by Jo Goodman
Eli Burdick had no claim on her. She could not think of an instance where she had encouraged him to think he did. Her marriage to Adam was motivated in part by Eli’s first overture just after she arrived in Bitter Springs. There was no rebuffing him gently because his attentions were overbearing from the beginning. Adam had been right that marriage would protect her, and for as long as Adam was alive, Eli had at least been tolerable. After Adam’s death, it became clear to Raine that Eli had only ever been biding his time. He made a proposal the day after she buried Adam, and this time what he proposed was marriage.
She remembered that he had seemed genuinely surprised when she turned him down, just as he had seemed every time since then. It had been several months since he’d mentioned marriage, but she never assumed he would not bring it up again. Anticipation of another proposal put her on edge when he was around.
Raine wondered what part of what she had done had been about trying to save Kellen Coltrane and what part had been about saving herself.
She pressed her forearm harder against her eyes as tears threatened to undo her completely.
There was no reason for her to know that Kellen was standing in the doorway, yet she had a clear sense of him being there. Had she heard him approaching but not registered it consciously? Or was it that she had always known that they weren’t finished for the night?
Without lifting her arm from her eyes, she spoke. “What do you want?”
“Permission to use the bathing room.”
“Of course.”
Now that she was listening for him, she heard him pad softly across the floor. Somehow he had possessed the wherewithal to remove his shoes and socks. Raine was jealous. Her shoes were squeezing her toes, and the garters that held her stockings above her knees seemed to have stopped blood flow. She imagined Kellen was already stripped down to his shirt and trousers, suspenders hanging loosely at his sides. He might have unbuttoned his shirt at the throat. He might have unbuttoned his trousers at the waist.
She sighed again and smiled unevenly as she recognized that the tenor of this sigh was significantly different than her earlier one.
Raine listened to the water running. With her eyes closed she could make herself believe she was anywhere but where she was. The freedom was heady, and she saw herself standing at the edge of the great Niagara, the roar of the falls filling her ears and the mist shrouding her in mystery. She barely had time to take it in before she was lying on a white Pacific beach, frothy waves tickling her toes. A moment later, she was sitting curled on a window seat, an unopened book in her lap. She was watching rain splash on the cobblestones and widen puddles that carriages spattered as their drivers raced for cover. She couldn’t read the signs above the shops but she recognized the street from an old postcard. Le boulevard des Capucines. Ah, yes, she was in Paris.
Lovely.
Kellen turned off the water. Bracing his arms on the sink, he stared at himself in the mirror. He was not feeling introspective, so he didn’t stand there long going over all the same arguments he had made earlier to Raine. She hadn’t wanted to hear them then; he did not want to hear them now.
He toweled his damp hair and dried his face. His lip curled as he regarded his reflection, but he could not quite raise a scowl. Shaking his head, he left the towel hanging over the sink basin and returned to the bedroom.
“I’m wondering about that old adage,” he said, pausing beside Raine’s wardrobe. “The one that says if you make your bed, you have to lie in it.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m noticing that we made the same bed but you are the only one in it.” He waited and was rewarded for his patience with an abrupt little snore. Kellen’s eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t tell me about that,” he said softly. “And, damn me, I didn’t ask.”
He hunkered at her feet and unlaced her boots. She didn’t stir as he eased them off, but he thought he heard her hum her pleasure. He massaged the balls of her feet and the soft arches. Her toes wriggled several times and then remained still.
Reaching under her skirt, he rolled the garter and stocking on one leg over her knee and down her calf. When he took it off her foot, he separated the garter from the stocking and slipped the first on his arm and neatly folded the second and placed it in her boot. He repeated this for her other leg, doing it all as carefully as before but perhaps a bit more slowly.
Kellen stood and nudged Raine’s boots under the bed with his foot. He stared down at her. There was probably a distinction to be made between assisting her and taking advantage. He was a little fuzzy on that distinction at present. “Two reasons,” he whispered, picking up her legs at the ankles. “I’m tired. You’re tempting.” He swiveled her so that she lay lengthwise on the bed instead of across it. Her forearm still rested over her eyes, and he left it there.
Kellen attended to her skirt, loosening the ribbons that held it in place and gently tugging it down. He freed her from the bustle next, and when he pulled it out from under her, it seemed that the whole of her slender frame went limp. Her arm was finally dislodged from its resting place, but her eyes remained closed. Kellen rolled Raine on her side long enough to unfasten her bodice and corset. Neither was easy to remove without her help. He persevered because it was what he did, not because he expected that she would thank him for it. What he expected was the very opposite of that.
She was on her back when he left to hang her clothes in the wardrobe and curled on her side when he made his way back to the bed. He did not try to get her under the covers. Instead, he pulled up the quilt from the foot of the bed and drew it over her shoulders. He tucked some of it under her knees. He saw her eyelashes flutter. A sleepy smile curved her lips.
