Whitefeather's Woman (5 page)

Words of protest died on Jane's lips before she could get them out. She gave a little laugh that sounded both nervous and a bit excited. Barton chortled.

“That's all very well for you, Thundercloud.” She nuzzled the baby's fat cheek. “You're more accustomed to being on horseback than I am.”

Back astride his own mare, John reached over and took the baby from her. “Hold your reins loose, now, and hang on to the saddle horn if you have to.”

“How do I make him go?” Jane clutched the saddle horn so tightly her whole hand whitened.

“Don't worry about that, today. He'll follow along wherever the mare goes. They're kind of like an old married couple—easy with each other and always sticking close together.”

He urged the mare to a slow walk and, true to his word, the gelding followed.

“Is that what your parents are like?”

Jane's casual question almost knocked John out of his saddle. He'd been thinking of old Bearspeaker and Walks on Ice.

A hundred possible responses raced through his mind, some bitter, all pained. “My folks didn't get the chance to be that way.”

For a few moments the horses continued their sedate walk, while Barton wriggled in John's arms and made loud noises of delight.

So loud, they almost drowned out Jane's next words. “I'm sorry. Did they pass on long ago? My father was lost at sea.” She balked for an instant. “Then my mother and my brother died of the typhoid when I was twelve.”

John didn't intend to answer. He had never talked about the deaths of his parents and his brothers with anyone. Not Bearspeaker. Not even Ruth.

But Jane's experience paralleled his own too closely not to acknowledge. “Mine were killed by white buffalo hunters when I was ten.”

He didn't look at her as he spoke, and he hardly noticed her horse pulling alongside his. Then her hand settled on his arm, with no more force than a hovering butterfly. Through the sturdy cotton of this shirt, her gentle touch communicated so many things words couldn't express.

Understanding. Sympathy. Comfort.

Sometimes he could bring himself to offer such gifts to others. Receiving them, especially from so foreign a creature as Miss Jane Harris, gave him a chilling sense of vulnerability. A warrior of the Big Sky could not afford that dangerous indulgence.

Abruptly he pulled away from her and wheeled his mare back toward the ranch house.

 

If John Whitefeather had lashed out and struck her, as Emery had so many times, Jane could not have been more shocked. Or dismayed.

His guarded confession of their painful common bond had rocked her. It had also called to her on a level deeper than her fears, and she had battled her fears to respond. She had little to offer a man like John Whitefeather. But she did have a heart that remembered and understood the loss of a family to cruel, capricious forces beyond a child's control.

She'd reached out to him, and he had slammed the door in her face. It might have hurt less if she had not sensed that door momentarily held ajar for her, a warm hearth light flickering from within. Or had she only imagined that because she wanted it to be true?

The way she had imagined strength and protectiveness in Emery's character where there had been only a domineering will and an easily provoked temper.

Men had other ways of hurting a woman that left no visible bruises or scars. From what she'd come to know of John Whitefeather over the past week, Jane doubted she had reason to fear for her physical safety with him. Just now, he had served her warning that she needed to be cautious around him, all the same.

The more she found herself drawn to him, the more cautious she must be.

Perhaps her poor gelding was as startled by the abrupt turn of John's mare as Jane herself. With more energy than he'd shown since she mounted him, the horse swung about to follow his companion, speeding his pace to catch up. Jane bit back a scream and hung on for dear life.

As she bounced and swayed in the saddle, the hard-packed earth beneath the gelding's hooves looked a long way down. She imagined it lunging up to meet her, like an enormous brown fist.

She was almost faint with relief when her horse caught up with John's at the corral fence. Then a fresh worry rocked her back in the saddle. Would John Whitefeather pass Barton back to her, then lift the two of them down off the gelding's back?

After the way he'd rebuffed her, she wasn't sure she could stand the sensation of his hands on her body. Nor the fleeting moment, as her feet touched the ground, when she stood in the circle of his arms with the baby cradled between them. Why, she'd sooner throw herself to the ground and be done with it. Experience had taught her that bones healed easier than hearts.

Fortunately, Ruth and Caleb Kincaid were waiting for them. As Ruth held up her arms to receive little Barton, Jane extracted her feet from the stirrups. Clinging to the saddle horn, she melted off the gelding's back until her feet gratefully touched the earth.

