The Devil You Know (25 page)

“Oh?”

He might not have seen her stiffen if he had not been trying to gauge her reaction. She always did it when he approached her straight on. It was not that she would have preferred a manipulative approach; it was just that since the marriage she seemed to have developed an edginess when she sensed he was about to speak seriously. The only word he could find for it was dread.

As a favor to her, he plunged ahead rather than draw it out. “I can't stay here, Willa.” She fumbled with the turner and a flapjack dropped to the floor. “I'll get it,” he said, extending an arm to put her off. Before he bent over, he saw that it was not a matter of beating her to the flapjack but of beating John Henry. Stealthy as a fox, the hound appeared from under the table, snatched the flapjack, and returned to his den.

Israel exchanged an amused look with Willa and saw that John Henry's appearance had been a good thing for her. The tension that had pulled her shoulders taut was slipping away.

“I'd like to get off the spread, out of the valley. It wouldn't have to be Jupiter, probably shouldn't be. I was thinking Lansing. We could pay a visit to Pastor Beacon, have a look around. You might even find someone there you could hire as a cook or another hand since Eli hasn't done anything about sending help your way.”

Willa kept her head bent over the griddle. “So when you said you can't stay here, you didn't mean you were leaving for good.”

“Well, no,” he said, surprised. “Is that what you thought?”

She spun around, the turner raised menacingly. “What other construction was I supposed to put on it?”

Israel kept one narrowed eye on the turner and the other on the quiver in Willa's lower lip. Calmly he said, “What other construction? The one I meant, of course. The leghorns roam farther than I do. Snow's been a consideration the last couple of weeks, but Cutter says the road is passable now for the horses, if not for the wagon.” Deciding she was not going to threaten him with the turner, Israel shifted his attention back to his plate. He shook his head as he picked up his fork. “You really thought I was talking about leaving for good? I never figured that. I told you once that I would stay through the winter, which I'm hearing can last until about the middle of April, but I said that before we were married. I was under the impression that marriage meant I would be sticking around a lot longer than one winter. I didn't guess that you were still thinking along different lines.”

Willa lowered her arm. She pivoted back to the stove and removed two flapjacks and poured more batter. “It catches me unawares,” she said, her head bent. “It crosses my mind that you'll say you've had enough, that you're going to go wherever you were going when you took the detour that brought you here. Sometimes when you ride out with Zach or Cutter, I think that'll be the time you don't ride back.”

Something sizzled on the griddle and Israel did not think it was the batter this time. There was a tremor in her hand and another rolling down her spine. He pushed away from the table and stood. “Wilhelmina.”

She sniffed. “Don't call me that. Not now. Not with that tone.”

Israel came up behind her, took the turner from her hand, and made quick work of the flapjacks while she had to stand there, effectively trapped and just a little bit helpless. Once the griddle was clear, he turned her in his arms, careful not to press her against the stove, and said, “What tone?”

“The patronizing one.”

“That tone was concern.”

She sniffed again. “You overshot the mark.”

“All right. Perhaps I did, but that doesn't mean I'm not
concerned. You took vows, Willa, and while I realize they were not deeply felt, I reasoned you would honor them as a contract, if not as matter of belief. Was I wrong?” When her gaze shifted to a point beyond his shoulder, he ducked his head and followed it so she could not avoid him. Once he had her in his sights again, he said, “Well? Was I wrong?”

Willa shook her head.

“Then I am asking you to accept that I will at least honor them in the same way. I know what it's like to walk out on people who are depending on me.” He smiled humorlessly. “Run out is more accurate. I'm telling you that so you'll know I've had the experience and that I've made a different choice this time. I wouldn't have agreed to marry you otherwise, not for the ranch, not to get into your bed, not even for Annalea, and God knows, she was relentless in singing your praises.”

Willa brushed away a tear that hovered on her eyelash. She reached behind her, found a towel hanging from the oven door, and used it to erase the tracks on her cheeks. “She was? I didn't know about that.”

“I didn't think you did, and I wouldn't have said anything if I didn't need it to support my case.”

Her smile was a trifle watery. “Support your case,” she repeated softly. “You talk like a lawyer.” Her eyes were immediately suspicious. “Are you one? Because I will never believe you were a reporter.”

