Kit Gardner

by Twilight

  Chapter Three

  Silence hung like a palpable thing, broken only by the ticking of a clock somewhere in the small house. Avram Halsey let loose with a disbelieving snort and squinted toward the bedroom window, perhaps seeking logic in the billowing of the white curtains. Or was it Frank Wynne’s picture on the dressing table that he stared at? Rance grew certain as he watched Halsey’s face flush scarlet clear to his receding hairline that the man had never stepped one foot near Jessica Wynne’s “private private,” a room she had shared with the man framed upon that dressing table. Perhaps that was the source of Halsey’s sudden unease, and the distasteful curl of his lip. Perhaps that was why he swung his gaze from the window to fix with renewed vehemence upon Rance. Yes, something more than unease lurked there, a supreme agitation, as if the man itched to take himself from the room. Little wonder he wanted Jessica to sell the farm, with all its lingering memories...of another man, another lifetime. Halsey had ample reason to deny Jessica any farmhand’s help.

  She turned toward Rance. A wavering smile parted her lips. Naked desperation flickered deep in her eyes and was gone in the next instant, swiftly veiled behind that mantle of strength she seemed to force onto her narrow shoulders. Yet he still sensed it. That desperation. She needed him. A virtual stranger. A man who didn’t deserve her trust.

  “Jessica, dearest, be reasonable. We know nothing of this...this...” Halsey waved a hand toward Rance, then stared hard at Jessica. “A man you met and shot this very afternoon, and yet you would take him under your roof, and for what? I can hear the place rotting as we speak. It has been since before your husband died. Indeed, I believe even he was beginning to see the wisdom in selling it, given the price those Easterners were offering. Oh—” Halsey patted her arm consolingly and lowered his voice as Rance imagined a goodly reverend might upon entering his church. “Forgive me for speaking of the departed, but you’ve left me with little alternative. Jessica, a wounded man will be of scant use to you. Pray, with what do you intend to pay him? Strawberries?”

  Halsey’s scoffing drew Jessica’s spine up tight. Rance felt his fingertips curl into his palms when her chin jutted forward. Her son stood below and beside her, the same chin poking at Halsey.

  “Avram, you forget yourself,” Jessica said with deceptive softness. “My father hauled the stone to build this house and died out in that field, securing his rights to this land. I cannot easily forsake that.”

  “Your father, my dear, were he still alive, would undoubtedly see the futility in your quest, regardless of all your noble intent. I doubt very much he would see the wisdom in taking a complete unknown into your fold. He wished you a fate far above his own, Jessica, and that fate certainly did not include dying in some barren field behind a runaway double-shovel plow. He arranged for you to marry Frank Wynne, did he not?”

  “My father knew he was dying, Avram. He wanted me to be well taken care of. Unfortunately, he believed Frank capable of that, on this farm, with his cattle business. At the time, so did I.”

  “Ah, but your father also dedicated himself to his church and parishioners,” Halsey replied stiffly. “I believe you forget that. Would you have me sacrifice the tiny congregation he established here in Twilight, one I have lovingly nurtured and can now proudly call my own, solely for the sake of a moldering old farm that is beyond redemption?”

  “I would never ask you to sacrifice anything for me, Avram,” she said slowly.

  “Oh, but you are. What of my reputation? And what of yours? Once word spreads that you’ve a...” Again, Halsey scowled at Rance.

  Rance couldn’t help but scowl back.

  “He’s an outlaw,” Christian offered.

  “No, he’s not, Christian,” Jessica murmured. Her eyes flickered over Rance. “He’s—”

  “I worked for a cattle rancher,” Rance offered, the words springing forth unchecked. Something swelled in his chest when Jessica’s pink lips parted into a soft, satisfied curve. Hell, he could imagine men selling their souls for a smile like that.

  She gave Halsey a smug look.

  Halsey blinked at her. “Don’t tell me you believe him worthy of sainthood, Jessica, simply because he claims he can manage a few stray head of cattle?”

  “He has an honest face, Avram.”

  Halsey’s jaw sagged then snapped shut. “An honest—? My dear, he looks every inch the sort who robs stagecoaches and trains and leaves innocent people for dead.”

