“What’s that?” she turned to face him with a tentative smile. This was the closest thing to a conversation the two of them had had in days. Maybe his mood was improving.
Matt narrowed his eyes and clenched his jaw, dashing Serena’s hopes. “What in the hell were you doing inside the Lucky Lady?”
Serena blinked. How dare he take that tone with her. “I went in for a shot of rye and a quick game of blackjack when I first hit town, and the bartender offered me a job.”
“What?”
“You mean what kind of job? What do women usually do in saloons, Matt? Don’t get so upset. Your friend Kali works in a saloon. You don’t seem to mind what she does for a living,” she taunted.
“Kali is not my sister!” He roared.
“Neither am I!” Serena yelled back. Then, as if to take back the words, she covered her mouth with both hands and fled the room.
“Rena!”
And high in the Sierra Madres of Sonora, a wrinkled old shaman closed his eyes, listened to the wind, and laughed.
Chapter Six
Matt stared, stunned, as Serena ran out the door and across the clearing into the brush. He suddenly felt weak and sick, filled with self-loathing. The crutches slipped on the plank floor. He cursed and flung them against the wall, where they bounced and clattered to the floor.
He dropped onto the chair behind him and buried his face in his hands, willing himself not to throw up. He shook violently from head to toe.
First he’d lost Angela, because of a bullet meant for him. Then, because he’d felt the need for revenge, he’d lost the last three years of his daughter’s life. A couple of weeks ago, when Pace came for him, he’d seen the respect the younger man had always had for him die. In fact, it had been dead for over a year.
“Look at you. You’re disgusting,” Pace had sneered with contempt.
And now Rena.
What was the matter with him, he wondered as he hobbled to his bed and lay down. Why was he doing this to himself and his family? He’d lost Angela, and now he was alienating the rest of them one by one.
But he knew the answer. Deep down, he’d always known why he was doing the things he did.
It had begun with bitterness and hatred for the man who had destroyed his perfect life. And Matt’s life had been perfect. A beautiful wife whom he worshiped, long days filled with warm companionship, longer nights filled with love and passion. A beautiful daughter with her mother’s eyes.
Then, to have it destroyed, ripped so cruelly from his arms by that bastard…
Matt had chased the object of his hatred clear to Canada and back. When he’d caught Abe Scott in Mexico, all Matt’s pent up rage and bitterness boiled forth. Scott took three days dying, and Matt had viciously savored every minute, every second of the man’s agony.
Not until it was all over did Matt realize Pace had witnessed it all. Eighteen was too young to see the things Matt had done to his enemy, the things he’d heard about around the Apache campfires in his youth.
That’s when he had lost Pace.
Pace had ridden off with a carefully blank expression, leaving Matt alone with what was left of Abraham Miller Scott.
That was when it hit Matt just how alone he really was. He could have gone home then, but to what? To a child who wouldn’t even recognize him after his two-year absence? To a bed filled with nothing but memories? To a lifetime of loneliness?
Up until then he’d been doing more than his share of drinking, but that night he had gotten serious about it. Because that was the night he admitted to himself that he was afraid. More than that—terrified. He was terrified of spending the rest of his life without that warm cocoon of love that had surrounded him for barely more than five years.
He had stumbled along the border going from cantina to cantina. Gradually, he drank his way north until he hit Tombstone several months ago. As near as he could remember, that day Pace left him in Mexico was the last time Matt had been sober.
Hell. If the truth were known, he didn’t even remember how he’d broken his goddamn leg. And he still wanted a drink so bad he could barely stand it.
Now, here he was, being looked after by a sister who didn’t want him for a brother.
Rena…Rena. Don’t you turn away from me, too.
As Matt lay there admitting his weakness, his fear, hating himself for it, he determined it was time to do something about it. It was time he took charge of his life and started acting like a man again. Serena was right—he’d been wallowing in self-pity too long.
Serena crashed blindly through the brush and rocks. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Twigs and brambles tore at her hair and clothes. She ran all the way to the creek a quarter of a mile from the house, where she collapsed in the sand beneath a stunted willow.
Oh God, oh God, oh God, why had she said that? Matt would never understand—never. And she could never tell him the truth. If he knew how she really felt about him, he’d die. She was his sister. She was! No matter that it was only on paper. That’s how she had been raised; that’s how he’d always thought of her. If he had any idea she had fallen in love with him, he’d be sickened, disgusted.
The tightness in her chest made breathing difficult. The pain behind her eyes from trying to stop the flood of tears made thinking impossible. She stifled a sob, but the one after that escaped. Giving in to them, to the tears and the pain, was a relief. She let the sobs wash over her in waves.
After a time, when she was reasonably certain she had cried herself out, she crawled to the edge of the creek and splashed cold water onto her swollen eyes and face.
Leaning back against a sandstone boulder, she wondered, What now? She had to pull herself together. She’d handled Matt’s anger over her being in a saloon all wrong. She should have simply told him the truth and laughed it off. Instead, she’d…What had she done? What was Matt thinking right now?
She had to go back to him. Somehow, she had to make him forget what she’d said. He wasn’t well yet, was still in considerable pain, hadn’t eaten in hours, and here she was, indulging herself, trying to flood the damned creek.
