by Radclyffe
“I think so,” Mae said.
“It’s something wonderful.”
“Yes.” Mae smiled up at Vance, who stood beside her chair. “Yes, it is.”
Chapter Nineteen
“Hello,” Mae said, noticing in the bright light of day the smudges of weariness beneath Vance’s eyes. She wondered if there would ever come a time when those shadows would lift.
“Good morning.” Vance nodded to Kate as she took the chair next to Mae’s. She registered absently the look of open affection that Kate gave to Jessie, but her attention was completely focused on Mae. When they’d parted some hours before, Mae had been disheveled from sleep. Beautiful in the way that women were when at their most natural. Now, she was dressed in a midnight blue dress that was considerably less revealing than what she wore in the evenings, but she was no less striking. Her hair was piled high and held with delicate combs; here and there a twisting strand of gold fell free. Her hands were unadorned save for a single emerald ring on her wedding finger. Her hands were delicate and small, and Vance was immediately assaulted with the memory of those fingers skimming her breasts. Without being aware of it, she clenched her fist on the table, her body vibrating with tension.
“How is Jed?” Kate asked, brushing her hand down Jessie’s arm as her lover settled beside her.
“Doing as well as can be expected.” Jessie tilted her chin toward Vance. “Thanks to the doctor, here.” She glanced at the scrawny boy who approached the table with an inquiring look on his face. “Coffee. Vance?”
“Lots of it,” Vance replied. “And the thanks are mostly due to the fact that Jed’s stubborn and strong.”
“Neither would do him much good,” Mae pointed out gently, “if you hadn’t gotten the bullet out as slick as you did.”
“We got lucky there.” When Mae smiled and briefly stroked the back of Vance’s hand, a knot of tension coiled in the pit of Vance’s stomach. She wanted to open her hand and lace her fingers through Mae’s, just to feel more of her skin. She caught a whiff of spice and warm earth, and longed to press her face to Mae’s neck. It was dangerous being anywhere near her, because all she wanted was to lose herself in the sensation of her. She straightened and moved her hand away. “Another twenty-four hours and you can take him back to the ranch.”
“We’re used to tending our wounded,” Jessie said quietly.
“I imagine that you are. That’s good.” Vance looked across the table into Jessie’s eyes. “I imagine you spend a goodly amount of time on the range. Jed’s going to need fairly constant care for the first week or so. If I can, I’ll come out a couple of times a day to look after his dressings.”
“I can help with that,” Kate said quickly.
“So can I,” Mae added.
“I expect that’s so,” Vance said. “But I’ll need to watch him closely for the first four or five days. Then, if he’s coming along with no problems, you two can take over.” She shifted and glanced at Mae. “It’s quite some distance to the ranch, and you shouldn’t be out riding alone. I’d be pleased to escort you if you intend to visit.”
Mae’s eyes widened in surprise. She was used to coming and going at all hours of the night and day with no one but herself to guard her well-being. That Vance should even concern herself sent a thrill through her. Still, it wasn’t necessary. “You’ll have better things to do than take me arou—”
“Vance is right,” Jessie said firmly. “It’s too far for you to go alone.”
“Now listen here, both of you,” Mae said in exasperation. While she was touched, it did not escape her notice that both Jessie and Vance came and went unescorted. “I don’t need any more protection than what I already have. I can shoot as well as either one of you, I’ll wager.”
“I expect you can.” Vance smiled. “But since I will be going that way, there’s no reason you can’t come along to protect me.”
Despite her indignation, Mae laughed. “Why the two of you seem to think that you’re the only capable ones is beyond me.”
Vance and Jessie exchanged a commiserating glance. Catching sight of the stubborn set to Jessie’s jaw, Kate bumped her shoulder. “Neither Mae nor I are careless. You’re just going to have to trust us.”
Jessie sighed in exasperation. “It’s not about trust, it’s about…it’s about…” She looked across the table at Mae and Vance, then said quietly to Kate, “It’s about loving you.”
