Crossings (5 page)

At last he walked full circle and stood before her empty-handed. His gaze lifted to a spot behind her, and she turned to see what item he wanted. There was no shelf in that particular section—just a yellowed map her father had drawn of Genoa and nailed to the wall. He'd gotten tired of giving directions to new-comers and found by laying out the town on paper, he could save himself explanation. The map showed the nine streets and the town's boundaries, as well as a large parcel of one hundred and sixty acres on the eastern side he'd bought for her and Emilie under the preemption act. Carrigan focused long and hard on the map, the intensity of his eyes making her wonder what he was thinking.

Helena swallowed tightly as his gaze fell to hers. Without inflection he said, “I'll take a newspaper, and I'll take you for my wife.”

*  *  *

The words were out before he could take them back. Carrigan's decision had been made as soon as
he'd seen that renegade with an itch in his belly forcing himself on Helena. The scene had summoned a dark spirit whose unheard cries tore into his heart. It hadn't been Helena he'd seen being violated, but an apparition of Jenny. Jesus, how her body and sanity must have suffered. Her death had been a release from her pain, but it had broken him. Though years had dulled the fire of retaliation, today he found out his hatred still burned bright.

He'd wanted to commit murder. To tread over a tombstone and know that the deed had been done. That vengeance was his, and the crime solved. But three years had gone by and the past was trackless, lost somewhere on the frontier. He'd had to ride away from the ghosts, but seeing Helena as a victim made him remember.

His intention had been to walk out of the store with his newspaper and the solitude in which to read it. But he hadn't been able to leave Helena. Ever since she'd come to see him, she'd been in his thoughts. He'd found no peace from her, not even in a sleep induced by long hours of hard labor and the influence of ample whiskey.

When her voice had just been a human sound, he'd been deaf.

When her body had just been a shadow, he'd been blind.

When her scent had just been a suggestion, he'd been unaware.

But that night by his campfire, she'd gotten close enough for him to drink in her essence. Suddenly she became a flesh-and-blood woman with a striking face, passionate voice, and flowery fragrance. He couldn't stare through her anymore. His brain puzzled to cipher some scheme for getting out of staying in Genoa. He was torn between the isolation of his world and the populace of hers, conflict raging in his head as reasons attacked one another. The end result had been decided from a mental flash, except not without
gain on his part. He'd trade with her, but the price was going to be a lot more than his name was worth.

“I find no humor in your remark,” Helena replied tartly, biting through his thoughts.

“You weren't supposed to.” Carrigan felt for the rolled cigarette he'd stashed in the slitted front pocket of his coat. His lips clamped around the twisted end. “I'm serious.” He struck a match on the counter and touched the flame to his cigarette.

Her voice rose in surprise. “You can't be.”

Waving out the match, he said, “I am.” As he drew on the cigarette, smoke curled in his lungs and calmed his churning gut. He stared at her bewildered expression through the haze he exhaled.

“What changed your mind?”

“You have something I want.”

Suddenly her face went grim. “What?”

He inclined his head toward the paper on the wall. “Land. The parcel your father told me about. I'd forgotten until I saw that map.” His recollection of the day August had colorfully described the lot resurfaced. Out of curiosity he'd ridden across the length of it that afternoon. A belt of the forest covered most of the acreage, with a tributary of water and not too many granite sheets. “I'll marry you in exchange for your land.”

“You already have land.”

“Not legally.” Technically he was a squatter. He'd chosen a secluded spot to make his home a year before settlers began encroaching on his mountain and cutting off his breathing room. By first-come rights, he should have owned the town. But the law didn't see things that way. Sooner or later, he'd be squeezed out by the jaws of bureaucracy, and there wasn't a damn thing he could do about it. “I built my cabin before the town was established. If the boundaries expand to include my land, I won't have jack. I
need property with a title. Something no one can take away from me.”

The anxious look on her face read like she was thinking of a way out, as if she were having second thoughts about him. “That land doesn't only belong to me. It belongs to my sister, too. My father secured the parcel for our dowries.”

“Then you'd be putting it to the right use.”

“But our marriage wouldn't be real.”

“The certificate'll say it is.” A shaving of tobacco sat on his tongue, and he removed it with his thumb and forefinger. The display brought her attention to his mouth.

Awkwardly she cleared her throat. “I would have some terms of my own.”

He stared at her in waiting silence.

“You'd have to live with me. Here, in this house. To make it look like we truly were husband and wife.” Her sentences were choppy, and she kept rearranging the ink pen and well in front of her. He let her ramble on, taking drags of his cigarette while she talked. “For six months. You'd have to live with me for six months,” she repeated as if he were stupid. “After that, you could stay in your cabin, or on your new land. I don't think anyone would question the reason for our separation if you're up there working with horses for the Express. But if I need you to act in my stead as my husband, you'll have to come back sometimes.”

“Would I share your bedroom?”

“No,” she rebounded quickly. “Bedroom privileges aren't part of the agreement.”

“Before, you said that if I wanted to take you to my bed, you'd be willing to negotiate.”

Her blue eyes grew darker than the calico he'd compared them to earlier. “It's become a nonnegotiable issue now.”

