The Telegraph Proposal

  “I’m certain Mother will say yes, but let me run and ask.” Yancey hurried out the door and down the hall to the kitchen. As expected, Mother was thrilled to have a houseguest. Yancey returned to her bedroom. “Mother wants to know if you’d like to have Luanne’s bedroom or if you want to stay with me in my room.”

  Carline rubbed the back of her left hand. “With you, if that’s all right.”

  “I was going to beg you to stay here had you chosen Luanne’s room. Now”—Yancey held out her hand to help Carline stand—“what do you wish to do? We can help Mother bake, go to your house and begin sorting together, or take a walk to town and pass by a certain bladesmith’s shop. Your choice.”

  “Then let’s go over to my house. Uncle Eugene is waiting to hear from me before booking a room at the Grand Hotel. He said he’d book one for me, too, if I couldn’t stay here.”

  “And then we’ll walk by a certain bladesmith’s shop?”

  Carline blushed and nodded.

  Half an hour later, they walked to Windsor Buchanan’s shop. When he glanced up and saw them, he dropped the ax he was holding against the revolving sharpening rock. The ax bounced twice, then flew into the air. Windsor jumped up, reaching for it with flailing hands as though he couldn’t decide which was less dangerous—catching a sharp blade with his bare hands or letting it decapitate whatever it landed on.

  Once the ax was safely back in hand, even his beard couldn’t hide the smile that lit up his whole face. Yancey looked at her dearest friend and her heart swelled. The man’s reaction was everything Carline could want.

  But a few hours later, when Yancey walked in on her own surprise party, the smile on Hale’s face was everything she had ever wanted.

  And more.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Monday, August 13, 1888

  “Adams? You in here?”

  The sound of Windsor Buchanan’s voice made Hale check his appointment book. He didn’t remember scheduling anything with the bladesmith, but his mind was scattered of late.

  The birthday party had been a huge success. Every time Hale settled in to work, he saw the delight on Yancey’s face. And he’d helped to put it there. Amazing.

  Hale stood and walked to the waiting area, where Windsor was staring at the cushioned love seat like he wasn’t sure if its legs were sturdy enough to hold him.

  “Windsor.” Hale stepped forward and held out his hand in greeting, bracing for it to be crushed. “What brings you to my office today?”

  Windsor’s handshake was short and blessedly gentle. “I need to ask you a favor.”

  “Of course.”

  “Now that Miss Carline Pope is back in Helena, I aim to court her but . . .” He shrugged his wide shoulders.

  “It’s not proper etiquette,” Hale finished the sentence. The proper mourning period was a full year.

  Windsor’s cheeks filled with red. “I’ll be as respectful of her grief as a man can be, but I’ll not have her dragged out of Helena against her wishes by that no-account uncle of hers. Not again.”

  “I see.” Hale was taken aback by the dismissal of the mourning etiquette. And a little impressed.

  “I asked Isaak if he and Zoe would mind going to Ming’s Opera House again. He said he’d have to think about it and to ask Mac. But when I asked Mac and his wife to join us, he said I should ask you and Yancey.” Windsor ended the sentence with a slight elevation in pitch, as though not sure if he was making a statement or asking a question.

  While he wasn’t a good friend, Isaak trusted him, and apparently Mac did as well. Hale took a deep breath, preparing for more laughter. “I’m looking to court Miss Yancey Palmer, but I need to ease into it because she only wishes to be friends.”

  Windsor squinted one eye. “Seems like a pretty big change of heart on her part. Yours too, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

  “I don’t mind. Truth is truth, after all.”

  Windsor’s expression cleared. “I agree. Mozart’s Magic Flute is on the program at the opera house for the next two weeks. It has a happy ending, which is more than can be said for most operas.”

  Hale regarded Windsor. The man was as shaggy as they came but spoke like an educated man. “Where did you go to school, Mr. Buchanan?”

  “Dickinson.”

  Hale knew it well, having gone to Harvard, its rival. “President James Buchanan graduated from there. Are you related?”

