Margaret Brownley - [Rocky Creek 02] (19 page)

Still, he longed to go to her. To comfort her and tell her she wasn’t alone, but he didn’t dare. Didn’t trust himself. Not with the memory of her sweet lips so vivid in his mind. Not with the heat of desire flowing through his body.

His resolve to keep his distance and never let anyone get too close had been wiped out in one thoughtless, reckless, moonlit moment. After that, it was almost impossible to stay away from her. Even in church, he couldn’t seem to keep from seeking her out. Still, it wasn’t until tonight that he realized how much trouble he was in. Now all he could do was try to undo the damage. That meant keeping his distance. Staying away. Forgetting the kiss. The eyes. The smile.

He replaced the keys on the hook ever so quietly then fell upon one knee to pray: “Lord, give me strength.”

A man stood in the distance gesturing for her to come to him, promising to protect her. Joyfully, she ran to him and flung herself into his open arms. Smiling, she looked up. The smile died and she recoiled in horror. She tried to pull away but couldn’t. Too late, she realized she had thrown herself into the arms of Horace Blackman III
.

She woke with a start, not knowing where she was. Trembling, she gasped for air in an effort to still her erratic pulse. Then she remembered. It was her nightmare that woke her, woke her like it did every other night. Only tonight, Brenda wasn’t there to comfort her and rub her back. No one was.

The arms that looked so welcoming from a distance were like iron chains that continued to hold her prisoner long after the dream had faded away. Even after all this time, even after she paid back every last penny she owed him, the man named Blackman still held her captive, if only in her mind.

Shuddering, she forced the memory of him away.

The night sky slowly turned to silver. She got up and washed her face with water from the pitcher her sisters had brought her. Her body ached from lying on the thin lumpy mattress. She stretched to remove the kinks. It helped her back but her head still throbbed.

After changing into a fresh skirt and shirtwaist, she arranged her hair. No sooner had she finished dressing than Redd delivered breakfast.

“Made the coffee fresh just for you,” he said. In the dim morning light, his hair was more rust-colored than red, and he looked even more downcast than usual. He obviously felt sorry for her.

She forced a smile in an effort to cheer him up. “Thank you.”

He pushed the tray through the slot and shook his head. “This is no place for a lady.”

“It won’t be for much longer.” She only hoped that was true. The thought of spending another night in that cell was more than she could bear.

She wasn’t hungry but forced herself to eat a couple of spoonfuls of cornmeal mush so as not to hurt Redd’s feelings. Though the coffee was bitter and strong enough to bring tears to her eyes, she welcomed its warmth.

He watched her eat with approval. “You need anything else, ma’am, you just let me know, you hear?”

“Thank you, Redd.”

After he left, she sat on the cot and waited. Surely Rhett would let her go now. The minutes turned to hours and, though she could hear him moving around in his office, he stayed away.

She’d almost given up when a rattle of keys made her heart leap. It was about time. The door to the anteroom opened and the preacher’s wife, Sarah, walked in. The door closed behind her.

Not wanting to show her disappointment, Jenny welcomed her with a smile.

“I brought you wildflowers,” Sarah said. “Give you somethin’ purty to look at.”

Though she had hoped that Rhett had come to set her free, she really liked Sarah and was grateful for the company. “The flowers are beautiful. Thank you.”

Bending sideways to accommodate her expanding middle, Sarah set her basket on the floor next to the iron bars. The yellow-and-white flowers added a cheery note to the drabness.

She straightened and looked around. One hand on her back, she placed the other on her protruding stomach. In her usual disregard for style, she wore a man’s black hat. Her red hair fell loose around her shoulders.

“I’m sorry I can’t offer you tea or lemonade,” Jenny said. “Or a place to sit.”

“Don’t you worry none about me, you hear?” Her gaze traveled past Jenny. “This ol’ cell hasn’t changed since I was here.”

“You were here?” Jenny asked, surprised.

Sarah nodded. “Locked up tighter than a new corset, I was. Waitin’ for my own hangin’ party.”

Jenny gaped at her. “They were going to
hang
you? What . . . what did you do?”

“It had nothin’ to do with me. Briggs—he was the marshal before Armstrong—wanted to hang me on account of my outlaw brothers. If he got it in his mind to hang you, it didn’t matter none if you were guilty, innocent, or betwixt. Praise the Lord for our new marshal.”

