by Diana Palmer
She made a gesture with her hand. "Very well. I'll let you hit the next man who insults you. Never let it be said that I stood in the way of men's rights."
He couldn't fight down the amusement a minute longer. He threw back his head and burst out laughing. "Good God Almighty! What am I going to do with you?"
She put her hands on her hips and smiled faintly. "Why don't you marry me?"
He looked odd. Guilty. Uncomfortable. The expression crossed his face too quickly for her to identify it. He looked away abruptly without speaking.
"Yes, I know, you'd never marry a white woman," she said in a world-weary tone. "Well, I've always known that I'd be a spinster. I suppose I'll devote the rest of my life to the women's movement and live on last night."
He shifted restlessly. "It was a moment's madness."
"It was delicious," she said in a husky, throaty tone. "I dreamed about it all night."
He wasn't going to admit that he had, too. He lifted his chin and kept walking. He didn't say another word about that, or about their encounter with a man who was obviously an ex-soldier. The experience had him churning violently inside, all his doubts congealed into a mass of apprehension and anguish.
"I don't imagine that was the first time you've had a cashiered soldier show up in town and notice your ancestry," she commented abruptly as they neared the hospital.
"No," he said flatly. "It happens from time to time."
"What do you usually do about it?"
"Iignore it," he said matter-of-factly.
"And, of course, they get the look."
He scowled. "I beg your pardon?"
"The look," she repeated. "That even, black scowl that makes people feel like insects on the sticking edge of a hat pin. I've seen you back men down withitbefore."
He didn't reply. He kept walking. "Even so," she continued, "most people aren't ignorant enough or uncivilized enough to be so blatantly insulting to a total stranger. Don't let it get under your skin like this."
"Why not?" he asked solemnly, stopping to face her. "Because I'm a black sheep from the czar's court or a Spanish nobleman in disguise?" He looked around them with eyes that didn't really see. "I'm a full-blooded Sioux Indian," he said, and his voice was full of harsh fury. "Nothing will change that. Nothing!"
"Why should you want to changeit?"she asked.
He glared at her. "Suppose I tell you what would happen if I announced my background to all and sundry? Do you want to know? I should be an outcast even among my own men! I could conceivably lose everything I have because I'm not entitled to own property or even vote, since I don't have the rights of citizenship, which can be extended even to immigrants who don't speak proper English! Anyone who was ever in the army and fought on the plains is still my deadly enemy. There's no refuge for a 'redskin' anywhere in theUnited States!"
"Your skin isn't red," she reminded him. "It's a very nice bronzed color."
"Tess!"
"Sorry." She put her hands behind her and looked up at him with soft, loving eyes. "If you married me, we could put everything in my name. Your pride wouldn't like that, but it would put you outside any potential legal conflicts."
He didn't smile. He looked at that moment as if he never had smiled in his entire life.
"You're taking this too hard," she said. "The problem is that you haven't ever learned to live with your past as well as your present. You've spent twelve years denying it. But the time has come when you can't do it anymore."
His eyes narrowed on a wave of pain as he looked down at her blond fairness. "We belong to separate races. I'm Mongoloid. You're Caucasian."
"I know that. So?"
"Are you going to try to tell me that it doesn't bother you?"
She looked into his eyes with her heart in her own. "I've known you half my life," she said simply. "It never occurred to me that we were different. Well," she said with a grin, "except in the obvious ways."
Once he would have smiled at the insinuation. Now, thanks to that boor of an ex-soldier, he was overly sensitive.
"Don't," she said then, moving closer to him. "Don't let him do this to you. Matt, if you'd just stop fighting what you feel for me!"
He held up an imperious hand as he looked into her eyes. His face didn't soften one bit. "And if we had a child together? Where would he belong?"
"With us, of course," she said angrily.
He sighed roughly and ran a hand around the back of his neck. His fingers came into contact with the long pigtail and froze there, as he remembered all too well what his real background was. The pigtail was a constant reminder. He'd never thought of cutting his hair. That inconsistency bothered him sometimes. He didn't want to be Sioux.Didhe?
He looked at Tess with painful longing. He'd pushed his feelings for her to the back of his mind until her attractions had pulled him right over the edge of the world.
Even if he couldn't admit it aloud, he belonged to Tess. He always had. He always would. He'd never wanted to think about belonging in any way to anyone else.
But deeper than his desire for her was his desire for her ultimate happiness. And being married to an Indian wasn't going to be to her benefit.
It didn't occur to him that he was blowing everything out of proportion, or that this wasn't the first time an ex-army soldier had recognized him as a native American. But it was the first time that it had mattered. The insults might not affect him, but inevitably they were going to affect Tess and any children they might have together.
