Chasing the Sunset

by Barbara Mack

  “You cheated somehow,” he muttered. Maggie grinned at him.

  “Would you put the little imp of Satan in Tommy’s room?” His mouth quirked. “Since it seems to like you so much.”

  “All right,” Maggie whispered. She was becoming fond of skinny, diffident Tommy. He was amazingly eager to please, and both she and Kathleen had begun to save treats for him, just for the joy of seeing his beautiful smile. He hung around the two of them as much as his job would allow, and one or the other of them was always feeding him a slice of bread or pastry, and

  ruffling his blond hair that stuck up in the front in a spiky cowlick. He blushed and turned deep red every time they did it, so of course they did it all the time. His voice was just beginning to change, and it often squeaked out of control. Nobody smiled or laughed when that happened. They did not want to hurt his amazingly tender feelings. Kathleen had wondered out loud one day how he could still be so sensitive, seeing as how his drunken mother had beaten him every day of his life until she died of a broken neck after tripping over a table in the local tavern where she had worked. He had evidently spent most of his life dodging her and her ‘friends’ she brought home every night to the room where they lived. His life had been horrific until Nick had brought him home to work with Ned and the horses. After hearing that, Maggie’s heart had gone out to the lonely, gentle child, and she tried especially hard to be kind to him.

  Maggie started up the stairs, conscious of Nick’s eyes following her. She heard him clear his throat.

  “Maggie?”

  “Yes?” she asked stiffly, remembering how he had avoided her the last weeks. “What is it, Nick?”

  She turned her head, the cat still cradled up under her chin, and caught her breath. His dark eyes were fastened on her with an intensity that she could almost feel. She felt a flush rise up from the depths of her stomach, and her arms trembled. The cat meowed plaintively as her arms tightened involuntarily, and she loosened her grip.

  “I am going into Geddes tomorrow,” he said softly. “I thought you might like to ride with me, maybe pick up some things for yourself at the store, and help me with supplies.”

  Maggie stared at him in silence for so long that he began to fidget uncomfortably under her level stare. Could she risk it? She had deliberately steered clear of the town before this, but it had been months, and no-one had come looking for her.

  “I would like that,” she said finally.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh, well then, I guess I will see you tomorrow.” He looked down at the ground. “G’night, then.”

  “Goodnight,” Maggie replied evenly. As she turned her back on him and began the climb up the stairs, a small smile slanted up the corners of her lips.

  *************************************************************

  Maggie tilted her head back and let the wind blow across her face. Her bonnet dangled by its strings down her back, and she felt it gently bumping her as Nick drove the wagon with reckless abandon down the bumpy road. Her knee pressed against his, and he turned his head to smile at her, teeth flashing whitely in his tanned face.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me to slow down?” he asked. “I know you are getting jostled around a lot. Kathleen is usually yelling at me by this time.”

  “Never!” she cried out, laughing. Tendrils of her hair were slipping out and whipping wildly around her face, and Nick felt a shaft of desire go through him with the force of a blow. “I am having too much fun!”

  She slipped sideways on the seat, and Nick stared at her, slowing the horses anyway. Her face had a healthy pink flush, and she seemed vibrantly alive and achingly beautiful, a far cry from her appearance just a few short months ago. Freckles dotted her small upturned nose, evidence that this was not the first time she had taken her bonnet off in the sun.

  “Buy some dress material while we are at the store,” he said abruptly. “Have them bill my account. I am tired of seeing you go around looking like a crow. Gray and brown, gray and brown. You should be wearing green and blue. Order as much as you like. I will gladly pay to see you out of those rags.” He felt a hot blush rise in his face as he realized how his words could be misconstrued. "You know what I meant."

  Maggie stared at him openmouthed. "Not only are you complaining about my appearance, you are offering to pay for my clothes? A lady would never accept items of apparel from a gentleman. I am vastly insulted."

