by Jo Goodman
"Katy?"
One more rung down and she would have been out of his view. She could have ignored him then. But there was something in his manner when he called her Katy that drew her attention. She paused, poised between rungs, and raised her eyes.
"I don't have a sweetheart," he said.
She didn't know which she hated more, the fact that she blushed to the roots of her hair or the fact that he laughed and the laughter had a hint of cruelty in it.
Friday morning Mary Catherine was prepared to give Logan her coldest shoulder. She practiced expressions in her mirror that were guaranteed to cut so deeply they would draw blood. Confident of her ability to ignore him, Mary Catherine entered the barn and did her chores before she deigned to climb to the loft.
Her attitude amused him. All her gestures were just a shade overdone so that it was difficult to take her seriously. He wondered if she had been reading that shrew story again.
"You're laughing at me," she said, her eyes accusing.
"I am. You are so obvious."
"Yankee bastard."
"Yankee, true enough. My mother and father would be surprised to hear me called the second thing you named."
He was still laughing at her. Mary Catherine forgot what she had practiced. She left the loft in a huff and later that night had a serious discussion with her aunt about tolerance and forgiveness and anger. The conversation bewildered Peggy, but Mary Catherine felt better.
On Saturday she could see a difference in Logan. What color there was in his complexion was natural, not put there by the fever. He sat straighter, looked stronger. Climbing up and down the ladder didn't wind him. She brought a deck of cards from the house and they played poker with straw sticks.
"What does your aunt think you're doing in here?" Logan asked. His eyes shifted from his cards to Mary Catherine's face. She was concentrating on her hand and biting on her lower lip at the same time. Her eyes were shaded by long lashes, and her cheeks were stained pink by the reflection of light on her red shawl. A red grosgrain ribbon kept her hair loosely confined at the nape of her neck. She was wearing a gray dress with a high collar and little in the way of ornamentation. She looked very demure. He thought she was cheating. "Did you hear me? I asked you a question."
"I know. I'm thinking." Her mouth pursed to one side as she caught the inside of her cheek between her teeth. "Two cards, please."
Logan gave her two. "So?"
"She thinks I'm reciting. I'll see your three straws and raise you one."
"Reciting what?" He matched her wager and showed her his cards. He had three of a kind.
"Full house," she said. "Sevens over fives. I win." She paused a beat. "Again."
"I'm glad you weren't in Libby Prison. I'd have lost my shirt to you."
Here was something she didn't want to know. Yet she heard herself asking, "You were in Libby?"
Logan nodded. He gathered the cards and began shuffling.
She told herself she didn't want to know more. "For how long?"
"Almost since the moment I left you in Washington."
"Oh, God," she said under her breath. "You just got out?"
"Yes."
"They let you out?"
"No, not exactly."
"Oh, God," she said again. "Then you're an escaped prisoner."
"From your tone of voice I take it that's worse than being a Yankee bastard."
"How can you joke about it? You shouldn't have told me this—any of it. Do you think I won't report you?" In the folds of her dress her hands were clenching and unclenching.
Logan dropped the cards and took her by the wrists, stilling her agitated hands. "Katy, what is this?"
Mary Catherine could feel Logan willing her to look at him. She raised her face, thrusting her chin forward in a defiant gesture. It was wasted on Logan. His cool pewter eyes continued to demand an answer. But it was the hint of sadness that held Mary Catherine's attention. She couldn't look away. "It's not right," she said in a low voice. "I shouldn't be hiding you at all. Until you mentioned Libby Prison, I thought you were a deserter. It didn't seem so bad somehow that I was helping you. Knowing what I know now, well, it makes things different."
"Does my help in the past mean so little to you then, Katy?"
"Don't call me that."
Impatient, he gave her hands a little shake. "Does it?" he asked.
She tore her hands away. She reached blindly for the cards and began to collect them. "I never asked for your help. Neither did my mother or Megan."