She shrank from a sharp look Caleb Kincaid shot her. Despite his gruffly respectful manner, Jane knew he didn't have much use for her. But his wife liked her and so did his sons. That made three more friends than she had back in Boston.

Jane couldn't bear the thought of being exiled from them so soon. If only some kindly matchmaker in Bismarck would set up the widowed Mrs. Muldoon with a
new husband. Then she might stay put in North Dakota and leave Jane to the relative peace and security she'd found in Whitehorn.

“T
hat girl needs a husband.” Ruth Kincaid looked up from her beadwork at her husband and brother.

John spared a glance from his late evening checker game at the kitchen table with Caleb. His sister had a determined look in her eye. It made him uneasy.

“What girl?” Caleb asked absently as John jumped two of his checkers.

“Why, Jane Harris, of course. What other girl is there?”

John plucked Caleb's black checkers from the board and said, “King me,” as though he hadn't heard his sister.

But his conscience squirmed like a heifer under the branding iron. In fact, he wondered if the memory of Jane's white face and stricken eyes had been seared into his brain along with the recollection of her hand squeezing his arm. Like a brand, they stung. They would never go away.

And in some baffling fashion, they had put her claiming mark upon him.

“She's a willing little thing.” Ruth bowed her dark head over her beadwork again, but kept on talking as the men
jumped their red and black disks across the checkerboard. “She works hard and she's eager to learn, but she needs looking after. I can't help feeling bad that she came all this way and lost everything in that train wreck on our account.”

Caleb's head snapped up. “It's not our fault the fool gal didn't even stop to read the letter we sent.”

Hard as John tried to clamp his mouth shut, the words spilled out. “I reckon there's more to that than she's letting on, Caleb.”

His sister nodded. “There's much more to Jane Harris than she's willing to tell.”

Turning his attention back to the checkerboard, Caleb muttered, “Don't expect an argument from me on that score. I sent off a wire to the Boston police yesterday, just to make sure she isn't on the wrong side of the law.”

“Oh, Caleb, of all the foolishness! That girl hasn't got it in her to hurt a fly. Can you imagine her holding up a bank or a train?”

The iron-willed rancher looked shamefaced by his wife's gentle rebuke. “I don't suppose I can, at that. I'll admit, she's been real handy around here while you were gone, and the boys have taken a shine to her. Just something about that gal doesn't sit right with me. She always looks as though she expects I'm going to bite her head off.”

“I'm sure she'd rather you did that than telegraph the Boston police about her behind her back. If you'd just give her half a chance you'd soon see what a nice little thing she is.” Ruth concentrated on rethreading her needle. “I think you don't like her because she reminds you too much of Marie.”

“Fiddlesticks.” Caleb scowled at the checkerboard as John handily won the game.

Had Caleb forgotten that he'd openly compared Jane to his late wife on the night she arrived? John wondered.

The men set up the board for a rematch, and for a while the kitchen was quiet except for the soft crackle of the fire in the stove and the click of checkers.

“She's bound and determined not to go back East,” Ruth murmured at last, almost as though she was talking to herself.

John swallowed a grin. His sister had learned this trick from their aunt, Walks on Ice. Raising a subject again and again with a question here, a chance remark there, until she wore Bearspeaker down, like a hunting party trailing a wounded buffalo.

“I don't reckon she has much to go back to, poor child.” Ruth shook her head.

His sister's words hit John like a gunshot.

He knew perfectly well Jane Harris had nothing and no one waiting for her back in Boston. If he hadn't been ambushed by painful memories from his past or terrified by his own involuntary confession, he might have paid closer attention when she'd told him about the deaths of her family.

Most folks might say it was a greater tragedy to have your parents murdered than to have them die of sickness or be lost at sea. Either way, they were still dead.

At least he'd had Ruth and their Cheyenne band. As far as he could tell, Jane Harris had been left completely alone in a pitiless city. All at once, John felt a sense of responsibility for this winsome little stray who'd landed here by mistake. Setting her adrift again in a few weeks' time with the price of a train ticket out of their lives suddenly felt like a callous act of cruelty.

“We need to find her a husband,” said Ruth. “No reason
a smart, pretty little woman like her couldn't have her pick of the men around here.”

