A sound upstairs, the small wailing of a child drew his eyes upward. A few seconds later came Andi's answering murmur. He'd put the drawer beside her bed so she wouldn't have to rise during the night. And he wouldn't have to face her in the dead of night in a setting more intimate than wise.
In his mind's eye, he pictured Andi, putting the child to her full breast—her long auburn hair drifting down across her shoulder. He imagined how she would look as her amethyst eyes rose up to meet his, soft with love for her child. Soft with love for—
For Zach, his brother.
With the back of one wrist, Jesse swiped at the sweat beading under his mustache. The urge to get outside—out where he could breathe—was suddenly great. He yanked on a pair of worn Levi's and threw a shirt on without bothering with the buttons. Barefoot, he headed down the narrow hallway and through the darkened parlor with Mahkwi on his heels.
But before he pulled open the front door, his reflection in the aged, speckled mirror in the hat tree near the door stopped him. Moonlight from the parlor window spilled across the looking glass.
The image that stared back at him made his mouth go slack and his eyes widen. Hesitantly, he brought his hand up to the rough, bearded jaw, then to his nearly shoulder length hair.
God Almighty. He looked like hell.
It had been a long time since he'd seen himself in anything but the reflection of a glassy lake or a store window. Until now, not even those glimpses had bothered him. The beard and wild sun-streaked hair made him look years older than his own twenty-five. Weathered by the sun and wind of Montana winters, his skin shone brown in the moonlight. Fine white squint lines etched the skin near his eyes and what he could see of his mouth.
His image lived up to the name his friends among the Pikuni tribe had given him, Imoyinum—"Looks Furry." Until this moment, he'd been perfectly content with that name and with himself. Perhaps it was only because he was seeing himself now as Andi must see him. More irritating, Jesse thought, turning from the mirror, was the unsettling realization that he gave a damn what she thought.
The door hinges complained loudly as he shoved it open and headed into the warm night air. The full moon shone down over the yard and the chest-high corn stalks threw eerie shadows across the overgrown grass.
Jesse prowled back and forth along the drunken-man fence that hemmed in the cornfields to the north, south and east of the yard. Mahkwi paced with him, stopping to sniff along the way, then bounding ahead to keep up with Jesse's thudding progress.
"Keep the farm," he muttered to the wolf. "Hellfire! What's she thinking?" Andi had grown up a town girl, in the little hamlet of Elkgrove three miles up the road, with a father who didn't know a plow from an auger. Jake Carson, a printer by trade, a drunk by choice, had barely been able to keep food on the table, much less teach her how to raise any food of her own.
"Hell. She can no more keep up a farm like this than I could crochet doilies!" He glared up at the yellow light spilling from the second story room. "She's in way over that pretty little head of hers," he said aloud.
Jesse snapped off a leaf from a corn stalk as he passed it and began to shred the tender frond, tossing the stringy pieces to the ground as he walked. His bare toes sank into the fragrant muddy ground.
Andi could live comfortably for a good time on the profits he made selling the land, he reasoned. The improvements alone should bring a tidy sum. She could buy herself a little place in town... raise her son. She would be happy there. She'd have people around her, unlike here. And she wouldn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to feed the chickens, plow vegetable gardens or... grow old before her time.
He didn't want a dime of his old man's money. He'd saved a little back, enough to get him back to Virginia City. Get a place to hang his hat for the long, frigid months out of the year. The rest of the time, he'd spend trapping and trading with the Blackfeet as he'd been doing for the past few years.
But farm again? Never. Not if the moon turned blue. Not if the Ohio River crawled over its banks and begged him to do it. He'd had enough of sod busting and stump-pulling to last him a lifetime. He'd had enough of schedules and chores and someone telling him he hadn't done it right. Never again would his hands get bloody over a harvest or blistered on the handle of a plow.
"No, dammit. She's not gonna make me stay here," he grumbled. Mahkwi woofed and perked up her ears.
Jesse glared down at the wolf. "So what the hell am I going to do with her? Throw her out of the house?" He shredded another section of the leaf in his hands with a long tearing motion. She may have been Zach's wife, but here, a woman couldn't own property.
