The Last Renegade (18 page)

“Matthew is a Mormon,” she said quietly.

“Pardon?”

She opened her eyes and carefully sat up, drawing her knees close to her chest. She looked over at Kellen. “He’s a Mormon. He doesn’t drink. That’s why you haven’t seen him around, and why Walt never gave you that tidbit. Matt lives on land annexed to the town. He and his wife and children mostly keep to themselves.”

“Wife? Only one?”

She nodded. “Beatrice. Bea. She works the farm side by
side with Matthew. If he decides he wants another wife, they’ll leave. No single man in Bitter Springs is going to let him have two.”

“No, I don’t suppose they would. That was his farm I saw when I rode south yesterday? The one with all the chicken coops?”

“Yes. Bea and Matthew have the best chickens and the best eggs. That’s where we buy ours.”

Kellen did not care about that. He cared more that the Sharps were isolated, and that Matthew Sharp had a good reason for not joining his fellow jurymen at the Pennyroyal. “Are you aware of any threats made expressly to Mr. Sharp or his family?”

“No. But I don’t know that they would say anything if there were.”

“I’ll speak to them.”

“Speak to them? How—” She stopped, remembering what Mr. Jones told her. “Are you telling people you are writing a story?”

“I have to tell them something, don’t I? I told Eli I was researching a story for the
New York World
.”

“Well, that explains the little notebook I saw you take out. Were you actually making notes?”

He nodded. “I think they would have noticed if I drew pictures.”

She blew out a breath. A puff of air stirred the copper fringe of hair at her forehead. “But the
New York World
? A newspaper everyone knows? What made you choose that?”

“A moment’s inspiration.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

She reached for the soap that was sitting on a metal tray between the faucets. The water was cooling rapidly, and she needed to wash and get out. She searched around for the sponge and found it beside her feet.

“I wish you had told me what you were saying to people,” she said. “I didn’t like learning it from Mr. Jones.”

“You were talking about me?”

“
He
was talking about you. I told him I don’t discuss my guests with other guests.”

“Wise. What did he say?”

She made a prim line of her mouth while she lathered her shoulders. “I don’t discuss my guests with other guests.”

He gave her a wry smile. “Amusing.”

Raine rubbed the back of her neck with the sponge. “He is thinking about hiring you for his survey group.”

“Hiring me? To do what?”

“To beard the lion in his den. In this case, the lion is—”

“Uriah Burdick.”

“That’s right. I imagine he’s thinking that you can go in first, offer some reasoning that will make Uriah agreeable to the survey, and if he doesn’t run you off or kill you, then Mr. John Paul Jones has his foot in the door.”

“And his equipment and men all over the Burdick ranch.”

“Yes. It’s a clever idea.”

“You’re saying that because he’s not trying to throw you to the wolves.”

“Lions.”

Kellen’s dismissive grunt remained at the back of his throat. He fell silent, thinking.

Raine tipped her head back and squeezed the sponge so soapy water ran down her chin and into the hollow of her throat. She continued washing, first one arm, then the other. She ran the sponge along the length of each leg, outside and inside, keeping them under the water the entire time. She only raised her feet long enough to attend to her toes.

When Kellen’s silence lasted an inordinately long time, Raine looked over at him. She thought she might find him watching her, but all of her discreetly performed ablutions appeared to have been unnecessary. He was staring at the floor, and whatever was occupying his mind had cut grim lines on either side of his mouth.

“Please tell me you are not considering his offer,” she said.

Kellen was slow to meet her eyes. Her voice came to him as though from a great distance. “Did you say something?”

“Mother of God,” she said, sighing. “You
are
considering it.”

He did not understand her reaction. “Of course. That’s why you told me about it, isn’t it?”

“No. I told you so that you could prepare an excellent reason for turning Mr. Jones down.”

“That part of your plan does not seem to have worked.”

She threw the sponge at him. It was heavy with water, but she pitched it with enough force to carry it all the way to the door. Her aim was true. She had only neglected to account for his reflexes. He dodged it easily, and it fell harmlessly to the floor with a loud
thwack
.

