by Paty Jager
Hank laughed and clamped a hand on Clay’s shoulder. “I do believe you’ve met your match in this one.”
“She is rather feisty.” Clay grinned. “So did you bring horses or a wagon?”
“Wagon, I had supplies to pick up.” Hank flipped open his watch. “If we don’t hurry we’ll be hard pressed to get home before dark.”
“Are you through, Rachel?” Clay slid his chair back and stood.
“I’m ready.” She stood as he pulled her chair out for her. She looped her arm around his, and they followed Hank to the lobby.
“I’ll get your things.” Hank started toward the stairs.
“You’ll need help.” Clay slipped from her arm. “Wait here, we’ll be right back.” The two ascended the stairs, and she shifted her attention to the wide front windows.
The pedestrian traffic was slow, but wagons, horses, and coaches constantly passed the window. Scuffling at the top of the staircase caught her attention. Clay and Hank struggled over who would go down the stairs first. She glanced back to the window.
Her heart stopped.
It was him.
The pointy-nosed man from Meacham stared at her through the window. His wild-eyed gaze lifted to the men descending the stairs. He grinned wickedly and limped away.
She wanted to point the man out to Hank without revealing her discovery to Clay. He would make it a point to find the man. Her stomach churned, souring her meal. The man had looked dangerous. She didn’t want Clay to engage him in a fight.
The brothers dropped the trunk at the bottom of the stairs.
“You can’t tell me some scrawny kid hauled that up the stairs by himself.” Hank bent over, his hands on his knees sucking air. “What’s in there?”
“Medical books.” Rachel calmed her nerves and smiled at the men. She needed to get Hank alone and tell him about the man following them.
“The horses and wagon are down at the livery. You two stay. I’ll bring them around.” Hank headed to the door.
Rachel took a step to follow and talk to him outside.
“Rachel?” Clay put his hand out. She walked to him and twined their fingers. She’d have to find another time to get Hank alone and tell him they were being followed.
Chapter 27
Dusk settled over the canyon. Rachel stared at the huge building emitting the loudest pounding noise she’d ever heard. Clay’s explanation matched the evenly spaced hits resounding in a continuous rhythm.
“I assume the noisy building is the stamp mill,” she said loud enough to be heard over the din.
“Yes.” Clay pulled her tighter against his side. His breath heated her neck and ear. “It runs around the clock to keep up with the demand.”
“How will we sleep with that racket?” Her body ached from sitting on the hard wood bench and the jostle of the rutted road they’d followed.
“You’ll find the sound lulls you to sleep.” His hand slipped to her hip and he squeezed. “A little activity before sleeping helps, too.” His voice, barely perceptible in her ear, made her glance at Hank.
The wagon stopped in front of a smaller building. Clay climbed down and extended his hands to her. She slid to the edge of the seat and placed her hands on his shoulders, dropping into his arms. He held her tight, and she breathed in the scent of shave soap and Clay. His head tipped down and his lips closed in on hers.
“Help me get your things inside,” Hank said, his irritated voice interrupting the spell.
Clay growled and released her.
“Are you going to the cabin tonight?” Clay asked, moving along the wagon box to the back.
“I’ve been staying here since everyone left. Made more sense.”
The sly grin on Hank’s face should have aggravated Rachel, but she giggled. He was having fun keeping them apart.
“Then the sooner we find a place in town the better.” Clay grabbed one end of the trunk and Hank the other.
“If you’re planning to live here and not marry this woman—”
“Please, call me Rachel.”
“Rachel, then you better be ready to take the wrath of Myrle.”
Rachel’s abdomen tightened. Who was Myrle? A woman Clay romanced before he arrived at the Blind School? Jealousy gurgled in her stomach. The unpleasant taste and the pounding of the mill prickled her skin. She didn’t like the sensations.
Clay cringed as if in pain. “I forgot about her.”
“W-who is Myrle?” She hated asking and sounding like the jealous sort, but she had to know if he’d given another the same affection he’d bestowed on her.
“She’s a woman who helped us through tough times when our parents were killed,” Hank said, nodding to the closed door.
She trotted to the door and opened it for them, relief making her feet fly across the ground.
“She can get ornery when she thinks one of us isn’t on the straight and narrow path,” Clay said.
His furrowed brow and pensive expression was endearing. He cared what the woman thought.
They set her trunk near a wall in the kitchen and returned to the wagon. She scanned the room. A smooth wood table with six chairs sat in the middle of the floor. A drain board and hand pump ran along one wall. Reigning supreme on the inside wall beside a door stood a large shiny cook stove. The set up was well thought out and homey. But a far cry from the large kitchen Matilda managed at her parents’ home.
Crossing the plank floor, she pushed on the inside door and walked into what must be the parlor. A barrel stove stood in one corner. A braided rug covered the open center and several wooden chairs and rockers ringed the rug. Kerosene lamps rested on sconces on the walls. She compared the sparse furniture and crude lighting to the gaslights, velvet furniture, and objects of art in her mother’s parlor.
Two other doors led out of the room. One had a line of pegs on the wall where a coat and hat hung. The other stood open, revealing a hall.
