Summer Breeze (23 page)

just said no and left him to draw his own conclusions." Her eyes went sparkly with tears again.

"He drew all the wrong ones, of course, namely that I didn't return his feelings. It was the end of our friendship, along with everything else that had grown between us. He continued to work for my father and later followed us out here to Colorado, but he always steered clear of me. It hurt him to be near me, I suppose."

"Why are you telling me this?" Joseph asked.

She looked him dead in the eye. "So you will know, absolutely and without a doubt, that I didn't shoot Darby McClintoch. Your brother, David, needs to go after the real killer, not waste time trying to pin it on me.

That seemed a reasonable explanation to Joseph. "You got any idea who might have done it?"

She sighed. "I can think of no one. Darby's as loyal and true now as he was fifty-two years ago. I honestly don't believe he's ever had an enemy."

"What about Henry, Rachel's father? Did he have enemies?"

"He had two that I'm aware of, myself and Jeb Pritchard."

Joseph admired her honesty. She was under suspicion for shooting Darby, and she knew it, but even so, she cut herself no slack. "I know why Jeb hated Henry. But I'm not real clear on why you did."

Amanda smiled. "I didn't
hate
Henry, Joseph. I was furious with him. There's a big difference."

"Okay, why were you furious with him, then?"

She closed her eyes briefly. "In truth, it wasn't so much anger at Henry that made me leave the ranch as

it was anger at my father and brother. I worked like a man, back in Kentucky and out here, forever trying to regain my father's high regard. But until the day he died, I remained the
bad
seed
in his mind, the one who'd fallen from grace. You can't know what it's like to live with that, day in and day out. Coming in from work at the end of the day and having your father and brother not speak to you over supper. Having your every idea shot down, not because it was flawed, but because it was
yours.
Henry was raised to look down on me. I was the wayward aunt, the one who wasn't quite up to snuff, the one who'd brought shame upon his family."

"So Henry knew about the child?"

"I'm not sure. He never actually said. It was his attitude toward me that rankled and hurt. I thought of his wife as a daughter and loved his babies as if they were mine. But he would never unbend toward me. It had been drilled into him all his life, I guess. I was the outcast. My father died and left me nothing. Then my brother died and left me nothing. I was getting up in years and facing possible poor health." She glanced at her hands. "The shaking had started by then. I asked Henry to grant me a monthly stipend from his inheritance—none of the land or buildings, just a small stipend so I might feel less a beggar when I could no longer work to earn my keep."

"And he refused."

She nodded. "Flatly refused. It wasn't about the money. He was a generous man. But he felt obligated to honor his grandfather and father's wishes. They had cut me off without a cent, and it wasn't up to him to change that."

In that moment, Joseph honestly couldn't blame Amanda for leaving and starting up her own small spread. He would have done the same.

"Henry wasn't a bad man," she went on. "He just clung to the opinions that had been drilled into his head from infancy. He was fair to a fault with everyone else. Jeb Pritchard, for instance.

Henry bent over backward for that scapegrace. He just couldn't see his way clear to be equally so to me."

"I'm sorry," Joseph said. In his opinion, everyone was entitled to make one bad mistake. She had been paying for hers all of her life. "It was unfair of your father to hold it against you for so long."

She shrugged and smiled. "When is life ever fair? It was good that it all came to a head after Peter died. I needed to leave the family ranch and put the past behind me. I should have done it years before. I had a very small trust from my grandmother. I put it to work by buying a patch of land.

My little spread isn't much, but it brings in enough of an income to sustain me until I die, and it's mine. I bend my head to no one now."

Joseph couldn't imagine her ever bending her head to anyone, but he kept that to himself. "So, in your opinion, Jeb Pritchard was behind the attack on your nephew and his family."

"I can't prove it, but, yes, I've always believed it was Jeb."

Joseph drew out his pack of Crosscuts. When he

tapped one out, Amanda held out her hand. "Don't be selfish. I'll take one, too."

Joseph had never known a woman who smoked.

"Put your eyes back in your head. If a man asked you for a cigarette, would you stare at him like that?"

