Mail-Order Man (22 page)

The night storm having softened to rain outside the cookhouse, Skylla smiled at her naked husband. She had to pinch herself in this, the afterglow of lovemaking, to make certain she wasn't in the throes of a wonderful dream. Marriage more than agreed with her. If only she weren't troubled about family . . .

Glancing to the cupboard, she finally answered, “I could fix you a plate of leftover sausage and pickles. And there's pie for dessert. Vinegar pie. Interested?”

“Vinegar. Sounds awful.”

“Try it, you might change your mind. It tastes a lot like lemon pie. Mrs. Burrows swears by it. And it made a hit at dinner tonight, um, I mean last night. It was all I could do to save you a piece.”

“You're wonderful, Skylla Hale. Flat out wonderful.” He pulled her into his arms and began to nuzzle her neck. “Forget the food. I'll just feast on this sweet piece of pie.”

“Later, you insatiable beast,” she murmured, shivering with delight yet pulling away. “You wanted food. I'm going to provide it.”

“Killjoy.” He swatted her bare behind, but let her go, sitting down on the cloth-draped table, his back resting against the cookhouse wall, while watching her fill a plate with food. When she handed it over, he asked, “Share it with me?”

“By all means.”

“Then get your butt up here, woman.” He spread his legs and patted the area between them, gesturing for her to sit there. “I'm so hungry I could eat the south end out of a north-bound jackass.”

“That's not much of a testimonial to my cooking.”

“Get up here, woman, and now,” he ordered with affected gruffness. “Else, I'll tell everybody that you can't even boil water without burning it.”

She made a face at him. He returned the gesture. Then they both laughed as she levered up to her appointed place, leaning back against his shoulder—the one without the bruise—and just plain relaxed. Relaxed, and luxuriated in the warm cocoon of Braxton.

He fed her bite after bite, until she realized that he had been the one to cry hungry. “My turn to feed you,” she said, scooting around to lift a slice of sausage to his lips. Mesmerized, she fed him pickle, then pie. The way his mouth moved when he chewed, it had a sensuality to it. And she hummed low in her throat upon recalling the vast talent of those lips.

At last he licked his lips. “Mm, mm. You're right. The pie was delicious. Will you make it again some time?”

“With pleasure.” It did please her to do for her husband, even though she had the idea to hire a cook.

He reached for his denims and dug into the pocket, saying, “I brought you something.” Proud as a youngster presenting his mother with a frog, Brax handed over an amber bottle. “Liniment.” Liniment? Neither liniment nor a pair of corrective shoes was a box of chocolates—or a cameo—but his offering pleased her. “I'm sure it'll help. Where did you get it?”

“From the quartermaster at Camp Llano. We got in a card game, and rather than take his money, I told him I'd settle for some of his horse liniment. Now, you'll want to use it three times a day, first in the morning, then at noon, and before you go to bed.” His wiggled his brows. “I'll do the rubbing-it-in.”

“Yes, Doctor.” She reached up to hug him. “Thank you.”

“Let's give some of it a try.” He poured liniment onto his palm, rubbed his hands together, then smoothed the cool-hot liquid along her twisted calf. Brow furrowed, he said something entirely off the subject. “While I was at Camp Llano, I talked to Webb Albright. He says there's a railhead up Kansas way. The railroad goes to Chicago. The stockyards of Chicago. Albright says beef is selling for forty dollars a head up there.”

“Forty dollars? For one cow?” Her eyes widened.

“What do you think about a cattle drive to Kansas, come the first of the year?”

“What's wrong with now?” she retorted, giddy with the thought of forty dollars a head.

He shook his head, made a couple of kneading rubs to her flesh, then replied, “Winter will be here before we know it. Winters can be tricky up that way, I understand. We need to cull and brand all the stock we intend to send to Kansas. Which means we need more cowboys and good horseflesh.”

“The first of the year will be fine, then.”

He landed a peck of a kiss on the tip of her nose. “In the meantime, now that Snuffy and Luckless have shown up, I say we send down to San Antonio for some tannery supplies. Those fellows are crackerjack tanners. We'll get in the tanning and hide business, like you suggested. There's a market for hides closer than Kansas, sure as shootin'.”

