A short time before the dance began, Avinelle had been rushing around, readying herself. Jodee watched her storm back and forth between her room and her mother’s, fretting over her hair, snapping and snarling like a wolverine, and hissing comments Jodee was glad she couldn’t hear.
When Avinelle and her mother were finally ready, they came down the stairs wearing their glorious gowns, their faces like warriors approaching a battlefield.
Widow Ashton spied Jodee waiting near the door. Momentarily she looked flustered. “I suppose you must accompany us,” she said, “but you cannot go inside until Avinelle has led the Grand March with Marshal Harlow. Remember, you are a servant, Jodee, not a young lady of this town. You have no male protector, no father, and no brother. Stay in the background. Speak only when spoken to. Under no circumstances should you make a spectacle of yourself. I advise you not to dance. If you associate with strangers you will be thought a loose woman. You must guard your reputation every moment or be ruined before the night ends.”
Jodee hadn’t known what to say to that. Avinelle had no male protector and she was going to the dance. She scolded herself for forgetting the woman enjoyed crushing her hopes.
Widow Ashton went out to the waiting surrey. Avinelle swept past, leaving Jodee standing in the entry, wondering if she could stomach a ride into town with them when she hated them both so. She considered staying behind just to bedevil them. Let the woman worry she was looting every room.
Wanting to cuss and break things, Jodee caught sight of herself in the hall mirror. Her hair looked wonderful, hanging down her back in a pale cascade. Her blouse and skirt still pleased her. What would everyone think if she showed up at the dance in britches and boots, wearing her pa’s gun and that slouchy hat she lost back at the cabin? Widow Ashton and Avinelle didn’t realize who they were insulting, Jodee thought, burning to best them somehow. Avinelle didn’t know how to twirl a pistol and shoot a jackrabbit at a hundred paces like a shootist.
Jodee smirked at herself. Fighting disappointment and fury, she pointed her finger at the mirror and said, “Bang,” softly to her reflection. Startled to see a change in her expression, Jodee hid her hand behind her back. For an instant she had looked like Burl. Fear flashed through her. How much longer could she hold out? Wasn’t she exactly what everyone believed her to be? An outlaw? For true?
Plodding out the door, Jodee felt suddenly as if she didn’t dare go to the dance. When she climbed into the rear seat of the surrey she understood that she would never be on the same social level as Avinelle and her mother. She was only weeks out of jail, after all, still living down her father’s bad reputation. She was not a lady, and never would be. Some days she didn’t really care to be a lady, but she was still a human being. Didn’t she deserve a chance?
Heart-sore, Jodee feared she’d been expecting too much too soon. She understood now how her pa had felt all those years, frustrated and impatient. He dreamed of better things but was never able to make a go of his ranches or dirt farms. He gave in to Burl’s wild schemes for fast money and an easy life. Even if no one else did, she forgave him his weaknesses.
She felt impatient, too. She wanted the past to vanish and be forgotten, but she must work, perhaps years, to earn cash money for things half as nice as what Widow Ashton and Avinelle tossed aside as nothing. Whatever made her think she could build her new life in a month?
She mustn’t make the mistakes her impatient father had made. Or her defiant mother. As Bailey drove, Jodee hardly noticed the brightly lit, noisy livery barn at the end of the street where the townspeople had gathered. The atmosphere was festive, but she didn’t move when Bailey helped Avinelle to the ground. Looking spectacular in her gown, Avinelle sashayed through the barn’s double doors like she owned the town.
Bailey came to help Jodee down, but she remained in her seat, hands clenched in her lap.
“Miss Jodee?” Bailey looked concerned.
Jodee shook her head. “I don’t feel much like dancing after all,” she said, her voice small. “I think I’ll just sit here. I should’ve stayed at the house, but I didn’t want anyone thinking I was there, fixin’ to rob the place while everyone was here, having a good time.”
• • •
The street outside the livery barn was choked with wagons and teams, horses tied up in long lines, folks milling about like cattle. Corbet wound his way between them, watching shadows. His gut told him Tangus was in the crowd, picking pockets or listening to talk, planning something, ready to strike. The sound of laughter and dancing faded as Corbet prowled. If he didn’t find Jodee soon he’d have to return to his rounds. There were too many drunken cowhands and suspicious looking strangers in town for the marshal to be lollygagging at a dance.
