Wild Forever (The Gilbert Girls, #3)

by Cahill, Cat

  Miss May laughed. “Unsafe? I’ve been walking here for months now, and the most frightening thing I’ve seen is a bear who ran the second he laid eyes on me.” She raised her head, almost as if daring Ben to contradict her.

  “A bear.” Now it was his turn to laugh. The woman clearly had no sense of her own mortality. “It could just have easily turned and mauled you.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  He sighed. It was like arguing with Adelaide—all bluster and no sense of logic. Adelaide . . . His heart ached. “More importantly, there are dangerous men hidden somewhere in these mountains.”

  “Oh,” she said, ducking her head. “Do you mean men who would knock down an unarmed, innocent woman out for an evening stroll?” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, playing the coquette she clearly was not.

  He yanked off his hat and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “No. I mean men who would kidnap a girl and demand her brother pay twice his yearly salary to have her returned unharmed. Those kind of men.”

  She pulled her lower lip through her teeth and said nothing. Her entire stance softened and for a moment, he thought she’d reach out a hand to lay on his arm. But instead, she clasped her hands in front of her. “I’m sorry. Is that why you’re here, then? To find your sister?”

  “Yes,” he said more roughly than he’d intended.

  She took a step back, and he hated himself for scaring her. “I apologize if I frightened you.”

  Miss May’s eyebrows rose, and she stood straighter. “But not for attacking me. You, sir, are clearly a gentleman of the highest degree.” And with that, she stomped past him, back toward the trees.

  Ben closed his eyes briefly. “Lord, give me the strength,” he muttered before racing after her. “My men and I will escort you back to the hotel.”

  “There is absolutely no need for that.” She walked faster, dodging a large stand of aspen.

  “Are you deaf? Did you not just hear me say why you shouldn’t be out here?” The irritation crept into his voice again.

  She stopped still and whipped around to face him so fast he nearly ran into her—again.

  “I am not deaf. Yes, I heard you. And, no, you may not escort me home. Do I need to be any clearer?” Her hair fell into her face as she spoke, and he was possessed with the desire to push it back for her and let his hand linger on her cheek.

  Instead he clenched his hands into fists. Heaven help him, what was he thinking? This woman was pure trouble. Trouble he already had enough of in his life. Not to mention the sheer danger anyone he cared for would be party to since Ben had become sheriff. If only he’d known that before he’d agreed to let Adelaide stay with him.

  “I can’t have anyone else go missing on my watch. Searching for one troublesome woman is enough.” He clasped a hand around her arm and drew her along with him through the trees toward where Harry was stationed.

  “Troublesome! You . . . you . . .” She huffed, seemingly at a surprising loss for words. “Turn me loose this instant!”

  “I will once you’re safely returned to the hotel. The Gilbert Company has money. I wouldn’t put it past these men to let their greed overcome their sense.”

  She tugged but he kept his grip. Finally, after several minutes, she relented, but she continued telling him exactly what she thought about him. Ben kept his own mouth shut.

  She was trouble. He was danger. And that was all he needed to remember.

  Chapter Four

  Penny awoke for the breakfast shift still fuming over her encounter with that self-important, manhandling sheriff. How dare he treat her like a misbehaving child? Escorting her back without her permission. Pulling her around as if she’d wander off and walk right into an outlaw’s den without his help. The nerve of the man.

  “Are you feeling well?” Dora asked as Penny scrubbed water marks off the goblets on her tables.

  “I’m fine,” Penny replied. She replaced one glass so hard it made a thumping sound against the white linen.

  “You know I’m not one to pry,” Dora said carefully, “but you certainly don’t look fine.”

  Perhaps it would help to share the story. If only it weren’t so embarrassing.

  Penny almost laughed at herself. When had she ever been embarrassed in her life? Perhaps if she’d been more in tune with what other women seemed to instinctively know would devastate one’s reputation, she wouldn’t have had to slink out of Wilmington, North Carolina like a rat scurrying off a ship.

