The Beloved Woman (11 page)

She twisted away from him, covering her face. “You’ve proved that I’m a woman. Now please let me go before we make a terrible mistake.”

“It’s a start,” he said softly, and slipped both arms around her in a stubborn embrace.

The sound of bootsteps on the cabin porch forced him to let go, reluctantly. She scooted away, and before the visitor was finished knocking she had jammed her feet into her tall black shoes.

“Hullo, it’s Sam!” a voice called.

“Sam!” she said loudly. “I’m glad you’re here!” She vaulted off the couch, grabbed her doctor’s satchel, and ran for the door. When she threw it open, Sam looked down at her curiously.

“Is all well?” He gazed past her at Justis.

All was not well, and never would be, Katherine thought, if she let Justis’s seduction blind her to reality. “I’m done here, Sam. Will you escort me back to the hotel?”

“Certainly, but—”

“I see your buggy. I’ll wait there.”

“But—”

“She’s a mite shook up,” Justis said calmly. “But she’s gettin’ her mind straight. She’ll be marryin’ me soon.”

She pivoted and stared at him, speechless. Finally she managed to say, “You still don’t understand the foolishness of what you’re trying to do. I may not cry, but I never forget my grief. I may not live like a Cherokee, but I never forget my heritage.” She trembled with emotion. “And as much as I am … as much as I am growing to
respect
you, I’d rather be carted off to the west than marry you.”

His soft, stunned curses haunted her as she hurried out the door.

CHAPTER 5

K
ATHERINE
got out of bed while the May morning was still just a cool pink hint on the horizon. She dressed in a blue cotton work dress with loose, elbow-length sleeves and a bloused bodice, then pulled her hair back and tucked it into a white net pinned tightly at her crown. Wearing only one petticoat under the dress and no corset, she felt ready to do a good day’s work.

Work. She had to begin somewhere if she were to prove her independence from Justis and remain in Gold Ridge. Surely the army wouldn’t carry off a Cherokee who had a livelihood in town.

She went downstairs and out the hotel’s back door. A short breezeway connected the main building to the kitchen, and that kitchen, lit by large oil lamps, bustled with the preparations to feed ten boarders at breakfast. Noah stirred corn mush in a big ceramic bowl and Lilac sliced bread. Both grinned at her sleepily.

Katherine received only a scowl from Cookie, a tall, angular slave with toffee-colored skin, coarse brown hair,
and the temper of a bilious mule. “I don’t want nobody else in my kitchen,” she said as soon as Katherine stepped across the threshold. She rattled a massive skillet atop the kitchen’s wood stove, as if in warning.

Cookie had been a special wedding gift to the Kirklands from Sam’s grandfather, and she was proud of it. She worshipped Rebecca, merely obeyed Sam, bossed Noah and Lilac, and just tolerated everyone else. “Scat,” she ordered.

“I came to find Mrs. Kirkland.”

“She’s outside easin’ her stomach.”

Katherine went out the kitchen door and through an herb garden. Rebecca sat on a bench under the well shed, wiping her face with a damp cloth. She smiled wanly as Katherine sat down beside her.

“I have a female illness,” she said.

Katherine nodded solemnly, though excitement coursed through her. “When will the babe arrive?”

“Late next fall.”

This was a wonderful turn of events! “Before long you’ll need more help around here … and at the store.”

“Yes. I’ve already mentioned that to Sam.”

Trying to appear calm—she didn’t want to sound like a beggar—Katherine said slowly, “I’d like to apply for the job, please. All I require for pay is room and board here at the hotel plus a dollar a week for spending money.”

Rebecca looked at her with wide eyes. “Katherine, I mustn’t. Justis would be furious—and he is our partner. It’s not that he tries to run the hotel or the store, but …”

“Please.” Katherine looked away, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “I’m not asking for handouts. No one will work harder for you than I will.” She faltered for a moment, then continued, “I know you must be thinking about the stockade outside town, that I’ll be sent there with the other Cherokees. I
can’t
think about it, Becky. I
have to believe that I’ll be allowed to stay. But on my own terms, not as Justis’s charity woman.”

Those last words galvanized Rebecca. She straightened, full of authority. “You should have a fighting chance. The job is yours.”

“Becky, bless you!”

Rebecca wilted a little. “He’ll rage when he hears this,” she said worriedly. “He’ll throw a conniption.”

Katherine smiled grimly. “I shall throw it right back.”

W
ORD TRAVELED QUICKLY
after her arrival at the store that morning. Justis walked in less than two hours later. Katherine was kneeling beside a wooden bin filled with cornmeal, concentrating on catching the mouse inside it.

Gazing up at Justis, she realized how the poor trapped mouse must feel.

Justis looked like a large panther approaching cornered prey. His eyes were narrowed under a frown that gave him a cruel look; his long legs moved in a slow and measured gait as he wound his way through barrels, bins, and tables. A ruddy-faced girl, barefoot and wearing a coarse homemade frock, trailed behind him, looking terrified.

Katherine stood unhurriedly, but her heart pounded. He stopped in front of her and asked in a low, deadly tone, “Where’s Rebecca?”

“She’s not feeling well. She’s resting in the back. Don’t you dare bother her.”

His eyes flickered with warning. “I brought her a new helper. Somebody who
needs
the job.” He pointed a finger at Katherine, then jerked his thumb toward the door. “You get back to the hotel. Right now. You’re fired.”

“Rebecca can fire me. Not you.”

