Lady Lavender (5 page)

I
n the circle of light from the cabin Wash spied the back of a tall, dark-shirted man bent over something. A blue gingham ruffle poked from between his legs. A woman's choked cry stopped his breath, and then he heard the crack of a palm against flesh. The man twisted away, one hand pressed to his flaming cheek.

“Ow! You hellcat…”

Sounded like she'd lambasted him a good one. Wash couldn't help but congratulate her.

Montez lunged at her. “You think I am not good enough for you, is that it? Because my skin is not white, like yours?”

Wash sprinted onto the porch, caught the attacker's thick shoulder and spun the man toward him. Then he smashed his fist into the side of the Spaniard's jaw.

Montez dropped like a felled tree and rolled off the
porch. Wash peered over the edge at the crumpled form on the ground and tried not to smile. Out cold.

“Is… Is he killed?” Jeanne quavered from the cabin doorway.

“Naw.” He turned toward her. She was trembling so violently the ruffles down the front of her gingham shirtwaist fluttered. She gazed at him blankly.

“Jeanne.” He stepped in front of her to get her attention.

“Did he hurt you?”

“
Oui.
H-he take my wrist, so.” She extended her arm. A crimson handprint bloomed on her skin.

“Manette? Is she safe?”

The ghost of a smile flitted across Jeanne's lips. “
Oui.
She hides in the ch-chicken house. I send her there when that m-man knocks on my door.”

Wash stared at her. She might be shaken, but she'd showed admirable presence of mind in the face of danger. He'd seen army lieutenants fold up under less.

But her face was still white as chalk, and suddenly she sank onto the porch in a froth of white petticoats.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Forgive me, but I c-cannot…”

Wash extended his hand. He pulled her up so close to him he could smell the spicy-sweet scent of her hair and an odd, hungry feeling burrowed into his gut.

Damn. He ached to pull her into his arms. Something about this woman made him aware of how lonely he was. How hungry he was.

He wanted her. Hell's bells, any man would want her. But with Jeanne it was more than that. He liked
her looks, her spirit. Liked her oddly inflected words. He liked talking to her. Jumping jennies, he just plain liked the woman.

He swallowed hard. “What did Montez want?”

One hand flew to her throat. “He…he wanted to kiss me.”

Wash could sure understand that. Kissing her was something he himself had been thinking a lot about for the past two days. And nights.

A stifled groan floated up from the ground. Wash stepped off the porch and straddled the Spaniard. Dragging him upright by the back of his shirt, he planted a boot in his backside.

Damned randy snake.

“Get out of here, Montez. And don't come back. Pick up your pay from Rooney at the saloon.”

Without looking at him, the Spaniard slouched unsteadily down the path and through the gate.

Wash couldn't look at Jeanne; he felt responsible. But she pinned him with an unflinching eye. “I do not like that those men come here.”

Wash blew out a long breath. “Those men are my work crew for the railroad that's coming. A different crew will be here in a day or two to start clearing brush.

“Brush? What brush?”

Wash hesitated, gazing out into the darkness, envisioning Jeanne's lush fields of lavender glowing in the sun. God help him, he couldn't say it. Couldn't tell her the clearing crew was getting paid to chop down her precious crop.

“Brush,” he echoed. “You know, tickle grass and small trees.” He shot a look at her face. “Anything that's uh, in the way of laying track.”

She turned to him, eyes narrowing. “I will not have such men at my farm.”

“Jeanne, don't you understand?” Anger hardened his voice. “It isn't
your
farm. This land belongs to the railroad.”

He kept a tight rein on his nerves and watched her mouth turn down, the light in her eyes dim. Maybe she'd cry or something. Her farm had to go. He expected her to crumple in the face of her impending loss. Instead she straightened her shoulders and bit her lower lip.

“Jeanne, don't you see? Many people will benefit from the railroad.”

She began to crease tiny folds in her muslin apron. “No, I do not see,” she blazed. “I and my Manette, we will not benefit! Do we not matter here in America?”

“Sure, you matter,” Wash growled. “Every citizen matters. That's what this country is built on.”

“But that is not true! If many people want one thing and two people do not want it, the many will win. Is that not so?”

Wash cleared his throat. “Well, uh, yeah. That's democracy. The majority rules.”

Her chin came up. “But is that not unfair to the
not
majority people? To the two that wanted something else?”

He swallowed. Now that he thought about it, yeah, it did seem unfair.

Jeanne propped her hands at her waist. “So, I and my
daughter should be pushed out of our home because the people in town want a railroad, yes?”

She had a point, all right. What happened to the rights of a single individual under majority rule? Hell, he was a lawyer; he should have an answer. A war had just been fought between the North and the South over the right of a single state to secede from the union against the will of the government. So what gave Grant Sykes the right to decide that Jeanne Nicolet was not important and his Oregon Central line was?

