“I’m
nice
to everyone.”
“You’re not that
nice
to me,” she huffed.
Regarding her with a discomforting intensity, Dodge leaned back to remark dryly, “I wasn’t aware you wanted me to be
nice
to you.”
She wasn’t aware until that moment of what she did want. She wanted her husband to smile and flirt with her instead of regarding her with a smug tolerance. She didn’t want to be merely tolerated. She wanted to be adored. Even if it was just for appearances. But Dodge refused to be charmed out of his cynical indulgence, nor could he be cajoled into putting on a show.
“Besides,” he commented, “with the whole county at your feet, I didn’t think you’d miss one less to trip over.”
“I don’t find that amusing, sir. Nor do I enjoy your making eyes at that woman right in front of me.
“If that’s what you think, the problem’s with your eyes, not mine.”
No apology. She scowled at that, skewering Delyce with another slashing stare when the girl returned with their cups. The timid server ducked away as quickly as possible.
“There’s no need for you to be rude to Delyce.”
Starla’s gaze shot up to fix on his. “Excuse me, sir. I don’t need you to correct my behavior.”
“You do when it’s as unpleasant as it was just now. I won’t have you ruining all the inroads I’ve made with these people.”
Her eyes squinted dangerously. “And just what inroads have you been making with Delyce Dermont?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“I will not. You haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m not planning to.”
“Because I guessed the truth?”
“No, because you’re being foolish. Starla—” He slipped his hand over hers. She jerked away so abruptly that she spilled her tea all over the tablecloth. Seeing the mess she’d made gave her pause, and Dodge suggested with a frigid politeness, “Maybe you should go home.”
Delyce came bustling over with a stack of rags to blot up the spill. Chagrined, Starla helped her, murmuring apologies as she did so. Finally, when Delyce went to fetch her another cup of tea, Starla gave Dodge a look that managed to be both prickly and remorseful.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me to act so—foolishly.”
After a long gauging beat, Dodge smiled in easy forgiveness. “It’s the baby.” When Starla glanced around nervously, he said, “We’ve been married almost three weeks, enough time to have accomplished such a thing without creating scandal.”
“I-I guess you’re right.”
“I was going over to see Doc Anderson after I close up tonight. I want you to go with me … just to make sure everything’s all right.”
She nodded, still feeling silly and embarrassed enough to be docile. And soothed by the idea of his concern until she realized his worries were for the child she carried, not for her.
Dodge didn’t tease her, nor did he note her sudden quiet. He was too unsettled by the unexpected
evidence of her jealousy. Was it because another woman had dared to tamper with something that belonged to her … or because she was beginning to care for him, maybe just a little? He absorbed the sight of the lovely woman seated at his table, his wife, his in the sight of God and the law, but as much a stranger to him now as when they’d said “I do.” Was it too soon to hope her mood was starting to thaw, that they could have a marriage in truth, with all the benefits he longed to explore?
He was so distracted by the idea that he failed to see the Dermont brothers reel into the dining room after an ugly all-night drunk in the bar.
But they saw him and his new bride.
“Well, lookee here. Ain’t this a sight? Starla Fairfax, fraternizing with that Yankee scum. You best get up from there, ‘fore your daddy gets wind of things and drags you on home to give you what for.”
Hearing the grating sneer, Dodge was about to turn to confront Ray Dermont when he caught a glimpse of Starla’s face. She’d gone alarmingly pale, her green eyes huge and glittering. It had to be more than a run-in with the town bullies to send her into such a state of apprehension.
“Ain’tcha heard, Ray,” Poteet Dermont, the middle brother drawled, “they’s married. One of our own, taking up with lyin’, stealin’ vermin. A crime, it is, wouldn’t you say so, boys?”
“Nothin’ we can’t take care of,” Ray continued, bumping against Dodge’s back as the trio swaggered past them. “You’d look mighty fine in widow’s weeds, Starla darlin’.”
“Guess I’ll have to work on my aim some, eh, fellas?”
Up until that moment, Dodge had never known who’d left the chunk of lead nestled up against his spine. Poteet Dermont’s boastful claim settled it for him with a chilling certainty. Dodge looked up slowly, his stare fixing on the grinning drunkard.
