Abbie's Outlaw
Victoria Bylin
You gotta face the ghosts.More poignant advice the Reverend John Leaf had yet to hear for dealing with his haunted past. A man of God now, he'd done things that would shame the devil himself, not the least of which was loving–and leaving–Abbie Windsor, a woman of true grit and uncommon courage, a woman who could make him whole…!Abbie Windsor had weathered dark days with only the steel of her will for cold comfort. Yet today John Leaf–who'd awakened her womanhood, who'd given her a daughter–offered her his protection. But could she accept a marriage in name only to the man who shared her soul?
With a wry smile he said, “Don’t let the collar fool you. I’m as low-down as ever.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” As her eyes softened with the caring he remembered from Kansas, she raised her hand as if she wanted to touch him, perhaps to make sure he was real. John avoided her hand with a shrug, but their gazes stayed locked and held tight.
They were left alone in the crowd. Both dressed in black, Abbie and John seemed cold to each other, but he wasn’t fooled. The coals in his kitchen stove had looked dead this morning, but they were banked and smoldering on the inside. If he poked them, they would flare to life. John couldn’t stop himself from remembering that he and Abbie had started a fire in Kansas. All sorts of things had burned between them, including the bedsheets….
Praise for Victoria Bylin
“This is an author who writes with heart, and articulates
well a clear understanding of human feelings and frailties
that readers should totally enjoy.”
—Historical Romance Writers Review
Praise for previous titles
West of Heaven
“The hero, definitely alpha male and code-of-the-west
cowboy, provides wonderful appeal, as does the heroine
and her orientation to family values. This story proves that
love is salvation from death and its worst griefs.”
—Romantic Times
Of Men and Angels
“An uplifting tale of a spiritual woman,
who’s deeply human, and the flawed man she loves.
It’s evident that Ms. Bylin writes from her heart.”
—Old Book Barn Gazette
“Deft handling makes the well-tarnished Jake
a man to admire.”
—Romantic Times
“Of Men and Angels is the perfect title for a perfect book.
The characters are wonderfully human and well rounded,
and the story is an exciting, heartwarming and spiritual
tale with a magnitude of emotion.”
—Romance Reviews Today
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Abbie’s Outlaw
Victoria Bylin
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Michael… Beloved husband, you are mine!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Chapter One
Midas, New Mexico
June 1887
When the Reverend John Leaf saw Abigail Windsor standing at the top of the train steps, dressed in black and shielding her eyes from the noonday sun, he knew that all hell was about to break loose. He’d made a million mistakes in his life and had made amends for all of them—except one. Now that mistake was coming to light in a way he had dreaded for years and deeply feared.
His eyes stayed on Abbie as she scanned the crowd. Lord, he thought, she looked awful in black. The girl he remembered had insisted on wearing pretty colors in spite of the gloom in her life. He remembered her best in a coppery dress that brought out the highlights in her hair. He also remembered her wearing nothing at all, which was a problem for a man who’d sworn off women entirely.
He’d never been inclined toward marriage or children of his own. The Leaf family curse ran thick in his blood, and he’d rather die than pass it on to an unsuspecting child. Certainly not to a son who would grow up filled with hate or to a daughter who would go through life lonely and crazed like his own mother had.
But if the letter he’d received from a girl in Virginia was true, he’d done exactly that. The hairs on John’s neck stood on end as he remembered opening the envelope with Silas’s handwriting on the front. On a single sheet, his friend had written, “This came for you. Godspeed.”
Along with Silas’s note, John had removed an expensive linen envelope addressed to him in a schoolgirl’s cursive. The address was brief: “Mr. John Leaf, Bitterroot, Wyoming.” Beneath the two lines she had written, “Please forward.” John had peeled off the wax, unfolded a sheet of stationery and started to read.
Dear Mr. Leaf,
My name is Susanna Windsor. If you are the same John Leaf who left the Wyoming Territorial Prison in April of 1881, please write to me at my school. I believe I am your daughter.
Regards.
John had stared at the words in a fog. The girl had said just enough to scare the daylights out of him without revealing anything about herself. The address she had supplied was for a girls’ academy in Virginia. He’d never been east of the Mississippi and didn’t know a soul who had, at least not someone who could afford a fancy private school. The original postmark was two months old. He figured the envelope had been sitting in the Bitterroot post office for weeks before Silas went to town where the postmaster must have given it to him.
John had spent a wretched night remembering dozens of women he’d barely known and one he’d almost taken to Oregon. He’d also sat at his desk with his head in his hands, praying that the poor girl had made a mistake. He was obligated to reply to her letter, but who was she?
He’d gotten his answer the next morning when Justin Norris had delivered a telegram from the girl’s mother.
We have urgent business. Will arrive in Midas on the California Ltd. on June 3rd. Abigail Windsor nee Moore.
It had taken him a minute to put the pieces together. The stuffy-sounding Abigail Windsor was Abbie Moore, the girl who had threatened to shoot out his kneecaps, then fed him supper because she’d felt bad about it. They had spent two weeks together, alone on her grandmother’s farm, and nature had taken its course.
John’s stomach tied itself into a knot. He wanted a drink, but he had consumed his weekly shot of whiskey the previous night in a vain effort to forget about what had happened on their last night together. To his shame, John had ridden off and left Abbie alone to clean up the mess.
Now that girl was a woman and standing in the doorway of the train, scanning the crowd from beneath the brim of her black bonnet. Needing to greet her but not ready to face the needs of the day, John watched as she pressed her lips into a tight line and scoured the crowd with her eyes. Her chest swelled as she took a breath and then blew it out in irritation. That gesture gave him comfort. She was probably upset with him for not meeting the train. They’d both be better off if she stayed that way, so he rocked back on one heel and waited.
To his surprise, her eyes locked on someone in the crowd and turned murderous. Following her line of sight, he saw a boy with the gangly posture of adolescence pushing through the throng. The kid had a bigger head of steam than the train and was barreling straight at Emma Dray, the mayor’s daughter and a member of John’s congregation. The matrons in his church had picked this young and pretty woman to be his wife, much to John’s irritation and Emma’s ill-concealed delight.
Emma was waving at someone across the platform when the human cannon ball clipped her elbow and knocked her off balance. John had no desire to catch Emma, but what choice did he have? With two quick strides, he came up behind her and clasped her arms until she was steady on her feet.
When the boy glanced back, John gripped his thin shoulder and hauled him up short. Keeping his voice neutral, he said, “What’s your name, son?”
“I’m not your son.” When the kid’s voice cracked from bass to soprano, John held in a grin. He remembered those painful days between boyhood and being a man, and this young fellow had a face full of pimples to go with his resistant vocal cords.
John took the boy’s attitude in stride. He liked bratty kids. Some of them spelled real trouble, but most were either neglected or mad at the world, feelings he understood. Knowing that too much kindness made angry boys even more rebellious, he made his voice as grim as charred wood. “It’s most definitely my business, son. You owe Miss Dray an apology.”
Emma looked down her nose. “He certainly does. He wrinkled my dress.”
Leave it to Emma to carp about nonsense. The boy’s conduct needed to be addressed, but any fool could see he’d been cooped up on the train and needed to blow off steam. Ignoring Emma, John said, “So what do you have to say?”
The boy managed an arrogant scowl. “She’s fat and slow. She should have gotten out of my way.”
“Well, I never!” huffed Emma.
“Trust me,” John said pointedly. “In about five years, you won’t think Miss Dray is fat.”
When a blush stained Emma’s cheeks, John wished he’d been more careful in his choice of words. He’d meant to remind the kid that he was still a boy. Instead John had reminded Emma that he was a man. If he knew her mother, he’d be paying for the slip with unwanted invitations for the next six months.
Before the boy could reply, the crowd shifted, revealing Abbie hurrying in their direction. She was lugging a satchel with one hand and using the other to hold her skirt above her ankles to allow for her angry stride.
At the sight of her high-button shoes, John felt his heart kick into double time. If it hadn’t been for another pair of boots, they might never have met. His gaze rose to her face where he saw her high cheekbones and small nose. Her hair was pinned in a stylish coiffure but slightly disheveled, as if it were rebelling against the black hat holding it in place. Her cheeks had flushed to a soft pink, and her eyes were glued to the boy in John’s grip.
“Robert Alfred Windsor! Don’t you dare take another step!”
Because of the feathers poking up from Emma’s hat, Abbie hadn’t seen John’s face. She focused on Emma as she dipped her head in apology. “I’m so sorry. We’ve been on the train for twelve days and he’s—”
John stepped into her line of sight. “Hello, Abbie.”
“Johnny?”
“I go by John now,” he said. “Or Reverend.”
“Reverend?” Her gaze dipped from his face to his clerical collar.
The only thing John liked better than fighting was shocking people, and Abbie’s gaping mouth said he’d done just that. But her expression also made him aware that time had marked him. His nose had been broken twice, and he had a scar below his right ear. He also had a lump on his jaw from the saloon brawl he’d broken up last night.
Young Robbie wasn’t the only male who liked to fight. Right or wrong, John enjoyed knocking sense into men who deserved it. Last night that man had been Ed Davies. The fool had lost his pay in a poker game and then gone after the winner with his fists. John had given him a “do unto others” lesson and then stuffed a sawbuck into his pocket so he could take care of his new wife until payday.
When Abbie realized she was staring, she jerked her gaze away from his. “It really has been a long time.”
All those years ago, he had heard her voice before he’d seen her face. It had been whiskey-warm and it still was, but her eyes had changed. Instead of a girlish curiosity, her gaze had an edge. Maybe it was worry for her daughter that made her irises flash, or perhaps she, too, was reliving the afternoon they’d met.
He’d found her sitting in the dirt with a twisted ankle, leaning against a broken wagon wheel and aiming a pistol at his kneecaps from beneath the buckboard.
“Put your hands over your head and stand where I can see you,” she had ordered.
With a devilish grin, John had complied, then he’d raked her body with his eyes one glorious inch at a time.
As the memory of that day hit hard and fast, Judas-down-there began to stir, demanding to know if Abbie’s lips were still as soft as the rest of her. A trickle of sweat ran down John’s back, soaking the white shirt he wore beneath his preacher’s coat. A man couldn’t help his bodily reactions, but he had a choice about what came out of his mouth. Trying to lighten the mood, he fell back on the words he often used when old friends discovered that Johnny Leaf, hot-shot shootist and ladies’ man, had turned into the good Reverend John Leaf.
With a wry smile, he said, “Don’t let the collar fool you. I’m as low-down as ever.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” As her eyes softened with the caring he remembered from Kansas, she raised her hand as if she wanted to touch him, perhaps to make sure he was real. John avoided her hand with a shrug, but their gazes stayed locked and held tight.
Before he could figure out what to say, a delicate cough called his attention to Emma. He had hoped to keep his meeting with Abbie private, but Emma’s presence ensured the entire town would know the details by nightfall.
Nodding in Abbie’s direction, he made the introductions. “Emma, this is Abigail Windsor. She’s visiting from Washington. You’ve already met her son.”
Emma’s eyebrows arched. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Windsor.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Abbie replied with a warm smile. “Please, call me Abigail.”
Emma had an annoying habit of fluttering her eyelashes and she did it now, looking straight at John. “Mother and I would love to have you all for supper.” Turning to Abbie, she asked, “How long will you be here?”
John was curious as well.
“Just a few weeks.” With a dip of her chin, Abbie indicated her mourning clothes. “The Reverend and I have an issue to settle concerning my husband’s estate, and then my son and I will be going home.”
