusting bastard!” she barked. “You married another woman at the same time you were married to me? I don’t know what kind of trouble you’re in besides bigamy, but I hope you’re thrown in jail and never see daylight in this life! And you broke my wrist again!”

She stood up and Adam grumbled, turning his face away from her. It took every bit of self-control she possessed to stop herself from kicking him in the head.

Bax could hardly believe what h
e’d
walked in on, but he was glad his timing had been right. He caught a glimpse of Amy’s lip and the blood running down her chin. He knew Jacobsen had hit her and anger as hot as a Bessemer furnace flared up in him. Images of his mother with a black eye, with a busted lip, her face covered with bruises crossed his mind. His hands closed around the pencil neck above his knee and he squeezed. “By God, you sniveling coward, I’ll kill you for this—”

Outside, the putt-putt of a Model T announced Whit’s arrival, and Bax looked over his shoulder to see the sheriff unfold his tall frame as he got out of the car. He took a deep breath and relaxed his grip. It was a good thing Whit’s timing was right, as well.

Whit climbed the porch steps. “What the hell happened here?”

“I’m not even sure. I walked up to the front door and this guy was backing out with a gun trained on Amy and that woman over there on the rug. He seems to be married to both of them.”

Whit pushed over the captive slightly with his foot so he could get a good look at him. “Well, I’ll be damned—Adam Jacobsen.”

“According to her,” Bax nodded at Tabitha, “he’s in trouble for some other things too. Police are looking for him somewhere.”

“In Portland,” Amy put in.

“Portland, huh?” Whit leaned closer to get a better look at Adam, and then straightened to study Tabitha, too. A flash of comprehension lit up his face. “I knew it! These are the two I saw on the street in Portland that day coming out of that shop. Remember?”

“Yeah,” Bax realized. “You thought you knew him.”

“And I do. I think I’ve gotten some information about this in the office. We’ve got our work cut out for us, trying to unravel this mess.”

Outside, a few neighbors had begun to gather, probably attracted by the gunshot, all the yelling, and the sheriff’s car. It made a bizarre scene, Adam straddling the threshold with his legs sticking out on the front porch.

“All right, on your feet, Jacobsen,” Whit said, and they hauled Adam upright. Most of the fight had gone out of him, but they had to drag him along when he went completely limp and uncooperative.

The spectators parted to let them through, and then closed around them again. Not much happened in this small town, but when something did, it was always a sensation.

“Amy,” Bax called. “I’ll be right back to pick up both of you and take you to the doc’s office.”

She nodded and waved him on with her good arm. “Go on. We’ll be waiting.”