Lady Lavender (4 page)

A
plump older woman in a checked apron glanced up as Wash and Jeanne entered the River Hotel dining room with Manette dancing after them.

“Morning, Rita. Got any coffee?” The woman's face darkened at the sight of Jeanne. “Always got coffee for you, Colonel. Made fresh, too.”

The waitress shot another look at Jeanne, instantly dug a handkerchief out of her pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Here, dearie. You just cry it all out of your system.”

Wash settled Jeanne at a corner table and lifted Manette onto the chair between them. The girl leaned toward him. “Why is
Maman
crying?” she whispered.

Wash flinched. “Because…well, because she's just had some bad news.”

“Can you make it go away?”

“I wish I could.” Never in his life had he felt this helpless. He didn't like the feeling one bit.

The waitress sailed off to the kitchen and returned with two delicate cups of steaming coffee. One she placed before Jeanne; the other she brought around the table to Wash and leaned in close to his ear.

“What'd you do to her, anyway?” she muttered.

“Railroad wants her land,” he explained, keeping his voice low.

“And I hear you're workin' for the railroad.” Rita sent a speculative glance at Jeanne. “A man's always at the root of a woman's troubles,” she sniffed.

Wash waited until Rita had retreated into the kitchen. “It's almost noon. Are you hungry?”

She shook her head, blotting at her eyes with the damp handkerchief.

“She is hungry,” Manette whispered. “She let me eat all of her breakfast.”

“Well, then, perhaps you both would join me for lunch?”

“Oh,
non,
” Jeanne protested.

“Oh, yes! Manette's bright-eyed grin made Wash chuckle. He'd order a steak—two steaks—and a big bowl of chocolate ice cream; maybe it would ease the sick, guilty feeling in his gut.

Jeanne spoke not one word during the meal, but he noticed she ate every ounce of her steak, right down to the bits of gristle. Wash cut up half his meat for Manette, but found he couldn't swallow even his own portion.

After a tense quarter of an hour, Jeanne quietly laid her fork across the empty plate and looked up at him. “I came from a small village in France to marry my
husband,” she said, her voice near a whisper. “It was a mistake.”

Wash blinked. “You mean he was the wrong man?”

“I mean he was killed in the War when Manette was a year old. He had no family and no land. I could not survive in New Orleans, so I left. I came out to Oregon to buy a farm where I could grow lavender. It is all Manette and I have.”

“Your husband was a Southerner, then? Confederate Army?”

She nodded, then lifted her china coffee cup and cradled it in her hands.

“I fought for the North,” Wash said. “Union Army. I grew up out here in Smoke River but I'd gone back East to school when the War broke out. I volunteered right before Manassas.”

Again she nodded. The rivulets of tears had stopped, he noted with relief. Talking seemed to help.

“When my father died,” he continued, “Ma couldn't wait to get back to Connecticut. Some women aren't cut out for life on the frontier.”

She held his eyes in a long, questioning look. “What is required for a life on the frontier?”

He blew out his breath. “Horse sense, for one. Hide like a tanned buffalo. Temperament like a rattlesnake. And grit.”

“Grit? What is ‘grit'?”

He studied her work-worn hands, the sunburned patch on her nose, and the unwavering look of resolve in her eyes.

“Grit is being strong when the going gets tough. It's what you had when you packed up your things and came out here on your own and started your farm.”

She pursed her lips and his groin tightened. Lord, but she got to him easy. Was it because her body swelled in and out in just the right places? Or because he'd been without a woman for so long he'd forgotten the pleasures female company brought?

Or was it because he just plain liked her?

That thought sent a cold thread of fear coiling up his spine.

“I know this has been a hard thing to come to grips with, Miz Nicolet, but do you have any idea what you plan to do?”

She folded her napkin and laid it over the wadded-up handkerchief next to her plate. “Do?”

She reached up to straighten her hat, and tried to smile.

“I will go home to my farm. I will feed my chickens and I will harvest my lavender when it is ready.”

“I mean what're you gonna do about the land the railroad owns?”

Her smile faded and her eyes suddenly looked distant. “About the land and the railroad I will do nothing.”

“Nothing! You've gotta do something, ma'am. My survey crew will be here day after tomorrow.”

She stood up slowly. “That may be, Monsieur Washington. But no matter who comes, I do not intend to leave.”

Wash shot out of his chair. “Wait a minute! You can't just—”

“But yes,” she interrupted in a soft but determined voice. “Yes, I can. Come, Manette. We will go home now.”

Five minutes later he watched the woman and her daughter clop back down the street atop the scrawny gray mare. Sure was a sorry excuse for a horse.

