Chasing the Sunset

chapter FOUR



Maggie rolled over and punched her pillow viciously, her mood a far cry from her smugly complacent one three weeks ago, after her interlude with Nick in the library. She cursed fiercely under her breath, using words that her poor sainted mother had probably never even heard. Why, she would have died of apoplexy on the spot if she had ever heard Maggie talk this way, and she’d had no idea that Maggie had often hung around the docks when she was supposed to be safe and snug in Colette’s home two doors down.

Maggie smiled, temporarily appeased, as she thought of the fine chase that she and Colette had led their mothers upon. They had often told their mothers they would be playing in the other’s house, when in reality they were headed straight for the docks and adventure. That was where Maggie had picked up her colorful language, and she wondered if Colette still used all those fine, descriptive words when she was angry, or if life ... or her husband ... had beaten all that lovely defiance right out of her. Colette had gotten married right before she had left St. Louis, to the oldest son of a highly respected merchant. Jeffrey, his name was, and he had adored Colette since he was in short pants. Maggie had been invited to the wedding, but she had not been allowed to go, of course. In fact, she had been beaten just for asking. She closed her mind to those old memories. They had no power to hurt her here.

Maggie flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling, her skin so hot that she felt as if her chemise might burst into flames at any second. She suddenly sat up and stripped it off defiantly, throwing the poor abused chemise onto the floor before she sprawled in a wanton display of naked limbs on her disordered bed. Who would know that she was sleeping naked? Not Nick, that was for sure, she thought sourly. She had been so positive she could entice him to her bed, so confident, but it was hard to seduce someone who was never around, and when he was around he was never alone with her. He had stopped his practice of eating in the kitchen to sit at the massive oak table of the dining room, and he had brought home everyone in the county to have dinner with him. He had brought home horse traders, neighbors, even Uncle Ned who normally ate in the kitchen with her had to have a meal with Nick. Why, she wagered he locked his door at night and wedged a chair under the shiny doorknob that she scrubbed so diligently once a week, just for safe measure!

Arrogant, aggravating man! Just when you thought you had him figured out, he went and turned out to be some noble . . . idiot! Maggie’s pulse thundered hotly in her neck, feeling as if something were struggling to get out, as if she were nothing but some great big cocoon with the real her hidden inside . . . and it was time to come out. The thump-thump of her pulse could be nothing but her new wings beating madly inside, trying to find an exit.

She smiled faintly at her fantasy, and felt the tiniest bit cooler. Why, oh why, could nothing go her way? Had she not suffered enough? Was she not to be allowed any happiness at all in her life? Nick wanted her, she knew it, and he was deciding what was best for her. She just would not have it. It was shameful, the way he just went ahead and did what he thought was right for her, and she was going to bring it to his attention . . . just as soon as she could catch him alone. Her mouth twisted wryly. The way her luck was running right now, that was going to be around the beginning of the next century.

She grinned to herself, then giggled out loud at the picture her imagination conjured up.

Her bent and wizened, walking slowly but persistently after a gray-bearded Nick, who wobbled alarmingly on his cane as he struggled to get away.

Maggie flung herself out of the bed to stand naked in her window, hoping to find a breeze. She felt a sneaking thrill at her own scandalous behavior. If she was going to go her own way and be naughty, she might as well start doing what she liked in other ways, too, she thought defiantly. It was hot and clothes were just a . . . a damned nuisance when it was so sweltering! Maggie grinned. Her mother was probably spinning in her grave. They were both probably up in heaven, right now, Ma in a fine snit, with Da patting her hand the way that he always did when she was upset.

Now, dear, it is not as bad as you imagine, I am sure. Our Maggie is a fine, upstandin’ girl, and I am sure she has a reason for doin’ the things she is been doin’. After all, darlin’, she is right. Nobody can see her naked when she is in that room all alone, and the cursin’, well, you can blame that on her Da, I am afraid. I always was a terrible one to watch my mouth when I was angry.

Maggie laughed out loud, and suddenly realized that it was the first time she had thought of her parents without the pain that stabbed her like a dagger with every memory of them. She took a deep breath. It felt good to be free of the piercing grief of the last three years, felt good to remember them with laughter instead of tears. She leaned out the window, feeling deliciously wicked and definitely cooler as a breeze blew across her and tightened her nipples into hard little pink nubs. Maggie shuddered and remembered when Nick had taken her nipples into his mouth and sucked on them. She touched herself there, and felt a throbbing, almost-pain assault her body. It had been so perfect, that time in the library. She wanted that again.

