read this where you can be comfortable.”
Rachel lifted her bucket. “I was going to get water when I heard you pounding. I came back, but I still have to get water. You can go with me if you like and read it to me on the way.”
Wyatt allowed that it was the best he could do. They were far from ideal circumstances, but she couldn’t know that. He wasn’t certain how she would accept the news anyway. He’d imagined her fainting or being moved to hysterics, but seeing her now, holding that damn bucket so tightly he feared she meant to clobber him with it, he supposed he could have exaggerated her reaction. While he didn’t relish the idea of ducking the bucket and restraining her, it was preferable to applying smelling salts or sacrificing his freshly laundered handkerchief.
Not putting it past Rachel not to wait for him, Wyatt ignored the front steps and strode to the side of the porch instead. He’d anticipated that she would be surprised when he vaulted the rail and landed softly beside her, but he had not anticipated that she would be so afraid that she’d use the bucket against him right then and there. He was barely able to sidestep her swing before she rounded on him. The weight of the bucket spun her, and he moved quickly to catch her, throwing out his arms and stopping her just before she came full circle. He released her as soon as he halted her momentum. The bucket still swung like a pendulum at the end of her arm. They both stared at it.
“I think I’ll take that,” he said.
She nodded slowly and stiffly opened her clenched fingers, releasing the rope handle. The bucket dropped into his hands.
“Thank you,” he said, drawing it to his side. He lifted his chin in the direction of the spring. “Why don’t you show me where you get your water?”
Rachel realized he was just filling her appalled silence. He knew very well where she got her water. She simply averted her eyes and stepped slightly ahead of him to lead the way.
Apologizing should not be so difficult, she thought. She went over what she’d done and couldn’t find a single moment where she conceived the plan to injure him. There was no premeditation, only reaction. Should she apologize for that? Didn’t he bear some responsibility for provoking her?
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” Wyatt said.
“You didn’t scare me.”
“Oh,” he said. “I thought I might have.”
Rachel stopped in her tracks so sharply that Wyatt bumped her from behind with the bucket. She turned just enough to catch his eye and set her gaze stubbornly on him. “We both know I lied. And you lied by pretending to believe me. I don’t think you meant to frighten me, but you saw what happens when you do. That should serve as warning enough, and if it doesn’t, you’ll have to be quicker on your feet because the next time I will replace your head with my bucket.”
Wyatt considered that. After a moment, he said, “It’s my bucket now, but it still seems fair enough.”
“Good.” She gave him her back and continued along the flagstone path. It bothered her to have him a step behind her where his view would be the rigid brace of her shoulders and the steely set of her spine. There was no chance that she could relax with him so close. He wasn’t always physically imposing, but he held himself in a way that others took notice of him, even when he was slouched in a chair outside his office with his long legs stretched lazily against the porch post. People actually walked around him, sometimes stepping into ankle-deep mud on the street rather than disturb his contemplative posing, or—and this was far more likely in Rachel’s opinion—his nap.
She couldn’t believe that he was unaware of people cautiously trooping around him. She thought it was possible that he was secretly amused by it, and in truth, so was she—a little. It was her practice to take the opposite side of the street as soon as she saw him tilted back in his chair. There was no point in surreptitious skulking when she could give him a wide berth.
She couldn’t do that now without giving herself away. It was one thing for him to know his unexpected leap had alarmed her, another thing entirely to let him see how his continued presence disturbed her. She slowed her step and gave him the opportunity to fall in beside her. They were almost upon the spring, and she still didn’t know the precise reason for his visit. In fifteen months, he’d never called on her. It seemed extraordinary that he would ever choose to do so.
Rachel held out her hand, expecting to receive the bucket. Instead, Wyatt Cooper placed the folded paper in her hand.
“I’ll get the water,” he said.
Rachel watched him step onto the wooden platform that had been built to make the spring more accessible. He walked to the edge, bent, and placed the bucket under the wooden tap that had been carefully fitted into the hillside to direct the spring. It only took moments for the bucket to fill. Rachel had not yet begun to open the letter.
She was aware that he was waiting patiently, and somehow that made it more difficult, not easier. She kept her head down, made a delaying gesture of tucking a wind-whipped strand of hair behind her ear, then took a steadying breath and unfolded the paper.
Rachel recognized Mr. Showalter’s handwriting. She’d only ever received a few messages via the telegraph, but it was enough to be familiar with his careful block lettering. It was his job to translate the electric pulses that he heard as dots and dashes into words that could be understood by everyone.
CLINTON MADDOX DEAD STOP C & C CONTROL TO FOSTER STOP
Not many words. Only the first three mattered to Rachel. She carefully refolded the paper but didn’t surrender it. She couldn’t think what she should do or why it should matter. Her arms felt as heavy as they had earlier when they were filled with packages. She didn’t bend, although her legs felt as if they might. Weight didn’t settle on her shoulders; it tugged on her heart.
“How did you know to bring this to me?”
Wyatt had to strain to hear her above the rushing spring water. “I can explain better if we go inside, Miss Bailey. I imagine you’re going to have more questions once you hear the answer.”
Rachel glanced back at the house and then again at the note in her hand. She said nothing.
Wyatt observed Rachel’s indecision. She had never struck him before as someone who could not be moved to act. It was a fact that he didn’t know her well. No one did. But that was because she wanted it that way, and on the whole everyone respected her wishes. He included himself, restraining his curiosity to keep from asking too many questions or joining the speculative discussions that sometimes arose when she came gliding down the street. If anything, he was the one who discouraged others from making assumptions about her. Not that he had to say anything outright. His presence alone was sufficient to quell the beginnings of a rumor.
“You look as if you could use something to settle your nerves.” His remark had the desired effect. She was looking at him now.
“There’s nothing wrong with my nerves.”
Wyatt’s cool blue eyes dropped to where Rachel’s fingers were closing convulsively around the note. He said nothing, merely let the direction of his gaze speak for him.
Rachel’s fist opened and the note dropped to the platform. Before she could retrieve it, an eddy of wind lifted and spun it toward the icy stream. She made a grab for it, missed, then almost toppled into the stream on her second attempt. Her arms circled like sails on a windmill
