High Country Bride (33 page)

Emmeline could barely eat or sleep, and she found it impossible to concentrate on any task more complicated than peeling potatoes for Stockard. The
nerve
of Rafe McKettrick. Why, she must have meant nothing at all to him—by now, her name had surely been crossed out of the fat family Bible, under “Marriages,” to make room for the next, the
real,
Mrs. Rafe McKettrick.

“I’ve always wanted to go to San Francisco,” she told Becky and the marshal calmly, as she waited to board the coach. She kissed Becky’s cheek. “You’ve been feeling much better, and now that Clive and Mandy are properly trained, and John here is overseeing things, I don’t have to worry—at least, not quite so much—that you’ll overwork yourself and fall ill.”

“But—” Becky protested. She’d already tried all her best arguments, it seemed, and now she was fresh out.

Emmeline forced a smile. The driver was loading her things into the boot of the stage. “I won’t be gone long,” she said. “I’ll order the new furniture we need for the hotel, take a week or so to see the sights and do some shopping, and then I’ll be back.”

“Ready, Mrs. McKettrick?”the driver asked. She flinched at the use of the name that had never been rightfully hers. Apparently, she was the only departing passenger.

She nodded numbly.

“We could order everything we need from the catalog!” Becky protested, not ready to give up, even though she’d used that suggestion before, several times.

The driver opened the door of the stagecoach, pulled down the folding step, and extended a hand to Emmeline.

Emmeline shook her head at Becky. “I wouldn’t think of making such an investment without looking at the merchandise in person,” she said, almost convincing herself that business was the real reason for this journey.“We want the very best for the Arizona Hotel.”

“I want the very best for you,” Becky said. “I don’t give a damn about the Arizona Hotel!”

“Take care of her,” Emmeline said to John in a soft but stern voice. Then she kissed Becky once more, offering a silent prayer for the other woman’s well-being as she did so, said one more goodbye, and boarded the stage. She waved through the window, and Becky waved back with the handkerchief, before pressing it to her eyes.

It was well after dark when Rafe finally reached the Arizona Hotel, Chief having thrown a shoe on the way to town, and subsequently come up lame. He’d had to walk for the better part of five miles, before Kade came meandering along in a buckboard, acting surprised to find his brother on foot in the middle of nowhere, leading a horse.“Need a ride?” he’d asked.

If he hadn’t been so desperate to get to Emmeline, Rafe would have told Kade what he could do with the wagon
and
the team and kept walking. Instead, he took the necessary gear from the bed of the buckboard, replacing Chief’s bridle with a rope and halter, and hitched him to the tailgate. The seat creaked as Rafe climbed up into the box beside Kade.

They couldn’t travel fast, leading a gimpy horse, but riding was better than walking. Kade didn’t try to strike up a conversation, but he was a burr in Rafe’s side all the same, because he kept on grinning to himself, and whistling under his breath.

When they got to Indian Rock, Kade drove right to the hotel without even asking if that was Rafe’s destination.

“I’ll take Chief over to the livery stable,” Kade said, with a wry grin and a tip of his hat. “Say hello to Emmeline for me.”

Rafe didn’t spare his brother a reply, but simply stalked into the lobby.

Becky was behind the registration desk, and she didn’t just look startled to see him, she looked downright horrified.

“Rafe!” she said, running her gaze over the length of him, from his hat to his boots and finally back to his face.

He approached the desk, leaned against it, bracing himself with his hands. It didn’t occur to him until then that he was dirty, and still wearing his work clothes—trousers, barn boots, the top to a pair of old long johns, and suspenders. He gave the matter of his appearance a cursory consideration, then decided he didn’t give a damn what he looked like.“Is Emmeline here?” he asked.

“Are you all right, Rafe?” Becky came around the end of the desk to take his arm. “You look as though you walked all the way from the Triple M.”

He felt as if he had done precisely that, and without his boots, but it didn’t matter now how he’d gotten there. He had arrived, blistered feet, smarting pride and all, and now he could have a word or two with Emmeline, find out what was what.“My wife?” he pressed.

