Love and Glory: The Coltrane Saga, Book 3 (7 page)

Travis jerked his head up, eyes narrowing as he saw her. “I’ll be back,” he said evenly, menacingly, as he held John out to her waiting arms. “You can be sure of that, Kitty.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.” She began to sob. “We’ll talk then.”

“There won’t be a damn thing to talk about except me taking my son, Kitty. You and I have nothing left to discuss.”

She realized that he was sobering, for the slur was almost absent from his tone. He must have realized it, too, because he nodded to Lottie. “Take the boy and go wait somewhere.” To Sam he said, “I’ll see you on the train.”

Alone with Kitty, he growled, “I’ve worked my guts out for you.” He squeezed down on her wrists and she winced, but if he noticed, he gave no sign. “All because of your goddamn land. I lived my life to please you, and what did it get me?”

“Travis, let me explain. It isn’t like you think.”

“You always were the most beautiful damn woman I ever laid eyes on,” he went on as though she had not interrupted. “I was never with a woman who could make me feel like you could, like I’d climbed the highest mountain in the world and could just keep right on climbing as long as I had you.”

His lips curled and his eyes were hard. “Now I see it was just what you kept telling me it was during the war, when you hated me. It was lust, Kitty. Plain and simple animal lust. But I was fool enough to think it was love.”

“Travis, it
was
love,” she cried. He clutched her wrists tighter and pushed her back against the wooden wall of the station house. “You have to believe me,” she cried. “It
was
love, and it
is
love, and I’ll never stop loving you, not ever!”

“You hitched me to a goddamn plow like a mule, when all you really wanted was someone to tend your daddy’s precious land. Well, Kitty, it’s time you learned that I have to dream. I’m going to follow my dreams now, but heed me well—I’ll be back for my son. You won’t keep John from me.”

He released her and turned to walk rapidly and then run toward the train, which was already beginning to chug slowly down the tracks. Kitty stood watching for a split second, and then she took off, running behind him, pleading for him to stop. Leaping for the train, Travis caught a railing and swung himself up, disappearing inside the train without looking back.

With every turn of the chugging wheels, Kitty felt her life being pulled from her. Suddenly she realized she could not let Travis leave this way, hating her. She began to run, desperate to keep up with the train, arms outstretched. The train was all she had left of Travis, and when it outdistanced her, he would be gone. She ran faster…then suddenly felt herself being clutched around the waist and swung around, away from the tracks. “Let me go!” She screamed, struggling against the hands that held her.

The train pulled away from the station, and when the caboose rattled by, Kitty slumped defeatedly into the arms that held her. Travis was gone. It was too late now.

“Kitty, what were you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”

That soft Virginia accent! She stiffened, turning slowly to face the hazel eyes of Jerome Danton, his lips twitching smugly beneath his neatly trimmed moustache. Hands clenched tightly at her sides, she spat, “You take your filthy hands off of me, you damn carpetbagger!”

“Kitty, Kitty, Kitty,” he laughed softly, releasing her. “When are you ever going to stop calling me that? And when are you going to realize that I just want to be your friend?”

“Friend!” She scoffed. “Every time you tried to be my friend, you had an ugly motive. You scalawag! I will never forget how you and your hooded friends killed helpless Negroes before Travis put a stop to it, or your pretending to be my friend when you accompanied me to New Orleans to get my son back, then trying to rape me.”

“Make love to you, my dear,” he said softly, shaking his head. “I never pretended I did not want to make love to you. As for killing helpless Negroes, well, someone had to bring order to these parts when the worthless animals were running wild after the war, stealing. Let’s don’t talk of nonsense.”

“I will thank you to stay out of my life, Jerome, and if you don’t let go of my arm, I’m going to rake my nails right down your face. How will you explain that to your wife? Nancy would not like to know you were here now, grabbing at me.”

“Now, Kitty, what makes you think Jerome has to explain anything to me?”

