by Jo Goodman
Finn straightened. Somehow he managed to convey surprise and skepticism, blue eyes wide as quarters beneath a deeply furrowed brow. “You know her?”
Morgan nodded, although it occurred to him that he knew her better before he met her. “I do.”
“She’s what you come to town for?” He did not wait for an answer. “Well, don’t that beat all. Why didn’t you say so?” Finn pointed to the gentleman still clutching his valise. “I thought she was with him.”
“She is with me,” said Morgan.
“I see that now. I surely do. But who is she?”
Morgan Longstreet had not planned on declaring himself on the platform of the Bitter Springs depot, and certainly not in front of Finn Collins, a gentleman whose name he did not know, and a porter employed by the Union Pacific. Still, the moment was upon him and . . .
The woman in his arms seized it. She removed her gloved hands from his shoulders and set them on his wrists. Using only modest pressure, she reminded him that he was still holding her by the waist. His fingers splayed, his hands fell away, and she took a step backward. It was not precisely a retreat, but it did reestablish a boundary.
“I am Miss Middlebourne,” she said, holding out her hand to Finn. “And you are?”
“Carpenter Addison Collins,” Finn said. He took her hand and pumped it once. “But everyone calls me Finn. I picked it for myself on account of I didn’t cotton to the idea of being called Carp.”
“A sensible notion.”
“That’s my brother over there. Rabbit. Cabot Theodore, but you see the problem, don’t you?”
“I do.”
“I’ve been speculatin’ about what Mr. Longstreet come to town for, but I sure didn’t speculate you.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I did not speculate your existence either.”
Finn’s eyebrows pulled together as he puzzled that out. “I reckon that squares it,” he said finally. “Good to meet you, Miss Middlebourne.” His eyes swiveled to the gentleman with the large valise. “I’d sure like to help you with that, mister.”
Before the man could reply, Morgan Longstreet looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “I’d sure like it if he helped you, too.” He kept his eyes on the stranger while he held out a coin to Finn. Morgan did not know if the man was influenced by the exchange of money or Morgan’s own unwavering stare, but a decision was made in favor of moving on.
The stranger stepped around Morgan and handed his valise over to Finn. He tipped his bowler to Jane. “I hope there will be occasion to enjoy your company again, Miss Middlebourne.” He glanced at Morgan, then back to Jane. He held her eyes for a long moment. “If you should have need of me, you will find me at the Pennyroyal. Good day.” He might have said more, but Finn was already trotting away with his valise. He had to hurry to catch up.
Morgan waited until Jane stopped following the gentle man’s progress and turned back to him. “What did he mean by that?”
“By what, Mr. Longstreet?”
“Why would he think you might need him?”
“Perhaps because you are glowering at me.” She pointed to the porter still standing at his post. “He has not deserted me.”
Morgan looked to the porter. The man was doing his best to seem uninterested, but there was no doubt he was hovering protectively. Morgan’s cheeks puffed slightly as he blew out a breath. For a moment, his tautly defined features were softened. “Miss Middlebourne’s bags, please.”
Nodding, the porter stepped back into the car.
When Morgan was certain he was out of earshot, he said, “You are not what I expected.”
“I understand. You are disappointed.”
No, not disappointed. He felt betrayed. What he said was, “Angry.”
Jane blinked. Her chin came up and she regarded him forthrightly. “Do you think I have deceived you?”
“Haven’t you? Your photograph . . .”
“I explained it was taken two years ago. You wrote that it was acceptable to you.”
He remembered writing exactly that. “It was acceptable. It still is.”
“But I am not.”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I mistake your intention earlier?” she asked. “Were you not within moments of making a public proposal?”
“I was. I am a man of my word, Miss Middlebourne, but I should have thought better of the time and place . . . and the company. I am not accustomed to being rescued, but you saved me from making a fool of myself. That counts for something.”
“You flatter yourself to think I did it for you, Mr. Longstreet. I did it for me. Perhaps I do not want to accept the proposal of a man who thinks I deceived him. Such a man will question all that follows.” She paused. “Am I wrong?”
Morgan hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his long leather coat. “Perhaps we should find out, Miss Middlebourne. I am discovering courting by correspondence has its limitations.”
“As am I. What are you suggesting?”
He shrugged. “That we sleep on it. See if twenty-four hours makes a difference in our thinking. The preacher will be there tomorrow, same as today. I don’t suppose waiting a day will matter as much to him as it will to us.”
Jane’s reply was forestalled by the reappearance of the porter carrying a valise under each arm. Another followed hoisting a small trunk on his shoulder. They looked to Jane for instruction. She looked to Morgan Longstreet.
Morgan pointed to his buckboard at the end of the platform and the porters set off. He noticed that the Johnsons and Ted Rush had already moved on. Finn and the stranger were pulling away. Rabbit was holding the station door open for his pap, who was carrying a leather mailbag and a wooden crate. The pair disappeared into the station, and then Morgan and Jane were alone on the platform.
Morgan held Jane’s green eyes. Not merely green, he saw, but emerald, and startling for their radiance. Would she blame him when she regarded herself in the mirror one day and observed the brilliance had dulled? Hardship and isolation could do that. Could he bear to look at her, knowing he was at fault whether she said so or not? Morgan needed to consider that. He needed twenty-four hours.