“Six months of playacting as your husband, living
with you, but having no sex. Are those the terms you're offering in exchange for your land?”

Hesitation skittered across her face. Hell, he had his own hesitation. He'd be moving out of his mist of silence and desolation. His self-imposed banishment would be suspended for six months. One hundred and eighty days. Christ all Jesus, it might as well be one hundred and eighty years. Six months was an eternity to be straddled with humanity and its habits. Things had changed since he'd left Libertyville. The smallest coin in use back then was a silver five-cent piece. On his several visits to Genoa, he found that if he wanted tobacco, a bag was a quarter. If he wanted cigarette papers, they were a quarter. If he wanted an apple, or a candle, or a newspaper, or enough whiskey to get himself good and drunk, twenty-five cents was the price every time. The current way of doing business in Genoa was nothing short of highway robbery.

“Yes.” The fragile whisper of her answer broke into his reverie. “Those are my terms.”

Crushing the stub of his cigarette beneath his boot, he talked while he exhaled smoke. “What about a divorce later?”

“Unless you want to be free to marry someone else, a divorce won't be necessary for me. I don't plan on marrying again.”

“Neither do I.”

The inkwell fell onto its side, and Helena righted the bottle with trembling fingers. “Then I guess we have a bargain.”

“No guessing. We do have a bargain.”

“Well . . . I'll get Ignacia and have her watch the store so we can go to the justice of the peace.”

As she nervously licked her dry lips, Carrigan imagined kissing them to make them wet. Her mouth was full and pink, resembling the petals of a rose. Would they taste just as heady next to the tip of his tongue? He loosely cocked his hip against the counter,
needing to release some of the pressure behind the placket of his trousers. “Whatever you say.”

Helena was gone and back in less than a minute, returning with a middle-aged Mexican woman who looked thinner than a bar of soap after a hard day's work against a washboard.

“This is Ignacia Perades,” Helena introduced. “She's our stock tender's wife and cooks for us.”

He had no hat to tip, so he inched his chin up a notch as a form of greeting.

Helena walked toward the counter opposite him while tugging at the wide bow of her apron. The doubled ends knotted, and she jerked on them to no avail. He strode to her and bumped her fingers aside. She froze as he worked the knot free, his knuckles grazing the many gathers of her skirt. The fabric felt soft and feminine beneath his touch. He would have lingered, savored, and perhaps tested the span of her corset-nipped waist with his hands, but she moved away from him with a skittish hop.

“Thank you,” she murmured, looping the apron on a hook. He was given a view of her slender back, level shoulders, and the gentle curve of her confined hair resting against her nape. There was no telling how long her hair was, but its thickness was evident inside the net. She didn't miss a step while going for the glass case that contained a small amount of jewelry. Reaching inside for a tray, she took out two rings. “Let me see your left hand.”

He held it up for her to examine.

She put the first ring back and picked a second, larger one. Slipping between the part in a doorway curtain, she returned to the store with a drawstring purse on her wrist and bundled in a hooded cloak. “I'm ready. I'll be back in an hour, Ignacia. When Emilie returns, tell her I've gone on an errand.”

“Yes, Miss Lena,” the woman replied in a light accent.

Pushing himself away from the counter, Carrigan felt the strongest urge to throw himself into a vat of booze and wallow in it until he was pickled. His muscles were hard and bunched underneath his coat, and no amount of stiff breaths could unlock the tension.

He had to remind himself that his new living arrangements were only temporary, and after today, he'd only have one hundred and seventy-nine days left.

Helena opened the door and a gust of chill air slapped him across the face. But it wasn't enough to bring him to his senses. He was on his way to wedlock lane, and there was no turning back.

3

H
elena drove the buckboard to Van Sickle's station, Carrigan sitting next to her on the narrow bench seat. A thin layer of white from the fresh storm dusted the three-mile mountain trail leading to the justice of the peace. With each bump and rut, she and Carrigan were jarred into one another. She tried to give him room, but keeping the reins threaded through her gloved fingers and minding the whereabouts of her skirts wasn't feasible at the same time. Inevitably the fullness spilled onto his knee and thigh in a drape of dark calico. Not once did he make a move to shove the fabric off him.

He hadn't said a word since they left Genoa, frittering away the miles with one cigarette after another. His right foot was braced on the rim of the driver's box, and his left arm settled on the backrest, while a smoke was caught between his lips. The chore of rolling cigarettes in succession was complicated by the motion of the buckboard, but he managed without losing a single leaf of paper or spilling a clipping of tobacco.

A mile out, the wind rolled up like a tapestry rug. The sun came out to soak in the gray haze, promptly melting the snow. Carrigan's eyes narrowed against the dazzling sunlight, and he lowered his head a bit. The road quickly turned into a quagmire under the animals' hooves, and the iron-strapped wheels churned the ground to muck half as high as the hubs.

Helena's hood covered her head, and she snuggled deep into her wrap to ward off the severe spring air. The monotonous jangle of harness tack, and the intermittent snorts of the buckskins, Daisy and Lucy, wore out Helena's thin nerves. Strangers marrying solely for advantageous gain and fixed conditions was bad enough. To have her intended ignore her made her feel snubbed without just cause.