Sure is one stubborn woman!

And maybe he was a sorry excuse for a railroad lawyer. He'd ended up doing the wrong thing for the right reason and his insides felt like they were splitting in two. One half of him wanted to bundle Jeanne and her daughter up and drag them off that scanty plot she called a farm. The other half wanted to help her fight off the railroad, like David and Goliath.

There was a third part somewhere in there, too—a part of him that wanted to hold her close and smell her hair.

The horse disappeared in a puff of gray dust and Wash headed for the Golden Partridge. He had a headache that felt like the town blacksmith was hammering on his temples.

Rooney stood, his back to the bar, his boots casually crossed at the ankle. “Been waitin' for ya, Wash.”

“Yeah?” Wash positioned himself next to his friend and hooked one heel over the bar rail.

“One reason is that French lady. That's a mighty weak-looking horse for carrying all her household baggage out of that canyon.”

“It's all she's got. What's the other reason?”

Rooney turned around so they stood shoulder to shoulder and hunkered over the shiny mahogany bar
top. “Don't rush me, Wash. I'm thinkin' how to say what I got to say.”

Wash dropped his forehead onto his hand. “I'm dead tired, Rooney. Just spit it out.”

Rooney lowered his voice. “You see those gents over there by the window?”

Wash turned his head to glance at the men. Mean-looking types. One was paunchy, with a ragged canvas shirt and shifty black eyes; the other was well-built, dark-skinned and silent. He had a crescent-shaped scar under one eye. Both wore double holsters.

A third man sat near the other two. This one looked young and fresh-faced, with a hat so new it didn't yet have creases in it.

“That kid looks so clean he'd squeak,” Wash said under his breath. “The other two look like a couple of hired guns.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” Rooney muttered.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Rooney raised his thick, salt-and-pepper eyebrows. “That's your new railroad survey crew.”

Wash's hand froze around his shot glass. Those grungy-looking men would be hanging around Miz Nicolet's farm all day? Watching her feed her chickens? Watching her hang up her laund—

“Oh, God,” he murmured.

Rooney nodded. “That's what I thought, too.”

T
he next morning Wash and Rooney escorted the rough-looking survey crew out to Green Valley. The three men unpacked their equipment and set to work at the far end of the valley. Under Wash's watchful eye, they worked their way toward the far end of the valley. The closer they got to the cabin, the more uneasy Wash felt.

He didn't want Miz Nicolet's rifle to stop his crew. He also didn't want the men getting too near the pretty French woman. He didn't usually carry a weapon, but today he'd strapped on his Colt and dropped a handful of extra bullets into his leather vest pocket.

No matter how unsavory the men looked, now that they were on the job, the crew seemed to know what it was doing. Handy, the paunchy man, set up his leveling gauge and peered through the sight. Dark-haired, unshaven Joe Montez—the one Rooney had pegged as
a hired gun—marched off paces through the lavender field with the measuring chain. The blond kid, Lacey, held the ranging pole while the paunchy one at the leveling gauge sent hand signals, waving the other two farther up the hillside.

The men gradually worked their way closer to the Nicolet cabin. Wash squinted at the structure. Hell and damn, it sat smack in the center of what would soon be a steel railroad track.

The spiral of blue smoke from the stone chimney told him Jeanne was at home, even though he'd not seen her all morning. He left Rooney in charge of the crew and walked his horse through the lavender field, dismounted and tramped up the path toward the cabin. It was close to noon. The sun poured down on the lush purple fields and his elbows brushed the spikes as he moved through the tall plants. Be kinda nice to smell like lavender when he saw her instead of horse and sweat. In the next instant he wondered why it mattered.

Manette burst out of the open cabin door and flew across the porch to clasp her arms around his knees. “Oh, Mr. Washington,” she cried. “Did you come to see my spider box?”

“Manette,” a voice called from inside the cabin. “We have not finished your lesson.”

Wash reached to gently tug one of her braids, tied at the end with a crisp red bow. “You can call me Wash, if you like. What's a spider box?”

“Manette!” came the voice again.

The girl tipped her head up and grinned. “My spider box is where I keep my spiders. Want to see?”

“Manette, where are you?”

“Here,
Maman.
On the porch.” She tossed the words over her shoulder and peered up at him again. “Don't you want to see it?”

Jeanne Nicolet stepped through the doorway, wiping her hands on a huck towel. “See what?”

Wash straightened and their eyes met. A queer little zing went up the back of his neck. Lord but she stopped his breath! Her lustrous dark hair was caught with a ribbon in a fall down her back; she wore a faded blue gingham skirt and a matching body-hugging shirtwaist. From her head to the tips of her black boots, which brushed up a foam of white petticoat ruffles, she didn't look like any farm wife he'd ever laid eyes on.

