High Country Bride (25 page)

Kade smiled and approached her, dusting his hands together.“What do you think, Mrs. McKettrick?” he asked good-naturedly.“Will that do for reels and waltzes?”

Emmeline returned his smile, though she felt like something of a fraud. The party was being held to celebrate her union to Rafe, even as the marriage was beginning to fall apart.

She turned her thoughts in a more optimistic direction. She liked Kade; he had a quick mind and a gracious manner, like the gentlemen she’d sometimes seen coming and going by the side door at Becky’s boardinghouse, back in Kansas City. She’d have bet, though, that Kade McKettrick never used any door save the front one, anywhere he went.“It will do very well,” she said.

“You’re going to get your feet run off, you know,” he said. A twinkle lit his eyes as he took off his hat.“There’re men around here who’ve never danced with a real lady in their lives. Pa sent Denver Jack and another fella to town to put up notices saying everybody’s invited, so half the territory’s likely to show up.”

Emmeline laughed, enjoying the fresh air and the light conversation. Angus had fashioned a crutch for Holt, and he was learning to get around on his own, for the most part, so she and Concepcion were not required to spend so much time cooped up in the house. As always, though, the thought of her eldest brother-in-law took some of the starch out of her, and her delight turned hollow all of the sudden.

Kade, watching her closely, tilted his head to one side. He was entirely too perceptive at times—maybe it was all that poetry he read. “What is it, Emmeline?” he asked. “What’s troubling you?”

She tossed her head, as if to shake off the feeling of dread that was always nipping at her heels, sometimes vague, sometimes so real that she could barely catch her breath for the fear it roused in her. “Nothing,” she said. “Really.”

Kade sighed, still watching her. “Emmeline,” he said quietly, “there was and is a kind of contest going on between my brothers and me—I suppose you know that already. It’s got to do with taking a wife and being the first to present Pa with a grandchild, and the stakes are pretty high. Rafe figures he has it won, but Jeb and I are a long way from giving up.” He paused, sighed. “Who knows how Holt is going to figure in to all this. All that aside, though, I want you to know that you’re as good as a sister to me now, and you can count on me for help if you ever need it.”

Emmeline looked away, blinked a couple of times, then looked back. “Thank you, Kade,” she said. “I’ll remember that.”

“Good,” he answered. He glanced back at the crew of men, busily constructing the framework that would serve to support the dance floor. Poles were being erected, too, and wire was to be strung between them, to hang colorful Chinese lanterns special-ordered from San Francisco. “I guess I’d better get back to work,” he said, putting on his hat again.

She stopped him from turning to walk away with a shy, “Kade?”

“Yes, ma’am?” he replied.

“Has there been any word about Jeb? Do you think he’s all right?”

Kade sighed, resettled his hat.“I’ve heard a few things,” he admitted. “There’s a rumor that he went to Mexico, to mine for gold. Somebody else claims they saw him just south of the Triple M, mending fences for a widow woman, and there’s still another yarn making the rounds, too. The storekeeper’s wife, Minnie, swears he told her himself that he was headed for Seattle, meaning to board a ship bound for the Orient.”

Emmeline was alarmed; Angus hadn’t said much about Jeb’s absence, but she knew he watched and listened for his return, day and night. If Jeb had indeed gone to Mexico, or secured passage to the Far East, he and his father might never see each other again. “What do
you
think?” she asked.

“I’d bet on the widow woman,” Kade said without inflection. Then he tugged at the brim of his hat, turned, and walked away.

Emmeline watched the workmen for a while, then went back into the house. Concepcion had promised to teach her to bake bread, and she hoped to surprise Rafe with her first batch when he came down from the mountain that evening. It might serve as a sort of olive branch.

She was kneading busily, with Concepcion looking on in a supervisory capacity, when Holt came slowly down the back stairs, fully dressed, with one leg of his trousers slit to accommodate his splints and bandages, his crutch thumping the floor.