“Maybe we could plan for Sunday?” Emma said.
Or maybe next year, John thought, after Emma had found a husband. Shaking his head, he said, “Thanks, but I doubt Abbie is ready to socialize.”
When Abbie gave a demure smile, Emma excused herself, leaving John and Abbie alone in the crowd. They were both dressed in black and seemed cold to each other, but John wasn’t fooled. The coals in his kitchen stove had looked dead this morning, but they were banked and smoldering on the inside. If he poked them, they would flare to life. John couldn’t stop himself from remembering that he and Abbie had started a fire in Kansas. All sorts of things had burned between them, including the bed sheets.
Damn, he needed a smoke. But first he had to get Abbie and her son settled at the Midas Hotel. He was about to suggest they retrieve her baggage when she glanced at Robbie who was watching steam billow from the locomotive. It rose in clouds that dissipated to nothing, a reminder that fires burned themselves out.
Seeing that her son was distracted, she turned to John. “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Not exactly.” Keeping his voice level, he stuck to the facts. “Your daughter wrote to me at an old address in Wyoming. A friend forwarded the letter.”
Abbie blinked to hold back tears. At the same time, she squared her shoulders. “Susanna ran away from home. I know from her best friend that she’s looking for you, but the train ticket she bought went only as far as St. Louis. The detective I hired said you lived in Midas, but he didn’t tell me anything else. I was hoping she’d already arrived.”
John’s blood turned to ice. “Judging by the letter, she thinks I’m in Bitterroot. It’s a hellhole.”
“Dear God,” Abbie gasped. “That must be where she went.”
The terror in her eyes sent a knife through his gut. Needing to offer comfort but afraid to touch her, he jammed his hands into his pockets and looked for a shred of hope. “Who’s she traveling with?”
“No one,” Abbie said in a shaking voice. “I’m scared to death for her.”
John knew how she felt, not because he’d ever been a parent, but because he’d been on the wrong side of the law. Not all men were honorable and neither were all women. “I’ll do everything I can to help,” he said.
Surprised by the depth of his worry, John sucked in a lungful of air and ended up with train exhaust coating his throat. Abbie’s gaze locked on his face. She had a way of willing people to feel things and John had that sensation now. Was she hoping he’d want to be a father to the girl? God, he hoped not.
Or maybe she’d assume he’d want to hide his sinful past. Given his calling, that guess was reasonable but miles from the truth. The whole town knew he’d lived on the wrong side of the law. He’d done time in the Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie for his part in the Bitterroot range war, and he was still roundly hated, especially by Ben Gantry. As for thieving, whoring, gambling, drinking and other manly what-not, well, what could he say? A long time ago he’d done it all—to the best of his ability and as often as possible.
Those days were long past, but they had left habits he couldn’t change. He still had an edgy need to see around corners and through walls. It was as much a part of him as a hungry stomach, and he had that need now. Keeping his voice low, he said, “I have to know, Abbie. Is she mine?”
Her eyes turned into gentle pools. “Does it matter?”
“No,” he replied. “I’ll help you no matter what. I just thought I should ask. If I have an obligation—”
“You don’t,” she said firmly.
John knew a half-truth when he heard one. She hadn’t denied his blood ties to the girl, only his responsibility for raising her. He wasn’t inclined to let lies fester, but he wanted to believe what Abbie had implied. As the circumstances stood, Susanna was the daughter of a congressman, not the bastard child of an outlaw. For Susanna’s sake and his own peace of mind, he decided not to push the issue right now.
“It’s best for everyone that she’s not mine,” John said. “I’ll send a wire to a friend in Bitterroot. In the meantime, let’s collect your baggage and get you settled at the hotel.”
He lifted the carpetbag from her hand. The suitcase wasn’t heavy, a detail that surprised him considering the length of her journey, but Abbie grimaced as the weight left her grasp. Trying to appear casual, she rubbed her shoulder.
John knew about old injuries. He’d gotten tossed off a mustang and twisted his knee. It still pained him in cold weather. “Are you all right?”
She dropped her arm to her side as if he’d caught her stealing. “Of course. I’m just stiff from the trip.”
Maybe so, but most people didn’t groan after toting a valise. To escape John’s perusal, she turned to her son just as the train whistle let out a blast. She jumped as if the warning had been for her.
“Robbie?” she called. “It’s time to go.”
The boy stepped to his mother’s side, giving John a chance to think as he guided them across the platform. Children didn’t run away from home without cause, and women didn’t travel cross-country with featherweight luggage unless they had nothing to put in it. And how had she gotten a bum shoulder? She had secrets, he was sure of it.
As the sun beat down on his back, he felt the heat of the summer day building inside his coat. But more than the noon sky was making him sweat. Abbie Moore was as pretty as he remembered. They possibly had a child together—a troubled girl who had been as desperate to escape her life as John had once been.
Like father, like daughter. The thought gave him no comfort at all.
Damn it! Abbie never cursed out loud, but she had learned that anger made her strong and tears didn’t fix a blasted thing. Never mind that she had good cause to cry her eyes out. She had been praying for days that Susanna would already be in Midas. She had even dared to hope that Johnny Leaf had welcomed his daughter into his life.
But that hadn’t happened. Instead Abbie’s hopes had been dashed to pieces. Susanna was still hundreds of miles away, and the Reverend John Leaf clearly loathed the idea of fatherhood. Judging by the aloofness in his eyes, he wasn’t going to change his mind. That coldness hadn’t been there when they had met in Kansas, but the command in his voice was all too familiar.
Let me take off your boot.
No, I’ll do it.
He’d gripped her foot and worked the laces, peeling the leather down her calf without a care for her modesty. He had inspected her ankle with tender fingers, announced that she couldn’t walk on it and scooped her into his arms. The memory fanned embers that had long since died, reminding Abbie that her heart had turned to ash—except where her children were concerned.
Thoughts of Susanna and Robbie made her pulse race with another worry. A Washington attorney intended to turn Robert’s estate over to Abbie’s father. If Judge Lawton Moore controlled her finances, he’d force her back to Kansas. The thought was unbearable. She didn’t care about herself, but her father would scorn Susanna because of her birth and favor Robbie because he was a boy. Abbie clamped her lips into a line. Damn Robert for his deathbed confession. Abbie had learned from her daughter’s friend, Colleen, what he had said. I’m sorry, Susanna, but I couldn’t love you. You’re not mine…
That was true, Abbie thought. But neither did her precious daughter belong to John Leaf, at least not in a way that mattered. Blood meant nothing if it didn’t come with love.
I love you, Johnny…
Don’t say it.
Abbie swallowed back a wave of anxiety. They had been rolling on a blanket in tall grass, feeling each other through their clothes. He’d cut her off and rightly so. She hadn’t known a blasted thing about the ways of men. But she did now. Hell would freeze before she’d marry again. The attorney had given her that option, but it didn’t bear consideration.
As they neared the baggage area, the Reverend’s baritone broke into her thoughts. “Do you see your trunk?”
“Not yet,” she replied.
He fell silent, giving her a chance to count off the days of the trip. She had paid dearly for the express, but the train had been delayed twice, leaving her twenty-six days to find Susanna and arrive in Kansas as expected.
She had so much to lose—her home, her friends, a decent upbringing for her children. Since Robert’s death, Abbie had been renting rooms in her town house. One of the benefits was a houseful of friends, including Maggie O’Dea who gladly shared her wisdom. The other reward was money for Susanna’s education. Robbie had a trust fund, but Susanna had nothing. More than anything, Abbie wanted to give her daughter the choices she herself never had, and that meant having an income of her own.
At the thought of Susanna, Abbie glanced at John. He was standing tall with his hands in his coat pockets, chatting with Robbie about locomotives. Still trim and loose-jointed, he’d changed very little over the years, at least on the outside. His eyes were still piercing and dark, and though he wore his hair shorter, he still had the look of a man who resisted haircuts. Abbie couldn’t help but notice the shaggy strands brushing past his collar. The slight curl matched the bit of Susanna’s baby hair she kept in a locket.
Whether the Reverend liked it or not, one glance would tell him he had a daughter. Abbie was thinking about John’s reaction when Robbie pointed to the baggage car. “I see our trunk. It’s in the back corner.”
“That’s it,” she replied. For her son’s sake, she tried to sound cheerful, but the sight of that battered case filled Abbie with an old rage. As a bride-to-be, she had packed her things in a shiny new trunk and left home to marry a man she had never met. Today the trunk had as many scars as she did. And instead of new clothes, it held garments that belonged in the rag bag. She hadn’t bought a new dress in years and her underthings were pathetic.
Sealing her lips, she prayed that John wouldn’t notice her shabby clothing. It shamed her as Robert had intended. Her husband had pinched pennies until the Indian heads screamed, and so had Jefferson Hodge, the executor of his estate. As the porter carried her trunk down the gangway, Abbie relived the day she had asked Hodge for an increase in her household allowance.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Windsor,” he had replied. “Your husband stated you weren’t to be involved in financial matters. I’d be pleased to transfer authority to your father or you could marry again. A woman with your sensitive nature needs a husband.”
Sensitive nature? Abbie had nearly called the man a pig. A long time ago she’d been softhearted about life, but Robert had brutalized that hopeful girl until she’d shriveled to nothing. At the thought of her marriage, Abbie wanted to snort.
Duty…honor…obey…
Her father had used those words when he’d put her on the train to Washington to meet her future husband, but the only promise that mattered now was the one she had made at his grave. She had endured her last beating, told her last lie about bumping into doors and put up with a man in her bed for the last time. God spare the fool who dared to touch her now—she’d cut off his manhood with rusty scissors.
As the porter dropped her trunk into the pile of luggage, Abbie caught a whiff of the Reverend’s starched collar. She hadn’t missed the heat in his eyes, as if he knew what she looked like naked. Which he did. Or more correctly, he knew what she used to look like.
As the porter walked away, John stepped to her side. At the same time Abbie turned. As her skirt brushed his pant leg, an old friction rippled down her spine. The scent of bay rum filled her nose as well, shooting her back in time to a dusky Kansas sunset. With a gleam in his eyes, he had matched his mouth to hers. When she’d stood there like a fence post, he had brushed her bottom lip with his thumb and grinned.
You’ve never done that before, have you?
I have so.
With who? Some kid with pimples?
Rakish and hungry, he’d kissed her again, long and slow, until she had clutched at his back and arched into him. He’d been twenty-one years old and looking for a good time. She had been seventeen and more naive than a baby chick. She’d also been angry with her father and aching with awareness, and she’d loved every rebellious inch of Johnny Leaf.
Until her brother barged in on them.
Until she discovered she was carrying his child.
Until her father had bribed Robert Windsor to marry his ruined daughter.
The jingle of coins called her gaze back to John who had extracted a quarter from his pocket and was pressing it into Robbie’s hand. “Ask the kid in the red shirt to take the trunk to the hotel. His name’s Tim Hawk. You can ride with him if it’s okay with your mother.”
Robbie jumped at the chance. “Can I, Ma?”
“Sure,” she replied.
Abbie watched her son with mixed emotions. She loved him dearly, but Robert Senior had spoiled him rotten. At best, his behavior these days was unpredictable. At worst, it bordered on criminal. A conductor had caught him stealing an orange on the train. To fill the silence, she turned to John. “He’s had a hard time since his father died.”
“It has to be rough for you, too. Losing a husband is hell on earth.”
Abbie sealed her lips. What would the good Reverend say if she told him that she had come to believe in divorce and thanked God every day for her husband’s death?
