Ace's Wild (Hqn)

by Sarah McCarty

  “His pride was on the line.”

  “His children were hungry,” Maddie countered.

  “She could have gone about it differently.”

  “Be fair, Ace,” Caden interjected. “You know Laramie is about as stiff-necked an ass as there is. He’d rather see those kids starve to death than admit he needed help.”

  “Well, that little mess of Petunia’s took a bit to clear up.” And he’d been the one who’d had to do it. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand, experiencing again that satisfying moment when it’d connected with Laramie’s mouth. Petunia might be a pain in the ass but she wasn’t—as Laramie put it—a bitch.

  “But now he’s your enemy and not hers,” Maddie said as if that were the way it should be.

  “Oh, he’s her enemy, too. Make no mistake about that.”

  “But he’ll have to go through you to get to her.”

  “Shit, Ace, you might as well call Petunia Hell’s Eight and get it over with.”

  “That will never happen.”

  The look Caden shot him was almost as pitying as Maddie’s. “Uh-huh.”

  Their knowing expressions were almost as annoying as Petunia’s tendency to gather enemies in her wake. The longer Petunia stayed in town, the more her problems were going to become his, because Caden was right, he couldn’t leave her to whomever. She might be a pain in the ass, but in an odd way she’d become his pain in the ass. That being the case, she needed to get on that stagecoach. For both their sakes.

  Down the street at the church, people were beginning to meander free of their socializing. Petunia disappeared into the schoolhouse. “Somebody’s got to rein that woman in.”

  “I vote for you.”

  It was his turn to say, “Uh-huh.”

  “It’s not like she’s going to be around much longer,” Maddie argued. “Just as soon as she gets the money for a coach ticket, she’s moving on.”

  “She’s been saving for that ticket for a long time,” Caden interjected.

  Yeah, she had. And she still wasn’t gone. Mighty suspicious that. “You sure she’s planning on moving on?”

  Maddie suddenly became all business, straightening her apron and smoothing her hair. “Looks like customers are heading this way. Time to get busy.”

  The back of Ace’s neck tingled. Maddie was not the fussing type. Especially when it came to business. She was up to something. He looked at Caden. Caden shrugged and looked at his wife.

  “Out with it, Maddie.”

  She sighed and dropped the pretense. “It’s not that Petunia doesn’t plan on leaving—”

  Ace got that sinking feeling in his gut. “But?”

  Maddie shrugged. “But there were things that she felt needed doing here first.”

  “Things?” Ace asked. “What things?” What the hell had Petunia gotten herself into now?

  “You remember Penelope?”

  “Clyde Peyton’s widow?”

  “Yes. She broke her leg.”

  “Yeah, I remember. Doc set it. Said it healed fine.”

  “She couldn’t work while it was broken.”

  “And?” There was always an “and” with Petunia.

  “She couldn’t feed her kids because Michael Orvis wouldn’t extend her credit at the mercantile.”

  Ace sighed. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Petunia used her savings to pay off what she could of the bill, so Mr. Orvis would give Penny more credit.”

  “So you’re saying, she’s nowhere near the price of her ticket.”

  Ace didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed.

  “You could just buy it for her,” Caden pointed out.

  “If I thought I could get her to take it, I would.” That was a lie. He had a lust/hate relationship with Petunia’s presence in town. More lust than hate. More want than was sensible.

  “So what are we going to do?” Maddie asked.

  “Why do we have to do anything?” Ace asked. “Can’t we just let her suffer the consequences of her actions, for once?”

  Maddie looked horrified at the very thought. “She has no idea of the potential repercussions. She’s used to Eastern ways.” She turned to Caden. “Do something.”

  “Don’t put me in this,” Caden said.

  Maddie glanced down the street where her Sunday customers were meandering their way. “Please?”

  Caden rocked back in the chair as she hurried back into the bakery. The bell above the door jangled a protest. “You heard the little woman.”

  Ace bit down hard on his back molars, reaching for patience. “I’m tired of cleaning up Petunia’s messes. I’m not her father. I’m not her brother. I’m not her husband.”

  “But you want her,” Caden said, putting it right out there.

  “There’s nothing about the woman to want. She wears her hair scraped back so tight her eyebrows meet her ears. And if her corset were laced any tighter, she’d die of suffocation.”

  Caden laughed and waved to the folk approaching. “You ought to be grateful for that. More wind means more words.”

  “I don’t need more words from that woman.”

  “Yes, you do, just sweeter ones.”

  “You could dump a bucket of sugar on that woman, and she wouldn’t be sweet enough.”

  Maddie fussed with the tray of buns and called out, “I think the right man could sweeten her up.”

  “Eavesdropping isn’t an attractive trait,” Ace snapped at her.

  “But a useful one.”

  Ace shook his head at Caden. “She isn’t even ashamed of it.”

  “Why should she be?” Caden asked with a fond look at his wife. “It gets her what she wants to know.”

  “You should be setting a better example.”

