My Heart's Desire (45 page)

They rolled apart. Limp. Replete. A touch just then would have been too much.

Rennie moved enough to straighten her shift. It was exhausting work. Jarret wrapped the sheet around him and felt the same. They couldn't have talked if they wanted to. They didn't want to. They slept.

* * *

This time Jarret was awake first. A hint of dawn colored the sky. He sat at the table drinking coffee, waiting for Rennie to wake. She slept on her side, one arm propped under her head, the other folded against her chest. He knew the moment the aroma of the coffee reached her. She made a sleepy little smacking sound with her lips. A few seconds later she wrinkled her nose.

"I'm making oatmeal," he said. "Do you want some?"

Her eyes opened, filled with mock horror.

"Coffee, then."

Rennie sat up slowly. Behind her the fire was pleasantly warm. "Coffee will be fine."

Jarret brought the pot over to the table and poured her a cup.

Rising to her knees, Rennie looked out the window. "It's early yet," she said. "I could have slept longer."

"Not if you want to get back to the boardinghouse unseen," he said, "and not if we're going to finally discuss some things." He gave her a considering look. "We
are
going to discuss some things, aren't we?"

Nodding, Rennie came to her feet. She picked up the blanket and pulled it around her shoulders like a shawl. The coffee was hot. She carried her cup to the window seat and sat down, tucking her bare feet under one corner of the blanket. She thought she was going to have to go first, but it was Jarret who spoke.

"I don't know what you've been thinking these last days since finding your father," he said. "I know that you haven't wanted to be alone with me, especially since Queen's Point."

"I'm sorry," she said. "It was easier to stay away than it was to explain. That's still true."

"But you came here anyway."

"I did," she said a little sadly. She sipped her coffee. "I didn't say that staying away was easy, only that it was easier than explaining."

"I see."

Her small laugh held no joy. "No, you don't. But you will." She looked away from the window and met Jarret's puzzled eyes. "I don't think the derailment at Juggler's Jump was an accident," she said. "I suspect you think the same."

"I did," he said. "I'm not so certain now. Your father said he hadn't spoken to anyone at Northeast about his scheduled side trip. That didn't make sense to me."

"I know," she said. "But you don't know everything yet."

"Such as?"

"The wheels weren't flat," she told him. When he looked at her blankly she went on patiently. "None of the derailed cars had flattened wheels. I looked at all of them. That means there wasn't any attempt to apply the handbrakes, probably because there wasn't time. You'd have thought the brakemen would have been more alert; after all, No. 412 was on her descent. The brakes have to be applied evenly over the length of the entire train to avoid buckling the link and pin couplings."

"Maybe they weren't applied evenly. Maybe that's why the derailment occurred."

She shook her head. "No. I don't think that's what happened. The couplings between the cars that derailed were damaged, but that's explained by the accident itself. The cars twisted and buckled once they left the track. The first car that derailed, however, had no damage to the link. None at all. It was as if the pin had simply been pulled."

"The pin might have broken."

"If it had been weakened perhaps, but not otherwise, not on the descent."

"You realize what you're saying, don't you?"

She nodded. "Someone was willing to let a lot of people die to see that Jay Mac didn't reach Queen's Point. You were thinking it, too. You knew something was wrong when I told you about the work that was supposed to be going on there."

"I knew something was wrong, yes, but I wasn't thinking about murder. That really only occurred to me when Jay Mac said he had planned to visit the work site. It seemed reasonable to suspect someone might not have wanted him to do that."

"And who did you think that would be?"

"You're not going to like it much, but Hollis Banks was my first choice. He's not only good at blindsiding people, he can get others to do his work and keep his own hands clean."

Rennie frowned. She didn't disagree with Jarret's assessment but was surprised to hear it from him. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Surely you got the better of Hollis on both occasions of your meeting."

Jarret rose from the table and went to the stove. He stirred the oatmeal. It was already clumped and gummy. "You're right," he said. "I only met him twice. The third time he sent his friends." He spooned oatmeal into a wooden bowl and added sugar. "I didn't see any point in telling you this before," he said, returning to the table. "But there's no reason not to now. On my last day in New York, while I was waiting on the platform for my train, Hollis's friends—I recognized them from the wedding—came after me."

"Jarret!" She nearly tipped her coffee into her lap. "Why didn't you—"

He held up his hand, cutting her off. "It was over quickly. I wasn't in any condition to put up much of a struggle. Dee Kelly, remember? One of them-I don't recall who anymore—planted his foot right in my shoulder. Later I got a toe in my groin. The blond did that, I think. I know he took the bank draft Jay Mac wrote me. He also took the reward for bringing in Dee."

Rennie's shoulders sagged a little. "Oh, God," she said, closing her eyes. She put her cup down on the narrow window ledge to keep from spilling it. Her hands trembled. She looked at him. "The blond's name is Richard Dunny. He's an old friend of Hollis's. I suppose Taddy and Warren Beecher were the others. Taddy saw me kissing you at the Jones Street Station. He was in the crowd that gathered. That's why I wanted to get away from you so quickly. Taddy must have run straight to Hollis with the story—that would be just like him—but no one ever breathed a word of it to me."

"I didn't think they had." He paused, studying the drawn, colorless features of her face. "Do you think I blame you for what happened to me, Rennie?"

