by Maren Smith
“So I’ve been told.” He pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
Crazy or not, that felt good. So good, in fact, that she actually shifted against him and lifted her head so his kisses could more easily reach her. He chuckled and did it again. It had been so long. She’d missed this kind of closeness. This intimacy. This view. She watched the tic of his pulse leaping under the skin at the base of his neck before, as if against her will, she said, “I used to be married.”
Garrett said nothing. His hand rested on her arm, his thumb making lazy back and forth passes along the curve of her shoulder.
“His name was Maska. He was… my best friend. Paquah was only months old when Maska got hurt, then sick. Then he died.” That Lydia was able to say the words out loud without that rising tide of anger and grief washing through her, surprised her. She’d never been able to do that before.
“I’m sorry.” Back and forth, his thumb continued to trace its lazy caress.
Lydia glanced up at him through her lashes. His face could be hard to read sometimes, but he actually did both look and sound sincere. It wasn’t even his fault. She lowered her eyes again, fixing on one of his shirt buttons in order to get through the rest, which was a whole different kind of crazy since this she had never shared with anyone before. “It was barely dawn the day the soldiers came. We didn’t even know they were there until the dogs started barking and suddenly, they were all through the camp. They told us we had to move, right then, that day. That our home wasn’t ours anymore, but that they were giving us a new home across the mountains. They said they wanted peace, but the whole time they were talking, they did it with their guns in their hands. And then one of them saw me.”
She must have tensed, because Garrett’s arm had tightened around her. He didn’t say anything though and his thumb was still moving. Still caressing. It gave her courage to continue.
“They killed my father when he tried to stop them from taking me. Then they lined everyone up and said they had to give up their captive whites if they wanted safe passage to the reservation. But I was never a captive.”
“No,” he said softly. “I know you weren’t.”
Lifting her head from his shoulder, she looked at him again. “How do you know?”
A ghost of his usual smile curved his mouth. Again, it was not reflected anywhere else upon his face. “I don’t reckon you’d stay anywhere long if you didn’t want to be there. Especially not long enough to have a husband and a baby.”
Oh. She blinked twice, looking at him a little deeper now. He was right. She wouldn’t have stayed under those conditions.
“They sound like decent people.”
“They were.” She didn’t mean for that to come out as defensively as it did. “Very decent, and I didn’t want them killed. So I took Paquah and I went with them. All the way to Shady Springs where they left me with my new foster family. Myron and—” She hesitated, disliking even having to say that woman’s name. “Millicent Crankshaw.”
“Lovely people.” Sarcasm dripped from every syllable.
“She was horrible,” Lydia agreed. “That’s how I came to be here. Jewel and Mr. Gabriel took me in.” She shook her head, her stomach pulling tight. “I have nowhere else to go. What am I going to do?”
She was back to picking at his shirt button and she didn’t raise her head to see it, but she could hear the smile in his voice just before he gave her shoulder a squeeze.
“You’re going to do what you always do.”
“And what’s that?” No matter how she looked at it, she just could not see how the day would end well.
Garrett pressed another kiss to her brow. “You, Lydia, are gonna walk into that hearing today and, no matter what, you’re going to go down biting. That’s what you’re gonna do.”
She was so tired of biting.
Weakening against him, Lydia let him comfort her a while longer before her needy curiosity got the best of her. “What are you going to do?”
The warmth of his chuckle was like sweet, summer’s molasses. It stole some of the tension and ice out of her belly when he said, “I’m going to be right there beside you, of course.”
She picked at her sleeve, swallowing back the rise of shame crawling up the back of her throat. “I wasn’t going to stay for you,” she whispered, feeling even worse now that she’d heard it out loud. It was true though. Her carpetbag lay on its side in the middle of the hall where she’d dropped it, proof of her unreliability.
“Why are you still here then?” he countered, still smiling.
She’d have thought that obvious. “I can’t leave. The stage office isn’t open yet.”
