Emma and the Outlaw Read online

  The crack of light from the doorway widened. “The laudanum didn’t help?”

  Touched at her concern, Steven answered truthfully. “It hasn’t had time, Miss Emma.”

  She came into the room, carrying a kerosene lantern this time, and Steven couldn’t help cringing when he thought of the damage that could do.

  But Emma set the lamp on the bedside stand, beside his own, and sat down in the chair again. He could see she was holding a book in her arms.

  “I’m sorry I was so rude about the chamber pot,” she said.

  Steven couldn’t help laughing at the somber dignity of her expression. Her very primness lured him, made him want to bring out the wildcat he expected she was hiding from the world and maybe even herself.

  “And I’m sorry I was rude,” he answered, tempering his amusement with a friendly smile.

  “I thought perhaps you’d like me to read to you.”

  He bit back another smile. “That’s kind of you, Miss Emma. What do you have there?”

  Her guileless face glowed in the lamp light, and her voice was warm and husky. For one brief, wicked moment, Steven wished he’d been right about her first place.

  “Little Women,” she said, with enthusiasm. “It’s my favorite—I’ve read it over and over again.”

  Steven had heard of the book, and though he’d never had any desire to read it, he couldn’t bring himself to say so. He could see now that there was something fragile in Emma, something mockery might bruise or destroy. “Why do you like it so much?”

  She bit her lower lip for a moment. “I guess because it’s about sisters. There are four of them—Meg, Amy, Jo and Beth.”

  Sounds like a real riproarer, Steven thought, but he kept the sarcasm to himself. He might not care to hear about any small women, but he did want to listen to Emma’s voice.

  She opened the worn book, cleared her throat delicately, and began to read to him about four young girls.

  “I’ve never known anybody to call their mother ‘Marmee’,” Steven observed, when Emma reached the end of the first chapter and stopped reading to sniffle.

  “It’s common enough in the east,” she said somewhat defensively.

  Remembering that he’d called his own mother by the French Maman, Steven nodded. Although he wouldn’t have admitted it, he was looking forward to hearing the next chapter.

  “Do you have any sisters?” Emma asked, her eyes wide and sorrowful.

  Steven longed to comfort her, but he didn’t dare. After all, he’d practically called her a prostitute earlier, albeit by mistake, and despite the sponge bath he figured he most likely smelled like a mule fart. “No,” he answered presently, “but I have a brother.” He didn’t elaborate because he didn’t want to talk about Macon. Or Nathaniel, a cousin who had come to live at Fairhaven after losing his parents, and who was so young Steven hardly knew him. Nat hadn’t even been born until after Steven had joined the army.

  Emma sighed, and there was a wistful expression on her face. She looked young and very vulnerable, sitting there in her wrapper, with her reddish-blonde hair trailing over one shoulder in a thick braid. Steven wondered how he could have mistaken her for anyone other than who she was—an innocent barely past girlhood.

  Somehow he knew she was pretty much alone in the world, and the knowledge ached inside him, sharper than his wounds. “I appreciate your coming back in here to cheer me up, Miss Emma.”

  She smiled distractedly, as though her mind were somewhere else, and rose from her chair. “I’ll say good night again,” she told him, and then she was gone, taking the light with her.

  Back in her room, Emma blew out the lamp, laid the book lovingly beside it, and crawled into bed. She fully expected to think about Lily and Caroline, as she always did when she’d been reading Little Women, but instead her mind was filled with Steven Fairfax.

  The man was clearly not respectable, she told herself, her chin at an obstinate angle as she wriggled down between the sheets.

  Emma’s thoughts turned to the limited sponging she’d given him beforwrapping his wounds. The muscles in his chest and arms had been hard and lean and browned by the sun…

  She pulled the covers up higher and forced her thoughts to turn to Fulton. That was the only decent thing to do, since she’d been keeping company with the man for months. She had absolutely no business bathing Steven Fairfax.

  But then she had never seen Fulton’s bare arms, and certainly not his chest, so she couldn’t very well make a comparison. Her cheeks throbbed in the darkness as she mentally undressed her fiancé.

