Ana Seymour (7 page)

Brad slapped his shoulder. “Great farmer you’d make.” He bent over and pulled out some weeds, then slapped the clump into Smitty’s hand. “We don’t eat this stuff, so we gotta get rid of it. Just go along this row and every time you see a sprout like this one, pull it up. Just don’t pull up the bean plants.”

“Didn’t ever say I wanted to be no farmer,” Smitty grumbled, but he started walking along the edge of the garden, carefully inspecting each bunch of green.

Jennie smiled. “I can’t believe you boys have enough energy left to help in the garden after a long day at the mine.”

Dennis squatted down and began picking beans. “I reckon we’ve got just as much left as you, Miss Jennie. You’d already been up for hours this morning before these two princesses crawled out of their feather beds.”

Brad grimaced and threw a bean at him. “And I suppose you were out chopping wood before old man Carlton’s rooster started crowing.”

Dennis grinned. “Hours before.”

Jennie felt her spirits lift for the first time all day. She was working hard, but she was so lucky to have
found these good-natured, generous men as boarders. If she could find a fourth one just like them, she’d really be happy. “You haven’t come across anyone else out at the mine looking for a place to live, have you?” she asked.

Dennis duck-walked over to the next batch of beans and continued picking while he answered, “We’ve asked around, Miss Jennie, but just at the moment it seems that everyone’s got a place.”

Jennie sighed. A fourth roomer would certainly help with the expenses.

“Haven’t you had anyone respond to your advertisement?”

She shook her head. She’d put a sign out front of Dr. Millard’s office, but no one had come to see her about it. She hadn’t really expected it to bring results, the way people still felt about her in town. She’d been hoping to take on another miner who wouldn’t know anything about local Vermillion squabbles. “I don’t think anyone from town wants to live here,” she said.

“You may be wrong about that.”

Jennie whirled around to find Carter walking toward them. She’d been so focused on the miners’ antics with the garden that she hadn’t even seen him approach. He looked dapper in a gray suit and purple waistcoat that was a little too elegant to fit with Vermillion standards and too hot for the late afternoon sun. She could feel her spine stiffen. He was waiting for some kind of greeting, and she reckoned the miners would think it odd if she didn’t offer one, so she finally said, “Good afternoon, Mr. Jones. What can we do for you?”

Carter gestured with his right hand. He was carrying the flyer she’d posted. “I came about the room.”

Her skin was damp from perspiration, but Jennie felt a chill run along her arms and legs. “Is there a problem?” she asked. “You did say that I could have four boarders, isn’t that right?”

Carter smiled and whisked that Eastern narrowbrimmed hat off his head. Somehow it would be easier to talk with him if he at least
looked
like the other men in town. “Oh, that’s correct. Four boarders. I’ve got the papers right here.” He pulled them from a pocket inside the silk waistcoat and offered them to her.

He was a yard or two on the other side of the hedge. Reluctantly she walked around to take them. “It was nice of you to bring them by.”

“Oh, I didn’t come to bring the papers. I came to get a room. The sign says you’re looking for a tenant.”

A second chill chased the first, this time making the wispy hairs stand up on her neck. “
You
want a room? For yourself?”

Carter grinned. “I bet you thought I lived in a cave somewhere.” He appealed to the three miners, who had continued their gardening while listening to the exchange. “What do you say, guys? Are you willing to have me as a housemate?”

Dennis looked up with a shrug, while Smitty said, “If ya takes a bath ev’ry Saturday like the rest of us.”

Carter shifted his gaze back to Jennie. His expression
was serious, but there was a light in his eyes that made her wonder if he was somehow laughing at her. Lordy, she’d take
anyone
but Carter Jones. “I thought you already had a place, Mr. Jones.”

“Nope. I’ve been living at the hotel since I got to town last spring. Mighty tiresome, too. I figure a nice comfortable place with good home cooking would be just the ticket.”

She cocked her head and tried to think of something to say.

“I pay my bills.”

There definitely was a glint in his eyes. But she could use the money. She spoke in a rush. “With meals it’s six dollars a week.” The miners were each paying four-fifty a week, but none of them said anything.

Carter took the flyer out from under his arm and ripped it neatly in half. “You’ve got yourself a renter,” he said. Then he put out his hand for her to shake.

