In the Marshal's Arms (9 page)

BOOK: In the Marshal's Arms
12.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

The questions stopped abruptly when she saw the scene below her. “What happened to my house?”

The front was the same, except now it was white-washed, as were the barn and chicken coop. But the house itself had—grown.

“Some of my friends came to help me,” he said, urging the horses down the hill faster than was probably wise. “We tore out the back wall and added a bedroom and an indoor privy.”

She turned on the seat to face him. “No.”

A grin creased his face. “Yes. We placed Spanish tile on the floor and a drain, and I was able to find one of those toilets in Lubbock.” He pulled the horse up in front of the cabin and hurried around to help her down.

She could feel the eagerness running through his body as he drew her toward the door. When he swung it open, she was surprised by the emptiness of the room without her bed in the center, and the curtained-off chamber pot and basin were missing. New wood created the far wall, and a door was set into it. Rhys took her good hand and tugged her toward the new room.

He opened the door and she could barely catch her breath. A new dresser sat beside her bed, and a wood stove was on the other side, its pipe vented through a hole in the ceiling. Something was wrapped around the pipe, and when she looked closer, she saw it was a narrow copper pipe.

“It’s to heat the water for the tub,” he said. “You don’t have to carry it from the kitchen anymore.” Then he drew back a curtain to reveal a privy three times the size of the one in the hotel.

A copper tub sat beside the wood stove, and the pipe from the stove led directly to it, as did another pipe from the ceiling. He leaned over to indicate the taps. “This for hot water,” he showed her, twisting the knob. “This for cold.”

“The hotel had one of these,” she murmured, stroking the new appliance in wonder before turning to the next. A toilet sat on the adjoining wall, a tank overhead.

Rhys crossed to it and pulled the cord attached to the tank, and together they watched the water disappear from the bowl.

“Where does it go?” she asked.

“I dug a trench downhill, and it will collect in an underground tank that will need to be limed on occasion, especially during the summer. And this—” He gestured to the corner of the room, lined with Spanish tiles, except for a grated hole in the middle. A modified bucket sat high on a shelf.

“An indoor shower,” she breathed.

“You’ll have to get the warm water from the tub, but it will be less work than heating it in the sink. And it will drain into a cistern in the yard, so we can reuse the water for your garden.”

“How did you—where did you get all this?” she asked, turning in a circle, trying to take it all in.

“I got a fee for bringing in Colby.”

And he spent it on her house, not knowing if she would forgive him.

“I haven’t had a home since Daisy died,” he went on when she didn’t say anything. “This place is the first place I wanted to come back to. You were the first woman since her that I wanted to make a home with. So I made you a home.”

“That was a big gamble.”

“It was a chance I was willing to take.” He took another then, and stepped closer, brushing his knuckle down her cheek. “Tell me it paid off. Tell me I can stay. There will be no more secrets, no more lies.”

Her heart swelled as she looked into his sincere brown eyes. “You can stay, on two conditions.”

He caught his breath, waiting.

“You help me get into that tub. And you tell me you love me again.”

He scooped her hair back from her face. “I love you, Maddy Colby. That’s no lie.”

And he kissed her, long and sweet. The tub had to wait.

Table of Contents

Title page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

BOOK: In the Marshal's Arms
12.09Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

A Soldier in Love by A. Petrov
Lucretia and the Kroons by Victor Lavalle
Rest For The Wicked by Cate Dean
El Gavilan by Craig McDonald
Phantom Scars by Rose von Barnsley