The moon was a curved sliver of pearly-white, Venus a blue-white dot right beside it. She

craned her neck back and stared up into the sky. God’s toenail, Maggie thought. That is what Da always called the moon when it looked like that. I remember sitting contentedly in Da’s arms, the moon looking just like this, Mama beside us with that indulgent smile on her face.

Everything looked so different at night, darkness cloaking even ugly scenery with a mysterious beauty. She loved the night; loved the way it smelled, the quietness of it, the blue-black shadows that camouflaged ordinary objects, the rustles and noises of animals as they went about their business. It was soothing, somehow, to her soul, to stare out at the beauty of the night. It had been one of her Da’s favorite things, too. Mama had not understood about the night, but she had known that it pleased them, and so it had pleased her, too.

The white gauze curtains were sticking to her sweaty self like glue, and Maggie brushed irritably at them, then halted. What had that been, moving in the shadows by the horse barn? She leaned forward intently, straining her eyes as she tried to penetrate the ebony night. She bit back a gasp as the silhouette moved once again, and separated to become two distinct shapes. One was unmistakably a woman, and the other . . . the other was her Uncle Ned. Maggie gripped the curtain and took a step to the side as the Ned-shadow hesitated and looked up toward her room, then slipped into the barn after a long, tense moment, the woman-shadow following right on his heels. Maggie let out the breath she had not realized she was holding. What was Uncle Ned doing sneaking around in the middle of the night? And who in the name of God was that woman? Maybe it was a lady friend. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a sudden giggle at the thought of gruff Uncle Ned with a girlfriend. Maggie resolved right then to tease him unmercifully on the morrow. That sly old thing, sneaking around in the middle of the night like a youngster with his light-of-love! Maggie giggled again. Uncle Ned, with a lady friend! She had not known he had it in him.

Maggie went back to bed with a lighter heart, distracted from her troubles at the very least. She dropped off to sleep quickly, but was troubled the night long with dreams of Nick. Nick touching her, kissing her as he had done in the library, skimming his hands down the overheated skin of her body.

Nick was telling her he loved her, his head laid in supplication in her lap as he begged her to come to him at night. She touched the silky blackness of his hair, running her fingers through the thick, soft stuff as he pleaded with her to be his, please love him, because he could not live without her. Then the texture of his hair changed underneath her fingers, became coarse and oily, and Maggie realized with horror that it was David’s face that lay in her lap, and his features were distorted with hatred, just as they had been on that last day. Suddenly, they were back in his office, where she had found the stacks of Ned’s letters hidden behind the book she had been trying to filch to secrete away in her room, nearly one letter for every month of the more than three years of her parent’s deaths. She had gone through them frantically, disbelieving, and she had lingered there too long. He had come home from his office to find her still there, poring over them.

“Shrew!” he had screamed when she had confronted him with the letters, waving them in his face, too angry to be frightened in that moment. She had thought her uncle dead, and she had mourned him as much as she mourned her parents. She dodged David’s slap with the ease of long practice, and sneered at him, driven almost beyond control by this final, horrifying lie he had told her. She screamed her defiance in his face, then scrambled out of his way.

“I could not have had the money if I did not marry you, now could I?” he had smirked, pouring himself a glass of port. Maggie knew he was only waiting for her to relax her guard so he could catch her; after all this time, she was wise to him. She knew him too well to fall for any of his tricks. “And you would not have married me if you’d had anywhere to go. Your parents were quite rich, and I coveted their fortune. Did not want to give up all that lovely money, even if I had to take you to get it. Do not believe all that claptrap about greed being one of the seven deadly sins. It is a virtue, in my book.” He had looked her over coldly. “I sent a letter to your uncle telling him that you were too ill to write, that you were fragile mentally from the loss of your parents. I paid a doctor to write a letter advising him not to visit, that in fact you were on the verge of madness . . . and I intend to make it true, dear.” He stalked her relentlessly, and Maggie darted behind the desk, looking for a way of escape. “I am tired of you, m’dear. I will have you put away somewhere, and I will come and visit you religiously once a month. Perhaps we will play a little while I am there, the dutiful husband. Come here,” he laughed, enjoying the chase as he always did. It got his blood up for what was to come next. “You know I am going to get you eventually. Might as well give in now.”

