Sweet Boundless (23 page)

“He’d want ye to have a laugh for old times. Ye know he would.”

The pain was sharp and brutal. It spread through Quillan’s chest like a fiery flood erupting into tears. But he wouldn’t let them fall. He’d learned too well to stop them, to control the pain, any pain. “Maybe someday.” His voice was raw.

“See ye let that someday come. He’s dancin’ with the saints and angels. What right have ye to begrudge him?”

Quillan closed his eyes. “I don’t begrudge him, Alan. I miss him.”

“I miss him, too.” Alan drew on the pipe, then released its sweet tobacco to the air. “But ye’ve a life to live, and he’d be the first to tell ye so.”

“I’m living it, Alan.”

“Ye know what he’d say about your driving the giant powder.”

Quillan shrugged. “I’m through with that until the season changes. I won’t blow up my team.”

“What then? Are ye stayin’ on?”

Quillan stood and paced the small space of Alan’s room. “I don’t know yet. I have options.”

Alan puffed his pipe. For once he didn’t start on about Carina and having children and making a home. Maybe he knew that wasn’t likely with Carina’s success. What need had she of children and a husband when she had men standing in the cold outside her door? Men whose names were on her special list.

Again the dragon twisted in his gut. And he was hungry. The whiffs of her marvelous meal had nearly driven him mad with it. But he wasn’t about to walk in and beg for a table, not after the laughter he’d already brought on. He’d wait. No, he’d eat elsewhere.

It wasn’t as though his wife’s place was the only decent eatery in Crystal. Though to look at the men outside you might think it. He shook his head and stood. “I brought you some Irish, Alan. But I can’t reach it until I’ve unloaded the rest. I’ll dig it out in the morning.”

“I’ll not say ye nay.” Alan puffed with a grin. Laudanum he might refuse, but never the Irish whiskey.

Quillan went to the hotel and ate Mrs. Barton’s sweet-and-sour venison steak. It was sinfully satisfying, and Quillan congratulated himself. Let Carina feed the masses. He knew where to get a meal when he needed one. But once he’d finished, it still remained to go home.

Home? That little house wasn’t his home. Why should he even think it? It was Carina’s domain. And she was his wife. Therefore everything she had was his by right. Including her restaurant enterprise. How would she feel about that?

He swaggered a little as he walked with Sam staunchly beside him. What if he walked in and ordered them all out? How would that be? Would she take it submissively, posturing this new wifely demurring, or would she fly at him like the wasp she was, stinging with sharp words in two languages? The latter, he guessed.

Anyway, he had no need to order them out. There was no longer a crowd outside the door, and while a smattering exited, he stepped inside. Once again Èmie passed him in the hall, this time with a tray loaded with used dishes on her way back to Mae’s kitchen.

He didn’t doubt Carina knew by now that he was back. Èmie would have told her. Of course she would. What would Carina have answered?
“Oh sì, un gross’uomo. The big man has decided to come
home?”

He entered the dining room and saw that all the tables had been stripped but one, probably the one Èmie had just cleared. A short, dark-featured girl was sweeping around the tables rather poorly. She glanced up when he entered.

“I’ma sorry, we’re finished for the night.” Her accent was thick and reminiscent of the Italian market vendor in Fairplay.

Before he could answer, Carina spoke behind him. “That’ll be all for tonight, Lucia. See Èmie for your wages.”

“Sì, grazie,” the girl mumbled, carrying the broom out with her.

He turned to face Carina. Her hair was tied back in a braid, but one strand of hair clung damply to her cheek. He guessed she’d left the washbasin to confront him.

“Are you hungry?”

“I ate.” And a good thing, too, or she might have lured him to the kitchen and he’d have followed like a dumb beast. Did he imagine the disappointment that flickered in her eyes?

She walked to the table and tugged the last cloth off. “I’ll just take this to Èmie.” She was gone before he could object, or tell her she could do whatever she liked, or say anything at all. He kicked himself.