“You could’ve taken my horse. I’m hardly the sort to report you for theft. Chase you down, yes. Blister your backside for it, absolutely. But have you arrested? I’m not that man.”
“The bank’s not open either.” She ignored his snort. “I can’t leave without money.”
“The banks in San Fran would have cashed your check, and you know it. Ol’ Stowe’s got to be on a first name basis with all those managers by now, as often as they all wire back and forth about account holders. Admit it, you didn’t leave because you didn’t want to run.” His tone turned smug. “You’re warming to me.”
Hers turned sullen. “More like you’re wearing me down.”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other.” Garrett dropped his hand from her shoulder to her waist. “Marry me.”
“No.”
“Fine, don’t marry me. Follow me home like a feral puppy off the range. We’ll live happily in sin for the rest of our lives.”
She sat upright, shrugging out from under his arm. “You think of me as a dog?”
“I said puppy,” he defended. “You know, the little lost kind. Slightly underfed. A might mangy around the ears.”
“I’m mangy now too?!”
“Pluck the thistles from its paws, feed it up a little,” Garrett mused, “that’s the kind of dog you want to find. Love on it a little and they become loyal for life.”
Shoving away from him, Lydia punched him in the shoulder. “Is that supposed to be romantic?” She scrambled to her feet, snatching up her carpetbag. At the far end of the hall, Paquah had just appeared at the topmost step of the kitchen stairs, a small glass of milk carefully cupped between his hands. When he saw her face, he stopped where he was. His gaze darted uncertainly from her to Garrett and back again. Lydia immediately bit her tongue, censuring herself in front of her son before seething, “I am no one’s dog!”
Not trusting herself to remain this close to the man without doing something mutually dreadful, vengefully satisfying, and which could—potentially—get her either spanked or kissed (with Garrett, sometimes it was a tossup), Lydia slammed back into her room. She threw her bag at her rumpled bed. Fists clenched, she hissed every curse word she knew under her breath. So Paquah wouldn’t hear her, she told herself. She didn’t care what Garrett heard. And he must have heard something, because he was chuckling.
The bastard.
She stabbed her fingers through her unbrushed hair, the minute pain of catching all the tangles helping to center herself. She was out of time and out of options, and she knew it.
You’re gonna walk into that hearing today and, no matter what, you’re going to go down biting.
As if that would do her any good at all, Lydia thought angrily. And yet, when she at last started moving again, she went straight to her bag and yanked it open, dumping out the contents to grab her hairbrush and a fresh dress. The way she felt right now, she didn’t think she had a whole lot of teeth left, but maybe it was time this town—and Millicent Crankshaw, in particular—found out just how sharp they still could be.
* * * * *
Sitting in the hallway, leaning up against the wall, Garrett listened to the angry stomp of Lydia’s feet passing back and forth as she readied herself for the trial of the day. When he heard that muffled string of curses, he couldn’t help grinning. When she star
ted banging things, he laughed.
Coming down the hallway, Paquah stopped beside him to stare at her door. “Is Mama mad at you?” he asked when the banging intensified within.
Grinning, Garrett shook his head. “Naw, son. She’s just being feisty, that’s all.”
He loved it.
Chapter Fourteen
The meeting hall was packed even tighter today than it had been yesterday. Every seat but the one directly in front of Judge Johnson had been taken and every space of open floorboard available for standing on, was. The crowd was shoulder to shoulder, both in the meeting hall, on the porch outside it and crowded around every open window. The whole damn town had turned out, barring those die-hard miners still working their claims in the fevered hunt for gold.
Gabe, Jewel and her gems were here. So was the military, most of whom stood guard outside and all of whom turned their heads to watch as Lydia crossed the street with Garrett at her side and Paquah’s hand held tight in her already sweating palm. Millicent was here too, as were her tight group of cronies. They wore their finest go-to-meeting clothes and unified frowns of disapproval, which they aimed at her right from the moment she squeezed through the door. She didn’t look at Captain Everson or his lieutenants, but pushed through the hastily assembled aisles to the front of the room. She didn’t look at the judge either, but took her chair, pulled Paquah onto her lap, and waited to be vilified. It was going to be bad. She had no doubt of that, but Judge Johnson had dismissed the charges against Stone and sent him home with Citrine and the doctor, so that gave her a little hope.