Part of John had to agree that it was a sensible plan. A less sensible part of him resisted the idea of marrying Jane Harris off.

“It'll have to be a fellow who can look after her decently.” John pushed one of his checkers forward, and Caleb promptly hopscotched all over the board at his expense. “She's not strong and she's not used to this country.”

Exactly the opposite of what he'd need in a wife, if he could ever make up his mind to take one.

“Lionel Briggs has a good business,” volunteered Caleb. “An undertaker never lacks for work.” Jumping John's last piece, he packed away the checkerboard and retired to his favorite chair by the stove.

“I wouldn't wish a master like Lionel Briggs on a stray dog.” John shuddered at the thought of the liveryman's cold hands on Jane. “Let alone husband for a lady like Miss Harris.”

Ruth nodded. “They say his first wife died just to get away from him. Besides, I want to invite any likely suitors out to the ranch for dinner to meet Jane. I doubt Mr. Briggs would want to darken our doorstep any more than I'd want him in my house.”

“On account of his pa being killed by the Pawnee?” Caleb lit his pipe and took a deep puff. “Good enough, then. Scratch Lionel off the list of husband candidates.”

“There's the butcher, Mr. Lundburg,” suggested Ruth.

John shook his head. “He drinks.”

“Lou Lambert.” Caleb threw down the name like a challenge. “Hard worker. Churchgoer. Got a good spread.”

“And seven kids.” John stalked over to the stove and poured himself more tea. “Jane wouldn't last a month.”

Several more possible suitors were proposed. John found some damning objection to every one.

Caleb shook his head. “We're never going to get this gal married off if you're going to be so particular.” He poked the stem of his pipe at John for emphasis. “It isn't like she's got a big dowry or comes from a fine family or is any raving beauty.”

John didn't care for the knowing, slightly mocking glint in Caleb's eyes that reminded him of the warning, “Be careful of this little maverick filly.”

Did Caleb think John was objecting to these other men because he wanted Jane Harris for himself? Why, if Ruth
had
put his name forward, he'd be the first to name a dozen reasons why he'd be wrong for Jane and she for him.

“Winslow Gray.” Ruth spoke the young doctor's name in the same tone John had heard poker players announce a royal flush. She pinned her brother with a stare that dared him to find fault with her latest choice.

“He seems like a good enough fellow.” John wondered why he begrudged Dr. Gray this meager praise. “He hasn't been in Whitehorn long, though, and nobody knows much about him.”

Caleb chuckled. “I'd say that makes him a perfect match for our Miss Harris. And if it turns out she isn't anxious to stay in Montana, he's got no ties to keep him here.”

“That's settled then.” Ruth folded up her beadwork and laid it in her work basket of woven reeds. “When you go into town tomorrow, Caleb, drop by Dr. Gray's dispensary and invite him out to dinner on Saturday night.”

“Yes, ma'am.” Caleb lavished a fond smile on his wife, and suddenly John felt like an outsider.

Would he ever experience that kind of bond with a woman? Where words were no longer necessary and a shared look could set them apart from the rest of
humanity—in their own tiny kingdom with a population of two?

John realized his sister was speaking to him. What was she saying?

“I'll expect you to praise Jane up to Dr. Gray when he comes to dinner.”

“You praise her. I'll be out at Sweetgrass.”

“Go ahead, just be back in time for supper.”

He headed off to bed, muttering about bossy little sisters and trying to convince himself that Winslow Gray would make the perfect husband for Jane.

 

“We're having company for supper tonight.” Ruth handed Jane a dinner plate to dry. “Why don't you fish a pretty dress from Marie's trunk and I'll warm a couple of irons on the fire to press the wrinkles out of it?”

“Company?” said Jane in the same tone she might have said “Snakes?”

It had taken a while, but she'd finally grown accustomed to Ruth Kincaid's family. Even her sometimes gruff husband and her often pensive brother. Jane no longer jumped or gasped when either of the men made a sudden move toward her. Her heart hardly sped up at all when one of them raised his voice. Now, the thought of a strange man at the supper table set her stomach aflutter.

Ruth nodded. “Caleb often takes pity on the bachelors and widowers in town and invites one of them out for a square meal. I think he remembers what it was like when he and Zeke had to shift for themselves to get a bite to eat in the evenings.”

