Mountain Rose (14 page)

I tell you that she makes the best pies in the area?"

Raegan looked thoughtful for a moment, then her green eyes sparkling impishly, she said soberly, "I'm sorry, Jamie, but I can't recall you saying that."

Jamie pretended an injured look and, laughing, Aggie said, "Come on in. I just might have an apple pie to go with our coffee." Raegan and Jamie followed her into a spotlessly clean kitchen, and at her invitation sat down at a table beneath a window. Aggie set her half-filled basket of eggs on a small table, then asked as she washed her hands, "Why didn't Chase come with you?"

Raegan and Jamie spoke together. As Raegan said, "He went to the store for supplies," Jamie explained that he had gone hunting.

"Well, which is it?" Aggie looked curiously at the red-faced pair as she took cups and plates from a cupboard.

"I thought he went huntin'," Jamie mumbled. Neither he nor Raegan looked at Aggie, and she finally shrugged her shoulders. Evidently, Chase trusted his new wife with the handsome rascal Jamie.

The coffee had been poured and forks were cutting into slices of flaky pie when two teenaged girls burst into the room, their faces red from the argument they were engaged in. They saw Jamie, and all else was forgotten.

Ignoring Raegan, they cried with shining eyes, "Jamie, when did you get back? We missed you," the oldest girl said.

"A
few days back, Mary." Jamie gave her a lazy smile, making the young lady blush with pleasure.

"But we haven't seen you around," Mary said, reproach in her voice.

"I've been busy, helpin' Chase and his new wife get settled in." He motioned toward Raegan.

"Oh." The girls turned their heads and finally looked at Raegan. Their eyes widened at her good looks, then, remembering their manners they smiled shyly at her and Mary said, "We heard that Chase had finally taken a wife. We were sure surprised about it. Everyone had given up on him ever settlin' down and becoming a family man."

The younger girl giggled. "Most of the girls in these parts were very disappointed when they heard he'd gone off and got married."

"That will do, Angeline." Aggie frowned at her daughter. When both girls would have taken a seat at the table, scrimmaging a bit to sit next to Jamie, she said curtly, "You two go on about your chores."

It looked for a minute that Mary might give her mother an argument, but after a threatening look from Aggie, she nodded her head. But there was a sullen pout to her lips as she mumbled her goodbyes and left the kitchen, Angeline following reluctantly behind her.

Raegan was disappointed that the girls were sent away. Especially Mary. She liked the girl's sunny disposition and would have liked to know her better. Raegan's parents had moved so often, she'd never had the time to make a friend of anyone her own age.

She glanced at Jamie and wondered at the dry amusement twisting his lips. Then Aggie started talking about her garden and she turned her attention to her hostess.

"The soil is gettin' awful dry," Aggie was complaining. "If it don't rain soon, half the seeds I planted will shrivel up and die. All our hard work will be for nothin'."

"Oh I hope not," Raegan exclaimed. "Chase and Jamie promised they'd spade up our garden patch. I can't wait to plant seeds. It will be my first attempt at trying to grow things." She sighed. "I sure hope it rains."

"Do you have your seed already?" Aggie urged another piece of pie onto the willing Jamie.

Raegan nodded. "Yes. I found some in tins underneath the sink."

"Don't use them, Raegan, you'll be wastin' your time. There's no tellin' how old they are. They might be some that Chase's mother saved. I'll give you some of what I gathered from last year's crops."

"That's very nice of you, Aggie." Raegan's face lit up. She had a sense of being accepted, a part of the people who populated the Oregon hills. Granny Pearson had seemed to like her, and so did Ruthie Johnson. The widow Jenkins face flashed before her. That one didn't like her. But that was all right. She didn't like the widow either.

Jamie and Raegan visited with Aggie another twenty minutes or so, then Raegan announced it was time she and Jamie were getting home. "I have to start thinking about supper."

"I'll get you the seeds." Aggie rose from the table. She dragged a box from under her dry-sink and sorted through several cloth bags of seeds. When Raegan said goodbye to the genial woman, she carried away a future growth of corn, peas, turnips, cabbage, pumpkins, and squash. She hugged the seeds to her breast as her father would have, had they been nuggets of gold.

But she and Jamie were barely out of sight of the Stevens' home when the excitement died out of her eyes. Would the widow Jenkins still be at the cabin, or had she left, taking Chase with her? She sighed and forced the bothersome thought from her mind. After all, it was none of her affair if Chase went home with the woman. And certainly he would feel no guilt about it if he did. It wouldn't enter his mind that she, Raegan O'Keefe, would be tormented, thinking of him and Liza together, for to him she was only his niece.

Turning her head to Jamie who rode alongside her, Raegan said, "Mary Stevens is a very pretty young woman."

"Yes, Mary is pretty, and a nice girl too."

"She likes you, you know."

A dry look of amusement came over Jamie's face. "Maybe, for all the good it will do her."

"Oh?" Raegan raised a brow at Jamie. "Doesn't she appeal to you?"

