She gave him a look that had stopped many a forward cowboy. “I would like to know about Jacob Fenton.”
“I didn’t tell you a single lie, Houston, it’s just that I guess I didn’t tell you all of it. I did find him dead at the foot of the stairs, and I was taken to jail for his murder, but the truth was that the servants had run out of the house and knew he was already dead. Although, I didn’t ask if any of them actually saw him die. That was real clever of you to think of that.”
“So why were you in jail when I got there? Why weren’t you released immediately?”
“I guess I was, sorta. Houston, honey,” he held out his arms to her. “I just wanted to know for sure that you liked me for myself and it wasn’t my money you wanted. You know, when you walked out of that jail after I told you that I’d lose my money, I thought for sure that you were goin’ to Westfield to see what you could get before I was hanged.”
“Is that what you thought of me?” she said under her breath. “You think that I’m that low a human being that I’d leave the man I love alone to face a murder trial and not lift a finger to help?” She turned toward the horse.
“Houston, baby, sweetheart, I didn’t mean nothin’. I just wanted to know for sure. I didn’t have any idea you’d do somethin’ as damn fool as . . . Well, I mean, I had no idea that you’d blow the jail to kingdom come and near kill me.”
“You seem to have recovered well enough.”
“Houston, you ain’t gonna be mad, are you? It was just a little joke. Ain’t you got any sense of humor? Why, ever’body in town will—.”
“Yes,” she said, glaring at him. “Go on. What will everybody in town do?”
Kane gave her a weak grin. “Maybe they won’t notice.”
She advanced on him. “Won’t notice that I removed the entire side of a jail that had two-foot-thick stone walls? Perhaps they all slept through the explosion. Yes, perhaps they will just drive past the building and not even notice. And maybe the sheriff will forgo telling the story of the decade about how one of the Chandler twins stuck dynamite into the wall to rescue a husband who wasn’t even charged with murder. Maybe every person for miles around won’t be laying bets as to when I’ll find out my error and whether I’ll be charged with murder.” She turned back to the horse, every muscle in her body aflame with anger.
“Houston, you have to understand my side of it. I wanted to know if it was me you loved or my money. I saw an opportunity to find out and I took it. You can’t blame a man for tryin’.”
“I most certainly can blame you. Just once, I’d like you to listen to me. I told you that I loved you—you, not your money—yet you never heard a word I said.”
“Oh, well,” he shrugged, “you said that you couldn’t live with a man you couldn’t respect, either, but you came back, and it didn’t even take all that much persuadin’. I guess you just can’t help yourself.” He gave her a crooked grin.
“Of all the arrogant, vain men I have ever met, you are the worst. I am very, very sorry that I ever rescued you. I wish they had hanged you.” With that, she mounted her horse.
“Houston, baby, you don’t mean that,” Kane said as he climbed onto his horse and began to ride beside her. “It was just a joke. I didn’t mean no harm.”
All day long they rode, and every minute, Kane was either presenting arguments to her or thinking of further excuses as to why she should be grateful to him for what he had done. He said that Houston could be more sure of her feelings for him now. He tried to make her see the humor of it all. He chastised her for using boys to help her and warned of the danger she’d placed them all in. He tried anything he could think of to get a reaction out of her.
But Houston sat on her horse as rigid as a human body could be. Her thoughts were on the people of Chandler. After the horror of the mine disaster, they’d want something to lighten their mood and they’d no doubt milk this story for every drop of humor. The sheriff would embellish it for all it was worth, and the Chandler Chronicle would probably run a series of articles on the whole affair, starting with the wedding and ending with . . . ending with a man who should have been hanged.
When Houston thought of Kane, her blood boiled, and she refused to listen to a single word he said. The fact that she had given him her love and he had doubted it so publicly, doubted her in such a spectacular, outrageous way was particularly humiliating.
She had her first taste of what was to come when they stopped at the stage station and traded horses. The old man asked if they were the couple from Chandler that he’d heard about. He could hardly recount the story for laughing so hard, and when they left, he tried to return the twenty dollars Houston had given him.
“That story was worth a hundred dollars to me,” he said, slapping a grinning Kane on the back. “I owe you eighty dollars.”
Houston put her chin in the air and went to her horse. She was doing her best to pretend that neither man existed.
Once they were on the trail again, Kane started talking to her with renewed vigor, but he lost a lot when he kept pausing to laugh.
“When I saw you standin’ there, and you were sayin’ you were gonna bust me out and save me from the hangin’ tree, I couldn’t think of what to say, I was that stunned, and then when Ian started yellin’ that the heels on them little boots of yours—,” he had to pause to wipe the grin off his face. “Why, Houston, you’ll be the envy of every woman west of the Mississippi. They’ll all wish they had the c
ourage and the bravery to rescue their husbands from the jaws of death and—.”
He stopped to clear his throat and Houston glanced at him. He was unsuccessfully trying to control his laughter.
“When I think of the look on your face atop that horse. What’re those women that wear horns on their heads? Lady Vikings, that’s what you looked like, a lady Viking come to rescue her man. And the look on Zachary’s face! If my head hadn’t been hurtin’ so much—.”
He broke off because Houston kicked her horse’s side and raced ahead of him.
Whatever Houston had expected, when she reached Chandler, it was worse. Ignoring Kane as best she could, she rode on the outskirts of the town to the north side so she would see as few people as possible on her way to Kane’s house.
It was six o’clock in the morning when they rode up the hill to the Taggert house, but already there were about twenty couples who just “happened” to be strolling in front of the house. Most of the Taggert servants were in the front drive talking to the townspeople.