Christy Page 11

  She nodded. What would she do if she’d alienated Jake for good? Too much depended on her making a successful marriage, and the timber baron was the only suitable candidate, for her present purposes, at least.

  She was developing a headache and rubbed both temples in a vain attempt to forestall it. “Will you look after Jenny for me, Caney? Please? I need to speak with Mr. Vigil as soon as possible.”

  “I should say you do,” Caney agreed, somewhat tartly. Her glance was fond, though, when she returned her attention to the baby. “So you’re called Jenny, are you? Ain’t that an interestin’ thing? I knew another Jenny one time.”

  Christy ignored her friend’s remark, arose, and pulled on a wrapper to go down to the creek and wash. When she returned, face and hands stinging from the cold water, mind jolted into complete wakefulness by that same chill, she dressed very carefully. She wore an apricot silk, which she knew was flattering, if a little frayed at the hem and cuffs, and pinned her hair up in a loose bun at the back of her head. Although she dared not paint her face, she did go so far as to put the merest touch of rouge on her mouth.

  “I declare,” Caney remarked, looking her over. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a hussy, plain and simple.”

  Color pounded in Christy’s cheeks—no doubt, that would be an improvement, given the fact that she’d been pale since the harrowing discovery at the mission three days before—but she did not stoop to offer a retort. The look she gave Caney was eloquent enough, anyhow.

  Leaving the lodge, Christy met Megan.

  “Where are you going?” Megan asked, looking shocked. “You look like you’re dressed for a dance, and here it is barely breakfast time!”

  Given that Christy was trying hard to do the best thing for all of them, her sister’s confrontational attitude irritated her not a little. “I have business in town,” she said, perhaps a bit pettishly.

  Megan’s hands went to her hips. She was a McQuarry, after all, and she could be as hard-headed as any of the rest of them. “What sort of ‘business’ could you possibly have, wearing a dress like that and rouge on your mouth?”

  “It needn’t concern you,” Christy said. “Now, please get out of my way. I have two miles to walk, and I’d like to get started.” She tried not to think of the renegade Paiutes who had so ruthlessly murdered the Arrons, and how they might be lurking in the nearby woods, even now. She couldn’t afford to let fear get the better of her; if anything, the grisly scene at the mission had left her more convinced than ever that Megan belonged in San Francisco or some other relatively civilized city.

  Megan remained squarely in Christy’s path. “You’ve set your cap for Jake Vigil,” she accused, as though it were a sin.

  Christy lifted her chin. Her face felt hot with indignation, and her tone was crisp. “What if I have?”

  “He’s the wrong man,” Megan insisted. She looked like Granddaddy in that moment, with her green eyes snapping and her jaw set. “What’s worse, you know it!”

  “That,” Christy said, trying to go around her sister, “will be quite enough.”

  Megan immediately blocked her way again. “If you’re doing any part of this on my account, Christy McQuarry,” she said, “you’re making a terrible mistake. I’m not a child, and I’ve got plans of my own!”

  Christy was taken aback, to say the least. “What sort of plans?” she asked in a softer voice. Dear God, don’t let her say she wants to marry Caleb Strand or some other lumberjack. She’s too young, too innocent, too fragile for such a life.

  “Never you mind what plans,” Megan replied. “I’ll tell you this much, though—they don’t include teaching school, and I’ve had all the book-learning I want, so if you’re thinking of putting me into another school like St. Martha’s, forget it. I won’t waste my time studying Latin and embroidery with a lot of stupid society girls!”

  Megan’s words struck Christy like a slap in the face. Her sister didn’t know what she was saying, of course, what she would be giving up. Surely, she could not possibly understand what it meant to battle the soil and the elements for a living, to do for a husband and children day and night.

  “Excuse me,” Christy said, and swept past Megan to start the long and dusty walk to town. Megan didn’t understand the situation, that was all. At sixteen, she was still more child than woman. In time, she would thank Christy for keeping everyone’s best interests in mind and pursuing them despite everything.

