Deborah Camp (40 page)

“Certainly not,” she scoffed, although he seemed more a stranger to her at the moment than a friend. “I only decided that it was wrong of me to expect free advice from an attorney.”

“An attorney? Just an attorney, am I?” He gripped her upper arms. “I’m your lover, damn it!”

She flinched. “Yes, we made love.”

“Yes, we sure as hell did!”

“Stop shouting at me.” She wriggled from his grasp. “I don’t want to argue with you.”

“And I don’t want to argue with you. Regina, do you want me to look into this thing for you?”

“That would be most kind of you, yes. The house has come to mean more to me than I’d thought. It’s the first real home I can remember, but I tell myself to be thankful I can move into Mrs. Nation’s and not out into the streets.”

“I’m sorry for your troubles, Regina. And I’m sorry you felt you couldn’t come to me with them. I thought we were friends. Best friends.”

“Yes, well …” She shook off her melancholy. She wanted to be his friend, of course, but she also
hated to think that was the only thing he offered. Was she now just like Emerald to him? A good gal friend. A pillow friend.

“What’s the frown all about?” he asked, tipping her chin up to get a better look at her face.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” he said, clearly not believing her. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured. “Tell me that you’ve dreamed of me, yearned for me. Tell me, even if it isn’t true. I need to hear it, Regina. Oh, God, I’m such a fool for you.”

“Theodore, I don’t know what to think when you talk like this. Nobody’s ever said such things to me.”

“Even at the Gold Star?”

“I never paid any attention to those men. I was smart enough to know that it was liquor talking.” She dodged his sipping kisses, struck by a disturbing notion. She sniffed. He smelled fresh and clean and utterly masculine.

“I haven’t had a drop all day,” he said, smiling, reading her mind. “This isn’t liquor talking, honey. It’s much more intoxicating than that. It’s passion. Pure and oh, so complicated. Red-hot passion for the prettiest girl in Eureka Springs.” His lips drifted down the side of her neck and then across her throat, then lower, to a pulse point that fluttered like a butterfly. “Regina, don’t you know that I’d do anything for you? Sweet lady, I’d move mountains for you if I could.”

The shields she’d constructed against him lifted with each of Theo’s kisses. Life signs returned within her, throbbing, drumming. That his armor might be tarnished became less and less important. He was still her knight … still her champion. Suddenly, she was shaking with the renewal of emotions she had tried in vain to deny.

“When I first saw you, you made me shake,”
she confessed, whispering in his ear, then kissing the tip of it. She smiled and her hands moved slowly up over his shoulders. She laced her fingers at the back of his neck. “I suppose I’m not the first woman to tell you that.”

His eyebrows arched. “No, you’re the first. Shake? I made you shake?”

“All over,” she tacked on, and released a long, trembling breath. “Like now.” She closed her eyes and welcomed his soft kisses on her eyelids, her cheekbones, her nose. “Theo, are we sinning?”

He groaned. “I was afraid we’d get around to that.”

“Well? We are, aren’t we?”

He kissed her, hard and demanding, his tongue thrusting against hers, his lips caressing hers. “Does this feel wrong, Regina?”

She couldn’t find her voice for a moment, having lost it along with her other senses. “No.”

“We need each other and some power beyond us put us in each other’s path.”

She smiled, accepting his explanation for the time being. She wanted nothing but to be his for the moment. And the next moment. And the next.

“We shouldn’t question that higher power. We should just do what our hearts tell us to do.”

“You are a charmer, Theodore Dane. I swear you could convince a jury to pardon Satan.”

Laughing, he urged her to stand with him. “Let’s go next door.”

“Theo, no.” She pushed him away from her playfully. “I must go back inside. Maybe you don’t worry about what’s left of my reputation, but I do. Everyone inside knows I came out here to see you. If I go next door and disappear, there will be talk.”

“So what?”

“So, I’m not ready to be talked about. Are you
ready for everyone to wonder how serious we are about each other?”

He frowned. “No, you’re right, I guess.”

She shrugged, wishing she could kick herself for baiting him and then getting upset because he didn’t snap at her baited hooks. She moved away from him. “Joy and Bitsy are getting married.”

“To Howard and Stu?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Will wonders never cease?”