  Nick opened his mouth to apologize, then she cast him an amused look out of the corner of her slanted eyes and he realized he was being teased.

  “I am a widow, you know," she said. "I am supposed to wear dark colors.”

  “Then get lavender,” he said shortly, and clucked to the horses. “You can go to half-mourning. I am surprised you have not fallen right out of those two things you call dresses. They are so old, I expect a seam to split any day.”

  Maggie gave a gurgle of choked laughter. “How gracious you are, Nick. What a smooth talker you have turned out to be. I never suspected.”

  He scowled at her, his mind busy picturing Maggie in the act of falling out of her dress and into his bed. “Just buy the material. And get enough to make Tommy some new clothes, too. He is starting to sprout up again, and his trousers are damn near up to his knees.”

  “How indelicate you are,” she teased. “You should never mention body parts to a lady, or curse in front of her. I will add Tommy’s to your bill,” she said serenely. “But I will pay for my own. I have my wages, and I have not spent any of it. I can afford it.”

  He scowled at her again and tugged on his hat sharply, covering his eyes. “I will take it out of your next month’s wages, if you insist. But do not get black, or brown, or any other colors that remind me of mud, or I will take it right back. I am tiring of looking at them. Get at least one that is more pleasing to the eye. Kathleen can help you sew them; she has been making Tommy’s clothes since he came to the farm.”

  “Yes sir,” Maggie said, her eyes twinkling. “I would hate to do anything that offends your sensibilities, like wearing the wrong color. I know what a sensitive individual you are.”

  A snort escaped him, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Maggie turned her head and stared unabashedly at his profile. He could be stamped on the side of a Roman coin, she thought dreamily. Her eyes swept down the rest of him, down the white lawn shirt that molded itself to his strong back whenever he moved, and the tight black trousers tucked into the legs of his high riding boots.

  “Stop looking at me like that,” he said. Startled, Maggie lifted her eyes, and found him staring right at her. His pupils were dilated and made his eyes appear almost black.

  “Like what?” she asked breathlessly.

  “Like I am a stick of peppermint and you are deciding where to lick me first.”

  “I never!” she began indignantly, and Nick dodged as she hit at him with a small fist.

  “You were, too.”

  “I would like to,” Maggie said softly, consideringly, after a long moment. “Lick you.”

  He shot her a look that had so many, many things in it. Desire, anger, frustration. His hands tightened on the reins and he shook them, startling the horses into going even faster.

  “Do not, Maggie.” He gritted out the words between clenched teeth. “Do not do that.”

  “Do what?” she asked. “Admit that I want you? Tell you that it is all right if you feel the same way? I have been trying for weeks to tell you, and you run away every chance you get.” She slapped her hand down on the wooden seat with enough force to sting. “I never figured you for a coward, Nick.”

  His mouth hardened and compressed. “I am a coward because I refuse to ruin a young girl staying in my household? Because I am honorable enough not to take what you are offering? You do not know what you want, Maggie, and I am not going to be there when you wake up one day and decide you do not want to be my mistress anymore, only it’ll be too late, I have already made you one and everyone will already know. What about Ned
? And what about Kathleen, and Tommy? ”

  Maggie wilted in her seat. “I am not a young girl, I am a respectable widow. Widows have more freedom than young girls, and they do not have to know if we are discreet. I would not flaunt it,” she muttered. “And I would not change my mind.”

  He shot her a sharp look. “They would know, after a while. We could not keep it secret forever.” His voice dropped an octave. “And you would get tired of me, after a while. It has happened before.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have the list of supplies that we need?”

  “I have it,” she said.

  Evidently the discussion was over, she thought. He thinks I am just going to change my mind, just like that, because he says so.

  Geddes was not very much of a town to a woman who had grown up in St. Louis. It boasted one main street with one bank, one hotel, a general store, a combination milliner-dressmaker, the jail, and a doctor’s office and surgery. A stable was one street over, and the rest of the buildings were residences.

