Marry Me (47 page)

“If you’re feeling poorly, you should know that Cole’s not here.”

The judge continued to unbutton his coat. “I know. I saw him at the hotel. I’m here to speak to you. I hope that’s all right. Your husband indicated that it was.”

Rhyne frowned a little but kept her hand extended to accept Wentworth’s coat. “Did he?” She thought of all things requiring her attention, Whitley chief among them, and wondered why Cole would encourage the judge’s visit. She certainly did not need the company.

“I can see your husband was incorrect,” said Wentworth. He held on to his coat. “I’ll just–”

Rhyne took the coat from his hand. “No. You’re here. I apologize if I seem less than welcoming. Whitley’s taken a turn. Cole doesn’t know yet. He was gone before it happened.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Rhyne realized that he had assumed Whitley’s turn was for the worse. She supposed he’d read that on her face as well. There’d been a time when the only emotion she’d been able to show was anger, and then she’d used her fists. Now when she was made vulnerable by every other emotion, she could only clench her heart.

She acknowledged the judge’s regrets as she hung up his coat and hat, and then she showed him to the parlor. “Please, sit. I have to attend to the bread I just pulled from the oven. I’ll only be a moment.”

“There’s no need for you to rush. I’ll go with you.”

Rhyne regarded him uncertainly.

“I could smell the bread when I was standing on the porch,” he said. “I might have forced my way in if you hadn’t invited me. Good. You can still smile. Go on. I’ll follow.”

Rhyne led the way back to the kitchen and offered the judge any chair at the table. He chose the one opposite of where she was standing and made himself comfortable, but not before he lowered his head over the freshly baked bread and inhaled deeply.

“Has there been some news?” she asked as she wrapped a towel around her hand to lift the loaf pan.

“News?”

“You said you would be making inquiries in Philadelphia,” she reminded him. “About my mother’s family.” She tapped the pan to loosen the bread and then eased the loaf out onto a wire rack. She moved it to the side to make room for the second loaf. “I wondered if you’d heard anything.”

“No, not yet. I had replies from Pinkerton and a few colleagues that my telegrams were received. I imagine it will be several weeks before there’s information that means something.”

Rhyne had to use a knife to release the other loaf from the pan. She slid it along the edges of the crust, gave the pan a thump, and the bread fell easily into her palm. She laid it on the rack beside the other loaf and covered them with the towel that had been wrapped around her hand.

“You burned yourself,” the judge said, pointing to her fingers.

“It’s nothing.”

“Shouldn’t you put butter on it?”

“Cole says butter’s for bread.” She pumped water into the sink and let it flow over her fingertips. “This is what I’m supposed to do. I can tell you, sometimes it’s hard living with a man who knows everything.”

He smiled faintly. “I thought you’d be familiar with that.”

“Why? Oh, you mean because of Judah.” She shrugged. “Judah knows a lot, but he thinks he knows even more. I reckon Coleridge really does.” Rhyne removed her hand from under the water and gingerly dried it off with one corner of her apron. “I don’t suppose you liked my father much.”

“Didn’t know him.” He paused, sighed. “But you’re right. That never stopped me from disliking him.”

“It made it easier for you to love my mother.” Rhyne saw her frankness made him blink. “I must have misplaced that leash I try to keep on my tongue. That happens from time to time. I’ll find it directly.”

“And promptly lose it again,” he said dryly.

“That’s what Cole says.” Rhyne filled the kettle halfway with fresh water and put it on the stove. “I hope tea’s all right. We’re out of coffee. I stretched what we had as much as I could. I heard Morrison’s sold the last tin a couple of days ago. Seems people are probably hoarding, worried about when the trains will run again.”

“Tea’s fine, but truly, I don’t want you to go to any–” He stopped because the look she was giving him was the equivalent of a warning shot. It made him chuckle. He sat back in his chair while she leaned a hip against the sink. “I’m recalling a story I heard about you running the doctor off the first time he tried to pay you a visit. Makes me grateful you didn’t greet me at the door with your Winchester aimed at my head.”

“Runt Abbot might have done it.” She’d found the leash so she didn’t tell him that Rhyne Monroe had certainly been tempted. Instead, she heard herself come to Cole’s defense. “That story about Cole’s been exaggerated some, mostly because he never says a word to the contrary. What I did was scare his ornery horse. He had to go after it.”

