Chapter Eighteen

Phoebe rose and went to the window. She set her hands on either side of her eyes, pressed her forehead to the glass, and peered out. The sky was dark, ominous, but it was hours yet to nightfall and she could clearly see the stream and hear the rushing water. She looked over her shoulder at Remington. “Should we leave?”

Before he could answer, another bolt of lightning struck the ground somewhere nearby. Phoebe jumped back from the window and clamped her hands over her ears. It dulled the crash of thunder but did nothing to blunt the rumble that went through the cabin. She had just lowered her hands when there was a second crack, markedly different from the first. The floor shuddered this time, but not the walls. “What was that?”

“Tree. Lightning must have hit one.”

“So maybe we shouldn’t leave.”

“Come here.” He patted the space beside him, the one she had left when he told her about the rising water. “We’re not going anywhere. Do you recall that shallow river we waded through on our way here?” When she nodded, he went on. “That will be running too deep and fast for the horses to cross safely. They’ll lose their footing. We’re better off here.”

“What about the foundation? What if it buckles?”

“I’ll keep an eye on the water’s approach. We’ll have enough warning to get out and climb to higher ground.” He indicated the space beside him again. “I wouldn’t take you out in that storm now. Bullet might manage, but your mare would spook, same as you. We’re safer here.”

Phoebe joined him. “Turn around,” she said. “Or look somewhere else, anywhere else, but not at me.” She threw off the blanket and began to unbutton her vest. “I mean it, Remington.”

“Let me add a log before you get any further.” She paused, and he tossed more wood into the stove. When the fire blazed, he shut the grate and lowered the brim of his hat until it effectively covered his eyes. “Let me know where you’re done.”

Phoebe slipped out of her vest, folded it, and set it aside. The sleeves and collar of the chambray shirt were uncomfortably wet, while the part of it that had been mostly protected by the vest was merely damp. Still, it clung to her like a second skin and she had to peel it off. The camisole she wore under it was damp as well. While she debated whether to remove it, her skin prickled and the decision was made for her. She removed the camisole and placed it beside the shirt as close to the stove as she dared, then she fit the blanket under her arms and tied a knot above her breasts. Her shoulders were bare but warmer now with firelight glancing off her skin than they had been when she was wearing the shirt and vest.

She took off her hat, placed it beside her, and unwound her plait. She used her fingers to sift through her hair and arranged the cascade of soft waves so they covered her shoulders.

“Done?” he asked.

“Just. How did you know?”

“I heard you sigh.” He raised the brim of his hat with a forefinger and looked her over. “I’m thinking you’re warmer already.” He could have said the same for himself, but she was already as skittish as a kicked kitten so he kept quiet. “I have some rope. I can rig a line to dry our clothes. I wouldn’t mind getting out of my shirt.”

Phoebe didn’t know how she felt about him taking off his shirt, or rather she did know, and was not as against it as she thought she should be. “All right.” When he started to rise, she caught his hand and pulled him back. “Wait. Where’s the rope?”

“Still hanging from Bullet’s saddle. I wasn’t thinking I might need it. Look, Phoebe, I have to check on the horses anyway, make sure they haven’t bolted, and I should bring in more wood while I can. The smokehouse is the structure most likely to float away and take our wood with it.”

Everything he said made sense, but she did not want to be left alone, not in this place, not during this storm. “Let me get dressed again and help you.”

He shook his head but cupped the side of her face to gentle the refusal. “Watch me from the window. You can’t see the lean-to, but you’ll be able to follow me back and forth from the smokehouse. I’ll drop the wood right inside the door, and if you still want to help, you can start stacking.”

It was not a satisfactory answer as far as Phoebe was concerned, but she knew she had to be satisfied. She nodded. Her cheek rubbed against his palm. It was oddly comforting, and she missed it when he lowered his hand and got to his feet.

“I won’t be long,” he said. He pointed to the window as he crossed the room to the door. “Go on. Watch.”

Phoebe waited until the door closed behind him before she swept the tail of the blanket over one arm and scrambled to her feet. She was at the window in time to glimpse him hurrying toward the rear of the cabin and the lean-to. In her anxious mind, he seemed to be gone a long time, but it was probably less than two minutes before he reappeared with a coil of rope hanging off his shoulder. He veered right to the smokehouse and was in and out between two quick lightning strikes. She was at the door to scoop the armload of wood from him before he dropped it on the floor.

They repeated that pattern three more times until she begged him to come inside. Rivulets of water poured from his hat brim when he bent over the stacked wood to add the last load. Without asking permission, she swept the Stetson off his head and beat it twice against her thigh. Beads of water sprayed the stove and sizzled. She tossed his hat beside hers and then got behind him, set her hands flat against his back, and pushed him in the direction of the bed. The frame that had supported the mattress was solid and she jabbed a finger at it.

“Sit. Take off your vest, your shirt, and whatever you’re wearing under it.” She did not wait for him to comply because any reasonable person would, and she judged him to be reasonable more often than he was not. She was kneeling at his feet when he sat. “Boots.”

“I can take them off,” he said.

“You’re supposed to be taking off other things. Slide the left one over here.”

He did. “They’re muddy. Your hands, they’ll get—”

She stopped him with a jaundiced look. “The one thing we have plenty of is water for washing.” She grabbed the boot by the heel and worked it off. She noticed the knife sheathed inside but didn’t comment. He’d been out so long that even his sock was damp, and that was concerning. She stripped it off without giving him a chance to argue. “Other one.” She lifted his foot. “I notice you’re not doing much about that vest. I’ll do it for you if you can’t.”

