Chances (14 page)

“So maybe I would have. But that still doesn’t—”

“Quiet.” He’d be damned if he'd let her temper redirect what he’d come to do. It’d taken him far too long to work up the nerve and self-control to do it. He closed his eyes, willing himself to remain calm, then opened them to find her staring at him. He smiled and touched her hands briefly. “I apologize for the action and for the consequences of it. I never did ask questions and I should have. I’m not so pig-headed that I won’t admit I was wrong. I think I made a mistake and you suffered for it. I’m sorry.”

She swallowed, her violet eyes large above her pouting mouth. My God, but she was pretty.

“And,” he continued, “I’m sorry about being so careless at the party. Jim Wilson said you’d stepped down from the movement. What did that Morgan woman do anyway?”

Sarah waved her hand in a gesture of insignificance. “She hissed some threats in my ear and raised a stink about how it would pull down the movement if I stayed.” Her airy dismissal didn’t quite hide the slight catch in her voice.

Something wasn’t right. Sarah had too much spunk to have been quieted by a few threats. Hell, she liked raising a stink. Daniel caught her hand and she peered at him in surprise. “Sounds to me like a challenge that should have had you fighting back. You don’t give up so easily, Sarah. What really happened?”

“She has the power to embarrass a lot of people.”

Sarah turned away, leaving her quiet words on Daniel’s mind. Realization hit him slowly, like a lazy summer wind. Lavinia had done a great deal more than threaten just Sarah.

“Me? Sarah, you didn’t step down because—”

“I stepped down because she would have ruined the movement.” Though her voice was even, she avoided his glance.

“Sarah?” He rubbed his thumb against her hand.

“I just didn’t want the movement to suffer.”

“Then why the blazes won’t you look me in the eye unless you’re arguing with me? What else happened?”

“Nothing.”

“What happened?”

Sarah paused, then turned her hand in his, clasping it, and caught his gaze. “She hinted that she’d raise doubts about your fitness as a father and make your life miserable with rumors and insinuations.”

Daniel shook his head. “No one would believe her.”

“They wouldn’t have to believe her. All they’d have to do is repeat what they heard until it reaches far enough around town. Or Lavinia could hand pick some self-righteous biddy who doesn’t know you to take it on as her personal mission. She didn’t stop with threats to you, Daniel. She included the girls, and I have no doubt she’d stir at it until Kate or Molly came home from school in tears.”

Anger surged through him. “She’d do that?” he questioned, “on purpose?” His fist clenched. “Somebody ought to throttle her.”

“Elizabeth told me that Lavinia’s father disinherited her years ago and she’s all alone. Her whole life centers around being president of the Suffrage Association. The attention I’ve received recently hasn’t set well with her. My guess is she’s threatened and jealous. However it came to be, her threats were enough to scare me.”

The words were sobering. He’d never realized the stakes had been so high. “So you stepped down? Because of Kate and Molly?” Their not-so-little kiss had cost her much.

She nodded again, this time more slowly. “It’s the weakest thing I’ve ever done.”

“That’s what’s got your goat, isn’t it? You think you did something weak? Good God, Sarah.”

Puzzlement crept across her features. “What?”

“It wasn’t weak. It took guts, a lot of guts. Don’t you know that?” He stroked her hand, small in his, but not weak, never weak.

She shrugged. Her face clouded, then she shook the heavyheartedness off. Daniel waited for her tirade, anticipating the blame in her words. Instead, she sat, saying nothing, until he realized it wasn’t vengeful anger she’d been expressing earlier. It wasn’t Kate or Molly she blamed, or even him, but herself.

He released her hand and let the silence surround them for a while, as he guided the horses farther from the city. Bleak brown grass covered the plains and rolling hills. He let the horses drift out across it, seeking the last vestiges of withered green. Beside him, Sarah’s teeth chattered, reminding him of the chill. He reined in the horses, turned them, and headed back toward town. They reached the City Ditch, brown and sluggish, and he paused. A stale odor hung in the air above the ditch. Quite a place. Only a woman like Sarah would take her walks at a place like this.

Glancing at her from the corner of her eye, he tried to gauge her emotions, then gave up. “You all right?”

“Of course I’m all right.”

