Rubal turned back to Molly. She glared after Cleatus. Rubal dismounted and hitched his reins over the worn post, wondering whether he hadn’t awakened in the middle of a dream. If so, this one was definitely a nightmare. Caught up in their argument, neither Cleatus nor Molly had taken note of his arrival. He might as well have been a specter, forced by the Man Upstairs to watch Molly’s life fall apart.
Just as he reached the open gate, the screen door squawked, then slammed again. This time a gangly, blond-headed boy of twelve or so raced across the porch, deftly leaped the broken step, only to be caught up short by Molly, who reached a hand and grabbed his shirtsleeve.
“Not so fast, Travis. You haven’t chopped wood for supper yet.”
“I’m going to sweep the schoolhouse.” Travis wriggled to escape Molly’s grasp, but she pulled him back to the porch. He stood eye to eye with her, fidgeting, twisting a brown cap in his hands impatiently. “I’ll do it later.”
“Later you have to milk Old Bertha.”
Travis’s hands stilled. He glared at Molly a moment longer, then jerked away, leaping the broken step again. At a safe distance he turned and hollered. “You oughta listen to Cleatus, Molly. Let Master Taylor adopt me.”
Molly had made an attempt to recapture the boy, but at his words, she stopped short. One hand flew to her chest, where she gripped her white apron bib in a fist. Rubal watched her face stiffen with emotion. From the distance he couldn’t tell whether she was angry or hurt. He figured it was likely a combination of the two.
From the sound of things he had arrived at an inopportune time. Without being privy to details, the various arguments didn’t make much sense. He recognized the boy Travis from his last visit to the Blake House—one of Molly’s brothers. But who the hell was Cleatus? And what business was it of his whether Molly sold her timberland? Or what business would a Master Taylor have adopting Travis?
That wasn’t all that didn’t make sense. The house was falling apart and Molly looked and sounded as though she were, too.
Travis sprinted off across the yard at an angle that bypassed Rubal, who again entertained the notion that he might have fallen into Apple Springs from on high. No one seemed able to see him. Travis jumped the picket fence without breaking stride, shirttail flying from the sides of his overalls.
Lost in thought, Rubal’s gaze followed the boy in his race down the street. When he looked back at Molly, she was sitting on the porch, her face buried in her apron. Her shoulders trembled. His heart lurched to his throat.
Stepping forward, he moved up the path, where weeds had worked their way around the edges of the hard-packed earth. A few scraggly rose bushes confirmed his memory, but they were dying from lack of care. What the hell had happened around here in the year since he’d danced with Molly—and loved her? And left her?
Molly didn’t see him until he stopped on the path directly in front of her. While he stood there, awkwardly searching for words of greeting, she glanced up. Recognition dawned on her pixylike features. Recognition, followed by an expression of utter shock, which further stilled his lips.
Her blue eyes opened wide. Tears glimmered on their surface. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, or at least to offer her a smile, but she looked as though she were staring at a ghost.
He motioned aimlessly with his Stetson, slapped it against his thigh. “Howdy…uh…” He cleared his throat, tried again. “Howd—”
“YOU!” Molly’s tone was one he reserved for a rattlesnake sighting. Anger contorted her face. Before he could think of a reply, she jumped to her feet and raced to the door. When she returned, it was with a double-barreled shotgun aimed at his midsection. Her earlier dejection had hardened into an expression of fury. He recalled complaining to Uncle Baylor that Molly might turn tail and run at the sight of him. Given the choice, he figured he’d welcome such a reaction about now.
“Get off my property,” Molly instructed in a no-nonsense tone he was tempted to obey. As though attacking, she pressed forward, shotgun held steady.
Stunned by this reception, Rubal backstepped off the porch, remembering just in time to leap over the broken step. He landed in the pathway on both feet, wobbly but upright. His consternation mounted.
Wordlessly, Molly followed, still waving that shotgun at him. He took another step backward, holding up both hands to fend off her attack. “What the—?” Didn’t she recognize him for Pete’s sake?
