Crossings Read online

  The anxious look on her face read like she was thinking of a way out, as if she were having second thoughts about him. “That land doesn’t only belong to me. It belongs to my sister, too. My father secured the parcel for our dowries.”

  “Then you’d be putting it to the right use.”

  “But our marriage wouldn’t be real.”

  “The certificate’ll say it is.” A shaving of tobacco sat on his tongue, and he removed it with his thumb and forefinger. The display brought her attention to his mouth.

  Awkwardly she cleared her throat. “I would have some terms of my own.”

  He stared at her in waiting silence.

  “You’d have to live with me. Here, in this house. To make it look like we truly were husband and wife.” Her sentences were choppy, and she kept rearranging the ink pen and well in front of her. He let her ramble on, taking drags of his cigarette while she talked. “For six months. You’d have to live with me for six months,” she repeated as if he were stupid. “After that, you could stay in your cabin, or on your new land. I don’t think anyone would question the reason for our separation if you’re up there working with horses for the Express. But if I need you to act in my stead as my husband, you’ll have to come back sometimes.”

  “Would I share your bedroom?”

  “No,” she rebounded quickly. “Bedroom privileges aren’t part of the agreement.”

  “Before, you said that if I wanted to take you to my bed, you’d be willing to negotiate.”

  Her blue eyes grew darker than the calico he’d compared them to earlier. “It’s become a nonnegotiable issue now.”

  “Six months of playacting as your husband, living with you, but having no sex. Are those the terms you’re offering in exchange for your land?”

  Hesitation skittered across her face. Hell, he had his own hesitation. He’d be moving out of his mist of silence and desolation. His self-imposed banishment would be suspended for six months. One hundred and eighty days. Christ all Jesus, it might as well be one hundred and eighty years. Six months was an eternity to be straddled with humanity and its habits. Things had changed since he’d left Libertyville. The smallest coin in use back then was a silver five-cent piece. On his several visits to Genoa, he found that if he wanted tobacco, a bag was a quarter. If he wanted cigarette papers, they were a quarter. If he wanted an apple, or a candle, or a newspaper, or enough whiskey to get himself good and drunk, twenty-five cents was the price every time. The current way of doing business in Genoa was nothing short of highway robbery.

  “Yes.” The fragile whisper of her answer broke into his reverie. “Those are my terms.”

  Crushing the stub of his cigarette beneath his boot, he talked while he exhaled smoke. “What about a divorce later?”

  “Unless you want to be free to marry someone else, a divorce won’t be necessary for me. I don’t plan on marrying again.”

  “Neither do I.”

  The inkwell fell onto its side, and Helena righted the bottle with trembling fingers. “Then I guess we have a bargain.”

  “No guessing. We do have a bargain.”

  “Well . . . I’ll get Ignacia and have her watch the store so we can go to the justice of the peace.”

  As she nervously licked her dry lips, Carrigan imagined kissing them to make them wet. Her mouth was full and pink, resembling the petals of a rose. Would they taste just as heady next to the tip of his tongue? He loosely cocked his hip against the counter, needing to release some of the pressure behind the placket of his trousers. “Whatever you say.”

  Helena was gone and back in less than a minute, returning with a middle-aged Mexican woman who looked thinner than a bar of soap after a hard day’s work against a washboard.

  “This is Ignacia Perades,” Helena introduced. “She’s our stock tender’s wife and cooks for us.”

  He had no hat to tip, so he inched his chin up a notch as a form of greeting.

  Helena walked toward the counter opposite him while tugging at the wide bow of her apron. The doubled ends knotted, and she jerked on them to no avail. He strode to her and bumped her fingers aside. She froze as he worked the knot free, his knuckles grazing the many gathers of her skirt. The fabric felt soft and feminine beneath his touch. He would have lingered, savored, and perhaps tested the span of her corset-nipped waist with his hands, but she moved away from him with a skittish hop.