When she didn’t reply, John took her gloved hand in both of his. “I’m truly sorry, Abbie. Death is always hard, but it’s worse when it’s sudden.”
She felt his fingers through the black silk, warm and strong against the bones of her hand. She understood that he was a minister now, and that holding a widow’s hand was second nature to him, but that same hand had once touched her breasts.
The memory brought with it a surge of heat, a melting she hadn’t felt in years and never wanted to feel again.
Being careful to hide her traitorous response, she withdrew her fingers from his. No way was she going down that road again.
“Thank you for your concern.” Stepping back, she stared at her trunk. If the good Reverend came any closer, she’d use those rusty scissors in a heartbeat.
Chapter Two
Calling himself a fool, John ran his fingers through his hair. What the devil was he doing holding Abbie’s hand? She wasn’t an elderly widow with gray hair and wrinkles. Touching her stirred up thoughts he didn’t want, and if her eyes were as honest as they had been in Kansas, she had wanted to slap him.
And with good reason. Just as he remembered, her fingers were strong and slender, perfect for kneading bread or massaging a man’s tired shoulders. She had done him that favor after a day of apple picking.
I’m beat. My arms feel like old ropes.
You worked so hard… Let me rub your shoulders.
He had slumped over the kitchen table, resting his head on his forearms as she’d massaged his neck. Her fingers had worked magic, and he’d offered to return the favor. Wisely she had turned her head, but not before he’d seen the discovery of desire in her eyes. Fool that he’d been, he’d taken it as a challenge.
Now, with the precaution he should have taken in Kansas, John kept the carpetbag between them as he led the way down the platform steps. He hated to ask questions about Susanna, but he needed information. “Do you know when your daughter left Washington?”
“About three weeks ago,” Abbie replied. “She was staying with her best friend in Middleburg. Apparently the girls cooked up the scheme together. They told Colleen’s parents that Susanna was going home, and Susanna wrote to me that she was staying through June.”
John nodded. “I’ve used that trick myself. It’s a good one.”
“Too good, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t have known she’d run away if I hadn’t sent a wire asking the Jensens to send her home early. We have plans to meet my father.”
“We’ll send him a wire, too, saying you might be delayed.”
“No!” Abbie’s voice carried above the street noise. John turned and saw that she was trying to appear relaxed. “He doesn’t know Susanna’s missing. I don’t want him to worry.”
“Is there any chance she’s been in touch with him?”
“None at all. They aren’t close.”
As they approached the telegraph office, he asked the question he’d been dreading. “What does she look like?”
For the first time since leaving the train, Abbie smiled. “Probably like a boy. She just turned fourteen, but she stole clothes from her friend’s brother and chopped off her hair. The disguise won’t be convincing for long, but right now she’s a beanpole and about my height.”
John had to admire the girl’s spunk. “What color is her hair?”
“Dark and straight.”
Like mine, he thought. He wondered if Robert’s coloring had been dark, but it seemed unlikely. Robbie’s hair was the color of sand.
“What about her eyes?” John asked.
“They’re brown.”
He’d been hoping to hear “blue like Robbie’s,” not that it mattered. Brown eyes were as common as mud. At least half the folks in Midas had brown eyes. John lifted a piece of paper off the counter. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Only that she doesn’t have much money. If she went to Bitterroot, the train fare cost more than I thought.”
At the mention of the town where he’d been convicted of murder, John stifled a frown. He remembered every building, every alley, but especially the courthouse where he’d been convicted for the deaths of Ben Gantry’s sons. If anyone had cause to hate John, it was Ben. Without knowing it, Susanna was spitting on the graves of his sons.
Seeing the worry in Abbie’s eyes, John looked for consolation and found it in the presence of his old friend. Silas had knocked sense into John when he’d been dumped in prison, kicking and shouting obscenities at the guards. “There’s a bright spot in this mess,” he said to Abbie. “I have a friend who’ll look for her if I ask.”
“Who?” she asked.
“His name is Silas Jones. We met in prison, but don’t judge him for it. He’s an ex-slave with more scars on his back than skin. He talked me through some terrible times.”
Silas had known how to get along with the guards. He’d also known how to pray. After John had taken the beating of his life, he’d been begging God to let him die. Instead the good Lord had sent Silas. Thanks to that wise old man, John could sleep at night, alone and usually without dreams. Never mind that he woke up lonely and lustful. He’d made that choice for a reason and he’d be wise to remember it, especially with the scent of Abbie’s skin filling his nose.
After jotting the telegram on a notepad, he asked the clerk to send it immediately. The rustle of Abbie’s dress dragged his gaze to her reticule where she was digging for coins. “How much will it be?” she asked the clerk.
John interrupted. “I’ll take care of it.”
“No, I insist. She’s my daughter.”
Maybe so, but judging by her worn-out clothes, Abbie didn’t have a lot of money. He’d assumed that Robert had been well-to-do, but the man could have gambled away every cent. For all John knew, he’d left Abbie in debt with two children to feed. It would explain the air of secrecy about her. Before she could find her coins, he opened his billfold and slapped a greenback on the counter. “Take it out of this,” he said to the wire operator, a man named Bill Norris.
“No!” Abbie looked at Bill. “How much is it?”
The operator named an amount that would have made a Rockefeller grumble. From the corner of his eye, John saw Abbie pale as she extracted two small bills.
At the sight of her tense fingers, he realized more was at stake than money. She was drawing a line between his responsibilities and hers, but he couldn’t let her pinch pennies. The train fare had to cost a hundred dollars each, and lodging would be expensive, too. Since the telegram was the least of her worries, he surrendered with a smile. “Want to flip a coin to see who pays?”
“Absolutely not,” she said. “And please don’t argue with me. I get enough of that from Robbie.”
“All right,” John said easily. But the conversation wasn’t over. If he asked his housekeeper to live in, Abbie and her son could stay at the parsonage. It wouldn’t cost her a dime. They’d be able to talk in private and get to know each other again. He’d have company at meals, even at breakfast. Hellfire! What was he thinking? Privacy was the last thing they needed, especially with Judas-down-there wanting to share more than toast and scrambled eggs.
John slid his billfold into his coat pocket. He’d be wise to get Abbie and her son settled at the Midas Hotel as soon as possible. As for the bill, he’d pay it. He owed it to her, and probably more in view of her description of Susanna. But he’d face that problem later.
As she stepped into the lobby of the Midas Hotel, Abbie inhaled the cool air with gratitude. The accommodations were modest by Washington standards, but the hotel had a lived-in charm. A side table held glasses and a pitcher of iced tea, and four petit point chairs were arranged in the center of the room. She was about to approach the counter when the whistle of a canary called her attention to an iron cage near the window. With the sun streaming through the bars, the little fellow puffed up and sang his heart out.
Abbie loved birds. She fed dozens of them in her backyard in Washington, and she missed the way they calmed her worries. From the cage, her gaze traveled to a doorway that led to a café where she and Robbie could take their meals if it wasn’t too expensive. Overall, things could have been worse. With a little luck, she could take a bath and a nap before supper. At the sight of her son waiting politely at the hotel counter, she smiled her approval.
“Can I look around?” he asked.
“Sure. Just don’t leave the lobby.”
With John standing at her side, she rang the bell on the counter. A chubby man in a white shirt ambled out of the back room and smiled at them both. “Howdy, Reverend. What can I do for you folks?”
“Nate, this is Abigail Windsor. She’s a friend of mine. She and her son need a suite for a few weeks.”
“A single room will be fine,” Abbie said. She craved the luxury of private space, but she couldn’t afford it.
When Nate glanced at John, she suspected a message was being passed. She ached for a bed of her own, but she didn’t want to owe John any favors. “How much will it be for just a room?” she insisted.
“Same as for the suite,” Nate said. “The singles are all taken, so I’ll give it to you at a discount. The windows face the alley, but the beds are soft.”
At the thought of a feather mattress, Abbie no longer cared about owing favors to anyone. “That’s kind of you. I’ll take it.”
As the clerk turned to the wallbox holding keys, she reached for the pen and signed the register. “Is it possible to order a bath?”
“Sure thing, ma’am.”
She was imagining steamy water when the casual scuff of her son’s shoes caught her attention. Robbie had just stepped back into the lobby with his hands jammed into his pockets and a sly look in his eyes. Abbie’s stomach lurched. The last time she’d seen that expression had been on the train when he’d stolen the orange. Needing every advantage, she straightened her spine to gain a few inches on the boy who could almost look her in the eye.
“I told you to stay in the lobby,” she said firmly.
“I did.”
“No, you were in the restaurant.”
“Isn’t that part of the lobby, Mother?”
His tone made her grit her teeth. Up until Robert’s death, she’d been “Ma” and sometimes even “Mama.” Abbie was stifling her frustration when she heard a cynical chuff from John. The good Reverend was leaning casually against the counter and giving Robbie the toughest stare she had ever seen.
“Son, you have a choice,” he said. “You can put back the money you just stole, or you can make your problems worse by lying.”
John’s eyes were rock-hard, but below the intensity she saw the hope that Robbie would tell the truth. Unfortunately her son had no such compunction. Just as she expected, Robbie screwed his face into an arrogant scowl. “I’m not a thief!”
“Sure you are,” John replied. “You took money that wasn’t yours.”
“Mother!” Robbie hooked a thumb at John. “He’s insulting me.”
Abbie arched an eyebrow. “I think the Reverend is being kind.”
John tsked his tongue. “You have a lot to learn, kid. First off, don’t waste your breath on straight denials. Muddy the water with a bit of truth. If I were you, I’d say something like, ‘I found some change on the floor, but that’s all.’”
Robbie rolled his eyes, but John ignored it. “As for stealing, taking all the money isn’t smart. In a few minutes, Mary’s going to come looking for what she’s owed. If you had taken half of it, she’d think her customer made a mistake and you’d be off scot-free.”
As Robbie opened his mouth to argue, a woman wearing an apron stepped out of the café. “Has anyone seen Cole? He forgot to pay his bill.”
Keeping his gaze on Robbie, John said, “Cole’s not the problem, Mary.”
Sizing up the situation, the gray-haired woman marched up to Robbie and put her hands on her hips. “Did you steal from me, young man?”
“No!” Seemingly horrified, Robbie gripped Abbie’s sleeve. “Mama? Tell them I didn’t do it.”
Being called “Mama” made her furious. Shaking her head, she said, “I wish I could, but we’ve been down this road before.”
“I didn’t take the money! I swear it. Father would believe me! He cared about me. You’re just a stupid—”
“Apologize.”
The command in John’s voice sent chills down Abbie’s spine. With the intensity of hell itself, he stared at Robbie, showing the boy that he’d met his match.
Startled, her son looked down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, Ma.”
Abbie put iron in her voice. “You and I will finish this discussion later.”
“But, Mama—”
“Don’t say another word.” Abbie faced Mary and opened her handbag. “How much did he take?”
Just then a young cowboy poked his head through the doorway. “Hey, Mary, I can’t find my pocketknife. Did I leave it on the table?”
“Cole Montgomery, did you pay your bill?” asked the cook.
“Of course, I did! I left it under the sugar bowl like always.”
With his cheeks burning, Robbie dug the money out of his pocket. “Here,” he said to Mary. “I’m sorry.”
John rocked back on his heels. “Sorry you took it or sorry you got caught?”
“Both, I guess.”
“That’s honest,” John answered. “But to make things right, you need to pay back more than you took.”
“I could use an extra dishwasher tomorrow,” Mary said. “It’s flapjack day and I’m expecting a crowd.”
