After the frost f

by Chance, Megan

  But it was obvious now that Rand preferred to be her enemy. She'd been wrong to think his smile of a few days ago meant anything at all. He'd been caught up in the moment, as she was, but it had only been a moment. Nothing more important than that. Knowing that made things easier again, black and white. She could hate Rand; God knew she'd been doing it the last six years. She had plenty of practice. And if hating him brought an uncomfortable stab of sadness, well, she was used to that too.

  Belle took a deep breath; the cold air burned her throat, tingled in her nose. She didn't want to think about that now. What she wanted was a place where she could forget everything, where there were people who knew who she was and trusted her. People who knew the only lies she'd ever told were harmless stories and poker bluffs. A place where harsh words disappeared in smoke-filled rooms and laughter. She hoped—oh, God, she hoped—that the tavern at Hooker was as she remembered, because it was such a place. And she needed that tonight more than she could ever remember needing it before.

  She walked faster. Before long the hill overlooking Hooker's Station stretched before her, with the tavem holding its lone sentry at the top. The old clapboard building was grayed and battered, the flat-topped pine that sheltered it as weathered as the tavern itself. A few wagons loaded with feed, potatoes, and melons were already out front despite the earliness of the hour.

  Anticipation made Belle's step lighter as she hurried up the rise. As she approached the narrow porch, she heard the tinny music of a piano, the murmur of talking, and she smiled with relief as she pushed open the door and stepped inside.

  The tavern was just as she remembered it. The short, scarred bar to the left and the rickety tables surrounded with benches hadn't changed; the same smoke hung heavy just below the rafters, giving the room a blue-gray cast, filling her nostrils with the acrid-sweet scent of tobacco. At the back of the bar someone was running his fingers across the untuned keys of the piano, plunking out a melody she didn't recognize.

  The tension of the last weeks, the last hours, seemed to ease a little bit; Belle closed her eyes and breathed in the smell of smoke and beer and sweat and loved it.

  "Well, I'll be hanged, if it ain't Belle Sault!"

  The familiar voice made her eyes snap open. She glanced toward the sound, at a tall, skinny man leaning over the bar. He had a huge smile on his face, his gold tooth winked in the lamplight.

  "Bobby!" She smiled, hurrying over. "Why, Bad Bobby Barrows, I never once thought you might still be tendin' bar here."

  "Ain't ever left," he said. "I've just been sittin' here waitin' for you to come back."

  "Well, I'm here now." Belle plopped onto a stool. It rocked crookedly beneath her. "And I'd be much obliged if you'd hand me a beer."

  Bobby nodded. His gaze swept past her shoulder. "Looks like there's a few more here who've missed you, girl.”

  Belle spun around on the stool to see another tall, lean man coming toward her. "Charlie Boston!" she laughed, warmed by the welcoming smile on his angular face. "I wondered if I'd see your skinny old self down here tonight."

  She was instantly enveloped in his arms. Charlie squeezed her once and stepped away, holding her at arm's length while his gaze swept over her. "I can't hardly believe my eyes. Belle Sault. Why, you've grown into one fine-lookin' woman."

  Belle flushed, pulling away. "Yeah, well, you look the same, Charlie. Just as ugly as ever."

  "Ain't that the truth." He laughed. "I heard you was in town, but I didn't believe it. Figured you'd've shown up by now."

  "Well, here I am." Belle grinned broadly, reaching back to take the beer Bobby slid across the counter, feeling more at home than she had in the last week and a half. This was what she'd wanted all night, this comfortable familiarity, the easy laughter. "And I dearly hope you haven't gotten any better at poker."

  Behind her, Bobby snorted. "You're damn right about that."

  Charlie looked pained. "Don't you go tellin' lies like that, Bobby Barrows. You know it ain't right to fool a lady."

  "A lady?" Bobby teased. "1 don't see one of those in here."

  Belle laughed. "And you aren't goin' to either." She glanced over the crowd in the direction of Charlie's table. "Any of the others here?"

  "Some of 'em." Charlie nodded. "John Dumont's waitin' for me to bring you on over. And I think you know Abe Shearer."

