Jodi Thomas (7 page)

The bed was made in best company fashion with a hand-crocheted coverlet. She crossed the room in baby steps. Everything seemed in order. An ivory-colored washbasin and pitcher. An embroidered lace cover over the nightstand. Music boxes carefully positioned along a ladder of tiny shelves climbing either side of the mirror. Every item in its place. The order and care surprised her.

Too much in order, Bailee thought as she tested the pitcher. Empty. She opened the nearest music box. It was unwound. When she ran her hand across the bedcover, a thin layer of dust clung to her damp fingers. Not a man’s room. Not anyone’s room.

No one lived here. No one had in years, she’d guess. Maybe not since the murders happened.

Bailee could almost see a small boy curled between the bodies of his parents in the shadowy room. He must have been so frightened, so alone.

She set the candle down and tugged off her wet clothes one layer at a time. For a moment she hesitated, thinking she should redress, but her other good dress was damp. Only her gown and robe, tucked away in the bottom of her bag, were dry. This was her home now and a woman could walk around her own house in a robe if no company were present. Carter wasn’t company, she reminded herself. He was her husband.

By the time Carter returned, she’d made coffee and found a loaf of bread among the supplies he’d brought in. He opened the door and stood watching her for a minute before he thought to close the door and step inside. He lifted the bolt and twisted a lock.

Bailee watched him, also. He pulled off his coat and hung it on a peg by the door. His shoulders were broad, his arms thick beneath the thin layer of his shirt. Nervously he toyed with an apple on the table before setting it aside on a small shelf by the door. There seemed nothing soft about him. Nothing of the little boy remained.

Except, she thought, the silence.

He walked to one of the two chairs she’d pulled up to the table and waited. When she sat down he did the same, and she couldn’t hide a smile. His simple politeness gave her great comfort. A man who waited for a woman to be seated was probably not the type to beat his wife. Or at least she hoped not.

“I haven’t had time to look for everything, but your kitchen seems in order and well stocked.” She sliced the bread to keep her hands from shaking. Talk to him, she thought as she placed one slice on a plate and passed it to him. Just talk to him. There had been no jams or preserves, so she guessed he must like his bread plain.

He looked at the bread as if he’d never seen anything like it before, then stared back at her.

“I hung my things up in the bare wardrobe in the bedroom. I hope you don’t mind?” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “I know we are married, but I thought it would be best if we give ourselves time to get to know each other before we ... before we ...” How could she say “share a bed” to a man she didn’t even know?

She opted for skipping that part and hoped he was smart enough to fill in the blanks. “I was thinking I could live alone in that bedroom for three months, maybe six before we ...” She had no idea where he would sleep, but apparently he slept somewhere else anyway. He must have expected her to take the room, for he’d placed her bags inside the door.

She finished pouring his coffee and looked up at him, proud of herself for setting the rules.

The bluest eyes she’d ever seen stared back at her. Winter blue. The color of a cold night sky. They caught the firelight in their depths, but didn’t warm.

“So after three or six months or so when we ...”

He raised one finger.

“One?” she questioned, then glanced down at her coffee when his meaning registered. “One month.”

That wasn’t enough, she thought. Not when they hadn’t even started talking to each other. But at least he was willing to allow her
some
time. She’d feared that he might attack her as soon as they were out of the sheriff’s sight. On the wagon train she’d heard tales of mail-order brides wedded and bedded before they’d had time to say a word. The first sound the husband heard from his wife was a scream of terror.

One month, she thought. One month to learn not to scream.

Bailee laughed to herself. No man had ever attacked her, and she doubted one would start now. She wasn’t the type, she guessed. She was more the type men asked to accompany their mothers to the church socials than the woman they tried to lure into the shadows for a stolen kiss.

She glanced up at Carter. He stared at her with one eyebrow lifted, as if he’d never seen the likes of her before in his life.

“Oh, I was thinking of something else.” Her cheeks warmed. He must think her a complete fool for laughing. “One month would be acceptable, Mr. McKoy. And if you’ve any rules, please feel free to express them.”