“I don't know if you intend to insult me or the profession, but I am not a lawyer, have never been a lawyer, and have no intention of becoming one; however, that does not mean I haven't made a study of them. There's not much else to do when you're on trial.” She made a little sound at the back of her throat that might have been protest or perhaps surprise. He spoke to both. “That's right. I don't want you to forget that I did time. It's who I was, Willa. Not who I am.” He paused as she searched his face, and it was not hard to imagine that she was wondering what she could trust. He took a breath, released it slowly, and gave her the plain truth of the matter. “That's not quite right. I mean it's not who I want to be.”

Without any urging, she leaned against him, rested her
cheek on his shoulder. “We'll ask Happy about the route he took to Lansing. If we don't have another hard snowfall in the next few days, maybe we can ride out that way like you want. I've only been there a few times, but I remember a bakery that made excellent Scotch wafers and jelly jumbles. We could bring a few dozen back.”

“There can't be a better reason for going.”

She tilted her head up and caught his eye. “There might be. I've heard Lansing has a rather fine hotel.”

Eli Barber slugged back the whiskey his father poured for him and held out his cut glass tumbler for another.

Malcolm regarded his son for several moments, debating, and then shrugged his broad shoulders and poured exactly as much as he had the first time. “Sit down, Eli. If you're going to drink like that, you need to start out on your ass.” He observed Eli's belligerent expression, and added, “If you're of a mind to argue with me, then you're not getting more. Your choice.”

Eli sat. The chair was old, a relic in dark walnut from the settling days, as Malcolm liked to refer to them, and the curved spindly legs with their ball and claw feet shook when he landed on the faded bed of needlepoint roses. His grandmother planted that garden he was sitting on years before he was born, but Eli felt no particular attachment to it. He would have used the chair for kindling a long time ago, but his father was peculiarly sentimental about it, which he learned when he suggested tossing it. The lecture about history and birthright and reverence for the contributions of family was long and tedious and painful because he had to sit at attention in the very chair he wanted to toss.

He was not at attention now. He slouched in the chair but stopped short of rocking it back on two legs. Peripherally aware that his father was watching him closely, he purposely stared at his glass instead of drinking from it.

“I don't believe it,” he said. “I don't.”

“Since I am certain you are not calling me a liar, son, I imagine you're having that argument with yourself.”

“Could you have misunderstood?”

Malcolm carried the decanter of whiskey to a table beside the sofa and set it down. He sat on the sofa, glass in hand, and propped his feet on a stool. His boot heels sank comfortably into the brushed velvet upholstery. Like the sofa, it was dark emerald green, slightly shiny in places familiar with his boots or his ass.

“Misunderstood?” he repeated heavily, raising his glass. “That doesn't seem likely, does it? I had it from Mrs. Hamill. That's Cutter Hamill's mother.”

“I damn well know who she is.”

“And you know Cutter works for the Pancakes.”

Eli did not respond to that. His father was driving a point home, and Eli already felt as if he had been skewered.

“If you had gone to Jupiter with me, you could have had it from her yourself.”

“I was there last week. Buster was with me. We had a chat with Mrs. Hamill outside the mercantile. She talked about Cutter, about all of her children, in fact, and she had some gossip about Birdie Cuttlewhite taking ownership of a recipe that was actually Sarah Barker's. Now if she dug deep enough into her tattle bag to tell us that, don't you think she would have mentioned that Willa Pancake got married?”

“Hmm. That's a fair point, Eli, and it likely would be correct if young Cutter had visited his mama and imparted his news before you and Buster saw her, but he didn't. The road between the Pancake spread and town had some waist-high drifts, according to Mrs. Hamill. Took the warming lull to make it passable again and then only barely. A man less motivated to see his mama than Cutter would not have made the trip.”

“I'm sure she was thrilled,” Eli said sourly. “And thrilled to tell you.”

“That was my impression.”

Eli waited, knowing there was more to hear and both wanting and dreading to hear it. His father's silence was purposeful, a punishment for having been questioned, and Eli saw his choice was to ride it out or abase himself and ask for the information.

To delay the moment of inquiry, he nursed his drink while he thought about finishing it in a single gulp and
pitching the glass in the fireplace. In his mind, he could clearly hear it shatter, along with every hope he harbored about his future with Wilhelmina.

He darted a surreptitious glance at the scar on his wrist as he lowered the tumbler and felt a wave of anger where once he had only known longing. His fingertips whitened where they gripped the glass.

