Pearl gently laid the sleeping Jason in his crib. "You should write your Ranger and tell him you're sorry."
"He'd come after me with a rope."
Pearl laughed. "Well, at least you'll know he's still alive."
"Right, but then I'd be dead. You should have seen his dark eyes. He didn't look like the forgiving sort of fellow, and they say Rangers are the toughest lawmen alive. No matter how gently he touched me while we were dancing, he'd probably use me as target practice if he saw me again."
"Write the man," Pearl repeated, laughing. "Owen could mail it at one of the trading post when he heads down toward San Antonio. Your Ranger will never know where the letter comes from, and you can be honest or lie. He'll never know one way or the other."
"He's not my Ranger," Rainey whispered. "But as long as he can't track the letter, I guess it would be safe enough."
Pearl smiled as if reading Rainey's mind. "If he writes back, you'll no longer have to worry."
Rainey went back to work. She'd developed a pattern to the baking. As soon as two pies were cooked, the next two were ready to go in. When the last two went in the oven, she cleaned up her mess, put on a simple stew for Owen and Pearl's supper, and tidied up the room.
By six she'd given away all her pies to cafes along Congress and Colorado avenues and even brought one home to the Askew House. The owners of the restaurants had seemed pleased at having been given something, but most made no promises to buy any. Mrs. Vivian thanked her for the pie, but informed her that dessert was not usually a part of the evening meal on weekdays.
The other borders each thanked her, and Rainey noticed they all seemed friendlier at dinner. They talked of their favorite recipes for desserts, and Rainey borrowed a few sheets of paper from Widow Davis to write them down. When she finally climbed up to her third-floor room, Rainey thought she'd fall asleep immediately, but the idea of writing Travis stayed in her mind. She told herself if she could know he was alive, she'd be satisfied.
As she lay on her back trying to sleep, the words she'd write drifted through her mind. She couldn't tell him her real name. It wouldn't be proper to mention the kiss, but the dance might be all right to write about. She couldn't talk about the way he felt against her, yet she wondered if he thought about it as much as she did. She'd never thought of herself as soft until she pressed against him, her man of oak.
Her man… she smiled. Well… he was her man for a moment. She never planned to allow a man in her life, but she could have one to dream about. That seemed harmless enough.
Frustrated, she opened the window and listened to the slices of conversations that drifted up from the alley. Too bad she couldn't tell Travis of all the faceless babble she overheard. The barmaids who complained about everything, the boss who yelled at them and then took their place on the back porch so he could smoke, the drunk who grumbled that the Lord moved the privy every night just to confuse him. Tonight two gamblers were whispering secrets of how to win, then both wished they had enough money for another drink.
Rainey closed her eyes, remembering the Ranger's face and wishing she could hear his voice once more. Maybe she would write him one letter, just to know that he was alive. It could do no harm and it might make her feel better to know that somewhere he was walking around maybe thinking of her once in a while.
The next morning she walked up Congress Avenue collecting her pie plates. Four of the cafes ordered more pies. Since Owen was home to run the store, Pearl helped Rainey set up books and figure out, once she'd paid all expenses, how much money each pie would make. It wasn't much, but Pearl had been right, if Rainey could bake three days a week, she'd be able to pay for her room at Askew House.
On her next baking day the cafes doubled their orders when she delivered, and Rainey began a pattern of baking three days a week.
Owen wandered through the kitchen from time to time. At first he seemed like a stranger among them, but Rainey didn't miss the way he looked at his wife. Pearl was plain, seeming older than her years, but when Owen talked to her, or touched her shoulder, she beamed.
Rainey had never seen a married couple act so and found it fascinating. The few married couples she'd been around hardly talked to each other. Ninety percent of everything her father had said to her mother came in the form of an order. The other ten percent had been complaints. Rainey's father seemed to think that everything wrong had somehow been his wife's fault. He blamed her for their lack of money, their living conditions, and most of all their daughter.
But Owen and Pearl were a world within themselves. They seemed happy to have their little home and both cherished their son. Owen claimed Jason had his mother's beautiful eyes, and Pearl bragged that the boy would be as smart as his father. The couple didn't mean to, but they made Rainey even more aware of how alone she truly was, not only in Texas, but in the world. She'd known from the night she'd left home that there would be no turning back. The ring she carried tucked away in a tiny bag around her neck would be her only inheritance. Her father's second wife would give him the sons he'd always complained of not having, and from the looks of their house the new wife would also spend the money her father had so carefully hidden all Rainey's life.
Unless he found her, she knew she would have to make her way without family. A good start might be to correct the wrong she'd done to the McMurrays.
That night, alone in her room, she wrote her first letter to Travis.
CHAPTER 12
When Travis returned from the summit of Whispering Mountain, everyone, including Martha, commented on how quiet he seemed. The angry sulking side of him had disappeared, but judging from his family's looks, the replacement was just as hard to watch.
He used his crutches and came to meals without being bullied, but the rest of the time he preferred being alone. If the family gathered around him, Travis found an excuse to move elsewhere. He asked few questions about the ranch and offered little in conversation to anyone, yet when they finally quit trying to make small talk, he felt no sense of relief. Out of boredom he began to read, glancing over every book in the library, but finding those on law the most interesting because he could relate to them. He settled into them as if they were old friends who came to visit. A part of the life he'd known for ten years linked him to every word. Before long law books were scattered all over the study and the porch.
Over the years an old judge in Austin had often handed him a book on law to carry in his saddlebags. Once after Travis had to put his horse down, he'd walked for miles carrying his saddle. He'd cussed the heavy book tucked into the bags, but he hadn't left it behind. There was something fascinating about how justice worked. Old Judge Gates was right about one thing: In order for it to work, it had to work the same for everyone.
While he read, he thought of his dream. The only place he'd ever stood with his hand on the Bible had been in a courtroom. Did the dream mean that someday he'd drop the justice system and take the law into his own hands?
One rainy Sunday afternoon when he left the study for the solitude of the porch, he heard Sage complain. Teagen hushed her by saying that Travis had a right to his privacy.
As the days turned to winter, he pulled further and further into himself. Often as not, when he sat on the porch staring out across the land, he saw nothing, not even the weather he'd always loved watching. He spent many hours with his nose buried in a book and never read a word. With the loss of his job, he felt no sense of purpose. His wounds healed, but the pain remained, reminding him that he'd never be as strong. Much as he hated it, he needed the cane.