Open Country (31 page)

“Not boiling,” he argued over her whimpering protests. “Barely warm.”

Hunched over with pain, she pressed her forehead against his shoulder, trying not to cry as circulation returned and hot blood flowed into her icy fingers. After a while, the burn in her hands eased, and she was able to relax a bit. Then he started on her feet.

At some point during that agonizing warming process, her mind began to function again, and she became aware of her surroundings. They were in a well-appointed water closet with the same array of piping as the water closet in the ranch. Had Hank designed this too? She looked around, seeing little details—a shaving mug on a tall cabinet, oversized boots in the corner, a homespun shirt hanging on a peg by the door. A man’s things. Except for the tub of steaming rose-scented bathwater.

She looked back at Hank, who knelt before her, pouring warm water down her shivering legs into the basin in which she soaked her feet. He’d removed his hat and muffler, and his cheeks had lost their redness. A stubble of beard darkened his strong jaw. She wanted to lay her cheek against the crown of his bent head, stroke the worry from his brow, feel the hard, steady beat of his heart beneath her hand.

But he was no longer hers to touch. In truth, he never really had been.

“Is th-this house y-yours?” she asked, still fighting shivers.

He nodded and poured.

“Why d-do you have a second h-house?”

He took so long, she thought he wouldn’t answer. “For when I’m here tending mine business.”

“I’m s-sorry to be such a b-bother.”

Finally he lifted his head and looked at her. He wore that hard, implacable expression she had dreaded. “I suspect you’re sorry about a lot of things, aren’t you, wife?”

A wrenching sense of loss gripped her as she realized the truth of it no longer mattered. The reasons, her excuses, all the “sorries” in the world, would never mend his broken trust.

“You warming up, Miz Wilkins?” a familiar voice said from the doorway.

Molly looked over to see the prostitute who had helped her when Hank was so sick after the train ride from El Paso to Redemption. “M-Martha,” she said, smiling—at least she thought she smiled—she was shivering so much the muscles in her face wouldn’t behave. She wondered what Martha Burnett was doing in her husband’s house and if the rose-scented oil was hers, then chided herself for questioning it. Martha had serviced him before. No doubt he would turn to her again, now that the marriage was over.

“Stew’s on the stove,” Martha said. “There’s wood by the hearth and a fresh loaf of bread on the warmer. Anything else before I go?”

“Any news?” Hank asked.

“They’re still digging out rubble. It won’t be long.”

Hank resumed pouring. “Tell Brady I’ll be there soon. Thanks for helping.”

“We knew you and Miz Molly would come. Just wanted to warm the place up for when you got here.” She shot Molly a rueful smile. “You get some rest, ma’am. I got a terrible feeling they’ll be calling for you soon.”

 

 

HANK CONTINUED DRIZZLING WATER OVER MOLLY’S LEGS, buying time until he could get his thoughts together. He didn’t know why he was still here, tending a woman who had lied to him and deceived him and played him for a fool. Maybe because he still couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to believe it.

Were they married? Not married? And what was Brady’s part in all this?

All through the long ride from the ranch he had struggled to bring his fury under control so he could think clearly. But he still could make no sense of it. Usually he wasn’t this indecisive, but with Molly he didn’t know what was real and what was not, and that uncertainty kept the anger burning.

He could sense her watching him, waiting for him to speak. But he didn’t. He could barely even look at her. What he was feeling couldn’t be put into words, and he was so raw and ragged he wasn’t sure what he might say or do. One minute he wanted to shake her, the next he wanted to lay her down. Either way, he wanted to get his hands on her, and no good would come of that.

Dropping the rag into the bowl of water, he motioned for her to lift her feet. When she did, he slid the bowl to the side then rose. “Stand up.”

She did and stood shivering before him, her gaze pinned to his shirt. She was so close he could feel her breath against his chest, smell the lemon rinse she used on her hair, count each dark eyelash that fanned across her flushed cheek. He wanted to choke her, kiss her, use her body until the fire inside him burned out and the lies no longer mattered. He wanted the pain to end.

