know the first thing about cooking. She barely knew how to boil water.
What had she gotten herself into? Right now the thought of finding tenants, cooking meals, maintaining the house, laundering a mountain of sheets, collecting rent and managing expenses was more than she could wrap her mind around.
She’d dreamed of having a steady income and a place to live with her girls. The reality was more like a nightmare. But she’d sunk her money into this old house and moved from Springfield with all her possessions. She was here to stay, and she had no choice except to make it work.
Chapter Two
The entrance to the cellar lay at the back of the house, next to the kitchen stoop. Its slanted door was the kind that children might have used for a slide in happier times when the house was new. Now the wood was warped and weathered to a splintery gray.
There was no padlock, Ethan noted as he twisted out the stick that fastened the rusted hasp. Anyone, including bootleggers, could have gotten into the cellar. Until now he’d kept his distance from the door, not wanting to raise suspicion by getting too close. But Ruby had given him a perfect excuse to investigate.
Maybe too perfect.
“I don’t suppose you carry an electric torch with you.” She leaned past his shoulder, teasing his nostrils with a sensual whiff of perfume. Ethan recognized the scent as a pricey one. Clearly, the lady had money, or, more likely, knew some man who did. So what was she doing in a place like this? He’d be a fool not to watch his every step.
“With the door open, we should be able to see well enough.” He glanced back at her. “Ready?”
She nodded, all wide-eyed innocence. “Lead the way.”
Gripping the handle, he raised the cellar door. It came up easily, swinging outward on hinges so silent that they must have been recently oiled. Instincts prickling, Ethan started down the rough-cut plank steps. Ruby followed so close behind him that he could hear her shallow breathing. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. For all he knew, the woman could be scheming to shoot him in the back and leave his carcass down here to rot. Or maybe she had cohorts waiting in the shadows to jump him and drag him away.
He cursed the oversight of leaving his .38 Smith & Wesson revolver locked in his suitcase at the hotel. There was no reason for a man posing as a scholar to carry a gun in a small town, especially on a sunny spring day, or so he’d thought. But that was before he’d encountered a seductively mysterious redhead, who appeared to be in the wrong place for the wrong reasons.
“Watch your head.” He ducked under the bottom edge of the rough concrete foundation and stepped into the low cavern of the cellar. Overhead, cobwebs festooned the timbers that supported the floor of the house. But there’d been no web strands across the entrance, Ethan noted. Someone had been down here, probably within the past couple of weeks.
A jumble of dusty furniture was piled against the far wall, as if it had been pushed there to make room for something else. The rest of the floor, covered in loose clay tiles over bare earth, was empty. If a stash of bootleg whiskey had been stored here, someone must have already hauled it away.
That might explain why Ruby had been so willing to bring him down here.
As he crossed the floor, Ethan suddenly realized she was no longer following him. Glancing back, he saw her hesitating at the foot of the steps.
A vision flashed through Ethan’s mind—Ruby racing up the stairs to slam the cellar door and lock him in. Odds were she hadn’t bought his inane story about being a professor. Hellfire, he probably wouldn’t have bought it himself. He should have insisted on a more convincing cover.
“What’s the matter?” he demanded, turning back to face her.
Her gaze shifted upward to the spiderwebs drooping from the beams. Suspicion crackled along his nerves. Was it an act? He’d be damned if he was going to find out the hard way.
“For Pete’s sake, if we don’t bother the spiders, they won’t bother us! Come on!” He grabbed her wrist and jerked her toward him more roughly than he’d meant to. “No! Don’t—”
Suddenly she was fighting his grip, thrashing like a trapped animal. Ethan struggled to bring her under control. His free hand captured her flailing arm. With an expert twist, he whipped her against him, pinioning her hand against the small of her back. Even then she resisted, straining backward, gasping with effort.
“Listen, damn it,” he began. “There’s no need to—”
He broke off as her eyes met his. In their blue depths, Ethan recognized the look of stark terror.
This woman, he sensed, had been hurt by a man. Not just hurt, brutalized.
He let her go. She staggered backward, lost her balance and fell to the floor. Stunned, she struggled to raise herself onto her elbows. Her eyes smoldered up at him through a tumble of fiery hair.
Ethan stood over her, feeling like a monster. “I’m sorry, Ruby.” He spoke softly, hoping to soothe her. “I’ll confess I got impatient, but I wouldn’t have hurt you. So help me, I’d never hurt any woman.”
She glared at him, her gaze flashing defiance. “Don’t you ever do that again,” she breathed. “After my husband died, I swore I’d never let another man raise a hand to me. That includes you, Professor!”
She flung the title at him like an epithet. Ethan willed himself not to react. With a long exhalation, he forced the tension from his body. “My apologies. Believe me, you’ve nothing to worry about,” he said, extending his open hand toward her. “Now, will you please allow me to help you up?”
She hesitated, then raised her hand. Tentatively at first, then with growing confidence, her fingers locked between his. Her grip tightened as he pulled her to her feet. She was quivering, her eyes wide, her lips parted. Ethan resisted the urge to gather her into his arms and comfort her. He was certain she’d prefer him to keep his distance for now. Besides, the fact that she’d been abused didn’t mean the woman was harmless.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I will be.” Her chin took on a determined thrust. She withdrew her hand and turned away from him, her spine as rigid as a poker. “Now, as I remember, we came down here to look at the furniture,” she said.
Ruby’s eyes had grown accustomed to the dim light. She focused her gaze on the jumble of broken chairs, torn cushions and detached bed parts, doing her best to ignore the powerful man beside her.
Ethan had insisted he hadn’t meant to hurt her. She wanted to believe him. But when he’d seized her wrist and yanked her toward him, all the old instincts had kicked in. She’d fought him—fought him like she’d tried to fight Hollis until the night her husband had fractured her jaw. After that, she’d simply clenched her teeth and taken her punishment…up until the night he’d gone too far.
Those ten years of abuse were branded on her brain and seared along her nerves. The memories came back as violent dreams that jolted her awake in the night, leaving her shaken and drenched with sweat. The physical and emotional reflexes were, if anything, even worse. For a time, Ruby had hoped they would heal. Now she feared they would never go away.
“How did your husband die, Ruby?”
Her
