6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

I sa pressed as close to the window as she could, sporadic lightning in a pitch-black sky illuminating her face's reflection into a pale death mask. She loved lightning storms as much as she feared them. Every explosion of thunder made her start, compelling her to go outside and flee into an open field. She wanted to feel the ground quake beneath her feet and see the lightning grant sight to a darkened world.

Fingers trailing through condensation on the chilly glass pane, Isa breathed in the scent of cold glass, rain, and mildew. It couldn't be much later than seven at night, and already, the yard beyond the little inn was only visible with each fork of lightning.

Booted feet walked up the hallway, and she cocked her head, listening.

It was Junior; she recognized the smooth, purposeful gait.

The door clicked as it unlocked and opened, and a hulking Junior entered, weighed down with two sets of saddlebags and her bulging gunnysack. Rainwater dripped steadily from his buckskin hat and their bags, soaking the pink rag rug at the door with water and mud. She winced, feeling sharp guilt that the proprietor's wife would see the state of the floor on the morrow. Kind Mrs. Meyer had been thrilled to speak in her native tongue when Isa had gone begging for a meal and a pitcher of hot water.

"You know, you're supposed to leave the mud outside, not bring it in," Isa said casually, pushing off the windowsill.

"Damned fool has his stables in the lowest part of the yard," Junior groused, dropping the bags without ceremony to the floor. He pulled his hat off, set it on the hook beside the door, and shook out the damp ends of his hair. When wet, the straw-colored strands changed to dishwater blond.

The room felt too small with him in it.

Manners Miss Pickney had hammered into Isa stood sullenly at attention. "Thank you for getting our bags. Hot water is on the washstand, and Mrs. Meyer said she'd bring our supper to our room shortly."

"Oh." Junior looked at a loss at how diminutive the room seemed when occupied by the both of them. He didn't move from the pink rug. "You're welcome."

Amused, Isa ventured to her bags on the floor and, with much digging, retrieved her night wrapper. "You can come in. I won't bite."

His snort broke the awkward tension, and he stopped playacting a statue long enough to sit on his side of the bed and toe his boots off. "That's not true in my experience."

"Well, I don't bite now . It's against the Women's Athletic Club's rules."

"Since when do you follow any rules?" he asked skeptically, tucking his boots beneath the bed frame. "Wait, you're tellin' me you found a circle of women wrestlers? They all odd like you?"

"Yes, and any of them could give you a run for your money. They're catch-as-catch-can wrestlers, boxers, and more. You should try boxing with me. I excel at it; I have the height and reach that most women don't."

"Guess they couldn't teach you a little humility in that school, huh? Next, you'll tell me none of them could beat you."

Instead of rising to the bait, Isa laughed. She got to her feet and gesticulated with a bar of soap. "Fiona got awfully close."

"I'm sure you have some excuse as to why she almost had you."

"I was running a fever that day."

"You're full of horseshit."

Isa grinned at him, crossed the room, and stepped over his stockinged feet. She poured hot water into the chipped enamel basin, dropped her rag in it, and took her toiletries to the divider in the corner. "If you want to clean up while I'm behind here, I promise not to peek."

"Better not," he grunted, the bed squeaking.

"I'd probably go blind if I did," Isa remarked, spreading the divider's panels to her satisfaction. On a milking stool was a clean bedpan, and she slid the latter out. "Here's this if you need it."

"I'll go outside before I use that in a room with you."

Snickering, Isa peeled off her wet things and draped them one by one over the divider. Stockings, tapes, petticoats, underskirt, overskirt, bodice, and finally, her bright white lacy combinations. As a child, she'd had nothing but her mother's tattered old unmentionables to wear. Never again would she wear dingy, yellowed undergarments. Everything she owned was new and in fashion, the whites bright, no frayed hems, everything fitted—her ensemble was a far cry from the secondhand clothing she'd owned as a child. Her brother's wife, a seamstress, had taught Isa all she knew about patterns and fashion. Normally, Isa couldn't give a hoot and a holler about fashion, but it didn't escape her notice that if you acted the part of a successful, modern woman, people tended to treat you like one.

"How are the horses?" she asked distractedly, scrubbing her face and neck with the soapy washcloth.

"Behaving." It was muffled, and Isa fought the urge to peek behind the panel. Something soft fell to the floor. A shirt? "Your devil-horse stopped acting so spooked in the stable."

"Good. Thank you." She analyzed why it was so difficult to thank him. Why was it so challenging to break childhood habits? Perhaps she was experiencing growing pains, not of her bones, but of the character.

"I wiped her down and curried her. Damned thing stole my hat again."

