“Still, no gentleman—” he began.
“Theophilus, you’ve been every inch the gentleman.” She traced a forefinger against his chest. “Tell me, do you really like the garden and the tub and this place?”
“What is there not to like?” Doc replied. “You have poured your heart and soul into this trading post. It is a good home. You have every right to be proud.”
“Built up a fine trade, too.”
“Yes.”
She seemed a little hesitant to go on, her eyes no longer quite meeting his. Tears glittered unshed.
“What is it, dear lady?” he asked. “Have I erred in some wise that I did not notice?”
“No,” she insisted, “you did everything right. Mebbe that’s the problem.”
“I seem to still have hurt you,” he said. “And I never meant to do that.”
“You haven’t hurt me,” she said. “I’m hurting myself. You’ve stirred up a lot of emotion in me in one afternoon.”
“Is there something I can do?”
She looked at him, lying naked on top of the bedsheets that were twisted around them both. “Have you ever thought of settling down?” she asked.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Somebody’s coming, lover.”
Ryan woke at once from the semidrowse he’d dropped into after bathing, his fist coiling around the butt of the SIG-Sauer blaster lying across his stomach. “Who? Sec man or one of the traders?”
“Looks like a scavenger,” Krysty said.
Rolling to his feet, Ryan gazed through the hayloft where he and Krysty had retired to when he’d finished his bath. He was dressed in new clothes, feeling better in some respects than he had in weeks. If only Krysty hadn’t had a dead woman lodged in her brain and they hadn’t been trapped at the trading post by the coming storm.
The temperature had cooled off, and darkness had swaddled the countryside, damping the light like a candle censer. Only a few lanterns burned around the trading post, providing bare trails to those who knew the grounds intimately.
Ryan spotted the man approaching the barn easily enough because the scavenger carried a lantern. The glowing bubble of light was turned down, not giving away much. The man also carried a double-barreled shotgun in his other hand. He came to a stop some twenty feet from the barn.
“Hello, the barn,” the man called out.
“What do you want?” Ryan asked. He stood at the edge of the hayloft opening.
“Dinner’s about to hit the table,” the man replied. “Annie wanted me to let you know you should get yourself up to the main house.”
“What if we don’t feel like coming?”
The man shrugged, the response magnified by the bobbing oil lantern. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Want me to tell her you’re not coming?”
“We can’t stay here, lover,” Krysty said quietly. “It’d be best to play along since we’re here.”
Ryan knew that, and he admitted he was also curious about the baron who was staying at the trading post. “Tell her we’re coming,” he yelled back.
“Make up your fucking mind,” the man snarled, then turned and walked back to the main house.
“J.B.,” Ryan called out, knowing the Armorer would be up and around.
“Yeah.”
“Elmore and Morse go with us. The others can stay behind if they want.” Ryan helped Krysty to her feet, feeling the weakness in her. “Do you feel like going?”
“More than staying here,” she replied. “I don’t want to be left by myself, lover, because I’m not really by myself right now. I don’t know what Phlorin’s capable of.”
“We’ll only stay as long as we have to. Then we’re gone come hell or high water.”
“Good enough.”
RYAN SURVEYED the heavily laden tables in the banquet room. The room wasn’t all that fancy. Folding tables were surrounded by folding chairs, not all of them in good shape. Some effort had been spent to spruce everything up, cloths put over the tables and fresh-cut flowers in plastic vases.
But the food almost stunned Ryan.
It was hard remembering back to when he’d seen so many different kinds of foods, and so much of it. A whole pig stretched out across one folding table all by itself. Long roasting had burned the skin black in places, causing it to crack and peel and glisten with the released fats and oils. An apple lodged its jaws open, revealing long yellow teeth. On the tables around it were platters with turkeys and chickens, venison and beef. Vegetables garnished them and filled other large bowls. Soups steamed in tureens along with gravies.