Pieces of Sky (3 page)

Jessica was beyond caring. She just wanted out. Now. Tapping a toe with impatience, she perched on the edge of the seat, reticule in one hand, parasol in the other, as the coach rolled to a stop. Without waiting for the driver to place the mounting step, she threw open the door, hopped out, and fled toward the cabin.

Bodine trailed after her like a slavering dog. “Hat Lady, wait up. I wanna talk to you.”

“Please don’t!” Half blinded by dust and the noonday glare, she darted up the steps and shoved open the door, just as a ham-sized fist clamped over her wrist.

With a shriek of outrage, she whirled, parasol swinging on her arm. She heard a grunt as the tip met flesh, then the hand released her arm so abruptly her momentum carried her backward into the cabin to topple over a saddle propped near the door. For a moment she lay stunned, heels still caught on the overturned saddle. Then a voice from the other side of the room sent her bolting upright.

“Woo-wee! Thank you, Lord!”

Parasol in hand, she scrambled to her feet to see a grizzled old man in a stained leather apron grinning at her through a face full of hair.

“What a tumble! Ass over elbows!” He waved a dripping spoon to illustrate, then cackled and turned back to stir a pot on a blackened cookstove. “Helluva treat.”

Before she could make sense of that, movement drew her attention back to the doorway where her attacker bent, head drooping, hands braced on his thighs. Even though a dusty black hat hid his face, she could see by his size he wasn’t Bodine. But why would a complete stranger attack her?

Brushing dust from her skirt, she lifted her chin and glared at her assailant. “I did not tumble. I was pushed.”

Now that her eyes had adjusted to the dimness of the room and she was thinking more clearly, she wondered if she might have overreacted. Despite his hulking size, the man seemed harmless enough. Judging by his hunched posture, he was possibly elderly or weakened by illness. Scarcely threatening.

Then he lifted his head.

The walls of her throat seemed to constrict. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. She felt pinned like a butterfly to a mat by the coldest stare she had ever experienced.

Definitely not old or ill. Furious.

She edged back as he slowly straightened to his full height, which was considerably more than hers. He looked like the loser of a tavern brawl—bloodstains on his dusty shirt, one eye swollen shut, and a nasty gash dripping more blood down the side of his dusty, beard-shadowed face.

“What’d you do that for?” he demanded in a raspy voice.

Cook’s bark of laughter made her jump. “Cracked those
cojones
like eggs on a pan, didn’t she, Brady? Won’t be forkin’ a saddle for a week, by damn.”

Co-ho-nees?
She frowned in confusion. Eyeing the man he’d called Brady, she noticed again the cut on his cheek. Had she done that with her parasol? The thought shocked her.

Without a word, Mr. Brady snatched up the saddle and limped out, almost mowing down the Kinderlys as they came up the steps.

“Oh, my,” Melanie breathed as he stomped past. “Who was that?”

Maude shoved her through the door. “Never you mind, missy.”

The cabin was small—a single room dominated by a table and benches, with a stove against one wall, a rumpled cot against another. There was scarcely room to move without bumping a peg or shelf, and with the arrival of the passengers and driver, it became almost suffocatingly crowded. Stepping aside as the others entered, Jessica called out to Cook, “Could you please direct me to the convenience?”

He squinted at her. “The what?”

“The necessary.”

“The necessary what?”

“She means the outhouse.” Their driver, Mr. Phelps, hooked a thumb toward the rear of the cabin. “Out back. If you want to wash, there’s a trough behind the shed. Watch for snakes.”

“Snakes?” Maude clutched at Melanie.

Undaunted, Jessica ducked out the door. Heat engulfed her, so intense she could almost feel her skin shrivel. She’d have to get a proper bonnet soon or she’d be a prune by the time she reached Socorro. A prune with freckles. George would never recognize her—if her brother was still there and if he had even received her letter saying she was coming.

Moments later, gasping and half-nauseated, she fled the reeking facility and headed toward the shed and water trough. As she walked, she ran a hand over her abdomen, wondering if anything felt different since her fall. It would solve so many problems if she miscarried. A blessing really.

And yet . . .

