Kim went forward, but as she reached Leah she pulled back. “I don’t think I’ll touch you. Stand up right now and get that dress off. And while you’re washing I’ll tell you about the most wonderful night of my life.”
Kimberly gave Leah cold water to wash in because Kim wasn’t about to lay a fire in Leah’s bare fireplace. “Wash your ears, too,” Kim commanded as Leah stood in her underwear. “It was so silly of you to ruin your dress. Oh well, that’s enough about that. Leah,” she said slowly, “Justin and I made love last night.”
That was the first thing that had gotten through to Leah. She paused in her washing. “You and Justin?”
“Isn’t it so hard to believe? It seems that Justin has hated me from the first moment he saw me. Men don’t usually hate me, but Justin did, and last night he was just furious, but later…Oh Leah, it was sheer heaven.”
“Kim,” Leah said. “Tell me everything from the beginning. Where did you get the brooch you gave me?”
“Well, that,” Kim said with a sigh. “I guess things started a long time before last night.”
“I have all day,” Leah said firmly. “Would you like some breakfast?”
“Breakfast? I guess so even though it’s afternoon, but lovemaking does make you hungry.”
Minutes later Leah was washed, dressed, and cooking. “Start,” she ordered Kim.
“I guess it started with Steven. He said there were two kinds of women: ladies who didn’t enjoy it and women who did.”
“Kim, why don’t you tell me about the brooch?”
“I will, but everything’s tied together. Oh Leah, you have to swear you won’t hate me when I tell you all this. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had and some of the things I’ve done—.”
“I swear I won’t hate you unless you keep delaying the story.”
“As I said, Steven made me think that ladies had to behave all the time so when Wesley and I fell in love—and I really did love him—I never let Wes kiss me very much. You see, I very much liked Wesley’s kisses, but I was afraid that if I showed him that I liked them he would think I wasn’t a lady and wouldn’t marry me. Oh Leah, it was hard at times to push him away. Wesley’s kisses are so nice. They’re—.”
“Could we skip this part of the story?”
“I guess so. Leah, this is the part I don’t like. When Wesley told me he was going to stay married to you, I was very, very angry. Actually, I was furious. It seemed so unfair because I’d always been holding back and being a lady while you and Wesley sneaked out at night and delivered food—oh yes, I knew about that. And, too, you’d wrestled in the mud. You hadn’t been a lady at all but you’d won the man.”
Pausing, she looked at Leah pleadingly. “I was so angry that I stuck a hatpin in the horse and made the wagon fall down the hill. I thought you were inside. Oh Leah,” she wailed, burying her face in her hands. “I hated you so much I wanted to kill you.”
Leah put her arm around Kim’s shoulders. “I had a sudden call of nature and left the wagon, so you didn’t hurt me. Maybe in your place I’d have done something similar. Here, now, eat your eggs and tell me what happened next.”
“John Hammond saw me stick the pin in the horse and when I fainted—it’s the one and only time I ever really did faint—he told me he wouldn’t tell anyone. But later…”
She took a big drink of milk. “He really is a dreadful man, Leah. He said he’d tell everyone what I’d done if I didn’t marry him.”
“He blackmailed you?” Leah asked, aghast, as she sat down across from Kim. “But why? Why would he want to force you to marry him? He must have known you’d resent him.”
“I asked myself that over and over. I didn’t like him much for making me marry him and I did everything I could to make him regret marrying me.” She smiled at a chunk of buttered bread. “You want to know a secret, Leah? I can cook. I never let Wesley know because Steven said real ladies didn’t cook and when we were traveling you always seemed to want to do everything by yourself.”
“I made you feel useless?” Leah asked softly.
“You could probably make any six people feel useless, but anyway, to punish John I refused to do anything at all. He was…very unpleasant at night and I didn’t really know about lovemaking until Justin—.”
“What about the brooch? Doesn’t that come before Justin?”
