Jodi Thomas (24 page)

She finished painting him with ointment and cleaning mud off several spots. He knew they should talk, but it felt so good sitting in his warm house with her near that he didn’t break the silence. He liked the feel of her hands sliding along his back as if it were nothing unusual for her to be touching him. He liked the slight sound her skirt made as she moved, and as always, he liked the way she smelled.

He was so tired he didn’t want to talk or even think. He only wanted to be near her.

Finally she faced him, and he knew it was time for the world to slip in.

“Piper’s all right.” Bailee laid her hand atop his. “A bullet brushed her arm and shoulder, but the wound wasn’t deep. She’s sleeping in my bed with Lacy, who insisted on coming home with us to protect us, though she admitted she’s never fired a gun.”

He waited, knowing there was more. He turned his hand over and closed his fingers around hers. He never thought much of holding hands with a woman, unless maybe if a man was afraid she might wander off, so it surprised him how good it felt just to be connected to her now.

“Lacy helped me find Samuel, who came home with me in case there was more trouble. Samuel was planning to stop by in a day or two anyway. Lacy is just afraid she’ll miss an adventure.”

Carter knew it was time for Samuel’s visit. The man was like a bird, flying south in fall and north in the spring. It was good to know he was in the bunkhouse. If company called, he might be helpful watching from across the yard. He was not a man to get involved in others’ problems, but he’d cover Carter if need be.

Bailee took a deep breath and hurried on. “And I brought home a family who helped Piper and me while we were on the train. They didn’t have anywhere else to stay, so I told them they could use your barn for a few days. We need to feed them. You should see how thin they are.”

Frowning, Carter fought down the panic that threatened to climb up his spine. He didn’t mind Samuel. The man was the only person who’d ever stayed at his place since his parents had been killed. And Piper needed to be here where they could watch over her until her family could pick her up. And he could almost understand Lacy coming along. She might not know it, but she was in as much danger as his wife, so they should try to help her. After all, Bailee had said more than once that the girl was like a sister to her.

But a whole family ...

“How many?” he asked, thinking he’d have another four or five mouths to feed.

“Nine,” she whispered, as if trying to make the number smaller, “if you don’t count the children.”

“And if I do count the children?”

“Seventeen.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he didn’t release his hold.

Carter said nothing.

He never dreamed getting one wife would open his place up so. His front gate was becoming as wide as the Grand Canyon. If she’d known about the rooms below, would she have put people in them as well? She wasn’t even apologizing for what she’d done, but simply explaining it as if it were nothing.

“I’ll stack the rugs by the fire so we can sleep there tonight. If we wear our clothes, we should be warm enough. I’m afraid I gave all the blankets away.”

Carter wanted to go downstairs and crawl into his own bed, but he hesitated. He should show Bailee the rooms below. They might protect her. But at the rate she was going, if she knew about them, she’d have them rented out by morning.

“Carter?”

He met her stare.

“Are you angry?” She squared her shoulders and fire danced in her eyes. “Because whether you are or not doesn’t change a thing. These people had to have a place to stay. They saved our lives. I did what had to be done.”

What could he say? If he argued she’d probably threaten to club him again. She was a fighter, this wife of his, and she was willing to do what had to be done to fight for these people.

He stood and lifted a clean shirt from the stack she’d washed. He could still smell the freshness of clean cotton. He took a few deep breaths before turning around to face her once more.

“I’m not angry,” he said as he buttoned the shirt. “You did what you thought you had to do.” Now was not the time to bring up what had been gnawing at him all day, but there might never be another time.

He had to get it said before the words died forever inside him. “But when you sleep beside me”—he couldn’t look at her as he said what he’d rehearsed—“do so because you want to or not at all. I don’t want you thinking it’s part of your duty, even when the month is out. I don’t want you near me if you see it as just something you have to do.”

He wanted to add that he didn’t want her letting him touch her unless she wanted him to, but he figured by the surprise on her face he’d said enough and maybe he should leave any questions about touching for another time.

Bailee couldn’t have looked more shocked than if he had slapped her. She’d been firing up for an argument about the people she’d invited, and he’d changed the game entirely.

“Good night,” he said as he stepped around her and moved to the fire. He lifted his coat off the peg to use as cover. It didn’t look like much of a bed, but he was so tired he could have slept on a box of half-penny nails.

He curled up using his arm as his pillow and turned his back to the fire. He heard her moving around in the kitchen and guessed she was banking the fire in the stove and cleaning his cup and bowl. He thought he heard her open her bag. Her clothes inside must be soaked, for the bag had been in the rain for two days. He didn’t even want to make a guess as to what she might be thinking.

They were both tired, but at least he’d said what had been bothering him all day. When he’d married her, he expected to do his duty and to have her do hers, but now that he knew more about the act, he knew it was not something to be done without feeling toward the partner.

He was almost asleep when she stepped over him and curled up on the same rug between him and the fire. She wiggled until she rested against his back.

He didn’t move.

She didn’t say a word.

There would be no pillow wall between them tonight.

S
OMETIME IN THE NIGHT CARTER ROLLED OVER, AND Bailee cuddled into his arms. He used his coat to cover them both as he let the dream of her and the reality melt together. Moving his face against her hair, he drifted deep into sleep with the fragrance of her dissolving into his lungs as though returning home to a place he’d never known, but always dreamed about.

Hours later, when the fire had almost died and he knew dawn was close, he lay very still, absorbing the nearness of her. He didn’t need the light to tell him his mate lay at his side. There had been no doubt since the rainy night she’d looked at him through the crowd just before she drew his name. The problem wasn’t that she was his; the problem lay in what he was to do with her. For the moment he wanted to kiss her, but was afraid of frightening her again.