It was the laugh that did it. He was so contemptuous of her, so sure that he could do anything he wanted to her without reprisal. She lost control, screaming, flinging things at him, and David had gone down to his knees when a lucky hit to the solar plexus from a crystal figurine left him gasping for breath. Maggie took advantage of his weakened state by smashing a vase over his head, once, then twice more. She then watched him topple over, his head striking the stone of the fireplace with a sickening thud.

Blood, there was so very much blood . . . flowing down the top of his head to pool on the back of his jacket, flowing from underneath him to stain the carpet beneath him . . . Maggie reached out tentatively, her fingers trembling, to touch his chest. He did not move, did not seem to breathe, not even when she called his name and shook him roughly. She was horror-stricken, and she knew she had to leave, had to get out. She searched his office, desperately searching for anything of value, stuffing Ned’s letters in her pocket, digging with revulsion in David’s pockets for the keys to the safe and his money clip, thanking providence that she was wearing her mother’s brooch pinned to her underclothing as she always did to keep him from finding it and confiscating it. Then running, running . . . she had to get away, had to find Ned before they caught her . . .

She woke with a jerk, twisted in her sheets, soaked in sweat, breathing fast, her heart running like a freight train. She did not sleep the rest of the night; she was afraid that the dream would come back. When the sun chased the moon from the sky, she was fiercely glad that she had a reason to leave the bed, the source of her nightmares. Glad that she did not have to lie there any more, stiff with remembered terrors and old horrors, her eyes glazed with tears that refused to fall.

Maggie did her duties by rote the next day, her almost sleepless night telling on her. Kathleen seemed tired, too, and after the midday meal that Nick gulped down so fast he must not have tasted it, Maggie sighed and pushed back the hair that fell out of her coiffure no matter how many pins she put in it.

“Kathleen, let’s go put our feet in the river,” she said tiredly. “We’ve nothing to do for the moment and I cannot take this blasted heat any longer. We’ve two days or so until we have to make blackberry preserves, the bread has to rise again before I can bake it, dinner is hours away, and I need to get out of here. I would like some company, too.”

A grin made Kathleen’s eyes shine and made her cheeks into two round balls. She threw down the towel that she had been drying the dishes with and dropped her apron over a chair.

“You do not have to say it twice to me,” she said. “I wanted to stop an hour ago, but I did not want to leave you here doing everything. Nick will not care. Men do not notice anything as long as their meals are on time, and you do not act as if you have a brain,” she scoffed. “Nick is better than most men, but he is still a man, and they all think they know everything. Arrogance is bred in the bone.”

Maggie laughed. “Kathleen, whatever would your mother say?” she teased in an exaggerated southern accent, spreading her fingers across her chest and schooling her features into a parody of shock.

“Are you joking? Where do you think that I learned all of this?”

The two whooped with laughter and soon found themselves in the little cove, their feet plunged into the cold of the rushing water, splashing each other playfully as they sat back and enjoyed their extraordinary respite in the middle of the day. Maggie leaned forward to pat water on her face, careless of the fabric of her dress. It would dry quickly in this heat, and it was little more than a rag anymore. She needed new clothes. She sighed and imagined herself in silks and satins, reclining on her verandah, doing nothing more strenuous than lifting a glass of lemonade to her lips. She smiled and wet her handkerchief to lay on the back of her neck. Sounded appalling to her. She had sooner be shot than to lie around on her behind all day. She would go out of her mind without something to keep her busy.

“What is that grin all ‘bout?” Kathleen asked as she flopped backward, the shade from the drooping branch of a willow tree making flickering little pictures on her face. “I swear sometimes you are the most mysterious person, Maggie. I never know what you are thinking.”

“You will never guess, Kathleen.” Maggie rolled up on her side, her smile so big it was stretching her face. “I think my Uncle Ned’s got a sweetheart.”

A fine line appeared between Kathleen’s blond brows. Her blue eyes regarded Maggie solemnly.

“What makes you think that?” she asked slowly. “Old Ned is nice, but I have never seen him with a woman.”

“That is because he is sneaking around with her in the middle of the night. I saw them last night when I was looking out my window. It was so hot, and I was just ...”

“Did you mention this to anyone else?” Kathleen asked urgently, reaching out and gripping Maggie’s forearm. “Tell me you did not, Maggie, please!”

