by Reina Torres
“Mr. Bowles?”
He groaned and turned his head toward the Captain. “Yes, sir?”
“Do you have anything to say for yourself beyond what we already know?”
Wyeth was at a loss. He’d already told them how much the job meant to him. He knew that the riders still at the station were all ready to speak on his behalf.
And yet Wyeth felt numb. Worry rolled through him and his skin felt cold and clammy, even in the mid-day heat. While he didn’t have a chance with Tillie he didn’t want her to think ill of him.
The Captain cleared his throat, and Wyeth turned away. Maybe it was too late already.
Levi shifted forward on the bench and gave Wyeth an encouraging smile. “Son? Would you like to speak on your behalf?”
Wyeth felt his throat close up tight. He had said enough already. “No, thank you, sir.”
Levi’s sigh was a heavy one. He turned to the Captain. “I’d best go let the riders know. They’ll want to speak on his behalf.”
A soft brush of sound turned every head in the room.
Wyeth looked over in awe as Tillie stood up and turned to the room. “I would like to as well.”
Chapter 10
“I would like to as well.” Tillie felt all the eyes in the room turn to her.
The only person she wanted to look at her, to really see her, was Wyeth.
His eyes had only flickered to her for a moment before they looked away toward the floor.
Before she could recover her composure, the Captain was at her side. “Miss Weston, this is perhaps not the time-”
“This is exactly the time.” She looked up at him and met his gaze squarely, “Wyeth might lose his job. If I can do something to help him, Captain. I want to.” She looked over and could only see the top of Wyeth’s head. “I need to.”
“What you need to do, young lady, is get yourself back to the Boarding House.”
Tillie felt as if her knees had turned to custard. Looking back over her shoulder, she saw her father standing in the doorway of the church with Mr. Pierson by his side. “Father, you don’t understand-”
“I’m not asking for an explanation,” he hissed through his teeth. “Make no mistake. You will explain yourself, but away from curious ears.” He strode through the center of the room and barely gave Levi a look before he glared down at her. “You will come with me, Ottille.”
He didn’t wait for an answer, and Tillie knew he didn’t need one. Her father had given her an order and expected it to be followed.
George stopped when he was shoulder to shoulder with the Captain. He gave him a single nod. “My thanks, Captain, for watching out for my daughter. If she had to run off, I am thankful that you were here to keep her out of trouble.”
Shame. She felt shame from her father’s words. He spoke as if she was a child, running out to hide.
“I wasn’t in any danger, Father.”
He heard her words. She saw the way his head turned slightly toward her, but he said nothing to her in reply.
“We have much to discuss, Captain.” George summoned a nearly-pleasant smile. “I trust we will come to an agreement soon.”
The captain’s nod seemed to ease much of her father’s ire.
“We will speak at a later date, Mr. Weston.”
“I’ll look forward to it, Captain… look forward to it indeed.” With that final word, he walked back toward the door, his gaze completely averted from Wyeth or any of the other riders in the room. They had simply ceased to exist.
Gathering all of her courage she started after her father, her eyes returning again and again to Wyeth as she walked out of the room.
Perhaps it would not make any sense to anyone but herself, but Tillie turned until she felt the full afternoon sun on her back in the doorway of the church. She turned back to look down the main aisle, and there, she caught Wyeth’s stormy gaze.
Tillie had little experience in men and the mysteries of unspoken communications. She could see the curious downturn of Wyeth’s mouth. And his eyes. The look in his dark grey eyes made her tremble with frustration. She would give every little thing she owned to know what thoughts were behind those enigmatic eyes.
At least she wondered until she remembered the way he’d looked away from her before. Why did a single man have such power over her emotions? Like Mother Nature’s control of the weather, she had divined another truth. Wyeth Bowles had the same devastating control over her emotions as nature did over the rain and the wind. Equally glorious and devastating.
There would be no answers for her. Not with so many eyes watching her, and not with her father’s temper gaining steam as he marched off toward the boarding house. She rushed to follow after him. She wanted to explain, or rather, she wanted to diffuse the explosion that was threatening in her father’s long, ground-eating strides.
After the meeting, Charity stood at the back of the church, staring at the tombstones in the cemetery. It was a dark and gloomy landscape that stared back at her. She heard footsteps in the church and she glanced around the edge of the building, watching people file out of the building and heading back to homes and work. There wasn’t anything else to do in town at this hour.
The Crystal Dawn wasn’t going to open for another hour, and Benders opened… well, Benders opened when Bender rolled himself out of bed and splashed some water on his face.
She didn’t mind most of the folks from the meeting seeing her. Most of those men had been her customers at least a time or two. Most had been respectful. And the ones, who hadn’t, had been full in their cups and just sloppy drunks.
There was only one man she worried about seeing.
Almost as if she’d conjured him with a thought, Pierson stepped out of the church and moved toward the gate, talking to Captain Merrick. The Captain didn’t look very pleased.
Thankful for Pierson’s distraction, Charity rounded the back corner of the church and made her way through the side gate. Staying away from the main street of town, she walked quickly behind the General Store, diverting her eyes from Mrs. O’Neal who happened to be at the back door.
