As he looked up at a corner where the roof obviously leaked, he wondered how his mother, raised with all the finest in life, had survived in a house like this as long as she did.
“Did you know my mother?” Kane quietly asked, as Rafe set a tin cup of whiskey on the table.
“I did.” Rafe was watching this man who was his relative, both familiar and unknown at the same time. Sometimes Kane moved in a way that made Rafe think it was Frank sitting in front of him—and then he had a way of looking at people that made him think of pretty little Charity.
Rafe took a seat at the table. “She lived with us for just a few months, and it was hard on her, but she was a game little thing. We all thought
Frank was the luckiest man on earth. You should have seen her. She worked all day cleanin’ and cookin’ and then, just before Frank got off his shift, she’d doll herself up like she was ready to meet the President.”
Kane stared at his uncle for a moment. “I heard she was a spoiled brat and snubbed all the other women and they hated her.”
Rafe’s face showed his anger. “I don’t know who told you that, but he’s a damned liar. When Frank was killed, she just didn’t care about livin’ anymore. She said she was goin’ home to have the baby because she knew Frank would want the best for his child, and she wanted to share her baby with her father. The bastard!” Rafe said under his breath. “The next thing we heard was that Charity and the baby had died and her father had killed hisself in grief. Sherwin and me were glad that Charity’s last moments had been happy, and that her father had accepted her back right away. None of us knew about you, or knew that Charity had killed herself, until years later.”
Kane wanted to ask why Rafe hadn’t done anything about it when he found out, but he put his mug to his mouth and drank instead. He’d told Houston that money gave a man power. What could any of the Taggerts have done when they could barely scratch out a living? And besides, he hadn’t done so badly on his own.
“I was thinkin’,” Kane said, looking down at his cup. “You and me got off to a bad start, and I was wonderin’ if there was anything I could do to help . . . ” Even as he said the words, he knew he shouldn’t have. Houston said that he used his money and used people. He looked at his uncle and saw that Rafe was holding himself rigid, waiting for Kane to finish his sentence. “Ian likes to play baseball a lot and so does Zach, and now I don’t get to see them too much, so I was wonderin’ if maybe I could start a baseball team with the kids here. I’d buy all the equipment, of course.”
Rafe relaxed. “The kids’d like that. Maybe you can come on Sunday mornin’ when they’re not down in the mine. You think Fenton’ll agree?”
“I sorta think he will,” Kane said, finishing his whiskey. “I guess I better go look for my wife. The way she’s feelin’ about me right now, she just might leave me here.”
Rafe rose. “You better let me find her, and I guess you’ll have to ride home in the back of the wagon. If the guards saw you leave when you didn’t enter, they’d get suspicious, and then the other ladies that drive wagons could get in trouble.”
Kane nodded. He didn’t like the idea but he knew the sense of it.
“Kane,” Rafe said as he stood by the door. “If I could give you some advice about Houston, it’d be to just be patient with her. Women have odd ideas about things that men can’t begin to understand. Try courtin’ her. You did somethin’ that won her in the first place, so maybe you can repeat it if you try courtin’ her all over again.”
“She don’t much like presents,” Kane muttered.
“Maybe you’re not givin’ her the right presents. One time, a girl was real mad at me, and what made her come ’round was when I gave her a puppy. Just a little mutt, but she loved it. She was real grateful, if you know what I mean.” With a smile and a wink, Rafe left the cabin.
* * *
Houston waited all the way back to Kane’s house for his explosion, but it never came. He climbed onto the wagon seat with her after she was out of sight of the guards and, although Houston never said a word, he talked to her about the scenery and some about his business. A few times she started to reply, but she stopped herself. Her anger at him was too deep, and she couldn’t soften toward him. He’d soon realize that she could never love him again, and he’d have to release her from being his prisoner.
At home, he said good night to her politely and went to his office. The next day, he came to her sitting room at lunch time and, without a word, took her hand and led her down the stairs to the kitchen, where he picked up a picnic basket from Mrs. Murchison. Still holding her hand, he led her down the paths of the garden to the very bottom—to the statue of Diana where they’d once made love.
Houston stood rigid while he spread the white linen cloth and the food, and he had to pull her to make her sit on the cloth. All through the meal, which she just nibbled at, Kane talked to her. He told her more about his business, telling her what a difficult time he was having without Edan to help him.
Houston didn’t reply to anything he said, but her silence didn’t seem to bother him.
After they’d finished eating, Kane turned around and put his head in her lap and continued talking. He told her about talking to Rafe about his mother. He told her about how dingy Rafe’s house had been and how his own quarters, when he was growing up, hadn’t been nearly as bad.
“You think there’s somethin’ I could do to get Uncle Rafe away from the mines? He’s not a young man any longer, and I’d like to do somethin’.”
Houston didn’t speak for a moment. She’d never heard such a question from Kane. “You can’t offer him a job because he’d think it was charity,” she said.
“That’s what I thought. I don’t know what to do. If you have any ideas, will you let me know?”
“Yes,” she said hesitantly, and into her mind’s eye came the picture of Rafe walking with Pamela. They made a striking couple.
“I have to go back to work now,” he said, startling her by kissing her quickly and sweetly as he rose. “Why don’t you stay here and enjoy the garden?”
He left her alone and Houston wandered about looking at the plants, and in the rose garden she borrowed a pair of clippers from a gardener and snipped a few blooms. It was the first time since she’d arrived that she’d done anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. “Just because the master is horrible is no reason to hate the house,” she said to herself to justify carrying the roses inside.
When Kane came to dinner, the house was full of freshly cut flowers, and he did little more than grin at Houston all the way through the meal.
The next day, Blair came to luncheon, talked about her friend from Pennsylvania, Dr. Louise Bleeker, who’d come to help in the clinic, and asked if Houston was all right. For some reason, Blair no longer seemed to hate Kane.