  “It happened on my evening walk last night,” Penny began. Her dear friend Emma, who had worked briefly as a Gilbert Girl before falling in love with and marrying the hotel’s builder, had adored walking alone in the valley. Penny hadn’t seen the appeal immediately, but after Emma had left the hotel with her new husband, she’d decided to give her friend’s walks a try. And while the valley hadn’t entertained her in the least, the mountains had. She never went too far, just across the creek behind the hotel and up a little ways until the trees became sparse. It was quiet, unlike Penny herself, and something about being alone in all that wilderness made her mind slow down.

  Dora helped scrub off the water marks as Penny related the events of the previous evening. Everything from the peacefulness of the sunset over the mountains to the way the man had grasped her arm and refused to let go. She held back from describing the indelicate position in which she’d found herself after he’d knocked her to the ground. Or the way her heart beat faster when the warmth of his hand pressed against her arm. The last thing she needed was to sully her name in Crest Stone too. And besides, her heart had acted stupidly. Thankfully, she was possessed with a brain that still retained some degree of intelligence.

  “He’s a brute, and if I see him in this hotel, I’ll tell him so,” Penny finished.

  Dora pressed her lips together, and Penny detected the hint of a smile. Mentally, she searched what she’d said to figure out what Dora found to grin at, and turned up nothing. “Why are you smiling?”

  Dora nodded over Penny’s shoulder. A few hotel guests had arrived for breakfast, sitting where they chose. Two tables away, in Penny’s section of the dining room, sat the infuriating sheriff and his deputies.

  “I believe they’ll be wanting coffee,” Dora said. “Can you serve him without telling him how much you dislike him? Or shall I exchange tables with you so you can keep your position?”

  Penny sighed loudly. “I’ll be fine.”

  A minute later, she stood before the table, coffee kettle in hand. The men were talking in hushed tones, paying no attention to her. Normally, she’d make some unobtrusive noise or gesture to catch a customer’s attention before speaking, but not this time. “Would you gentlemen care for coffee this morning?” she said in a voice louder than necessary. The girl serving the next table over looked up in alarm. Penny smiled at her before turning her gaze back to her own table.

  “Thank you, miss,” the scruffy man to her left said as he held out his empty mug.

  Penny smiled benevolently at him as she poured. She did the same for the other two men at the table until she reached Sheriff Young, who was directly to her right. “Do you care for coffee?” The words dripped from her mouth like honey. Mama would be pleased with her.

  Except, of course, Mama would have no inkling as to the less than kind thoughts running through Penny’s head right now.

  Sheriff Young held her gaze with those warm eyes for a moment, as if he saw through her guise. She smiled even more sweetly at him. He didn’t wear a hat here, and his brown hair was a bit tousled, like he had too much on his mind to bother with it. He finally reached for his cup and held it out to her.

  Under normal circumstances, she’d take the delicate china cup and set it back onto its saucer, away from the customer before she poured.

  These were not normal circumstances.

  Penny took the cup, held it directly over the man’s lap, and poured.

  “That’s e—” the sheriff cut himself off with a yelp
of pain as the first drops of hot coffee that overflowed his cup landed on his trousers.

  “Oh! I’m so sorry. Here, let me help you.” Penny set the dripping cup onto its saucer and reached for the water pitcher she’d set on the table when she arrived. She poured water still cold from the creek into a glass and then dumped it straight onto the sheriff’s leg. “Oh, heavens! I think that might have been too much.” She held out a napkin and fairly simpered at him.

  Sheriff Young gasped and snatched the napkin from her hand. Directly across from her, the younger man at the table covered his mouth, while to her left, the older, bearded gentleman guffawed as if he’d never seen anything so funny in his life.

  “Is there a problem here?” Mrs. Ruby appeared out of nowhere.

  Penny froze. She’d done it again, let her emotions control her actions. She gripped the handle of the pitcher so hard, the ridges dug into her palm. And then she prayed she wouldn’t be dismissed.

