by Jo Goodman
“The line’s down?”
Wyatt nodded.
“I don’t think that’s happened since I’ve been here.”
Not wanting to alarm her, Wyatt said, “There’s nothing unusual about it. Ice can snap the wire.” He plucked a piece of material from among the remnants and used it to clean the camera lens. “I was thinking that I’d send Molly up to help you this afternoon.”
“Now, why would you do that?”
“Couldn’t you use her?”
“Yes, but she’ll be here the day after tomorrow, same as she always is.” Rachel stooped a little to catch his eye as he worked on the camera. “Stop that,” she said. “You’re not fooling me.” She took the cloth from his hand and tossed it on the table. “If you don’t want me to be alone, then just say so.”
“I don’t want you to be alone,” he said. “And I can’t spend my day here.”
“I understand.” Her brow puckered as she weighed his concern against her own desire to be undisturbed. What tipped the scales in his favor was not wanting him to be distracted with worry. “All right. But ask Virginia to come by. I can finish pinning and hemming her gown, and she can take it with her.”
“What about the photograph you wanted to make?”
“We’ll do another.”
“You’re sure?”
“Don’t press me, Wyatt. I’m liable to change my mind and bar the door to everyone.” She pointed in the direction of the foyer. “Go. Get something to eat at Longabach’s. I’ll be fine.”
“Did I know you were this bossy when I married you?”
Rachel gave him a playful push toward the front door. “You must have. You notice everything.”
The rolling boil of water in the kettle finally caught Rachel’s attention, and she put down her work to make a cup of tea. She mocked herself with a wry smile when she felt the lightness of the kettle and realized most of the water had boiled away. Here was further proof that she was oblivious of most everything while she worked. It wasn’t that difficult to understand why Wyatt thought she required a keeper.
She sat at the kitchen table while she drank her tea and looked over the list of items she wanted to pick up at Morrison’s. She idly tapped her pencil against the table as she thought about the contents of her pantry. After some consideration, she added tea to the list, then returned to her absent tapping.
The knock at the door blended seamlessly with the tattoo she beat against the tabletop. She never heard the door open nor felt the presence of anyone in the house until Foster Maddox spoke from somewhere behind her.
The pencil flew out of her hand and hot tea splashed her knuckles. The chair scraped the floor as she jumped to her feet and spun around. At her side, her fingers were already curled like talons.
“I knocked,” Foster said. “I thought I heard you invite me in. I see I was mistaken.” His mouth twisted in dry amusement. “Stand down, Rachel. You look feral. I mean you no harm.”
Rachel’s immediate struggle was for composure, and it was hard won. “You have to leave.” Even to her own ears, her voice sounded unnaturally strained. “You should never have come.”
“To Reidsville?” he asked. “Or do you refer to your home?”
“Both. You can have no real business in either.”
“I do, though. I thought we should speak privately, and your husband seems set against it.”
“He has good reason. So do I. I want you to go.”
Foster removed his hat and hooked it on the ear of a ladder-back chair. Watching her closely, he began to unfasten the buttons of his coat. “I wouldn’t mind a cup of tea. I saw a sideboard in the other room. Do you have any whiskey?”
Rachel remained mutinously silent.
He shrugged. “You don’t mind if I look for myself, then.” He laid his coat over the rung of the chair and went in search of something to add to his tea. He opened the sideboard and moved bottles around. “You haven’t asked me anything about your mother or sister. Frankly, that surprises me.” When she didn’t respond, Foster ducked his head back into the kitchen. Rachel was already at the back door. She had a heavy woolen cape drawn across her shoulders and was pulling on her gloves. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” She laced her fingers and pressed her hands together to give the gloves a good fit. “If you won’t leave, I will.”
“You’re being ridiculous, Rachel. There’s no reason that you should go.”
Rachel didn’t step into the kitchen, but she also didn’t retreat to the door. “Wyatt’s going to learn that you left the hotel,” she said. “He asked to be told. It would be better for everyone if he didn’t find you here.”
