~~~ Chapter 19 ~~~

 

The familiar odor of tobacco wafted over Cord as he stepped toward the back porch. "Hello, Jack." He didn’t want to deal with the man now.

"Hello yourself," Jack answered from one of the rocking chairs.

"Isn’t there a table full of men waiting to hand all their money to you?" Cord swore he saw Jack grin in the dim moonlight.

"Oh, I’m sure there is, but I decided to spend the evening out here in the cold, waiting for you to get your stubborn, sour face back home." The end of his cigar glowed momentarily. "You know she’s worried about you."

Cord scowled. "Well, she shouldn’t be."

"Nevertheless, my friend, when she decided you deserved a piece of pie, and found you were no longer in the store, she got worried. I told her I’d wait up for you."

"Well, now I’m back."

Jack rose from the chair and stretched his back. "Let’s have a drink to warm up. I think you need to talk."

"Jack--"

"Humor me, Cordell. I need to at least make an effort to be a friend. What kind of friend would I be if I let you down in time of need?"

"Oh, for Christ’s sake," Cord sighed, opening the back door. "If you’ll let me alone, then come in and have a drink." He couldn’t help glancing at the closed door to Josie’s room as he picked up the lamp and collected a bottle and two glasses from the sideboard. Was she asleep, or awake, worrying about him?

Cord followed Jack to the parlor and set the lamp on the table.

"So tell me what sent you out to talk with Emily this hour of the night?" Jack said, making himself comfortable on the sofa.

Cord shot him a sharp look as he settled his chair. "How do you know about that?"

Jack pointed to Cord’s muddied trousers. "I can’t think of any other place you’d kneel in the dirt. What’s bothering you?"

Cord set the glasses down and uncorked the bottle, suddenly thirsty. The slosh of whisky only heightened that thirst. He put his glass to his lips and drank, but the liquor’s burn didn’t kill the thousand thoughts tumbling in his mind.

Jack sipped from his glass and studied the color of the liquor. "You gonna tell me what’s on your mind or get drunk?"

Cord heaved a sigh. "I don’t know, Jack. I’m just so damn confused about it all." He balanced his glass between his thumb and two fingers. Scowling, he set it back down. "I don’t know what to think or feel anymore."

Jack rested his expensive, shiny boots on the seat of the chair across from him and took a swig from his glass. A slow grin stole over his features.

That damn grin. Corn scowled again. "What? What the hell is it now?"

Jack chuckled. "Nothing."

"I mean it Jack," Cord said, narrowing his eyes at the man. "You better tell me what you think is so damn funny."

"It’s just that I’ve seen you like this before, my friend." Jack sipped at his whiskey again. "And it was over another lady."

Cord leaned forward and pinned Jack with a glare. "Leave it be, Jack."

"Back when you were falling for Emily. That’s why you went to her grave tonight. You are conflicted about another young lady."

"Dammit Jack!" Anger welled up inside of Cord. He only had himself to be mad at, because Jack spoke the truth. He thumped his glass to the table and jammed his hand in his hair.

"You still love her," Jack said, settling deeper into the cushions. "Nothing will change that. Hell, I know what Emmy meant to you. You don’t have to feel guilty just because you’re fallin’ for another woman."

Cord bristled. "I am not," he said between his teeth.

"Now don’t lie to me, Cord. I can see what’s going on between the two of you."

"She takes care of my kids. That’s all."

Jack grinned. "Have you kissed her?"

Cord looked away, avoiding Jack’s all-knowing gaze. How the hell did the man know? He picked his whiskey back up and took a swig.

Jackson leaned forward, an eager gleam in his eyes. "When?"

Cord nearly choked. "I never said I had!"

"You didn’t have to. The look on your face was enough. It’s a damn good thing you don’t play poker, friend."

"Yeah," Cord snorted. "I’d lose my tail to you." He shook his head and sighed. "I didn’t want this, Jack. I never meant to let it happen."

Jackson studied the liquor in his glass. "You know, Cordell, you are allowed to be happy again," he said quietly.

 

Silence filled the house as Cord decided he’d better get himself to bed. Long after Jack had left, Cord remained in the parlor, nursing a second glass of whiskey, thinking in the dim light. Thinking about Josie.

Dammit, he didn’t want to think anymore, but he didn’t dare pick up the bottle again. The temptation to drain it was far too great, and he knew that wasn’t good. Whiskey had always called him, and he’d seen what it could do to a man. Hell, all he had to do was take a look down the street at Fred Thompson. Fred was a broken down man, who took what little he earned sweeping the docks and spent it all at the Klondike Tavern, then slept in the stables. Old Man Thompson had drunk himself to death, so the town gossip went.

Yes, the thirst for whisky was a gift that got passed down. Cord imagined the man who fathered him had been nothing but a drunk with enough coin to buy a lay from his mother.

Mother. No, she was never that.

Disgusted, Cord set his half-empty glass down, stood and stretched. He’d had enough for one night, and it was late. Reaching for the lamp, he stilled. The light flickered on the photo of his Emily, illuminating her delicate smile, her bright eyes, her golden hair. The flame danced off the polished silver frame.

When had it been polished? He hadn’t been in here with a rag for--hell, he couldn’t remember how long it had been. The house had never looked like it had when Emmy was taking care of it. He’d just had so much to do after she was gone, and just getting up in the morning some days had been nearly too much.