When she returned, she had removed her apron, and he noticed a dress he hadn’t seen on her before. By the fit it had been tailored to her tiny waist and delicate stature, and he wondered how she had paid for it. Then he needn’t have wondered. Her dining room was filled each night with paying customers if he’d heard the diners correctly. She could buy as many dresses as she liked.

“I came to see what you’d need to get you through the winter.”

A small quiver of her lower lip showed that somehow he’d wounded her. What was wounding in that? But then her fire rose and she waved a hand. “I can obtain whatever I need.”

Without you
. She didn’t say it, but the implication was clear. “How?”

“There are other freighters in Crystal.”

Quillan probably knew every one of the traitors by name. “I bet you’re being gouged.”

“I am.” She said it as though that pleased her, but he knew it couldn’t because he’d seen her haggle, been haggled by her.

“As long as I’m here . . .”

“How long will that be?”

“What I meant is I may as well fix you up before I go.” He wasn’t sure what he expected, but her angry laugh did more to discomfit him than another response.

“Grazie, signore. You are compassion itself.
Veramente compati-mento
. So responsible, so important, eh?” She shoved the wayward strand back from her eyes again.

He cocked his jaw to the side. “Look, Carina, I only came—”

“To fulfill your duty.”

“I brought you chickens.” His retort sounded infantile. He’d purchased the fowl in Leadville, thinking how pleased she’d be to have her own layers since eggs seemed to mean so much to her.

She put her hands to her hips. “You bring me chickens, but you are more chicken than they. At least they will stay.” She was certainly showing her true colors tonight.

“Until something eats them,” he fired back. “Or maybe you’ll cook them yourself and serve them to the whole town.”

“How many did you bring?”

“Six.” He slacked his leg in the insolent stance he took when feeling attacked. Six chickens had seemed a treasure.

Now she scoffed. “Six chickens would hardly feed the first seating, not the town. I know. I’ve fed the town.”

That thought irked. “Then I guess you don’t need them.” His arrow found its mark. Now she would have to relent, admit she wanted the fowl. He knew she did.

“Where are they, these chickens?” It was halfhearted at best.

“Warm in my wagon in Alan’s livery.”

“Perhaps you’ll have time to unload them before you run away again.”

“I don’t run . . .” This was futile. It would gain them nothing to fight. What had set her off anyway? He gentled his manner. “Carina . . . I don’t know what has you all worked up.”

“Worked up?” She spread her hands in mock amazement. “Where did you eat?”

“What?”

“Tonight. Where did you eat?”

He shook his head dumbly. “At the hotel.”

“Mrs. Barton fed you.”

“She cooks at the hotel. I fed myself.” He knew the difference after being spoon-fed by Augusta Tabor. He didn’t tell Carina that.

“Every day I cook. Every night forty-eight men eat my food. But my own husband, he goes to the hotel.”

He felt defensive. “I came here. The place was swarming. What did you expect?”

She shoved a chair into place at the table she’d stripped. “Expect? I expect nothing. I have no husband, only a man who brings me chickens.”

His anger flared. “I offered to let you out of this.”

She spun. “There. You’ve said it. No visit could be complete without your generous offer.” She clenched her hands, and he guessed it took all her control not to fly at him.

The sight softened him. “It’s no good, Carina.” And the next words came before he could stop them. “I don’t know how to love you.”

She seemed to shrink even smaller. Her lip trembled, and her eyes glassed with tears. “You did once.”

“That’s not what I meant. That’s . . . only part.”

“It’s a start.” She took a step toward him.

Desire hit like a charge of giant powder. What was she trying to do? She took another step, and he grabbed her shoulders. “Is that what you want?” He stared into the dark, melting depths of her eyes, then gripped the back of her neck and kissed her hard.