“I know it is.” Kate’s expression softened and she smoothed her palm over Jessie’s thigh. “And I feel exactly the same way about you. Do you see how it goes both ways?”
“I suppose.” Jessie cast one more hopeful look in Vance’s direction, but got only a shake of her head in return. “Then I think you and I should take a ride outside town for some target practice.”
Kate’s face lit up. “Now?”
Jessie laughed. “I don’t see why not.”
“Mae, do you mind?” Kate asked.
“Lord, no. I think it’s a great idea.” She gave Jessie a knowing look. “And you ought to get her something with a little more power than what she’s got in that bag right now.”
“I intend to.” Jessie stood and held out her hand. “Ready, Kate?”
Kate jumped up and clasped Jessie’s hand briefly before gathering her things. “I’ll come by later, Mae, since it looks like we’ll be staying in town one more night.”
“You do that. I want to hear all about your lesson.” Mae watched Kate and Jessie hurry away with a fond expression. “Sometimes I forget that she’s little more than a girl.”
“Kate?” Vance asked.
“Yes,” Mae said, returning her attention to Vance. “I don’t think she’s seen twenty yet.”
“You can’t be much ahead of her.”
“You have a very smooth way with words, Vance. Let’s say I’m closer to thirty than twenty.”
Vance drank deeply from the bitter coffee the young boy had left and thought of all the other young boys she had watched die by the hundreds during the war. “Years don’t matter nearly as much as how we spend them. Kate strikes me as being a very sensible woman.”
“She is. They both are.” Mae pushed her tea aside. “I can tell when you’re thinking about the war. Your eyes get so sad.”
“You mustn’t worry for me,” Vance said.
“But you know that I do, don’t you.”
“I know that it’s in your nature to care for others.” Vance looked away from the deep green of Mae’s eyes, fearing she would surrender to their gentle beckoning. “Last night, you comforted me. That was kindness.”
“Last night I held you. Does it matter why?” Mae whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“I want to be holding you again right now.”
Vance shivered and the cup she held in her hand rattled against the tabletop. “I have work to do.”
“I know. Will you come back tonight?”
“Even if I don’t know why?”
“I don’t care.” Aware that they were in public, Mae rested a fingertip delicately against Vance’s wrist. She would have liked to have taken her hand. “Late, after midnight.”
Vance knew why Mae made the request. She would be busy during the evening and most of the night seeing that the girls were not abused by customers, or taking care of customers herself. Mae had never made a secret nor given an apology for what she did to make her way in the world. Vance did not expect her to, yet the thought of a man using her made her tremble with fury. She looked away, not wanting Mae to see her anger.
“Do you think it means something to me?” Mae asked quietly.
Vance snapped her head back and searched Mae’s troubled gaze. “Do you think I judge you?”
“I don’t know.” Mae shook her head. “I can’t change what—”
“I don’t like to see your goodness wasted.”
Mae felt a shock of surprise. She was used to disdain or distaste, but never concern. “Do you think that’s what I give them? N
o. I give them a lie, and everyone knows it. But sometimes a lie is better than nothing.”
Vance looked down at the table where Mae’s hand lay close to hers. She imagined the softness and the heat in her touch, the tenderness and the care. She covered Mae’s hand with hers, and when Mae would have pulled away, closed her fingers around Mae’s.
“Vance, someone might see—”
“I do not want lies between us.”
As her breath fled, Mae turned her hand over and felt Vance’s fingers slip through hers. She clasped them gently. “There won’t be.”
“I’ll come tonight if I can,” Vance said. “I’m not sure I can give you anything. At least not enough.” She lifted her eyes to Mae’s. “That’s the truth.”
“Then that’s enough.”
*
The tree branch danced and skittered across the ground as if possessed.
“Good shot,” Jessie said with pride. She stood behind Kate, both hands lightly on Kate’s hips, sighting over Kate’s shoulder as Kate fired Jessie’s revolver. “Now, try the stone off to the side there. The reddish one.”