  Buchanan shook his head, his mane of brown hair swaying back and forth. “No, but I sure liked to pretend I was during college. For a time, at any rate. It didn’t end well.”

  Several questions begged to be asked, but Hale decided on only one. “What brought you to Montana?”

  “I got tired of playing the East Coast games and came West to be my own man.” And now he wanted to be Carline Pope’s man. Given that the woman was set to inherit ten million dollars—unless her uncle lost his fortune, as others had before him—someone with education and a strong streak of independence was probably a fine choice. Buchanan reached under his beard to scratch his neck. “I think we’d best tell Isaak you’re sweet on Miss Yancey.”

  “You’re right”—much as Hale hated to admit it—“I’ll tell him this afternoon.” They were meeting to discuss the insurance money from The Resale Co. fire, which still hadn’t been paid out.

  “I’d best be going.” Windsor headed for the door. “Let me know what Isaak says.”

  Three hours later, Isaak’s jaw dropped. “You’re what?”

  Hale repeated that he was going to the play at Ming’s Opera House with Yancey, Windsor, Carline—if she agreed—and whoever else was joining the party.

  Isaak looked out the window, presumably to check if his stepfather was about to arrive, as the meeting was supposed to be with both of them. “Are you telling me”—he swung his gaze back to Hale—“that you’re pursuing a romantic relationship with Yancey Palmer?”

  Hale nodded. “But I have to be careful about how I go about it because I’ve no wish to jeopardize our friendship.”

  Isaak scratched his left eyebrow. “Let me see if I have this right. After all my warnings to her about not entrapping you, now you’re the one who wants to trap her?”

  “A fairly accurate summation.”

  Isaak covered his mouth with a fist. His shoulders began to bounce. And then he let loose with the loudest laugh ever to shake the walls of Hale’s office.

  Hale snapped the pencil in two. Both Mac’s and Isaak’s reactions were normal. Expected even. But still annoying.

  Mr. Pawlikowski hurried past the window, waving an apology for his lateness.

  Isaak waved back and brought his laughter under control. “I’ll ask Zoe. Our last outing to Ming’s was something of a mixed blessing, so I can’t promise she’ll want to attend.”

  “I understand. Please let me know as soon as possible.” Hale opened the top right drawer of his desk and dropped the broken pencil inside. “Do you think you can have an answer for me in the next few days?”

  Isaak nodded, and then his stepfather entered the office. The rest of the hour was taken up in discussing how to address the insurance company’s failure to pay the fire claim even after Mr. Booker, the fire chief, and Quinn Valentine wrote letters stating they’d cleared the family of any suspicion regarding the arson.

  As Isaak was leaving, he gripped Hale’s hand with extra force. “Be careful with Yancey’s heart.”

  “I will.”

  But would Yancey be careful with his?

  Tuesday, August 28, 1888

  The moment Hale showed up unannounced at Ming’s Opera House, Yancey knew she was in trouble. But when Isaak Gunderson gave up his seat so Hale could sit next to her, she knew she was in real trouble.

  And the smirk on Zoe’s face said no help would be coming from her friend.

  Was she in on this little surprise? Certainly Carline was. She’d dismissed every one of the concerns about going to an opera only six weeks after her parents’ passing until
Yancey was already in the carriage with Isaak and Zoe. Carline was then suddenly unable to bring herself to attend. She and Windsor were going to spend a quiet evening on the front porch, talking.

  Mourning or no mourning, Yancey was going to give her dear friend a piece of her mind when she returned home.

  The first half of the opera passed in a blur. The singers and orchestra could have played two pieces of music in four different keys and Yancey wouldn’t have noticed. Her entire attention was on Hale’s leg next to hers, his arm next to hers, his entire being next to hers. There were a thousand people in the red leather seats, and her attention was focused solely on the one.

  Hale Adams.

  The man she’d loved, then given up, then hated, then made peace with, then became her friend, and was now ... what?