Maggie stared at her. “Of course not. Who would I tell? You are the only friend I have got.” She searched her friend’s freckled face intently. “What is it, Kathleen? Tell me what is wrong.”

A sudden thought rounded her eyes. “Kathleen, you are not . . . “

Kathleen’s face turned bright red as she let go of Maggie’s arm and giggled. “Lordy, no! Me and . . . and Ned! He is even older than my Papa!”

She sobered suddenly, and reached for Maggie’s hand to hold between both of hers. “I beg of you, Maggie, do not say anything about this. Do not mention it to anyone, even to Nick. I know he can be trusted, but I do not want to put him in a bad position. I probably should not tell you, but I know that I can trust you, and I so need to share it with someone.” She stared somberly into Maggie’s eyes, her normally merry face grave.

"Do you know how Missouri became a state, Maggie?" Kathleen asked her. Maggie shook her head in a negative. "They entered the union as a slave state, at the same time as Maine entered as a free state, in order to keep the division of slave states and free states equal. Many who live in Missouri felt that this so-called Missouri Compromise was a betrayal of their most deeply felt beliefs, and even though all this happened before I was even born, I am one of those people. Are you familiar with the Fugitive Slave Act that was passed through Congress two years ago? It requires all citizens to assist in the recovery of fugitive slaves or to be jailed. It denies a fugitive a right to a jury trial. Instead of a trial, cases are instead handled by special commissioners." Kathleen smiled, but there was no humor in the gesture.

"These commissioners are paid $5 for every fugitive whose fate they decide. They are paid $10 for every fugitive slave that they send back to their owners. Many free blacks have been captured by slave traders and taken before commissioners, and if the commissioner is a dishonest one, their fate is sealed. They are not allowed a trial by jury, and the commissioner who decides their fate has an incentive to declare them an escaped slave, so they often are."

Maggie sat and listened, engrossed at the story her friend told her. How she and Ned, and others who hated the institution of slavery contrived to smuggle men, women, and children out to Northern states and Canada at great risk to themselves and their families. How each person only

knew the next link in the chain of brave people who gambled with fate to do what was right. How she had stumbled onto Ned’s secret, how she had found a frightened man hidden in the stable several years ago when she had been only a child, and had threatened Ned with exposure unless he let her help. How Ned had blustered and grumbled and complained, but finally gave her small assignments, and how the assignments had gradually grown to larger, more dangerous ones as he came to trust her and her abilities. How last night was spent smuggling out a young woman who was owned by a neighboring farm, and that was who Maggie had seen in the night through her open window.

Maggie felt tears sitting in a big, sodden lump in the back of her throat, and she reached out impulsively to embrace her friend. Nick owned no slaves. He had told her once that his father and mother did not believe that the institution of slavery was moral, and he had come to agree with them. She was suddenly, fiercely glad that there were no slaves here, and she was glad that Kathleen was her friend. She squeezed Kathleen tightly, in the first female embrace she had enjoyed since the death of her mother.

“You are so brave,” she whispered, with her head pillowed on Kathleen’s comfortable shoulder. “I wish I were as brave as you.”

Kathleen rocked her in her plump, warm arms, patting Maggie soothingly. “I am not brave,” she said. “Just opinionated. I cannot bear it when anyone does something that I know is wrong, and I know that slavery is wrong.”

Maggie pushed away from Kathleen a little bit, and stared earnestly into her friend’s eyes. “I want to tell you something,” she said firmly, before she lost her nerve.

Maggie and Kathleen spent the afternoon at the river, underneath the willow tree, while Maggie told her the whole, sorry story of her marriage. Kathleen was saddened and often enraged by the details of the tale Maggie relayed to her. She reached out often to touch her friend, to wipe away a tear, to squeeze her shoulder or her hand, or just to pat her leg and reassure Maggie that she was still there, that she understood. Maggie told her the whole of it, too, not the edited version that Ned and Nick had received. Kathleen let her know in no uncertain terms that she had nothing to feel guilty over. She had been abused, and she had not meant to kill her husband. It had been a horrible accident, and leaving had been the best thing that she could have possibly done. The wrong had been done to her, not to her husband, and she should not be ashamed. The shame had been his, not hers.

