Prologue Page 13

  "Travis, this is crazy. Stop it right now," she demanded, but the bubble of laughter in her words completely diluted their impact. "What if someone sees us?"

  She was right, it was crazy. And he was enjoying himself. He heard the amusement in her voice that she tried to stifle and knew she was enjoying it, too. The muted fragrance that was so much a part of her drifted to him now, and he pulled her a little closer. To hold a woman again was a sweet luxury, with her breasts brushing against his chest. She was softer than he'd imagined; she was so angular and unyielding in other ways.

  They whisked around the corner, past the side windows, his boot heels thumping on the flooring. Her sparkling eyes and flushed cheeks made her look like a girl and made him feel his true age. It was good to do something just for the pleasure of it, in a life that had been so serious and difficult. "No one comes down here this late in the day. Who's going to see?"

  "Evan, for one," she replied.

  "Aw, the hell with Evan. He's as much fun as having your bowels purged," Travis said, as he turned her to make the trip back along the porch.

  "Travis, what a horrible thing to say!" Despite the crude analogy, she choked on a laugh. "He'll be here anytime. What would he think if he found us like this?"

  "I would wonder what's going on," a voice pronounced.

  Chloe peered over Travis's shoulder and saw Evan standing on the front steps, a coolly righteous expression on his face. She jumped out of her partner's arms, feeling vaguely guilty for having a good time.

  Travis turned and frowned at Evan, then grabbed Chloe's hand back in his. For a moment he thought of pulling her into his arms and planting a full-lipped, moist kiss on her, to touch her tongue with his, to really get Peterson riled. But just when he turned to do it, he caught sight of her long-lashed eyes staring back at him and the red-gold wisps of hair curling around her face. He knew Evan Peterson had nothing to do with it. What he desired of Chloe was too potent to act on, too personal to share with a witness.

  With difficulty he checked the impulse and said, "It's considered good manners to return a lady to her chair after the dance." He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm and opened the screen door for them both.

  Chloe glanced back at Evan where he stood on the porch, his jaw hanging.

  In the kitchen, Chloe felt as though she'd developed ten thumbs. Aware of Travis now in a way she'd never been before, she dropped his knife and fork before she could get them into his hand. When she tried to put a boiled potato on his plate, it rolled off back into the steaming pot, splashing her with hot water.

  "Need any help?" she heard him ask.

  Her forehead damp, she was acutely conscious of him behind her, watching her while she fumbled clumsily with a slab of roast.

  "I don't imagine cooking is one of your specialties," she replied, desperately trying to sound unaffected by his presence. Finally she handed him the dish, piled awkwardly with two servings of everything, and a biscuit perched on top of it all.

  He looked at the mountain of food. "I must be hungrier than I thought," he said, nonplused.

  "Oh, I'm sorry," she replied, realizing what she'd done. She held her hand out for the plate. "Here, give it to me and I'll take part of it off."

  He pulled back. "No, I'll keep it. That dancing gave me a big appetite."

  Their eyes met for a long moment, gray and green. For the first time he looked away before she did. Then he turned from her and went out the back door.

  Chloe took a deep breath and smoothed her hands over her apron, then carried the platter of meat and vegetables to the dining room.

  As she expected, Evan was waiting for her at the table, fired up over what he'd seen. At least, as fired up as Evan could get.

  "The man obviously thinks nothing of your reputation." He helped himself to the pot roast. "Dancing on the porch! What if someone had seen you? Someone besides me?"

  "It was pretty harmless, Evan. Anyway, no one did see us," she responded lamely. She picked at her food, not hungry. She couldn't deny what he'd observed, and she couldn't pretend that Travis had held a gun to her head to make her dance.

  "But someone could have," he insisted. "It's not you I blame, Miss Chloe. I know it's all that blacksmith's fault. This is just another reason why we should set a date for our wedding. When we're married and I'm living here, McGuire won't dare take such liberties with you."

  This was not the first time Evan had mentioned their wedding. He appeared to have forgotten that she'd never accepted his proposal, acting as though they needed only to choose a day and time.

