Ana Seymour (9 page)

“This is it?” Carter confirmed.

She nodded, suddenly nervous. The last time she had seen Kate, she’d looked so…white. Carter seemed to understand. He reached for her gloved hand and gave it a squeeze.

“Your sister’s going to be so glad to see you,” he said.

“Yes. I just hope she’s getting better. I’d expected them to send word or…” Her voice trailed off.

“Well, that’s probably a good sign. If she had gotten worse, I’m sure they would have notified you.”

“Maybe you’re right.” His reassuring tone was helping her jitters.

“Do you want me to go in with you?”

She hesitated a moment She wanted to see Kate privately, but she had the irrational feeling that Carter’s presence would serve as some kind of charm. “If you wouldn’t mind,” she answered.

He dismounted from the carriage, tied the horse to a hitching post, then walked around to help her down. “I’ll go in with you until we find your sister, then I’ll leave you two alone for a little chat How would that be?”

She answered him with a grateful smile and left her hand in place when he tucked it into his arm to walk into the hospital.

Mercy Hospital was an impressive facility for a frontier town. It had been built with silver fortunes, some of which had now disappeared, leaving the donors as poor as when they had first come West twenty
or thirty years ago. But their legacy—the hospital, the opera house, the International Hotel—remained as evidence of their former glory.

After consulting on two different floors, they were sent down a long hall to Room 63…and Kate.

She was sitting in a chair next to a window, her legs covered with a small blanket. Her face was still pale, and over the top of the blanket her stomach protruded in a bulge that seemed to have grown twice the size since Jennie saw her last. Jennie gave a cry and ran across the room to throw her arms around her.

“Jen!” Kate exclaimed. “My darling sis!”

Carter turned his head discreetly as the girls embraced. Tears were running down Jennie’s cheeks. After a moment, when she could finally speak, she drew back and exclaimed, “You’re so…big!”

Kate laughed and put both hands on top of her big belly. “I guess there’s really a baby in there, sis. Did you think it might all be a joke?”

Jennie smiled and teased, “You always were one for pranks, Katie.”

Kate gave another merry laugh. “Some prank I’m pulling this time, eh?” Then she reached out and seized Jennie’s hands. “How are you, Jen? You look tired.”

“Me? I’m fine. How are
you?
That’s the question. What are they telling you? You’re still pale, but you look…I don’t know…radiant.”

“I probably look happy. And I am. It’s the baby, Jennie. I can feel her almost all the time now. She
wants to come out and join the world. My own dear, wonderful baby.”

“She?”

Kate looked down with a little blush and rubbed her stomach again. “It’s just that I have this feeling.”

“Oh, Kate!” Jennie and her sister had always had a special bond, a special ability to feel each other’s sorrows and joys. Now, though Jennie couldn’t imagine how she would feel if
she
were about to have a baby, she could feel something of Kate’s joy.

Over by the doorway, Carter cleared his throat. “I’ll just go on out to the carriage…” he began.

“Oh, Carter, I’m
sorry,
” Jennie said quickly, her expression guilty. “Kate, Mr. Jones hired a carriage to bring me today.”

Kate looked over at their former adversary with a sweet smile. “That was very kind of you, Mr. Jones.”

“Carter, please. It’s good to see you looking so well, Miss Sheridan.”

“I guess you’d better call me Kate, since you’ve done the Sheridan sisters such a good turn today. And since I’m receiving you in my nightgown,” she added with an impish grin.

Carter grinned back. “I’d be honored. And now I’ll just leave you two alone to catch up.”

But as he turned to leave, he almost ran into another visitor.

“Lyle,” Jennie said in surprise, glancing sharply at her sister.

Lyle Wentworth looked at Carter with some displeasure. “What are you doing here, Jones?” he asked.

Carter spoke calmly. “I’m escorting Miss Sheridan here to visit her sister, Wentworth.”

Kate spoke up. “Lyle has been staying at the hotel here and visiting me every day.”

Jennie looked from Lyle to her sister in amazement. “Why?” she asked bluntly.

“I didn’t like the idea of Kate alone here with no one to watch out for her interests,” Lyle answered. “I wanted to be sure they were caring for her properly.”

Kate made no comment. After a moment Jennie said, “Well, that’s very nice of you, Lyle, but don’t you have…
work
to do back home?”

Lyle shrugged. “I told my father I’d be back at the bank when I was good and ready. He wasn’t too happy about it, but what’s he going to do? Fire me?”

