Forward she came, then back again, forgetting herself for once, lifting her feet as a child pumps on a swing, a flash of petticoat lace accompanying her libration. And, oh, how enchanting she looked limp and laughing that way.
"I'm sorry I can't join you," he said, "but it hurts to laugh right after you've just heaved your guts out." But his smile was there just the same while he continued thinking how surprisingly beguiling she looked with her guard down.
"Oh, Mr. Cameron," she sighed at last, "perhaps you're right and we are fated, you and I. Even when you try to do my cooking justice it backfires." She laughed once more, gaily.
"Backfires? For once you've chosen the perfect word," he said, chuckling in spite of his sore stomach muscles. "Oh God, don't make me laugh… please." He hugged himself.
"You deserve it after the way you have just insulted my cooking."
"Who insulted whom? You're the one who poked that liver down me without bothering to ask if I liked it or not. It was more than an insult to have to eat it. Believe me, lady, it was a lethal weapon."
By now she was so amused that she forgot to take offense at either his profanity or the way he'd laughingly called her
lady
. She only lolled back in the rocker while he enjoyed just watching her.
"One by one I'm discovering the chinks in your armor," she said, coasting to a stop, with her head tilted back lazily. "And one of them is liver." She was relaxed as he'd never seen her before, hands lying palms-up in her lap. The golden evening sun came through the west window, lighting her hair, her chin, her high collar, the tips of her earlobes and eyelashes, turning them all to gilt.
He wondered again how old she was, for she looked suddenly young, leaning back on the chair that way, and he experienced again a momentary flash of regret for what he'd said earlier about how she'd been deserted by Melcher. He wanted the air cleared of that, thought that maybe now when she was relaxed and affable they might talk about it and exorcise the lingering bad feelings it had caused.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"Too old for it to be any business of yours."
"Too old to let a good prospect like Melcher get away?"
"You're despicable," she said, but without much fight, still easy in that chair. She rolled her head toward him, met his eyes, and a faint smile limned her lips.
"Maybe," he admitted, smiling too. "And you're worried."
"What am I worried about?"
"About getting old and having no man. But there are more where Melcher came from."
"Not in Stuart's Junction there aren't," she said resignedly.
"So… I fixed it good between you and Melcher and he was the last prospect around, huh?"
She didn't reply, but then she didn't need to. He studied her appreciatively as she looked into the sun's rays through slitted eyes, as if playing some game with them.
"Should I apologize for that, Miss Abigail?"
She quit playing with the sunbeams and rolled her head his way, quiet for the moment, considering. "If you must ask, it counts for naught," she said softly.
"Does it?" Then after a moment, "Anyway, it would be a bit of a letdown to have apologies between us now, wouldn't it? After all, we started out fighting like alley cats. You'd miss it if I suddenly became meek."
"And it would pain you to apologize, wouldn't it?" she countered.
"Pain me? Why, you do me an injustice, Miss Abigail. I'm as capable of apologies as anyone." But still he didn't say he was sorry.
"I apologized about your moustache, didn't I?"
"Out of fear, I think."
She rolled her head away, back toward the light that poured through the window, and shrugged her shoulders. "An apology is a move denoting strength—not strength of body, which I'm sure you've always had, but strength of character such as Mr. Melcher has."
His mellow mood was suddenly soured by her words. He was getting sick and tired of being compared unfavorably to that man. His ego was definitely singed. He didn't like being found lacking, even by such a sexless woman as her, and certainly not when put up against a milktoast like Melcher. If it took an apology to sate the woman's eternal appetite for mitigation, well she'd have it, by God!
"I'm sorry, Miss Abigail. Does that make you feel better?"
She didn't even turn his way, just sat intent upon that sunlight. But she heard the defensiveness in his voice, making the apology less than sincere.
"No, not really. It's supposed to make
you
feel better. Did it?"
He felt the blood leap to his face, scourged by her refusal to gracefully accept his apology after it had taken much soul-searching to bring it out. Never in his life had he lowered himself to apologize to any woman, and now that he had, look what had come of it. Suddenly angered, he laughed once, harshly and short.
