Beverly Jenkins (36 page)

It rained for the next two days, big bucketfuls that filled the streets with rivers of mud. On the third day following Virginia’s burial it stopped. The sun came up bright and strong as if it wanted to remind everyone that it was still June.

Cara awakened that morning in the big bed next to her husband. It took her a moment to orient herself, then she remembered that she and Chase were at Sophie’s and not in their bedroom back home. She saw the sun and was glad the rain had finally stopped, but she was homesick. She turned her head on the pillow and looked into her husband’s open but sleepy eyes.

“Mornin’, schoolmarm.”

“Mornin’, Sergeant.”

“I see the sun’s back from furlough,” he said, yawning.

Cara turned over and propped herself on her elbow. “Chase, I want to go home.”

He reached out and pulled her braid around in front of her shoulder. “Okay.”

She was surprised by his instant agreement. “You’re not going to lecture me about Miles and worry and keeping me safe?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“I miss my peach cobbler.”

Cara shook her head, smiling, then said very softly, “Well, you take me home, and I promise I’ll give you peach cobbler till you can’t move.”

“Start packing.”

But they couldn’t leave because of the mud-clogged roads. Cara was very disappointed when Chase came back to the room with the news.

“Don’t pout,” he said, smiling.

“I’m not pouting. I just want to sleep in our own bed.”

“Cara Lee Jefferson, the last thing on your mind is sleeping.”

Cara looked down to hide her embarrassment.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, darlin’, I want you just as much.”

Cara grinned.

“I’d make love to you now, but I want it to be at home where I can take my time and show you how much I miss you.”

Cara’s nipples had hardened from his tone and the look in his eyes. Desire wove through her body like smoke.

They went downstairs and shared a late breakfast in Sophie’s dining room. His eyes were so hot and his talk so lusty with promises for tomorrow, Cara’s heart was beating fast and her senses were heightened by the time the meal had been consumed. He escorted her from the room with a polite hand at her back. The slight weight of his palm against her dress was as warm as a flatiron.

Cara expressed a desire to go to the partly reopened mercantile to check on an order of books. Chase agreed, but Cara changed her mind after
looking at the mud-filled streets once they stepped outside.

“I think I’ll wait until tomorrow. I’ll sink to my knees in that slop.”

The words had barely left her lips before she felt herself scooped up into her husband’s broad arms. “Chase!” She giggled. “Put me down.”

But they were already moving and being watched by smiling people on both sides of the street. He set her down on the walk and people began to clap. Cara watched her husband bow in response to the applause before she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into the mercantile.

Later, they stopped by the sheriff’s office and learned the banks were offering a two-hundred-dollar reward for Miles’s capture and conviction.

“We need to find him quick,” the sheriff said. “I don’t want my county swarming with a bunch of bounty hunters and drifters sniffing around trying to earn some easy money. Someone is liable to get hurt.”

Chase nodded vigorously in agreement.

“Chase, I contacted your commander. We both agreed you’re needed here, so you’ve been assigned for another thirty days.”

“Very good, Sheriff.”

“Well, I know Miss Cara is happy with the news, but it was strictly a selfish request. I do need your help. Sutton and his lady friend are bound to surface sooner or later.”

“We’ve been saying that for weeks,” Chase pointed out.

A thought occurred to Cara as she listened to the sheriff say the word “surface.” “Chase, have you searched any of the old dugouts? The countryside is filled with them.”

“We did search a few of the ones that we knew
weren’t totally collapsed, but as you just said, there are probably a hundred or more in the area.”

Chase could feel the rightness of his wife’s theory in his gut. If Sutton had been hiding underground, that would explain how he was able to appear and disappear so easily. “Are there any old maps of the colony’s first year? That might give us an idea of how many original plots there were.”

“Rachel and the other Spinsters keep things like that,” Cara said. “I’m sure if there was such a map the ladies would have it. If not, you might want to bring in the children.”

Both men turned to her and stared. Cara explained. “Think about it. If there are dugouts around here that you can hide in, who would know better than the children?”

