Anything for You (15 page)

“But …” She silenced her own question. When Bert looked at her, obviously expecting her to continue, his brown eyes were friendly.

As soon as the door closed behind Bert, Adam shrugged off his coat and asked, “Is there some problem?”

“Other than the fact you're supposed to be on the stove watch, and you've been …”

His hands settled on her shoulders, and she closed her eyes. Betrayal swelled through her even as the unmistakable warmth rose in a sweet wave.

When he spoke, she leaned her head against his chest to hear his words resonating by her ear. “Is that why you're all jittery? Because you thought I'd abandoned the stove? I heard noises out there. I went to check. When I saw some footprints in the snow, I followed them.”

“To Farley's office?”

His hands slid along her arms to lift her hands to his lips. “I assume you saw me.”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him?”

She faced him. Her forehead furrowed with puzzlement. “What him?”

“The man I was following,” he said with impatience. “I thought I caught sight of him just as he was coming out of Farley's office.”

“I thought that was you!”

He laughed and limped to the stove to pour himself a cup of coffee. “How did you think I'd get into Farley's office?”

“That was what I planned to ask you.”

Taking a sip, he smiled as the frost melted in his mustache. “You'll have to ask that slippery cur. He got away from me. Of course, I didn't expect to catch him when I'm as useless as a three-legged dog.”

Although his eyes were carefully blank, Gypsy knew he was lying. Only one set of footprints led to Farley's office, and she was sure they were not accompanied by the mark from a crutch.

Putting her cup on the table, she whispered, “Good night, Adam. I trust you'll remain by the stove the rest of the night.”

“I'd planned on that from the beginning.”

Stop lying,
she begged silently.

His fingers curved along her cheek. As he tilted her lips beneath his, she whispered, “Good night.”

“It could be, if you stay here with me instead of hiding in your room. You haven't said two words to me since the last time I had the stove watch, honey.”

“Don't call me that.”

“Why not?” His mouth grazed hers and he whispered, “You taste as sweet as honey.”

“Adam, I …”

When her voice vanished into his kiss, he pressed her back against the table. A soft white cloud of flour billowed around her and a slow smile branded itself on his lips as his eyes swept along her with unfettered craving.

His husky tone seeped through her. “I want to be with you all night.”

“Adam, please don't say such things!” She tried to wiggle away, but his legs pinned hers against the table as he bent over her. With every breath, she touched his hard body.

Her hands reached to push him away. He grasped her wrists and held them over her head. At the same time, his mouth seized hers. He kissed her until the raw breath of passion exploded from her. His other hand wove a pattern of heat through the thin linen of her blouse. The firm muscles of his legs rubbed against her thighs.

Her resistance dissolved into the emptiness swelling within her. He could make her whole once more with a love that would fill her with ecstasy. As his fingers traced her breast, teasing her with light, butterfly shimmers of rapture, all thought drifted away.

“Say yes, honey,” he whispered between placing searing kisses along her neck. “Be mine now.”

His arm cradled her shoulders, pressing her ever closer to him. His other hand reached beneath her skirt, climbing her legs. He held her against the table as his fingers grew more bold, curving along the sensitive skin behind her knee.

She moaned and tugged his shirt from his trousers. Stroking the smooth skin of his back, she delighted in the ripple of the muscles beneath her fingers. Her breath strained against his mouth as she quivered.

He reached for the back of her shirt. Something pinged against her back.

“Ouch!” she cried. “What was that?”

He smiled. “Don't worry, honey. Just a button.”

“A button?” Gypsy shook her head and stared up at him. What was she doing? Was she mad? If she had any sense at all, she would take him off the stove watch for good. She had not known what temptation was until she discovered his touch.

Pushing him away, she sat up to stare down at his fingerprints in flour along her skirt. She brushed her skirt down over her legs, not wanting to see the marks from his touch along her skin.

He tilted her face up toward him. “Gypsy?”