  "He was very insulting to me, too," he went on, reaching for the butter. "Comparing me to—to, well, I won't repeat it now, especially at the table." The glare he turned on her was brief, but so malevolent she was instantly chilled. "I didn't hear you object much, either."

  "I most certainly did object!" Chloe replied, stung by the truth of his words. "I told him it was an awful thing to say. I'm not his mother, Evan."

  "No, you are his employer and he's becoming too bold," Evan harped relentlessly. "You should tell him he's not welcome in the house."

  Chloe sighed. This was one of Evan's favorite complaints, that she should banish Travis to the shop. Actually, since Travis had arrived, Evan had become a chronic complainer.

  "I'm not going to do that. It would be rude." This triggered a discussion during which Evan again declared his concern for her safety. But Chloe was beginning to get the very uncomfortable feeling that Evan's chief objective was to control her.

  She could only remember what Travis had told her, that Evan was less worried about her than himself.

  After the meal, as she carried the dishes to the kitchen, she imagined doing this every night for the rest of her life while Evan sat in the parlor.

  While Evan lived in her house.

  While Evan slept in her bed.

  At this last thought, she nearly dropped the plate she carried. The idea of a loveless marriage based only on tolerability was becoming less attractive to her every day. Originally, it had seemed like the practical thing to do.

  Now she wasn't so sure.

  That night she tossed and turned for hours. For the first time in her life, indecision plagued her. Even at the most desperate moments in her past, she'd known exactly what to do. She simply hadn't always had the means.

  Long after midnight, she finally got up and pulled a chair over to the window. It was a moonless night and stars were scattered like a million diamonds across the sky. A low wind lifted her hair from her shoulders. She put her elbows on the sill and turned her face into the breeze to catch its coolness. Looking down, she saw a light in Travis's window. It was so late, she wondered if he was having nightmares again.

  Or maybe he was thinking about a dance he'd shared with a woman on her front porch.

  * * *

  "Have either of you gotten a look at Chloe lately?" Mildred DeGroot asked. She addressed the question to Albert and her best friend, Bertha Preston.

  Albert was checking the latest shipment of yard goods against a bill of lading. Now and then he'd wet the point of his pencil on his tongue and make notes.

  "Not since last week," he replied distractedly, squinting at a bolt of gingham on the shelf. "Why? What's wrong with her?"

  "That's just it," Mildred said. "Nothing is wrong. No, not the gingham, Albert. We're on the bleached muslin now," she interrupted herself, pointing to a white bolt. "Chloe came in just after lunch to buy coffee again. For a while she was buying so much tea a body would have thought Queen Victoria herself was living over there. Anyway, she smiled a time or two and she wasn't so prickly." Mildred stretched for a good description. "I guess you might say she nearly glowed. And her hair, she's still wearing it that new way."

  Albert looked up over the rims of his spectacles. "Maybe she and Evan are finally getting married. He's been in a real dither since that McGuire feller got here."

  Mildred leapt on this exciting possibility. "Oh, I'll bet you're right
, Albert! Those two probably are getting married."

  Albert went to the storeroom and Bertha nodded in agreement. "And high time, too, if you ask me. She's not getting any younger and it's not as though they're strangers. A husband is what the woman needs to dull that sharp tongue of hers." She glanced at the storeroom door, then lowered her voice. "Of course, he's not much to look at, but neither is Chloe anymore. A man in her bed ought to put some color in that pale face of hers."

  Mildred and Bertha cackled viciously over this and then a wicked sparkle lit Mildred's eyes as she added, "Maybe his, too."

  * * *

  An hour later Evan Peterson walked over to DeGroot's to buy a bag of candy. He was on his way to Chloe's house for dinner and hoped the gift might close the distance he'd felt growing between them from the minute McGuire had arrived in Misfortune.

  Chloe had always commanded their courtship and now she had abandoned that role, which was not at all in keeping with her usually determined personality. Evan knew candy or flowers weren't much but he was helpless to do more.