They both whirled around to see Nancy standing a few feet away, twirling her parasol over her head, lips twisted in a triumphant smile. Jerome hastily removed his hand from Kitty’s arm.

“I’ve always known you had designs on my husband,” Nancy cocked her head to one side, appraising Kitty carefully. “But really, now, if you’re going to go man-chasing the very minute your husband gets the good sense to leave you, I should think you would wear some decent clothes.”

Jerome moved to slip his arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Now, darling, it isn’t what you think. Kitty was a bit hysterical. She was getting too close to the train, and—”

Nancy silenced him with a frosty look. “I saw and heard the whole thing, you ninny. Don’t lie to me. Travis left her, and I say good riddance to him. What happens to her now is her concern, not yours.”

His eyes narrowed. He had always hated for Nancy to make him look like a fool in public, and in front of Kitty it was even worse. “Don’t tell me what to do, woman. Kitty is a friend of mine and always will be. So you take Cousin Leroy to the carriage, and ask him if he collected all his luggage. I will see that Kitty gets to hers. She’s upset.”

“You’re coming with me!” Nancy stomped her foot, swinging her parasol at Kitty in a menacing gesture. “I’ll not have you escorting this trollop for the whole town to see and laugh at me.”

“Nancy, I won’t have you calling her names, and I won’t have you ordering me about. I am your husband, and
you
will do as
I
say.”

Kitty had had enough of the two pompous idiots. She turned and hurried toward the wagon where Lottie was waiting with John.

Jerome called after her, but she kept on going. He started to follow, but Nancy reached out and clutched his sleeve, hissing, “Damn you, don’t you dare go running after her and make me look like a fool.”

“You’ve already done a good job of that all by yourself, Nancy,” he snapped, shoving her and hurrying away. Kitty had already untied the mule and was climbing into the wagon beside Lottie and John.

Nancy watched her husband go, eyes narrowed, fury making her body quiver. She could not hear what was being said between the two, but Jerome’s expression told her that he was pleading, and Kitty looked angry. No matter, Nancy thought with a swish of her skirts, turning away. This was all an act, anyway. Now that Travis was gone, Kitty would do what she had always done when she was without a man. She would go after Nancy’s man. Only this time, she would not get him.

She had wooed Nathan away with her filthy hayloft tricks that drove him wild, Nancy thought for the hundredth time, with hatred burning through her. She had done the same thing with Corey McRae. Why, before Kitty Wright came back to town, Corey was on the verge of asking Nancy to marry him. But whatever it was that Kitty did to men—and it was probably something no respectable woman would ever think of doing—she had done to Corey, for he was quickly smitten with her.

So, now that Travis had left, Nancy fumed, Kitty would try to take Jerome away from her. As much as she hated to admit it, Kitty had almost succeeded once before, but had thrown Jerome over for Travis. Nancy sighed. She couldn’t really blame Kitty. Jerome might be her husband, but he wasn’t a tenth of the man Travis Coltrane was. A smile touched her lips and a warm flush crept through her body as she remembered the night Kitty had walked into the hotel room and found Nancy and Travis naked in bed. God, she would never forget what had taken place during those wild, passionate moments. No man had ever possessed her like that. No man had ever made her feel thundering emotions that left her shaking. Nancy had never known the wonder of it all with any other man.

Oh, damn Kitty, she cursed, bosom heaving with emotion. Damn her to hell! Jerome still wanted Kitty, Nancy knew it. What was it about her that drove men wild? She was beautiful, yes, with golden-red hair and violet eyes and a perfectly sculptured body, but that wasn’t all. No, there had to be something else, something secret. Perhaps she was a witch. Nancy laughed, thinking that she might just have discovered Kitty’s secret after all these years.

“You little fool!” Jerome snapped, squeezing her shoulder. “We come here to meet my cousin Leroy, and you have to make a spectacle of yourself.”

“You’ve been making a spectacle of yourself over that trollop for years, you bastard!” Nancy snapped, jerking away. “And don’t you touch me like that again or I
will
make a scene.”

