Anything for You (21 page)

Why did I agree?

Rubbing her aching head, she knew if she had not acquiesced, Rose would have created an uproar. This was easier. After a quick conversation with Farley, Rose's fears would be his problem.

Gypsy did not appease the flunkeys' curiosity when she came back into the kitchen. She simply asked how the work was progressing.

While she was talking with Hank about how long to cook the whole wheat bread, she heard a terrified screech. She whirled to see Bert shaking his arm. Flames rose from his right sleeve. Whipping off her apron, she leaped to wrap it around Bert's sleeve. Fire ate the thin muslin.

She pushed him toward the door. “Go!”

“Help me! Help me! For the love of heaven, help me!”

“I am!” She tugged on his left arm as shouts came from the other men, drowning out Bert's cries of pain. “Outside! Come outside.”

“Help me!” he screeched again.

She shoved him through the back door. The flames whooshed close to her hair. His feet slid on the ice as he teetered, off balance. She pushed him into the snow. Dropping to her knees, she pressed his right arm into a drift. Smoke rose as the snow hissed and melted. Scooping more snow onto his arm, she ordered him not to move.

His face was the same gray as the dirty snow. She slowly unwound the charred apron and frowned when she saw the wool had seared into his tortured skin.

“Here, Gypsy,” came a tight voice from behind her.

She took the knife and bandaging Adam handed her. Within a minute, she had Bert's arm bound. She stepped back as Adam assisted Bert to his feet.

“Go over to Chauncey and tell him to give you a bottle of salve,” she ordered quietly. “Tell him to charge it to the kitchen. Then go back to the bunkhouse and put some right over the bandage. Get in bed and rest. I'll change the bandages tomorrow. I think we got it out before any permanent damage could be done.”

Bert gulped as he stared at his arm. When he started to speak, a peculiar expression crossed his face. She almost gasped as she recalled how he had looked the night he confronted her in the kitchen. He wore the same angry scowl as he stamped away, swaying on every step.

“What's wrong with him?” Adam glared at the injured man. “He looked riled that you saved his arm.”

Gypsy shook her head. “I don't know.”

Slipping his arm around her waist, Adam guided her toward the kitchen. “Come inside before you get cold.” His voice softened. “Have I ever told you how magnificent I think you are?”

“No!”

He laughed. “You needn't sound so flabbergasted by a simple compliment, especially when it's true.”

Gypsy wanted to smile, but her lips were too tight. If she spoke to him about the sensuous dream that had left her as sweaty as if the fever had returned, she was not sure what he would do. Laugh? She hoped not. Urge her to make her fantasy come true? He already did that with every touch, with every glance of his fiery eyes.

Pushing past Adam, she went into the kitchen. She shooed the flunkeys back to their tasks with a warning to be careful. Again she resisted the laugh swirling through her. She was the one who needed to be careful. Adam was assaulting her heart, which must remain barricaded away.

“What else can happen today?” she asked with a sigh as she began to slice the bread.

“What do you mean?” asked Adam as he took another knife and matched her motions.

“Nothing.”

“Come now, Gypsy. Even you, at your most cryptic, don't make statements like that.”

She continued to place the slices on the oilcloth. Not looking at him was easier. If she saw her yearnings mirrored in his eyes, she might not be able to fight the temptation any longer. “I wish things would go back to the way they were before.”

“Before I arrived?”

“Don't flatter yourself.” Her brief smile disappeared. “It's Rose.”

He grimaced. “What's wrong with that empty-headed woman now?”

“She's frightened of someone.”

“Farley?”

Putting the knife onto her lap, she met Adam's eyes without flinching. If she concentrated on Rose and her silly problems, she could keep her own cravings silent. “Not Farley, but she wouldn't tell me who. She pretends not to know, but I suspect she does.”

“You don't sound very sure.”

“I'm not.”

He leaned across the table and tilted her chin so she could not avoid his gaze, which was filled with curiosity and concern. When his finger grazed her cheek, she rose and carried the bread to the counter. For the love of heaven, even a casual touch threatened to undo her resolve. She walked to the bucket by the stove to rinse crumbs from her hands.

