Mr. Bell sat at a worktable, gazing out the small window. Paisley met Cade’s eye. “Did Joshua leave?”
He nodded. “There’s a bit of tension between the two of you.”
She wiped her hands on a dishrag. “He’s trying to help. But he’s trying to begin right where we ended.”
“Is that something you want?”
Paisley set a glass of milk in front of her pa. “I have no desire to waste any more tears on someone I cannot trust.”
Tears. Delancey had made her cry. Cade disliked him more all the time.
Paisley watched her pa with worry. “He’s having fewer and fewer good days.”
Cade took her hand in his. “Anything I can do?”
With her free hand, Paisley pushed a small bit of ham toward him. “Would you slice some meat for the sandwiches?”
“A big task, that. I might have to rest partway through.”
She attempted to smile at his humor. “If you manage, I’ll let you stay and eat with us.”
“I’d like that. Anything else you need for dinner?”
Her eyes dropped away from his. “We don’t need another charity basket.”
“Paisley—”
She turned away. “Never mind. I’ll pull out the bread for the sandwiches.”
Cade stepped up beside her again and quickly pressed the briefest of kisses to her cheek. He forced himself to step past her before the temptation to kiss her fully proved too much. They weren’t on firm enough footing to tread that path again.
“What brought that on?” She looked surprised but not offended. Her face had colored up nicely, in fact. Cade held out hope that she wasn’t as indifferent as he feared.
“You seemed to need it.” He returned to the ham. If Paisley wanted it sliced, he’d slice it.
Mr. Bell spoke into the silence of the kitchen. “Your mother isn’t ever out this late. Where did you say she’d gone?”
Paisley froze on the spot. For a moment she said nothing. “She is—She’s visiting a neighbor.”
“At this late hour?” Mr. Bell pressed.
“It’s only six o’clock, Papa.”
“It is not,” he snapped. “It’s ten o’clock at least.”
Paisley set a plate of sliced bread next to Cade’s platter of ham. “Do you mind assembling the sandwiches?”
“Happy to.”
“Which neighbor is she visiting?” Mr. Bell demanded. “I’ll go fetch her home.”
“No, Papa. She’s—She’s fine where she is.” Emotion crept into Paisley’s voice.
“I would rather she were home.” Mr. Bell paced to the window.
“So would I,” Paisley whispered.
Her father looked back at her. “Then I will go get her. We’d both rather have her here.”
Pain filled every line of her face. “She can’t come home just now. I am certain she wishes she could, just as we wish she was here, but she can’t come back.”
“If she’s just at the neighbors’—”
“They’re ill,” she said quickly. “Mama is nursing them. It would be a shame to pull her away when they need her so much.”
“I suppose,” Mr. Bell mumbled and turned back to the window. “How long do you think she’ll be gone?”
Her chin quivered. She closed her eyes a moment and pressed her lips together so hard the color disappeared.
Pain ached through Cade at the sight. He set a hand gently on her arm, unsure what else to do.
“She won’t be gone long, Papa.” Her whisper shook. “We’ll hardly notice she’s been away.”
“And then the two of you can begin working on your quilt again,” Mr. Bell said. “You keep putting it off. Your mother isn’t at all sure you’ll manage to finish it.”
“You’re right, Papa. It ought to have been finished long ago.”
Cade quickly assembled a sandwich and set it on the table near Mr. Bell. Hoping that would keep the man occupied for a while, Cade turned back to Paisley. A tear trickled down her cheek. Cade motioned her out of the kitchen with a jerk of his head.
They stepped into the hallway. Paisley leaned her forehead against the wall. Her shoulders rose and fell with each strangled breath. “I can’t keep doing this, Cade. Talking about Mama as though she’s still alive, as though she’ll walk through the door at any moment…I miss her so much it’s like a knife in my heart, and Papa just twists it.”
“I’m sorry.” He truly was. “How often does this happen?”
“More all the time.” She turned to lean her shoulder on the wall. She wiped at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Gideon says he’ll grow worse. Eventually he won’t remember anything about Mama. I dread it, but in a small way I’m looking forward to it, which makes me think I must be the most horrible sort of person.”
Cade reached out and brushed at a tear slipping down her jaw. “It doesn’t mean you’re horrible, love. Only worn to a thread.”
“I miss him,” she said. “He’s here every day, and I miss him.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I work around the clock trying to care for him, to keep him calm and comfortable. I’m tired, and I’m frustrated and lonely. And as much as I insisted to Joshua that we don’t need the food he brought, I’m failing there as well.”
Cade settled an arm around her shoulders and walked with her toward the parlor. He could think of nothing to say, so he kept quiet.
“Papa has no one but me, and I am letting him down.” Another tear escaped her eye.
Cade held her hand, gently, wishing he could do more. He brushed his lips along her forehead. Thoughts of kissing her again had kept him up at night. The memory of her in his arms haunted his days. Now she was there, letting him hold her.
A shuddering, half-sigh, half-sob escaped her. Now was not the time to try kissing her again. She was hurt and worried and vulnerable.
“Sit by the fire and warm up, love,” he said, putting her a little away from him. “I’ll fetch your pa and you a few sandwiches and be back.”
