Beautiful Bad Man (7 page)

He rode far enough down the ranch road to be out of sight of anyone watching, then swung around behind the house and left his horse in heavy brush. As he’d expected on a big house like Van Cleve’s, there was a back door. Locked. A little broken glass took care of that.

A small brown woman wearing a white cap and apron over a black dress was serving Van Cleve, his wife, a girl maybe five and boy a couple years older breakfast in a sunny room not far from the back door. Cal had heard about the children, but they were kept away from Preston’s men so well, he’d never seen them before.

“I need to talk to your husband, ma’am,” Cal said, nodding to Mrs. Van Cleve. “Why don’t you and your friend there take those children for a walk.”

Mrs. Van Cleve showed signs of being the fainting kind, but the maid was made of sterner stuff. The little woman had both her employer’s wife and the children gone from the room in less than a minute. Whatever Van Cleve paid her, he ought to double it.

As soon as the door closed behind the women, Van Cleve jumped to his feet.

“Who do you think you are coming in here like this? Get the hell out of here right now, and I won’t have Preston shoot you as you leave.”

Cal smiled at the little man as he headed for him. Van Cleve held up his hands. “I’m not heeled. You can’t shoot an unarmed man.”

“So that hideout gun in your coat doesn’t count? I’m glad to hear it. I’m not shooting you. I’m explaining something to you.”

Cal snaked a hand inside Van Cleve’s jacket, relieved him of the hidden pistol, and threw it through the nearest window. The sound of breaking glass and rush of cold air gave him considerable satisfaction.

“I not only gave Norah Hawkins a load of firewood. I gave her maybe a tenth of the food and supplies Preston and his men stole from her husband when they killed him. I figure you owe her. Now since you want me to pay, I’ll pay. You keep the wages I’ve got coming, and we’re even, but I want a receipt, so let’s go get one.”

Hoisting Van Cleve high enough only his toes reached the ground, Cal pushed him down the hall to his study. The choking noises the man made couldn’t have anything to do with an arm hard around his neck, so Cal ignored the sounds while he yanked open one drawer after another until he found pen, paper, and ink.

“Now, you sit here and write out that I paid for one wagon load of firewood and one wagon load of provisions and delivered it to Norah Hawkins, and you authorized it all. Date it last month.”

“You can’t make me write that.”

“Sure I can.” Cal grabbed an ear and twisted. When Van Cleve’s yell changed to a scream, Cal let go and put the pen in the man’s hand. Van Cleve wrote.

Once he had the paper tucked in a pocket, Cal shoved the gun under Van Cleve’s nose.

“I don’t care if you steal every piece of land from here to the Mississippi or how you do it, but if you ever go near Norah Hawkins again or let Preston or anyone like him go near her, I’ll kill you. You stay away from her and stay off her land.”

He started to turn toward the door and paused. “And if you’re smart, you’ll stay away from the spare pistol that’s in the top drawer of your desk there.”

As he left, he could hear men charging into the house through the front. The women had run to Preston for help of course. Cal smiled as he slipped out the back.

T
HE CLOSER HE
got to the Hawkins place, the more Cal regretted letting his temper loose with Van Cleve. The fact the arrogant runt thought he could dictate what woman Cal could or could not see had been considerable provocation, but in truth Cal didn’t want to see that ungrateful, bad-tempered shrew again. His desire to check on her irritated him, and he definitely didn’t want to stay in the area to ensure her safety.

She’d called his debt to her paid and set him free. Why didn’t he feel free of the memory and the obligation?

If he left, would dreams of the Girl be gone forever? Would they be replaced by ones of the Hawkins woman screaming at him or of Preston knocking her around? Would she join his ghosts? He had enough ghosts already.

The house came into sight. No smoke rose from the stovepipe. He reined up in the yard and sat taking in the desolate, deserted yard. If she’d finished killing herself....

He gave the door two hard knocks and walked in, tense muscles relaxing when he didn’t smell death and a quick glance revealed no body.