“Of course,” murmured Jane. “That's kind of him.”

How selfish to think only of how the presence of unfamiliar company would affect her, she chided herself. When this poor man was probably looking forward to a
good, home-cooked meal after weeks of boardinghouse or saloon fare.

“We'll eat in the dining room tonight,” said Ruth. “Put out the good china and silver. I'll roast a nice rib of beef.”

“I could wait on the table for you.” Jane offered a hopeful suggestion.

That would be the perfect solution. From her years in Beacon Hill, she knew well-trained servants were practically invisible. She wouldn't be expected to make conversation with this strange man, only fill his plate or fetch him a drink. Afterward, she could eat her own meal in the quiet sanctuary of the kitchen.

Ruth glanced up from her vigorous scrubbing of a tin pot. “Don't be silly. You'll eat with the rest of us, like always. We'll set all the food on the table beforehand so everybody can help themselves.”

“What about sweets?” Jane tried to disguise the pleading tone in her voice. “Tea and coffee?”

“We can both fetch those from the kitchen when the time comes. Now I don't want to hear another word about you not eating with the rest of the family. You and Dr. Gray will have plenty to talk about. He's from back East, too.”

The tumbler Jane was drying slipped out of her hands and crashed to the floor.

“I'm sorry! What a butterfingers. I should have been paying more attention to what I was doing. I'll get the broom.”

“Don't fret about it.” Ruth grabbed the dustpan and held it while Jane swept up the broken glass. “As I was saying, Dr. Gray is from back East. Saint Louis, I think Caleb said.”

Jane let out a quivering breath. Saint Louis was a long way from Boston. In fact, Mrs. Endicott would have called
it “out West.” Even if this doctor had been from the Atlantic coast, that didn't mean he'd necessarily be acquainted with her former employer. There must have been a few physicians between Portland, Maine, and Charleston, South Carolina, who Mrs. Endicott
hadn't
consulted about her various aches and pains.

“I have a notion to heat some water for a bath,” said Ruth when the last of the dishes were put away without further breakage. “Might as well wash our hair while we're about it. I brew a rinse of vinegar and herbs that'll make your hair shine like a mink's pelt.”

Jane replied with a halfhearted smile. It was good of Ruth to fuss over her like this, especially since she wouldn't be staying around much longer. She couldn't enjoy it, though. The thought of entertaining company tonight left her vaguely bilious. The men would probably take a glass of whiskey before dinner. Perhaps more than one. She remembered all too vividly the effect of strong drink upon men's manners and tempers.

Undaunted by Jane's lack of enthusiasm, Ruth Kincaid nudged her through preparations for the evening, while Zeke kept the baby amused. The two women oiled and buffed the dining table. Ruth seared the roast and put it in the oven, while Jane peeled potatoes and set them to soak. Together they baked plum puffs for dessert. All the while, Ruth sang the praises of Dr. Winslow Gray.

When all the work had been done to Ruth's satisfaction, she contrived that Jane should bathe first.

“What do you think of this?” Ruth asked when Jane emerged from her bath with hair cleaner and more fragrant than she could ever remember.

Staring at the swath of taffeta in Ruth's arms, Jane gnawed on her lower lip. How had Ruth guessed that this dress, the color of daffodils in warm spring sunshine, was
her favorite of all the beautiful gowns in Marie Kincaid's trunk?

Not to mention the most impossible to wear outside the privacy of her bedroom.

“Don't you think it's a bit too fancy just for dinner?”

“Where else are you going to wear it?” Ruth held the gown up in front of Jane and nodded her approval. “No matter what the sign outside Big Mike's saloon says, Whitehorn doesn't have a proper opera house like they've got in Denver. Caleb tells me Marie used to dress up like this all the time. I say it's too pretty
not
to wear.”

“Do you think it'll be warm enough? The nights are still rather chilly and I'm prone to the cold.”

“It will leave your shoulders bare,” Ruth agreed.

Though Jane didn't dare admit it, that was what made this dress so unsuitable. The wounds Emery's nails had gouged were finally healing, but they had left scars on her flesh that might never disappear. A physician would be sure to recognize what they represented. That she was a woman who'd merited a beating at the hands of a man she'd cared for.