They drank coffee in silence for a while, listening to the fireplace crackle and the wind tap on the shutters.

“I’m a good cook,” she finally said. “And I ran my father’s house since I was twelve. I’m almost twenty-six, which I know is quite an old maid, but I’m not set in my ways. I’ll try to adjust.”

The thought that he might turn her out suddenly occurred to her. After all, he’d drawn the last woman. The one left. “I know I’m not as pretty as Sarah and Lacy are, but I can—”

His hand covered hers. When she tried to pull it away, he held tight until she met his gaze.

Slowly she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. Without breaking his stare, she whispered, “You want me to stay?”

He nodded slightly.

Bailee closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Finally, maybe for a while she could stop running. By marrying him, she had taken a first step toward something rather than away. Even when she’d told people she would someday be going to see Francis Tarleton in Santa Fe, she’d been running from the truth about him. He hadn’t come back for her. He probably hadn’t waited for her a month, and had already married another.

At least this Carter McKoy would wait a month for her.

Bailee opened her eyes and looked at the stranger before her. Her husband.

“Then I’ll stay.” She smiled when he squeezed her fingers in his warm grip.

C
ARTER WAITED UNTIL HE HEARD NO MORE STIRRING from the bedroom where Bailee disappeared. He finished his coffee before banking the fire, then walked the perimeter of the large room, as he did every night, checking locks and bolts. He stopped at her door. Logic told him her windows were bolted, but before walking away, he fought a habit of almost twenty years to check.

The windows were locked, he reminded himself. He had no idea how she’d react if he opened the door to look, but the odds were not with him. The windows were locked, he almost said aloud, and with the rain she wasn’t likely to open them. He forced himself to step away.

She made a good cup of coffee, he decided, better than any he’d ever boiled. He put his cup in the washtub. He wasn’t sure what he’d been supposed to do with the one slice of bread she’d passed him. The action reminded him of a little girl playing with a tea set. He thought of telling her not to waste the bread. He only bought a few days’ supply every month when he went to town. She seemed on such a mission as she cut and served it to him. For all he knew, she might be performing some kind of wifely ritual. She was the first woman to cross the threshold since the doctor and Sheriff Riley carried his mother out years ago.

Carter would have to talk to the woman sometime, but “Don’t slice the bread” didn’t seem like it should be the first thing a husband said to a wife. Before he could think of something appropriate, she started setting rules down as to where they should sleep.

A month, he thought. That wouldn’t be so long. He could hardly expect her to join him in his room the first night. The poor woman didn’t even know where it was.

Carter walked to a corner where the flooring changed slightly in color. He slid a rug aside and lifted a trapdoor that had been invisible a moment before. “What would I have done with her if she had come to my bed?” he mumbled as he stepped down wide stairs.

“My duty?” He reached the basement that looked little more than a tiny root cellar for storage. Extra supplies lined the rough shelves. Potatoes, squash, and other vegetables were stored in bins cushioned with sand. With a touch, he shifted a few planks on the cellar wall and turned into a narrow hallway, tapping the overhead door frame as he passed. The planks rocked back in place erasing all light as he moved farther into the passage, tapping his way along well-known beams.

For once he didn’t close the trapdoor to the main room upstairs, just in case she needed him during the night. The bolted doors and windows and the storm would keep him safe from intruders tonight.

The passage widened into the first of his private rooms. His footsteps silenced as he stepped onto a rug.

Once the month was over, Carter decided, he’d bring her downstairs and breed with her. That’s what married people did, he supposed. Otherwise, where would all the children come from? He’d read about love and passion, but it didn’t seem like something that would ever stir a simple man like himself.

Once the breeding was over, she could go back to the upstairs room if she liked. He had no idea how long bedding a woman would take. Not more than a few minutes, he’d guess. He figured he had the basics of the act down, but there were probably things he should say or do before he started.