Kellen had never pretended that he was made of stone. He bent and kissed her on the mouth. Her lips were warm and soft, and there was a moment when he knew she kissed him back. He touched his mouth to her forehead. “Good night, Raine.”
Raine was used to waking early and, at this time of year, when it was dark. Still, she knew as soon as she opened her eyes that it was nowhere near a reasonable hour for getting out of bed. She stretched, realized she was on top of the bedcovers and under a quilt, and struggled to set that right with a lot of tugging and yanking. She eventually surrendered, deciding that the effort was hardly worth the result.
She lay quietly for a time. There was a gap in the curtains where moonlight shone through. She studied the long slant of pale, silver-blue light on the floor. It looked as if it would be cool to the touch.
Her eyes became accustomed to the dark. She did not remember turning back the lamp on her bedside table or the one in the sitting room. She supposed that Kellen had done it. There was meager light coming from the stove, but it merely drew attention to the stove, not to anything around it.
Raine had no idea whether she had been asleep for one hour or four, but she felt rested, so much so that she did not think she would easily fall back to sleep. She pushed herself up in bed, dragging the quilt with her, and leaned against the headboard. She couldn’t recall undressing, but one glance under the quilt assured her that she was wearing only her shift. Kellen again.
When she thought back, she had no clear memory of anything after he asked if he could use the bathing room, although there was something in her mind about Paris.
She wondered if he was awake, and if he wasn’t, whether or not she would have the nerve to wake him. She wished she hadn’t fallen asleep before they’d talked. She was even regretting that she had pointed him to another bed.
Raine threw back the quilt and swung her legs over the side of the bed, then pulled the quilt around her as a substitute for retrieving her robe. The quilt swept the floor behind her as she headed to find Kellen. The door to his room was closed, but there was a seam of light coming out from under it.
Raine rapped gently. There was only a short pause before he answered. She wondered if he had been expecting her. If he had, it was further evidence that he knew things about her that she hardly kn
ew about herself.
He was sitting up in bed much as she had been. The difference was that he had a book propped on his knees and was reading it. He didn’t look up as she slipped into the room, or when she wrestled with the quilt to bring it in behind her. He was still reading when she sat down hard at the foot of the bed, and he seemed to take the jostling in stride.
She determined right then that she would wait until he finished the book if she had to. Perhaps he suspected as much, because it was a mere two minutes later that he closed his book and set it aside.
“I wanted to finish the chapter,” he said.
She tried to see the title of the book, but he had set it upside down with the spine facing away from her. “What is it?”
“Something I found on your shelves. Treasure Island.”
“A favorite of Adam’s. You’ve never read it?”
“Once. When it was first published here. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”
She folded her hands together in her lap to keep from twisting them. “Have you slept at all?”
“A little. I couldn’t seem to stay asleep.”
“What time is it?”
Kellen reached for the pocket watch that he had placed next to the lamp. “Twenty minutes after three.”
She remembered leaving the saloon shortly after ten. Kellen had been invited to play poker with Jem and his brothers, and in the interest of showing that there were no hard feelings, the prudent thing to do seemed to be to accept the offer. After his lucky streak ended, he went to his room, took a few things that he thought he would need for the night, and then joined her in the apartment. It had been close to eleven by then.
“I slept very well,” she said. “Until I didn’t.”
He smiled. “That’s the way it happens sometimes.”
Raine took a breath and released it slowly. “Do you think Dan Sugar is going to ask to see our certificate of marriage?”
“I never know what you’re going to say.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “I think it’s possible, but we planned for that. Are you worried that it won’t arrive soon enough?”
“It takes six days to go from New York to Sacramento by rail. That’s if nothing goes wrong. It could be longer. If it occurs to Sugar to ask, he’ll do it before then. Perhaps as soon as tomorrow morning.”
“Raine, it will arrive in time.” Kellen didn’t know it for a fact, but there was no point in alarming her with his uncertainty. The morning after he had agreed to Raine’s scheme, Kellen went to the station agent’s office and sent a telegram to his attorney brother in New Haven. This could have been accomplished in a straightforward manner if Kellen had trusted Jeff Collins with his life, but there were few people Kellen put so much faith in, and he did not count the station agent among them.
He did, however, trust the wily charms of Rabbit and Finn to cause a distraction that would pull their grandfather from behind his desk in the station house long enough for Kellen to send the telegram himself. Kellen only asked for a reply in the event Michael declined to help. He did not expect his brother to refuse the request. Michael never had before, and this was hardly the most peculiar favor he had ever asked. There would be a lecture, a variation on one he could expect from his father, and Michael would deliver it with conviction in his best courtroom voice. A small price to pay. Kellen’s profession meant that he required the services of a good lawyer, and Michael Coltrane was a very good lawyer.
“You can’t be sure that your brother received the telegram,” Raine said.
“I trust the science. He received it.”
“And you’re confident that he will arrange everything?”