Money, that's what. Ownership of the land. Sykes and the Oregon Central owned this land. The whole mess made his head ache.

“Well?” she demanded. Her eyes took on the most intriguing color he'd ever seen, kind of like green tree moss after a punishing rain. But they weren't soft like moss; they were hard as agate.

“All I know is that the railroad is coming through here. You have to get out of the way.”

She gave him a long, steely look. “I will not move,” she announced through tight lips. “Not until I harvest my lavender.”

Good Lord, her precious lavender. This woman was the most single-minded female he'd ever encountered. His mother had been stubborn, but Jeanne…Jeanne was unmovable as a brick wall.

He reached out to touch her arm. “Jeanne, listen.” Under his fingers the smooth gingham warmed with her body heat. A jolt of yearning skip-hopped into his vitals.

She was a singular woman, all right. She was the
starchiest female he'd ever encountered, all prickles and “but this's” and “but that's.” Trying to reason with her reminded him of negotiating with an implacable Sioux chief. The Indians hadn't wanted to move, either, and the news that most of them had died of starvation on the winter trail to the reservation made him sick to his stomach. He couldn't stand to watch anything like that happen to Jeanne and her daughter.

But how was he going to convince her? What if he just hauled her into his arms and let her cry it out?

Because she wouldn't cry, that's what. Women with prickles didn't weep. Women with prickles poked back.

“Could we sit down and talk for a minute?”

She nodded, but he noticed her chin stayed tucked close to her chest. “
Oui.
I will make coffee.” She called Manette in from the chicken house and opened the cabin door.

Grabbing off his hat, Wash crossed the entrance and followed her into the tiny kitchen. It smelled good, like fresh-baked bread. Four round loaves sat cooling on the wooden table.

It was quiet except for the whisper of trees in the soft wind. Good. Peace and quiet. Now he could make her see some sense.

“Jeanne…”

She kept her hands busy grinding the coffee mill and did not look up. “You like your coffee black, do you not?”

“I— Sure.” Wash turned his hat around and around
in his fingers until the brim was sweat-damp. “Black is fine.”

“
Bon.
I, too, like it black. And strong.” She tipped the ground coffee into a waiting pot of cold water. Her hands shook so violently some of the coffee missed the pot and sifted over the counter.

Wash wiped one hand over the smooth wood, swept the spilled grounds into his hand, then looked around the tidy kitchen for some place to dump them. Finally, in desperation, he dropped them into the crown of his hat.

He stepped toward her. “Jeanne, we have to talk about—”

She moved to one side and with jerky motions began cracking eggs into an iron skillet. “In France I took my morning café with milk.
Maman
brought it to me in bed, and we would talk.”

The thought of her in bed made his mouth go dry. “We're not in France,” he growled. “We're here, in your kitchen.”

“I was only twelve,” she said quickly, running a fork through the eggs. “
Maman,
she was good to me. We had long talks about Papa and my little brother.”

He moved toward her. “Jeanne, you're not twelve now.”

She turned her back to him.

Dammit. He tramped out of the front door onto the porch, paced to the steps and back three times, then wheeled and strode back into the warm kitchen. He still cradled his Stetson with the coffee grains in the crown.

Jeanne was wrapping her apron around the handle of an iron skillet of scrambled eggs, which she then yanked off the stovetop. She headed straight for him. “
Très chaud.
Very hot.”

“I like things hot.” He spoke without thinking, then swallowed hard. He knew she'd heard him, because she clanked the skillet down hard onto the kitchen table.

“I learn from
Maman
how to cook. Our hens laid many—”

That was all he could take. “Would you just stand still for one damn minute and listen?” he shot. “One thing your mama didn't teach you was how to have a conversation!”

Jeanne sent him a look that would broil steak, and for a moment he thought he'd gotten past her defenses. But in the next second he saw he was mistaken.

“Maman,”
she said in a determined tone, “had a special way with
une omelette.
She tip the pan just so…” Jeanne demonstrated, then pivoted away from the table and bent over the wooden sink, her back to him.

Dammit, he was trying to tell her something and she just plain wasn't going to listen. He stepped up behind her, close enough to smell her hair. “Stop talking about your
maman.
”

Her head came up but her hands in the wooden sink fell idle. She'd heard him, all right. She just didn't want to admit it.

“Jeanne…”

She began to scrub hard at a china plate, then another, and another. Then a cup…

To hell with it.
Wash groaned, spun on his heel and
stomped out the cabin door. Halfway across the porch he jammed his hat down on his head. It felt funny, kind of crumbly…

Hell, he'd forgotten about the coffee grounds in his hat.

Behind him he heard a ripple of her laughter. She stood in the doorway, one hand clapped over her mouth, her eyes shining with amusement.

