“How’s that?” he whispered against my mouth; I was pretty sure that if not for his arms holding me, I would have sunk straight to the floorboards of my tiny little landing.
“Marshall Augustus,” I whispered in response, and he grinned, his eyes flashing with heated satisfaction.
“Ruthann Marie,” he murmured, kissing me again, and all I could think of was making love in the guest room bed, when he’d kissed me this deeply. Marshall made a throaty sound and drew back; he said softly, “Angel, I’m gonna lose all control here and I made you a promise. We’re courting. And besides, I have a surprise for you in the truck.”
“You do?” I whispered. I smoothed dark hair from the sides of his face, caressing him. I whispered, “You look so handsome.”
“I did shower,” he teased, kissing the tip of my nose. He asked, “You ready?”
“Just let me grab my purse,” I told him, and darted back inside. My phone was making noises on the kitchen counter and I saw that Tish was calling again – she had called while I was showering and I hadn’t listened to the message, and so I answered. She and Case had arrived home from Bozeman a few hours ago.
Tish said at once, “I know that you and Marsh have a date tonight, but Case and I want you guys to come have supper with us. We miss you.”
“But Tish…”
“Just for a little while,” my sister insisted. “We invited Marsh earlier.”
“He’s here right now,” I told her. Marshall was leaning one shoulder against the open doorframe, grinning at me as I approached, and my heart performed a series of frenzied backflips as I smiled right back at him. I hardly remembered Tish on the phone.
“I made spaghetti and meatballs,” Tish said into my ear.
“All right, but just for a little while,” I told her, and hung up.
“They invited us to dinner while I was still out there today,” Marshall said. “I said I would see what you thought first.”
“I told her we’d come. But then I want you all to myself,” I said, barely above a whisper, my heart tripping over itself at the heat in his eyes.
“That may be too dangerous,” he said. “Especially with you in that tiny little dress. Sweet Jesus, woman…I deserve a medal for keeping my hands off of you…”
I giggled, catching his arm and tucking myself to his side; Marshall kissed the side of my forehead, with a small groan. He said, “You smell amazing. Come on, we’ll eat with them and then we’re going to ride Arrow and do some stargazing. With minimal touching.”
“We are?” I asked in excitement. “I’ve never ridden a horse.”
“Something tells me you’ll be a natural,” he said, and then laughed as I squeaked at his suggestive words and flicked his chest. He added, “Better grab a pair of jeans and your tennis shoes.”
Marshall’s truck was decorated with wildflowers. I saw this as we descended the steps in the glint of the evening sunshine; Marshall had parked beside my new car. There were flowers tucked beneath the windshield wipers, piled on the dashboard and behind the rearview mirrors; black-eyed susans and brilliantly-orange lilies, long-stemmed and with petals overspilling every which way, and I stopped and put both hands to my mouth, overcome at this gesture. Marshall cupped my bare shoulders from behind and said quietly, “I thought you might like it. These suit you.”
“You just know,” I whispered, my throat thick with emotion. Wildflowers were my favorite – and besides, Marshall had taken the time to gather these for me. I whispered, “You picked all of these, didn’t you?”
“I did. Case and Tish might be missing a few dozen flowers from their yard and surrounding areas.”
We held hands as Marshall drove us to my sister’s trailer, Marshall stroking his thumb over the back of my knuckles. I said, “Thank you for this.” I had collected a bouquet from the variety on the dashboard, and held it on my lap. The cab of the truck was bursting with the scent of the blossoms.
“You are so welcome,” he told me. “Last night after we hung up, I just sat outside and thought of everything I want to do for you. All of the sweet and romantic things that courting involves…like flowers.”
“It’s even a romantic word…courting,” I said, as I buried my face in the blossoms again. The evening sunlight streaming through the driver’s side window edged his dark hair with scarlet.
He grinned at me and said, “Angel, there’s pollen all over your nose.”
Immediately I inspected my reflection in the rearview mirror; my overzealous inhaling of the orange lilies had left behind a similar color all over my nose. Rubbing at it only made matters worse.
