Rekindled (38 page)

The irony of the sudden role reversal might have seemed comical to Larson earlier, but not now. “I wasn’t at the brothel for that reason, Kathryn. Ask Sadie yourself.”

“I did. She said you were there asking about me.”

His mouth went dry.
God, is this your way of forcing the truth from me? I’m not ready yet. I’m not ready
. He searched for a way to answer—and avoid—her question. “It’s true. I was there asking about you.” His mind raced. He wished he could see Kathryn’s face better in order to gauge her reaction. “It was after I’d met you here at Casaroja. I’d heard that you worked at the brothel in town, and . . .”

“And you wanted to see whether it was true or not.”

He cringed at the cool edge to her tone. “Yes,” he finally answered.

“And what have you discovered?”

He shook his head. “Sadie wouldn’t tell me anything that day.”

Kathryn stared at him for a long moment, and Larson would have given much to see her eyes. “I know that, Jacob. Sadie told me she turned you away.” Her tone softened and her question was clear. “But what I’m asking you right now is . . . what have you discovered since then?”

Larson knew what she wanted him to say—the same thing he’d said to her back in the stable that day about leaving MacGregor’s bedroom. That he believed in her innocence, completely and without reservation. But he couldn’t lie to her, not again.

He swallowed against the tightness in his throat and measured each word, wanting to get them right. “I’ve discovered that it doesn’t matter to me if you worked there before or not. God has . . .” His voice broke as truth filled him. “God has forgiven me a debt I can never repay,” he whispered. “Who am I to demand payment from someone else after having been forgiven so much?” Larson wanted to touch her face, just one last time, but he didn’t dare. “So you don’t owe me any explanation, Kathryn. Instead, I owe you an apology. I’m sorry.”

When she didn’t answer, he bowed his head. It wasn’t the answer she’d wanted, but it was the truth. Well, part of it anyway. He started to climb up to the buckboard but stilled at the touch on his arm.

He stood speechless as Kathryn reached up, drew his face down next to hers, and gently kissed his scarred cheek.

“Bring Sadie in here,” the red-haired woman said, keeping her tone soft. “The other girls have just now gone to sleep.”

Cradling the sleeping girl against his chest, Larson followed down a second-floor hallway. Pale pink dawn peeked from beneath a curtain drawn closed at the end of the narrow corridor. The house was quiet. He passed door after door, then waited in the hall as the woman turned back the ornately trimmed bedcovers.

He’d left Casaroja shortly after midnight and, an hour later, had awakened Doc Hadley. The doctor didn’t hesitate for a moment to offer his help—not even when Larson told him who he would be treating. “We’re all God’s creatures, no matter what we’ve done” was all the doctor said before grabbing his bag and meeting them in the clinic.

“Okay, put her down here.” The woman motioned to the bed.

Larson felt the woman staring at him but didn’t look at her. He gently laid Sadie down, careful of her bandaged arm. She stirred but didn’t waken. Doc Hadley had given her something for the pain in her body, but Larson wished there was something he could give her for the pain he’d seen in her eyes. Especially the distrust—she reeked with it. And why wouldn’t she?

He’d been raised in this environment as a boy, but she had grown up living it as a girl. His scars were nothing compared to hers.

Sadie’s eyes fluttered, and he backed up a step, not wanting his closeness to frighten her when she wakened.

“Sadie, honey, it’s Annabelle. I’m here with you.” She leaned over the bed. “This man told me what happened to you last night.” Annabelle cursed none too softly. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there to take care of you. I should’ve gone out there with you.”

Sadie shook her head. “I’m okay.” But her voice sounded flat and lifeless. She blinked and then focused on Larson. “Jacob,” she said softly, “look at me.”

He slowly did as she asked, not sure if this was her or the drugs talking. She beckoned him forward with a tiny brown hand. Larson couldn’t explain it, but he felt a command in the simple gesture and obeyed.

“Let me see your eyes.”