Carter had not bothered to hide his dislike for the banker’s spoiled son, but he said with something sounding like approval, “I’m sure it makes a difference to have the staff know that Kate has someone here.”

“And that someone should be me,” Jennie added, not sure how she was feeling about this latest development. Lyle had defied his parents and risked town scandal to be near Kate as she lay ill and very pregnant with another man’s baby. It simply didn’t sound like the arrogant, rich boy she and Kate had known growing up.

Kate reached for Jennie’s hand. “You’re doing enough already, Jennie, running the boardinghouse all by yourself to earn the money to pay for me to be here. I wish I wasn’t such a problem to everyone.”

Jennie forced a smile. The truth was, even with Carter’s extra rent, there was barely enough money to cover the expenses of the big household. She had no idea how they were going to manage a hospital bill in addition, but she certainly wasn’t going to burden Kate with this knowledge.

“I can come back later, Kate, to give you some time alone with your sister,” Lyle said.

Jennie looked at him in amazement. She’d never known that sensitivity could be part of Lyle’s makeup.

“I was about to leave myself,” Carter agreed.

Kate sent both men a grateful glance. “We’d appreciate it. You’re both wonderful to be helping us this way. People like you make me hopeful that I’m bringing this little one into a better world than it seemed when the whole town came down on us weeks ago.”

“We’ll be sure your baby is properly cared for, Kate,” Lyle said.

The note of proprietorship in his voice made Jennie uneasy, but Kate merely smiled at him again and said, “Why don’t you come back in an hour, gentlemen? There will still be time before visiting hours end.”

Lyle and Carter agreed and, with just a touch of awkwardness between them, turned to leave together. When they were gone, Kate gave a clumsy little bounce in her chair and said, “Now, tell me everything that’s been happening. How’s Barnaby? And the silverheels? And, especially, sis—” Kate cocked her head and gave Jennie a sly smile “—what’s going on between you and the dashing Carter Jones?”

* * *

The minutes were not enough. Lyle and Carter returned, then left again, Lyle saying he would return in the morning, and Carter telling Jennie he would wait for her out at the carriage. In the end, one of the older nurses, a portly woman who looked as if she could enforce whatever rule she chose, had to suggest none too gently that visiting hours were at an end for the day.

The sisters hugged goodbye. This time Jennie forced herself to keep the tears at bay. She promised a return visit soon, gave her sister’s belly a last goodluck pat, then turned to make her way out through the maze of dark, narrow halls that smelled of ether and illness.

It had grown dark outside, though it surely wasn’t sundown yet? She’d been too absorbed in her talk with Kate to pay much attention. But the minute she opened the big front door of the hospital and scanned the western sky, she realized that it wasn’t sundown that was causing the darkness. It was the approach of a storm.

Carter was standing by the carriage, also eyeing the clouds with a worried expression. He called to her as she approached. “Thunderclouds are rolling in.”

“I can see that. We’d better hurry.” She reached the far side of the carriage and hiked her skirts to scramble up without waiting for his assistance.

He watched her with a glint of amusement. “Hurry where?” he asked.

She frowned. “Hurry home. We’re apt to get drenched.”

Carter climbed more sedately up on the other side of the carriage and swung into the seat next to her. “Jennie, look at that sky.” The entire western horizon was an ominous black.

“I know. We’re in for it. So why are we sitting here?”

“Have you ever driven a carriage through the mountains in the middle of a gullywasher?” Carter asked with some exasperation.

“No.”

“Well, neither have I. And I don’t intend to start today.”

Jennie felt a chill as the approaching storm gave a sudden spike to the wind. “Are you saying that we can’t get home?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

They sat looking at each other for a long moment. This particular development had never entered her mind. With sudden suspicion, she wondered if it had entered Carter’s. “Did you plan things this way?”

He laughed, breaking the tension. “Now, that would be a useful talent for a public servant. Vote for Carter Jones. He can even control the weather.”

The absurdity of it made Jennie laugh in return, but she quickly grew serious again. “Carter, I can’t stay here. What about the miners? What about Barnaby?”

“I’m sure the boys can fend for themselves for one night. We’ll send a wire.”

Jennie continued staring at the black sky. “What will people say?” she asked finally, her voice small.

Carter picked up the reins and jerked them to start the horse moving. “Knowing the good people of Vermillion,
if they find out about it, they’ll say all manner of things, but that doesn’t mean you have to let it bother you.”

Jennie sighed. “I guess not. They already think Kate’s wicked. They might as well think I’m wicked, too.”

Carter grinned. “Well, if they’re going to call you wicked, you might as well do something to deserve the honor.”