“He’ll be there,” Abbie replied. “What time?”
“Six a.m.”
So she wouldn’t be sleeping past dawn and enjoying the comfortable bed. Getting Robbie downstairs would be a battle, but Abbie gave a firm nod. “I’ll be sure he’s on time.”
John shook his head. “You need your rest. I’ll tap on your door in the morning. That way Robbie and I can have breakfast before he gets to work.”
Her son glared at John. “My name isn’t Robbie. It’s Robert.”
“I’ll call you ‘Robert’ when you earn it,” John answered. “I was Johnny for a lot of years, so I know what a name means.”
Abbie froze at the memory of hearing his name for the first time. Her twisted ankle hadn’t taken her weight, and he’d helped her into his saddle. Her skirt had hiked up her calf, and she’d caught him looking just before he’d climbed up behind her.
My name’s John Leaf.
I’d rather call you Johnny. It suits you.
Lord, she’d been such a flirt. But a man’s attention had been so exciting, so intriguing—now she knew better.
As Mary left the lobby, Abbie turned back to Nate at the counter. “I’m sorry for the interruption. How much do I owe you for the rooms?”
The clerk shook his head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Windsor, but I can’t have that boy in my hotel.”
Panic pulsed through her. She hadn’t noticed another hotel. Hating the necessity of it, she humbled her voice. “I promise to keep an eye on him.”
Nate shook his head. “I can’t risk it, ma’am. The railroad boss is staying here. He’d never come back if a thief picked his pocket. Besides, you and the boy can stay with the Reverend. Mrs. Cunningham won’t mind staying over to make sure things are proper.”
John shook his head. “That won’t work.”
“Why not?” asked Nate.
“Because it just won’t,” John replied.
Abbie interrupted. “I refuse to impose. Perhaps you can recommend a boardinghouse?”
Nate scratched his neck. “There’s one by the depot.”
“Absolutely not,” said John. “The place has fleas and the plumbing’s broken.”
Abbie’s skin crawled. She hated bugs of any kind. Facing Nate, she said, “Perhaps we could rent a room somewhere else? Maybe from another widow?”
“Not with your boy’s bad habits,” Nate said with a frown. When Abbie stayed silent, he gave a satisfied nod. “They sell flea powder at the Emporium. You might want to pick some up.”
Noise. Bugs. Broken plumbing. She was on the verge of begging Nate to reconsider when Robbie crossed his arms over his chest. “Mother, we can’t possibly stay at a boardinghouse.”
That did it. Abbie refused to raise a snob. “We certainly can. You stole money and lied. I don’t blame this gentleman one bit for not letting us stay here.”
“But that other place isn’t decent. Father would be angry—”
“He’d also be angry with your behavior.” Abbie hated the lie that rolled from her lips. Robert would have made excuses for his son and raised his allowance. Facing Nate, she said, “The boardinghouse will be fine. Could you send over our trunk?”
John clasped her elbow. “You’ll have to stay at the parsonage. Sally’s place isn’t safe.”
Abbie held in a cynical laugh. Her own home hadn’t been safe, either. Nor had she been safe with Johnny Leaf on her grandmother’s farm.
Are you sure, Abbie?
Yes…no…please don’t stop…
They’d tumbled onto a downy mattress where he’d pressed her deep into the fluff. It had been a warm night, humid and heavy with rain, and she’d been wearing her grandmother’s precious silk robe…The memory faded, leaving in its wake a low-bellied fear. Never mind the comforts of the parsonage. She’d feel safer in the company of strangers than with this man who still had a powerful hold over her. With the decision made, she slid out of John’s grasp, lifted the valise and headed for the door. “Robbie, let’s go.”
“Abbie, wait,” John called.
She picked up her pace, but it didn’t stop him from pulling up next to her. He clasped her arm again, more forcefully this time because she was moving. Pain shot from her shoulder to her neck, but she hid it. “Let go of me,” she ordered.
He released her immediately, but she was too stunned by the pain to move. His face was inches from hers, fiery and full of purpose as he hooked his hands in his coat. “If you go to Sally’s, the fleas will be the least of your problems. She rents rooms to whores and drunks who use each other for target practice.”
Abbie turned to her son. “Go to the corner and stand where I can see you. Do not disobey me.”
After a snide look, he walked to the corner and stopped, probably because the Reverend was glaring, too. With Robbie out of earshot, Abbie faced John.
“I want to be very clear,” she said with deadly calm. “I have no desire to spend the night with fleas or vermin of any kind. All I want is a basin of clean water, a bed that’s not moving and a bit of privacy.”
His eyes burned into hers. “You can have those things at the parsonage. I promise—you’ll be safe.”
From me.
He’d said the last words with his eyes, but she didn’t believe him for a minute. She’d never feel safe again and certainly not with Johnny Leaf. Stay angry, she told herself. Stay strong.
“I appreciate the offer, Reverend, but I’d rather keep company with the fleas.”
His spine turned rigid, giving him another inch of height so that she felt like a sparrow looking up at one of the ravens in her backyard. The creases around his eyes deepened, telling her that she’d struck a nerve. It didn’t matter. Hurting John’s feelings was the least of her worries. “If you’ll excuse me—”
“I’ll take you to Sally’s,” he said. “But just for tonight. When you’re rested, you and I have to talk.”
“Tomorrow, then,” she said. “While Robbie’s washing dishes.”
She pivoted and hurried down the street, keeping her eyes on her son while John followed her. The thud of his boots on the wood planks reminded her that she was in an unfamiliar town and had no idea where to go. When she reached the corner where Robbie was standing, she stopped to orient herself. Across the street, she saw a dress shop, a newspaper office and the yellow facade of the Midas Emporium. Later she’d go out for flea powder and something to read so she could fall asleep, but right now she wanted to be rid of the Reverend.
He was motioning down a street that led to the outskirts of the town. “Sally’s place is this way,” he said.
As she peered down the strip of dirt, Abbie saw a sign advertising baths for a nickel and a splintered storefront with the swinging half doors of a saloon. Her insides sank with dread. The Reverend had been telling the truth about Sally’s clientele, but she refused to change her mind about the parsonage. Even standing on a street corner in the middle of the day, she could feel the old connection between them.
So little about him had changed. His dark eyes still had a hawklike intensity, as if he could see the tiniest secrets in her heart. At the same time, she saw a loneliness in his gaze, a reminder that each of God’s creatures had boarded the ark with a mate. Abbie felt her insides twist with a mix of longing and hateful memories of her marriage. If she didn’t get away from John soon, she’d be a nervous wreck.
To keep her composure, she looked him square in the eye. “I can find it from here. Just tell me what the house looks like.”
“Not a chance,” he replied. “I’ll introduce you to Sally and get you settled. I also want to be sure you can find me if you need anything.”
Abbie wanted to ignore the offer, but she wasn’t a fool. Whether she liked it or not, she was in a rough part of town and Johnny Leaf was her only friend. She tapped her son’s arm to take his attention away from the Emporium. “Robbie? You need to listen.”
As the boy turned around, the Reverend pointed at a white steeple on the other side of town. “That’s the church. The parsonage is across from it. It’s a two-story house with a wide porch. That’s where I live.”
Confident she understood John’s directions, Abbie continued down the street. The three of them walked in silence, but she couldn’t block out the awareness of John matching his long stride to hers. It was like walking together in Kansas. Only now she was wearing black instead of red calico. She also had scars while he seemed more confident than ever.
Eager to reach their accommodations, she peered down the street until she spotted a sign offering rooms for rent. It was hanging in front of a box-shaped house with cracked windows, peeling paint and a yard full of weeds.
“This is it,” John said.
Abbie schooled her features. “It’s just fine.”
John gave her a skeptical look, but she hadn’t been lying. She didn’t care about a comfortable bed or a fancy washbowl anymore. She just wanted to be away from the Reverend and the feelings he stirred up. As soon as he left, she’d feel safe and that’s what mattered most.
Chapter Three
John pushed back in the chair on the porch that wrapped around the parsonage and lit a cigarette. He usually enjoyed the end of the day, when the sun dipped below the horizon and the air cooled, but tonight his stomach was in a knot. After leaving Abbie at Sally’s, he’d renewed his promise to fetch Robbie for breakfast and had walked home.
He’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying to write Sunday’s sermon, but he’d gotten as far as “love thy neighbor as thyself” and tossed down his pen. He hadn’t been in the mood to think about loving anyone, so he had picked up his tobacco pouch and gone outside for a smoke.
That had been four cigarettes ago, and he still wasn’t in the mood to think about love. At least not the kind of brotherly devotion he’d intended to preach on Sunday. His mind kept drifting back to Abbie, Kansas and the night he had talked his way into her bed.
What a fool he’d been. Up until then he’d only been with whores. Sex had been for sport, and he’d cheerfully gone upstairs with every woman who’d asked. With Abbie things had been different. He’d been the one to do the asking, or, more correctly, the persuading.
The smoke turned rancid in John’s lungs. Seducing a virgin had been a game to him. Abbie had been an untouched girl who smelled like bread instead of whiskey. She had also been the first woman he’d been with who had known less about sex than he did.
With the sunset glaring in his eyes, he didn’t know what shamed him more—that he’d taken her innocence or that he’d done such a piss-poor job of it. It wasn’t until it was all over that he’d realized how clumsy he’d been. With tears in her eyes, she’d huddled against him, whispering that she hurt and was afraid.
God, he’d been an idiot. He hadn’t learned the finer points of lovemaking until he’d befriended a madam named Rose. He wanted to think he would have made things good for Abbie if he’d had the chance, but her brother had barged in on them. Only her pleas had kept John from pounding the kid into pulp. Instead he had held his Colt Army pistol to the boy’s head and ordered Abbie to get dressed and meet him in the barn.
John stubbed out the cigarette in a pie tin full of sand. That night had been hell. With Abbie struggling to be brave, he had felt lower than dirt as he’d saddled his horse.
You can come along to Oregon if you want.
I can’t leave my mother.
She’d been wise to refuse his halfhearted offer. After Kansas he’d slid deeper into the hole he called a life, while she had married well and raised two fine children. At least that’s what John wanted to believe. The other possibility was too bitter to bear. Had he left her with child? Had she been forced to marry to hide the shame?
A daughter…his flesh and blood…
John’s heart thundered against his ribs. The western sky was on fire and the mountains were as black as soot. As a coyote howled in the distance, another joined in the lament. The wailing reached one high note after another, ceaseless and haunting, until the night was full of pain.
Was this how Abbie had felt when her monthly hadn’t started on time? Had she wanted to hide from the facts as badly as he did now? There was no getting around the evidence. Someone had told Susanna that he was her father, and Abbie hadn’t flat-out denied it. The girl was fourteen years old and, judging by Abbie’s description, looked just like him.
He could only hope Robert Windsor had been a good man who had married Abbie for love. Perhaps he’d been a childless widower who’d wanted a family. The thought gave John a measure of comfort.
Pushing to his feet, he walked to the back of the house where he lived in the guest room because it offered more privacy. He didn’t even allow Mrs. Cunningham inside. Once a week he brought his laundry out in a basket, and the housekeeper left everything folded by the door. He never made the bed, and he only opened the curtains when he needed to wake up with the sun.
Thinking of his promise to meet Robbie, John pulled back the drapes. His gaze fell on the jagged pines behind the parsonage and then rose to the stars. He usually took strength from the glimmering sky, but tonight he felt sober and sad. Even the crickets sounded lonely.
