by Jodi Thomas
NELL SAT ON THE PORCH UNTIL JACOB AND HIS HUGE black horse disappeared from sight. The cold of the day crept into her, but she didn’t want to go inside. She needed desperately, if only for a few minutes, to be alone.
Jacob had kissed her. Not because she’d asked him to, or in greeting as he used to do when she’d been a kid, or even on impulse.
He’d kissed her for no reason at all.
Nell touched her lips. She’d been kissed a few times at school parties. Thinking back, she decided she had been kissed better, longer, softer, with more passion. But she’d never been kissed like this.
There was something solid about it. A promise. A claiming.
Nell wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She’d always thought of herself as independent. She wasn’t sure she liked being claimed.
But he hadn’t said a word. Only that he’d been wanting to do it for a long time.
He hadn’t even been romantic. No evening shadows, no candlelight and music, no holding hands and tender words. What had he said? That he needed to remind her about something.
What? She wanted to scream. That he was a man? That he cared about her? That they were still both young? What had he reminded her of with one kiss?
Nell turned back to the house. Maybe he wanted to remind her that she was a woman, or maybe that she should wait for him to come back. It wouldn’t matter, she told herself. She’d wait. She couldn’t think of marriage while her life was being threatened. But waiting wouldn’t change anything. She still could not marry him.
She found everyone crowded around the kitchen table, eating Marla’s breakfast rolls out of the pan. Nell smiled. She’d never have one of those proper families where people ate every meal at the dining table like she’d been taught in school. Thank God.
Gypsy made room for her as everyone told Nell their new theories as to what might have happened. As always, Marla was quiet but turned red when Mr. Harrison bragged on her cooking.
Gypsy decided the shooting might have been meant for her. After all, she’d lived in the house longer than anyone else, and when she was here alone, she used to take naps in a chair upstairs by that very window. “Maybe some fellow’s got it in for me,” she speculated with her mouth full. “I ain’t spent much of my life trying to make friends. I got more jilted lovers than dogs got fleas.”
The sheriff pointed his finger as if giving a lecture. “No one’s trying to kill you, Gypsy. You’re pretty much doing that job all by yourself. Drinking the cheap, rotgut whiskey sold out the back door of the saloon will eat you from inside out.”
“Well, Parker, if that stuff is poison, I’m racing you to the grave.” Gypsy laughed. “My people live a long time unless a bullet gets them. How long you figure sheriffs live?”
Parker twisted up his mouth. “I aim to stay alive long enough to let the whiskey pickle me so when they dig me up in a hundred years, there I’ll be, same as the day I died.”
Gypsy made a face. “Yeah, old and ugly.”
Everyone laughed as Marla brought out another pan of rolls from the oven.
Nell was thankful the sheriff didn’t tell the bookkeeper Marla’s nickname. It had haunted her long enough. When Nell first returned, after the accident, the sheriff had shown up on her doorstep with Marla in tow. He’d whispered that no one in town would hire her, and she wouldn’t leave Clarendon. Just the thought of going to apply for a job frightened her near to death, Parker explained. She’d never find the nerve to travel to a town where she didn’t know anyone, so Parker helped by asking around, and this was the last house.
Nell welcomed her in, figuring she couldn’t be as bad a cook as Gypsy. Marla, though four years older than Nell, had always been nice when they were children. She’d even whispered a hello when Nell saw her on the streets the few times Nell had come home from school, which was more than most people did. Knowing how shy Marla was made the greeting mean more to Nell. If Marla was down on her luck, the sheriff was right in guessing that Nell would be willing to help.
“Thanks,” Nell said as memory faded and the worries of today returned. Marla passed her a plate with a roll made of bread and meat. “I love these. I truly do.”
“I know,” Marla whispered back. “That’s why I make them so often.”
“We all love them, deary.” Gypsy reached for another. “You’re a better cook than I ever was a hooker.”
Marla turned away but didn’t lower her head as she used to do when Gypsy talked of her former occupation.