Maggie felt the rest of her bitterness and fear fade away in that afternoon by the willow tree. She let the pain float away on the river that rushed by and made merry little noises as it went. Maggie felt so light, with the weight of her grief off of her soul, she felt as if she might float away. The anguish and the terror of her memories had no hold on her here, and the memories were losing their ability to hurt her so badly. Time and distance had conspired to dull the sting of those old sorrows, and Maggie felt that she was beginning to live again as a whole person, that a new, better person had been forged in the fire of her difficulties. She would never be the same innocent girl that she had once been, but she could be someone stronger, with just as much worth. She wanted to help Kathleen and Uncle Ned, and when she voiced that thought, she was told an emphatic no. It was too dangerous for her to sneak out of the house with Nick there. That was why Ned lived in his quarters over the stables. He had been asked to move into the house many times, and always gave the excuse that he wanted to be near the horses.

Afterwards, Kathleen regarded her with sorrow in her fine blue eyes. “I am almost sorry that I told you, Maggie. Secrecy can be a terrible thing. It is a commitment, and this secret must be kept from everyone. Husbands, children, friends . . . and parents.” The last word was whispered, and Maggie knew how very much it hurt her to keep this from her parents. Kathleen always spoke of her parents with love, and it must be hard to keep something of this magnitude from them. “Not only the safety of others depends on this secrecy, but your safety, too.” Her bright blue eyes hardened. “Many of the big farms depend upon slave labor, and you could be jailed or even hung if anyone suspected that you knew about the freeing of slaves. Not many in this part of the country would be sympathetic to your views, either. Missouri is divided in its views, but the further south you go, the more slavery sympathizers there are. Here, though there are plenty who do not own slaves, there are many who would just as soon lynch you as jail you if they thought that you were helping their servants escape, or even that you knew someone who was.”

“You can trust me, Kathleen,” Maggie said firmly. “I . . . I would never tell.”

Kathleen wiped her hands dry on the hem of her dress, her head down, the sun striking sparks off of her golden hair. “I know you would not,” she said softly. “I just want you to realize what this may cost you. Lies, even ones by omission, have a way of escalating.”

They started back towards the house, arms wrapped around each other, knowing without words that in each other they had found a steadfast friend, the kind that comes along only once or twice in a lifetime. They made a striking picture to Nick, who watched from the barn, where he was hidden from view. He felt his heart clench in his chest at the sight of them. They so obviously loved each other, and he wanted that with a fervor that approached lunacy. He wanted Maggie’s arm around his waist, wanted her to smile at him like that, only him. Christ, he was jealous of Kathleen! And he was hiding in the barn like a smitten child, spying on her. How much more unstable could he get? Next he would be jealous of the stable dog.

Maggie went through the motions of making dinner in a haze, glad that they had done most of the preparation for the meal ahead of time. The bread, of course, was a total loss, oozing its soggy mass out of the pan and all over the table where they had put it to rise. She scraped it off the surface with a knife and made fluffy biscuits instead.

When Kathleen left, Maggie waved a hand at her absently and mumbled a goodbye. She spoke not a word to Nick, who amazingly had turned up alone and eyed her broodingly throughout the meal. He had to ask twice for strawberry preserves for his biscuit, and once she filled his coffee cup when he said he did not want any more. He never said a word, and Maggie never even noticed. She walked around with a line between her worried eyes, lips pressed together. She was worried about Kathleen and Uncle Ned. She did not want to lose them when she had just come alive enough to love them. She cleaned up the dinner dishes still fretting over them, and then went wearily to bed, not caring that it was still light out. She was emotionally and physically exhausted, and she sought refuge in sleep.

Maggie woke later with a start, bolting upright in the bed. She stared uneasily around at her familiar surroundings, and her heartbeat slowed gradually as she realized that nothing was amiss. Then she heard a thump from below, followed by another, and she reached for her threadbare robe, belting it around her. She crept apprehensively down the stairs without a candle, trying to make as little noise as possible. The thump came again, from the library, and she glided over silently. he heavy doors were ajar, and she peeped in. A broad smile creased her face, and a giggle slipped out before she could stifle it. Maggie clapped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. Nick whirled around and saw her, stopping his pursuit of the tiny gray-striped kitten who was apparently the cause of all the thumping and banging that had woken her. A heavy vase lay in pieces on the floor, and one of the small tables was overturned. He glared at her, and ran a raking hand through his already mussed hair.