She stuffed the huck towel under her apron. “Monsieur Washington.”

He lifted Manette's thin arms away from his knees. “Morning, Miz Nicolet.”

She inclined her head and pinned him with an unflinching look.

“I'm going to show Mr. Wash my spider box,” Manette announced.

Jeanne's gray-green eyes widened. “What spider box?”

“I keep it under my pillow,
Maman.
I have all kinds of spiders, even a big yellow one.”

Jeanne shuddered. “
Mon Dieu,
I do not wish to see spiders of any color. Especially not under your pillow.”

Manette skipped away into the cabin as her mother
spoke. When she disappeared, Jeanne turned her attention to Wash.

He brought two fingers to his hat brim in a salute and smiled. “I see you have no gun today, ma'am.”

She narrowed her eyes at his gun belt with its holstered weapon hanging low on his hips. “And I see that you do.”

“The survey crew for the railroad is here. Thought I better warn you that those three fellas climbing up and down the hillside work for me.” He gestured over his shoulder just as Handy, halfway down the hill, came to a dead stop and pointed.

“Joe! Hey, Montez! You ever seen a prettier gal?”

Montez's dark gaze followed Handy's pointing forefinger and his mouth dropped open. “Holy—”

Wash spoke quickly to cover the profanity. “They won't bother you, ma'am. They're just doing their job.”

“And what job is that?” she inquired through pinched lips.

“The survey. You remember, I told you about it yesterday?”

“
Oui,
I have forgot. How long will they work?”

“Just today and tomorrow.”

She made an involuntary motion and then studied the men more closely. “They trample my lavender.”

“With all due respect, ma'am, what does that matter? In a couple of days it'll all be gone.”

“Gone?” Her voice wobbled.

“'Fraid so, ma'am. The clearing crew will come through in a few days and mow down—”

“
Non!
I will not permit it.”

Wash took a step closer, catching the elusive scent of that spicy soap she used. He brought his head up and inhaled deeply. Damn, she smelled good.

“Miz Nicolet…Jeanne…you can't stop the railroad. I've sent a request for your money to be returned, but the legal right to this land belongs—”

“So you have said,” she snapped.

Would she ever let him finish one single sentence?

“If you know that, ma'am, you also know you've got to leave.”

She turned away. “Excuse me, Monsieur Washington…I have the bread rising.”

Before he knew what he was doing, he snaked out his hand and captured her forearm. Under the thin gingham her flesh was warm and alive. And so soft he didn't want to let go.

“Jeanne, you are the most stubborn woman I've ever encountered. Even my mother wasn't as prickly as you! Now, you've got to listen to me.”

Jeanne wrenched her arm out of his grasp. “I will listen.” She watched his lips thin. Very fine, those lips. While she stared at them, his mouth opened.

“I think it would be wise not to, uh, do any laundry while the survey crew is here.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“Well…” He swallowed. “It could rile a man up seeing your…um…you know, small clothes, drying on your clothesline.”

She cocked her head. “What means ‘rile up'?”

“Ah. It means to, well, to upset a man. Make him want something.”

Jeanne laughed at his embarrassment. “In France, men are much less—what is the word? Suggestible?”

He groaned, grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up so close her chin almost brushed his shirt. She looked up into his angry face and her heart began to pound.

“You know damn well what a man wants,” he growled at her. “So don't go flying your lacy underdrawers under the noses of my crew. We've got a railroad to think about, not…” He did not finish the thought.

“I know little of men except for my husband, Henri. And even him I did not understand.” After Henri had lured her to New Orleans with all his lies, she had sworn she would never trust another man.

He glared down at her.

Well! She did not get the smile she had hoped for. What she got instead was an unsettling reminder of what
this
man wanted—a railroad through her lavender field. She wanted to scream.

But in the next instant she looked into the hard gray eyes in that tanned face and wanted something else entirely. She liked this man, even if he was with the railroad. She liked him so much she hoped he would smile at her again. A man had not looked at her in that way since her husband had been killed.

 

Late in the afternoon the survey crew finished, packed up their equipment and mounted their horses. Wash led the way back to town on General, remembering
that puzzling look on Jeanne's face—half fear, half pleasure.

Something had shown in the green depths of her eyes he hadn't seen before. It was when he'd grabbed her shoulders and she'd looked up at him with uncertainty and…something else. He'd wanted to kiss her. To pull her close enough to feel her breasts against his chest and capture her soft mouth under his.

