Liz Ireland (21 page)

C
ecilia’s eyes blinked open and she quickly assessed her surroundings. The faint noise she heard outside was coming from the schoolhouse. The party hadn’t broken up yet. The candle had flickered out, probably from a cold breeze coming through her window, which would explain the inky blackness of the room, now lit only by what moonlight filtered through her flimsy curtains. And the two-hundred-pound weight on top of her...

That was Pendergast!

She listened to his soft snoring and felt herself blush to the tips of her toes. Starting from his head, which was cradled in the crook of her shoulder, Pendergast was completely sprawled over her like the world’s heaviest, sweatiest coverlet; there hardly seemed a square inch of her that wasn’t touching his bare skin. But then, there wasn’t a square inch of her that this man hadn’t felt, tasted or, at the very least, thoroughly inspected.

Mortified. She was completely mortified.

Vague snatches from the evening came to mind—the fire, the dance, her fight with her father. But what happened after Pendergast came into her bedroom was all crystal clear in her mind, and very specific. Every moan, every touch, the sharp stab of pain and the flood tide of sweeter feeling that came afterward—these things she would never forget. Not if she lived to be as old as Fanny Baker’s grandmother.

Pendergast sighed softly in his sleep, and his lips curved up in a lazy, satisfied little smile. Cecilia forced her entire body to be still, which wasn’t hard, since most of her circulation had been cut off anyway. She didn’t want to face Pendergast just yet—or ever, for that matter. Unfortunately, extricating herself without waking him might be a tad difficult.

She stared out her tiny window, her mind working fast. What was she going to do? What would she say? She’d never felt so ashamed of herself! Pendergast had said only that he cared for her, and she had lapped up those paltry words like a starving kitten being offered a saucer of cream, without even stopping to examine her feelings on the matter for more than a few seconds. After all, having built up silly fantasies about a mysterious stranger was one thing. Waking up with the deadweight of a possible desperado on her chest was quite another.

Where was he from? What if he truly was some sort of desperate character—a murderer, even! What did that make her?

Good lord, she had entered this room as innocent as a lamb, and now she was no better than a murderer’s floozy!

She didn’t bother to keep her voice down. “Pendergast, wake up!” She punched him on the arm.

With a catlike swiftness that scared the hell out of her—and heightened her worst fear—Pendergast raised up on his elbows and sent her a razor-sharp glance. He was instantly alert, as though he was accustomed to watching his back. Cecilia’s stomach clenched with dread.

“Who are you, Pendergast?”

He stared at her for a moment suspiciously, then let out a relieved rush of breath and collapsed against her again. “Oh, it’s just you.”

Just her?
Very nice. Tender.

She slapped him. “Get off of me, you big galoot! Do you think I’m made of granite?”

He nuzzled his head against her chest and let out something between a groan and a purr. “Mmm...not at all, sweetheart.”

When his lips made contact with a tight bud of sensitive pink flesh, the resulting sensation was like a warning bell clanging through her system. With every ounce of strength she had, she pushed against his chest with all her might until they were both sitting up on the bed facing each other in shocked silence.

Finally, his lips tilted up in a grin. “You’re full of surprises.”

She let out a mirthless laugh as she lifted a sheet to cover her nakedness. “I’m not interested in surprises anymore, Pendergast. I want to know who you are.”

Jake thought quickly, but his mind was still fuzzy in the aftermath of their lovemaking. In the few minutes he had dozed off, Cecilia seemed to have worked herself up into a lather. He wanted nothing more than to pull her back down onto the mattress for a leisurely encore, but that apparently wasn’t going to happen. Instead, she was looking for answers—ones he wasn’t sure she was in a state to receive with good grace.

A sudden wave of guilt struck him with the force of a blow. He had asked her to trust him, and she had—but now he realized he had done nothing to earn her trust. Nothing at all. He had come to her, a jumble of half-truths and partial lies, and she had accepted him. The realization was humbling. What would she think now if he confessed he was a man on the run, an impostor who wasn’t above using a dead man’s identity?

That she would scamper directly to her daddy and Lysander Beasley was a distinct possibility, but that alone didn’t keep him from blurting out the truth. There was also the fact that she would simply reject him, Jake Reed, man of little mystery and many faults.