  Nick dropped her off at the clapboard building that was the general store and stayed outside to tie up the horses while Maggie went inside. She smiled and breathed deeply of the scent inside: horehound candy and leather. She smiled at the pinch-faced woman behind the counter.

  And Nick thinks I look like a crow, she thought. He obviously has not got a good look at her lately. She handed the woman her supply list and went to look at the dry goods while the order was filled. She fingered a cotton in a deep blue, and lifted it to her face to rub it on her cheek. It was as soft as Tommy’s kitten. Two women, both dressed finely, wandered in. Maggie eyed them appreciatively. They were like two birds of paradise in the store, twittering and beautiful. She smiled faintly. One even had an osprey plume on her hat, and it bounced and fluttered as she tossed her head.

  “Can you believe it?” Miss Osprey plume hissed to the other. “Right outside, bigger than life. I do not know how he has got the nerve.”

  The smaller one nodded. “You are right, Beth Ann. He ought to stay home and send someone else into town, so decent women do not have to be subjected to his vile presence.” She put a hand dramatically on her large bosom. “Why, I declare my heart about jumped out of my chest when I saw him.”

  A pouter pigeon, Maggie thought idly. That one’s a pouter pigeon.

  “And he even had the nerve to speak.” Miss Osprey plume said, her pretty face drawn up as if she had just had mud flung all over her bright dress. “I am going to tell Mama about this, and make sure she knows that he spoke to us.”

  Pouter Pigeon nodded and nodded. “Kills his wife, and then comes to town just like nothing happened. The nerve! I do not know how he got away with it. That poor Kenneth . . . do you remember how handsome he was?”

  Osprey plume giggled. “I surely do. I would have liked him for a beau myself, even if he was old. Oh, and he was so anguished when he told everyone about his love’s death. And that man only got away with it because that common old stable hand of his lied. I got the news directly from Mimi, and she heard it when she was eavesdropping on her Papa and the sheriff. My Papa said what can you expect? Breeding will always tell. His parents had such odd ideas. Nick Revelle killed his wife, threw her down the stairs and broke her neck, and got that Ted or Ned or whatever he is called to lie for him. Otherwise they would have hung him. Mimi’s Papa said so.”

  Maggie’s mind stopped working for a moment. She stood there with a roll of blue cotton in her hands and heard the two women twitter and giggle behind her. Their words washed over her. Killed his wife. Killed his wife. Nick Revelle killed his wife. Her hands began to tremble. She took the roll of cotton to the front of the store.

  “Could you add six yards of this to the bill?” she said numbly. “Also I want some of that white cotton, the lavender muslin, the blue serge, some of that emerald green, and that light blue percale. I need buttons to match. Oh, and throw in one of those Godey’s Ladies Book, would you please.”

  “Are you all right, Miss?” asked the woman. “You are as white as a ghost.” She did not remind Maggie of a crow any longer. Her thin face was kindly, and Maggie felt tears gather in her eyes. She forced them back.

  “I . . . I just feel a little dizzy.” She put a hand up to her head. “I think I will go outside and get some fresh air.”

  “You sure you do not want to sit down and have a cup of tea?”

  “Maybe I will,” Maggie said gratefully. “That sounds like a good idea.” She sat down at

  the table behind the counter that the woman indicated and sipped her hot sweet tea. Gradually, she began to feel a little better. The sick feeling in her stomach went away, but her head kept repeating those words over and over. Threw her down the stairs, killed his wife.

  Nick came in and hovered over her in concern. Maggie twitched her shoulder away from his hand, and he frowned.

  “Mrs. Jenkins said that you felt faint. Are you all right?”

  Maggie avoided his gaze. “I am fine. It must be just the heat.”

  He put his hands on his hips and regarded her. “I was going to take you to the hotel to eat lunch, but we can do that another day, I guess,” he said slowly, his dark eyes never leaving her. She could feel his gaze on her, and she let her eyes regard the ground.

