“No, I’m just thinking.”
“About what?”
She shrugged. “Things.”
He had his mouth open to press the issue when a neat, rotund older man came around the counter. “Mr. MacIntyre!”
He stepped away from Elizabeth. “Mr. Dunn.” He held out his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Glad you could make our appointment.” He shook his hand twice in a very precise movement. “Have you been waiting long?”
“Nope. Got waylaid by an acquaintance of Elizabeth’s.”
“That’s right.” He smiled. “Mrs. MacIntyre and Mr. Ballard grew up together.”
“So I’ve been told.” Asa answered as the banker ushered Elizabeth to a wide-backed leather chair by the potbellied stove. “Why don’t you have a seat here while your husband and I conduct our business?”
She sank into the chair like a feather drifting onto a pillow, her spine straight, her hands folded in her lap, head tilted in perfect feminine deference. “Thank you.”
The banker’s whole demeanor softened, his voice patronizing. He clearly saw Elizabeth as nothing of consequence. To Asa, who’d watched her pole-axe a man with a bar stool and face down private demons without batting an eyelash, it was a revelation of the depths of stupidity to which a man could sink.
“Could I get you coffee or tea?”
Elizabeth raised a hand to her throat. There was the slightest flutter to her fingertips. “Oh, could you? It was a chilly ride in.”
Chilly, hell. She’d spent most of the trip napping, cocooned in his duster.
The banker lit off to get her beverage with the walk of a man on a mission.
“What are you up to?’ Asa asked Elizabeth.
“I didn’t realize you were coming here when you said you were coming to town.”
“No. I believe you had in mind a trip to the saloon.”
She cast a quick glance in the banker’s direction where he was barking directions to some poor, wet-behind-the-ears kid. “Don’t trust him. He’s as slimy as they come.”
“His opinion of you is a lot higher.”
She dismissed the discrepancy with a wave of her hand. “He’s just a man.”
And what exactly was he?
She seemed to realize her mistake. “I mean, he’s not a very intelligent man. He thinks women have no brains at all.”
“I can see where that would make him fair game.”
“That’s always been my opinion,” she replied dryly. “Especially since I think he’s taken advantage of a widow or two.”
“Seriously?” He really didn’t need to ask. Elizabeth was nearly always serious.
“Yes.”
Mr. Dunn was coming back. Elizabeth caught his hand. She tugged him down and kissed his cheek, damned near shocking him out of his boots. No doubt Mr. Dunn saw it as a demonstration of wifely emotion, but the whispered “watch your back” lingered in his mind as he straightened. Elizabeth wasn’t a woman for dramatics.
“Mr. Higgins will bring your tea.” Mr. Dunn said in a cheery voice as he approached.
“Thank you so much.” Elizabeth breathed in a proper ladylike expression of appreciation. “You’re such a considerate man.”
Mr. Dunn puffed up fatter than a chicken with the chills. “I hope you find the tea to your satisfaction.”
“I’m sure it will be fine,” Elizabeth answered.
A wildcat posing as a lap cat and Mr. Dunn was falling for it hook, line and sinker. Asa shook his head. It was enough to make him wonder at the wisdom of letting the man handle anything, let alone his money.
“I’ll try not to keep your husband too long,” Mr. Dunn continued. He bowed slightly. “Now, if you’ll pardon us, your husband and I have business to conduct. It shouldn’t take long. I’ll do my best to have him back to you as quickly as possible.”
Elizabeth blushed and nodded. “Thank you.”
He turned to Asa and held open the door. “Mr. MacIntyre, if you’ll just step into my office?”
“You got the transfer?”
“Oh, yes, the funds came through just fine. There’s just one little detail that needs to be ironed out…”
Chapter Fourteen
On a cloudy day, the blue of Millicent Foster’s Boarding House and Eating Establishment was bright. On a sunny day like today, its bright blue and pink assaulted the senses. Stepping through the door didn’t alleviate the visual disarray. Millicent decorated to suit her impromptu likes and dislikes with complete disregard to style or even color coordination. Every table in the place sported a different table cloth. The attack continued with the sounds generated by the diners crowded into the small restaurant.