Then he saw Avinelle’s surrey and Bailey standing nearby as if on watch himself. He saw Jodee seated on the surrey’s rear seat, head down, facing away from the light.
Bailey straightened. “Good evening, Marshal.”
Corbet tipped his hat. Bailey escaped into the darkness. Reaching up, Corbet touched Jodee’s elbow. Startled from her thoughts, she shrank from him as she had done when he first brought her to town.
“I thought you’d be dancing with Avinelle by now,” she said with a catch in her voice. “All she talked about today was being next to you in the Grand March.”
He shook his head. Jodee looked so hurt, so sweet, so dear with her hair down like that. His heart went out to her. “Let me help you down. I have something to tell you.”
She let him hand her down but she quickly edged away. “You should go inside, Corbet. She’s waiting for you. Go ahead. It’s all right. I don’t belong in there. I know that now.”
“Of course you belong in there. What’s wrong, Jodee? Where’s your fire tonight?”
Like a child, she shrugged.
“How’s your shoulder feeling?”
She shook her head like it didn’t matter.
Corbet gnashed his teeth. He’d put her in jail, damaging her reputation beyond repair. She’d done all right, facing Avinelle’s dinner guests, but now she was afraid to face the judgment of an entire town at the dance. He leaned in quickly to give Jodee a kiss. Her lips felt damp. She dashed her palm across her cheeks.
The farewell kiss would have to come later, he decided, when she felt better. He brushed his lips against hers a second time and felt a jolt flash through his body. He might not want his feelings for her to grow, but something was inside him, strong and persistent.
To hell with everything. He was about to kiss her like he meant business when he heard a rider galloping hell for leather in from the darkness.
In a hail of gravel and dust Reverend Boteller’s oldest boy reined alongside him. “Have you seen Doc? It’s Ma’s time.”
“On the bandstand,” Corbet said, pointing, “playing the fiddle.”
The horse reared and pawed the air. The boy tumbled to the ground, found his feet, and raced inside.
Corbet rubbed the back of his neck. “You’d think after eight siblings, he’d be used to his mother having babies.”
Jodee said nothing. Seconds later the boy emerged from the barn with the doctor.
“Bailey,” Corbet called. “Can you give Doc a ride? It’d take too long to get his buggy.”
After Bailey appeared, and with the doctor aboard the surrey and on his way, the Boteller boy galloped after him. In moments all was quiet again. Corbet swallowed hard and looked around at the people crowding the livery barn’s open doors. He shouldn’t be here, he thought. He should be somewhere else, but where? From where would the trouble come?
He turned back to Jodee. “It’s time for us to go inside.” With an encouraging smile, he offered his elbow. He hadn’t intended to enter the dance with Jodee on his arm, but it seemed all at once the only thing he could do, the only thing he wanted to do. It might have to be a quick dance, but by God, he was going to show this town he wasn’t some damned puppet, nose-ringed bull, or well-trained and obedient parlor dog.
• • •
After feeling so certain she had lost her chance to dance with Corbet, Jodee could scarcely believe she was slipping her chilled fingers into the warm crook of his elbow. Her worries vanished. There was no telling what she might be doing come morning, she thought, but for tonight a dream was coming true. She walked into the dance on the arm of her beau. Corbet was her beau because, in spite of all her protests, he had just touched his lips to hers.
As Corbet led her inside, folks loitering near the doors straightened and moved aside. Heads turned. Whispers followed. Jodee couldn’t get her breath to go out. The musicians played something that sounded like a Tennessee reel. Couples swirled in laughing, whooping circles. Jodee had never seen anything like it. The excitement was around her like smoke, making her dizzy and giddy. She didn’t have time to explain that she had no idea how to dance like that.
The reel came to an uncertain conclusion. A cheer went up. Jodee felt like folks were cheering for her and Corbet. She almost couldn’t bear it, she felt so happy. Not only were they going to dance together, they were the talk of the town. Her throat began to swell with joyous tears that she battled with all her strength to control.
For the first time in her life something seemed to be going right. An hour ago she might have run away and cheated herself of this. She didn’t have time to think of how dearly her mother had wished for a moment like this for herself, to be seen in public with her love, T. T. McQue, and dance with him in front of her family and the town. This was Jodee’s moment to relish in her mother’s place.
