A reckless love, p.13
A Reckless Love, page 13
“Good thing you did. I’d have been very . . . unhappy if you hadn’t.”
The oblique reference to their earlier conversation seemed to please her, for she gave him that blinding grin. “I’m glad you approve. And in case you wondered, you don’t snore.” She turned for the stairs.
Laughing, he followed. What was she going to say next? “That wasn’t on the top of my anxiety list. But please tell whoever brought up the hot water, I’m eternally grateful.”
“I will.” Her tone was odd.
“Was it one of the Pogues? Is that some kind of local Indian tribe?”
Aurora giggled. “India and Shug Pogue work at Daughtry House, but they live in Shake Rag, not too far from here. They’re going to manage the renovations.” She took the last two steps to the ground floor in one jump. “I brought the water.”
He grabbed her by the arm and turned her to face him. He stared at her, horrified. “You did—what? You hauled all that water up the stairs by yourself?”
“Don’t look so shocked. I’m stronger than I appear.” She flexed one arm.
It did look surprisingly sturdy, encased in its blue-striped cotton sleeve. He could even see the outline of a firm little bicep. “I’m sure you are, but you are a lady, and ladies don’t—”
“Oh, horse pucky! Ladies do what they have to do. I grew up in a doctor’s household and had to do all kinds of tasks that you might consider menial or unladylike. I ride horses and muck stalls and scrub floors and do laundry when necessary.”
“Well, don’t get any ideas about emptying that tub by yourself. I’ll do it.”
“What a grump.” She sniffed. “Fine. I don’t have time to argue with you. The train will be here at 1:05, so I’m going to head on across to the station and stand where you can see me. I’ll wave when you can get over there without anybody noticing you.”
That sounded a little hare-brained and overly complicated, but she was so clearly pleased to be helping him that he hated to disappoint her. “All right.”
Aurora nodded, reaching up to press her thumb to his chin. “You cut yourself. I wish I had some alum. Grandpapa used to—What’s the matter?”
He could hardly tell her that he’d flinched because he hadn’t been touched by a woman since a nurse called Miss Marks held his face while the doctor at Cahaba sewed up his eye. Swallowing, he took Aurora’s small, soft hand and squeezed it before letting it go. “I just didn’t want you to get blood on your dress.”
“I told you I’m not squeamish.” She produced a handkerchief from her apron pocket and handed it to him. “Here. At least press this against the cut until the bleeding stops.”
He took the lacy bit of fabric and reluctantly pressed it to his chin. He would make sure to wash it before returning it. Or better yet, he’d buy her a new one.
Aurora nodded. “Press hard. And remind me to get some cinnamon powder out of the kitchen when we get back. That will help.”
Managing. Bossy. And adorable. “I’m not walking around with cinnamon powder on my face.”
She snorted laughter. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. All right, all right, I’ll leave you alone. Watch me out the window, and come when I wave.”
“You said that already.” But he followed her to the front door of the saloon. As she flitted out onto the porch, Zane moved to the now squeaky-clean window and watched her dart across the street to the train tracks.
She quickly fell into conversation with a lady on the platform, but he had a feeling she would have talked to one of the posts holding up the station roof if she’d found herself alone. The next twenty minutes passed quickly as he watched her hands animate her every word, imagined the bubble of laughter beneath her breath and the sparkle of joy in those golden-brown eyes.
Joy. That was the way he thought of her, and it drew him with the force of a tide to the seashore.
When the train came, she looked across the street at him, lifted her hand, and smiled. And he went to her.
By the time he got across the street and slipped past the engine onto the platform, the lady Aurora had been in conversation with had disappeared. The station was busy with travelers, making it easy to fold himself into the stream of passengers exiting the second car back from the engine.
He found himself following an elderly woman dressed in an elegant travel suit that even he recognized as the first crack of fashion. She supported herself with an ivory-headed ebony cane that affected neither the military posture nor the regal set of her head. A couple of tall feathers sprouted from a quite terrifying hat, firmly pinned atop a mass of upswept white hair. When Zane took her elbow to keep her from tripping on a loose board, she turned and raised a pair of winged reddish-gray eyebrows that looked oddly familiar.
