THE DEVILS DIME (27 page)

Her eyelids had drooped, and now they flew wide and she turned a shocked face toward Jess.

“The tragedy is that it got a good man killed.”

Her gasp was the most genuine thing Jess had ever heard come from the little minx.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

She hadn’t even breathed yet, and shook her head in slow, confused denial.

“After you left with the paper, the paper Ollie wanted me to have, that’s when they — when someone — killed Ollie Twickenham.”

Birdie Tabor came unglued.

“Oh, Mistuh Peppuh, I’m in big trouble.” The dam had finally broken. “If D— if this person finds out you’ve got that papuh, why I don’t know what he might do! I was just goin’ t’ give it to ’im and head outta town on the first train. But now—”

She threw her hands wide and Jess caught them and told her to breathe just to keep her from passing out.

“Birdie, Birdie, Birdie. You know, I think that’s a very smart thing to do.”

“Y-you do?” She looked at him as if no one had ever called her smart before. And that was probably true. But if she’d already figured out that she needed to skip town before some bastard found out she’d let him down, perhaps she wasn’t so dumb after all.

“Yes, I do. And I think it’s my duty to escort you to the train myself. How quickly can you be ready?”

He dropped her arms and stepped to her side, a hand on her elbow for encouragement.

“Well, um, it takes a girl a while to pack, y’know.” Birdie was stalling, taken aback by his offer.

“I can wait.” Jess donned his Stetson and offered her his arm.

Birdie blew a long blubbery breath and came to a decision. “Oh, hell, I already sent m’ things to the station. I ain’t nobody’s fool,” she said as she hooked her arm through his.

“Attagirl.” He screwed his face into a look of reassurance. “I have to ask you one question, though, Birdie.”

She looked up at him from beneath her glistening lashes. Nothing on her face told him she would tell the truth. The whole truth, anyway. But he still had to try.

“Would you prefer to go to Chief Trumbull? To get his protection? That way you wouldn’t have to leave—”

“No!” She grabbed the front of his jacket, her panic stricken response all he needed to hear. “

He lifted her hands from their death grip on his lapels. “So it
was
him.”

She looked away.

“Birdie? It was Trumbull who did this to you?”

She was still as a statue, neither confirming or denying.

“And you were to take this paper to him?”

Nothing.

“And when you didn’t have it, he had to teach you a little lesson.”

Her only response was to square her shoulders a bit, relieved, perhaps, at the unburdening. And he had his answers.

Jess had little sympathy for a two-timing trollop whose misguided conniving had gotten her caught between a rock and a hard place, but he wasn’t about to throw Birdie to the wolves. She may have done all the wrong things for all the wrong reasons, but nobody deserved bruises like that. And he knew now just who had delivered those purple beauties.

The best solution was to help this woman get out of town and out of the mess she’d managed to land square in the middle of. Jess hurried her along and kept her talking, all the while keeping an eye out for trouble. But it was the supper hour, and they left the building virtually unnoticed.

He signalled for an enclosed hansom cab just to be on the safe side, and had her wait a few minutes while he checked out the train station when they arrived. But Birdie had for once in her life managed to remain anonymous, and soon Jess had her on a train to Cincinnati in a private car with the curtains drawn.

He watched until the train left, and no unsavory sorts boarded after Birdie. Perhaps she was going to make it to her new start after all.

One thing was certain, though. He’d already missed his new start with Addie. How was he going to explain this one?

. . .

Addie stood fanning the last of the smoke toward the window and didn’t hear the door open behind her.

“What in God’s name happened here?”

She whirled and felt the painful rush of relief and guilt and failure all at once.

“Well, where in bloody hell were you? It’s your fault the biscuits burned, I’ll have you know.”

Addie commenced slamming dishes onto the table, then plopped into a chair and glared at him until he joined her. She served up the shepherd’s pie and nearly spit out her first bite. She’d forgotten to reheat it, and it had been cooling on the counter for over two hours.

Addie fumed silently through the entire meal and swore to herself if he said a word, she’d kill him on the spot.

But he didn’t.

The dreadful meal didn’t last long, fortunately, and Addie reached for his plate.

“Ah, ah, ah. You cooked, I’ll clear.”

“But—”

“No buts, young lady.”

Addie watched as Jess cleared the table, scraped the scraps into an old newspaper — and the remains of the shepherd’s pie, she noticed — and washed up the dishes by the time Addie had finished a second cup of coffee.

“Better?” Jess lifted Addie’s chin with his forefinger and looked her closely in the eye.

