Читать книгу The Proposition - Kate Bridges, Kate Bridges - Страница 9

“The last time you were in Calgary, you were rumored to be engaged to that Englishman. Victor Sterling, was that his name?”

The personal nature of Travis’s question and the sudden vibrancy to his voice unnerved Jessica.

Standing in an ocean of green prairie grass and dwarfed by her horse, she tried to untangle the leather straps from her saddle. As they made camp, last remnants of fading light silhouetted the mountain peaks and gushing river waters behind Travis. The sky was twilight blue, on the verge of turning black.

In the distance, Mr. Merriweather limped between the trees. He hummed a cowboy tune while collecting firewood.

She dug her boots into parched soil. “That was his name.”

The moon, a glowing yellow ball, skimmed the straight lines of Travis’s shoulders. The quality of lighting was changing on their journey. The general lighting of the vast prairies had washed everything equally but in the rugged foothills, the enclosures cast shadows across his body and face, highlighting his unique stance and the outline of his lips.

He tied a rope between two evergreens, forming a hitching line for the horses.

Irritated by her gloves’ bulkiness, she removed them, turning her back on Travis and hopefully his curiosity.

“What happened to your engagement?”

“It was never really official,” she said with begrudging frankness. “He had to…Victor had to return to England.”

“But I thought—”

“Victor never made it.”

“What do you mean?”

Resentful of the questions and the raw emotions they evoked, she pulled her arms tighter to her chest. Last year when Jessica wrote to his parents to enquire about his whereabouts, thinking that maybe Victor, the natural father of her child, might help her look for their baby, she’d been informed of the horrible news.

She avoided Travis’s cold stare. “Victor’s ship never reached London. It went down in the tail end of a hurricane.” Her despair intensified. “Victor drowned.”

His large hands stopped working on the rope.

Slowly, he turned to face her. His stern attitude dissolved. “I’m sorry.”

Quietness consumed them.

She nodded, looking down at her pack, wishing he’d leave. Then she heard him walk away, leading two mares in the direction of the river. Dry leaves and pine needles crackled beneath the horses’ hooves, while Travis’s spurs echoed between the foliage.

She untied the metal pots from her saddlebags. It bothered her that he apparently assumed it was Victor’s death that’d stopped their marriage. But their relationship had been nothing like Travis and Caroline’s; Travis had cared deeply for his wife.

Victor had been a youthful English professor at Oxford. He’d come to Canada to discuss the possibility of setting up an affiliated university, possibly choosing Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary. As mayor, Jessica’s father was eager for Victor to choose their town, for it would bring financial and social gains to the community. Her father had introduced them. Jessica, an insatiable reader, had shared with Victor her adoration for the romantic poems of William Wordsworth, the travelogues of Mark Twain and the adventures of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales.

She’d fallen in love for the first time. He’d never actually proposed, but he’d fed her imagination, telling her how much she’d adore Oxford when she saw it and the joy he’d find in showing her London. She thought it meant he loved her, that he was assuring her of their future. In hopes of showing the depth of her feelings, she’d succumbed to his advances. They’d made love three times, but Victor had turned ashen when Jessica had informed him she was late in her cycle.

He was a man who’d simply been in love with poetry and words. A far cry from Travis’s practical nature.

Later, she’d discovered from Victor’s valet that he’d been engaged all along to another woman in England, a richer one with three London homes who was paying his traveling bills. At the news of Victor’s death, Jessica felt a deep sorrow for her child for the loss of his father, but not for herself.

Are you a close friend? Victor’s father had written in his letter. Jessica had never answered.

And her father had never received his university.

She flinched as she untied a small shovel. Her anger returned—at the way she’d been treated by Victor, and then her father. She understood the scandalous way she’d behaved and how the town would look down on her if the truth was known, but to blazes with her shame, and her father’s.

Jessica was furious at her own vulnerabilities and shortcomings, but it was pointless to look back. She’d look ahead to the promise of a future with her child. She was saving every penny she earned, for if and when she found her son, she’d make her own way. A seventeen-month-old child needed her.

If she let herself dwell for a moment on the harm that may have come to him, or the uncertainty of her claim against Dr. Finch, she wouldn’t have the strength to carry forward. So she pushed the pain out of her mind.

“Here, let me help you with those.” Mr. Merriweather removed her saddlebags.