With his right hand, he began awkwardly undoing the buttons on her shirt.

Her hand flew up to grip his. “W-what are you d-doing?”

“You have to get in the tub.”

She pushed his hand away. “I c-can do it.”

He stepped back and watched her work the buttons. She was shivering so badly she was making a mess of it. He suspected it was as much from fear as cold, and felt some gratification in that.

“Y-you don’t n-need to stay.”

He didn’t answer.

“I c-can undress mys-self.”

That darkness rose inside him again. “What are you afraid of, Molly?”

“I’m n-not afraid. I’m c-cold.”

Another lie. It was one too many. Suddenly the need to hurt her the way she had hurt him overcame him. “Are you worried I’ll demand my
husbandly rights
? That I’ll do this?” In a savage motion, he shoved her hands aside and tore through the buttons, sending them in clattering disarray across the tile floor.

She stumbled back, clutching at the edges of her shirt. “What are you doing?”

“You’re my
wife
,” he snarled in her face. “I can do with you whatever I want.”

“S-Stop this!” Eyes wide, she backed away from him toward the door.

He stalked after her, teeth bared. He no longer recognized himself, no longer knew the man he had become. Fury was roaring through his mind, demanding release. She had tricked him, deceived him, made him believe he could have it all. Lies. All of it. “You
are
my wife, aren’t you?” he demanded, hoarsely. “I’ve seen the paper that says you are. Or was that a lie too?” When she bumped up against the closed door, he kept coming until he pinned her body with his.

She twisted beneath him and whipped her head away. “H-Hank, d-don’t.”

A distant part of himself was appalled at what he was doing. But the anger was so strong he couldn’t stop. “Don’t? But isn’t this what you wanted,
wife
?” Trapping her face with his right hand, he brought his mouth down hard against hers, tasted salt, and wondered if it was blood or tears. “Isn’t this what you lied to get?”

“No!” She shoved hard against his chest. “Hank, no!”

“Damn you, Molly!” Jerking his hand from her face, he forced himself to step back before he did her real damage. He stood shaking, dragging in great gulps of air, and tried to cool the rage churning inside. Wiping the back of his hand across his mouth, he felt a sting where her teeth had cut his lip. It scared him, and told him he had to stop this. He had to get away from her. If he didn’t, he wasn’t sure what he might do. Taking another step back, he tried to ignore the stricken look on her face and the tears streaming from her almost-green eyes. “Right. I forgot,” he growled, as something cold and bitter wrapped around his heart. “It was never me you wanted, was it,
wife
? It was just the money.”

Pushing her aside, he yanked open the door and left the room.

 

 

MOLLY STAYED IN THE TUB UNTIL THE WATER COOLED AND she started shivering again. She dressed, then went into the kitchen and filled a bowl with stew. She ate all of it without actually tasting it, then rinsed the bowl and put it back into the cupboard. Returning to her chair, she sat and waited.

Time passed but she was unaware of it. Years of discipline enabled her to go through the motions of whatever task was before her, while her mind wandered elsewhere. Anywhere. It was a skill she had learned in the surgical room when the smell and the blood and the horror of it were too much, and which she later had perfected at Andersonville when her mind turned the world into a flat, colorless tableau, like a faded photograph on a distant wall in a faraway room.

Wind swirled around the eaves, sending snow and sleet pinging against the windowpanes. Downdrafts drove puffs of smoke back down the chimney, where it hung in the air, collecting in stagnant layers against the ceiling of the still room. Her sluggish thoughts moved like cold molasses through her numbed mind.

It was over. He would never forgive her.

Maybe if she told herself that often enough, she would finally accept it and cut that invisible bond tying her so securely to a man who had no room in his heart for forgiveness. She was alone forever. The starkness of it settled like a stone in her chest. She wanted to weep. She wanted to rail at the unfairness of it. She wanted . . . she wanted. Him.
Stupid woman.