Kellen studied it for a long moment, contemplating his retaliatory strike before he bent and picked it up. He hefted it once in his palm, judging its weight and potential to harm, and when he decided there would be no injury, he launched it at Raine, choosing a line that made it sail above her head.

She responded predictably, throwing her arms up in the air and rising to her knees to catch it. She was gleeful as she brought it back to her chest until she realized that he’d been the victor in the encounter. He hadn’t wanted to hit her with the sponge at all. He’d wanted to see her breasts.

The water felt even colder after Raine’s deep flush suffused her skin with heat. She watched water slosh over the edge of the tub as she dropped back. The sponge and her folded arms preserved her modesty after the fact.

“Do you want me to apologize?” he asked.

“No. If you’re sorry, it’s only because you didn’t throw it higher.”

Laughter rose from deep in his chest, and it required some effort to keep it moderately restrained. “Where are your other towels?” he asked. “I’ll wipe up the floor.”

“You don’t have—” She didn’t finish because the look in his darkening blue-gray eyes said he did. “In the cupboard over there,” she told him, using a finger to point to the sink. “Would you allow me a few minutes to finish?”

His answer was to back away from the sink and disappear into the bedroom.

Raine completed her bath quickly, not confident that he wouldn’t reappear, and even less confident that she did not want him to. She dried off without much attention for it, and reentered her bedroom still slightly damp.

Kellen barely looked at her as he passed. He took the towel she held out to him and carried it into the bathing room. As soon as Raine’s hands were free, she undid the belt on her robe, shook out her shift to keep it from sticking to her skin, and then settled more comfortably into her robe and secured the belt. She could hear Kellen moving around and let him be.

Raine put on slippers, picked up her brush, and went to the sitting room. Kellen joined her before she had finished unwinding her hair. She invited him to sit.

“We will have to speak quietly,” she said. “Voices sometimes carry to and from this room.”

He nodded, taking the armchair opposite the small sofa where Raine sat. She was curled in one corner, her legs drawn up to the side, most of their impressive length hidden by the claret-colored robe.

“Would you like a drink?” she asked. “I have whiskey, of course, but I can put a pot of water on one of the stoves and make coffee or tea.”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“All right.”

He looked around the sitting room. In addition to the furniture he and Raine were occupying, there were two more chairs, one of them wide and overstuffed, the other a delicate cabriole with an embroidered seat. A small, round table was situated between the sofa and unused chair. Another table, large enough to use for dining, was positioned near the window. The walls were painted white.

There were touches in the room that made it homey but not personal. There were several plaster figurines on the end table, the kind that were mass-produced by the thousands and available by mail order. A tall, heavy vase made of cut glass was at the center of the larger, gate-legged table. Like the vase on the entry table, it held no flowers. Yarns in a rainbow of hues, embroidery hoops, needles, and threads filled a basket that rested at the foot of the sofa. Several books, all of them dime novels, lay on the floor beside the basket, but built around the window on the far wall were shelves that were crowded with more books, some of them expensively bound. He could not
read the titles from where he sat, but he spied the thin, colorful spines that were characteristic of the Nat Church adventures.

He could only shake his head.

Raine caught the movement. “What is it?” she asked, following the direction of his gaze.

“I thought I saw some of the Nat Church novels over there.”

She smiled faintly, nodded. “Adam liked them. I think there are twenty, maybe twenty-one, in the series. He read the first five or six before he died. Ellen read them, too.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think when you realized you’d made your arrangement with Nat Church?”

Her mouth screwed up at one corner. “I thought about ending it. You knew him. Even if he wasn’t your friend, you knew him better than I did. Was Nat Church truly his name?”

“It was the only name he ever told me.”

Nodding thoughtfully, Raine slowly pulled the brush through her hair. “Do you know there are people in Bitter Springs who think Nat Church is a real person?”