There wasn’t much else to see either. She was gone. And so was every single useful thing in the place except the stove and furniture. No blankets on the bed. No dishes, no pots and pans, no coffee pot. No food.

Not much wood was left either. She couldn’t have used so much. Whoever had helped her haul everything away had taken as much of the wood as he had room for.

Cal looked around and decided to hole up here for the night and start for town in the morning. He had a little jerked beef and some crackers in his saddlebags.

The blue curtains still hung at the windows, and he fingered one, marveling at the small, regular stitches along the edge. Even now, with almost everything stripped out of the house, it still felt more like a home than any place he’d been, and the curtains had something to do with the feeling.

She hadn’t sold to Van Cleve, so where had she gone, and what was she doing there? The thought of her actually whoring in one of Hubbell’s saloons made his stomach clench and a hot wave of sickness shoot up through his chest to the back of his throat. No, whatever she was up to, that wouldn’t be it. She equated whoring with throwing her soul right onto the devil’s pitchfork at the center of the fires of hell.

He touched the curtains again, crossed the room to the rocking chair, and gave the back a little push. Shaking his head in a vain attempt to throw out unwanted thoughts and feelings, he went back out to take care of his horse and get the saddlebags.

Cal made it to Hubbell late the next day, hungry, cranky, and after a look at the town’s only hotel, not looking forward to a night there.

Hubbell’s one restaurant was a palace compared to the hotel. Better yet, a pair of elderly gossips at the next table saved him having to ask around for Norah Hawkins.

“Most of the folks who bet she wouldn’t last a month already lost their money. I bet February fourteenth myself, and I’m thinking maybe that’s too soon.”

“Well, what did you expect? A widow like that, used to doing for her own place. Of course she knows how to keep a house up. Even so, I heard she hasn’t been so much as a step out of the yard since the day she started. Working like a dog, she is.”

“Maybe so, but Old Lady Tindell can still find something to complain about. I heard her after church, telling another old biddy the new girl isn’t respectful enough.”

“Well,
he
told me she cooks better than anybody they ever had. Maybe if his missus lets her go, she’ll come work here. These biscuits would make doorstops.”

The biscuits weren’t that bad, but they weren’t like Norah’s either. The old men left. Cal paid for his breakfast and asked casually, “Do you know where I can find the Tindell place?”

“Sure. Everybody knows Tindell. He owns the Queen of Hearts right up the street.”

That wasn’t exactly what Cal meant, but he didn’t ask more. Someone at the saloon would tell him what he wanted to know without him asking. Better not let some persnickety old lady know Cal Sutton was asking after her new maid.

N
ORAH WRUNG OUT
the last of the week’s laundry, carried it to the line, and began hanging it. This late in the day it would barely begin drying before freezing, but it could thaw and finish tomorrow.

“Doesn’t the Tindell woman know there’s a laundry in town?”

Caleb Sutton. The contempt was gone from his expression, but his dark eyes were as cold as ever, his face set in the same harsh lines.

“She doesn’t trust them to do it right.”

“And she’d have to pay them on top of what she pays you.”

“I’m not sure that’s a consideration. Whatever else she is, she’s not stingy.”

He was no more than six feet away, leaning against a winter-barren tree, and he put her in mind of a cougar ready to spring. She couldn’t make herself look right at him. She focused on the tree.

“I owe you an apology. I’m sorry I shrieked at you the way I did. You were right in what you said and making me that angry was — was good for me.”

“We cleared the air. We were bound to disappoint each other after all these years.”

“Maybe so.”
No we weren’t. You could have been a decent man. Even a halfway decent man.

She pulled another sheet out of the basket, gave it a shake, and lifted it to the line. “I can’t stand around and talk, you know. I have to keep working, but I’m glad you stopped by so I could apologize.”

“They say in town you haven’t been off this place since the day you took the job. Aren’t you supposed to have some time off?”

She put the last clothespin in the sheet and shook out another. “I attend church every Sunday. What would I do with free afternoons? Until I finish my first month and get paid, I can’t buy anything, and I don’t know anyone in town to visit.”