  Belle took a sip of lukewarm beer. "Ben Drymon?"

  "He's long gone. Went to California a good while back. Mike and Tom left too." Charlie broke into a grin. "But you got the best of 'em right here, little girl, just see if you don't."

  "The best ones to beat at poker, anyhow," Belle teased.

  Charlie shook back his dark, shaggy head in a sudden whoop. "Damn, if you ain't changed one bit, Belle," he said, taking her arm and leading her through the smoky room toward a table against the side wall. "You want to play a few hands—or are you too old now for that?"

  Belle lifted a brow. "Too old to win a game of poker? Not hardly."

  Charlie laughed. "Come on, then," he said, heading to where John Dumont and Abe Shearer sat talking. A deck of cards and a pile of coins lay abandoned in the center of the dark, pitted table. "Hey, boys, look what the cat dragged in!"

  "Well, damn!" John slapped his heavy thigh and sat back in his chair, a huge smile on his face. "Where the hell you been, girl?"

  "New York City."

  "New York City?" Abe rubbed his long chin. "1 guess we better count ourselves lucky, eh, boys? Ain't ev'ry day a New York City gal decides to grace us with her comp'ny."

  "Don't I know it," Belle said good-naturedly, pulling out a chair and sitting down. "You boys better treat me right, too."

  "Guess we could let her win a few hands," John offered.

  She gave him her best challenging look. "If I remember right, Johnny-boy, you'll be lucky if I don't."

  "Damn, Belle Sault, you got a mouth on you." John shook his head. "That big city ain't changed you, that's for sure."

  Belle took a sip of her beer, then grabbed the cards, shuffling them with an ease born of years of practice. "I'll tell you one thing that hasn't changed," she said, winking at John. "I can still beat the pants off you boys."

  "Don't be too damn sure." Abe grinned. "We've had plenty of time to practice."

  "You'll need it." Belle leaned forward. "Now, boys, are you in or out?"

  There was a chorus of "ins," and Belle dealt the cards, settling onto the hard wooden chair and putting her elbows on the table so that she could look at her own hand.

  "So what you been doin' in New York?" John asked, studying his cards.

  Belle shrugged. "A little of this, a little of that. Whatever I can find."

  "Damn, would 1 hate to be your boss." Charlie chuckled. "With your sass, I'd have to fire you before the week was out."

  She gave him a wry glance. "Then it's a good thing you aren't my boss, isn't it? Stop jawin' so much and tell me how many cards you want."

  "Give me two." He slapped his cards on the table, and she dealt him two in return.

  "You come back to stay?"

  "Don't know." Belle shrugged with deliberate nonchalance. "Maybe."

  "Your mama must be glad to see you." Abe took a sip of beer and traded three cards.

  Belle snorted. "Oh, yeah, she's just overjoyed."

  There was a considering look in John's dark eyes. "Imagine Rand's glad to have you around again."

  At the sound of his name Belle stiffened. Slowly she willed herself to relax. Carefully she took two cards and tucked them into her hand. "I s'pose that's what he told you."

  "Rand ain't told me a thing," John said. "He don't spend much time down here anymore."

  Belle looked up. "No?"

  John shook his head. "Too busy with the farm, I guess."

  The knowledge made Belle strangely uncomfortable. She hadn't been the only one who loved this place. Before Cort died, he and Rand had spent nearly as much time here as she. Belle frowned. She remembered how the three of th
em used to play poker with Charlie and the others, how Rand had once belonged at this table, had joked and laughed with the rest of them while Cort flirted with the women. She could still picture the way it had been, could hear the coarse jokes and the irreverent talk, the playful insults like the ones they traded tonight.

  It bothered her that she remembered it so well. It bothered her that Rand didn't spend much time here anymore.

  But mostly it bothered her that she cared at all.

  She took a deep breath, forced away thoughts of Rand and all those memories. It wasn't why she was here. She only wanted an easy game of poker, she reminded herself. A beer and the companionship of people who liked her. That was all she wanted, at least for tonight.

