Loving Katherine (5 page)

“I don’t want to know…” she began, calling after him as he climbed the steps to the porch.

“Why don’t you go gather the eggs or somethin’,” he suggested from the doorway, turning to face her. She was worrying her bottom lip again, and he fought the smile twitching at his mouth.

“Yes, I’ll do that.” Relief was alive in her voice as she spun away and headed quickly to the henhouse. He watched till she slipped inside the wire fence, shooing the clucking hens before her, preventing their escape from confinement.

By the time she pushed the henhouse door open minutes later, holding her apron tightly to protect the eggs she carried, he’d disappeared from sight. She hesitated, unsure whether he was still in the house, her eyes scanning the garden and beyond for a glimpse of him.

“Roan?”

“Go rescue your dinner.” He was somewhere near the other side of the house, his voice carrying on the breeze.

“Yes…all right,” she said quickly, intent on putting aside all thought of his solution to the problem.

She picked at her food, waiting for the sly digs to begin, certain he wouldn’t be able to resist at least one reference to her being so softhearted. But she waited in vain. He ate swiftly and well, silently offering his plate for seconds, devouring the chicken and dumplings with obvious enjoyment. He sat back finally, a sigh of satisfaction the first sound to escape his lips since the meal began.

“Had enough?” She looked up, still shifting the carrots around on her plate.

His raised eyebrows saluted the movements of her fork. “Looks like you aren’t much for your own cookin’ today, Katherine.”

She placed the utensil beside her plate and folded her hands in her lap. “I guess I wasn’t in the mood for chicken. I didn’t seem to work up much appetite this morning.”

“Well, you can just heat up the leftovers later on,” he told her. “It’ll save you cookin’ supper after while.”

“I’d have to add a mess of vegetables to the pot and call it soup,” she said with a quick smile in his direction. He wasn’t going to tease her, she realized, and her smile widened.

“A pan of cornbread would go real well with that,” he suggested hopefully. “You sure do make good pone, Kate.”

It was the second time he had shortened her name today. She considered him. Leaning back in his chair, he looked utterly relaxed. It was an illusion, she knew for a fact. Rarely did Roan Devereaux allow himself to be off guard. As if he were aware of every movement within his range of sight and hearing, he kept watch. That he could do so and still maintain a conversation puzzled her.

Another puzzle was his calling her “Kate.”

“My father used to call me that,” she said quietly.

“Kate?”

She nodded. “No one else ever has, just Charlie.”

“I didn’t mean to be too familiar. Sometimes you just look like…like you ought to be Kate.” His eyes were dark, their regard warming, and his mouth was pursed as he studied her.

“I don’t mind,” she said quickly. It was a familiarity that pleased her somehow. And she fought against the pleasure it brought her.
He’ll be gone… before you know it, he’ll be gone,
she told herself.
And you’ll miss him.

That admission was a new one. So hurting was it, she rose and gathered up the plates and forks, carrying them to the sink and depositing them with a clatter in the tin dishpan waiting there. She couldn’t afford to miss him, she thought, blinking away the hot tears burning against her eyelids.

“Katherine?”

She heard his chair scrape against the floor and she blinked furiously, determined to hide any evidence of weakness.
Not on your life, Roan Devereaux,
she thought furiously.
You’ve already known me for a softhearted female once today. I’ll be switched if you see me being foolish again.

“It’s time to be movin’ on,” he mused beneath his breath as he pounded the last nail into place. The stall door hung straight, the latch was in place, and for the life of him, he couldn’t find another thing to do in the barn.

On top of that, Katherine was looking better to him all the time, and he surely didn’t need a woman to complicate his life right now. At least, not on a long-term basis. And Katherine was definitely not a bed-’em-and-leave-’em woman.

He watched her from the barn door. Watched as she took the last of his clothing from the line she’d strung between the cabin and the milk house. His gaze was fixed on the heavy rope of hair that caught the sunlight and gleamed with hidden fire. Prettier than a spotted pony and twice as spunky, he thought with a subdued chuckle. She’d be a prize for the right man. One willing to look beyond her fierce pride and drab demeanor.

“Katherine,” he called, reluctantly heading in her direction. “How about if I take a look inside the house and see what needs tending before I head out of here? Thought I’d see what I can put to rights for you.”

Her head shot up and she put out one hand in an unmistakable gesture. “My house will do fine, thank you. I manage to keep it up to snuff without any trouble at all.”

He lifted one eyebrow in silent question. “If you’re sure about that…” he said, unwilling to push, aware of her fierce possessiveness when it came to her own surroundings.