He smiled and released her. “All right, ma’am?”
“Certainly.” Smacking him across the knuckles with an ivory fan, the old woman smirked at him. “A bad boy with good manners. Married one of those, once upon a time, and turned him into a good man.”
Resisting the urge to rub his stinging hand, Zane eyed her doubtfully. “Do I know you?”
Before she could answer, he heard a gasp from behind him. “Grandmama! What are you doing here?”
thirteen
WHO INVITED HER? Aurora knew she hadn’t done it, and she couldn’t imagine Joelle or Selah subjecting the family to the presence of the Grand Inquisitor.
Grandmama bridled. “I came to make sure Schuyler and Joelle do not elope in some ill-bred fashion, as Selah and Levi tried to do. One simply cannot trust those impulsive Beaumont children, forever plunging the family into scandal—Camilla and her underground railroad, Jamie and his fish-boat, and now Schuyler riding about at night in costume, pretending association with that Klan rabble. I told your grandfather, I’d better come down here and make certain Joelle has fully considered the consequences of allying herself with that unpredictable young cockerel.”
“Grandmama, you’re the one who gave Schuyler your wedding ring as a betrothal gift!” Aurora couldn’t help glancing at Zane to make sure he was all right. Grandmama had given him quite a crack on the knuckles.
He had crossed his arms as if to observe the show, but humor lit that one green eye.
Grandmama sniffed and rounded on him. “Young man, since you seem reluctant to take your piratical gaze from my granddaughter’s face, perhaps you wouldn’t mind retrieving my trunk from the baggage car.”
Zane bowed. “I’d be happy to, if you’ll tell me—”
“Trunk!” Aurora’s voice rose in dismay. “How long are you planning to stay?”
“Never mind, missy, I’ll leave when I get good and ready. Or when I feel you can be trusted not to allow the entire operation to run amok.”
“Operation? What operation?” Aurora stood her ground.
Grandmama thumped her cane against the platform. “Are you denying that you purchased a saloon?”
“As a matter of fact, I am. It was a gift.” Aurora looked around at passengers hurrying to and from the ticket office. “And it is no longer a saloon. But perhaps we should continue this discussion indoors.” She glanced at Zane, who was staring at Grandmama with the fascination of a mongoose eyeing a cobra. “Grandmama, this is Deputy Marshal Zane Sager, who will be staying at the boardinghouse for the next week or so. He is not a porter.”
Grandmama looked him up and down. “Is he not? What an egregious waste of those shoulders.”
Zane burst out laughing. “Ma’am, if you’ll give me your name, I’ll go look for the trunk and deliver it wherever you wish.”
“I am Mrs. Winifred McGowan. It appears that I will be staying at the saloon”—Grandmama waved a hand—“boardinghouse, whatever you wish to call it—since my granddaughter has decided to flout all bounds of propriety.”
“Grandmama! We are not open for guests—”
“But you just said Mr. Sager—”
Aurora stamped her foot. “That is a special circumstance!”
“Aurora, don’t be childish.” Grandmama frowned.
“And anyway, ThomasAnne is with me, so everything is perfectly aboveboard.”
Grandmama made a disparaging noise. “ThomasAnne was patently ineffectual at curbing Joelle’s proclivity to mixed bathing. I do not trust her to keep you out of trouble.”
“Mixed bathing? Joelle? What are you talking about?” Aurora was beginning to fear her grandmother had descended into senility.
Zane cleared his throat. “Ladies, I think I’ll just go retrieve the trunk.” He hesitated, apparently weighing the comparative pigheadedness he was dealing with. “I’ll take it to the boardinghouse, and we’ll go from there.”
Fulminating, Aurora watched him stride away toward the pile of trunks and cases that had collected near the baggage car. “I never saw such presumption in my—”
“I would say he has an uncommon degree of common sense. Where did you find him?”
Aurora took Grandmama’s arm and began to steer her across the street, toward the boardinghouse. “I didn’t find him, as if he were a penny in the crack of a sidewalk. He’s been assigned to guard all parties of this high-profile trial that we are involved in. I believe he’s been conferring with Levi.”
