The Texan and the Lady (12 page)

His embrace was warm and loving and filled with a need she didn’t quite understand. But she was learning and loving the lesson.

If he’d told her she could fly, she would have believed him; but the creaking of a door shattered the moment and brought her feelings crashing to reality.

Austin’s head jerked up, and one hand pulled her behind him as the other reached for his weapon. His stance widened, preparing for battle, and Jennie felt his body turn to stone in front of her.

“Morning, son,” Spider Morris mumbled as he pulled off his wet hat and slapped it against his knee. He would have been completely blind to miss the scene he’d interrupted. Jennie stood behind Austin clothed in nothing but a man’s shirt, while Austin braced like a warrior ready to defend his lady.

“Hell of a wreck last night.” Morris moved to his desk without seeming to see anything out of place. “I thought I’d get a dry pipe and head on over to the Harvey House and see how many injured we have.” He replaced his hat low over his head. “‘Spect I’ll be seeing you over there later, since there’s nothing going on around here.”

Austin didn’t answer.

Morris opened the door and disappeared into the rain without a backward glance.

Jennie grabbed the blanket and pulled it tightly around her. “Do you think it possible he didn’t notice us?”

Austin ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve worked with him for a week, and there’s not much he misses. He noticed us, but if anyone ever asked, I’d bet a month’s pay the old man swears he didn’t see a thing.”

“Really!” Jennie could imagine how such a scandal like this would spread over her hometown.

“We weren’t breaking any law, so I guess he figures it was none of his business.” Austin watched her closely. “Unless he thought I might be forcing myself on a lady who didn’t welcome my advances.”

Jennie laughed and moved into the shadows, collecting her drying clothes as she walked. “More likely it was the other way around, Marshal.”

Austin fought the urge to follow her into the darkness. “No regrets?”

“One.” Jennie’s voice came from somewhere in the blackness of a cell.

“What’s that?” Austin stiffened. The moments preceding her answer ticked by one eternity after another.

“We got interrupted before the lesson was over.” She walked into the warm glow of the lamplight, her clothes still wet and clinging to her slender frame. “Though I found the learning very interesting.”

His frown spread into a smile across his tanned face. He watched her as she walked up to him unafraid and buttoned his shirt. The casual touch made him want to hold her once more, but he was afraid if he touched her now, he would frighten her with his need for her. “I’d like to see you again. I’ve never met a woman like you before. All proper on the outside and fire on the inside. I’ve never wanted to hold anyone so much.”

Jennie could feel the heat climbing up her body as if he still touched her. “I’d like that,” she whispered. “I’m a little afraid … afraid I’m dreaming.”

“Well, if you are, we’re both having the same dream.”

He didn’t say another word as he wrapped his duster around her. He held her hand tightly as they hurried through the predawn blackness to the Harvey House.

When they reached the edge of the trees, he pulled her suddenly against him. The rain pounded above them, but neither felt the cold. They held to each other as if to life. Now their touch was no longer filled with passion, but longing. Then, as suddenly as he’d hugged her, he moved again, placing his arm around her shoulder and pulling her across the river of mud toward the lights.

“If you ever need me, just walk out the front of the hotel. From there you can see the light of the jail. It’s the first building in town. We usually keep a lantern on till late, in case anyone needs us.”

“And if I should need you one night?”

“I’ll be waiting,” Austin promised.

He didn’t let his grip around her slacken until they reached the back door of the hotel. When she stepped inside, she felt his arm leave her. Before she could turn around, he disappeared into the rain, but the memory of his kiss warmed her as she climbed the back stairs to her room. It was very late, but people were still moving around, tending to those in pain.

When she opened the door, Audrey and Delta’s crying shattered her thoughts.

“What is it?” Jennie ran to the foot of the bed both women sat beside. “Is True hurt?”

Audrey looked up and wiped her nose with the corner of her robe. “No, True’s fine. Crawled under the bed about an hour ago and fell asleep.”

Jennie glanced at her bed. All the air in her lungs seemed to rash out at once. The blond-haired woman Austin had pulled from the train wreck slept quietly in Jennie’s bed. Too quietly!

“Is she …” Jennie couldn’t finish as she knelt beside Audrey.