“But you meant to run him off.”

“I meant to run him off permanent. He came back, though, with that no-account Beatty boy riding shotgun. Wyatt kind of insisted on an escort. No one knew then that Cole could hold his own with a rifle.”

“And everyone knew Runt Abbot might make the next shot count.”

“Could be that’s true.” She cocked her head to the side as a sound from upstairs caught her attention. “I should check on Whitley. I won’t be long.” She was in the hallway when she called back. “Mind the kettle.”

Rhyne raised her skirts and took the stairs two at time. She hit her shoulder against the doorjamb as she turned too sharply into Whitley’s room. The pain made no impact. It was seeing Whitley lying on the floor that jarred her.

Rhyne knelt beside Whitley and felt for her pulse just as Cole had taught her. When she found it, steadier and stronger than she could have hoped for, she finally released the breath she’d been holding. She moved around to Whitley’s head and raised it enough to cradle it in her lap. Leaning back against the bedside stand, Rhyne took stock of her situation. She didn’t see how she could get Whitley back into bed without help. She regretted telling the judge to mind the kettle.

Rhyne opened her mouth to call for him and closed it abruptly when he appeared in the doorway. He took stock of the situation at once and hurried to join her at Whitley’s side.

“Slide your arms under her shoulders,” he said. “I’ll lift her legs.”

The awkwardness of her position caused Rhyne to struggle more than the judge, but they got Whitley into bed without mishap, and Rhyne rearranged the quilts so Whitley was covered again. She stepped away, putting her hands to the small of her back to lightly massage the area.

“Did you hurt yourself?” the judge asked.

“It’s nothing. A spasm.” She thanked him for his help. “I should look after Whitley now. I need to get her to take some drink. It’s not… pleasant. She wouldn’t want you to see her.”

“I understand.”

Rhyne waited until Wentworth was gone, then she bathed Whitley’s face and brushed and braided her limp hair. Promising that she’d be right back, she went downstairs to make tea and slice the heel from one of the fresh loaves of bread. It took her just above thirty minutes to empty the cup of tea into Whitley this time, but she thought she’d spilled less than at breakfast. What she needed, she decided, was something like a narrow funnel that would fit deep in Whitley’s throat and safely bypass her windpipe. She wondered if such a contraption existed, and if it did, did Cole have one?

Curious, she set Whitley’s empty tray on the kitchen table and ignored the rumblings of her own stomach in favor of looking around the surgery. She stopped just inside the door, startled by Elijah Wentworth sitting on the stool behind Cole’s microscope.

“What are you doing here?” She wasn’t certain that she masked her irritation very well. It wasn’t only that she wasn’t entirely comfortable in his presence, but that she had no time for entertaining him. “I thought you’d left.”

“No,” he said. “I left you alone.”

Rhyne reckoned that was a lawyerly kind of distinction, and she didn’t appreciate it. “I see.” She approached the table. “That doesn’t explain what you’re doing in here.”

“I wanted to see them for myself. I heard Cole talking about them to Wyatt.” He pointed to the slide. “Is that them?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d have to look.” He pushed away from the table and turned over his hand, gesturing to the microscope. “Please. I’d be grateful.” Rhyne went around the table and bent her head. She

adjusted the focus for her eye and stared at the slide. The rods simply lay there harmlessly, fixed to the slide by heat and stained pink by Cole’s application of chemicals. Rhyne straightened and stepped away. She offered him another glimpse.
“Salmonella typhi,”
she said.

“Wyatt called them little bastards.”

Rhyne nodded. “They are that.”

The judge regarded them again. “Fascinating.”

Rhyne removed the slide from the clips that held it in place and returned it to the wooden case where Cole kept it and others like it. She put the case back on the shelf.

“Do you really believe Judah caused the outbreak?”

Rhyne turned slowly back to him. “Did you hear that?” she asked. “Or overhear it?”

The judge raised an eyebrow, but his admonishing look was softened by his faint smile. “A little of both, I’m afraid. I was intrigued enough by what I overheard to invite myself into your husband’s conversation with the sheriff.”

“Then you know what I know.”