"I see." His stomach began to knot. He was glad he wasn't holding her hands any longer because his palms were sweating. "I suppose I'm not so proud—I'm asking for yours. I need your silence. If I'm caught, I'll be killed and if I have to go back to prison, I'll die. You agreed I could stay until Monday. Let it stand."
For some time Mary Catherine said nothing. She pulled her eyes away and began dealing the cards. "If I decide to say something before Monday, I'll tell you first. You'll have a chance to leave. That's the most I can promise." Below the loft, Brutus began to whine and the nag shuffled back and forth in her stall. The collie jiggled the ladder as he circled it. Mary Catherine reached for the ladder to steady it and called down to Brutus to be quiet.
"I can hardly believe you're serious," Logan murmured.
"We're on different sides," she said. "We always have been." She glanced up at him. "Now, do you want to play poker?"
Logan slowly picked up his cards. It was difficult to reconcile this young woman in front of him with his memory of the child she had been. The child he had saved from Colonel Allen.
"Ante up," she said.
So it went. The remainder of the afternoon passed as if nothing unpleasant had ever been discussed. Mary Catherine's winning streak continued, but Logan was preoccupied with other matters. He knew that he would have to leave before Monday.
Mary Catherine was halfway down the ladder when Logan called to her in the manner of an afterthought. "When will I see you in the morning?" he asked.
She paused, dangling her foot just above Brutus's yawning mouth. The collie playfully nipped at her shoe. "Not until after church. Morning services are usually over by eleven, but Aunt Peggy likes to talk to everyone. It will be closer to twelve-thirty before I can bring you anything to eat."
"You don't take a carriage to church?"
"There is no carriage anymore. We walk." Although she apologized in the next breath, her tone held no remorse. "I'm sorry that I can't manage your meals better. If you get hungry you can always milk the cow."
"I will remember that," he said dryly. "Better yet, maybe I'll just go to the house while you're out and help myself."
Mary Catherine pulled her foot away from the dog and retraced her steps up the ladder. When Logan was in sight she glared at him. "The surest way to get yourself caught is to touch my aunt's larder. She knows precisely what she has and precisely where it is. Nothing escapes her eye."
Logan's brows drew together slightly. "But you've been feeding me these past days, surely she's missed—"
"Whose meals do you think you've been eating?" she asked flatly. She disappeared down the ladder then. Logan called to her but she refused to answer. She was angry with herself for telling him the truth. She had not wanted him to know she had sacrificed anything for him.
Lying back in the hay, Logan slipped his hands beneath his head and stared at slivers of blue sky between cracks in the barn roof. Mary Catherine might want to see him thrown to Rebel dogs, tarred and feathered, or back in Libby Prison, but Katy, his Katy, was willing to give up food from her own plate to see that he didn't starve. She was an enigma, his enemy and his friend. It seemed she could not help herself helping him. Yet sooner or later, he figured, she would despise herself for what she was doing and that's when she would betray him. All things considered, Sunday morning, while most of the King's Creek community was at services, was the perfect time to leave.
* * *
Through a series of
splinter-like cracks in the planking, Logan watched Mary Catherine and her aunt leave for church. His stomach growled. He bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt to forget the empty feeling in his gut. Mary Catherine had not returned any time last evening with dinner for him. He noted her absence, wondering if she was being spiteful. If he had known she wasn't coming back, he could have left under cover of night.
Moving away from the side of the barn, Logan collected his belongings. The clothes he arrived in were folded and placed in one of the horse blankets. His lacquered box of odds and ends now held a deck of playing cards and a razor, both courtesy of Mary Catherine.
Logan had one foot on the top rung of the ladder when Brutus's mad dash into the barn halted him. He didn't wait to see if the dog was in pursuit of the gray tabby or if Brutus was being followed. Dropping his things, Logan quickly retreated out of sight. He held his breath, waiting.
"Brutus, stop that! Bad dog!"
It was Mary Catherine. Logan's breath rushed out of him when he heard her laughter and scolding. He kicked at the things he had dropped, pushing them out of the way. He sat down on the floor of the loft, leaned back against a bale of hay, and tried to look relaxed instead of frustrated.
