Never Love a Lawman (5 page)

Wading against the current, Wyatt returned to the platform and stamped his feet hard, squishing water out of his boots. He couldn’t help the shiver that went through him. Inside his damp woolen socks, he clenched and unclenched his toes.

“I could stand to get out of these boots,” he said, holding out the note to her. “It wouldn’t hurt to dry my socks, either.”

Rachel regarded him a long moment. She couldn’t very well accuse him of planning this, not when she was the one who dropped the note. It made her wonder if perhaps she had planned it. Could a mind be so devious as to keep its secrets from the one who was supposed to command it?

“All right,” she said. “You can come in.”

It was, at best, a reluctant invitation, but Wyatt didn’t let that bother him. He knew better than to comment on it. Giving her a single opportunity to think better of it could not possibly work in his favor. He picked up the bucket and jerked his chin toward the house, indicating she could lead the way on the narrow path.

The first thing he noticed in her kitchen was the bucket of water sitting in the washtub. He raised an eyebrow at her but said nothing. She didn’t apologize for her lie about going out for water, but she did have the grace to blush. Wyatt set his bucket beside hers and picked up a towel to dry his hands.

“You can sit right there,” Rachel said, pointing to the chair closest to the stove. “Let me add some wood first and—” She stopped as he began to balance himself on one foot and raise the other. “What are you doing?”

“I’m taking off my boot.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I believe I am.” He bounced a little in place as he yanked at the heel.

“I mean, I don’t want you to remove your boots.”

Wyatt used the edge of the oak table to steady himself and continued working the boot free. He asked conversationally, “How am I supposed to dry my feet?”

Rachel shoved a log in the firebox and closed the loading door hard. Her movements had more heat than the meager fire. “If you sit down, you can prop your feet against the stove and dry everything at once. You are familiar with the position. It’s the same one you affect so frequently on the sidewalk outside your office.”

Wyatt continued to shuck his boots. The brim of his hat created a shadow that safely hid the half curl of his mouth. He couldn’t imagine that she’d be calmed by knowing she’d amused him. More likely, she’d try stuffing him and his boots in the firebox.

Rachel jerked a little as Wyatt dropped his second boot on the floor, then turned away, grabbed the kettle, and busied herself filling it while he removed his socks. When she was ready to return the kettle, she saw it had to share space with his boots and socks. She also observed that Wyatt occupied the chair she’d suggested, and that now his long legs were stretched out and angled toward the stove.

And completely blocking her way.

Rachel determined right then that she would set herself apart from the general populace of Reidsville. She knocked his legs out of her path with enough force to almost unseat him.

“You could have asked me to move,” he said, righting himself. “I would have, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.” She set the kettle down hard. The stove flue rattled. She turned on him and held out her hand. “You may as well give me your hat. Your coat, too, if you’re warm enough.”

Wyatt handed them both over. When her back was turned, he raked a hand through his hair, belatedly remembering how many times Rose had twirled and curled it with her fingertips. It occurred to him that he might still have the scent of sweat and sex on him, or at least the cloying fragrance of Rose’s perfume. She favored attar of rose petals these days. Until he got used to it, it was like bedding down in his mother’s hothouse, and there was nothing at all that appealed to him about that.

Wyatt waited to see where Rachel would sit before he stretched his legs again. She was liable to knock him off his chair the next go around and take unholy pleasure in doing it. She must have been working up to it for a long time, he decided, which was kind of interesting since he’d never been sure that she was paying him any mind. It made him wish he’d come on some other business. He couldn’t take advantage of the fact that she’d tipped her hand. She probably didn’t even know what she’d revealed to him. She was just plain mad.

And scared.

Rachel took a chair at a right angle to his. She’d taken a tartan shawl from the peg rack where she’d put his coat and hat, and now she threw it over her shoulders and loosely tied the ends to secure it. She tugged at the cuff of her long sleeve and removed the crinkled telegram from where she’d tucked it.

Wyatt turned his head just enough to study her without giving the appearance of doing so. He watched her unfold the paper and smooth the creases with the flat edge of her hand. She seemed to read it again, although he was almost certain she’d memorized the words from the first moment they were revealed. How could she not?

“Why did you bring this to me?” she asked.

“That’s not the question you asked me outside. I don’t suppose you thought I’d recognize the difference.” When she said nothing, he went on. “The first time you asked how I knew to bring it to you. That’s far and away different from you pretending ignorance now.”

Rachel wished he had simply shown her the message and gone. She wanted to grieve in private, not show her open wounds to this man. His remote glance saw too much to be as impersonal as it seemed. He was sizing her up without benefit of a tape measure.

Wyatt waited her out. He was in no hurry, and he knew from his experience in the darkroom that it took nothing so much as time to see a picture clearly.

“What do you think you know about this?” Rachel said finally.