“I'm for it. But what's this ‘send down to San Antonio'? We need all kinds of things for the ranch. I need all kinds of things. To tell the truth, honey, I've got a hankering to go shopping. Let's me and you go to town.”

He moved behind her, pulling her to him. His arms crossed under her breasts, he said, “You called me honey.”

“Why, I guess I did.”

“That's the first time you've called me a sweet nothing.”

“There's a first time for everything—honey.”

He nuzzled her nose. “Yeah. And there's time for something else. . . .”

“Oh?” she teased. “You want to get an early start on helping the boys build your precious fence?”

“That is
not
what I've got in mind.”

They stole naked through the night, ending up in their bedroom. He put Electra out, then turned to Skylla. Her eyes were on the bed. “Braxton, honey, I've misplaced something. A legal document. I'd stuck it between the mattress and the ropes. You haven't seen anything of a folded piece of paper, have you?”

Suddenly he began to cough. And cough.

That deed of trust was going to be the death of him.

Three hours after she'd questioned him about the deed's whereabouts, Brax still had a headache, a giant headache that had penetrated his skull to pound on his brain.

Luck had been his until this morning. Boy, had he been lucky. Matter of fact, he'd considered himself the luckiest man alive. A happy marriage; Piglet with her eyes on a husband; Claudine having one. Neither that business with the new county clerk nor the redhead's vague threats had had him ruffled. Luck's name was Brax—until Skylla had reminded him of his harebrained scheme.

The headache didn't go away all morning, even when he busied his mind. He figured to sell the topaz gems and bank the proceeds, plus Titus's gold, in San Antonio. There, he would buy a wagon to haul supplies back to the ranch. He intended to talk his wife out of making the trip, even though as brother to two sisters who had delighted in shopping, he knew his wife thirsted to sail from millinery shops to dress shops and back again. Next trip. This trip, he had unfinished business with the horse thief, Singleterry, and he didn't want her in the middle of the showdown.

With his head pounding, he couldn't deal with composing an argument to keep her down on the ranch. Nor could he decide how to get out of the trap of his own making: the deed of trust.

The sun on his aching head, he rode to Safe Haven Canyon and got reacquainted with the cowpokes, Snuffy Johnson and Luckless Litton. Talkative fit Luckless. The most distinguishing feature in the laconic Snuffy was wild red hair, so bright it looked as if a bolt of lightning had struck him.

“Never figgered to see the likes of you agin,” Litton said, pounding a post into the ground. “Me an' Snuf, we figgered yew was in the good life, since ya tied in with Gen'l Hood.”

Snuffy nodded and spat a stream of tobacco to the ground.

“I fared well enough. Better than most Rebels.” Brax wiped his brow. “I didn't finished the war with Hood. I got separated from him a few months before Lee surrendered. Hood was doing all right, and my services were needed at the front.”

Litton nailed a cross tie into the fence post. “We heared the gen'l went down to Nawlins, got marr'd up down there. Marriage shore does agree with ya. We ain't seen ya so fat and happy, never. Ain't that right, Snuf?”

Snuffy nodded. Then spoke. “How come you come back to the Nickel Dime? Did ya reckon to squat on the place?”

Brax answered with a question of his own. “Did you two reckon to squat on the place?”

“Ta tell the truth,” said Litton, “that be 'xactly what we bet on. Didn't know nothing about no heiress, but figgered she be the major's niece. She be as purty as he let on.”

Brax wished he'd listened closer to Titus.

Litton hitched up his britches. “ 'Course, now that we be here, we ain't too upset to hire out as hands, are we, Snuf?”

“We ain't riled.”

“That be a right nice lady ya got, that Miss Skylla.” Litton dusted his hands. “We be happy to work for y'all.”

Brax pulled on gloves to lend a hand with the fencing. “We could use a coupla dozen fellows like you. My wife and I have big plans for the ranch. Anyone who stays loyal to the brand, there's gonna be nothing but good coming to him.” Brax launched into a monologue about a cattle drive and a tannery.

“Sounds good, don't it, Snuf?”

Snuffy nodded.

“I'm thinking y'all might be due for a raise. How 'bout thirty a month?”