He was glad he hadn't; he was afraid he wouldn't have been able to let her go. It was a funny thing, being without a woman for so long. Like the sweet flavor of his first spoonful of chocolate ice cream, he hungered for another taste.

He thought he'd had enough of women since Laura. The day he'd ridden off to the War, he'd told himself that women were fickle and demanding, fainthearted and selfish.

Most women, that is. Jeanne was different. Or at least he thought she was different. But he still didn't trust her completely; maybe he never would. She had one big strike against her, and that was that he liked being near her. That in itself was a danger sign. She aroused feelings in him he'd long since put aside as the yearnings of a younger man, not some burned-out ex-colonel with a gimpy leg and a heart crusted over like an overcooked flapjack.

He felt an odd protectiveness toward Jeanne Nicolet. Maybe because she was a foreigner, struggling for a livelihood on the rough western frontier, as his mother had. Maybe because she was so delicate she couldn't hold up a rifle for more than four minutes. Maybe just
because she was a woman. Whatever it was, he couldn't get the feeling out of his head: she liked him. And he liked her. She was all woman, and he was a man.

Damn, that did soothe a broken man's sense of worth.

 

Rooney was waiting on the board walkway outside the Golden Partridge when Wash got there, his thumbs stuffed into his denim pockets. The early evening light glowed through the larch trees, turning them into shimmering gold torches. He sure liked these long days, but his stomach told him it was suppertime. Plenty of time to enjoy his steak and beans and linger with Rooney over his coffee. Ever since that Yankee prison at Richmond he'd hated eating in the dark.

He heaved a sigh of satisfaction. He'd survived the War and the Indian skirmishes on the plains, and now he held a good job with the Oregon Central Railroad. The railway fed some hunger inside himself he was only now beginning to recognize.

After the chaos and destruction he'd seen, he longed for order. As the iron tracks spread from town to town across the western frontier he recognized at long last some peaceful purpose in life. Washtubs for farm wives; bolts of calico and denim for their sons and daughters; sacks of seed for the ranchers. It felt good to be part of something growing, even something as inanimate as an iron railroad track. He was building something instead of blasting it to smithereens.

He figured he was a lucky man; he had a satisfying job. And his life was…well, it was satisfying, too. Except
for Jeanne Nicolet. He wished he could get her off that land.
He wished he could get her out of his mind.

“How come you workin' the crew so late?” Rooney swung the hinged saloon door open and Wash dismounted, tied General to the hitching rail and hauled off his saddle. He strode inside and dropped his burden just inside the door.

“Not working late. The crew finished early. I let 'em go around sunset.”

“Well, they ain't back yet. The blond kid rode in 'bout an hour ago, but Handy and that tall Spaniard weren't with them.”

An icicle clunked into Wash's belly. Dammit, were they loitering out in Green Valley? Near Jeanne's farm?

Wash pushed the swinging door back open and peered down the street. A puff of dust signaled a rider about half a mile from town. “That's probably them now,” he muttered.

Handy clopped into town on his sorrel, headed straight for the saloon, and tied up his mount next to General.

“Where's Montez?” Wash yelled.

“Dunno,” the big-bellied man replied. “Went back for somethin'.”

Wash's heart dropped into his boots. “For what?”

Handy jerked his head up at the steely tone of Wash's voice.

“Dunno, boss. Have to ask him when he gets in.”

Wash had a pretty good idea what would keep Montez hanging around Green Valley. He hoisted his saddle onto
one shoulder and bumped past Handy just as the burly man punched through the saloon doors.

Rooney poked his head out the door. “What about yer supper? Rita's savin' a big steak for ya.”

Wash tossed the saddle over General's back and bent to tighten the cinch. “Tell Rita I'll eat it later.” He mounted, turned the animal back toward the valley and dug in his spurs.

He rode as fast as he could, but it was full dark by the time he reached the lookout from where he could survey the farm. The entire valley was shrouded in black as thick as a velvet curtain save for a soft glow of light from inside the tiny cabin. He pulled up and listened for hoofbeats.

Nothing. He could hear chickens scrabbling in the crude shelter Jeanne had nailed together, and now and then a spurt of melody from an evening song sparrow somewhere in the maples. All seemed peaceful save for intermittent rustling among the lavender bushes. Rabbits, maybe?

But no Montez. He peered through the darkness at the trail that led down to the gate, but he could see nothing. He'd best pick his way down the hillside and check the—

A thin cry floated up to him from the direction of the cabin. Then another, this one sounding choked off.

He kicked General hard and let the gelding find its own footing through the blackness. At the bottom where the trail leveled off he didn't stop to dismount; he jumped the horse over the gate and pounded up the narrow path toward the cabin.