Apache Flame

by Madeline Baker

  “Why do I have the feeling you’d faint if I said yes?”

  She lifted her chin and Mitch caught a glimpse of the spunky girl she had been years ago.

  “Will you come?” Alisha asked. She could feel a tide of color rushing into her cheeks but she refused to look away, refused to rescind the invitation. She could invite anyone she pleased to dinner. After all, it was her house, too, and she was the one doing the cooking! Besides, Mitchy’s presence at the table would certainly add a little excitement to their staid evenings.

  “Well, thanks for the invite, but I don’t think so. Sitting with your old man and your steady beau doesn’t sound the least bit pleasant.” He grinned at her. “Although just seeing the expression on your old man’s face might be worth it.”

  She laughed, and he laughed with her. Too long, she thought, it had been far too long since she felt this lighthearted, this happy. Why was it only Mitch who made her feel this way?

  Why hadn’t he sent for her? The laughter died in her throat as the question that had plagued her for the last five years teased the back of her mind. Why, why? “I’ll send for you, as soon as I get settled somewhere,” he had said. “Will you come?” She could still hear his words in her mind, still hear herself asking, “You promise, Mitchy?” and his voice assuring her that he would.

  What had happened to make him change his mind? Woman-like, she had assumed he had found someone else, but that didn’t seem to be the case. She wished she had the nerve to ask him straight out, but she couldn’t form the words.

  “Well,” she said at last, “I’ve got to go. Maybe you’ll come to dinner some other time.”

  “Maybe.” He took a deep breath. “Maybe I could take you out to dinner some night.”

  She should decline, politely. It would only cause trouble with Roger and her father if she were seen in Mitch’s company, not to mention the gossip it would surely arouse.

  She took a deep breath, prepared to refuse. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like that.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  She nodded, her heart pounding. “Where?”

  “I’ll pick you up.”

  Alisha shook her head. “I’ll meet you.” She saw the protest rise in his eyes. “Please, Mitch.”

  “All right. The hotel dining room, at six?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  He watched her walk away, admiring the gentle sway of her hips, the way the brilliant rays of the afternoon sun seemed to follow her, surrounding her in a halo of golden light. He wondered what the odds were of her actually showing up at the restaurant tomorrow night. Probably not too good. Unless he missed his guess, she would change her mind as soon as she got home, maybe send him a brief note of apology.

  Still it was something to look forward to.

  Chapter Seven

  Her father and Roger discussed politics over dinner. Alisha said little. Being a woman, she wasn’t expected to have an opinion on who would be the best candidate for governor, or the pros and cons of having the railroad come through town. Usually, such narrow-mindedness annoyed her, but tonight she was glad to remain silent while the men talked. She wouldn’t have been able to concentrate on the conversation anyway. All she could think about was Mitch. He was back, and he was here to stay, at least for a while. And she was having dinner with him tomorrow night.

  “Hard to believe Garret’s back in town.”

  Alisha looked up at the mention of Mitch’s voice.

  “People are calling him a hero,” her father said. “If he hadn’t interfered the other day, the robbers would have gotten away with near ten thousand dollars.”

  “He was always looking for a fight, as I recall,” Roger said, his voice heavy with disdain. He looked at Alisha. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Was he?” She didn’t want to discuss Mitch with her father or Roger. Standing abruptly, she picked up her dishes and carried them into the kitchen.

  The men went into the parlor while she cleared the table and did the dishes. Standing at the sink, her hands immersed in dishwater, she tried to think of something, anything, besides Mitch Garret, but it was impossible. She’d been unable to think of anything else since he came back to town. Had she truly thought of anything else since he went away? Dinner, tomorrow night. What should she wear? She looked down at her dress. Long sleeves, high collar, utterly dreary, she thought. All her clothes were drab and dreary. Everything in her closet was brown or gray or dark blue. She might as well be an old maid or a widow. She didn’t own a single dress that was bright or cheerful or even pretty.

  She thought about the soiled doves she sometimes saw coming out of the saloon. They rouged their cheeks and painted their lips and put kohl on their eyes, and wore low-cut dresses in gaudy colors. She might not agree with their lifestyle, but people, especially the men, noticed them. And she very much wanted Mitch to sit up and take notice.

  She rinsed the dishes, plucked a cotton towel from the back of a chair, and began to dry them. Well, there was only one thing to do. She was going to buy a new dress. She had been saving money out of her wages to buy a new rocking chair for her father for Christmas, but suddenly a new dress seemed more important. Something red, she thought, giggling. Something wickedly low-cut that would show off her bosom and her shoulders.

  When the dishes were done, she poured three cups of coffee and placed them on a tray. She added the sugar bowl and creamer, a plate of sugar cookies she had baked earlier that day, and carried the tray into the parlor.

  Her father and Roger both looked up at her and smiled.

  Alisha smiled back, wondering what her father and fiancé would think if they knew she was planning to have dinner with Mitch Garret tomorrow night.

  * * * * *

  Mitch stood outside the restaurant where he was supposed to meet Alisha. According to the courthouse clock, it was a quarter past six. He grunted softly. Well, he hadn’t really expected her to show up.