  He waved to Albert as he crossed the scarred wooden floor r the counter. He stood there a moment, studying the rows of jars containing hard candies in drops and sticks that gleamed like jewels in the five o'clock sun pouring through the front window

  "Afternoon, Evan," Albert said. "What can we get you today?"

  "I guess I'll have a few of those butterscotch drops," he replied.

  Albert reached for the jar and Mildred came out of the storeroom. After a brief greeting, she tactlessly plunged in. "You know, I'd forgotten what a beauty Chloe used to be. But when she came in today for coffee, she was glowing like a firefly, Evan." Mildred paused dramatically before adding, "She sure looked like a woman in love."

  Evan felt the blood drain from his face.

  She prattled on obliviously. "I'll bet you two lovebirds thought you were keeping it a secret, didn't you? You can't fool me. I can spot romance like a horse can sniff out clover."

  Albert handed the butterscotch to Evan, who replied hastily, "I'll give Miss Chloe your regards, Mrs. DeGroot." He backed out nervously and was on the sidewalk before either of the DeGroots realized he hadn't paid for the candy.

  Evan gripped the paper bag holding the candy as he dragged through Misfortune to its west end. At first, Chloe's dislike for the drifter had been obvious, and the reason for him being there, a loathsome necessity. But his very presence had changed Evan's relationship with Chloe—just how, he wasn't sure. She used to fuss over him a bit. Now she always seemed preoccupied, disinterested. She'd even stopped brewing tea for him.

  A sudden, sharp pain lanced through his skull, a pain so acute it made a buzzing noise in his ears that sounded like a voice. What were the words? He stopped in the road a moment, listening intently, but it left as quickly as it came.

  Evan had perceived a current that passed between Chloe and McGuire when he caught them dancing together. For a moment he'd felt like a voyeur, observing an intimate scene in which he had no part.

  He made up his mind he would have to act. He would deal with McGuire first.

  When he got there, Evan loitered at Chloe's gate, looking at the thin plume of smoke that rose from the forge's chimney. She was in the house, he supposed. That was good. She didn't need to know about this. Again in his mind rose the memory of his Chloe in McGuire's arms, and worse, the vulgar comment the man made about him, which was probably only a sample of more. The gnawing doubts that now plagued him night and day rose again. What were they doing when he wasn't there? What were they saying about him?

  His hand pushing open the gate, he made his decision. With each stride he took to the shop, his determination grew He detested McGuire and the familiar ease with which he moved through Chloe's house, as though he actually belonged there, a house Evan had come to-think of as his own. If she didn't see fit to put him in his place, Evan was prepared to do so.

  He stopped in the doorway of the dim shop. He saw McGuire at the glowing forge, pumping the bellows like one of hell's gatekeepers. The acrid smell of burning metal in the air seemed fitting. The blacksmith's back was turned to the door so Evan nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard, "Something I can do for you, Peterson?"

  McGuire turned to stare at him over his shoulder. The man said nothing more and his face was devoid of expression. But his feral danger was as perceptible as the heat.

  Evan quailed before approaching, then swallowed hard, drawing on his resentment for courage.

  "Miss Chloe and I want you to know you're doing a good job here," Evan began, anxiously noting that McGuire's grip tightened on the long iron bar he held in the low flames. Determined to speak before his nerve abandoned him, he continued hurriedly. "But Miss Chloe asks that you remember your position here and keep to this shop. While you were sick, of course, you had to be in the house. But that isn't necessary now. Since it's summer, you can eat your meals out here. And Miss Chloe's reputation must be protected. Dancing on the porch last evening could have been very damaging to her, especially with a hired hand. You understand, don't you?"

  Evan immediately regretted coming out here; as McGuire's eyes narrowed, they also appeared to turn silver in the low gloom. He pulled the iron bar out of the coals, the end of it white-hot. The shop suddenly grew close and stuffy

  "You didn't hire me, Peterson. Chloe did," McGuire growled, "and she's the only person I'll discuss this with. You go back and tell her that."