“Are you heading out?” she asked bluntly.

He sauntered closer, his eyes intent on her fisted hands, clenched at her sides, betraying the tension she sought to conceal. Katherine was not nearly as unconcerned about being here alone as she let on, he decided.

“It’s about time. I’m pret’ near thirty years old and my family hasn’t seen me in ten or twelve years.” His laugh was rusty. “Fact is, they might not be too excited about my comin’ home. But I figure it’s time to let ‘em know I’m still alive and kickin’.”

“They’ll be glad to see you, Roan,” she said quietly, her eyes on his guarded expression. “I’ll bet your mother watches for you every day.”

“Well, you sure don’t have any notion of how Letitia Devereaux carries on, I can see that,” he answered dryly. “About the last thing she’s thinkin’ about is her long-lost son. Matter of fact, I’m probably the biggest disappointment in her life. I doubt she ever got over my fightin’ for the North.”

Katherine regarded him thoughtfully. “I wondered that myself,” she admitted. “Just thought it wasn’t my business to ask questions, though.”

Roan squatted in the shade of the milk house and picked up a handful of small stones from the ground between his knees, one at a time, looking each over carefully. As if he considered his words with equal care, he spoke hesitantly.

“Slavery wasn’t the issue with most Southerners, you know. But it was with me. I had a hard time with the right of one man to own another, no matter what the law said. Still do, for that matter. My father and I had a go-round
more than once, after I got to be full grown. He said I had to learn my place in life and it wasn’t workin’ side by side with the slaves and bein’ familiar with them.” He looked up at her with somber eyes. “I couldn’t consider the boys I’d grown up with as less than men,” he said harshly. “And to my father, they were ‘boys,’ fit only to work in the fields.” He shrugged. “We didn’t see eye to eye. So I left.”

“And fought on the side of the North,” she said quietly.

“Yeah, that was sorta strange, I guess. When I wrote to my mother, after the war, I told her. She wrote me back while I was in the hospital in Philadelphia, where they patched my leg up for the last time.”

“I’ll warrant she was worried about you,” Katherine told him.

His laugh was harsh. “Maybe, maybe not. What she was was ashamed of me. That I would fight against my ‘own kind’ was more than she could tolerate, she said.”

“Why do you want to go back?” Katherine asked after a moment.

He stood, brushing his hands together as the stones fell once more to the ground. “Haven’t figured that out yet,” he told her with a grim smile. “Somethin’ just seems to be tuggin’ at me to go home. Maybe I think things will be different, now that the war’s over. Maybe I need to make peace with my daddy before it’s too late to put things right.”

Katherine shaded her eyes from the sun as she looked up at him. “What if they don’t want you back?” The thought that any parent would turn aside his child was abhorrent to her, but the possibility surely existed where Roan Devereaux was concerned.

His grin was crooked as he tilted his hat back with one finger. “They might not. Far as I know, they’ve still got my brother there to handle things. If there’s no place for me, guess I’ll just meander along and head west,” he said with a shrug of his wide shoulders. “I’m not sure I’m cut out for that kind of life, anyway.”

“Seems to me you did pretty well, staying here,” she ventured.

He straightened abruptly and his look was deliberately forbidding. “I was tryin’ to pay a debt and puttin’ in time to pay for that mare in the corral, Katherine. All we need to do is come up with an amount of cash to cover the difference and I’m gonna be on my way.”

She frowned at his words. “What debt are you talking about?”

He shook his head. “Never mind. The important thing right now is the money I owe you.” He pulled a leather purse from his back pocket, soft and well-worn at the folds. “What’s it gonna be, Katherine? How much for the horse?”

Her eyes were narrowed, her mouth tight as she pressed her lips together. “You don’t owe me one damn cent, Roan Devereaux. You can get your gear together, including those clothes I just took off the line, and vamoose anytime you want. Consider the work you did sufficient price for the mare.”

If the man wanted to leave this morning, let him get on his way, she thought, annoyance at his high-and-mighty attitude raising flags of color in her cheeks. She spun on her heel and headed for the house, almost tripping over the wicker clothes basket as she went. She kicked it out of her way and stalked to the porch, pulling her skirts above her ankles to climb the steps.

Roan watched, hands on hips, eyes never leaving her drab form as she entered the house. She sure was in a huff. Probably just as well. “Eliminates havin’ a big song and dance about sayin’ goodbye,” he muttered. “I’ll just leave ten dollars on the porch when I go and pick up supplies in town.”

