Harvest Moon (Jordan-Alexander Family 2)

“Those rooms are too cold.” Tessa looked up at him and found his handsome face lined in concentration, his dark gaze studying her closely. “And I would’ve had to carry the water all the way back there. This way, all I had to do was drag the tub in here.” Her blue eyes sparkled with pleasure. “More heat. Less work. Simple.”

“I never thought of it that way—carrying water back and forth from room to room.” When he’d lived in Washington, there were hotel maids to carry water and draw his bath. He wondered, suddenly, who had provided that service for him at home. At the ranch there were no servants, just his mother; his sister, Mary; and Reese’s wife, Faith. He’d never given a brimming tub of hot water much thought; it was simply there when he wanted it, waiting. The thought of Mary or Faith carrying water for his bath dismayed David, but the thought of his mother performing the task for her grown, able-bodied son shamed him.

Tessa witnessed the sudden flush of color that stained David’s high cheekbones and thought she’d embarrassed him. Yesterday she’d have been delighted at the idea, but today, after all that had happened, it didn’t seem right somehow. She set out to put him at ease. “My family always bathed in a tub in the kitchen.”

“Your family?” He seemed surprised.

“Not together,” Tessa hurried to explain. “We took turns. My mother bathed first, then we girls. After we finished, my father would bathe, followed by the boys.” She smiled at the memory. “It was that way every Saturday night.”

“In one tub of water?” The concept of sharing the bath with the entire family intrigued him. It seemed like such an intimate thing to do. Such a cozy family activity, to wash in water that had touched so many other bodies. With the exception of a few female companions through the years, David had spent his entire life taking solitary baths.

“Well, we did add more hot water once in a while.” Tessa began to work the tangles from her long red hair. David noticed that she’d taken the liberty of borrowing the comb from his dresser set. That somehow heightened the air of intimacy between them. “Even after the others passed away and I left Ireland to come to America, we carried on the Saturday night tradition.”

“You and Coalie?”

“No, my brother, Eamon. I lived with him after I arrived in America.”

“The one who died?” David remembered her mentioning Eamon earlier.

Tessa’s dreamy blue eyes suddenly became sad. But her gaze hardened just as quickly. “Yes. He was killed in an accident,” she said quietly, her voice almost a whisper.

“Here?” David didn’t remember reading about it in the Peaceable Chronicle.

“In Chicago.” She tugged the comb through her hair. It caught in the snarls, but she pulled it through anyway.

David winced when he saw the red strands yanked by the teeth of the comb. “Let me.” He took the comb from her hand. “Sit down.” He grabbed the arm of the chair behind his desk and guided it in front of him. He tapped the back of the chair with the comb.

Tessa seated herself in front of him.

David pulled her wet hair away from her neck and draped it over the back of the chair, then began to work the comb gently through the heavy, wet tresses.

She closed her eyes and let him minister to her.

“Tell me about it,” David urged. “Tell me about your past.”

Tessa began to talk about Irel

and, her brother, and the horrible morning the Chicago policemen came to the door. She ended her story with Eamon’s wake. Yet she made no mention of Coalie or the journey to Peaceable.

He finished combing her hair and offered her the comb. “Tessa?”

She looked up at him.

“How did you get to Peaceable?”

“My brother had a return train ticket in his pocket. I used it,” she answered truthfully.

“Do you have any idea who killed Arnie Mason?” He asked the question almost as an afterthought. The news that her brother had been to Peaceable bothered him.

“I don’t know for sure who killed him.” Her voice had taken on that hard quality again, each word carefully enunciated. “But I have an idea who might have.”

Something in her expression alerted David, gave him the germ of an idea. “You don’t think Coalie had anything to do with it, do you? You’re not trying to protect him, are you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Tessa got up from the chair and began to rip the sheets off the lines and wrap them into tight balls. “Coalie’s a little boy. He couldn’t kill anyone. I know he couldn’t.”

“Not even to protect you?”

Tessa avoided his question. “What should I do with the water?”