"That's neither here nor there." Jamie's lips twisted in a bitter half smile. "Didn't you notice how fast Aggie shooed the girls out of the kitchen?"

"Well yes, but they had chores to do."

"No." Jamie shook his head. "She didn't want them around me."

"You must be mistaken. Aggie likes you, I could tell."

"Yes, I believe that she does, but that's not to say she'd let me court her daughter."

"Are you sure about that, Jamie?" Raegan protested.

"Dead sure. As you get to know the rest of your neighbors, pay attention to how the mamas watch their daughters when I'm around."

Raegan wanted to express her sympathy to the handsome young man with the bitter look on his face, but she knew he wouldn't want it. Jamie Hart was a very proud man, and that he had revealed as much as he had was a compliment to her.

She contented herself with saying, "They are very foolish women then. You would make a wonderful husband, Jamie Hart."

Jamie's only answer was "Maybe" as he kicked the roan into a gallop.

When Raegan and Jamie arrived at the cabin, Raegan sensed immediately that the building was empty. There was only Lobo sitting on the porch to greet her. Her heart beat painfully. Over two hours had passed since she and Jamie had ridden off to visit Aggie. As she swung to the ground, she wouldn't let herself think about what was keeping Chase at the widow's place for so long.

When Jamie suggested, "Chase must have decided to do some huntin'," she made no response. She couldn't, her throat was too choked with unshed tears. Jamie watched her enter the cabin, wishing that he could get his hands on Chase Donlin.

"Damn the bitch!" Chase wheeled the stallion and sent him sprinting away from Liza's cabin. He had begun to think that he would never get away from her. Back at his place, she had dallied around, sipping on three glasses of water, dragging out the time until almost an hour had passed. She had hinted at wanting to be shown the rest of the cabin, saying she had never been beyond the kitchen and that she had always wondered what the other rooms looked like. But knowing that she was only interested in his bedroom, he had told her gruffly that someday she should ask Raegan to take her through their home.

Liza hadn't liked the intimate sound of that, his referal to the cabin as his
and
Raegan's home, that his wife was mistress of the place and it wasn't up to him to take on her duties. There had been spite in her voice when she asked, "Where do you think your wife and the—Jamie have gotten off to?"

"They went to do some fishin'." The lie rolled off Chase's tongue. He wasn't about to tell this one he had no idea where the pair had gone. To begin with, Liza was a gossip, and in this particular instance she'd take great pleasure in spreading around the hills that Jamie Hart was making up to Chase Donlin's wife.

"But damn him, isn't he doin' exactly that?" Chase muttered as he rode along. It didn't help any to know that there wasn't a thing he could do about it. He had no papers that bound Raegan to him.

Deep in miserable thought, Chase rode past the fork that led to the Indian village without being aware of it. Although everything within him wanted to know if Raegan and Jamie had returned home yet, he didn't want them to find him waiting for them. Waiting like a jealous husband. For he knew that was exactly how he'd act. He would say things that he had no right to say, words that he would be sorry for later on.

When he came to another fork in the trail, Chase turned Sampson onto it. He would ride into the village, he decided, and pass some time with the other trappers, who would be at loose ends now that the trapping season was over and would congregate each day at the tavern. He'd play poker with them until sundown, show Raegan that he wasn't sitting at home fretting about her taking off with Jamie. As if she'd even notice his absence.

Chase glanced briefly at the sky as he dismounted in front of the long building that was both a store and a tavern. Dark clouds were gathering in the north, rolling and tumbling, promising rain. We need it, he thought, jumping up on the porch and entering the tavern half of the building.

"Hey, look who's here," someone called from the end of the bar. "Our newly wedded man."

"Yeah, we've been wonderin' when you'd pull yourself away from that purty little wife." Skinny Ike Stevens called from a corner table where he sat with three others, playing poker. "I reckon I win the bet." he added. "I told em' there wasn't a woman in the world that could pussy-whip Chase Donlin. "I said he'd be around before the week was out."

A frown darkened Chase's brow, alerting everyone that no more was to be said about his wife. He strode over to the table, pulled out a chair, and growled, "Deal me in."

The day lengthened. Chase lost a few hands, won a few. His mind was was only partially on the game. Mostly it was back at the cabin. Had Raegan and Jamie returned home yet? If not, where were they? What were they doing? A picture of Raegan in his friend's arms made him barely withhold a groan.

The first time Chase was aware that it was raining was when the tavern door banged open and a tall, bone-thin, soaked-through man stood in its entrance. Several groans went up throughout the room.

The cadaverous-looking man, hellfire blazing in his eyes, was a traveling Calvinistic preacher. His was the most strict of all doctrines, characterized by an austere moral code. He showed up at Big Pine a few days before the last Sunday of every month to hold prayer meetings. The man was never happier than when preaching, emphasizing the depravity of man.

He shook the water from his tall frame in much the same manner a dog would do, and started right in, roaring his hell and brimstone threats as the patrons expected. As also expected, no one paid any attention to him. Come Sunday, women from miles around would bring their children and attend the services he held beneath a large cottonwood tree when weather permitted, but for now their men could ignore him.

