Jodi Thomas - WM 1 Page 11

  Rainey smiled at the phrase. “Did they ever come back from missing?”

  Everyone who understood English at the table shook their head, but one of the three sisters answered, “Not yet. We heard the husband died. If you talk to Mrs. Vivian, her son is due back any minute. Some say he just went to California and will never came back.”

  The widow agreed. “My Henry used to say both Miss Vivian’s husband and her grown son were meaner than skunks. Never worked at nothing but being no good.”

  “What happened to the French girl?” Rainey pulled the conversation back on track. “How was she murdered?”

  Grace, the oldest of the sisters, answered, “I’ve asked around and no one seems to know. All they found was her ivory dressing gown, hanging neatly on the back porch.”

  “Then how do you know she was murdered?” If all the women hadn’t looked so pale, she would have thought they were kidding her.

  “Blood,” the widow said. “There was blood trailing all along one side of the alley. Lots of blood, running from building to building, as if someone had dipped a wide paintbrush in a tub of crimson.” Everyone except the two German women leaned closer as she continued. “They said all her things, her clothes, her shoes, even her brush and comb were still in her room looking as if she might have just stepped out for a moment. The only thing missing was a small chest of valuables she’d brought as a wedding gift from her parents.”

  The talkative sister picked up the story. “They never found so much as a lock of her hair. No one reported seeing or hearing anything that night, but that little bedroom on the third floor has been hard to rent ever since.”

  “My room,” Rainey whispered, but no one seemed to hear.

  The widow shook her head at one of the old maid sisters. “How could she have been killed and no one hear? It gives me chills in the night, it does. People die in this town sometimes, but not like that. Not with their blood marking the alley.”

  They finished the meal and all said their good nights. Rainey climbed to her room and watched from her window. The three sisters made a trip to the privy together, with two standing guard while one went inside.

  For them the alley was an evil place to be feared, but Rainey couldn’t help but wonder how much of the story was true. A young woman going out back at night—maybe. Folding up her dressing gown and placing it on the porch while she crossed to the privy—very unlikely. Someone killing her and dragging her bloody body down the alley without anyone seeing or hearing anything—impossible. Judging from the noise, the alley was almost as busy as the street.

  She leaned out the window. A drunk was settling down in the corner of the saloon’s porch. Two girls with feathers in their hair were smoking and complaining. It was too dark to tell if they were the same two she’d seen earlier. A few houses down, a man with a wagon appeared to be unloading barrels. He swore each time he strained.

  At nine she heard the doors to the boardinghouse being locked. Not wanting to waste the one candle, Rainey dressed for bed in her new nightgown and settled in, listening to the voices below. As she drifted into sleep, she thought of Travis McMurray and wondered how he was doing.

  Sometimes, when she thought of him, she decided he seemed the only real thing in her make-believe world. He’d been so solid. For the short time she’d been with him, she felt as if she wasn’t invisible.

  She wished she’d stayed a little longer by his side that last time. His arm had felt so good around her shoulder. She wouldn’t have bothered him, but she might have spread her hand out on his chest just to make sure he was breathing normally and not in too much pain.

  Her last thought was that she must be crazy to dream of a man she barely knew. But she couldn’t help wishing she’d touched him, or that he’d touched her.

  At dawn Rainey began her search for employment. After wearing trousers for weeks, she found that her skirt seemed heavy and cumbersome. The heat of the day made her feel like she was melting inside all the layers of material. By midafternoon she decided to abandon her quest early and return to her small room on the third floor of the Askew House.

  She found the three sisters in the drawing room planning their store. Mrs. Vivian sat in the office working on her books. When Rainey said hello, the landlord looked surprised that anyone would bother greeting her.

  “Mrs. Vivian, I was wondering why you named this place the Askew House?” she asked just to make conversation.

  Mrs. Vivian looked pleased. “My maiden name was Askew. When my husband returns, I plan to change the name.” The thin woman straightened and held her head high. Loneliness surrounded her, and Rainey guessed that she knew her man would never return but chose to live the lie.

  Rainey didn’t dare ask how long he’d been gone. The son also seemed a topic no one addressed to Mrs. Vivian.

  Once in her room, Rainey cried into her pillow, feeling as if she’d spent a lifetime alone. When she’d been a child her mother had never had time to talk to her, her father never bothered unless he was angry, and the other girls at school considered her beneath their station so never offered friendship. Now it seemed she’d made it all the way to Texas and found only lonely people populated the state.

  She tried to see one good thing. At least on the third floor she couldn’t hear the clock that chimed in the foyer every hour. If she had her way she’d never live by the sound of a clock again. For as long as she could remember, her father had insisted every detail follow a schedule.

  Rainey let her mind drift back to her life before. The order to it all, the boredom. Now she couldn’t believe she’d let it go on for so long without saying or doing something, but she’d been afraid of what might happen with change. Boredom had been bearable, change frightening.

  Finally, exhausted, she drifted off to sleep and almost missed dinner. She ran down the stairs not realizing until she stepped into the dining room that she’d forgotten her shoes. She slowed, moving in small steps so that no one would notice.