“Idiot,” she hissed to herself. “He needs you right now. He doesn’t need any new complications in his life. He’s got enough to deal with as it is.”
She traced her way back through the scrub-covered hills and across the clearing to the hut. Just inside the door, she stopped to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. Matt lay on his bed, watching her.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“You went to the Lucky Lady looking for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Rena. I had no business yelling at you like that. I guess I was just feeling a little useless because another man had to cut my firewood. Forgive me?”
“I-I’m sorry too, Matt. I didn’t mean to say what I did.” It’s the truth, but I didn’t mean to say it.
“Let’s just forget it, okay?” he gave her a tentative smile.
“Okay,” she said, trying to return his smile. “Are you hungry?”
“A little, if you don’t have to go to a whole lot of trouble.”
“It’s no trouble.”
“Actually, what I’d really like to do is get you to wash my hair for me.”
Serena’s half smile turned into a laugh. “You must really be sorry if you’re going to finally let me get my hands on that hair.”
“Desperate’s more like it,” he answered with a grimace. “It’s really starting to itch.”
“I don’t doubt it,” she said, still smiling.
She fed him first, then he was tired, so she let him nap. When he woke, she began heating water to fill the brass tub.
“What are you doing?” he asked with suspicion. “I wanted you to wash my hair, not give me a bath.”
“That’s what I intend to do. You can give yourself a bath.”
When the water was ready, Matt demanded she turn her back while he stripped and got into the tub.
S
erena quickly complied. After their recent argument, the last thing they needed was for her to go breathless at the sight of his nakedness. Yet if she didn’t tease, he might wonder at her mood.
With her back to him, she forced a laugh. “Such modesty. I thought we’d already been through all that.”
“You gonna wash my hair or not?” Matt demanded gruffly.
He sat awkwardly in the tub, his splinted leg hanging out over the side. His belligerence and embarrassment melted away, she noted, when she poured warm water over his head. She worked the soap into a lather and massaged his scalp until he moaned with pleasure. “God, but that feels good.”
Serena held her breath, relishing the feel of his hair and scalp against her fingers. He leaned against the back of the tub and his head grew heavy in her hands. His eyes were closed. She wanted to close hers, too. She wanted to store up the memory of this brief, limited contact. Her fingers moved slower and slower until they stopped for a long moment. Her chest burned from lack of air.
So much for not going breathless at his nakedness. She might as well have undressed him herself, for all the good turning her back had done. His chest and arms rose above the tub, one knee jutted free of the water, the other leg dangled outside the tub, and the water was no barrier whatsoever to the rest of him.
“Talk to me, Rena.”
She jerked at the sound of his voice. “About what?” Even to herself she sounded breathless. Her fingers resumed their work.
“About the ranch, the family.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything. What’s been happening, how everybody’s doing.”
Serena’s pulse sped. Except for asking about Joanna, this was the first time he’d asked a direct question about home since she’d been here. It was a good sign. “You won’t recognize Spence and Jessie. Spence is sixteen now, you know, and nearly as tall as you and Dad. And you won’t believe how much he looks like the two of you. Except for his eyes, of course. He’s got Mama’s eyes. He’s planning on going back East next fall to school. Wants to be a doctor.”
Beneath her fingers she felt Matt relax even more. His hands rested limply on a naked thigh. She had the sudden urge to replace his hands with hers, to feel for herself the taut, hair-roughened skin. She swallowed the urge and took a deep breath.
“Jessie’s quite the young lady these days,” she said. “Since she turned twelve this year, she’s decided Mama and I should stay in our rooms and rest all day, since we’re so much older, so we won’t get in her way while she runs the house.”
Matt chuckled. “Sounds like she’s just as spoiled as ever.”
“She certainly is, but I’m just as guilty as the rest of the family. It seems like I can never say no to her. She took it upon herself to plan Joanna’s birthday party a few weeks ago,” she said carefully. “She did a good job, too. Had every child from Tucson that Joanna had ever met come out for the occasion.”
“Was it a good party?” Matt asked, his voice rough with emotion.
“Yes, it was a very good party.” I wish you could have been there.
Neither spoke while Serena rinsed his hair with a bucket of warm water. When she was toweling his hair dry, his voice came out muffled. “What about Dad and Dani?”
“Oh, you know them…they never change. They’re fine. They would have come to see you themselves, except Pace convinced them you’d appreciate a visit from them even less than one from me.”
When Serena tossed the damp towel aside, it seemed the most natural thing in the world for her to reach out and scrub his back, so that’s what she did. Matt was so engrossed in his own thoughts he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ve hurt them, haven’t I?” he asked quietly. “I’ve hurt all of you.”
Once again her fingers stilled. “No, Matt, not the way you mean, anyway. We love you. Because of that we hurt for you. We don’t hurt because of you. You know how it is. When one of us is hurting, we all hurt.”
She caught herself tracing the scars along his sleek, muscle-bound back and reminded herself she was supposed to be washing him, not…petting him. Thank God he hadn’t seemed to notice her behavior.
