by Lucy Evanson
“This won’t take long,” he said. “Unless you want it to.” His lips drifted apart and he made a wet clicking sound with his tongue.
Cora tried to rip herself free from his grasp, but he was too strong, too heavy. He barely moved as she threw herself from side to side, and he began to chuckle at her. Finally she realized that she wasn’t getting loose, and she couldn’t help herself. She spit in his face at the same time that she kicked him hard in the shins.
He stopped chuckling. He did free one of her arms as his hand dropped down to rub his leg, but the fire in his eyes almost made her wish she hadn’t kicked him. He swiped one hand over his face to wipe away the spittle and grabbed her by the hair.
“In there,” he grunted, pulling her back into the sitting room. He threw her onto the sofa and dropped his hands to his belt. “Get that dress off.”
“Drake…Artie, you don’t need to do this,” she babbled. “I can pay you. Even more than Emma was going to.”
“I said I don’t want your money.” He unfastened his belt and pulled it free, letting it dangle like a whip in his hand. “Matter of fact, I changed my mind about the whole thing. I guess I am going to have to tell Emma.”
“Please don’t.”
“And as for you,” he said, reaching down and grabbing her wrist, “after I give you a whipping, you’re going to put that mouth of yours to work.” He rubbed his groin and then raised the belt, flipping the length of it back over his shoulder. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”
As he raised his hand high, Cora closed her eyes and screamed.
The wet, slushy footprints on the stairs were too big to be Cora’s. Nathan stared at them for a moment before he started up the stairs. Looks like they’re from a man’s boots, he thought. He could only think of a couple reasons why another man would be in the apartment with Cora, and he didn’t like any of them.
Nathan was almost up to the top of the stairs when he heard her screaming. It felt like his heart was being gripped in a tight, cold fist as he raced up the final steps and burst into the apartment.
There, in the sitting room, Cora was sprawled out on the sofa, one hand up to shield her face and the other tight in the grasp of a huge man with his back to the door. In the man’s hand, a belt hung as if he’d been beating her with it. At the sound of Nathan’s entry, they both turned to face him.
“Nathan, thank God!” Cora said. Her voice was choked and broken, as if she were on the verge of tears, but Nathan hardly noticed. His gaze was drilling into the fat man.
It was him. The same guy who had been at the hotel, snooping around. That son of a bitch. What have I done? He hadn’t said anything to Cora, hadn’t warned her about him, and now she had paid for his mistake. Nathan’s fists clenched as he strode across the room.
“Now hold on there,” the man said. He backed up a step as Nathan came into the sitting room.
“Who the hell are you?”
“My name’s Drake.” He began to thread his belt back around his waist as if nothing had happened. “I’m investigating your marriage.”
“Are you a sheriff’s deputy or something?”
“No, I’m a private investigator.”
There was a sharp crack as Nathan’s fist slammed against Drake’s jaw, sending him to the floor in a rumpled, crumpled heap.
“No man touches my wife like that.”
Drake shook his head slowly back and forth, his eyes watery and glassier than normal. He struggled to get to his knees, the low table in front of the sofa creaking as he supported himself on it. “Boy, you’re going to be sorry you did that,” he mumbled as he glared at Nathan, rubbing his jaw. When he’d struggled to his feet, he took a lumbering swing at Nathan, who ducked easily and pushed him out into the hall.
Drake balled his huge fist and swung for Nathan’s head again, missing by a mile; Nathan’s arm shot out, lean and strong as a spear, and pounded Drake square in the nose. Blood began to pour down Drake’s lip as he stumbled back against the door.
“You just made a hell of a mistake,” he said. “I would’ve made a deal with you, but you just screwed that up good.” He felt behind for the doorknob and opened the door, hurrying down several steps until he was out of Nathan’s reach.
“It’s over, Booker,” he called. “Or should I say Larrimore?”
Nathan felt an odd sensation, like he had just become unsteady, and he reached for the handrail. He had been thinking of himself as Paul Booker for so long that his own name sounded like a stranger’s. “What did you say?”
“I know all about you. Nathan Larrimore, from Plainfield, Wisconsin,” Drake said. “Came to Mineral Point to make his fortune and ended up marrying a whore.”
“Get out of here, you son of a bitch. Otherwise I’ll come down there and finish what I started.” Nathan took a step forward and watched as Drake turned and hurried down the steps, his footfall thundering in the stairway, letting the door slam shut behind him.
Nathan went back to the apartment and closed the door, sliding the bolt home. He leaned forward and rested his head against the wood. I’ve ruined everything, he thought. He knows my name. He knows where I’m from. Who knows what else he found out? He could hear Cora crying softly behind him, and he turned to see her sitting on the sofa, her face in her hands. Even from afar he could see her shoulders trembling as she sobbed.
Nathan went to her and sat at her side, then wordlessly put his arms around her and pulled her close. She threw an arm around his neck and buried her face in his shirt. He could feel her shaking as he held her, like a little bird that had fallen from its nest.
“I’m so sorry, Cora,” he whispered.
