A short while later Art returned, stomping his feet to get the snow off his boots. He took in the scene before him. The place was a disaster. It had been abandoned for at least three years with enough dust and cobwebs to attest to that fact. He shot a quick look to Minnie, who remained where he'd left her. Her eyes were still closed, and her jaw was clenched, most likely from pain.
Art hoped the previous owners of the dwelling had left more behind than what he'd seen at first glance. "I'm going to take a quick look around in the cupboards to see if there's anything we can use." For Minnie's sake, he wanted to make the place more livable for their short stay.
"Use for what?"
"Oh, you know…" He started to answer, but his voice trailed off as he came up empty-handed and sighed his frustration.
"Arty? Is everything okay?" Minnie asked.
"Yeah, darlin', everything's fine. I was hoping to find a quilt or something in here, too, but it looks like you'll have to live with smelling as fresh as a horse come morning."
The living room was small. Art laid the blanket down on the floor up against the wall opposite the fireplace. The heat would have no trouble reaching them there.
"All right, Minnie, we need to get you out of your wet things." She stiffened at his words, but he forged ahead. "I'm going to take your scarf, coat, and gloves off. I'll be putting them by the fire so they can dry out." She relaxed again, and he let it go. He wanted to get her boots off, too, so he could check her feet for frostbite, but he'd take care of the rest of her first. Hopefully by then she'd be comfortable enough to allow him the liberty. It had been easier to remove her shoes the day she'd arrived in Larkspur. Of course, she'd been unconscious then.
As he unwound the scarf from around her, he tried to get a closer look at her head wound. "My goodness you've got a lot of hair."
"You say that as if it's a problem."
With a chuckle, he said, "You got a bump on your head, and I'm going to need to take a look at it, but we'll wait 'til you're getting warmed up in front of the fire."
"My head hurts." Her voice was small.
Hearing vulnerability where he was used to hearing defiance tore at his heart. "Is that why you won't open your eyes?"
"I'm afraid the light will hurt."
"Trust me, sweetheart, there's not enough light in here to give you a headache. It's pitch black outside, and all we have is a fire. It should be safe enough for you to open your eyes."
After he hung her jacket on a wall peg, he returned to her side and said, "What do you say? Want to try opening them peepers for me?"
Under his watchful scrutiny, she slowly opened her eyes. Holding up two, he asked, "How many fingers do you see?"
"They're blurry, Arty, and it hurts to focus on them."
"Take a guess and tell me how many you think there are," he replied.
"Maybe three?" She grimaced and made a move to rub her eyes.
"Perfect, sweetheart. Thank you," he said, not wanting her to notice how worried he was. "Can you sit down over here on the blanket for me near the fire?"
"I feel fuzzy. Can you help me down?"
"No problem. I'd be glad to give you a hand."
Once Art had her situated on the blanket, he removed his own jacket and boots. He placed them both near the fire then circled around to contemplate Minnie. If she was aware of his scrutiny, it didn't show.
"You're still soaking wet, and I need to get you dry so you don't catch pneumonia or worse." When she didn't protest, he asked, "Can we take off your shoes and stockings?" She pulled back from him, but the effort was half-hearted at best. "As soon as they're dry, you can put them back on."
"I don't think I can unbutton my shoes," she said. "I don't feel normal."
"It'll be okay, sweetheart. I think that's because of the bump on your head. I want to get you warming up, and then I'll take a good look at it."
Her words starting to slur again, she said, "You're a good man, Arty. I trust you." His palms suddenly sweaty at the sound of the word 'trust' on her lips, he unbuttoned and removed her shoes and then took her stockings off as well. It meant touching a whole lot more of her bare skin than was good for him, but it had to be done. Thankfully most of her dress had stayed dry due to her coat's protection. The snow she'd been buried under had been dry and powdery, too, which had helped prevent it from soaking through her clothes.
Gently moving her, Arty scooted Minnie until her back was to the fire. "I'm going to take the pins out of your hair, okay?"
"What for?" she asked, her voice laced with fatigue.
"I need to check on the bump you got. It would be good if we could get your hair dried, too."
"I don't have a brush."
Smiling at her priorities, he said, "You're beautiful anyway. I don't think it'll be a problem."
"You're too nice to me, Arty. I don't deserve someone as decent as you."
"Let me be the judge of what you do and don't deserve for now, okay?" Wanting to distract her from the poking and prodding he was about to do on her head, he said, "So tell me how you met William."
"I was at a dinner party one of my professors hosted. William was there, too. He was charming, and he treated me as though I was the most interesting person he'd ever met."
"How long until you two married?"
"Three months." Her voice made him think of a wounded puppy.
"Were you in that big of a hurry?" He kept his voice light as he ran his fingers over her scalp to see if he could feel any fractures in the bone beneath.