“It looks so small.”
“Make it even smaller. Sight a spot no bigger than your thumb. That’s your target.” She pressed closer, steadying Kate against the front of her body. “Remember, squeeze all the way through the shot.”
Kate imagined a white circle in the center of the dusty stone and allowed her awareness of everything else to slip away. She felt the curved metal of the trigger against her finger, and when they blended together as a whole, she closed her hand, increasing the pressure until the gun fired. A puff of dirt kicked up six inches from her target. “Damn.”
Jessie laughed. “That would do the job if you can get that close.”
Kate stepped away and handed the revolver, grip first, to Jessie. “Let me see you do it.”
“Kate,” Jessie protested. “I learned to shoot almost as soon as I learned to ride, and I learned to ride before I could walk.”
“Jessie,” Kate said threateningly.
“All right,” Jessie said quickly in surrender. She reholstered her Colt .45 and moved several more feet away. Then, almost faster than Kate could follow, she drew and fired. The stone jumped straight up and she fired again, hitting it in the air and splitting it into pieces.
“I want to be able to do that,” Kate said. “That was wonderful.”
“It might be better if we practiced with the rifle. You can keep that beside you in the buckboard, and the range is better.”
“Both,” Kate said with determination.
Jessie gave Kate a long look. “What are you planning, Kate?”
Kate smiled and held out her hand. “Come sit beside me and I’ll tell you.”
After they climbed into the buckboard, Jessie put her arm around Kate’s shoulders. “All right. Seems like a lot happened while I was away for a few days.”
“You have no right to talk, Jessie Forbes. Not after what happened to you out there.” To soften her words, Kate kissed Jessie quickly. “Vance said a town this size needs a midwife. I think she’d teach me.”
“Midwife,” Jessie said slowly. “I…why, Kate, I…”
Anxiously, Kate went on quickly. “I know I’d be away from the ranch some of the time, but I’m sure I can take care of everything at home and still—”
“I think it sounds wonderful,” Jessie said firmly. “I think you would make a fine midwife.” She turned on the seat and took both of Kate’s hands, studying her seriously. “This is what you want? It would make you happy?”
“You make me happy,” Kate said. “Wonderfully happy. But sometimes I feel like I want to do more. To do something that…” She sighed, frustrated, searching for words. “I want to have something of my own that matters.”
Jessie nodded. “Like the ranch matters to me.”
“Yes. Like that.”
“Well,” Jessie said, “then you have to be able to shoot. And ride astride. As soon as we get back to the ranch, we’ll pick you out a horse.”
“I was rather thinking of Rory.”
Jessie laughed out loud. “Kate, Rory is a wild mustang. I can barely sit him.”
“He likes me.”
“He likes the sugar and apples you give him.”
Kate grinned. “That too.” She kissed Jessie again. “Sometimes bribery works.”
Jessie put both arms around Kate and pulled her close. With her mouth on Kate’s, she muttered, “So do kisses.”
*
Mae removed the key from the inside pocket of her dress and fit it to the lock in the door to her room. As she stepped inside, she was propelled forward by a sharp blow in the center of her back. She would have stumbled and fallen, but large hands grasped her arms and swung her around so forcefully that she banged against the wall, striking her head hard enough to cause her vision to blur.
“Been holding back on the profits, Mae?” a deep male voice grated. “Or have you just been too busy entertaining the new doctor to work the way you ought to?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mae said sharply, trying to twist out of the painful grasp. She turned her face away from the fetid odor of stale whiskey and tobacco. He was larger than her by half, and he leaned his weight against her, leaving no doubt as to the pleasure he got from handling her. “You’ve been getting your money just like always.”
