The Devil You Know (15 page)

He laughed. “Good to know.” He stood, stepped carefully around the glass and tumbler, neither of which had shattered when Willa threw them, and reached for his coat and hat. He started to put them on, stopped, and then came back to the table, this time passing up the chair where he had been sitting and going to Willa's side instead. When she turned, her knee brushed his leg, and with only a hairsbreadth distance between them, she was forced to tip her head back to look at him.

Israel dropped his hat and coat on the table. His hand continued its sweep toward Willa, glancing off her shoulder first, then the nape of her neck. His fingers curled around the loose braid that mostly confined her dark hair. It was as fine and silky as he thought it would be, and for the first time since he'd begun working for her, he was glad that his palms were not thick with calluses.

He applied very little pressure, but the tug was telling, and as it turned out, it was enough. She came to her feet of her own volition, and regarded him warily but unafraid. She never once looked away. Neither was she issuing a challenge. She seemed to be . . . what? he wondered. Then it came to him. She was waiting. Quietly.

He smiled. Her eyes dropped to his dimple, and that was when he kissed her.

Willa watched him closely over the next week and then only slightly less closely the week after that. She did not have a clear idea what she expected from him, but it was not indifference. She made it impossible for him to ignore her because she directed his work, and if he ever wondered if she was punishing him for that kiss with the hard, physical labor she assigned him, he did not call her on it. Sometimes she wished he would, not because it was true—it wasn't—but because it would have demonstrated that he was dissatisfied with mucking and digging and repairing. All of the work he did was necessary, so that was not an argument he could make, but he could have asked for work that would have challenged him and improved his skills, made him more valuable to the operation of the spread.

Israel had once claimed to be shiftless, but that was proof that he was a liar. He worked hard and he worked long. He followed directions, he rarely drank, and as far as she knew, he never played cards with anyone except Annalea.

He also had not shown the least interest in repeating that kiss.

Willa was not sure if she was disappointed, insulted, or relieved. There were moments that each of those emotions was keenly felt and times when it seemed to her that she felt them all at once.

As for Israel being uninterested in a second kiss, Willa accepted responsibility. She had not yet happened upon the right time to explain this to him, and the words that would fill out the explanation still had not presented themselves in any coherent fashion. She was aware that she occasionally
avoided him because she feared she would simply blurt out that the fault was hers, that she had not been ready, and that perhaps she never would be.

Every time this last thought tumbled through her mind, and it came at her with alarming frequency, she recommitted to silence.

“I should have slapped him,” she told Felicity, holding out a dried apple slice in the palm of her hand. “Or ground my boot heel into his toes. Either would have been clear enough, don't you think? I could have done both. The boot heel during and the slapping afterward.”

Felicity set her nose against Willa's shoulder, nuzzling for more treats when Willa's hand dropped away.

Willa absently reached into her pocket for another apple slice and came up empty. “Sorry, girl. No more.” Felicity pushed her shoulder again. “No.” Willa placed her hands on either side of Felicity's nose and steadied her. “I said no.”

Felicity responded to the pressure of Willa's hands and the firmness of her voice and took a few steps backward. Willa picked up the brush lying on the bench beside the stall and began grooming the mare. Felicity nickered softly and Willa patted her neck. “I didn't say no to him, did I? And you know what? I didn't want to.” That was her secret, her shame. She only wanted to grind her boot into his foot or slap his face because she hadn't said no.

Willa's long brush strokes slowed and then stopped. Her hand rested on Felicity's flank. She had an urge to lean into the mare, and she gave in to it because standing alone had nothing to recommend it at the moment. She laid her forehead against the animal's neck and closed her eyes and breathed. The air was cool and pungent with odors that were familiar and somehow calming. There was Felicity's scent, tangy and humid, and it mingled with the smell of hay, leather tack, dust, manure, and weathered wood.

From just inside the doorway, Israel watched Willa. He had not expected to find her in the barn. He was under the impression that she had already ridden out when Zach sent him over. He was supposed to cut a few different lengths of rope and bring them to the bunkhouse, where he was finally
going to get his first lasso-throwing lesson. He had been hinting around for weeks that he wanted to learn, but it wasn't until bitterly cold weather drove Zach indoors that there was time and opportunity for tutoring.

