Chapter Twenty-two

Fiona did not speak, did not look up, when Thaddeus entered their bedroom. She continued to read, although mostly it was a pretense. She had not turned a page in quite some time, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t know that. She thought he would say something, cajole her into conversation, but he went straight to their small dressing room and closed the door. It was not long before she heard water splashing in the basin and the sound of him rooting in the cupboard to find his shaving things.

Her stomach rumbled uncomfortably and she pressed a hand to her abdomen to quell the hunger pangs or at least silence them. She had stubbornly refused to leave the bedroom for lunch or dinner and suspected that because she was absent from the dining room, Thaddeus ate in the kitchen with Ellie and Ben. Thaddeus had carried a tray in at lunch, but Fiona had denied she had an appetite. Ben brought a dinner tray. When she refused it, he left it on the small round table just inside the door. She hadn’t touched it. The temptation to eat something, no matter how cold or stale, kept drawing her eyes to the table, but the thought that Thaddeus would surprise her stuffing a honey-soaked biscuit in her mouth kept her seated firmly in the rocker.

Fiona rearranged her dressing gown so it spilled attractively around her curled legs. She went back and forth as to whether she should show a bare knee, trying it both ways before she settled on revealing a slim slice of a knee and calf. She purposely did not tighten the sash so the gown could remain casually open from her breasts to her throat. One slippery sleeve drooped over her shoulder. The narrow strap and lace-edged neckline of her sleeping shift were thus displayed.

The oil lamp on the table beside her had provided sufficient light for her to read. Now she moved it closer so the pool of light fell more on her than the book. If she had learned anything from her years in the theater, it was the importance of staging.

She waited.

And waited.

She could hear him moving around, imagined him removing his clothes, but what was taking so long when his habit was to leave things where they lay was a mystery. It was worse when she couldn’t hear him at all. There was a stool in the dressing room. Sometimes he sat on it and watched her while she dressed or undressed as though it were both fascinating and formative. He would sit there, leaning back against the wall, his long legs stretched out in front of him and mostly in her way, and follow her movements from under a heavy-lidded gaze. He would talk to her, too. Because he was almost always up and working hours before she got out of bed, he would tell her what he’d been doing and what he planned to do. At the end of the day, he’d talk quietly about the calf that needed to be rescued from a thicket or describe how a stallion everyone called Beelzebub had thrown two ranch hands to the ground and almost trampled a third.

Fiona didn’t particularly care what he talked about. She loved his voice, loved the rumble in the back of his throat when he laughed. When he spoke, she was put in mind of whiskey washing over sand, his voice at once smooth and gritty. She did not know how that was even possible, but it was a fact that it had the power to make her shiver.

Still.

Fiona wished he would say something now. Call to her, perhaps, if he needed help, or rail at her if she had finally put him into a temper. His continued silence disturbed her. That’s why, after all her careful staging, she was rising awkwardly from the rocker when Thaddeus stepped out of the dressing room. She caught the book as it was sliding off her lap but knocked the table with her elbow when she made the grab. The oil lamp wobbled dangerously until the table settled and the pool of light that was supposed to highlight her best features flickered unflatteringly across her startled countenance.

Thaddeus took the book from her hands as she dropped back in her seat and he used the toes of one bare foot to steady the rocker. He closed the book with his forefinger marking her place and regarded her from the advantage of his greater height. Several moments passed before she raised her face and met his eyes.

“All right?” he asked.

“Mm.” She wanted to be annoyed with him for spoiling her scene but had no energy to expend on that emotion. What she felt after her initial surprise was nothing but relief. She searched his face much as he was searching hers. “You?” she asked. “You were in there so long . . .”

“Was I? I didn’t realize. I was thinking, I suppose.”

Fiona pressed a hand to her stomach but not because it rumbled. She knew what question she should ask and knew herself to be a coward for not asking it. She did want to know what he had been thinking. Instead, she asked, “They haven’t come back, have they? I’ve been listening. I haven’t heard them.”

Thaddeus held out the book to her. When she shook her head, he removed the finger he had been using as a marker and set it on the table. “No, they’re not back. I would have come for you right away. I think, now that it’s dark, it’s safe to say that they’re hunkered down wherever they found shelter.”

“But you believe that’s Thunder Point.”

“Yes. It makes sense that Remington would have tried to get them there. They might have reached it before the storm.”

“It’s still raining.”

“A drizzle.” Thaddeus removed his foot from the rocker runner. “They’ll be back tomorrow.” He went to the bed, turned back the covers, but did not climb in. Instead, he sat on the edge facing Fiona. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. He folded his hands together. “You are so goddamn beautiful.”

Fiona blinked. She heard nothing complimentary about his observation; he said it merely as a statement of fact, one that did not seem to particularly please him. She had no idea if he meant for her to respond so she remained silent.

“Sometimes I wonder if that’s why you think I asked you to marry me, as though I believed your beauty were the sum total of your worth and you accepted that because you think it’s true.”

Fiona’s fingers curled around the arms of the rocker. Her nail beds whitened with the strength of her grip. Still, she spoke evenly and without rancor. “You are wrong, Thaddeus. I do not accept it. Or I didn’t. Not when we were in New York. I had a place in the city, a role on and off the stage. I knew what I was about. What am I about here?” She raised her chin a fraction. The movement helped her keep it from wobbling. “Tell me, Thaddeus, what am I about here?”

She did not know how he might answer her question or even if he would. She held his dark, impenetrable stare until the aching pressure of tears she refused to shed made her blink.

“What did Ellie say when you spoke to her?” she asked. “I know you did. It’s what you always do after we’ve argued. You might have sought out Phoebe if she’d been here—I’ve noticed that, too—but she isn’t, so it would have been Ellie.”

