My Heart's Desire (14 page)

Rennie chuckled softly. "It doesn't sound as if he regretted it too much."

"He didn't."

"You mentioned cattle. Was that your mother's family business?"

He shook his head, swallowing. "No, she didn't have any family to speak of. She was raised in an orphanage here in New York, educated at a local college to become a teacher and give back something to the asylum. Instead she went west and took a position in St. Louis, and later Kansas City. Father met her as she was chasing a truant student down the street. He grabbed the boy by the scruff of the neck and held him until Mother got there. I'm not quite sure what happened then, but it seems the boy was let go and Mother wasn't."

"It was love at first sight."

"Appears that way."

"Do you believe in it?" she asked, intrigued.

"I suspect I might," he drawled, "when it happens to me."

Rennie noticed he said
when
it happens; she would have said
if
it happens. "They settled in Salina?" she asked.

"Eventually. Mother stopped teaching. She had to. The board of education said it was no profession for a married woman."

Rennie grimaced. It was so typical of an attitude that it didn't bear responding. "She taught you, though."

He nodded. "I never went to school a day in my life. But until I went to work for the Express, I never felt as if I left it."

Rennie wasn't surprised he'd been tutored by his mother, only that she had provided the sum total of his formal education. When it suited him he feigned that he had no upbringing at all, but it wouldn't have struck Rennie amiss if he was able to quote Shakespeare.

"My parents were partners," he said. "They worked together on everything. First it was a little mercantile enterprise that went belly up in a few months. Then they tried farming and Father hated it. Mother had some savings from her teaching that Father hadn't let her spend. She finally convinced him they should give ranching a try. It's what they loved. They did pretty well with it, too."

He was proud of his heritage, she thought, proud of the values that were set for him, the work ethic that was lived, the love that was never in doubt. "Do you think you'll ranch some day?" she asked.

"I think on it from time to time."

It was the way he said it that made Rennie realize the subject was closed, as if the future was simply not open to discussion. What sort of man didn't entertain a dream? she wondered.

Jarret finished his meal as Rennie began clearing the table. "I've put a new lock on your door," he said.

She paused, cocking her head to one side, not certain at all that she'd heard correctly. "How's that again?"

"There's a new lock on your door."

For the better part of thirty minutes, Rennie realized, she had lulled herself into believing that Jarret Sullivan wasn't her keeper. They had shared dinner, conversation, a little laughter. Tension had faded, the silences were easy, the companionship pleasant. They might have been two people renewing an old friendship or acquaintances looking to find their common ground.

It had been a sham. She knew that now. Rennie had no one to blame save herself.

"To what purpose?" she asked.

Jarret stood, took the plates from her shaking hands, and carried them over to the sink. He began scraping. "I didn't think you'd want to sleep on the floor tonight."

"I don't." She followed him over to the sink. "What does one have to do with the other?"

"Without that lock I'm afraid you'd have little choice." He began pumping water into the washbasin. "After last night's escapade you don't seriously believe I'd trust you again?"

Rennie dropped soap flakes into the water and moved her hand rapidly back and forth to force suds to the surface. She began tossing silverware in, narrowly missing Jarret's hands. She smiled with sweet insincerity as he made a point of jumping out of the way. "I suppose that visiting my sister this evening is out of the question."

"That would be a correct supposition."

"And retrieving papers from my office?"

"Also out of the question."

"Reading in my room?"

"Certainly."

"How about getting stinking drunk?"

He laughed shortly. "That I'd like to see."

"Believe me, Mr. Sullivan, I wouldn't be doing it for your amusement."

Jarret picked up a towel and began drying dishes.

Rennie had never seen a man help with the dishes. Mr. Cavanaugh never assisted his wife. Jay Mac would have never considered it. She doubted Hollis would know what to do with a dishtowel if she submitted a plan for it. Jarret's help was so incongruous with her expectations that the sight of him nearly made Rennie forget how irritated she was.

"You're going to lock me in?" she asked.

"Mm-hmm."

"What if there's a fire?"

Trust her to bring up the very thing that worried him. "There won't be." He slid a plate into the cupboard and picked up some of the silverware. "Listen, if it bothers you that much, you can have the bed and I'll just take the floor."

"Put out a guest like that?" she asked. "I wouldn't think of it."

They finished the remainder of their task in silence. When they were done Jarret excused himself and retired to the library, checking on Rennie's whereabouts periodically. For her part Rennie stayed in the kitchen, working at the scarred table, the site of so much affectionate fussing with her sisters as she was growing up. She had a map of Colorado in front of her and the plans for an upgraded trunk line from Denver to Queen's Point. Northeast Rail was slowly outgrowing its name as it moved with the new directions of the country. It was good to be part of it and frustrating that she couldn't do more.

At ten o'clock she closed her books, folded the maps, and pulled all the stray and misplaced pencils out of her hair. She stretched, rolling her neck three hundred sixty degrees as she worked out the kinks. Taking several deep breaths, calming her nerves in the face of her anxiety, Rennie got up from the table and made a pot of coffee. At twenty minutes past the hour she was serving it to Jarret.

"Aren't you going to have any?" he asked, taking the cup she offered.