Lowering his head, he looked down at the desk where he wrote sermons and kept his two Bibles. One was so new the leather creaked when he opened it. The other had been a gift from Silas and was falling apart. The rest of the furniture included a wardrobe he didn’t use and a double bed he truly appreciated. Three years on a prison cot had given him a taste for soft mattresses, and this one was stuffed with feathers and down.
Turning away from the desk, John shrugged out of his coat and hung it on the back of the chair. He had a rule. He never left the parsonage without the coat, and he never wore the coat in this room. He needed a place where he could snore and belch and just be a man. For the same reason, he slept buck-naked. Sometimes a man had to let his skin breathe.
This was one of those times, so he stripped off his clothes and stretched facedown on the bed, shifting his hips to avoid a lump in the sheets. As he tugged on the cotton to smooth it, he thought of Abbie. She’d have a straw tick and the bedsheets would stink of lye. The girl in Kansas had appreciated fine things, like the satin nightgown he’d lifted off her shoulders.
“Ah, hell,” John muttered.
He could still feel Abbie’s lips, soft and unschooled. Her breasts had been round and tipped with rosy nipples that he’d been the first man to kiss. She had explored him, too. Generous by nature, she’d been far too brave for her own good.
As for himself, he’d just been lustful. Except fifteen years had passed, and it was still Abbie’s touch he felt in dreams too personal to share. In time he’d come to believe that he loved her. John clenched the sheets until his fists ached. His thighs tensed and so did his belly. Every nerve in his body was alive and spoiling for a certain kind of fight.
It wasn’t often that John wanted a woman. He’d put that need behind him when he’d put on his black coat for the first time, and he’d kept it there by focusing on women like Emma Dray. They admired his good looks and his passion for heaven. They said his sermons were brilliant and wise and told him he was a good man.
They didn’t know him at all, but Abbie did. She knew he had bad dreams, and she’d understood when he wouldn’t talk about them. John had changed a lot over the years. He wasn’t the same kid who had seduced her, but beneath the coat he was still just a man, and a hot-blooded one at that.
Abbie had been wise to choose the fleas.
You goddamn slut!
Abbie was back in Washington, trapped in her bedroom and using her arms to protect her face from Robert’s blows. Oh, God. Oh, God. He was ripping her hands from her face, squeezing her throat and calling her unspeakable names.
“Bitch!” Only it wasn’t Robert’s voice that thundered through the boardinghouse walls.
Robbie sat up on the pallet next to her bed. “Ma? Who’s shouting?”
Abbie pushed to her feet and put on her wrapper. “I don’t know, but someone needs help.”
“No! Don’t go.”
Her son’s worry tugged at her heart, but she had been on the other side of that wall. Tying her robe, she said, “I’m going to knock on the door while you get Sally. Her room’s at the bottom of the stairs, remember?”
Robbie jumped to his feet and pulled on his clothes. As they entered the hallway, she squeezed her son’s shoulder. “You better hurry.”
After he raced down the stairs, Abbie tapped on the door next to hers. “Hello?”
When no one answered, she pressed her ear to the wood. A whimper penetrated the barrier, followed by a man’s cursing. Abbie was about to twist the knob when the door opened a crack, revealing a young woman she had met at supper. Her name was Beth and she was looking down, trying to hide her face behind a curtain of golden-brown hair.
Abbie stuck her foot in the door. “I can help you,” she whispered.
Just as Beth moved her lips to reply, someone yanked her back into the room. Shrieking, the girl tumbled to the floor as Abbie stepped over the threshold. Sweat and whiskey hung in the air as a man the size of horse grabbed Beth’s forearm and tried to haul her to her feet.
“Get up!” he ordered.
“I can’t.” Clutching her ribs, Beth slumped to the floor.
Abbie knew from experience that provoking a devil made him more violent, so she kept her voice low. “What’s your name, sir?”
He looked over his shoulder and wrinkled his brow as if her good manners had confused him. “It’s Ed.”
“Hi, Ed. I’m Abigail. Are you hungry? I bet Sally has pie and coffee downstairs.”
As he let go of Beth’s hand, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Who the hell are you?”
Abbie’s knees were knocking, but she had to keep Ed talking until help arrived. “My name’s Abbie. I’m no one.”
“Well, Miss No One. You should have minded your own business.”
Abbie prayed Ed would take the easy way out and let both women leave, but he raked her with his eyes, lingering on her breasts and her mouth. She knew all about bullies. They fed on fear, so she swallowed hers as if it were vinegar. She was about to offer to wrap Beth’s ribs when Ed curled his lips into a smirk and lifted a leather sheath off the dresser. Judging by the shape, it held a bowie knife. Weighing the threat to Beth if she ran for help, Abbie eyed the door, only to see Ed slap it shut.
Focusing on the immediate need, Abbie stepped to Beth’s side and helped her to her feet. Leering at them both, Ed unsheathed the knife and turned it back and forth in the moonlight, inspecting the blade for sharpness with his thumb. Because knives left marks that were hard to explain, Abbie felt fairly certain he didn’t intend to use it. The motion was meant to terrify them, just as Robert had terrified her with lit cigarettes.
As long as she and Beth weren’t trapped against the wall, she could buy time. Surely Sally had sent for the sheriff. But what if he wouldn’t come? What if he shrugged off a woman’s bruises as a family matter? Abbie’s shoulder throbbed with the tension. She’d been trapped in this alley before and she still bore the scars.
“Reverend!”
Jarred awake by pounding on the front door, John yanked on his clothes and jammed his feet into his boots. It had to be a stranger. People in Midas knew to come to the back door at night. As he fumbled with a button, the pounding turned into a drumbeat.
“It’s Robbie. Hurry! My ma’s in trouble.”
Not bothering to grab his coat, John raced through the house and flung open the front door. “What happened?”
“She went to help a lady who was crying because a man was yelling at her. I tried to get Sally, but she didn’t open her door.”
The argument had to be between Ed and Beth Davies. John knew that Ed’s wife had left him and moved into Sally’s place this afternoon. Ed had a vile temper, but he had never used more than his fists. Nonetheless, John grabbed the Colt Lightning he kept by the front door and jammed it into his waistband.
“Let’s go,” he said to Robbie.
Together they ran the six blocks, stormed into the boardinghouse and raced up the stairs. After a glance to be sure Abbie wasn’t in her room, John faced Robbie. “Go pound on Sally’s door until she opens it. Tell her I said to get the sheriff and the doctor.”
As Robbie raced down the hall, John sized up the sturdiness of the door. He preferred talk to violence, but Ed had proved he was hard of hearing. Wanting to keep surprise on his side, John hauled back and kicked down the door. In a blink he took in the sight of the two women pressed against the wall and Ed lunging at Abbie.
“He’s got a knife!” shrieked Beth.
As the blade glinted, John threw himself between Abbie and Ed. The blade slashed across his belly. He leaped back and aimed his gun, but Ed had already snaked his arm around Abbie’s waist and was pressing the bloody knife against her throat. In her eyes, John saw a calm so deep it chilled his blood. This wasn’t the first time she had been in danger.
Bracing against the wall, he cocked the hammer and pointed the barrel at Ed’s nose. “Tell me, Ed. Have you ever heard of ‘an eye for an eye’? It’s the surest cure for meanness I know and it’s biblical, too.”
“You son of a bitch.”
John held his pistol steady. “I don’t believe in turning the other cheek when innocent lives are at stake, but when it’s just my life, I’m a generous man. What’s it going to be, Ed? You can drop the knife or I’ll shoot.”
When Ed squinted like a rat, John decided to give him a lesson in arithmetic. “You’ve got three seconds. One…two…”
“Ah, hell.” Ed dropped the knife to the floor and sent it skittering toward John, letting go of Abbie at the same time. “No woman’s worth dying for.”
John thought Ed was dead wrong. Abbie was worth every drop of blood dripping down his side, but that was his secret to keep.
Still aiming the gun at Ed, he said, “Beth, fetch your things. Abbie, get Robbie and whatever you need for the night. You ladies are coming home with me. Ed, though, is going to jail just as soon as Sheriff Handley gets here.”
“I’m right here, Reverend.” The sheriff strode into the room with a pair of irons in hand. “I don’t tolerate men who use knives on women.”
Only their fists, John thought, but that fight had to wait for another day. Relieved to have the ordeal over, he gave Abbie a reassuring nod as she led Beth into the hallway. As soon as Handley dragged Ed out of the room, John slid down the wall until his buttocks hit the floor.
His side was starting to hurt like the devil. Sucking in a breath, he pulled his shirt out of his waistband. He’d been a fool to leave the parsonage without his coat. The wool would have offered some protection, and Ed might have thought twice about slicing up a preacher. As things stood, the gash felt deep, but it hadn’t penetrated anything vital. As long as the wound didn’t fester, he’d be fine after someone stitched him up.
John stifled a groan. He wasn’t keen on seeing Doc Randall. The old man still talked about the good old days when he’d used leeches. John was considering sewing the cut himself when Abbie hurried into the room. Still clad in her nightgown, she dropped to her knees and pressed a wadded-up petticoat against his side. Pale and soft, it reminded him of her skin.
“Lie down,” she ordered. “Moving makes it bleed.”
“I’m all right.” John nudged her hand away and gripped the cotton. “I’ll do that. You need to get dressed.”
“I’m not going with you and neither is Beth.” Abbie sat back on her knees. “If a woman is the one to leave, a divorce can cost her everything.”
He wanted to ask how she knew such a thing, but first he had to convince her to come home with him. He knew better than to bark orders at her, so he appealed to her common sense. “I don’t trust Handley to keep Ed locked up. You won’t be safe unless I stay here.”
“Then it’s decided.”
Her mind still worked like lightning. His was fogged with pain. “What’s decided?”
“You can sleep in this room and Beth can stay with me. We can take turns looking out for you.”
The plan sounded logical, except John wanted his privacy. No, that wasn’t exactly right. He needed solitude like he needed air. He gritted his teeth. “I’m not staying here.”
Abbie looked down her nose. “Don’t be foolish. That gash doesn’t hurt right now, but tomorrow you’ll be crying like a baby.”
“Want to bet?” He hadn’t shed a tear in thirty years and he wasn’t going to start over an itty-bitty cut, even if it did need two dozen stitches. And he sure as the devil didn’t care for the thought of visitors. He wanted to lick his wounds in private. He also wanted to be sure Abbie and Beth would be safe, and he couldn’t do that here. Half the time Sally didn’t even lock her doors.
A wet cough pulled John’s gaze to the doorway where he saw Doc Randall shuffling into the room with his black bag.
“Hello, Reverend,” he said. “It looks like you’ve been fighting again.”
Abbie glared up at the doctor. “The Reverend saved Beth Davies from a beating. Her husband started the fight.”
Ignoring her, the elderly man hunched forward and let his bag drop the last six inches to the floor. As he crouched, John saw his knees wobble with the effort. “Damn floor gets lower every year,” said the doctor.
Abbie’s brows tightened with concern. “Maybe I can find a stool for you.”
“I’ll manage,” said Randall. “Just give me a minute.”
John glanced at Abbie who looked as worried about the doctor as she was about him. New Mexico generally attracted young men looking to make their fortunes, and she’d probably been expecting someone fresh out of medical college. Instead she’d just met Methuselah.
With a grunt, the doctor dropped to his hips and pushed his spectacles back up his nose. After a hearty throat-clearing, he took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his nose and coughed—right over John’s bleeding belly.
Abbie’s stomach curdled as a mist of spit hit her face. Doc Randall had experience, but she doubted he’d read a medical article in twenty years. He’d probably never heard of Louis Pasteur and Joseph Lister, but Abbie had. She read all the time. If Randall didn’t take precautions, an infection was almost certain.