She smiled at him. “For someone I didn’t like at all at first, you’re not entirely terrible.”
“Good to hear,” he said with a laugh. “My next goal is to be ‘mostly fine.’”
She sat in the chair nearest the fireplace. “We can work on that.”
We most certainly can.
Paisley came by the jail the next day, something Cade chose to see as a sign she’d meant what she’d said about working on learning to like him better.
“You’re wearing your gun,” Cade said, noticing it as he always did.
“Don’t you start yelping at me.” She was apparently on the warpath. “I’ll wear what I choose to wear, whether or not—”
“I wasn’t complaining. I was only wondering if something had happened or if you were expecting something to and if that something required a pistol.”
Her defenses didn’t immediately drop. “I have worn a gun almost daily for years. I do not need a special reason, neither do I need permission from you or Joshua to do so.”
“I told you last night that I like your gun.” He really did. “You wear it well. You wear it real well.”
Her mouth tightened, and her nostrils flared a bit. “Do not poke fun at me, Cade.”
He sidled up close to her, near enough to enjoy the scent she always wore. “A gun slung low on a woman’s hips might not appeal to every man, but it sure turns the head of this one. Has from the very first, love.”
“So maybe it’s really you and not Joshua who’s a bit touched in the head.” At least she was smiling, which was more than could be said for him.
He didn’t like how easily Delancey pricked at her and made her doubt herself. “Why do you put up with him?” he asked.
“Because he keeps coming around.” Her smile only grew. “He’s not a bad person, o
r wasn’t when I knew him, at least. He simply didn’t love me as much as either of us thought he did. If I shunned every man who didn’t fall in love with me, I’d not have a single male acquaintance.”
“I’d beg to differ,” Cade muttered. Not only had he fallen in love with her, he knew of several others who were more than a little fond of her themselves.
“How did the bank delivery go this morning?” Paisley asked.
He wasn’t surprised that she still kept an ear pressed to the ground on matters of law and order in Savage Wells. She hadn’t made a go for the job strictly for the salary or prestige, after all.
“Without a hitch,” Cade said. “Jones and Tansy were the perfect additions. You’ve a mind for these things, after all.”
“A mind for planning heavily-armed deliveries of money? That is not generally the way a woman wants to be described.” But she smiled amusedly.
“Oh, should I have said you were ‘prim and proper’ instead?”
She winced. “That’s almost as bad as ‘dainty and demure.’”
Cade chuckled. “Demure? It ain’t a bad trait, it just don’t suit you.”
“You don’t seem to think that’s a failing in me.” The tiniest hint of pleading he caught in her eyes tugged hard at him.
Here was the need for reassurance he had seen in her many times. Maybe if she was constantly demanding compliments and such it would be bothersome. But this was Paisley, who shot like a gunfighter, commanded attention like a general, and didn’t back down from the things that mattered, no matter how lopsided the odds. A kind word now and then wasn’t much to ask.
“I never cared for prudish women,” he said. “But a woman with fire and determination, well, that’s another thing entirely.”
“Yes, well, not everyone feels that way,” she said.
They stood near enough to each other for him to slip an arm around her waist and pull her closer to him. She set her hand on his chest, looking up at him with that same uncertainty.
“A woman doesn’t change so someone’ll love her. Any man who thinks she should doesn’t deserve her affection.”
She turned her head, resting it against him. Saints, she felt good in his arms, leaning on him. He could easily grow accustomed to this.
“You are very warm,” she said with a sigh. “It is freezing outside today.”
“Is that the only reason you’re letting me hold you like this?” He asked like it was simply more teasing. It wasn’t.
“It’s the only reason I’ll admit to.”
That was good enough for him.
For now.
Paisley worked an average of a dozen different jobs over the course of a week. They were all tiring, but the two days she spent serving lunch to the stagecoach passengers topped them all. She never sat. She never stopped moving.
Bounty hunting might be more dangerous, but surely it would be less exhausting.
Cade’s words of warning filled her mind as they did any time she so much as thought about taking up Marshal Hawking’s suggestion of pursuing that risky vocation. “Putting holes in people strictly for money would turn you into someone cold and sick inside.”
She stepped out of the restaurant after one particularly long day at the restaurant. A cold wind tore at her. Winters were brutal in Wyoming, and they’d not even reached the thick of it yet. Paisley buttoned up her coat all the way to her throat.
Only a moment after she began walking toward Gideon’s house to fetch Papa, Mr. Thackery hurried up toward her. He’d walked her home a few times. His attentions were flattering, and he seemed a nice enough fellow, but he didn’t make her heart flutter or her cheeks heat. Only one man did that. One she was beginning to hope might feel the same way about her.
“Good day, Miss Bell.” Thackery held his sweat-stained hat in his hand, spinning the brim around and shuffling his feet. “Are you headed home?”
“To Dr. MacNamara’s, actually.”
Papa hadn’t been well the past few days, mind or body. Each successive episode struck him harder than the last. He didn’t recover as quickly. She worried a great deal about him.