“Gypsy, what are you hiding?”

While she dried her hands on a tattered towel, she said, “Nothing. I have no idea why she came here to talk to me. She's been jealous of every meeting between Farley and me.” A short laugh burst from her lips. “As if I wanted to steal her lover from her.”

“She knows you could.”

“Adam, if you want to play at pretty talk, go find Rose and cozy up with her.”

He crossed the room to her. “That wasn't a compliment, Gypsy. That was the truth.” His hand slid across her shoulder to curve along her neck. With his thumb tipping her mouth toward his, he whispered, “Any man with a bit of life in him would see you were infinitely more alluring than that child.”

She held her breath as she waited for the caress of his lips. Slowly her fingers rose to explore the rough warmth of his cheek. His lips twitched, but she could read the truth in his luminous eyes. He wanted her. And she wanted him.

When he released her without a kiss, she stared in amazement. He sat. Rubbing his left leg, he smiled an apology. She bit back her fury. Why was he still lying to her? Or was he? She was no longer sure of anything.

“No matter what you think of Farley's whore,” Adam said, “she's so scared that she's put aside her jealousy to beg you to spend time alone with her lover.” Meeting her confused eyes squarely, he asked, “So what are you going to do?”

“I told her I'd talk to Farley.”

“And get yourself entangled in this mess?”

“I already am.”

“You're a fool.”

That she had to agree with, but not for the reason he meant. She was a fool to entangle her life with a man who was not honest with her, but could be put in peril because of her. Others had deemed it a series of unfortunate accidents, as her brother, then her mother, then her father died. She feared it was a curse, that
she
was the curse. Only her sister had escaped the horror. She could not draw Adam into this torment.

She dropped the towel onto the woodbox. “Maybe this is nothing more than Rose's attempt to catch me in a compromising position with Farley.”

He laughed with no hint of mirth. “You can't believe that.”

“I'd like to.” Staring at the red glow in the heart of the stove, she sighed. “It's easier than believing someone is threatening a chit like Rose Quinlan.”

She went to the window, where the wind blew past the glass to chill the cook shack. Snow floated in an endless cascade toward the ground.

Once she would have found the number of snowstorms in the north woods inconceivable. Then she had lived in a safe womb filled with simple luxuries and love. She had delighted in traditions that flowed from one year to the next in a pattern as intricate and beautiful as the snowflakes. That had ended with the abruptness of a knife slicing through her heart.

All gone.

Rose's fear resurrected memories of nearly a decade ago, when death came in blue or gray uniforms splattered with blood across unmoving young chests. Brass buttons shone brilliantly in the sun setting across a field of death, a field where she and her siblings once had played, a field which tried to hide its scars beneath a pelt of grass.

She blinked back unexpected tears as she touched the glass. The cold clung to her fingers as the ice melted beneath her touch. All her friendships must be as ephemeral as the frost, gone with the coming of spring thaw.

Broad hands gently massaged her shoulders. She should halt Adam. Yet when he touched her, she was unsure if she could flee again—not when she yearned to stay in his arms.

Slowly she faced him. “We have work to do, Adam.”

“That we do.” His voice became grave as he added, “And it's about time I got to it.”

For once, her curiosity was silent. She rested her cheek against his chest, not wanting to think of what the future might hold. She simply wanted to be held, knowing how fleeting this muted happiness must be.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next morning, Gypsy had no answers for Rose's dilemma or her own. She hurried through breakfast, then left the flunkeys to prepare lunch. Wanting to be done with what she had promised to do, she shuffled through the snow that was melting in the strengthening sunshine. She had heard the road monkeys complaining about having to redo the roads every day. The sleds must not hit a rut, or the load could slide off, injuring someone.

Chauncey waved to her. The inkslinger slogged through the snow. “Howdy, Gypsy. Where are you off to?”

“Farley's office.”