She hoped he was joking. “Something like what?”

Carter waggled his right eyebrow. “How about indulging in a nice hot bath, followed by the International’s very biggest steak and a glass of brandy?”

After the life Jennie’d been leading lately, a whole evening of pampering just for herself
did
sound wicked. Delightfully so. It also sounded expensive.

“I might have to ask if they’ll let me stay somewhere back at the hospital,” she said uncertainly.

Carter ignored her and continued directing the horse down Virginia City’s prosperous main street. “Or you could have wine instead of brandy, if you prefer.”

She put her hand on his arm and blurted out, “Carter, I don’t have the money.”

Carter gave her hand a pat and smiled down at her. “I know. You’ll be my guest tonight” When she started to protest he added, “In your own private room, of course. We’ll see if they have apple pie for dessert.”

It sounded heavenly. “Carter, I can’t accept. That really would make people talk.”

They were nearing a six-story building with the
sign International Hotel over the front awning. “They’ll talk anyway. We’ve already established that So what difference does it make if you’re suffering on a cramped cot in that dark hospital or enjoying yourself here?”

She looked up at the elegant brick facade. It
would
be fun to ride the elevator again. The carriage had stopped and Carter was waiting. She bit her lip. “All right As my mama used to say, in for a penny, in for a pound.”

I
f Carter
had
been able to control the weather, he was not at all sure he would have ordered up the thunderstorm that rolled over Virginia City shortly after he and Jennie arrived at the hotel. It had been pleasant and mildly stimulating to spend the afternoon with her—putting his hands around her firm waist to help her in and out of the carriage, listening to her laugh at his sallies, noticing how more and more wisps of her hair curled around her slender white neck as the day progressed. But an evening…and a night. That was another matter.

Lyle Wentworth was probably lodging at the International. Neither he nor Jennie suggested looking him up, but the thought of his presence there could help keep Carter’s less virtuous impulses under control. Jennie had enough problems in her life. And Carter, himself, was not about to risk his political future for a scandal, in spite of the casual way he’d greeted Jennie’s fears on the topic.

When they returned to Vermillion it would be easy enough to explain the impossibility of returning in the
storm. He’d make a point of letting the influential people in town, starting with Henrietta Billingsley, know that any suggestion of impropriety between him and Jennie Sheridan would be treated as actionable slander.

All that remained was for him to endure until morning without giving in to the feelings that had raged with various intensity throughout the course of the day. And Carter was used to that. From the time as a small child that he’d realized that he was “different,” he’d kept his feelings under constant control. No matter how sad or how angry he got, his demeanor would stay calm.

He’d rely on that control tonight, he decided, as he watched Jennie tackle the International Hotel’s huge steak with delightful enthusiasm. Her brown eyes sparkled like the twinkling sconces that lined the restaurant walls. She’d repaired her hair, which was piled in rich ringlets on top of her head.

“You’re not eating,” she said as he sat watching her. “You’ll make me feel like a glutton.”

“I enjoy seeing a woman with a good appetite.”

“It’s so
good,
” she said, rolling her eyes in ecstasy.

Carter laughed. “We can order you another, if you like.”

Jennie almost choked on the piece of steak she was chewing. “No one could eat two of these.”

“In the early days of the strikes, I’d venture to say they had lucky prospectors who’d order them half a dozen at a time.”

Jennie sat back in her chair and put her hands
across her stomach. “Well, not me. I can’t eat another bite.” She looked wistfully at the piece left on her plate. “Do you think I could take it with me?”

“Why don’t I buy you another one for breakfast instead?”

Jennie giggled. “I’ll be so fat your horse won’t be able to pull me back up the mountain.”

Carter’s eyes moved over her, lingering a moment on where her hands rested, just at her tiny waist “Oh, I think he’ll manage.”

Jennie shook her head. “We’d better not risk it. I’ll be as big as Kate and without her excuse.”

He was relieved to hear her joking about her sister’s condition. It had done her good to visit Kate today and see for herself that her sister’s health was improving. “I suppose it’s not correct for men to notice such things, but it was rather obvious that Kate’s getting…ah…that she…”

“That she’s about to have a baby,” Jennie finished happily, not the least bit self-conscious. “I can hardly wait.”

Carter looked surprised. “I thought you weren’t too pleased with the idea.”

“Certainly I’m pleased. I mean, I was worried about the way everyone was acting in town, and I was scared to death when Kate got so sick. But I’m thrilled about the baby. Kate will be such a good mother.”