Chase exchanged a look with the sheriff. “At this point,” the sheriff said, “I’ll try anything.”

Instead of spending the rest of the day thinking about how the weather had cheated her out of her peach cobbler, Cara spent the time going through the paper-filled trunks and crates stored in the basement of the house of the Three Spinsters.

Over dinner that evening at the Spinsters’ house, Cara showed Chase and the sheriff what she and Lucretia had found in the basement. The crude map had gotten wet sometime during the five years of storage in a trunk and could hardly be deciphered. Chase spread it out on the table. The sight of the plots inked into the vellum brought back memories for the older people in the room. Sheriff Polk pointed out the plot he and his sister Rose had shared the first year in town. She’d died as a result of a widespread crop
failure the second year. Lucretia and Daisy pointed out plots of people who’d given up and moved on in hopes of finding their dreams elsewhere. All in all, they were able to reconstruct a map of forty of the sixty-five sites of the original colonists. That still left twenty-five places unaccounted for. They spent the rest of the evening seeking out individuals in town who might be of help. It was midnight before Cara and Chase finally made it back to their room at Sophie’s. Cara was so tired of talking to people, and listening to tales, and searching through boxes for old diaries and letters, she fell onto the bed in a heap. Chase came and plopped down beside her. He gave her a gentle swat on her behind. “Get up,
mariposa.
Fall out on your own side of the bed.”

She groaned wearily, then pushed herself up. She got undressed and climbed into bed. “I can’t wait to get home.”

If Chase had a comment, she didn’t hear him because she went right to sleep.

The roads and streets were still a mess the next day, but by early afternoon the children Cara thought would know the most about the dugouts had been brought into town by their parents. The children, sitting in the chairs in the sheriff’s office, were a bit apprehensive. When Cara explained why they were there, they relaxed noticeably.

The three boys and two girls were very helpful. After Chase rolled out the map and oriented the children to some commonly known landmarks he’d added, they amazed even their parents with their knowledge of the prairie. Chase was immediately able to eliminate five spots as
possible hiding places because the children all agreed they were impossible to enter. Then they pointed out the locations of four other feasible dugouts that weren’t even on the map. Chase, impressed and amazed, penciled in the information. All in all it took less than an hour for Cara’s students to prove that they did indeed know every hiding place in the county.

When the children and their parents departed for a reward of ice cream and cake Cara had asked Sophie to supply, Chase, Cara, and the sheriff studied the map some more. There were still over fifteen of the original colony sites unaccounted for, and no one knew how many other unrecorded dugouts there were, but the map had much more detail, thanks to the children.

The sheriff kept the map. He planned on resuming the search as soon as he could round up his volunteer posse. Chase would be joining them, but not until tomorrow. Today he and Cara were going home. They said their goodbyes to the sheriff, and less than an hour later to their friends at Sophie’s.

The ride home was a slow one. The roads were still axle-deep with water and mud in some spots, and twice Cara and Chase had to get out and push. It was nearing twilight when they finally stepped onto their porch.

Chase, ever cautious, entered the house first, Colt drawn. When he came back a few moments later, he held the door open for her to enter.

“A bath!” Cara pleaded loudly. “Then dinner.” Both she and Chase were covered with mud from the adventurous ride home.

“First time I rescued you, you were covered with mud just like that,” Chase pointed out, bringing
in buckets of water from the pump. He poured them into the big caldrons atop the stove.

Cara looked down at herself. “You’re right, but if I remember correctly you stayed spotless the whole time.”

“I’m in the cavalry. Uniform’s supposed to be clean.”

“I thought you were so handsome.”

“You didn’t act like it. Spent the whole time yapping at me like a jay bird.” Chase chuckled.

“But you liked it.”

“That I did. Didn’t know whether to put you over my knee or kiss that sassy mouth.”

Cara’s secretive smile and flirting eyes made him smile in reply, and he said, “Now, be nice and stop looking at me that way.”

“What way?” she asked.

“Like you can’t wait.”

Cara, made brazen by their always uninhibited play, and the fact that she hadn’t made love to her husband in six days, began to undo the buttons on her dress.