  Caden snorted. “Since when have any of us worried about what others thought?”

  Since never.

  Maddie stopped sorting the rolls and looked straight at him. “In that case, Ace Parker, you could stop saving her and just start courting her.”

  For the first time in a long time, Ace flinched. “I’m a gambler and a brawler.”

  “You’re a good man with a good heart, but you run too much.”

  He didn’t need Maddie weaving rainbows around the impossible. “Let it go, Maddie.”

  “Letting it go doesn’t change the truth. You want her.” She came back to the porch, licking frosting off her fingers. “She wants you. You have many things in common, including a passion for doing the right thing. The only difference between you is she’s open about it.”

  “Gambling is not the right thing.”

  Maddie huffed. “Gambling bores you.”

  “The hell it does.”

  Caden touched Maddie’s shoulder. “Let it go, Maddie mine.”

  She slammed her hands on her hips and jerked her chin at Ace. “So he can continue doing what he doesn’t like doing? So he can continue to be unhappy?”

  “A man’s got a right to be unhappy if he wants to be.”

  “But it’s silly when everything he wants is just an arm’s reach away. He’s just too afraid to grab it.”

  The hell he was. Frustration and anger prodded. Frustration because customers were gathering, and he couldn’t say what he wanted. Anger because Maddie didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The last thing any woman needed was for him to give in to the needs that drove him. Especially a prim and proper woman like Petunia. Just the thought of touching her the way she needed had his blood heating dangerously.

  On a tight “I’ll see you later,” Ace turned on his heel and strode down the street, absently nodding in response to greetings, his mind consumed with the thought of pinning Petunia’s wrists to the bed, of kissing her so deeply her thoug
hts became transparent, her body pliant, her will his... He clenched his hands into fists, fighting back the desire. “Fuck.”

  Behind him he heard Caden say, “That was too much, Maddie.”

  And from Maddie, an uncharacteristic “I’m not sure it was enough.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE SMALL ONE-ROOM schoolhouse was quiet in the minutes before the day started, but soon Petunia would walk out the sturdy wooden door and ring the bell, and the excitement would start. Twenty children from the ages of five to thirteen would push through the doorway, sit at their desks and look at her with expressions ranging from boredom to anticipation. Educating growing minds was a hard job, a taxing job and one Petunia loved. But as soon as she saved the money for her ticket, she was going to hop on the stage and continue on to San Francisco to take advantage of the newly wealthy’s desire to compete socially with East Coast established society. If she were careful, she could take that desire to “do them one better” and use it to open a school that would fund her dream to truly educate all.

  Just thinking about leaving brought Ace to mind. And bringing Ace to mind just revived the familiar combination of ache and anger. Just who did that man think he was to take apart her way of life as if there was something wrong with it? He, who was in the middle of every fight, every scheme, every betting game that took place in this town.

  And in the middle of every type of aid, too, the little voice of fairness inside whispered.

  Damn it! Petunia erased the word she’d just misspelled on the chalkboard and started over. Just once she wanted to catch Ace doing something so wrong, so evil, that this irrational attraction she had for him would die an ignoble death. But every time she’d seen him fight, he’d been defending someone, and while she didn’t approve of gambling, he didn’t do it recklessly. He did drink more than she approved of, but when he was drunk, he never harmed anyone. He just got more quiet from what she could tell, more mysterious.

  She sighed as she set the chalk down and dusted off her hands. The one thing she didn’t need was for Ace to become any more mysterious. He already had too much appeal for her.

  As was her habit, she went behind her desk and set up her papers in the order of what her lesson was going to be for the day. She started simply and then worked up to the more complicated for the older students. She was going to be losing Analisa soon. Unfortunately, her mother wanted her home to help with her siblings and the work around their small farm. Analisa had a bright mind and a desire to learn. She’d asked Petunia for help, to convince her parents to let her stay in school. Unfortunately, no matter how much Petunia tried, she couldn’t convince her parents of the importance of continuing their daughter’s education. As long as Analisa could read, write and count, the adults in her life seemed satisfied.

  Petunia shook her head and set her math book to the side. They just couldn’t see the brand-new world out there waiting for them and the possibilities that existed. They just wanted to stay in this little town, in this little world, in this little spot and ignore it all. She shook her head. She would never understand it.

  Outside the door, she could hear the students playing in the small school yard. She always gave them this time. They seemed to have so little time to just enjoy being young.

  Sighing, Petunia placed the creative writing instructional on the top of the second pile. She might only have these children’s minds for the period of time it took her to earn the money for her stage ticket. But in that time, she intended to plant the seeds of curiosity and just maybe, in one of them, that seed would grow, and they would see something of the world besides this tiny town. At least that was her hope.

  From the yard came the regrettably familiar sound of a singsong chant. Frowning, she went back to the window. She wasn’t surprised to see a slight boy with shaggy hair and threadbare clothing cornered by a bigger boy. Every school yard had its victims and its bullies. And here the bully was Buster, and the victim was Terrance Winter, probably because he had the look of a child whose family didn’t care, and in a town this small, neglect was like throwing a red rag in a chicken pen. They all started pecking.