“Yes. I’m confident that it’s already done and that he sent the papers by express mail days ago. Bitter Springs isn’t Sacramento. Everything will be here in the morning or the day after. I’ll meet the mail train myself. There’s no point in taking the risk that Mr. Collins will open it before I do.”
“I know you think that he could be the one who read the correspondence between me and Nat Church, but I’ll never believe it.”
“Someone read at least some of it.”
“I know, but it wasn’t Mr. Collins.”
Kellen saw no point in arguing. Raine did not want to believe a friend might have betrayed her. Kellen believed that until he knew the truth, it was foolish to believe anything else.
“Is this why you couldn’t go back to sleep? Because you were worried about our certificate?”
Raine shook her head. “I’m more worried about our marriage.”
Kellen cocked his head so he had a better view of her expression. In profile, she gave nothing away. “Raine?”
She turned her head and looked at him.
“You know we won’t really be married.”
“Of course I know.”
Kellen raised his hands, partly as an apology, partly to ward off an impending attack.
Raine snorted and focused her attention on the quilt, tugging on it impatiently while she drew her legs up and folded them tailor fashion.
Kellen gave her another moment to settle. “Are you regretting telling them about our counterfeit marriage?” When she did not answer, Kellen interpreted her silence. “You are.”
“No, I am simply confused. I thought I would be able to defend you by telling them you were with me all night, but when Dan Sugar turned malicious and the Davis boys looked at me as if I were a disappointment, the rest of the explanation tumbled out. I suppose I care more for my reputation than I’d imagined.”
“We discussed it,” he reminded her. “We planned for it. You have to live in this town. It’s better this way. Frankly, I was concerned for a while that you wouldn’t say it.”
“Is that why you pressed me?”
“Did I do that?”
“Yes.”
Kellen shrugged. “There was my own reputation to consider.”
“You don’t have a reputation here.”
“I would if everyone thought I had ruined the virtuous Widder Berry.”
Raine’s mouth quirked. “Debaucher.”
“Something like that.”
“You are the black sheep, aren’t you?”
“In my family. In every other circle, I’m quite ordinary.”
She looked him over. “I doubt that.”
“Flattery?”
“It was not a comment on your appearance, although I’m sure you know you look well enough.”
“Definitely not flattery.”
“I meant that if Nat Church chose you to accompany him, he must have had confidence in your skills. Those skills don’t make you ordinary.”
“Unless I’m sitting at a table with Wyatt Earp, Tom Horn, and the Dalton brothers.”
“Oh.” She frowned a little. “Have you ever sat at a table with them?”
“Not together.”
“Well, even separately, it’s extraordinary company.”
“I’ll give you that.”
She nodded faintly, turned away to face the far wall, and fell silent.
Kellen studied her profile. She looked pensive. She raised one hand to her throat and lightly stroked it while she thought. His fingers twitched once. They had their own memory of curling around her slim, warm neck and supporting it when it seemed that she could not. Kellen glanced at his hand when it twitched again. He flattened his hand over his knee to keep from reaching for her.
Raine idly fingered her neckline. “Do you know where Nat Church is buried?”
Kellen was glad he had not spent a moment trying to divine what she was thinking. He had made better use of the time staring at her neck. “They took his body off the train at Westerville. I understand the town has an undertaker.”
“Do you know if the railroad paid the expenses?”
“Who else would have?”
Raine looked at him sharply. “That’s not an answer, is it? Yes or no would be an answer. It seems to me that you tiptoe past a lot of doors you don’t want to open.”<
br />
“I’ve never tiptoed in my life.”
“Did you pay for Mr. Church’s burial?”
“Why would you think that?”
Raine’s blue eyes were at once brilliant and cold. She dared him to avoid her again.
“Yes,” he said. “I paid the fees to make sure he had a good box and decent service. Why is that important to you?”
“I’d like to reimburse you. If the U.P. had paid, I’d want to do the same.”
“I don’t want your money. Not for that.”
“All right. Maybe I can arrange for a headstone. Unless you specified differently, he probably only has a marker.”
“Why do you want Church to have a headstone?”
“Because he’s alone. He had a wife once, and it’s likely that he had a different name, but he was put in the ground separated from both. It seems as if he should have something more permanent to show for his life.”
Kellen felt his throat thicken. It surprised him, this sudden surge of emotion for a man he hadn’t known at all and for a woman he wanted to know better. He didn’t speak. Couldn’t speak. He invited her to sit beside him, first by patting the space at his right, then by holding her gaze with eyes that slowly darkened.
Raine’s uncertainty kept her motionless while her heart beat hard against her chest. She pressed her lips together, nodded faintly, and then released the quilt so she could untangle herself.
Kellen threw back the covers to give her an opening. She scooted across the bed until she was beside him, and then he drew the sheet and blankets over both of them. She took the extra pillow and pushed it behind her back. She wriggled into place, drawing her knees close to her chest once she was comfortable. She thought that she and Kellen looked like a pair of slightly mismatched bookends.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked.