Chase grinned with hot eyes and asked suspiciously, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m all wet.”

His gaze leaped with fire at the double meaning. “Naughty, naughty woman.”

They eventually made it to the tub upstairs; eventually, but not before Cara learned the erotic magic of making love astraddle her husband in one of the kitchen chairs; and only moments later, she learned also the wanton peaks a woman can attain when her husband comes up behind her, and teaches her how to make love on the way up the stairs.

That evening proved to be the most sensual time Cara had ever spent with Chase. They made love
in the tub, and then out of the tub. They never did get dinner.

They combined breakfast with their usual morning carriage ride. On the way, the sun rose in all its glory, burning away the haze and warming the air. Cara shook off her shawl and let the sun’s rays warm her.

“Will you take morning rides with me when we’re old and gray?” Cara asked, linking her arm into his as he handled the reins.

“If you promise to give me peach cobbler when I’m old and gray, I’ll ride you anytime you like.”

She playfully slapped him across the shoulder. “You know, after we have children you won’t be able to make love to me on the kitchen table anymore.”

He turned to her, slowly searching her face, and asked seriously, “Are we going to have children?”

“I would like to.”

He gave his attention back to the road and the reins. “So would I, but I didn’t know how you felt.”

“Delbert says he sees no reason why we can’t have babies. I’m kind of looking forward to having a brood of little cavalry soldiers.”

“Throw in a few little schoolmarms and you have a deal.”

Cara leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She felt certain she was the happiest woman on earth.

Back at the house, Cara went inside while he took the buggy around to the shed. She went upstairs to retrieve the letter she’d written to William. She’d forgotten to post it yesterday. Chase could take it to town for her.

Downstairs she stood inside the screened door
and watched him making the final adjustments to Carolina’s saddle. When he was done, he stepped onto the porch and came inside.

“Will you take this and drop it at the mercantile?” she asked, handing him the letter to William.

She waited while he looked at the address.

“I still don’t like my wife writing another man.”

“After last night, how can you think I could so much as look at another man? But the jealousy’s kind of flattering.”

“Don’t gloat,” he told her, grinning. “Kiss me so I can go.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cara went up on her toes, and as his arms closed around her waist, William’s letter fluttered from Chase’s hand. Cara saw the letter glide to the floor and reminded herself to pick it up before he left, but at the moment she was more concerned with enjoying her husband’s kiss.

Finally, reluctantly, they parted, and Chase, still holding her around the waist, walked her outside with him. She waited as he mounted Carolina.

“Be back tonight. Keep yourself safe.”

“I will. You look out for snakes named Sutton. Oh, and there’ll be peach cobbler tonight.”

His eyes lit up.

“Real cobbler, Chase, from peaches.”

“I love that, too. In fact, I’ll take a big helping of both when I get home.”

Cara smiled. “You are such a greedy man.”

“Always, darlin’, but only for you.”

He leaned down and gave her a quick kiss, then rode off.

Cara stepped up on the porch and watched him until he disappeared from sight.

When she walked back inside she spotted William’s letter. She shrugged and placed it on the table
by the settee. Tomorrow would be soon enough.

Cleaning up from breakfast, she heard footsteps on the porch. She tossed her dishrag aside and picked up the letter. Chase had come back.

Cara was wrong. The man who stepped through the doorway was Miles Sutton.

Her gaze leaped to her rifle, propped beside the door. He reached over and picked it up. “Good morning, Cara. I saw soldier boy ride away. Thought I’d see if you could spare a wanted man a cup of coffee.”

Cara fought down her fear and faced him.

“No coffee, huh?” He opened the chamber of her Winchester, saw that it was loaded, and snapped it closed. “Well, I guess you and I are going to have to go someplace else and get some.”

He pointed the rifle at her and said quietly, “Move.”

Cara stood her ground.

“Now, Cara, don’t make me have to leave you here dead. Think how soldier boy will feel when he comes home and finds you on the floor all covered with blood. Not a nice sight. So come on, move.”