Loving Katherine Page 26

  One hand snaked from where it had rested against his thigh, snatching her wrist in its grasp before she could step back. Her gasp was pleasing to Roan’s ear. “You shouldn’t tease a sleeping giant, ma’am,” he told her, his voice deepened by the desire he’d been harboring for the past half hour. Watching Katherine bathe was becoming one of life’s greatest pleasures, he’d decided.

  Her frown was a facade, her struggle to rid herself of his grip halfhearted. The warmth of his fingers was a prison she felt no need to escape, and she gave in without a whimper. One knee lifted to the edge of the bed and he tugged her the rest of the way. Brush in hand, she fell across his chest and he narrowly escaped being smacked by the wooden handle as it flew from her fingers.

  “Wanna talk now or later?” It was an offer he felt dutybound to make, having promised to answer her questions. His hope was that she would take the latter option. Hell, they had all night to talk, he figured. Right now, his arms were full of curves and hollows he yearned to explore.

  She peered at him, her hair tangled and half hiding her eyes from his view. “Brush my hair first?”

  “Take off that nightgown?” His grin was eloquent, his hands already tugging it up her legs.

  She sighed and tried unsuccessfully to present a somber demeanor. “You drive a hard bargain, Devereaux.”

  His fingers smoothed over her hips, taking the gown with them, lifting it higher, his palms cupping the firmness of her breasts as he slid them beneath the cotton fabric. “It’s almost off, Kate.” He squeezed with delicate pressure and her indrawn breath told him what he wanted to know.

  “I want the sheet over me,” she said from beneath the enveloping folds.

  He pulled it over her head and tossed it to the foot of the bed. Reaching down, he tugged at the sheet and held it high, allowing it to fall over her as he held her against his chest. “Happy now?”

  She sighed, stretching a bit, shaking her head to toss the hair from before her eyes. “After you brush my hair I will be.”

  He turned her, spreading his legs to settle her between them, her back to him. Then, picking up the brush, he set to work, his strokes long and slow, his fingers untangling as he went, intent on smoothing the strands, deft and gentle against her skin.

  Her pleasure was audible and he grinned as she tipped her head back, allowing him access. “You could do this all night,” she said, her words a slurring sound.

  “Five minutes, Kate.” Bending forward, he kissed her nape. “I’ve got other plans for the rest of the night.”

  Chapter Twenty

  The kitchen garden was a plot of overgrown weeds with only a few cabbages and turnips left to harvest. The tomato plants were tangled and dry, the squash and cucumber vines trampled into the dirt. Chickens poked beneath the brown leaves that remained, seeking a morsel, cocking their heads to watch for any stray movement. Roan leaned one shoulder against the springhouse, his expression grim as he contemplated the remains of his mother’s prized garden. “I don’t know how my folks have made it by themselves, with only Susanna in the house and a handful of help in the fields.”

  “A summer garden always looks pretty worn out by this time of year, Roan,” Katherine told him. “Susanna’s put up a good lot of vegetables. Your mama just wasn’t much of a help to her in the kitchen.” Or anywhere else, she thought privately.

  He shook his head. “This…” His waving hand encompassed the bedraggled area. “It should have been cleaned up. When I was a child, Mother would have one of the hands pull the vines and rake up the plot. Only there isn’t anyone to do it now.”

  “I’m here.” Katherine hugged herself, a chill gripping her as the wind swept between the outbuildings, promising a drop in the temperature. “I’d like to work the garden, Roan. It needs to be made ready for spring and I can do it.”

  “You can’t do everything, Kate. You’re flyin’ around from one place to another already. I’ve been watchin’ you scrubbin’ the stairs and washin’ windows to a fare-thee-well. Today you’ve been up to your neck with cleaning the parlor since right after breakfast. I told you, there’s no point in tryin’ to make away with years of dust in one fell swoop.” His frown deepened. “You’ll be fightin’ a losin’ battle anyway. This place is too big for one woman to keep up.”

  She gave him an exasperated look. “Your mother just needs a hand. I don’t think she ever learned how to do much cleaning, and Susanna is busy with meals and doing the wash.”