Jenny scoffed. “He put a twelve-year-old boy in jail.” Not to mention what he did to her.

“Knowing Marshal Armstrong, he prob’ly had good reason,” Sarah said. “Scooter and his brother have been given the run of the pasture since their poor mama died. Boys that age need to be corralled.”

“What about their father?” Rhett had told her he was a drunk but hadn’t said much else about the man.

“He’s a good for nothin’—” Catching herself, Sarah raised her eyes to the water-marked ceiling. “Lord forgive me, but it’s true. Since his wife’s death, he’s done nothin’ but pickle his brain. The reverend keeps tryin’ to talk to him, but God don’t see fit to open the man’s ears.” She gave a nod of her head. “But He will. Mark my words. He will. I just pray it’s soon.”

She glanced past Jenny to the stack of books piled on the cot and the schedule hanging from a nail.

“I reckon you’re still tryin’ to find husbands for your sisters.”

“I’m not having much luck, I’m afraid.” Jenny picked up the dog-eared copy of Miss Abigail Jenkins’s book. “I’ve done everything the book says to do.”

Sarah glanced at the book with a frown. “I don’t cotton much to instruction books. I reckon the Good Book has all the advice a body needs.”

Jenny tossed the book onto a cot. “Including how to find husbands?”

“The Bible says that no matter your plans, it’s the Lord’s plan that prevails. I reckon that includes matchmakin’.”

“I doubt God is interested in helping me find husbands for my sisters,” Jenny said. He didn’t bother helping her when she needed help all those years ago after her parents died. What reason did she have to believe He would help her now?

“Oh, He’s interested,” Sarah said. “If He’s interested in me, He’s sure gonna be interested in you. Let me tell you how I know.” She then told Jenny how she met her preacher husband.

“So there I was, handcuffed to a dying marshal in the middle of nowhere. I sure thought my goose was cooked. Then who should come along but this handsome preacher?” Her eyes clouded momentarily with visions of the past. A smile inched across her face. “Now if that wasn’t God’s plan, I don’t know what to call it.”

“Some people might say it was simply good luck,” Jenny said cautiously, not wanting to offend.

Sarah waved a hand. “And some people don’t know a bean from a turnip.”

Jenny couldn’t help but laugh. She’d never met anyone quite like Sarah and couldn’t imagine a less pretentious person. “Like I told you before, me and God—”

“That don’t matter none. God the Father welcomes His children with open arms. It don’t much matter how long we’ve been away. I’m livin’ proof of that.”

“I’m not the one who went away,” Jenny said. “I was there all along. What kind of Father is He to desert you in time of need?”

“I reckon bein’ a parent is the hardest job there is,” Sarah said softly, caressing her belly with loving strokes. “Not many of us get it right. We’re either overprotective like I am with Elizabeth or neglectful like Scooter’s pa. Far as I know, God, the heavenly Father, is the only one who gets it right.”

“Really?” Jenny crossed her arms in front to ward off a sudden chill. “After my parents died, I needed God, but He was nowhere to be found. We had no money.” Her voice thick from painful memories, she forced herself to continue. “We had nothing. No food. No firewood. No medicine. I tried to sell my parents’ farm, but the town was going through tough times. Nothing I did worked. Where was He then?”

“He was there,” Sarah said with a conviction that Jenny could only envy. “All you had to do was call out to Him.”

Jenny shook her head. “It wouldn’t have done any good. He wasn’t there. Otherwise I wouldn’t have—” She clamped her mouth shut. She’d already said too much. Spending the night in jail had weakened her carefully constructed defenses, and it scared her.

Sarah’s face softened. “I’m there for Elizabeth, but that don’t mean she’s always gonna do what’s right. Do your sisters always do what you want?”

The idea seemed so absurd, Jenny couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t I wish!”

“God made us human, and that means we’re gonna make mistakes. All Elizabeth wants to do is climb.” Sarah smiled to herself as if picturing the two-year-old. “I’m ’fraid she’s goin’ to fall, but Justin says if we don’t let her try things, she’ll never learn what she’s capable of doin’.”

Jenny’s mind reeled with confusion. “So you’re saying God wanted me to fall?”

“No, no.” Sarah shook her head. “No parent wants a child to fall. We want them to learn and to grow. The only way they can do that is to find their own way.”