  He swore under his breath, more disappointed than he wanted to admit. He’d been looking forward to seeing her all day. To pass the time, he had taken a ride around the ranch. It was a pretty piece of land, especially the meadow near the south pasture. Towering pines bordered the lush green meadow that was watered by a narrow stream. It wouldn’t take much to restore the ranch. A little money, a lot of hard work, and it would make a good place to settle down, raise some cattle and some kids… He’d never thought much about being a father, maybe because his old man had been such a rotten one, but lately he’d been thinking it might be nice to have a son of his own.

  He swore again. He’d been doing far too much thinking lately. He needed to get shed of this town right quick before he made a damn fool out of himself.

  He blew out a sigh as the clock chimed the half-hour. Six-thirty.

  There was no point waiting around any longer. He was about to head for the nearest saloon when he saw a woman clad in a sky-blue dress hurrying down the boardwalk.

  A slow smile spread over his lips as he recognized Alisha.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said breathlessly.

  His gaze moved over her, slow and lazy and filled with appreciation. “It was the worth the wait.”

  Heat flooded her cheeks. “Thank you.”

  He opened the door for her, followed her inside. It was a pretty fancy place for a town the size of Canyon Creek. The tables were covered with white cloths. Dozens of candles in silver wall sconces lit the room with a soft warm glow. Each table had a small vase of wildflowers. The dishes were china, the glassware looked like crystal.

  Alisha held her head high as she made her way to an empty table near the back, well away from the windows near the street. She was sure it was only her imagination, but she couldn’t help feeling that people were staring at her, pointing, gossiping behind her back, speculating on what Miss Faraday was doing dining with a man who was not her fiancé, her father, or a relative. A few of them recognized Mitch. She saw it in their eyes, heard it in the whispers that followed them to
their table.

  Mitch held her chair for her. He had picked up some manners somewhere along the way, she thought as she watched him take the seat across from hers, unfold his napkin and put it in his lap.

  She picked up the menu, glad to have something to do with her hands.

  “What’s good here?” Mitch asked.

  “Just about everything,” Alisha replied, not meeting his gaze.

  “What are you having?”

  “I’m not sure. The roast beef, I think. Although their fried chicken is very good, too.” She looked at him over the top of her menu. “I’ll bet you have the chicken.”

  He grinned at her. “You’d win.”

  She grinned back. Mitch had always loved Chloe’s fried chicken. Alisha had asked her to make it often, just so she could sneak some to Mitch.

  The waitress came to take their order. At the last minute, Alisha decided on the chicken, too.

  “You look real pretty this evening,” Mitch remarked.

  Alisha ran a hand over her skirt. “Thank you.”

  “Is that a new dress?”

  She nodded. She had fully intended to buy a red one, had even tried one on, but at the last minute she had decided on this one. It was a soft shade of blue, pretty as a robin’s egg.

  “I always liked you in that color.”

  Was that why she had picked this color? Had she subconsciously remembered that blue was his favorite color?

  She met his gaze, wishing she could think of something to say, something clever, something witty. Something. But she couldn’t think at all when he was watching her through those dark, dark eyes. No one else had ever looked at her the way he did, made her feel the way he did.

  “I’ve decided not to sell the ranch after all.”

  She blinked at him. “What?” Oh, Lord, that meant he was going to be staying in Canyon Creek. Permanently.

  Mitch nodded. Until that very moment, he had been planning to move on as soon as he sold the ranch. But seeing Alisha, being with her, he knew he couldn’t leave. She might be engaged to Roger Smithfield, but she wasn’t married yet. And in spite of everything that had happened, he still loved her, still wanted her.

  “You don’t look very happy about it,” he remarked.

  “I…I’m just surprised. I thought you hated it here. When you left, you said you’d never come back.”

  “Yeah, well, things change.” He smiled at her. “What did you tell your old man?”

  “About what?”

  “About tonight. About having dinner with me.”

  “Oh.” A fresh wave of heat flooded her cheeks. “I told him I was going to visit one of my students. To talk to his parents about his grades.” It was something she did from time to time, so her father hadn’t questioned her.

  “I see.”

  She lifted her chin, her eyes sparking with defiance. “You didn’t expect me to tell him the truth, did you?”

  “No, I guess not. I don’t suppose Smithfield would be too happy about your being here, either.”

  Alisha felt a sharp stab of guilt. “No.” Roger was a good man. He was building them a house, planning for their future. Besides running his own carpentry shop, he worked part-time at the mercantile. Tonight, he was working late at the store, earning some extra money by taking inventory. She should be there, helping him. At any other time, she would have been.

  “Why did you agree to have dinner with me, ‘Lisha?”

  “Why?” She blinked at him, a dozen answers scampering around in her mind. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked, unwilling to tell him the truth. “What’s wrong with old friends having dinner together?”

  “Friends?” He looked mildly amused. “Is that what we were? Just friends?”

  Another wave of heat swept into her cheeks as she recalled the moonlit nights they had spent near the creek, the warm hugs, the long lazy kisses, the hours they had spent making love…the promise he had not kept…the child she had lost.