That last was a fib. Becky and her husband lived in town, and now that they’d had some time for their honeymoon, Norah would love to visit them. Since she could barely keep up with the work by going full speed from first light until she nodded off at night over ironing, mending, or polishing, she didn’t dare try.

“How about taking some time today? You can have supper with me at the restaurant. The food’s not as good as yours, but you won’t have to cook it or clean up after.”

Norah dropped one end of the sheet she was hanging. “I can’t. My free afternoons are Sunday and Wednesday.”

“You should have credit for the times you stayed and worked. Tell the old lady you want some free time tonight. Want me to talk to her?”

“No!”

He had what he probably thought was an innocent look on his face. Someone should tell him his face wasn’t capable of innocence. “I will ask her,” Norah said.

“Don’t ask her. Tell her. I’ll meet you here about five.”

“No! Not five.”

By six she could have the Tindells’ supper ready. Dinner. She had to remember that unlike everyone she knew who ate breakfast, dinner, and supper, the Tindells ate breakfast, luncheon, and dinner. Speaking of supper gave a person away as less than in Mrs. Tindell’s world.

Her mind back on the real problem, Norah decided she could tell Mrs. Tindell she would serve
dinner
and do the cleaning up when she got back. That might work.

“Six. I can be ready by six.”

He tipped his hat and left. She watched until he disappeared from sight.

He didn’t even walk the way a man should. He walked like someone who wouldn’t leave footprints. And wasn’t that silly. She knew what he was and so her mind invented fanciful things.

She would go to the restaurant with him, and he would disappear again, and she’d have another story to tell when she could visit Becky.

M
RS.
T
INDELL’S SUSPICIOUS
questions made it clear she didn’t believe for a minute that Norah had an old friend in town only for the day. Norah held her breath, surprised to realize how much she wanted to forget about never-ending chores, walk out into the fresh air of the night, and eat food she hadn’t cooked in an actual restaurant, even if it meant doing it in Caleb Sutton’s company.

“All right,” Mrs. Tindell said finally. “You may go so long as you clean the kitchen when you return, and of course you understand, Wednesday will no longer be a free afternoon.”

Norah thanked her employer and fled, afraid true feelings would slip from behind clenched teeth and ruin everything.
Ten dollars a month, ten dollars a month, ten dollars a month
.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. She worked by rote, her mind on getting away. Her best — or more accurately least worst — dress hung in her room, clean and ironed, waiting for a visit to Becky that never happened.

How could she find time to wash and redo her hair? Should she wear her own shabby coat or stick with Joe’s?

Having to pick a few lumps out of the gravy flustered her more. She forgot to put bread and butter on the table and knocked over the sugar.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Norah, go,” Mrs. Tindell said. “You’re worse than useless tonight. Go.”

She went.

Her coat wasn’t that warm. Norah walked into the frosty night and shivered, wondering how long she should wait before accepting he hadn’t meant it. He probably just wanted to see how much aggravation he could cause by threatening to talk to Mrs. Tindell.

“Shouldn’t you be a few minutes late, just to teach me a lesson?”

Her heart jumped as his shadow separated from those of the night. “What lesson would that teach you?”

“Damned if I know.”

“Something to do with your language I expect.”

“That must be it.”

They walked side by side without touching, yet Norah buzzed with awareness of him, his height, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he moved.

The dark streets held no menace. The occasional drunken shout from a saloon was of no consequence.

Tonight the worst danger in town was at her side, on her side, and she was safe. How long had it been since she’d felt like this, female, protected, almost floating with it? She couldn’t remember.

Moist, warm air enveloped her as she stepped through the restaurant door. In the dim lamp light she saw bare wooden walls and less than a dozen plain wood tables, no more than half of them occupied.

Every head in the room lifted, every eye took in first her old, much-mended coat, and when she had given that up, her equally old and mended dress. The floaty feeling dissolved, and she moved toward the closest table.

“The farther away from the door, the better,” Caleb said. His hand, warm on her arm through the dress sleeve, guided her toward the only empty table far from the door and close to the stove.