“I can't.” She shoved his hand away and jumped down from the table. Heat scored her face as she imagined what would have happened if someone had come in and seen her and Adam on the kitchen table. She beat at her skirt with her hands, trying to knock the flour off the black wool. When Adam bent to help her, she pulled back. “Please stop.”

“I was just trying—”

“I know what you were trying to do.”

He put his hands on her shoulders. When she tried to shrug them off, he whispered against her ear, “And do you know how splendid it would be to toss aside caution and surrender to passion?”

She closed her eyes. “I know.”

“Do you?” He spun her to face him. “Do you?”

Gypsy backed away from the naked longing in his eyes. If she faltered, if she let him closer, if she forgot her pledge not to let anyone near her and her battered heart, she would be lost in that desire.

Moaning, she raced to her room. His heated gaze followed, tempting her to turn around and give herself to her craving. She closed the door and leaned against it. From the other side, she could hear his uneven steps as he settled himself on the bench.

She slid down to sit on the floor. Resting her head on her folded arms, she tried to catch her breath. How many more times could she tell Adam no? It must be every time, or she would put him in peril.

It's just a coincidence. You're seeing a pattern of murder where there isn't one.

How many people had told her that? How many of those people were now dead? She did not want to count.

Not hearing any other sounds from the kitchen, she guessed Adam's nocturnal wanderings were over … for tonight. She could go to him and have him hold her in his arms all night.

No. She must not think of that. She must think about what he was up to.

Her breath caught painfully. The threatening notes had begun to arrive just when Adam came to the camp.

No, she could not believe he had sent them. Not because he held her so sweetly, but because he had Daniel's recommendation.

Adam was involved in something that had nothing to do with the threatening letters. She hoped he found what he was looking for soon. Very soon, because she was unsure how long she could resist the craving to surrender to passion … no matter what the cost.

CHAPTER NINE

Gypsy grabbed her coat off the peg. With a quick glance to be sure the firebox door was secure, she hurried out into the windswept day. She trudged through the well-packed snow, keeping her head down and her hands clenched in her coat pockets. She stamped her feet on the narrow porch of the wanigan. A bell clanged as she opened the door.

The small building was as crowded as her larder. Boxes were stacked on every flat surface and along the shelves on the back wall. A cast-iron stove overheated the space, and she unbuttoned her coat as she walked to where the inkslinger was working. His thinning hair draped over his collar. He smiled, his eyes bloodshot from long hours of work.

“Howdy, Gypsy.” Chauncey leaned his elbows on the counter. “Didn't expect to see you in the middle of the day.”

“The flunkeys are delivering lunch to the jacks. Supper's started, but it can wait a minute or two while I get some thread to sew on a button.” She looked past him, as if interested in something on the cluttered shelves. She did not want him to guess how the button had come off.

Had she been crazy? To let Adam hold her that way was an invitation to heartbreak. She wanted him, but it could not be.

“What color?” asked Chauncey.

“I doubt if you have white,” she said with a weak grin.

“When's the last time you saw a jack in a white shirt?”

“What's the palest shade you have?”

Rummaging in a box, he shook his head. “Seems all of 'em are black, Gypsy.” With his finger, he pushed the wooden spools about. “Say, here's a pale one.”

“Pink?” She took the spool. “How in heaven's name did that get in here?”

“Fool clerk in Saginaw must have made a mistake.” He pulled a ledger sheet from under the counter. “Shall I put you down for it?”

Peering at the account sheet, which showed the number of days she had worked as well as what she had purchased at the wanigan, she asked quietly, “Can I see the ledgers for my flunkeys?”

He frowned. “Those ledgers aren't supposed to be passed around.”

“Chauncey, I'm not about to send a letter to a flunkey's family and tell them he's wasting his money on tobacco or playing cards.”

He hesitated, then nodded. Reaching beneath the counter, he pulled out a box. He searched and plucked out a handful of papers. “All here but Per's card. Maybe that's out back 'cause he was in the other day for some tobacco.”

“Don't worry about that one. Just let me see the others.”

He glanced at the door. “Make it quick, Gypsy. If Farley came in here, he'd have my hide.”