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Why are you so surprised?”

“I just thought Stu would be harder to catch than that. He does enjoy his freedom.”

“You make marriage sound like prison.”

“To some men, it is.”

“What about you?” She turned toward him. “Do you think it would be a prison?”

His eyes twinkled. “Speaking of prisons, how about if you and I go next door and you can tie me up and lock me in a room with you and—”

“Theo, I think you’d better leave,” she interrupted, trying to be lighthearted and not show her disappointment at his teasing response to a question she had posed in all seriousness.

“Okay, get back to your hen party. I know how you gals love to talk about weddings and such.” He kissed her cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow and let you know what I’ve done about your back taxes.”

“Do you think you can do something?”

He jogged down the steps, then pivoted to face her. “You doubt my abilities, Miss Rose?” Winking, he wagged a finger at her. “You just leave this to me and quit your fretting. I’ll handle everything.”

Regina smiled and watched him stride confidently
to his horse and swing up into the saddle. The black stallion pranced prettily down the lane and Theo sat tall and straight in the saddle. Such a show-off, she thought, but she didn’t doubt Theo. He was a puzzle at times, but she was certain of one thing about Theodore Dane. He was no brag, just fact.

T
he next morning Regina lifted the heavy iron off the stove and set it down on the white shirtsleeve. She moved it across the fabric smoothly and quickly, so as not to leave scorch marks. The heat blew up into her face and sweat beaded on her brow. Her hair hung in damp curls around her face as she finished the last of Theo’s shirts.

After he’d begun bringing his laundry to them, paying them handsomely for their services, he’d spread the word around town about their reasonable rates and conscientious work. She finished ironing the shirt and hung it with the half dozen others. He looked so handsome in his boiled white shirts and his business suits, she thought proudly. Mischief scampered through her. He looked handsome
out
of his boiled white shirts and his business suits, too! Giggling to herself, she turned toward the ironing board again, to find Lu examining her curiously.

“Theodore’s shirts, I take it,” Lu said, smiling. “I can’t imagine anyone else’s laundry making you so happy.”

Regina nodded. “You caught me daydreaming.” She noticed the dress draped over Lu’s arm. “What have you got there?”

“Oh, this has tiny pleats all in the front and I’m not as talented as you with an iron. I’ve been working on it for the good part of an hour and I just can’t get the pleats straight.”

“Hand it here,” Regina said, taking the lovely peach-colored dress. She shook it out for an examination. It looked familiar. “Whose is this?”

“Irene Cooper’s. She’s coming around sometime this morning for her laundry and that’s the last one I have left to do. Regina, don’t frown so! If you don’t want to do it, I can—”

“No, it’s not that.” Regina fitted the dress over the board and laid the iron on the stove to heat. “I wish she’d take her business elsewhere. I hate doing her laundry.”

“Now, Regina, her money spends just like everyone else’s.”

“She irritates me, that’s all.”

Lu sat in one of the kitchen chairs and propped her feet in another. “Lord, I’m tired! I feel like I’ve been on these feet constantly since daybreak.”

“You probably have.”

Regina dipped some water from the bucket into two glasses and handed one to Lu. She drank some of hers, then wet her fingertips and flicked drops over the front of Irene Cooper’s tailored dress. Her arms and shoulders ached from lifting the heavy iron from the stove to the pressing board countless times, but she made herself apply the iron once more to the tiny pleats.

“Whoever designed this dress wasn’t thinking of the poor woman who’d have to iron it,” Regina commented, bending closer to the intricate work. The steam and heat blasted her face.

“Looks to me like Miss Tally’s work,” Lu said.

“You’re probably right.”

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you … we got a new laundry customer this morning.”

“Who?”

Lu sent her a sly glance. “The banker’s mistress on the hill,” she whispered, as if saying it full-voice would be too, too scandalous. “She stopped by with a basketful of beautiful clothes after you left to take Mrs. Nation to the train depot.”

“Really?” Regina straightened, snared by the touch of impropriety. “Is she pretty up close? I’ve only seen her from a distance. How old is she? Does she look hard? You know, like Emerald O’Brady. Lots of rouge and powder?”