  Jake looked Christy over without smiling when she stepped into his office more than an hour later. Her shoes were pinching and her pride was stung, for a whole nest of reasons, and she was in no mood to put up with a lot of nonsense.

  “Are you going to invite me to sit down, or must I stand throughout the interview?” she asked.

  “Sit down,” Jake said, still not smiling. He was dressed in work clothes—a blue chambray shirt, open at the throat, and well-fitted denim pants. He was very attractive—why didn’t that move her, even a lit- tle? Why didn’t she want him the way she wanted Zachary Shaw?

  She sat, folded her hands in her lap. Her backbone was straight as a broomstick. She knew she looked her very best, even after a two-mile walk, but that was little comfort in the face of Jake’s dark countenance. She’d planned a speech and rehearsed it as she marched along, as much to keep from thinking about Indians as to prepare herself, but now she couldn’t remember a single word. Pity. She recalled the substance of the argument as very convincing.

  “Well?” Jake prompted. He drew back the chair behind his desk with a grating sound and sat down. “I have a business to run here, Miss McQuarry. If you wouldn’t mind getting to the point—”

  “Nothing happened,” she said, and immediately turned scarlet.

  “You spent several days and nights in the mountains with another man. That happened.”

  “We had to go, don’t you see?” Christy demanded, getting angry. She had not expected Jake to be so stubborn, any more than she had expected Megan to behave in a fashion that could only be described as ungrateful. “The baby had scarlet fever—she needed a real doctor. I was trying to get help for her, and Zachary—Marshal Shaw— would not permit me to make the journey alone.”

  Jake leaned forward in his chair, his eyes flashing. He looked even more handsome in a temper than usual, but Christy might have been looking at a fine stallion or a spectacular painting, for all the passion she felt. “ I would have gone,” he said.

  “I know,” Christy confessed, losing some of her aplomb. “It’s just that it all seemed so urgent at the time, and Mr. Shaw was right there with a horse for me to ride—”

  “I’ll just bet he was,” Jake said, but she could tell that he was beginning to relent a little. He desired her with the same intensity as she desired Zachary, that was plain. She hoped it would be enough to sustain them both through the long years ahead.

  “We have an understanding, you and I,” she said. “I would never do anything to compromise either your honor or mine.”

  He gave a great sigh and tilted his head back, as though to stretch his neck. When he looked at Christy again, his eyes were smiling. “I believe that,” he said, and opened a drawer in his desk.

  Christy stiffened but managed a somewhat rigid smile in return. “Thank you,” she said in a rather pointed tone.

  He laid a diamond ring between them; its many stones gleamed and glittered in the dusty light pouring in through the window behind and above his head. “I’ve had this awhile. In case I found somebody to marry.”

  He looked and sounded like a small boy, proudly revealing a treasure, and Christy felt a stab of guilty dread. “It’s—it’s beautiful,” she said.

  He picked it up, came around the side of the desk, and took her hand. She managed to smile when he slipped it onto her finger, but it burned her flesh like a brand. She felt like a harlot, accepting payment for some unseemly act.

  “Now it’s official,” he said, patting her hand once. “Just in case anybody has any
doubts.”

  “Yes,” Christy said. “It’s official.” She was glad she was still sitting down, because she felt faint. Don’t do this, screamed a voice in her mind, a voice she recognized as her own.

  He dropped to one knee beside her, holding her hand. “You’ll never regret marrying me, Christy,” he promised huskily. “I swear it.”

  She could only nod. The truth was, she hadn’t even gone through with the ceremony yet, and she was already full of regrets. She rose shakily to her feet.

  “Are you all right?” Jake asked, frowning.

  “Just—just happy,” she said.

  He beamed. “I’m glad. I’ll have someone hitch up the buggy, and then I’ll drive you home myself, if you’re ready to leave.”

  “I’d like to l-look at the house,” she murmured. She needed something, in those desperate moments, to sustain her, to help keep up her resolve. “You wouldn’t mind, would you?”

