Stay With Me (6 page)

“You don’t have to knock. I mean,” she
stammered over her words, “it’s not like I sleep naked or
anything.”

He stared at the plain white nightgown she’d
borrowed from Fred’s house. It buttoned up to her throat and almost
dragged on the ground. Still, the way his eyes raked over her, she
suddenly felt like she was wearing a sheer negligee.

“Just answer the damn door the next time,” he
said.

“No problem.” She held up her hands. “Have
you had your coffee yet, John?” she asked, hoping he’d get the idea
that it was too early to fight.

“Fred will be here in fifteen minutes,” he
said, turning toward the door. “You better get dressed.”

Sarah walked around him and peeked out the
door. She took a deep breath, holding the fresh morning air in her
lungs. “What a beautiful morning,” she said.

“I don’t remember you being all that fond of
mornings,” John said.

She could hear the curiosity in his voice and
wanted to kick herself. Sarah One must have been a late riser.
“True,” she said, without turning around. “I meant in comparison to
how cool some of the mornings have been.”

“It’s spring, Sarah. You know it doesn’t warm
up here until June.” He walked past, careful not to brush up
against her. He went out the door and headed toward the barn.
Morton, running full speed around the corner of the barn, met him
half- way. She heard his sharp whistle and the dog fell into step
next to him. John bent over and rubbed his hand across the big
dog’s head.

The man had nice hands. As terrified as she’d
been after realizing that she’d somehow slipped through a crack in
time, she’d been coherent enough to catalogue a number of things
about John Beckett. Nice hands. Sexy walk. Shiny, thick hair. And a
mean attitude that wouldn’t quit.

His dead brother’s wife wasn’t welcome and he
didn’t intend to pretend otherwise.

She tried not to let it bother her as she
quickly slipped her nightgown over her head. She grabbed a skirt
out of the bag she’d gotten from Fred. When she pulled it on, she
realized that more than three inches rested on the ground.

What she wouldn’t do for a Saturday morning
trip to the mall. She pulled her skirt down, stepped out of it, and
walked over to the shelf near the stove. She grabbed a knife. She
might be stuck in no-man’s-land for another five days but she
didn’t intend to trip over her skirt the entire time.

With very little patience and even less
finesse, she cut a wide strip off the bottom. She held the skirt
up, surveying the damage. She never had been able to cut along the
line. However, since only three hungry, dirty kids would see her,
she didn’t intend to worry about it. She grabbed a blouse from the
pile and barely had it buttoned before John was back pounding at
the door.

“Fred is here. Are you ready?”

She ran her fingers through her hair and
slipped her feet into the shoes she’d worn home from Fred’s. They
were too big but better than nothing. “I’ll be right out,” she
said.

When she opened up the door, both men turned
to stare at her. Fred smiled and John had his usual stern look.

“What did you do to that skirt?” he
asked.

“I cut it. With your knife,” she said.

He frowned at her.

“It’s no problem, John,” Fred said. “It’s not
like Franny would mind. Hell, she’d probably be flattered. To
think, Sarah Beckett is wearing her clothes.”

“I suppose…” John narrowed his eyes at Sarah.
“If you were staying longer, maybe you could get Hooper’s store to
special order you something.”

His tone said it all. There wasn’t a chance
in hell that he’d let her stay long enough. He couldn’t wait for
her to leave.

Well, that made two of them. She walked over
to her horse, patted the animal on its head, and then turned toward
John. “I don’t think that’s necessary. We’ve agreed that I’m
leaving in five days.”

“That’s right, you are.” John placed his
hands on his hips. “I’m going to put you on that stage myself.”

Sarah had almost made friends with her horse
by the time she and Fred reached his house. On the ride over, she
concentrated on relaxing one muscle at a time. The hardest had been
her hands. She’d watched Fred guide his horse, his massive paws
barely holding the reins. She’d had to concentrate fiercely on each
finger but had managed to ride the last five hundred yards with the
reins just resting in her sweaty palms.

She had hiked up her skirt so that she could
slide off the saddle in one motion. It hadn’t been smooth or pretty
but she had done it on her own. Now she stood next to her horse,
rubbing her hand down its velvet nose. “Thanks, sweet thing,” she
murmured. “Not as convenient as a cab, but you’ll do.”