Becky did not question his use of the word
wife.
She winced slightly, though, or so it seemed to Rafe. The movement was subtle, and quickly gone, so he couldn’t be sure. “Oh, dear,” she said in a trilling voice, steering him toward one of the lobby chairs. “You’d better sit down.”

He sat. “Where is she?” he ground out, bending forward, resting his elbows on his knees. There was another potted palm next to his chair, and he swatted at it when the damn thing tried to grab him.

“She’s gone,” Becky said.

“Gone?” Rafe felt dazed, as if he’d just knocked back three shots of bad whiskey without taking a breath in between.

“Well, yes,” Becky went on, straightening her spine and folding her hands in her lap. “She left on this afternoon’s stagecoach, headed for San Francisco.”

Even though Kade had prepared him for this possibility, out there by the creek, Rafe still felt as though he’d been run down by a loaded freight wagon, then backed over for good measure. “San Francisco?” he asked, as if he’d never heard of the place, though he recollected, vaguely, that Kade had mentioned it.

Becky made a game attempt at a smile, probably trying to appease him. “Yes,” she said. “We’re building on to the hotel, so we’ll be needing proper furnishings. You know, beds, chairs, bureaus, carpets—”

Rafe thought he’d shoot right through the ceiling if he had to listen to any more prattle about household goods. “When will she be back?” he asked, rising slowly to his feet.

Becky caught hold of his hand, urged him, with a few small tugs at his fingers and a plea in her eyes, to sit down again. He did, but only because his knees had gone soft all of a sudden. “I imagine it will take a month or so,” she said gently, as if she were soothing some great, steam-snorting beast fixing to run amok in her lobby. “San Francisco is quite a distance from here, you know. And Emmeline wanted to buy some new clothes, see the sights, have a rest—”

“A month,” Rafe breathed. A month was forever.

“It’ll go by in no time,” Becky said brightly, just as John Lewis strolled in from the street.

“Well,” he said, clearly less inclined toward hospitality than Becky was,“if it isn’t Happy Home’s best customer.”

Rafe was too tired, and far too discouraged, to lose his temper just then, but there was always later.“I’ve got to go after her,” he said, getting to his feet.

Lewis laid a hand on his shoulder. It was an affectionate gesture, maybe a little more forceful than it ought to have been. “Come on over to the Bloody Basin,” he said. “I’ll buy you a drink.”

“I don’t want a drink.”

“Yes,” Lewis said, unruffled,“I believe you do.”

The first stop on the route to San Francisco was at a little waystation in the middle of the desert, a wide spot in the road with the unprepossessing name of Rattlesnake Bend. There were rooms to be had for fifty cents a night, an exorbitant price for such rude accommodations, and Emmeline took one, though she wasn’t sure she’d dare to close her eyes before morning. The man running the place was a seedy drunk, with breath so foul it nearly knocked her over, and there were outlaw types in the common room, which doubled as an eatery and a saloon, swilling whiskey and sizing her up with their eyes.

Emmeline was glad she’d brought some of Stockard’s meatloaf sandwiches and a bottle of lemonade for the journey. She was hungry, but she wouldn’t have sat with those dreadful men or sampled the fare in that establishment to save herself from starvation.

Her room, at the back of a short hallway, offered no comfort. The walls were framed in, but not finished, and there were spiders. The mattress ticking was bare, and the print seemed to be moving. The basin on the rickety washstand was half full of grimy water, left behind by the last tenant, and the pitcherusted.

Emmeline shuddered. She’d stayed in some economical establishments on her way from Kansas City to Indian Rock when she’d first come to the territory, but none of them had been this bad. She wondered if a person could sleep standing up, the way horses did, and figured she’d try it that night and find out.

She was perched on the edge of the only chair in the room, a wooden one with a rung missing from the back, trying to eat her sandwich, when a brisk knock at the door nearly startled her out of her skin.

“Who’s there?” she asked, trying to sound imperious. Becky had offered her a pearl-handled derringer before she left; now, she was beginning to wish she’d accepted it.