With a curse he wheeled toward her. She backed up until she couldn't go any farther without scorching her skirt on the stove. He snatched off his Stetson, sailed it off into the dark and reached for her. He knew his actions were rough, but he'd had all he could take.

She shot him a look of surprise, her lips opening to protest, and without thinking he bent to find her mouth.

At the first touch of her lips, he knew he'd made a big, big mistake. Oh, God, she was sweet, and so soft. The pleasure of kissing her sent a skin-shriveling shudder up his backbone. Her lips were like 180-proof double-distilled brandy, and he drank until he was aching with want.

He kept kissing her until a strangled sound came out of his throat. He shouldn't be doing this, but he couldn't stop. She was the bone stuck in his craw, all right. The thing he couldn't swallow or cough up.

He felt like he'd died and gone to hell.

M
on Dieu!
What does this man think he is doing?

Alors,
he was kissing her, that's what he was doing!

She lifted her hand to swat him across his tanned face, but as her arm rose, his lips moved suddenly deeper, more intensely on hers, and her resolve poofed away like so much dust. No man's kiss had ever been like this, not even Henri's on the night Manette was conceived.

She tipped her face to one side and still he did not stop moving his lips over hers. Surely God meant for a man and a woman to enjoy each other, but like this? With such abandon, such dark joy bubbling up inside her? About that, she did not know.

Her breasts were crushed against his chest and all at once she wanted to slip outside her skin and melt into his hot, hard body. Never in all her life had she had such a thought.

His demanding mouth asked and answered, and
asked again, while her most private parts swelled and ached. She should push him away, should… Ah, what she
should
do was of no importance.

He lifted his head and held her close, his chin resting against her temple. She closed her eyes, then snapped her lids open. “Would you perhaps want…?”

“Hell, yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. His ragged breath ruffled the hair close to her ear.

“…une omelette?”
she breathed.

 

Wash had no memory of his ride back to town. Rooney was at the saloon, as usual; he glanced up from the bar with a questioning look. “Hell, Wash, you look like you've been poleaxed.”

Yeah. Something had smacked him over the head, all right. He felt happy like he'd never felt before. He sent Rooney what he knew was a sloppy smile but it was the best he could do with his brain still reeling from that kiss. He hunched his shoulders over the bar and tried to keep her name from hammering through his brain.
Jeanne. Jeanne.

Rooney peered at him. “Got somethin' stuck in your throat?”

“Nah,” he managed to croak. How was it Rooney always seemed to know what he was thinking?

“Mebbe heard some o' the talk around town about that French lady?”

Wash's head jerked up. “What talk?”

“Just…talk. You know, some of the townfolk are in a hurry to get the railroad through. Got money riding on it, you might say. Farmers want to ship their apples
to the city. Ranchers are lookin' for markets they don't have to trail-up for. Even Miz Forester, the dressmaker, wants to bring customers from Gillette Springs. It's a two-day ride from Gillette Springs to Smoke River, but when the railroad—”

“What're you trying to tell me, Rooney?”

The older man gulped a swallow of the whiskey at his elbow. “Just that folks are in a sweat. Some of them are gettin' pretty het up.”

“Yeah? Who?”

Rooney's black eyes slid away from his gaze. “There's some kinda meetin' at Whitey's barbershop. Mostly men—cowpokes and ranchers. Some shopkeepers. And that Spanish guy on your survey crew showed up.”

“Montez.”

“That's the one. Mean-lookin' son of a gun.”

“I told Montez to pick up his pay and get out of town.”

Rooney nodded. “He did pick up his pay.”

Wash let out a breath of relief.

“But he didn't leave town.”

His spine went rigid. “Where is he now?”

Rooney shrugged. “Dunno.”

“The man's up to no good, I can smell it.”

Rooney's salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose, but he said nothing.

The bartender slid a shot glass of whiskey in front of Wash and he downed it in one swallow. “That damned snake laid his hands on Miz Nicolet.”

Rooney smoothed his beard with his little finger. “Did he, now? What's that to you?”

Wash dropped his head onto his clenched fists. He didn't know the answer to that one. He only knew that when he'd seen Montez manhandling Jeanne on her front porch something had come over him. Something hot and possessive.

Something he didn't want to think about.

“I'm going over to the boardinghouse,” he muttered. “Change my shirt before supper. You coming?”

Rooney cast an appraising glance over the two empty poker tables in the center of the barroom. “Wouldn't wanna play a hand of five-card stud, wouldja?”

“Nope. Rather eat Mrs. Rose's fried chicken and gravy.”

His stomach clenched at the memory of Jeanne offering him an omelet. He'd wanted to stay.
Forget the omelet—you wanted to kiss her again.