“I need a bath,” he announced cheerfully. Getting around
had
improved his disposition, though Emmeline still preferred to avoid him as much as possible. It was safer that way, and there were whole stretches of time when she could pretend he didn’t exist.

Now, involuntarily, she blushed, for a bath was a very intimate ritual, not usually mentioned in mixed company. If her hands hadn’t been covered with bread dough, she might have pressed one to her mouth.

“You certainly do,”Concepcion confirmed with laughter in her eyes, and something else, too—affection, Emmeline decided. “When Angus and Rafe get back, and supper’s over, they can help you. You don’t want to get that leg wet.”

“Good,” Holt said, and there was a glint of mischief in his eyes as he watched Emmeline trying to will away the color that was still pulsing in her cheeks. He lingered for a moment, deliberately making her uncomfortable, she was sure, and then headed for the back door.

Neither Concepcion nor Emmeline attempted to call him back, or to follow. Concepcion fetched some potatoes from the bin in the pantry and began paring them at the sink, to boil up for supper, while Emmeline pummeled the bread dough with new vigor. When something caused her to glance in Concepcion’s direction, she caught the other woman sming.

Emmeline started to ask what was so amusing, thought better of the idea, and held her tongue.

Presently, Holt came back from his wanderings, and it was plain that he’d been up from his bed too long. His flesh had taken on a gray hue, and the light in his eyes had dimmed measurably.

Concepcion hurried to take his arm, and Emmeline automatically went to his other side, ready to help support him.

“Sit down,” Concepcion urged, steering Holt toward Angus’s chair at the table.

“I guess I overdid it a little,” he said, barely able to get the words out because his jaws were so tightly clenched, as he eased into the chair. Emmeline knew he’d made a major concession, for a McKettrick man, just by confessing to a human weakness.

She went to the pump, filled a china pitcher with water, and set it on the table, near his elbow, with a glass. He poured some, and drank it down in a few mouthfuls.

“Thank you,” he said, at last.

Emmeline nodded. It was the first time he’d ever said those words, and he sounded as if he actually meant them.

“I will get your brother,” Concepcion told him. “Kade and I will help you back up the stairs to your bed.”

He sighed. “I’d like to sit here for a while,” he said, “if it’s all the same to you. It’s mighty lonesome up there, all by myself.”

Concepcion considered the matter for a moment, then nodded. “We will move your bed to the parlor,” she decided, in her businesslike way. “Then you will not be isolated, and you will not have to manage the stairs. Yes. I should have thought of this before.”

Within the hour, Kade and several members of the dance-floor crew had been summoned to dismantle the spare-room bed and reassemble it in the parlor, next to a window. The bathtub was brought into that same room, and Emmeline and Concepcion started the lengthy process of heating water while they continued with their supper preparations.

Emmeline was greatly relieved when Holt declared himself in need of a rest and went to lie down. It was as if she’d been wearing a tight corset and finally gotten the chance to loosen the stays.

Her bread had risen beautifully, and was ready to go into the oven, when Rafe returned, at the reins of the supply wagon, his work on the mountain finished for the day.

“I’ll make sure the bread doesn’t burn,” Concepcion said, seeing Emmeline’s eager smile. “Go and welcome your husband home.”

Emmeline untied her apronstrings, checked her hair in the mirror beside the door, brushed a splotch of flour from her cheek, and dashed outside. It was not yet five o’clock, early for Rafe, and the sun was still fiercely bright on the western horizon, as though, for once, it would refuse to set, and the moon would have to share the sky.

Rafe’s McKettrick-blue eyes shone as she approached him. His dark, longish hair was attractively rumpled when he took off his hat. Her impulse was to fling herself into his arms, but she remembered the other men, and the chasm between the two of them, just in time, and came to a stop a few feet short of where he stood, ducking her head. When she looked up, she thought she saw disappointment in his face.

“Hello, Emmeline,” he said quietly.

She searched her thoughts for something to say. “Hello, Rafe,” she replied when nothing better came to her.

