West of Heaven. Victoria Bylin
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to be much more than twenty years old. Ethan had a good ten years on her, and the past two had turned him into an old man.
He strode into the kitchen, poured himself a cup of coffee and sat near the fire to muddle through his thoughts. He had a woman in his bed burning with fever and coughing like a lunger. He didn’t want her here, but Mrs. Dawson hadn’t given him a choice or even a say in the matter.
Guilt sluiced over him. Laura, I’m so sorry for taking you away…
Laura had been content in Missouri, but he had wanted a change. She had supported his dream of owning land because she loved him, but deep down he knew she would have been happier to spend their lives in the same small town where they had grown up. He’d promised her a bigger house and a good life for the kids, but he had failed them all. They hadn’t made it past Raton.
Ethan didn’t want to think about that lost part of his life. The immediate problem at hand was Mrs. Dawson. As much as he hated having her in his house, he was stuck with her until the trail cleared and she recovered enough to ride.
Staring at the fire, he listened to the thud of snow falling from the trees. It was a lonely sound, but one he welcomed in his silent world. Today, though, other sounds filtered to his ears. Mrs. Dawson whimpered like a kitten in her sleep, and her cough rasped like sandpaper on fresh-cut wood. When she rolled to her side, the bed creaked and he thought of Laura filling the spot next to him.
Gulping the last of his coffee, Ethan rose and walked to the kitchen. As he passed the bed, the widow moaned and flung the blanket aside, muttering something about missing a train and calling to her mother. Sweat beaded on her forehead and he saw half moons of dampness on the nightshirt just below her breasts.
He picked up the blanket intending to cover her, but common sense told him her body needed to cool as the fever spiked. Not knowing what to do scared him, but what scared him even more was not wanting to look away.
Disgusted with himself, Ethan tugged the quilt up to her chin and turned to the kitchen. His boot caught on the clothing he’d dropped on the floor, and he caught a whiff of the barn. Bending low, he picked up the riding skirt, the jacket and the blouse. She’d have to wear them again. Hoping it would be soon, he hung the suit on the nail where his nightshirt had been and shook out the blouse.
Her scent filled him with a hunger that was both unwelcome and sharp. Closing his eyes, he buried his nose in the silk where he smelled honeysuckle and a woman’s skin. He ached for Laura, and yet this wasn’t her scent. She preferred lilacs and the feel of his clean-shaven face. Clutching at the fine silk, Ethan touched it to his cheek until his stubbled whiskers snagged it, hurling him back to his senses.
What kind of a man sniffed at a woman’s clothing? Appalled at his behavior, he draped the blouse over the suit and hung her cloak by the door. Stooping down, he picked up her shoes and set them on the hearth to dry.
Scouring his memory for home remedies for fever, he surveyed his stock of canned goods. Laura had given the children soup when they were ill, but his own mother dosed him with whiskey to settle a cough. He decided he would try both when Mrs. Dawson woke up.
She needed to rest and recover, but Ethan vowed to get her out of his house just as soon as she could ride. She had already taken everything he had to give.
Chapter Three
J ayne woke up with whiskey on her breath. Tasting the pungent sweetness, she remembered the rancher ordering her to swallow. It was the same remedy her mother had used, and she had downed the cure without arguing.
The whiskey helped her sleep, but she had lost track of time. Days and nights had blurred together in waves of prickly fever followed by violent chills. Had she been here a day? A week? She didn’t know, and the gloomy cabin offered no clues.
She needed to look out the window to see if the snow had melted, but before she could stand, a ferocious cough nearly cracked a rib. Pressing a rag to her mouth, she gasped for breath until the coughing stopped.
The feel of the rough muslin against her lips filled her with memories. In the mix of lantern light and shadows, she had imagined her mother at her side, but then the dream had faded and she’d recognized the rancher’s rough fingers and the smell of snow that clung to him. In near silence, he’d brought her clean rags for her cough, emptied her chamber pot and fed her hot soup for strength.
For strength…
She almost laughed out loud. Pneumonia had made her as burdensome as a baby. It was the most demeaning circumstance she could imagine, and Ethan Trent’s cabin was the last place in the world she wanted to be.
The rancher had taken good care of her, but he didn’t have a kind bone in his body. Lying in his bed, she wondered if he shouted at children and kicked dogs who didn’t get out of his way fast enough.
And yet he could be gentle, too. A plug of mucus had lodged in her throat last night. Close to suffocating, she had raised her hands over her head. The rancher had hurried to her side, braced her chest with his muscular forearm and thumped on her back. When she croaked for water, he’d brought it to her in a tin cup small enough for a child.
The distant ring of an ax and the smell of burned coffee gave the room a distinctly male air. Had a woman ever put wildflowers in a jug just to make the place pretty? Jayne doubted it. A square of rough logs, the cabin had a corner kitchen with a dry sink, a rock fireplace and two small windows, each covered with a sheet of boards instead of glass.
With the exception of the bed, the furniture was roughly made, and there wasn’t much of it. She saw a small table, two chairs, a rocker and a long shelf holding books and a cigar box. Work shirts and dungarees hung from nails on the wall, and he’d left a roll of wire and a pair of leather gloves on the hearth.
Curious, she twisted in the bed and peered into the kitchen where she saw a cookstove and a long-handled spoon dangling from a hook. Jayne’s heart clenched at the picture of the rancher standing at the stove and eating straight out of the pot.
As she turned her head, a heart-shaped mirror hanging above the washbowl caught a ray of sun. The feminine glass shone bright, as if he wiped it every day. The bed troubled her, too. The carved oak frame belonged in a Midwestern farmhouse rather than a mountain cabin.
Had Ethan Trent made love to a wife in this bed? It seemed more than likely, and her cheeks reddened with embarrassment. She had invaded this man’s privacy in the worst possible way.
Beyond the cabin walls, a log groaned as it split in two. Her bones ached with a similar misery and it hurt to breathe. She wanted to curl up into a ball and grieve for Hank and all she had lost, but she had to think about her future.
When she returned to the hotel, she would retrieve her trunk and the tools of her trade. She’d also have the ten silver dollars she’d stitched into the hem of a skirt. The money would be enough for a room in a boardinghouse. She’d find a job, save for a train ticket and go back to the life she’d always lived. It wouldn’t be hard. Her mother had given Jayne the skills to support herself and she had earned a reputation of her own.
“All women like pretty dresses,” her mother used to say. “As long as you can sew, you can take care of yourself.”
Jayne didn’t want to think about her mother’s store and the sweet memories it held. Her father had died in a riding accident, leaving his wife alone to support their baby daughter. It hadn’t been easy, but by the time Jayne was old enough to ask questions, her mother had made a name for herself and their simple needs were met.
Jayne closed her eyes and hugged her knees. She ached to be standing behind the familiar counter, but instead she was in Ethan Trent’s lonely cabin with more questions than answers. Every muscle in her body tensed. The time had come to read Hank’s letter. Still wobbly from illness, she shuffled to the wall where her cloak was hanging. Plunging her hand into the pocket, she found Hank’s papers and turned to go back to bed.
As she took a feeble step, an ominous tickle swelled in her throat. Too weak to cough and stand at the same time, she