"Tell you what'd make me feel better—if you'd just get out of here and take your liver and all your rosy pictures of Melcher with you!"
Turning, she found his face suffused with irritability. Her amused eyes remained upon his hard ones. She could see that he thought she should have blithely accepted his apology; it did not occur to him that it had been given for all the wrong reasons, making it totally without contrition. The color was back in his face again, and the bite of his words suddenly sowed a seed of suspicion within Miss Abigail. Why, he's jealous of David Melcher! Unbelievable as it was, it had to be true. What other reason could there possibly be for him to react as he had? He glared at her while she, wearing a secret cozening smile, rose and sweetly wished him good night.
It was her smug attitude and that sugary good night that drove him to call after her, "I now owe you two!
One for the moustache and one for the liver!"
When she had gone upstairs for the night, he lay awake a long time, puzzling over how she could manage to anger him this way. What was it about Abigail McKenzie that got under his skin? He reviewed all the obvious irritations she'd caused—the moustache and the bedpan and such—but none of these was really the crux of his anger. It stemmed from the way she'd managed to make him feel guilty about scaring Melcher off. Why, he'd had women from New Orleans to the Great Divide, any one of whom would make Abigail McKenzie look like a sorry scarecrow, and here she was, mooning over that pantywaist Melcher, flinching from so much as a finger twitched her way by himself. And when she had finally wheedled an apology out of him, what had she done? Thrown it back in his face, that's what! For a while there tonight, while she sat in that rocker laughing, he wondered if she could be human, with impulses like other women had. Well, he thought, we'll soon find out if that female has impulses or not. If she wants to moon around making me feel guilty about Melcher, always reminding me what a gentleman he is and what a despicable cad I am, even when I'm trying to apologize, I'll give her something to back it up, by God! And maybe next time she forces an apology from me—if that day ever comes—she'll show some of that impeccable breeding she's always throwing in my face and accept it like the lady she claims to be!
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HE HEARD HER creeping softly down the stairs before dawn had fully blossomed in the sky. She flashed past the area he could view from his bed, and he heard the front door open. After a stretch of silence he heard her humming ever so faintly. Off in the unseen distance a rooster crowed. He imagined her standing there at the east door, looking out at the dawn, listening to it. She passed his door on catfeet.
"Taking in the dawn, Miss Abigail?" he asked. And her head popped back around the doorsill. She still had her nightie on, so hid behind the wall.
"Why, Mr. Cameron, you're awake, and you're sitting up!"
"Doc Dougherty said I could."
"And how does it feel?"
"Like I ought to be out there with you watching the sun come up. I'm used to watching it rise over the roughlands, but I haven't seen it for a while. What's it like today?"
She gazed toward the front door, still shielding herself behind the doorframe, but he could see the mere tip of her nose. "It is a myriad of pinks today—striated feathers of color, from deepest murrey to palest primrose, with the spaces between each color as deep and clear as the thoughts of sages."
He laughed, not unpleasantly, and said, "Well put, Miss Abigail. But all I understood was pink."
She felt foolish for having been carried away by the beauty of the dawn, but he would, of course, not be the kind to appreciate it in the same way she did.
"I… I need some things for today. May I come in and get them?"
"It's your room. Why the sudden request for permission?"
"I… I forgot my robe last night. Would you please look away while I come in?"
From around the doorway came the healthiest laugh she'd ever heard.
"Unless I miss my guess, Miss Abigail, you're swathed in white cotton down to your wrists, up to your ears, and down again to your heels. Am I right?"
"Mr. Cameron!"
"Yes ma'am," he drawled, "yes ma'am, you can come in. You're safe from me." Naturally he sat there leaning against the head of the bed, watching her boldly as she gathered up fresh clothing for the day. She saw his smile from the corner of her eye, and once he had the audacity to ask, "What's that?" She tucked the undergarment out of sight, assuring herself that she would not again forget to get her things out of here while he was sleeping.