Marshal J. Corbet Harlow led her to the center of the barn floor where dancing feet had crushed scattered hay to a fine powder. Golden lantern light lit their faces as they smiled at each other with rapt attention. A gentle tune began on a mouth harp. Jodee’s ears roared so loudly she could scarcely hear it. Her cheeks felt hot. She didn’t know what to do.
Corbet put one hand on the small of her back and lifted her right hand in his. She felt a slight ache in her shoulder that reminded her of the doctor’s words—that she would dance someday. Holding her breath, she looked up into Corbet’s handsome face and thought she was going to die of happiness. Tarnation, it felt good to be decent.
They began moving together, their feet somehow finding the rhythm of the tune and their hearts drumming as one. Corbet looked tender as he guided her in slow circles. Jodee didn’t notice that no one else was dancing. They were turning and turning around the gritty floor, oblivious to the watching faces and stunned expressions.
When the song ended and another began, they went on dancing. Eventually other couples joined them until once again the center of the barn was crowded with dancing couples. Ranchers and their wives, cowboys and young ranch cooks, lads in long pants and the May Day maidens in white, all waltzing as if the simple music were perfect.
From his chair on the sidelines, Virgil Robstart climbed slowly to his feet and led his wife in a few exquisitely slow turns before the two headed quietly out the doors. More than a few gossips took note of Avinelle Babcock standing near the mayor and his wife. She smiled a brilliantly brittle smile as if she didn’t notice that no man had asked her to dance.
Jodee looked ethereal with her pale hair streaming down her back and her young face upturned, her eyes fixed on Corbet’s beaming face. She might not be a girl of the town, more than a few were thinking, but there was no doubt she was Queen of the May. Corbet looked tender—folks would say later they had not realized their marshal was such a handsome man.
Everybody watched Marshal Harlow and the McQue girl dance as if in a rapturous daze, eyes locked, bodies moving gracefully together until a young lad with crooked teeth stepped forward to tap the marshal on his shoulder.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said.
Jodee stumbled as Corbet broke the rhythm of the waltz steps and looked down into the darkly serious eyes of Hobie Fenton. Without a word he relinquished his hold on Jodee. When Hobie took Jodee in his arms, she could feel him trembling. His fingers felt cold and thin in hers. His cheeks sported two blotches of nervous color. Jodee’s heart melted with affection. “How-do, Hobie.”
“Miss McQue,” Hobie began, looking directly into her eyes. “Jodee,” he corrected himself. “I promised you a dance. Here I am.” He relaxed his chilling hold and forced a sheepish smile.
“I want to thank you for treating me decent when I first got to town,” she said to Hobie. “You were my first friend. I hope you find all you hope for in life. Back east. In college.”
“Oh, I won’t be leaving just yet. I go in the fall, but when I get back,” he said, beginning to grin with all his crooked teeth showing, “you won’t recognize me, all duded up in eastern clothes and talking law.”
She grinned. “You’ll look fine, but I won’t be here. I’m going away soon. I don’t know where I belong, but I’m going to try fresh someplace else.”
“Some folks around here think real high of you,” he said. “I’m proud to know you.”
Artie Abernathy cut in next. Jodee felt disoriented, not getting a chance to tell Hobie goodbye.
For a husky man Artie moved surprisingly light on his feet. He danced Jodee away from Hobie, talking non-stop. Jodee didn’t hear a word he said. Then a handsome young cowhand cut in. Jodee felt like the belle of the ball, swirling in circles, smiling until her cheeks ached…but then in the shadows she saw Widow Ashton’s frowning face and remembered her warning. Was dancing with this stranger ruining her reputation? Was she making a spectacle of herself? How could she extract herself from this young man’s eager grip without seeming unkind?
Looking around, Jodee saw the woman rise to her feet, outrage purpling her face. A stab of fear went through Jodee until she realized the woman was watching Avinelle refuse the invitation of broadly grinning Deputy Brucker. Jodee stumbled. Then, blessedly, there was Corbet again, tapping the shoulder of the cowhand and taking Jodee back into his arms. Her heart shivered with happiness. Oh, if only she could go on like this forever.
“Having fun?” Corbet asked.
“I don’t know.”
Corbet laughed. It was such a wonderful sound. “Of course you are.”