No one commented, though, because of the scents that teased ones nostrils. They were heavenly and only chaotic because the customer had to make a choice from the dinner menu. Millicent Foster could cook.
“Looks like quite a crowd tonight,” Elizabeth offered.
Asa looked around. “She’ll make a pretty penny off this crew.”
“Do you want to wait for a table?”
“Are you kidding?” left no doubt he wasn’t budging.
“Hey!” That’s my order! A blond man shouted from the table in front of the window. Elizabeth saw he had the waitress by the arm, prohibiting her from setting a plate on the adjacent table.
“Is not,” came the immediate response from a rough-looking man seated at the neighboring table.
“She might make some money,” Asa amended as both men jumped to their feet, “if the customers don’t bring the place down around her.”
Elizabeth smiled as the waitress, a young girl, hightailed it to the back, taking the disputed food with her. “Not if Millicent’s here.”
As she finished the sentence, an orange-haired tornado appeared among them, wielding a huge wooden spoon.
“Millicent?” Asa asked, the corner of his mouth kicking up in that familiar grin.
Elizabeth nodded, taking a step back from the door. Asa followed suit.
“You two have the manners of trash,” Millicent yelled. She punctuated her statement by bringing the wooden spoon down on their unprotected skulls. When they grabbed their heads, she pointed to the door. “Take yourselves out of here right now.” When they didn’t move fast enough, she whapped them again. “Out!”
“What about our dinner?”
“Yeah,” the other man hollered. “We paid for it!”
“Bessie!” Millicent yelled, brandishing her spoon and backing the men toward the door. “Bring these gentleman’s orders out here.”
Bessie handed the tray over. Millicent scooped it up in one of her hands. As soon as the men cleared the threshold, she pitched the entire tray after them. Food and curses filled the air. “You want to act like pigs in my establishment, then I’ll be slopping you like hogs.” She stood in the doorway, her six-foot tall frame blocking the light. “Don’t you dare set foot in this place again.”
“Aw, Milly!”
“Where we gonna eat?”
“Maybe that fancy hotel up the street will serve your kind.” She turned and slammed the door, almost running over Elizabeth on the way back to the kitchen.
“Elly!”
Her smile was as familiar as sunshine to Elizabeth. “Hi, Millicent.”
“This your new man I’ve heard talk about?”
“Yes.” Elizabeth smiled as Asa’s eyes widened in shock. Millicent had the husky voice of a siren when she wasn’t screeching. It was so incongruous with her build, it never failed to shock people. Mostly men. Millicent slapped him on the shoulder with a vigor that belied her fifty-plus years. “How ya doing?”
“Just fine.”
Elizabeth caught Asa’s hand “Asa MacIntyre, this is Millicent Foster.”
He brushed the brim of his hat with his fingers. “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”
Millicent’s hearty laugh filled the room. “Hear that, gents? Elly’s done married a man who knows how to address a lady
.” She took two steps to the counter, scooped a fresh baked pie off the shelf and waved it under Asa’s nose. “This here is for you after you get done with supper.”
Asa smiled that lazy, drawn out smile that inevitably made Elizabeth’s heart go pitter-patter. “Apple pie! My favorite. Haven’t had that in a coons age.”
Millicent beamed ear-to-ear. Elizabeth forgave him the lie. Millicent was one of her favorite people.
“Aw, heck, Milly,” the Sheriff called from the back of the restaurant. “I called you ma’am last week and I didn’t get no apple pie.”
Millicent snorted inelegantly as she waved Asa and Elizabeth to the table vacated by the blond railroader. “Who you think you’re kidding, Sheriff? You only called me ma’am cause you were being sarcastic.”
“Be fair, Milly.”
“Letting you eat my cooking is as fair as I’m getting!” She turned back to Elizabeth and Asa. “Now, what’ll you be having, Elly?”
Elizabeth unfolded her napkin across her lap. “I’d love a sweet potato.”