After a moment’s hesitation, she transferred the court papers to her left hand and let him take her right, forgetting that it was soiled from the weeding. His hand was smooth and clean, his cuff snowy-white, but he didn’t seem to mind the dirt. And he held her for longer than was necessary for a simple handshake.

“When are you moving in, Mr. Jones?” she asked, withdrawing the dirty hand and hiding it behind her back.

“Would tonight be too soon?”

Jennie’s heart sank. She was exhausted. She missed
her sister. She hadn’t started supper. And she hadn’t the slightest idea how she was going to handle living in the same house with Carter Jones when every time he looked at her, much less touched her, her insides started to quiver. A year from now would be too soon.

“Tonight would be just fine,” she said.

M
oving to the Sheridan house had been an uncharacteristically rash decision. After a week, Carter was still puzzling over it. He’d been perfectly happy at the hotel. And his lodging there was certainly more acceptable to the majority of the townsfolk than his current room at the boardinghouse.

The odd thing was that he himself couldn’t explain why he’d done it. He’d seen the notice outside Dr. Millard’s, torn it off the door and marched right over to the Sheridan house without taking time for a moment of thought. It had been an utterly foolish and spontaneous impulse. And if there was one thing Carter was not it, was impulsive.

How did the phrase go? Act in haste, repent at leisure. He’d had some time to repent at leisure this past week. Jennie had hardly spoken to him. She avoided his eyes. He knew that she was still angry over the night of the supper that had ended so disastrously. But whenever he tried to broach the subject, she insisted that nothing was wrong. She wasn’t angry; she was merely
busy.

At least the miners had proved to be decent chaps. He’d taken to joining their nightly card game. Poker had always been easy for him, but he’d been careful not to win too often or too much with his new housemates. And his forbearance had been rewarded by a gradual acceptance over the past few days as “one of the gang.” Perhaps he should try a game of poker with Jennie, he thought wryly as he headed down the hallway toward the back of the house.

The evening game had wrapped up and the miners had gone to bed, but he could see that a lamp was still burning in the small office at the rear of the parlor where Jennie often disappeared at night. He didn’t know if the time spent at her desk meant that she really had that quantity of work to do or if it was just another way to avoid his company. Several times he’d thought to ask Dennis if she’d gone to her office every night
before
he’d moved in. But he never could quite get the question to come out.

Tonight, at least, she appeared to be working. She was writing a column of numbers in a heavy ledger. He knocked gently on the door frame.

She took her time looking up, which told Carter that she’d known, probably even before he’d appeared in the doorway, that her late-night visitor was her newest and apparently unwanted tenant.

“You’re working late,” he said when she finally acknowledged his presence with a nod.

“End of the month. I keep adding up these numbers, trying to make them come out right.”

Her voice sounded tired and, as he walked into the circle of lamplight, he could see shadows under her
eyes. It gave him a peculiar twist through his midsection. “Would you like some help with the summing?”

“It’s not the summing that’s the problem. It’s the sum.” Her smile was wan.

“Perhaps I could help with that, then.”

She shook her head. “Forgive me, Mr. Jones. I have no business involving you in my problems.”

Without being invited, Carter sat in the chair across the desk from her. “Well, at least I can pay my next week’s rent.” He pulled a money clip from his shirt pocket and counted out six dollar bills, then set them on the desk in front of her.

Jennie sat looking at the money for a moment before she said, “It’s really only four dollars fifty cents. That’s what I charge the silverheels.”

Carter gave half a smile. “I’m not a silverheel.”

She still made no move to take the bills. “No, it’s only fair. Four-fifty.”

Carter gave a snort of exasperation. “We made a bargain, Jennie. I’m perfectly happy with the rate we agreed upon. Let’s just leave it at that.”

Jennie’s chin went up as she reached to take the money. “That’s generous of you, Mr. Jones.”

Carter’s neck prickled as the steam rose. “Dam it, woman, how much longer are you going to be mad at me?”

Jennie blinked in surprise. “I told you—”

Carter staved off her denial with an upheld hand. “That you’re not mad at me. I know. I’ve heard you. But then how come you won’t call me Carter anymore? And how come you hide yourself away in here
like a little mole until after everyone else has gone to bed? And how come you dart those beautiful brown eyes around every which way except toward me when I come down for breakfast in the morning?”