“Better.” She darted up and kissed him on the nose before he drew away. “But you scared me to death, Jess Pepper. What on earth kept you so late?”

“Late? Addie, I was only two hours late.” There were times he’d been missing in action for weeks at a time and no one had made a fuss like this.

“Only two hours? I was frantic!”

“Now, c’mon, Addie, you can’t go getting hysterical every time I come ’round a little late.”

“But I thought you were in trouble.” Now she was pouting.

“I promise if I’m ever in trouble I’ll find a way to get a message to you. How’s that?”

“Well, what if you can’t?”

“Jess Pepper never breaks a promise, Addie girl.”

“Well, what if you’re dead!”

“Now, bite your tongue, little lady.” Jess grabbed the salt shaker and tossed a sprinkle over his right shoulder.

Addie snorted. “What was that for?”

“T’ break the curse you just put on me.”

“Throwing salt over your shoulder breaks the curse?”

“If you’re Irish it does. I think.”

“You’re full of hot air. You only throw salt over your shoulder if you spilled the salt in the first place. Then you get good luck. Not broken curses.”

“Well....fie on you.”

Jess and Addie sat ill at ease at the table. The levity helped. But they’d both been startled by their first quarrel. When Addie didn’t speak, Jess broke the silence.

“I’m sorry you were worried, Addie. I should have sent a message ’round so you wouldn’t be pacing the floor frantic with worry.”

The image he drew made Addie flush with guilt.

“Well, I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. And I was hardly frantic, Jess Pepper. I’m not some weak ninny, you know. I was merely...concerned.”

She had just yelled at him that she’d been frantic, but he thanked whatever gods had kept him from pointing that out when she revised her worry downward.

“Ah. Concerned.”

“Jess.” She turned and fixed him with a level gaze. “Let me tell you how concerned I was. I was so concerned that I picked up my violin and practiced for two hours straight and would have kept going if the smoke hadn’t smothered me. I was embarrassed that I’d burned the biscuits and that’s why I yelled at you. I’m sorry.”

They’d made a small tower of their hands, one atop the other, and sat touching foreheads as they made their confessions.

“I see. So you weren’t worried about me.”

“Well, I was, of course, but not for as long as I let on.”

“I see. And what did you do with the biscuits?”

“What?”

“Where are the biscuits now?”

“In the trash bin.”

“Ah. Then I’m safe.”

“What do you mean? I wouldn’t serve them to you. They were practically petrified.”

“I wasn’t worried about
eating
them. I just didn’t want you
throwing
them at me when I tell you where I was. Could break my nose. Or worse!”

“So,” she attempted a pouty look, “where were you? With another woman?”

He smiled. “Actually, yes.”

Addie jumped from her chair at his admission and took a swat at his shoulder. He intercepted her arm and pulled her off balance and right into his lap. “And after I got her safely on a train out of town, I came straight here, hungry as a bear for some petrified biscuits.”

Now she swatted him in earnest. “Jess Pepper, you just remember one very important thing.”

He grinned and kissed her nose. “What would that be, little cook?”

“I know where those biscuits are.”

She had him chuckling now, and in one smooth motion he lifted her, stepped across to the large upholstered easy chair and dropped into it with his precious cargo. She held tightly to him, and her first kiss was a hungry frenzy of relief and pent-up worry. He answered her as tenderly as his own emotion would allow.

“Oh, Jess,” she groaned, “you’re ruining me.”

“I’m
what
?”

“Ruining me. For furniture. I’ll never appreciate sitting solitary on a piece of furniture ever again, and that’s very, very sad.”

Her hand came to his cheek as she kissed his nose, and the twinkle in her eye expressed anything but sadness. Jess pulled her more snugly into his lap and began to unlace her hightops while she plied kisses along his ear and neck.

“I, on the other hand, have discovered a new appreciation for these overstuffed chairs,” Jess countered, his words tumbling out slow, measured, belying the hitch in his breathing. “They afford much more room for things like...toes, and...”

He dropped her shoe over the side of the chair and massaged her foot, then let his fingers slide along her slim instep and upward to encircle her ankle.

She shivered, and her hand lost interest in the waves at the nape of his neck and slid lightly to his bare chest. The fingers that had made short work of his shirt buttons now sent lush, warm sensations along his collar bone.

Her breath matched his, but skimming across his ear as it did, it was driving him mad.

“Addie...” he tried, but her breathy “yes” undid him further, and nothing in this world could keep his hand from sliding up her supple calf to the warm haven of her thigh. “Addie...” He shifted his shoulder, dropping it slightly to pull her face away from his ear.