“No, she doesn’t look like that at all. She’s very attractive … oh, I’d say ten years older than us. She dresses smartly, conservatively. But her underclothes are lacy and sheer. Beautiful, almost scandalous things! And she has striped stockings!”

“Striped?”

“Yes, striped gray and one pair is striped black! She had on a pair when she came by—white with pale pink stripes. I caught a glimpse of them when she hiked up her skirt to step up into her buggy.”

“She came by buggy?”

“Yes, a nice rig driven by an Indian boy, no older than thirteen or fourteen. She called him Arrow.”

“Oh, my. That’s romantic, isn’t it? She has a young Indian brave as a driver!” Regina smiled, then brought herself up short, remembering that the woman was living in sin. “Was she nice to you or did she have her nose stuck up in the air like Miss Irene Cooper?”

“Very nice. She has a quiet voice. She seems shy. She asked if we’d be willing to do her washing and ironing, and that she’d pay whatever price we quoted.”

“And why not? It’s not her money. It’s the banker’s.” Regina concentrated on pressing the final
three pleats. “Lu, do you think we should take her business? Mrs. Nation might not approve.”

“Of course, Mrs. Nation would approve! It’s the Christian thing to do. It’s not our place to judge people. While I don’t approve of her choices in life, I can’t be cruel to her.”

“You’re right.” Regina hung up the dress. “There, how does that look?”

Lu ran a hand lightly over the warm pleats and smiled. “Beautiful. I knew you could do it. I have her other things out in the foyer.”

“Irene’s coming by here?”

“Yes, she said she had some errands and would pick up her laundry this morning. Saves us a delivery.”

“I wonder if Irene has ever spoken to her father’s mistress?”

“I doubt it,” Lu said. “I often look at the house on the hill and wonder if that woman—oh, by the way, her name is Sandra Oxley—if she doesn’t worry she’ll end up with nothing once the banker gets tired of her.”

“Sandra Oxley,” Regina repeated, realizing that she’d never heard anyone say the woman’s name. It was always “the banker’s mistress.” Or “that woman on the hill.” How could she abide being ostracized by the entire town? “I guess she loves him so much that she refuses to think about tomorrow. Women believe in happy endings.” Regina smiled at women’s folly. “We believe in loving against all odds. I sometimes think men are much more intelligent in relationships. They see things for what they are, usually, instead of for what they wish them to be.” She sat at the table and wondered if she might be guilty of closing her eyes to tomorrow. Was it wrong for her to be expecting Theo to wave a magic wand and vanquish all her troubles? “I suppose I should begin moving
my things over to the other house in the next day or so.”

“Regina …” Lu pulled her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m thinking that Annie and I might just go on back to Kansas now that Jack’s dead.”

“No!” Regina was clutching Lu’s forearm before she could stop herself. Recovering, she patted Lu’s sleeve. “You can’t leave now, Lu. You just can’t!”

“But I’m no longer a drunkard’s wife. I’m a widow, Regina. I have no business being here anymore.”

“Yes, you do. You’re my family.”

“But the boardinghouse is for drunkards’ wives and children, not for your family. If we could keep your house, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so odd about accepting your hospitality.”

“If Mrs. Nation were here, she’d insist that you stay on. What’s waiting for you in Kansas?” She sighed, frustration writhing in her like a nest of snakes. “Why does
everyone
want to go to blasted Kansas anyway?”

“Regina, dear.” Lu inched closer. “What’s wrong? You’re upset.”

“Yes, I’m upset! You tell me you’re leaving, and you don’t expect me to be upset? Lu, you and Annie are the only family I have left.”

“I know, but there is something else at work here. Tell me.”

Regina shook her head, knowing that what she was about to say would sound self-serving. “Mrs. Nation is making noise about closing the home here and devoting herself to the boardinghouse in Kansas City. Maybe she’ll even open another one in Kansas. Kansas, Kansas, Kansas! You’d think it was Paradise!”

“The W.C.T.U. movement is at a gallop there, Regina. You’ve been reading the
Beacon
.”

“Yes, I know, but I’ve been to Kansas and I don’t
want to go back there. I like it here. I thought you liked it here, too.”

“I do. It’s been a pleasant place for me and Annie.”

“Annie loves the school here. She thinks her teacher is an angel.”

Lu smiled. “That’s true.”