Without Words (21 page)

Bundling. She’d heard of that. It required a board down the middle of the bed, which was ridiculous. She smiled at the thought of him dragging some big long board up the stairs. Wet board. Her smile disappeared, and she shivered.

Footsteps in the hall. The sound of the key turning and door opening. She kept her eyes closed, determined to pretend to be asleep. Boots sounded on the bare floorboards, so did clicking, clicking, the scent of—wet dog. Hassie’s eyes flew open, and she sat up.

Bedraggled and still wet, Gunner didn’t waste a glance on her and curled up so close to the stove his hair would probably singe.

Bret sat on the chair to pull off his boots. “The checker boys had a few drinks with the last games, and when Vance started locking up, he found a window half-open and a big puddle underneath. Somehow Gunner slipped through the door right when old Vance was getting a mop. I figure what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”

And how exactly had Bret opened a window without anyone noticing? Not only that.... Hassie made a wing of one arm and imitated Gunner lifting his leg.

“No, he and I had to go over the rules his first time in a hotel. He’s fine.”

His first time. Maybe tomorrow she’d ask.

Bret dropped a bedroll, the blanket stuffed plump with who knew what onto the bed. Not a board but a barrier of sorts. He blew out the light, moved around in the dark for a few minutes, and then the mattress sank under his weight.

“If I get—rude in my sleep, just pinch me hard.”

Hassie rolled so her back was to him, not sure if she felt more like laughing or crying. The thought of pinching him held no appeal, but she wished she had the nerve to smack him a few times with that bedroll.

She woke once in the night to the sound of rain lashing hard on the windows. Her head was pillowed on the bedroll, her nose against Bret’s shoulder, her hand on his arm. For long seconds she barely breathed. He should pinch her. She should ease away back to her own side of the bed.

He smelled good, clean shirt, soap, warm musky male, and he was sound asleep. If she drew away, she’d probably smell Gunner again, and after all Bret himself had said what someone didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. She nestled in a little more comfortably, a little closer, and went back to sleep.

B
RET WOKE FROM
an erotic dream of Hassie running across the prairie covered by nothing but her hair, which didn’t cover much because it flowed out behind her like a molten black river.

Small wonder his body was vibrating, throbbing, screaming with desire. Hassie’s reaction to a man beside her in bed hadn’t changed since the first time he’d tried it. The covers were down around her waist, and most of her upper body was over the bedroll.

Her head rested warm and heavy on his shoulder and chest. The palm of her one hand spread across the other side of his chest, centered over a nipple and burning a deeper brand with every breath. Her breasts were back. He knew that for certain because one pressed against his side.

The pounding of his heart ought to wake her. Or the way his every breath rocked her. Rocked. He gritted his teeth and tried to find a way to ease her back enough to slide out from under. The hand he intended for her ribs cupped her breast instead, obeying instinct, not logic.

She’d filled out since that time he’d gotten such a good look at the front of her. The breast was still small, but not too small, a good size really, firm yet soft. The nipple pushed up against his palm with no effort on his part. She made a soft sound in her throat he had no trouble interpreting.

His treacherous hand left her breast and picked up a lock of hair. Silky, and as black as in the dream.

Another weight pressed against his ankle. Gunner’s head. The dog stood there staring hopefully, tail waving slowly back and forth. Smothering a groan, Bret lifted Hassie enough to move her from his chest to the bedroll and pillow, sat up, and rested his head in his hands until he had some semblance of control.

“I should have shot you when I had the chance,” he muttered at Gunner as he pulled on his boots.

Vance was nowhere to be seen in the lobby, the front door still locked. Bret raised the same window he’d opened last night, lifted Gunner through, climbed out after him, and closed it behind them. If Vance found it open again, he might sit up tonight with a shotgun.

The rain had eased to a heavy mist, fog obscuring everything more than a few feet away. Bret followed Gunner into the forest south of town, joined the dog in watering a tree, and leaned against another, waiting for the dog to finish any more serious business.

