My Heart's Desire (35 page)

She bathed his face with the remainder and then let the pot slide away. Covering herself with the blankets, Rennie curled closer to Jarret than she had on any previous night since beginning the journey. Laying one arm across his waist, she rested her head against his shoulder.

When she fell asleep, exhausted almost beyond bearing, it would have been difficult for an observer to tell who was the more unconscious.

Jarret woke in the middle of the night. He had no clear idea where he was. He remembered the last moments of the wild ride on Zilly's back and nothing after she jumped the fallen pine. He wondered why he was sleeping on a slant, why his entire body felt bruised, and why Rennie was close enough for him to feel her heartbeat. Her heartbeat was a soothing thing. He had no trouble falling asleep again.

* * *

Rennie felt a chill prickle her skin. It was surprising because she realized she was under a mound of blankets. Even the air was warm. It didn't seem to matter. The cold started bone deep and rose only as far as the surface of her skin. It never seeped out of her completely. In moments she was shaking uncontrollably.

Jarret laid his palm against her face. Her jaw was clenched, yet somehow Rennie's teeth still chattered. Under the roughened pads of his fingers he could feel the muscle ticking in her jaw. It went on for several minutes before she fell into a restless, shallow sleep. The damp cloth he held in his hand was useless against her chill.

Standing, Jarret dropped the cloth back in the pot of water he had placed on the car's only level shelf. He knew how it had come to be that way. Rennie's cleverness made him smile.

In the past twenty-four hours he had seen a lot of Rennie's handiwork: the boarded windows, the stacked supplies, the door that had doubled as a sled, the tended horses, and oddest of all, the caboose wheel above the door. It took him a while to figure that one out, probably longer, he thought, than it had taken Rennie to conceive and construct it.

Looking down at her pale face, Jarret's smile turned grim. All of Rennie's efforts on his behalf had resulted in her own illness. The irony would not be lost on her. It was merely one more of her best intentions gone awry. He sighed. "You, sweet lady, might have been born with a silver spoon in your mouth, but it's a sure bet it was tarnished."

He left the car and tended to the meal he was preparing outside. The stove was good for heating, but it didn't work for cooking. When Rennie was better he looked forward to asking her why she hadn't corrected that small problem. She certainly had set about fixing everything else.

Jarret ate his beans and bread sitting in a chair propped against the canted wall. When he was done he spooned warm tea past Rennie's bluish-tinged lips. Afterward, because he thought he could tend to her better, Jarret moved Rennie and mattress back to the built-in bed frame. When he tried to put the covers back on she kicked them off. She was no longer shaking; her skin was on fire.

Retrieving the wet cloth, Jarret wiped damp tendrils of hair from her forehead. He smoothed it over the unnatural glow of her face. The sheen of clammy perspiration touched her upper lip. He wiped it away also.

Her nightshift became damp, and he exchanged it for one of his shirts. Aware of his attentions, Rennie pushed weakly at his hands as they fastened the buttons. "Don't touch me," she said.

"I won't." Jarret watched Rennie's hands slip to her side. Her agitation disappeared. She seemed satisfied with his promise even though he was still closing the shirt. He stayed with her until she slept again.

* * *

Rennie woke slowly. Her lashes lifted, fluttered, and closed again. She stretched tentatively, groaning with the effort of her movements and the deeply felt aches. Turning on her side, she slipped one arm under her head and opened her eyes. A small wave of nausea accompanied her disorientation.

The private car no longer listed to one side; only the shelf had been left hanging on the wall at an angle. The oil lamps had been placed on the perfectly level dining table and most of the room's contents returned to the positions they were meant to have. That Jarret had left the shelf canted proved he still had a sense of humor, even if it was at her expense.

It was a small movement at the end of the bed that gave his presence away. Rennie's attention shifted. Her disorientation returned, more profound this time, and for reasons that had nothing to do with the tilt of the shelf or the lack of it in the bed. She said the first thing that came to her mind: "You're smiling."

Jarret realized that he was. His grin deepened at her observation. He leaned forward and touched the back of his hand to her forehead. Her skin was dry, her temperature no different from his own. "You'd think I'd never done it before," he said.

"You haven't." Her voice was soft and raspy from lack of use, hardly recognizable as her own. "At least not in recent memory."

The tips of his fingers trailed along her cheek. "That so?"

She nodded. She felt his fingers drop away from her face, touch her shoulder briefly, and then leave her altogether. She experienced an odd sense of loss. Aware she was staring at his hand, Rennie deliberately shifted her attention to other parts of the room. "You've been very busy," she said. "You righted the car."

"Noticed that, did you?"

His gentle teasing raised her own smile. "How did you do it?"

"You'd be amazed at what three horses and a jackass pulling in the same direction can accomplish."

"A jackass?"

"Me."

She studied his face. His grin had disappeared. The set of his mouth was solemn, the deep blue eyes unwavering. "Are you apologizing for something?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I'm apologizing for
everything."

Two faint lines appeared between Rennie's brows as she frowned. "I don't think I understand," she said.

"Self-pity's a cancer on the soul," Jarret said. "I nearly lost mine." He smoothed the twin lines between her eyes with his thumb. His smile returned. "Do I have to list all my transgressions before you'll accept an apology?"