  “Some other time,” she agreed.

  All the way home, traveling much slower this time because of the weight of the supplies in back, the wheels of the wagon sang a song to Maggie: Killed his wife, killed his wife, threw her down the stairs, killed his wife. Her pleasure in the material for new dresses was gone. She sat still as a stone on the seat of the wagon, and she could see Nick look at her in perplexity a couple of times. She ignored him, and the wagon wheels sang to her: Killed his wife, killed his wife, killed his wife . . .

  FIVE

  Maggie squinted down at the piece of cotton in her hands, muttering under her breath. She hated sewing. The finished results always pleased her, but the tedious up-close work tired her out worse than if she were working as a field hand. After she had ripped the stitches out of the very same spot five times, she threw the light lavender material onto a chair in disgust. She was just going to ruin the cloth. It was getting too dark for this. Kathleen had put the last stitch into Tommy’s clothes this morning, and she had promised to help her finish hers up tomorrow, anyway.

  Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and flopped backwards down onto her bed, rubbing her bare feet back and forth against the coverlet, enjoying the way the soft, well-used material felt against her bare flesh. This whole week she had brooded over what she had overheard from those two malicious young women in the store.

  Kathleen knew that something was wrong with Maggie, but she could not bring herself to pry. Maggie had seen her start to ask at least a half-dozen times, then bite the words back. She’d had an excuse all ready to give the other woman, but she was glad that she had not had to use it. Maggie did not want to lie to her, and she could not ask her about Nick’s wife. She wanted to know ... and she did not want to know, all at the same time.

  Nick knew that something was wrong with her, too. Maggie was now the one who avoided his company and made excuses not to be alone with him. Even Tommy, that sweet little boy, could sense her tension. He had been especially nice to her these last few days, bringing her wildflowers that he had picked and nearly driving her wild by asking a hundred times a day if he could do something for her. He was only trying to help, but his constant presence was irritating to her right now. Maggie felt guilty about that; she knew that the boy was starved for affection, but she only wanted to be alone right now. She needed to think.

  Maggie scowled and rubbed her forehead. Things were so very much easier when she did not trust anybody; she did not have to wonder what other’s motivations were, or worry about hurting their feelings. When everyone was suspect, they were automatically guilty. It made things so much clearer; if everyone was guilty, she did not have to choose.

  She could not believe Kathleen would work here
if Nick had really killed his wife. She was too honest for that, and she had too much respect for human life, and if her parents, who were moral, god-fearing people, even suspected that Nick had something to do with his wife’s death, they would not let her come here, either. Maggie also had a hard time believing that Ned would lie for Nick. He would defend to his dying breath an innocent person, but her father used to say that if he wanted the plain, bold truth, he would go to Ned. She knew in her heart that Nick was not capable of doing what those women had said, so what was her problem?

  It was hard to trust when you had spent the better part of three years lying and being lied to. Once, she would have taken it all at face value, believing whatever she was told, but no more. That way of thinking had participated in her complete subjugation to her husband in her marriage. She could not go back to that earlier habit now, even if she had wanted to.

  Maggie rolled onto her side and brought her knees up, pulling the pins from her silky hair and flinging them carelessly onto the bed beside her. She would find them later. She rubbed her fingers across her aching scalp, sighing in pleasure at the sensation. She rolled her neck around, trying to ease some of the tightness in her muscles, concentrating only on the way she felt. She felt the soreness ease just a little, and she sighed again and rolled onto her stomach, pillowing her

  head on her arms.

  She was going to have to ask Nick about it. There was no way around it. She had brooded over this all week, not talking about it, not talking at all if the truth be known, and she just could not do it any longer. She did not want to look at Nick and wonder, deep in her heart, if he was capable of such things. She had to know for sure, and she refused to go behind his back and ask other people.It had to do with Nick, and Nick alone could answer the questions that she had. She would ask him right now, as a matter of fact.