“But no one knows I’m gone, apart from Dover, and he’s unlikely to tell anyone. He’s in my suite, you see. I took his room. A minor inconvenience to provide a simple confusion.”
Rachel was skeptical that it had been so easy or as successful a ruse as he thought it was.
“You don’t believe me,” said Foster. “It makes no difference, but I will tell you that if your husband meant to keep us apart, then he should have posted himself at the hotel, not put the responsibility in the hands of that effete Brit.”
“I’m expecting a visitor, Foster.”
“Really? I would have thought you’d have mentioned that at the outset.”
She sighed. He only ever believed what served him. “What do you want?”
“Tea.” He returned to the sideboard to collect a bottle. “And conversation.”
Rachel glanced at the door behind her, wondering how foolish it would be to hear him out. She had things she wanted to tell him as well, and there might never be a better opportunity. Wyatt’s presence would invariably change the tenor of any discussion she and Foster had. She slowly removed her gloves.
Foster paused on the threshold, watching her a moment, then set the bottle on the table. “Is the water still hot?”
Rachel didn’t answer his question directly. “I’ll make your tea.” She didn’t want him moving about her kitchen, asserting his presence. Further, she wasn’t going to permit him to sit at her table. “Wait for me in the parlor, Foster. You can pass the time taking inventory of all those items you claim I stole.”
He surprised her with his acquiescence, although he did return almost immediately for the whiskey. Rachel supposed that tea was a secondary consideration, but she went about making it anyway.
She found him standing with his back to the parlor window, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet as he surveyed the contents of the room. She set the tray on a side table and poured him a cup, stopping short of inviting him to sit. Taking nothing for herself, she chose a side chair and perched on the edge.
“Have you finished?” she asked.
“Indeed. I don’t believe there’s an item here that I don’t recognize from my grandfather’s house.” He walked to the table, placed the bottle on the tray, and poured a cup of tea. He sat on the long upholstered bench. “I think he would have given you the moon if you’d asked for it.”
“I never asked for anything.”
“That was your cleverness, Rachel. You demonstrated restraint. I always admired you for it.” He sat back, sipped his tea, and regarded her from the remote vantage of his deep-set eyes. “I don’t know if you heard me earlier. I mentioned that I was surprised you haven’t asked me about your family.”
She hadn’t heard him. “I hoped you would have nothing to tell me.”
He lifted both eyebrows. “That strikes me as strange. Why wouldn’t I have news for you?”
“Because I hoped you would allow them to be. No one knew where I was, Foster. They must have told you that.”
“They did. Many times. It just didn’t seem possible that you would leave them with no word for so long a time.”
Rachel tightened the leash she’d drawn around her emotions.
“Your mother is well,” he said, just as if she’d inquired. “She remains employed as a housekeeper for the Carrols. There wa
s some discussion that she would move to that residence, but with your sister breeding again, the greater need was in her own home.”
In spite of her intentions, Rachel felt the press of tears at the back of her eyes. She blinked hard and set her lips together. She couldn’t bear to ask him a single question.
“You really didn’t know, did you? I was fairly sure there were no letters, but knowing how attached you were, it was difficult to imagine.” He raised his teacup. “Sarah is teaching a Wednesday evening Bible class and regularly takes in mending. The children grow like Topsy, of course, so the money she brings in must be welcome. There was some support for them while my grandfather lived because his attorney saw to it, but that’s gone now. I offered, but they refused.”
“Refused to give me up,” she said.
“Yes, well, I didn’t realize then that they didn’t know anything. Had I understood, I would have been prepared to be generous. Your brother-in-law remains employed at a good wage, so they are doing well, if not well-to-do.”
“You hounded them. I’ll never forgive you for that.”
“I didn’t imagine there was anything I could do to put myself in your good graces, Rachel. I wish you’d told me.”
