Distraction (8 page)

“Oh hush, child. There’s nothing to repay.”

“Libby,” Susan called from the front of the shop,
“you’d better come see this.” There was urgency in her voice, and
Libby and I rushed out to the front room.

The crowd had moved to the center of the road, and
there was a fair amount of yelling and cheering making its way
around the circle of onlookers. The center of their attention
appeared through a break in the bodies. Two men were having an
intense fist fight. Libby took one look at the brawlers and marched
outside to the street. She stopped several feet away and put her
hands on her hips. Curiosity drew me outside, and I walked up to
stand next to her. The sickening sound of fists hitting flesh and
groans of pain filtered through the mass of bodies. The entire
front window of the gambling hall was shattered into a pile of
glass shards. The crowd split apart as one of the fighters was
thrown clear across the street. He landed directly at Libby’s feet.
His lids were swollen but I could see the pale green color of his
eyes as he looked up at Libby. The other fighter, a man with a
shoulder span that matched the building behind him, pushed out of
the circle toward the man he’d just thrown. He took a faltering
step as he met Libby’s furious glare and then spun around and
stumbled angrily away.

Libby tapped her foot directly in the face of the man
on the ground. “The east fence needs mending.”

With some effort, he pushed to sitting and swiped at
the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand. “Yep.” He looked
at me for a long moment but didn’t say anything.

“And hurry up.” Libby turned on her heels, and I
followed her back to the shop.

“Can I at least get my hat?” he called to her.

“Just make sure you pay the owner for that window,”
Libby yelled without looking back at him.

I peeked over my shoulder. He pushed to his feet and
swiped at the blood on his shirt. Just as I watched him, he watched
me until the shop door shut behind me, breaking our line of
vision.

I watched him once more through the window as he
disappeared into the gambling hall. It hadn’t been my imagination
at all. Even bloodied and bruised, I recognized my knight.

A cold bath relieved some of the swelling and
bruising from the week’s activities. One all night poker game, two
bottles of whiskey, and a fight with the loser who weighed more
than a plow horse had made it tough to think clearly. But one
thought drifted through my mind over and over again as I washed for
supper— the girl was still here.

She was not at the dining room table but there was an
empty place setting. Libby carried in a platter of chicken and set
it down in front of Jackson.

I looked up at her. “Do you think that’s wise?”

She slid the platter toward the center of the table
and Jackson sneered at me. My stomach was so empty it was eating
itself. I leaned forward and grabbed two pieces of chicken just as
the screen door swung open. A streak of lightning could have shot
through the ceiling and split the kitchen table in two and I still
would have had less reaction. Her slim hips swung side to side
beneath the smooth calico dress as she strolled into the dining
room and sat down.

Libby set down the bowl of potatoes and smiled at her
expectantly. “Well, how did it go, Poppy?”

“My method worked,” she answered confidently. “He
came at me with a look of fierce determination, but I didn’t give
him the satisfaction of looking him in the eye. Just like my
Chauncy back home, he took it as an insult and stomped away like
and angry child.”

“Would you two like to let us in on your odd
conversation,” Samuel said.

“Poppy went out to put the chickens in the coop, and
I warned her that she should take the broom in case she needed to
give that mannerless rooster a couple of whacks. She insisted on
going out there unarmed.”

“Back home, our rooster was more devious than the
foxes circling the coop at night. I found there was nothing he
hated more than being ignored.” Every detail— the up and down
motion of her small chin, the movement of her throat as she spoke,
the way her lips formed the words— all of it drew me in and I
couldn’t drag my gaze away.

Libby sat down. “Roosters do tend to have an
arrogance problem.”

Poppy placed a napkin in her lap and looked across
the table at me with those dark brown eyes and for a moment
everything and everyone else in the room vanished.

“Speaking of arrogant,” Charlotte’s harsh tone
snapped me back to reality, “that Jane Crosston is certainly full
of herself. Her mother had a pile of newspapers to give me, and
that girl bragged on and on about the new wardrobe her parents
ordered her from New York.”