  He reached to pull her next to him, his arm curving around her waist and fitting her neatly against his side.

  “You can’t even find time to spend with your horses, Kate. My father’s been tryin’ for three weeks to get you on that black mare and you always have some excuse or another.”

  She grinned at him and shook her head. “He’s having a good time working with her. He’s been throwing a sack of feed over the saddle and I even caught him draped over it himself, getting her used to the weight.”

  Roan looked down at her, this woman who had become almost indispensable to his parents’ household in such a short time. She had blossomed here, between sorting through musty linens and hanging fresh curtains in the bedrooms and helping Susanna get ready for the cold weather. The chickens had been culled, the young roosters put in a separate pen to fatten for the dinner table. The garden had been neglected, but then his mother had always said there wasn’t much sadder a sight than a dried-up pile of watermelon vines. And Letitia Devereaux had finally begun to perk up a little, to his way of thinking.

  Kate was the reason. As sure as the sun would set in the west, his wife was determined to set this place to rights. Letitia had balked at first, insisting Katherine was a guest. But she’d had that notion banished in a hurry.

  “I’m a member of the family now,” Katherine had told her firmly. “If I’m living here, I’ll pull my own weight. Besides, it looks to me like you need a hand with things.”

  And she’d given it. Not only a hand, but the whole of her energetic body. As if she had stored up an abundance of energy during the trek southward, she burst into activity, leaving a stunned Letitia to follow her about the house. Until, finally, they had begun to work together in a way that had put a smile on the face of LeRoy Devereaux and a song about the golden stairs and heavenly gates upon the lips of Susanna.

  “He’ll have that mare stolen away from you if you’re not careful,” Roan warned her as they watched the sun set with a brilliant flourish of color against the twilight sky.

  “He’s having a good time.” Katherine’s shrug was eloquent. Some days she was astonished at what little time she spent even thinking about her string of horses. That they had been moved from the forefront of her thoughts to second or third place was a conundrum she had not ventured to solve. Family was what counted right now. What did it matter who trained the mare-to carry a rider? Somehow, during the past days, the importance of the sleek animal had become overshadowed by the magnitude of work to be done at River Bend. The mare could wait. Katherine had decided she wasn’t going anywhere for a few months, anyway.

  One session with LeRoy in the barn had convinced her of his ability to manage her horse. His hands, so broad and callused, became things of beauty when they touched the silken mane and the velvet nose of the black mare. He’d begun calling her pet names, gruffly and beneath his breath at first. Then, to Katherine’s surprise, he’d asked at the dinner table one evening if she would have any objections to him giving the filly a name.

  “Doesn’t seem right to be talkin’ to a creature every day and not be namin’ her, Katherine,” he’d said abruptly. “Always made it a practice to put me a wooden sign on every stall. I wrote the letters and Jethro burned them on with a hot poker. Don’t suppose you’d cotton to me callin’ that black mare by a proper name, would you?”

  Katherine had nodded slowly, as if the idea met with reluctant approval. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” she’d said. “I was thinking a while back, if I were to call her something, it mi
ght be Journey.”

  LeRoy chewed slowly, contemplating his daughter-in-law with a thoughtful frown. “Don’t know as how I’d have come up with that particular name. Any special reason?”

  Katherine had sent a look at Roan, who had followed the conversation with silent appreciation. “She’ll have reason to remember her first long trail ride.” Smiling, she’d sipped from her water glass. “It just sounds like a good name to me.”

  LeRoy had acquiesced. “Journey,” he’d muttered, as if he were trying the name on his tongue, and then he repeated it. “Journey. I reckon it’ll do, all right.”

  “I suppose he’ll be namin’ the rest of your animals, if you don’t come up with some suggestions for him,” Roan told her now, watching as her smile widened.

  “He’s having a good time, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded agreement. “It’s kinda put a sparkle in his eye, playin’ with your babies, Kate. You know, he’s not the same man I knew ten years ago. He’s changed.”

  “Maybe you’ve changed, too.” She tipped her head back to meet his gaze and hers was challenging. “You never told me if he whipped the slave that day, Roan. You said he ran him down with your hunting dog. But then what happened?”