  She didn’t need her highly developed imagination to tell her that Fulton would be white and soft to the touch, like a woman.

  With a little groan of despair, Emma rolled onto her side and pulled the blankets up over her head. Steven Fairfax was nothing but a saddlebum—maybe he was even wanted by the law—and bathing him was not a ladylike thing to do.

  Still, there was the way he smiled. And that glint of mischief in his eyes, overpowering the pain he must be enduring. And the soft, distinctly Southern way he spoke—it was like listening to warm rain fall on the summerhouse roof.

  Emma drew a deep breath and let it out again, exasperated with her foolishness, then threw back the covers and left her bed for the window seat overlooking the lake.

  On a moonlit night, the water could be magical, but tonight it was only a massive, shifting shadow, offering no comfort.

  Resting her forehead against the glass, Emma sighed again. What was it about Steven Fairfax that troubled her so much?

  First thing in the morning, Emma dressed, brushed and rebraided her hair, and looked in on Steven.

  He grinned at her, and although he was in dire need of a shave and his hair was rumpled, Emma’s heart gave a little lurch.

  “I could bring you some breakfast if you’d like,” she said, feeling unaccountably shy.

  Steven shook his head and ran his gaze lightly over her. The sweep left a trail of heat in its wake. “Thanks, but I never eat before noon,” he said.

  “Coffee?” Emma inquired, reluctant to leave him even though she knew she had no business lingering.

  “It’s kind of you to offer,” he said, and Emma took that as acceptance. She hurried downstairs, ignoring Daisy, and poured a cup of hot coffee.

  When she returned, Steven had drifted off to sleep again.

  Emma returned to the kitchen. Daisy was still there, expertly flipping pancakes over the griddle. A large black woman with a strong personality, Daisy had more to say about the way the house was run than Emma and Chloe put together.

  “Don’t know why Miss Chloe’d want to bring a stranger right into this house,” the woman grumbled without so much as looking up from the skillet. “I don’t like the looks of that one, I’ll tell you.”

  Sunshine flowed through the bank of windows lining the back of the house and glittered on the royal blue waters of the lake beyond. “Don’t fuss, Daisy,” Emma scolded good-naturedlpouring coffee for herself from the china pot in the middle of the table. “It’s such a beautiful day.”

  “I’ll fuss if I wants to,” Daisy muttered, bringing the platter of pancakes to the table and slamming it down. “I s’pose that no good ramblin’ man has to be waited on hand and foot.”

  Emma smiled. “Of course he does. He’s bedridden.”

  “Well, that ain’t my fault,” Daisy pointed out, stomping over to the stove again.

  Emma took one pancake—it was beyond her why Daisy always cooked enough for an army—and smeared it with butter.

  “You bringin’ the banker to supper tonight?” Daisy demanded.

  Emma smiled. “I don’t think so, Daisy. Fulton doesn’t usually like to go out on weeknights. He says it interferes with his concentration the next day.”

  “I’ll interfere with his concentration,” Daisy muttered, mostly to herself, as she worked between the stove and the sink. “Thump him up right ‘longside the head with my skillet—”

&n
bsp; Emma nearly choked on her pancake. “Honestly, Daisy,” she said, suppressing a smile, “a person would never know you were a good Christian woman by the way you talk. What would Reverend Hess say if he heard you going on like that?”

  “I reckon he’d say I’s an old lady and I’s gotta be let alone.”

  “Mr. Fairfax is sleeping, and he won’t be wanting any breakfast. You might check on him later in the morning, though.”

  “I’ll check on him,” Daisy said. “Give him a good wallop with my broom handle, that’s what.”

  Emma wasn’t the least bit worried, since she knew that, underneath all that mumbling and grumbling, Daisy Putnam was gentle as a new fawn. “Good,” Emma answered, carrying the plate to the sink. “You give him a wallop for me.”

  Daisy gave her great, gleeful laugh at that, and Emma hurried through the house to the front door.

  Spring was definitely in the air, and her step was brisk as she moved along the maple-shaded sidewalk toward the main part of town. Chloe’s house, with its many rooms, its veranda, and its spacious yard, was one of the nicest in town. In fact, except for Big John Lenahan’s ranch house and the Whitney mansion, it was the finest in the county.