“What’s that, Sarah?” Fred asked.

For a big man, he moved quietly. “Nothing.
Just making small talk with my horse.”

Fred pressed his lips together. “I imagine
Thunder is glad to have a woman on her back again. Franny loved to
ride.”

Thunder. Fred’s big brute of an animal was
named Lightning. Thunder and Lightning. What nature had seen fit to
put together, disease had ripped apart. “I’m sorry about your
wife,” Sarah said. She didn’t need to have known Franny to mourn
her loss. Especially not when three children had been left
motherless.

Fred cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he
said. “I miss her. It’s the strangest thing. Sometimes, I’ll ride
in at night and I’ll forget. I think that I’m going to go inside my
house and she’ll be standing there, making dinner, the children
gathered around her.”

He turned slightly and she could no longer
see his face. There was no need. She could hear the tears in his
voice.

“I open the door and it hits me. She’s gone
and my house is empty. Even when the children are there, it still
seems empty, like there’s a piece missing. She was only
twenty-six.”

Sarah swallowed hard. Two years younger than
she.

She wasn’t ready to die. Young people
shouldn’t die. She thought of poor Miguel Lopez. Of how his mother
suffered at the thought of losing her child. “It’s a terrible thing
when someone young dies,” Sarah said. “These last months must have
been horrible for you.”

He turned and faced her, not bothering to
wipe away the tears that slid down his cheeks. “I don’t deserve
your sympathy. Everybody thinks I’m strong but I’m not. I’m
weak.”

His voice held a desperateness that touched
her. She supposed she could give him the standard lecture on the
stages of grief but didn’t think that was something that Sarah One
would spout at the drop of a hat. “Everybody handles things
differently, Fred. Grief is a personal emotion.”

“Is that why you went away so quickly after
Peter’s death? Was that how you handled your grief?”

It was an ugly question but his tone made it
clear he meant no harm. He was curious. “I just knew it was time to
go.”

“Peter’s death hit John hard,” Fred said.
“You know being older by a year ain’t much but John took his
responsibilities as head of the family seriously. I think he blamed
himself.”

Blamed himself
? Oh Lord, had Peter
killed himself? Had Sarah One been such a shrew of a wife that her
husband had felt compelled to make a final escape? “Why does he
feel that way?” she asked, hoping the question wouldn’t seem too
odd. She wanted to know. She wanted to understand why John hated
her so.

“I don’t know for sure. He doesn’t really
talk about it. John was happy about the two of you moving to town.
I think he thought the marriage would have a chance if he wasn’t
around so much. But he never expected that Peter would take such a
risk.”

A risk
? Peter hadn’t killed himself.
No, he’d done something and the end result had been his death. Had
Sarah One been there? She couldn’t very well ask that question,
could she? By John’s attitude, she had to assume she’d played a
role, that she’d either done something to cause it or hadn’t done
enough to prevent it.

“I know John ain’t crazy about having you
back,” Fred continued on, with the blunt honesty she had come to
know and love, “but I sure as hell am glad. It’s a big relief not
having to worry about—”

With a slam, his worries tumbled out the
front door. Thomas didn’t have on a shirt. Helen had traces of
tears on her cheeks and Missy, sweet silent Missy, had her fingers
flying. “Hello,” she signed. “My name is Missy.”

Sarah laughed, squatted, and hugged the
little girl. It felt good to know that she’d made a difference in
the little girl’s life, kind of like when she’d helped a child at
school and had known that she’d given him or her a foothold,
something to perch on. “Hello, Missy,” she signed back. “How are
you?” She reached over and ruffled Thomas’s hair. She smiled at
Helen.

“I didn’t think you’d come back,” Helen said,
not bothering to smile back.

Hoped was more like it. “I promised your
father.”

“Promises don’t mean all that much,” Helen
said.

Sarah saw the pure misery in the child’s eyes
and knew a story lurked behind her defiant attitude. The slump of
Fred’s shoulders, however, told her now wasn’t the time or place to
unravel the mystery.

“How about we go inside,” Sarah said, “and
let your father get into the field?”