“Good morning.” Sorting the thin stack of papers before him into some semblance of relevance, Judge Johnson rapped them against the table before setting them aside. He barely looked at her. “Shall we get started?”
It was a rhetorical question no one got the chance to answer before he knocked his gavel once to bring the room to silence.
“I expect order and quiet for the duration of this proceeding,” he announced, casting his steely look over the crowd, starting with Everson and landing the longest on Millicent, who hiked her chin in defiance. “The rules are the same today as they were yesterday. We’ll begin with the charges.”
Lydia did her best to listen as he read the warrant that had been issued for Paquah’s arrest, but the legalese was just as incomprehensible as it had been the day before. Some loyal dog she was. How could anyone expect her to put her teeth into something when she couldn’t understand what any of it meant?
Where was Garrett?
She glanced back over her shoulder, startling because she expected to find him standing as he had been yesterday, crammed in with all the other voyeurs at the very back of the room. She hadn’t realized he was right behind her, arms folded across his chest, head cocked and sharp eyes narrowed as he listened to every word the Judge spoke. Her heart fluttered; Lydia faced forward again, though she honestly didn’t know what she felt more—nervous or safe.
“Is this Paquah?” Judge Johnson asked as he turned the warrant over on the table.
Held on her lap, Paquah raised his hand and waved.
“I see you, young man,” the judge said with a nod. “Thank you.” He turned his attention to Lydia. “And you, young lady. Is your husband present in this room today?”
Millicent snorted.
Lydia glared at her. “My husband is dead.”
“Every other man in this town has been her husband,” Millicent returned, glaring back at her. “She’s a Red Petticoat whore.” She turned that look on the judge. “Something his Honor knows perfectly well.”
Covering his eyes with his hand, Myron stifled a sigh.
“Insinuate that again,” Judge Johnson dared her. “See what happens.”
“Oh, this is a farce!” Millicent spat. “Everyone in this town knows it. Every last one of you cavorts with sinners. The sheriff married one. The mayor married one. Even your pastor has fallen to temptation, so why not the circuit court judge! Circuit,” she scoffed, then laughed—an angry, pinch-lipped titter that raked up Lydia’s back so hard and fast that the only thing that stopped her from leaping out of her seat and slapping the other woman was knowing she sat too far away. Someone would stop her before she got halfway there. “Circus is closer to the truth,” Millicent continued. “So go ahead. Knock your ringmaster’s gavel as long as you like. I know the truth when I see it, and you’ll not silence me from speaking my—”
“Millicent,” Myron interrupted wearily. “Shut up.” Both Millicent and the judge gave him the same startled look, but before she could say anything, Myron hardened both his stare and his tone. “I mean it. Shut. Up.”
Blinking rapidly, Millicent closed her mouth.
No one in the whole of that room said a word.
Clearing his throat, seeming to be hiding a startled smile, Judge Johnson recovered first. “Neither this woman nor the town is on trial here, Mrs. Crankshaw. For that matter, neither is Paquah. Once more, since we seem to have forgotten, this is merely a hearing to determine the merits of the charges stated in the warrant. Now, if I recall an accusation of theft was made, so I would like to hear from any and all aggrieved parties as to the nature of that specific crime.”
That pricked at Lydia’s temper. “There was no crime.”
“Oh, wasn’t there!” Millicent laughed, a tight, mean sound. She leaned around her husband, stabbing Paquah with an accusatory finger. “Just yesterday morning, that little monster—”
“He is not a monster!” Lydia snapped back, her grip tightening around her son.
“No, he’s a redskin!”
A cautioning hand settled on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “He’s a boy!”
“He will grow into his cruelty,” Millicent hissed.