  She leaned as far back in her seat as possible, sliding her gaze left to observe him. He turned his head and their eyes met.

  She yanked her gaze back to the stage. She felt rather than heard Hale chuckle. Or was she imagining it? Hale wasn’t a chuckling kind of man. Then again, he wasn’t an opera kind of man either. He attended the symphony, lectures, and the occasional benefit concert, but never the opera. Yet here he was. Sitting next to her.

  She smoothed the skirt of the green gown Carline had loaned her—the one Mother had altered by removing the extraneous frills. As soon as the curtain fell for intermission, Yancey rose to her feet, took Zoe by the arm, and practically dragged her out of the auditorium.

  The moment they were far enough away from Isaak and—more importantly—Hale, Yancey leaned close to Zoe’s ear. “Did you know about this?”

  “Know about what?” Zoe’s expression was without guile.

  Yet Yancey repeated her question.

  Zoe frowned. “Are you unhappy zat Hale wanted to sit beside you?”

  She wouldn’t be had he not declared three weeks ago that he wanted to be friends. Yancey narrowed her gaze. “If you weren’t in on this surprise, why were you smirking at me?”

  “I was not smirking.”

  “You most certainly were.”

  Zoe shook her head, her dark curls shimmering under the lights. “I might have been smiling with a little bit of appreciation for ze irony of us once again at ze opera house and changing chairs, but I did not smirk.”

  Yancey inhaled and blew out with a whoosh. “What am I going to do?”

  “Carpe diem.” And with that, Zoe turned and returned to Isaak’s side.

  Yancey continued toward the ladies’ room until the smirks—and these were definitely smirks—of a hundred women drove her back to her party.

  The rest of the evening dragged while she did her best to ignore Hale without anyone noticing that she was ignoring him. She followed this same plan the next night when he arrived for dinner—a guest of her parents’.

  “Did we forget to tell you, Yancey dear?” Mother’s question was a shade too innocent.

  The next night, Hale just happened to be coming past the church at the exact time the Ladies’ Aid Society meeting ended and he offered to walk her home. And Mrs. Hollenbeck chose that precise moment to announce she needed to speak with Mrs. Pawlikowski, so Yancey should “take Mr. Adams up on his generous offer.”

  There were no smirks, but there might as well have been.

  Three nights in a row. It was time to deal with this in an adult and friend-like manner. “What are you doing?” Yancey demanded as soon as they were outside.

  “Walking you home.” Hale offered his right arm.

  Courtesy demanded that she take it. But in her haste to leave, she’d forgotten to put on her gloves. Which was worse, being discourteous or improper? The last of the sun’s light was fading. Unless someone walked directly past them, they wouldn’t be able to tell that her hand was bare.

  She drew in a steadying breath and took his arm.

  He kept an easy flow of conversation between them as he told her about his interactions with various townsfolk he’d spoken to that day. It included a rather humorous one involving Mrs. Nanawitty, the woman who carted blocks of ice around town in a wheelbarrow pulled by a buffalo. She wanted Hale’s promise that—if he was elected—he’d get horses banned from Main Street because of the plethora of manure piles they left. But the funny part was that her entire diatribe took place while her buffalo added his large and odorous deposit to the sum total in the street.

  Yancey laughed so hard, she stopped walking, pulling her hand from his arm to cover her mouth.

  When she took his arm again, he placed his left hand over hers. His skin was warm, yet she shivered. She looked up to see his reaction. He was staring at their joined hands as if he’d just received the best gift ever.

  Propriety said she should withdraw her hand, not allow a man who wasn’t in her family to touch her skin, but this was Hale. The man she loved. There was no point in denying it. She had fooled herself into thinking they could be friends when—in her heart of hearts—she’d always wanted more. Always wanted this. To be alone with him, their hands joined and her heart pounding.

  He lifted his eyes to hers. Was that love in his, or was she fooling herself again? Hale had the power to confuse her more than any person she’d ever known.

  Please, God.