Joseph tapped her out a Crosscut. After she'd lighted up and exhaled, she said, "I worked shoulder to shoulder with men all my life, sweating with them, getting hurt with them, cursing with them. I guess I'm entitled to have a damned cigarette, if I want."

She was, at that. Joseph chuckled. "You're right. My apologies. I'm just not used to ladies smoking."

"I'm
not just
a lady, Joseph Paxton," she retorted. "I'm one
hell
of a lady, and don't you ever forget it."

"I won't," Joseph assured her. And he sincerely doubted that he ever would. Amanda Hollister was a rare gem. "There's one more thing I'd like to ask you, though. A little off the subject, I suppose, but it troubles me, all the same."

"What's that?"

"Why have you never gone to see your great-niece? You're the only family she has left."

Her eyes darkened with pain again. "I went. Right after she came around from the coma, when she was still at Doc's. I loved that girl like my own. Of course I went."

"What happened?" he asked.

Amanda took a shaky drag from the cigarette. "She took one look at me and started screaming."

When Joseph reached the Hollister place later, the first words from Rachel's mouth were, "How is Darby?"

The anxiety that he saw in her big blue eyes prompted him to lie through his teeth. "He's doing grand. Still weak, of course, but definitely on the mend. He's a tough old fellow."

Rachel beamed a smile, her shoulders slumping with relief. "Oh, I'm so glad. Did you give him my love?"

"I did. Won't be long before he's back over here so you can tell him yourself, though."

The way Joseph saw it, there was no point in worrying Rachel about Darby's condition when there was absolutely nothing she could do for him. The old foreman's chances were still good, after all. If he went into a sudden decline and it appeared that death was imminent, Joseph would have to level with her, but the situation hadn't come to that yet.

She was as pleased as punch when she learned that Joseph had gotten two cents more per dozen for her eggs, three cents more per pound for her cheese, and a penny more per pound for her butter.

"Lands, how did you do it? That woman squeezes a nickel until it squeaks."

Joseph felt a couple of inches taller than he had upon entering the house. "I threatened to set up shop on the boardwalk, undercutting her prices by a penny. She knew damned well that I'd get customers, cutting her out of any profit, so she quickly saw reason."

"Well, then." Rachel wrinkled her nose and looked

at the coins in her hand again. "My
goodness,
such a lot! I can afford to do some shopping."

"Shopping, huh?" Sitting at the table, Joseph dangled a hand to scratch Buddy's head. "And what is it you're dying to buy?"

Joseph expected her list to include feminine items. Caitlin spent hours poring over the Montgomery Ward catalog, dreaming about this and yearning for that. Afterward, Ace sneaked behind her back to order every damned thing she'd wished for.

Rachel surprised Joseph by asking, "How much is Simone asking for flour? Did you happen to notice?"

"Two and a half cents per pound."

"That's highway robbery!" Rachel rolled her eyes. "Whatever is that woman thinking? We're not in a mining town where staples bring premium prices. How about dried peaches?"

Joseph struggled to remember. "Twelve cents a pound, I think."

"Twelve?"
She came to sit at the table with a pad and pencil. "Well, that settles that. I can't afford such nonsense. Salt?"

"Last week when I bought some, it was going for three cents a pound."

"You're
serious?
What do the Gilpatricks
do
with all that money?"

"Well, now, I can't say for sure, mind you, but today Simone was wearing a shiny, light purple dress that made her look like a schooner under full sail."

Rachel gave an unladylike snort of laughter and tucked a fingertip under her nose. "Pardon me."

Then she snorted again. "A schooner? Oh, my,"

"Imagine the cost of all that fabric. It takes more than a swatch to cover hips that broad. She can barely wedge them through a doorway. I thought for a moment she might get stuck. I was looking sharp for some lard so I could grease her up and pop her out."

She snorted again. "Enough!" Then she fell back in her chair, dropped her pencil, and laughed until tears squeezed from her eyes.

"Does she still poke her nose in the air?"

Joseph nodded. "And flares her nostrils. She also puckers her lips all up, like as if someone just stuck dog doo-doo in her mouth."

