The Beloved Woman (13 page)

“Whose blood is it?”

“I delivered a babe for one of Mrs. Albert’s girls. That’s what I spent all of today working at. I intended to be a whore, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

He groaned with relief. “Katie Blue Song, you’re more cantankerous than any other woman in the world. Why did you stay here?”

“I was going to work as a doctor instead. Mrs. Albert said she’d give me room and board if I’d tend her girls and those at the other houses. The old biddy lied to me.”

“Katie, oh, Katie. You crazy, proud gal. I drove you to desperation, and I’m sorry. I sure don’t want our first time to be like this—you scared, mad, and laying on a whore’s bed with tears in your eyes.”

“The
first
time? Justis, don’t expect—”

“Shhh. You’re upset. Save the arguin’ for later.”

He pulled her upright and held her tightly. After a moment, working together, they got her legs from around him. Justis buttoned his trousers, then helped her settle her undershirt back in place.

“Thank you,” she murmured, still a little stunned and breathless. She gazed straight into his eyes while he fumbled
with the tie string. “Though I believe that you wanted to strangle me when you came into this room.”

“I don’t always go about things the right way. Like this morning at the store. I was wrong to talk to you that way.”

She ducked her head. “I suppose you’re trying very hard to do your duty to my family.”

“Yeah. I owe ’em.”

“You mean it when you say that you can’t let me go off into the world alone, even with a lot of money. I believe you’re sincerely concerned about protecting me, not just about keeping the Blue Song gold.”

“Yeah.” His fingers increasingly awkward, he guided the shoulders of her undershirt into place. “I reckon you’re beginning to see why the world’s not a safe place for a gal like you alone.”

He was startled when she clasped his face between her slender, gentle hands and looked at him tenderly. “You’re a fine man.”

He felt the breath stall in his throat. “Then you’ll marry me.”

“No.” Her eyes clouded with sorrow. “Your sense of duty will ruin us both. No more talk of marriage. For white and Indian to mix would only bring grief. I know it’s been done before—my grandfather was a half-breed, remember—but he was born when the
A-ni-Yu-wi-Ya
ruled the world. You and I would have been accepted by that world, but not by this one.”

Justis sighed. The
A-ni-Yu-wi-Ya
. The Principle People. They would have adopted him into Katie’s clan and treated him like a native born. “The offer stands, Katie. I want to marry you.”

She stroked his jaw and looked as if she might cry some more. “No. It would take a great deal of love to make a marriage like ours survive. We have friendship, but it’s not enough. Neither can we build a marriage on
duty and lust.” She left the obvious point unsaid—that she couldn’t love him.

“I reckon you’re right. I won’t mention any more about it,” he muttered. “It was a fool idea.”

A careful shield dropped over her face. She drew her hands away. “I understand why you offered, and I’ll always be grateful.”

He patted her knee. “If I leave you alone, will you promise to stay in Gold Ridge and live at the hotel? As a guest, I mean. Not like you were beholden to me, or anything. I’ll do what I can to help you.”

“Then I promise. You have my word that I won’t try to leave town.” She paused, then smiled at him. “I know that one day you’ll give me my fair share of the Blue Song gold. I am beholden to you, and always shall be.”

“That’s nice.”
Beholden
, he thought grimly. He wanted much more from her than that.

Her gaze dropped to his bare chest. She stared at it wide-eyed, as if seeing it for the first time, which, in a way, she was. This was the first calm moment they’d had together. Justis couldn’t read her eyes, but he doubted that he looked like the kind of dandy she favored.

“That feller in Philadelphia,” he said as casually as he could. “I guess he’s hard to forget.”

She kept staring at him and said in a distracted tone, “He certainly confirmed my doubts about marriage in general and marrying white men in particular.”

“But he was pretty good-lookin’, huh?”

Her eyes filled with memories, but she frowned. “He was blond and rather pink. He didn’t go out in the sun much. I saw his bare arms once and they hardly had any color at all. Or much hair.” She shrugged lightly. “He was very fashionable.”

Justis glanced down at himself. “I’m right big and furry,” he admitted, as much to himself as to her. “And I’ve been out in the sun until I look like old leather. Plus I’ve got all sorts of scars.”

She nodded, then looked away. He figured that she couldn’t stand the brutish sight any longer. “You can put your shirt back on, sir. And I’ll slip into my dress.”

Sir
. So the intimacy was over. Frowning, he got up and went to the washstand, turning his back to her so that she’d have privacy. “I’ll go on downstairs and have a word with Mrs. Albert.”

“No!” she cried.

Justis pivoted. She was stepping into her dress. Now she halted, bent halfway over, to gaze at him. “Wait for me,” she told him. “If you go alone, you might get into trouble on my account. I wouldn’t want you to break any heads and land in jail. Or to get your hard head broken.”

Her concern made him smile. He stared wistfully at the soft, luscious tops of her breasts, which in her current position bulged over the neck of her undershirt. “I wish I’d talked less and stroked more a little while ago. Fifty dollars would have been a bargain just to look at you.”

She almost smiled back—but hurriedly pulled her dress up. “If I hadn’t admitted the truth to you, would you have gone through with our, umm, business together?”

“Would you have wanted me to?”

For a long moment they simply looked at each other. Justis smiled wider as he saw the unmistakable blush rising in her face. At least there was one thing she’d never deny.

