Stay With Me (11 page)

Just what was Sarah up to?

John took a few cautious steps. Besides
having a hell of a headache, being a mite off-balance, and feeling
like he might get stomach-sick at any moment, he felt all right.
Moving slowly, he pulled his boots on and tucked his shirt into his
pants. He grabbed his hat from the hook and put it on, pulling the
brim low to protect his eyes from the bright sun. He walked outside
and headed for the privy. First things first.

Minutes later, he opened the barn door. The
children, their small arms full of clean straw, were in one horse
stall. Sarah, her back to him, scooped manure out of the next
one.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, his
voice echoing in the empty barn.

She whirled around, hitting the blade of her
shovel on the side of the stall. “Ouch,” she said, as she absorbed
the shock in her arms and shoulders. “You scared me,” she said,
placing one hand over her heart.

“Sorry,” he said. Lord, she was a mess. Her
hair stuck to her neck, she had dirt on her face, and she’d torn
the sleeve of her blouse.

“Should you be up?” she said.

“Never mind what I should be doing,” he said,
wanting to talk about anything but his health. “What do you think
you’re doing?”

Thomas spoke up before Sarah had a chance to
answer. “We’re cleaning up after the horses, Uncle John. Sarah said
it would be a nice surprise for you.”

“The chicken coop is next,” Helen said. “That
smells even worse than the barn.” She pinched her nose with her
fingers. Missy watched her sister for a second then pinched her own
nose.

“Doesn’t smell as bad as you do,” Thomas said
to Helen, baiting her as only a five-year-old brother could.

“At least I take a bath once a week,” Helen
answered, her small nose in the air.

“Baths are for girls,” Thomas said, clearly
not impressed.

Sarah laughed. “We’re all going to need baths
after this. Girls and boys alike.”

“You don’t have to do this,” John said,
trying hard to identify the emotions cursing through him. It had
been a long time since someone had done something to surprise him.
He had never expected it from Sarah. He wanted to just appreciate
the moment but he couldn’t help wondering what the hell she was up
to? What could Sarah possible hope to gain?

“I know,” she said. “We wanted to help. All
of us did. The children felt bad that you’d been injured.”

“My pa thinks you must have a hard head,”
Thomas said.

John smiled at the boy. “He’s right. Where’s
your pa now?”

“Back at our place,” Helen answered. “We’re
spending the night here.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sarah said.

“No, that’s fine.” Maybe better than fine.
With three children in the house, perhaps he wouldn’t be tempted to
touch Sarah, to invite her into his bed. To do something that
immensely stupid.

“As soon as we’re done here, I’ll get the
children cleaned up and we can eat dinner.”

“I’ll finish this,” he said.

“Absolutely not. A couple scoops and you’ll
probably fall flat on your face in this stuff. Go back inside.”

He hated that she was right.

“Just go,” she urged. “Get some rest.”

He went, cursing his own weakness. But he
didn’t go back to bed. Instead, he built a roaring fire in the
stove and after making four trips back and forth between the pump
and the house, he had a big kettle of water boiling. By the time he
dumped the last bucket, he shook with fatigue. He lay down on the
bed, grateful that he’d made it that far.

It was all worth it when Sarah and the
children came back into the house. “Hot water,” she exclaimed. “You
crazy man. What were you thinking?”

He’d been thinking that he wanted to do
something nice for her, to make up for the nasty things he’d said
before. “I know what that chicken coop smells like on a sunny
day.”

Sarah laughed. “And you didn’t want to have
dinner with four people who smelled just like it. Well, we’re
grateful.”

In a matter of minutes, she’d hauled in four
more buckets of cold water and dumped those in the tin tub. Then
she added enough of the boiling water to make a nice warm bath.
“Helen, you’re first. Missy and Thomas, you go outside and give
your sister some privacy.”

“I’ll go outside, too,” John said.

She shook her head. “John, you’re pale as a
ghost. You really shouldn’t have hauled the water. Maybe,” she
hesitated, “if you could just roll over and face the wall.”

Unless she intended to take a bath with her
clothes on, that meant she’d be less than ten feet away from him,
completely naked.