Nell remembered what the sheriff had said that first morning he’d brought Marla over. “She can cook like a dream, but she’s had a run of bad luck. I hired her to cook for the jail, and the last four men she fed got the death penalty. They call her Last Meal Marla. She also cooked for Old Ralph over at the hotel. He died three days after she went to work for him, but it was more his heart than her food, I figure.”
The sheriff didn’t have to say more. As in most small towns, it only took a few times before folks made up their mind about people. If Marla cooked for fifty years in this town there would be some who wouldn’t take a bite.
Nell hired her on the spot and offered her room and board with a fair salary. Within days, she joined the family.
While everyone talked, Nell rolled a few feet backward and checked the baking soda tin where Marla kept the grocery money. Despite her bank account and the property she owned, the grocer still wouldn’t allow her to buy on credit. He also wouldn’t deliver, so Marla made at least two trips a week to the store for supplies.
“I’ve already checked,” Marla whispered from just behind Nell. “We’ve enough to make it another week and still feed extra mouths.”
Nell nodded. “My stash upstairs is also almost gone.”
When she ran completely out of household money, she’d have to go into town. Nell knew she would be the freak everyone watched. Last time Mary Ruth had lifted her from the buggy to her wheelchair when they’d stopped at the bank. Several people had commented at the sight of a woman carrying another woman even if Mary Ruth was a nurse. One had even hinted that maybe a man hid beneath the uniform, for Nell Smith, at over five feet seven, would be no light load.
The only other time she’d gone to town, her friends Carter and Bailee had come from Cedar Point by train to help. Carter had carried her to a bed made in the wagon because she couldn’t stand the pain long enough to sit in a buggy. He’d lifted her out carefully when they’d gone to the bank and carried her down the street to first the lawyer, then the doctor. Everyone called her Poor Child as if she’d stopped being an adult when she lost the ability to walk.
She couldn’t ask her friends to come again. They had children and a ranch. Nell looked back at the table. Except for Mr. Harrison, no one could lift her, and she couldn’t ask him to pick her up. She’d just have to hope the money lasted until Jacob returned. He’d carry her with ease while she did her business in town and she’d be willing to bet no one would talk behind his back.
Each time, she was torn between drawing more money out, or leaving it where it was safe. If she took too much home, she knew she would just be asking to be robbed. If she took too little, she’d have to make the embarrassing trip more often.
“I’ve got most of my salary stashed under my bed,” Marla whispered. “You’re welcome to use it.”
“Thanks,” Nell answered. “We’ll make it.”
They returned to the others. Now that everyone had finished breakfast, they huddled like generals preparing for battle. Nell tried to convince them that the shooting might have been just a one-time thing that would never happen again, but no one listened. They planned to be ready.
The sheriff left to check in at his office and returned two hours later to say that he’d ordered the glass for the window, but the hardware store owner said he had no one who could deliver it or put it in. Parker quoted the bothersome owner as saying that most folks had men around who could do such things. Then the sheriff looked guilty that he’d relayed such a hurtful message.
/> Gypsy swore and stomped. Mr. Harrison simply stood up from the desk where he’d been working and said, “I’ll go, if you have no objection, Miss Nell. It’s time I took some air anyway. I’ll prepare a note stating that I’m your bookkeeper. If you’ll sign it, that should be all the hardware store owner needs.”
Nell nodded, surprised he’d offer. “Marla will give you our cash funds. I don’t know how much you’ll need, but I’m sure it will be enough.” She didn’t want to start worrying about money for food yet, but the glass was cutting into what cash they had on hand.
A minute later, Harrison handed her a neatly written note and a pen. “I’ll be back before the sheriff finishes lunch.”
To Nell’s total surprise, Marla grabbed her bonnet. “May I go with you? I need a few supplies.”
Harrison headed for the door. “I’ll have the wagon ready in five minutes. I want to stuff it with straw to protect the glass.”
“I’ll be ready,” Marla whispered.
The sheriff filled his plate from the pots left warming on the stove and joined Nell in the great room. While he ate, he talked about the time he’d been shot and Fat Alice had patched him up in the very spot where he now was having lunch. “She had a rule.” He laughed. “A man got a free drink for every slug dug out of him.”