But she has every bit as much right to this place as I do.
He stomped another few paces. "And I have every right to force her to sell. For her own damned good." He stopped and stared at the fields. But could he do that? The answer was as plain as the full moon. He didn't need the farm or the money. He was plenty content with life in Montana. Why change things?
"I could say 'good luck, Andi,' and leave her to it," he suggested to the silent night air. The wolf skidded to a stop beside him and gave a yawning whine.
"I know, I know, she's Zach's widow... my sister-in-law... my responsibility. Who'll take care of her?"
Mahkwi padded up at him, tongue lolling pinkly out the side of her mouth in a doggie smile. Jesse scowled at her. "What are you grinning about?"
Mahkwi cocked her head with a wounded expression.
Jesse dropped his hand in the fur behind her ears. "Hell, what have you got to worry about? Leftover stew, a bone now and then, space to run in and you're happy. Me?" He glanced at the old plow parked under the eave of the barn roof, its blade rusting orange from exposure. That's me after a few more years in this place, he thought.
Isabelle's words came back to him. Responsibility's either a curse or a blessing, Jesse. I reckon it's all in how you look at it.
Well, the farm was one responsibility he'd never see as anything but a curse. The sooner he figured a way out from under it, the sooner he'd be on his way back to Montana. And the sooner he'd forget Andi and the little boy with dark hair and eyes the color of the sky.
Chapter 4
A knocking sound ricocheted in his head. Jesse tried to ignore it, mashing his cheek stubbornly against the hard surface beneath his head. His outstretched hands curled around, not a pillow, but the edges of a... book?
He cracked open one eye and groaned to find himself half-sprawled across the kitchen table atop the farm's ledgers he'd spread out to study last night. By some miracle, he must have fallen asleep. If one could call the snatches of insensibility he'd managed sleep. Between his own restlessness and the baby's clockwork squalling, he deemed a good night's rest in Andi Carson Winslow's house impossible.
Groggy, he rubbed a hand over his eyes and sat up, wincing at the stiffness in his neck. Beside him, a kerosene lamp sputtered, nearly out of fuel. His head throbbed. Though he knew he hadn't drunk a blessed thing last night, he felt hung-over. Mahkwi lay beside his chair, head on paws, following Jesse's slow movements with her eyes.
The wooden chair scraped across the floor as Jesse got up and stumbled to the sink. Giving the squeaky handle a few priming pumps, he caught the cool water in his hands and splashed it on his face. It was all he could do to stand there, hands braced against the sink, and let the water drip off his face.
The pounding came again, more insistently this time. He frowned, recognizing the sound at last. Who the hell could be knocking on the door in the middle of the night? He glanced at the soft light pouring in through the window. Morning, he corrected mentally. Hell.
He ran a towel over his face, then, pulling two hands through his long, sleep-tousled hair, walked to the door and yanked it open.
A tall, coffee-skinned, bespectacled woman stood opposite him across the threshold. Her gray-green eyes widened at the sight of him and she took an involuntary step backward. He glared at her.
"Mr. Winslow? My name is Mrs. Ga
ines," she announced in a voice rich as bourbon whiskey. Her gaze flicked, for the briefest of stunned moments, down the length of his unbuttoned shirt to the dry mud caked on his bare feet. Jesse pulled the edges of his shirt together and began to button it.
The morning cicadas strummed up a welcoming chorus behind her, adding to the thrumming between his ears. The air that brushed his tired face was cool and rain-fresh. In the distance he heard the retreating rattle of the wagon that had evidently dropped the woman on his doorstep.
Jesse stared blankly at her "Yeah?"
She stared back, her eyes nearly level with his own. "I'm Mrs. Gaines," she repeated more slowly, her brows dropping a fraction. "I was told you were expecting me."
He blinked. "You were? I mean... I was?" His gaze went from her straw hat set at a jaunty angle atop a pile of dark hair, to her starched white collar, flawless against the slender column of her neck. The horn-rimmed spectacles perched half-way down her nose made her gray-green eyes seem even larger as she peered at him.
She pushed the glasses farther up her nose with one finger. "You are Mr. Winslow? Mr. Jesse Winslow?"