“I know I’ve forced myself on you, coming here like this,” she told him, “but as soon as you’re well I’ll leave you alone, I promise. We’ll all leave you alone if that’s what you want. You just do whatever you have to do. We’ll understand. And if you need us, we’ll be there for you. We miss you and want you home, but nobody wants to pressure you into doing something you’re not ready for.”
She rinsed his back, then handed him the soap and left him alone to finish his bath, and hopefully, to think about what she’d said.
Later that night Serena lay in her bed and listened to Matt’s restless movements across the room as he tried to fall asleep. She longed to go to him and wrap her arms around him, to hold him and soothe away his pain. He was hurting, in his body and his heart, and she ached with the need to comfort him.
It was a long time before she fell asleep.
“Do you have a mirror?” Matt asked the next morning when she came in from milking the goat.
“Why? Do I need one?”
“Hardly.” He grinned. “You look terrific, girl, but I’m a mess. I need a shave.” He ran his hand across his bristled cheeks and grimaced.
“I’ll shave you as soon as you drink a cup of milk.”
He made a face at her. “I think you’re trying to drown me in that stuff. Besides, the last time you shaved me you waved the razor around so much I thought you were going to slit my throat. Only trouble was, I couldn’t tell if it would have been accidental, or on purpose.”
“Ha.” She took on her best schoolmarm lecturing tone. “In the first place, you ungrateful clod, this milk is very good for you.” She thrust a cupful into his unwilling hand. “Whether you like to admit it or not, it is helping. The pain in your stomach isn’t nearly as bad as it was.”
He started to speak. She cut him off. “And in the second place, sir, I don’t believe you’re quite steady enough to be shaving yourself.”
“I’ll have you know I’m as steady as a rock,” he claimed indignantly.
“A rock caught in the middle of a rock slide, maybe. The way your hands are shaking, you’d probably cut your own throat. Then I’d be left with the grisly task of cleaning up the mess and informing the family of your early demise. No, thank you. At least if I’m the one who cuts your throat, I’ll have no one but myself to blame for the mess and the inconvenience.”
“You’re all heart, you know that?”
“Thank you.” She grinned at him. “I’ve always thought of myself as a compassionate person.”
Matt groaned, then rubbed his cheeks again. “I may regret this, but all right. You can shave me again. Just be careful, would you please? I’m kind of fond of my neck just the way it is.”
“Drink up. I’ll be as careful as a virgin on Maiden Row.”
Matt choked on a mouthful of milk and spewed it across the table. “Rena!”
She ignored him and bit back a grin while working the soap into a lather.
“Maiden Row,” Matt mumbled, wiping goat’s milk from his chin. “You don’t even know what it is.”
She arched a brow. “Of course I don’t. How would I know about a street full of whore houses right in the middle of Tucson, for heaven’s sake?”
“Watch your mouth, girl.”
She slapped soap precariously close to his lips and grinned. “You watch yours, mister. Stop calling me girl.”
He waited until she finished lathering his face, then said, “Tell me what’s been happening in Tucson. Maybe it’ll take my mind off the fact that my throat’s about to be slit.”
“You be nice or I’ll let you slit it yourself,” she threatened.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Serena’s lips twitched with mirth. “Tucson, hmm? Well, let me think.” She took the first swipe along his cheek and tried to think of what was new in town
. “After the roof fell in on Mr. Levin’s opera house, he decided to go into another business, so he built a combination bowling alley and shooting gallery. As if there wasn’t enough noise and shooting going on already.”
She paused to wipe off the blade, then continued.
“We have an ice plant now. And a public bath house. I hear it’s even got showers. The Methodists finally built a church, then the Episcopalians built one the next year. Oh, and there’s a hospital finally. It’s called St. Mary’s. It opened last year. Remember Bob Leatherwood?”
Matt nodded.
“Don’t move your head, silly,” she admonished. “Anyway, Leatherwood got himself elected mayor last year, just before the railroad came in. Imagine that. Tucson finally has a railroad. And speaking of Leatherwood and the railroad,” she said with a giggle, “you won’t believe what happened at the celebration the day that first train pulled in from San Francisco.”
After a final swipe with the razor, she wiped the last bits of lather from his face and went to rummage around in her carpetbag.
“I brought a clipping about it from the paper. Poor Leatherwood will never live this down.”
“What did that idiot do now? I can’t imagine him as mayor.”
“Now, now, he’s not a bad mayor, really. He just got a little carried away with civic pride. The day the train came in he sent telegrams out all over the country to announce the event. I mean, sending one to the governor was right. And I can even understand his sending one to the president, but—”
“The President of the United States?” Matt asked in amazement. “President Hays?”
“Boy, you have been away. President Garfield. James.”
Matt blinked, a mixture of shock and embarrassment in his eyes. Serena ignored it.
“Anyway, telling the president’s not the worst of it. Matt, Leatherwood sent one of those telegrams to the Pope.”
Matt laughed until he choked. “Oh God. The Pope.” He pressed a hand to his side and laughed even harder. “I can just see it. ‘Dear Holiness, the train finally got here.’ God, the gall it must have taken.” Matt whooped and laughed until tears streamed down his cheeks.
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