Michael Hanrahan came around once a week to collect the money she and the girls earned entertaining men. She had never been certain to whom he reported, but she was sure that he did not own the Golden Nugget. He was too often drunk and far too ignorant to run a successful business, and she doubted that Frank would work for the likes of him. Nevertheless, he had power by virtue of the fact that he represented whoever controlled them all from behind the scenes.
“I’ve got what you’ve come for in my dresser,” Mae said calmly. “Let me go and I’ll get it for you.”
He put his hand beneath her dress and dragged his fingers up her thigh to clasp her roughly between the legs. “How do you know what I’ve come for?”
She stayed perfectly still and kept her eyes on his, refusing to allow him the pleasure of seeing her pain or her fear. She couldn’t reach her Derringer, which was strapped just above her knee, and even if she could, she wouldn’t shoot him. Killing him would only bring down the wrath of other men. Men who were most certainly more dangerous. “I imagine you’ve got somewhere to be with that money.”
His gaze flickered away, and she knew that he was considering how much time he had before he needed to deliver what he’d come to collect. When he roughly covered her mouth with his and forced his tongue past her lips, she reacted instinctively. She bit him, and he pulled away swearing. She didn’t have time to raise her arm and block the vicious backhand he swung at her face. When brutal pain exploded inside her head, she slumped to the floor.
Chapter Twenty
“Hey, Jed,” Jessie said, gently resting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Not bad,” Jed said, his voice rough and raspy. He smiled weakly at Kate, who stood by Jessie’s side.
“The doctor says you’re doing very well,” Kate said, leaning down to kiss his cheek. “Tomorrow, we’re going to take you home.”
“That sounds right fine.” He coughed and grimaced. “Sorry to be so much trouble.”
“Guess you must’ve fallen on your head when you pitched off that horse,” Jessie said roughly, “seeing as how you’re talking foolishness.”
“I can’t say as I’ll mind going home.”
Vance came in just in time to hear Jed’s remark. “Something wrong with our hospitality?”
“No,” he said, turning his head slowly as she approached. “But being here makes me feel like something mighty serious might be ailing me.”
“Oh,” Vance said musingly, “nothing that a little time won’t take care of.” She took off her coat and hung it on a pine clothes rack inside the door. “I
’m going to need to take a look at that back of yours now.”
“All right,” Jed said.
As Vance opened a cabinet against the wall and withdrew a stack of clean bandages, she said, “It might be a bit painful. I’ll give you some laudanum before we start.”
“Can’t say as I like that stuff overmuch. Makes my head feel like it’s filled with wool.”
“It can do that. You won’t need as much this time.” She placed the supplies on a stand by the bed and regarded Jessie and Kate. “This will take me a little while.”
“I’d like to help,” Kate said. “Then I’ll know what needs to be done.”
“All right. Jess?”
“I’ll just wait over here out of the way.” Jessie patted Jed’s shoulder again before moving to the opposite side of the room. She leaned against the wall and watched Vance and Kate as they worked. Despite having only one arm, Vance was obviously strong and was able to move Jed onto his side with only a little assistance from Kate. When they pulled the blanket down, Jessie saw that the bandage over the center of Jed’s back was dark with blood. She tensed, knowing he was a long way from being all right and that it could easily have been her lying there instead of him.
Vance said something to Kate that Jessie couldn’t hear, and then both women went to a sideboard where they rinsed their hands in an enamel basin with something Vance poured from one of the containers she withdrew from a cabinet. Then Vance removed the poultice over Jed’s wound, pointing something out to Kate, whose face was a study in rapt attention. Jessie wondered whether Kate would have become a doctor like Vance if she had remained in Boston. It struck her that when Kate had come West, she’d given up far more than Jessie had ever considered. When Kate looked over at her and smiled with excitement, Jessie smiled back, but she felt a trickle of apprehension race along her spine.
Her attention and the stirrings of worry were diverted by the thud of running feet in the outer room and the bang of the door crashing open. All three women staring in surprise as a young boy of perhaps eight careened into the room, sweating and out of breath. He gaped at Vance.