"The leg feels fine today," he said conversationally, "and so does the hand. The only thing that hurts is my stomach after the liver you flushed it out with last night. I'm so hungry I could eat a horse and chase the rider!"
She almost laughed out loud. Sometimes it happened so easily that she couldn't control herself, for usually she did not want to be amused by him. But now she replied, "If I see any coming this way, I'll be sure to warn them off. I somehow don't doubt that you'd do it!"
"Feisty this morning, Miss Abigail?"
"I might ask you the same thing, Mr. Cameron," she rejoined, making for the door with her cumulate riggings.
"Abbie?" The shortened name brought her up short.
"
Miss
Abigail," she corrected, raising her chin and turning toward him.
And it was then that she saw the gun.
It was black, oiled, sleek, and he held it loosely in his left hand. She had not the slightest doubt that he could use it accurately at this range, left-handed or not.
All he said was "Abbie" again, reiterating much more than the name. There followed a vast silence while he let the significance of the gun and the shortened name sink in. Then he said in a casual, mellow voice,
"You know, I am feeling a bit feisty this morning after all." A sinister half smile played upon his generous lips, beneath the shadowed skin to which she'd once taken a blade.
She stared at that lip, then back at the gun as he hefted it in his hand carelessly, making her clutch the articles of clothing tightly against her chest.
"Wh… where did you get that… that thing?" she asked in a quivering voice, her eyes riveted to it.
"I'm a train robber, am I not? How can I rob trains without a gun?"
"B… but where did you get it?"
"Never mind that now." But there was little else she could mind. Her eyes were like moons while he took perverse pleasure in the fearful way she gawked at it.
"Abbie?" he repeated. She didn't move, just gaped at the gun while he used the end of it to point at the floor at her feet.
"Drop the duds," he ordered, almost mildly.
"Th… the duds?" she choked.
"The ones in your arms." It took some time before the words seemed to get through to her. When they did, she released the clothes in slow motion, letting sleeves, stockings, underwear trail regrettably down to the floor at her bare feet.
"Come here," he ordered quietly. She swallowed but didn't budge. "I said come here," he repeated, lifting the pistol now to point it directly at her, and she began slowly inching around the foot of the bed.
"What did I do?" she managed to squeak.
"Nothing… yet." His left eyebrow arched provocatively. "But the day is young."
"Why are you doing this?"
"I'm going to teach you a couple of lessons today." Her eyes, like a cornered rabbit's, didn't even blink.
"Do you know what I'm going to teach you?" he asked, and her head moved dumbly on her neck.
"Number one…"he went on, "I'm going to teach you never to shave the moustache off an unsuspecting outlaw. I said come here and I meant it." She moved nearer but still not near enough for him to reach from where he sat leaning leisurely against the brass headboard. He swung the pistol slowly her way.
"Here," he ordered, pointing with it to the floor directly beside him.
"Wh… why are you threatening me?"
"Have I made any threats?"
"The gun is a threat, Mr. Cameron!"
"
Jesse
!" he spit suddenly, and she jumped. "Call me Jesse!"
"Jesse," she repeated meekly.
"That's better." Once again his voice went quiet, almost silky. "Lesson number two, Abbie, is what happens when you wheedle an apology out of a man then use it to slap him in the face with."
"I did not wheed—"
"You wheedled, Abbie, you wheedled," he wheedled. "You got me to the point where I was actually sorry I'd made old Melcher run off like a scared chipmunk. Did you know you got me to that point, Abbie?"
She shook her head, staring blindly.
"And when I apologized, what did you say?"
"I don't remember."
"I mean to make you remember, Abbie, so you'll never do it again."
"I won't," she promised, "just put your gun away."
"I will… after I've taught you your lesson. What you said was that my apology should make
me
feel good, only it didn't… because you wouldn't let it. But I aim to feel good—real good, real soon."
She clutched her arms tightly over her breasts, gripping the sleeves of her batiste nightgown.