“Oh yes. It was very boring in John’s house, what with him gone all day, and since I refused to do anything I was supposed to do, I had trouble occupying myself. Except that John has this study, which he keeps locked, and right after our marriage he told me never, never, never was I to go in there.”
“So of course you did,” Leah said with a smile.
“Every day. It didn’t really matter because I didn’t care if he caught me or not because I’d already sworn to spend the rest of my life with him, so what more could happen to me? It took some searching, but I found the key, used it every day, searched the room, and returned the key.”
“What were you searching for?”
“For whatever he had hidden in there that he didn’t want me to see. I couldn’t find anything until I found his hidden closet.”
“Hidden?”
“Behind a bookcase. It was all I could do to move that case. Anyway, inside this closet were some very pretty things like jewelry and pretty little boxes and some books. It made me so angry because I thought he was hiding these things so he wouldn’t have to share them with his wife.”
“You thought this? You’ve changed your mind?”
“Leah, I couldn’t wear any of the jewelry, but I thought someone else could. John wouldn’t yell at someone else as much as he would at me. And besides, you’re so good at yelling back at men. You scream at Wesley all the time. I never could understand that, Leah. You said terrible things to him and I was always nice, yet he wanted to stay with you.”
“What about the brooch?” Leah repeated.
“I thought it was a miniature of one of John’s relatives and I knew it’d look good on your green dress and it did until you ruined it by playing in the soot. All right!” she said at Leah’s narrowed eyes. “The next thing I knew, that silly woman was screeching that you’d stolen John’s brooch. John grabbed my arm, said some terrible things to me, and pulled me out of the dance. Oh Leah, I was so scared.”
“Then what happened?”
“John didn’t speak to me all the way home and at the house he locked me in his study and I heard him ride away.”
Kim’s eyes turned misty with a faraway look. “Then Justin came to my rescue.”
“Rescue?” Leah asked. “Wasn’t he a little bit angry at you?”
“Oh goodness yes. He was raging! Shouting all sorts of things to me and calling me the most awful names. I’d always known he wasn’t exactly enamored of me, but I had no idea he detested me. While he was shouting at me, and once he put his hands around my throat, I kept trying to show him the bookcase where the hidden closet was. It took a long time to get him to listen to me, but he finally helped me move the bookcase.”
“And Justin saw all the things inside?”
“More than that. While we were inside, John came home.”
“Kimberly! Where’s Justin now?”
“I’m getting to that. You see, Justin didn’t have any keys and all the doors in our house have locks, not like your house at all, and John had locked every door so Justin had to break in a window and the study door to get to me. Justin and I hid in the closet, wrapped in each other’s arms”—Kim sighed—“while John walked through the house. When we heard him leave and ride away, Justin said, ‘Let’s get out of here.’ So we went outside, way into the woods, and it was dark and Justin wanted me to tell him everything that was in the closet because he hadn’t been able to see anything because John’d returned and we had to pull the bookcase shut. So”—she paused for breath—“I was talking and suddenly Justin got real excited and began to kiss me. I was so tired of holding back with Wesley and even wi
th John that I just let go and the next thing I knew we were making love. It was so, so wonderful, Leah. I never dreamed—.”
“What did you say that made Justin kiss you?”
“It was something very ordinary. What was it? Oh yes. At the dance last night John’d said he wasn’t a good dancer and I told Justin that was a lie because I’d found a paper in the closet that said he used to teach dancing in St. Louis.”
“Kimberly,” Leah whispered, “where is Justin now?”
“He said he’d seen Wes and Wes was on his way to Lexington to see what he could find out from the woman who used to own the brooch, and Justin said I was to come to you and we were both to go stay with Bud and Cal, and Justin was going to wait for John to return.”
“Kimberly,” Leah said with as much calm as she could muster, “I think Justin may be in trouble.”
“Probably.” Kim smiled. “John’s going to be very upset when he finds out I’m leaving him, but now that Justin loves me…I did tell you that Justin said he loved me, didn’t I? He even said it with a prayer. He said, ‘God help me, Kimberly, but I think I’m in love with you.’ Isn’t that sweet?”