“No. I know what the doctor knows. I asked you what you believe.”

Rhyne shrugged as if she had no opinion.

“I believe he caused it,” Elijah Wentworth said, watching Rhyne closely. “I believe he did it with malice aforethought.”

“Should you be saying that?”

“Why not? What I think has no bearing on anything. There’s no statute to account for it. What Judah did won’t come before me as a matter of law. Wyatt knows that. Now, so does Cole.”

Rhyne felt her stomach churn and turn over. Her eyes darted toward the sink and paced off the distance in her mind. If she was going to be sick, she thought she could make it that far. Her hands curled at her side. She felt the dampness of her palms as her nails scored sharp crescents into her flesh.

“It’s because of me,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “If it’s true that he did it, it’s because of me. I shouldn’t have left him.”

The judge shook his head. His eyes, so similarly colored to Rhyne’s that they might have been a reflection of hers, regarded her with a mixture of solemnity and sadness. “No, Rhyne. You’re wrong. Whatever Judah’s done–
all
that he’s done–it’s because of me.”

A small vertical crease appeared between her eyebrows as she studied him. He faced her directly, his eyes never wavering from hers. The triangular shape of his face, the narrow chin made broader by his beard, the dark hair distinguished by its threads of silver, she had the odd thought that she was staring at Runt Abbot in thirty years. It should have been a passing fancy only, but it circled her mind like an orbiting moon and struck her dumb when she faced it full on.

He spoke because she could not. “I don’t know if I
am
your father,” he said. “Delia never told me that I was.” “But you could be.” It left her lips as an accusation. “Yes. I could be. Judah certainly thinks I am.” Rhyne’s chin came up. “How do you know what Judah thinks?”

Elijah Wentworth reached in his vest pocket and withdrew a folded piece of paper. He held it between his index and middle fingers. “I found this under my door at the Commodore weeks before the outbreak began.” He extended his hand to Rhyne and indicated she should take it.

Rhyne wasn’t sure that she wanted it. She reached for it reluctantly and unfolded it even more so. She’d seen few things written in Judah’s hand, but the spidery scrawl was immediately recognizable to her. The skin at the back of her neck prickled. She read:
I forgive her sin but not the sin she spawned, the one made in her likeness and yours.

“You knew he wrote this?”

“I couldn’t imagine it was anyone else. Is it his writing?” Rhyne nodded. “Had you already been given it when you introduced yourself to Cole?”

“Yes.”

“So the reports that Judah was seen around town were true.”

“It seems so.”

“Did you show this to the sheriff? To Cole?”

“No. To neither. Perhaps that was a mistake. I don’t know. I wasn’t certain I would ever show it to you. Today …” He shrugged. “What I heard today changed my mind. I thought I needed to let you know what it’s cost you to be my daughter. Judah’s hatred was always for me.”

Rhyne’s brief smile held only the darkest of humor. “Strange, isn’t it, that I was the one that took all the beatings.”

He blanched but didn’t turn away. “I didn’t know,” he said.

“You knew I was beat regular. Everyone did. You just didn’t know I was your child. I reckon that’s what’s making a difference.”

“I still don’t
know,”
he said.

Rhyne’s eyes narrowed. “I doubt there was ever a barber with a razor so sharp that he could split hairs like a lawyer.” Her lip curled. “Well, I don’t
know
either, and after all this time, I don’t think it’s all that important.”

“He raised you for a boy so he could punish me every time he looked at you.”

“He raised me for a boy so I wouldn’t become a whore like my mother.”

The judge was on his feet and closing the gap between them so swiftly that Rhyne didn’t have time to flinch. She stared up at him, her eyes defiant, unafraid of the hand that he was drawing back, yet terrified of the deeply felt regret she saw in his face.

His hand came down, not suddenly, but slowly, deliberately, and then he was cupping her cheek, his touch in finitely tender. “She was no whore. She loved him for a time, and then she loved me. I had her once, but she stayed with him.” His fingers erased a tear that spilled over the rim of her lashes. “She was no whore.”

Rhyne closed her eyes, shuddered. Although she was certain he would have welcomed her, she resisted the urge to step forward into his embrace. Neither did she sidestep his hand. She waited for him to let it fall away. When it did, she opened her eyes and found he was still watching her.