Mountain Rose (13 page)

Raegan stood up and stretched, then with dirt-grimed fingers massaged the small of her back. A hot breeze blew against her, flattening her skirt against her thighs and drying the perspiration on her body. She brought her hands in front of her and studied them. They were full of scratches— some shallow, barely breaking the skin, others gouged deep into the flesh.

She and Jamie had been working for the past hour on the neglected rosebeds in the chimney corner. Jamie was pruning the briars, claiming that he knew how to do it correctly from helping Granny Pearson with hers. Since she knew nothing about such things, she had crawled along behind him, rooting out the weeds and grass that threatened to choke the life from the bushes that had, according to Mama, bloomed profusely under Molly Donlin's care.

Jamie squinted over his shoulder at Raegan and teased, "Hey, are you gettin' lazy on me? Is a little weed-pullin' too much for you?"

"No, I'm not
gettin'
lazy on you." Raegan gave his sweat-wet hair a sharp tug, then dropped back down on her knees. "I was just getting a few kinks out of my back."

"You shouldn't be out in the sun workin' like this," Jamie said, serious now as she picked up the hand spade and attacked a thick-stemmed weed. "Me and Chase can take care of the weeds."

"Well, I don't see him around, do you?" Raegan answered sharply, bitterly. "Anyway, I like doing it. I enjoy getting my fingers in the soil, it feels alive somehow. Maybe I inherited my father's love of mining."

Jamie sat back on his heels, enjoying his view of Raegan's face as she concentrated on digging out the last root of a stubborn piece of bunch grass. He had never seen a woman so lovely. How could Chase treat her so indifferently?

"Damn him," he swore silently. "It's pure stubborness. Jealously is eatin' him alive, and still he won't let Raegan know how deeply he cares for her. Hell, sometimes when he thinks no one will notice, the way he looks at her isn't even decent, the hunger in his eyes."

Jamie shook his head and turned back to the rose bush. As soon as he and Raegan had started grubbing around in the yard, Chase had stalked off to the barn, his back rigid with disapproval.

For the first time since knowing the big man, Jamie had wanted to go after Chase, swing him around and plant his fist in the handsome face.

Raegan didn't deserve the treatment she was receiving from him. His coolness hurt her deeply. He could see it in her eyes, in the droop of her soft lips.

Unknown to Raegan and Jamie, Chase sat a few yards from them, half concealed beneath a pine. He ground his teeth together when Raegan laughed, peals of husky mirth issuing from her lips. He watched the pair jealously, feeling shut out of the companionship Raegan and Jamie shared. He felt like an onlooker, wishing, but not daring to enter the warm circle. For if he should lay a hand on Raegan's shoulder the way Jamie had just done, it wouldn't stop at that. He would be unable to keep from pulling her into his arms and crushing her red lips with his own.

A long sigh escaped him as he stared up at the clear blue sky. He knew it was said of him that Chase Donlin was a law unto himself, letting no man stand in the way of what he wanted. Ironically, in this instance, he stood in his own way—he and his conscience.

As he had a dozen times over the past two weeks, he ignored the small voice that nagged, "She is not a blood relation. It is not shameful that you hunger for her." He didn't bother to argue back as he usually did, "She is still Anne's daughter."

As if his inner voice had read his mind, it taunted, "If that's the way you truly feel about it, why do you sit here pouting? Why don't you get yourself down there and act like the uncle you insist you are. Pitch in and help your
niece
pull those weeds."

"All right, I will," Chase muttered and stood up.

He was within a yard of the pair scrabbling in the dirt when a feminine voice hailed him. He turned around and groaned under his breath. Liza Jenkins was riding toward him, and from the sullen pout on her face, the widow was out to make trouble.

Suddenly, he was sorry he had ever known the woman. He had never come close to loving her, and come to think about it, he didn't even like her. She was a grasping, unfeeling female, her only appeal being her lustiness in bed. But out of politeness, he raised a hand to help the rather plump woman to dismount, saying cooly. "How are you, Liza?"

"I'm just fine," she answered and Chase had to quickly raise both hands to catch her as she threw herself from the saddle. As she clung to him, pressing her lush curves into his lean body, Chase glanced at Jamie and Raegan, a guilty flush spreading over his face when he found them staring at him and Liza.

When he saw the wounded look in Raegan's eyes, the condemning one in Jamie's, he quickly put Liza away from him. Angered that she had deliberately put him in this compromising position, he glared at her, bitting out, "That was quite unnecessary, Liza. And what are you doin' ridin' alone? You know the woods are full of Tillamooks these days."