One was filled with her clothing, the other with food supplies Travis had packed. As the elderly man lifted the weight to his side, his face strained beneath his sombrero.

“My dear old friend, you’re in discomfort. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“It’s nothing to worry about. As soon as we’ve unpacked and I’ve started dinner, I’m going to slip out that bottle of medicinal tonic, sit back and relax.”

“You need medicine?”

“A simple brew bought from Dr. Finch three years ago. I bought three bottles and there’s still an ounce or so left.”

She brushed the hair from her eyes, upset that even her dear old butler had a cure from the charlatan. “What’s the tonic for?”

Mr. Merriweather removed his sombrero and combated flies. “General pains. Gentlemen’s problems,” he said with an embarrassed laugh.

Uncomfortable with the topic, she collected the small utensils and carried them to the flat part of the site. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Walking back and forth between the horses and the campsite, she unloaded what she could. Ill at ease, she crossed her arms against her white blouse and looked around, waiting for Travis to return with the second set of horses. She wondered what she was supposed to do to help.

Mr. Merriweather struggled on his feet to put dinner together while Travis tied the horses to the hitching rope. Jessica settled onto a log by the burning fire. It warmed her face while they ate sausages and biscuits.

“It’s not what I normally prepare for dinner,” Mr. Merriweather apologized. “This is Sunday, and on Sunday evenings we usually have roast fish and baked potatoes, my special recipe from Plymouth. The ones the pilgrims brought to America, you know.”

“This is delicious anyway,” remarked Jessica. “And seeing how you cooked and Travis took care of setting up camp, I’ll wash the dishes.”

Mr. Merriweather floundered for something in the pack beside him, a shadowy figure in blue denim. “My word,” he gasped in the semidarkness, face glued to the side of an ancient maple tree.

Travis looked up from his plate and stopped chewing.

Jessica craned her neck in alarm. “What is it?”

“A family of hummingbirds. They’re nesting inside the trunk of that tree.”

She found his wide-eyed expression humorous. “We’ve gone from seeing the largest hawk to the tiniest bird.”

The old gent peered through his binoculars. “I’ve never in my born days seen anything so magnificent. Look how they spin their wings together.”

“Marvelous,” said Travis, jumping to his feet. Jessica detected sarcasm. “The blue plumes sparkle in the moonlight and the beaks, various shades of yellow and orange, capture the shimmering glow of the stars.”

“Oh, you understand,” whispered Mr. Merriweather in glee.

“Don’t move,” murmured Travis, coming closer with the butt end of his log. He hammered it into the bare ground three feet away from Mr. Merriweather. “Prairie rattler. The only poisonous snake in Alberta. Average length, three and a half feet.”

Mr. Merriweather jumped up and shrieked as the mottled serpent slid to safety in the grass. With a yelp of her own, Jessica flew to her feet.

“He’s gone,” said Travis, peering into the brush.

“But we didn’t hear him rattle,” said Jessica.

“They don’t unless they feel threatened. He wasn’t about to bite.”

The butler clutched at his chest. “My poor beating heart.”

Jessica smiled through her trembling. “Are you all right?”

The old man nodded. “Is this what we’re to expect for the rest of the trip?”

“No.” Travis’s face was illuminated by the golden fire. He stood a head above the both of them. “They’re prairie rattlers, most likely after your hummingbirds. There aren’t any in the mountains. It’s too cold. But there are just enough here to keep life interesting. Same like the bugs, remember?”

Mr. Merriweather slapped a mosquito on his neck. “Quite right, quite right.” He shook his head and sat back on his log. “Jolly good, I’ve witnessed a live rattler.”

“And you didn’t need binoculars to see it.” Travis cleared the tin plates.

Jessica eyed her log but no longer felt like sitting down. She shooed away the flying insects.

“Are you still going down to the river to wash these plates?” Travis asked her.

She wished she hadn’t volunteered.

He grabbed a tin bucket. He was a commanding force of bulky shadows and straining muscles. Permeating the pine-scented air, his laughter was the first she’d heard in two days. “If your chaperon approves, I’ll go with you.”

Damn, the woman was distracting.

Wondering why he allowed her to bother him, Travis led them to a clear spot by the river. He scoured the area for more rattlers, found none, then slid their tin cups onto a granite boulder.

She’d been distracting him all day—her ineptness at handling the horses, her eagerness to help with chores as if the offer would erase that she’d gone above his head to order him here and even how she spent her time mostly with her butler, taking little regard of him.