“Doctor, would you like soap and water for your hands? Or maybe you have carbolic in your bag?”
When Randall didn’t look at her, Abbie guessed that he was hard of hearing. If he’d had carbolic, he would have used it by now, so she raised her voice and enunciated each word. “I’ll get Ed’s whiskey. Alcohol kills germs.”
Randall glared at her. “I heard you the first time, missy. All that germ talk is nonsense. Some folks get sick and some don’t. It’s the luck of the draw.”
“It’s not,” Abbie replied. “I do a lot of reading. Cleanliness is important.”
She stood and retrieved the pint Ed had been swigging. After wiping the lip of the bottle with her nightgown, she held it out to the doctor. “You should use it to clean the needle and the wound.”
Randall waved it off and pulled the edges of John’s skin together with his grimy fingers. Clenching the bottle, Abbie dropped to her knees. “Doctor, you have to—”
“Someone get this woman out of my way.”
“Listen to her, Doc,” John said. “I’d rather drink the whiskey, but what can it hurt?”
Doc Randall harrumphed. “It’s gonna hurt plenty. Do you want her to treat this wound, or me?”
Abbie forced herself to sound reasonable. “If you don’t take precautions, that cut will get infected. Even with whiskey, it might go bad.”
“It’s a waste of good liquor,” said Randall.
John shrugged. “It’s my call, Doc. Just do it.”
With a disgusted grunt, the doctor took the bottle and poured the alcohol on the wound without a warning. John cried out and clutched at the floor, but there was nothing to squeeze. Abbie felt his pain as if it were her own. She had learned to tend the injuries that Robert inflicted, and she’d screamed for two days while giving birth to Robbie. She’d been torn nearly in two, but what hurt even more was never having another child. With tears rising in her eyes, she rocked forward and took John’s hand in both of hers. “It’ll be over soon,” she crooned. “Just hang on.”
His fingers tightened around hers. “Don’t let go.”
“I won’t.”
His pupils had dilated with pain. If she could have rocked him in her arms, she would have done it. She hated suffering of any kind, but especially when the victim had been struck down while protecting the innocent.
All sorts of words were pouring from the Reverend’s lips. Some were the prayers she would have expected from a man of the cloth, but others were bitter. In that mix of faith and human failing, she saw both the gunslinger she’d known in Kansas and the man he’d become. She wasn’t sure what to make of the differences.
As the stinging passed, John composed himself, though he didn’t let go of her hand until Doc Randall took the last stitch.
“That should do it,” said the older man. “I’ll check on you tomorrow.”
John pushed to a sitting position. “We’ll be at the parsonage.”
Abbie was about to renew their argument about where to stay when Doc Randall interrupted. “Sally’s got room for you. It’s time you let your friends take care you.”
When John clutched his side and pushed to his feet, Abbie knew that Doc Randall had lost the argument. Wise or not, John was going home alone and Abbie wondered why. Did he still have nightmares, the shaming kind where he cried out in his sleep? Or maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of fleas and scratchy sheets.
Abbie knew in her soul that living under his roof was asking for trouble. It wasn’t just the way his eyes turned hungry when he looked at her. It was knowing she could still sense his thoughts and he could sense hers. A long time ago, they’d been that close…she’d held his hand while he’d told her how his father would beat him with a shovel and his mother had walked away. She had rubbed his back and fed him apple pie…
“Abbie? Did you hear me?” John asked.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said Doc’s going to drive me home in his buggy. I’d appreciate it if you and Beth would come with me, but I won’t ask twice.”
But he had asked twice in Kansas. He’d asked her for more than she had been ready to give. Would he do it again? She didn’t think so, but it didn’t matter. She’d be a fool to make herself vulnerable to the man with her daughter’s brown eyes.
But she’d be something even worse if she didn’t help him—a coward, and an ungrateful one at that. The blood on the floor would have been hers if he hadn’t kicked down the door. And if the wound became infected as she feared, he’d be suffering for days and even facing death. The thought made Abbie tremble with dread. Susanna had a right to meet her father, and Abbie owed him her life.
Looking at John, she said, “I’ll walk over with Beth and Robbie.”
He gave her a curt nod. “The front door’s unlocked. Just make yourselves comfortable upstairs.”
Her whole body tensed at the thought of sharing his house, but how difficult could it be? He’d probably dose up on laudanum and sleep like a baby. At least that’s what she hoped.
Chapter Four
“Sam, get that broom moving.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Susanna, being careful to deepen her voice.
After arriving in Bitterroot three days ago, she had been lucky to find a job in Harlan Walker’s barbershop where she could listen to the customers gossip. So far, no one had said anything about John Leaf, and Susanna wasn’t sure what to ask. Thanks to Mr. Walker’s kindness, she could bide her time. He and his wife had insisted that “Sam” sleep in the back room, and Mrs. Walker had fed her big suppers. The home-cooked meals made Susanna miss her mother, but she wasn’t sorry she had run away. She needed to meet John Leaf to be sure that she wasn’t like him.
Her worry had started the night two thugs attacked Robert Windsor in front of their house. Susanna didn’t know much about politics, but she’d heard rumors that he had taken bribes, and that the attack had been payback for a law that didn’t pass. She had heard it all from her window, including the snap of his neck as he’d hit the brick planter. For three days he had lain in his bed, paralyzed and dying. He’d talked first to her mother and then to Robbie. As always, Susanna had been last.
You’re not my daughter. There’s a leather pouch in my desk. That’s all I have to give you. What did a girl say to such a declaration? Susanna still didn’t know.
As she pushed the broom across the floor, she wished she had asked the man who’d raised her to tell her more, but she’d been too stunned to say anything. In the middle of the night, she had retrieved the pouch and taken it to her room where she’d read reports written by a Pinkerton’s detective.
Truth had a way of singing for Susanna. Sometimes she recognized it in the mournful song of the birds her mother fed on their back porch. Other times she heard it in the rattle of a window holding tight against a storm. That night, she had heard the truth in the hammering of her own heart. All her life she had been told she resembled a long-dead grandmother. She didn’t fit anywhere, and now she knew why. She was the daughter of a killer—a man who had sold his gun and taken lives, including those of Ben Gantry’s sons.
As she swept a wad of hair into the dustpan, Susanna weighed the evidence against John Leaf. The Gantry boys had been her age. The oldest, Eli, had been fifteen. His brothers, Zach and Orley, had been fourteen and twelve. Susanna’s knuckles turned white on the broom handle. John Leaf’s blood ran in her veins, and she hated him for what he’d done. He’d hurt her mother, too. They had done the thing that grown-ups did in the dark and then he’d left.
With the smell of hair tonic filling her nose, Susanna worried that his meanness lived inside her. Why else would she have said such hateful things to her mother over an algebra exam? Susanna had gotten a bad grade, not because she couldn’t do the work, but because she didn’t care. Her mother had been firm.
Your schooling is important, sweetie. I want you to have the choices I didn’t have.
But I don’t want to be you! You’re weak and stupid!
Shocked at herself, Susanna had fled to her room and beat her fists on her pillow. She felt as if she’d been taken over by a monster. When her mother had come upstairs carrying hot chocolate and saying she understood Susanna was angry about her “father’s” death, the monster had roared even louder. Who’s John Leaf? But the question had stayed on her tongue, burning like too much salt.
How could she trust her mother to tell to the truth? Susanna had known since she was small that her mother had secrets. Sometimes she had bruises on her arms, and once she had come downstairs with a black eye and said she’d walked into a door. Had John Leaf hurt her mother like her so-called father had? Was that why her mother had left him? Or had he left them?
Susanna shoved the broom hard. She couldn’t be like John Leaf. She liked puppies and stories about Clara Barton, and sometimes she imagined Huck Finn was her best friend. Even when Robbie acted like a brat, she put up with him. And when Amy Jessup made fun of the new girl at school, Susanna had sat with her at lunch. Surely John Leaf wouldn’t do those things, but she had to be sure. That’s why she had written him a letter and sent it to the last address in her pouch.
“Sam?” Mr. Walker’s voice cut through her thoughts. “Take out the trash. It’s by the front door.”
“Yes, sir.”
As she raised her head, Susanna noticed a dark-skinned man peering into the barbershop as if he were looking for someone. He’d taken off his hat, revealing a head full of wiry gray hair and piercing eyes that made her nervous. When his gaze honed to her face, Susanna stared back.
“Well, I’ll be darned,” he murmured.
Mr. Walker loomed behind her. “What do you want, Silas?”
“I’d like a word with your helper.”
Susanna’s heart started to pound. “Who are you?”
“My name is Silas Jones.”
She knew that name from her research. John Leaf had left the Wyoming Territorial Prison with an ex-slave named Silas. Did this mean John Leaf was looking for her? She let her voice rise to its natural pitch. “Do you know my father?”
The old man’s eyes turned into obsidian. “I do.”
Mr. Walker stepped closer to the door and stared at her. “Just who are you?”
Silas signaled her to keep quiet with a shake of his head, but she wanted to hear what the barber knew. “I’m sorry I lied, Mr. Walker, but I needed the job. My name is Susanna Windsor, and I’m looking for my father. His name is John Leaf.”
“Get the hell out of my shop!”
“But—”
“Right now!” Mr. Walker grabbed the broom out of her hand and hurled it against the back wall. “You’re the devil’s spawn and a damn girl besides!”
“But my things—”
“Fetch ’em and get out of my sight! That bastard killed Ben’s boys in cold blood. And you, young lady, are a lyin’ piece of trash!”
Heat rushed to Susanna’s cheeks. It was true she had lied, but she had also worked hard and Mr. Walker owed her four dollars. She was about to insist on her pay when Mr. Jones stepped into the barbershop and positioned himself in front of her.
“There won’t be any more talk, Walker. The girl’s an innocent child, and I’m here to look after her.”
Wide-eyed, Susanna watched as the barber hocked up a mouthful of spit and let it fly at Mr. Jones’s boot. The spittle marked the toe and dripped onto the floor, but the man ignored it. “Get your things, miss.”
Susanna hurried to the back room to fetch her satchel, listening as Mr. Walker’s curses thickened the air. “Your kind always wants trouble,” he declared. “Wait till Ben hears about this!”
Whatever doubts Susanna had about trusting Silas Jones disappeared at the mention of Ben Gantry. She knew in her bones that he’d lash out the way she had punched the pillow when she’d been mad at her mother. As she stuffed her clothing into her satchel, Susanna whispered a prayer.
Please, God. Keep me safe.
As soon as the doctor left and John was settled in his room, Abbie invited Beth to sit in the kitchen for a cup of tea. Considering the Reverend lived alone, the room had a surprising warmth. With copper pots hanging above the stove, a pie chest and a galvanized sink, the kitchen made Abbie feel at home. So did the wraparound porch and the white siding of a farmhouse. With four bedrooms upstairs, a water closet and a bathing room, the house was well suited to a family. Only the smell of tobacco belonged to John. Abbie loathed smoking, but his bad habits were his own business.
As she measured tea leaves from a canister, she glanced at Beth who was seated at the table and holding a cold rag against her cheek. Her eyes held a glitter Abbie understood. The two women would be up until dawn, trading stories and helping each other be brave. They had already talked about Ed when Beth lowered the rag from her cheek and looked at Abbie with curiosity.
“What brought you to Midas?” she asked.