As she’d hoped, mention of Grandmama’s favorite took the focus off Aurora. “Hmph. Bad business, that fire. What is wrong with people—grown men destroying property willy-nilly like schoolyard bullies?”
Aurora shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe they’re worried that our hotel will encourage a Negro uprising.”
After a few moments of silence, Grandmama sighed. “It is fear. And misplaced, irrational anger. We fought a long war because of it, and I’d hoped that would settle it. But it appears we’ve still a long way to go toward reconciliation.”
Politics and social unrest made Aurora uncomfortable, and she didn’t feel she knew enough about it to write or talk about it like Joelle did. She just wanted people to get along. Still . . . “A deputy marshal just like Zane—Mr. Sager, I mean, was killed a few days ago. I worry about him.”
Grandmama stopped her, right in the middle of the street. “Aurora Josephine Daughtry, you stay out of this imbroglio. It’s bad enough that Joelle stuck her nose in it and brought all this mayhem down on us.”
“Now that’s not fair. Jo was only doing what she thought was right. She wasn’t the one who went burning down people’s churches!”
“Of course not. But she didn’t have to draw attention to herself as such an outspoken critic.”
Aurora could have pointed out that Grandmama had never been chary of speaking her mind, but in the interest of peace she held her tongue. After a moment, she said meekly, “Are you ready to continue? I think we can find you a cup of tea and a bedroom to take a nap.”
Giving her a considering stare, Grandmama released a chuckle under her breath and resumed the slow walk. “I see you have gained a modicum of restraint, which is an encouraging sign. But I mean it, Aurora. That boy is in a dangerous position, and I don’t like you harboring him during these politically tense times. For heaven’s sake, don’t encourage him to fall in love with you.”
Aurora felt as if her head might explode with embarrassment. “Grandmama! Nobody is falling in love!”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Grandmama muttered.
Aurora chose to pretend she didn’t hear it.
Zane dropped the trunk in the middle of the bedroom next door to the one he had slept in this morning. Rolling his aching shoulders, he thought of the old lady’s oblique admiration and grinned.
No wonder she had looked familiar. Aurora was her spitting image, from winged eyebrows to that delicate cleft chin—minus a few decades, of course. And the two of them clearly adored each other, despite the brief hissing and extension of claws. Jiminy, he didn’t want to get between them in a real disagreement.
He could hear them talking in the common room downstairs, along with a lighter, wispier voice he didn’t recognize. This morning he’d met the black woman named India who’d made his breakfast, as well as her husband, Shug, and they seemed nice enough people. Pogue—a family name, not an Indian tribe. He’d only been teasing Aurora to get a laugh out of her.
Worked like a charm.
Still smiling, he went up to the attic to check on his prisoners and their deputized jailor.
He found Beaumont, against all expectations, sitting on the floor reading Zane’s Pony Express Bible.
When the door opened, Beaumont looked up and got to his feet. “I’m very glad to see you,” he said, laying the Bible open on the chair where Zane had left it earlier. “I took the men out to the privy a while back, but now it’s my turn.”
“Any problems?” Zane surveyed the room. Jefcoat still lay on the bed, but he was awake and listening to the conversation. Moore sat on his bed, back against the wall, apparently in a brown study.
“Jefcoat and I had a little conversation,” Beaumont said with careful neutrality. “I’ll tell you about it later.” He strode out of the room, leaving Zane to pick up the Bible, curious about what the dandified Southerner had chosen to read.
He sat down with the little Bible open to Matthew 18, where Peter questioned Jesus as to how many times he should forgive someone who had sinned against him. Four hundred ninety times still seemed like an excessive amount to Zane, because how could you keep up with a number that big? But maybe that was the idea—forgive past the point where you’re still counting.
He looked at Jefcoat. Was that what the two men had been discussing? Offense and forgiveness?
“The judge will be here before tonight,” Zane said. “And the US attorney. Do you boys have a lawyer?”
Jefcoat sat up, chains and manacles rattling. “General Maney has agreed to represent us. Pa talked to him.”