When he touched her hand tonight, that was the first time he’d felt a woman’s skin since a year ago when he’d wandered into one of the saloons in town just to look around. A girl with painted lips, and breasts pushing out of her dress, grabbed his hand and tried to pull him upstairs.

“Wanta go upstairs?” the painted woman kept saying, but her expression seemed to say more, almost like the words were some kind of code.

He’d just stood there like a statue being bombarded with the feel of her touching his hand and arm and the way she smelled of near-dead roses. He watched as she pressed herself against his arm and smiled like she’d given him a gift. Her breath fouled the rose smell. Rubbing against his coat caused part of her dress to slip off her shoulder, and he saw the brown sweat-stained cotton of her undergarment.

“Come on, mister. Fanny will take you for a little ride,” she’d whispered with a whiskey slur. “You wanta go upstairs, don’t you?”

When he didn’t answer, one of the men at the long bar yelled for the woman to back away. “He don’t like none of us living,” the man said as he drew most of the saloon’s attention. “Lived out on the farm with his dead parents until the sheriff buried them and made him come to town. Ran away from the only family in town who offered him a good home. He don’t want nothing to do with a living soul.”

Another man joined in. “I remember him. My dad said the sheriff should’ve sent him away and not let a boy live out there alone. But Riley’s got a soft spot for dumb animals, even the ones who walk on two legs.”

The crowd closed in around Carter, mumbling about how he never went to school, or came to church ... or even stopped in for a drink.

“What you doing here?” someone shouted as the mob migrated closer, stealing the air from around Carter.

“He’s here for a woman!” Fanny yelled, then leaned nearer and whispered, “It’s a slow day, mister. Half price to the dim-witted.” She tugged at his coat as if she thought she had the strength to budge him.

The smells of too many unwashed bodies and cheap whiskey closed in around him. Carter thought he could feel the warmth of everyone’s breath reach him even before their shouted words registered.

Suddenly he moved. With all the force of a wounded bear, he plowed a wide row through the saloon and out the door, not stopping until he reached his wagon.

That was the last time he’d gone near anything in town except the loading dock of the general store and the livery. At least, it had been until tonight.

Carter crossed the blackness of his study. He didn’t need the light. He loved the silence of his underground rooms. The faint odor of earth enriched the air and the smell of books welcomed him. He discovered reading the year he’d been hauled, fighting and screaming, to town and dumped on the preacher’s doorstep. The old preacher’s wife used him as a servant. She’d insisted he do the wash and all hauling and chopping. No room was ever clean enough to pass her inspection, so most nights he was pulled from bed to redo chores. On weekends they rented him out to the blacksmith to work from dawn to dusk for money he never saw. On school days Carter was allowed to sit in the back of the classroom and watch and learn and read.

By spring he’d read all the books the old preacher allowed his students to touch. There was no reason to stay. Carter walked all night to get back to his parents’ ranch. On the way he devised a plan to make his home forever safe.

The preacher came by the next day, yelling for him to show himself. Carter hid. A week later the sheriff left a box of food on the porch. By then Carter had dug a hiding place no one could find. He knew his parents had a balance at the general store, so he began leaving notes for supplies at the crossroads. Other ranchers would pick up the note nailed to a fence post and marked General Store. Whenever Willard got around to it, he’d send the supplies. Sometimes the old man would bring them out himself, adding extra items to increase the order. Books were a slow mover at the store. They were often packed in with the food.

Sheriff Riley would ride out now and then, but Carter was never around. Once in a while the sheriff would sit on the porch and talk about how Carter should come back.

After a few years no one bothered with Carter. He’d harvest his fruit crop every spring for enough money for supplies and more books. An old handyman named Samuel came by the place when work was slow in town. For meals and a bed, he’d work around the ranch showing Carter more about carpentry than actually doing any. He never stayed long, or invaded Carter’s privacy with questions. He slept in the barn until he helped Carter build a small bunkhouse. Over the years Samuel came less and less. Slowly the bunkhouse became more and more of a workshop, but Carter left the bunk, just in case the old fellow dropped by.