  "Rand prob'Iy has better things to do than hang around all day with you good-for-nothin's," she joked. "Now, ante up, boys, so I can take your money."

  The only sound in the kitchen was that of Lillian washing the dishes. It was a familiar, comforting sound, a light splashing, a steady rhythm—plop the dish into the tub, then one swish, two, and another quick dunk to rinse. Plop, swish, swish, splash. Lillian had washed dishes this way since Rand had known her, probably long before that.

  The noise was as soothing as ever, more so because tonight he needed that soft familiarity, the everyday habit. He wanted things to be the way they'd always been, to be able to sit here in the kitchen and read and think while silence accompanied him long into the night. He wanted the quiet, uneventful routine of waking up in the morning and working numbly through a day where nothing surprised. He'd managed to harden himself to life the last six years, and he wanted it to stay that way, wanted those elusive dreams, the disappointments, to keep their distance, to only come out on those nights when the moon was bright and the sky was cloudless. He could handle it that way, could easily live through those sleepless nights. Because then it was simply longing for things he would never have.

  Not worry over the only things he did.

  He sighed, leaning back in his chair, looking up at the planked ceiling, listening for some sign that Sarah was still awake. He heard nothing, and he hadn't really expected to. She'd gone to bed almost right after supper, too tired even to eat. He wondered what she was dreaming, if maybe she was reliving the day at the canal. Rand felt a shaft of jealousy at the thought. He should have been the one to take her there, and it annoyed him that Belle had thought of it first. And frightened him too. Today at supper he'd heard again the hero worship in Sarah's voice when she talked about Belle, and it filled him with a dread he couldn't erase.

  "Well, then."

  Lillian spoke quietly, but the words seemed to crash in on his thoughts, and they made him jump before he glanced up to see her drying the last dish and stacking it on the shelf above the sideboard. She turned to face him, wiping her hands on her coarse cotton apron. He knew the expression she wore, that tight, this hurts me more than it hurts you look, and he tensed and reached for his lukewarm coffee.

  She pulled out a chair and sat at the table across from him. "Randall," she said, "we need to talk."

  He took a sip of coffee.

  She sighed. "I think we may have done the wrong thing today."

  He raised an eyebrow. " 'We?' You mean me, don't you?"

  She gave him a reproving glance. Her long, slender fingers played with the oilcloth covering the table. "I don't think losing your temper was the best way to handle it. You frightened Sarah. She's already forgotten it, but still ..." She took a deep breath. "The worst thing, of course, is that you made Belle angry too."

  He regarded her silently. God knew she couldn't berate him more than he already had himself. Over the last two hours he'd thought of nothing but how stupid he'd been. He should never have said those things to Belle, should never have lost his temper and told Sarah not to go anyplace alone with her. Belle had told him she wasn't going to take Sarah, and he should have at least given her the benefit of the doubt. But he hadn't even done that. He hadn't believed her, had preferred to think she was lying just to pacify him, and today he'd seen the hurt in her eyes and known she'd been telling the truth after all.

  In the past he never would have made the mistake of doubting her. Once, he would have believed anything she said, would have trusted her implicitly. Belle lived by her own rules and always had, but she could be a steadfast, trustworthy friend when she chose to be, and she had always had a generous heart.

  With the thought came a memory—one so old he thought he'd forgotten it—an image of Belle, thirteen years old, facing his father in the kitchen. Rand remembered the way she stood, long-legged and gawky, her face expressionless while Henry quizzed her about where Rand had been the night before. It had been over something stupid, a silly race between him and Charlie Boston on the Rock Mill Road. It was forbidden, and Rand had done it anyway, and enlisted Belle's help to "borrow" the matched bays that were Henry's pride and joy. Rand remembered his father's anger when she refused to tell. Henry punished her by demanding she clean the pigpens, a chore they all hated more than anything.

  But she wouldn't say a word, and there had been no resentment in her face—and no anger. Not once during the six hours it had taken her to clean those damn pens did she blame Rand with a look or a word. Not even when Henry forbade him to help her. And as far as he knew, she never held it against him.