Hank and Clay banged through the kitchen door, carrying the valises.
“Which room are you in?” Clay asked as she stepped out of the hallway threshold.
“I’m in Colin’s. Didn’t want to sleep in that big bed of Ethan and Aileen’s by myself.” Hank carried her bag into the last room on the left.
Clay followed.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Hank pushed Clay out of the room backward. “Rachel stays in here, she’s the guest. You stay across the hall in Shayla’s room.”
Clay dropped the bag and knocked his brother’s hands off his chest. “Don’t push me and don’t tell me where I’m sleeping.”
They’d lived together before, but he’d grown up in many ways while at the school. He no longer needed a big brother to look out for him, and he wanted Rachel to see him as a whole man. He damn sure didn’t want his brother telling him what to do. Especially in front of her.
He caught Rachel’s citrus scent. Air fluttered passed him.
“I can take the smaller bed.”
The waver in her voice bothered him. “No. You and I will sleep in Ethan and Aileen’s room.”
“Is that the arrangements you had at the school?”
Hank’s preacher attitude was getting old fast. “No, we didn’t. But we aren’t at the school.” He picked up his bag and pushed passed Hank, stepping into the room. Clay dropped the bag with a loud thud and pivoted.
“Rachel?” Clay stood in the hallway and held his hand out.
She twined her fingers with his. He led her eight steps down the hall to the washroom.
“In here is a tub and running water.” He opened the door. “If you want a bath you have to heat the water in the kitchen and haul it in here. Cold water is always available, and there’s a drain so you don’t have to scoop the water from the tub.”
“I don’t see a water closet.” Her hat brim bumped his shoulder.
“There’s a privy outside. There hasn’t been a need to add a water closet. Aileen was tickled with the water pump.”
Her fingers loos
ened and tried to slip from his grip. He hadn’t had an opportunity to visit her home, but he was pretty sure it made this one look shabby. Did seeing how primitive they lived give her second thoughts?
“Go get ready for bed. I’m going to catch up on things with Hank.” He cupped the side of her face and kissed her lips. She didn’t respond. Damn. He shouldn’t have brought her here, or gotten closer to her. She would rip his heart out.
She slipped from his hand. “Good night, Hank.”
Her steps faded in the direction of Ethan and Aileen’s room. Would she even welcome him in the bed tonight? If Hank hadn’t been so pushy he wouldn’t have pushed back and would have slept in Shayla’s small bed for propriety.
But dammit, he’d learned while he was gone that he could be his own man and make decisions. Something his older brothers had failed to let him do.
Hank yanked on his sleeve, and he followed the sound of his brother’s footsteps down the hall, through the sitting room, and into the kitchen.
A metal lid clanked on the stove. The whoosh of the pump priming, the rattle of cups, his brother’s heavy steps—he’d missed these sounds tucked away in the cottage by himself. He’d always had the chatter and activity of his brothers around him.
Some nights at the school, he’d been so lonely he thought he’d go crazy. Then Rachel started warming to him, and he’d thought of her night after night and what it would feel like to fall asleep and wake with her in his arms.
A chair scraped the floor. “Sit.”
He walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat.
“Are you sure this woman is a doctor?” Hank lowered his voice.
“Why are you so untrusting?” Clay slapped a hand on the table. The sound rang through the room like a gun shot.
Hank cleared his throat, and the chair under him squeaked. “Sh-she’s got a nasty looking scar. Only prostitutes are that beat up.”
Clay surged to his feet and yanked Hank out of his chair. “She’s not a whore,” he said through clenched teeth, the pounding in his head overriding all other sounds. “She’s a doctor, her father is a judge, and that scar came from saving her sister from a runaway wagon.” He shook Hank. “And if you imply anything different again, I’ll forget you’re my brother.”
“Clay, don’t do this.”
Rachel’s soft voice seeped into his haze of rage. A small hand rubbed his back.
He unclenched his hands. The chair behind Hank scraped across the floor as his brother gained his footing. Rachel slid her arms around his waist.
“We’re all tired. We’ll talk in the morning.”
Her citrus scent filled his nostrils. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “You shouldn’t have come out here?”.”
“I need…” She rose on her toes. “I need to use the privy and haven’t the faintest idea where to find it in the dark,” she whispered.
He slipped his hand down to hers and headed for the door. The fresh air would do him good. Outside, he turned right and followed along the lean-to. At the corner he counted fifty steps.
“Oh, I see it. Lucky there’s a moon tonight.” She squeezed his hand. “I can find my way back.”
“Do what you need. I’m going to be here enjoying the mountain air.” He released her hand. The snap of twigs and crunch of dried pine needles as she made her way to the outhouse were sharp over the dull thud of the stamp mill muffled by the trees.
Nothing about Rachel should’ve given Hank cause to think she was a whore. He cringed. Other than his bathing with her, and now he planned to spend the night with her in his arms. But to come to that conclusion because of her scar? Now, he understood why she adamantly covered it up. People thought the worst before they gave her a chance to prove otherwise.
The door smacked shut. Footsteps approached.
He walked toward her. “Ready to go to bed?”