“I am glad you think that this is funny,” he growled. “I, however, do not. This little demon cat is for Tommy to take to the stables in the morning. Kathleen’s father rode over and gave it to me. He said its mother was a good mouser, and Tommy’s been missing the old cat down at the barn. We think something may have killed it and eaten it. He had made a pet of the old cat, and he has been kind of upset. I was going to put the ugly little thing in bed with him, since it is so little I was afraid to leave it at the stable alone, but there is only one problem.” He reached out a hand to the tiny little mite and was rewarded with an arched back and a hiss that would have put a mountain lion to shame. He pulled his hand back hastily. “I cannot catch it!”

Maggie’s suppressed laugh started at her stomach and rose through her body until it spilled out her mouth in whoops. She doubled over, clutching her stomach as he scowled at her, crossing his scratched arms over his chest.

“You catch the thing then,” Nick said forbiddingly. “Go ahead. Go on, Miss Know-All.”

“Here kitty-kitty-kitty,” she murmured softly, reaching out a slow hand toward the little spitting speck of a cat. “It is all right, baby, come here now.” She stayed the motion of her hand and was rewarded when the kitten butted her hand with a minuscule head, and rubbed against her. She gathered the sweet, soft thing up against her chest, and Nick glared harder.

“You cheated somehow,” he muttered. Maggie grinned at him.

“Would you put the little imp of Satan in Tommy’s room?” His mouth quirked. “Since it seems to like you so much.”

“All right,” Maggie whispered. She was becoming fond of skinny, diffident Tommy. He was amazingly eager to please, and both she and Kathleen had begun to save treats for him, just for the joy of seeing his beautiful smile. He hung around the two of them as much as his job would allow, and one or the other of them was always feeding him a slice of bread or pastry, and

ruffling his blond hair that stuck up in the front in a spiky cowlick. He blushed and turned deep red every time they did it, so of course they did it all the time. His voice was just beginning to change, and it often squeaked out of control. Nobody smiled or laughed when that happened. They did not want to hurt his amazingly tender feelings. Kathleen had wondered out loud one day how he could still be so sensitive, seeing as how his drunken mother had beaten him every day of his life until she died of a broken neck after tripping over a table in the local tavern where she had worked. He had evidently spent most of his life dodging her and her ‘friends’ she brought home every night to the room where they lived. His life had been horrific until Nick had brought him home to work with Ned and the horses. After hearing that, Maggie’s heart had gone out to the lonely, gentle child, and she tried especially hard to be kind to him.

Maggie started up the stairs, conscious of Nick’s eyes following her. She heard him clear his throat.

“Maggie?”

“Yes?” she asked stiffly, remembering how he had avoided her the last weeks. “What is it, Nick?”

She turned her head, the cat still cradled up under her chin, and caught her breath. His dark eyes were fastened on her with an intensity that she could almost feel. She felt a flush rise up from the depths of her stomach, and her arms trembled. The cat meowed plaintively as her arms tightened involuntarily, and she loosened her grip.

“I am going into Geddes tomorrow,” he said softly. “I thought you might like to ride with me, maybe pick up some things for yourself at the store, and help me with supplies.”

Maggie stared at him in silence for so long that he began to fidget uncomfortably under her level stare. Could she risk it? She had deliberately steered clear of the town before this, but it had been months, and no-one had come looking for her.

“I would like that,” she said finally.

“Oh,” he said. “Oh, well then, I guess I will see you tomorrow.” He looked down at the ground. “G’night, then.”

“Goodnight,” Maggie replied evenly. As she turned her back on him and began the climb up the stairs, a small smile slanted up the corners of her lips.

*************************************************************

Maggie tilted her head back and let the wind blow across her face. Her bonnet dangled by its strings down her back, and she felt it gently bumping her as Nick drove the wagon with reckless abandon down the bumpy road. Her knee pressed against his, and he turned his head to smile at her, teeth flashing whitely in his tanned face.

“Aren’t you going to ask me to slow down?” he asked. “I know you are getting jostled around a lot. Kathleen is usually yelling at me by this time.”

“Never!” she cried out, laughing. Tendrils of her hair were slipping out and whipping wildly around her face, and Nick felt a shaft of desire go through him with the force of a blow. “I am having too much fun!”

She slipped sideways on the seat, and Nick stared at her, slowing the horses anyway. Her face had a healthy pink flush, and she seemed vibrantly alive and achingly beautiful, a far cry from her appearance just a few short months ago. Freckles dotted her small upturned nose, evidence that this was not the first time she had taken her bonnet off in the sun.