  “No, ma’am,” the older man said as soon as he’d caught his breath. “Just a mite of a spill is all.”

  Mrs. Ruby glanced at the sheriff, who was still sputtering as he mopped up his trousers. “All right, then.” She turned to Penny. “I trust you’ll take excellent care of these gentlemen, Miss May.” The words held a warning Penny couldn’t ignore.

  She nodded. “Of course. I know how important their presence is to the hotel.”

  “Good.” Mrs. Ruby nodded to the men and returned to her rounds of the dining room.

  Penny turned back to the sheriff. “Do you—”

  He held up a hand. “You’ve helped me quite enough, Miss May. I believe we’ll all have the ham and eggs, and if I need more to drink, I’ll be happy to pour it myself. Now, if you don’t mind, we have work to accomplish this morning.” His voice had an edge that cut straight to her heart.

  She’d gotten what she’d wanted, hadn’t she? A little slice of revenge against the man who’d treated her so dismissively yesterday. But here he was again, sending her off as if she were a small child causing mischief. Anger boiled through her as she turned on her heel and walked away, but when she reached the kitchen and placed their orders, the feeling had already subsided into something even worse.

  It was a prickling sadness that held a haunting familiarity. She’d felt this way so many times before she left North Carolina, but it was that last encounter—the one that had forced her to leave—that rose like a specter in the corner of her mind.

  No. It wouldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t let it.

  Here, she was Penny May, Gilbert Girl. The very model of decorum and civility. The reputation she’d left back home would stay there. She refused to let it hurt her, or anyone else, again.

  Chapter Five

  Ben threw his hat to the ground. The hoofprints he and Harry had been following for hours disappeared into a mountain stream, with no evidence of an exit on the other side.

  “This ain’t working, Boss,” Harry said from atop his horse.

  “Do you have a better idea?” Ben snapped. “Because I’d sure like to hear it.”

  Harry said nothing, just sat back in the saddle and spat tobacco to the ground.

  Ben picked up his hat, brushed brown pine needles from it, and sighed. “Sorry.”

  “All I’m saying is traipsing about the mountains ain’t getting us anywhere.”

  Ben replaced his hat. The man was right. But he couldn’t just sit back at the hotel, uselessly trying to come up with some plan when Adelaide was out here somewhere. “I need to do something. Now.”

  “You know what we oughta do? Talk to the folks back in Crest Stone. See what they might have heard or seen,” Harry said.

  Ben glanced through the trees. The sunlight slanted through the bare branches, illuminating the dried vegetation. It wasn’t what he wanted, but he was to the point where he could admit that combing blindly through the wilderness was pointless. “All right, then.”

  He climbed back into the saddle and followed Harry back to where the others were searching. Patience was not Ben’s strong suit, but he figured any man would feel the same when his sister’s life was at risk.

  “I’ve got a mighty hunger,” Rodney Tiller said once Harry informed the others they were returning to the hotel. “You suppose that little minx’ll knock Young’s dinner into his lap tonight?” All the men laughed, Harry the hardest.

  Ben scowled at them.

  “Serves you right, I think,” Eli Jennings, the youngest of the group, said.

  Ben fixed him with a glare.

  “What?” Eli raised his hands, the reins dangling from his right. “My mama would have my hide if I dragged a woman around like that.”

  “And you’ll be living with your mama till you’re forty,” Ben shot back at him.

  This sent the other men into fits of laughter again, and the whole ride back, they ribbed each other about everything under the sun while Ben fumed in the saddle. The woman wouldn’t see sense. What was he supposed to do, let her wander about until Hagan snatched her too? No, he’d done the right thing, even if she and everyone else couldn’t see it.

  What had she been doing out there, all alone? Most women preferred the safety and comfort of their homes. Except Adelaide, of course, but she’d never been like other girls. This woman, Miss May, was a Gilbert Girl, but she acted like no Gilbert Girl Ben had ever met before. It was as if they’d put the dress on her, but the desired personality didn’t quite take.