“I want to go fishing,” Thomas declared.

Visions of yesterday’s near drowning came
back in a hurry. “Maybe later,” Sarah said.

“Pleeeease,” Thomas drew the word out. Missy
tugged on her skirt, looking confused. Thomas saw it and fell on
the ground, flapping his arms and legs, with one finger stuck down
his throat, in imitation of a hook. Missy smiled, a big wide grin.
She, too, fell to the ground, flopping around like a fish.

Helen, for once acting like the little girl
she was, laughed and pretended to reel Thomas in by pulling on his
hair. Sarah was wise enough to know when she was beaten. “Fine,
we’ll fish. But I’m not cleaning them.”

***

In the end, none of them cleaned fish. The
four rainbow trout stayed in the bucket, forgotten, when the hot,
tired, and sunburned group returned home and found an empty buggy,
drawn by a single white and gray speckled horse. They walked inside
and saw a young woman sitting at the head of the kitchen table.

“Hello,” Sarah said, shifting the
still-sleeping Missy in her arms. The woman stared at Sarah and
then at each of the three grubby children.

Sarah glanced at Helen. The little girl
seemed surprised but not frightened. Thomas just looked curious.
Had Sarah One known this woman? She smiled at the visitor, hoping
to get a clue.

The woman, her silk dress rustling, stood.
She stared somewhere over Sarah’s shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean to intrude,” she said.

The woman had absolutely gorgeous hair. Dark
brown with just a hint of auburn, it hung almost to her waist, in
gentle waves. Her peaches and cream complexion made Sarah want to
reach up and cover the freckles on her own nose.

“You’re not intruding.” Sarah walked over to
the children’s bed and carefully laid Missy on it. She straightened
up, rubbing her back. “We’ve been fishing.”

“I…I was worried about the children.” The
woman busied herself with brushing invisible lint off her dress.
She picked up her small beaded purse from the table. “I’ve got to
be going.” She took two steps toward the door before stopping. She
finally made eye contact with Sarah, looking quite miserable.
“Would you be so kind,” she asked, her voice unsteady, “as to tell
Fred that Suzanne stopped by.”

Suzanne.
It had to be the mysterious
Miss Suzanne of the pretty dresses. The woman who could make Fred
blush and stammer. Sarah took a chance. “My name is Sarah. I’m in
town for a couple days. Fred needed someone to watch the children
and I needed a couple extra dollars.”

“You’re staying just a few days?”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Just until the
next stage passes through.”

Suzanne looked around the small cabin, her
eyes settling on the empty bed directly across the room from where
Sarah had put Missy. One of Fred’s huge shirts lay on top of the
pillow. “I don’t see your bags.”

Sarah pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m
not staying here.”

Suzanne smiled. It was a slightly lopsided
grin that made her look very young. “That’s wonderful,” she said.
With a self-conscious gesture, she pushed her hair behind her
ear.

Sarah looked at Helen and Thomas who still
hung close to the door. “Why don’t the two of you go outside and
play. I want an opportunity to get to know Suzanne.”

Thomas nodded and left without a word. Helen
looked from Suzanne to Sarah, frowning at both of them.

Suzanne smiled at the girl, clearly trying to
win her over. “Helen, it’s nice to see you again.”

“I don’t know why either of you have to be
here,” Helen said, her hands on her hips. “We were doing fine on
our own.”

It didn’t take a genius to see that Helen
wanted to be the woman of the house. Sarah turned her back to the
little girl, winking at Suzanne. “Of course you were, Helen. In
fact, your father told me he couldn’t have managed these last
months without your help.”

“Did he really say that?” she asked, her
voice a mixture of hope and suspicion.

Sarah turned and gave the girl her full
attention. “Yes. You’ve done a wonderful job with your sister and
brother. You should be very proud.”

“I can’t cook like Ma.” With her chin in the
air, Helen tossed the words out like a challenge.

“Your mother had years of practice,” Sarah
said.

“I can’t sew as good as Ma.”

Sarah nodded. “I imagine not.”

“Ma promised she was going to teach me
but…”

Silence hung in the air. Sarah’s heart broke
for the little girl.
But she died before she had the chance.
She searched for the right words. “I’m sure—”