  He looked enormously pleased. “No,” he said. “Of course not. You’ll be wanting changes, I imagine.”

  She looked away, saw through the plain timber walls of Jake’s office to the street and the marshal’s office beyond. “I imagine,” she agreed, almost sighing the words.

  Jake didn’t seem to notice her reticence. No doubt, he was only seeing what he wanted to see, like most other people. “I don’t guess it would be entirely proper, our being alone in the house before we’re actually married. It isn’t locked, though. You just go right in.”

  She nodded, somehow found the door and opened it, stepped outside. The walk to Jake’s house was a short one, but it might have been a hundred miles, or a thousand, her feet—not to mention her heart— were so heavy.

  She entered the mansion through the kitchen, a huge room with an indoor water supply, a massive and gleaming stove, a big pinewood table with eight chairs, and cupboards with doors. The floor, fashioned of lacquered wood, was dusty but otherwise beautiful, and a good washing would make it shine.

  From there, Christy proceeded to the dining room, which she had seen the night of Jake’s party. The large parlor was just off the entryway, and it boasted a white marble fireplace that must have cost the earth, though there were only a few pieces of furniture. Christy tried to imagine herself sewing beside a winter fire while Jake read a newspaper in the chair next to hers, but she couldn’t.

  She explored his study next; it was opposite the parlor and lined with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. It was enlightening to see that Jake enjoyed reading, and mildly comforting, too. At least they had that much in common. Surely, they could build on a shared love of books and other quiet joys.

  The staircase was a wide and graceful curve of gleaming wooden steps, and Christy climbed slowly, as though on her way to her own hanging. Perhaps Megan, young as she was, was right. Perhaps she was taking too much upon herself and making a dreadful mistake in the process.

  The upstairs hallway was long and wide, with three doors on one side, three at the other, and a double set at the far end. Christy peeked into each bedroom, all of which were empty, before coming to stand before the towering doors of what she knew must be Jake’s room.

  Heart thumping, feet leaden, she finally turned one of the brass knobs and pushed the door open a little way. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold. It should have been Jake’s scent that came to meet her, but instead it was Zachary’s.

  A tear slipped down her right cheek. The bed was a four-poster, intricately carved and set high off the floor. There was another marble fireplace, this one green and black, and at least two of the paintings on the walls were European. The curtains were Irish lace, and there were two gigantic wardrobes against one wall. Another door led to an astounding discovery—a stationary bathtub, commode, and sink. A contrivance at the foot of the tub served as a hot water reservoir. Christy discovered that the hard way, by touching the glittering, rattly thing and burning her fingers.

  She was startled, to say the least, when she turned from the splendid bathroom to find herself facing the last person in the world she wanted to see just then.

  “Maybe you ought to lie down on the bed,” Zachary said, his eyes flashing with blue fire. “Make sure the mattress is to your liking.”

  She considered turning her back on him and walking off without a word, but that would be too much like running away. “Do you always walk into other people’s houses uninvited?”

  “Do you?”

  “There’s a difference,” Christy informed him, with all the dignity she could muster. “I’m going to live here.”

  “That’s the difference, all right,” he snapped back, his nose so close to hers that she feared her eyes would cross.

  She struggled to hold on to her temper and to keep from bursting into tears. “What do you want?” she demanded, and realized too late that the question had been an unfortunate one.

  “You,” Zachary answered. “I want you. And damn it, Christy, you want me.”

  “You’re wrong!”

  He took hold of her upper arms and lifted her almost onto her toes. “No,” he rasped, “ you are. God in heaven, Christy, don’t do this. Don’t do it to yourself, don’t do it to Jake, don’t do it to me!”

  She was trembling all over and torn shamefully between flinging her arms around his neck to hold on for dear life and boxing his ears with both fists. “Get out,” she hissed. “ Now .”

  He thrust out a sigh, and his splendid shoulders sagged a little. He let his hands fall to his sides. “All right,” he said. “All right.” Then, in complete contrast to his words, he pulled her into his arms again and kissed her so hard that she feared her mouth would be bruised. Worse still, she reveled in that forbidden kiss, surrendered to it, even moaned a little because it roused such a ferocious wanting in her.