  Christian’s big blue eyes swung up to Rance. “Yep. And he has a knife. He’s gonna teach me to throw it.”

  “Christian, shush.”

  “Jessica, you did shoot the man. For very good reason, I presume, you deemed it prudent to disregard my orders to keep your hands from that firearm. Were you possessed of some sort of aim, I’d warrant you’d have killed him. Am I mistaken?”

  Again her chin inched upward. “I would kill anyone who would think to harm my son.”

  Halsey all but smacked his lips with satisfaction. “Aha! And there you have it. Take a moment, if you would, and listen to yourself. You’re finally making some sense.”

  “Of course I am, Avram. I have been all along. I make it a point to always make sense. Mr. Stark means us no harm.” Her eyes flickered over Rance, lingered on his bandaged shoulder, then scooted away. “Indeed, I believe I owe him some sort of recompense.”

  “Recompense?” Halsey sputtered. “Simply for being the unfortunate recipient of your bad shot?”

  Rance barely heard Halsey when again her gaze lifted to his. A peculiar warmth having nothing to do with his wound seeped through Rance’s chest. An honest face. No one had ever said that about him. Hell, when a man was paid for his shot, his integrity mattered very little.

  “Avram, the fact remains, I shot the man.”

  “Then feed him, if you feel you must, and send him on his way. As for this ridiculous notion of hiring him on, the townsfolk shan’t see the logic in that, Jessica. You know as well as I that your reputation cannot withstand—”

  “Avram, I care far more about righting my injustices and salvaging this farm than I do about vicious gossip.”

  “So you say. But I ask you, what of me?”

  “You? Why, Avram, busy as you are with the church, you need not bother yourself with the farm any longer. Odd, but I would think you most of all would understand my need for a hand and encourage it, knowing me as you say you do. After all, did you not advise Mabel Brown to hire on a farmhand when her husband passed on? I don’t recall overhearing even one dire bit of warning when Melvin Hodges filled that post.”

  “Melvin Hodges is a toothless, bandy-legged old man, Jessica. He’s lived in Twilight longer than anyone. He’s harmless. Better still, we know him. He’s not some misbegotten devil of the prairie. And old Widow Brown is all but confined to her bed with rheumatism.”

  “She’s a lovely woman, Avram. What are you saying, precisely?”

  Halsey pressed the heels of his hands to his forehead, as if to assuage some deep ache. “All I know at this moment is that you are making no sense whatsoever. And I shan’t stand here in your private...room and discuss the matter another moment.” Halsey glowered at Rance. “What the devil are you looking at, Stark?”

  Rance gave the good reverend a bland look.

  Jessica faced Rance, with that one slight shift of her shoulders entirely dismissing Halsey. And then Rance saw it all emblazoned in her eyes, too clearly, far too guilelessly, and that warmth in his chest burgeoned into a deep, gut-wrenching ache of realization. Rance had taken much more from her in Wichita than a husband, a father, a protector and provider. His had been the hand that thrust this house and farm into disrepair. He had brought her all this heartache and turmoil. He had put that uncloaked desperation in her eyes. And he knew, beyond a doubt, that without help, she would lose it all. Halsey would see to that, no matter how stubbornly she fought him, or the inevitable crumbling of the farm around her and the wilting of all her pitiful strawberry plants. A woman thi
s self-righteous would stand stalwart for something that just might not be worth the fight.

  Hell, he’d never met a woman who would choose back-breaking toil, even the humiliation of failure, over the relatively comfortable life Halsey was offering her. More than a few of the saloon girls he’d known in his lifetime had been widowed at young ages, with children and farms left to their care. They’d abandoned the harsh realities of farm life, the drudgery, the inevitability of failure, and opted for the life of a whore. The lesser of two evils, they’d told him, their faces ravaged by far more than the effects of unrelenting sun and wind as they bemoaned their lack of alternatives. Not Jessica Wynne. He couldn’t imagine a desperate Jessica bemoaning anything. She had scoffed at the doubters and was eager to pin her every hope upon a man she’d just met, out of some spurious sense of noble justice. The man who just happened to be responsible for it all.