He shook his head. He knew neither Sadie nor this Annabelle woman would recognize him—they hadn’t known him before the accident—but the skin around his right eye made him especially self-conscious. In healing, the scarring had pulled at an awkward angle and gave his eye a sloped look.

Larson clenched his jaw at the shame pouring through him. “I’m not really worth looking at, miss.”

Sadie laughed in her throat. “I’d like to decide that for myself, mister. If you don’t mind.” Her tone sounded too old for her age. “Take off your glasses.” Her smile faded. “Please . . .” she added, the simple word holding a pleading quality.

Slowly, Larson reached up with his right hand and removed the spectacles, wishing the early morning light from the window wasn’t so bright on his face.

“Come closer,” she whispered.

He did, his heart hammering. She took his hand and pulled him down. Larson went to his knees beside the bed. Her dark eyes shone as her fingers traced the disfigured mask he knew only too well. The skin around his eyes was still sensitive, but her touch was feather-light.

Sadie smiled. “You were a handsome man . . . before this.”

Larson gave an uneasy laugh, not knowing how to respond to such honesty.

“But I wonder,” she continued, “were you as kind?”

His throat tightened. He let out a quick breath as her tiny hand tightened around his—as though she were comforting him.

“Thank you, Jacob.” She blinked heavily, the laudanum apparently taking effect. “Kathryn is right to look at you . . . the way she does. You are . . . good man. You are like . . . the man she . . . told me about.”

“Kathryn?” Annabelle asked, her voice both excited and wary. “You know Kathryn? How is she?”

Larson stood. “I work with Mrs. Jennings at Casaroja. She’s doing fine.”

Annabelle briefly touched Sadie’s hand, then motioned Larson into the hallway. She closed the door behind her. “Her baby. Has Kathryn had her baby yet?”

“Not yet, but the time isn’t far off.”

The intensity of the woman’s gaze deepened, making Larson uncomfortable. “I bet she looks wonderful, all big and glowin’.” Annabelle laughed and the hard lines of her face softened. “Oh, I’d love to see her again. What a fine woman she is.”

“Yes, ma’am, there’s none finer,” Larson said quietly, putting his glasses back on.

Annabelle stared at him briefly before leading him back down the hallway. “Thank you for seeing to Sadie’s hurts. I try to take care of her, but I can’t always be there.” Her tone hinted at frustration, and deep regret.

“She’s young to be in this business,” Larson said more to himself than to her, looking around the small front parlor and then following Annabelle back through the kitchen. No matter which part of the building they were in, it all smelled of cheap perfume, stale smoke, and depravity.

So much of this building, this life, felt painfully familiar to him. Even so, strangely he wasn’t repulsed at being inside like he’d imagined. The sickening feeling he’d expected had been filled instead by a dull ache in his chest. One he could only describe as . . . compassion. He looked at Annabelle’s hair, at the revealing cut of her dress. Then he tried to see her through God’s eyes. It was a stretch for him, but deep down he knew that the love that had saved him was the same love God offered to this woman.

Annabelle stopped at the back door, her hand poised on the latch. “So, Jacob, how long have you worked at Casaroja?”

He shrugged. “A few months.”

“You new to this territory?”

“No, not really. I’ve been around.”

Larson suddenly wondered how close this woman had been to Kathryn. From Annabelle’s earlier response at discovering he knew Kathryn, Larson guessed they’d known each other fairly well. Most likely, Annabelle would be able to answer every question he had about Kathryn, if he still had any worth asking. But he’d laid those questions to rest at the foot of the cross and he determined, again, to leave them there.

“You’ve never been here before, have you? To the brothel, I mean. I would have remembered you, even before all this.” Annabelle studied his face. “Sadie’s right, you know. I bet you were a real fine-lookin’ man once.”

Something in her expression stirred Larson’s discomfort. He cleared his throat, suddenly eager to leave. “Well, I’d better be getting back. I’ve got work to do.”

She didn’t move. “How long have you known Kathryn . . . Jacob?”