  The crisp skirt of Emma’s blue sateen dress crackled as she walked, and today she’d worn her braid wrapped around the back of her head in a coronet, instead of trailing down her back as usual. At her throat, she wore the delicate cameo brooch Chloe had given her last Christmas, and she periodically reached up and pinched her cheeks to give them some color.

  She marveled as she passed the Yellow Belly Saloon. The facade was still lying out in the middle of the street, though men were there with hammers and saws, disassembling it, and inside, the piano and bar were charred caricatures of their former selves. Beams crisscrossed the pool table, and the painting of the naked woman, so detested by the Presbyterians, had one whole sidened away, so that only the lady’s head was visible.

  Fate had appeased the Presbyterians.

  Emma made her way to the other side of the street and would have proceeded to the library, if Callie Visco hadn’t come out of the Stardust Saloon, wearing a short pink satin dress, black net stockings, and a blue feather boa.

  “Hello, Miss Emma,” she said. And after looking both ways to be sure no one was watching, she extended a copy of the novel she’d checked out the day before. “Could you get me another one just like this?” she asked in a whisper.

  Emma smiled. “I don’t know why you think you have to keep it a secret, Callie. There’s nothing wrong with liking to read.”

  Callie squared her narrow shoulders. She’d painted a beauty mark underneath her right eye, and her yellow hair billowed around her face in big curls. “The other girls might think I got time on my hands or somethin’,” she replied, with a shake of her head.

  “All right, then,” Emma answered, in a conspiratorial whisper to match Callie’s, “you come out when you see me passing by at noon, on my way home for lunch. I’ll have a book for you then.”

  Callie grinned broadly. It was impossible to guess her age, with all that paint on her face, but Emma had her pegged for the far side of thirty. “Thanks, Miss Emma.”

  Emma hurriedly unlocked the library and stepped inside. She hadn’t been there more than five minutes when Fulton showed up, dressed for the bank and fiddling with his watch chain. It was always a bad sign when Fulton did that.

  “I hear Chloe is keeping a man in the house,” he said stiffly. “Now, Emma, you know I don’t mind about Big John Lenahan stopping by every now and again, but I draw the line—”

  “It isn’t your house, Fulton,” Emma put in reasonably.

  Fulton was so startled at the interruption that he went red at the ears. “Be that as it may, I don’t care for the idea of my fiancée sleeping under the same roof with somebody who’d stoop to drinking in the Yellow Belly Saloon.”

  Emma went to the door and began picking up the returned books. She was careful to hide her smile. “I’m not your fiancée, Fulton,” she reminded him sweetly.

  “Who is he? What’s his name?”

  Some instinct made Emma reticent about Steven’s identity. “Just a drifter,” she said, carrying the books to her desk and beginning to sort through them. “He’ll be gone soon.”

  “Well, I certainly hope so.”

  Emma changed the subject. “Daisy wanted to know if you planned on coming to supper tonight.”

  “You know I wouldn’t go out on a Tuesday.”

  Emma sighed, staring off into the distance. He’d gone out on a Monday, but she didn’t want to take the trouble to point that out. “Yes,” she said, and she was thinking of the man she’d washed and read to t night before. She wondered if he was awake, drinking the coffee Emma had left for him, though it would be stone-cold by now, or swearing because no one would give him back his .45.

  “What are you smiling about?” Fulton demanded.

  Emma went right on sorting books. “Nothing,” she lied. “Nothing at all.”

  Joellen Lenahan was one of the few people Emma had ever actively disliked. She was sixteen, with the body and manner of a mature woman, and she seemed to see other females as threats to be swiftly eradicated. She was also angelically beautiful, with her yellow-blond hair and cornflower blue eyes, though it was said that her father, Big John, despaired of getting her married before she disgraced him.

  Entering the library with the regal reluctance of Queen Victoria venturing into a pest house, she bestowed on Emma a disdainful look and asked, “Are there any books here that we don’t already have at home?”

