My Heart's Desire (15 page)

"I didn't think the coffee was too strong," she said, feigning hurt.

Jarret leaned over the side of the chair, picked up the pillow and flung it at her head. Laughing, Rennie dodged the missile.

She had a husky, hearty laugh, he thought, infectious in nature, not the trilling, musical, and sometimes forced laughter he often associated with the women he knew. He watched her straighten, hugging the pillow to her midriff, and was caught by the becoming wash of color in her face and the spirited challenge in her eyes. The corners of her mouth lifted in a wide, beautiful smile.

She stopped his heart.

Jarret drew his stiff leg out from under him and leaned forward. He was frowning now, and when he spoke his voice was edged with threat. "Don't flirt with me," he said. "You won't like the consequences."

Rennie's eyes widened, but the light in them was smothered. Her face drained of color and her features froze. "Go to hell, Mr. Sullivan," she said quietly, with dignity.

Jarret stood. He almost groaned as blood rushed to his leg, sweeping his skin with prickling sensation. He hobbled a little uncertainly out the door, and once it closed behind him, he leaned against it. The ache in his leg was nothing compared to the ache in his groin. He thought of Rennie's smile. It had been a narrow escape.

* * *

Rennie and Jarret skirted one another for three more days. She was always aware of his presence in the house even though she never spent more than a few minutes with him in any one room. She carried her own meals to her room and ate alone while he shared his meals with the Cavanaughs. He read in the library, helped Mr. Cavanaugh in the garden, or cleaned his gun under the cook's watchful eye in the kitchen. Rennie made a point to work in the solitary confinement of the parlor and discovered that avoiding him was nearly as difficult and unsettling as being in his company.

When Jarret appeared in the doorway of the parlor Rennie was so certain she imagined his presence that she didn't respond right away. It was the incongruity of him cradling a large stack of papers and files in his arms that made her realize his form was no apparition. He walked in and dropped the stack beside her on the sofa. The papers slipped sideways, fanning out like a toppled deck of cards.

Rennie recognized the files immediately. "Wait," she said, calling him back as he turned and started to go. "How did you—"

"I asked Mr. Cavanaugh to go 'round to the Worth building and fetch things you might need." He started to go again.

Rennie stood. She started to reach for him, realized what she was about to do, and dropped her hand quickly to her side.

Jarret saw the aborted gesture out of the corner of his eye. He stopped, turned.

"I... well..." Her eyes revealed anxiousness, and her fingers curled in the folds of her plain hunter green gown. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

They stared at one another for several long seconds, the silence uncomfortable. The stacks of files began to slide again, this time off the sofa. Simultaneously they made a grab for them, nearly knocking heads.

Rennie laughed uneasily, straightening the pile. "It appears he cleaned out my desk and a few other desks besides."

"I told him to get everything. There was only the night watchman to help him locate your office, so I hope you really got what's important."

"I'm sure it's all here. Sam Whitney would have directed Mr. Cavanaugh properly. He's seen me working late on more than one occasion." She hesitated. "I take it there's been no word on Houston or Kelly."

"None. But I felt it was safe to send Cavanaugh last night. He wasn't followed."

"I didn't mean anything by it," she said almost apologetically. "I wasn't questioning your judgment."

Jarret shrugged as if it didn't matter. "You should. It's your life that's in danger."

Rennie sat down, shaking her head. "No, it's Mary Michael's. God, I wish it
were
me. The waiting's interminable. I can't imagine how she's coping with it."

Jarret propped his hip against the arm of the sofa, half-sitting, half-standing in a manner that was not so relaxed as it was indecisive. "Your sister's not gone back to the
Chronicle
yet. I know that much."

"You've been to see her?"

He shook his head. "No."

"But how—"

"I briefly renewed my acquaintance with Logan Marshall. He told me. They're sending work for her to the hotel. I thought if Ethan had surrendered that much, it wouldn't hurt me to do the same."

"Thank God for Ethan," she said feelingly.

"Not many husbands would let their wives work. Your sister's very fortunate to have found someone like him."

Rennie preferred to reserve judgment. "You'll understand if I think it's the other way around."

Jarret's brief smile was indifferent. "Suit yourself." He glanced down at the papers splayed across the coffee table and the maps littering the floor. "What are you doing?"

Rennie couldn't tell if he was genuinely interested or interested because he was bored. The Cavanaughs were used to keeping to themselves; they couldn't have provided much company in the last few days. He had probably sought out Logan Marshall just to hear the sound of another human voice. She wondered if he'd met Logan's wife Katy? The former actress was without question one of New York's most beautiful and celebrated women. He probably regretted he was not sworn to protect her.

"Where does your mind go?" Jarret asked, watching her drift away in front of his eyes. Her furrowed brow and flattened, serious mouth were something to behold.

Rennie registered his voice, looked at him blankly for a moment, and then came out of her reverie. "I'm working on some possible routes for a trunk line," she said, answering the only question she really remembered hearing. She began gently patting the papers and maps on the coffee table with the flat of her hands. Under one ridge she found her spectacles and slipped them on. "Here, I'll show you."

Jarret was fascinated. First by the spectacles that crept slowly down the bridge of her nose until they rested on the tip, then by the intensity of feeling in her expressive eyes as she explained her plans. She mapped out the lay of the land to him and spoke of gradient curves, fixed arched bridges, rail joints, spring washers, switch points, and splice bars. She rummaged for a pencil, found one under a map, and sketched a trestle that would span a narrow tributary of the South Platte River. She showed him where crews would have to work day and night for weeks to tunnel through rock. She explained about hauling in the proper ballast to support the ties and spikes on the winding mountain trails, about the switch signals and slide chairs that would be necessary to allow for freight trains to be sidetracked while lighter passenger cars climbed the steep passes in the Rockies. When the line was completed Northeast Rail would have a lucrative track from largely untapped silver mining country to the heart of Denver.