Nell tried to listen, but her thoughts followed Marla and Mr. Harrison. If she wasn’t safe in her own house, would they be safe in town or on the road? In a wagon the trip didn’t take long. Nell had a feeling she’d count the minutes until they returned.
She was relieved when the sheriff suggested they sit on the porch while he smoked his cigar and they waited.
She guessed he also worried, though that didn’t seem to slow his talking. While she sat in her wheelchair with a blanket over her legs, Parker paced back and forth. He told her it would be spring before long, and she needed to think about stocking the ranches with cattle and men. The sheriff talked as if he’d ranched for years and not spent his life behind a badge.
“There’s trouble festering in town. Too many men out of work. Too many looking for a quick way to get rich. You’ll need to be real careful who you hire.”
“I will,” she said, only half listening.
Most of the land she’d inherited had been either abandoned or neglected before it came her way. Nell had heard a few old hands still lived off some of the land, running a few head of their own but not working the ranch. If the men who’d offered to marry her knew what bad shape the ranches were in, all would have probably run faster than they did.
Harrison would know soon enough of her troubles; then he’d probably be on the next train out.
Remembering former suitors, she asked, “Has Walter Farrow left yet?”
The sheriff shook his head. “He’s hanging out talking to whoever will listen. He checked out of the hotel this morning and moved into that old house that used to be his uncle’s. Everyone in town knows Henry lost it in a poker game, but evidently the paperwork was never filed, so there’s no one to tell Farrow he can’t live there.”
An hour passed, and finally the sheriff stopped talking and stared down the road. He’d asked Nell ten times if she was cold, and each time she’d lied and said no. She couldn’t go inside when Marla and Mr. Harrison were still gone.
Gypsy banged her way through the door with the afternoon tray of drinks and cookies. Nell took a cup to keep her hands warm. The sheriff didn’t even answer when she offered him a cup.
“You can ride on in,” Nell said. “We’ll be all right here. You could be back in a matter of minutes.”
Parker didn’t answer.
“It could be a hundred things holding them up. Maybe the glass wasn’t ready like the hardware store owner said. Some folks will say anything to make a sale.” Nell stared at the sheriff ’s back. “Or maybe Marla took longer picking up supplies than we thought she would. You know her; she won’t ask a question with anyone else in the store. She probably walked up and down the aisles waiting for her chance.”
She went over every reason she could think of for her own sanity. “Maybe the wagon lost a wheel. That road is terrible. Or maybe the horse threw a shoe. Mr. Harrison might have taken him over to the blacksmith shop and had to wait in line. You know Saturday’s always busy in town.”
Gypsy shook her head. “Or maybe somethin’ happened to them.”
Her words hung in the air. No one said a word. Nell refused to consider Gypsy’s possibility. It made less sense than shooting at a woman in a wheelchair.
In the silence, Nell thought she heard the jingle of a bridle. She leaned forward a few inches and slipped her right hand into the pocket of her jacket. “Let it be Marla,” she whispered to herself. But just in case, she’d be ready.
The sheriff also shifted, resting his hand on his sidearm and leaning back into the shadow of the porch so that whoever neared wouldn’t see him right away.
The jingle came again.
Nell didn’t breathe.
Then she heard something she’d never heard before.
She heard Marla laugh.
CHAPTER 9
JACOB DALTON TRACKED THE MAN WHO’D SHOT AT Nell for five hours before the trail disappeared. He didn’t think the stranger had any idea he was being followed, but luck was with the shooter. The ground grew rocky, and the rider switched directions. Though the horse’s tracks should have been easy to follow with the ground still damp from rain, herds of deer or cattle had wiped them in places.
By nightfall, Jacob wasn’t sure he still followed the shooter. There had been a dozen places the man could have turned off on rocks or into shallow streams. When it finally grew too dark to track, Jacob made camp between a stand of trees and a formation of rocks. Here, he’d be out of the wind, and smoke from a small fire wouldn’t be noticed in the shadow of the trees. He hadn’t seen any sign of a ranch since early that morning, so he doubted anyone would pass close during the night.