“Name’s Lucy,” called a cheerful voice. “Come to make up your room. Zeb shouldn’t have hired it out before I got a chance to ready the place, but there you have it. Hasn’t been sober a day since before I took up with him, old Zeb.”

Emmeline carefully rewrapped her sandwich in the napkin Stockard had packed it in, set it on top of her largest trunk, and went to the door. She opened it a crack and peered around the edge, relieved to see a woman standing there, smiling a gap-toothed smile and holding an armful of bedding.

“It’s all right,” Lucy said kindly. “Nobody out here but me.”

Emmeline stepped back to admit the woman, then closed the door hastily behind her. She’d read of ruffians forcing their way into the rooms of travelers in broad daylight, let alone when it was dark out, like now, to commit robbery and mayhem.

Lucy made up the bed with threadbare but clean sheets, and tattered blankets bearing the legend
U.S.
CAV-ALRY
. She clucked and shook her head when she saw the basin and pitcher.

“This place ain’t fit for a sow bear, let alone a fine lady like yourself,” she said, with an expansive sigh.

Emmeline certainly agreed, for her part, anyway; she wouldn’t have presumed to speak for the bear. And it wasn’t as if there were a great many alternatives, when it came to accommodations. Rattlesnake Bend was no Indian Rock, after all; she couldn’t expect to find a room and a dining hall like the ones at the Arizona Hotel in a little outpost out in the middle of the desert. “Have you lived here very long?” she asked, trying to make conversation. Lucy’s presence, such as it was, was comforting.

Lucy collected the basin and pitcher, still
tsk-tsk
ing. “Me and Zeb put up this place about ten years back,” she said, headed for the door. “I’ll fetch you my own china wash set, don’t you worry, and be back before you can say ‘Mary Todd Lincoln.’ Mind you put the latch down, and don’t open up to anyone but me.”

Emmeline nodded anxiously, and fixed the latch as soon as Lucy had gone. She crept over to the bed and inspected the newly supplied sheets and blankets, which looked passably clean, and decided she might be able to lie down to sleep if she didn’t take off any of her clothes.

In a short while, Lucy returned with a chipped basin and matching pitcher, obviously personal treasures, and Emmeline was touched that she was willing to share them. There was a towel, too, but no soap, which didn’t matter, because Emmeline had brought her own.

“Thank you,” Emmeline said, ridiculously gratef

“You’d better put the chair back under the doorknob if you’re ready to settle in for the night. Latch or no latch, some of these fellows out here are a mite on the rough side. You been to the outhouse?”

Emmeline reddened. She suspected there was a chamber pot under the bed, but she’d been afraid to look. And she’d rather pass the night with a full bladder than venture out into the dark alone.

Lucy smiled.“Here, now, don’t be fretting. I’ll walk out there with you, and wait while you do your business. You travelin’ far, hon’?”

Having no other choice, Emmeline put on her cloak and slipped her drawstring bag over one wrist, for safekeeping. Her tickets and traveling money were in that purse, and she wasn’t about to leave it unattended in her room.“San Francisco,” she said.

Lucy took a lantern from a hook on the wall, next to the back door, lit it, and led the way to the privy, a narrow, lopsided structure looming ahead like a ruin from some ancient and dissolute civilization. “Never been any further west than right here,” she replied.

They reached the outhouse, and Emmeline went in, holding her breath, trying not to retch. She felt spider-webs touch her hair, and heard something scurry away into a corner.

“Can’t say as we get that many women through here traveling by themselves,” Lucy called companionably from her post outside. “You runnin’ away from the law or a man or something?”

Emmeline did what she had to do and dived for the door. Outside, in the relatively fresh air, she gulped for breath. “No,” she said, though that was only a partial truth. The law wasn’t after her. She was running away from Rafe McKettrick and his new mail-order bride, though. She hadn’t admitted to herself, until that moment outside Lucy and Zeb’s horrendous toilet, that she might never go back. Now, she knew that had been in her mind all along; Becky had known it, too. That was why she’d tried so hard to persuade her to stay.