Judith E French (15 page)

Derry clapped her hands and shrieked with excitement. “F’nake, Mama! Green f ’nake!”

Heart pounding, Caitlin peered into the open trunk. A small garden snake reared up and thrust out its tongue. Two beady black eyes stared into hers.

Derry crowed with laughter.

“Very amusing.” Caitlin pushed the lid shut with the toe of her shoe.

Justice’s funnies were becoming a bad habit. Yesterday Caitlin had sweetened her tea with a spoon of salt from the sugar bowl, and the night before that, at bedtime, she’d slid between clean sheets and discovered a pound of wet sand.

Justice’s stifled giggles came from the hallway.

Caitlin put a finger to her lips for silence and crept to the open door. Then she lunged around the corner and seized him by the ear.

“Let me go!” Justice squirmed and kicked out at her, but she held fast.

“Not yet, young man.”

“You’re hurtin’ me.”

“I believe you left something in my trunk,” Caitlin said. “Get it out!”

Justice’s black eyes narrowed. “I didn’t! If Derry said I did, she’s a lyin’ telltale.”

“Get the snake, Justice,” Caitlin ordered.

“You’re hurtin’ my ear.”

“I’ll hurt you worse than that if you don’t get that snake out of my room.”

Later, after Justice had disposed of the garden snake, Caitlin bathed Derry and tucked her in for her nap. She located the missing curtains in a third trunk and went back downstairs to the dining room.

Caitlin was standing on the window seat, tacking up the last corner of linen swag when she heard the door to the kitchen open behind her.

She turned around, prepared to defend herself against another of Mary’s discouraging remarks. Instead, she saw her husband standing in the doorway, wearing a rain-soaked slicker. In one hand he held his dripping hat; in the other he clasped a bunch of wet daisies.

She didn’t know whether to scold him or laugh. “Shane?”

A faint flush washed over his tanned features. Black Irish, she thought … silver-gray eyes and Lucifer’s own pride. But he’d not get around her with a few soggy wildflowers.

Her grandmother had always said that the devil would never come creeping around with cloven hooves and a forked tail. “More like a fallen angel, he’ll look,” the old lady had confided. “Clothed in the body of a brawny young man with silver eyes and a tongue to match.”

Caitlin felt a sudden flash of heat, but whether it was anger or lust she could not tell. She folded her arms across her chest. “You’re dripping water all over the floor.”

“Sorry. I didn’t know you were in here.”

“I am,” she replied, steadying herself against the windowpane. “Would it have been all right to drip on the floor if I wasn’t here?”

She glanced at her scissors lying on the table. What
would he say if she took them and cut his flowers to pieces? It was no more than he deserved—trying to bribe her with daisies after what he’d done.

“Thought you might want these.” Shane dropped the flowers on the table and helped her down from the window seat. “We got caught in the rain.”

“I can see that.”

Shane shrugged off his slicker. The shirt underneath was wet through, clinging to his shoulders and chest like a second skin.

“Shouldn’t you hang that up somewhere to dry?” She pointed to his slicker.

“I thought … you planting those roses … I …” He seemed at a loss for words, and it pleased her to see him uneasy.

He stepped back into the doorway and tossed the slicker onto the kitchen bench. “Gabe and me were mendin’ fence on the southern pasture when the storm rolled in,” he explained as he turned back to her. “There was a whole meadow of these flowers.”

“Thank you.” Her words dropped between them like frozen sleet.

He flashed her a faint smile and ran his fingers through the section of wet hair that threatened to cover his eyes. For an instant she saw a flash of the old Shane, but she hardened her will against his charms.

“You need a haircut,” she murmured woodenly. “I—”

“Maybe you could cut it for me. Cerise used to—” He realized his mistake and bit off his words.

“McKenna want coffee?” Mary shouted. Poking her head through the kitchen doorway, she looked around. Her hair, always neatly braided into a severe bun at the back of her neck, was nearly as wet as Shane’s. But except for a few water spots on the blanket around her shoulders, Mary’s clothing was dry.

Gabriel, obviously in the process of removing his shirt, appeared at Mary’s side. “Pretty fancy, them cloth things over the windows.”

Shane turned and swatted at Gabe with his hat. “Can’t a man have any privacy around here?”