It was a beginning, Wyatt decided. He could give her something that would help her be less wary of his intentions. “Mr. Maddox was no stranger in these parts. He visited a few times before he approved the spur that brings the railroad to Reidsville. There’s no one in town that doesn’t fully appreciate the impact of the rails on us. Towns like Reidsville can simply disappear; folks pack up and move on when they can’t get what they need or get where they’re going.”

“It’s only a sidetrack,” Rachel pointed out. “It doesn’t go through to anywhere.”

“It doesn’t have to. Back and forth to Denver is enough. The link to Denver gives Reidsville a rail link to the rest of the country, but I think that’s something you know as well as anyone.”

When Rachel did not confirm it, Wyatt elaborated. “You order sewing machine parts from Chicago, fabric from New York and San Francisco, lace from Europe. Your threads come from Denver, and you’ve never had to leave Reidsville. It’s the same for everyone here. What people can’t grow or raise or make for themselves comes to them by rail.”

Now that his toes were nicely warm, Wyatt shifted and angled his chair a little toward Rachel. “Clinton Maddox never pretended he was a philanthropist, at least not when he was still making his money. He didn’t approve the spur because Reidsville needed it. There were plenty of boomtowns around that could have lasted longer if they’d had his rails. He recognized there was something here for him, and that’s how the partnership was formed.”

“Partnership,” Rachel said softly, more to herself than to her guest. She rose gracefully as water began to rumble in the kettle. “Tea, Sheriff? I have coffee if you prefer.”

“Tea’s fine, though I wouldn’t mind a spot of whiskey. I don’t suppose that you—”

“I have a bottle, but I’m surprised that you didn’t know that. You seem to know a great deal about my business.”

“Whiskey isn’t your business now, is it? I don’t ask myself what you buy from Rudy Martin when he takes delivery of liquor for his saloon.”

“It’s a wonder,” she said, turning her back on him. She found the routine of making the tea to be helpful in regaining her calm. Each tidbit he revealed set her teeth on edge, and she couldn’t say that she’d been very effective in hiding it from him. He must have wondered at the muscle jumping in her cheek as she clamped down hard on her jaw.

Wyatt watched Rachel’s efficiency as she made the tea. After the first few moments, she seemed to have forgotten him, and her slender, long-fingered hands moved briskly, not a motion wasted as she set out cups and saucers, measured, and poured. His eyes followed her as she made to leave the kitchen to get the whiskey bottle, and he was waiting for her when she returned from the dining room with it. She didn’t look at him until she was ready to pour the whiskey into his teacup, then she simply raised a questioning eyebrow.

He let her pour what his eyes told him was a full shot before he put out his hand to stop her; then she gave him pause by pouring an equal measure in her own cup.

“I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that,” she said. “If I buy the whiskey, I must intend to drink it, don’t you think? I imagine you know I don’t keep it around for visitors I don’t have.”

He knew it. Everyone did. “Molly Showalter comes by.”

“To work when I need her, not drink my liquor.” She sat down as he turned his chair completely around so that he faced the table instead of the stove. “She hasn’t said differently, has she?”

“Molly? No. She’s a quiet, serious girl. If she knows you sometimes drink alone, she’s not saying.”

Rachel’s mouth flattened. Wyatt Cooper made drinking alone sound pitiable, and she cringed from the notion that she was the object of anyone’s pity. “Go on with your story,” she said coolly. “You were going to tell me what the town had to offer Mr. Maddox.”

Wyatt lifted the delicate cup she’d given him in his palms and took a sip. Over the rim, he watched her drizzle honey into her tea, and when she put it aside, he drew it toward him and added some to his own cup. “Sweet tooth,” he said by way of explanation.

Rachel was not impervious to the half grin that changed the shape of his mouth and appeared briefly in his eyes. It made his simple admission a bit more like a confession, and therefore, made it intimate. She imagined he was used to drawing women in with that unaffected smile.

“Your story,” she repeated.

Wyatt was fairly certain that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. She’d regained her considerable composure through the simple act of preparing tea, and she was full steam ahead now. “Maddox met with the miners.”

“That seems extraordinary, even for him.”

“Perhaps. I can only say that what he heard from the Reidsville miners made him decide to build a spur here.”

“What did they tell him?”

Wyatt shrugged. “That was better than twenty years ago, before the war, before the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific pounded their last spike in Utah. Benton and Frémont and others were still exploring and surveying the territory. The pathway west was trails, not rails, and I wasn’t there to hear what the early miners had to tell him. Very few people could envision the Atlantic and Pacific ever connected by a railroad.”

“Are you saying Mr. Maddox was one of the few?”

“Could be.” He took another swallow of tea. “Could be the miners were the visionaries.” Wyatt allowed Rachel to consider that. She appeared poised once more, unruffled. She held herself carefully, but not rigidly. The slender stem of her neck was no longer bowed under the weight of what troubled her. Her lips were parted a fraction, and the bottom one was slightly swollen where she had worried it. Her cheeks retained some of the pink that had infused them at her first blush, but her deep, coffee-colored eyes had not lost their veil of hurt, no matter how direct she kept her gaze. He wasn’t certain she was aware that tears washed her eyes from time to time, or that she blinked them back with a sweep of her long, sable lashes, seemingly without effort.