  “Thank you,” she murmured, looping the apron on a hook. He was given a view of her slender back, level shoulders, and the gentle curve of her confined hair resting against her nape. There was no telling how long her hair was, but its thickness was evident inside the net. She didn’t miss a step while going for the glass case that contained a small amount of jewelry. Reaching inside for a tray, she took out two rings. “Let me see your left hand.”

  He held it up for her to examine.

  She put the first ring back and picked a second, larger one. Slipping between the part in a doorway curtain, she returned to the store with a drawstring purse on her wrist and bundled in a hooded cloak. “I’m ready. I’ll be back in an hour, Ignacia. When Emilie returns, tell her I’ve gone on an errand.”

  “Yes, Miss Lena,” the woman replied in a light accent.

  Pushing himself away from the counter, Carrigan felt the strongest urge to throw himself into a vat of booze and wallow in it until he was pickled. His muscles were hard and bunched underneath his coat, and no amount of stiff breaths could unlock the tension.

  He had to remind himself that his new living arrangements were only temporary, and after today, he’d only have one hundred and seventy-nine days left.

  Helena opened the door and a gust of chill air slapped him across the face. But it wasn’t enough to bring him to his senses. He was on his way to wedlock lane, and there was no turning back.

  Chapter

  3

  Helena drove the buckboard to Van Sickle’s station, Carrigan sitting next to her on the narrow bench seat. A thin layer of white from the fresh storm dusted the three-mile mountain trail leading to the justice of the peace. With each bump and rut, she and Carrigan were jarred into one another. She tried to give him room, but keeping the reins threaded through her gloved fingers and minding the whereabouts of her skirts wasn’t feasible at the same time. Inevitably the fullness spilled onto his knee and thigh in a drape of dark calico. Not once did he make a move to shove the fabric off him.

  He hadn’t said a word since they left Genoa, frittering away the miles with one cigarette after another. His right foot was braced on the rim of the driver’s box, and his left arm settled on the backrest, while a smoke was caught between his lips. The chore of rolling cigarettes in succession was complicated by the motion of the buckboard, but he managed without losing a single leaf of paper or spilling a clipping of tobacco.

  A mile out, the wind rolled up like a tapestry rug. The sun came out to soak in the gray haze, promptly melting the snow. Carrigan’s eyes narrowed against the dazzling sunlight, and he lowered his head a bit. The road quickly turned into a quagmire under the animals’ hooves, and the iron-strapped wheels churned the ground to muck half as high as the hubs.

  Helena’s hood covered her head, and she snuggled deep into her wrap to ward off the severe spring air. The monotonous jangle of harness tack, and the intermittent snorts of the buckskins, Daisy and Lucy, wore out Helena’s thin nerves. Strangers marrying solely for advantageous gain and fixed conditions was bad enough. To have her intended ignore her made her feel snubbed without just cause.

  “Where’s your hat?” she asked, unwilling to endure the shortage of conversation a moment longer.

  “Don’t have one.”

  She waited for him to elaborate, but he kept quiet. Seeing as every man she knew owned a hat, Carrigan being minus one made her idly curious. “Why not?”

  “It got swept away in the Carson River last year. I haven’t felt like replacing it.” His voice had a rasp of embitterment. “Prices are too high to swap good pelts f
or one.”

  And yet, Helena thought, he had enough money to support his vices. How he managed to get by without an income other than what he made off the furs he traded, and the payment her father had given him for the mustangs, stymied her. Trying to decide what was worth spending money on, and what wasn’t, was something she’d just recently been faced with. She wasn’t doing a very bang-up job of robbing the balance in one account to pay the bill for another.

  The path became rough and rocky, meeting a steep pitch slathered with mud. Bitterbrush and sage overtook most of the lofty pines. She eased back on the reins and hoped the horses would check their gait. For Helena, sitting astride a horse was simpler than a first grade primer. Commanding a team was another matter entirely. Her driving skills left much to be desired. Flatland, she could manage passably well, but she wasn’t worth a darn on grades.