He took care of his horse, then ate half the food Marla packed for him and saved the other half for breakfast. Rolling in his bedroll, he leaned against his saddle and relaxed for the first time. A weapon lay within inches of either hand.
All day he’d tried to concentrate on tracking and on trying to find a reason anyone would want Nell dead. The shot hadn’t been at the house. He’d bet his career as a ranger that the man aimed at the outline of the wheelchair in the window. The chair where Nell always sat.
But who? Surely someone didn’t still think the place was a whorehouse. As far as he knew, though people objected to a young woman inheriting, no one else fought for the old madam’s money. No one would benefit from Nell’s death. He’d heard Nell say once that she’d filed a will asking for all her property to be sold and the money passed to her friends if something happened to her. None of her friends would ever do her harm, and no one else would benefit.
Fat Alice, despite what a few good folks in town suggested, was highly thought of by most. She ran a clean house and in the town’s early days acted as hospital and doctor many times. She always let anyone traveling through without money for a hotel stay in her barn, and more often than not served breakfast before sending them on their way. She’d done her best for Nell, and for that one kindness, Jacob figured she’d get to heaven.
Alice died working one spring while Nell was away at school. The undertaker, her last customer, did the service free.
Since Nell inherited, the house had been painted and cleaned up inside and out. Gypsy had lived in a back room until Nell came home. She’d fed the horses and kept the place clean more because she didn’t have anywhere to go than because she wanted to stay. When Nell asked her to remain, she’d stayed drunk for three days to celebrate. Then she’d started cleaning and, near as Jacob could tell, she hadn’t stopped yet.
Though some folks wished the house and its memories would go away, Jacob couldn’t see anyone trying to make it happen.
The shooting couldn’t have been random. That was why Jacob had to try to fin
d the shooter. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Nell alone with Number Twelve, but he had no choice. Finding out why someone wanted to kill her had to rank as more important than worrying about who she planned to marry.
He swore at the moon. Why couldn’t she have been happy with how things were? Why’d she think she had to have a husband? It made no sense.
Jacob laughed. Neither did the kiss, he thought. Nell couldn’t have looked more shocked if he’d pinched her. Maybe she didn’t think of him in the way a woman thinks of a man who might kiss her.
He didn’t like the idea that him kissing her was probably the last thing on her mind. But he knew it had to be true. When he’d offered marriage, she didn’t consider the possibility for even a minute. And in truth, the thought hadn’t crossed his mind, either, until she’d gone crazy and put out an ad for a husband. He and the kid had always been friends. She’d probably be more receptive to the old sheriff ’s proposal of marriage than his.
But friends could become lovers. Couldn’t they? He wasn’t sure. In truth he couldn’t remember hearing about it ever happening. A man doesn’t talk to a friend the way he talks to a woman who might be crawling into his bed. If they married, Nell wouldn’t be able to claim she didn’t know him. She’d seen him at his best and worst.
And he’d seen her grow up. When he looked at her he couldn’t help but see a little of Two Bits, the child who stole his heart. Only lately, the person before him was a mystery. How did such a skinny kid grow into a woman curved in all the right places?
Jacob tossed another log on the fire and listened to the wind. An animal moved somewhere in the trees, letting out a soft call of alarm. He knew nothing would come close with the fire burning, but still, he brushed the handle of his Colt as he went back to thinking about Nell.
She tasted great. He couldn’t remember other lips being so soft. Closing his eyes, he tried to remember the last time he’d kissed a woman.
Before Nell’s accident, he realized. When she’d sent him a telegram that her friends were in trouble, he’d been seeing a widow in El Paso from time to time. He’d heard that he wasn’t the widow’s only caller, but he didn’t much care. She’d been friendly, offering samples of her charms, but not willing to give in completely until he offered marriage. And, even if he’d thought marriage might have been a good idea, her six kids quickly sobered him up.