Her next words answered that question. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I hop into bed with you again, Rubal Jarrett! Now get out! Get off my property and don’t ever come back!”
Rubal put a bit more distance between them. He’d figured she might not be too happy to see him, but he would never have taken her for the shootin’ kind.
Her blue eyes could have been forged from ice. Gone was any trace of her earlier tears; gone, all signs of dejection. Molly Durant was mad. Fighting mad. And she had gotten the drop on him.
“Go on, get out. I don’t have all day. There’s work to be done around here.”
He glanced from side to side, taking in the house and grounds. There surely was that. He could help her straighten things up—if she let him hang around. But she was mad as a hornet, and he could tell right off that she didn’t intend to give him the time of day, much less a chance to explain—or to make things up.
If she ran him off he would never get a chance at either. He cringed, thinking what Jubal and Uncle Baylor would have to say about this. He’d never live down being run off by a shotgun-wielding former lover. That idea triggered Rubal’s stubborn streak.
“Wait a minute, ma’am. There’s been some mistake.”
Molly glared, not in the least interested in anything he had to say. She shoved the shotgun a notch closer.
“I’m Jubal Jarrett,” he explained quickly. “Not that no-’count brother of mine.”
She cocked the first barrel of the gun. For a small thing like herself, she surely could hold that big gun steady.
“Rube would’ve mentioned me,” he offered. “Us bein’ twins an’ all.”
“He mentioned you and all his other kin. None of you are welcome at the Blake House. Now get out of here,” she repeated. Her voice didn’t tremble a bit when she said it.
“Wait a minute. Let me explain. I’m here on business. For L&M. I need to rent a room for a few days.” He glanced around again. “I take it you’re not full up.”
Molly’s squint didn’t relax one whit, nor did her hold on the shotgun. “We don’t rent to loggers.” Her frown would’ve wilted roses, if there’d been any left along the path. “Or to Jarretts,” she added.
Rubal ran fingers through his hair. “Golly, ma’am. I can see my brother must have acted his usual fool self and made a terrible impression for the family.” He paused to see how she took that. “Please accept my apology for anything that scoundrel Rubal might have done. I’d be mighty proud if you’d let me hang around and mend the family name.”
“You couldn’t mend your family name with a golden needle and silver thread.” She motioned again with the shotgun before cocking the second barrel. Rubal felt his midsection quake. “Get out,” she ordered again, like he was no more than a mangy cur, which comparison he was beginning suspect might hold more truth than not. “Get.”
“Fact is, ma’am, I’m hard up for a place to stay. An’ I’m no logger, I’m—”
“You’re a Jarrett.”
He straightened a notch. Perhaps he should take another tack. “An’ proud of it, ma’am. You ain’t no saint yourself, judgin’ a whole passel of men by the actions of one who’s crazed.”
He watched her anger cloud with doubt. “Crazed?”
The word was spoken in a softer tone than before, giving Rubal enough cause for hope that he dropped his hands to his sides. Solemnly, he nodded to confirm his assessment of Rubal Jarrett. Danged if he wasn’t becoming more convinced by the minute of the veracity of it.
“If it’d make you feel any safer, I�
�d be willing to bed down in the barn.”
The instant the word “barn” left his mouth, Rubal knew he had said the wrong thing. He saw it in her eyes. Mentioning the barn brought the same thing to her mind that it did to his. But there was no hint that she recalled that night with any kind of longing, other than a hankerin’ to tack his hide to the barn door.
“I’m here on official business for Mr. Lutcher and Mr. Moore,” he explained, glad to have some small piece of truth to impart after that bold-faced lie. “Scoutin’ out a rail line.” He wondered just where official lies fell in the scheme of truth-telling. “Sooner I get it done, the sooner the railroad’ll bring folks through here. Who knows they might even want to put a Harvey House in your downstairs—” He stopped abruptly, realizing he shouldn’t give away the fact that he had ever set foot on this place before.