  “I don’t know. We had an argument while Jethro stood there with a rope tied around his neck, followin’ along behind my pa on his horse. I was so mad, seein’ it…like for the first time, I knew I couldn’t own another man. Hell, Jethro was my friend growin’ up. He taught me how to spit between my front teeth, and how to make a willow whistle and a couple other things I don’t think I’m gonna tell you about.” His grin was a welcome respite from the grim look he’d worn. His eyes were warm with remembrance and he chuckled. “I used to sneak out after I was supposed to be sleepin’ at night and we’d run off and sit together and talk for hours, down by the stream.”

  “Did your father know?”

  Roan shook his head. “I doubt it. I could climb out that window and down the oak tree like greased lightning.”

  She thought once more of the man tied to a rope and wondered aloud, “You didn’t tell me before that it was Jethro.” She considered for a moment. “Jethro doesn’t seem to hold a grudge.” And it was the truth. Between the two men there appeared to be an unspoken agreement, LeRoy Devereaux in charge, but Jethro holding his own as he managed the several field hands who lived in cabins behind the barn.

  “Jethro said they have an understanding. I think what it is, Pa understands he couldn’t get along without somebody to take charge, and Jethro understands he’s got a place for his wife and family to live and food on the table.”

  Katherine’s smile dimmed. “Things are hard, aren’t they? The war left some pretty deep scars.”

  “It’ll never be the same, that’s for sure,” Roan said flatly. “But maybe, one of these days, it’ll be better. Pa’s hired on six of the men who used to be slaves here, for a place to live and whatever else they need. After the war they left for a while, but when they found out how hard it was to scrabble out a livin’, they came back.”

  “It’s not much different for them now than it was then, is it?”

  “They’re free, whatever that means.” His laugh was harsh. “Hell, we’re all tied to the land, hereabouts. Most everywhere, I guess. Nobody’s really free, what with havin’ to sow and reap and hope for good weather so the crop comes in good. The only freedom any of us have is the choice of where we do it. I figure the big difference is that those men don’t owe their soul to LeRoy Devereaux anymore.”

  He laughed suddenly, a rueful sound in the silence of the gathering darkness. “The strange part is, they’re workin’ harder now than ever before and not gettin’ any more out of it. Except they each got their own little piece of land and their cabin to call their own.”

  “Their spirits are free, Roan.”

  “How about yours, Kate? Is your spirit feelin’ tied down here? Are you countin’ the days till we head north in the spring?”

  She nestled closer, gathering the warmth he radiated and allowing it to seep into her chilled body. Turning, she leaned against him, her arms lifting to circle his neck. She peered at him, wondering at the turnabout he’d effected with his quiet questions. Like a stone dropped in still water, forming circles in an unending fashion, his query had caught her off guard, shaken her out of her comfortable rut. She’d just begun to settle here, and he’d brought up another change. One she’d planned would come about, but perhaps not so soon. And if she went home, what would happen next? Would he want to stay with her in the rolling farmlands, where his slow, Southern drawl made him a stranger?

  “I’m too busy to be counting days, Roan.” Her tone was curt as she silenced the nagging doubts that surged within her. Would the ties they’d forged during the long night hours be strong enough to bind them during the years of hard work facing them back at the farm? Would he be satisfied with her life there? She clutched at the strength of his muscular shoulders, her fingers gripping him with a silent plea. Just love me, she wanted to tell him. But the words she spoke were all her cowardly heart would allow.

  “I told your mama I’d help get all the rugs out on the line tomorrow. She asked Susanna to get one of the men to beat them good for us.”

  He squeezed her gently, his hands firm against her back, fingers yearning toward the tempting fullness of her hips. His look was approving as he spoke his praise. “You’ve done more than your share, Kate. You just pitched in and took on the whole house, like it was your calling, didn’t you?”

  “Your mama needed me,” she said, as if that were enough reason to tie her to the fading glory that was River Bend. “Besides, it’s fun to live in a house where everybody’s got room to put their belongings without tripping over them every time you turn around. Your pa’s got books in the library I never thought I’d get a chance to read, Roan. And there’s pictures on the wall of your pa’s folks, painted and framed just like in the museum.”