Thaddeus finger-raked his hair, lifting salt-and–pepper strands at his temple. He sat up and settled his hand on his knee. “She heard us, Fiona. She could hardly help but hear since she was in the kitchen.”

“I heard her rattling around.”

“So did I. That should have been our cue to take our discussion to another part of the house, which I believe was her intention in making noise in the first place.”

“Why are you telling me this? It’s not an answer to what I asked.”

“I’m telling you because I think you’re under the misapprehension that I share our private conversations with her, or at least my side of them. I don’t. There’s nothing private when she’s heard everything. She told me in my effort to allay your fears, I dismissed them, and that when I tried to understand, I cornered you. That’s why you fled as soon as you had the chance. It probably explains why you holed up in here the rest of the day. Does that sound as if it might be right?”

Fiona found a curlicue in the pattern of the rug where she could cast her eyes. She tugged on her earlobe. “It might be right,” she mumbled.

“How’s that again?” he asked, cupping an ear.

She raised her head and gave him a haughty look. “You heard me. And if Ellie just had, she’d say you were cornering me again.”

The shadow of a crooked, self-effacing smile crossed his face as he acknowledged the truth. “She would. And I was.”

“Well, stop it. You see what happens when I feel trapped.”

“I do,” he said quietly, “I should have seen it before now.”

Fiona had no use for the look of resignation that suddenly defined his features. It frightened her. “I think I’m hungry now,” she said for want of anything better to say and started to rise from the rocker for the second time.

Thaddeus was having none of it. “You’re a changeling, Fiona. It’s never been clearer to me than it has been today. Sit down. I’ll bring the tray.” He got up and retrieved it and then made room on the table beside her. “I see you’re reading The Count of Monte Cristo. How many times is that now?”

“Three.”

“Do you want the biscuit? Honey?”

“Yes. Both.”

He prepared it for her, slicing the biscuit in half and drizzling each open face with a honey spiral. He gave her one half and left the other on the plate within easy reach before he returned to the bed. “Is it the city you miss, Fiona? Or the activity? The stage? Or the purpose?”

She said nothing.

“I ask because I haven’t been aware that you have an interest in learning about Twin Star. You don’t come to the corral when we’re breaking horses or ask after a mare when I’ve told you about a difficult birth. I think you know the names of the hands but not how many head of cattle we’re raising or the boundaries of the property. You know the road back and forth to town well enough, but I don’t think you could find Boxer’s Ridge with a map. It’s less than three miles from here. You could walk. See a lot from up there.”

Fiona waited to hear if there was more. There wasn’t. Not at the moment. “It’s only now beginning to feel like any spring I’ve ever known. It was snowing the day we arrived. Remember? It was beautiful. And then it went on. And on. There were breaks in the weather. I learned to drive a buggy during one of those thaws, not that there were many opportunities to go anywhere. You didn’t seem to like me out of your sight. You didn’t seem to want me out of your bed.”

“Our bed.”

She smiled a bit ruefully. “Yes. Our bed. My activity and purpose.”

“That’s not true. That’s not how I see it.”

Fiona set the biscuit aside. She had not taken a bite. “Then fix it, Thaddeus, because that’s how I see it.”

• • •

Remington’s head rested in the cradle of his palms. He had been awake for a while with nothing to do except stare at the cabin’s rough ceiling. It had stopped raining sometime during the night, and the roof had stopped leaking sometime after that. He thought the silence was probably what had awakened him. The fire was gone except for embers. He could reach the short stack of logs but not add one to the stove without sitting up. Movement like that would have disturbed Phoebe, and he was loath to wake her.

She was lying flush to him, one knee drawn up and resting over his thighs. Her breath came softly and easily. When she stirred, her chin rubbed pleasantly against his chest. He wanted to sift through her hair with his fingertips, but he would have to lift his head and unclasp his hands. He did not want to do that either. He wanted to stay just this way. It was perfect.

Phoebe Apple was going to be his wife. He had it from her own lips that she wanted to be. There had been no declaration of love by either of them. Was it understood, then? Or had she no expectation of it existing? That disturbed him some. Alexandra had harbored no doubts that she was loved. He wasn’t sure that was true of Phoebe. He wasn’t entirely sure that she loved him.

There were realities in the light of day that he wished could be shadowed by an overcast sky, maybe some thunder to roar over his thoughts.

“You’re awake,” she said. She did not lift her head or raise her eyelids, but she did use the arm lying across his chest to give him a small squeeze. “You know how I know?”

“How?”

“You think louder than any man I know.” She felt the rumble of his laughter against the soft underside of her arm. “Do you want to tell me?”

“No.”

“All right. I’ve been thinking, too. I bet you couldn’t tell.”

“I couldn’t.”

“That’s because I whisper-think.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I like kissing you, and I like you kissing me. It’s all right to think about that, isn’t it?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, do you think about it?”

“I wasn’t just then, but I’m thinking about it now.” He felt her nod but sensed more distraction in it than encouragement. There was more she wanted to say, and he waited to hear it.

“I don’t have much experience with kissing, not any really, except with you. You probably find that odd, since I told you I wasn’t a virgin, and now you know I was telling the truth.”

“I knew it was truth because you told me it was.”

“You are the first man who’s ever kissed me on the mouth. Do you believe that?”

“If you say so, I do.”

“It’s true. It will be a shame if I look out the window this morning and see that the smokehouse has been washed away. I had begun to think of it as a monument to my first kiss.”

That made him smile. “Sentimental, are you?”

“Yes. This cabin, too. I hope it stands for a long, long time. This is where you made me clean in a way all the scrubbing could never do.”

Remington sucked in a breath and he knew Phoebe felt it because she lifted her head and looked at him.

“I was raped,” she said. “Is that something you want to know?”