All at once Carter didn’t feel like finishing his steak, either. “It takes more than a good mother to raise a child.”

“Well, of course it does. A child should have a
father, too, for one thing. But since this one won’t have that, it will be extra important to make it know that it’s surrounded by people who love it—or love
her,
if Kate’s instincts are right.”

Carter’s mother had loved him. Or at least, he’d always told himself she had. It hadn’t been anywhere near enough. “And who will those people be?”

“Her Aunt Jennie, for one. And brother Barnaby.”

“What about when Aunt Jennie wants to have a life of her own—goes off to get married and raise her own family?”

Jennie dismissed the notion with a wave of her hand. “Oh, that won’t happen. Kate and I will be perfectly happy together at Sheridan House.”

Carter looked skeptical. “Most girls want to get married.”

“Not me.”

He pushed away his plate. “Why not? Because of what happened to Kate? Do you think all men are that unscrupulous?”

“No, I suppose there are a few good ones here and there. My father was a good man. I’m just not interested.”

“What if Kate wants to marry?”

“She won’t. She’s learned her lesson.”

Carter shook his head with a smile of disbelief. “She didn’t seem too unhappy to have Lyle hanging about. And Lyle talks as if he’s going to have something to say about Kate’s future and the child’s, too.”

“Well, he’s wrong.” He could tell the direction of the conversation was beginning to irritate her, which was not what he wanted. It had been too much fun to
see her relaxed and enjoying herself. He wouldn’t spoil it by starting up an argument. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said, ending the topic. “Now, how about that brandy I promised you?”

Jennie’s expression lightened. “You’ve lured me into wickedness enough for one evening,” she said with a laugh.

Her innocence made Carter feel protective. He suspected that she had no idea the degree of wickedness he’d be able to lure her into if he didn’t have a conscience and a political future to temper his more immediate desires. “Just a glass. One glass each to warm us before we go up to our rooms.”

“I’ve never drunk brandy in my life,” Jennie admitted.

“Oh, come now. Not even at Christmas?”

Jennie shook her head. “Papa drank it sometimes, but my mother never did. She said it was too dear.”

“Well, you’re not paying for it tonight, so you might as well take advantage of the opportunity. Think what a story it will make for the miners. You can tell them that you drank me under the table.”

Jennie flushed. “I wouldn’t dare tell anyone. It’s bad enough that we’re here alone together.”

Carter looked around at the room full of diners. The storm had filled the hotel. “It doesn’t feel very alone to me. Come on, give it a try. What happened to the spirited young lady who threw me out of her house the first time I met her? I thought it was in for a penny, in for a pound.”

Jennie grinned. “You’re right. I love the smell of it, and I always did wonder what it tasted like.”

Carter signaled to the waiter. “It tastes a mite stronger than it smells. You could be surprised.”

But Jennie appeared undaunted by the warning. She gave a happy sigh and said, “I love surprises.”

In the end they’d had
two
glasses each. After choking on the first taste, the fiery liquid had gone down more and more smoothly with each sip, creating a pleasant glow right in her center. Jennie found it lovely. She was more relaxed than she’d been for months. Carter had behaved like a gentleman all evening. He’d made light of paying what seemed to Jennie an outrageous sum for their two rooms. He’d accompanied her without teasing when she wanted to ride the elevator an extra time between the lobby and their rooms on the fourth floor.

Except for those few moments when he seemed to be suggesting that she and Kate were destined to have a man in their lives, it had been a thoroughly pleasant evening.

But suddenly, as they walked down the carpeted hallway toward their adjoining rooms, she was finding his presence oddly disturbing. She was having memory flashes of that night in her office when he’d kissed her. He’d promised her that there would be no repetition of the incident, and she’d tried to put it out of her mind. But now that she was alone with him in the dark hallway, the brandy making a pleasantly warm muddle of her brain, she found the memory wouldn’t let her go. Could it be she was wanting him to kiss her again?

Honesty had always been one of her virtues. If she
was walking down the hall hoping that at the end of it Carter Jones would kiss her, she wanted to be able to admit it, at least to herself. She licked her lips, tasting brandy on them, and noting that they felt extrasensitive.

“Perhaps it’s just the brandy,” she said aloud.

Carter looked down at her in surprise. “Perhaps what is just the brandy?”

She made a little twist with her mouth. “Nothing. I’m just tasting it.”

“Oh.”

In a minute they would be at their rooms. He would open her door and say good-night like the gentleman he promised to be. Suddenly she blurted out, “I was wondering if it was the brandy that was making me remember the night you kissed me.”