His lips became a straight line. “That doxy of his causing trouble for you again?”

Forcing a smile, she wagged her finger. “Don't you know it's impolite to ask a lady her personal business?”

He kicked a rock beneath the snow. It popped out to careen across the snowbanks. “I saw that she-devil bustling to the cookhouse yesterday, looking ready to cause trouble. I hope she didn't cause it for you.”

“The only trouble I have is you.” She patted his arm as he looked at her with his hound-dog-brown eyes. “Why don't you come over tonight and have a cup of swamp water with us?”

“Maybe.” His smile returned. “You're a good woman. Not like some around here.”

Waving a farewell to the inkslinger, she continued toward Farley's office. She hesitated at the door. If she went back to the cookhouse, she could pretend she had been too busy. She started to step away, but paused as a detonation of coughs cut through her.

The door opened. Farley, as always, looked dapper enough to be working in Detroit. Chiding her for standing in the cold air, he herded her inside. She paid no attention as she fought to regain her steady breathing.

She perched on the very edge of the bench in front of his desk. He balanced on the corner of his desk and clasped his hands around his knee. That, as much as his brusque greeting, warned he was anxious to be done with whatever complaint she had.

“How are things with you, Gypsy?” He chewed on his cigar and tapped it on an ashtray. He frowned when no ash fell from the unlit end. With a glower, as if she were at fault, he struck a match on his boot and puffed on the cigar.

“I'm fine.” She waved the cloud of smoke away and met his scowl with her own.

“And the kitchen?”

“Fine.”

“How's Lassiter working out now that he's not hobbling around?”

“Fine.”

Fiercely he clamped his teeth on the cigar and growled, “Then why are you bothering me today?”

“Rose asked me to speak to you.”

His dark eyes widened in amazement. When he rose and began to pace from his desk to the door, a rapid tic pulsed beside his eye. “What did she tell you? As if I don't know. She wants to leave.”

“Yes.” Standing, she placed a consoling hand on his arm. “Calvin, you're not the reason she wants to leave.”

“Why should it be me?” he demanded. “Haven't I given that little whore everything she's asked for?”

Gypsy ached for him. “She's scared.”

“Of the wind brushing the pines against the roof!”

“Calvin, you know it's more than that!” Gripping his wool sleeve, she used the stern voice which worked best in the kitchen. “I swear, if you don't provide her with transportation back to Saginaw, she'll walk.”

“She's that stupid.”

“She's that scared!” She planted her feet firmly and glared at him. “If you have any affection for her, let her go. Forcing her to stay here is crazy, for a bird will beat itself to death on the bars of its cage.”

“I don't have to listen to your platitudes.”

“For the love of heaven, let her go. The river drive will be soon, and you can meet her afterward.”

Brushing her hand off his sleeve, he sat. The chair's loud squeak underlined his furious expression. He pointed his cigar at her. “I don't know who's more stupid—Rose, for conjuring up these tales to convince me to make a grand settlement on her before I let her go back to Saginaw to find another lover or you, for believing her. Gypsy, I thought you were smarter than this.”

“I should have known you'd be stupid,” she shot back. “Everything that happens from this point is on your head!”

“Get out of here!”

As she reached for the knob, she was startled to hear Farley call her name in a calmer voice. Without turning, she asked, “What is it?”

He cleared his throat, and she was shocked. He must be standing right behind her. His hand on her elbow turned her to face him. Looking up, she drew away. She found the expression in his eyes disquieting. Calvin Farley should not be staring at her with candid longing. She glanced at his fingers stroking the curve of her elbow, then backed into the door. As it rattled, he stepped toward her. She put her hands up, and he froze.

“Don't do anything you'll be sorry for,” she whispered.

“Gypsy, don't leave.”

“If you mean leave camp, I don't intend to. I shan't be forced out by your bombastic orders.”

He reached for her, then stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Is that how you see me? Bombastic?”

“Aren't you?”

The corner of his mustache tipped up. “It works with everyone but you. Even Rose listens when I bellow.”