  "Uh—she sent me to handle this—" Evan floundered in his lie. He desperately wished he'd never begun this. McGuire advanced on him, the iron bar held at his side. Evan could see the muscles in the blacksmith's arm flex convulsively as he clenched his fist around the metal. He could feel its heat even while he backed up, trying to keep his distance. Fear and hatred filled him as McGuire again emasculated him with only a look.

  "She wants me to stay away from the house? Well, here's something for you to think about, Peterson." McGuire's gaze was as white-hot as the iron. "I want you to stay out of this shop. If you come back again while I'm here, I'll rip your throat out. You tell Chloe I said so. You understand, don't you?"

  With a shaking voice that cracked, Evan tried to sound composed. "How dare you th-threaten me? He continued backing away until he felt the door frame between his shoulder blades. One of the few brave moments Evan had known in his life evaporated and was replaced by absolute, nauseating terror. Sweat beaded on his forehead and crept down his temples in itchy rivulets.

  "No threats, Peterson." McGuire leaned forward until his face was only inches from Evan's. "I swear it."

  Evan slid around the doorjamb and crossed the yard swiftly, grateful that no one saw his disgrace. His first impulse was to run to Chloe and tell her the savage threats her precious blacksmith had made. Then he realized he'd only be hiding behind her skirts. And while there was nothing he desired more at this moment, to have her defend him against this tormentor, his slim pride wouldn't let him do that.

  He sat heavily on the bottom step at the back porch and waited for his breathing and heart to slow.

  A silence surrounded him, broken only by the jeering call of a blue jay perched on the clothesline post. His undiluted hatred of McGuire stirred again as he looked down at his shaking hands where they rested uselessly on his lap.

  Somehow, he'd find the opportunity to get even with McGuire. To make him sorry. Suddenly the buzzing pain in his head was back. He pressed his hands to his skull until it left.

  When he raised his head, his gaze fell upon the shop door where McGuire stood leaning against the jamb, his arms folded across his chest, his silver eyes boring into Evan. His heart began thundering again and sweat stuck his clothes to him.

  Evan heard a wordless sound of terror from his own throat, then he scrambled up the stairs to the back door, seeking protection. The pain in his head was back, the buzzing louder, taking shape, forming nearly discernible words.

  Chloe answered Evan's urgent knocking. "Evan! I'm surprised to see yo
u at the back."

  She pushed the door open for him, but he stayed on the porch, saying nothing. His eyes were wide and his nostrils flared with each breath. "What's the matter? You look like the devil himself is chasing you. Don't you want to come in?"

  "N-no," he stammered, then thrust the bag of candy into her hand. The top of the bag was crumpled and damp with sweat. "Th-this is for you, but I won't stay for dinner." He backed away from the door. "I will not come back as long as McGuire is here." He looked over his shoulder then, as if someone really were chasing him. She scanned the yard but saw nothing.

  "What has he done? Evan, wait a minute," she called. But he practically ran to the gate, glancing back at the shop a couple of times.

  * * *

  In frustration, Travis threw the cooled iron bar across the shop to dispel some of the rage churning in his belly. He paced with heavy steps back and forth over the hard-packed dirt floor. It had taken all his willpower to keep from smashing Peterson's nose with his fist. That miserable little pee-pants, Travis seethed, telling him not to come into the house. It wasn't an angry challenge, one man telling another man to stay away from his woman. Travis could have respected that. No, it was a watery, patronizing speech designed to reduce Travis to the status of a servant.

  From Peterson he expected it. But disappointment over Chloe's involvement weighed like a stone in his chest. He thought they'd reached a level of mutual, if wary, respect. He was surprised and furious that she'd sent Peterson to talk to him.

  His past rose to scorn him again. Yeah, he thought bitterly, it was probably galling her that she'd actually danced with an ex-convict. He kicked a saddle soap can into the wall. He'd almost begun to feel better about himself, despite the circumstances.

  Though he'd vowed he'd never go near a forge again, working as a free man, even without pay, had given him back some of his self-respect. He felt good about the quality of his work and the compliments the customers gave him. Why wasn't that good enough? Why had Chloe's opinion come to matter so much more than anyone else's?