Despite Laura’s growing ease with the situation, she still fought a restless frustration she couldn’t define. She refused to admit she found satisfaction in the delight of Cash’s eyes when she ordered his bath and had it ready for him when he came in from the fields. She desperately ignored her anticipation of those times when Cash would come to the nursery while she was there, and they could laugh at their son’s multitudinous talents together. If his hands brushed hers when she gave him the baby, she tried not to recognize the shiver of pleasure. He was her cousin’s husband, and that was all that could be between them.
So she had no right to feel disappointment or anything else when her birthday arrived without any sign of recognition. Sallie had never bothered to acknowledge it since Uncle Matt died, and Laura didn’t expect one of her cousin’s irregular and flighty letters to mention something other than the fun she was having.
But she could treat herself for a change. She knew Cash would be furious that she rode out alone, but she didn’t see any other choice if she were to have her own little holiday. If she waited until a carriage and driver could be readied, the kitchen was likely to catch on fire and the cattle in the side field would get loose and trample the garden and Taylor would pull down the draperies and smother himself. If she wasn’t there to watch it happen, they would have to struggle along without her.
Refusing to give in to self-pity, Laura cantered along the shady lane, enjoying the wind in her hair and the anticipation of spending a few hours with friends she had sorely neglected these last months. She had a few coins in her pocket. Perhaps she would indulge in something completely frivolous. Cash had not attempted to buy her anything else after her tirade over the hats, but she still craved something new once in a while. Perhaps she could strike up a deal with Millie, the seamstress, to take in some hemming and whatnot to give her a little spare money.
She dreamed of earning enough to buy a sewing machine, but that was an impossible dream. What coins she had went to buy clothes for her and Mark. It was enough that Cash paid for the roof over their heads and the food in their bellies. He couldn’t be expected to provide everything. Her pride wouldn’t allow for that. But if she could set a little aside every so often . . .
While Laura was bargaining with the milliner over new hat ribbons and persuading Millie to part with a few sewing jobs, Cash rode over the corn field observing the gathering of thunderclouds in the west. He knew the danger of this weather.
When the high buildup of summer heat and humidity hit the cold wind riding in those clouds, anything could happen. He had seen barn roofs whip off the walls and fly into the trees, oaks as old and sturdy as the mountains rip from the soil and topple across the horses huddling beneath them. Hail as big as his fist could tumble from those clouds, or nothing worse might happen than a drenching and welcome rain. It never did to second-guess Mother Nature.
Ordering the horses into the barns and field hands to secure anything that might catch a breeze, Cash called it a day and turned his mount toward the house. Jemima had told him about the special birthday dinner being prepared, and he wanted to add a little surprise of his own. He figured Laura was too damned proud to accept anything but a trifling token, so he would keep the biggest surprise as a casual afterthought. But he meant for her to have some little gift at the table from him. He wasn’t accustomed to giving or receiving gifts, but he remembered last Christmas as if it were yesterday. He had enjoyed the experience, and he wanted to see her smile like that again.
A flash of lightning split the distant sky as he rode into the stable. The thunder followed as he unstrapped the girth and removed the saddle. The storm was still a few miles off; he would have time to inspect the grounds for any possible leaks or loose ends.
Coming out of the stables, he gazed up at the towering edifice of the house, and his heart swelled with pride. The mansion gleamed with new coats of paint around the now-sparkling windows. The shutters had been restored to their former pristine condition, and the grounds had been manicured to picture-book perfection.
He was well aware that it was Laura’s patience and talent that had wrought these changes, along with a generous helping of his money. He had given her instructions, and she had carried them out beyond his fondest wishes. ’Twas a pity that he couldn’t say the same of his wife, but he and Laura understood one another, and they both knew what Sallie was and forgave her for it. He was a lucky man, if he only had the sense to remember it. To come from the filth of a tobacco-road hovel to this . . .
But a sense of failure crept up on Cash that he couldn’t quite shake. Even Sallie’s name and farm couldn’t bring him the respect he had hoped. He had a wife who would make other men’s heads turn, but it had never occurred to him that she would refuse his company once they were married. She had complainingly performed her wifely duty, but she had offered none of the solace he had hoped to find in his marriage bed. Once she had declared herself pregnant, they had silently but mutually agreed there was no point in continuing that part of their marriage. He had everything and nothing.
He was as restless and unfulfilled now as he had been when he took that steamer up the Ohio a little less than a year ago. Now, besides a ranch in California, he had a horse farm in Kentucky and a beautiful wife, but still he wasn’t satisfied. He usually buried his discomfort in hard work, but every so often it nagged him, as it did now, observing Laura’s airy draperies blowing through the open nursery windows.
Blowing through open windows. Cursing, Cash hurried toward the house. What in the name of Jehosaphat were they doing in there that no one had closed the windows? Even a blind man could see that a storm was in the making. He’d wring Laura’s neck if she were down in that blasted schoolroom of hers and ignoring what was happening outside.
A streak of black lightning nearly toppled Cash as it whipped between his legs before he entered the kitchen. A dog barked furiously. A heavy pot slammed to the floor, accompanied by more screams that identified the departing creature as a cat. And if Cash did not miss his guess, Franz the Second had just chased it out of the parlor.