Marshall offered through his laughter, “I could lick it away…”
“Good thing we’re just going to Tish’s,” I said.
The setting sun was bisected by the edge of the ridge beyond the little trailer as Marshall pulled into the driveway and parked beside Tish’s car. Mutt and Tiny raced to greet us. The scent of wood hung in the air like a fresh breath and I looked sharply at the barn, thinking of the strangeness of last night. Just a dream, I reminded myself firmly. Cider and Buck were in the corral and the screen door of the trailer opened to reveal my sister and Case.
“Look at you two,” Tish said, grinning at us. She was barefoot and wearing a faded-blue denim sundress, her short hair curling around her cheeks. Case was in jeans and a t-shirt, and though he had exhausted smudges under his eyes and bandages still covering his forearms, he looked happy.
Marshall and I held hands as we made our way up the path to the door. With a quiet sweetness in his voice that made my heart absolutely swell, Marshall said, “Ruthann and I are courting, in case you hadn’t heard.”
Case teased, “I think you may have mentioned that a time or ten today, little bro.” He smiled at us, his voice still raspy.
“I know it’s your first date, but we wanted to see you guys,” Tish said. “Supper’s almost ready.” She peered more closely at me and asked, “Is your nose orange?”
I explained, “I smelled the flowers Marshall picked for me and got pollenated, see?” And I indicated the truck.
Marshall ushered me inside, where it smelled richly of tomato sauce and garlic bread. He caught both Tish and Case into a hug, one after the other, saying, “It’s so fucking good to see you guys home. You don’t even know.”
“The place looks incredible,” Case said. “It’s more than I could have ever imagined.”
“It’s so good to be home,” Tish added, her eyes wet with tears. She curled herself against Case and kissed his jaw; he squeezed her closer at once. She told us, “Have a seat you two, and I’ll grab you a couple of beers.”
Marshall winked at me, both of us trying too hard to act innocent as we settled onto the couch; I sat and primly crossed my ankles, though I couldn’t quite restrain a little rush of breath as Marshall sat near me and gently, swiftly rubbed the back of his knuckles against my left thigh, just to the edge of my hem. The air between us crackled and throbbed, and I inched a little closer to him. He was so immediate, so warm and sexy in his faded jeans, so close to me, and I could smell his breath and the faint scent of his aftershave…
“You can’t look at me that way, it’s not playing fair,” he leaned close to my ear to whisper.
“Ruthie, here,” Tish said, saving me from embarrassing myself by straddling Marshall right there on the couch, in front of everyone. She handed me a damp dishtowel, explaining, “For your nose. Dinner will be ready in five minutes, give or take.”
Marshall helped me remove as much of the pollen as possible, and then the four of us sipped beers as the sun sank. Case sat at their kitchen table and drew Tish onto his lap; it did my heart good to see the way Case held my sister, how he pressed a kiss between her shoulder blades, where her skin was bared by the straps of her sundress, briefly closing his eyes as though drawing strength from the feel of her. Marshall noticed this too, and there was soft satisfaction on his face as he met my gaze.
That makes me so happy, Ma
rshall told me, without words.
I reached and linked our fingers; Marshall settled our joined hands on his right thigh.
Tish gently aligned her forearms over Case’s bandaged ones. She said, “I have never been so happy to get home.”
“Same here,” Case agreed in his husky voice. His words still emerged sounding painful through his raw throat; I hadn’t been around him enough to know what his voice usually sounded like, as he hadn’t come to Landon for the summer visit three years ago, and I didn’t remember him well from Mathias and Camille’s wedding. But he and my sister looked so right together, his auburn hair and eyes a beautiful complement to her dark curls and the flashing blue of her direct gaze. Tish, who was taller than both Camille and me, looked tiny in Case’s strong arms.
I thought of the way my body blended so perfectly with Marshall’s, as though we were part of the same being, and I understood that the same thing occurred when my sister and Case touched. Their every movement spoke of their love, and so I didn’t have to know Case very well to perceive that he belonged to Tish, and she to him.