Mary Catherine cleared the top of the ladder and stood at the edge of the loft. She wondered if she looked as uncertain as she felt. It was important to appear confident or Logan would never cooperate.
God, Logan thought, she was exquisite. His lids lowered fractionally to hide the very real interest in his survey. Katy's honey-colored mane was tamed in a smooth chignon and dressed with tiny curls across her forehead. Drawn up and back, the style displayed the lovely curve of her ears and the slender line of her long throat. The cotton sateen material of her gown had faded from deep sapphire, which was still hinted at around the cuffs, to blue-gray. Although the dress was plain and obviously well worn, Mary Catherine's beauty was hardly diminished by it. His eyes were drawn to her as they would be to a precious stone resting against a black velvet background.
"What are you doing here?" he asked in a husky voice. "Shouldn't you be at church?"
Mary Catherine's weight shifted slightly. She nervously smoothed the skirt of her gown over her steel cage crinoline. "I wanted to see you." She walked toward him, her steps tentative, uncertain. At its base her gown was four feet across. It swayed gently as she approached. "Before you leave tomorrow."
"You promised to feed me after church," he reminded her.
"Yes, I know, but I've come on another matter." She looked down at her hands, which were pleating and unpleating folds in her skirt. "Last night I was thinking—actually I've been thinking about it for some time—and I was wondering... well, would you mind terribly—that is, do you think you could—I mean it would set my mind at ease, and I wouldn't have this feeling that I was, I don't know, missing something. I do not plan to marry, and it has nothing at all to do with the fact that most of the young men are gone. I am not so shallow as Cecily Fairburn and Jane Graves. I do not think a woman really has to marry any longer, do you? I think I can manage quite well on my own, only I do not want to miss the experience, you see. And I am not too young. Pamela Courtland is my age, and she is a widow."
Somewhere in the middle of her speech a shutter had lowered over Logan's eyes. "Somehow you've managed to say quite a lot and very little—all at the same time," he said dryly. He refused to encourage her. He was not so dense that he couldn't hear what she was not saying and her suggestion bordered on madness. "Take your leave, Katy. Your aunt must be wondering what's become of you."
Logan's patronizing tone rankled. Mary Catherine's spine stiffened and her jaw went rigid. "Aunt Peggy isn't expecting me. I pretended to turn my ankle shortly after we left. I insisted that she go on, and I hobbled until I was out of her sight."
"Not particularly original."
"It worked. She will be gone for hours and we are quite alone. There is not the slightest chance that we will be interrupted."
"Since we will not be doing anything, it's a point without merit." He raised his brows slightly and pointed to the barn door with his index finger. "Take your leave," he said again.
Far from being cowed, Mary Catherine stood her ground. "Is it because of Megan?" she asked. "Are you still in love with her? Is that why you won't do it with me?"
Logan reached behind him and plucked a piece of hay from the bale. He placed one end of it in his mouth and twisted it between his thumb and forefinger. His expression was thoughtful, cool and removed. "Your sister has no part in this. For the record, I was never in love with her. I hardly knew her, and though I deeply regret the pain she suffered and her passing, I remember her with fondness rather than love. As for the reason I won't do it with you? That is simple. You do not even know what it is or what it is called."
"I do."
Logan blanched as he realized where she might have come by the experience. He sat up straighter and tore the straw from his mouth. "Did Allen ever—"
Mary Catherine's eyes widened. "No. Never. He never did that to me." She would never admit that she had Logan to thank for that, because she didn't thank him. She would have been willing to suffer anything if it would have kept her mother and sister with her.
Logan crossed his legs in front of him and went back to toying with his stick of straw. "Katy, I would be lying if I said I wasn't flattered by your offer, but I am not tempted." He hesitated, wondering if lightning would strike him for lying on the second count. "You are like a sister to me." Another lie. "I am hardly the person you want to give you this experience."