“Who are you?” Cecilia repeated, her voice growing more urgent. “I want your name, Pendergast.”

That much, he could tell her. “It’s not Pendergast. It’s Reed. Jake Reed.”

“Jake Reed?”
She looked as if she wouldn’t have been any more surprised if he had said he was Grover Cleveland. “What kind of a name is that!”

To say she didn’t sound impressed was putting it mildly. “Just mine.”

“Jake Reed,” she said again, then she looked into his eyes for confirmation. “Jacob?”

He nodded. Somehow, just telling her his real name made him feel more naked than the fact that he wasn’t wearing a stitch.

Back on that wagon to Fredericksburg he had thought he’d realized that something was more important than getting even with Gunter and Darby, and maybe that was so. But seeing Cecilia now, looking at him with all her trust and vulnerability, Jake knew that while they were still out there—and if Gunter recognized him they might still be hunting him even now—he had no right to involve her in his life.

Too late,
he said to himself with scorn. But it wasn’t too late to shield her from the whole ugly story. Or to keep himself from making promises he might not be able to follow through on.

“Are you a teacher?”

“I can’t say,” Jake admitted reluctantly.

“I know you’re not from Philadelphia. Where are you from?”

He met her eyes, then looked away and shrugged noncommittally. “Around.”

Cecilia blew out a frustrated breath. After a moment of silence, she asked, “Did you kill a man?”

Jake leveled an even stare at her. “No,” he said.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not planning on it.
Seeing the hurt look in her beautiful blue eyes, he wanted to tell her the truth, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. She wanted him to be a different kind of man than who he was; and who he was was a man still in a heap of trouble.

“What happened to the real Pendergast?” she asked.

“I told you, Cecilia, I’m not a murderer.” He lifted a brow at her. “Is there anything else you’d like to know?”

Anything else? She still felt she had so many questions rattling around in her head she couldn’t possibly ask them all in one evening. “Tomorrow I’m going back to my father’s ranch. When will I see you?”

He felt an ache deep in his chest, and it wasn’t from a gunshot. “I’m not sure.” If he left tomorrow, he might could be back by the middle of the next week. But that was only if luck was on his side. If things didn’t work out his way, he might never be back. He might never see Cecilia again.

“You’ll come to Dolly’s wedding on Sunday,” she said.

Jake looked into her heartbreaking blue eyes. Lord, what had he done?

“Surely, you will,” she repeated.

He doubted it was physically possible to make it down to Darby’s ranch and back again by Sunday, even if he left right now. Even if he was a bird and could fly the whole way.

Disappointment registered in Cecilia’s eyes. Disappointment, and a hint of regret. He would say anything to get that look off her face. “I’ll be there.” He would find a way to buy a horse tomorrow, he thought, justifying his stay to himself. He wasn’t going to put his faith in another wagon.

Tentatively, she smiled, then looked around the room. “It won’t be like this,” she said. “I mean, there will be lots of people around. But we could dance again.”

That was good enough for him. It would have to be. “Sounds like heaven.”

There was a pause, and Cecilia sent him a nervous glance. “So when are you going to tell me this big secret you’re carrying around?”

Trying to change the mood in the little room, Jake reached down to the floor, picked up his pants and started to pull them on. One or the other of them needed to get back to that schoolhouse, or Cecilia’s father might not let him live to see Sunday.

“I can promise you one thing,” he said.

Her expression sharpened to acute interest. “What?”

“When the time’s right, you’ll be the first person I’ll tell.”

Not knowing who he was right now was obviously about to drive Cecilia mad. “I can’t wait that long!” she cried. “How can I go back to the ranch not knowing who you are, or whether...” Her voice broke off.

Jake’s heart felt as though it had flipped over in his chest. She was worried this all meant nothing to him. It might have helped if he could have told her how long it had been since he’d felt anything for a woman, apart from the kind of lust that could be satisfied as easily as thirst could be quenched, but he couldn’t.

Instead, he reached over and chucked her under the chin. She shot him a look that was half resentment, half reluctantly lovelorn. “I’ll be there Sunday, Cecilia. I promise you that.”