  “You don’t mind the hard work?” His fingers obeyed the urging of his fertile mind and curved around the firm flesh of her hips.

  She wiggled against him, aware now of the awakening of his body to her nearness, and her lips formed a secret smile she managed to hide against his chest. “No, I don’t mind working. I never did. And I don’t work any harder here than I did on the farm.” She tilted her head to the side and considered his flashing grin, white teeth visible beneath the mustache he had trimmed just this morning. “I probably don’t work as hard, some days. Fine things are easier to keep up, somehow. Your family has a houseful of beautiful things.”

  “Pa said they hid a lot during the war. Jethro buried a heap of stuff in a cache way out in the swamp east of here. Took the best horses out there and kept them from the armies that went through.”

  “Your father owes him, doesn’t he? When he could have run off, Jethro acted like he was part of the family.”

  “Guess he was, really. He’d been here since he was born, and then when Gaeton went off to fight and I was gone, Pa had to depend on him more than ever.”

  “Your mother told me they’ve only heard once from your sister. She was settled in New York. I think your mama misses her terribly.” Kathenne’s voice held a sadness Roan recognized. It was the same yearning, wistful sound he’d heard from her after Lawson was killed, the lonely cry of a woman without family

  “She’s lucky she’s got you then, isn’t she?”

  His rasping words rumbled against her ear and she lifted her head from its place against his chest. “I’ll never be able to take the place of a daughter,” she stated unequivocally. “Yvonne is your mother’s own blood.”

  “Yvonne was a spoiled little girl who didn’t care enough about her folks to stay here and take care of things.” It was a judgment he’d made and carried about silently for weeks.

  Katherine lifted her shoulders and sighed. “We’re all different, Roan. Don’t be judging her. You weren’t here to know what happened.”

  He s
norted his disagreement. “Pa told me that the Yankee officer took a shine to Yvonne right off, and the way the war was goin’, it made sense for her to head out with him when he left. Hell, Pa doesn’t even know if he married her.”

  “Surely…” Her voice trailed off pensively as Katherine considered the alternative. All men weren’t cut from Devereaux cloth, and Roan Devereaux himself was a rarity among men, she admitted with a thankful heart. He’d married Katherine Cassidy without a second thought, knowing he couldn’t cart her away from her home without protecting her with his name.

  “We need to be gettin’ inside, honey,” he told her with a final squeeze of his arms before he set her apart from him. “The dew’s fallin’ and the night air is beyond chilly. You’re gettin’ cold.”

  “Yes.” Her agreement was automatic as she felt the warmth she’d relied upon taken from her. How cold her world would be without the arms of Roan Devereaux to hold her fast, how dreary would be the nights, how lonely the days. The thought brought a shiver of dismay that sent her seeking his touch. Her hand reached to clasp his and he shot a look of surprise in her direction, then tightening his grip, he held her closely to his side as they made their way to the kitchen door.

  “We’ve always celebrated Christmas,” Letitia said brightly. Breakfast was over, the table cleared, and Katherine was dusting her way around the molding that rose high over her head. A long pole with a cloth draped over its end made the journey from one corner to another, and her mouth was pursed in concentration as she worked.

  “Christmas?” As though she had just, for the very first time, heard the word, she turned a startled glance at her mother-in-law.

  “Don’t you observe Christmas?” Letitia’s query was hesitant, as though she might tread on sensitive toes.

  Katherine nodded. “Of course. It’s just that I’d forgotten it was so near.” She lowered the pole, which was causing the muscles of her shoulders to cramp with its weight. “I used to go into town on Christmas Eve for services. It was always beautiful, riding home alone in the night, thinking about the shepherds and how they must have felt.” She grinned suddenly and her eyes flashed with mischief “I always wanted to hear the angels sing. I thought they must be much more talented than Mrs. Wellman. She had the loudest voice in the church choir and I used to wonder if she’d be allowed in the angel choir in heaven. My pa said that death makes all of us perfect, so we’ll be fit for the pearly gates.”