Wanton Angel (41 page)

Katie’s lovely face lit up. “I hadn’t thought of that! Will I be allowed to play the concert roller organ and have my pick of the books?”

This burst of girlish innocence bolstered Bonnie’s spirits; she’d done one right thing, at least. She’d gotten Katie to forget all about dancing the hurdy-gurdy in the Brass Eagle Ballroom. “Of course you will,” she answered softly. “Now, let’s go back to the mercantile and pack our things.”

When Eli returned to the site of the new Patch Town, where some families were living in tents and others were already camping inside unfinished cabins, he found Genoa and Lizbeth Simmons there, conducting informal reading classes on a grassy slope overlooking the framework of the new schoolhouse.

Genoa listened as a young woman struggled painfully through a page of McGuffey’s
Second Eclectic Reader.
Apparently neither the teachers nor their students were
concerned with the fact that Rose Marie was running from one group to another, wearing a feathered headdress and whooping like an Indian.

Eli scooped the child up into his arms, then shifted her to his back, where she continued to emit earsplitting war cries. “Where the hell is Bonnie?”

Genoa looked up and smiled bewilderedly in the face of her brother’s annoyance and her niece’s delighted shrieks. “Bonnie?”

“Your sister-in-law,” Eli prompted, in an angry whisper. “My wife.” He reached back to clap one hand over Rose’s mouth. “Geronimo’s mother!”

“Oh,” Genoa said fondly. “Bonnie. Well, when last I saw her, dear, she was off to the mercantile to sell buttons and potatoes and all those things. Isn’t Rose’s headdress just the sweetest thing you’ve ever seen? Mr. Callahan sent away for it.”

“Remind me to have him scalped,” Eli replied succinctly. At least two dozen pairs of eyes were looking at him over the tops of reading primers and he was suddenly self-conscious. “I’ll take the Indian home,” he said, striding off toward the buggy.

Seth had taken the reins, and he smiled at Rose’s colorful feathers and emitted a witless “How, big chief!”

Rose chortled and started to whoop again.

Eli groaned and sank back into the seat, content to let Seth drive the rig. In the distance, a train whistle shrilled.

“There’s the four-fifteen,” observed Seth cheerfully. “Right on time!”

Rose was still carrying on like an Apache and Eli’s head was pounding. Not only would he have to apologize to Bonnie for abandoning her on their wedding night—and in the process convince her that he hadn’t slept with Earline—he was going to have to explain all about Consolata Torrez in the bargain. His jaw tightened. “Rose Marie McKutchen,” he said evenly, “shut up.”

Rose Marie was mercifully quiet during the ride into Northridge, which ended, by tacit agreement between Eli and Seth, in front of Bonnie’s mercantile.

The shades were drawn and there was a
CLOSED
sign hanging on the door. Grimly, Eli left his daughter in Seth’s
care and bounded up the outside stairs to let himself into Bonnie’s kitchen.

Because of his headache and only because of his headache, he called her name in a reasonable tone of voice.

She immediately entered the kitchen, her eyes wide. “You might have knocked,” she said somewhat nervously, keeping her distance.

“And you might have looked after our daughter instead of leaving her with Genoa all day,” Eli countered, “but we’ll talk about that later. Right now, there are some other things we need to discuss.”

Bonnie looked wan and very reluctant. “I quite agree, but I don’t have time just now,” she said, and it seemed to Eli that she was being careful to keep her distance.

“What the hell do you mean you haven’t got time? This is important!”

“So is a wedding, Eli McKutchen, but you certainly didn’t let ours interfere with your busy schedule, did you?”

Eli rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, unable to hide his frustration. “I’m trying to tell you—”

Bonnie’s chin rose and, though there was still no color in her cheeks, her smoky violet eyes snapped with defiance. “Like you, Eli,” she said coldly, “I have things to do. If you’ll excuse me—”

She would have walked right out and left him standing there in the kitchen like a fool, if he hadn’t grasped her arm and forced her to face him again. “I won’t excuse you,” he bit out, and suddenly, for all his anger, the wanting of her ground painfully within him. “What things do you have to do that are more important than taking care of your daughter or talking to your husband?”

Bonnie looked as though she’d like nothing better than to spit in his face, but even she didn’t have quite that much courage. She did wrench her arm free of his hand and step back, though, and her eyes were still shooting fire. “I have always taken care of my daughter,” she said evenly. “In fact, Rose Marie is the only reason I was willing to marry you.”