He looked around the room. The familiar layer of dust he’d learned to ignore was missing. The dust balls that rolled like tumbleweeds were gone from their corners.

Josie. She’d brought his house back from the dead. He hadn’t bothered to take notice. The floors were polished, the pillows plumped, the curtains washed. Cord carefully opened the wood stove. Dying embers sat on nearly bare iron. She’d even shoveled out the damn stove.

But it wasn’t just those things. Her absent singing filled the house and drifted into the store. He didn’t mind it anymore if the customers heard, as long as once in a while her melody hit his good ear. Her laughter, mixed with Lacy’s, floated above the din of the street out front, and reminded him how very much he’d missed that sound in the last months. When she left for Grace’s in the mornings, he always knew. The place was too quiet.

She’d made his house a home again, and he’d yelled at her. Simply because she’d tried to help him. He didn’t want help where his mother was concerned, but he shouldn’t have barked at Josie. She was just too sweet and loving to understand that there were people in the world who weren’t like her, who didn’t have tenderness and motherly instinct.

Cord shut the stove and grabbed the lamp. He needed at least a few hours of sleep to function tomorrow. If he didn’t go to bed, at least pretend to sleep, he wouldn’t get any work done, and he still had spring inventory to finish.

He padded in his stocking feet to the kitchen and placed the glasses in the basin. A noise caught his attention as he turned to leave.

Cord studied Josie’s door in the dim light. There it was again, the noise. A low moan, almost a cry. For an absurd instant, he wondered if Jack had left after all. The hairs on his neck stood up.

He tried to shake the thought away. Jack wouldn’t be in Josie’s room. She already said she wasn’t attracted to the man. But he couldn’t stop his feet from bringing him to her door. Another cry sounded from the other side. Something was wrong. He pressed his ear to the door. Nothing. Quiet.

He turned to leave, disgusted with himself for listening at her door, when he distinctly heard her cry out the word no. All the muscles in his body tensed. If Jack was in there, hurting her, he would kill him.

Slowly, silently, Cord turned the knob and cracked open her door, peering through the darkness to find out what was wrong with her.

As his eyes adjusted, he could just make out the lump of her body beneath the quilt on the cot. She whimpered in her sleep. Cord frowned and opened the door wider, letting his lamp light spill into the room.

Josie moved restlessly beneath the quilt, tossing her head from side to side. God, was she sick?

"No," she moaned. Her hand flailed out as if to ward off something.

Cord turned the lamp low and set it on the dresser. Another nightmare. Lacy had them now and then, but a grown woman having them made him worry. What would Josie have nightmares about?

He nearly jumped out of his skin when she let out a cry and sat up in bed.

Cord froze. Her eyes were still closed. Though she sat up, she was still asleep. He scratched his chin. If he left right now, she might not wake and find him. If she did, he’d have a hell of a lot to explain. He stepped back and reached for the lamp.

"Get away from me!" Josie cried out, her arms slapping at an invisible foe. "Not me! Please, not me!"

She was going to hurt herself or fall out of bed if she thrashed any more. Lacy always had a difficult time going back to sleep when she fell out of bed, especially during a nightmare. He tip-toed toward Josie, hoping to God she wouldn’t wake up.

Cord gently placed a hand to her shoulder to guide her back to the pillow. Her body snapped to consciousness immediately, taut as a bowstring.

"Get your hands off me!" she hissed, slapping at him, her eyes wide in fear. "Go away!"

Cord jerked his hand away and stepped back.

"Don’t come near me!" She scrambled back against the wall, tense, looking as if she would spring at him.

Cord backed away, stunned by the blazing anger in her eyes. Why was she suddenly so afraid of him? He’d never done anything to make her react like this. He had to reassure her that he wasn’t there to hurt her, had to make her understand that she was safe.

Cord looked into her eyes, but they weren’t looking at him. She seemed to stare at a spot in front of her. He waved a hand in front of her face. She didn’t flinch. The nightmare still held her in its grip.

As suddenly as her violence had reared, it was gone. She just sat there, her quilt bunched under her arms, staring in a strangely vacant way. He would have thought she was still asleep, but he’d seen her like this before.

He crossed the tiny room and gently patted her hand. "Josie. Josie, wake up. Don’t do this again. Wake up."

"Don’t hurt me," she whispered.

Cord’s heart squeezed in his chest. He could never hurt her. "It’s all right," he crooned. "No one will hurt you, Josie. I won’t hurt you." Gently, he eased her back to the mattress. Her soft whimper knifed his insides.

He pulled the quilt over her shoulders and sat in the chair next to her cot, unable to leave her alone in the grip of the nightmare. He would leave just as soon as she quieted, stay just long enough to make sure she was all right. Then he would leave, and she wouldn’t know he had been there, watching her. Watching the soft rise and fall of her chest beneath the quilt as she breathed, watching her eyelids twitch, her lashes creating long stripes across her smooth cheeks.

Her dark hair danced in the lamp light, alive with fire. It lay across her pillow in a dark slash, calling to him. His hand itched to touch that hair. Temptation rode him. She wouldn’t know. Slowly, Cord reached out and stroked a long, mahogany strand. Silk between his fingers.

Josie moaned and tossed her head. "No, don’t hurt me," she murmured.

With a shaking hand, Cord stroked her hair to calm her. Someone had hurt her very badly to make her like this. Anger welled up inside him.

"No one will ever hurt you again, Josie," he whispered.