Chapter 35
Boone
Goldie told us to stay put. Lula told us too, though kinder.
So here we are. Trusting.
Or trying.
Okee stands by the window with one shoulder pressed to the frame, not close enough to be seen from the street but near enough to torture himself with pieces of it.
Lamplight from below cuts across his face in thin gold bars.
Every so often, a carriage wheel grinds through the mud, or some drunk fool laughs outside the saloon, and his whole body goes still like a hound catching a scent.
I sit on the edge of our bed because if I stand, I’ll pace, and the floors will creak and groan.
The room smells like her.
Soap. Dried herbs. A little whiskey from last night. That faint, sweet-sharp scent clinging to her trunk and shawl and the little glass bottles arranged on the washstand.
It’s enough to make a man stupid.
Okee’s fingers flex once against the window frame. “She’s been gone too long,” he says.
I glance toward the door. Goldie’s girl is posted in the hall, or so Goldie said.
Another woman downstairs by the front parlor.
Somebody watching the back. Somebody watching the street.
Goldie laid it out cool as a cardsharp, telling us where we’d be most useful, and wouldn’t you know, the place she found for us was right here.
Out of sight.
Like a pair of loaded pistols kept under the mattress until she needed to draw.
Okee near bit through his own tongue when she said it.
Now he says, bitter as burnt coffee, “What kind of mother sends her daughter out as bait?”
I huff, though there ain’t much humor in it. “The kind that owns a house full of women.”
He turns his head slowly. I know that look.
“She did not tell us the whole plan,” he says.
“No, she did not.”
“She told us the portion she wished us to obey.”
“Yep.”
“She expects us to sit in this room while Lula walks beside that man.”
“She expects us not to ruin whatever Lula agreed to.”
His jaw works hard. That’s the part cutting him raw. Lula agreed.
Lula looked at us both with those green eyes steady as a rifle sight and asked us not to make her smaller by loving her. Asked us not to yank her out of every room that frightened us just because we were scared of what might happen inside it.
Below, the Gemini hums soft through the floorboards. Women’s voices. Men’s boots. A piano playing too sweet and too slow. Somewhere down there, Goldie is smiling at customers and moving people around like pieces on a board.
And somewhere beyond this room, Lula is walking beside a man I ain’t yet laid eyes on, though I already know plenty. Fancy coat, soft hands, clean fingernails. A man don’t need to look like a monster to be one.
The clock on the mantel ticks loud enough to mock us.
Okee drags a hand down his mouth. “What if this is not protection?”
I look up. “What?”
His voice lowers. “What if bringing her here was not protection? What if we mistook all of this for safety because Goldie looked like a solution at the time?”
I scratch at my jaw, cold sweat prickling under my collar, though the room is warm. “She’s her mother.”
“She has not seen Lula in over ten years.”
“Still her mother.”
“My father is my father.”
That shuts me up. For a few breaths, there’s only the clock. The piano downstairs. Wind rapping at the window. Goldie ain’t conventional. That’s for certain. But that don’t make her evil. He paces, running both hands through his hair.
“Lula was not even certain she would visit with her mother at all. We should have asked when she brought it up instead of your rushing to judgement.”
“Rushing to what? What did I do?”
“I don’t know,” he says, words spilling out bitter and one after the other. “Glared at her like she was a heartless excuse for a daughter.”
“I did not.”
“Yes you did,” he says, louder, fidgeting with his cuff. “What if you laid guilt on her that was too heavy to bear so she gave in to it, but this woman does not have her best interests at heart?”
There’s a nervous energy rising off him, just under his skin like he’s ready to burst. That ain’t a thing I see from Okee Collins. Not in a gunfight. Not with horses screaming in snow. Not with cannon fire turning men into red mist around us and boys calling for their mommas from ditches.
Okee knows how to be afraid. Any man who says otherwise is lying or stupid. But fear in him usually goes quiet and sharp. It lines up facts. Counts bullets. Measures distance.
But all of the careful order turns to dust the moment Lula Clay is out of sight.
I step closer. Slow. Like he’s a skittish horse and I’m the fool who loves him enough to risk getting kicked.
“Hey.”
He does not look at me.
“Okee.”