She stood to one side of the window ten minutes later and watched as he rode across the yard, brushing at the tears that would not be denied. He stepped down from the mare long
enough to lay something on the porch, and then, with a last look at the doorway, mounted his horse.

His voice carried easily to where she watched, and her lips tightened as she heard his words.

“I’m much obliged, Katherine. You’re a credit to your pa.”

She swiped furiously at the hot tears, and her muttered words fell unheard in the silence he left behind.

“You hateful man. You’re sure not worth crying over.” She hiccuped loudly and sniffed, wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. “Damn you, Roan Devereaux.”

“H
ow’d you ever talk Katherine Cassidy out of a mare?”

Roan eyed the livery stable owner with a tight grin. “I worked it out. She needed some repairs done and I’m kinda handy with tools.”

“Huh!” Thurston Wellman expelled his breath forcefully. “Never thought I’d see the day that gal would let loose of another one of her horses, after she had to sell that stud of her pa’s. She’s tighter’n an old maid’s pucker when it comes to her animals.”

Roan waited patiently for the older man’s nattering to cease. He’d known the sight of him atop the sleek mare would set tongues wagging and he’d been right. Evan Gardner had been in the general store just minutes ago, his eyebrows at half-mast when Roan came through the doorway.

“How’d you get your hands on one of Cassidy’s horses?” the man had blurted out. “Does Katherine know you’re ridin’ her mare?”

Roan had given him a glare to end all and turned to the storekeeper. His list was long, and it took more than a few minutes to name the supplies he’d need for his trip. At least for the first leg of the journey.

In the meantime, Evan had stomped out the door, reentering minutes later. “That’s surer than the dickens one of
Cassidy’s horses,” he’d said vengefully. “You got no right to that mare, stranger.”

Roan had turned to face the man. “If you got a problem, I’ll meet you out front. Are you callin’ me a horse thief?” The words were spit with precision, the tone tightly leashed but edging toward anger.

Evan Gardner wisely backed off, his face ruddy, his words sputtering without coherency from his lips. “Never said, uh, didn’t mean…sure didn’t…”

Roan had spun to the storekeeper. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Can you have it packed and ready for me?”

With the man’s assurance still in the air, Roan had left the store, brushing past Evan Gardner with a look of scorn.

Now he tended to the business at hand. The purchase of a packsaddle was next on his agenda. The stud he’d ridden through Tucker Center just over a month ago would carry his supplies, perhaps trading off with the mare if she needed spelling during the long journey.

“You got a packsaddle I can buy?” he asked Thurston Wellman. He’d loosened the girth on the mare and turned the stallion into the small corral while he’d gone to the dry goods store earlier. Now it was time to do his business and make tracks to the south.

Thurston cleared his throat, loathe to miss a sale of any sort. “I expect I can locate what you need, mister. Might take me an hour or so to come up with it, though. You got anything you need to do? Mebbe you’d like to wet your whistle over at the saloon while I check things out.”

The idea of a long swallow of beer was mighty appealing to Roan. It’d been a long dry spell since he’d left Ohio, heading for Charlie Cassidy’s spread. But drinking and riding a trail didn’t mix well in his book. In fact, he might just bed down at the hotel for the night and make it an early start in the morning.

“Sounds good to me,” he told the livery stable owner. “Maybe I’ll stay overnight and head out early.” He swept
his hat from his head and tossed it to rest on a bale of hay. “Show me a stall for my mare and I’ll unsaddle her.”

“Second one on the right,” Thurston said agreeably. “You can stow your tack over yonder. It’ll be two bits for the night, if you leave the stud in the corral. I’ll feed ‘em both.”

Roan nodded. He led the mare to the stall and stripped the saddle from her back. Replacing the bridle with a halter, he rubbed her down, his hands possessive as they swept the glossy length of her. Checking twice to be sure she was securely tied, he left the stall.

“I’ll toss her some hay,” Thurston told him. “There’s some for your stud already in the hay rack outside.”

Roan grunted in reply, snatching his hat on the way out the double doors into the sunlight.

Already it had started, he thought gloomily, catching sight of sidelong glances as he passed small knots of townsfolk. Noting the speculative look on the face of the local lawman as he neared the jail, he slowed his steps.

“Sheriff?” he said, greeting the robust man cordially.

“Yessir, I’m Sheriff Doober.” The man straightened from his post against the wall. “You the feller asked about the whereabouts of the Cassidy place a while back? Heard from Evan Gardner you was stayin’ out there. He was kinda upset, bein’ an admirer of Katherine and all.”