“Buy some dress material while we are at the store,” he said abruptly. “Have them bill my account. I am tired of seeing you go around looking like a crow. Gray and brown, gray and brown. You should be wearing green and blue. Order as much as you like. I will gladly pay to see you out of those rags.” He felt a hot blush rise in his face as he realized how his words could be misconstrued. "You know what I meant."

Maggie stared at him openmouthed. "Not only are you complaining about my appearance, you are offering to pay for my clothes? A lady would never accept items of apparel from a gentleman. I am vastly insulted."

Nick opened his mouth to apologize, then she cast him an amused look out of the corner of her slanted eyes and he realized he was being teased.

“I am a widow, you know," she said. "I am supposed to wear dark colors.”

“Then get lavender,” he said shortly, and clucked to the horses. “You can go to half-mourning. I am surprised you have not fallen right out of those two things you call dresses. They are so old, I expect a seam to split any day.”

Maggie gave a gurgle of choked laughter. “How gracious you are, Nick. What a smooth talker you have turned out to be. I never suspected.”

He scowled at her, his mind busy picturing Maggie in the act of falling out of her dress and into his bed. “Just buy the material. And get enough to make Tommy some new clothes, too. He is starting to sprout up again, and his trousers are damn near up to his knees.”

“How indelicate you are,” she teased. “You should never mention body parts to a lady, or curse in front of her. I will add Tommy’s to your bill,” she said serenely. “But I will pay for my own. I have my wages, and I have not spent any of it. I can afford it.”

He scowled at her again and tugged on his hat sharply, covering his eyes. “I will take it out of your next month’s wages, if you insist. But do not get black, or brown, or any other colors that remind me of mud, or I will take it right back. I am tiring of looking at them. Get at least one that is more pleasing to the eye. Kathleen can help you sew them; she has been making Tommy’s clothes since he came to the farm.”

“Yes sir,” Maggie said, her eyes twinkling. “I would hate to do anything that offends your sensibilities, like wearing the wrong color. I know what a sensitive individual you are.”

A snort escaped him, and they sat in silence for a few minutes. Maggie turned her head and stared unabashedly at his profile. He could be stamped on the side of a Roman coin, she thought dreamily. Her eyes swept down the rest of him, down the white lawn shirt that molded itself to his strong back whenever he moved, and the tight black trousers tucked into the legs of his high riding boots.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he said. Startled, Maggie lifted her eyes, and found him staring right at her. His pupils were dilated and made his eyes appear almost black.

“Like what?” she asked breathlessly.

“Like I am a stick of peppermint and you are deciding where to lick me first.”

“I never!” she began indignantly, and Nick dodged as she hit at him with a small fist.

“You were, too.”

“I would like to,” Maggie said softly, consideringly, after a long moment. “Lick you.”

He shot her a look that had so many, many things in it. Desire, anger, frustration. His hands tightened on the reins and he shook them, startling the horses into going even faster.

“Do not, Maggie.” He gritted out the words between clenched teeth. “Do not do that.”

“Do what?” she asked. “Admit that I want you? Tell you that it is all right if you feel the same way? I have been trying for weeks to tell you, and you run away every chance you get.” She slapped her hand down on the wooden seat with enough force to sting. “I never figured you for a coward, Nick.”

His mouth hardened and compressed. “I am a coward because I refuse to ruin a young girl staying in my household? Because I am honorable enough not to take what you are offering? You do not know what you want, Maggie, and I am not going to be there when you wake up one day and decide you do not want to be my mistress anymore, only it’ll be too late, I have already made you one and everyone will already know. What about Ned? And what about Kathleen, and Tommy? ”

Maggie wilted in her seat. “I am not a young girl, I am a respectable widow. Widows have more freedom than young girls, and they do not have to know if we are discreet. I would not flaunt it,” she muttered. “And I would not change my mind.”

He shot her a sharp look. “They would know, after a while. We could not keep it secret forever.” His voice dropped an octave. “And you would get tired of me, after a while. It has happened before.” He cleared his throat. “Do you have the list of supplies that we need?”

“I have it,” she said.

Evidently the discussion was over, she thought. He thinks I am just going to change my mind, just like that, because he says so.

Geddes was not very much of a town to a woman who had grown up in St. Louis. It boasted one main street with one bank, one hotel, a general store, a combination milliner-dressmaker, the jail, and a doctor’s office and surgery. A stable was one street over, and the rest of the buildings were residences.