“So when were these nuptials?” asked Eli.

“A few weeks back,” Malcolm said offhandedly, as if there had been no charged silence between them. “Three. Four. Mrs. Hamill did not tell me a specific day, and since I could not think why it would matter, I didn't ask.”

“Huh.” Eli absently pushed back the fringe of hair that had fallen over his forehead. “That's some kind of news you brought back. Did you hightail it out of Jupiter or take your time so you could savor the thought of telling me?”

Malcolm hiked up a single sandy-colored eyebrow, but his tone remained mild. “I am going to let that pass, Eli, because I know you're disappointed.”

“Disappointed,” Eli repeated softly. He lifted his head to meet his father's green-eyed stare with his own. “What about you, Father? Are you disappointed? In me, perhaps?”

Malcolm did not reply. Instead, he reached for the decanter and pulled out the stopper, and then he held the whiskey out for Eli, inviting him to have more. When Eli leaned forward and extended his glass, Malcolm poured generously before he swept the decanter away and added a finger to his own glass.

Eli stood abruptly, remembered his father's edict about sitting, and strode to the fireplace in defiance of it. Encouraged when Malcolm said nothing, he picked up the iron poker and stabbed at the logs, turning one of them so the bright orange glow on the bottom was exposed. The sparks pulsed. Like his anger, the fire's heat came at him in waves. Suppressing the urge to slam the poker against the mantle, he put it down and turned to face his father. What he did not do was return to the chair.

“You know I intended to propose to her again,” he said.

Malcolm nodded, thoughtful. “I had an idea you were
entertaining the notion. It came to me not long after we saw her up on the ridge. Remember that day? It's been more than a few months now. You woke up that morning with a sore head. Revelry and overindulgence, I believe you told me.”

“That's right,” Eli said, resting his shoulder against the mantelpiece. His father was no longer looking at him. Malcolm's eyes had shifted to his glass, and he was regarding it as though it held all the mystic qualities of a crystal ball. “It was good to be back home. I celebrated my return with a couple of our men that I came across in Jupiter.”

“Yes. I recollect thinking when you crawled home that night that a week in Saint Louis had not taken the wind out of your sails.”

“I didn't realize you sent me there for any other purpose save ranch business, which I concluded satisfactorily.”

“You did, but I always have it in the back of my mind that you will revel and overindulge where you are little known and return to Jupiter and Big Bar shrewd and sober.”

“I take my whores in Denver,” he said. “And now Saint Louis. That should count for something. It certainly demonstrates that I do listen to you when the subject is women and whoring.”

“Drink makes you bold, doesn't it, son? And I am going to make allowances for it. We both know that what you said is not entirely true. You learned the lesson about whores well enough, but you don't know a damn thing about women. If you did, Willa wouldn't be someone else's wife right now.”

Eli closed his eyes. Under his breath he said, “Shut up.”

“She is spreading her legs for someone who isn't you, Eli. Is that the picture you have in your mind? You should. You should have pressed her the day after we met up with her on the ridge, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the—”

“Shut up!” Eli did throw his glass then, not into the fireplace, where the glass would have splintered and the whiskey would have burned blue, but at his father, where the glass thudded solidly against Malcolm's chest and the whiskey spilled over his vest and droplets splattered his face.

Malcolm gave a start when the glass hit him, but then he
calmly removed the empty glass from where it had fallen in his lap and placed it beside the decanter. He wiped his chin with the back of his hand and finished off his drink. He set that glass aside also.

“That was unfortunate,” he said. He sighed deeply. “You should leave, Eli. Now.”

While you can.
Although his father had not said the words aloud, Eli heard them as if he had.

He straightened, tugged on the sleeves of his jacket to improve the fit across his shoulders, and nodded once in Malcolm's direction. All of it was done to give the impression that he was leaving because he wanted to, not because he had been threatened.

He was already out of the room when he heard his father howl with laughter that was as condescending as it was cruel.

“Just like that you're leaving?” Malcolm called after him when he could get a breath. “Don't you want to know the name of the man in her bed?”

Eli did not pause; he did not answer. He kept on walking, his father's laughter ringing in his ears.

*   *   *

The first thing Israel did after he opened the door to Room 204 was to sweep Willa off her feet and into his arms. That he took her completely by surprise was evident when she squealed and grabbed him by the collar of his coat.

