age, or permitted him to leave them without a fight.
When Travis finished one letter, he started another to his fairy woman. He had no way of knowing if she ever got the first letter he mailed, but for some strange reason he wanted to write and tell her about Duck. Maybe he thought the woman would understand how the little one felt being all alone, or maybe he wanted to write because he had something to talk about besides his pain and her crime.
An hour later he moved to the chair by the fire and tucked Duck in, then relaxed. Everyone else in the house waited out the storm. He guessed Teagen was in the main room at his work desk. Tobin would be watching the storm from the porch. If it let up, he'd be heading toward the barn to calm the animals. Sage and Martha talked softly as they worked in the kitchen.
Travis felt a tiny hand touch his, then the child was back in his arms. Duck cuddled against his side and went back to sleep without even looking up to see if he were welcome.
Travis frowned. Duck must be one brave little boy, because Travis usually frightened children. Looking over as Martha entered, Travis pointed toward the child with his head and frowned, silently asking what to do.
Martha winked, but didn't offer to help. 'That's just the way kids are-they climb on your heart and stay there. Nothing you can do about it.' She collected the pile of towels and left without another word.
Travis thought about what the old housekeeper said long after she'd gone. She was right. Duck had climbed on his heart the minute Travis had seen him chained at the camp. He'd fought that day, almost lost his life, but even through the pain he'd worried about the child and hoped later that the Germans had found him still alive. With a shock he realized, if he had to, he'd walk that close to death again for this kid.
Travis cupped the boy's head with his hand. 'It's all right, Duck,' he whispered. 'You're safe.'
The boy relaxed in sleep, and Travis knew he'd feel the weight of the kid's heart against his for the rest of his life. What happened the day of the raid didn't matter; it was in the past. What counted was that they lived through it. They might be a little the worse for wear, but they were alive.
'You know, Duck,' Travis whispered, 'we're both going to be just fine.'
Hours later, when the house was asleep, Travis returned to his desk and added a sentence to the letter he'd written about Duck.
He sealed the letter before he could change his mind and scratch out the words he'd written. It felt good to be honest with her even if he'd told her something in the letter that he'd probably never had the nerve to say aloud.
CHAPTER 15
Rainey felt her blood chill as she leaned closer to the window so that she heard every word. The air held a frost tonight, and fog settled into the alley so thick she couldn't make out the women below, but she knew their voices. Snort and Whiny, the barmaids she'd listened to every night for over a month.
'We wouldn't have to kill him, would we?' the one Rainey called Whiny whimpered. 'I don't know if I could do that. I ain't got a murdering bone in my body.'
'It's our only way out of this place, don't you see, baby?' Snort answered, her tone soft as if she were talking to a child. 'Otherwise, we'll be here until some customer, who thinks he didn't get his money's worth, kills us or Haskell kicks us out.'
'He wouldn't do that,' Whiny cried, her voice sounding barely old enough to be that of a woman.
'I seen him do it to a woman the day he hired me,' the older woman answered. 'I was in the back changing clothes. Haskell waited until she came in to work. He offered to buy her one on the house and she said, 'Just tell me the bad news.' I could hear him pouring her a drink anyway.'
'Did you look out?' Whiny interrupted. 'Was she old or scarred?'
'Both,' Snort admitted. 'She was eight, maybe ten, years older than me. Well on her way to being too wrinkled to attract anything but a blind drunk.'
Snort made a sound half between a laugh and a cough. 'Haskell shoved a drink toward her and told her it would be her last at his place. She cried and complained for a few minutes, but she knew him well enough not to stand within swinging distance. He yelled at her and she left without another word. I heard later she got run over by a stage pulling into town. The driver claimed she stepped right in front of his team.'
Whiny whispered, 'You think we're close to being offered our last drink?'
'I think I am. You, honey, are still new at the game, but I don't want to think about what'll happen to you when I'm gone. You need someone to look out for you.'
'Then we do it,' Whiny whispered. 'We have to. I might as well take my chances of hanging for murder as die by horses stomping me into the ground. I can't spend my whole life waiting for my man to break out of jail.'
'That's the spirit,' Snort said. 'Look on the bright side. Hanging is better than trampling.'
'When do you think we should do it?'
'I heard Haskell tell that Old Lady Vivian across the alley that he expects to have a sum of money coming in soon. He asked her if she'd consider selling her slave.' Snort snorted. 'You know that Mrs. Vivian don't give up anything. I heard she even goes through the rooms the minute one of her ladies leaves. If they accidentally forget something, they never see it again.'
Whiny had no interest in anyone but herself. 'So we club Haskell when he's flush.'
'That's right, baby, but we don't leave him in any shape to run catch us. We have to…'
Someone hollered for them and Rainey didn't catch the last words Snort whispered. Leaning back in her bed, Rainey lay perfectly still, pacing her way back through the barmaids' conversation.
They were going to kill someone, or at least hurt him. A man named Haskell? It sounded like their plan was to rob Haskell when he came into cash. Robbery or murder. Either way, Rainey wasn't sure she wanted to warn him if he was as evil as they talked about him being. He seemed like one of those people no one would miss. But if they were going to kill an innocent person, she had to do something-but what? If she went to the sheriff, it would be her word against the two barmaids. The sheriff might even laugh at her for reporting a conversation she'd heard. She couldn't even tell him what the two women looked like.
She could go down and tell the women, or even Haskell, that she'd heard the robbery plans. Maybe that would stop them. Or maybe the barmaids would simply continue their planning inside so they wouldn't have her listening.
It crossed her mind that the French girl might have overheard the plotting of a crime in the alley just as she had. Maybe she'd gone down to stop it and ended up with her blood painting a streak along the buildings.
If the girls were already thinking of killing one person, a short busybody with big ears might not seem like much to add to the crime. And if they did the killing, then discovered she'd overheard them talking, they'd have to kill her. Even to Rainey, the prospective victim, it seemed only logical.
Rainey decided she had to tell someone. But who? Margaret Ann, the self-appointed leader of the boarders, was packing to leave. Mrs. Vivian wouldn't talk about anything that might hurt the reputation of the house. The German mother and daughter would never understand her. Besides, they were busy packing and getting ready to leave, too. The three boring old maid sisters were already frightened of their shadows. They'd probably start taking shotguns to the privy if they knew. That left Dottie Davis, who loved a story. If Rainey told her, the widow would probably repeat the barmaids' conversation a dozen times within an hour, and by the time she finished she'd have them planning to murder all of Austin. Or the widow might just listen to Rainey and help her, if she were awake. From what Rainey could tell, Dottie Davis ate breakfast every morning, then returned to her room to sleep most of the day away.
Rainey shivered, but didn't close the window. She had to find someone she could trust not to overreact, but