"It's how she shows her gratitude." Isa smiled, scrubbing beneath her arms and then her intimate areas.

His unintelligible answer was followed by splashing, and Isa slowly slipped on her sturdy cotton wrapper, listening. Imagining. She reached up to braid her hair, but it was curling wildly around her temples and ears. The tresses wouldn't be tamed into a night braid and needed to be brushed. Her fingers froze. Had she brought her hairbrush? No . She'd forgotten it. Miss Pickney would fuss if she knew.

A knock on the door jolted her from her fretting. Junior cursed.

"Do you need me to answer it?" Isa asked from behind the divider, assuming the noises she heard were him struggling to get his trousers on. She realized almost too late what she'd see if she did.

"No!" he snapped. "I'll get it."

Isa bridled. "It's probably just Mrs. Meyer with our supper." Giving in to temptation, she peeked around the screen's edge. A shirtless Junior stood to the side of the door, gun in hand, his back to Isa. Just below his ribs on the left-hand side was a knotted purple scar, recently healed.

"Who is it?" he barked at the intruder.

A woman's timid voice spoke German through the door, and Isa gave up pretending to care about propriety.

"Put that down and let her in!"

Glancing around, he glared at her floating head beside the divider and pulled their key from his pocket. But when the door finally swung open, the hall was empty except for a tray on the floor. Two plates of sausage, potatoes, dark-brown rolls, and a jar of sauerkraut beckoned. Isa's stomach growled ferociously.

Sliding the food tray in with a bare foot, he relocked the door and set down his pistol. Isa came flurrying around the divider.

"Get our food off the floor. What sort of animal are you?" She bent to pick up the tray, pausing at the eyeful of bare feet, unbuttoned jeans, and long, tanned torso. The entry wound of the gunshot injury was smaller and less ragged than its exit wound. Faint greenish-yellow bruising orbited the month-old wound, a colored portrait of the bullet's impact on the smooth skin around it. It was a miracle he'd survived. A nick to the bowels and he would have died a slow, painful death by sepsis. David had said even with a doctor, getting gutshot was certain death. Even if the intestine was repaired, the contents of the bowel would corrupt the stomach cavity. Feeling suddenly chilled, Isa glanced away. "You can finish washing up behind the screen. I'm done."

Blue eyes followed her to her bedside table, where she gently settled the tray of hot food. "Why?" Junior asked. "You gonna look if I don't?"

Isa's heart stuttered, but she refused to be cowed. "While I'm trying to eat? I think not."

His chuckle was dark behind her, and her pulse responded, racing—racing as if trying to reach some obscure finish line. Impudent heart. It sprinted to see how foolish she could be when tempted. Was she tempted by him? Afraid of the answer, she cruelly ignored her body's rising excitement. This was one game she refused to play, beating heart be damned. She frowned at her plate of food, curiously not hungry despite her stomach's protestations minutes before. She ate supper facing the window and watched the storm's frenzy while Junior finished his nightly ablutions. The sausage and bread were good; she studiously ignored the sauerkraut.

Finally, Junior padded from behind the divider, smelling of Ivory soap and leather. He wore clean, faded jeans and no shirt, and Isa felt heat creep past her collarbones and up her neck. Did he not own a union suit? It was cold enough at night for a pair of the red underwear. He had no right to parade half-naked right in front of her. She stiffened when he strode to the tray, the dry material of his trousers brushing against her knee, and she tried not to think about him taking the wet pair off behind the screen.

"You save me any?" he asked, pulling the tray to him one-handed.

"Yes. I'm stuffed." Isa sighed, twisting her knees away from his legs and falling back on her side of the bed, arms behind her damp head. She checked the ceiling for stains, hoping it didn't leak. Beside her, Junior had stopped moving. He stood in the same spot, staring down at her prone form on the bed.

Curious, she glanced up at him. His eyes were twin sapphires in the ill-lit room. Something in them held her like a hare in a live trap.

"What?" Her voice sounded loud despite the rain lashing against the window.

Junior blinked. "Nothing." He turned, tray in hand, and walked to his side of the bed, his perfect profile sharp against the plain wall plaster. The bed dipped when he sat on it, and soon, the sounds of a fork scraping against ceramic added to the ambiance of the storm outside. Since his back was to her, Isa studied her body on the bed unabashedly.

What had he seen?

Her night wrapper was a garish green print with long sleeves and an altered neckline grazing her collarbones. No lace adorned it except an ostentatious ruffle above the swell of her breasts. Miss Pickney had gifted it to her years ago to walk around the house in, as Isa had scandalized the old maid by wandering from her bedroom in nothing but a white lawn nightgown, translucent and suggestive. What she wore now was an old lady's gown. Had Junior looked down at her, wearing something a maiden aunt would wear, and stifled the urge to make fun?

