Never Love a Lawman (4 page)

In truth, she liked creating her gowns with the industry of her own hands. The delicacy of the stitching could not be duplicated by Singer’s machine, but it had its place, and when one of the men in town needed durable work clothes or a shirt in short order, the Singer was more blessing than curse.

By the time Rachel heard the rumblings of the kettle, the polished surface of the dark walnut dining table was no longer visible for the spread of satin, velvet, damask, linen, and lace. The corners of her mouth lifted as she examined the conflict of colors. The bright peacock-blue sateen did not work in concert with the muted, subtle shades of the sage damask and shell-pink batiste. Rather, the colors seemed to be engaged in an argument, not unlike the one that erupted from time to time between the town’s madam and Estella Longabach. Not that there was any real heat or malice between the pair. They seemed to scratch at each other simply because they could, and Rachel had noticed early on that every observer of their little skirmishes not only expected there would be an exchange of words, but found it entertaining, especially Mr. Longabach, who was frequently the subject of their tiffs.

Rachel poured the heated water into the pot and allowed the tea to steep while she took one of the wooden buckets resting near the back door and went outside to get water from the spring. Depending on how much piecework she had to do, she sometimes hired Mr. Showalter’s oldest daughter to help her with chores, but it was only recently that she’d lowered her guard enough to make this exception for visitors, and then only after Mr. Showalter had assured her most emphatically that his Molly was in no way a gossip like her mother. Thus far, it had proved to be true.

Rachel held the bucket away from her as she walked back to the house, careful not to let the water slosh over the sides and splatter her dress. It wasn’t that the black-and-white pin-striped poplin would have suffered any permanent damage, but rather that she was naturally fastidious—Molly would have said prissy—and that she was more comfortable when she didn’t have to apologize for hair that was out of place or a stain on her skirt. It was easier to stay clean than make excuses for her appearance.

After setting the bucket in the tub, Rachel attended to her tea. She drizzled honey into her cup and gave the tea a gentle stir, then leaned back against the table, wrapped both hands around the cup, and enjoyed her first sip.

It caught her unaware, this fresh wave of loneliness. It came upon her sometimes, but rarely so out of the blue. Perhaps it was because she’d wound the ornately sculpted gold-leaf clock, or run her finger across the scrollwork along the back of the bench, or perhaps it was that Johnny Winslow had made such a gallant offer to carry her packages, but whatever the trigger, she’d felt as if it had been pulled.

Gut-shot.

She’d heard people talk about it, understood it was a hard way to die. Slow. Painful. She thought she knew something about what it must feel like, though not from any buckshot or bullet. Loneliness could do that to a body, she thought. Longing, too. When the mood was on her, as it was now, she knew both, mostly in equal, intimate measure, and she bled a little. Always just a little.

She was assured of living a long life dying.

“Find your backbone, Rachel.” She saw the surface of her tea ripple in response, proof, she supposed, that there was breath left in her. “Else you’re liable to be mistaken for a”—she paused, considering her options for spineless creatures, and settled on—“a mealworm.” Sufficiently disgusted by that comparison, she drew herself up, finished her tea, then set herself to the task of replacing the gear in her sewing machine.

She was studying the fit of the parts that she’d removed, frowning in concentration over the gears spread out before her, when the front door rattled hard in its frame. The sound of it was loud and insistent enough to alarm her. She jerked her head upright and sat poised on the edge of her chair waiting to hear it again before she acted. The next time it came, she rose calmly, walked in the opposite direction, and lifted an empty bucket by the back door. Stepping out, she circled the rear of the house and came around the side.

Her visitor had a distinct height advantage over her even when he wasn’t standing on her porch. Just now he looked more than a little imposing, standing three-quarters turned toward her door and one-quarter in her direction. Not that he’d noticed her yet. He seemed every bit of him intent upon splitting her door from its hinges.

“You break it, Sheriff, you’ll have to pay for it. I like my red door.”