She seemed to only cry harder, and it was a minute before she was able to speak. “There’s nothing to be sorry for,” she finally croaked. “You made it here in time. You saved me.” Her cheek, tear-slickened and hot, slid across his skin as she brought her mouth to his.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, deep and long. He knew that this could be his last chance, and he didn’t want the moment to end. He would have given anything for them just to stay like that, for there never to be a need for any talking, for his secret to stay hidden forever, but Cora broke their kiss and put her mouth close to his ear. “You saved me,” she repeated.
Hearing her say that was like a dull knife working its way into his gut. He hadn’t done anything of the sort. I might have saved her today, but I doomed her before, he thought. If only she had known to look out for that guy. I have to tell her.
He took a deep breath. “Cora, that man…”
“I tried, Nathan,” she said, and she began to sob again. “I tried to take care of him on my own.” She held him tighter and he could feel her tears soaking through his shirt now. “He’s been following me, watching me for months now.”
“What?”
“Emma hired him to dig up dirt on us. On me. On you,” she said. “I just don’t know how he figured out your name. Or how he knew you were from Plainfield.”
Nathan took her arm and pulled it from around his neck. He pushed her back slightly so that he could look at her. “So you knew who this guy was? You’ve known for some time?”
She nodded. “I just didn’t think it would come to this,” she said. “I thought he was just after money. Then he got in today and I thought for sure that he was going to have his way with me.” A pair of fresh tears bloomed in her eyes and she lowered her head back to his shoulder.
He rubbed her back gently. “Everything’s fine now,” he said. “But I need to ask you something. When did you first know about that guy?”
“A long time ago now,” she said, her voice muffled by his shirt.
He backed her away again. “When?”
She glanced away as she thought for a moment. “I guess it was back in November,” she said. “It was just before we moved in here.”
In other words, before I ever saw him. Before he ever heard my name. Before I told him where I was from. Nathan sto
od up abruptly. “Why didn’t you tell me about him?” he said, his voice rising. “Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I thought I could handle things all alone.”
“But you’re not alone! Christ! We’re married!”
“Stop shouting at me,” she said. “How was I supposed to know he’d find out your real name?”
“He found out because I told him,” Nathan snapped. “I told him I was from Plainfield, too.”
The color drained from her cheeks. “What are you talking about?”
“He came into the hotel weeks ago,” Nathan said. “He was making small talk with me. I only figured out that he was snooping around when it was too late.”
Cora slumped over and let her head fall into her hands. “It’s all over, then,” she said. “He said he’s going to tell Emma. She’ll tell the lawyer. And after that, who knows what’ll happen?”
Nathan raised his hands and rubbed his eyes. There was nothing he could say, no argument he could make that would answer her. “I would have recognized him if you had told me,” he said.
“I already told you why I didn’t. And you didn’t tell me about him either.”
“That hardly matters,” Nathan said. “The damage was done already. And I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to worry about it.”
“You can’t blame me for not telling you when you did the exact same thing.”
“There’s a huge difference!” he said. “I was trying to protect you!”
“And who said I needed your protection?” Her voice was now strong and sharp as she stood up and faced him.
“Well, obviously you do,” Nathan said. “For somebody who wanted to handle him herself, you weren’t doing a very good job just now.”
Her eyes grew wide and he could almost feel the anger flooding out of her. She stomped past him and went to the door, grabbing her cloak and purse from the hook.
“Where are you going?”
Cora whipped open the door and stepped out.
“It’s almost a blizzard outside,” he called. “Where do you think you’re going in this weather?”
The stairs thumped hollowly as she descended.
“Cora!” he shouted after her. “Come back here!” He went to the stairwell and looked down in time to see her cloak catch the wind just before the door closed. “Cora!”
She was gone.
Chapter 15
The snow was deep, much deeper than she had expected. Between the heavy snowfall and the wind, some of the drifts were up to her calves already, which sent snow spilling over the tops of her boots. It would have made her stockings wet it they hadn’t been soaking already. Doesn’t matter, she told herself as she pressed on. There was no way she was going to spend the night under the same roof as that man, and if it meant she had to have wet feet for a while, then so be it.
The way he had spoken to her—the way he had talked down to her, insisting that she needed his help—had come as a real shock. She had thought that Nathan was different, but when push came to shove, he had shown himself to be just like any other man: so full of himself that he couldn’t imagine a woman who could get along without him. As she remembered the way he had said she needed his help, trying to rub it in her face, she was filled with a fire that burned away the cold.
She stopped to look around. There was nobody following her. At least, nobody that she could see. Mineral Point was now far behind; the last few houses on the outskirts of town were faded by all the snow in the air. She was alone.
Cora bunched the cloak more tightly under her chin and pressed on. In front of her, she could barely see the tree line that marked the informal city limits, and as she peered ahead she took another step and felt her foot go far deeper than she was expecting, almost sending her tripping onto her face. She pulled her foot out of the snow and realized that she had accidentally stepped off of the road and into the brush alongside.