Liza ignored his criticism and latched onto his last sentence. "You'll just have to see me safely home then, won't you?" She smiled coyly at him as they walked across the yard to where Raegan and Jamie worked.

"Bitch!" Chase muttered under his breath. "That's what you planned all along." He wondered if he could talk Jamie into escorting her home. Jamie didn't like Liza, never had, but not to have Raegan shamed, he might do it.

"I want you to meet my wife." Chase grabbed Liza's elbow when she would have walked past Raegan and Jamie and gone straight to the cabin. Liza gave him a reproachful look. "Yes, I heard you had taken a wife. Almost a child, it's said."

"I don't know who told you that lie," Chase said, laughing. "Raegan is hardly a child, as you will see. She's well past eighteen. I remember you tellin' me once that you were sixteen when you got married."

Liza deigned not to answer the truth of Chase's charge as they came to a halt in front of Jamie and Raegan. A brooding hostility clouded her pale brown eyes when Raegan stood up, waiting expectantly.

"Liza, meet Raegan, my wife," Chase said stiffly. "Raegan, this is Liza Jenkins, a neighbor."

Liza shot Chase a sullen look, not liking at all to be classified merely as a neighbor. She paid no attention to Raegan who, having had good manners drummed in to her, held out a hand.

When her offer of a handshake was ignored, Raegan's whole being became alert. This woman was her enemy. She mistakenly thought that her man had been stolen from her by his "wife." Well, she hadn't stolen him yet, but Raegan O'Keefe was going to do everything in her power to make it come true.

Although she wanted to fasten her hands in the rude woman's hair and pull out a handful, she fought the desire. An act like that would only make Chase angry and would bind him to the widow all the more. She must be very careful how she struck back.

Forcing a sham sweetness to her smile, she said, "I've heard so much about you, Mrs. Jenkins. I understand that you and my husband have been friends for a long time." Her smile widened. "So that makes you my friend too." She looped an arm in Chase's. "I'd hoped you were nearer my age, though. I don't imagine we have much in common." She looked at Jamie and said innocently, "But Jamie assures me there are several young girls in the neighborhood, so I guess I won't lack for female companions."

A mottled red spread over Liza's face. She knew that she had been deliberately and successfuly paid back for her own unbecoming behavior. Her anger turned to rage when she heard Jamie snicker. Already piqued that he hadn't risen at her arrival, but had gone on with his work, silently announcing that she wasn't worth the trouble to acknowledge her presence, she turned her ire on him.

"I see you still have no manners, breed," she said scathingly.

Jamie squinted up at her and answered just as scathingly, "My manners are about the same as yours, whore."

Both women gasped. But where Raegan stood rooted to the spot, Liza took a step toward Jamie, the riding whip in her hand raised to strike him in the face.

Jamie shot to his feet and, grabbing her wrist, glared at Chase and warned, "You'd better step in, Chase, before I break the bitch's arm."

With a muttered curse, Chase twisted the quirt out of Liza's hand.

"Did you hear what he called me?" Liza cried, squeezing tears out of her outraged eyes.

"I heard. I also heard you start the name-callin'," Chase spoke sharply, flinging the short whip into the brush.

"You always take up for that—him," Liza said tearfully. "A person would think that after all we've—" She stopped, pretending embarrassment at what she had almost said.

She fooled no one. When that fact became clear to her, Liza tossed her head and said sweetly, "I'm parched, Chase. Ain't you gonna ask me in for a glass of water?"

Raegan and Jamie had returned to their labors, and Raegan didn't see the trapped look on Chase's face—a look that said he wished Liza Jenkins a thousand miles away. In her imagination she saw him eager to get his lover inside the cabin, away from her and Jamie.

When an embarrassing amount of time had

gone by, Chase cleared his throat and said thinly,

"Of course." He turned to Raegan and Jamie, and

jerking his head toward the cabin, said, "Come
tt

on.

Both shook their head in unison. "I'm not thirsty," Jamie declined. He looked at Raegan.

"Are you?" She shook her head and they continued with the flower bed.

Chase's face was as dark as a thunder cloud as he stamped toward the cabin, a gleeful Liza trying to keep up with him. There was no way he'd be able to talk Jamie into escorting Liza home now, he swore under his breath. And stuck in the cabin alone with her, he'd have his work cut out convincing the lusty widow that he wasn't going to take her to bed.

And what was Raegan thinking? he wondered helplessly. He couldn't just say out of the blue, "Look, Raegan, I'm not gonna bed the bitch."

He had the strong urge not to let Liza enter the cabin. He would bring her a glass of water, then tell her to be on her way. He mentally shook his head then. In all conscience, he couldn't do that. The foolish woman could be attacked by a Tillamook brave.