  Petunia opened the heavy door in time to hear, “Fatty lip, fatty lip, Terry isn’t worth a shit.”

  Gritting her teeth, she reached up and rang the bell. Hard. All sound stopped. One by one, the children trickled to line up in front of the short steps. All except Terry and his tormentor.

  “Buster Hayworth,” she snapped. “Line up, please.”

  A murmur rippled through the line of children. Some kids ooh’d, others giggled. Buster came reluctantly around the corner, the shock of blond hair on his forehead standing up straight as it always did, the expression on his face angelic. She’d learned on the first day when he stuck a frog in her desk drawer not to fall for the false sincerity in his big blue eyes.

  “You’ll be staying after class tomorrow. I’d appreciate it if you informed your parents of that.”

  “But, Miss Wayfield, I was only—”

  She cut off the protest with a wave of her hand. “You were only trying to make someone else’s life miserable within my earshot, in my school. You know that’s not allowed.”

  He opened his mouth. She cut him off again.

  “I don’t want to hear it. You will inform your parents tonight that you will be staying after school tomorrow. No excuses.”

  His eyes got bigger. “My dad will blister my butt.”

  Something she felt needed to be done. “Well, then, maybe the double punishment will make you think the next time before you decide to be mean-spirited to one of your own.”

  Buster scowled. “He’s not one of mine.”

  “He’s a student in this class. That makes him part of your school family. You should be helping him, not hurting him. The world would be a better place if everyone did that.”

  He looked at her askance, hands in his pockets. “You don’t know much about the world, do you, Miss Petunia?”

  She looked back at him. “I know a lot about it. I just don’t accept that what is must always be.”

  He shook his head, gave her one last wheedling smile. She pointed to the line unmoved. He went.

  “Now, all of you sit down and get out your slates and start practicing your alphabet until I get there. You older kids help the younger ones, and Buster—” she stopped him at the door “—I want to see your letters improve. They were very sloppy last Friday.”

  After the last child wandered in, Petunia sighed and went in search of Terrance.

  She found him standing by the back steps, hands still in his pockets and his head still down. He was so young to have so much life beaten out of him. Petunia approached him slowly. Reaching the steps, she tucked her skirts under her and sat down so she wouldn’t tower over him. She’d always found it was easier to do that when she was dealing with children.

  He still didn’t look at her. She was afraid she knew why. Putting her finger under his chin, she lifted his face and barely suppressed a gasp. His lower lip was split open and swollen, and his eye was black-and-blue. The bruise spread down his cheek and followed his jawline to his chin. The kind of mark only a man’s fist could make.

  She didn’t need to ask who’d done this. But the severity of the beating... It was a wonder Terrance’s father hadn’t killed him.

  She touched his cheek delicately. Why did it have to be her student most interested in learning whose world made it so impossible for him to succeed? “What happened?”

  He shrugged. “You know.”

  “Pretend I don’t. Tell me.”

  “Pa got into a game last night.”

  Standing, she took his hand and walked toward the well. “I take it he wasn’t successful.”

  He shook his head. “No, he lost everything.”

  She took a clean handkerchief out of her pocket when they reache
d the well, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  Petunia had never seen such hopelessness in a face of any age. Dipping her handkerchief into the bucket of cool water she’d drawn earlier, she pressed it to his eye. He winced and blinked at her with the other. His hazel eyes didn’t have the artifice of Buster’s, but they had the appeal of sincerity.

  “I’m sorry, Terrance.”

  He nodded and swallowed hard. “I might be leaving.”

  Petunia was probably the only one who understood how devastating that revelation was to a boy more suited to scholar than farmer.

  “But we haven’t even finished the story of Ulysses.”

  It was a stupid thing to say.

  He looked at her with a bit of hope. “Maybe you can tell it to me real fast.”

  “Maybe.” She dipped the cloth again and applied it to his lip. Again the wince. “Or maybe we can just do something about the situation.”

  Terrance shook his head. “Nothing to be done. Dad lost the mortgage money to that gambler, Ace.”

  And had come home to take out his frustration on his son. “I see.”

  “Everybody knows what’s Ace Parker’s stays Ace Parker’s.”

  “Do you think he cheated?”

  He looked horrified. “Ace? No.”

  She did not understand how the boy could idolize the man who’d just taken everything from him.

  His gaze slid from hers. “My pa might have, though. He was pretty beat up when he came in.”

  Gambling room justice. Petunia shook her head. Only a man could understand it. It was nothing to put a family out on the street. But let a man cheat at cards, and all damnation broke loose.

  “I see,” she said again. “Well, Terrance, I’m glad you came to school today.”

  “I wanted to hear Ulysses.”

  She’d begun reading them Ulysses Tales, a little bit at a time, changing the language so the kids could comprehend the greater message, making it fun and entertaining.

  “I’m glad you came, even though it was hard, and you must be hurting.”