The stove ticked as it cooled. After a while, the growing chill penetrated her dazed mind, and she realized the wind no longer moaned around the eaves and snow had begun collecting in white crescents on the bottoms of the frosted windowpanes. She rose, put more wood on the fire, then returned to her seat. As she waited, that hideous scene with Hank continued to play through her mind until slowly self-pity hardened into indignation and finally anger. Didn’t he owe her something for saving his life? Didn’t he owe her at least a chance at redemption?

The Seth Thomas day clock on the mantle had wound down to silence when a knock startled her out of her dismal thoughts. Rising stiffly after sitting for so long, she went and opened the door.

A man she didn’t know stood on the porch. “They need you, ma’am.”

 

 

“YOU’LL ANSWER MY QUESTIONS NOW,” HANK SAID.

Brady looked up from the foreman’s desk in the shack by the mine. “Now?”

“Now.”

“Hell.” Pushing aside his paperwork, Brady sat back. “All right. Ask.”

He looked as weary as Hank felt. After two days of digging through rock and splintered timbers to reach the trapped miners, the missing were all accounted for, and the injured were being tended by Molly and Doc in the church behind the livery.

Two dead. Eleven hurt. A horrendous count.

Tomorrow the cleanup would begin, and hopefully within a few days they’d learn why the new shaft had collapsed. Not that it really mattered how it happened or whose fault it was. As an owner and the man in charge of their mining operations, Hank knew he was responsible.

He was so tired, he felt numb. Each day he’d worked from dawn to midnight. Each night he’d dragged himself back to his empty house to lie awake, staring at the ceiling and wondering how his life had moved so quickly from hopeful to dismal. He should have been paying better attention to the mines, rather than chasing after a woman who had never wanted him in the first place. He should have remembered what happened with Melanie and kept himself on guard. And he shouldn’t have lost his temper. It wasn’t like him to lose control that way. It sickened him to realize how close he had come to hurting a woman. He didn’t know who he was anymore, and that scared him.

So now he stood before his brother looking for answers. Maybe if Brady explained how this farce of a marriage had come about, he might be able to find his equilibrium again. Since that scene with Molly, he’d felt as alien to himself as he had the morning he had woken up with no memory.

But now that he had the opportunity to pose the questions that had preyed on him since they had ridden in with the snow two days ago, he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear the answers. He sensed that once everything was out in the open, things between him and his brother might be forever changed.

Too restless to sit, he stood with his back to the woodstove on the rear wall, arms crossed over his chest. “Was it your idea to marry me off to Molly?”

“Hell, no.” Brady sighed and dragged a hand over his jaw. His usual stubble was longer, giving his face a haggard appearance, and it seemed to Hank there was more gray in it than he remembered. “By the time I got there, it was already done.”

Brady explained about the railroad settlement, and how the doctor had said Hank wouldn’t live through the night, and that apparently Molly was so desperate for money she’d forced the marriage so she could get the widow’s portion if he died.

Listening without interruption, Hank watched snow drift past the window and tried to ignore the sick, hollow feeling in his gut. It was hard hearing the sum total of his life reduced to a dollar value. Especially by someone he’d come to care for. Someone he’d trusted.

“As soon as I rode in and heard about it,” Brady went on, “I confronted her. Said some things, made some threats. The usual. But it was too late. The marriage was done, although I doubt it’s legal, since you were unconscious during the vows. Then you woke up, and we knew you’d make it.”

“To her disappointment,” Hank put in, trying to act as if it didn’t matter.

Brady shook his head. “You would have thought so, but that’s the odd thing. The woman was hell-bent that you were going to live, even though she knew it would cost her the settlement money. That doctor, Murray, a crazy bastard if there ever was one, wanted to cut off your arm. Molly thought they should try to fix it. Murray said, ‘What did it matter, since you’d die anyway,’ then dumped it all on her and left. So she did it herself. It was the most godawful, horrific, bloody . . .” Brady ran a hand over his face, as if trying to brush away the memories. “I don’t know how she does what she does. No wonder she pukes.”

“Pukes?”

“After doctoring someone. Nerves, she says.”

Hank felt a spark of sympathy and quickly smothered it out. None of this explained why he was still married or how Molly and the children ended up at the ranch. “Then what happened?” he prodded.