“Get up, Kimberly,” Leah commanded. “Leave the dishes where they are. We’re going to get Bud and Cal and then we’re going to try to help Justin. Wait! We have to leave a note for Wesley.”
“Oh no! Not me,” Kim said, backing away. “Justin made me tell him all about the last letter I wrote Wes, and Justin said it was his guess that Wesley was keeping you from the dance so he could protect you. If you hadn’t made me send for him, none of this about the brooch would have happened.”
Leah advanced on her. “If you hadn’t tried to kill me you wouldn’t have been forced to marry John. And if you hadn’t been so nosy you wouldn’t have found the Dancer’s cache. And if you—.”
“I understand, Leah.” She brightened. “If none of this had happened, I wouldn’t have known Justin loved me and we wouldn’t have spent last night together. Oh Leah, marriage to someone like Justin must be heaven.”
“You can tell me all about it later,” Leah said, removing paper, quill, and ink from a drawer. “Now write what I tell you.”
Dear Wesley,
I hope this letter doesn’t make you as mad as the last one did, but this time I am innocent because I don’t even know what Leah’s talking about. She said to tell you that my husband, John, used to give dancing lessons and that Justin, the man I love now, knows everything and since you’re not here Leah and I are going to ask for help from Bud and Cal before we visit John and Justin.
I think that if I understood all this I’d be frightened.
I hope you had a pleasant trip to Lexington.
Very sincerely yours,
Kimberly
“Did you write what I said about asking for help?”
“Right here,” Kim said, pointing. “Leah, what are we going to do if Bud and Cal aren’t home?”
“Justin needs help,” Leah said stubbornly.
Kim swallowed hard. “I was afraid you’d say that.”
Chapter 30
Devon Macalister helped his wife from her horse. “Anybody home?” he called into the empty-looking Stanford house.
“Wesley said Leah was staying here with Justin looking after her,” Linnet said. “You don’t think something’s happened, do you?”
“Something’s wrong,” Mac said, looking about. “It’s too quiet and why the hell is that cow bawlin’? Lynna, I want you to stay right here while I find out what’s happenin’.”
When Linnet saw him disappear into the barn, she entered the house. There were dirty dishes on the table and everything looked as if someone had left in a hurry. But there didn’t seem to be any signs of a struggle.
As she was leaving she saw the note on the table, half hidden under a plate.
Mac burst into the cabin. “I thought I told you to wait outside,” he snapped. “This whole place is empty. None of the cows’ve been milked, the other animals need feedin’. What you got there?”
“I think Leah and Kimberly may be in trouble,” she whispered, then read aloud Kimberly’s note.
“So, John Hammond’s the Dancer,” Mac said thoughtfully.
“Devon,” Linnet whispered. “Bud and Cal were coming to our house today. They won’t be there when Leah and Kim arrive.”
“Surely those women wouldn’t go after somebody like the Dancer all by themselves, would they?” Mac asked in disbelief, but he didn’t give his wife time to answer. “You get on your horse and ride back to town as fast as you can. Get somebody to go after Wes and somebody else to tend to this place. And you—” he threatened, “stay in Sweetbriar. I don’t like what’s goin’ on at all.”
“Devon,” Linnet began, “perhaps you should get some help before you—.”
“No time,” was all he said before he gave her a quick kiss and was out the door.
It was just growing dark by the time Kim and Leah reached the Hammond house.
“Are you sure you should do this alone?” Kim whispered as Leah dismounted some distance from the house. “Justin seems awfully strong and brave and maybe he knows what he’s doing.”
“Get down and be quiet—and I’m not alone. I did ask for help,” she said defiantly. “And I have you.”
“I don’t really think it’s the same,” Kim said as she dismounted.
After tying their horses out of view of the house, they stealthily began to make their way toward it. From the glow through the windows, every candle and lantern in the house must be lit.