“As an appetizer, that’ll do, but what are you planning on for the meal?”
“I’m really not hungry.”
“Child, we’ve been over and over this. You won’t start putting meat on your bones unless you start putting food in your belly.”
“I’ll eat a big breakfast in the morning,” she promised, excruciatingly aware that Asa watched the exchange.
“So you say now, but I won’t be around to witness it.” Millicent heaved a sigh from her toes. The men at the next table got up to leave. She started piling their dishes onto her tray. “I know your daddy had a thing about how he thought a woman should look, but you gotta let it go.”
Elizabeth felt the old tightening in her belly. The churning nausea. She was aware of Asa’s eyes on her. “I’m just not hungry, Millicent.”
If she ate anything now, she’d be violently sick. She pinched the napkin between her fingers.
“Hrrmph!” Millicent wasn’t buying her excuse.
Elizabeth felt warm callused fingers slide over hers and found Asa looking at her. He nodded his head once and gave her fingers a soft squeeze. As his fingers wove between hers and loosened their grip from her napkin, he said, “I’ll take care of her, Miss Foster.”
This earned him a disbelieving snort and a hard glare. With a practiced hitch of her shoulder, Millicent balanced the loaded tray. “I’ve heard that before.”
“Not from me.”
Millicent stood and stared at Asa, saying nothing. Elizabeth felt the tension like a knife. She wanted Millicent to like Asa. After what seemed an eternity, Millicent proclaimed abruptly, “I’ve a feeling I’m going to like you.”
“Well, now, I was just having the same thought,” Asa replied. His hand now rested calmly on Elizabeth’s.
Millicent let loose with her booming laugh, causing all heads to turn their way. “Just for that, you get my chicken and dumplings to go with that pie.”
Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. If Millicent and Asa had taken to feuding, she couldn’t have borne it. Millicent was as close to a mother as she’d ever had. “You’re being honored,” she informed Asa as Millicent wove her way back to the kitchen.
Asa’s smile was gentle as he said, “I’ll reserve judgment on that until I taste her dumplings.”
* * * * *
The plate Millicent placed in front of Asa was laden with food. “You eat all that and I’ll get that pie.”
If he ate all that, Elizabeth decided, he’d be over to Doc’s getting medicine for a stomach ache.
“Check back in about ten minutes,” Asa said, his voice laced with confidence and anticipation.
Millicent beamed. “I do like a man who can eat.”
“In that case, ma’am,” Asa said as she placed a glass of water before him, “we’re going to get along fine.”
Millicent chuckled and turned to Elizabeth. Elizabeth braced herself for the disapproval she knew was coming. It landed in the thud of her sweet potato before her. “Here’s your order.”
Millicent jerked her thumb in Asa’s direction. “How you expecting to keep up with a man like that, let alone hold onto him, when you don’t have an ounce of meat on your bones?”
“Mr. MacIntyre is free to leave anytime he wants.” Elizabeth’s stomach clenched even as she made the statement.
Millicent could be brutal with her disapproval. “What kind of—”
Asa’s low drawl cut her off. “Don’t suppose she’s too worried about it, because she knows I’m not going anywhere.”
Millicent spun on him. “It’s a man’s nature to wander.” Her ever present wooden spoon punctuated the statement.
Asa calmly took a bite of dumpling. His expression melted into one of pure bliss as he chewed. “You sure can cook, Miss Foster.”
The spoon waggled ominously. “Don’t try to get around me with that slow-talking sugar.”
Asa wiped his mouth on his napkin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
“Harrumph!”
She was going to whap him, Elizabeth just knew it. He was going to provoke Millicent with his teasing ways, and then she was going to whap him. If she did, he’d be nursing a headache for days. Elizabeth stabbed her fork into the sweet potato, fragrant with butter and a touch of cinnamon. “You’re right, Millicent. I’ve got to start eating more now that I have a husband.”
She put a bite of the potato in her mouth. It sat like a lump of dirt. She didn’t know how she’d force it down her throat without choking.