  Tonight, since she was no longer new, no one bothered to speak to her. The meal was eaten totally in silence except for the German mother and daughter, who whispered to each other with words no one else understood.

  The widow, Dottie Davis, looked tired and Rainey couldn’t help but wonder what they all did during the day.

  Rainey almost ran back upstairs. Somehow the others made her feel even more alone. She told herself she simply needed sleep. But after dark she couldn’t force herself to close the window. She found the conversations she could overhear far too interesting.

  Slowly, hour after hour, she began to recognize the voices and give each one a name. This was her world, she reasoned. She was a watcher, a listener, but never a part of all that went on around her. It had been that way all her life. Most of the girls in her class in school never bothered to learn her name. She’d been a shadow as a student and as a teacher. Why should anything be different here?

  The sadness of it might have smothered her, but in the corners of her mind Rainey remembered the Ranger who’d danced with her . . . who’d kissed her . . . who’d told her he’d find her.

  She’d heard once that somewhere in the world everyone has someone thinking about them. If that were true she could only hope that someone would be Travis McMurray.

  CHAPTER 11

  TWO DAYS LATER PEARL LANGLAND CALLED ON RAINEY at nine in the morning.

  Rainey had planned to dress and look for a job, but she’d fallen asleep after breakfast. The night’s conversations in the alley seemed the only interesting part of her life, so Rainey lost the battle that morning with sleep.

  “Wake up.” Pearl pounded on her door. “Rainey, if you are in there, open the door, I can’t hold little Jason much longer.”

  Rainey pulled on her cape as a dressing gown and let in her friend. She didn’t try to pretend everything was fine. Her mother’s words echoed in her ears—that no respectable woman remained in her nightclothes after dawn. She held her head high and waited for Pearl to say somethi
ng.

  The mercantile owner’s wife looked at Rainey and nodded once as if she understood. After setting the baby on the floor she said, “I’ve thought of a way for you to make money enough to at least pay for your room and board. Are you interested?” She hadn’t come to lecture, she’d come to help.

  Rainey listened even though she wanted to scream that she’d tried every way to get a job. No one wanted to give a woman, a stranger among them, employment. She’d even considered dressing as a boy and working at the stables. That might be her only choice next week when she was asked to leave the Askew House. Mrs. Vivian had made it plain that no credit would be extended.

  “My Owen takes in peaches in trade sometimes from the farmers who don’t have cash to pay for supplies. He says he’ll make you a good deal on the peaches or anything else he takes in.”

  Rainey remembered the bowls of peaches on Pearl’s table. “What would I do with them?”

  “Pies,” Pearl answered. “He swears that pie you made was the best he’d ever tasted.”

  “You really think I could make money baking pies?”

  “I put a pen to it, and I figure even buying the sugar and flour, you can double your money if you want to turn the fruit into pies. My Owen says there’s not a café in town that has desserts worth eating. I’d loan you my kitchen if you’d help me watch Jason while you’re cooking. Owen says if I could handle the store two or three days a week, he could sell double if he agrees to make deliveries.”

  Rainey smiled. “You’d let me use your kitchen?”

  “I’d love the company. It would be hard work on your part. Lots of peaches are coming in right now. You’d have to can all you could. Once the season is over, we’ll think of something else to cook.” Pearl grinned. “I’d set up your books for free samples. Making pies is something I’ve never got the hang of, but figures, now that’s another story. To my way of thinking it would be a good deal for everyone.”

  Rainey tried not to shout. Hard work, honest work, didn’t frighten her. Starvation did. “When do we start?” The cooks at the school had taught her how to bake almost by the time she could walk. If Pearl thought she could make pies and sell them, Rainey would make all the market would bear.

  “My Owen is loading the wagon now. He’ll wait until I get back to the store before he leaves.” She glanced around the tiny room. “You can work all day today making samples to pass out . . . unless you have something else to do.”

  Rainey didn’t answer. There was no need. Pearl knew the truth.

  She stood and dressed as fast as she could, then carried Jason for Pearl as they made their way back to the little store. Within an hour Rainey was pealing peaches with Jason playing at her feet.

  About one Pearl closed the store for lunch and joined Rainey in the kitchen where five pies were cooling. “I love this smell,” she said as she took a bite of the potato soup Rainey had made for lunch. “Where’d you learn to cook?”

  “At the school where I taught. Most of the girls had parties and outings on the weekends. My parents were usually busy entertaining prospective students and their parents. I always felt like I was in the way, so I learned to keep busy in the kitchen. The school cooks could bake anything, and over the years they passed some of their talents along to me. After the girls returned from their parties, they’d follow their noses to the table and tell me of their adventures over soup or desserts.”

  “You were young. Didn’t you ever go with them? There must have been so much to see and do in a big city like Washington. You could have met a young man.” Pearl knew little of the kind of life Rainey talked about. For her, school had been a one-room house where she’d attended when the crops were in.

  Rainey shook her head. “No. It wouldn’t have been proper. My father wouldn’t have allowed it.” She shrugged. “Look what happened at the one dance I did go to. The man I danced with thinks I’m a horse thief.”