Audrey nodded. “About thirty minutes ago. I did all I could, but she never even opened her eyes.” Audrey started crying again, and Delta joined in.

Finally Audrey handed Jennie a stack of letters tied up in a blue ribbon. “We thought we’d look through her carpetbag and see if we could find her name. Something isn’t right when a woman dies without anyone even knowing her name.”

Jennie looked down at the letters addressed to a Mary Elizabeth O’Brian as Audrey continued. “Those tell the whole story. This poor girl has no family back east. She answered one of those ads men place in the personals and traveled all this way to marry a man she doesn’t even know, an old widower by the name of Colton Barkley.”

Jennie found herself fighting back her own tears. She hadn’t even spoken to the woman, but it seemed so wrong that she’d die just as she was about to marry and have a family.

“She must have had a pretty bad life back east,” Audrey continued. “Look at her clothes, they’re little more than rags. But she didn’t have to answer that ad to get away. I’ve heard stories about what a hard time some of these mail-order brides have. They come all this way to be little more than slaves to a man too ugly to find a decent wife.”

Delta patted Audrey’s hand. “Maybe the widower isn’t as bad as we think. He did offer to let her stay one month before the wedding. One of the letters says he’ll buy her a ticket to anywhere she wants if she decides not to marry him. Now, that doesn’t sound like someone who just wants a slave.”

Audrey blew her nose again and nodded. “Too bad someone doesn’t make you that offer. We could get you so far away from here with a free train ticket your stepbrother would never find you.”

Jennie moved to the window, tapping the letters against her palm. She stared out the pane, too deep in thought to see anything. The woman had died, forfeiting a chance for freedom Delta would have done anything to have. If Delta’s stepbrother hadn’t been on the train last night, he’d be on one soon. Then Delta might be the one sleeping forever. “I know exactly what we’re going to do,” she whispered first to herself, then to the others. “Do the letters say the widower has ever met Mary Elizabeth, or exchanged pictures?”

“No,” Audrey said. “In fact he said he was sorry that she didn’t have a picture to send him, but it didn’t really matter to him what she looked like. That didn’t seem to be a factor in making the offer of marriage.”

Jennie smiled at Delta. “Then you can take the widower up on his offer.”

“But I can’t take her ticket.” Delta shook her head. “I can’t act like I’m going to marry some old man then change my mind just for a free ticket. He’ll know I’m not her. All we have is his letters. We don’t know what she wrote to him.”

Audrey straightened, pushing all grief aside as easily as an old maid folds her wedding dress up with her dreams. “Mary Elizabeth isn’t going to use the ticket, and the widower can afford it or he wouldn’t have offered. Look at it as a business deal. You’ll give him a month’s worth of work for his money.”

Jennie joined in. “After a few days on his farm, you’ll be good as new. And you can say you’re memory is a little foggy after the wreck. After all, you did get hit in the head.”

“I did?”

Audrey agreed. “Yes, you did.”

“But …” Delta’s light blue eyes filled with doubt.

“No buts about it,” Audrey answered. “Jennie’s got a great idea. You’re almost the same height, near as I can tell, and you’re both blond-haired. The widower’s never seen her, so you could be her.”

“But …” Delta shook her head. “What if she wasn’t blue-eyed?”

“We could look at her eyes,” Jennie answered in a room stagnant with sudden silence.

“Not me,” Delta whispered.

“Not me,” Audrey echoed.

Jennie moved to the edge of the bed but couldn’t seem to make her hand touch the stranger’s face. She’d seen dead folks before … but she couldn’t bring herself to disturb the poor girl. Finally she turned to Delta. “We’ll let her sleep,” Jennie whispered, “and pray she had blue eyes.”

“But what if she didn’t and she wrote it in one of her letters? I can’t very well claim the train wreck changed my eye color.”

Audrey placed her hand on Delta’s shoulder. “Then you’ll do what all women do when confronted with such a problem. You’ll shrug your shoulders, smile sweetly and say, ‘I lied.’ Then look at him like it’s his problem, and most men somehow think it is.”

“But what about the body?” Delta whispered as if the dead girl might overhear them.

They all three looked at one another, then Jennie whispered, “It’s really sad, but Delta Smith took a fever and died tonight.”