Jenny still didn’t understand. “Didn’t you say a child needs to be corralled?”

“Yes, when they’re young. The hardest part is knowin’ when to cut ’em loose and see where they ’light.” She gave a determined nod of the head. “Looking at your sisters, I’d say you did a mighty fine job of carin’ for them. Now you just have to trust them enough to cut them loose.”

“By cutting them loose, are you saying I should let them find their own husbands?” Jenny asked.

“I’m sayin’ that God has bigger plans for us than we can ever dream up for ourselves. You’re gonna have to cut your sisters loose and let them run free. It’s the only way they’ll find out what plans God has for ’em.”

Jenny mind boggled.
Cut them loose? Let them run free? God’s plan?

What kind of crazy talk was this?

Sarah laughed. “If that don’t take the rag off the bush. I’m beginning to sound like a preacher’s wife.”

The astonishment on Sarah’s face made Jenny laugh. “A very
nice
preacher’s wife.” At long last she had made a friend.

Keys rattled, and Jenny’s first interview of the day walked through the door.

Sarah greeted the newcomer with a smile. “If it’s not Jimmy Tucker. Haven’t seen you at church lately.”

“Been mighty busy, ma’am,” Tucker said in a wheezy voice. He was dressed in canvas pants and a wrinkled plaid shirt. Holding his hat by the brim, he turned it like a wagon wheel.

“I didn’t know you were lookin’ to take a wife,” Sarah said.

He made a strange grunting sound. “It don’t seem right to keep some lucky woman from gettin’ a fine husband,” he said.

“I better be going and let you two get to work.” Sarah gave Jenny a meaningful look before knocking on the door separating the marshal’s office from the jail. “Maybe you oughta give that
other
instruction book a try.”

Seventeen

A husband-seeking woman is advised to practice the passive art of silent suffering.

— M
ISS
A
BIGAIL
J
ENKINS
, 1875

R
hett felt like he’d been run over by a herd of cattle. He’d spent the night in his office, sitting in his hardback chair, feet on his desk. Sleep, if it came at all, was anything but restful.

He rubbed his aching head and took a long swallow of Arbuckle’s, his third cup of the morning. Redd’s coffee was bitter as poison, but it opened the eyes and stirred the blood.

Applegate and his bachelor friends were happy, but that didn’t make Rhett feel any better. No matter how many times he told himself that Jenny was where she deserved to be, he felt guilty. More than that, her very presence was a distraction. Though a wall separated his office from the jail cells, he could no more forget her presence had he found her in his bed.

Even if he could forget, the steady stream of visitors was a constant reminder. Never had he seen so many comings and goings. The parade started the moment he returned from his shave at the barbershop first thing that morning, and it hadn’t stopped since. He finally left the anteroom door unlocked so he wouldn’t have to keep jumping up and down to let the latest visitor inside.

First the pastor’s wife, Sarah, stopped by, followed by that fool man Tucker. Jenny’s two sisters made several trips yesterday and again this morning, carrying clothes and all matter of toiletries. Did women really need so many trappings?

Next came the townsfolk. Some dropped by out of curiosity, others from a sense of responsibility. Members of the Rocky Creek Quilting Bee came just to be nosy.

One by one they trotted by his desk. Leading the parade of quilters, Mrs. Emma Fields stalked by his desk like a broad-chested bird, a nestlike bun on top of her head.

Not ten minutes after she left, Mrs. Hitchcock arrived, the feathers on her hat fluttering as she shook her head. “Oh, dear. Oh, dear,” she exclaimed. “We just wanted her to leave our men alone. We never wanted her in jail.” She clucked her tongue and repeated herself before adding, “I can understand, understand Sarah Prescott being in jail, her being an outlaw and all. But Miss Higgins?”

Sarah Prescott’s imprisonment was before his time, but people still talked about how the preacher’s wife almost became the first woman hanged in Rocky Creek—not that any had been hanged since. It was hard to believe that the woman he had come to like and respect was the sister of the infamous Prescott brothers. The gang robbed stages in four states before disappearing. Sarah claimed not to have any knowledge of their whereabouts, and he believed her. But he was always on the lookout lest they pay their sister a visit.

The parade continued all morning. Rhett was relieved when the last of the Rocky Creek quilters left. Now maybe he could have some peace and quiet.