Elizabeth Grayson (11 page)

“He’s never liked anyone looking after him,” Rue confided softly from somewhere behind her.

Whether Chase liked it or not, Ann meant to look after him. She made the single request she knew he couldn’t refuse. “Then, would you mind escorting me upstairs? I’m so tired I can barely stand.”

For an instant he scowled down at her, his brow furrowed and his lips compressed. Then, with markedly poor grace, he acceded and offered his arm.

HER REQUEST WAS A RUSE. CHASE KNEW PERFECTLY WELL Ann didn’t need
him
to escort her to the cabin. Cal would have done it gladly, or Goose or Rue. But she seemed to feel obliged to look after him, though he most definitely didn’t want her to. He especially didn’t want her doing it tonight when he had other things to discuss with her entirely.

“Honestly, Ann,” he insisted, standing over where she knelt on the bedroom floor, rummaging through her valises. “The burns aren’t bothering me.”

Ann kept rummaging.

Damn stubborn woman.
Damn stubborn,
magnificent
woman. She was the first person he’d seen when he carried the Fletcher girl out of the burning house. He’d spotted Annie—his delicate, well-born,
pregnant
wife— halfway down the bucket line, doing what she could to fight the fire. He’d known right then he could trust her to get that girl to her mother.

What he
hadn’t
known was that he could turn to her when he needed someone himself. He hadn’t known that she’d kneel with him right there in the grass, that she’d draw him to her when he craved shelter and solidity. He’d never dreamed she could soothe him with the touch of those soft, cool hands; whisper words of calm and comfort and sanity when the world was roaring in his ears.

Ann didn’t know what she’d given him tonight, and he couldn’t tell her. At least not now.

“Here it is!” Ann said, clambering to her feet as if she’d unearthed a treasure. What she seemed to have found was a jar of thick, brown goo. When she pried off the lid the stench of it blossomed through the room, punky and strong enough to make Chase’s eyes water.

“What
is
that stuff?” he demanded, resisting the urge to clamp his hand over his nose.

“Relief,” Ann promised.

She dipped two fingers into the noisome gel and started toward him. Knowing what Ann meant to do, Chase backed away.

“My burns are fine,” he assured her.

She kept on coming.

“I’ll be all right,” he tried again. “Thank you for your concern.”

Ann got close enough to dab a glob of the vile stuff onto the burn on the side of his chin. At first Chase didn’t feel anything but Ann’s fingers feathering over his skin. Then all at once, the stinging began to ease. Coolness took its place, and as she’d promised, relief.

“It works,” he said in amazement.

Ann nodded and dotted a glop on the hot, raw place at the corner of his mouth, on the burn on the tip of his nose, and the scrape along the slope of his cheek.

The cool tingling replaced the pain, and now that the ointment was working, he didn’t mind so much about the smell. “What is this stuff?” he asked again.

Ann kept dabbing. “A secret concoction the nurse who ran the infirmary at school used to make.”

“What’s in it?” Chase wanted to know.

Ann gave him the slightest of smiles. “I did mention it was a
secret
concoction, didn’t I?”

With the flutter of her fingertips, she stippled more of the balm onto the skin above his left eyebrow, glazed a burn on the rim of his ear, and started working down his neck.

Her touch was quick and matter-of-fact, yet he liked the contact. He liked being able to look down into her face, observe her close at hand. He liked being near enough that he could touch her if he wanted to.

And he most definitely wanted to.

But it wasn’t like it was out there in the yard. Every thought and need and fear in him had been laid bare, and Ann had opened herself to him, too. She’d held him and healed him in a way he’d never expected. She was still helping him, easing his pain, but her barriers were back in place. And considering what lay ahead, perhaps that was just as well.

Ann worked over him, seeing to the burns on his face and neck and hands. When she was done, she fastened the lid of the jar and handed it to him. “Rue can see to the spots on your shoulders and back,” she said. “Have him reapply the salve every two hours.”

Chase knew the instructions were a dismissal, but he had something to say to her. Something he was suddenly even more loath to discuss with her than he’d been before.