She could feel him stiffen beside her. It had been a terribly forward thing to say, but it was something of a relief to have let it out. Now he’d probably laugh and tell her that she was perhaps a little tipsy, and then they could part and get some sleep.

Instead he said in a voice that had grown slightly hoarse, “I haven’t needed brandy to remember it, Jennie.”

They’d reached her room and stopped. The odd flashes of memory that had been seizing her since leaving the dining room blended with the present moment. His gray eyes looking down at her held the same slightly hooded look. His nostrils had a predatory flare.

Instead of frightening her, his expression seemed to release some kind of liquid feeling straight through
her middle. Her hand gripped his wool sleeve. Her first attempt to speak came out as a dry crack. She started over. “I guess I wouldn’t mind if you did it again. Just one kiss.”

Her beautiful eyes were trusting and slightly unfocused from fatigue and brandy. Carter gave a silent groan and looked up and down the hallway. It was empty at the moment, but there was no guarantee it would stay that way with the hotel so full. He plucked her key out of her hand, opened her door and drew her inside, shutting it behind them.

This would not help his campaign to get safely through the night and back to Vermillion with Jennie’s virtue and his career intact. But his body was past listening to the voice of reason. “One kiss, then,” he murmured, and turned her so that she was against the door.

Her mouth opened to his immediately. It was brandy flavored and hot. It seemed as if his entire body grew hard against the softness of her as he pressed her gently into the door. She turned her head, allowing his tongue to explore her mouth, her lips and then the soft underside of her jaw and her long, exquisite neck.

“Ah, Carter,” she breathed, and her voice had the throaty sound of a woman in the midst of sensual pleasure. It triggered an inner smile of male pride. She might be innocent, but she was quick to respond to his passion. He turned his attention once again to her mouth. One kiss, he’d said. He’d intended. It was already considerably more than that

With a feeling somewhat akin to drowning, he
reached around her and lifted her in his arms. She made no protest as he carried her across the room to the big walnut bed. Beyond the lace curtains, rain still lashed the window, transmitting some of the storm’s violence to the turmoil that was raging inside him.

He leaned over to place her in the center of the bed, then followed her down into the downy feather bed. It was silky and cold, whereas every inch of her was warm. He gathered her up against him, the lengths of their bodies melting together.

Her mouth sought his, still brandied, less tentative this time as her tongue began to explore just as his had done. Its soft trail over his lips was exquisite agony. For a moment he let himself revel in the sensation. At one time in his life there had been many such encounters, but he’d gotten bored with the chase. It had been a long time. It was as if he’d been saving up, waiting for this exquisitely right woman, waiting to discover an experience that went beyond mere mating.

The room was in almost total darkness. He couldn’t see her face. But even without seeing it, he could sense when she began to withdraw, though his thundering body took several seconds to let his mind convey the message. He pulled his head back. There was no doubt about it. She’d grown stiff and uncomfortable beneath him, the intimate entwining of their bodies suddenly embarrassing for them both. He rolled off her.

Keeping his voice deliberately light, he tried to defuse the tension with humor. “Well, now. That ought to teach you about drinking brandy in strange hotels.”

To his relief, when she finally answered him, her voice, though trembly, was not accusing. “I did ask, I guess.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and reached a hand to pull her to a seat beside him. “Yes, you did, Miss Sheridan. A thoroughly wicked request by the standards of Vermillion womanhood.”

Jennie gave a shaky laugh. “Which will never be my standards, as you know.”

“Should I apologize?”

“No. Except maybe for the brandy. Did you do that deliberately?”

Carter shook his head and teased, “How was I to know that a little bit of brandy would turn you into a hussy.”

Jennie sat up straighter on the bed and rearranged her disheveled skirt. “Oh, dear. I was, wasn’t I? Don’t tell Kate.”

“I won’t tell anyone. But I do intend to get out of here before I decide that your lesson isn’t quite over with.”

“It was kind of nice.” She sounded wistful and unintentionally provocative.

Lord. Carter stood and rearranged his trousers. Sleep would be a while in coming tonight, he predicted. “Will you be all right here now?” he asked.

“Yes. Thank you for everything—for dinner and…all.”

He grinned. “It was my pleasure, ma’am. Anytime you decide to be wicked again, you let me know.”

He touched her cheek with his hand, then stood and walked across the room. As he started out the door,
he turned back. In the darkness, he could just barely make out her form, sitting on the bed. He thought of several things to say, but finally said simply, “Lock the door after me, sweetheart.” Then he slipped into the hall.