“I was confronted with that view of Nat Church when I met your station agent. Mr. Collins is one of the believers.”

Raine sighed. “It’s no wonder Rabbit and Finn have the imaginations they do.”

“Don’t the boys go to school? There’s a schoolhouse. I saw it.”

“We haven’t had a regular teacher for a while. Hank Thompson was the schoolmaster.”

“Oh.”

“Precisely. We have several people willing to teach until we can find someone, but they all have other responsibilities as well. There’s no one regularly there. When someone can give a morning or afternoon or both, Pastor Robbins rings the church bell and the children who can, go.”

“Are you one of the volunteers?”

“No,” she said regretfully. “I simply have too many things to do here. Sometimes I help Rabbit and Finn with reading and sums. Their granny doesn’t have the patience for it, and they are able to distract Mr. Collins too easily.”

“Imagine that.”

She chuckled softly. “It’s too bad you told the Burdicks you wrote for the
New York World
. You might have done admirably as a teacher.”

“Oh, no. This apple does not fall anywhere close to that tree.”

“You never wanted to follow in your father’s footsteps?”

“Never.” He pointed to himself. “Black sheep, remember?”

She regarded him, making her own assessment. “I wonder if that’s true.”

“My family will provide you with references.”

Raine gave him a mocking smile and continued brushing.

Kellen watched, finding her movements hypnotic and calming. He was struck by how easy it was to be with her. That was rarely his experience with the women of his acquaintance. Those who shared the society and the interests of his mother and sisters wanted him to be, if not something different than he was, then something
more
. There were other women, those who had little in common with the females he knew well, but they could not hold his attention outside of a bed, let alone a bedroom.

Raine stood outside his experience. She was strong-minded, unafraid to challenge him. She was also willing to listen and allow that she could be wrong. She had a soft heart for rascals and a hard one for people who wronged her. He knew from her letters that her decision to hire a protector was not the judgment of a moment. She carefully considered most of the things she had to confront. She was thoughtful in ways that demonstrated different meanings of the word. She did not shy away from thinking through a problem, and she was clever.

Kellen thought that perhaps her most impulsive act in the short time he had known her had been when she came out of the water to catch the sponge, and he certainly had provoked her.

Venus rising.

The image was seared in his mind like a brand.

Raine put her brush aside and drew her hair over one
shoulder. She threaded her fingers through it to make three distinct ropes and began to loosely plait it. It was impossible not to be aware of Kellen’s eyes on her hands. The intensity with which he watched made her normally deft fingers clumsy. She had to draw his attention away from what she was doing or risk having to braid her hair all over again.

“Why do you suppose the jury is congregating in my saloon?” she asked. “That was your point earlier, wasn’t it?”

Kellen dragged his eyes away from Raine’s fine hands. “I can’t say with certainty why they’re all there, but I imagine if you think back, you will recognize that it’s been occurring for a while. I noticed there are two other saloons in Bitter Springs, so it’s not as if the men who frequent the Pennyroyal don’t have choices. Walt tells me that you have the only piano, but somehow I don’t think that’s the draw. I think the men are coming here as much for their own protection as yours. I don’t know how organized they are—I suspect they came together more by accident than design—but it seems likely they’ve come to recognize the intelligence of staying together.”

“I wonder if they have a plan.”

“Other than to stay alive?”

Her mouth flattened briefly. “Other than that.”

“I doubt it.”

Kellen shifted, stretched his legs. He set his hands on the arms of the chair. “You still haven’t told me why you were out last night by yourself.”

Raine had been dreading the moment when he would come around to this again. “Is it important?”

“I think so, but you can lie if you like.”

“I walked to the graveyard.” She
was
perverse, she thought, and too easily goaded. “I often go there when I need to think.”

He nodded. It was easy for him to imagine that she probably thought aloud, but he didn’t press for that information. “It would be better if you did not go alone.”

“That rather defeats the purpose.”

“I understand.” Kellen ventured a compromise. “Will you tell me when you’re going out?”