He drew a slow, uneven breath; his lungs felt lined with sandpaper. “Do you remember when you came aboard the
Andromeda,”
he began, struggling with a surge of guilt and ingratitude, “and I said you could stay until we met a packet headed downstream.”

Ann raised her head.

“Well, the
Iowa Princess
is going to St. Louis. Captain Brady has agreed to take you home.”

He saw shock and disillusionment dawn in her eyes.

“But we were there in the grass together,” she whispered, as if those moments had been as exceptional for her as they’d been for him. As if after what they’d been through, they should be able to trust each other implicitly.

“We’ve been over this before, Annie,” he went on, trying to reason with her. “You can’t stay on a boat that’s bound for Montana. It’s best that you go back.”

“It isn’t best.”

What he was doing was sane and prudent and responsible Chase told himself. So why should he feel such regret? How had she made him feel as if he were betraying her?

He pressed on anyway. “The
Iowa Princess
is casting off at seven o’clock tomorrow morning. I’ll come by a few minutes early so I can take you aboard and get you settled.”

Ann didn’t say a word. She just stared up at him for one long moment, then turned away.

chapter five

WHAT THE DEVIL WAS GOING ON?

Chase opened the door to Ann’s cabin—to his cabin—and stepped inside.

“Ann?” he called out.

He’d come by to escort her to the
Iowa Princess
for the trip downstream and expected to find her waiting with her valises packed. Captain Brady had promised them one of his better cabins if they boarded early.

Instead Chase found the sitting room was cold, dark— and completely empty.

“Annie?” he called a second time.

Nothing stirred.

He crossed the room and opened the pocket door that led into the sleeping area, but Ann wasn’t there. Ann’s things weren’t there, either, he suddenly realized. Not so much as one of her hairpins remained.

Chase slumped against the doorjamb and swiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. He’d spent most of the night bent over a chamberpot, ridding himself of the ash and smoke he’d swallowed during the fire. In spite of Ann’s mysterious salve, when he was finally able to sleep, the burns on his back and shoulders had stung like swarming bees.

And now this.

He drew a breath and straightened slowly. Since the cabin was cleared out, he figured Ann wasn’t just down at breakfast. So where had she gone?

Not far, he thought. Though she’d all but forced her way onto the
Andromeda,
he didn’t think Ann was by nature an adventurous woman. She might well be hidden somewhere aboard, waiting for the
Iowa Princess
to get underway.

She could have gone up into town. But even if she had money for passage, Glasgow wasn’t on a rail or stage line. It wasn’t big enough to have a livery stable where she could let a horse. With so few options, she couldn’t have gotten far.

Now, if she had taken it into her head to leave the boat in Kansas City... Chase shuddered at the possibilities.

Moving with far more energy than he could afford to expend, he left the cabin and dispatched several of their most reliable roustabouts to look for Ann in town. After last night, people knew who Ann was. If she’d gone into Glasgow, someone would have noticed, and he’d have her back inside of an hour.

Chase would search the
Andromeda
himself—and he had a very good idea where to start.

Not two minutes later he burst into Bertin’s kitchen. “All right,” he demanded, “where is she?”

Frenchy and his two breakfast helpers looked up from where they were toasting bread, frying doughnuts, and removing currant-studded coffee cakes from the oven. The scent of cinnamon was thick enough to lick right out of the air.

“Who?” Frenchy asked, his half-moon eyebrows lifting.

“Ann,” Chase answered in an accusing tone. “She was supposed to be packed and ready to leave on the
Iowa
Princess
first thing this morning.”

“So you can send her back to St. Louis, eh?”

“Did Ann tell you that?”

“She didn’t have to.”

Chase supposed not. It was nearly impossible to have a conversation anywhere on board without someone overhearing, and he’d spoken to Captain Brady right out on deck about taking Ann home yesterday afternoon.

“So can you tell me where she is?” Chase persisted.

Frenchy shrugged. “Perhaps Ann doesn’t want to go back.”

“I don’t care what she wants—”

“Ah!
Your first mistake,” the chef diagnosed sagely.

Chase compressed his lips, hanging on to the tail of his temper with both hands. “She’ll be better off back in St. Louis with her father.”

Frenchy drizzled icing over a tray of coffee cakes.