That gets his eyes on mine. Black as wet river stones and mean with fear.
I put my hand over his. “Don’t get ahead of what’s happened. This is what she chose to do.”
His mouth twists like he hates the truth. “If he hurts her—”
“He won’t get far.”
“He should not get near enough to try.”
“No,” I agree. “He shouldn’t.”
His forehead dips, and for a second he looks so tired it near breaks me. I cup the side of his neck, thumb tucked beneath his jaw where I can feel him clench.
“We wait,” I say. “Not because Goldie told us. Not because I like it. Because Lula asked us to trust her.”
His eyes shut.
The clock ticks.
Downstairs the piano stumbles into a brighter tune.
Okee opens his eyes and looks toward the door. “How long?”
“Long enough for her to do what she said she’d do.”
I rub my thumb along the side of his neck once, slow, then let my hand fall.
He walks to the washstand and braces both hands on either side of Lula’s little bottles. He stares down at them like they might tell him something.
Camphor. Peppermint. Feverfew. Some dark tincture with a label in her neat hand.
He picks one up, then sets it down careful. He turns then, leaning back against the washstand. The lamplight softens the hard planes of his face, but not enough to hide the trouble there.
“Ever since the three of us have been together,” I say, “you ain’t been right.”
His face goes still.
I nod toward the window, toward the street we cannot see enough of, toward wherever Lula is. “You care for her.” His throat works, and before he can deny it, I make myself plain. “That ain’t an accusation.”
Okee stares at me. “You and I are already—” He stops, searching for the word, or maybe refusing all the ones that come to mind. “Wanting is not the same as keeping.”
That pummels me right in the gut.
“No,” I say. “It ain’t.”
His voice drops rougher. “She has a life to reclaim.”
I draw a slow breath and look around the room. Her suitcase. Her shawl. Her notebook closed on the small table. The bed where she’d slept. The washstand crowded with bottles. Her things mixed with ours now in ways none of us had planned.
“I caught myself daydreaming over it,” I say.
He looks at me then.
“About her staying. About waking up and her being there. Fussing at us both for tracking mud across her floor. You reading in some chair. Me fixing whatever she says needs fixing.” I huff a quiet laugh, but it don’t loosen the ache in my chest. “Stupid things.”
Okee don’t speak.
“Not just bedding her,” I say, softer. “Though God help me, I think on that plenty too.” I shift closer.
“I think about the three of us. All the time now. Her between us. Her looking at you like you hung the moon and looking at me like she might forgive me for being a fool. You touching her. Her touching you. Both of you looking at me.”
My voice roughens, and I hate it some, but I keep on. “And then I think about this being over. About taking her somewhere safe and tipping my hat like I’m some kind of gentleman. Saying goodbye. Watching her walk off with a piece of my damn heart in her pocket.” I swallow hard. “I can’t abide it.”
The words sit there between us, too warm for the room. Okee’s hand closes around the edge of the washstand until his knuckles pale.
At last he says, “I love her.”
The words come out low. Almost angry. I nod.
“I love you,” he says, turning to me. “Still. Always. That has not changed.”
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“Okee.” I take his face in my hand. “Yes, sweetheart. Of course I know.”
His eyes shine in the lamplight.
“How can I want both?” he asks, and there is shame in it. Wonder too. “All the time. Since that night. Since before, maybe. I can hardly get my mind to settle. I want her. I look at you looking at her and want that too.” He bows his head. “It feels disloyal.”
“To me?”
He does not answer fast enough.
I lean closer. “Listen to me. There ain’t no part of me that gets smaller because you love her.”
His mouth tightens.
“You hear me?”
“I hear you.”
“No. Hear me proper.” I press my forehead to his for one second, just enough to make him look at me. “You loving Lula don’t take you from me. It brings her closer. And if she wants us—if she chooses us—then I reckon maybe the Lord or those fool orange-blue stars finally dealt us a decent hand.”
“And if she doesn’t?” he asks.
The question cuts clean.
I look toward the door.
“Then we get her safe,” I say. “We let her go. And we live with it.”
His hand comes up to grip my wrist, not pulling me away. Holding me there.
“I don’t know if I can.”
“Me neither.”