Trying to see herself from his point of view, she looked again.

Oh .

The skirt of her gown had tucked between her legs, outlining their shape clearly. The area at the junction of her thighs was defined, a risqué triangle drawing the eye. Her breasts, partially flattened from her supine position, sported pointed tips because of the room's chill. Feeling her cheeks warm, Isa wiped her palms over her breasts, trying to smooth her nipples into submission.

They stayed impudently erect.

Frazzled, Isa sat up and hopped off the bed. She needed to check her saddlebags for her hairbrush and ascertain how her books had fared in the rain.

"What are you doing?" Junior judiciously closed his eyes.

"Checking my books. I want to give them to Poppy and Lucy for Christmas." Both of her friends loved books. She crouched at the foot of the bed where their bags lay in a soggy pile and played tug-of-war to get hers out.

"What are they, Black Beauty ?" Metal slid on wood as he placed the tray on the washstand against the wall.

"No, they already have that one. Lucy's is a cookbook, and Poppy's is The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes . Have you heard of it?"

"Nope." He sighed behind her, and the bed creaked. "What's it about?"

"It's about the exploits of a detective who is very, very smart."

"So, he's like you?"

Isa almost strained her neck to look back at him. "Was that a compliment?"

One of Junior's eyes opened, saw her looking, and closed again. "No."

Smiling now, Isa went back to her task. "Blast."

"What is it?"

"I can't find my hairbrush."

"You can use my currycomb."

"Ha ha." She looked for several minutes, making a mess of her saddlebags, especially her gunnysack, but found nothing to tame the drying waves of hair that promised to be a gnarled mess tomorrow. Eventually, she ended the search and inspected the two books in her saddlebags. Both were thankfully dry, so she retrieved the smaller one and got to her feet. Junior pretended to be asleep, and Isa's lips curled up again. On her side of the bed, she adjusted the bundling board until it was vertical between them, and asked, "Shall I read some to you?"

One of Junior's eyes slid open again. "If you want."

Wriggling her way up to the headboard, Isa opened the first page. She cleared her throat and began, "‘To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman…"

For an hour, she read animatedly. By the third page, Junior's eyes remained open, staring at nothing while he listened. Occasionally, he smiled, scoffed, or laughed. They lived in another world together as the oil in the lamp ran out, making the shadows stretch and darken until the light petered out completely, turning everything into shadow.

In the sudden absence of light, Isa closed the book and set it gently on her bedside table. "Time for bed, then."

He didn't laugh at her dry tone. It didn't even sound like he was breathing. Isa flipped her bedclothes up and maneuvered herself between the sheets.

"We forgot to check for bedbugs," he mumbled, half-asleep.

Snuggling deeper, Isa said, "We'll discover in the morning whether the bed is infested or not."

Junior's laugh was stifled. "You're a strange one."

"You're one to talk." Isa curled on her side and faced the long plank of wood. She touched a finger to it and slid the digit down, imagining the body of the man on the other side, warm and sleepy. Lightning flashed, bringing the rough board into stark relief, unpainted and hastily sanded. "When was the last time you saw everyone at home?" Her voice was magnified against the wood.

The mattress undulated as he shifted around. It felt strange and exciting to be sharing a bed with a man. She'd never even slept beside David—not that he hadn't tried.

"I saw everyone this summer, just before I got shot. I stopped and spent some time with Ben. Helped him deliver some horses. And Mother, of course." The latter was admitted with the utmost reluctance. Isa was renowned amongst the cowhands for calling Junior a "mama's boy," an unforgivable slur amongst men.

"Will you tell me what happened with the man who shot you?"

"No." It was a growl.

"Very well. Is there any news from the Circle S Ranch?"

His hesitation was curiously long. "Nope. No news from home. Everything's the same as it's always been. Mother and Father are getting old, but that's about it. He's still a bastard, and she's still hosting dinner parties every Saturday."

"That's good, then. My parents are getting older, too. It's odd. Every time I visit them during holidays, it's a shock. They'll have more gray hairs, more wrinkles. They stoop more like Granny did when she was alive. It's probably a sad fact of having so many children—three sets of twins on top of that—and I was so late in life…While they decline, I'm in my prime." Her feet rippled beneath the blanket like fish. The pillowcase beneath her cheek smelled of cheap soap, and the sound of rain against the wooden planks of the inn's siding sang a lullaby. "Poppy wrote that she's expecting her baby any day now."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Yep, this'll be her third."