When the shot echoed through the cool night, Leah and Kim looked at each other for a moment before Kim turned back toward the horses.
“Let’s go!” Leah commanded, grabbing Kim’s arm and pulling her toward the brightly lit house.
They ran across the yard to crouch by a window. Inside everything looked perfectly normal, with no one to be seen. “Where’s the room with the hidden closet?” Leah whispered.
Kim, obviously too frightened to speak, managed to point to a far window.
Leah, holding Kim’s hand, made her way down the side of the house, crouching all the while to keep her head below the windows. Cautiously she raised herself up to peer inside the house. What she saw made her gasp. On the floor, lying in a pool of blood, lay Justin, dead still.
Leah slid back to the ground. “Justin,” she managed to whisper.
Immediately Kim stood up to look, and just as quickly she bent down again. “I think John may have seen me,” she said.
“We have to hide,” Leah said, looking about the unfamiliar farm. “Where?”
“Follow me,” Kim said, standing and raising her skirts, running with extraordinary speed toward the forest.
Leah followed her friend, running until her heart was pounding hard.
Once inside the forest Kim kept going, jumping over fallen trees, pushing aside briars and brambles with ease.
“Wait, Kim,” Leah urged. “Stop for a minute.”
Reluctantly, wild-eyed, Kim obeyed.
“Where are we going?” Leah asked.
“Into the forest,” Kim answered.
“Yes, but where? Surely you have a destination in mind.”
“The forest,” Kim repeated, puzzled, frowning as she panted from her run.
“But—,” Leah began, but she didn’t finish because a shot rang out and landed in a tree behind her, missing Kim’s head by inches.
No one had to tell either woman to start running again, and Leah didn’t care where they were headed.
They ran until their legs and lungs ached, and Leah caught Kim’s arm. “We have to stop and rest. We have to figure out where we are and head back toward Sweetbriar.”
“I don’t know where anything is,” Kim said. “Do you?”
“Not until the sun rises and I can find a direction. Kim!” Leah cried. “See that black space up there? Is that a cave?”
“I don’t like caves,” Kim said, her jaw tight.
&nbs
p; “But maybe we could hide in it, get some sleep, and in the morning we can make our way back to Sweetbriar.”
“Couldn’t we stay here and not hide in that place?”
“John’ll see us with our light-colored dresses. We have to hide somewhere. Come on, let’s start climbing.”
The climb up the side of the cliff wasn’t easy, but they made it in record time and when they slipped inside the little limestone cave, Leah leaned back in relief. She hadn’t told Kim that her biggest fear had been a bear in the cave, but now she could see it was empty. The cave was about ten feet deep, fifteen feet wide, and eight feet tall.
With a smile she turned to Kim. “We made it.”
But her smile was soon wiped off her face, as from outside came John Hammond’s voice.
“So my stupid little wife and her stupid friend have trapped themselves,” he said with amusement in his voice, his words echoing so they couldn’t tell whether he was close or far away. “I gave you a chance, Kimberly, to join me. In fact, I chose you because you seemed to have no useless morals against trying to kill somebody who was in your way.”
Kim, flattened against the cave wall, gave a quick look at Leah.
“But my wife,” John continued, “disappointed me. Now your lover—oh yes, I know about him—lies dead at our house. What a tragedy everything will seem when the town hears how Justin was killed and two women died all in one night. I’ll be the bereaved husband.”
“Help me gather rocks,” Leah whispered. “Let’s make a pile of all we can find. Maybe we can hold him off for a while.”
Obediently Kim began to pile rocks near the entrance.
“He can’t come in by the side, only from the front. We’ll have a clear view of him. If he shoots, fall flat to the floor. Understand?” Leah commanded.
Kim nodded.
With a smile on his face and a pistol in each hand, John stood before the cave entrance, his body outlined in the moonlight.
“Now!” Leah ordered as he took a step forward.