“‘Course I could always camp out in the woods.” He motioned aimlessly. “But it might not seem dignified enough, a representative of L&M’s head office, sleeping on his saddle an’ all. Might hold up the rails.”
He watched her closely while he rambled and could tell she was only half listening. The sight of him had shaken her to her toes, that was obvious. And although seeing her had done the same to him, he was fully aware that their two reactions were as opposite as daylight and dark.
Even with her hair pulled taut, her dress faded, and her eyes fighting him, Molly Durant was as handsome as he remembered. And Rubal decided then and there that, if he never did anything else in his life, he was going to make things up to her. Somehow, someway, he would make amends for using this spitfire of a girl like a common whore.
Not that it had been that way at the time. It hadn’t. He and Baylor had come over from Lufkin, where they’d driven a herd of cattle for a logging operation, to attend a Saturday night dance at the Blake House. Rubal and Molly had been attracted to each other from the moment he stepped through the door and saw her carrying a punchbowl that was nearer her size than not, toward the lace-bedecked table.
Not waiting to be coy, he’d gone straight over and taken the load from her, introducing himself across the bowl of sloshing yellow punch. After that they danced the night away. Every time someone else cut in, before the tune ended, Rubal managed to take her back. Something instantaneous and magical had sparked between them; something more intoxicating than the liquor some feller had used to spike the punch. Danged if he couldn’t feel it yet, that spark. He shifted his feet on the hard-packed earth.
Obviously, Molly hadn’t taken to the one-night stand. And why in heaven’s name had he expected her to? Even though she had been more than a willing partner, he had been grown at the time—twenty-seven years old—and more experienced. He shouldn’t have let things get out of hand. Seeing her now, looking more like forty than the twenty-one he knew her to be, his heart ached for the hurt he’d caused her. At the same time, he knew he would be hard-pressed not to make the same sweet mistake again, given the opportunity.
Which didn’t appear to be in the stars at the moment. Cursing himself for a lying fool, Rubal dug in his pocket and withdrew a piece of folded paper that bore the impression of his rump, since he’d been sitting on it for four days now. He offered it to her, silently thanking his lucky stars for this, the first bit of luck he’d had on the entire trip.
The orders from L&M convinced her, of course. They were made out to his brother, Jubal, and neither he nor Jubal had taken time to inform the company of the switch before he left town. Jubal agreed to take care of that little task after Rubal left for Apple Springs.
Even seeing the name “Jubal Jarrett” on the work order, however, Molly still wasn’t sold on taking him on as a boarder.
“I’ve got cash,” he added, digging again. This time he produced a wad of bills. “L&M paid in advance for expenses.”
It was the money that won her over, not his charm, nor even his lies, Rubal knew. Following her into the foyer of the big old house, which he had dreamed about in minute detail for a year now, he wondered whether he would ever be able to pull off such a ruse.
The idea left him feeling as jittery as a treed coon with a pack of hounds baying for his carcass. When Molly discovered his deception, he would have one more black mark against him. But it had been the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment. Other than stepping back in his saddle and leaving town.
And leaving hadn’t been an option, not from the moment Molly charged out that squawking door, shouting after that fellow called Cleatus. Rubal knew then he couldn’t leave until he discovered what had happened at the Blake House this past year, while he rode light in the saddle, dreaming sensuous dreams about a passionate and carefree girl named Molly Durant, whose lips were as sweet as Piney Woods honey.
Chapter Two
“Three dollars a week and meals. You eat what we prepare, when we prepare it.”
Molly stood in the doorway of the second floor room to which she had led Rubal. All the way upstairs she chastised herself for allowing him to stay. But the money had convinced her; she needed the money in the worst way.
She watched him cross the room. He tested the mattress with one hand, stopped at the window, lifted the muslin curtain, and stared into the backyard. He was definitely a Jarrett: tall and lanky, thick brown hair and sun-browned skin, except for the strip of white halfway up his forehead, where his Stetson rode. Chambray shirt and tight-fitting denims…Rubal or Jubal, he made her heart beat as fast as a sawmill engine. Rubal or Jubal, her brain seemed incapable of making the distinction.