“What are you doing?” she asked, frantically looking around for where he was taking her. “You didn't close the door.”

He obligingly backed up, kicked the door shut with the heel of his boot, and then made for the bed. “Take off my hat,” he said. “Then yours.”

“Why? Oh, never mind.” She removed his hat and flung it in the direction of the bed. It skipped across the comforter and fell to the floor on the far side. She did the same with her hat, although it teetered on the edge of the bed before it finally slipped to the floor.

“Not a bad toss,” he said, striding forward.

“You're going to drop me like a sack of flour, aren't you?”

“I wasn't, but . . .” He chuckled when her arms went
around his neck. “Well, that's okay, too.” He lowered her carefully to the bed, and when the mattress was under her, he told her she could let him go. He released her also but did not straighten. Instead, he bore her down using only the pressure of his mouth. When he heard her moan softly, he sat up halfway, his arms braced on either side of her shoulders, and smiled at her. “Nice, isn't it?”

“Uh-huh.” She looked at him from under lashes that were only marginally raised. “Oh. Did you mean the kiss? I was referring to the mattress. I don't know if I've—”

Israel kissed her. He had to. It was an imperative, and he did not draw back until she moaned again. “You have a sassy mouth, Mrs. McKenna.”

“I know. Did you bring the honey?”

Laughing, he sat up fully and encouraged her to move over and make room for him. When she did, he stretched out beside her and rolled onto his back. He wriggled his shoulders and then his entire frame until he created a sweet spot for himself. “It
is
a nice mattress.”

“Are you comfortable?” she asked dryly. “There was a moment there while you were squirming that you put me in mind of John Henry. He twists something fierce when he's settling down beside Annalea.”

“Well, John Henry has a certain charm. I am choosing to be flattered by the comparison.”

“Of course you would be.”

Israel found her hand, slipped his fingers through hers so they made a fist, and gave it a little shake. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and saw that her grin had faded. She was pensive.

“A penny for them,” he said.

“Mm. I was thinking about the register downstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Israel McKenna. I watched you sign it without the slightest hesitation. It struck me that I might not have done the same. Not done it as quickly, I mean. Do you suppose you are more married than I am? Is that even possible?”

“I don't know,” he said, treading carefully. “What do you think?”

“I'm not sure. I know you thought hard about it before you
said yes, but once you made up your mind, once we were married, you took to it like a bumblebee takes to a blossom, like it was natural to you. I don't think it's natural to me. Not yet.” She turned her head toward him. “You carried me across the threshold. That's what you intended, isn't it?”

“Yes. I was correcting an oversight.”

“I didn't think of it, not once, and you, well, it was like you had it planned all along. Are you certain you weren't married before?”

Israel stopped staring at the ceiling and swiveled his head in her direction. “I'm certain.” He saw she was trying to determine if she could believe him. “I'm
certain
,” he repeated.

Willa nodded. “I'm sorry. That will teach you to think twice about offering to pay for my thoughts.”

“Hmm. That's right. I owe you a penny.”

She chuckled. “I'll record it under accounts receivable.”

Israel said, “Or you could take it out in trade.”

Now she gave him a full-throated laugh. “Are you trying to be helpful or are you merely hopeful?”

“Can't I be both?”

Willa took her hand from his and flung herself at him. “Come here, you wicked man.” When she was more on top of him than not, she began planting kisses. His ear, his neck, the space between his eyebrows that creased when he was thinking deeply, she put her mouth to each place. Sometimes she lingered, as she did when she came to the corner of his lips, trying to tease the dimple to show itself. Sometimes her lips darted, alighting as briefly as a hummingbird in search of sweeter nectar.

“Should we remove our coats?” he asked, his breath hot in her ear.

“Soon.” She breathed the word more than she said it and then said it again, this time against his mouth. “Soon.”

Israel was agreeable, especially when she did a fair imitation of John Henry as she wriggled over him. He slipped his hands under her coat and cupped the rounds of her bottom. They were soft, beautifully curved, and eminently squeezable right up until the moment he whispered, “Mrs. Roundbottom, I presume.” That was when her head jerked
up and her buttocks tightened rock hard under his palms. “Huh,” he grunted quietly. “Just as I thought. You're not much for the name either.”