And yet, I did know Case, somehow, beyond this life – all of our souls at last coming back together, perhaps for the first time in over a century. As this notion crossed my mind, I felt Marshall twitch, as though a shiver had darted along his spine in the same instant; his fingers instantly tightened around mine. I had to close my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, Tish was watching me with a frown pulling her eyebrows together.
She observed, “Ruthie, you look pale. Are you all right?” Before I could respond, she explained her concern by telling Marshall, “She fainted last night.”
The same crease of worry that I had seen on Marshall’s forehead the night we’d eaten at the little diner off the interstate appeared instantly and he asked, “Why didn’t you call me?”
“I’m all right,” I tried to reassure them; Marshall’s gray eyes drove into mine. He was so worried that I explained, “I was just so tired last night…and then Tish and I read these letters…”
Tish chewed her bottom lip and I knew she wanted to tell Marshall about how she thought I had almost disappeared while sitting at the table, but she held back, which was monumental for her. Instead she said, “We can tell Marsh about those after we eat.”
Marshall’s concern for me rolled from him in waves. I knew he was thinking that I must be stressed because of everything that had happened this week, our collective worry over Case, leaving behind my life in Minnesota, breaking up with my boyfriend of four years, but truly none of those things were responsible for my current lightheadedness. When I blinked, I swore I saw Una Spicer again, bent over a letter, quill pen scratching ink over the paper.
Hurry, Ruthann, she whispered in my ear.
I said firmly, “I’m just fine, really.”
I did feel better after eating a huge helping of Tish’s spaghetti, which was Aunt Ellen’s delicious recipe, straight from our childhood. We all dipped garlic bread in the sauce, bathed in the warm glow of the kitchen light, and laughed over the long noodles that created such ill-timed gaps in the conversation; our mouths were ringed with tomato sauce.
“Baby, you could have picked a better first-date food for these two,” Case teased my sister.
“But it’s Ruthie’s favorite,” Tish said softly, smiling at me. “Since we first watched Lady and the Tramp as little kids. Way back then she decided she liked it because Lady liked it.”
“It’s still my favorite,” I confirmed.
Marshall grinned at me and said, “I’m so glad to learn this. Now I can push a meatball over to your plate, just like the Tramp,” and I giggled at his heartfelt words. I knew he would, if there were any meatballs left; we had eaten all of them. He realized this and said, “Dammit. Next time.”
Case didn’t do much talking; I was sure his throat still ached terribly, and he seemed more than content to watch my sister (he could hardly take his eyes from her face) as she talked enough for the two of them, telling us what the doctor had said before they left Bozeman, then explaining that Case was going to take another week off before reopening their little music store downtown; she marveled over the state of the beautiful new barn. Case was planning to start building a new corral fence tomorrow, as the old one had been almost completely destroyed.
“I’ll help you,” Marshall promised. “I don’t start back to school for a little while yet.”
“Thanks, little bro,” Case responded. “I suppose after you become a game warden next spring I won’t be able to talk openly about fishing out of season.”
Marshall grinned and shook his head. He joked, “Not unless you want your ass hauled to jail.”
“After all the shit you’ve pulled and now you’ll be a lawman,” Case said. He teased, “Little bro is growing up.”
“At least you know a good lawyer,” I said to Case, and then asked my sister, “Hey, did you see your office window today?”
“Isn’t it great?” she responded. “Al really is the best.”
Case added, “Never thought I’d see my name on a law office, that’s for sure, but it looks damn good.”
“Patricia Spicer, attorney…that has such a ring to it, don’t you guys think?” Tish asked.
After dinner, while Tish went to root out the letters to show Marshall, he and Case did the dishes, Marshall drying, the two of them joking around with the ease of brothers and longtime friends. I sat at the table with my chin propped in my left hand, simply indulging in watching Marshall as he worked; he was well aware of my adoring gaze, as he winked at me over his shoulder and took every opportunity to come near me, en route to putting away a certain dish or spoon or saucepan.