  Simply because she thought he had an honest face. Yet some part of him suddenly wanted to prove to her that he was deserving of all that misplaced faith. He wanted to give her back all he was responsible for taking from her and Christian. Perhaps then he could vanquish some small part of this damned guilt squirming in his gut. Then he would ride away from Frank Wynne’s widow and child, knowing he’d done all he could to right the wrong he’d done.

  There was the risk of being caught by any number of bounty hunters certain to be after him. And then there was the matter of deceiving this woman.

  Yet as his gaze clashed with Halsey’s over her blond head, he knew he couldn’t simply mount his horse and leave. Not yet, at least. If he did, she would lose it all. And he would sacrifice his chance at redemption, his opportunity to ease some of that confusion and pain he knew lay buried deep inside Christian’s narrow chest.

  Rance had long ago numbed himself to that kind of pain. When a man—but he’d been just a child himself then, all of fifteen—when a child was left orphaned, he learned to live within himself, to create a secret place in his soul into which he could burrow if need be. The numbness... Hell, killing as many Johnny Rebs as he could in the war had tempered some of the anger, had even earned him honors, decorations only the most heroic deserved. But he knew better. When a man lived that long inside himself, he cared very little about death and dying, and even less about heroics.

  Numb. Yes, he’d long ago grown entirely numb to anything but the most basic of human needs. Hunger. Thirst. The need for sleep. The need for sex. But Christian didn’t deserve such a fate. Christian deserved the second chance Rance had never been given. Perhaps this was, after all, the reason he’d come.

  At the moment, he’d like to think the reason was founded on some noble aspiration and not just a fool’s blundering instinct.

  “How is your shoulder, Mr. Stark?”

  He found himself wishing she would say his name...Rance...in the same haunting tone. But he’d taken enough of a risk in telling her his name was Logan. “It should be well enough in a day or two, ma’am.” He flexed his right arm and balled his fist. “I can still manage a hammer.”

  “No.” Halsey ground out the word. “I shan’t allow it. This will not happen, I tell you.”

  “Be quiet, Avram. Mr. Stark, I can offer you food, and lodging in the barn. Your horse can bed down there at night and graze in the small field during the day...though the fence needs some work. I hope that will suffice until winter.”

  “It will not,” Halsey said with a huff. “Winter is six months from now. Do you realize what you’re saying, Jessica?”

  “Of course I do, Avram. Now calm down before you give yourself indigestion.”

  “Indigestion? I shall thank the good Lord if I don’t succumb to apoplexy this very night.”

  “Then you must remind me to give you two doses of your elixir before you leave, Avram. Is the arrangement suitable, Mr. Stark?”

  Rance didn’t spare Halsey the merest glance. Nor did Jessica. “Fine, ma’am.”

  “Good heavens, Jessica. Do you realize you’re all but conducting business with a perfect stranger in your private—?”

  “I’ll start supper, then,” she said crisply, brushing past Avram, with Christian clinging at her heels.

  “Jessica!” Halsey bellowed down the hall, his face mottled with rage. His color only deepened when Rance ducked through the doorway. Halsey shifted his shoulders, purposely blocking Rance’s path. “And where the devil are you going, Stark?”

  Rance slanted the shorter man a hooded look. “To the barn, Halsey. Or would you rather I remain here in Jessica’s bedroom? The floor is remarkably comfortable.”

  Halsey shook so with his rage, a well-oiled lock of hair spilled over his forehead. “Jessica!” he yelled in Rance’s wake. “I shan’t stand for it! You shall be my wife in a scant few months. And goodly wives must obey their husbands. It’s the Lord’s word. Do you hear me, Jessica? This outlaw shall not sleep one night in my barn. Jessica? Do you hear me?”

  She was staring from the kitchen window, a large potato clenched in one fist, her other hand gently stroking her son’s head. Rance could almost feel the tender loving emanating from her fingertips, the silent emotion flowing between mother and son. Rance grew acutely aware that he wished he could remember the same gentle mother’s touch upon his brow, making the world right for him.