His cool sarcasm grated. She rubbed her arm absently. Every place he’d ever struck her seemed to blossom heat under her skin.
“Grandfather had another stroke,” Foster said. “It happened a few days after you disappeared. Did you know?”
Rachel shook her head. She squeezed her hands into white-knuckled fists and waited for him to go on.
“There was no announcement. We decided it was in the best interest of the railroad to keep it quiet. People knew he was ill, but not the full extent of it. He rarely spoke and most of what he said was unintelligible. Except at the end. I told you that he asked for you at the end, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“I thought I did. The old goat spoke clearly enough on that occasion. I swear he did it to spite me.”
“Did you kill him?”
“My own flesh and blood? Am I really such a monster in your mind?”
“Yes.”
He set his cup down. “Why would I kill him, Rachel? For all intents and purposes, I was in charge of the Maddox holdings after his first stroke.”
“As long as he was alive, there was oversight.”
“The advisers, you mean?” He shook his head. “They were a nuisance, nothing more. Their own interests made them entirely malleable.” Foster’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you and my grandfather believe I intended to murder him?”
“You told me you would.”
“I think you are unclear in your recollections, but even so, I never threatened my grandfather. Did you tell him I did?”
“He heard you, Foster. He heard us. Our arguments carried down those hallways. He knew every time you struck me, whether or not you left a bruise. Your grandfather was bedridden, but he wasn’t deaf. You threatened all of us.”
Foster’s features were set sympathetically. “I am generally thought to be a man of my word, Rachel. It stands to reason that I would have carried out one or two. I never did, though, and certainly none against my own beloved grandfather.”
“The old goat.”
“One and the same,” he said pleasantly. He reached inside his vest and withdrew a photograph. “I carry this with me, Rachel. Do you recall?” He turned his open palm so she could see what he held.
Unable to do otherwise, she drew in a sharp breath and stared back at her sepia-toned image, a reflection of herself that she might have glimpsed in a dark pool of water. She had no words.
“I see that you do remember. Grandfather never saw it. That would have been cruel, I think, to taunt him in such a way. I carry it for resolve.”
Agitated, Rachel rose from her chair and went to the stove. She was cold to her marrow. “I think there was nothing about Mr. Maddox’s last stroke that was real,” she said. “The ruse kept him alive for fifteen more months, and he was watching all the while. He was infinitely more clever than you thought, Foster.”
“Do you think so?”
Feeling him close behind her, Rachel flinched. The hair at the back of her neck stood up. She turned, needing to face him before he was toe-to-toe with her. “I want you to leave. I told you I’m expecting someone.”
“So you’ve said.”
“If Wyatt finds out that you were here, you’ll spend another night in jail.”
“If?” asked Foster. “That sounds as though there’s a possibility that you won’t tell him. Would you do that for me, Rachel?”
“I don’t want trouble.”
“Your husband has my gun. He has my hired gunmen. I have an accountant with a head for figures and a dull pencil. If there’s trouble, it won’t be because I’ve done anything.”
“Except provoke it.”
“Oh, I see. It’s your husband you want to protect. From himself, apparently, because he has nothing to fear from me.” Foster returned the photograph to his pocket. “I don’t care about the furniture, and I can forgive you for the gash in my scalp, but you’ll have to turn over operation of the spur, Rachel. It’s C & C property.”
“It’s not, though. It’s mine. Your grandfather wanted me to have it.”
“My grandfather would have signed anything you put in front of him. I saw him do it, remember? The letters you gave him for his signature. The invitations you declined on his behalf. He hardly glanced at what you handed him.”
“Is that what you think happened?” She shook her head. “Until I came to Reidsville, I had no knowledge that the Calico Spur existed. How would I?”
“He told you everything. The fact that you came here after you left Sacramento speaks to that. You must see that the spur belongs with the rest of the Maddox holdings.”