There was no hint of tears now. Curiosity had cleared them.

“When Maddox was ready to build his railroad in the West, he brought his line from California to Colorado by way of an alternate trail through the Rockies,” Wyatt told her. “He wasn’t beholding to the Central Pacific, and he used their same tactics to achieve his ends. Government grants, tracts of land at prices he couldn’t afford to pass on, and a cheap, mostly Chinese labor force, helped him become Central’s chief competitor, and once he reached Denver he hooked up with his own system of rails to the East. One standard gauge for all of his tracks and spurs. Only John MacKenzie Worth could boast of that back then.”

Rachel followed what he was telling her to its logical end. “So he built the spur to Reidsville to thank the miners.”

“You’re confusing Clinton Maddox with a generous man. He built the spur to secure the mining operation.”

Rachel blinked slowly, and her eyes were marginally wider when they opened. “He owns the mine?”

Wyatt wondered if he could believe that her astonishment was real. He would have bet dollars to doughnuts that she’d known it all along. “He’s a partner in it, or he was,” he amended. “He brought in the machinery needed to mine the deeper veins of ore after the placer gold and silver were gone.”

“I never knew,” she said quietly.

“Then maybe I was wrong to tell you, but I figured we needed to get past this pretense that you didn’t know Clinton Maddox.”

Rachel let that settle a moment before she spoke; then she asked the question that had been uppermost in her mind. “How is that you imagine I know him?”

“If I can speak plainly, until he sent you packing, you were his mistress.”

That revelation effectively knocked the wind out of her. She expelled a breath that whistled softly between her teeth. “Well, that’s something, isn’t it? Does everyone in town know?”

“If they do, they didn’t hear it from me. I’ve never heard it discussed.”

“Small mercies, I suppose. How do you know?”

“Mr. Maddox told me.”

“Told you?”

“Wrote to me. I was the one who arranged the purchase of this property and supervised the construction of your house.”

“So you knew I was coming as long ago as that?”

“I’d been led to believe it, yes.”

Rachel’s brow puckered. It was vaguely unsettling to realize that Clinton Maddox had known well in advance what her decision would be. “The house is really mine, isn’t it?”

“It always has been. He made sure of it.”

Her eyes reflected some of her anxiety. “And it wouldn’t be too easy for others to discover, would it?”

“No, I don’t suppose that it would.”

She relaxed the white-tipped grip on her teacup and took a sip. “It’s odd that he told me so little about the town when it seems as if he must have known it fairly well. I suppose he meant for it to be a secret all the way around. We agreed that when the time came for me to leave I would use the Central line to ship the furniture and all of my trunks.”

“I think that might properly be what’s called an irony.”

The line of Rachel’s slight smile was bittersweet. “And I think you might be right, Sheriff.” She collected herself, took a breath, and let it out slowly. “How did you know he sent me packing?”

“That was in his letter. Not those exact words, of course, but to that effect.”

“I see.”

Wyatt rubbed the underside of his chin with his knuckles, felt the rough stubble of a three-day growth. “He was considerably older than you.”

“He was? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Sorry. It’s not my place to comment on your arrangement with him.”

“No, it’s not.”

“There’s one thing I’d like to know, if you don’t mind.”

Rachel was quite sure she didn’t want to hear his question, but she heard herself answer him differently. “I won’t know if I mind until I hear what’s on yours.”

Wyatt wondered how often Rachel Bailey actually drank. There was a hint of provocation in her tone and in the tilt of her head that seemed as if it might be whiskey-proof. “Fair enough,” he said. “I was wondering—since it seems he didn’t want to hear from you again—why you think he made it part of our agreement that I’m supposed to look after you?”

Rachel’s head snapped up. “Look after me? He said that?”

“Drew up an entire document.” Wyatt watched Rachel’s lips part. Whatever she was going to say, she reconsidered it, and her mouth snapped shut. He was disappointed that she wasn’t going to tell him what she knew. He said, “I suppose Maddox thought he had his reasons.”

“I suppose he did.” Her dark eyes wavered, then fell away from Wyatt’s flinty pair. She began to reach for the teapot, stopped, and reached for the bottle of whiskey instead. She poured a generous shot for herself, then nudged the bottle toward Wyatt.

Wyatt just pushed it aside. He imagined one of them should remain clearheaded. He tried again to prompt her to talk, wondering if the whiskey would work in his favor. “So what do you think his reasons were, Miss Bailey? If you had to make a guess.”

“Do I?”

“Do you what?”

“Do I have to make a guess?” She bit off every word as if it were its own sentence. “Really, Sheriff, try to follow your own lead.”

One corner of his mouth kicked up a fraction. “You’re a regular termagant, aren’t you?”