“That won’t be a problem for you, will it?”
she asked, obviously worried about him hurting his head.

“No. No problem,” he said, hoping she
couldn’t hear the panic in his voice. He rolled over and shut his
eyes. It wouldn’t do for her to have any idea what his problem
was.

The children obeyed without question. Like
clockwork, he listened while first Helen then each of the twins got
bathed. Sarah efficiently got them dressed in the extra clothes
they’d brought from home and spent a few minutes combing each
child’s hair. After that, Sarah pitched the dirty water out the
door and made two trips more trips out to the pump to get enough
water to fill the tub again. Then, he heard her add the
still-boiling water from the stove.

“You guys go out and play,” she said,
speaking quietly. “Don’t get dirty,” she warned. “I’m going to get
cleaned up and then we’ll eat.”

He heard the door shut and could hear the
faint voices of the children outside. He heard her take a few steps
toward the bed. “John?” He didn’t respond, just concentrated on
breathing deeply, in and out. She lingered for another long minute.
Finally, convinced that he was asleep, she walked back toward the
tub.

Next came the rustle of clothing hitting the
floor and the gentle lapping of the water on the side of the tub as
she lowered herself into the water. When he heard her sigh, he got
instantly hard.

Christ, he was a sick bastard. Ever since
he’d rolled over, he’d been fantasizing about her body. Having seen
her breasts, he’d spent the last fifteen minutes imagining the
rest. Slender. Pale skin. A sweet blonde triangle of hair. Slim
hips. Round bottom. Long legs. Just the right length to wrap around
him when he filled her.

John thought he might just spill his seed
inside his trousers.

He was concentrating so hard on keeping
silent that he didn’t hear the sound of horse hooves until they
were almost at his front door. Suddenly the children squealed, and
Fred’s voice boomed in response.

Sarah jumped out of the tub. John listened to
the sounds of her briskly drying herself off. He heard the flap of
Franny’s canvas bag flip open and then the rustle of clothing as
Sarah slipped something over her head.

Then Fred was knocking and walking in the
door. When Sarah didn’t scream in protest or Fred didn’t crow in
admiration, John assumed that Sarah had somehow managed to get
adequately covered.

But he knew that there was no way she’d had
anytime to pull on undergarments. She was naked under her dress.
That knowledge did nothing to diminish the wanting that consumed
him.

“Hello, Sarah,” Fred said.

“Hi.” She sounded a bit breathless. “I didn’t
expect you.”

“I know. I got done early and thought I’d
come get the children. I know you didn’t get any sleep last night.
I didn’t want them waking up in the middle of the night, getting
scared because they were in a strange place without me, and then
keeping you up all night again.”

“Fred Goodie, you’re a nice man,” Sarah
said.

John heard Fred shuffle his feet in
embarrassment. John decided to wake up and save his best friend
before he did something stupid like confess his undying love for
Sarah. John rolled over and stretched, managing to throw one leg
over the other, hopefully hiding his need. He opened his eyes and
blinked them several times.

“Fred?” he asked, trying to look
appropriately confused. “What time is it?”

“Almost dinner time,” Sarah said. “Will you
at least stay and eat with us?”

Fred shook his head. “I’ve got to get back. I
got a mare about to give birth. She might need some help.”

“Well, at least let me send some soup home
with you,” she said. “I’ve just got to go down to the creek and get
it.”

“The creek?” Both John and Fred spoke at the
same time.

Sarah looked from one to the other. “Yes. I
didn’t want it to spoil. To keep it cold, I put it in jars and then
placed the jars in the stream. That water is practically
freezing.”

“Why didn’t you just put it in the root
cellar?” John asked.

“I…I guess I wasn’t thinking,” Sarah
said.

“You had a lot on your mind,” Fred said,
obviously trying to make her feel better.

“Yes. That’s it,” Sarah said. “I’ll just go
get it now.” She left, almost running for the door.

“That’s odd,” Fred said, pulling out a chair
from the table. “Children told me that the four of them cleaned out
the horse stalls and the chicken coop.”

John nodded.

“She gets a lot done in a short amount of
time,” Fred stated. “Doesn’t waste time talking about it. Just gets
to it.”