“Oh, boy, I can hire me a whore,” the normally quiet Snuffy exclaimed. “A purty whore what dudn't stink like piss nur fish. That's what I been dreamin' about durn near all my life.”

Every man was entitled to his own idea of heaven.

 

 

After his jawing with the restored cowhands, Brax had backtracked to headquarters and a thankless task. His wife at his side, he approached Kathy Ann in her room. “Piglet,” he said, “that dress has got to go back.”

“If it goes, I'm going with it.”

He read her look, and it was determined. It dogged him, cutting into her happiness, though he doubted Skylla would change her mind. “Kathy Ann, we'll buy you a dozen dresses. A hundred dresses. Whatever you want to make you happy.”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I am, Piglet. I am.”

Skylla stepped toward her. “Lovey, would you like to go away to school? We could send you back East. Or to Europe. Or we can tutor you here.”

Her eyes filled with tears, she asked, “Is that what you want me to do, Sergeant?”

“Your sister and I want what's best for you.” He wouldn't mention their diverse views on “best.”

Kathy Ann turned to her bureau, removing her adored buckskin dress from a drawer. Not facing them, she thrust it out behind her. “Take it.”

Brax couldn't. Skylla did. It broke his heart to hear Piglet's plaintive sobs as they left her. “I hope you're happy,” was all he could say to his wife.

He found that he didn't want her around as he tackled the next dirty job. Thankfully, Skylla didn't press the subject. Brax approached Charlie Main, who was collecting a saddle from the tack room. “Main, why don't you sit a spell?”

“Whut be the matter?”

“Claudine got married.”

His sun-battered face went white, the light collapsing in his eyes. “I wanted her for my own.”

“I know you did, ole buddy. I know you did.”

The cowpoke dropped the saddle. “I'm gonna do whut I shoulda done, long time ago. I'm taking Patsy Sue, and we're leaving.”

“Main, don't rush off. We need you here. But if you're set on going, my wife and I want to give you a grubstake.”

“I won't need a grubstake where I'm going.”

If Main's next moves were in character, he'd no doubt get drunk, tear up Leander's Saloon, pass out, then get up and start over again. Nickel Dime money could put the saloon back in shape. Besides, if ever a man earned the right to tear something up, it was Charlie Main.

 

 

“You're just tearing my heart to itty-bitty pieces, Winslow.” Ten minutes ago, Claudine had stepped into his office, and was proceeding to win him over to her side. “Kiss me.”

“Go home, Claudine.”

That was exactly where she intended to go after she got through at the Mason County Courthouse. And after she got through with her mission at the Nickel Dime. In the saddlebag of the fine mount her new husband had provided was a beautiful cameo brooch once the property of Elizabeth Hale.

Winslow Packard would be her insurance, in case Skylla proved too obtuse to see the light.

Claudine batted her lashes at the fat Yankee's frowning face. “Surely you're not mad at lil ole me for getting married. I waited and waited for you, sweetie pie. Waited until I just couldn't wait any longer.” She patted his jowls. “How about I prove just how sorry I am I didn't wait a tiny bit longer? Hmm?”

Packard stepped back to pull the window shades. He asked over his shoulder, “What would your husband say to all this?”

Plenty. But Packard held the key to her revenge, since the Mason County records were in his possession. If there was any way to get back at Brax and his traitorous wife, provided the cameo didn't do the trick, it was through the county clerk.

She swayed over to her prey. “Don't you worry about Webb. He's out playing soldier with his Army chums.” Her hand moved down Packard's mountainous gut, stopping where she knew she could get the better of him. “Has Peewee missed me, hmm?”

Now that she was playing with his toothpick of a pecker, Packard got that dumb look of men ruminating on their own satisfaction. His fingers moved swiftly to disengage the prize from his trousers. “Kiss it,” he groaned.

She played with it instead. “I'll kiss it. I'll kiss it anytime you like. Provided you do me a favor.”

“Anything, anything,” he croaked.

“Find where title of the Nickel Dime Ranch passed to Titus St. Clair. Then I want you to burn the whole record book.”

He pressed her nose to Peewee.