"No," she said. An abrupt yawn dislodged his hand, and she was sorry for that. "You just have to tell me if I'm dead or dreaming." His laughter was so unexpected and so unfamiliar to her that Rennie's eyes widened a little before they closed completely. "I'm dreaming I'm dead," she murmured. "That must be what's happened."

Jarret had planned to tell her differently, but he saved his breath. She fell asleep as suddenly as she had wakened.

Chapter 10

It was dusk when Rennie woke again. This time the car was empty. She sat up, pulling the heaviest blanket around her shoulders. The floor of the car was cold on her bare feet, but the air was warm. She padded over to the stove, threw in some wood, and then warmed her hands in front of the fire before shutting the grate. Straightening, she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.

The unbroken windows of the private car were frosted, so the image outside was a blur. Rennie placed the flat of her hand against the frozen pane and melted the ice. She stared through the clear, dewy outline of her palm print.

Jarret's fingers were stiff with cold. He twisted Rennie's wet nightshift, wringing out the water, then laid it over a rock. He bent beside the swiftly rushing stream again, catching one of his own shirts before it was swept away. He washed it quickly, wrung it out, then gathered up the pile of iced laundry and started back to the car.

Over the top of his armload of clothes he saw Rennie standing on the balcony of the railcar, shaking her head in disbelief. "Get back inside," he told her.

She did, but only so that she could hold the door open for him. He entered the car, stomped snow off his boots, and dropped his load of wash on the table. Rennie closed the door and began hanging things on the rope she had strung across the width of the car.

"You should be in bed," he said. He looked down at her bare feet. "Put some socks on."

Rennie stopped long enough in her work to salute him smartly.

"Very amusing," he said dryly, but he didn't mind her cheeky grin in the least. It had been a long time between smiles. He counted himself fortunate to have raised one so quickly, even if it was sassy.

Rennie rummaged through the drawers built in beneath the bed while Jarret rubbed his hands by the stove. She put on a pair of socks and started working again. Water droplets rapped a pleasant tattoo on the floor as the laundry melted.

"How are you feeling?" Jarret asked.

"A little stiff," she said. "A little tired. But nothing more than that. My constitution's strong. I recover quickly."

The hint of a smile touched his mouth. "Define quickly," he said, turning away from the stove.

Rennie propped up the sagging clothesline with the high back rails of one of the dining chairs. "As quickly as you," she said, snapping out her crisp nightshirt.

"Rennie," he said gently. "I was out for less than twenty-four hours."

She nodded, laying her shirt over the line. "I know."

Jarret caught her gaze, held it. "That was nearly a week ago."

Rennie's hands stilled in the process of smoothing out her shirt. "You don't mean that." But she could see that he did. "A week," she repeated dumbly. "How can that be?"

"Six and a half days," he said. He took a step toward her. "Are you all right? You're not going to faint, are you?"

"I don't faint." She saw him trying to tamp down a smile. "Well, I never did until I met you. And if you recall, on both those occasions you were fairly squeezing the life out of me." In spite of her words about her fitness, Rennie slipped through the curtain of laundry and sat on the edge of the bed. Her heels hooked on the bed frame, and she modestly pulled the hem of Jarret's shirt over her knees. "I had no idea it had been so long." She glanced at him. "I'm sorry. I didn't intend to be so much trouble."

Both his brows came up. He ran his hand through a tuft of dark blond hair at his temple. "Trouble? I didn't have to make a winch to lift you inside the car or tear off the caboose door to improvise a sled. You had most everything cleared and cleaned by the time I came around." He sat beside her. "Of course, you did leave it to me to level out the car. I had to use brute force."

"Not an elegant solution, but an effective one. I was thinking along the lines of levers and fulcrums." She gave him a sideways look and a wry smile. "Elegant, but probably impractical."

"Probably." He would have liked to see her try. When she dealt with creative practicalities, no one could hold a candle to her. It was only when she crossed his path that she couldn't seem to find her way.

Rennie's shoulders sagged as she considered how much more time had been lost. "It snowed again, didn't it?"

"Only this morning. For most of the week it's been warm. I did some hunting, tracking. Poked around a little on the mountain slope." He reached into the pocket of his shirt. His fist closed around the object he pulled out. "Rennie, I don't want you to get your hopes up—I don't even know if it means anything—but I found these about halfway up the mountain. Sun on them caught my eye."

Rennie's gaze dropped to Jarret's closed fist as he turned it over in front of her. The fingers unfolded slowly. "What is—" But she stopped because she saw what it was. In the heart of Jarret's palm he held the twisted wire frames and chipped lenses of her father's spectacles. Hardly breathing, more than a little afraid she was imagining their existence, Rennie carefully lifted them. Her fingers trembled as she traced the bent and fragile stems and the curve of the lenses.

"They could be anyone's," Jarret said, watching her closely. Curling strands of hair fell over her shoulder as she bent her head and studied the glasses. Her skin was pale, and the bones of her wrists seemed impossibly fragile. "For all I know, they could have been Ben Juggler's."

Rennie shook her head. "I know," she said firmly. "They belong to Jay Mac." She unfolded the stems and raised the spectacles so that Jarret could see. "I have a pair nearly like them. So does Michael. They all have this small diamond-shaped etching on the stem. That's the jeweler's mark. How many people on the train do you suppose bought their spectacle frames from a New York jeweler? Or would have lost them over this particular mountainside?"