I admired the way Marshall’s clothes fit to his strong, wiry body (I couldn’t help but vividly remember my own body pressed against him, as he brought me more pleasure than I even knew existed), the way his dark hair always seemed wild and slightly uncombed, not as curly as mine, but certainly with enough volume to be called wavy, the way it fell along his neck and the sides of his forehead, the shape of his sexy mouth and curve of his chin and jaws…the back pockets of his jeans and the way the denim fit his lanky legs…
“I did find a mention of Cole,” Tish said as she reentered the kitchen, interrupting my thoughts. She plopped down and drew her chair closer to mine, setting a well-worn letter on the table; I wanted to see the one that I had been reading last night, the one with the word ‘marshal.’ Somehow though, I was hesitant to touch the letter itself. I felt oddly wary.
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself.
Case dried his hands and came to sit beside Tish, smoothing a hand over her back. Marshall claimed the seat on my other side and he angled the letter so we could look at it together.
“You know my old fiddle?” Case asked Marshall, who nodded at once. Case explained, “Tish and I think my ancestor who carried it to the Civil War and then out west was Henry Spicer. His wife wrote all these letters to Malcolm Carter. And I know I remember reading one from Malcolm once, but it’s not with these.”
“These were written in…1882,” Marshall observed. “Were the Spicers here then, in Montana?”
“They were,” Case said.
“From what we can piece together, the family came out here in the late 1870s,” Tish said. “Montana wasn’t a state yet, and Jalesville wasn’t founded until 1893. The Spicers were here about a decade earlier. They were homesteading by the 1880s.”
“My family, too,” Marshall said. He was playing with my hair almost unconsciously, letting my curls twine around his fingers, the edge of his hand resting against my spine. He said, “Grant Rawley moved west from Iowa sometime after the Civil War and built the original homestead. He knew Malcolm Carter and the Spicers, both.”
“That’s so wild,” Tish said. “Look here,” and she pointed to a paragraph in the letter, “Una wrote that they were expecting Cole home soon.” The letter was dated Sunday, May 21, 1882.
“Where was he?” I
asked. “Did he get back home?”
“This is the last letter we have,” Tish said quietly. “So we don’t know for sure.”
“It’s important that we find out,” I said. Somehow I knew this to be true.
“And there’s no mention of any Yancys either,” Case said. “Remember, Marsh, I told you about that claim Derrick made – about his ancestor getting shot in the back?”
“That’s a bad way to go,” Marshall said. “But a Yancy undoubtedly deserved it.”
“Derrick believes that someone connected to Case shot his ancestor,” Tish explained to me, rubbing her temples briskly. “God, there’s so much I haven’t told you, Ruthie. So much has happened this summer.”
“He also called you a whore,” Case said to Tish. “I could kill him with my own hands.”
“When did he say that?” Marshall asked in surprise. “I’d have helped with that beating, just so you know.”
Tish rolled her eyes, explaining, “That night in Miles City, remember, you guys played at the Coyote’s Den? Derrick was so drunk I couldn’t believe he was still upright. He told me about his murdered ancestor while you guys were still on stage, and then shoved me away and said…that.” Her eyes flickered to Case and she added, “I didn’t tell you until just this week because I knew you’d want to kill him.” Her blue eyes sparked with anger as she added, “I want to kill him,” and then vowed, “I will prove that Derrick is responsible for the fire if it’s the only thing I ever accomplish as a lawyer.”
Marshall stopped playing with my hair and pressed his hand to my back, a wide, warm length. I leaned closer to him.
“Baby, it’s all right,” Case said quietly to my sister. “There’s no point getting worked up right now.” He was so perfect for her – so calm. Tish released a slow breath and seemed about to contradict this statement, but then nodded in agreement.
“I think the real question is why does Yancy think that his ancestor was murdered in the first place?” Marshall asked. “That’s a pretty hefty accusation. Does he have a letter, like these? What sort of proof?”
Until Tomorrow Page 22