“I was there. Now I’m leavin’. My name’s Roan Devereaux. I’m an old friend of Charlie’s,” he told him, hand outstretched in greeting.

With a degree of reluctance, the lawman met his grip. “Heard tell you got away with one of Charlie’s mares,” he said, his words tinged with admiration.

“Mares aren’t Charlie’s anymore,” Roan corrected him. “They belong to Miss Katherine now, and yes, I made a deal with her for one of them.”

“She’s kinda low on stock, ain’t she? What with sellin’ one to the banker for his daughter pretty soon, she’ll be scrapin’ the bottom of the barrel.”

Roan nodded. “Pretty close. She’s got one more filly she’s workin’ with and the yearlings she’s trainin’.”

“Looks like she’d think twice before she sold off her breeding stock,” Sheriff Doober said.

“Want to ride out there with me and ask her about it?” Roan offered quietly.

The other man shook his head. “No, I don’t reckon I do. Just makin’ conversation.”

Roan nodded and walked on, feeling himself the center of attention. The town probably hadn’t had this much excitement in years, he thought with a suggestion of good humor. It sounded like Katherine had a reputation for being stingy, least when it came to her horses.

He made a quick stop at the dry goods, where Orv Tucker, the owner, agreed to store his purchases in the back room till morning. “Won’t be no trouble at all,” he assured him.

Across the street was the hotel, the tallest building in town, with elegantly carved wooden curlicues and flourishes garnishing its framework. As though expecting his arrival, the clerk met Roan with an ingratiating smile, assigning him a room with much fuss and ado. Extolling the virtues of the establishment, the clerk ushered him up the stairs, unlocking the door with a flourish.

“Yessir, we’ve got the finest rooms for fifty miles,” the young man boasted. “Our dining room’s known all over the area. Why, we get folks come from miles away just to eat dinner here,” he said, beaming with pride.

Roan waited patiently, nodding agreeably, then herded the enthusiastic clerk out the door.

“I’ll send up a pitcher of hot water,” came the final word from the young man as he stood in the hallway.

“You do that,” Roan answered, already stripping off his shirt. He turned the glass knob once more and stuck his head through the open door. “In fact, make that a whole tub of hot water. Might be the last chance I get for a good bath for a while.”

A marked contrast to the short cot and the quiet barn, he found the hotel to be a mixed blessing. The bed was comfortable but the sounds coming through the open window kept him awake half the night.

“Didn’t know the saloon would be open till all hours,” he grumbled to the desk clerk in the morning. “Man can’t get a decent night’s sleep.”

“Should have closed your window, sir,” the clerk ventured mildly, counting the coins Roan had given him.

“Felt like I was in a tomb, with all that velvet hangin’ all over the place,” Roan growled. “Can’t sleep without fresh air.”

Breakfast was plentiful in the hotel dining room. Ignoring the speculation he encountered on several faces, he plowed through the plate full of ham and potatoes he’d ordered. It wasn’t near as good as one of Katherine’s meals, he thought, wiping his mouth with the linen napkin.

He deliberately set his mind to other things, her image too vivid for comfort. “Forget the woman,” he told himself beneath his breath, marching down the wooden sidewalk. “She can take care of herself just fine. You got other fish to fry, Devereaux.”

Thurston Wellman, busy harnessing a mare, nodded to him as he strode into the livery stable. “Got you what you need all right. It’s over there.”

The packsaddle lay across a sawhorse outside his mare’s stall, and Roan noted its age with concern.

“It’s in good shape, Mr. Devereaux,” the man assured him as he hurried over. “I checked it out first thing this morning, and it’s good and sturdy. Only cost you a dollar.”

Roan nodded. “Sounds fair,” he allowed, digging for the coin in his pocket.

“Hear tell Evan Gardner is het up about you gettin’ the mare from Miz Cassidy,” Thurston confided in an undertone.

“None of his damn business,” Roan said with a grunt, lifting the mare’s saddle to her back.

“He’s been tryin’ to make her his business for a while now. He’s a determined son of a gun. I’ll put my bet on Katherine, though. She’s a spunky little gal.”

“Yeah, she can handle that shotgun like a trooper,” Roan agreed. The saddle was cinched and he slid the bit into the mare’s mouth, fastening the bridle in place.

“I’ll bring the stallion in,” Thurston offered. “We’ll have you ready to go in no time at all.”

“Yeah,” Roan said glumly, aware that his early morning enthusiasm was rapidly evaporating.

“I did what I could, Charlie,” he said beneath his breath. “I got her all fixed up and things are up to snuff out there. Hell, I got to get on my way.”