  When he put her away from him, she realized she was weeping, something only he could make her do. “Good-bye, Zachary,” she said. “ Good-bye.”

  He gazed at her for a long, telling moment, then turned and walked out. She heard his boot heels on the stairs and barely kept herself from running after him.

  “Let this be over,” she murmured to herself. “Please, God, let this be over.”

  “He’s gone.” Bridget seemed to take a sort of furious pleasure in delivering the news the next morning. “I hope you’re happy now.”

  “Who’s gone?” Christy asked, though she feared she knew.

  “Zachary. He swore in a deputy yesterday afternoon and rode out with a wad of wanted posters in his saddle bags. Gus told Trace all about it last night at the town council meeting.”

  Wanted posters. She was sick at her stomach, and her knees felt weak. Zachary was going after outlaws, men sought for terrible crimes, and he might very well be killed. In those moments, she would have done almost anything to bring him back safe, but of course that was impossible. There was nothing she could do now but brazen things through. “That,” she said, putting on a performance, “is no concern of mine. Zachary is a grown man, and he makes his own choices.”

  “That’s true,” Bridget said, still flushed with righteous anger, “except that we both know why he’s doing this—don’t we, Christy?”

  She turned her back on her cousin; that seemed preferable to snatching her hair out by the roots. “I can’t imagine what you’re talking about.”

  “I could fertilize my petunia patch with that answer,” Bridget persisted. “So help me, God, Christy, if he’s shot because of your fancies of wealth and comfort, there won’t be a person in Primrose Creek who’ll speak to you ever again!”

  Christy closed her eyes, shaken through and through, not by the prospect of ostracism—she’d experienced that at St. Martha’s and survived just fine, thank you—but by an image of Zachary lying dead on some lonely trail, awash in his own blood. A chill went through her, and she hugged herself against it. When she offered no reply, Bridget spun her around to face her.

  If Bridget hadn’t been so completely pregnant, Christy migh
t have forgotten all her personal compunctions concerning violence and tied in, kicking and scratching.

  “Don’t you ever do that again!” she cried. “You won’t always be pregnant, you know!”

  Bridget was undaunted and absolutely furious. “You’re just like your father!” she spat.

  “And you’re just like yours!” Christy responded.

  “Now, that’s right grown-up,” Caney put in from somewhere in the pulsing haze that seemed to surround the two cousins. “I reckon you’ll be puttin’ out your tongues next.”

  The reprimand dispelled some of the hostility, and Christy and Bridget stepped back from each other, although their fists were still clenched.

  Caney stepped between them. “Bridget, you git on home before you work yourself up into a pet and cause that baby to let go afore its time. Christy, you go on with whatever you were up to before Bridget showed up, and hold your tongue. If you’re like anybody, the pair of you, it’s your old granddaddy, and that’s your trouble right there. You’re too much alike.”

  Too much like Bridget? Christy quelled an unladylike desire to spit, but she minded Caney’s orders and continued with what she’d been doing—wringing out Jenny’s diapers and draping them over various bushes to dry in the hot, dazzling sunshine.

  They arrived in the middle of the afternoon, at least twenty mounted Paiute braves, painted for war and armed with spears, bows, and rifles. The sight of them brought back bloody memories of Reverend and Mrs. Arron, butchered in the sanctity of their own home.

  Caney usually kept a shotgun somewhere within reach, and that day was no exception. She picked up the weapon and cocked it, and that gesture, coupled with the hard set of her face, sent a clear message that she meant business. Megan stood gaping in awe, and when Christy had recovered enough to hear anything but the thundering beat of her own pulse, she caught her sister’s delighted exclamation.

  “Zounds! Indians!”

  They were going to die, Christy thought, with a peculiar sense of calm that resonated within her like an arrow quivering in its target. They’d never see another sunrise, any of them. Never laugh or argue. Never taste fried chicken or cold spring water.