“Any pregnant woman would be better off at home than on her way to the Montana Territory,” Chase insisted.

The cook set the bowl of icing aside with an emphatic
thump.
“I know nothing about her disappearance.”

Chase could feel the color come up in his face. Frenchy’s genius in the kitchen had always managed to counterbalance his insubordination—until today. “You’re the one she’d come to for help,” Chase insisted. “Tell me where she’s hiding.”

Frenchy wiped his hands on a towel stained brown from being washed too often in the river. “I do not know.”

The man had a reputation as a gambler and a liar and a cad, but for some reason Chase believed him.

“All right,” he conceded and stomped into the salon. Much to the steward’s displeasure, he dragooned two waiters to help him search the boat.

Chase himself started in the pilothouse and found Rue poring over river charts, noting the changes in the channel Captain Brady had warned them about. “Do you have any idea where Ann is?” Chase asked his brother.

Rue paused with pencil poised. “Have you misplaced her?”

Chase scowled at him. “I was to take Ann over to the
Iowa Princess
first thing this morning, but she’s gone off somewhere.”

Rue stroked the fuzzy ribbon of his mustache. “You suppose she went over to the
Iowa Princess
by herself?”

Chase doubted Ann would go anywhere near the
Iowa
Princess.
Still, it made sense to check before they turned the
Andromeda
upside down looking for her. And maybe if he was lucky, he could buy a little time.

Ann wasn’t aboard the
Iowa Princess.

“We haven’t seen hide nor hair of her,” Captain Brady told him from the head of the gangway where he was greeting his embarking passengers. “I thought you meant to bring her over early so she could have her pick of staterooms.”

Chase refused to admit the woman he’d married just a week before had run off somewhere. It was the kind of story that got passed from captain to captain along with channel reports—and he sure as hell didn’t want the commodore catching wind of it.

“I must have missed her at breakfast,” Chase said and headed back across the landing stage.

“Well, check quick, lad,” Brady told him, tapping his pocket watch. “I’m pulling out at seven o’clock. I’ve got a schedule to keep, you know.”

Chase knew; he’d be keeping a packet schedule himself once they got back from Fort Benton. Since Brady was leaving at seven, that gave Chase ten minutes to find his wife and hustle her aboard the
Iowa Princess.

The rousters who’d gone looking for Ann in town were waiting at the top of the gangway when he got back.

“Ain’t nobody seen her,” one of them reported. “We looked good, too, Captain. We even checked with the lady that got burnt last night. We thought maybe Mrs. Hardesty went to check on her.”

“You did well to think of that.” It hadn’t once crossed Chase’s mind. “How is Mrs. Fletcher?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess,” the rouster answered. “She said to thank you again for what you did.”

Chase acknowledged the thanks with a nod. “But she hadn’t seen my wife?”

“No, sir.”

The waiters hadn’t had any better luck with their search of the boat. “We opened all the equipment lockers and checked every single one of the upper berths....”

And found nothing.

Chase searched the boat again himself. He opened pantries and broom closets, checked beneath the tarp that tied down the yawl. He ended up standing at the head of the
Andromeda
’s gangway a few minutes later.

Captain Brady hailed him from the deck of the
Iowa
Princess.
“Will Mrs. Hardesty be traveling with us to St. Louis?”

Chase lied outright. “Ann’s decided to stay aboard as far as Kansas City, but thanks for your offer to see her home.”

“Give her my compliments. Your wife’s a lovely woman.” Brady waved, then signaled for the pilot to sound the whistle for backing down.

Chase stood and watched the
Iowa Princess
pull out. Things would have been so simple if Ann had just agreed ...

He ran his hands through his hair and stared up into Glasgow to where the shopkeepers swept their steps and the blacksmith shoed his horses and the children ran laughing on their way to school. He turned his gaze to the charred black hole where a house had stood. To where he’d searched for that baby in a maze of fire and smoke. To where he’d finally battered his way to safety because he’d known that child would die if he gave up.

To where Ann had knelt with him and held him in the steaming grass. To where she’d reached into the heart of his turmoil and helped him find himself again.