Larson stared at Annabelle’s hand on the door latch, and a slight tremor passed through him. There was something in the way she was looking at him. . . . He tugged on the right side of his cap, pulling it down a bit farther. “Like I said, I’ve gotten to know Kathryn at Casaroja.”

Annabelle’s bottom lip slipped briefly behind her front teeth. “Do you and Kathryn have some sort of understanding? I mean, Sadie mentioned something about the way Kathryn looks at you.”

“No, ma’am, there’s no understanding between us. We’re . . . good friends, is all.”

Annabelle nodded, then lifted the latch and smiled. “Well, you tell Kathryn I said hello and ask her to bring herself around sometime. Maybe after the baby’s born. I’d like to see her again, and her little one.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll do that.” He stepped through the open door. He forced himself to take the back stairs one at a time and was nearly to the corner when he heard Annabelle call his name.

He turned back to see her standing in the alley, hands on her hips, a look of unspoken challenge on her face.

And then it hit him.

Chills shot up and down his spine.

Larson
. She’d just called him by the name Larson.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

L
ARSON FOUGHT THE INSTINCT to run. Instead, he cocked his head to one side and hoped the wave of dread inside him would somehow translate into surprise. “I’m afraid there’s been some misunderstanding, ma’am.”

Annabelle huffed a laugh. “You bet there has been,” she said, slowly walking toward him. With each step she took, Larson felt his carefully constructed world crumbling. “It was your eyes that gave you away, you know. Eyes that could see right through you, that’s what Kathryn told me. That and the fact that Kathryn Jennings wouldn’t look twice at another man this soon, less’n it was her husband.” She bit her lower lip and laughed to herself. “And I’d bet my life that I’m lookin’ at him right now.”

Larson shook his head and worked to keep his voice even. “I’m not who you think I am, ma’am.”

Annabelle’s eyes filled with tears, and from the angst in her expression, she wasn’t comfortable with the emotion. “I just wanna know one thing. Why haven’t you told Kathryn you’re still alive?”

Larson was stunned with what he saw on this woman’s face. She was completely devoted to Kathryn. No, more than that. A protectiveness radiated from Annabelle that almost frightened him. This woman would fight to protect Kathryn at all costs.

He felt a spark inside him at the thought and took a deep breath. “Kathryn Jennings’ husband died last December. I know that for a fact because . . . I was there with him.”

“I may just be a whore to you, mister, but I know more about the inside of a person than you ever will. So you take off those glasses and try tellin’ me that again.”

Larson fisted his hands to ease their trembling. Then he did as she asked.

Head bent, he rubbed his eyes, unaccustomed to the light. Then slowly, he looked up. Annabelle’s eyes were disturbingly blue, and dangerously discerning. Larson forced himself to maintain her gaze. Clearly, she didn’t believe his story, so he would have to find another way to convince her.

“What I’m telling you now is the truth. Larson Jennings died in a fire last December. He was so badly burned there was hardly any of the old man left in him. Kathryn has buried her husband and moved on with her life, and that’s how things need to stay.”

Annabelle shook her head. “Kathryn always told me you weren’t dead. She said she felt it”—she put a hand over her heart—“in here.”

Larson clenched his jaw against the churn of emotions inside him. He reminded himself that he was doing what was best for Kathryn, for the baby. For everyone. But why did it have to hurt so much? “Even if her husband could come back from the grave, he wouldn’t have anything worth giving her. He lost everything when he died. He wasn’t the man she married anymore, or a man she would’ve wanted.” Larson prayed for Annabelle to see the truth. “Kathryn deserves far better than that. She deserves better than him.”

She didn’t answer immediately. Her voice was a whisper when she finally spoke, but her expression was fierce. “Do you have any idea what she’s been through?”

Larson looked past Annabelle to the place where he’d stood and watched Kathryn enter the brothel that first night, after following her back through town. That night seemed like a lifetime ago. He didn’t even feel like the same man anymore. He sighed, wondering how to convince Annabelle. Then it came to him. The words were like rust on his tongue.