Now here was Willa. Willa, who had done a fair job of late creating a fence with more barbs than barbed wire. To stay or go was the question here, a question, Israel decided, that differed from the one that occupied Hamlet—but only in the matter of scale. Hamlet, though, had Shakespeare composing his soliloquy. The best Israel could manage at the moment was to clear his throat.

Willa spun around, clutching the grooming brush in front of her.

“I didn't mean to startle you,” he said. “I wanted you to know I was here.”

She nodded shortly.

Israel slid the rolling barn door closed, shutting out the harsh afternoon sunlight that had thrown his figure into dark relief.

It occurred to him that, before he shut the door, he should have asked her if she wanted him to leave. Her silence made the situation increasingly awkward, at least for him. He could not read her features, and the lack of expression was troubling.

“Why are you here?” she asked at last.

Israel did not think she sounded particularly interested. The question was posed as a matter of course, not curiosity. “I thought you'd left the door open when you rode out.”

“But I haven't ridden out.”

“I see that now.”

She turned her back and reached for Felicity's bridle. “It's just as well that you're here. I wanted to speak with you.”

The fact that she was not looking at him was telling. He considered approaching, considered offering to help, even considered taking the bridle out of her hands and wrapping her up with it, but he did none of those things. He stood his ground and kept his gaze steady on the back of her head.

“I was in love with Eli Barber once upon a time,” she said, slipping the bridle on her mare. “I've been thinking
that you might want to know that. I'm not sure that it's important, at least to the way I behaved when you kissed me, but it might be, so that's why I'm telling you.”

Of all the things she might have said, this was easily the most unexpected. Israel decided the wisest course was to say nothing and let her go on. She must have sensed his presence because she didn't turn around,
and
she kept on talking.

“About Eli . . . we were young. I was Annalea's age. He would have been twelve. Our families had been feuding for a long time, and it was rather Romeo and Juliet of us to act in defiance of that. When he proposed, I said yes.” She laid a blanket over Felicity's back and then hefted the saddle into position. “Neither of us knew quite what to do then, so I suggested that we take a blood oath right there at the fence line. It was all very dramatic.” She glanced at the underside of her right wrist as she fastened Felicity's girth. “I still have a scar from where I cut myself on a barb. I think he might have one as well. I don't know; I never asked.”

Israel did not have a mental picture of Eli Barber so he inserted his twelve-year-old defiant self into the ceremony, all unruly dark hair, long legs, and insolent smile. The image of Willa that he brought to mind looked a lot like Annalea. She wore a single braid, not two, and her eyes were darker than her sister's, but they were just as lively back then, and she looked at him with the purity of a child's joy. He would have opened a vein for her. If Eli had been moved to do the same, he probably did have a scar.

“What happened?” he asked without inflection.

Willa shrugged. “Family mostly. We kept our engagement a secret for years, but eventually we were found out. We didn't get married, and we didn't kill ourselves.” She took Felicity by the bridle, finally turned, and began to lead the mare toward Israel and the exit. “I was thirteen when I was packed off to the Margaret Lowe School in Saint Louis. I wrote to Eli once a week for the first six months of my incarceration, but he never wrote back. It occurred to me that Malcolm and Edith were not allowing him to see my correspondence, but I believed, and I still believe, that he had a responsibility to
initiate a letter. Something would have reached me eventually.”

She came abreast of Israel. “By the time I returned home, he was at a school in Virginia. That presented him with an opportunity to write to me without interference from his parents. He did nothing with it. Eventually he came home, but my perspective was considerably changed by then, and I did not care. I had responsibilities, real ones, and when I looked at Eli Barber with fresh eyes, I did not particularly like what I saw. I tend to think it was the same for him.” She handed Felicity's reins to Israel so she could put on her gloves. “It broke my thirteen-year-old heart when he didn't write, but a broken heart at that age is merely a rite of passage. Do you understand?”

Israel nodded. “Bea Winslow.”

“Ah, yes.” She smiled faintly. “The first girl you asked to dance.”

“That's right. So you are not still grieving for him.”

“No.” She took back the reins and pointed to the door. “Will you open that, please?” As he walked away, she said, “No, I am certainly not grieving. You know he's proposed since then, and I've always said no. That is not going to change.”