The words had the bracing effect of a sound slap across the face. “I suppose I deserved that,” Eli conceded with a ragged sigh. “Last night, when we talked about Kiley, I—”

She turned away suddenly, wrapping her arms around herself. “Please go.”

Eli tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. Sometimes he wondered if the fire this woman had ignited in his spirit and his body was worth all the frustration she caused him. He began again, because Bonnie was worth any amount of frustration. “Last night, when I said I wanted Rose Marie to live under my roof as my daughter, I wasn’t threatening you, Bonnie. I was proposing.”

Bonnie turned slowly back to face him, cautious questions in her eyes. “But—”

Eli held up one hand. “Let me finish, Bonnie,” he said hoarsely. “I was trying to tell you that I love you. That I need you. It was an emotional time for both of us and things got out of hand—” He paused, at a loss for words, but Bonnie waited in silence for him to go on and finally he did. “When you jumped to the conclusion that I was using Rose to force you into marrying me, I lost my reason for a little while.”

She looked as though she wanted to believe him, and that was a start at least. “You spent the night at the rooming house,” she said woodenly. “With Earline.”

“I wasn’t with Earline. Not in the way you think.”

Bonnie lowered her eyes. “I’d like to believe that, Eli.”

He approached her cautiously, bent his head to give her a brief, innocuous kiss. “Go ahead and believe it, because it’s true. Come home with me, Bonnie. There are so many things I have to explain.”

There were tears glistening in her eyes when she looked up at him. “God help me, I’d like nothing better than to go home with you, but—”

Eli was instantly on his guard, though he tried not to show it. “But?”

“You’re not going to like it,” Bonnie said, half as a confession and half as a challenge.

Eli was in no mood for either, but he knew that too often he reacted to the things this woman said and did without thinking first. The results were invariably disastrous. He spoke in carefully impassive tones. “I’ll be the judge of that, if you don’t mind.”

Bonnie’s throat moved slightly as she swallowed, and her
gaze skirted his for a moment. “I told Forbes that I would dance again.”

Eli felt an explosion brewing within him and swayed with the effort of stemming it. “Why?”

There was a long silence, during which Bonnie looked as though she’d like to be anywhere but in that kitchen. “He’d hired Katie to take my place. She’s fourteen and she’s gullible and I don’t think I need to tell you what would have happened.”

Eli drew a chair back from the table and sank into it. This had been one hell of a day, and he was determined not to make it worse. When he spoke again, it was with a moderation he wouldn’t have thought himself capable of attaining. “I do believe you could have saved Katie from a sordid fate without sacrificing yourself in her place,” he said, careful to keep his eyes fixed on the linoleum.

“I wanted to embarrass you,” Bonnie replied, with that cold-water forthrightness that generally came just when a man was preparing himself to deal with evasion tactics. “I was—and continue to be—very angry.”

“About my alleged tryst with Earline,” Eli threw out on a weary sigh.

“It was a very cruel thing to do, Eli,” Bonnie insisted softly, still standing and still keeping her distance.

He looked up at her face then, unable to hide the peculiar combination of vulnerability and amusement he felt. “You made it quite clear that you wouldn’t welcome me in your bed, Bonnie.”

Two patches of bright pink outrage blossomed on her fine cheekbones. “So you just found another bed,” she retorted.

“Yes. My bed.” Eli stood up, very near the tattered ends of his emotional rope. “My single, solitary, empty bed. Which happens to be in Earline’s rooming house.”

“How convenient, Eli, not only for you, but for Earline,” Bonnie said with quiet contempt.

He caught her proud little chin in his hand, gently, and forced her to meet his eyes. “I will repeat myself just once, Bonnie, so listen carefully. I did not break my wedding vows with Earline Kalb or anyone else.”

A tremor went through her small, shapely body, though whether it was born of anger or of pain, Eli could not
discern. Silently he cursed himself for throwing away Bonnie’s trust during their first marriage. And then there was Consolata.

Bonnie opened her mouth to speak, but before she could get a word out, someone knocked at the kitchen door, while there was a simultaneous pounding at the one downstairs.

Slowly Bonnie reached up and removed Eli’s hand from her face. “Katie?” she called back over one shoulder, as she rounded Eli to answer the knock at the kitchen door.