Jennie was silent, unable to answer. She held the dollar bills tightly in her right hand.

“Jennie, I had to back up the sheriff that night. I’m the public prosecutor. It’s my job. They had an order signed and sealed by the court. I’m sorry it caused Kate to collapse that way, but I’m sure no one intended for it to have that result.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Henrietta Billingsley to have planned things that way.”

Carter brushed the back of his hand against his chin. It was hard to hear the bitterness in her voice. He’d seen the sunny side of her—as she gently taught Barnaby about some household task, as she laughed with her sister, as she bantered with the miners. This brittle resentment seemed to go against the very essence of Jennie Sheridan. “I think you’re wrong, Jennie. Those women are misguided, but they’re not evil. No one is wishing harm to your sister.”

“Can you tell me that there wouldn’t be rejoicing in several Vermillion homes if Kate lost this baby?”

If it had been any other cause than defense of her sister, he was sure that Jennie would have softened her tone and her rhetoric. But where Kate was concerned, she seemed to find no room for compromise. For a moment he felt a pang of envy. It was a kind of loyalty he’d never experienced. His mother had been his only family, and he’d not been close to her.

“You’re overreacting. No one wants that to happen.”

Jennie let out a long sigh. “Maybe you’re right. But all the same, it was a terrible thing to do to us…to do to Kate in her condition.”

“And you blame me.”

She sat studying him across the table a long moment. In the dim light her hair had a rich mahogany gleam. He’d never seen it combed out like that, hanging loose around her shoulders. Finally she answered him, the hardness gone from her voice. “I guess I did blame you. You’d told me that you wanted to be our friend.”

“And earlier that evening I’d kissed you.”

Her long lashes fluttered down, shuttering her eyes. With some fumbling, she opened the center drawer of the desk and put Carter’s rent money inside.

“You do remember that?” Carter asked with a touch of irritation.

Suddenly she was looking at him again and he could see without hearing her answer that she not only remembered that kiss, she still felt the traces of it on her lips, just as he did.

“I’d prefer not to remember it,” she said quietly.

He sighed, then stood abruptly. Sometimes sheer recklessness was the only way out of an impasse. In two long strides he was around to her side of the desk and hauling her up out of her chair. “Remember this one, then,” he murmured, and bent his head.

Unlike the chaste kiss they’d shared in the kitchen, this one was liquid heat from the first touch. It was as if some kind of pressure had been building since
the other night and now it was being released in an almost violent rush. He seized her up against him and she went willingly, her arms creeping unconsciously around his neck. His lips opened hers, then their mouths mated, moist and warm and passionate.

He was aroused in seconds, his head swirling while the blood rushed into his engorged manhood. It was nothing like the methodical, carefully orchestrated seductions with which he’d been so successful back East.

She gave a sexy whimper at the back of her throat as he pulled back and slowed the kiss to gentle nips. He tried to get the red haze to clear from his mind, overruling the strident demands of the lower portion of his anatomy.

Her eyes were wide, unfocused. A telltale flush stained the lower portion of her face. There was no doubt that she’d been as powerfully affected as he. But he knew even before he felt her stiffen in his arms that she would never admit it. This latest physical encounter would be counted against him as yet another transgression.

He pulled away, carefully keeping her from losing her balance as she sank once again to her chair. As he had suspected, the warmth in her eyes was turning to ice as quickly as the flush was fading from her face. He took a deep, steadying breath. He’d already learned that in life, as in politics, there were times when bravado in the face of adversity was the only good policy.

“You’ll remember that one, I wager,” he said with a deliberate grin.

The ice was turning to fury. “How dare you?” she sputtered.

Carter stepped back, safely out of range of her pointed-toe shoes. “Oh, I’m a daring fellow. But before you get too self-righteous, Miss Sheridan, I’ll be ungentlemanly enough to point out that for a moment there, the lady appeared to be willing.”

She made no denial, but when she answered she sounded discouraged. “I’m afraid this arrangement is not going to work out, Mr. Jones. I won’t put you out in the middle of the night, but by tomorrow, I’d appreciate it if you would take your things and leave.”