She pretended to look at each page, but she was interested only in one. As she had suspected, Adam's was different. She wanted to believe his sheet was not like the others because he had come so late in the season, but Bert Sayre's matched the rest, although she could not read his illegible signature. Yet this confirmed what she had already guessed. Adam was not a jack. So what was he doing here?

“Problem with Lassiter's ledger?”

Raising her gaze from the page, she asked, “No, should there be?”

He put the box of spools on the shelf. “You look displeased.”

“I have a white blouse to repair with pink thread, and I should be happy?” She congratulated herself for her frivolous tone. “Oh, you took my sheet. I need to sign for the thread.”

With a lighthearted wave, he urged, “Take it. Wasn't supposed to be in the box anyhow. Let the clerk in Saginaw explain it to
his
boss.”

“Thanks, Chauncey.”

“Any time. I like to do things for my friends.”

She wagged a finger at him. “Is this going to cost me?”

“If I can convince you to make more cherry pies, then it is.”

When she started to reply, the bell over the door rang. Her eyes widened as she saw who was entering. Only one other woman lived in the logging camp, but Rose Quinlan was seldom seen beyond Farley's house. She was dressed in a scarlet gown bedecked with silk flowers along its wide skirt. The crisp lace of her petticoats rustled as she swept up to the counter.

Gypsy fought her irritation. There was no reason to be vexed because Farley's private whore snubbed her. Rose Quinlan was a fool to think she was better than Gypsy Elliott. She was no better than Nissa's working girls.

Looking past the blonde in her crimson bonnet, Gypsy's eyes narrowed as she saw Chauncey regarding Rose with loathing. His hands fisted on the counter, and he had lost his bright smile.

She understood when Rose demanded, “I want the material Mr. Farley ordered for me.”

“As soon as I finish helping Gypsy.”

“Gypsy?” She gave a delicate shiver, making it clear she found being in the same room with the camp's cook distasteful. She drew off her leather gloves one finger at a time and glowered.

Wondering how Rose could not sense the inkslinger's fury, Gypsy took the spool of thread and pushed the ledgers toward Chauncey. At the beginning of the winter, she had felt sorry for the woman who fit into the camp as well as the loggers would have fit into a palace, but all her attempts at friendship had been repulsed.

Quietly, Gypsy said, “Chauncey, I've got to get back to work. Thank you.”

“Any time. I'm always glad to help my friends.”

Rose's back stiffened and Gypsy decided to leave before things got worse. She hurried back to the cookhouse and put the thread in her room.

Checking that everything was cooking as it should, Gypsy sighed as she sat and put her feet up on the wood-box. She was too tired too much lately. With her skirt dropping away to reveal her black cotton stockings and midcalf-high shoes, she leaned against the table and closed her eyes. Getting food out to the hillside was wearing out her and her crew. Farley had promised her only a week or two more before he moved the jacks closer. Then they could serve lunch at the cook shack.

Rubbing her forehead, which was damp with sweat, she tapped her toes to a song rumbling through her mind. She smiled when she realized it was the raucous melody the jacks had been singing about Paul Bunyan this morning. The tales of the gigantic lumberjack were becoming even more outrageous. She needed to have someone explain exactly how a blue ox named Babe fit into the silly story.

As she gazed at the logs, her chuckles became an indulgent smile. Perhaps it was not so silly. The men were lonesome for the wives and families they had left behind. Each of those “babes” was as precious as the huge ox was to Paul Bunyan.

She rose to get a cup of the strong coffee waiting on the stove's warming shelf. The aroma knit her memories together, binding before and now. The fragrance meant mornings, whether in the camp or far to the south.

Coughs abruptly overpowered her. Nearly retching, she leaned on the table. The coughing sapped her, but she had no time to be sick.

Taking a sip, she let the coffee drip along her ravaged throat. She sighed when it washed away the pain. In only a few weeks, the camp would close. If she could stay healthy, she would see a doctor in Lansing and endure his horrible powders.