“You certainly have!” Lydia hissed back.
“Mama, you’re hurting me.” Paquah squirmed and Lydia—flustered, furious, ashamed—immediately loosened her grip. Garrett caught her shoulder again, this time squeezing. She honestly couldn’t tell if he was trying to comfort her right now or warn her not to rise to the other woman’s vindictive baiting.
Millicent laughed again, eyes a-glow with malicious delight. “Poor child.”
Lydia turned away, thrilling Millicent even more. She threw out her arms, showing Lydia with all her flaws to the whole of the room. “Burdened with such a mother, he never really had a chance, did he?”
Her stomach tied into knots, all of them igniting at once in smoldering hellfire. The heat licked all the way up into her chest.
“Perhaps were he fostered in a decent, God-fearing household, we might yet have time enough to beat the savage out of him. I would cheerfully volun—” She stopped abruptly, a cloud of wariness erasing her glee as Garrett stalked around Lydia’s chair to position himself between the women. He stared at Millicent, his head slightly canted. Lydia couldn’t see his face, but she could see the tension drawing up his back and across his shoulders. She honestly couldn’t tell right now if he was smiling or not.
“Don’t stop on my account,” he dared. “By all means, dig yourself a deeper hole.”
“I think I’ve heard enough,” the judge said much louder than the pin-drop silence of the room required. For as many people as now filled it, it was amazing how quiet it had become. “This hearing is not about the Red Petticoat. It’s not about the ladies who work there, or about this lady in particular. This is about Paquah. So, let’s get back to that. Where did this theft occur?”
“Singleton’s Mercantile,” Millicent supplied, then slid Lydia a knowing smirk. It got as far as Garrett before she remembered he was there, a wall of unyielding disapproval. Unlike Everett Jackson who was standing in the front row as near to the judge’s table as he could get, notepad out and pen already flying, Garrett wasn’t writing any of this down and yet he seemed to be recording every word she said. Rattled, trying to recover and failing, Millicent folded her arms across her chest. “As I said, I have witnesses this time. So don’t bother lying for
him.”
“He never—” Lydia began, but the judge cut her off.
“Is Mr. Singleton present?” Judge Johnson aimed a censuring frown at them both.
From the crowd beyond the only door, a hat waved. “I can’t get in!”
“Unless you’ve got something meaningful to contribute,” Johnson boomed, “get out of the way! Move on now! Shoo!”
“Excuse me… Sorry… Ow! Was that your foot or mine? Sorry… Coming through…” Singleton pushed his way to the front of the crowd. Straightening his clothes, he started to put his hat back on, but then remembered the judge and took it off again. “Sorry.” He combed his fingers through his short brown hair instead. He barely glanced to either Lydia or her son, but surreptitiously behind his hat, he waved three fingers.
Lydia caught Paquah’s hand before he could wave back. Her stomach churned. Sam Singleton had never once stood up for her against Millicent in his store. She couldn’t blame him for that; he had a business to run. Of course, he would choose whatever was best for his store and all working girls could expect things to be said whenever they left the safety of the brothel. That was just the way the world was. Knowing that, a whore either learned to develop a thicker skin or got her feelings hurt on a regular basis.
Holding Paquah’s hand, Lydia did her best to thicken her skin as much as possible.
“Can you recount for us the details of this young man’s theft in your store?” Judge Johnson asked.
On the other side of Sam, out of the corner of her eye, Lydia spied Captain Everson abruptly shift in his chair. His hands were on his thighs, his eyes on his military hat as he tapped it twice against his knee. One foot jiggled out a melody of silent aggravation, the only hint of what he was feeling that escaped the stony mask he wore as he stared past everyone and straight at Millicent Crankshaw.
“I wish I could,” Sam replied, answering the judge’s question loud and clear. For the benefit of everyone listening, Lydia realized with a start. “But to be perfectly honest, I can’t recall a single instance in which Paquah took anything from my store that he didn’t first pay for.”