“Breakfast’s at six, dinner at noon, supper at six,” she continued. “Dinner bell rings at a quarter of. If you’re not at the table before grace is said, you don’t eat.”
“Fine,” he mumbled without turning around.
“We clean the rooms every day; change linens every other—”
“That your husband who took off in such a hurry?”
Molly stared at Rubal’s back. With his arm propped above his head, his hand clutching the window frame, his muscles strained beneath his blue shirt. His question startled her.
“Cleatus?” Her anger returned in force. “Not that it’s any of your business, but Cleatus is my fiancé.”
“Fiancé?” Rubal turned but thankfully didn’t meet her gaze. His eyes skittered across her without so much as a pause. That was all right with her. His eyes were so much like his brother’s she had no desire to look into them. She stared at the small white scar on his left temple and caught herself thinking, yes, this must be Jubal. She didn’t recall such a scar on Rubal the night of…that horrible night. Of course, she had been so addlepated that night, his left ear could have been missing and she might not have noticed.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she snapped again, agitated by her body’s reaction to this man—this stranger. But he wasn’t a stranger. And she shouldn’t have rented to him. “I’ve work to do. If you have any more questions…uh, about our regulations, I mean, bring them to the supper table.”
She left him standing, hands on hips in the middle of the room. By the time she reached the staircase her knees were trembling so badly, she had to grip the handrail. She’d gone against her most ardent promise—never to allow another Jarrett to cross her threshold. Now she’d not only allowed the scoundrel in the house, but she’d rented a room to him.
A room, for heaven’s sake. He would be coming and going. He would be eating at her table.
He would be sleeping under her roof. Lord help her, the idea left her lightheaded…and angry. Her anger, though, was divided equally among herself, Jubal Jarrett, and the timber company for sending him. And all of it was unfair, she knew.
He was right. How dare she judge an entire family by the actions of one member? She didn’t know a family who didn’t have at least one black sheep among the flock. And he’d said Rubal was crazy. Coming from a twin brother, that was a pretty heavy condemnation. How could she judge Jubal by Rubal?
Easily, she countered. Except for th
e small scar on his left temple, Jubal looked looked exactly like his despicable twin—as near as she remembered. And she remembered. That was the trouble. She had remembered for a year. Memories haunted her—memories at once poignant and despicable.
Reaching the foyer, she leaned against a newel, hugging herself, squeezing her eyes, attempting in vain to clear her head of the dreadful fact that she had not forgotten Rubal Jarrett.
She had learned to hate him, yes. Her brain knew him for the scoundrel he was, but her body hadn’t forgotten the magic. Seeing his brother brought it back with such force, her skin prickled. She curled her lips together, feeling Rubal’s lips on hers, not wanting to remember, unable to forget.
Suddenly the back screen slammed. Sugar’s molasses-thick voice boomed through the walls of the kitchen.
“What you doin’, child, acomin’ into my clean kitchen with muddy feet?”
A small boy raced from the kitchen into the foyer. Molly stared at him exasperated.
“Little Sa—”
“I’m not Little Sam. I’m Willie Joe.”
“I know who you are, and you’re leaving muddy tracks everywhere. And your overalls…” She grabbed her little brother by a frail arm, bringing him to a halt. He was tow-headed and muddy from head to foot. His overalls hung on his slender frame by one strap; the other one dangled down his back. “What happened to that strap?” Her eyes riveted on the tear where a button should have been.
“Have you been using your buttons for fishing sinkers, again?”
The child’s eyes flashed. Molly could tell he was bursting with some sort of little-boy news.
“Where is that button, Willie Joe?”
“A cat got it,” he explained in a plaintive tone. “An’ I fell in. I didn’t mean to, Molly.” His voice gained volume, and with it, excitement. His blue eyes widened. “It was the biggest yellow cat I ever hooked. Honest. It pulled me right in before I could save myself.”
Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four Page 2