  The waitress arrived a short time later with their dinner. Alisha stared at her plate, her appetite gone. Taking a deep breath, she clenched her fists in her lap as she summoned the courage to ask the question that had plagued her for the last five years.

  “Why, Mitch?” she asked. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

  He looked up from his plate. “What are you talking about?”

  “You promised. You promised to send for me. Why didn’t you? I waited and waited.”

  He put his fork down and leaned across the table. “I sent for you. And you wrote me back and told me you had married Smithfield.”

  “I never got a letter from you.”

  Mitch reached into his back pocket and withdrew a piece of paper. It was badly creased and stained. He unfolded it carefully and handed it to Alisha.

  She took it from him with a growing sense of trepidation, her eyes widening as she read the faded words. The handwriting was unmistakable. She didn’t want to believe it, didn’t want to think that her father was capable of doing such a low-down, despicable thing, but the proof was in her hands.

  “I didn’t write this.” Alisha dropped the letter on the table, not wanting to touch it a moment longer. She felt suddenly empty inside, numb, as if everything she had ever believed in had suddenly been proven a lie.

  “No? Then who did?”

  “My father.”

  Well, Mitch thought, that explained a lot of things. Picking up the letter, he crushed it in his hand. He had kept that cursed letter all these years because he thought it had come from Alisha, because, painful as the words had been, the letter and his memories were all he’d had left of her.

  A vile oath escaped his lips. He was tempted to march up to the Faraday house and confront the old man face to face, demand to know why Faraday had lied to him. Except that Mitch already knew the answer. He was the illegitimate, half-breed son of a gambling man. He hadn’t been good enough for Alisha then, and he probably wasn’t good enough for her now. But he was madder than hell.

  “So,” he said, reining in his anger, “where does that leave us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You promised to marry me.”

  “That was a long time ago. I’m not the same girl I was then.” She shook her head. “Besides, I’m engaged to Roger.”

  “I asked you first.”

  “Mitchy…” She spoke her childhood name for him without thinking.

  His expression softened. “No one else has ever called me that, you know. Just you.”

  “You don’t even know me anymore.”

  “I know you,” he replied quietly. “I’ve always known you.” He leaned across the table again. “I know you better than you know yourself, better than Roger Smithfield will ever know you.”

  Did he still want her? Hope flared in her heart, a wild sweet hope as she thought of what it would be like to be Mitch’s wife. She savored it for one precious moment, and then shook her head. “My father would never approve. And Roger…he’s been good to me. I can’t hurt him.”

  He sat back in his chair, as tense as a cat ready to spring. “But you don’t mind hurting me.”

  “You could have written me again,” she retorted, feeling all her old hurt and anger welling up inside her as she recalled how awful it had been when she realized she was pregnant, how much easier it would have been to tell her father if Mitch had been there beside her, lending her his strength. “If you really loved me, you would have come back for me.”

  “For what?” He slammed his fist on the table, causing the cutlery to rattle. Water splashed over the edge of her glass, making a dark stain on the white damask tablecloth. “I thought you were already married.”

  Alisha glanced around the restaurant. Several people were staring in their direction. What had she been thinking when she agreed to meet Mitch here tonight? By tomorrow morning, it would be all over town that she’d had dinner with Mitch Garret. What would her father say when he found out? What would Roger say?

  She looked a
round the restaurant, at the curious stares. She couldn’t face them, she couldn’t face Mitch. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

  Throwing her napkin on the table, she stood up and hurried out of the restaurant. She paused on the boardwalk a moment, her heart pounding. She couldn’t go home, not now. Her father would take one look at her face and know something was wrong.

  Lifting her skirts, she ran across the street and down the narrow path that led to the creek.

  * * * * *

  Mitch swore under his breath as he watched Alisha run out the door. Unconsciously, he shoved the letter into his pants pocket. Rising, he dropped a couple of dollars on the table, then grabbed his hat and left the restaurant.

  Darkness had fallen. Standing on the boardwalk, he glanced up and down the street. There was no sign of her. He stood there a moment, and then crossed the street toward the path that led to the creek. She would be there.

  He followed the familiar path, remembering all the times he had traveled it in his youth, usually with Alisha at his side. He had walked her home from school, glad for any excuse to be with her. They had parted where the trail forked. She had gone left and he had gone right, across the creek, down the rutted road that led to the shack that had never been a home.

  He rounded the bend and made his way toward the creek. She was there, as he had known she would be. Standing on the rock, silhouetted in the light of the moon, just as he had imagined her night after night when he couldn’t sleep, when thoughts of Alisha, of what he had lost, tormented his mind.

  She didn’t turn, but he heard her voice clearly. “Why did you have to come back here?”

  “You know why.”

  “Go away, Mitch. Please, just go away.”

  “Is that what you really want?”

  “Yes.”

  He moved up behind her, almost but not quite touching her. He took a deep breath, filling his senses with the sight of her, the scent of her, the nearness of her. “‘Lisha…”

  “No.” She shook her head. “No, no.” And yet even as she spoke, she was turning, yearning, reaching out for him.