He was no Webb Albright. The sight and smell of Packard revolted her. She wrenched away, sickened at the act she'd fallen to.

“What's the matter with you, Claudine?”

“I-I can't, Winslow. Please forgive me, but I can't continue with this.” How could she have fallen so far? Blaming it on the events of wartime and afterward, she examined her soul while Packard bellowed his discontent.

Once, she'd been the decent person Skylla had always believed her to be. She could be that person again. The war was over, the aftermath following its natural course. With the goodness of Webb having come her way, why hadn't she accepted with good grace her fifth chance at love?

“Forget the deed book, Winslow.”

His face got mean. “Believe me, I wouldn't have compromised public records for a piece of Southern trash.” He buttoned himself up.

“You're right. I've been behaving like trash.” She gathered her gloves from his desk. “Goodbye, Winslow.”

“Planning to sneak back to your hubby?” He sneered.

“Actually, I'm planning to atone for my trashiness,” she answered, not that he'd care. “I'm going to call on my daughter and her husband. It's time I offered best wishes for their long and happy life together. And begged their forgiveness.”

On her way, she'd toss that cameo in the Llano River.

Startled by the opening of the door as well as that plaintive cry, she whirled around to see a gun pointed at her head. “No!”

Charlie Main pulled the trigger.

The bullet struck her in the face. For a split second she felt horrendous pain. Then she felt nothing.

 

 

The bleak and drizzly day of the funeral matched the dark clouds in Skylla's heart. Throughout the service at the Ecru cemetery, witnessed by the departed's family plus the county clerk and a throng of busybodies, Skylla tried to keep her composure. As if they were lifelines, she clung to Braxton and Kathy Ann, yet she couldn't stop her tears.

It was a Southern tradition for friends and family to gather after a funeral, yet Webb Albright, too deep in shock for tears, declined Kathy Ann's invitation to visit the Nickel Dime. His eyes never turning to the jail where Charlie Main awaited the hangman, he rode hard for Camp Llano.

Few people gathered at the ranch, the scandal keeping them away, and that was fine with Skylla. She did appreciate the kindness of Oliver Brown, the Burrowses, Emil Kreitz, and the ranch hands, Geoff as well. Yet she appreciated it more when everyone left.

They sat on the settee then, she and Braxton, Kathy Ann serving cup after cup of coffee. “Sit down, lovey,” she said. “I need to hold your hand.” Already Braxton held one of her hands. His strength and Kathy Ann's flowed into her—mere touch could do so much. Would she ever be herself again? Or must she live with a guilty conscience for letting a loved one die with a rift between them?

Into the quiet, Kathy Ann spoke. “I wonder what she was doing in the county clerk's office?”

“She must have been checking to see if I filed some papers in her favor.” Claudine's repute had suffered enough from her getting shot by a spurned lover. Skylla wouldn't add to it by mentioning the affair she'd had with the Yankee. Braxton wouldn't mention it, either, she was sure.

“Skylla,” he said, “Packard called me aside.”

“I know. I saw him.”

“What did he have to say?” Kathy Ann asked.

“He told me why Claudine was in his office. He said she dropped by on her way to visit us here at the ranch. Skylla, she was going to wish us well.”

“Really?” Kathy Ann said, aghast.

Braxton nodded. “She intended to ‘beg' our forgiveness.”

“What was she telling him for?”

“Lovey, no more.” Skylla brooked no argument. Tears welled; she leaned her head back, yet some of the awful weight lifted from her heart. “I'm glad Mr. Packard spoke with you, Braxton. It reinforces what she told Kathy Ann. I couldn't live with it if I thought she wouldn't let go of hard feelings.”

“Too bad that old drunk killed her.”

“It would be easy to hate Charlie,” Skylla replied to her sister. “We mustn't. Life is too short for hate.”

“Here, here.” Braxton put an arm around her.

Kathy Ann sniffed back a tear. “But I wanted you and Claudine to kiss and make up. For your sake.”

“That cannot be, though I'll always regret that we didn't make amends with each other.” Skylla would forever grieve for her stepmother and the end of their lengthy friendship. “But, lovey, if she was on her way here, then she'll rest in peace.”

“Amen.”