“Well?” he asked.
“You will have to pay for my lodging, Mr. Longstreet.”
“Of course.”
“All right.”
“You accept?”
“I do, yes.”
He nodded. “This way, then.”
• • •
The ride to the Pennyroyal Saloon and Hotel was filled with new experiences for Jane Middlebourne, chief among them being sitting on the thinly padded and springy buckboard seat. After being jostled sideways against the steely arm of her companion, she gripped the seat on either side of her and gamely held on. She expected that Morgan Longstreet would find some amusement in her efforts, but when she stole a sideways glance at his profile, she saw his mouth was set more grimly than it had been a moment before. She could not have imagined that was even possible.
The main thoroughfare of the town was wide and open. She had expected that from the reading she did prior to leaving New York. She had wondered how much she could trust the descriptions in periodicals and dime novels, but this detail was right. The town had erected itself around cattle drives and commerce, and shops of every sort lined the length of the street. She recognized a young man from the train ducking into Johnson’s Mercantile with a couple she supposed were his parents. Another man, this one a gregarious older gentleman who had introduced himself to her on the train as the owner of Rush’s Hardware, was engaged in animated conversation with someone sweeping the walk outside the drugstore.
Morgan Longstreet offered no narrative as the buckboard bumped along, and Jane did not ask any questions that might have invited one. She was curious about the fighting, or the lack of it. Her reading led her believe she could expect to witness at least one brawl and perhaps a gunfight. The latter seemed especially unlikely since not one of the men she saw was wearing a gun belt. The on
ly man she thought might be spoiling for a fight was the one beside her. Jane was unafraid that he would turn fists on her, but she felt some concern on behalf of the next man who crossed him.
She hoped it would not be Dr. Wanamaker. They had shared a bench seat on the train from Cheyenne to Bitter Springs, the last leg of her long journey. She had spoken very little during that time, as all of her thoughts had been turning inward. His comment that he had enjoyed her company was a mere pleasantry. Mostly her quiet had elicited his concern, which he continued to show when he reminded her that he would be staying at the Pennyroyal. Now so would she.
And so would Morgan Longstreet.
Perhaps she would be a witness to Western violence after all.
Jane pushed that thought to the back of her mind as the buckboard rattled past the marshal’s office. The marshal was at that moment holding the door open for a woman who joined him on the sidewalk. He wore a star on his beaten brown leather duster; she wore a white ostrich plume in her blue velvet hat. They settled comfortably arm in arm as they began walking. They seemed to notice the passing wagon at the same time. Their heads came up. Jane thought the woman nudged the marshal with her elbow, but her coat was heavy and Jane couldn’t be sure. She did not mistake that the marshal smiled in the way people do when they were sharing a secret.
Morgan, she saw, nodded coolly and then resumed staring straight ahead. “Who are they?”
“The marshal and his wife. Cobb and Tru Bridger.”
“They know.”
He looked sideways at her. “Know?”
Morgan Longstreet was not the only one who did not like to appear foolish. “They know about us.” When he said nothing, Jane shook her head. “I had an inkling.”
“An inkling,” he repeated. “Do you have one often?”
“Often enough to know that I should keep them to myself.”
Morgan pointed up ahead and to the right. “That’s the Pennyroyal.”
“What if there are no rooms available?”
“There is at least one.”
“How can you know that?”
“Because I reserved it earlier,” he said. “For us. For tonight. For after we were married.”
“Oh.”
“I was thinking of your comfort.”
She smiled a little at that. “That was kind of you.”
“Morning Star is eight miles out of town.”
“I remember.” Jane looked over her shoulder at the trunk in the bed of the wagon. His letters were in there. She kept all of them, stored them in a black lacquered box with a brass hasp and lock. The lock was necessary to keep them away from Rebecca, who had been known to treat Jane’s possessions as if they were her own. Until Jane left the Ewing household, she had worn the key on a necklace, keeping the slender gold chain out of sight with high, fitted collars. When that was not possible, she pinned it to her chemise. If Rebecca knew about the box and was frustrated by her inability to access the contents, she never indicated it. Jane was confident that Rebecca had never mentioned its existence to her mother. Cousin Frances would not have stood for Jane having secrets. Frances Ewing must know everything.
“I would not have minded if you wanted to return home tonight,” she said. “I would have understood.”
“Understood?”
“Yes, that you would like to be where you find comfort. Morning Star is that place, isn’t it? You wrote as if it were.” When he did not comment, Jane also fell silent. She stared in the direction of the Pennyroyal, feeling a mixture of excitement and dread as it filled her field of vision.
Morgan pulled up on the reins. The cinnamon-colored mare stopped in front of the hotel’s porch entrance. “If Mrs. Sterling doesn’t have a spare room, I’ll find one at Taylor’s Bathhouse. Maybe the Sedgwick place. Jail’s probably empty. I can always bunk in a cell if it comes to that.”
Jane did not have the impression that he was trying to inveigle an invitation to share her room. He said it without guile, without inflection. His manner was matter-of-fact. “I hope the jail will not be necessary,” she said.