The stallion didn’t take well to his status as a pack animal, nudging against the mare’s flanks and nipping more than once at her hindquarters. Roan cast him a look of sympathy as he jerked on the lead rope.

“You got to behave, boy. You got the better end of the deal, totin’ my gear. Just leave this filly alone. She’s gonna let loose with one of those heels, and you’ll be wearin’ a horseshoe across your nose if you’re not careful.”

He stopped long enough when the sun was overhead to tear a heel from the loaf of fresh bread Orv had given him. After cutting a thick slice of cheese from the chunk in his pack, he stowed the food securely and set out once more. There was no sense in stopping till near nightfall. He might even make it to the river by then.

According to the map he’d carried about for over a year, Tucker Center was just a ways east of the big river, and once he reached the Mississippi, he’d be home free. He’d just follow it south, almost all the way to River Bend. Home. His eyes narrowed as he considered what awaited him there.

“Might be nothin’ left for you, Devereaux,” he grumbled. “They probably won’t thank you for makin’ the trip. The damn horse’ll probably get a warmer welcome than me. Pa was always on the lookout for a good piece of horseflesh. He’ll appreciate Katherine’s mare.”

Katherine. He shouldn’t have spoken the name. A dull ache beneath his breastbone nudged him. A vision of dark hair glimmering in the sunlight and blue eyes sparkling with intelligence filled his mind. He shook his head, willing the memory of her to vanish, but to no avail.

“I did what I could,” he growled, as if her image accused him. “No woman is gonna tie me up in knots. She’s set for the winter, anyway. By spring, she’ll probably…”

The angry face of Evan Gardner sprang before him. “What happens when you’re not here anymore, stranger?” As though he heard the question aloud, Roan swore, biting the words off savagely. “He’s a determined son of a gun,” Thurston Wellman’s voice echoed in his head.

“She can face him down any day of the week,” Roan growled, nudging his mare into an easy lope, the stallion falling in behind. The thought was not the comfort he’d hoped for. Once fresh in his mind, the memories of Katherine would not be dislodged, and he turned over each glimpse of her as it appeared before him.

Her stubborn chin, the creamy look of her skin where her throat met the collar of her dress. The strong, well-formed hands that were equally as capable whether she held a skillet or the lead rope of a yearling foal. His mind dwelt for a moment on the surprising softness of her mouth as it had opened beneath his own, and he tilted his head back to gaze at the cloudless sky.

“Damn woman…I don’t need to be thinkin’ about you,” he snarled impotently His mind’s eye envisioned the bulky form of Evan Gardner, imagining the man’s mouth intruding where Roan’s had been the first to venture.

“Never been kissed, Katherine?” He’d known when he asked, known that he’d been the first to taste the sweetness of her mouth. Damn. Evan Gardner’d better keep his hands to himself. Not to mention his slack-jawed…

He pulled the mare to a halt, his hands tight on the reins. With a grim foretaste of disaster, he sensed Katherine’s vulnerability. The whole damn town was probably waitin’ for Gardner to move in on her, he thought glumly. They probably all thought it was the best thing for her, havin’ somebody to look after things there.

He lifted his eyes once more to the brilliant blue sky, watching as a hawk circled and swooped beyond the next rise in the trail.
Damn it all, Charlie. I can’t just ride off and leave her to fend for herself. I reckon I shoulda just ridden south from Ohio and stayed out of this mess.

And never known Charlie’s Sparrowhawk? The thought pierced him with dreadful accuracy and he shook his head.

He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he left her with things so unsettled. He cast another look at the sky, shaking his head glumly. “It’ll be full dark before we get there,” he said to the mare, his hand stroking her neck with a gentle touch. “Guess we’d better make tracks.”

“I know you’re not gonna shoot me, Katherine,” Evan said cajolingly, sidling toward the porch. The setting sun cast his face in shadow beneath the wide brim of his hat, but she knew exactly how he looked. She knew the greedy expression his face wore as he considered her. For too long, she’d known he was only biding his time.

“Should have realized you’d be back here as soon as Roan Devereaux left town,” she taunted him, leveling the barrel
of her shotgun in his direction. “Too much of a coward to hang around while a man was staying here, weren’t you?”

“I don’t take kindly to bein’ called a coward. I’m facin’ you down, ain’t I? And you with a gun aimed at my belly.” He reached the foot of the steps and tilted his head back to look up at her. “Let me come in and we’ll just talk, Katherine,” he wheedled softly, a smile turning his expression into a parody of friendly persuasion.