He smiled, pulled off his gloves, and touched her nose with one index finger. “Flour,” he said. “You been baking something?”

She nodded, relieved that he’d gotten the conversation rolling. Who would have thought, she wondered, that a woman could do the most wanton things with a man and turn shy as a schoolgirl when facing him in the broad light of day? “Bread,” she said. “For supper.” She was desperate to keep the exchange going—she missed their old intimacy so much—knowing that he would turn away at any moment and head off to the barn to help put away the team and wagon. “Holt is sleeping in the parlor now,” she told him. “Kade and some of the others moved his bed downstairs, so he could get around more easily.”

He was silent for a few moments, his jawline tight. As he watched her, his face relaxed, and it seemed to her that he wasn’t thinking about his brother, or even about the bread she’d baked for his supper, but of things that had the power to make her blush whenever she was reminded of them. “I thought you might like to ride up with us tomorrow and have another look at the house. We’ve made a lot of progress on the place.”

Sure enough, their picnic came to mind, and she felt her cheeks heat up.“I’d like that,” she said.

“We won’t be alone this time,” he said, his eyes smiling at her. It sure seemed, sometimes, that he could read her mind.

“But I reckon we’ll get plenty of other chances.” He caught her chin gently between his thumb and forefinger, and his sensual mouth curved, as though he might laugh at the high color throbbing in her face.“Tonight, for instance?”

“Rafe McKettrick!” she whispered, trying to sound stern, and failing miserably.

He chuckled, then leaned down and kissed her, right in front of God and everybody. “Tonight,” he repeated, and then he turned and walked away, toward the barn, pausing to talk with Kade and admire the raw boards of the dance floor.

After supper, with Angus and Rafe’s help, Holt got his bath.

It was a marvel, Concepcion confided to Emmeline, that they didn’t drown him.

“Wake up!” Rafe whispered the next morning, shaking Emmeline’s shoulder lightly. “It’s almost dawn. You’re going up to the new house with me, remember?”

They’d been awake late the night before, making love, and Emmeline still felt as though all her bones had melted, like so much warm wax. She yawned, stretched. “Can’t I sleep just a little longer? Please?” She raised her head, looked at the window, and plopped her face into her pillow.“It’s still dark outside.”

He laughed, turned her over easily, and bent his head to nip lightly at her breast through the thin fabric of the nightgown she hadn’t even bothered to put on until a few hours before. “Sure,” he said. “You can have ten minutes, the time it takes me to get the fire going downstairs and the coffee brewing. If you’re not up by the time I get back, well, let’s just say we’ll both be late getting up to the mountain.”

She stretched again, deliberately taunting him, but the truth was, if they made love again, she wouldn’t have the strength to get up and get dressed, let alone make the long drive up the mountain.

He kissed her, a long, thorough, hungry kiss, promising a great deal, and then hoisted himself to his feet, with a groan. He stumbled around the room a little, pulling on his boots, and made her laugh. He pretended indignation, pulling his suspender straps out from his chest with curved thumbs and letting them snap back, then left the room.

He was gone longer than the stated ten minutes, though not by much, according to the small clock on the bureau, and when he returned, Emmeline had washed, dressed, and brushed and plaited her hair. She was winding it into a neat coronet at the back of her head when Rafe burst through the door, leering like the villain in a blood-and-thunder melodrama. He expressed comical disappointment at finding her up and around. “I was hoping you were still in bed,” he confessed, without shame. “I’ve missed holding you, Emmeline. Missed touching you.”

She slanted a shy look at him but made no comment. Instead, she began making up the bed, and he took the other side, helping to smooth the covers. In those moments, with laughter between them, sharing a mundane task, she was purely, exquisitely happy. As happy, in fact, as she was when he’d taken her into his embrace the night before, in that same bed, and driven her quite mad with a few nips, nibbles, and caresses.

She blushed, yet again, just to think of the effect his attentions had on her, and the way she’d carried on, and he laughed. That time, he was definitely reading her mind.