Travis, on the other hand, couldn’t turn a corner without being alerted to her presence. When she stood beside him grooming Independence, he found the air stifling. When she asked a question, his normally quiet composure chafed in self-defense, and if, God forbid, their eyes met accidentally, his pulse began a rhythmic tap. His reactions annoyed him.

And made him miss his wife more.

Grumbling, he lifted his Stetson and allowed the cool breeze to curl beneath his pressed hair. It felt good. Jessica kneeled on the boulder.

In the stables this morning, the other men had been eager to replace him when they’d heard he was leaving for seven days with the mayor’s daughter.

“I’ll deliver your broodmares,” the farrier had said, winking while making a final check of the horseshoes. “A man could always use pretty female company.”

She was pretty and she was female, but Travis could pass on her company. Standing back in the brightness of the moon, he watched her.

Although he fought it, a glimpse of the smooth side of her cheek played with his thoughts. Jessica lowered herself to the rushing river. Her braids dipped below her shoulders. Beneath her fresh, white blouse and trousers, her youthful body contrasted against the century-old, twisted trees behind her. Glowing skin in its prime versus rough, mossy bark. Yet both images brought a strange comfort to him. Did all women use lotions on their face as Caroline had, mint powders on their teeth and vinegar to rinse their hair?

It was a silly thought, he acknowledged, so he turned away to concentrate on his task. He dipped the bucket into the moving mass of water.

Victor’s death had surprised him. He had no idea she’d had such turmoil in her life. Maybe it was one of the reasons she’d left for finishing school—to get her mind off Victor.

He cleared his throat. “Is Dr. Finch expecting you?”

The question seemed to rattle her. Fumbling, she laid one clean tin plate upon a boulder, the clanging echoing over the river. Dipping a dirty plate into the water, she scrubbed a sliver of soap against it.

“No,” she said softly.

“Then how do you know he’ll have the time to be interviewed?”

Her lips drew together. “He’ll listen to my request.”

“You may not find him. He’s needed in several towns and travels quite a bit, from what I hear. Doctors are hard to come by in this part of the country.”

“I suppose that’s why people are so ready to trust him. Because they need to. They want to.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

She started at the observation. The fabric of her blouse billowed, accentuating jutting breasts, narrow waist and full hips.

He turned away, his gaze settling on the flowing river and trees lining the distance. “It’s obvious you don’t. Every time his name is mentioned, you stiffen like a fishing rod that’s snagged an unwanted catch.”

Even in the golden light, he saw defiance in her eyes.

“He charges a lot of money for his cures,” she countered.

“There’s no law against a man turning a profit.”

“Some of his cures don’t work.”

He watched her long fingers sweep the inside of a cup. “Some of them do. I imagine when you’re dealing with the health of a patient, unfortunately, there’s no answer for everyone.” He scrutinized her. “Why did you want to pay me so much to get you to Devil’s Gorge? Two hundred dollars, if I recall.”

The lines of her shoulders hardened. “The money’s still open, if you like.”

He scoffed. “That’s not why I brought it up. Why is it so important that you speak to Dr. Finch?”

“I need him for my article, to give it authenticity.”

There was something more to her position; Travis sensed it.

“Why do you like him so much?” she asked.

He anchored one boot between two rocks and rebalanced his weight. “He helps a lot of folks. He helped me get a conviction in the trial against Pete Warrick.”

“What trial?”

“The huge one that just finished.” He noticed her pause. “I forgot—you were out of town.”

Her gold necklace shimmered around her slender throat. “Was it a medical case?”

“No.”

“Then how did he help you?”

“He was the sole eyewitness in a string of unsolved robberies that happened across southern Alberta and B.C. over the course of the past two years. He placed Pete at the scene of a store crime one hundred miles due south of here, the only person ever captured.”

He watched her digest the information.

She frowned as if something didn’t make sense. Then she rose, her expression fiery, her body challenging. “There are two other doctors in town. Are they friendly toward Dr. Finch?”

He studied her critically. “Why wouldn’t they be?”

She shrugged, but seemed flustered by his scrutiny. “Journalists are supposed to ask questions.”

Maybe, but she seemed to have a bigger stake in this. His gaze again fell to her creamy throat. “The fort’s surgeon, John Calloway, joined us for dinner once after the trial and seemed to like Dr. Finch just fine. And Dr. Virginia Bullock says she and Dr. Finch shared the same physiology professor in medical college.”