He'd just solved a case for a client who was the product of a Negro father and a white mother. The man had fought valiantly for an inheritance that had ended in the death of a parent and the risk of prison for the son. Matt had proven him innocent of any wrongdoing, but he hadn't been able to help him secure any of the inheritance to which he was entitled.
The manhadbeen bitter, and vocal about it. His bitterness had contributed to Matt's own doubts about any future with Tess. A half-breed child belonged nowhere in this world. The mulatto had cursed his motherand his father for making him an outcast, a man with no race, no roots, no future. It was a bitter memory that he'd shared with Matt, and day by day it tortured Matt more.
Tess could see the thoughts plaguing him. She knew that they were just phantoms, but he'd been running from his past for years. He was going to have to stop and turn around and look into his darkness. And she couldn't do it for him. The only thing she could do was to support him and encourage him and not push him too hard. Because as she looked at him, it occurred to her that his feelings for her were very strong indeed. If she was patient and didn't pester him about them…
"What aboutNan?" she asked suddenly.
He looked at her with a scowl, as if the question had knocked him sideways.Ithad. He hadn't been thinking about the present or the murder case he was supposed to be working on.
"RememberNan?" she persisted. "My friend? The one who's in jail awaiting trial for a murder she didn't commit?"
He put his hands in his slacks pockets and began to force himself to breath normally. "Yes," he said after a minute. "I'm sorry, but I had forgotten."
"We have to find the murderer," she said.
"I have to…"
She held up a hand. "Excuse me, but this is my case, too," she pointed out. "I promised to help, and I'm going to."
He wanted to argue. But it was useless. Her face told him that.
"I'm glad you're willing to see reason," she replied with a grin. "I have to go to work, but when I'm off duty, I want to see a few people—"
"You go near that apartment house by yourself, and I'll have Greene pull you in for unlawful trespass!"
She gaped at him. "You wouldn't dare!"
"Think not?Tryme."
She made an angry gesture, but he didn't even seem to notice. She folded her arms across her chest. "I can talk toNan's sister. Even Greene wouldn't deny me that!"
"All right," he said. "But only to her." He frowned again. "Why her?"
"Wh
y not? She may know something that we don't aboutNan's husband. It's certainly worth asking about."
"I suppose so."
They started walking again. A few snowflakes feathered down on them. Tess caught one on her glove and smiled. "I never really get tired of snow. But I remember one or two winters when I was hoping to see the last of it forever."
"So do I." He didn't smile. He was remembering the dead bodies lying frozen on the ground atWounded Knee. He remembered the soldiers flinging them into a common grave with their arms and legs in grotesque positions, like the works of a sculptor gone mad.
Tess saw those memories in his face. She didn't say anything. In his present frame of mind, the less said, the better. He had to resolve his inward turmoil by himself. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't do it for him.
They stopped just outside the hospital. She turned to him, her eyes soft and green under the brim of her hat. "I suppose you have a lot of work to do today, so I won't expect to see you again."
His eyes narrowed. "Why?"
She shrugged. "I don't want to presume on your time."
That seemingly innocent statement made him wary, and curious. He peered at her face under the wide brim of her hat.
"What are you up to?"
"I'm going to a meeting tonight," she said. "I won't be at home. And since it will be bedtime before I get back, and you're usually working late these days, I won't see you again today. That's all I meant."
He looked worried. "You think I'm overreacting about what happened back there," he said, jerking his head in the direction from which they'd come. "You don't understand how it is. You don't come from the same background, even if you do know more about it than most whites."
The way he said that made her uncomfortable, as if he were trying to separate them even further.
"Is that what I've become to you now?" she asked softly. "Just another white woman?"
His jaw tautened. "I didn't say that."
Her eyes ranged over his face and met his gaze. "I'm not going to push my way into your life anymore," she told him. "If you want me to move to another boardinghouse, just say so.Chicagois a very big city. We need never see each other if that's what you really want."
He was shocked. His intake of breath was audible. "I said no such thing."
"Your eyes are saying it," she said. "You're standing there so calm and unperturbed, and inside you're seething with desire to get me into your bed, even if you won't admit it."
He actually flushed. He looked around them stealthily. "Don't talk that way in public!"
"Why? Does it embarrass you to be human?" She put a hand on her hip. "I know you don't want to remember what we did, but I'm not ashamed that we made love.Ifyou are, that's your own problem."
"I didn't say I was ashamed!" The flush grew deeper. Now it was joined by bad temper glittering in his black eyes. "You damned nuisance!"
Her eyebrows flew up. "Look who's angry! It's a man's world, isn't it? Women don't walk away; they just lie down and get walked on!"
"I didn't walk on you!"
"You did so. You walked all over me. You said that you don't want a white wife or a half-white child, or me in your life. Wonderful. Go your own way, then, Mr. Big Shot Detective." She waved a hand expressively. "I'll go to work and nurse someone who appreciates my skills."
