“No.” He touched her face, gently, in a way that was new to him. Abruptly he snatched his hand back and snapped the reins again.’ ‘You went into the Silver Star to have it out with Carlotta over Alice.”
“I’ve never been so furious.” Sarah lifted a hand to where Jake had touched her. “ Alice is hardly more than a child. No matter what she did, she didn’t deserve that kind of treatment.”
“Did she tell you why Carlotta did it?”
“She didn’t seem to know, only that she must have made some kind of mistake. Alice did say that Carlotta was in a temper after you had been there.”
He said nothing for a moment as he put the pieces together. “And she took it out on Alice.”
“Why did you go? Why did you go to Carlotta? If there’s something you…” She hadn’t any idea how to phrase it properly. “If I don’t know enough about your needs… I realize I don’t have any experience in these matters, but I-” She found her mouth crushed again in a kiss that was half hungry, half angry. “There’s never been anyone else who’s known so much about what I need.”
He watched her face clear into a smile. “I went to see Carlotta to tell her I don’t care much for having my name used as a reference.”
“So she took it out on Alice, because Alice was the one who’d come to talk to me.” Sarah shook her head and tried not to let her temper take over again. “Alice only told me what Carlotta wanted her to tell me. It didn’t work the way she’d planned, and Alice paid for it.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
Sarah linked her fingers again and set them in her lap. “Is that the only reason you went to Carlotta?” “No.” He waited for the look. The look of passionate fury. “I went for that, and to tell her to stay away from you. Of course, I didn’t know at the time that you were going to go and bloody her lip.”
“Did I?” She tried and failed to bank down the pleasure she felt at the news. “Did I really?”
“And her nose. Guess you were a little too involved to notice.”
“I’ve never struck anyone before in my life.” She tried to keep her voice prim, then gave up. “I liked it.”
With a laugh, Jake pulled her to his side. “You’re a real wildcat, Duchess.”
Chapter Twelve
Jake learned something new when he watched Sarah with Alice. He had always assumed that a woman who had been raised in the sheltered, privileged world would ignore, even condemn, one who lived as Alice lived. There were many decent women, as they called themselves, who would have turned Alice away as if she were a rabid dog.
Not Sarah.
And it was more than what he supposed she would have called Christian charity. He’d run into his share of people who liked to consider themselves good Christians. They had charity, all right, unless-they came across somebody who looked different, thought different. There had been plenty ‘Of Christian women who had swept their skirts aside from his own mother because she’d married a man of mixed blood.
They went into church on Sundays and quoted the Scriptures and professed to love their neighbor. But when their neighbor didn’t fit their image of what was right, love turned to hate quickly enough.
With Sarah it wasn’t just words. It was compassion, caring, and an understanding he hadn’t expected from her. He could hear, as he sat at the table, the simple kindness in her voice as she talked to the girl and tended her wounds.
As for Alice, it was obvious the girl adored Sarah. He’d yet to see her, as Sarah claimed her patient wasn’t up to visitors. But he could hear the shyness and the respect in her voice when she answered Sarah’s questions.
She’d fought for Alice. He couldn’t quite get over that. Most people wouldn’t fight for anything unless it was their own, or something they wanted to own. It had taken pride, and maybe what people called valor, for her to walk into a place like the Silver Star and face Carlotta down. And she’d done it. He glanced up toward the loft. She’d more than done it. She’d held her own.
Rising, he walked outside to where Lucius was doing his best to teach an uncooperative Lafitte to shake hands.
“Damn it, boy, did I say jump all over me? No, you flea-brained mongrel, I said shake.” Lucius pushed the dog’s rump down and grabbed a paw.
“Shake. Get it?” Lafitte leaped up again and licked Lucius’s face.
“Doesn’t appear so,” Jake commented.
“Fool dog.” But Lucius rubbed the pup’s belly when he rolled over. “Grows on you, though.” He squinted up at Jake. “Something around here seems to be growing on you, too.”
“Somebody had to bring her back.”
“Reckon so.” He waited until Jake crouched to scratch the puppy’s head. “You want to tell me how Miss Sarah came to look like she’d been in a fist-fight?” “She looked like she was in a fistfight because she was in a fistfight.”
Lucius snorted and spit. “Like hell.”
“With Carlotta.”
Lucius’s cloudy eyes widened, and then he let out a bark of laughter that had Lafitte racing in circles. “Ain’t that a hoot? Are you telling me that our Miss Sarah went in and gave Carlotta what for?”
“She gave her a bloody nose.” Jake looked over with a grin. “And pulled out more than a little of her hair.”
“Sweet Jesus, Id’ve given two pints of whiskey to’ve seen that. Did you?”
Chuckling, Jake pulled on Lafitte’s ears. “The tail end of it. When I walked in, the two of them were rolling over the floor, spitting like cats. I figure Carlotta outweighs Sarah by ten pounds or more, but Sarah was sitting on her, skirts hiked up and blood in her eye. It was one hell of a sight.”
“She’s got spunk.” Lucius pulled out his whiskey and toasted Sarah with a healthy gulp. “I knew she had something in her head when she tore out of here.” Feeling generous, he handed the bottle to Jake. “Never would have thought she’d set her mind on poking a fist into Carlotta. But nobody ever deserved it more. You seen Alice?”
“No.” Jake let the whiskey spread fire through him. “Sarah’s got the idea that it’s not fitting for me to talk to the girl until she’s covered up or something.”
“I carried her in myself, and I don’t mind saying I ain’t seen no woman’s face ever smashed up so bad. Took a belt to her, too, from the looks of it. Her back and shoulders all come up in welts. Jake, you wouldn’t whup a dog the way that girl was whupped. That Carlotta must be crazy.”
“Mean and crazy’s two different things.” He handed Lucius the bottle. “Carlotta’s just mean.” “Reckon you’d know her pretty well.”
Jake watched Lucius take another long sip. “I paid for her a few times, sometime back. Doesn’t mean I know her.”
“Soon plop my ass next to a rattler’s.” Lucius handed the bottle back to Jake again, then fell into a fit of coughing. “Miss Sarah, I didn’t hear you come out.”
“So I surmised,” she said with a coolness that had Lucius coughing again. “Perhaps you gentlemen have finished drinking whiskey and exchanging crude comments and would like to wash for supper. If not, you’re welcome to eat out here in the dirt.” With that she turned on her heel, making certain she banged the door shut behind her.
“Ooo-whee.” Lucius snatched back the bottle and took another drink. “She’s got a mighty sharp tongue for such a sweet face. I tell you, boy, you’ll have to mind your step if you hitch up with her.”
Jake was still staring at the door, thinking how beautiful she’d looked, black eye and all, standing there like a queen addressing her subjects. “I ain’t planning on hitching up with anyone.”
“Maybe you are and maybe you ain’t.” Lucius rose and brushed off his pants. A little dirt and she’d have them off him again and in the stream. “But she’s got plans, all right. And a woman like that’s hard to say no to.”
Sarah spoke politely at supper, as if she were entertaining at a formal party. Her hair was swept up and tidied, and she’d changed her dress. She was wearing the green one that set off her hair and eyes. The stew was served in ironstone bowls, but the way she did it, it could have been a restaurant meal on fancy china.