"Winslow. Yeah, that's me."
"Perhaps there's been some kind of misunderstanding. Mrs. Rafferty said you might have need of my services. But if—"
Jesse straightened at the first thing she said that made any sense. "Mrs. Rafferty? You mean... Are you Etta?"
A relieved smile softened her pursed mouth. "Yes, I'm Etta Gaines."
By any standards, Jesse thought, Miss Etta Gaines would be considered a handsome woman, but she was not at all what he'd expected. Isabelle's term "hired-girl" had conjured up anything but the sophisticated thirty-five-year old woman of color who stood before him. No hint of a southern dialect softened her words. She was a northern, city-bred woman, and if he wasn't mistaken, educated, too. She stood waiting patiently for Jesse to swallow his surprise and invite her in.
"Of course Isabelle told me about you, I just... uh, forgive me, Miss Gaines." Jesse stepped aside so she could pass. "Please, come in."
With a curt nod, she crossed the threshold. She stopped dead at the sight of the wolf and clasped a hand to her throat.
"She's tame," Jesse assured her, "She won't hurt you."
Etta looked unconvinced. "Miss Isabelle warned me about it, but"—her gaze slid back to the wolf—"I wasn't prepared for how... how big it would be."
"Mahkwi's half dog, but she's got a wolf's speed and long legs. She has the disposition of a lamb, though... unless she's riled."
"Oh. I see. Well, it's not me you'll have to convince."
"You mean Andi? She loves animals. Always has."
Etta just smiled and turned to survey the mess around her. Her eaglelike gaze took in every detail of the kitchen and what she could see of the parlor. Her even expression gave away nothing, but the kitchen alone was enough to send any sane woman running, Jesse thought dolefully—dishes and pans scattered from end to end after his mad search for a pot to boil water in yesterday.
The stew pot had boiled over while he was upstairs last night arguing with Andi, and despite his valiant attempts to clean it up the smelly stuff was stuck like scorched fly paper to the black Clarion stove. And that didn't even cover the muddy footprints he'd left all over the kitchen floor after prowling outside half the night.
Unwrapping the small embroidered bag that dangled from her wrist, Etta looked for a clear spot on the table.
"A real mess, huh?" he asked, picking up the rain slicker he'd left draped over the wooden chair. "Housekeeping isn't my strong suit."
She quirked one side of her generous mouth with amusement. "I've seen worse. What nine young Raffertys can do to a clean room would make you shudder. No sir, I've seen worse than this," she said with a wink, pulling off her kidskin gloves. "At least by half."
Jesse caught her smile and returned it. "I'm glad to hear it. I'd hate to think I could wreak worse vengeance on a house than nine small children."
Etta scooped up Jesse's dirty dishes off the table and carted them to the sink, then darted back with a wet rag—a whirlwind of efficiency. "Oh, they're not all small," she told him. "Why, Gus?—you might remember him—he's near sixteen. Joshua and Joe, the twins, are thirteen." Etta effortlessly hoisted a pile of cooking pans back into their proper places below the counter.
"Then," she went on, "there's Adeline, eleven and Cassie, nine." She counted backward on her fingers. "The rest, Levi, Noah, Gertie and little Ruthie—they're all under eight. But ages aside, twelve folks—including me—under one roof calls for organization," she said with an easy laugh. "That's what I'm there for, Mr. Winslow. Organization."
Jesse rocked back on his bare heels, not doubting her for a minute. Her voice was smooth and rich as old brandy and despite her primness, he could swear he caught a note of bawdiness underneath all that starch.
She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, opened it and handed it to him. "Miss Isabelle isn't a slouch at organization either. She said you'd need some things in town. Supplies and such... for the baby. She wrote it all down for you..."
Jesse stared at the paper then tossed it on the table. He'd think about that later when the fog cleared out of his brain.
"How is Miss Andrea?" she asked, putting her shoulder to the water pump over the sink. The handle squeaked as the water splashed into the pot she'd placed underneath it.
"I... I haven't seen her yet this morning," he replied. "I uh, heard her last night, up with the baby."