“You’re starting to sound like you’re almost
sweet on her,” John said, giving his friend a hard look. “Don’t
tell me she’s fooled you too.”

“I ain’t fooled about nothing,” Fred said. “I
ain’t trying to hide a log in my pants either. By the way, I’ve
seen you wake up before. Haven’t ever seen all that blinking and
stretching though. Must have been one hell of a dream.”

John’s sexual frustration, his disgust that
he wanted Sarah in the worst way even though he knew the kind of
woman she was, coupled with his hatred for being hurt and confined
to a bed, proved to be too much. “Don’t be fooled by her,” he
yelled at his friend. “She married my brother and six months later,
she walked away with everything that he’d ever worked for, his life
savings. She did nothing to earn that money. She’s nothing but a
lying thief. She can’t be trusted.”

***

Sarah lugged the three jars of soup back to
the cabin, cursing her foolishness all the way. Root cellar. Of
course, the man had a root cellar. She’d probably stumbled past it
and hadn’t even realized it. Sarah One would have known about the
root cellar. Too bad Sarah One hadn’t left a note, some quick
directions, a few hot tips.

She just hoped the two men had forgotten
about the stream thing and had moved on to other fascinating
topics. When she got a little closer to the cabin, she could see
Thomas sitting in the dirt in front of the cabin. He had traces of
tears on his tanned cheeks.

She set the soup down and took the spot next
to him. “What’s wrong, Thomas? Won’t the girls play with you?”

He shook his head.

“Come on. You can tell me. Aren’t we friends?
You can tell a friend anything.”

“Pa and Uncle John yelled at each other. I
sat right here and heard everything.”

Oh. “Honey, sometimes when adults talk about
things that are important to them, it might sound like yelling but
it’s really just loud conversation. Nothing to worry about.”

“Uncle John said that you were a lying thief
and that you couldn’t be dusted.”

Lying thief. Sarah swallowed. “Dusted?”

He nodded.

“Could it have been trusted?”

“Yep, that’s it. A lying thief who can’t be
trusted.”

Sarah blinked, hoping she wouldn’t cry in
front of the child. She felt sick. She’d lost her job, her home,
her century. She’d lost everything and had found nothing. Nothing
but a man who couldn’t see his way around the past.

She absolutely would not stay here until
Wednesday. She wouldn’t stay another minute. She’d go to Fred’s
house.

No. She couldn’t do that. Fred would be torn
between her and John. Not to mention that Suzanne would assume the
worst. She didn’t want to cause that kind of trouble for Fred.

She’d go to town. Surely there had to be a
hotel. She’d sleep in the damn lobby if they didn’t have a bed.
Anything to get away from John.

She hugged Thomas. “Go find your sisters. I
want to have a word with your pa and Uncle John.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Not at you,” she said.

“At Uncle John and Pa?”

“No. Not even them. Some things aren’t worth
being mad about.”

She stood up, took a deep breath, and walked
into the cabin. “Where’s the soup?” Fred asked.

“Outside.” She grabbed Franny’s bag, stuffed
back in the clothes she’d pulled out earlier, and walked to the
door. “I am neither a liar or a thief. I’m not a fool either. So I
don’t intend to stay where I’m not wanted.”

Neither John nor Fred made eye contact with
her.

“Fred, would it be possible for Missy and
Thomas to double-up on one horse? Then I could borrow the extra
horse and ride to town.”

“You can’t ride to town,” John said. “It’s
going to be dark soon.”

“I’m leaving tonight. I’m either riding or
walking. I don’t really care which.”

“Sarah,” John said, looking uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry you overheard us.”

She didn’t correct him. There was no sense
incriminating Thomas. “But you’re not sorry you said it. After all,
it’s the truth.”

She could see the muscles in John’s jaw
working. “Where are you going to stay?” he asked.

“Not your business or your worry,” she
said.

She turned toward Fred. “Am I walking or
riding?”

Fred looked at John. Sarah didn’t know if he
sought instruction or permission. When John gave him a slight nod
of response, she thought it might have been the latter.

“Riding,” Fred said. “The children and I’ll
go with you and make sure you get to the hotel. I expect they’ll
have rooms.”