"I wanted to wait until he'd met my parents, but he was insistent. The paper was going to be sending him overseas, and he didn't want to wait. I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I was a fool."
"How long was he overseas?" He wanted to keep her talking. Nothing felt broken, but now he needed to get a better look at the laceration.
Minnie snorted, "There was no overseas assignment. It was all a big story to pressure me into marrying him before my parents could meet him. Once I realized that, I didn't want him to meet Mum and Dad. I was too embarrassed and ashamed. I'd gone and done it again, acted impulsively. But I couldn't burden my parents with it and expect them to clean up my mess like they'd always done before. It was time to handle the problems I'd created. My folks didn't deserve to suffer because of my bad choices."
"Your folks love you. They wouldn't have judged you for anything you'd done." Minnie tensed. "Does that hurt?"
"Definitely," she answered. "But what you were doing before felt wonderful. I think that must be what they call a scalp massage. It almost made my headache go away."
Art continued to inspect the cut until he was satisfied. "You've got quite a goose egg under there, but the cut itself isn't so bad. I brought bandages with me. To be on the safe side, I'm going to wrap some around your head, but it's just a precaution. It looks to me like the bleeding is over and done with for the most part. We'll check it again in the morning."
"After you do that, do you think you could rub my head again? That felt so good."
"Sure thing, darlin'." Arty retrieved gauze from his saddlebags and wrapped it a couple times around her head, tying it off in a knot snug enough to hold it in place.
Satisfied her hair was dry enough, he said, "Let's move over against the wall where we can be a little more comfortable."
He leaned his back against the wall and stretched his long legs out toward the fire. Once Minnie was settled in front of him, she asked, "I don't suppose you brought anything to eat with you?"
"'Fraid not, sweetheart. I brought three guns, my horse, and some medical supplies, but food did not make it onto my emergency list of things to grab as I was running out the door."
His touch light, he began working his fingers over her scalp again, doing what he could to ease her pain. "So tell me what happened between you and William once you figured out he'd been lying to you."
"You can't trick me, Arty Paulson."
"How am I tricking you?"
"You think because I'm hurt, I won't think twice about telling you everything you think I've been holding back." Her voice held no accusation. There might even have been a hint of humor in it.
"Actually," he said, "I'm not."
"Then what do you call it?"
"I'm trying to use a head massage to get you to tell me everything you've been holding back."
This time there was no mistaking the smile in her voice. "I'll tell you because I trust you to keep it between us. Besides, I'm too tired to hold onto my secrets at the moment."
"Tell me, then. What happened with William?" He kept his voice pleasant and non-threatening. As much as he needed answers, he didn't want to risk spooking Minnie when she was at long last opening up to him.
"It took a while, but I eventually realized William married me because he thought I came from money. I'd made no secret of my father's job, but in a lot of cities in California, the mayor is wealthy. A mayor in Idaho isn't in the same social strata as in California, but William didn't understand that, and I hadn't thought to explain it. Why should I, right?"
Art felt Minnie's sigh all the way down in his bones.
She continued, "Once he realized I had no money, he more or less threw me away. He had a gambling problem, and he would gamble away every paycheck. He wasn't paying the rent, and I realized we were going to get evicted. I started waiting for him to leave our apartment so I could take his completed stories to the paper myself. That way I could collect his check. After paying rent and buying food, I'd give the rest to him."
"How did that go?"
"He would say the most vile things to me. He accused me of stealing from him, having an affair with his editor, valuing money more than I valued my husband. It could get ugly."
"Did he ever hit you?" Arty regretted the question as Minnie tensed under his touch. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to," he said.
"He would throw things at me sometimes."
Art allowed her to believe he hadn't noticed the half-answer. "When did you start writing for him at the paper?"
"You know about that?"
"I told you I've been doing my own investigating," he said dismissively.
"After we'd been married about a year, it went from just gambling to the opium dens and gambling. William kind of went out of his mind after that and didn't seem to understand what was real or not. He would go days at a time without eating, sometimes weeks without bathing."
Art stopped massaging her scalp and pulled her back against his chest, gingerly resting her head against him. "Are you comfortable?" he asked.
"Mm," she said, "it'll do. You're not as soft as a feather mattress or a goose down pillow, but I guess we all have to make sacrifices."
Art chuckled and asked, "Are you warm enough?"
"I am for now. We'll see about later when the fire goes down."
"We've got a little more wood, and hopefully by then our coats will be dry enough to provide some added warmth."
Minnie squirmed a bit until she found a comfortable spot leaning against him, and then she continued talking, "One day, I went to turn his article in, and the editor took one look at it and threw it in the trash. He told me William's work wasn't welcome there anymore. I was desperate. As soon as he walked away, I fished the paper out of the garbage can and read it. It was awful. A primary school student could have done better. So I rewrote the article. Standing right there at the counter and using a stubby little pencil."