The carriage was farther away, and Jerome continued to limp toward it. Nancy fell into step beside him. “I won’t have you running after that bitch,” she said harshly. “I mean it, Jerome. I won’t have it. Good heavens, she shot you and gave you that limp!”

“Just shut up,” he snarled, trying to move away from her. “Whatever differences Kitty and I might have had are in the past. She’s alone now. Her husband has obviously left her. She has a small child and a farm to look after, and she’s going to need friends. I intend to be one, and you are going to keep your mouth shut about it.”

Nancy slowed, allowing him to move ahead as she thought, lips pursed together tightly, frowning.

Some way, she vowed silently, somehow, this time Kitty Wright would not get her man. She had been in Nancy’s craw far too long. It would take some planning, but this time, Nancy promised herself, this time
she
would come out on top.

Chapter Four

Kitty was curious and also annoyed. Dr. Sims had sent word that he wanted her to go to his office when she was through for the day. As always, she was anxious to get home. She had traded in the wagon and mule for a mare, for it was faster to travel on horseback. The ride to Mattie’s to pick up John usually took a little over a half hour if she cantered the mare at a leisurely pace, and then it was another fifteen-minute ride home.

As she walked down the long hallway to Dr. Sims’ office, she glanced out a window and saw that another spring storm was gathering in the west. The prospect of riding in the rain did nothing to lift her spirits.

All in all, the day had been extremely trying. Twelve young women had signed up to work under her at the hospital, and after two weeks, seven had remained. Now there were six, and one of them had fainted that day while watching an operation. Kitty knew that was the end of the young lady’s nursing career.

Perhaps, Kitty thought with a sigh, the whole program had been foolish. Goldsboro was a small town, with a small hospital. If women were genuinely interested in nursing, it would probably be best for them to go to a city like Raleigh or Wilmington, where there were better facilities and they could learn modern techniques.

She paused outside Dr. Sims’ closed door. There had been a time when she did not care for the man, when he was lazy and often drunk, given to defeatism like so many other Southerners right after the war. Then when the Yankees had gradually moved back north, the responsibilities of running things had fallen on Dr. Sims. Despite his age, he had answered the call valiantly and had earned renewed respect, not only from Kitty but from the townsfolk as well.

Standing there brought back other memories—painful memories. Kitty had only to close her eyes and envision that fateful, painful day when she had been banished from the hospital, cast into the streets with nowhere to go, carrying Travis’ child.

The Yankee doctor in charge, Dr. Malpass, had summoned her to this very same office to discuss the pregnancy she had tried to hide. Incensed, she had told him bluntly that she was not ashamed to be carrying Captain Coltrane’s child, and that they were going to be married as soon as he returned from whatever mission General Sherman had sent him on. She had asked to be excused from the embarrassing discussion, reminding him there were patients to be ministered to.

She could recall so vividly the way he had leaped to his feet angrily and agreed that yes, there were patients out there, and then he had yelled, “Patients who should not be exposed to a woman of questionable morals.”

Then he had told her to leave the hospital, not only for the sake of the patients but also for the relationship between the federal government and the townspeople. She shuddered at the memory, for that had been the beginning of the nightmare with Corey, and that nightmare would haunt her forever.

Chiding herself for letting the past come back to hurt, Kitty knocked on the door. Dr. Sims called out immediately and she walked into the room. He was already up and moving around his desk to greet her with an extended hand.

“Sit down, sit down,” he smiled broadly. “Kitty, my girl, it’s so seldom we get a chance to chat. I’ve been wanting to tell you what a splendid job you are doing here, not only with the nurses but with the patients as well. You are a very special person. If anyone was born to minister to the sick, it was you, dear.”

She returned his smile stiffly and reluctantly took the chair he offered. Praise was nice, but she was so tired and still had the ride home facing her. Staring down at her blood-stained smock, she said bluntly, “I thank you for your compliments, Doctor, but I really need to be on my way. It is a long ride to my home.”