The mist thickened and turned back into drizzle. If anyone were taking bets, Bret’s money would be on at least two more days of rain. Figure a day after that before traveling on the steep roads wouldn’t risk the horses’ legs in the mud.

For the next three days or more, he’d better find some way to control himself around Hassie Ahearne Petty Sterling. His wife. If Gabe knew about this, he’d roll with laughter, and the mud wouldn’t stop him.

As he waited, Bret speculated how his family would react if they knew he’d just married the widow of an impoverished, drunken moonshiner, much less the Irish widow of such a blot on humanity. He’d betrayed them and everything they believed in once because his conscience left him no choice. Would they consider a marriage like this another betrayal or just one more typical disappointment from a disappointing son?

And Mary.... He yanked his collar higher, hunched his shoulders. He didn’t want to think about Mary.

None of it mattered anyway. A few words didn’t make it a marriage. He’d find Hassie a safe place for the winter, take her back to Gabe and Belle if he had to. She could marry for real, marry someone the war hadn’t carved hollow, left with regret he could never overcome, obligations he could never meet.

He should have just lied to people like Vance from the beginning, named her as his wife and avoided the indignation of the righteous. After all, Vance wasn’t the first one with an attitude. He was just the first one so eager to be a martyr to his principles he couldn’t be intimidated.

Lying to a little man like that wouldn’t have been much of a sin. Not like lying to God, and where did she come up with notions like that?

So why hadn’t he taken the easy way from the beginning? Bret tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and let the rain stream cold over his face. Because for as long as he could remember thinking of any woman but Mary in the context of wife was impossible. Why he could do it now eluded him.

He could have found some other place to spend the night. The preacher would have let them stay in the church—dry but not warm—and not good enough. She’d had so little in her life and still ran at the sun with her arms open and smiled more often than not, even if the smile wasn’t always real. She hummed doing menial work, picked wildflowers and wrapped them around the neck of that sorry dog who had better get his ass back here soon if he wanted breakfast.

She deserved what little he could give her. More.

His lust didn’t signify. He’d react that way to any female with most of her teeth who didn’t outweigh him. The thought of Belle, chattering away, popped into his mind. After that came the image of his sister Vicky’s friend who whined like an out of tune fiddle every time she opened her mouth.

So, not quite any female, but a high percentage.

He’d just be careful around her for the next few days, spend the days in the barbershop, around the stove at the general store, and anywhere else men gathered and gossiped. Nights in the saloons. He wouldn’t have to drink much.

She’d be bored in the hotel room alone, though. What good was warm and dry if she was going out of her mind with boredom? And what difference would it make if he indulged his curiosity about where she came from and her life in Missouri a little? He could spend some time with her. Just enough to....

A whine brought Bret out of his reverie. Gunner sat a few feet away, canine misery all over his bedraggled face. As soon as he had Bret’s attention, he raised one paw and whined again.

“You are the worst liar I ever met. You’re the one kept me waiting, and you’re sleeping under that bench tonight. I don’t care how cold it gets.”

The dog wagged a wet tail, unimpressed by the threat. Bret followed him back to the hotel and Hassie for-a-few-months Sterling.

H
ASSIE EXPECTED
B
RET
to abandon her in the hotel room with her Bible and the newspaper they’d bought after breakfast as her only companions. Instead he led her on a leisurely tour of the few shops in the town.

“I don’t see a jewelry shop,” he said. “I’ll buy you a ring as soon as we get some place that has one.”

“Please don’t do that. I don’t want a ring.”

“You wanted one enough to offer up Petty’s yesterday.”

They were in the town’s general store and so were a lot of other people. At least the nosy ones could only overhear Bret’s half of their conversation.
“The ring was Mama’s. I shouldn’t have done that. You were right. Please don’t buy a ring.”

“I’m surprised Grimes let you have the ring. He sounds more like the sort to keep it and sell it or give it to the next wife.”