“Yeah?” Zane stared. “When did that happen?”
“I got a letter, delivered to the jail while you was out jiggin’ around that morning with Schuyler and Riggins.” Jefcoat glanced at Moore. “He’s even gonna represent Harold.”
Zane absorbed that information. If Maney had agreed—or offered—to represent Jefcoat in court, he must have little fear of charges being pressed against himself. And he could be applying pressure against Jefcoat to keep his mouth shut. Both angles boded ill for the Attorney General’s prospects of ending the Klan’s reign of terror.
By the time Beaumont returned, he knew he had to do something about his ability to investigate the leads he’d already uncovered. He trusted Riggins, but he needed to go after Jones.
At Beaumont’s entrance, Zane got to his feet. “I need another temporary deputy until Pierce sends a man from Oxford,” he said abruptly. “As much as I appreciate your service, you’ve got other duties to attend to, and I need to be free to meet with the prosecutor and the judge later today. Who would you suggest?”
Beaumont’s brows went up. “Wimus McCanless is a good man. You’ll find him at the newspaper office—well, what’s left of it. He’s working on cleaning and repairing the equipment the Klan destroyed.”
“Where is that?”
“Franklin Street. North of the courthouse.”
“Fine. Can you stay here just a little longer, until I can get someone to relieve you?”
Beaumont sighed. “If it’s going to help us get this bunch of hellions rounded up, I’ll do whatever it takes.”
“Thanks, Beaumont. When this is over, I’ll owe you a great deal.” Zane shook hands and left his deputy to whatever solace he could find in the Bible.
Nearing the ground floor, he heard raised voices, which jerked to a halt when he entered the common room. Aurora and her grandmother sat at opposite ends of an ugly horsehair sofa that looked mighty uncomfortable. In a matching chair nearby sat a woman who matched the wispy voice he’d heard earlier—flyaway red-brown hair, faded blue eyes, hands clutching her skirt. He seemed to remember seeing her tiptoeing around the kitchen while he sat at the bar eating his breakfast. He’d thought she was a maid.
Aurora leaped to her feet. “Zane! Mr. Sager! I was hoping you’d like to take a trip to the courthouse while Grandmama takes her nap.” She shot Mrs. McGowan a tight-lipped look.
“I do not need a nap,” snapped the old woman. “I want you and ThomasAnne to drive me out to Ithaca for a cup of tea with Selah and Joelle. I understand that I am soon to become a great-grandmother, and I want to see for myself that Selah is caring for herself properly. Also, we need to discuss getting this marriage under way. Long engagements are good for nobody.”
Zane shook his head, intending to excuse himself from any part in the disagreement, but Aurora edged over and took him by the arm.
“I’m sorry, Grandmama,” she said firmly, “but I already promised. I’m sure Dr. Kidd will be happy to drive you and ThomasAnne over to Daughtry House. Mr. Sager and I will stop by the doctor’s office on the way to the courthouse and send him over to collect you.”
“That’s another thing!” Mrs. McGowan thumped her cane against the bare floor and fixed the wispy woman with a glare. “ThomasAnne, I do not understand your thinking, leaving Aurora here alone in a houseful of men all morning. It’s a good thing I arrived when I did!”
“Well, ma’am,” Zane said, glancing at Aurora’s cousin, “to be fair, one of those men is Miss Daughtry’s own cousin and future brother-in-law, am I not correct?” Zane could not have said what prompted him to stick in his oar, but Aurora rewarded him with a grateful smile.
The old lady’s back went, if possible, even more rigid, her nostrils flaring as if she could not decide from which direction she wished to breathe fire. But she released a sudden cackle of laughter. “Tact and common sense as well as a pair of broad shoulders. I like you, boy.”
“That’s a relief, ma’am,” Zane told her with a straight face. “Your trunk is safely in your room, should you need it before you leave for Daughtry House.” Acutely aware of Aurora’s fingers gripping his arm, he looked down at her. “I’d be glad of your company if you want to come, Miss Daughtry, but I have an errand to take care of before I go to the courthouse.”