  Pearl raised an eyebrow at Rainey as she rocked her baby in her arms.

  “All right.” Rainey shrugged. “Maybe I did borrow his horse. But I care about Travis McMurray. I’d take the animal back if I could. I’d give anything to know how he’s doing. When I left he’d lost so much blood. He might even be dead for all I know. You should have seen him, Pearl. His dark hair half covering his eyes with him so still he looked more like a statue, than a man.”

  Pearl gently laid the sleeping Jason in his crib. “You should write your Ranger and tell him you’re sorry.”

  “He’d come after me with a rope.”

  Pearl laughed. “Well, at least you’ll know he’s still alive.”

  “Right, but then I’d be dead. You should have seen his dark eyes. He didn’t look like the forgiving sort of fellow, and they say Rangers are the toughest lawmen alive. No matter how gently he touched me while we were dancing, he’d probably use me as target practice if he saw me again.”

  “Write the man,” Pearl repeated, laughing. “Owen could mail it at one of the trading post when he heads down toward San Antonio. Your Ranger will never know where the letter comes from, and you can be honest or lie. He’ll never know one way or the other.”

  “He’s not my Ranger,” Rainey whispered. “But as long as he can’t track the letter, I guess it would be safe enough.”

  Pearl smiled as if reading Rainey’s mind. “If he writes back, you’ll no longer have to worry.”

  Rainey went back to work. She’d developed a pattern to the baking. As soon as two pies were cooked, the next two were ready to go in. When the last two went in the oven, she cleaned up her mess, put on a simple stew for Owen and Pearl’s supper, and tidied up the room.

  By six she’d given away all her pies to cafés along Congress and Colorado avenues and even brought one home to the Askew House. The owners of the restaurants had seemed pleased at having been given something, but most made no promises to buy any. Mrs. Vivian thanked her for the pie, but informed her that dessert was not usually a part of the evening meal on weekdays.

  The other borders each thanked her, and Rainey noticed they all seemed friendlier at dinner. They talked of their favorite recipes for desserts, and Rainey borrowed a few sheets of paper from Widow Davis to write them down. When she finally climbed up to her third-floor room, Rainey thought she’d fall asleep immediately, but the idea of writing Travis stayed in her mind. She told herself if she could know he was alive, she’d be satisfied.

  As she lay on her back trying to sleep, the words she’d write drifted through her mind. She couldn’t tell him her real name. It wouldn’t be proper to mention the kiss, but the dance might be all right to write about. She couldn’t talk about the way he felt against her, yet she wondered if he thought about it as much as she did. She’d never thought of herself as soft until she pressed against him, her man of oak.

  Her man . . . she smiled. Well . . . he was her man for a moment. She never planned to allow a man in her life, but she could have one to dream about. That seemed harmless enough.

  Frustrated, she opened the window and listened to the slices of conversations that drifted up from the alley. Too bad she couldn’t tell Travis of all the faceless babble she overheard. The barmaids who complained about everything, the boss who yelled at them and then took their place on the back porch so he could smoke, the drunk who grumbled that the Lord moved the privy every night just to confuse him. Tonight two gamblers were whispering secrets of how to win, then both wished they had enough money for another drink.

  Rainey closed her eyes, remembering the Ranger’s face and wishing she could hear his voice once more. Maybe she would write him one letter, just to know that he was alive. It could do no harm and it might make her feel better to know that somewhere he was walking around maybe thinking of her once in a while.

  The next morning she walked up Congress Avenue collecting her pie plates. Four of the cafés ordered more pies. Since Owen was home to run the store, Pearl helped Rainey set up books and figure out, once she’d paid all expenses, how much money each
pie would make. It wasn’t much, but Pearl had been right, if Rainey could bake three days a week, she’d be able to pay for her room at Askew House.

  On her next baking day the cafés doubled their orders when she delivered, and Rainey began a pattern of baking three days a week.

  Owen wandered through the kitchen from time to time. At first he seemed like a stranger among them, but Rainey didn’t miss the way he looked at his wife. Pearl was plain, seeming older than her years, but when Owen talked to her, or touched her shoulder, she beamed.

  Rainey had never seen a married couple act so and found it fascinating. The few married couples she’d been around hardly talked to each other. Ninety percent of everything her father had said to her mother came in the form of an order. The other ten percent had been complaints. Rainey’s father seemed to think that everything wrong had somehow been his wife’s fault. He blamed her for their lack of money, their living conditions, and most of all their daughter.

  But Owen and Pearl were a world within themselves. They seemed happy to have their little home and both cherished their son. Owen claimed Jason had his mother’s beautiful eyes, and Pearl bragged that the boy would be as smart as his father. The couple didn’t mean to, but they made Rainey even more aware of how alone she truly was, not only in Texas, but in the world. She’d known from the night she’d left home that there would be no turning back. The ring she carried tucked away in a tiny bag around her neck would be her only inheritance. Her father’s second wife would give him the sons he’d always complained of not having, and from the looks of their house the new wife would also spend the money her father had so carefully hidden all Rainey’s life.

  Unless he found her, she knew she would have to make her way without family. A good start might be to correct the wrong she’d done to the McMurrays.