  But as she repeated the prayer in her head, she couldn’t complete it. Did she want permission to move forward or strength to pull away?

  Hale’s gaze lowered to her mouth. Was he about to kiss her? In public? Hale Adams was the most upright, moral man in Helena. If anyone observed the way they were standing gazing at each other, it was as good as a declaration of intent to marry. Did she have the power to move him as much as he moved her?

  Yancey’s heart hammered against her rib cage. Her whole life—the part that counted anyway—she’d waited for this. To feel Hale’s lips on hers, to know the power of his kiss, to be his. She wetted her lips, dropping her gaze to his mouth.

  Waiting.

  Lifting her face a fraction closer.

  Holding her breath.

  Had he ever pressed his fingers to his mouth and imagined they were her lips against his? She had. Hundreds of times.

  Her lungs burned. She inhaled a shaky breath.

  He shuddered and took a step back, dropping her hand as though it was a hot coal.

  She leaned forward to follow him, catching herself at the last moment before she stumbled.

  “We need to go.” He adjusted his glasses with two fingers, poked them higher on his nose with his index finger, blinked and readjusted them a fraction lower.

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

  He turned so they were side by side and offered his arm again, as any gentleman would.

  Yancey laid her hand on his black sleeve, her skin almost as white as her absent gloves.

  * * *

  After dropping Yancey off at her doorstep, Hale walked home in a daze. He’d not expected his feelings to overpower him in the middle of the street. But then again, why not? He’d loved Yancey Palmer since April—only he’d known her as Portia York back then.

  And she returned his affection. She’d wanted his kiss—Hale knew it the way Yancey knew he was hers from the time she was ten—and he’d wanted to kiss her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his twenty-eight years. What a fool he’d been. Had he not dismissed her infatuation as beneath him, he could have started his life with her two or three years ago. He could have lowered his mouth and claimed hers rather than pulling away because propriety demanded that no man kissed a woman who wasn’t his betrothed.

  Sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

  There was an order to follow. Hale needed to speak of his affection rather than—as she’d teased—assume she knew. Then he could speak to her father to gain permission to officially pursue a courtship leading to marriage. But before he spoke to her father, he needed to share the secret he’d kept from her and all of Helena, save his aunt and uncle.

  Only then could Yancey decide if she wished to marr
y into his tarnished family.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Saturday, September 8, 1888

  Yancey lifted the letters between Portia York and Nathan St. John from the box sitting atop her desk. After multiple social outings with friends, today Hale was taking her on a picnic. Just the two of them.

  He wanted to burn the letters. And he had something important to tell her.

  She pressed one hand against her jittering stomach, checking the mirror to make sure she looked her absolute best. The dress was a lovely concoction of white cotton with printed pink roses and mint leaves, a matching pink satin sash, and stylish ruffles along the hemline and down the bustled back. It had been purchased by the Fisks back in March for Mollie’s bridesmaids. But then Mollie and Jefferson had an enormous fight and the wedding was canceled. They’d reconciled, but not in time for their June wedding. The ceremony was rescheduled for the fall, which—for people as wealthy as the Fisks—meant an entirely new color scheme. New dresses were being made, so all eight of the bridesmaids got to keep their original dresses.

  Yancey was half-sure the entire fight had been staged because Mollie saw a new design she liked better.

  The only problem was that either the dressmaker took wrong measurements or Yancey had put on weight since her fitting in March. She had to pull the strings of her corset so hard, she almost gave up wearing the dress. But it was the very height of fashion. The straw hat with matching pink ribbon was secured to her bun with a long, pearl-tipped hatpin. She turned her head left and right, making sure the curls along her neck and beside her ears weren’t encumbered in the hat.

  She took a breath as deep as the corset would allow and blew it out. She was as ready as she’d ever be.

  The distant sound of a knock and her father’s, “Good morning, Hale,” spurred her into action. She snatched up the pink satin reticule on her bed and the box stuffed with their letters as she hurried out her bedroom door and down the hall.