“John and I have business concerning my husband’s estate.” As she repeated the half-truth, Abbie realized Beth would hear Susanna’s name. “I have a daughter, too. She’s visiting a friend and then coming here.”
She didn’t mention that the friend was a man named Silas in Wyoming. Abbie hated to shade the truth, but she couldn’t confide in Beth until she had a heart-to-heart with John. Whether he liked it or not, he’d have to accept Susanna as his flesh and blood, which meant Abbie needed to know more about the man he’d become.
So far, she had learned that he liked his privacy. A few moments ago she had knocked on his door and opened it a crack to ask if he needed anything. He’d ordered her to keep out, which she planned to do. He could have all the privacy he wanted, except where Susanna was concerned. Abbie lifted her teacup. “Tell me about the Reverend.”
Beth set her spoon on the place mat. “I don’t know him very well, but I’ll never forget the first time I went to church. I didn’t have anything decent to wear, just a red dress. I felt like a sideshow, but he smiled as if I belonged there.”
Abbie knew that feeling. Johnny Leaf had made her feel smart and brave. After adding a dash of sugar to her tea, she glanced at Beth. “Has he been in Midas long?”
“About three years, but people talk about his past all the time. If you want to know more, you should ask him.”
But Abbie wasn’t interested in the past. Robert had tracked John for years, taunting her with ugly stories about her “lover.” It had started after Robert’s election to Congress. A conniver himself, he’d worried that Susanna’s natural father would blackmail him, and so he had hired a detective. Abbie shuddered at the memory of the night she had revealed John’s name. She could still smell the smoke from Robert’s cigarette and see the flaming tip. She had ugly scars from that night.
As she sipped the tea, Abbie tasted sugar and a hint of orange. It took her back to having breakfast at her grandmother’s table. While downing cups of strong coffee and smothering his eggs in pepper, John had talked her ear off. If any man was suited to fatherhood, it was one who woke up cheerful. Abbie set her cup in the saucer with a soft clatter. “I wonder why the Reverend isn’t married.”
To her dismay, Beth’s eyes twinkled. “He’s handsome, isn’t he?”
Oh, to be young again—to see a handsome man and want his lips on yours. To imagine his children and the mysteries of the bedroom. Abbie had left those days behind her, but she could hope for her friend. “Beth, you’re wonderful. Even after Ed, you still have hope.”
“I’m leaving him,” Beth said emphatically. “Better now than later when I’d have to worry about a baby, too.”
Abbie nodded in agreement. She wished she had fled the first time Robert struck her. “You’re wise to leave him now. You’re young enough to make a fresh start.”
“So are you.”
Abbie gave a light chuckle. “Oh, no, I’m not. Besides, I already have two great children.”
“But there are other reasons to get married.”
“Like what? Scrubbing a man’s collars and cooking his supper?” Putting up with his hands on your breasts and being afraid?
“Like snuggling close at night and having someone to fix things when they break.”
Abbie didn’t know whether to envy Beth’s innocence or to pity the girl. Shaking her head, she said, “I’m done with all that.”
Beth raised one eyebrow. “Then why are you asking about the Reverend?”
Trying to appear casual, Abbie stirred her tea. The rattle of the spoon matched her jangling nerves. “I’m just surprised he’s not married, that’s all. Maybe he doesn’t like children.”
Beth eye’s popped wide. “The Reverend loves children, even babies. He tickles their tummies. It’s sweet.”
Abbie blinked and imagined John lifting a tiny Susanna into the air and kissing her tummy while she giggled. With a lump in her throat, she remembered both Susanna’s baby smile and the fact that Robert had never held her. No wonder her daughter had gone searching for her real father.
“What about older children?” Abbie asked.
“The boys follow him around town like ducks. One minute he’s laughing at their silly jokes, and the next he’s telling them to shape up—and they do.”
Abbie had seen that rapport with Robbie, but what about Susanna? Some men treated their daughters like brainless fools. If John was one of them, she had to know. “What about the girls? I hope he’s not old-fashioned.”
“Not at all,” Beth said. “He tells the girls the same thing he tells the boys—stay in school and dream big.”
Abbie yearned for that kind of affection for Susanna. As the lamp flickered, she wondered again why John had chosen to live alone in a big house with a well-stocked kitchen. “If he likes children so much, you’d think he’d get married.”
Beth’s eyes lit up. “It’s not for a lack of female interest. Emma Dray’s been chasing him for a year. She’ll probably show up tomorrow with a chocolate cake.”
Abbie recalled the pretty brunette at the train station. “I’m sure the Reverend will enjoy it.”
“I doubt it,” Beth said dryly. “Everyone knows he likes apple pie the best.”
From now on, I’m going to call you Sweet Abbie. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.
It’s just an apple pie.
But it had been so much more. He’d picked a hundred apples from her grandmother’s trees, and she had baked a pie to thank him. It had been the only gift she’d had, an offering of love and an invitation to taste more than fruit, though she hadn’t realized it at the time. Holding in the trembling in her middle, Abbie glanced at Beth who was hugging her ribs and frowning. “I’m going to need a job. I wish I knew how to bake.”
Abbie welcomed a problem she could solve. “I’ll teach you. If the Reverend doesn’t mind, we can bake all day. Mary might buy pies for the café.”
Beth’s face lit up. “I’d like that.”
“We’ll start tomorrow.”
When Beth yawned, Abbie carried their cups to the counter and set the teakettle on the stove. “You look relaxed enough to sleep. Why don’t you go upstairs?”
“I think I will.” Beth pushed carefully to her feet, holding her middle to protect her ribs as she turned to Abbie. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did tonight. If there’s anything I can do for you—”
“Don’t worry about me,” Abbie said. “Just grab the future and hang on tight.”
“I will. I promise.”
After the two women shared a gentle hug, Beth padded up the stairs. Still tense, Abbie poured more tea while she weighed the knowledge that John loved kids. No, she corrected herself, the Reverend loved kids. John Leaf would consider a daughter of his own an obligation. Nothing more.
With the steam curling above her cup, she stared out the window, seeing nothing but black glass and the glare of the lamp. Lord, she missed her friends, especially Maggie. She also missed the birds in her backyard and the chipmunks that lived in the woodpile. After one of Robert’s tirades, she had often stayed up all night, listening for the first twitters of dawn.
The habit had started during the first year of her marriage when she had believed Robert would come to love her. She had even hoped he’d accept the baby as his own. After all, he’d married her knowing she was with child, in part because a bad case of the mumps had convinced him he’d never have sons of his own.
Abbie’s stomach curdled as the memory of her wedding night slithered through her. Robert had gotten drunk, taken his pleasure and called her an unspeakable name. The next morning he’d given her flowers and apologized like a little boy. She had tried her best to please him, but just when her pregnancy started to show, he had given her a black eye.
Abbie had endured the shame because she had nowhere to go, but not a day had passed that she didn’t think about leaving him…and searching for Johnny Leaf. As she sipped the hot tea, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from running amok. What would have happened if her brother hadn’t found them? What if she had followed John to Oregon?
Lowering her gaze, she took another sip. No matter what Beth thought, Abbie was long past such thoughts. She had children to raise and a boardinghouse to run. Dreaming about if-onlys and what-ifs was a waste of time.
Annoyed with herself, she set her cup on the counter and stepped outside to wait for sunrise. She loved the sensations of dawn—chirping birds, cool air on her cheeks, a hush that calmed her soul even after a night of brutality. Already she could see a gray light in the eastern sky. Soon it would turn to lavender and brighten to gold. The poppies in the window box would open their faces, and Abbie would feel good.
Behold, I make all things new…
It was her favorite Bible verse, because she saw the truth of it in the past six months. Since Robert’s death, she had put the ugliness behind her. She had a good life now, and she intended to fight for it. That meant finding Susanna and returning to Washington with her father’s blessing.
It also meant finding out why John didn’t want children. Her daughter needed a father, not a man who considered her an obligation. She wanted Johnny to love their daughter as much as she did, and that meant introducing them before Susanna arrived. Abbie had stories to tell, and John needed to hear every one. His daughter was the smartest girl in her class, but he had never seen her homework. He’d never heard her laugh or make a joke, nor had he wiped her tears and seen her climb trees.
Hugging herself against the chill, Abbie thought about the man in the guest room. While she wanted John to care for Susanna, she didn’t want him to notice her. Nothing good could come of him reawakening feelings in her that belonged in the past. Still, for the most part, she felt safe with him. He’d saved her life and he was a minister now. But the preacher Beth had described was nothing like Pastor Deets in Washington. That old windbag talked more about sin than he did about love. He blamed Eve for everything, calling her weak and easily tempted. Abbie thought he was full of rubbish.
A smile curled on her lips. Maybe she’d ask John for his opinion. With a little luck, she’d annoy the daylights out of him and he’d keep away from her. The notion of a debate gave Abbie a rush of wicked pleasure. On behalf of women everywhere, she rather liked the idea of making the good Reverend mad.
Chapter Five
John heard the grandfather clock chime twelve times. Shivering in his bed, he didn’t know whether to welcome a few more hours of night or dread the dreams that would come if he slept. Three days had passed since he’d fought with Ed, and the fever had come at last. His bones ached, and every beat of his heart sent nails into his head. This morning the wound had been pink and hard to the touch. Now it throbbed with a burning itch that made him want to claw at the stitches.
If Abbie knew, she’d say, “I told you so.”
Doc Randall had been tending John’s wound, but he hadn’t come by this afternoon. Abbie had offered to change the bandage, but John said no. He liked the idea of her fingers touching his skin a little too much.
Blowing out a breath, he draped his arm over his forehead. What had he been thinking when he’d given Mrs. Cunningham some time off? The older woman had wanted to visit her daughter. Seeing a chance to do some good, Abbie had volunteered to run the household in her absence. With Beth and Robbie in the house, he didn’t need to worry about appearances, so he’d agreed. Though if he’d known that Abbie and Beth were going to be baking apple pies, he would have said no. As things stood, he spent half the day with his mouth watering and the other half remembering Kansas.
It’s not smart for a pretty girl like you to be alone out here.
I can handle myself.
But Abbie hadn’t been able to handle him. He’d taken full advantage of her twisted ankle. A gentleman would have taken an injured girl to town, but John had been road-weary and ready to hole up for a while. When she’d explained that her grandmother had died and she was going to her farm to sort through the old woman’s things, John had offered to lend a hand.
Resting up on an apple farm had appealed to him, and so did the prospect of flirting with a pretty girl. She had charmed him the minute she threatened to shoot him. He’d always gone for women with spirit, and Abbie had more heart than anyone he’d ever known. John sighed in the dark as he remembered cleaning out her grandmother’s attic.
Dust had covered them both, but Abbie hadn’t minded as she sorted through the trunks. From the last one she had lifted a satin gown that shimmered in the sun pressing through a high window. She had rubbed it against her cheek and he’d imagined her in it—and then out of it. He had fingered the silk and grinned.
How about putting it on for me tonight?
How about if you mind your manners?
She should have slapped him, but instead she had teased him with a smile and finished going through the clothes. She had kept a few things for herself, and he’d wondered why she would want such rags.
Lying in his bed, John closed his eyes and tried not to think about buying Abbie pretty dresses. Instead he dwelled on his own misery and realized he was thirsty. He reached for the pitcher of water only to discover it was empty. He’d have to pull on his pants and pump some in the kitchen.
Groaning, he swung his legs off the mattress, reached for the trousers he’d tossed on a chair and pulled them up, leaving the top button undone so the waistband wouldn’t chafe the wound. Because he had houseguests, he put on the white shirt he’d worn yesterday and buttoned it halfway. Walking down the hall gave him a new sympathy for Doc Randall and his bad knees. Every step sent an ache through John’s bones, but he made it to the kitchen where moonlight was pouring through the window.