“I think we’d be content together in some ways,” he told her.

She looked flustered but said softly, “I think you’re right.”

He set his hat on his head and tugged the floppy brim over his eyes at a jaunty angle.

CHAPTER 6

O
VER
the next few days Katherine went back to work at the store, though it was just a way to occupy her time now that Justis had agreed to her independence. She knew he’d give her a fair share of gold as soon as her future was decided, but that wouldn’t happen until they heard the governor’s decision.

Justis hadn’t come to see her since the escapade at Mrs. Albert’s. He had learned the recklessness of his involvement, Katherine thought, and now wanted to retreat. Her relief was overshadowed by a sorrow she couldn’t deny.

What a blustery scoundrel he was, so full of himself and so proud. Yet he wasn’t a vain man; he was shrewd about his shortcomings, even amused by them. He was brutal to his enemies but also to himself, because he never expected mercy. Yet he was capable of offering it, of treating anyone in need with extraordinary compassion. She no longer doubted that he had the heart and
soul of a true chevalier, no matter how crudely he expressed that nobility at times.

She would never forget the night at Mrs. Albert’s. He’d threatened to run the madam out of town for her scheming, and Mrs. Albert had been reduced to tears and begging, much to Katherine’s unholy delight. But she hadn’t wanted him to make the threat good, and to her surprise, he had agreed.

“If I run her off, her girls will suffer for it,” he had explained afterward.

“You did the right thing by her, and by me,” she’d assured him. “I’ve got my revenge. I escaped that miserable place. She never will.”

Justis had gazed at her as if she were something rare. “For a woman, you sure see things in a practical way.”

“For a man,” she had replied dryly, “you certainly have a tender heart.”

Being accused of tenderheartedness apparently had perturbed him, because when he brought her back to the hotel he said good night rather abruptly, and left. She told Sam and Rebecca what had happened, leaving out the most lurid parts, and they angrily vowed that the days of Gold Ridge’s brothels were numbered.

Now, after a little time to think about it, Katherine saw the brothel problem from a different perspective. The girls at Mrs. Albert’s were treated little better than property. Most were in poor health, suffering from all sorts of maladies.

One evening Katherine formed a secret plan. If she weren’t forced to leave Gold Ridge, she would offer her doctoring skills to the town’s prostitutes, though on her own terms, not Mrs. Albert’s. She would never forget how the girls had showered her with gratitude when she delivered their friend’s babe. They knew the value of compassion, even the compassion offered by someone unlike themselves.

So she’d be their doctor—if she didn’t have to leave
with the other Cherokees. As a May twilight settled around the hotel and the boarders finished supper, she walked to the front veranda alone.

From the trees beyond the hotel a whippoorwill sang its heartrending call. Katherine’s throat tightened. She lived with a constant heaviness inside her, a despair that colored everything she said and did. Her chest ached with bittersweet sorrow—a sense of homesickness even though she was home. The magenta shadows that were fading over the forests and distant mountains seemed like shadows of doom.

She hugged herself and leaned against one of the veranda’s slender wooden columns. When customers came into the store they stared at her with a mixture of fear and curiosity, and some muttered that it would be bad to have a Cherokee right in their midst when the uprising began. A sizable number of townspeople were certain that the Indians planned to wage war rather than be removed.

Katherine shook her head wearily. Her people had given up war many years earlier and settled, more or less happily, into a life of hunting and farming. There were no fierce, battle-hardened warriors left, and no war chiefs. Her parents had spoken of knowing such men—and women, for in the old days Cherokee women had held great power in war as well as in peace—but now even the most traditional Cherokees embraced peace.

Yes, they would go without resisting, because they’d become civilized. Katherine trembled with disgust. This was the value of civilization, to suffer betrayal despite all efforts to live peacefully, because the missionaries had said that the old ways were sinful.

What would her future be if she were allowed to stay in Gold Ridge? A small portion of the townspeople would undoubtedly befriend her, but the rest would always consider her inferior, someone to be pitied or distrusted. Even with all her gold she wouldn’t be a citizen; she’d
have no legal defense if she were cheated or robbed. She would never be able to buy property, not even the Blue Song property.

She slipped her fingers across the back of her neck and rubbed muscles that throbbed from too much anxiety and despair. No one knew the depth of her anguish—not even Justis. Especially not him. He must never know how much she needed his strength.

She went to the veranda’s steps and sank down, glad that the darkness hid her distress. Justis. Living in Gold Ridge would mean forever fighting the emotions he stirred inside her. It would also mean that one day she’d see him marry—for love, not duty—one of his own people.

Katherine gazed sadly into the beautiful forest that lay just beyond Gold Ridge’s sprawling growth. She should simply disappear into the ancient woodland that had held no fear for her as a child. She should forget her promise to Justis and vanish into the night.

Shakily she rose to her feet, caught in the spell of memories, tormented by visions of the future. She slipped one foot off the steps, her breath short with indecision, her hands clenched.

“Katie.”

She grasped the wooden railing beside the steps and stared into the darkness. Justis climbed the slight rise of the yard, his long strides carrying him silently up the trail from the square. He stopped a few feet away from her in a faint patch of light from the parlor window. His shadowed mystery, the handsomeness of his rugged face and tall, work-honed body, made her touch her throat lightly in awe.