“What!” Audrey’s eyebrows rose almost to her hairline.

Jennie’s expression didn’t change. “We thought she was getting better, but she must have been bleeding inside from injuries suffered during the train robbery.”

Audrey looked doubtful. “From a week ago?”

Jennie’s mask never altered. “From a week ago.”

Delta closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. When she opened them, cold steel blue looked at first Jennie, then Audrey. “Delta Smith died tonight, poor girl. You’ll hold her belongings should her family come looking, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Jennie nodded.

“And the deed.” Delta looked straight at Jennie. “The deed will never be found.”

“Never,” Jennie agreed. “In fact I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Chapter 12

T
hough the rain stopped a little after dawn, the day never brightened beyond dreary. Audrey went down to tell Mrs. Gray the sad news about the death of Delta Smith. The old woman had only seen Delta a few times, so there was a good chance that Jennie’s plan would work.

While Audrey told her tale, Jennie helped Delta into Mary Elizabeth’s faded clothes and wrapped a bandage around her forehead and neck. Thanks to Jennie’s hat and the bandages, most of Delta’s face was covered. Even someone who’d known the girl all her life would have to look twice to recognize her now.

“All you have to do is stay out of sight until the widower comes.” Jennie examined her work. “Some of the men were saying it may be two days before they get the wreck cleaned up enough for another train to arrive. If your stepbrother is on it, you’ll be long gone.”

“Or long buried,” Delta added. She was busy handling each of Mary Elizabeth’s belongings, trying to become familiar enough with the few personal objects the woman had so that she could think of them as her own. “I know what we’re doing is the only way out; and if poor Mary could tell us, she’d probably say ‘go ahead,’ but I’m not sure I can use all her personals. Somehow taking her name and future doesn’t seem as bad as using her brush and comb.”

“You have to,” Jennie answered as she stuffed Delta’s own personal items into a small trunk. “If your stepbrother comes looking for you and sees the grave, but your things are not all here, he’ll know something is wrong.”

“I feel like I’ll have nothing of me to hang on to when I leave this room.” Delta closed her fingers around air. “Could I at least take my Paterson pistol? It was my mother’s. I feel somehow less afraid with it in my pocket.”

“No, I don’t think it would be for the best.” Jennie could understand, but she had to think logically. “The deed will be missing. That’s enough. If anything else is, your stepbrother, Ward, might get suspicious.”

“You’re right,” Delta admitted, shoving the last of Mary Elizabeth’s belongings back into what was now her bag. “He might even decide to make it hard for you and Audrey, thinking you stole something from the trunk.”

Audrey opened the door, as always lugging a tray of coffee. She set down the tray, blended True a cup of half coffee, half milk, then turned to the women to tell her news. “Everyone in town’s been in this morning to dry out. Some want to help, but most just want to visit about the wreck. They’ve found a few bodies, but according to the conductor’s count, there’s still three men missing.”

“Missing?” Jennie tried not to let Delta see how worried she felt.

Audrey nodded. “They may be dead, or wandered off toward town last night in the rain. Who knows, the conductor could have miscounted. Trying to count folks in this place is like counting flies buzzing a watermelon.”

Jennie couldn’t help but smile. “So what else is going on downstairs?”

“Since no trains will be arriving until they get the tracks clear, Mrs. Gray says the coffee’s free to the locals,” Audrey said. “I don’t think one of those three men could be your stepbrother, but we need to get you out as soon as possible just in case.”

“Agreed,” Jennie added.

Audrey poured herself a serving and continued, “While I was telling her about poor Delta’s death, we spotted the undertaker downing his third cup. He said unless the rain starts up again, the funeral can be held this afternoon.” Glancing at the dead girl, Audrey added, “She looks so different.”

Jennie straightened with pride. “I put her in Delta’s new uniform. After all, if we’re burying a Harvey Girl, she should look like one.” Tending the injured might be hard for her, but dressing the dead was something every preacher’s daughter became accustomed to.

“It’s fitting she should be buried in new clothes. Poor thing didn’t have a stitch in her bag that wasn’t worn bare.” Audrey studied the body and nodded. “No one will see anything but the uniform.”