With a delicate shrug, she finished the story. "Once I was done with it, I searched all through the offices until I found the editor again. He tried his best to send me away, but I started crying. It was pity that did it, I'm sure, but he read the revised article."
"Did you cry on purpose?" Art asked, enjoying the feel of her in his arms and the melodic sound of her voice.
"Not that time. Those were real, honest tears of desperation. After he read the article, he glowered at me and said, 'If you keep writing under Will's name, you've got a job.' I was so happy, I hugged the poor man. He didn't know what to do. People don't generally go around hugging the editor."
Minnie smiled to herself, remembering the kindness she'd been shown with that job. "After a while the editor decided I could be put to better use with fiction, so he moved me over to writing serials. He told me I had a flair for the dramatic." Wryly, she added, "Little did he know."
"So you were able to pay your rent and buy food," Will said, trying to prompt her to continue.
"I made ends meet," she said. "It wasn't always easy, but William was often gone at the docks. In a lot of ways, it was like living alone, or sharing a room with someone who was never there. Whenever he was home, he was angry. Eventually I got to where I was grateful for those days when he'd disappear without telling me where he was going. Then one day I came home, and there were police everywhere. William was in our apartment. He'd been bludgeoned to death. There was blood everywhere. His eyes were still open."
Art tightened his arms around her. "I'm so sorry you had to see that. It must have been awful."
"I didn't believe he was dead at first. A part of me kept expecting him to get up and start yelling at me for leaving him there on the floor. But he stayed there, his sightless eyes staring directly through me. He was gone."
"Did the police tell you straightaway that you were a suspect?"
Minnie shook her head and then hissed in pain. "Don't ask me yes and no questions, okay?"
"I'll do my best," he said, wishing he could take away her pain, physical and emotional.
"They thought it had to do with drugs at first, and then they thought gambling. William had his share of vices, so there were plenty to pick from. Eventually, they began to look at me. Detective Wilcox tried to be nice about it. I don't think he wanted to believe I could have done that to William, but he kept telling me it would be dangerous for me to stay around. Officially, he had to tell me I couldn’t leave the city, but I overheard something one time, and it made me wonder if he was the one who convinced the judge to give me special dispensation so I could come home to Idaho."
"Under my watchful supervision."
"I have to say, your watchful eye has served me well so far. I'd have died tonight if you hadn't come along."
"Doin' my job is all, ma'am," Art said in his best country bumpkin drawl. A minute later, he asked, "Did you have to go to jail?"
"They did put me in jail for a while. I was in there ten days before they released me and let me return to the room I'd shared with William."
"Was it hard to go back there?"
Silence met Art's question. He felt Minnie tremble in his arms and wished he could take the words back.
Before he could tell her how sorry he was for bringing up another painful memory, she answered.
"A neighbor had cleaned up the blood the best she could, bless her. A new rug was on the floor where the stain wouldn't come out. For weeks afterward, I would pick something up – like a coffee tin – only to realize there was blood spattered on it."
Her trembling increased as she said, "William died a horrid violent death. He suffered terribly. The blood was everywhere. It was hard to be there at first…"
Minnie's voice trailed off, and silence hung between them before she finished her thought. "It was hard at first, but once the shock wore off, I felt relief, which I'm pretty sure makes me a terrible person."
Art fought the urge to turn her in his arms and hug her close. The desire to kiss away all her pain burned through his veins, a scorching fire. Minnie had let her guard down because of pain and fatigue, and for no other reason. He held himself in check, determined not to spook her.
"I think relief makes sense," he said, moving his hands over her shoulders in a light movement he hoped would help relax her and wash away the bad taste of her memories.
"That's nice of you to say." He could hear it in her voice – she'd dismissed his remark. Art wasn't upset by it. There were plenty more ways to tell her she was being too hard on herself.
"I'm beyond tired, and I'm going to fall asleep." Minnie's words were starting to slur together again, but this time he felt reasonably sure it was fatigue causing the problem. That, however, didn't mean he was willing to take chances with her life.
Art brushed his lips against her hair. "You go ahead and do that. I'm going to have to wake you up every so often, though, to make sure your head hasn't gotten any worse, okay?"
"Worried about a concussion?"
"We won't know for sure 'til Doc Billingsly can see you, but I don't want to take any chances."
With a fatigued sigh, Minnie said, "If that's the worst thing to come out of this day, then I can live with it."
"Get some rest, sweetheart."
Her words fading more with each syllable, Minnie said, "I like it when you call me tha…"
The soft rhythmic breathing of slumber cut off her words. Whispering to her sleeping form, Art said, "I like it when you let me call you that."
Leaning his head back against the wall, he let his mind wander. It quickly settled on a subject to mull over – the problem of them spending a night alone together. Knowing he had all night to think on their predicament, he allowed himself some time to dwell on the precious cargo pillowed against his chest.