* * *

Clara clucked her tongue mournfully as she stuck another pin into Dolly’s wedding dress. “This is bad business,” she muttered. The diminutive woman hadn’t stopped shaking her head for two days straight, ever since she had heard Buck had found himself a bride. “Bad.”

“Ouch!” Dolly cried as one of Clara’s hemming weapons grazed her.

Cecilia gazed at the elaborate dress of creamy silk almost without seeing it at all. So far, she’d managed to smile and nod and mumble appropriate words to describe the bridal gown, but now that Dolly was actually in the thing, she felt as if her mind was miles away.

Or maybe she’d simply lost her mind altogether. What else could explain the horrible, horrible thing she had done?

Jake Reed!
She repeated the name to herself for the millionth time in one day, as if that would give her a better idea of who he was, or whether he was lying when he promised to see her again. Oh, she was a fool to believe anything he said. For all she knew, the man wasn’t even in Annsboro now; he’d sneaked off once before without a word. And what could be the nature of his “personal business” in Fredericksburg?

Since Friday night, her emotions had been so erratic she felt dizzy from all their highs and lows. One minute she was dreaming up all sorts of wonderful possibilities concerning the man’s identity. Was he wealthy—an eccentric millionaire playing at being a schoolteacher? That fanciful notion had lasted for all of two minutes. Regardless of what rosy scenario she dreamed up, the next moment she would be convinced that the man was simply what she had suspected right along, and that he had used her, and now that she’d given him what he wanted he was going to discard her, which made her seethe with anger and humiliation.

If only she’d listened to Clara’s warnings!

“Well, what do you think?” Dolly asked when Clara finished pinning and buttoning. With the wedding less than twelve hours away, Dolly wanted to make sure her old dress still fit her as it had when she was eighteen.

Cecilia stuffed one of the cookies she’d stolen from the larder into her mouth. Good food always raised her spirits, especially when it was supposed to be off-limits. “Beautiful,” she declared, swallowing a sand tart.

Dolly blushed. “Do you really think Buck won’t mind that I’m reusing this dress?”

Though it crossed her mind to tell Dolly that Buck probably wouldn’t give two hoots what she wore as long as she said “I do,” Cecilia decided this might not be too flattering. She shook her head.

“It would seem a waste not to wear it,” Dolly said, “since it still fits. And it’s hardly yellowed a bit.”

Fortunately, Clara made a last-ditch attempt to compensate for Cecilia’s lack of enthusiasm. The short, stout woman stepped back to assess her handiwork, straight pins sticking out of her tight raven black bun. With hands on her hips, she declared, “It’s going to be the most beautiful dress Annsboro’s ever seen! Again!” In the silence that followed, she delivered a scowl to Cecilia.

Cecilia sat up straighter and tried to get into the spirit of things. But she felt so gloomy and alone; she couldn’t talk with Dolly about what she’d done, and she absolutely couldn’t mention her indiscretion to Clara, who had raised her on stories of fallen women and disastrous marriages that had been “forced.”

A mental image of her father poking his old Confederate carbine into Pendergast’s back popped into her head, but that scenario was too humiliating to endure.

She tried again to focus on the dress. “Buck won’t think a thing except that you look lovely,” she said. Dolly was extremely pretty in the old-fashioned gown with its fitted bodice and wide skirt. The sleeves were tight and the neck dipped into a demure V. But more than the finery made Dolly glow with beauty. Her friend radiated happiness, which was the exact opposite of how Cecilia felt.

She popped another sand tart into her mouth and chewed glumly.

“Cici, wipe those crumbs from your mouth and stop stealing the wedding food!” Clara scolded. The robust woman scurried over and took control of the plate Cecilia had secreted away from the pantry. “You’re going to get as fat as a pregnant woman!”

Heat suffused Cecilia’s cheeks. A flash of memory—one of heat and bare skin and the sweet smell of sweat—overtook her. Her stomach clenched. This was a possibility she’d been trying to keep at bay ever since Friday night.

“I was just hungry,” she said defensively. Oh, she had been a fool. What would happen if she never saw this Jake Reed character again? What if she was carrying an outlaw’s child?