"Someone like that dandy at the ball who couldn't keep his hands off you?" he demanded furiously.
"Why not?" she shot back. "He doesn't care about the color of my skin!"
He started to speak, but she turned on her heel and marched into the hospital. She didn't even look back.
He turned in the direction of his office, so infuriated that he stepped out in front of a carriage and almost became part of the road.
He cursed himself—not for being dazed…and daft but for all he had said to Tess. He never should have spoken a word. He should have knocked the ex-soldier to the ground himself and beaten the hell out of him. It wouldn't have changed the way things were, but it would have made him feel better.
Then he remembered what Tess had done, and he couldn't repress a chuckle. She was a nuisance, that was true, but she had the savage heart of a warrior, despite her sex, and nobody would ever walk on her regardless of what she said.
He scowled at the sky, wondering if a blizzard was on the way. The sky was overcast, the clouds were thick and low, and the snow was increasing rapidly. He wasn't enthusiastic about being snowed in with Tess at the boardinghouse. Not that he wanted her to move.
He went on to his office and assigned his agents to the various cases that needed attention. Then he went toNan's apartment house and set about talking to the neighbors whom Tess hadn't approached.
* * *
By the end of the day, Matt knew only a little more than Tess had learned. But it was worthwhile information. The only visitors Dennis Collier ever had were apparently well-to-do men. One in particular stuck in a neighbor's mind because he wore a huge diamond ring on his little finger. He was a good-looking man, the woman also recalled, with dark hair and a mustache, and he had a polite manner.
Matt didn't have to be told that the man was Diamond Jim Kilgallen.
When he finished talking to the neighbors, he stopped by the jail and had a word with Greene. The jailer had been replaced by a younger man. He allowed Greene and Matt into the cell with a minimum of fuss, and he was very polite to Nan Collier.
Nanwas pleased to see them, but still a little downcast and very worried.
"The other jailer was gone this morning," she said, shaking her head. "I don't know why. Neither does anyone else, from what I hear." She smiled nervously. "I'm glad. He wasn't nice to be around, and he made some very unpleasant advances."
Matt didn't let on that he knew about the change or who had managed it.
"You look worn, lass," Greene said. "Can I have them bring you anything?"
"I just want to go home,"Nansaid with a plaintive expression. "I'm so sick. How can they believe I would kill a man, even one who beat me?"
"Plenty of women do," Matt replied. "I don't think you killed your husband, but I'm not the judge or the jury. And despite all the looking around, I can't find anyone else with a good enough motive. I can't even find a girlfriend."
"Davis!" Greene exclaimed, outraged.
"Well, I couldn't," Matt said, unperturbed. "That's a shame, because another woman would have been an obvious suspect."
"No, he didn't like women much, even me,"Nansaid flatly. "He was too busy pushing laudanum and alcohol into his mouth."
"Where did he get all of his narcotics?" Matt asked.
She sighed. "I don't know. He always seemed to have plenty of money, and plenty of 'medicine.' He never said where it came from."
"You might ask that moneyed criminal he ran with," Greene said angrily. "That DiamondJimfella."
"Kilgallen doesn't use stimulants of the sort Collier did," Matt said, just in time to keep a harsh retort offNan's lips. "He has no part of them."
"You know that for a fact, do you?" Greene asked sarcastically.
"In fact, I do," Matt replied. "I have contacts of my own in the underworld, and I don't mind using them."
Green shrugged. "Well, it was a long shot, I guess, that Kilgallen might have had him put down. I'm just worried about my wife, you know, as much as forNanhere. She's taken this whole thing hard. I haven't had two words out of her sinceNanwas arrested. She doesn't talk. She just sits and stares and cries."
"She thinks they'll hang me, doesn't she?"Nanasked worriedly. She wrung her hands. "Maybe they will, too. Maybe I'll die!"
"You won't die," Matt said firmly. "Not if Greene and I have to break you out of here ourselves. We know you're innocent."
That brought the first smile toNan's face in days. "You're a kind man, Mr. Davis."
"My cousin is fond of you," he said noncommittally.
"She's such a wonderful friend,"Nansaid gently. "Anyone else would have turned away from me, knowing what she does.
But she's loyal to a fault. It's a wonder to me she's not married. I suppose men are blind."
Matt looked away. "Perhaps they are. Blind as bats."
«^»
Nan's sister was white-faced and nervous as she admitted Tess to her small home. She'd been baking, Tess surmised, since she had traces of flour on her hands and apron.
"I had to do something to keep from going crazy, so I've been making a cake," she told Tess. "Please sit down. I know what you and Mr. Davis have tried to do forNan. I'm very grateful to you."