  Only when Rance bumped into the table on his way out the door did Jessica glance at him. He had to pause then, his hand clasped about the loose doorknob, when the hint of a curve softened her mouth just as the afternoon sunlight spilled over mother and child like warm honey.

  He shoved the door wide. Hot sun slapped his forehead. Heat and dust wrapped around him, and he strode to the barn with a foreign sense of determination blossoming in his gut.

  * * *

  The back door slammed. “He’s gone,” Christian said, and poked one finger into a bowl of blackberries.

  Jessica froze between table and stove and clutched a damp rag to her belly. She stared at her son’s chubby finger sifting through the freshly washed fruit and listened to the heightened thumping of her pulse. “Who’s gone?” she asked slowly.

  Christian grabbed a fistful of berries and shoved them all into his mouth. “Rrvrrnnn Allseee.”

  “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Jessica said, an odd relief spilling through her limbs. Relief...that Avram had finally given up the fight for the evening, of course, and that he had managed to remove himself from the farm without pausing to engage in fisticuffs with a wounded Logan Stark.

  Avram had declined her offer to stay for dinner. She’d felt it then, too, this relief, particularly when he’d given her his typical swift passing of his dry lips over her cheek. Always the same, that farewell kiss, no matter the time of day or their mood. Reliable, that was her Avram. Dependable, if a bit steeped in moral self-consciousness. A fine quality in a husband, one Jessica could appreciate only now, after experiencing the true depths of Frank’s deception.

  “Wash up, Christian.” Her fingers wrapped about Christian’s tiny wrist, just as it was poised again over the fruit. “Not before supper. Where are your shoes?”

  He blinked at her through his bangs. Never guilt or remorse there, just a simple stating of the facts, the irrefutable conviction that she, the female, would be left to see to the righting of things. She knew precisely what he was going to say. “I don’t know where my shoes are.”

  “Find them before you step on something.”

  “I can’t. I’m too hungry.”

  Jessica released a weary breath and turned to retrieve a large iron pot simmering on the stove. “Then set the table for me...after you wash up.”

  Christian scooted a chair to the wash pump, clambered onto it, and pumped vigorously until water splashed everywhere. “Is Mr. Stark going to eat with us? I think he’s hungry.”

  “Of course he is....” She placed the pot of soup upon the table and thrust a rag at Christian the precise moment he wiped his hands dry on his dirt-smudged shirt. “Hungry, that is,” she said. Her g
aze found the ladder-back chair opposite, the chair left vacant for over a year now. Her husband Frank’s chair. Avram refused to sit in it. Even Christian, who on any given day preferred to venture from chair to chair for his meals, never once gave that particular chair his consideration.

  Stark’s shoulders would surely fill this small kitchen. She wondered how much a man of his size would eat, how those long legs would fit beneath this table. They’d reach clear beneath her own chair. No, it wouldn’t do to have the man dine here, with them.

  The now seemingly insignificant pot of vegetable soup jarred against the table when Christian plunked three bowls next to the pot. Again she stilled his hand as it inched toward the blackberries.

  “No,” she said. “I’ll take his dinner out to him. Set the table for two, Christian.”

  “But, Mama—”

  “Napkins on the left.”

  “I know.” With his tongue curling out of his mouth, Christian folded the cloth napkins and placed them to the right of the stoneware plates. “He has a big horse, Mama. It’s black.”

  “Imagine that,” she replied, repositioning the napkins on the left.

  “It’s in the barn with him. I’m gonna ride it.”

  “I don’t believe you will.”

  “We can hitch it to our broken wagon.”

  “We’ll get our own horse soon and hitch it to the buckboard, after Reverend Halsey fixes it.”

  “When?”

  “Soon.”

  “You always say that. Soon. Is that when Reverend Halsey is gonna be my pa?”

  The ladle poised over the pot. “Yes, I suppose it is. Quite soon.”

  Christian thrust out his chin. “Then we’ll never get a horse, because Reverend Halsey doesn’t like them. He says they smell.”

  “And he’s right. They do smell. That’s why they live in the barn with the other animals.”

  “Mr. Stark doesn’t smell.”