“Yes. I’m so tired I think I dozed off in the privy.” She giggled.
“You weren’t in there that long.” He wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
“It was so dark, I imagined what it must be like for you, and I thought I heard someone mumbling behind the building. So I must have dozed off and been dreaming.”
Clay didn’t want to scare her, but he wanted her back in the house. No one should’ve been behind the outhouse. The building sat behind the office at the edge of the forest.
He ushered her back inside.
“The lights are on, should we turn them out?”
“Yes.” He motioned her to do so, and he locked the door.
“Ready?” Rachel asked from across the room, near the inside door.
He crossed to her and followed her through the sitting room and down the hall. She turned into the room on the left.
He hesitated at the door. “Good night.”
“You’re not sleeping in here?” Disappointment laced each word.
“I thought about what Hank said. Proprieties…”
“I don’t care about that. I’m in a strange place, and I don’t want to sleep in this bed alone.”
The conviction in her voice sped up his heart. Clay stepped in the room and closed the door.
“You’re sure about this? If you do stay in Sumpter”—Lord, he hoped she would—“this could hurt your reputation if someone finds out.”
“What do you think people are going to say tomorrow morning when they find out I spent the night in this house with both you and Hank?” The bed creaked as she climbed in. “As I see it, my reputation is already a mess, so why punish myself by sleeping alone?”
He liked her logic. Clay found a chair, sat down, and removed his boots and socks. Did she watch him? The knowledge Hank slept on the other side of the wall kept his desires in check. They would sleep in one another’s arms tonight and nothing more. Not until they had the house to themselves.
He left his drawers on and slid under the covers. She snuggled against him. Soft flannel rubbed against his side. Her arm draped across his chest.
She’d set her boundaries tonight as well. He kissed her head.
“Don’t let Hank’s initial response to me come between you.” Her soft words whispered the hair on his chest.
“Now, I see why you’re so adamant about covering your scar.” He hugged her. “I’m sorry.”
She rose up, drawing her body from his. “Why?”
“Having to endure people’s prejudgment.”
She kissed his cheek. “It’s the same for you. Look at my father’s behavior toward you. He never took the time to get to know you. Only judged you because you can’t see.”
“I won’t ask you to take your makeup off any more.”
She snuggled back down beside him.
“Good night, Rachel.”
“Night.”
Her body relaxed, and her breathing settled into an even rhythm. He’d keep her safe in his arms tonight.
Clay mulled over the night’s events. His brother’s prejudice seemed out of character. Give him time. He’d see Rachel for all her wonderful qualities.
Her comment about someone mumbling behind the outhouse kept him awake. Who could it have been? The man she said followed them onto the train? Did he get off in Baker City as well?
Who was he?
What did he want?
Chapter 28
Rachel awoke and smiled. Clay faced her, his arm wrapped protectively around her waist. She stared at his face only inches from hers. To wake up every morning and gaze upon his face would be a dream come true.
She trailed her fingers down the muscled ridges of his arm. His grip tightened. In one fluid movement she was on her back, and he hovered over her. His hardness pushed against her lower body.
“Good morning,” he said in a raspy first of the day voice.
“Yes, it is.” She ran a finger along his whiskered jawline.
Clay collapsed on top of her. His weight startled and excited her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and savored his weight and hard body. Her body came to
life, heating, aching to be closer. She pressed against him, seeking more contact.
He dipped his head and seduced her with a long, wet kiss.
Her body longed for more, but her head screamed, “No.” Rachel turned her face from his advances to catch a breath and clear her head. His hands slid under her, cupping her buttocks and pressing her against his hardened length. Her genitals throbbed. Her heart raced in anticipation of the wonders he could show her body.
“Stop.” She shoved her hands between them, trying to pry their bodies apart.
Clay froze, his hands pulled out from under her, and he rolled off. “Sorry, I’ve never woke next to a woman before. Guess I got carried away.”
Clay’s disappointment drew his features into a boyish pout. His contriteness tugged at her heart.
“It’s not that I don’t want your attention. I haven’t unpacked my doctor’s bag from my trunk.”
His brow furrowed. “What’s that have to do with fooling around?”
“I have items in my bag that will keep me from becoming with child.” She caressed his cheek and felt his jaw clench. How did she explain her feelings to him about becoming pregnant? “I crave your touch, but a child right now would sabotage my livelihood as a doctor.”
“I see.” He rolled off the side of the bed and sat.
He didn’t “see”. His actions spoke louder than his lack of words.
Rachel slipped behind him, pressing against his back and nibbling his neck. “I desire you more than I thought possible to crave another.”
His body remained tense, unresponsive. “But your practical mind can’t see you could have both. A child and be a doctor.”
“I told you, I can’t do both yet. A child would require time away from my practice, which isn’t good when I’m starting out. I could also bring home a disease.” She grasped his hand when he started to stand. “I don’t want to endanger a child.”
Clay ran a hand over his face. “Or you don’t think I would make a good father.”
“No.” She slid onto his lap, straddling him. “You would be a loving, protective father. It’s me, not you.”
Rachel skimmed her hands over his shoulders and through the hair on his chest. His body jerked.