At first she had denied even the possibility of a child. But after missing two courses, she knew for certain she carried her brother-in-law’s baby. The horror of it had sent her to the edge of sanity. She shivered, remembering the day she had found herself crouched in the corner of her bedroom, weeping like a madwoman, the scissors clutched in her shaking hand. Had she intended to harm herself, or the baby? Even now, she didn’t know. And that was the most horrifying thing of all. But lately, ever since she’d felt that first ripple of life, something had changed.

She slowed, flattened her palm against her body. If it was a girl, it wouldn’t remind her so much of John Crawford, would it? It would simply be a baby. A daughter. Someone to love. Would that be so bad?

As if in response, something fluttered low in her abdomen. She jerked her hand away.

And what if it wasn’t a daughter, but a son? What if she couldn’t find George, or her brother turned her away? How long could she survive on the coins and few pieces of jewelry sewn into the hem of her underskirt?

For a moment she stood trembling, doubts weakening her resolve. Then slowly terror subsided. She would manage. She had done so after Papa abandoned her with a dying mother to tend and a little sister to raise, and again after George ran off to make his fortune in the gold fields of the West. She had survived rape. She had left the only home she had ever known and traveled halfway around the world. Surely she could raise a baby on her own.

Of course she could. Thrusting self-pity aside, she lifted her chin. “I am Jessica Abigail Rebecca Thornton and I am a woman to reckon with,” she said in ringing tones as she rounded the shed and almost tripped over a stump beside the trough. Regaining her balance, she looked up, then froze when she saw she was not alone.

Mr. Brady bent beside the pump, water streaming from his mop of shaggy dark hair. Slowly he straightened, apparently unaware that his shirt was open and his upper person was exposed, or that he further exposed himself by lifting the tail of the shirt to mop his face. The man was built like a blacksmith. A very tall, very strong blacksmith. With a streak of dark hair running from his exposed parts straight down to . . . to his unexposed parts.

“You come to ogle or poke me again?”

“W-What? I—” Mortified to be caught staring, she whirled to present him her back. “No—yes—I mean, that is, if you have completed your ablutions, I—”

“Ab-whats?”

“Washing yourself.” Had she truly said that? “Perhaps I should return later.”

“It’s all right. I’m done.”

She hesitated, flustered and unsure what to do. He must have recovered from her earlier attack. His voice no longer sounded strained, although it retained a husky quality as if the dry climate had eroded the mellower tones, leaving him permanently hoarse. It was disconcerting. Like a whisper in the dark. She dared a glance.

Thankfully he had covered himself. Yet he still watched her, an odd twitch at one corner of his unruly black mustache. Her gaze slid to the trough. Despite the scum coating the inside walls—the only greenery she’d seen in days—the water looked so . . . wet. And she was so very hot.

She should leave. That would be the proper thing.

Oh, rot proper
, she thought with sudden and uncharacteristic defiance. It was too hot to be proper. Besides, after that reeking facility, she was desperate for a wash. Refusing to be intimidated by Mr. Brady’s looming presence, she set aside her reticule and parasol, stripped off her gloves and tucked them into her skirt pocket, then removed her traveling cape and placed it on the ground beside her other belongings. After carefully folding back the lace-edged cuffs on her gray bombazine, she dipped her fingers into the water. It felt heavenly against her parched skin.

Mr. Brady continued to stand there, gawking.

Ignoring him, she scrubbed the grit from her wrists and hands, then dampened a hanky, squeezed it out, and pressed it to her cheek. Bliss.

“I didn’t push you.”

She stiffened, taken aback by the denial and unsure how to respond. Slowly she turned. He wasn’t as old as she had originally thought, perhaps in his middle thirties. Like his voice, his face bore the mark of this harsh climate, his skin darkened by the sun, his features as harshly chiseled as the wind-carved bluffs. But his eyes were beautiful. A vibrant shocking blue that perfectly matched the turquoise gemstones so favored by indigenous Americans—pieces of sky, they called them. They were much too beautiful for that weathered face.

At least the unswollen one was. She turned back to the trough. “You did grab my arm.”

“To warn you. About the saddle.”

“Ah.” She shot him a glance. “The one left in the middle of the floor? How thoughtful.”

“I was coming back to get it.”