Samuel grabbed another piece of chicken. “I don’t
know why you go over there, Charlotte. You always come back with
your petticoat in a twist after you’ve seen her.”

Charlotte shifted angrily on her chair. “Well,
Samuel, some of us like to keep abreast of what’s happening in the
world, and Mabel Crosston always has the most recent
newspapers.”

“So tell us, Charlotte,” Libby stepped in to keep
them from their usual supper table argument, “what is
happening?”

Like a spoiled child, Charlotte shot a self-satisfied
smirk at Samuel. “Apparently, some vile cotton eating insect has
come over from Mexico, and the Texas cotton growers are worried
about it.” She glared over at Samuel. “It seems like that should be
of interest to you and Cade.”

I broke off a piece of roll and chewed it as I looked
at Charlotte. “Does this insect eat cattle?”

“What a silly question, Cade. Of course not,”
Charlotte answered.

“Then it doesn’t interest me.” I shoved the remainder
of the roll in my mouth. Samuel laughed and then seemed to think
better of it.

Our blunt reaction didn’t deter Charlotte from
continuing. “And in New York, they’ve opened a grand music hall,
Carnegie or something like that. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they
had something like that here? Then we could all go dancing.”

Now that Libby had opened the spout on the kettle,
Charlotte would drone on until she sucked all of the air from the
room. Our guest seemed intrigued with Charlotte’s string of new
announcements. I, on the other hand, was intrigued with the small
indentation beneath the girl’s full bottom lip. The small dimple in
her chin had my complete and undivided attention until a strand of
her white gold hair swept across her shoulder as she reached for a
piece of chicken. It curled up neatly atop the small curve of her
breast. I watched that strand of silky hair dance on her bare skin
with every breath she took until the tip of Jackson’s boot kicked
my shin.

Jackson leaned his shoulder closer to me. “Christ,
Cade, stop gawking,” he said from the side of his mouth. “You’re
about as subtle as a two-bit whore.”

“If President Harrison keeps pushing those tariffs on
us then I think we’ll have Cleveland back in the white house next
term,” Libby said. Apparently the world event conversation had gone
on uninterrupted while I’d drifted off to catalogue every inch and
curve of the girl sitting across from me.

Poppy put down her fork. “Is this president
important?” she asked, and the room fell silent. Her long lashes
shadowed her cheeks as she stared down at her plate, obviously
embarrassed by her question.

“You really do live in a remote area, Honey,” Libby
said with a laugh. Poppy lifted her eyes. “The president runs the
country. He signs the laws— good or bad,” Libby continued.

She nodded hesitantly. “But what about the king?”
Silence again.

“You mean the queen?” Libby asked. “I’m sure she’s
sitting in her English castle sipping her overpriced English
tea.”

Laughter circled the table but Poppy looked
distraught. Libby obviously sensed her worry and masterfully
changed the topic.

“So, Cade, did you two break a lot of horses? Seems
you took more of a beating from poker than you did in the
corral.”

“They were an easy bunch of colts,” Jackson answered
for me. “But there was this one filly, whooee, did she give Cade a
good licking. She shot him in the air just like one of those
geysers down in Yellowstone.”

Samuel grinned. “I would have liked to have seen
that. So you were beat by a filly, eh? Figures.”

I dropped my napkin on my plate. The chair back
creaked as I leaned against it. “No one said anything about her
beating me. She just tossed me into the air a few times. Faster and
smoother than any horse I’ve ever ridden. I bought her from Trenton
before I left his ranch. I’m riding out to pick her up
tomorrow.”

“What about the east fence?”

“It’s already mended.” My brother hated it when I
beat him to an order. “If you don’t mind, Libby, I think I’ll head
out to the porch for a smoke. The food was delicious as usual.”

***

Warm air ushered from the house as the door behind me
opened and shut. The cool night breeze shuffled through the tree
tops near the house as I strummed my calloused fingertips across
the guitar strings. It took me only a second to sense that she was
the one standing behind me.

“That’s a lovely tune.” The sound of her voice
traveled like soft fingers over my shoulder. She sat down on the
step next to me and hugged her knees to her chest. “We didn’t have
any music back in my village. It was forbidden.”