The door jerked unevenly as Israel pulled it sideways. The metal rollers emitted a high-pitched squeal as they moved along the track. He recognized it now as a cry for oil. That would be his responsibility, and he made an absent note to take care of it before someone asked him.

Willa's eyes lifted to the top of the rolling door. “You'll take care of that?”

And just like that, he was her employee again. “Yes, ma'am.”

One of her eyebrows lifted, but she made no comment, and after a moment, she walked on.

Israel watched her, and when she was gone, he went looking for the oilcan.

That night he lay in bed on his back, his head cradled in his palms, his lashes at half-mast. Three bunks away, Zach was whistling through his nose. Beside him, Cutter ground his teeth.

Israel hardly noticed.

His thoughts were occupied by something Willa had said that afternoon and never got around to explaining, or perhaps never meant to. The snippet had stayed with him through supper, nagged at him during the lasso lesson, and kept repeating itself during card play with Annalea. After asking him to pass the bread plate three times, Happy demanded to know if he was taking a train of thought back to Chicago. Zach threatened to lasso his neck if he didn't pay attention. Annalea was perhaps the most direct. She threw her cards at him when he was too long taking his turn.

The way I behaved when you kissed me
.

That's what Willa had said. He was recalling it out of context but that was hardly important, and it was going to keep him up all night if he didn't get an answer to what the hell she had meant by it.

*   *   *

Willa's eyes flew open and she sat straight up in bed. She did not know what had disturbed her sleep, but her first instinct was to look toward the bed where Annalea slept. The oil lamp, which Annalea insisted should remain burning until she fell asleep, flickered ever so faintly now, but its light was sufficient for Willa to make out the top of Annalea's head above the blankets. She listened closely for the sound of her breathing and heard nothing that provoked her concern, no labored breaths or congestion, no coughing or fevered murmurings.

Relieved that she had been startled awake by something other than a problem with Annalea, she turned back the covers and put her legs over the side of the bed. As soon as she set her toes on the floor, cold penetrated the soles of her feet in spite of the thick woolen socks she was wearing.

When the disturbance occurred again, Willa had no difficulty identifying what it was. She stood and padded quietly to the window. The scratching sound had come from there.
Where the hell is John Henry?
she wondered. The hound should have howled, should still be howling for that matter, but the space where he slept at the foot of Annalea's bed was empty, and he had not yet appeared.

Willa parted the faded blue gingham curtains and peered
out between the panels. Well, she thought, surveying the moonlit scene that confronted her, she had found John Henry and solved the mystery of why the traitorous dog had not made a sound.

He was cradled like a baby in Israel McKenna's arms having his belly rubbed and no doubt being told what a very good dog he was.

She wanted to bang her forehead against the glass but feared that the percussion would wake Annalea. Instead, she carefully raised the window a few inches and knelt on the floor so she could speak through the opening. The rush of cold air made her rethink her choice.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered harshly. “And don't tell me you're returning John Henry. I won't believe you. You probably stole him in the first place.”

Israel stepped closer to the window. “I want to talk to you.” His dark brows lifted a fraction. “Did you just growl at me?”

She thought she might have, but she was not going to admit it. “I'm coming out,” she hissed. “And I'm taking John Henry back!”

She closed the window with more authority than she'd intended and immediately looked over her shoulder to see if Annalea was stirring. She was not, and Willa was able to release the breath in her ballooned lungs. Willa rose, and the curtains fell back into place, but not before Israel snared her attention with his careless and charming grin.

She quelled an urge to stick out her tongue because it was immature, and lacked dignity. That, and he could no longer see it anyway.

Willa shrugged into her heavy woolen robe and belted it tight. The hem of her flannel nightgown fluttered around her ankles as she hurried to the kitchen to find her boots. She sat down to yank them on and then bounced to her feet as though she had springs in her knees and was out the door moments after that.

Israel was not waiting for her on the back porch. He was also not standing in the yard where she could see him. Was he still loitering outside her window? Willa ignored the steps and
jumped off the side of the porch instead and walked around the corner of the house. Israel was still there, although he had moved about four yards back from the window. She supposed that was his idea of being discreet.