"Of course." She raised her cup in a mocking little salute, swallowed a mouthful, and then placed it back on the tray. "Reading?" she asked, watching Jarret sip his drink. Rennie bent and picked up the book that was lying beside his chair. "John Stuart Mill.
On the Subjection of Women."
She looked at him oddly. "One of your favorites?"

He shook his head. "I thought it might be one of yours. It was well thumbed."

"Actually I like Mill, and I like what he has to say about women; but if it's well thumbed it's because Mary Francis or Michael committed it to memory." She took the book back to the shelves and slid it into place. "Here's his
Essay on Liberty.
Have you read that?"

"Several times."

Rennie turned back from the wall of books. "I'm sorry, you were done with the book, weren't you? You looked as if you were when I came in."

"I was." He pointed to her cup on the tray. "Your coffee's getting cold. I'm already done with mine."

"Would you like more? I suppose I should have brought in the pot."

"It's all right. Finish yours first."

Rennie sat on the high-backed chair opposite him. She had fond memories of sitting in just such a manner with Jay Mac. He drank Irish coffee and she sipped hot cocoa. They would both have whipped cream mustaches, and Jay Mac would speak of the railroad while she absorbed every word. Sometimes, regardless of her best intentions, she would fall asleep still curled in her chair, and he would carry her to bed.

Jarret caught Rennie's empty cup just as it would have clattered to the floor. He took the saucer from her other hand and carefully replaced the cup, setting both aside. Her lashes curved in a dark fan against her pale skin. The burnished colors of her hair were subdued in the library's dim light. Without knowing that he was going to do it, Jarret's fingers slid across her temple and into her hair. She didn't stir.

"The next time you put something in my drink, Mary Renee, you should make certain I don't switch cups."

Bending at the waist, Jarret slipped his arms under Rennie's still form and lifted her against his chest. With as little jostling as possible he carried her to her room and put her to bed.

Chapter 4

Rennie yawned. She stretched lazily, snuggling back into the thick comforter even as she tried to throw off the dregs of sleep. It was late; she knew that by the slant of sunlight filling her room, but she didn't want to get up. Her toes curled. She turned on her side. She saw Jarret Sullivan.

He was still asleep, folded uncomfortably in the armchair. His head was tilted at an awkward angle against the back, and he was sitting on one of his legs. The afghan that was supposed to be covering him was lying uselessly on the floor while his arms crossed his chest protectively for warmth. There was a shadow of beard along his jaw and heavy weariness in the slumped, contorted lines of his body.

Rennie was without sympathy. She rose silently from her bed and walloped him across the face and chest with her pillow.

Jarret's reflexes were surprisingly quick for a man who had been waked from a hard and heavy sleep. Before Rennie could dance away her wrist was caught, and she was yanked off the floor and onto Jarret's lap. He tossed the pillow on the floor and growled huskily, "What burr's got under your saddle this morning?"

Rennie merely gave him a tart, knowing look.

He had to smile. She was sprawled awkwardly across his lap, her gown hitched around her knees and twisted at the waist. The bodice stretched tautly across her breasts so that a deep, satisfying breath was out of the question. Her thick, curly chestnut mane of hair was the worse for sleep, curved in an unnatural wave near her temple and spilling across one cheek in a ratty tangle.

"By God, you could stop a man's heart first thing in the morning," he told her.

The blush had already begun to color her cheeks before she realized he hadn't meant it as a compliment. Rennie pushed at his chest and he let her go. She slipped to the floor with the ungainly support of her arms and legs. Tossing back her head and raising her chin, she said, "It would be a service to women everywhere if I were to stop your heart."

Jarret rubbed his coarse beard and pretended to think about that. "You could be right. It'd keep me from breakin' theirs."

Rennie was of a mind to slam him with the pillow again. The look he leveled at her, as if he knew her intention, stopped her. She picked up the afghan instead and pulled it around her shoulders. "How did you know about the coffee last night?" she asked.

"So you do admit it?"

She shrugged. "It seems silly not to. Did you suspect right away?"

"When you brought in two cups and no pot, it made me wonder. When I tasted it I had a pretty good idea what you'd done. It was a little too bitter, even compared to the usual brew you make."

"There's nothing wrong with the coffee I make," she said sharply, taking offense.

One corner of Jarret's mouth curled in a baffled smile. He shook his head slowly, bemused. "A month of Sundays wouldn't serve for figurin' you out. You have no remorse about trying to poison me, yet you get all prickly when I tell you your coffee's too strong."

"One has nothing to do with the other. If I'd known you felt that way about my coffee, I'd have given you the powder in something else. I hadn't meant for it to taste bad. And it was only a sleeping draught that Mama sometimes takes, not poison, as you know very well. Anyway, you had no compunction about turning the tables on me."

She was actually taking him to task! "Lady, when it comes to pure, wrongheaded stubbornness, you could teach new tricks to a jack"—he caught himself—"to a mule."

Her innocent smile also conveyed a certain hint of smugness. "You were saying..." she prompted.

What had he been saying? he wondered. She definitely had a way of sidetracking his train of thought. "I switched the cups when you put the book away and let you drink what was intended for me. End of story. You fell asleep almost immediately."