“It’s only a spur,” said Rachel. “Seventy-three miles of track. That’s nothing—less than nothing—compared to the rails that you own. Why is it so important to you?”
Foster was silent a few moments, shifting his weight from side to side as he regarded Rachel closely. “It’s important to me because it was important to him,” he said at last. “My accountant? The one with the dull pencil? He thinks he understands my grandfather’s interest, and I am sufficiently intrigued to want to discover if he’s correct.”
Rachel pressed her hands together to keep them still. Unease made her heart hammer and color rise in her face. She made a quarter turn, hoping Foster would conclude it was her proximity to the stove that warmed her cheeks. She did not foresee that this small movement would goad him to reach for her. His hand was on her forearm before she had any opportunity to step aside. The stove blocked a full retreat.
She resisted the urge to yank away. “Please, Foster, do not be difficult.”
“My feelings for you haven’t changed.”
“I’m aware of only one feeling,” she said flatly. “Enmity.”
“How can you say that?” His fingers tightened so his square-cut nails dug deeply into her sleeve. “You have frustrated me certainly, and provoked me to act in ways that I have often regretted but that you know you deserved. Still, it doesn’t follow that I despise you.”
That he was blaming her again for the blows he’d struck left Rachel unable to speak.
“Are you still so haughty, Rachel? It no longer seems as if you might be. You look unexpectedly fragile.” His hand wrapped more tightly around her wrist.
Rachel twisted. His fingernails dug deeper. “Let me go, Foster.”
“Of course.” In spite of his words, he didn’t release her. “In a moment.” He slipped his free hand around her waist and pulled her against him. “There’s been no proper greeting, Rachel. I mean that to change.”
She twisted hard again, ignoring the pain. When he swooped, she gave him her cheek and not her mouth. He set her off balance so that she had no leverage to push him away; then he slid the hand at her waist up her spine until it pressed hard between her shoulder bla
des. Rachel felt herself being pushed against the stove. Only moments passed before she was aware of the heat penetrating the fabric of her gown. Pain tore a cry from her, but rather than release her, Foster seized on it as an opportunity and caught her mouth with his. Tears came to her eyes. She stumbled a little as she attempted to stand on her own and found the toe of his shoe with her foot. She stomped hard, missing most of him at first, but she struck again, and quickly, and ground her heel sharply when she caught him. The angle of his hold changed, finally giving her the purchase that she needed.
Rage lent her strength. She used one hand to free the other, pulling through the weakest point of his grip on her arm between his thumb and fingers; then she thrust her shoulder into his chest and leapt sideways when he staggered back. She didn’t wait to see what he would do. She ran to the front door and pulled it open.
Virginia Moody stood squarely in her path, one hand curled and raised to shoulder height in preparation of knocking.
“Did you hear me coming up the steps?” asked Virginia. “I thought I was quieter than—” Virginia’s pleasantly rounded features took on a distinctly sharper edge as she looked at Rachel more closely. “Are you all right? You don’t look well.” She stood on tiptoe, trying to see beyond Rachel’s shoulder. “I’d like it better if you’d say something. I’m liable to fetch the sheriff otherwise.”
“I’m fine. A bit harried, I expect. I’ve been pressing myself to finish your gown.”
Virginia’s diminutive bow-shaped upper lip was pulled taut by her frown. She ducked suddenly, trying to see under the arm Rachel had spread across the doorway. “Is someone in there?”
Rachel shook her head and hoped it was true. She’d given Foster at least enough time to get to the back of the house. “Come in. Wyatt said he was going to ask you to come by. I hope it was no inconvenience for you.”
“Not at all.” Virginia dusted snow off the hem of her coat before she gave it to Rachel. She held out her bonnet and gloves a moment later. “It’s quiet at the house today, and I couldn’t bear looking at Ezra any longer. Poor thing’s got an eye like a pounded steak and a lump on his head as big as his left ball.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Forgot where I was.”