  Emma struggled to find some trace of Christian charity within herself as she continued dusting the shelves. “Since I don’t know what books you have, I’m at a loss to answer your question.”

  Joellen spotted the copy of Thomas Hardy’s new novel on the counter and was magnetized to it. “I want this,” she announced, picking up the volume in both hands and holding it to her shapely bosom.

  “I’m sorry,” Emma said politely, “but that’s reserved.” She’d selected it for Callie, but saying so would have been asking for trouble, since Joellen would unquestionably regard herself as Callie’s superior.

  The girl jutted out her lower lip. “You’re just being mean, Emma Chalmers,” she accused in a whiny tone that set Emma’s teeth on edge. “You don’t like me because I come from a decent family and you—well—you’re an orphan, raised in unsavory circumstances.”

  Emma was used to being suspect because of Chloe’s occupation, so she held her tongue. Besides, she liked Big John. “You may have the book when your turn comes,” she said with pointed politeness.

  Reluctantly, Joellen set the volume back on the counter. She was used to getting her way, and her wide eyes snapped with irritation. “You probably don’t have anything good to read in this silly little place anyway. Everybody knows Chloe got it started just to keep you busy, since the school board didn’t want you to teach. It isn’t a real library at all.”

  Emma’s spine stiffened, and her sateen skirts crackled briskly as she walked over to stand behind her counter. Joellen’s reminder of the town’s belief that Emma was unfit to teach their children because of her connection with Chloe stung fiercely, but nothing could have made her reveal that. “Since this isn’t a ‘real’ library, I can’t imagine why you’re staying so long.”

  The smirk on Joellen’s face made Emma want to slap her. “There are rumors going around about you, Miss Emma. People say you’re keeping a man in your house.”

  Emma could have told Joellen a few things about men visiting Chloe’s house—Big John Lenahan, for example—but she couldn’t bring herself to stoop so low. Nonetheless, blue fire blazed in her eyes as she replied, “What if I am, Joellen? What business is that of yours?”

  “It’s improper,” Joellen answered in a singsong voice.

  “So was what you did with Billy Baker during the harvest dance,” Emma said bluntly. “Big John would have a fit if he knew.”r />
  The color drained from Joellen’s china-doll cheeks. “You saw me and Billy?”

  “I saw enough.”

  Joellen’s face went from waxy white to crimson. Without another word, she turned and dashed out of the library, leaving the door gaping open behind her.

  Humming, Emma closed it. In truth, she’d only seen Joellen holding hands with Billy at the dance; she’d guessed the rest.

  At the stroke of noon she took up the Hardy novel and set off for home. As planned, Callie met her on the sidewalk to collect the book, then skulked up the back steps to the second floor of the Stardust Saloon, taking great care that nobody saw her.

  From there Emma proceeded to the general store, where she bought trousers and a shirt that looked as though they might fit Mr. Fairfax. Her purchases were just being wrapped when Fulton came in, apparently having spotted her from the bank window.

  He glanced at the trousers and shirt, just in passing, then his gaze shot back to them.

  “Could you possibly help me find whatever a man wears under his trousers?” Emma whispered, leaning close to her fiancé so the storekeeper wouldn’t hear. She’d been too embarrassed to ask Mrs. Birdwell, who was the town gossip and would no doubt have repeated the question in every parlor in Whitneyville as proof that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  Fulton looked as though she’d just thrown ice-cold water into his lap. “Emma!” he hissed, in reprimand.

  Emma sighed. She couldn’t think why it should be such a bother to find out a simple thing. “Never mind. I’ll ask Chloe.”

  “Are these clothes for that—that drifter?”

  A tall, thin woman with a no-nonsense bun pinned severely at the back of her head, Mrs. Birdwell quickly raised her eyes from the string she was tying around Emma’s parcel. She offered no comment, but her prominent ears were practically wriggling.

  “Of course they are,” Emma answered impatiently. “You don’t expect him to walk around naked, do you?”

  Mrs. Birdwell looked incensed. She was a member of the school board, and it was she who had refused Emma a teaching position when she returned from normal school in St. Louis, on the grounds that she might be an unwholesome influence.