Closing his eyes to the chaos in the kitchen, Cash strode toward his normally peaceful parlor. At the sound of his boots, two young maids hastily righted overturned tables and swept at shattered glass. They stared at him in terror as he surveyed the damage, but it wasn’t the broken lamps or beheaded figures that he was noticing. It was the absence of something important.
“Where’s Miss Laura?” Cash demanded.
The one maid looked as if she might faint. The other stared soundlessly, clutching her broom as if for protection. Cursing, Cash spun at the patter of light feet behind him. Jettie Mae’s mischievous grin did nothing to relieve his ire. “Damn your impudent hide, woman, where is she?”
Jettie shrugged. “Gone to town, I done suspect. Ain’t she allowed a little time to herself after the goin’s-on ’round here?”
If this were an example of what happened when Laura turned her back, Cash didn’t want to answer that question. Remembering his reason for entering the house, he ordered the windows closed and strode back into the approaching gloom of the storm. Damn Laura’s willfulness to hell. He had told her not to go out alone. Now here it was, ready to storm, and she was probably halfway between here and town and about to get drenched. He just hoped to hell she hadn’t reached town yet. There was something he’d been meaning to tell her but hadn’t found the courage or the words to say.
As he remembered another time when Laura had been riding alone before a storm, Cash’s sense of urgency increased. He’d be damned if he’d have her sharing another barn with a stranger.
By the time he reached town without a single sign of Laura, Cash’s temper had reached explosive proportions. He had only signed on to run a damned farm, not a full-blown circus. If he had to spend his time rounding up strays, he might as well be back in Texas.
The first fat drops of rain fell as he rode past the drygoods store. Following instinct, Cash turned his mount down the alley to the doctor’s house. He still thought of that renovated carriage house as home, and very likely Laura would do the same.
Instinct served him well. Laura’s horse was tied to the barn door. Riding around to the front, Cash caught the flash of green that was Laura’s favorite shopping gown. Closer, he could see her standing on the wide front porch Jonathan had installed for his wife, and for a moment he thought she was standing alone, debating the wisdom of riding out into the rain.
But heaven forbid that any Kincaid would do something so simple and innocent. As Cash halted his horse in front of the house, the lithe figure of the young doctor stepped from the shadows of the door to greet him. Cash had the sudden urge to punch first and ask questions later, but he had learned some control with the years. Swinging down from his horse, he stepped onto the porch steps, and ignoring Burke’s outstretched hand, glared at Laura.
“What in hell do you think you’re doing out here by yourself? Haven’t I told you—”
“Say one more word, Cash Wickliffe, and I’ll shove you off this porch. I’m tired of being cursed at and ordered around and treated like a half-wit. Why aren’t you back at the farm stabling the horses and battening down the doors before this storm?”
Burke stared at the petite woman with hands on hips glaring at the tall man who dwarfed her even when he stood a step down. He had always thought Laura a timid woman, as so often abused women seemed to be. She had a haunting smile and lovely eyes, and more than once he had wondered if she might truly be eligible, but never had he imagined her unleashing this kind of temper, even if done in a perfectly ladylike voice.
“What do you think I have the damned farmhands for?” Cash countered. “And if you hadn’t gone traipsing off to who-knows-where, that’s where I’d be now. Haven’t you got the sense God gave a goose, woman? There’s a storm out there, and a featherbrain like you could blow away in it.”
The young doctor considered interfering at this insult to a lady, but a second glance at Cash’s dark face caused second thoughts. He didn’t know the man well, but that wasn’t a look of anger etched into the weathered lines of Cash’s eyes and mouth. And he didn’t yell as many another man would have. Concern laced his tone. The fists clenched at his sides began to relax even as Laura spoke, so it wasn’t Laura they were meant for. Burke stepped back a foot or two, out of the scene of battle.
“If I had a stick, I’d hit you,” Laura said. “Did you think I rode out just because I thought it would annoy you? All I wanted was a little time to myself. Just a few minutes to . . .” Laura’s anger was rapidly turning to tears. Frustrated, she broke off before she could reveal what she had no intention of revealing. She was twenty-two years old today, and what did she have to show for it?
Cash’s anger didn’t abate. Carried away by the danger she had unwittingly placed herself in, he caught her shoulder. “When will you learn to put a little trust in me?” he shouted as she backed away warily. “Marshall is back. Did you ever stop to consider he might return? He’s deputy sheriff now. What would you have done if you’d run into him again?”
Horrified, Laura could only stare, watching Cash wipe the grim look from his face with the same stroke that he used to brush the wet hair from his face. Weariness replaced the anger as he finally acknowledged the other man witnessing this confrontation. Stiffly holding out his hand, Cash said, “I apologize, Burke. It looks as if we’re in for a bit of a blow. Do you mind if I stable our horses until it goes over?”
The summer storm blew over as quickly as promised, but another kind lingered in its wake. Later, watching Cash Wickliffe lift his wife’s pretty cousin into the saddle, hearing the laughter that sprang to her lips as he made some insulting sally, Burke couldn’t help but wonder at the fallacies of the human heart.
Did they really think that hurling anger and insults would hide the deeper emotions just beneath the veneer?