What in the world was he supposed to say to her? He doubted she’d be reassured with trite gestures of comfort any more than he’d be comfortable offering them. But he couldn’t very well just leave the matter go without saying anything. She’d want him just to say what he meant, straight up, whether it was the proper thing to say to a lady or not. He exhaled and tried to find the right words, then gave up and blurted out, “If it makes you feel any better, I didn’t exactly plan to kiss you, and I’m not much happier about it than you are. The indiscretion just didn’t mess up my life the way it did yours.”

She looked surprised, appreciative, and concerned, all rolled into one. “Daniel, I’m sorry. I know it wasn’t planned. On either of our parts.”

“But it happened, nonetheless.”

She nodded and offered a tiny smile. “That it did.”

“It was totally irrational,” he added.

Her smile widened. “Totally and completely inappropriate.”

“And I should be begging your forgiveness for it and all the heartache it caused.” He took her hand again, hoping she wouldn’t pull it away.

“But you’re not?”

“No, I’m not.” The admission surprised him. He plunged on, letting the moment drive his words. “It’s the first time I’ve behaved with such abandon since the time I bit the end off a candy stick the shopkeeper gave me at the mercantile when I was five years old.”

“That’s a long time ago.”

He shrugged, wishing he’d never mentioned the incident. “My father was a minister. There were rules.”

“And if you broke them?” She rubbed his hand with her thumb.

Daniel closed his eyes, remembering the punishments he’d endured until he’d finally learned to obey. “I didn’t,” he evaded.

“You ate the candy stick.”

He glanced at her, wanting to trust. “One bite, then my father made me give it back, then thrashed me and sat me in the corner with the Bible, which I couldn’t even read yet. I never did find out why it was wrong to accept what was given to me.” He paused, then surged ahead, before he lost his nerve. “If it was wrong to take that kiss, then I’ll apologize, but if it wasn’t, I’m not going to do it this time.”

She squeezed his hand in understanding. “It wasn’t wrong, Daniel. It was reckless. We were both reckless.”

Daniel grinned, letting the mood carry him further from his self-restraint. “Reckless? Me? I don’t think I’ve ever been reckless before.”

She laughed, a portrait of freedom, so different from him. Or was she? He sensed her carefree attitude covered something deeper, a part of herself she preferred to keep hidden behind a mask of outspokenness. “Is that why you were so mad, because you were reckless?”

For a moment, he thought she might not answer. But she nodded, offering admission, a tiny bit of herself. “Being reckless put me in a vulnerable position. You don’t get places in this world when you do that. I know better.”

Oddly, the words made sense. Except that his father had preached denial as the preferred method. Control yourself and your behavior, and you shall win God’s favor. Practice civility and you shall win respect. Thinking about it, he wasn’t all that sure so much self-restraint was worth it.

He smiled at Sarah and decided to blatantly ignore his father’s directives against being too direct. “So, we’ve established that it was reckless and that we both knew better and that no one’s to blame. Do you think we can get past it and figure out what is going on between us?”

“I don’t know if I want to figure it out. It’s getting in the way.”

“Do you propose we try to ignore it?”

“I think we need not to make more of it than it is. We’re from two very different worlds and I really don’t—”

“You’re right, we are, and maybe that’s part of the attraction.” Daniel pushed on, refusing to let the subject lie. If they didn’t discuss it now, it might never get discussed. And damn it, it
demanded
discussion.

“And maybe the appeal is in the forbidden aspect of it. Did you ever stop to think maybe you kissed me like that because it
was
improper and reckless? Or because I’m enough of an independent spirit that you knew I wouldn’t slap you?”

He pondered the thought. She might be right, but there had to be more to it. “So why did you kiss me back?”

She grinned, mischievous, and shrugged her shoulders. “The challenge of leading you astray?”

“It was a hell of a kiss.”

She sighed. “That it was.”

They sat, cold air nipping at their faces. That it was a hell of a kiss was a bit of an understatement, and Daniel sensed she knew it as well as he did. Her eyes had hungered for him, inviting his lips on hers. Her mouth had been soft and sensual, demanding and responsive, hot and liquid and amazing.

He shifted on the seat and wondered what to do next. God, he wanted to kiss her again, to see if the desire was as molten now as it had been before, if the hardening in his loins was as real as he thought it was. But this moment, too, of pure understanding, was theirs and he didn’t want to lose it.