  As enraged as he’d been when she’d purposely spilled coffee and water on him, he had to admire her guts. She was a fighter, that was for certain, and she could hold a grudge. Ben could sympathize with that, even if the grudge was against him. And that sparkle of triumph in her eyes after she’d doused him not once, but twice . . . it was intriguing. What would it take to see that look again? He wanted to find out, but not with him at the receiving end. And then there was the way her hair refused to be fully captured by her hairpins, letting curls fall around her face, even when she was working.

  His horse stepped a little faster, pulling Ben from his reverie. He shook his head and nudged the animal forward to catch up with the others. What was wrong with him? Clearly it had been too long since he’d spent time with a woman. That’s what it was. What it had to be. Else why would he be drawn to someone who clearly hated him?

  He needed to set all of that aside, anyhow. Adelaide’s disappearance had made one thing crystal clear—he could have no one be too close to him, or he’d be risking their lives. As soon as he got Adelaide back—and he would get her back—he’d return her to San Francisco and his parents’ home. After that, he’d simply have to resign himself to being alone. His happiness wasn’t worth anyone else’s life.

  Chapter Six

  Sunday dawned crisp and bright. By noon, the sun had warmed Cañon City to a temperature tolerable enough to enjoy being outdoors, and after church services, Dora suggested the girls eat their lunch picnic-style along the Arkansas River just outside of town. The rest of the girls quickly agreed. Given that nice days would be few and far between very soon, everyone was eager to take advantage of the warmth while they could.

  Penny led the group past the town limits and along the river. A few birds made themselves known, but mostly it was just their own chatter, the breeze rustling the brown leaves along the ground, and the gurgling of the water. A half an hour or so later, they found the perfect spot, surrounded by a handful of large boulders and bare cottonwoods. A few of the girls laid their shawls and coats on the ground to form a makeshift blanket while others got to work slicing cheese and plucking grapes. Penny offered to place their jar of tea in a shallow part of the river to keep it cold.

  She wandered a short way downstream, past the boulders that lined their picnic area. The trees closed in tighter here, creating almost a tunnel of sorts. It reminded her of creeks back home, where the trees and bushes crowded and grew into each other near the water. The phenomenon was rarer here, which made it all the more beautiful.

&
nbsp; As she secured the jar between a few river stones, a wave of homesickness hit her, so much that she straightened and closed her eyes. It didn’t happen often. When she thought of home, it was usually the gossip and sour looks that had driven her from Wilmington that first came to mind. But every once in a while, her heart ached for the one-room apartment she’d shared with Mama. They hadn’t had much, and in fact, often relied on the benevolence of their landlord to have enough to eat. But they made up for that with their closeness. It had only ever been the two of them; Penny’s father had died when she was very young. Mama was the only reason Penny hadn’t fled town the moment the whispers started.

  A rustling on the opposite side of the river startled Penny’s eyes open. Her heart thumped. It’s only a mule deer, she told herself. She’d certainly encountered plenty of wildlife during her walks up and down the mountain, most of the animals harmless.

  But this noise sounded . . . bigger. Like a limb snapping. She’d faced a bear before, and although she knew she should have been scared, she wasn’t then. Of course, now Sheriff Young’s words played in her mind. She could be mauled by a wild animal, or run into a gang of outlaws.

  The trees rustled again, and Penny turned, searching for somewhere to hide. There was nothing here, nothing she could fit behind anyhow. The other girls were on the other side of the boulders, several yards away. If she ran now, she might be able to make it back before whatever this was pounced across the river.

  Mind made up, Penny glanced across the water one last time. But just before she turned to run back, a girl emerged from the trees.

  Penny gasped. The girl was young, probably just a couple years younger than Penny herself. Her long blonde hair hung loose and tangled, and her face was ruddy with exertion. She looked like . . . It couldn’t be.