Telling himself he’d be satisfied just to be near, he kept his eyes closed and savored the feel of her resting against him, their bodies warming each other.

His words might not have seemed much in the way of a speech last night, but at least he now knew that she was at his side because she wanted to be. He’d given her a way out. There would have been no explaining if she’d chosen to sleep in the chair.

But she hadn’t. She’d slept next to him.

When she stirred, he didn’t move. She shifted an inch away from him and raised her head. Her hair brushed across his face.

“Carter?” She rolled closer placing her hand atop his heart.

He didn’t breath.

“Carter?” Her hand trailed lightly up to his throat.

He was sure she felt his pulse pounding. He rolled his head toward her and opened his eyes.

“The people can stay?” Her words tickled across his face.

This time she was asking, no demanding, but he had a strong feeling she still hadn’t changed her mind. He wanted to pull her closer, but he worried that she’d think he was bargaining. Whether the family in the barn stayed or left couldn’t be connected with her sleeping beside him.

He finally nodded and rolled away, knowing that if he stayed next to her a moment longer he would have tasted her lips.

Dawn flickered through the slits of windows along the east wall. He liked the way she looked in the morning with her hair all a mess and dreams still in her eyes. The silhouette of her body was perfection as she stretched in the early light. Her movements were more poetry than any words he’d ever read.

Silently he walked to where he’d left his boots and finished dressing. There was much to do if he planned to make sure the place was safe and feed a few dozen more people today. He told himself twice that there was no time for foolish thoughts.

By full light he’d walked a circle around his home, making sure all the fences were up, and milked the cow. When he passed the barn, he saw the people Bailee seemed to have adopted as her own kin. She was right, they were thin and frightened. The men held their hats in their hands as he walked by. The women drew their children close.

Carter managed a nod. The thought that he frightened them bothered him more than he wanted to admit. He wasn’t far from the time when every stranger made him want to run and hide.

He walked to the orchard and retrieved the horse he’d borrowed. When he returned, Samuel and a few of the men were setting up a long table and dragging every chair and stool from the house and bunkhouse that looked like it might hold the weight of a person.

Carter nodded once more at them, but he still couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He wasn’t sure how to start a conversation.

When he reached the porch, Lacy stormed out the front door with a tablecloth over one arm. She hadn’t grown in the few days since he’d seen her, she was still part child, part woman.

“Carter!” she yelled as though seeing him on his own property came as a great surprise to her. Her childlike face lit up with joy.

Before he could react, she ran to him and hugged him as if he were kin.

“We were so worried about you, Carter. Bailee went on and on about how you risked your life so that they could run for the train.” She kept hugging him as if he were a favorite toy she’d lost. “I told her you were all right. I told her you’d come back. Oh, Carter, I’m so glad you did. I had a feeling you were fine, ’cause I’d have sensed it if you were dead, you being like family and all.”

He patted her shoulder, hoping she’d let go of him while there was still daylight left.

When Lacy finally moved away, Piper appeared from the folds of her skirts. The child stared up at Carter for a moment as though trying to remember, then ran toward him, stepping off the porch into his hug.

Piper didn’t need to say a word. Carter could see it in her eyes, the questions, the fear, the longing to know what was going on. She’d been trapped, alone and silent among kind people, since she’d left him.

He folded to the porch step, sat her on his knee, and talked with her, using his hands.

As she answered, he smiled, realizing he couldn’t think of anything to say to Lacy in words, but he had no trouble talking to Piper. He told the child that the sheriffs were being well taken care of and they’d be riding up to see her soon. She asked about the bruise across his jawline, and Carter didn’t lie in his answer. Suddenly her hands flew, telling him all about her shoulder and how it hurt. She signed faster than he could keep up and he had to beg her to slow down.

The strange people gathered closer, watching, whispering.

The old uneasiness inside of Carter returned. He remembered how he’d hated people watching his mother talk to him. How he’d sometimes covered her hands, wanting her to stop. Suddenly he realized it hadn’t been her shame, but his that had made her sign words within his hands. He’d been too little to understand that he’d gagged her when he’d worried about what others thought. She’d never corrected him, but it must have hurt her that her only son was ashamed of her.

Carter looked up at the people, prepared to fight not only for today and Piper, but for twenty years ago and a mother who’d been too kind to discipline a child for being embarrassed when he should have been proud.

But he saw no ridicule in these strange people’s dark eyes. Only interest.

A boy of about twelve stepped forward. “Mister, sir, will you teach me to say the words with my hands? I want to tell the little girl not to be afraid. I want to tell her I can be her friend if she needs one.”

Carter waited for the laughter, the joking, the name-calling. None came. Several in the group nodded and stepped a little closer. They held their hands before them, offering to learn.

Twenty minutes later Lacy pulled Bailee away from the oven where she’d been making biscuits. “You’ve got to see this.” Lacy giggled with excitement. “You’re not going to believe it.”

Bailee resisted. “I’ve got bread in the oven and three dozen eggs to cook.”

Lacy kept tugging until Bailee relented and followed to the doorway.

Bailee stepped out onto the front porch. For a moment the morning sun blocked her vision, then she saw Carter, sitting on one of the steps with Piper standing at his side. Most of the people from the barn had formed a circle around him. They were moving their hands, following each of the patterns he made.

“Water,” Carter said moving his hands as he spoke. “Rain.” His fingers drifted down in slight movements like drops sliding down a windowpane.

They all repeated his action.

Bailee closed her mouth, holding back a gasp.

“Teach me
run
and
hide
in case I ever need to tell Piper that,” Rom said, and several of the other agreed.

The boy glanced at Bailee. “And pass
the biscuits,
which I hope aren’t burning.”

Bailee took the hint and ran back to the kitchen.