  To keep her mind off the trail’s perilous conditions, she asked, “Where’s your dog?”

  “Home guarding the place.”

  One of the front wheels hit a chuckhole bigger than a barrel hoop. The buckboard lurched so hard, every joint rattled as if the nails would pop out. Helena’s heart jumped, and she suddenly wasn’t cold anymore as perspiration dampened her brow. “What was his name again?”

  “Obsi.”

  She glanced at Carrigan, trying to stifle the queasiness in her stomach. “That’s an unusual name. What does it mean?”

  “It’s short for Obsidian.” Looking dead ahead, Carrigan’s eyes narrowed. “Pay attention to the road.”

  Settling her gaze forward again, she stiffened. Furious at herself for allowing him to browbeat her, she gave the buckskins some leeway to demonstrate she wasn’t an unqualified driver. Daisy and Lucy began clopping along too fast for her comfort, but she didn’t want to draw attention to her error. As alarm rushed through her, she squeaked, “What made you think to call him that?”

  “His coat is black.” Carrigan snapped his cigarette over the side of the buckboard. “Give me the reins.”

  Helena was loath to let him know she wasn’t skilled enough to handle the uneven terrain. His impatient order deflated her pride and made her defensive. “I’m capable of getting us there in one piece.”

  “Then quit talking and watch what you’re doing.”

  Her head swam trying to remember the instructions her father had given her for this kind of driving. She kept her feet spread apart for leverage, conscious of the brake handle near her right hand in case she needed to engage it quickly.

  She was keeping a modest pace when suddenly Carrigan seized the reins from her and shoved her head on his lap with his hand. Her muffled cry of outrage was lost in the smoky scent of his coat. She heard him holler at the horses to move right, cursing the command through clenched teeth. The traces on Daisy and Lucy strained as they veered sharply in the mandated direction.

  Helena struggled to sit up, her palm on Carrigan’s knee. After she pushed at him and demanded he let her go, he relented. Righting herself on the seat and flinging the top of her hood from her eyes, she was about to give him a piece of her mind. But the heavy-handed words melted like sugar on her tongue as soon as she saw what had happened.

  A telegraph pole had partly given way, the wire dangling dangerously over the road. She hadn’t seen it. If Carrigan hadn’t taken the reins from her, their necks could very well have been playing cat’s cradle with the cable.

  Shaken to the core, Helena sat there paralyzed and feeling as small as a grain of sand. She’d made a horrible miscalculation because of foolish indulgence. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice breaking miserably.

  Leaning forward, Carrigan rested his forearms on his thighs, the reins dangling loosely between his fingers. Sun poured over him, his black hair gleaming in the light. He didn’t seem angry. To the contrary, he appeared to be more annoyed than anything else. “I’ll drive.”

  She mutely nodded, grateful he didn’t dress her down.

  Draping the slack leathers over the box, he turned toward her. “Trade places with me.”

  Helena stood. There was no way out of putting her ankle between Carrigan’s spread legs. Her tapered crinoline made it awkward to maneuver around him, though she tried to do so without touching any part of his body. This caused her to step on his foot, and as she was muttering a quick apology, his hands covered the swell of her hips. She tensed, heat infusing her cheeks. The strength in his fingers was evident even through the starched layers of her underclothes. His unyielding touch elicited a tingle deep inside her that pulsated outward until it reached her every nerve ending. She rarely lost her composure, but she found she couldn’t move. If Carrigan hadn’t finally slid her over his lap and propped her on the seat next to him, she would have remained there dumbfounded.

  She felt his gaze on her, but she couldn’t look him in the eye. When at last he slapped the horses’ rumps and they were off, she breathed a sigh of relief. Needing to blot out the incident, she closed her eyes and fought off making an inevitable comparison. It had been Kurt who first made her heart dance with excitement. Who first made her senses spin when he was near. He’d been dead for nearly four years, yet there were still times when he stole into her thoughts, and she couldn’t help imagining what could have been. Everything changed the year she turned seventeen. There was no going back. Her future was based on a foundation of the past. Love would forever be unattainable for her, and so would a devoted husband.