They went on dancing several more slow dances. Then they stood aside, watching couples attempt the faster, more complicated reels and quadrilles. When Deputy Malone, who had been manning the jail approached, he looked winded.
“It’s all right, Marshal. Brucker just now took over at the jail,” he explained. “Said he wasn’t having any luck here. Where’s the food?” He dragged off his hat and bowed to Jodee. “Evening, Miss McQue. You look real nice. Are folks heading home already?”
Corbet looked around. His brow knit. He was looking for Avinelle, Jodee thought. He hadn’t danced with her yet. She didn’t see her or her mother. “I should check on something, Jodee,” he said. “Charlie, would you mind looking after Jodee a moment?”
Deputy Malone blushed. “I can’t dance a step, Ma’am.”
Jodee watched Corbet stride out of the barn into the darkness. She guided the deputy toward the refreshment table. Shoving pie into his mouth, Deputy Malone said, “It’s been a helluva day. ’Scuse my language, Ma’am. Jail’s full. We was trying to track down a whiskey thief who’s been breaking into the Bail ’O Hay Saloon in the wee hours.” He swallowed hard.
Jodee sagged with relief when Corbet came back. He drew her aside.
“Theia and Avinelle weren’t very happy that I sent Doc to the Botellers’ in their surrey. Bailey just got back and he’s taking them home now. We should go, too.”
Jodee felt uneasy. “Is that all that’s worrying you, Corbet?”
He offered his arm. Feeling the tension in his body, she followed him into the darkness.
Where would she go if Widow Ashton refused to let her back into the house? After all, she had done precisely what the woman told her not to do. She had danced. With a stranger, too.
Corbet patted her hand where it lay in the crook of his arm. They moved quickly along the dark road no longer so crowded with wagons. “I have important things to talk to you about, but now isn’t the time. There won’t be any trouble when you get home tonight because I spoke to Theia and Avinelle just now,” Corbet went on. “Theia wants you gone—you already know that.”
Jodee nodded. She couldn’t speak. Tears stung her eyes.
“I released her from her obligation to take care of you, as she put it. It was never an obligation as far as I was concerned. I thought it was an invitation. I thought they wanted to help you, but I’m an idiot. Avinelle just wanted to make me beholden to her. You don’t have to work for them anymore. Consider your debts paid in full. All of them. Don’t argue, honey,” he said when she began to protest. He remained quiet a moment. His grip tightened.
The desire to weep subsided as Jodee chuckled. This was all so silly.
Abruptly he pulled her close and hugged her. The more he tried to cushion the blow of what he was going to say next, Jodee thought, the more frightened she became.
“I’ll see to it that Theia and Avinelle don’t exclude you from going to the funeral.”
“What funeral?” Jodee whispered, pulling away so she could see Corbet’s face.
“Mrs. Boteller died about an hour ago. Bailey got Doc Trafford to the house in time to save the baby, but she was gone. While I was making heartless remarks about her having so many children, the woman was drawing her last breath. She’ll be buried Saturday.”
Jodee went still inside. The woman with the cold hands? The end was coming for her, too. She couldn’t prevent it.
Corbet released her and cupped her upturned face. “I don’t want you to worry, Jodee. Trust me on this. Everything will be all right. I’ll talk to you in a couple of days and help you plan what to do.” Then he lowered his head and pressed his warm soft lips to hers.
Taken utterly by surprise, Jodee’s body blossomed with fire. She closed her eyes and fell headlong into the delicious sensations coursing through her body. His strong arms enfolded her. She went up tight against him, too surprised by the suddenness of the kiss to have her arms free to encircle his neck. She stood deliciously restrained, feeling the urgency of his mouth against hers until her hands clutched his waist.
When Corbet pulled free, he buried his face in her hair. He held her and held her as if he never intended to let her go. They stood like that in the darkness as one, safe together. She tightened her hold on him in a way she had never imagined before. This big strong man with his formidable eyes and the gun on his hip clung to her as if she were his pillar of strength.
When at last the moment passed, they released each other. Corbet captured her hand in his and they walked slowly, without speaking, through the darkened town. The night air felt cool against Jodee’s burning cheeks. She couldn’t capture a single thought. All she knew was the sound of their footsteps and the quiet rush of the night wind high in the pines.