I stopped strumming and looked down at her. I hadn’t
steeled myself for having her face so close to mine, and it took me
a second to find my tongue. “Forbidden? That’s one I’ve never heard
before.”

She gazed out at the ranch, and I took the
opportunity to memorize her stunning profile. The side of her lip
curled up. “Of course, at home, my grandmother, sister, and I took
every opportunity to hum and sing. We were far enough away from the
village that nobody could hear us.”

I squinted down at her. “I thought you looked like
the shifty type.”

She smiled. A breeze blew through her hair and a long
lock fell across her cheek. She reached back and made a futile
attempt to tuck back into the pin it had sprung free from. “Poor
Libby spent a fine chunk of the morning trying to pin my stubborn
hair up but it’s just no use. There is far too much of it.”

“Yeah, it’s downright distracting,” I said it with
humor, but I couldn’t have been more serious. I leaned my guitar
against the porch railing. “Something just occurred to me.”

Her brown eyes looked glassy beneath the starlit sky.
“What is it?”

“Do you mean to tell me there were no dances in your
village?”

She shook her head and the same stubborn strand of
hair fell loose. She ignored it this time. “Sometimes my sister and
I would push aside the chairs in our front room and dance around
the floor.”

“I feel sorry for the boys in that village of
yours.”

“The boys?”

“To have a girl like you floating around the village
and know that I could never dance with you, that would be nothing
short of torture.”

“I’ve never danced with a boy. I’ve always thought it
sounded like something I would like, but dancing was
forbidden.”

“Well, it’s not forbidden in Montana.” I pushed to my
feet and lowered my hand for her to take. “I’m better at roping and
shooting than I am at dancing, but I know a few steps.”

She looked at my hand for a moment then placed her
palm on mine. It felt smooth and warm and right. I helped her to
her feet. “Now face me.” She turned her feet toward mine. I was a
good head taller than her. She lifted her chin and peered up into
my face and then I wondered what the hell I was doing getting so
close to those lips.

I swallowed back the nearly urgent need I had to kiss
her and took hold of one of her hands. Her fingers felt tiny and
vulnerable laced between mine. I placed my other hand on the small
of her back and tried to convince myself this was all being done to
let her experience dancing with a boy, but in the back of my mind,
I knew I had badly wanted to touch her. I could feel the heat of
her skin through the thin calico fabric of her dress and I
questioned my sanity for going through with this.

Our steps were awkward and slow, and the only music
was the wind whistling around the yard and the crickets chirping
under the porch, but I’d never enjoyed a dance so much in my
life.

Poppy kept staring down at our feet as if she worried
about stepping on my toes. She lifted her face and her brown eyes
glittered. “I think I’m getting it.” A thick strand of hair fell
across her face. She sighed and pulled her fingers from mine to
push it away. “Now if I could just get these pins to dance with
us.” She struggled to put the strand back in place behind her
head.

Reluctantly, I dropped my hand from her back. “I
think I can help with that.” I reached around her with both my
arms. Her warm breath caressed my throat as I pulled the pins from
her hair. The thick, golden strands fell down around her shoulders.
I leaned back and admired my work. “Much better.”

My hand pressed against her back and I took hold of
her hand with the other. We returned to our silent dance.

“Thank you for saving me from that bear.”

“I still can’t figure out how you got there. All
alone in the middle of nowhere like that.” I could feel her tense
beneath my hand. Her gaze dropped back to our feet. “It’s like you
were running from something.” Her fingers squeezed mine. She didn’t
say a word. The only sound was our feet moving on the planks of the
porch and the persistent wind whistling across the fields. But her
small body had grown rigid beneath my touch. “You’re hiding from
someone . . .”

She lifted her face and some of the pink in her
cheeks had vanished. Her dark eyes were shiny with tears.
I squeezed her fingers between mine. “Don’t worry. You’re safe
here.” We danced in silence for a short while longer, but I could
have stood there with my hand pressed against the small of her back
and my fingers laced through hers for the remainder of the
night.