Wyatt Cooper pivoted on his boot heels and stared past the end of the porch at Rachel Bailey. At the angle she presented herself, she looked kind of smallish, trapped behind the vertical porch rails as if they were his jail’s iron bars. He managed to stop his fist from hitting the door again, thus saving the wood and his bare knuckles.

He nodded once. “Miss Bailey.”

“Sheriff Cooper.”

This exchange was what generally passed for conversation between them, so they were on familiar ground. The silence that followed stretched long enough to give rise to discomfort, but neither was inclined to give in. Rachel felt she had offered the gambit when she commented on her door. It was incumbent upon the sheriff to make the next move. For Wyatt’s part, he thought it fell to her to extend an invitation instead of standing there as though she hadn’t just sneaked around the house to avoid opening the door.

He couldn’t very well tell her that he knew that’s what she’d done. She’d realize before he finished accusing her that he must have looked in the window before he knocked—which he had—and that was certain to get her back up. She guarded her privacy closely, obsessively, and he mostly respected that, understood it better than he wished he did, and still he had to stand in opposition to it when it got in the way of what he had to do.

Wyatt reached inside his vest and removed a neatly creased piece of paper. “Artie Showalter hunted me down to hand this to me a little while ago. I thought you’d want to see it.”

Rachel didn’t move. “If it’s for me, I should have seen it first, don’t you think? Mr. Showalter knows where I live.”

“It came to my attention.”

“Then why—”

“Can we go inside, Miss Bailey? I think you’ll want to read this where you can be comfortable.”

Rachel lifted her bucket. “I was going to get water when I heard you pounding. I came back, but I still have to get water. You can go with me if you like and read it to me on the way.”

Wyatt allowed that it was the best he could do. They were far from ideal circumstances, but she couldn’t know that. He wasn’t certain how she would accept the news anyway. He’d imagined her fainting or being moved to hysterics, but seeing her now, holding that damn bucket so tightly he feared she meant to clobber him with it, he supposed he could have exaggerated her reaction. While he didn’t relish the idea of ducking the bucket and restraining her, it was preferable to applying smelling salts or sacrificing his freshly laundered handkerchief.

Not putting it past Rachel not to wait for him, Wyatt ignored the front steps and strode to the side of the porch instead. He’d anticipated that she would be surprised when he vaulted the rail and landed softly beside her, but he had not anticipated that she would be so afraid that she’d use the bucket against him right then and there. He was barely able to sidestep her swing before she rounded on him. The weight of the bucket spun her, and he moved quickly to catch her, throwing out his arms and stopping her just before she came full circle. He released her as soon as he halted her momentum. The bucket still swung like a pendulum at the end of her arm. They both stared at it.

“I think I’ll take that,” he said.

She nodded slowly and stiffly opened her clenched fingers, releasing the rope handle. The bucket dropped into his hands.

“Thank you,” he said, drawing it to his side. He lifted his chin in the direction of the spring. “Why don’t you show me where you get your water?”

Rachel realized he was just filling her appalled silence. He knew very well where she got her water. She simply averted her eyes and stepped slightly ahead of him to lead the way.

Apologizing should not be so difficult, she thought. She went over what she’d done and couldn’t find a single moment where she conceived the plan to injure him. There was no premeditation, only reaction. Should she apologize for that? Didn’t he bear some responsibility for provoking her?

“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Wyatt said.

“You didn’t scare me.”

“Oh,” he said. “I thought I might have.”

Rachel stopped in her tracks so sharply that Wyatt bumped her from behind with the bucket. She turned just enough to catch his eye and set her gaze stubbornly on him. “We both know I lied. And you lied by pretending to believe me. I don’t think you meant to frighten me, but you saw what happens when you do. That should serve as warning enough, and if it doesn’t, you’ll have to be quicker on your feet because the next time I
will
replace your head with my bucket.”

Wyatt considered that. After a moment, he said, “It’s my bucket now, but it still seems fair enough.”