After blowing out a breath to steady himself, he took a drink straight from the spigot and then moved the pitcher into place. As the stream of water hit the pewter, he heard a match strike. A lamp flared in the darkness.
“John? Are you all right?”
Abbie’s voice sounded as soft as the silk nightgown he’d just been remembering. It had taken a week of talk, but she’d put it on for him. It had clung to her curves and been warm to his touch. He didn’t dare look at her now. If she was dressed for bed, he didn’t want to know.
“I’m all right,” he answered, still filling the pitcher. “I just needed some water.”
“Let me do that.”
She came up next to him and reached for the handle. As she worked the pump, her loose hair brushed her shoulders. Backlit by the lamp, it made him think of the embers left by a dying fire. He couldn’t stop his gaze from dipping downward. Mercifully, she was covered from head to toe with a robe. It had once been pink, but time had leached away the color and worn the garment to bare threads.
Why was a congressman’s wife wearing rags? Even in private, it didn’t make sense. He wanted to ask her if she needed money, but it wasn’t any of his business. He also wanted to buy her the fancy wrapper he’d seen in the dressmaker’s window last week. It was emerald silk and embroidered with lotus flowers. It would match her eyes and shimmer on her skin. Hellfire! How did a man stop thinking such thoughts? Irritated, he focused on the stream of water filling the pitcher. When it was full, she set it on the counter.
“That should do it,” she said. “Can you carry it?”
Of course he could, but his feet seemed to be glued to the floor. This kitchen had always reminded him of the one in Kansas where she’d cracked eggs into a pan for his breakfast. He remembered watching her wipe down the counter with a dish towel, just as she was doing now. He hadn’t grown up with those feminine touches, and he’d been fascinated by her womanly ways. One thing had led to another, and he’d taken her to bed both in spite of her innocence and because of it.
Knowing that some confessions were best made at night, John sought her eyes. “I’d like to talk to you.”
Looking up, she said, “Is it about Susanna?”
“No, it’s about us.” He put his hand on hers to stop her from wiping the counter. He wanted her full attention because he had no desire to repeat the conversation. “I want you to know I’m sorry for what happened in Kansas. I had no business taking advantage of you.”
He waited for her an answer, but the silence thickened until it felt like humid air, almost visible and too heavy to breathe. If she had nothing more to say, neither did he, so he released her hand. “I won’t bring it up again. I just wanted you to know I’m sorry.”
Anger flashed in her eyes. Good, he thought. He deserved a cold shoulder, but instead of calling him a cad, she gripped his elbow. “I’m not the least bit sorry. Do you want to know why?”
The question sent a blast of fever through John’s veins. He knew the answer—he’d known since he’d read Abbie’s telegram. “She’s mine, isn’t she?”
Abbie nodded slowly. “Very much so.”
“Why did you imply otherwise at the train station?” he asked.
“I needed to think things through. Besides, you’d made it clear that being a father wasn’t something you wanted.”
He couldn’t deny the truth of her words. “Does Robbie know?”
“Not yet. I’ll tell him everything after things are settled with Susanna. You’re going to love her, John. She’s smart and funny and full of mischief. She’s so much like you—”
“Don’t say that.”
“But it’s true.”
John hadn’t told a living soul about the curse that ran in his blood. He’d poured his guts out to the Almighty and felt the touch of grace, but not even Silas knew about the night John had left home for good. He sure as hell wasn’t going to burden Abbie with the truth of that day.
John would never forget Isaac Leaf’s last words. Like father, like son. No kidding, he thought. Ugly inclinations still burned in his blood. Given a choice, he’d be drunk off his ass right now. He’d be at the saloon smoking cigars and playing poker. He’d be undressing Abbie with his eyes and taking her to bed.
The fever ripped through him, causing his side to ache and his head to pound. If he didn’t sit down, he’d fall over, so he pulled a chair out from the table and lowered himself into it. “This can’t be,” he managed to say.
“But it is.” Looking determined, Abbie pulled out the chair next to his and sat down. Her eyes filled with a love that shamed him. “You’re great with Robbie. Won’t you give Susanna a chance?”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Because I’m dirt. I’ve stolen, murdered and maimed. I’ve kicked dogs and stomped on ants. God forgive me, I’ve killed children…
How could he explain that ugliness to Abbie? She may have lost her temper a time or two, but he doubted she had ever wanted to choke the air out of a man’s lungs. Nor did she have a string of enemies who wanted to see her suffer.
John gave her his hardest stare, the one he saved for his blood-and-guts sermons about Old Testament battles and the sacrifice of the cross. “I don’t want her in my life, Abbie. I have my reasons.”
The pity in her eyes said she was unimpressed. “What you want doesn’t matter. I can’t make you love Susanna, but I can make sure you don’t hurt her.”
He felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He would never hurt a child, especially not Abbie’s daughter. But someone else hadn’t been as careful with the girl’s feelings. John pushed back in his chair. “How did she find out about me?”
A shadow fell across Abbie’s face. “Robert told her the night he died.”
“What a godawful shock.” John flattened his palm on the kitchen table. “Tell me the rest.”
“After he was elected to congress, Robert thought you’d try to blackmail him. He kept a file on you. That’s what he gave Susanna.”
John’s heart plummeted down a rabbit hole of regret. Abbie’s marriage must have been a nightmare and he’d been the cause. “Did he know about the baby when you married him?”
Abbie lowered her eyes. “Yes, but he didn’t know about you until later. It’s not important how he found out.”
John knew a lie when he heard one. It was very important, otherwise Abbie wouldn’t have mentioned it. Later he’d ask for the details, but the night was already too raw so he focused on Susanna. “Why do you think Robert told her?”
“Who knows?” Abbie said, shrugging. “He favored Robbie and she knew it. Maybe he wanted to clear his conscience, and the truth was all he had to give.”
“Guilt is an ugly thing.”
“I know.”
Her whisper matched the murmur in John’s heart. For Abbie’s sake, he wished he had been a better man when they’d first met. Where would they be today if he had charmed her into marriage instead of his bed? He could have been a lawman if they’d moved far enough west. He could have started over. He wished that he had, but what was the point? It had taken six years of hell, prison and Silas Jones to bring him to his knees.
John shifted his gaze to Abbie and saw that her eyes were shiny and tense. If she had been a member of his congregation, he would have told stories and shared a few secrets, indirectly telling her that even the worst problems could be solved. But with Abbie, talk had once led to touching, and touching had led to Susanna. Now that troubled girl was in Bitterroot, where Ben Gantry wanted to skin John alive.
If he could have climbed into a cannon and shot himself back in time to the day he’d killed Gantry’s sons, John would have done it. He still wished he’d died that day. If he had, Susanna would be safe and Abbie wouldn’t be sitting in his kitchen, making him want things he couldn’t have. He wanted to go to the stream behind the parsonage where the rushing water would calm his thoughts, but he couldn’t leave Abbie. Taking a breath, he peered into her eyes. “I have regrets, too, and I don’t want any more. I’ll help you find your daughter, but that’s it. As soon as she gets here, the three of you are getting on a train for Washington. It’s best for everyone.”
The glimmer in her eye told him he’d just started a fight he didn’t want to have. “What gives you the right to order me around? You said yourself you have an obligation. I expect you to meet it.”
“And I will. I want to pay for her schooling, her shoes, whatever she needs.”
Abbie pushed to her feet, turned her back on him and gazed out the window. The pane acted like a mirror, reflecting her sage-green eyes and determined chin as she weighed his offer. He suspected she found it sadly lacking, which it was. Needing a distraction, John took a cigarette out of his pocket and struck a match on the stove. Cupping the flame with his hand, he focused on puffing life into the tobacco. When it caught, he tipped back his head and blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling.
“Do you have to smoke that thing now?” Abbie said, fanning the air.
It was his house, and he wasn’t in the mood to appease her. Almost hoping the smoke would chase her away, John watched a puff float in her direction. As soon as it reached her nose, Abbie hurried out the back door. John thought her reaction was overdramatic, but he supposed he owed her an apology for being rude. In spite of the pull of the stitches, he pushed to his feet, doused the cigarette butt in the sink and followed her to the porch. After sitting so close to the lamp, he couldn’t see. “Abbie?”
“I’m over here.”
He followed her voice to the side of the porch that faced Broken Heart Ridge. The crest had been aptly named for two mountains separated by a slash of a gully. Sometimes the full moon rose over that spot like a silver locket, but tonight the sky was black.
As he strode toward her, his vision cleared in layers, revealing first her wrapper, then her ivory skin and finally a halo of starlight in her hair. Leaving a foot between them, he rested his forearms on the railing. Bending to ease the pain in his side, he stared with her into the night. The silhouette of pines turned the forest into a fence, trapping him in a patch of shadows and loss, a dark place that offered no easy answers.
Keeping his voice low, he said, “I’m sorry about the smoking. I guess I’m used to living alone.”
“Your bad habits are your own business,” she said. “The only issue between us is Susanna.”
John’s gaze drifted past the trees to the sky. The same stars were glimmering over Wyoming where Susanna was searching for something he didn’t have to give. “I’ll get a bank draft tomorrow. After that, I’ll send you money every month.”
Abbie shook her head. “Money isn’t enough.”
“It has to be. I’m not cut out to be a father.”
The last thing he expected to hear from Abbie was gentle laughter. Tipping her head to his, she said, “This may surprise you, but I know how you feel. When my monthly didn’t start, I was terrified.”
Abbie had faced the fear and shame with courage, and here he stood whimpering like a kicked dog. John felt like a fool. “What happened after you were sure?”
“I knew I couldn’t stay at home. My father wasn’t a judge yet, but he still cared about his reputation. I made plans to run away as soon as I saved a little money, but my mother saw me tossing up my breakfast. My father was in Chicago while you and I were together, but she knew I’d been alone on the farm. She put two and two together.”
“I’m surprised the judge didn’t get his shotgun.”
“My brother told him you were a drifter, maybe even a wanted man. He didn’t know your name, and my father forbade me to talk about what had happened. He gave me a choice. Marry Robert, or have the baby in Chicago and come home without her. I took my chances on Robert.”
John stared into the black night. He hated to ask the next question, but he had to know. “Did Robert have feelings for you?”
She tightened her mouth with disgust, as if she’d gotten another whiff of smoke. “He married me because he wanted my father’s political endorsement. We hadn’t even met when I took a train to Washington. We got married that afternoon in a courthouse and that was it.”
John felt the stars plumbing the depths of his guilt. To give his daughter a home, Abbie had forsaken her own chance for love. He owed her something for that sacrifice, so he made his voice gentle. “What can I do for Susanna?”
Abbie put her hand on his forearm and squeezed. He felt all sorts of things in her touch—courage, longing and hope that made him ache. “Just be kind to her.”
How could John say no? “I won’t hurt her. You have my word.” Needing to make the promise real, he cupped his fingers over Abbie’s, offering recognition of the past and a truce for the future.
She pulled back as if she’d touched cold metal. “We can’t stay long anyway. I have to get to Kansas.”
“A family visit?”
“I suppose. I have to talk to my father about Robert’s estate.”
If Abbie needed money, John wanted to know. The trick was asking without revealing he’d noticed her worn-out clothes. He made his voice casual. “When a man dies unexpectedly, it can leave a family in a bind. I’ve been wondering if Robert left you with a decent income.”
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