“Indeed. Well then. I accept your apology. Please accept mine for striking you with my parasol. I certainly did not intend to injure you.” Pulling a clean linen from her pocket, she wet it in the trough and held it out. “Perhaps this will help. Or if you would permit, I could tend it for you.”

An odd look crossed his battered face. “Tend what? What the hell are you talking about?”

Since the man seemed somewhat agitated, although she couldn’t fathom why insomuch as it was only a trifling injury, she allowed the profanity to pass unchallenged. “You are bleeding, sir.”

“I am?” He glanced down at his belt buckle, then up at her. “Where?”

She motioned with the linen. “There. On your cheek.”

“My cheek?” After a moment of confusion, realization dawned in those startling eyes. “Sonofabitch.” With a long sigh, he sank onto the stump at the end of the trough. “I thought my luck was finally changing.”

Jessica eyed him with disapproval. Granted, manners were more relaxed in the Colonies, but this was too much. After stuffing the wet hanky back into her reticule, she drew the strings closed with a snap. “Would you please refrain from using profanity in my presence, Mr. Brady? I find it most offensive.”

“Do you?” He tugged off his right boot.

“I do.” She quoted from Pamphlet Two: “ ‘A gentleman should never use foul language in the presence of a lady. It is indicative of poor breeding and an affront to all within hearing.’ ”

He responded by removing the left boot.

She raised her voice a notch. “It is also written that profanity is the mark of a limited imagination and an untutored intellect.” Abruptly she lost her thought when he pulled the stained sock off his huge foot. “What are you doing?”

“Blisters. Written where?”

“What? I . . .” Words deserted her as the second sock came off.

He gingerly lowered his feet into the trough. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

She didn’t—couldn’t—respond.

“I’ll take that as a no.” Shading his eyes with one hand, he squinted up at her. “Since you’re new, I’ll make it as simple as I can. I didn’t use profanity. ‘Sonofabitch’ isn’t profanity. It’s cussing. Profanity would be like ‘goddamnit’ or ‘Christamighty’ or—What’s that in your hair?”

“My hair?” Caught off-balance by the abrupt change in subject, she started to lift her hands, then froze as visions of crawling things slithered through her mind. “What is it?”

“I’m not sure. It’s just hanging there.”

“Hanging there? In my hair?” She swatted at her head. Was it a bat? A spider? One of those tarantula things? “What is it?”

“Quit yelling. It’s not alive.”

A dead thing? In her hair? “Get it!” she cried, arms flailing. “Get it off!”

Snagging an arm to hold her still, he reached up, pulled something from her hair, then sat back. He stared at the object in his hand. “What the hell?”

Heart pounding, she inched closer to peer over his shoulder. Her hair form!

Almost dizzy with relief, she raised her hands to find her hair in disarray. Between the hat tossing and her fall, her twist had come loose, and now curls ran riot and pins poked out every which way. Irritated to be found in such a state, she snatched the form from his hand and stuffed it into her skirt pocket. “Thank you.”

“You’re keeping it? A wad of hair?”

“It is not a wad of hair,” she said, striving for a semblance of dignity. “It is a hair form.”

“Made of a wad of hair. Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen.”

More cursing. Or was it profanity? She was so rattled, she scarcely knew.

In full retreat, she pulled her gloves from her skirt pocket, yanked them on with such vigor a thumb seam snapped, then snatched her belongings from the ground. She must have fallen into the fifth ring of hell, for undoubtedly, Mr. Brady was the gatekeeper.

“By the way . . .” He looked up, his narrowed eyes moving over her person in a wholly unacceptable manner. “It wasn’t an apology. It was an explanation. There’s a difference.”

Awareness skittered along her nerves. She knew that look, and she would have none of it. Not again. And certainly not from this man. “I was unaware you were so discerning,” she snapped. “But thank you for the clarification.” A poor set-down, but the man had her so addled, it was the best she could do. Resisting the urge to bloody his other cheek with her parasol, she whirled and marched away.
Impertinent bounder.

 

 

BRADY WAITED UNTIL THE ENGLISHWOMAN ROUNDED THE shed, then laughed so hard he almost fell off the stump. He hadn’t been dressed down like that in years. Maybe never. Not even his brothers dared do that. Then he pictured her hopping around with that hair wad flopping like a dead rat and that set him off again.