He shifted again and peered out at Sarah’s favorite walking place. “You ever get tired of looking at this wretched ditch?”

“All the time. But it’s quiet out here. Empty enough to sort out my thoughts.”

“There’s talk that folks want to clean it up, before it gets any worse. Imagine how it reeks in the summer heat.”

“It
does
reek. When I first got to town, it was horrid. I tried one walk out here then quit until fall.”

She must have fussed like crazy about it, probably cursed up one side and down the other. He smiled at the image. “They’ll never get folks to stop dumping in it.”

“Never say never. Look at abolition. Look at what ladies are gaining with suffrage. Look what the temperance movements are doing. Look what we did with the dog bounty. Take a group of dedicated people, a worthwhile cause, toss in some leadership and enthusiasm, and you can accomplish anything.”

Daniel eyed her animated face. She could fire up the whole cause all right. She should be in the midst of it. He’d just tell her about the efforts already afoot and let her plunge in while he went back to his simple, uncluttered life. After all, this sort of agitation was right up her alley and not at all up his, the sort of thing he hated.

“The
News
said there’s a town meeting to discuss city water system scheduled for Monday evening,” he announced. He glanced at her and discovered an ocean of longing in her eyes that melted his resolution to remain uninvolved. “Would you care to join me?”

Chapter Nine

Sarah sighed, closed the logbook and set it aside, glad the wire was quiet for a while. She’d spent the week rehashing Daniel’s invitation. He was the most intriguing man she’d ever met. His businesslike appearance couldn’t hide his well-toned body. Beneath those crisp white shirts lay rippling muscles shaped by years of woodworking, evident each time he stretched. And he hid a complicated personality behind his professionalism.

That she couldn’t get him out of her mind unnerved her. She should be deep in plans to clean up the city ditch. But here she was, unable to think about anything but Daniel himself.

She glanced around the telegraph office, glad she didn’t have to stay much later. Late afternoon shadows were already darkening the windows. Rising, she crossed the room and lifted the lantern from its hook near the door. Ernie, the new night telegrapher, would need it before too long. With the early evening telegrams and the last two trains of the day, it would be handier for him to have it nearby. She set it next to the sending key and gathered her winter shawl and gloves.

“Y’all set, Miss Sarah?” Ernie’s tinny voice squawked from across the lobby. A gust of cold air swept through the empty depot as he closed the outer door behind him.

“Just getting my things,” Sarah called.

Ernie entered the office and grinned at her with a toothless smile. His tall, lanky frame filled the doorway, his unruly black hair full of cowlicks. “Sure is mighty nice havin’ y’all back on day shift. Didn’t know how much I missed you till you was gone.”

“I’m glad to be back, too. Frank doesn’t like it much, though.” In fact, Frank Bates had protested quite a bit when Jim informed the staff of their new assignments.

“Frank don’t like much of anything. He ought not to harp about it, seeing how he’s always pitchin’ a fit about havin’ too much to do. Jim shoulda put you both on days from the start.” Ernie settled onto the stool and reached for the logbook.

“Well, I’m glad he finally did. I didn’t much care for nights.” Sarah smiled at the bony telegrapher, glad he’d agreed to rearrange the shifts. Ernie worked the lonely night shift while she and Frank split the hours between four a.m. and six p.m., overlapping shifts at mid-day. Jim had announced the new schedule at the end of last week, citing heavy daytime telegraph activity, but she’d known Daniel’s actions had made it easier.

“You sure you don’t mind coming in early?”

“Just an hour. Don’t make me no never mind. Got nothin’ to do and nowhere to do it. I heard how that other committee you was on picked a plan to register folks’ dogs and all. Figured you’d be lookin’ for somethin’ else to do. Go on and git goin’ to that meeting of yours.” He grinned again and wedged his long legs under the counter.

“Thanks, Ernie. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He waved his fingers at her, opened the logbook, and began his review of the day’s activity.

Sarah pulled on her wraps and headed out, her mind again drifting to Daniel’s invitation. The cold air stung and she increased her pace, reviewing what she’d read about the issue in the
News
. A local doctor had written in about the risk of typhoid, complaining about all the folks dumping waste in Cherry Creek and the City Ditch. The new sewage pipes that had been laid just last year were already too small to handle the demand, and property owners were bickering about the possibility of more assessments. It had all the makings of a wonderful controversy.