  Carrigan’s ability to kindle something within her had her pensively staring at the endless gray scrub. It had to be his blatant masculinity that dazzled her. Everything about him spoke glaringly of his strength, from the way he held a pair of reins in his broad hands, to his indomitable walk.

  As Van Sickle’s station with its five barns came into sight, Helena felt a confounding urgency to know more about Carrigan. A kind of panic set in as the reality of what she was about to do hit her full force. She was going to wed herself to a man she didn’t know beyond what rumor dictated. Just thinking of it nearly shattered her.

  “I need to know what your full Christian name is,” she said with deceptive calm. “Mr. Van Sickle is going to ask.”

  “Jacob Henry Carrigan.”

  “Where were you born and raised?”

  “Red Springs near the Yellowstone River.”

  “Do you have any family?”

  “Mother and sister.”

  “Your father?”

  “Dead.”

  “Just like mine,” she said softly, wondering about the circumstances of Carrigan’s loss, but not pushing that far. “What made you come to Genoa?”

  This time she got a reaction out of him. “You don’t question my past, and I won’t question yours.” Steering the horses up to the front of a large, two-story frame house, Carrigan added without inflection, “It’s the present that counts anyway. I could be wanted by the law elsewhere, but you shouldn’t hold it against me so long as I’m showing a willingness to walk a straight path now.”

  She swallowed hard. “Are you wanted by the law?”

  “No,” he answered in a clipped voice that forbade any further questions.

  But Helena wasn’t ready to quit. She had to ask one more to lay the hearsay to rest. “Have you ever killed a man?”

  His eyes grew contemplative, then he gave her a long, steady look that robbed her of her wits. “Too many to count.”

  * * *

  “You married him,” Emilie blurted, staring at the gold band on Helena’s finger. “Lena, I can’t believe you went through with it.”

  “I had no choice.” Helena unhitched Daisy from the buckboard and walked her to the stables.

  Emilie was on her heels. “Of course you had a choice. You could have given up the station.”

  “No, I couldn’t.”

  Helena passed through the wide wooden doors. The building’s interior was dim and smelled of hay, grain, and livestock. Dust motes swirled down from the high ceiling, stirred by the owls that used the rafters to roo
st. Horses nickered upon her entrance as she led Daisy to the stall next to Lucy’s.

  “You keep saying you’re doing all this because it’s what Father would have wanted,” Emilie said, “but I don’t think you even loved him.”

  Helena’s steps faltered, and she gasped, “How can you say such a thing?”

  “Because you haven’t cried for Father, but you cried for Mother when she died.”

  She had mourned her mother’s passing like no one else. But she’d been crying for two graves, when only one marker was visible. Her tears had come from the loss of another life, part of something gone forever. Truly crying over Mother would come when Helena couldn’t bear the burden anymore. And tears for Father would come when everything inside her overflowed.

  “I do cry for Father,” Helena said quietly. “But no one can hear me.” She gave Daisy a drink of water, then took the bucket away after ten swallows.

  A high bench strewn with grooming accoutrements took up the space behind them. Helena collected a haircloth, dandy brush, water brush, sponge, and comb off it and began to wipe the stiff cloth over Daisy’s muddy coat. She had to move around Emilie, who dogged her like a shadow.

  “I’m worried about you,” Emilie announced while Helena gave Daisy more water. “You don’t eat. You don’t sleep. You don’t grieve. You may think because I’m younger than you that I don’t know anything. Well, I know enough to figure out that you’re hurting just as much as me. Not letting go of what’s paining you is only going to make things worse.”

  Sidestepping Emilie, Helena took the dandy brush to Daisy’s flank, disconcerted by how close to the truth her sister had gotten. “I’m fine, Emilie.”