Here’s another reason I hate February, she thought. Just when you thought you’d had enough snow, you get some more. She reached down to scoop out some snow from the top of her boot. Her fingers felt like they were burning from the cold, and while she managed to remove some, she also sent some deeper down, where it felt like an icy knife against her ankle.
She let out a forceful sigh and kept walking. If she was going to keep stopping like this, she was never going to get there, and she easily had another hour ahead of her. She stopped and looked ahead again. If she remembered right, once she got past the trees she would have a good long walk down the other side of the hill, and then she’d come to an unmarked crossroads. She needed to take a left there, and then it was nearly a straight shot to Dodgeville. If she picked up the pace she could be at the house before she knew it. Easy.
She just wasn’t sure how she was going to get inside. The thought chilled her as much as the wind did, and she again stopped and looked behind her. She could still change her mind. Maybe she was being too hard on him. He had rescued her from Drake, hadn’t he? Even with everything else going on, she had felt a thrill when he had taken her into his arms and kissed her, hadn’t she? She could go back and try to forget what he had said. She could try to forget what he apparently truly thought about her. She could let the storm send her running back and he would see that he’d been right.
She set her jaw and tromped ahead. She would figure out a way to get inside once she got there. If Emma had found a way in, so would she. There would surely be a door left open, or a window ajar or something. If nothing else she would break a window and worry about it later. She wasn’t going to give Nathan the satisfaction of seeing her come crawling back, and she was going to spend at least one night in the house before she lost it forever.
The wind whipped up then and sent a flurry of hard snowflakes darting against her cheeks. She bent her head and continued on. It had become harder to walk as the hill rose in front of her, and by the time she reached the top she was already exhausted. She stopped to catch her breath and looked around. Mineral Point had disappeared behind a veil of snow, and she could hardly tell where the white-blanketed fields in front of her ended and where the sky began. The road was invisible, but she started down the other side of the hill anyway.
I’ll figure it out one step at a time, she thought. There was a lot she would have to figure out, in fact. Drake was probably already over at Emma’s, filling her in on all that he’d discovered. It wouldn’t be difficult to show that Cora had lied to the lawyer and convinced Nathan to marry her under a false name; they hardly could have discovered more information if they had found a signed confession.
The thought of the lost money and the lost home was a bitter pill, that was sure. She had hardly had time to think about all that meant, but now as she made her way down to the broad open fields, she couldn’t avoid it. Just the other day she had let herself daydream of awaking on a warm summer morning as the sun flooded the master bedroom at the house. She would step out on the veranda and look out at the lush fields surrounding them, enjoying the fresh, cool air. She had even imagined Nathan still with her, sidling up and slipping an arm around her as they took in the sight of all that was theirs.
How foolish. Dreaming of a house and a husband. The house never really will be mine and the husband never really was.
Her boots felt so heavy as she went, laboring through some of the higher drifts, that she was becoming exhausted. If the snow hadn’t been so heavy, it would have been an easier walk, but as she raised her face to the sky she could see that the flakes were flying as hard as ever.
Cora studied the ground ahead closely. The crossroads should have been coming up soon, but with all the snow on the ground, it was hard to say. The drifts snaked across the terrain, hiding the natural contours of the land and making it almost impossible to say where the road ended and where the fields began. Only the occasional errant cornstalk that had escaped being plowed under in the fall gave her any clue. She kept walking.
Finally, she seemed to have arrived at the crossin
g. Cora looked all around. If she remembered right, the two roads met in the heart of the valley, and although she could no longer see the surrounding hills, it seemed like she was in the right place. She took a deep breath. If I had known it was going to be such hard going, maybe I would have stayed in town, she thought, then pressed on. But it’s too late now. I’ll show him. I don’t need anybody’s help. Least of all his.
By the time she had reached the top of the next hill, however, she couldn’t go on without taking a break. The handful of trees at the top of the ridge provided no cover from the wind; in fact, as they groaned and creaked they only gave Cora another reminder of how bad the weather had become. There was a large stone near one of the tree trunks, barely sticking out through the snow now, and she sat down.
I have to rest for a moment, she thought, wrapping the cloak more tightly around her. It almost didn’t seem to matter how well she covered herself; the freezing air seemed to blow right through as if she were wearing nothing at all. Her bottom almost felt like it was burning, the rock was so cold, and as she wiped her hand across her face she realized that her cheeks and nose were entirely numb. Got to get going. I need to keep walking to stay warm. But it just feels so good to sit down for a minute.
Her eyelids drifted shut.
I need to rest. Just for a moment.
Nathan paced back and forth in the apartment, not sure whether he should be madder at her or himself. He had never met a more stubborn woman. Cora was entirely incapable of admitting that she needed somebody’s help now and again, even though it should have been perfectly clear. Everybody needed somebody sooner or later; she just wouldn’t admit it. And this in spite of the fact that he had just come to her rescue.
Still, he might have gone a bit too far by pointing that out just then. After what she’d been through with the fat man, he should have known that she was upset and wasn’t going to be receptive to reason and logic. Or shouting. Yeah, maybe a bit too far.