“Don’t get me riled, Dermont, or I just might forget we’re in a public place.”
The razor edge of that soft-spoken warning gave the brothers momentary pause, but they were quick to laugh it off.
“Whatcha gonna do, Yank?” Ray sneered. “Beat up on us with your crutches? C’mon, boys, let’s get us somethin’ to eat. All this funnin’ gives me an appetite.”
They moved on, but not before Poteet gave Dodge’s crutches a kick, sending them skidding across the floor and well out of his reach. Their ridiculing laughter followed Starla as she left her chair and scrambled to collect them.
Dodge gripped her arm.
“I don’t need your help.”
His harsh tone froze her.
But as Dodge twisted in his chair and leaned over to retrieve them, he lost his balance, falling hard to his hands and knees, much to the amusement of the Dermonts. His ears ringing with their howling taunts, Dodge resisted Starla’s help.
“Let me alone! I can take care of it myself.” And he did, grabbing the tip of a crutch and using its padded crossbar to snag the other and pull it close enough for him to reach. He levered himself
up to his feet, awkward, angry, oblivious to the wounding effect his words had had on his wife. She followed silently as he wound his way through the tables filled with gawkers, some not polite enough to hide their smirks at his expense.
Once deep gulps of fresh air had vented the humiliation from his brain, Dodge readied to apologize for his hurtful attack, but one look at Starla told him it was too late. She stared through him, her features set in a lovely mask, her eyes snapping with jewel-like fire. She wasn’t interested in hearing that he was sorry for shaming her in front of a roomful of neighbors. Instead, she leveled her own derisive claim.
“Poteet Dermont rubs your face in the fact that he shot you and you just sit there.”
Wincing at the vicious thrust of words, Dodge replied, “What did you expect me to do? Hit him with my crutch?”
“Go to the law if you can’t take care of him yourself.” The fact that she didn’t think he could was clear in her condescending tone.
“There is no law in Pride except the military, and I’m not in uniform anymore. And there’s no proof, other than his bragging. I didn’t see who pulled the trigger. I doubt that his brothers—or yours—would come forward with the facts.”
His mention of her brother brought a deep flush to Starla’s face, but her tone remained crisp and cold. “So you’re just going to let it go?” You’re going to let them laugh at you in front of the whole town?”
His gaze narrowed. “You can laugh with them, if you like.”
“I don’t think it’s funny.”
“You think I’m a coward for doing nothing.”
Her silence was his answer.
“Your belief in me is truly touching.” With that wry observation, he started down the walk toward the bank, planting his crutches and swinging through them in aggressive arcs. He didn’t think anything could darken his mood until he saw the front of the bank.
The shutters had been torn from the windows. He didn’t need to look closer to know all the glass was gone. Cursing under his breath, he pulled the keys from his vest pocket and unlocked the heavy door. He crossed into a sea of red.
The scent was unmistakable: thick, metallic, carrying him back to the battlefield, to the drone of flies and the screams of the dying.
“Oh, my God,” Starla gasped from behind him. “What is that?”
“Animal blood. Someone’s idea of a joke.”
Starla pushed past him, lifting her skirts so they wouldn’t drag through the pools of crimson staining the floorboards and splattering the walls amid shards of glass. While Dodge surveyed the damage, she went out the back, returning with a bucket of water, rags, and a broom. Seeing her intention, Dodge’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t have to—”
She cut him off bluntly.
“If I don’t, who will? You can hardly open for business with the place looking like a slaughter-house.
It’s not exactly confidence inspiring.” She waited for his reply, but he just stared at her, his eyes a glaze of uncertain emotion. “Well, don’t just stand there. Go about your regular business while I tend with this mess,” she said.
For the next few hours she soaked and scrubbed the stains and swept up the broken glass, all with a somber determination that humbled and rankled her husband. Dodge watched her work, seeing her frustration with him in the fierce way in which she tackled the job. His pride prickled at allowing her to clean up after him, but he was warned to say nothing by the furious way she punished the floorboards into yielding up all but the faintest tint of red. He tried to concentrate on his daily accounts, but the figures before him weren’t nearly as enticing as the one that bent over to create a hypnotic sway of skirt and hips.