Rachel burst out laughing again, pressing a slender hand to her midriff and sliding into a slump on the chair. In that moment, Joseph knew beyond a doubt that he'd never clapped eyes on a more beautiful woman in his life.

The realization scared him half to death.

His ma had always told him that the very best things in life happened along when you least expected them. Okay, fine. But what if a fellow wasn't ready? He
liked
Rachel, and there was no question that he felt helplessly attracted to her. But a lasting and enduring affection for someone surely didn't come upon a man this quickly.

"What?" she asked, wiping tears of mirth from her cheeks. "You look so serious suddenly."

Thinking quickly, Joseph replied, "I was just thinking how crazy life can be sometimes." That much was true. "Here you are, pinching all your pennies to spend them at Gilpatrick's so Simone can squander them on

dresses that make her look broad as a barn door. There's just no justice."

"I shouldn't have laughed," she said, still struggling to straighten her face. "Someday I'll be old and fat, and I'll look like a schooner under full sail if I wear polished poplin. Especially
lavender"

She shook her head. "A dark color better becomes a hefty person."

"Lavender. Is that what that light purple color is?" Joseph couldn't imagine Rachel ever growing fat, but if she did, he felt confident that she would still be a fine figure of a woman. "You females have a fancy name for everything. What's wrong with light purple?"

"Purple is a deep color. Lavender is much lighter in shade."

In his opinion, purple was purple.

She began making out her shopping a list. "There's no hurry on any of this, mind you. The next time you go into town will be soon enough. I'm just getting low on a number of things." She glanced up. "When I'm finished, I'll draw up a bank draft to cover the cost. Would you mind depositing today's profit in my bank account?"

"Not at all."

She finished her list in short order and pushed it across the table, along with the coins that he'd brought to her. "That should keep me in staples for a spell."

He ran his gaze over the items. Her handwriting was fluid and graceful, as pretty as the lady herself, and she had perfect spelling. His eyes jerked to a stop on one item, "w'eat flour."

"What's this?" he asked.

"Wheat flour."

"You left out the H."

Her face drained of color, and she suddenly pushed up from the table. "I'll fill out that draft before I for-get.

She returned to the table, opened a large red ledger, and bent to write. Moments later, when she handed him the draft, she said, "I think that will cover everything. You can redeposit anything left over next week."

She'd written the draft for two dollars, which was plenty enough to cover everything she needed, with some extra. What troubled him was her signature,
Rac'el 'Ollister.
She'd left out both Hs. He angled her a searching look.

"How is your name spelled, Rachel?"

She pushed up from the chair and turned away, presenting him with her back. "My goodness, I didn't realize the time. I need to start supper."

Joseph followed her with a bewildered gaze. The set of her shoulders told him that she was upset about something, but he didn't know what. He went back to studying her list, and there, right at the top, she'd written and underlined
Tings needed from town.
Again, no H.

Why did she avoid writing that letter? He didn't for a moment believe that she had misspelled her own name or the other words. Her spelling was perfect, otherwise. And she'd also replaced the missing Hs with apostrophes. In each instance, she knew very well that she had made an omission.

For reasons beyond him, she simply hadn't written it in.

Shortly after supper, Joseph heard the faint sound of David's voice drifting to them from the front of the house. Rachel jumped as if she'd been stuck with a pin.

"Did you hear that?"

"I did." Joseph pushed up from the table. "It's my brother David. But where the hell is he?" He stepped close to the archway door. "Ah, he's around the side of the house at the window, I'll bet."

He sighed at the interruption to their reading. Tom Sawyer, Joe Harper, and Huck had just developed a distaste for "normal" society and run away to Jackson Island, smack dab in the middle of the Mississippi River. "I'd better go see what he wants."

Joseph went to collect his jacket from where it lay on his pallet in the water closet. When he reentered the kitchen, he gave Rachel a questioning look. "Do you care if I invite him in?"

Rachel jerked her gaze to the door. "In
here,
you mean?"

Joseph didn't know what he'd been thinking. Of course she wouldn't welcome a male guest. It was just—well, she seemed so
normal
here inside the kitchen. It was hard for him to remember that she was terrified of almost everything beyond these walls.