With an inward sigh, he stepped aside, allowing Liza to proceed him into the kitchen.

"That bitch," Jamie grated when Liza closed the door that had been standing open all morning. "I knew she'd be around, tryin' to make trouble."

Raegan kept her head down, pretending her whole concentration was on the weeds she dug at blindly through her tears. When Jamie finally ceased calling Liza every unfavorable name he could think of, she swallowed a lump in her throat and asked, "Have she and Chase been— you know, close?"

Jamie laughed contemptuously. "No closer than half the men in and around the village have. She doesn't know it, but she's referred to as the Lusty Widow. She's had half the married men and most of the single ones findin' their way to her door."

"Does that include you?" Raegan tried to tease above the ache in her heart.

"Nope, not me. That's why she hates me so. She tried coaxing me into her bed once, and I bluntly refused her. I can't make love to a woman unless I at least like her. Liza Jenkins, I definitely don't like."

"Then she's not.. . Chase doesn't. . ."

"Chase doesn't give a snap of his finger for her," Jamie interrupted her stuttering question. "But that's not to say ole Liza feels the same way about him. Even though she lies with most any man who comes along, it's Chase she wants permanently. Be wise to her, Raegan, she won't fight fair."

When Raegan made no answer, Jamie glanced at her suffering face and stood up. "Come on," he said, offering his hand for an assist up. "Let's go visit Aggie Stevens. It's time you met some of your
nice
neighbors."

"But, Jamie." Raegan brushed at the dirt clinging to her skirt. "I couldn't go like this."

"Sure you can. We'll probably find Aggie grubbin' in the dirt too."

"I should at least wash my hands." Raegan looked at the cabin, chewing at her bottom lip.

Jamie sensed that she didn't want to go inside the cabin. "Go wash up at the horse trough," he said gently, "while I go saddle up the mounts."

Raegan scrubbed the dirt off her hands, then wet her handkerchief and wiped her face. She smoothed back her hair, refusing to look toward the cabin, blocking from her mind what might be going on inside. When Jamie arrived with her mount and his roan, she managed to smile brighdy at him.

"That's my girl," he said, helping her to mount. He swung onto the roan, and together they raced across the meadow, their gay laughter floating back to the man who waited impatiently for his unwanted guest to finish the glass of water he knew she hadn't wanted in the first place.

Damn you, Jamie Hart. Chase's fists clenched. And damn you, Liza Jenkins.

Jamie and Raegan crested a hill and pulled their mounts into a walk as they descended it. Below nestled a sturdy, well-kept cabin, a barn, and several long, low sheds. "Those are Aggies's chicken houses," Jamie explained when he saw Raegan looking curiously at the unusual-looking buildings. "Behind each one is a tight pen with a wire stretched over it. Without that protection the varmints around here would soon put an end to her flock."

When there came to them a continuous clucking and squawking of hens and the crowing of roosters, Jamie growled, "If I had to listen to that racket all day, I'd put an end to them myself."

Raegan laughed. "I imagine one gets used to it. Aggie probably doesn't even hear it."

"Yeah," Jamie agreed. "Especially when you know that each time a hen cackles she's laid an egg. Ike was braggin' that Aggie made more from her eggs and chickens last year than he did trappin'. He was right proud of his wife, but a little put out too. He figures runnin' a trapline is ten times harder and colder than feedin' a bunch of chickens twice a day and gatherin' their eggs."

"That may be, but look how much stronger he must be than his wife," Raegan pointed out.

"You women always stick together, don't you?" Jamie pretended to be aggravated, but the quirking of his lips gave him away.

"We have to, otherwise you men would walk all over us." Raegan shaded her eyes with a hand. "Is that Aggie? The woman who just stepped out of one of the sheds with a basket on her arm?"

Jamie nodded and grinned. "She's been gathering her white gold. Eggs," he explained when Raegan raised an eyebrow.

The short, plumpish woman spotted them right off and, smoothing her graying hair back from her face, waved and called out, "Hey, Jamie!" She walked briskly to meet them.

Raegan and Jamie slid from their saddles, and her bright brown eyes crinkled at the corners as the motherly-looking woman smiled at Raegan. "You'd be Chase's wife." She held out a work-worn hand.

Raegan's smile weakened a bit as she returned the gesture with a warm grip of her fingers. Like Ruthie Johnson, Sid's Indian wife, Aggie Stevens was a nice woman and she hated lying to her. She evaded acknowledging that status by saying, "Chase has spoke often of you. My name is Raegan."

"What about me?" Jamie demanded as the women shook hands. "I speak of Aggie too. Didn't