What a fool he was for treating her so badly. It wasn’t her fault, any of it, yet he’d hammered her with the full force of his anger. And she’d taken the abuse without complaint. What a strong woman he’d wed, strong and stubborn, and so gorgeous, even on her knees, rubbing her knuckles raw; it hurt him to draw a decent breath.
“Starla, that’s enough.”
She continued to circle the cloth with a single-minded vengeance.
“It’s not going to come clean.”
She looked up then, her features flushed from exertion and taut with unvoiced concerns as she considered his statement, then answered flatly, “It never does.”
With that she stood, pressing her palm into the small of her back as she surveyed the extent of the vandalism. The floor held a pinkish tinge, but the walls looked good.
“I’m going home,” she announced with a weary finality.
“You’ll meet me at Doc Anderson’s?”
She nodded.
His apology should have come then, or at least his thanks, but when he said nothing, Starla left without a backward glance.
“You keep pushing so hard, and you’re going to end up paralyzed or dead.”
Dodge took a long draw on his cigar, refusing to give credence to the words as he waited for the same doctor who gave him that prognosis to finish his examination of Starla.
It wasn’t as though he didn’t know the risks. With the bullet still lodged so close to his spine, the slightest shift could accomplish what Poteet Dermont had failed to do on that dark night at the Glade. It wasn’t as though the grinding pain didn’t remind him quick enough when it was time to ease off.
It wasn’t his inability to walk that was foremost among his worries. It was his inability to do other things.
Could anything be worse than having to spell everything out to the inquisitive and suddenly dense-as-a-brick doctor?
“The spinal cord’s a funny thing. As I said, most wouldn’t have survived what you did; the rest
would never have stood, let alone thought of walking. You suffered a traumatic injury. Things are going to recover at their own pace—if they do at all. Pushing as hard as you are and worrying about it on top of the rest isn’t going to help matters.”
“What is?”
“Letting time do its work, letting nature take its course. For now, just be glad to be breathing.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Dr. Anderson had grinned at his growly claim. “You’re welcome. Rest. Let the lovely lady wait on you awhile. Give her a chance to get your full attention—if you know what I mean.” He winked.
Dodge knew. It wasn’t that he had no patience with the wait; he just had no tolerance for the uncertainty.
His strength was coming back, but not fast enough. Not when he had a job to do and a wife to take care of. Not when men like the Dermonts could shame him in front of her with impunity.
Not when his desire to have a real marriage increased with every restless night spent alone while his bride slept in a separate bed on the floor above him.
Dodge levered up on his crutches when Starla emerged from the doctor’s back room. She didn’t look at him. Alarmed, he cast a questioning stare toward the physician, who eased his worries with a smile.
“Congratulations. You’ll have a healthy new mouth to feed come spring.”
Dodge shook the man’s hand as if he’d accomplished the act himself. Of course, Anderson knew
that wasn’t the case, but Dodge didn’t fear the doctor would spill the truth. He was the type who favored his oath over opinion and gossip.
“Anything special we need to do?” Dodge asked, giving consideration to Starla’s wan features.
“You, rest. For her, plenty of fresh air and exercise. Take care of each other. This is a special time. Enjoy it.”
But as Dodge watched his wife climb the stairs of their too quiet home without a word to him, a bittersweet sorrow spread through him. A child in the spring … that knowledge quickened all sorts of eager anticipation. But Starla’s lack of excitement dampened the joy of the occasion.
Did she still love him, that fool who filled her with his child, then refused to wed her? Did she wish to share these special moments with him, rather than with a surrogate husband and father? Dodge hadn’t considered how those questions would chafe at heart and mind when he’d taken on the care of woman and child. He hadn’t realized how fixed he would become on the life his wife had led in the four years she was gone from Pride, how he couldn’t stop the comparisons between himself and the baby’s father and Starla’s relationship with both of them. She saw him as her rescuer and the source of her future security. He’d told Reeve that would be enough.
Now he was fighting to convince himself of it.