He hadn’t expected her to be so strong when he needed her. He hadn’t thought she’d be willing to risk so much of herself for him. He hadn’t imagined she’d join up with the bucket brigade, or take such good care of little Martha. Or charm every single one of his officers at dinner.

Ann hadn’t looked down her nose at his men the way most society ladies did. She didn’t act as if Goose and Cal were some inferior breed: coarse, unlettered fellows with dirt beneath their fingernails. Ann had treated his men
like men—
worthy of her interest, her kindness, and her concern.

His wife hadn’t turned out to be who he thought she was—which made it that much more important for him to find her, look after her, and keep her safe.

He watched the
Iowa Princess
disappear downstream toward Arrow Rock and wished with everything in him that Ann was aboard. He supposed she might have left the
Andromeda
during the night, and if she had, she could be headed off in almost any direction. She could have begged a ride on some farmer’s wagon, found someone willing to sell her a horse. She might have set off on foot, or hidden somewhere in town to wait for another steamer.

Or maybe she had plans to rendezvous with her baby’s father.

The notion blew through Chase, chilling him to the marrow.
He had to find her.

Chase straightened and let out his breath. He’d detail men in all directions. He’d send someone to the nearest telegraph office and have Ann’s description wired to towns nearby. He’d flag down the next boat headed upstream and send a man ahead to Kansas City. He didn’t think Ann would go back toward St. Louis, but just in case ...

The
ping
of expanding iron and the
hiss
of steam drew Chase’s attention. Cal Watkins was back in the engine room awaiting orders. But until Chase found some trace of Ann, he didn’t dare leave Glasgow.

He’d just shouted to Watkins to blow off steam and let the fires die when Goose Steinwehr sought him out.

“Are we staying on?” he wanted to know.

Chase nodded grimly, realizing that if they stayed, he’d have to explain to his passengers and pay the shippers’ penalties for the delay.

“Are we staying in Glasgow,” Steinwehr persisted, “because Mrs. Hardesty is missing?”

As captain of the
Andromeda
Chase didn’t owe an explanation to anyone, but there was a concern in Steinwehr’s square face that gave him pause.

“You don’t know where she is, do you?”

The big man lowered his gaze. “I might have seen her.”

Chase’s heart chugged a little harder. “When? When did you see her? Where did she go?”

Steinwehr wiped the sweat from his face, then carefully folded his faded blue handkerchief. “She might have come down the stairs with her bags last night. She might have stopped at the top of the gangway. She might have been crying.”

“Tell me,” Chase insisted.

“I asked her where she was going.”

Chase grabbed Steinwehr’s sleeve and shook it the way a terrier might try to shake a mastiff. “What did she say?”

“It was very late. She hadn’t expected anyone to see her. I frightened her, I think, because she was trembling. ‘I won’t go back!’ she said. ‘I won’t let him put me on that steamer!’ ”

“And what did you say?”

Steinwehr dipped his head. “I gave her another choice.” Chase’s mouth went dry. “Where is she?”

Steinwehr took a ring of keys from one sagging pocket. He bent slowly and unlocked the padlock on the grilled hatch that led down into the hold. Down into the dark, closely packed underbelly of the steamer.

SHE WAS THERE.

Relief tumbled through Chase like pebbles down a well. He let out his breath in a rush and hung tight to the ladder down into the hold until his knees stopped shaking.

He could hardly believe Ann had spent the night here, here in the shallow slope-sided space that lay between the floorboards of
Andromeda
’s main deck and the steamer’s keel. It was close down here, uncomfortably warm, and pungent with the accumulated smells of hemp and resin.

The moment Goose closed the hatch behind her last night, Ann would have been swallowed by pure, undiluted blackness. Yet there she was this morning, curled on a big wooden crate, sleeping peacefully as a child.

A particularly headstrong and infuriating child.

By the faint gray light that filtered through the open hatch, Chase could see that Ann lay with her knees drawn up and had one arm draped protectively around her belly. She seemed impossibly young lying there, a child carrying a child of her own. A woman not in the least prepared for what the birth of that baby was going to demand of her. Yet for all of that, Ann had proved herself to be a warm and capable woman last night—first with his men, then with Martha, and finally with him.