Rennie absentmindedly slid her pencil into the coil of hair at her nape. She looked at Jarret expectantly over the rim of her spectacles. She was aware that he had long since abandoned his sitting-standing position and was hunkered beside the coffee table, giving every impression that he was engrossed. He was also looking at her oddly, as if he didn't quite know what to make of what he'd heard. Self-conscious, Rennie slipped off her spectacles and carefully folded the ear stems. She remembered her habit with pencils and plucked it out as well. "Well? What do you think?"

Except for the slight furrow of Jarret's dark brows, his face was expressionless. "You're an engineer," he said.

His voice was so flat, so matter-of-fact, that she couldn't tell if he was astonished or accusing. "Well, yes," she said, bewildered. "I thought you knew that."

"Know?" He stood. "How would I know that? I asked you what you did several days ago, and you mentioned working for the director of new projects. I said you were a secretary, and you didn't argue."

"I told you I had more responsibilities than scheduling appointments." She began organizing the scattered papers. "The truth is, I don't get to do a lot of engineering. Mr. Tompkins—he's the director—doesn't let me."

"Then, he's a fool."

Rennie's fingers stilled over the maps. She looked up at Jarret, some of her own doubts surfacing in her eyes. "You really think so?"

"I really think so."

She didn't question the lightening she felt in her chest, the easing of a pressure that had been there so long she had become used to its existence. It seemed perfectly in keeping with the natural order of things to accept Jarret's opinion as fact. "Jay Mac wouldn't like to hear that. He has the greatest trust for Mr. Tompkins."

"And not so much for you?" He shifted the files on the sofa so that there was enough room for him to sit down.

"Perhaps it's not so much a matter of trust as it is confidence. Mr. Tompkins has been working for my father for years, and he has a veritable battalion of engineers at his disposal. That kind of experience and expertise inspires confidence."

"In this case it may be misplaced."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

Jarret took away the topographical map that Rennie was folding. He spread it out on the table and pointed to where she had penciled in the path of the trunk line. There were other smudges on the pages that also indicated where tracks might be laid, but they were not set down in her sure, deft hand. "You've set your track along this mountain pass, here at Queen's Point. The grade appears to be a little steeper there; it would have to be leveled out in just the way you described. Surely that's a lot more work and expense than taking this slowly rising, but more circuitous route proposed by your colleagues. So why did you choose it?"

"I don't think their route will support the trestles and tunnels they've proposed. This map indicates—at least to me it does—that this river valley changes shape with alarming frequency, as if the sediment keeps shifting, creating temporary ridges and gorges."

"And how did you arrive at that?"

"I looked at a succession of maps completed by different surveyors in the last fifteen years. The early ones are especially crude, but I believe there's enough evidence to suggest my conclusion."

"But no one else saw it?"

"They saw it," she said, "because I pointed it out, but there are alternative explanations that satisfied Mr. Tompkins that the correct route's been chosen."

"The cheaper route."

"That, too. It has to be a consideration."

"Yet you're still pursuing something else. Why?"

"I think they're wrong. I want to put it before Mr. Tompkins again and try to convince him."

Jarret looked away from the map and studied Rennie's face. "Not Jay Mac?"

She shook her head. "It's not the proper order of things. I have to get Mr. Tompkins's approval first."

"I see." Jarret pointed to the valley again. "The reason this valley appears to shift over time is because that's exactly what it does. Gully washers rip through here every other spring or so. That kind of waterpower moves most everything in its path. No rhyme or reason for it. Just nature. Supposing the trestle and track were laid in a dry year, the work would be gone in the next thaw."

"You know this for a fact?"

"Me and every other person who's traveled up and around Queen's Point. It's not exactly a secret." His smile was derisive. "Except, I suppose, from rail men like your father with more money than sense. If he'd sent out a competent group of men to survey the land properly, ask the locals, he'd know all this."

Rennie bristled at Jarret's indictment of her father. "Fifteen years ago no one was thinking of a line in this wilderness. Placer gold had just been discovered in the Rockies, and there were rumblings of war here. Plenty of track needed to be laid this side of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line. Not all of these maps were completed by Northeast employees," she said. "But the most recent two were, and Hollis Banks was part of the surveying team."

Jarret absently rubbed the bridge of his nose as he considered that information. "You've told him about your conclusions?" he asked.

"I've told him. He says I'm wrong."

Jarret snorted. "The man's either stupid or a liar. I've made up my mind on the matter. What's your conclusion?"

"I don't think I like where this is leading."

He held up his hands, indicating surrender. "I didn't come here to pick a fight with you. I'm just telling you you're right about Queen's Point. Now, you can take satisfaction from that and realize Banks is either foolin' you or a fool himself, or you can believe he's right, in which case you've been working on this trunk line problem for the sheer hell of it."

The truth was that Rennie had thought all along that Hollis and the surveyors had made some incorrect judgments, but it seemed negligent to her rather than purposeful. Jarret, with his contemptuous smile, appeared to be hinting at just the opposite. "There may have been some inattention to detail," she said slowly, considering the ramifications of what she was saying, "but to suggest that there's been deliberate deception..."

Jarret shrugged, refusing to be drawn in again. "You know him better than I do."