“So do I, Miss Middlebourne. So do I.”
Jane thought this last was said with more feeling than she had heard from him before. She wondered at it but had no idea what she might ask to confirm it. The opportunity was taken from her when the doors to the hotel opened and a broad-shouldered man with hands as large as dinner plates loped across the porch and down the steps to greet them.
Jane felt the man’s slow, wide smile as a physical force when it was turned on her. Disarmed, she could not help but return it.
Morgan said, “This is Walt Mangold. Walt, Miss Jane Middlebourne. She’s going to take the room I reserved.”
“Is that right? That’s the sort of kindness that will come back your way tenfold. Believe it. Miss Middlebourne, is it? Well, I reckon you’re plumb tuckered. Most folks that land at the Pennyroyal straight from the train are. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“Likewise, Mr. Mangold.” She put out her hand. It was swallowed whole in a grasp that was surprisingly gentle and gentlemanly.
“It’s Walt.” He released her. “Hardly recognize the other.”
Morgan reached across Jane and handed the reins to Walt. “I’ve been thinking I’d stay in town tonight instead of heading back. Does Mrs. Sterling have another room for me?”
“We’re full up. Just registered that Wanamaker fella.”
Jane thought that Morgan handled the exchange smoothly. He had introduced her without offering an explanation for her presence, her connection to him, or why he was staying in town. The room he told her had been reserved for the two of them had been reserved in his name alone. He played his cards close, though whether it was because he thought she might not agree to stay or because he might not want her to, she did not know.
Jane wanted to press her palms against the knot tightening her belly. Instead she placed one hand in Morgan’s as he offered to help her down from the buckboard and used the other to steady herself.
“Thank you,” she said. She eased her hand out of his as he made another study of her face. “Is something wrong?”
“I was going to ask you. You’re pale as a salt lick.”
Jane had no reply. She turned toward the steps and began to mount them. Behind her, she could hear Morgan giving Walt instructions about her belongings and the horse and wagon. It was only marginally reassuring that he thought of her first; his instructions regarding the horse were more detailed.
Jane was at the Pennyroyal’s entrance when Morgan caught up to her. He reached for the doorknob before she could but did not immediately open the door. She stared straight ahead. “What is it, Mr. Longstreet?”
“Are you going to run off?”
The question surprised her. It was no good asking what she had gotten herself into. She was into it. “Not for at least twenty-four hours. Perhaps not even then.” Jane felt him hesitate and wondered if he were trying to gauge the truth of her words. “I did not know you were a redhead,” she said.
“How’s that again?”
Jane’s eyes swiveled in Morgan’s direction. She regarded him from under slightly raised eyebrows. “I did not know you were a redhead. Your photograph failed to reveal that. I mention it because you are not the only one who must come to terms with expectations, whether they are reasonable or not. Perhaps if I had known you had hair the color of a lighted fuse, I would have made more inquiries about your temperament. We are both of us deceived, Mr. Longstreet, but I acquit you of intentionality. If you cannot acquit me of the same, no amount of time spent together will make a difference.”
Jane set her jaw and faced forward again. “I am not going to run off.”
Morgan lifted his hat, raked his hair once, and set the Stetson back on his head. “You really think it’s the color of a lighted fuse?”
His hair was the color of the sun sitting low on the horizon. It was beautiful. Jane did not tell him that. “Please open the door.”
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br /> Morgan did, and he held it open until Walt came through with Jane’s bags and trunk. He joined Jane at the polished walnut desk while Walt set everything down at the foot of the stairs and called out for Mrs. Sterling.
Jane loosened her scarf as she looked around. It was a pleasant surprise to find the hotel’s foyer so warmly inviting. The lemon yellow walls were a bright contrast to the walnut wainscoting. Sunlight dappled the damask cover on the narrow bench that ran parallel to the stair banister. There were two open archways, one that led to the dining room, and another that led to the saloon. From what Jane could see, the dining room appeared to be deserted, but the saloon had at least a few patrons. She glimpsed a young woman flitting between two tables holding an empty tray against her hip and a mug of beer in her hand.
Curious about the saloon, Jane would have liked to see more of it, but a door down the short hall swung open and the woman emerging captured all of Jane’s attention.
Ida Mae Sterling was still drying her hands on her apron as she approached. The aroma of baking bread followed in her wake, a heady and seductive scent that had been known to stupefy a weary traveler.
Jane’s nostrils flared as she breathed in the fragrance of rising dough and heat. The knot in her stomach vanished. In its absence, there was hunger.
Mrs. Sterling’s smile was wide and welcoming as she greeted Morgan and stepped behind the desk. Her expression became more reserved when she regarded Jane over the top of her gold-rimmed spectacles and began to explain she had no rooms to let.
Morgan interrupted before Mrs. Sterling cited the options. “It’s all right. Miss Middlebourne will have the room I reserved.”
“She will? And what about you?”
“I can sleep anywhere.”
She nodded. “I never knew a cowboy who couldn’t.” She pushed the registry toward Jane. “Guess you’re a proper rancher these days, but I don’t suppose that’s softened you.”