"No, but it would be easier if you did." All the times she had seen him struggle with his arm, she had blamed Dee Kelly for the injury and Jarret himself for not taking care of it. It wasn't so simple. The real damage had been done by Hollis's friends and, in turn, Hollis. It was easy to feel some of the responsibility herself. If she hadn't kissed him in public, right there on Jones Street, with God and James Taddy and a dozen strangers looking on, Jarret Sullivan would still have the full use of his right hand and arm. "You know I thought what money you hadn't lost gambling was spent on liquor and—"

"And women," he said, grinning. "Don't forget women."

"It isn't funny," she snapped. "Damn you! You know it isn't funny."

Jarret sobered. "It also isn't in any part your fault. If you want to know the truth, I
did
blame you for a time. There just wasn't any sense in it, and after a while I came to see it that way. I admit it wasn't to my liking when you showed up in Echo Falls, but there were a lot of other reasons for that. I didn't need you here to recall what Hollis had done. I only had to drop a glass of whiskey or miss the grip on my gun to bring Hollis Banks to mind. I had been trying to live with that since leaving New York. Seeing you again made me realize I hadn't been living at all, perhaps not for a long time, Rennie, longer than even I had suspected. Perhaps not since my parents were murdered."

His chair scraped the floor. He went over to the window seat and sat beside her. "You touched me, Rennie. You threw yourself at everything with such tremendous spirit and will; you set a course for yourself and hung on. I admired that. There was a time I thought you might be turning it on me." His smile was tinged with self-mockery and regret. "Who's to say if I was leaving New York because my job there was finished or if I was running scared?"

If only he had given her some hint. She had waited a long time to hear from him. "But you stayed away. There was never a word from you."

"What was I supposed to offer you? I didn't have any money. I couldn't earn it the way I knew how. I didn't see any hope for the ranch I wanted, and I doubted you would ever leave New York." He leaned back against the windowsill and sighed. "And you were still set on marrying Hollis. You haven't forgotten that, have you?"

"No," she said dully. Her eyes dropped away from his profile. "I haven't forgotten."

Behind him, Jarret could feel the warmth of the sun pressing on the glass. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that daybreak was well upon them. "You're not going to make it back to the boardinghouse without being seen," he said. "You'd better go get dressed. I'll escort you back. There's a lot we need to talk to your father about."

"Jarret, I—"

"Go on." When she hesitated again, he said, "Are you worried what Jay Mac will say about you being with me?" He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the cheek. Her skin was cold. He drew back slowly, searching her face. Her emerald eyes were clearly pained, her lower lip swollen where she had been worrying it. "Rennie, you realize, don't you, that I plan to ask Jay Mac for your hand today?"

Her eyes widened. The blanket around her shoulders dropped as she reached for him. "No, you can't do that!"

"What do you mean? I thought it was understood."

"No!" She stood up. "It's not understood at all."

Jarret came to his feet as well. "I'm sorry," he said. "I've never done this before. I should have asked you first."

Her heart was breaking. It was there in the eyes she turned on him. "No," she said softly. "Don't do it. Don't ask."

Jarret was certain he hadn't moved. It was the earth that had shifted under him. He heard her words, but he couldn't make sense of their meaning. "You're not going to marry me?"

"I can't."

"You
can't?"
he asked. The shield that came over his face hardened his features. His deep blue eyes cooled and his jaw tightened. "Or you won't?"

"I can't," she said again. She wanted to look anywhere but at him. She didn't because she owed Jarret a straightforward response. "I'm already married. I married Hollis Banks a month before Jay Mac's accident."

Chapter 13

He looked as if he were going to be sick. His features were suddenly drawn and gray. In a heartbeat of time his sapphire eyes had become remote. Rennie reached out to him.

Jarret flinched from her outstretched hand and took a step backward. "It's not a good idea to touch me right now, Rennie."

Her arm dropped to her side. He was already turning away from her. "Please," she said, "please, listen to me."

He picked up his mug and filled it at the stove. With the part of his mind that could think rationally he marveled at his ability to do so without spilling a drop. That he could place one foot in front of the other also impressed him. It only proved that the piece she had cut out of him wasn't necessary for the daily business of living. He sat at the table. His knuckles were white on the mug; the set of his shoulders was rigid. "I'm listening," he said with credible politeness. "Though I can't imagine what you have to say that's worth hearing."

The chill between them had become a tangible thing. Rennie kept her distance and implored him with her eyes and her voice. "I know I should have told you," she said.

"Then we agree on that."

"I didn't think you'd take me to find my father if you knew," she said.

His voice finally revealed the powerful edge of his anger. "I sure as hell wouldn't have touched you!"

"Don't you think I knew that, too?" she asked quietly. "That's as honest as I can get, Jarret. When I first decided to come to Colorado I didn't know I was going to see you again."

He snorted derisively.

"It's
true,"
she said. "I thought Ethan would be taking me to Juggler's Jump."

"Your sister's not stupid enough to let you loose with her husband," Jarret said bitterly.

Rennie rocked back on her feet as if pushed. At her sides, her hands clenched. She closed her eyes long enough to steady herself, and then she went on. "There's no need to say things like that. Do you think I'm not hurting already?"