She opened her desk drawer and withdrew the money he’d given her earlier, then held it out to him, her hand shaking slightly. More than anything else, the regretful way she looked at the money she was returning made him feel like a cad. He held all the cards in this game. Jennie was broke, overtired, most likely innocent in sexual matters. He was a scoundrel for taking advantage of her.

“I apologize,” he said, now honestly contrite. “This was poorly done.” He shook his head to refuse the money she offered. “Keep it. Even if you still want me to leave. But I’d like to stay here, Jennie. I’ll behave myself.”

She looked skeptical and a little lost.

“I promise,” he insisted, giving her his most winning smile. He had little doubt that he could convince her to let him stay, but part of him wondered if it was the wisest course. He was promising to behave himself, something that had never been a problem for
Carter, but he’d never felt quite like he had a few minutes ago when she’d melted against him.

Jennie turned the bills over in her hands, then turned them once again. “Just because everyone in town is saying that my sister and I are fallen women, doesn’t mean that we are,” she said finally.

Such an idea had never even entered his head, but he could see how his impetuous action might be interpreted in that light. Guilt swept over him. His grin died and he said gravely, “Jennie, I think you have more spirit and more brains than any woman I’ve met in this town. If my actions implied that I hold anything other than the highest respect for you, I’m truly sorry.”

She seemed impressed by his serious tone. Her expression softened. “If we can both forget about this incident, you may stay, Mr. Jones. Goodness knows, I need the money, and it doesn’t appear that people are beating down the door to rent rooms here.”

He nodded. “That’s settled, then. Put that money away and if you need more…” He held up a hand as she began to bristle. “If it would help you to have me pay some weeks in advance, I’d be happy to do so.”

“Thank you, but I’ll manage, Mr. Jones.”

He shook his head. “We need to agree on one other matter.”

“What’s that?” she asked warily.

“I won’t refer to this…
um
…
incident,
as you call it, if you’ll agree to one condition. It’s a simple request.”

She already knew. “Carter, then,” she amended. He flashed a quick grin. “That’s much better.”

Jennie was tired, and she knew that her predawn wake-up would come hurtling at her without mercy tomorrow, but she couldn’t get herself to go up to bed. Carter had left her office over an hour ago. For a while she’d deliberately stalled just to avoid any risk of running into him upstairs as they both prepared for bed. She didn’t think she was up to another encounter tonight. But all had been quiet upstairs for a long time. She was sure everyone else in the house was asleep. And still she sat, staring at the flicker of the whale oil lamp on her desk.

The money Carter had given her was still lying on the desk in front of her. She ran her fingers over it. The devil’s tool. That’s what her mother had called money. Francis Sheridan had never had much interest in wealth or luxuries. Neither had Jennie’s father, John, for that matter. From all accounts the two had had a happy, simple life up in the mountains until their responsibility to their young daughters had convinced them to move down into town where John began making his living building houses to keep up with the increasing demands of the silver boom. Jennie wondered now if her parents had ever been as happy here in Vermillion as they had in those early days. They’d never quite fit in with the rest of what might be called Vermillion society, which was probably part of the reason it had been so easy for that society to turn against their daughters.

Jennie herself had never cared about social status. She was content to have the four Sheridans together
in the big, comfortable house her father had built for them. It had been all she ever needed or wanted. Life had been perfect until last spring.

Now all at once, she couldn’t seem to decide what it was she wanted. Kate healthy and home again with a healthy baby, of course. But things would never be the way they’d been before. Her parents were gone. The house was no longer a private Sheridan haven. There were strangers living here now—one particular stranger who made her nervous and uneasy, but who at the same time kindled sensations and emotions that she’d never known before.

Once again she felt that peculiar roll of her stomach as she thought about their kiss. She’d never even imagined such a feeling. Was this what had gotten her sister into such a mess? Had Sean Flaherty kissed Kate the way Carter had kissed her tonight? Had he made her sister’s limbs go weak and her blood race the way Jennie’s had when Carter’s mouth had descended on her?

“Why are you still awake, Jennie?” The small voice from the doorway made her jump.

“Barnaby! What are you doing up?”

“I can’t sleep.”

Jennie gestured for him to come in. He hesitated. They had an understood rule that he wasn’t to bother her when she was working at her desk. Finally he seemed to conclude that at this odd hour rules didn’t apply, and he walked over to her. There were circles under his eyes. His hair sprouted every which way like badly stacked red hay.