Read Online The Grass Widow by Nanci Little - Free Book Online Page A

refilling Joss’s and then the Captain’s; she could feel his eyes following her, and it made her skin crawl. “Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are raising Cain in the Black Hills, disdaining the reservation order in the Dakotas.” He tilted back in his chair, its legs digging holes in the dirt floor; Aidan raised an eyebrow at them, and at him. He raised an eyebrow back at her and brought the chair to all fours again, his hand going to smooth his mustache; she saw in his eyes the smirk his hand was hiding on his lips and knew as certainly as if his mouth had said the words “white trash” what the Captain thought of the Bodetts—or what remained of them. “But I’m sure the Cavalry will be well able to convince even such brutes as they of the wisdom of honoring their treaty with the U.S. Government.”
    Joss dropped an egg. “Shit,” she said, with a flatness so unlike her usual flare of temper when she swore that Aidan could only suspect that the egg had been dropped purposely, to open the door for some sideways observation. “Now ain’t that just a careless mess.”
     
    Slade eyed her. “Eggs are a beast to clean up, aren’t they, Miss Bodett.”
    “A body might think to find enough grip on a thing that cleanin’ up a mess ain’t necessary.”
    “So true!” Slade’s laugh was cold, liquid. “Best never to lose it at all, but a grip lost must be immediately regained, Miss Bodett, or a mess most certainly ensues, as you can see.”
    Aidan wasn’t sure what they were saying, but the last topic of conversation had been Indians; she’d read enough in the newspapers Doc brought to know that in Kansas, opinions about Indians were almost as wildly divided as they had been about slavery. She kept her eyes on her coffee, uneasy with the possibility of veiled politics being spoken. As if trousers and guns and fluent profanity weren’t enough, did Joss think to express political opinion as well?
    “Mayhap hands too clumsy for eggs ought leave them be,”
    Joss suggested.
    “An egg left be becomes a rooster or a hen, begetting ever more eggs. If you break that one under your boot, it’ll soak into the dirt and be gone before you can remember it.”
    Joss moved the front burner plate of the stove and bent to scoop the egg into her palms; she dropped it into the fire. “I’ve no desire for a stinkin’ reminder of my ineptitude.”
    Land sakes, Joss, he’ll have you tarred and feathered if you don’t stop! “Tell me, Captain...” Aidan made her smile part forward, part fawning, over the rim of her cup when his eyes came to hers.
    “Do tell me why you’ve honored us with your visit. Such a busy man as yourself must surely have motive past home cooking for a call.”
    She wasn’t sure where her biggest trouble loomed: with Joss, her anger sizzling as hot as the bacon on the stove and just as likely to spit and burn, or with Slade, eyeing her as if she were half chocolate, half whipped cream, and all his. He leaned onto his elbows on the table, his voice lowering to exclude Joss. “Had I known this was where I’d find you, Miss Blackstone, I’d have called much sooner. I’ve spent the time since last we met with the
     
    memory of your smile.”
    She managed to hold her smile. Her stomach was queasing horribly.
    “But I had a much less fortunate errand when I departed the garrison this morning.” He offered the words like a breath of regret.
    “Aware as I am of your cousin’s uniquely precarious circumstances, I felt it my duty to warn her that given the possibly prolonged absence of much of the Cavalry, there is the not-unlikely possibility of savages making sorties into the more remote areas of the county. This section of the post road is unquestionably remote.”
    I’ve interest in the Station myself...a farm that’s caught my eye, only recently and tragically come available, she remembered, and knew with repulsed certainty that he was sitting at that farm’s kitchen table. “Then I shall