Tickled by his distress, she corrected, "Fourth."

"Well, the first one was your sister's baby."

Isa frowned at the wooden plank in the darkness. "Not to them, he's not." Then, "Have you heard anything of Kat?" Her oldest sister was a prostitute at The Hound Dog Saloon in Lufkin, but the last her family had spoken to Katherine was when she'd given up her latest son, Timothy, for Poppy and Sol to adopt.

"Not that I recall."

"Oh." Isa's frown deepened, and she plumped her pillow beneath her head, flipping it over to the cool side. "I haven't seen her since I was little. I used to imagine her brushing my hair and giving me fashion advice, but she left when I was still little. Lucy and Poppy...they're the closest things to older sisters I have."

Junior grunted sympathetically. "Well, you're the closest thing to a sister I have." Isa had just begun to smile when he added, "Pesky and bothersome."

Reaching a long arm over the bundling board, she swatted without aiming and made contact with a flat stomach.

Chuckling, he shoved her hand away. "Stay on your side, missy."

They joked and talked back and forth until Isa's eyes burned, her heavy lids closing, but his voice, rough yet soft from drowsiness, made them pop back open.

"I had a friend, a Ranger, who would've liked you."

"You think so?"

"Yeah. Randal liked to tease the girls. He got shot in the leg, and on his sickbed, he'd while away the time by sparking the nurses. Some of 'em were old enough to be his ma." Junior chuckled again, and Isa's fists clenched the blanket from the vibration against the board.

Sensing a pall over his reminiscence, she asked softly, "Do you still talk to him?"

Silence. Then, "Naw. We went our separate ways. He was honorably discharged after he lost his leg."

"I see."

"I haven't talked to him in two years."

Isa thought quickly. "Two years ago was when you went to the border?"

This time, when the silence stretched longer than the board between them, he didn't break it.

A SHARP PAIN in his arm roused Junior from a restless slumber.

Half-asleep, he grabbed the hard, splintery thing on which he'd walloped his elbow and tossed it from the bed. Compared to the din of the raging storm outside, its crash against the hardwood was insignificant.

He rolled over and promptly fell back to sleep.

JUNIOR WOKE UP a second time to a cold back and a warm front.

Junior's limbs had wrapped as tightly as climbing ivy around something soft and warm, and he was breathing in an irresistible scent. Something floral. Sweet. His hand, full of something round and pliant beneath the covers, squeezed. His morning erection throbbed. Half-asleep, he nuzzled the tantalizing fuzz his nose had burrowed into, tugging the warm, soft thing tighter to him.

That "something" moved.

Eyes popping open, Junior released the feminine body he was clutching, horror replacing cozy amorousness. His movements woke Isa, who blinked blearily across the pillow at him. Following the storm, a cold front had settled over the land, and the room felt like an ice house. The little iron grate in the corner was black and cold. He and Isa must have snuggled together for warmth.

They stared stupidly at one another for several disturbing seconds before they scrambled from their sides of the bed to the floor. Isa, tangled in the top sheet, fell, arms akimbo. Junior tripped over the bundling board and sat hard on the floor, knocking his back and crown against the washstand. Searing pain arced through the healing wound on his side. There was no storm outside to stifle the ruckus, and they both froze, afraid of a stampede of running feet. Fortunately, no one came to investigate.

Across the rumpled bed, they watched each other, wild-eyed and feral.

"Where did the bundling board go?" Isa whispered forcefully. Accusingly.

Until then, Junior hadn't noticed the throb of his sore elbow; he absentmindedly rubbed it. "I must have whacked my arm on it and thrown it off the bed."

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "A likely story."

Glowering, he stood from his undignified sprawl on the floor, stifling the urge to wince at the pain in his side. "You think I want to curl up with a prickly cactus like you? You were on my side of the bed."

"We were in the middle," she whisper-shouted, standing as well. "You had your arms and legs all over me!"

"So did you!"

They glared at each other for another beat until, inevitably, both pairs of eyes drifted down. And down. In the cold, Isa's nipples had pebbled, and not even the hideous print of her wrapper could hide it. The sight of her loose breasts made Junior swallow. He could feel her eyes on his bare chest, its mat of flaxen hair tapering to a thin line down his stomach. The clean pair of work jeans he'd donned the night before were sturdy but not enough to disguise the contours of his morning erection; he cupped his privates.

Cheeks suffused with a rosy glow, Isa dragged her eyes back to his face. "Never speak of this," she commanded, a captain of her army of one.

When he didn't argue, couldn't argue, she whirled on her bare heel and disappeared behind the divider.