"You are exactly the person I want. You will be leaving on the morrow, and it is unlikely that I will ever see you again. I know you, which is better, I suppose, than not knowing you. I do not want my first experience to be like Megan's. I was lucky to have escaped being raped when it happened to her, but I might not be so fortunate when the next renegade comes. And there will be another one." Her eyes did not waver from his, although it was true that she was looking through him rather than at him. "You are not unhandsome either. You are thinner than you used to be, but you are not rail-thin. I do not think I should like holding a man who was too thin. As for thinking of me as your sister, well, it is too bad. I do not think of you as a brother. You will simply have to overcome your reticence."
Though Logan did not show it, Mary Catherine's newfound poise and straightforward reasoning unnerved him. "This is a ridiculous conversation, Katy. I shouldn't be listening to you, and you shouldn't be saying these things."
"It's called—" Her voice was solemn as she intoned the basest, crudest word for making love. "And I want to do it with you."
Logan thought he had heard most everything, but Mary Catherine's pronouncement confounded him completely. "And I want to wash your mouth out with soap. Preferably lye soap."
"Why? That's the word, isn't it?"
"It's a word. Hardly the word." He shook his head slowly from side to side. A thought occurred to him. "Have you been drinking?"
In answer, Mary Catherine approached Logan until she stood directly in front of him. There was a rustle of her skirt and petticoats as she knelt. With artless confidence she laid a hand on either of Logan's shoulders, leaned forward, and kissed him full on the mouth. It was an inexperienced kiss. She kept her mouth closed but enthusiastically pressed her lips to his. After a moment she drew back and smiled a smile much older than her years. "Well?" she asked. "Have I been drinking?"
"Don't play with me, Mary Catherine," he said tautly.
Her lightly feathered brows drew together. "I am not playing. I assure you, I am in earnest."
"Damn you." One of his hands snaked around her neck. He held her still for a moment, waiting for her to resist the pressure of his fingers. When she did nothing except drop her gaze from his eyes to his mouth, Logan pulled her toward him and ground his lips against hers. Without pausing for instruction, he forced her mouth open with the hard, wet edge of his tongue. He swept the ridges of her teeth, pushed ag
ainst the barrier until she relented, and pushed hard in the warm, sweet interior of her mouth. He engaged her tongue in a battle, probing and retreating, tasting and tormenting. They shared the same breath. When he heard her small gasp, the hungry sound of pleasure and surprise, he released her, pushing her back with enough force to cause her to fall to one side. Almost immediately Logan was on his feet.
"No," he said firmly, "you haven't been drinking. And you know what? It doesn't matter. Now get the hell out of here."
"You forget. You are the trespasser here. Not I."
"Then I'll leave."
Mary Catherine saw him pick up his box and his bundled clothes. "It's been your plan all along," she said, eyes narrowing. "You were going to leave while I was at church."
"What of it?"
She didn't answer. Instead, Mary Catherine rose to her feet and crossed the loft to the ladder, blocking Logan's exit. Her chignon had come loose and tendrils of hair lay across her cheek and the tender nape of her neck. Her mouth was swollen and berry red with the proof of Logan's rough kiss. She stared at Logan defiantly and began to unfasten the row of cloth-covered buttons at the front of her gown.
Words of protest died on Logan's lips as she slipped the bodice off her white shoulders. Over her lawn shift she was wearing a corset that confined her waist to a measurement Logan could span with his hands and lifted her breasts so they invited his touch. When she reached behind her to attack the corset strings, the lawn shift was stretched tautly across her breasts. Logan's mouth went dry. He swallowed hard and tore his eyes away from the high curves of her bosom. "Mary Cath... Kate... Katy... don't take that—" The corset fell, "—off."
As far as Logan could see there was no earthly reason for Mary Catherine to wear the contraption. Her breasts were still as firm and high, her waist as small. One strap of her shift fell off her shoulder, and his eyes skimmed the delicate line of her collarbone and rested on the hollow of her throat. He dropped the bundle of clothes and the box. The precious contents scattered and he didn't notice.