“The weather has been cold these past few days.” Thackery cleared his throat, hat still spinning in his hands. “Too much colder and I’ll be sent out to break up frozen ponds out on the grazing land.”
She couldn’t say if he was excited by the prospect or not. He was so fidgety. And he didn’t look at her. He hadn’t been nervous around her during their sheriff competition. His more personal attentions toward her had turned him into a mess.
“Can we keep walking?” she requested. “I think we’ll be warmer that way.”
He nodded and kept pace with her, but didn’t seem to have anything else to say. Joshua’s arrival spared them both any need for conversation.
“Paisley. I came to walk you home.” Joshua spared only the slightest glance for Thackery. “And I brought a warm blanket.” He held it up. “I know your coat isn’t very thick.”
“I’m only going as far as Dr. MacNamara’s,” Paisley said. She could already see his house.
“Well, you can still use the blanket until you get there.” Joshua made to put it around her shoulders.
Paisley sidestepped him and kept going.
“You’ll freeze,” he insisted, double stepping to catch back up with her.
“I’ll be fine.”
“But—”
Thackery jumped in. “If Miss Bell says she doesn’t need the blanket, you ought to believe her.”
“I am concerned for her well-being.”
Mrs. Abbott and Mrs. Jones happened past in that moment. Their eyes darted in unison from Thackery to Joshua to Paisley and back again. In an instant, the women’s heads were together and whispered words flew between them. They continued down the road, deep in discussion.
More fodder for the Savage Wells gossip mill.
Paisley climbed the steps to Gideon’s front porch and knocked at the door. She’d normally just walk in—Gideon had long ago told her she could—but Joshua and Thackery were there, each fighting for the spot beside her. She would have been flattered if she wasn’t so annoyed by the entire thing.
Gideon opened the door. He looked at her companions. “Have you been hired as a bodyguard, Pais?”
She gave Gideon a tense-lipped glare as she stepped past him. “They followed me.”
“Shall I leave your puppies on the porch?” Gideon asked.
She probably should be nicer to them. They were trying to be kind, after all. She turned and offered them a smile. “Thank you both for walking me over. But my father needs me now.”
They were both very understanding and left with solemn promises to see her later. She breathed a sigh of relief when they were gone.
“Two suitors at once,” Gideon said. “A fine position to be in.”
She shook her head. “Not when neither suitor is the one I want.”
“Well, now. This is something.” Gideon’s tone grew dramatic as they made their way to the staircase. “So who is the suitor you want?”
“After so many years on my own, I’ve simply resigned myself to being a spinster. I’ll begin wearing outlandish clothing and will collect large numbers of chickens, all of whom I’ll name Annabelle.” She hazarded a glance in his direction.
He was grinning, just as she’d assumed he would be. Her brother, Tom, had been the same way: quick with a smile, fond of a joke. “And you don’t have any alternatives to the Annabelle farm?”
They’d reached the second-floor landing. It was the perfect moment to switch topics before he tricked her into a confession she was not yet ready to make. “How is Papa doing today?”
Gideon accepted the new direction. “His lungs have cleared significantly. There’s still a cough, but it doesn’t sound as worrisome.”
“That is a rel
ief.”
Gideon nodded toward Papa’s bedroom door. “His throat doesn’t appear as raw, either.”
She didn’t step inside. “You are sticking very close to the subject of his physical health, which makes me worry that his mind isn’t quite so good.”
“The last time I checked on him he asked me to ask his mother if it was time for supper.”
Papa’s mind had returned to his early childhood? He was almost never that far away. Her heart sank clear to her toes. The time had come to ask the question she’d been dreading. “How long before he stops returning to the present?”
“I wish I could tell you,” Gideon said. “There is so little we understand about the mind. So very, very little.”
“But he will eventually stop returning.” Paisley had tried again and again to accept that truth. “Someday he won’t be my father anymore. He’ll be a very confused stranger.”
“Doc?”
They both turned at the sound of Andrew’s voice. Paisley stole a moment to swipe at the tears in her eyes.
“How’s Mr. Bell?” Andrew asked. He stood at the base of the stairs, looking up at them.
“He’s still very ill,” Gideon said.
Paisley spoke to Andrew. “Would you like to go visit him?”
Andrew shook his head. “If he’s ailing, he needs to rest.”
“You are so kind to him.”
Andrew gave a half shrug. “He doesn’t treat me like I’m batty the way most people do.”
She blinked back a tear. “Someday, Andrew, he won’t know who you are.”
He didn’t hesitate, not one moment. “He doesn’t always know now. But he doesn’t need to know my name to play checkers.”
“Come by tomorrow,” Gideon said. “Maybe he’ll be feeling better.”
Andrew nodded and slipped away. She’d worried about Andrew for four years. She’d worried about her father for most of the last two. A tiny bit of that worry eased, knowing they were helping each other.
Gideon opened the door. “Let me know if you need anything or if he seems to grow worse.”
She stepped into the dim room and was greeted by the sound of Papa’s snoring. She didn’t want to wake him, but she also didn’t want to leave him. “Would you mind if I stayed with him tonight?”
The Sheriffs of Savage Wells Page 22