  Rand took a deep breath. Some reward you gave her, the voice inside him accused. He swallowed through a tight throat, steeling himself against the onslaught of guilt, refusing to feel it. It was a long time ago. Things have changed. Yes, they'd changed. That mindless loyalty she'd given him was gone, and he told himself he didn't care, that the price he'd paid for it had been too high.

  And he didn't want mindless loyalty any longer. All he wanted was to keep Sarah with him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't forget the way he'd felt standing on the street in Lancaster, knowing Belle and Sarah hadn't taken the train. Knowing it might take him years to find them.

  He didn't ever want to have to go through that again. He would do whatever it took to keep it from happening, and if that meant he had to enlist Belle's help, if that meant he had somehow to swallow his pride and tell her how truly sorry he was for not believing her, then he would do it.

  He told himself an apology was all it would take. A nice "I'm sorry" all wrapped up in pretty words and a smile. She was good at accepting apologies, he remembered. Quick to nod and laugh. Quick to forget. The thought of it made him feel more relieved than he expected; suddenly he was burning with the need to do it, restless with the desire to see a forgiving smile in her eyes instead of that damned vulnerability, that burning anger.

  Rand rose from the chair so quickly, it rocked.

  Lillian started. "Rand?" She frowned as he went to grab his coat and hat from the peg by the door. "Rand, where are you going?"

  "To find Belle," he said roughly.

  "Why? What will you do?"

  "Apologize," he said, and then smiled at the bewilderment on her face. "Isn't that what you wanted?"

  "Well, I—"

  He didn't stop to hear the rest. He was out the door in seconds, shrugging into his coat as he hurried across the yard to the barn. All he wanted was for this to be over, and the sooner the better. If he was lucky, he could find her tonight. She said she'd be in that old tavern overlooking Hooker's Station, and he hoped she was still there. In his mind he imagined it. She'd be sitting at the table playing cards, drinking a beer, laughing with the boys as if it didn't matter that she was a woman, as if the conventions that kept good women out of taverns somehow didn't apply to her. He knew exactly how she would look, with her elbows on the table, sleeves pushed back, leaning forward to tease one of the men who watched her. "Now's your chance, boys. Are you in or out?"

  Yes, he knew just how she'd look. It would be the perfect place to apologize, the perfect time. She would be relaxed and happy. He would take her outside and give her an engaging grin of his own. "I'm sorry," he would say. "Please forgive me for do
ubting you."

  The vision was so strong, he almost felt her breath, heard the little catch in her voice, and Rand took the last few steps to the barn at a run. Within moments he had Duke saddled, and he led the gelding out of the barn into the brittle night air.

  The moon was round and full; wisps of fog hung low over the dips and valleys of the road, misted the trees. He smelled the frost in the air; it burned his lungs, made his eyes sting. It was a beautiful night, but Rand didn't have the time to appreciate it. He urged Duke to a faster pace, wanting already to be there, feeling a sense of urgency that he didn't stop to analyze.

  From the outside the tavern looked just the same, just a tumbling-down old building with light slanting through the windows and the low sound of music and talk vibrating from its walls. The sight of it reassured him somehow.

  He smiled and pushed open the door.

  The smell of smoke and beer immediately assailed him. The odor put him at ease, even though he hadn't been inside since he'd brought Sarah home two years ago—before that even. The place looked just the same. Clouds of smoke hung gray and heavy, illuminated by the oil lamps set into the walls. The floor was sticky from spilled beer, and the straw strewn upon it stuck to the soles of his boots. It was crowded, more so than he'd expected, packed with men lining up at the bar, gathered at the rickety tables.

  He peered through the gloom, trying to see her, hear her. Then suddenly he did.

  "All right, boys, give me all your money."

  Her voice carried through the room, husky with laughter and smoke, heavy with that giddy edge he remembered. Rand followed the sound with his gaze, and he spotted her just where he should have expected to see ber.

  He felt immediately swept back in time. They sat at the same old table: Charlie Boston, Abe Shearer, John Dumont, and Belle. The only person missing was Cort, and Rand felt a familiar pang of sadness, a grief that he quickly pushed away. The same table, the same chairs.