The wrangler’s inscrutable face belied the twinkle in his dark eyes. “Never known you to pick flowers, boss. You get struck by lightning today?”

“I said out! Both of you!” Shane gave Gabriel a shove and slammed the door in their faces.

Caitlin looked down at the daisies. Did Shane believe she could be bribed with a few flowers after what he’d done with that woman?

“I’m sorry,” he said.

For what? Caitlin wondered. For abandoning her in Ireland, for shaming her with Cerise, or for his cold manner toward her since she’d come to Missouri? How could he expect her to forgive and forget so easily when he’d just reminded her again of his illicit relationship with Justice’s mother?

I want you to feel ashamed, she thought. I want you to hurt as much as you’ve hurt me. But I don’t want to drive you away.

“They are pretty,” she said grudgingly. And they were, even wet. The white daisies with yellow centers were so lovely that it was hard to believe they grew wild.

She swallowed, trying to ease the constriction in her throat. Bringing flowers was the oldest trick a straying man had in his pocket. She’d be a fool to allow herself to be swayed so easily.

“You should change your clothes before you take a chill and catch the ague,” she said.

“I s’pose.”

She looked back at him. Damn Cerise to hell, she thought. All those nights that she spent crying into her
pillow, missing him … To think that
she
was cutting Shane’s hair, putting her hands on his face, sleeping beside him on cold, rainy nights.

“It’s good,” he said brusquely.

“What’s good?”

“What you’ve done in here. The whitewash and this stuff.” He motioned toward the hunt board. “I should have brought it down for you, but I forgot about it bein’ there. Uncle Jamie’s wife … it belonged to her. She died before I came to America, but I guess he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of her things.”

Caitlin moved to the table and fingered the daisies. For all their beauty, they gave off a pungent odor that was not altogether pleasant.

“Oxeye,” Shane said.

Puzzled, she met his gaze.

He waved at the bouquet with his hat, sending a shower of drops onto the tabletop she’d waxed so lovingly. “The flowers. They’re called oxeye daisies.”

“Oh,” she murmured. “I didn’t know.” She wanted to wipe away the water, but her feet felt rooted to the floor.

Somehow Shane always looked bigger to her indoors. His pants and boots were as wet as the rest of him. He’d taken the trouble to shave this morning, and she saw that the cut along his cheek had healed nicely. With his hair slicked back and clean shaven, he looked younger, more approachable.

“I could take you there … if you like,” he offered.

“Where?”

He exhaled softly and shifted his weight. “To the meadow. Where the daisies grow. Maybe you’d like to take a ride out there.”

“In the rain?” She knew she should refuse, but then he grinned, and a knot loosened in Caitlin’s chest.

“Tomorrow, maybe. We finished the fence work and—”

“I’d like that,” she blurted out. “But why, Shane? Why offer to take me to see a field of flowers? That’s strange behavior for a man who’s made no secret of the fact that he wants to be rid of his wife.”

He shook his head. “If I wanted to be rid of you, you’d have been on the next steamboat for Saint Louis.”

“Would I? I suppose that’s true.” She took a step toward him. Wind rattled the glass panes. Lightning flashed outside, and the air seemed equally charged inside. She found herself concentrating on the faint pulse at the hollow of his tanned throat.

“Hell, you don’t make it easy on a man.”

“Or you on me,” she whispered.

“You’ve a stare colder than a blue norther,” he said huskily. “I should have told you about Cerise, but I figured you’d take it hard.”

She nodded. “No decent woman wants to think she can be replaced by that kind.” Her anger was fast dissolving, leaving a dull, bottomless ache. “It cheapens our marriage … and it cheapens me.”

“It shouldn’t.”

Why can’t you just hold me? she thought. All I want from you is your love … and your trust.

Shane’s features took on the hard lines Caitlin had seen so often since she’d come to Missouri.

“Cerise was like most of us,” he said. “Some good parts, and some bad. She had a taste for whiskey, and when she drank, it made her mean. But when she was cold sober, there was a lot to admire in her.”

“I’m sure.” She tried to turn away from him, but he wouldn’t let her. His fingers closed around her upper arms, holding her firmly.

“Don’t go all stiff and proper on me. It took me half a day to come up with the nerve to say this, so you’ve got
to listen. Like a festerin’ sore, this has to be cut out and allowed to heal—if you want us to come to terms.”