Etta glanced at the dark smudges under his eyes and shook her head. "My, my. If she had the same kind of night you did, I came in the nick of time." She settled the pot on the stove, then stoked the cook fire with fresh firewood. A few seconds later, the banked coals ignited the wood with a whoosh. "Don't you worry about a thing, Mr. Winslow. I'll take care of everything that needs doing." She stopped long enough to frown at him. "Looks like you could use some coffee."
"Actually—" he mumbled, but before he could finish, she reached for the coffee pot Jesse had left on the table, cleaned out the old grounds, and made a fresh pot. He was getting dizzy just watching her. He settled back in his chair, pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. He decided to wait for a cup of the coffee she was brewing before he made another stab at conversation. But that plan failed when he heard Etta's gasp.
"My, my... aren't you a sight for sore eyes."
He looked up to see Andi standing at the foot of the stairs, looking pale and wan. Her pink calico wrapper clung to her long legs and outlined the fullness of her breasts in the morning light. The sight of her tripped his pulse. He shot to his feet. "What are you doing down here, Andi?"
Andrea's throat tightened at the sight of Jesse, disheveled and bleary-eyed from apparent lack of sleep. He looked how she felt. But there was no denying the electric jolt of desire she felt, seeing him here. Looking like... that.
She cinched the tie on her wrapper and glanced at his muddy bare feet. "I live here, in case you'd forgotten. I'm not an invalid, Jesse. I only had a baby." She turned to Etta and the two women met in a hug. "Etta, how can I thank you for coming?"
Etta waved a hand of dismissal. "Oh, now honey, there's nothing I like better than babies, you know that," she said patting Andrea on the back. "You feelin' all right?"
She nodded. "Just tired and... a little sore."
"Well, Lordy, I expect so!" Etta strong-armed her toward the table and forced her to sit down opposite Jesse. "Now you just stay there," Etta said. "I've got coffee brewing and oatmeal mash fixin' to cook on the stove. It'll be ready in no time. You look a little peaked."
Andrea's bare feet encountered soft, warm fur beneath the table and she jumped. "Good Lord, what's that?"
Mahkwi's head came up under the table with a thwack, and the animal struggled to get out from under it.
Andrea stared in disbelief at the animal whose shoulders nearly reached her hip. She backed up against the counter. The wolf's pink tongue lolled out the side of her mout
h.
"A wolf! There's a wolf in my kitchen!"
"It's just Mahkwi, Andi," Jesse said. "She won't hurt anything—"
"Oh, no. Absolutely not. Not in my kitchen. Not in my house." Andrea pointed to the door. "There's a baby in this house, Jesse. I won't have a wild animal anywhere near him. Out!"
The wolf looked crestfallen and slunk toward the corner. Jesse sighed with resignation, walked to the door and held it open for Mahkwi. "Out, wolf."
Disconsolate, Mahkwi padded out the door and disappeared into the yard, her tail between her legs.
"And I want him tied up unless he's with you, Jesse. I can't risk having him—"
"Her," Jesse corrected.
"—her eating my hens or... or attacking my hogs or Lulabelle."
"Lulabelle?"
"My goat."
He gritted his teeth. The fact that Mahkwi was half dog would bear no weight with Andi. The size of the animal had her scared. Mahkwi had rarely been tethered in her life, except when they rode through towns, where Jesse didn't want people taking pot shots at her. She wouldn't take well to it now. He should have left her back in Montana, where she didn't have to worry about the constrictions of civilization. It was a piece of advice he might well have taken himself.
He sat down at the table beside her. "How's little Zachary?"
Andrea's fingers smoothed absently over the pages of the book that lay open on the table. "He's fine. He didn't—" She blinked.
It suddenly struck her what the ledgers were doing there. Yesterday's argument over the farm came back to her in a rush. "What's this doing out?"
He shrugged. "I was going over the farm accounts last night."
Andrea straightened in the chair. "Why?"
"I should think that would be obvious."
"All too obvious," she replied tightly.
Jesse got to his feet and paced to the baker's cabinet on the far side of the room. He braced a hand against the smooth oak finish. "I have a right to know where Willow Banks stands, Andi," he said, staring at the worn wood-grain dusted faintly with flour.
Renegade's Kiss Page 5