“Good.” She gave him her back and continued along the flagstone path. It bothered her to have him a step behind her where his view would be the rigid brace of her shoulders and the steely set of her spine. There was no chance that she could relax with him so close. He wasn’t always physically imposing, but he held himself in a way that others took notice of him, even when he was slouched in a chair outside his office with his long legs stretched lazily against the porch post. People actually walked around him, sometimes stepping into ankle-deep mud on the street rather than disturb his contemplative posing, or—and this was far more likely in Rachel’s opinion—his nap.

She couldn’t believe that he was unaware of people cautiously trooping around him. She thought it was possible that he was secretly amused by it, and in truth, so was she—a little. It was her practice to take the opposite side of the street as soon as she saw him tilted back in his chair. There was no point in surreptitious skulking when she could give him a wide berth.

She couldn’t do that now without giving herself away. It was one thing for him to know his unexpected leap had alarmed her, another thing entirely to let him see how his continued presence disturbed her. She slowed her step and gave him the opportunity to fall in beside her. They were almost upon the spring, and she still didn’t know the precise reason for his visit. In fifteen months, he’d never called on her. It seemed extraordinary that he would ever choose to do so.

Rachel held out her hand, expecting to receive the bucket. Instead, Wyatt Cooper placed the folded paper in her hand.

“I’ll get the water,” he said.

Rachel watched him step onto the wooden platform that had been built to make the spring more accessible. He walked to the edge, bent, and placed the bucket under the wooden tap that had been carefully fitted into the hillside to direct the spring. It only took moments for the bucket to fill. Rachel had not yet begun to open the letter.

She was aware that he was waiting patiently, and somehow that made it more difficult, not easier. She kept her head down, made a delaying gesture of tucking a wind-whipped strand of hair behind her ear, then took a steadying breath and unfolded the paper.

Rachel recognized Mr. Showalter’s handwriting. She’d only ever received a few messages via the telegraph, but it was enough to be familiar with his careful block lettering. It was his job to translate the electric pulses that he heard as dots and dashes into words that could be understood by everyone.

CLINTON MADDOX DEAD STOP C & C CONTROL TO FOSTER STOP

Not many words. Only the first three mattered to Rachel. She carefully refolded the paper but didn’t surrender it. She couldn’t think what she should do or why it should matter. Her arms felt as heavy as they had earlier when they were filled with packages. She didn’t bend, although her legs felt as if they might. Weight didn’t settle on her shoulders; it tugged on her heart.

“How did you know to bring this to me?”

Wyatt had to strain to hear her above the rushing spring water. “I can explain better if we go inside, Miss Bailey. I imagine you’re going to have more questions once you hear the answer.”

Rachel glanced back at the house and then again at the note in her hand. She said nothing.

Wyatt observed Rachel’s indecision. She had never struck him before as someone who could not be moved to act. It was a fact that he didn’t know her well. No one did. But that was because she wanted it that way, and on the whole everyone respected her wishes. He included himself, restraining his curiosity to keep from asking too many questions or joining the speculative discussions that sometimes arose when she came gliding down the street. If anything, he was the one who discouraged others from making assumptions about her. Not that he had to say anything outright. His presence alone was sufficient to quell the beginnings of a rumor.

“You look as if you could use something to settle your nerves.” His remark had the desired effect. She was looking at him now.

“There’s nothing wrong with my nerves.”

Wyatt’s cool blue eyes dropped to where Rachel’s fingers were closing convulsively around the note. He said nothing, merely let the direction of his gaze speak for him.

Rachel’s fist opened and the note dropped to the platform. Before she could retrieve it, an eddy of wind lifted and spun it toward the icy stream. She made a grab for it, missed, then almost toppled into the stream on her second attempt. Her arms circled like sails on a windmill to keep from falling forward, but it was the handful of skirt that Wyatt grabbed that did the trick.

Wyatt pulled her back from the edge, set the bucket down, and waded into the stream to retrieve the telegram. The stream was running swiftly, but he was fortunate that the paper bobbled on the surface and got caught between two rocks shortly after it entered the water. He managed to get it out before the ink ran and the message was no longer legible.