Nick dropped her off at the clapboard building that was the general store and stayed outside to tie up the horses while Maggie went inside. She smiled and breathed deeply of the scent inside: horehound candy and leather. She smiled at the pinch-faced woman behind the counter.

And Nick thinks I look like a crow, she thought. He obviously has not got a good look at her lately. She handed the woman her supply list and went to look at the dry goods while the order was filled. She fingered a cotton in a deep blue, and lifted it to her face to rub it on her cheek. It was as soft as Tommy’s kitten. Two women, both dressed finely, wandered in. Maggie eyed them appreciatively. They were like two birds of paradise in the store, twittering and beautiful. She smiled faintly. One even had an osprey plume on her hat, and it bounced and fluttered as she tossed her head.

“Can you believe it?” Miss Osprey plume hissed to the other. “Right outside, bigger than life. I do not know how he has got the nerve.”

The smaller one nodded. “You are right, Beth Ann. He ought to stay home and send someone else into town, so decent women do not have to be subjected to his vile presence.” She put a hand dramatically on her large bosom. “Why, I declare my heart about jumped out of my chest when I saw him.”

A pouter pigeon, Maggie thought idly. That one’s a pouter pigeon.

“And he even had the nerve to speak.” Miss Osprey plume said, her pretty face drawn up as if she had just had mud flung all over her bright dress. “I am going to tell Mama about this, and make sure she knows that he spoke to us.”

Pouter Pigeon nodded and nodded. “Kills his wife, and then comes to town just like nothing happened. The nerve! I do not know how he got away with it. That poor Kenneth . . . do you remember how handsome he was?”

Osprey plume giggled. “I surely do. I would have liked him for a beau myself, even if he was old. Oh, and he was so anguished when he told everyone about his love’s death. And that man only got away with it because that common old stable hand of his lied. I got the news directly from Mimi, and she heard it when she was eavesdropping on her Papa and the sheriff. My Papa said what can you expect? Breeding will always tell. His parents had such odd ideas. Nick Revelle killed his wife, threw her down the stairs and broke her neck, and got that Ted or Ned or whatever he is called to lie for him. Otherwise they would have hung him. Mimi’s Papa said so.”

Maggie’s mind stopped working for a moment. She stood there with a roll of blue cotton in her hands and heard the two women twitter and giggle behind her. Their words washed over her. Killed his wife. Killed his wife. Nick Revelle killed his wife. Her hands began to tremble. She took the roll of cotton to the front of the store.

“Could you add six yards of this to the bill?” she said numbly. “Also I want some of that white cotton, the lavender muslin, the blue serge, some of that emerald green, and that light blue percale. I need buttons to match. Oh, and throw in one of those Godey’s Ladies Book, would you please.”

“Are you all right, Miss?” asked the woman. “You are as white as a ghost.” She did not remind Maggie of a crow any longer. Her thin face was kindly, and Maggie felt tears gather in her eyes. She forced them back.

“I . . . I just feel a little dizzy.” She put a hand up to her head. “I think I will go outside and get some fresh air.”

“You sure you do not want to sit down and have a cup of tea?”

“Maybe I will,” Maggie said gratefully. “That sounds like a good idea.” She sat down at

the table behind the counter that the woman indicated and sipped her hot sweet tea. Gradually, she began to feel a little better. The sick feeling in her stomach went away, but her head kept repeating those words over and over. Threw her down the stairs, killed his wife.

Nick came in and hovered over her in concern. Maggie twitched her shoulder away from his hand, and he frowned.

“Mrs. Jenkins said that you felt faint. Are you all right?”

Maggie avoided his gaze. “I am fine. It must be just the heat.”

He put his hands on his hips and regarded her. “I was going to take you to the hotel to eat lunch, but we can do that another day, I guess,” he said slowly, his dark eyes never leaving her. She could feel his gaze on her, and she let her eyes regard the ground.

“Some other time,” she agreed.

All the way home, traveling much slower this time because of the weight of the supplies in back, the wheels of the wagon sang a song to Maggie: Killed his wife, killed his wife, threw her down the stairs, killed his wife. Her pleasure in the material for new dresses was gone. She sat still as a stone on the seat of the wagon, and she could see Nick look at her in perplexity a couple of times. She ignored him, and the wagon wheels sang to her: Killed his wife, killed his wife, killed his wife . . .