He spoke between gritted teeth. “Don’t talk like you got a choice. I said
get.
”

It was the way he would have dismissed a dog, she thought. There was no respect in it, just the bitter command of master to servant. She dug her fingers into her skirt, trembling with such fierce fury and humiliation, her stomach twisted.

Threats were on the tip of her tongue. She’d leave town this minute even if she had to walk, she’d never forgive him, she’d demand that Sam and Rebecca have a say in the matter. Katherine let the words die in her throat and subdued an almost hysterical urge to laugh. Nothing would stop him. The menace in his expression suggested that he’d drag her out by the hair if she didn’t obey.

Silently, her back taut and head up, she walked past him. Outside, she went down the porch steps into the dusty street and glided blindly along, hardly breathing, feeling as if she might explode with rage.

He always treated me like an equal before. Not now. It hurts. Oh, how he hurt me
.

She stopped, lost in the grim knowledge that she felt wounded more than anything else. He had betrayed the friendship they’d shared over the past three weeks. He had treated her as if she were truly a slave, an
a-tsi-na-Ha-i
. She couldn’t let him have this much power over her anymore.

She whirled about, then headed down an alley between the store and another building. The strain of recent weeks played havoc with her reason, and she recognized the danger of that. But all she wanted was to hurt Justis, to make him see that she had the courage to be free no matter what the price.

She cut across the back alleys, sidestepping chickens that were picking at the tobacco spittle on a sleeping drunk, ignoring the coy calls from a lawyer who stood outside his back door urinating in a clump of grass. She walked with long, forceful strides, refusing to think about her mission.

A few minutes later she reached a narrow street lined with everything from shanties to fancy two-story buildings with glass-paned windows. She picked a two-story one that had flower boxes beside the front door. When Katherine knocked, the door opened enough to let a stout woman in a low-cut gown peek out.

“
My gawd,
” she said, slack-jawed. “What do you want? Aren’t you Justis Gallatin’s doxy?”

The word hit Katherine like a slap. Apparently she’d earned herself a prized place in town, whether she liked it or not. After a second she managed to fake a smile. “No, not anymore. And I’m looking for a job.”

J
USTIS FORCED HIMSELF
to wait several hours before he rode over to the hotel to see her. He knew it wouldn’t be easy to explain how crazy she made him, not without explaining how much he cared for her, which was something she didn’t need to know—and didn’t want to hear.

Lilac, her expression so down that it was almost comical, met him by the front door. “Miss Katie won’t come out of her room. She won’t even talk to me.”

“I’ll soon fix that,” he told her gently.

Frowning, he took the stairs two at a time. At Katherine’s door he knocked briskly. There was no answer.

“Katie. Let’s talk.” He waited. “Katherine.” Again, no response. “Dammit, come out and have your say at me. I’ll listen. I couldn’t let you work at the store. You don’t need to be independent.” A thread of alarm wound through him when that brought no reply. Katie Blue Song was not a woman who sulked, pouted, or played other such female games. It was one of the reasons he craved her.

“All right, I’ll break the damned door down.” But he tested the latch and found it unlocked. Justis shoved the door open and stepped into her empty room.

He’d stopped by the store on his way over, so he knew
she hadn’t defied him and gone back there. Rebecca was fiercely upset with him, and Sam hadn’t looked too happy either, but they had finally agreed to let him wrestle with Katherine’s pride in his own way. As far as they knew, she had gone to the hotel.

Justis swung about and left the room. God, what had he caused her to do? He ran for the stairs, feeling the cold bite of fear.

T
HE DAY HAD
been brutally long, and the sweet night air coming through the open window was almost enough to make Katherine forget that she was sitting on a bed that smelled of lavender toilet water and sex, in a room outfitted with only the bed, a small table, and a washstand, in a brothel.

This, she knew with bitter satisfaction, was the only way to destroy Justis’s interest in owning her. He wouldn’t want to wed or bed a whore. For as long as he thought that’s what she was, she’d be free.

She left a lamp burning on the table because she couldn’t bear to feel the room’s darkness around her yet. It was bad enough just to close her eyes. When she did she heard every sound more clearly—the tromping of feet up and down the hallway as Mrs. Albert’s girls took clients to their rooms, the repetitive thumping and creaking of beds when the clients were particularly vigorous.

Katherine shivered and fought tears of shame. She refused to indulge in self-pity. Justis wouldn’t give her enough money to start a new life on her own, he wouldn’t let her work to earn it, and she knew without asking that he wouldn’t even allow her to go west when the Cherokees were removed. With her own people at least she would have had dignity. So, because she had no decent options, she had stoically accepted an indecent one.

Looking around the bare little room, Katherine hoped
she would be safe in it. Somehow she’d get her belongings from the hotel. She’d clean this filthy room tomorrow and decorate it as soon as she had some money.

That would take time. Doctoring prostitutes wasn’t going to make her rich. But they needed her, and it was a job, and she had her freedom, and as soon as Mrs. Albert quit eyeing her greedily, she could relax a little.

Katherine craned her head to double-check the flimsy wooden latch on the door. It wasn’t meant for protection, just privacy, but Mrs. Albert had promised that she could have a real lock on her door tomorrow. Katherine didn’t trust her, and she’d angled a chair under the doorknob.

She removed her dress and arranged it over the bedpillow. Settling down on top of the smelly covers—there was no way she’d get under them—she eased her head back. Trembling, she stared at the plank ceiling through a haze of tears. Exhaustion won out, and she dozed. She hoped that the ache in her chest from thinking about Justis would ease by the morning.