She nodded, trying desperately to keep from disgracing herself by dissolving in tears.

“You can’t blame me for wantin’ to keep that part of my past in the past,” he continued. “But Cerise was more than just a warm body I could buy for the night. And Justice deserves more than bein’ known as a whore’s son.”

Caitlin’s vision clouded as she looked into his eyes. “I’m trying,” she whispered.

Then, without knowing if it was his doing or hers, she found herself sobbing against his chest. Shane’s arms held her, and he was patting her back and whispering soothing words.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he murmured. “I was lonely, and I thought you’d forgotten me.”

“Oh, Shane,” she managed.

“Don’t. It’ll be all right. We’ll find a way to make it all right.”

Then she heard the door hinges squeak and Gabe’s voice, low and dangerous. “What’s goin’ on, McKenna? Did you hit her?”

“No, I didn’t hit her!” Shane yelled. “Now get the hell out of here and leave me talk to my wife.”

“Don’t sound like talkin’ to me. Miss McKenna, you—”

“I’m all right, Gabriel. Really,” Caitlin assured him.

Gabe muttered something in Osage and closed the door.

“I … I feel like such a fool,” Caitlin stammered. She pulled away and met his penetrating gaze. “Oh, Shane,” she whispered.

The sour smell of the daisies wafted around her, and the humor of her situation made her smile through her tears.

What was wrong with her? She wanted him to apologize.
She wanted him to come to her and try to make things right. And when he did, all she could do was …

“Caity? Are you listenin’ to me?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I said, with Mary and Gabe and the kids here, we’re never alone in this house.”

They would be if they were sharing a feather bed, she thought, but didn’t have nerve enough to say it.

“We’ve been apart so long.” He stared down at his felt hat and slowly creased the folds as he searched for the right words. “We’re different people, Caity. We won’t know if we’re suited … if we were ever suited.”

“We can’t be if we never talk to each other,” she said.

“We’d have more of a chance if people weren’t always interruptin’.” He looked meaningfully toward the kitchen door. “I know Mary’s been givin’ you a hard time since you got here.”

“I can understand that it would be difficult for her.” Caitlin wiped her eyes and tried to get control of her emotions. They were having a conversation like husband and wife, and she didn’t want it to stop. “I told her this morning that I intended to paint a mural on this wall, and she said my head was on backwards.”

“A mural?”

She nodded. Why had she burst into tears? Now he’d think her weak and soft when she wanted him to see how strong she was.

“You want to paint a picture on the wall?”

“A flowering tree. Maybe a grapevine. We had a mural of a Venetian harbor in the library at home.” Sweet Jerusalem, she was chattering on like Derry.

Shane took a step toward the door.

“Guess I’d best change.”

“I will cut your hair … if you want,” she offered.
“Later.” The hurt was still there, deep inside her, but her tears had washed away some of the tension between them. For the first time in days, she felt as though she had somewhere to begin.

The thunder showers had passed in early evening. Now crickets chirped and fireflies blinked outside Shane’s bedroom windows. It was cooler tonight than it had been in weeks, and he should have been able to sleep. He’d been in the saddle at daybreak, and he ached from the mauling the bull had given him. Instead, he lay awake staring into the darkness.

Throwing one arm over his head, Shane rolled onto his side and clamped his eyes shut. His body was tired enough—it was his head that gave him trouble.

He couldn’t stop thinking about Caity and how he’d made a dunce of himself by bringing her a handful of wet flowers. And then, if that wasn’t stupid enough, he’d tried to apologize and ended up telling her how much he’d cared for Cerise.

Nothing had happened like he’d thought it would when he met Caity at the steamboat landing. All cards were shuffled and it was a whole new game, one where he wasn’t sure of the rules or the stakes.

Unable to lie still, Shane rose and padded barefoot to the window. He raised the jamb a few inches and listened. A few frogs croaked from the creek, and off on the hillside an owl hooted.

Mist hung close to the ground. On nights like this the
smallest sound carried a long way. Shane listened until he was certain that nothing was amiss outside; then he closed the window softly so as not to alarm Caity sleeping in the next room.

The absurdity of that reality struck him; his wife was sleeping alone and so was he. It wasn’t what either of them wanted, and he had only himself to blame.