“I’ll see who’s downstairs, ma’am,” the young girl sang out in reply.

Eli closed his eyes and muttered an exasperated curse. Was he never going to have Bonnie to himself long enough to say the things that had to be said?

Seth was standing on the outside landing, wearing a ridiculous feathered headdress and holding Rose Marie in one arm. The sight of him provided just the touch of humor Bonnie needed to keep herself from shattering into bits, and she smiled even as tears welled in her eyes.

“Beg pardon, Mrs. McKutchen,” Seth said kindly, “but Miss Rose seems to be needing her supper and perhaps a nap.”

Bonnie reached out for her grumpy daughter and held her close for a moment, trying to regain her composure. It seemed important that she speak normally. “Thank you, Seth,” she said. “Won’t you come in?”

Seth peered past Bonnie to Eli, and hastily removed the colorful toy headdress. He looked self-conscious and very sympathetic, and Bonnie silently begged the lawyer not to comment on the obvious climate of emotional tension. “That will depend, of course,” he answered, pausing once to clear his throat. “Are you ready to leave now, Mr. McKutchen?”

Eli’s words were hollow, and for all their softness they echoed in the kitchen. “No, Seth,” he replied. “I am not ready to leave. But I would like you to take Rose Marie and the girl—Katie—back to Genoa’s house.”

“Of course,” Seth agreed, “I’ll just—”

Before he could complete his sentence, there was a clatter
on the inside stairs and Bonnie turned, wondering what Katie could be in such a hurry about. Not in her wildest dreams, she was to reflect later, could she have guessed what was about to happen.

Katie’s beautiful eyes were very round and her color was high. After shy glances at both Eli and Seth, she burst out, “Ma’am, you’ll never believe it! Your own dear father is downstairs, come all the way from Ireland!”

Fearing to drop her, Bonnie set Rose Marie on her feet and then sank into the chair Eli had occupied only minutes before. Rose toddled immediately to Katie, looking for pampering.

“Ma’am?” Katie prompted, somewhat worriedly, even as she took a whimpering Rose into her arms.

Eli spat a swearword and stormed out of the kitchen without a word of farewell. Bonnie heard his boot heels clattering on the outside stairs and covered her face with both hands.

“I gather this isn’t a happy reunion,” Seth observed tentatively from somewhere behind Bonnie. “Is there anything I can do, Mrs. McKutchen?”

Bonnie lowered her hands, sat up very straight in her chair and spoke calmly. “Please see Katie and Rose back to Genoa’s, if you would.”

Katie hesitated. “Ma’am, you’re sure you want me to go?”

“Yes,” Bonnie answered, staring at the inside doorway and waiting for her father to appear in it. “Everything is all right, Katie. Please go with Mr. Callahan.”

She heard the door close behind her, then footsteps on the stairs outside. She stood up, smoothed her hair and her skirts and then Jack Fitzpatrick made his entrance. He was still a handsome man, though his dark hair was thinning and the reddened veins in his nose were more pronounced.

“You’ve taken good care of the store, miss,” he said by way of a greeting. “I’m thankful for that.”

Bonnie was at a loss for words. She’d never really been close to her father, though she’d felt honor bound to send him money after his curious departure for the Old Sod. Shameful as it was, all she could think of was that she was
about to lose the mercantile. After all the work and the tears and the struggles to keep the enterprise afloat, she was going to have to hand it over, lock, stock and pickle barrel. “I wasn’t expecting you,” she finally managed to say.

Jack Fitzpatrick laughed. He was wearing an ill-fitting suit, somewhat the worse for travel and, even though he couldn’t have been in Northridge for more than half an hour, he reeked of liquor. “From the looks of you, you’d sooner I’d stayed away,” he commented, making himself comfortable at the table without so much as a by-your-leave. “I’m some hungry, daughter, so if you wouldn’t mind—”

Bonnie minded, oh, she minded indeed, but she got out a skillet and set it on the stove, built up the fire and cracked a half dozen eggs into the pan.

“There’s a good girl,” her father said approvingly, and Bonnie’s back stiffened as she sprinkled salt and pepper over the eggs. Once they’d begun to sizzle, she turned to face Jack Fitzpatrick.

“You’re back to stay, then?” she asked.

Jack smiled again and nodded. He needed a shave and, from the smell of him, a bath. “Seems to me that you’re not very glad of that, girl.”