“What?” Jessica’s plate clattered to the pile, the bang surprising them both. A flock of geese fluttered fifty feet away then tore off into the sky. Quickly recovering, Jessica scooped the plate and continued washing. “How’s that possible?”

He stepped back from her to catch a breath. “Dr. Bullock attended the university in Toronto, but she told me her professor emigrated from Glasgow twelve years earlier. That’s where Dr. Finch went to school. During the trial, they compared notes about their quirky professor. He used to write lists and lists of anatomical glands, organs and bones. He made his students reorganize them according to their placement in the body, starting from the head and working down.”

She rubbed the back of her neck, looking very disturbed.

“Glasgow,” Travis repeated. “That’s where Dr. Finch earned his medical degree. He’s Scottish.”

She slumped down on a protruding boulder.

“You have done some digging about his background for this interview, haven’t you?”

“The University of Glasgow,” she whispered, incredulous.

“What’s this interview about, exactly? What’s the topic?”

The breeze whirled around her hair. “There’s a man,” she said. “A man I’ve been tracking in Montreal. His name is Dr. King. My topic is about charlatans and their influence in modern society. How their practices have sparked the current laws for licensing of legitimate doctors. Up until recently, almost anyone could call themselves a doctor.”

“And you think Dr. Finch knows something about Dr. King?”

“I thought…But his attendance at the University of Glasgow places him in a different…” She flushed. “You’re a policeman. Do you know anything about medical con artists and charlatans?”

He shook his head. “Not medical. We’ve had our share of passing carnival men who’ve duped folks out of money. We’ve had store owners and bankers who’ve been apprehended with their fingers in the till. But no run-ins with dubious quacks.”

The animation in her face distracted him again.

He shoved a hand into a pocket. “I’ve heard about charlatans, though, in the big cities out East—in both Canada and the States. I’ve heard that in Philadelphia they have these medical museums. Innocent folks go in thinking they’re going to see something unusual, but many are cornered and led to believe they’re dangerously ill themselves. They’re taken to a backroom and sold expensive treatments.”

“There was a museum like that in Montreal. The police disbanded it.”

“And Dr. King knew something about it?”

“I’m convinced he was involved, although he was never caught.”

“Well, if Dr. Finch can help you locate this charlatan, I’m sure he will. Because of him, I won a major trial. Pete Warrick’s doing seven years’ hard labor.”

Devastation fell across her face. “A doctor’s word is sacred, isn’t it? I mean, no one goes against the word of a doctor.”

“Not without powerful proof. Do you have any against Dr. King?”

Her lashes swept downward. “No…”

“That’s a big accusation with no proof. You could be brought in front of a judge yourself for slandering the doctor’s reputation.”

She scoffed. “That’s the same thing my father told me.”

“You should listen to your father.”

The wind kicked up around them. She sprang to her feet, collecting the plates and cups. “The puzzle pieces are spread in front of me,” she said firmly. “All I have to do is join them.”

“It seems to me that you have an opinion on everything.”

“I’m close.” With a burst of militancy, she blew the hair from her face. “I can feel it.”

They were standing close, and he could feel it. Close enough that he could smell the soap on her hands.

Their proximity made him uncomfortable. He stepped away to lift the empty bucket. When the wind curled and shifted, he smelled vestiges of smoke. Wary, looking down the flowing river, he straightened and sniffed again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“A campfire.”

She peered through the darkness. “I don’t see it.”

“It’s a smudge fire. They’re using moss to keep it burning low.”

“Why would they do that?”

His muscles tensed. “They’re hiding it on purpose. There’s two or three of them behind us.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Earlier today along with the hawk you and Merriweather were watching, there were vultures flying in the sky. They were circling something a mile or two farther down the trail. They eat scrap food and anything a traveler might leave behind.”

“What does that mean?”

He grabbed her by the elbow, pulling her arm so hard against his chest he stole her breath. “Is there any reason you can think of why someone might be following us?”

She hesitated, and that worried him.

“No,” she whispered.

“Are you sure?”

She yanked from his powerful grip, spun around and dodged him. “Wh-what on earth would they want from me?”

He ran a hand across his dry mouth and cursed aloud. If she didn’t know anything about them, then there was only one logical explanation, one that had loomed in his fears since he’d begun planning this critical journey.

“Then someone’s after my horses.”