Rooney was staying at the same boardinghouse, in the room just across the hall from Wash. Mrs. Rose had taken quite a shine to his half-Comanche friend. She always saved the biggest drumstick or the juiciest pork chop or the last dish of peach ice cream for Rooney, who accepted the gestures as if he'd spent his whole life being waited on. Wash knew different. His companion had lived a hardscrabble life. It surprised him how quickly his rough-and-ready friend had adjusted to being fawned over by pretty widows who ran boardinghouses.

Wash dragged himself off the bar stool and headed for the saloon entrance. He sure wished his mother hadn't sold the ranch. One of the things that had kept him going the two years he'd spent in that prison hellhole in Richmond was thinking about the ranch near Smoke
River. He'd dreamed about running fifty head of cattle and maybe some horses on the rolling seven hundred-acre Halliday Double H spread. There was something special about a place you called Home. Something worth fighting for.

Now, working for Sykes and the railroad kept him moving all over the Oregon and Washington territories. He never slept in the same bed more than twenty days at a time, but the money was good. And he was glad the railroad had sent him to Smoke River.

He could understand how Jeanne felt about being uprooted, forced out because a railroad line was coming through. She was caught between a slab of granite and a block of steel. His mother had sold out in a heartbeat after his father died; but Wash knew Jeanne would fight like a tiger to the end.

He pushed through the swinging doors and stepped out onto the board walkway. Just as he reached the barbershop where Whitey Kincaid offered haircuts and shaves and hot baths for fifty cents, a grumble of angry male voices spilled out of the open doorway. He strode on past but someone inside yelled the name “Nicolet.” Instantly he doubled back.

And wished he hadn't. The small shop teemed with shouting men. They weren't getting shaves or haircuts or anything else, but they were getting plenty worked up over something. A premonition slowed his footsteps and he slipped inside to melt into the crowd.

“It ain't right!” someone yelled.

A clamor of voices rose in agreement and then Wash recognized the low, silky voice of Joe Montez.
The Spaniard was shouting something to a chorus of cheers. “She thinks she is too good for us!”

“We gotta do something,” an older man roared.

A prickly sensation crawled up the back of Wash's neck. That damned Spanish rabble-rouser, what was he trying to do?

Montez was standing upright on one of Whitey's leather-upholstered barber chairs, addressing the unruly crowd. Wash stood up and made eye contact, and the man's face blanched.

Without thinking, Wash lunged for him, but Montez scrambled off the barber chair and vanished out the back door. By the time Wash reached the alley in pursuit, the only sign of his quarry was a swirl of dust stirred up by the man's boots and the fading thud of horse's hooves.

The raucous gathering at the barbershop set off a warning bell in his head. He didn't like the way his spine itched when he'd looked the men over, and he sure didn't like not knowing where Montez was headed.

He angled through a narrow vacant lot to the main street, noticing that the once lit-up barbershop interior was now black as the inside of a pistol barrel. He swore he could hear men's heavy breathing in the darkness.

Something was afoot. His instinct whispered that he wasn't going to like it.

 

The next morning Rooney stumbled into the empty boardinghouse dining room, squinting against the sunshine pouring through the yellow curtains. He was just in time for the last stack of Mrs. Rose's buckwheat pan
cakes, the same ones Wash was about to spear with his fork.

“Clearing crew's here,” Wash announced. He shoved the maple syrup bottle toward Rooney's elbow.

“Yeah?”

“They're a day early. Got to delay them until…”

“Yeah,” Rooney grunted again. “Guess Miz Nicolet's gotta move out of her cabin pronto.”

“She's not going to budge until she harvests that lavender crop she's so proud of.”

Rooney slopped syrup over the tower of pancakes on his plate. “Damned stubborn woman. Folks are itchin' to see some progress.”

Wash gritted his teeth. “They'll have to wait.”

Rooney's gray-and-black eyebrows did a little dance. “Don't the lady have a place to go?”

“No. Back to New Orleans, maybe. If I still had the ranch she could bunk out there.”

“But you don't have the ranch. Yer momma saw to that. Guess she thought you were never comin' home.”

Wash didn't answer right away. “The truth is I hadn't planned to come back to Smoke River. I figured everything I saw would remind me of Laura.”

Rooney mopped syrup off his beard. “Well, the railroad sent you back here. Is it as bad as you thought?”

It was and it wasn't, he acknowledged. Memories of Laura and his sweet-sad time with her permeated every field and horse trail and flower-dotted meadow in the county. Even the bitterness was still there.

Rooney peered at him across the lace-covered dining table. “Still scared, are ya?”

“Hell, yes,” Wash snapped. “A man gets his heart busted into little pieces only once. After that, he's damn gun-shy.”

His mouth stuffed with pancakes, Rooney merely nodded. “So,” he said after swallowing, “what're you gonna do?”

Wash pushed back his chair and stood up. “I'm going over to the bank, that's what I'm going to do.”

He settled his hat and tramped down the short hallway and out the front door. His Stetson still smelled faintly of ground coffee beans.