If she resisted he couldn’t tell, because he had swept her up into his arms and was bearing down on the small door at the end, which he guessed led to her room. He thrust it open, one intention consuming him. He was not gentle. All his rage and frustration vented, and it left him shaken and ashamed. He rolled aside, his conscience smarting. “I’m sorry.”

Carina didn’t speak.

He forked his fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “I didn’t mean to treat you like a . . .”

She sat up, chest heaving with unspent tears. “Like a harlot?”

“Yes!” He hollered it, more angry with himself than he could remember being. He fumbled with his clothes.

“What do you know? What do you know about the heart of a harlot?”

Her arm swung past him and grasped a red leather book from the crate beside the bed. He almost hoped she would hit him with it. Instead, she shoved it into his chest.

“Here. This is the heart and soul of a harlot. Rose Annelise DeMornay. Your mother.”

Quillan felt the breath leave him. He lifted and stared at the book, the nameplate proving her words. DeMornay. His mother’s name was DeMornay? How did Carina . . . A fresh shame enveloped him. “Have you read it?” His voice was rust on iron.

“Sì.”

He gripped the book, white knuckled. “You just don’t stop, do you?”

“It was given to me. For our wedding.”

“By whom?”

“Someone who cared for her.”

He looked again at the finely tooled book, the leather old but quality, the name etched in brass, like the tiny key that hung from a ribbon through the center pages. His mother’s diary. A harlot’s diary. He ought to fling it from him, burn it. As she’d burned?

Stark anguish knifed through him. He staggered to his feet, grabbed his coat up from the floor. He looked once more at Carina, then left her.

Carina lay back, clasped in her own arms, and cried. More surely than Quillan’s face, she knew his back, just as she’d seen it now, the honey brown mane tossed to his shoulders, the straight, stubborn stance. He was gone again, she knew. Maybe this time for good.

What had she expected? To provoke him into loving her, into caring? Her own temper, her own hurt at his going to Mrs. Barton had driven her; his rejection of everything she had to give him. No, not everything.

She touched her lips and gulped her tears, but they came again anyway. A start, she had said. This was no start for them. It was the end. She felt it in her heart. And she had given him Rose’s journal. In anger she had given it, not as she’d wanted, to help him know his mother’s love. No, she’d given it to strike back, to punish him.

She sank into the pillows. Now even Rose’s words were lost to her. She clasped her hands at her throat.
Signore, forgive me
. She closed her eyes and prayed that God would bring good from this. Then she cried herself to sleep.

Quillan left the chickens with Alan. The old man would see that Carina got them, and she could do as she pleased with the birds. What did he care if she diced them up for other men? He hunched himself against the renewed snow flurries, ignored Sam’s whining, and steered his team for Denver.

He could winter there. Work was plentiful, and he had enough put by to live in style if he wanted to. He didn’t. He’d take a room in a hotel, loosen a floorboard, and continue to stash his wealth. One day, he might equal Horace Tabor.

He wished it mattered. He put a hand beneath his coat, felt the diary pressed there to his chest. It was locked. He had yet to open one page. Maybe he never would. Maybe he only waited until he could throw it away as she’d thrown him, casting him off like so much unwanted rubbish, giving him to Mrs. Shepard.

Rose Annelise DeMornay. Did he care that he now had a name? At least on his mother’s side. Did it change who he was? Did it change anything? He pulled up at the sight of a bogged freighter. The wagon listed heavily where the snow had softened the edge of the road and the wagon had slid down to the axle.

Quillan drove well shy of the edge himself, reined in his team, and dismounted. Without a word, he put a shoulder to the wagon and shoved when the freighter hollered to his team. The ore in the bed weighed tons, and Quillan felt like an ant striving against it. Again the freighter hollered; again Quillan shoved, leveraging himself and straining with every ounce of strength.

The wheel turned, rolled back, turned again. Kept turning. Quillan spun himself about and with both arms to the wagon kept the momentum moving forward until the wheel was free. Once settled on solid ground, the freighter halted his team. “Much obliged, Quillan.”