In the winter, when the snow sometimes came up past a man's knees, the people of Big Pine went without spiritual guidance. Many opinions were aired on where the preacher holed up in cold weather. Some said he had an Indian woman hidden away, others claimed that he went down to San Francisco, checking out the whorehouses. One man had jokingly said that he thought the preacher hibernated with the bears. "Look how thin he is when he shows up here in the spring."

"Damn!" Ike Stevens suddenly grated, tossing his cards on the table. "I just remembered it's me and Aggie's turn to put the old goat up. I'd better sneak out the back way and head for home. Aggie will scalp me if she has to put up with him alone.

"And you wanna know somethin' else," Ike said in an undertone, "I don't trust him around my two girls. I've seen him lookin' at them with lust in his eyes when he didn't think anyone was watchin'."

"It don't surprise me," a big, bearded man agreed. "Them preachin' men are sometimes more woman-hungry than anyone else. I think they work themselves up with all that preachin' and carryin' on, make themselves real randy."

"Yeah." Ike stood up, more anxious than ever to get home to Aggie and his daughters. Stevens was a lazy, carefree man, but he did take seriously the job of watching over the females in his household.

The bearded man shook his head as Ike slipped through the back door of the tavern. "He's gonna be half drowned by the time he gets home. It's comin' down in buckets out there."

The man to the right of Chase muttered, "I don't know which would be worse, drownin' or listenin' to that old coot preach to us until the rain quits."

Chase wondered the same thing. He too was becoming a little uneasy. It was dark outside now; he'd been gone from the cabin for several hours. That hadn't been his intention. He had only wanted to prove something to Raegan, not leave her alone with Jamie all this time—time that Jamie would likely take advantage of.

"No," he told himself. His friend would never make advances to the woman he thought was his friend's wife. Chase frowned. What if Raegan was drawn to Jamie's handsome looks, the smooth way he had with women? Would she make advances to
him
? And if she did, would Jamie be strong enough not to take her up on them?

He stood up. It was a little too late to worry about that. It was senseless to ride home through this downpour, but at least he could try to find shelter for Sampson.

When he made known where he was going, the man across from him said, "It's been taken care of, Donlin. I tied him along with mine in that stand of pine back of the buildin' "

"Much obliged, Rafferty." Chase sat back down, angry with himself. If he hadn't been so full of Raegan, he'd have known when it started raining and would have taken care of Sampson right off.

Drat her and her green cat eyes. He couldn't even think straight anymore, Muttering to himself, Chase picked up his cards as another hand was dealt.

Another couple of hours passed before the rain slowed to a drizzle and the family men left for home. On his way out of the tavern, Chase glanced at the clock over the bar and swore softly. It had gone past ten.

He kept Sampson at an easy gait and arrived at the cabin in less than half an hour. He dismounted at the barn and led the stallion inside its dry warmth. He picked up a burlap bag and started wiping the animal down, but he had given the shiny black hide only a couple swipes when suddenly Chase's shoulder was grabbed and he was spun around. Before he could catch his balance, a rock-hard fist caught him on the point of the chin.

Chase lay sprawled on his back in a pile of hay, staring up at Jamie in bewilderment. "What in the hell was that for?" He sat up.

"For wallerin' around in that whore's bed all these hours, that's what for." Jamie glared down at him. "I don't know what in the hell is wrong with your mind, man. You've got a wife that most men would sell their souls to have and you go off and lie with the likes of Liza Jenkins."

"Is that what Raegan thinks too?" Chase asked in stunned tones. It hadn't entered his mind that she might think that. He had stayed away only to prove to her that it didn't bother him that she had ridden away with Jamie without a word to him.

"Of course Raegan thinks it," Jamie thundered at him. "What woman wouldn't if she heard over and over how things were, or are, between you and the lusty widow. She's innocent in many ways, but she's not stupid."

"Well, she's wrong." Chase stood up and shook his head to clear it. Jamie's fist had had an impact like the kick of a mule. "I've been at the village playin' poker. I waited out the rain. As for Liza, I left her at her cabin and rode straight to the tavern.

"And nothin' went on between us either," he added when Jamie opened his mouth to speak again.

"All right, I believe you. Now go convince your wife." Jamie wheeled and splashed through the mud and water to the cabin.

If it were only that simple. Chase stared after the slender, wiry body of his friend. Raegan would think him soft in the head if he came to her and said, "Look, Raegan, I didn't sleep with Liza Jenkins tonight, nor will I ever again."

He shook his head. Jamie was mistaken, too. It wouldn't even enter Raegan's head to wonder, much less care, how many women he bedded. And besides, as far as explaining went, she had a little of that to do also. What about her ridin' off with Jamie without a by-your-leave? And how long had she been gone from the cabin? How did he know what she'd been up to with Jamie? No, by God, Chase Donlin wasn't the only culprit here, he told himself with building anger.