She had to write and erase and write again to explain, but she wanted him to know.
“Mama never let him see the ring. It was hers from Papa. The locket was from her other life. She gave them to me to keep when she was sick, and I never let anyone see them until Mrs. Reston took them.”

Bret toyed with a bottle of patent medicine, not looking at her. “I’m sorry I fussed at you then. If I knew that, I would have used it.”

“No. You were right. It’s better not to have a ring for what we’re doing, and Mama’s ring....”
She stopped there and shrugged, not wanting to put into words that the ring was too precious to be used for a lie.

He put down the bottle with a sharp click. “Then suppose we get you another dress. The one you’ve got on is all wrinkles, and there’s no way to get it pressed with you in it.”

She didn’t need another dress either, but if buying one would make him forget about the ring, she was more than willing. He bought her the only likely dress in the store, a pretty pink cotton, and a pink hat that matched well but wouldn’t survive a week in the packs.

They didn’t return to the hotel until after lunch at the same restaurant where they’d had breakfast. Hassie expected, having done his duty by her, Bret would now disappear until supper time. She had stripped off her slicker first thing on returning to the room and draped it over the washstand to dry. Bret still wore his as he stood staring out the window.

Hassie put her new dress away and stirred the fire in the stove, waiting for Bret to take his leave. When he finally moved, it was to take off his slicker. He spread it over the chair and sat on the bed.

“How did you learn those signs you use? Did you and your mother make them up?”

She didn’t care if only rain and boredom made him interested. She grabbed the slate and sat beside him, writing, erasing, writing more.
“After I was hurt, Mama was sure I could talk again if I tried hard enough, but it never got better, and my throat gets sore if I talk much. So when Mama read in the paper about a school for deaf children in Connecticut where they teach sign language, she wrote to the school, and they sent pamphlets with pictures.”

“Your mother sounds like a force of nature.”

Hassie nodded. That was a good description of Mama all right.

“Did she immigrate from Ireland, or was she born here?”

“Mama’s family was in Philadelphia before the Revolution. Papa was from Ireland.”

He hid any surprise well. The only sign she saw was a slight jerk of his head. “So how did they ever meet, much less marry?”

“Mama’s family were....”
She hesitated, pencil poised. She couldn’t very well say, “rich snobs like your family,” but she did want to be honest.
“...wealthy. They had a big house in the city and another in the country, and Papa worked at the country house.”

“So they ran off together, and her family disowned her.”

She nodded, rolling the pencil back and forth between her fingers.

“How did the daughter of an Irishman and an upper crust Philadelphian get a name like Hassie?”

“Mama wanted Cordelia, and Papa wanted Maeve. They compromised on a plain American name.”
Very plain. Hassie wouldn’t mind being Maeve, but she wouldn’t have liked Cordelia.

“Did her family help the two of you after your father died?”

For a moment, Hassie continued playing with the pencil, deciding whether to tell him about that awful day, what to tell him. He would sympathize with Mama’s family, and when he did that, it would kill most of her fanciful illusions, and that would be a good thing.

“After Papa died, Mama and I both put on our best dresses. She took me to meet her family. A man came to the door dressed in a very fine suit. I thought he was my grandfather, but Mama called him by his given name, and then I knew, no, he was a servant. He looked sad and called her Miss Julia, but he said we couldn’t come in. Mama pushed past him. He caught me and held me by the door. I heard shouting. Mama came back and we left. She wrote an advertisement for the newspaper after that. Three men answered, and she wrote back. Mr. Grimes was the only one who said she could bring me.”

There. Now he knew. She waited for him to say something that showed he understood her mother’s family or as if being related to them made her marginally more acceptable than being only the daughter of poor Irish immigrants.

“Do you think she regretted what she did? Did she ever say?”

“Before she died, she said the only thing she would change was Mr. Grimes.”

Bret laughed, looking as surprised at himself as she was, and doing nothing to squelch her fanciful illusions. “Mr. Grimes sounds as if he could be improved in many ways. Did he learn the signs you wave around at the dog and horses?”