“I don’t think I noticed before how bossy you are.”

“And single-minded. Go on. The button goes through the hole.”

Chuckling, he began to undress. “Do you want to know that your knot is coming undone? The view from up here is like looking down into the Valley of Elah. I’ve read that’s fertile ground.”

“Not for you, it’s not. And so you know, referencing the Bible will not assist your cause. Look the other way or close your eyes. You don’t need to see to take off your clothes.”

He did neither. “What’s my cause?” he asked, keeping a close eye on the knot. There was definite slippage as she unrolled his sock and tossed it toward the stove. When she looked up and caught his blatant stare, she mocked him with a smile that scolded.

“I don’t think I’m flattering myself when I say you’d like to get me out of my clothes.”

“Huh. What gave me away?”

“It would be easier to tell you what didn’t.”

He laughed appreciatively at that.

Phoebe took his vest when he handed it to her and waited for his shirt. “Isn’t there a woman in Frost Falls in want of your attention?”

“There is, but I have to leave a dollar on her night table when I go.”

She batted his leg. “I believe you, but isn’t there anyone else?”

Remington peeled off his damp shirt as she had done and gave it over. “Why do you think there must be?” Under it he was wearing a long-sleeved cotton shirt that fit him closely when it wasn’t wet, and since it was, he wore it like a glove. He pulled it over his head when she held out her hand for it.

Phoebe stared at his naked chest. It was not the first one she had ever seen, but it was easily the most appealing. In the theater, she was used to men with pasty complexions managing their figures with corsets and braces. Remington required no such artifice, and for reasons she could not clearly define, that put her out of sorts with him.

Somewhat impatiently, she said, “You have to know that you possess qualities attractive to women.”

“A man doesn’t get tired of hearing them, you know. Start with the A’s. Admirable. Amusing. Articulate. Attorney-at-law.”

And as quick as that, her irritation faded. “Ass. Go on. Go over there and get the blanket around you. Warm yourself before you rig the line.”

He rose, stepped past her kneeling figure, and went to the stove. It was Phoebe who thrust the blanket at him. He pulled it around his shoulders and held it in one fist while she used the time to adjust the knot at her breasts. They stood side by side for a long time. She felt him shiver and found his hand under the blanket. She threaded her fingers in his. Except to gently squeeze her hand in acknowledgment, he didn’t stir again.

It did not happen suddenly, or even by thoughtful design. Phoebe leaned into him, rested her head on his shoulder, and that was fine until it wasn’t. He opened his blanket and she stepped into the curve of his arm. He closed around her, embraced her. It was a light touch, an easy one, full of warmth. There was security, too, and comfort.

Phoebe knew he would not turn her away if she came to him. Did she want to come to him? She had never gone willingly to any man, but that had not necessarily mattered.

Fiona had taught her early that it might not always be her choice, and she had learned the truth of that when she was sixteen, between acts one and two of Much Ado About Nothing. It was a small blessing, she supposed, that she was three years older than Fiona had been when it happened to her. It was Fiona who drove him out when she surprised him in her dressing room. She stuck him with a hatpin to make him leap away and then raised welts on his back and buttocks with his ebony walking stick, the one with the silver-plated lion’s head. He had limped out of the theater by the back door, his shirt in shreds, his back bloody, calling Fiona every vile name he knew. Phoebe recalled quite clearly that Fiona had bested him there as well.

Fiona had been her champion, but it was left to others to comfort her. After all, there were four acts remaining and Fiona had the role of Beatrice. That evening, when they had retired to their rooms, Fiona gave her a revolting concoction to drink saying only that it would prevent the most serious of consequences. Phoebe understood precisely what that meant, and for eight days following the rape, Fiona asked her if she had begun her monthly courses. When she was finally able to say that she had, nothing about that night was ever mentioned again.

It happened a second time, and a third, both with the same man, a suitor of Fiona’s, but Phoebe never told anyone. She couldn’t. Montgomery Hobart the Third, heir to a textile fortune, showed her the diamond-encrusted stickpin in his ascot and promised—not threatened—to permanently scar Fiona’s face if she spoke a word. So she hadn’t. On both occasions she visited the gypsy witch who had given Fiona the drink that had seemed to be efficacious the first time. She was so sick with cramps that a physician was sent for. He asked her some pointed questions and she lied without the least compunction.

Phoebe made plans to kill Monty Hobart, plans she was certain she could carry out, and there was still some part of her that regretted never having the opportunity to test her resolve, but Monty robbed her of that, too. Two weeks before he was supposed to visit New York again, he died in a factory fire.

Without preamble, she said, “I am not a virgin. Is that something you want to know?”

Remington blinked. “How does your mind work, Phoebe?”

“In leaps and bounds apparently. Are you sorry I told you? Does it make a difference?”

“You should be able to say what you like even if I can’t always—hardly ever—follow the path that got you there. As for it making a difference, it’d be hypocritical for me to say so, don’t you think? Not only am I not a virgin, but I’ve been standing here contemplating a path of my own, the one where I’ll encounter the least resistance getting you on that mattress again, preferably on your back and under me.”

Her throat felt very thick and there was a weight on her chest that made it difficult to breathe. She said, “Oh.”

“Uh-huh. So if you were a virgin, it wouldn’t be for long anyway—if I ever work out the path, that is.”

“Down.”

“How’s that?”

“Down. The path is down.”

“The shortest route, then.”

“Yes. The shortest route.”