Millicent eyed her suspiciously. Elizabeth managed a weak smile. It didn’t appear to reassure the other woman, but she seemed to be relaxing. Just when Elizabeth was sure Millicent was going to let it go, Asa spoke up.
“She’s not right.”
If she had a shotgun, she would have loaded his backside with buckshot. She watched fatalistically as the light of battle reentered Millicent’s blue eyes.
“You saying I don’t know what I’m talking about?”
Behind Millicent’s back, Elizabeth made frantic motions for Asa to shut up. He ignored them. “I’m saying that if you’re trying to convince my wife I’m hankering for something else, then you and I have a problem.”
The restaurant grew quiet as the patrons realized a standoff was in the making.
Millicent put her hands on her hips. “I notice your problem is with my convincing her, not the truth of it.”
Elizabeth groaned. Millicent loved to argue.
“What truth would that be?” Asa asked, calm as could be.
“Men don’t like skinny women.” Millicent said with complete authority. “They get tired of being poked and jabbed by all them bones.”
“That so?” Asa asked, interested.
“Gotta say she’s right about that,” the Sheriff hollered. That got hoots and hollers as it was the worst kept secret in town that the sheriff was sweet on Millicent.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Jed Stuart countered. “I like ‘em trim and sleek like soft pussy cats.”
Elizabeth wanted to sink down in her seat as the argument of men’s preferences grew and swelled with little regard for the decency of the topic. Millicent and Asa paid it no mind. Their gazes were locked onto each other, their discussion private unto themselves.
“That’s so,” Millicent retorted, echoing Asa’s response with all the force of her considerable personality.
Elizabeth knew how it felt to come up against that force. It always left her feeling like she’d survived a hurricane. Asa didn’t even look like he’d been ruffled by a breeze.
“Well, I hate to argue.” He took another bite of his chicken. “But a man has a right to his tastes.”
“And yours are?” Millicent had the persistence of a fly. Elizabeth wished that, just once, Millicent wouldn’t focus on something pertaining to her life. She really didn’t want to know Asa’s preferences. Hearing he liked plump blondes would be torture.
“I’m happy with my wife.”<
br />
He said that as if he meant it. No smile. No prevarication. Just a straightforward statement of fact. Some of the tension left Elizabeth’s throat. She took another sip of water and discovered she could swallow the bite of sweet potato.
Millicent’s toe tapped hard on the floor for about ten beats before it stopped. Some of the stiffness left her back. Her spoon dipped to a less menacing position. “Darned if I don’t believe you.”
“Glad to hear that, ‘cause I’d sure hate this fine meal to go cold while we debated the point.”
Millicent laughed. “You’re a character, Mr. MacIntyre.”
He nodded once. “I’ll be taking that as a compliment.”
Millicent nodded back. “You do that.” Her attention swung back to Elizabeth. “You got yourself a good man. Don’t mess it up with any of your nonsense.” She frowned at the sweet potato. Elizabeth wished she’d managed to choke down another bite.
“You eat every bit of that,” Millicent ordered. “If I have anymore than the skin to slop the hogs, I’m going to take it personally. You’ll be nine-years-old all over again.”
“I’ll eat it all,” Elizabeth promised. Somehow, she’d manage.
Millicent paused and sniffed the air. “Gosh, darn it, Bessie! Did you take that corn pone out of the oven?”
“I meant to,” Bessie wailed in a clear indicator she hadn’t.
With a curse word that singed, Millicent forged a path to the kitchen.
“What happened when you were nine?” Asa asked.
Trust him to latch onto that. “My father and I were having a discussion.”
“How did Millicent get involved?”
“It started here.”
“Uh-huh.” He pointed to her plate with his fork. “You going to eat that potato?”
“I suppose.”
“So the argument with your father started here?”
She sighed, recognizing he wasn’t going to give it up. She poked the potato with her fork. “Father thought I was too puny. He thought, if I ate more, I’d be able to handle ranch work better.”
Without guilt, Asa made free with her potato. “Your father overlook he was dealing with a little girl?”
Promises Linger (Promise Series) Page 22