A quick look from behind the store showed no one on the street or near the bath house. With a relieved sigh, she darted across the grass toward Walt Daniels’ place. She didn’t call it what it was, even in her head. She didn’t think of herself as a suspicious person, but even thinking the word ‘undertaker’ made her shiver and fret.
Just a little bit more, she told her herself, and she’d let herself into the back of the Crystal Dawn, and she’d be safe. Just a little bit more, and- “Ow!”
A hand had closed around her arm and nearly yanked her off her feet and up against the wall of the small building.
“Stop! Let go of me!” She grabbed the man’s wrist and tried to dig her nails into the fragile flesh and free herself.
She got her wish and a bloody lip when the same hand that released her, rocked her head back with a slap.
When the stars cleared her vision, she ran her tongue over her lip and turned to glare at the man standing in the shadows.
Pierson glared at her. “Don’t bother calling out for help. Don’t think anyone would come to the rescue. You’re not exactly an innocent, are you?”
She wanted to claw his eyes out for saying the words to her, but she didn’t. She didn’t need to explain herself to him. “Tell me what you want to say, and then let me go. I have work to do.”
He gave her a look from head to toe and smiled. “I bet you do.”
Nausea turned her stomach over again and again.
“I want answers, Charity.”
“I’ve said enough today.” She felt a tickle of fear between her shoulder blades. “I didn’t say a thing about you.”
His eyes narrowed, his lips pulling back from his teeth, making them look like fangs extending down below his scraggly mustache. “You better keep it that way.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything about you, Pierson. I’m no idiot.”
�
��You’re a lot of things, Charity, but no… not an idiot. Still,” he moved closer and she stepped back, closing the scant space between her and the undertaker’s wall, “I wonder why you felt the need to help… that boy.”
She felt her chin tilt up in a reflexive motion. “Wyeth’s a gentleman. He didn’t deserve to lose his job because someone played him and put alcohol in his cup.”
He moved toward her and she turned her head to give him the cheek he’d already slapped. She only had so much face paint in her room, and if she had to cover two cheeks, she’d run out before she could replenish her supply.
The blow never landed, and she let out a sigh of relief.
“You think you can judge me?”
Charity tensed up, this is the reason why Laiden told them to never turn their backs on an angry man. She should have taken it to mean that she shouldn’t let down her defenses. “No,” her voice barely crawled out of her throat, “I didn’t say that.”
“But that whelp is a gentleman! You wouldn’t know a real man if he stepped on you.”
Her lungs emptied of air, and she grew still. Grew very, very still.
“You,” he pushed a finger into her shoulder, threatening to rend her second-hand dress, “keep your mouth shut about me. You don’t even think about me.”
She watched him through widened eyes, terrified of being in the shadows with this man.
“You hear me?”
Charity couldn’t speak, but she could nod her head… slowly. And she did it over and over until he stepped away.
“People don’t understand that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get me out of this hell hole. But we understand each other now, don’t we, Charity?”
She just continued to nod until he left and when she lost sight of him around the corner of the Crystal Dawn, she sank to the ground and started to cry.
Tillie was barely able to catch her breath when Mr. Poston darted past the sitting room door to answer the knock at the front of the house. Left to stand stock-still in the center of the room, Tillie listened to the pounding footsteps of Mademoiselle on the stairs.
Blinking back tears, she tried to explain again. “Please Father, it wasn’t her fault.”
“Be silent, Ottille! For once, do what I ask you to do and be silent!”
Behind the tears making her vision swim, she glared at her father’s back. Hadn’t she done everything she could to be a good daughter?
She was suddenly tired. So very tired.
Mr. Poston appeared in the doorway, clearing his throat. “Captain Merrick to see the young lady.”
Her father’s demeanor changed. He went from a scowl and sneer to his usual business smile, open and eager.
“Anselm!” George walked to the door. “Good of you to come.”
The Captain nodded and looked around the banker toward Tillie. “I came to speak with Miss Weston, if you please.”
George’s smile faltered just a bit. “Of course! Come right on in.” He swung his gaze to the smaller man standing just out of sight in the hall. “Poston. Bring us some refreshments.”
Mr. Poston sighed. Loudly. “I’m not running a restaurant here,” he grumbled, but shuffled off to do the banker’s bidding anyway.
The Captain’s easy strides brought him across the room faster than Tillie’s father, and he had a linen handkerchief in his hand before he reached her side. “What’s wrong?”
A sob stuck in her throat, making it nearly impossible to speak with any volume. “I am fine.”
Since she refused to take the square in her hand, the Captain used it to dab at the tear that escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. “Tears of joy?”
Tillie’s mouth turned up at the corner in the barest of smiles as more tears gathered on her lashes.
“She’s over-wrought.” Her father stood at the window staring out at the town. “She shouldn’t have gone to the meeting.”
There was a moment of silence, and it turned her father’s head.
“I am glad you came to see her.”
Poston arrived back in the room with a pitcher of water, a couple of glasses, and three nearly-whole cookies. He left just as quickly. Strangely, no one rushed for the refreshments, and George only looked dolefully down into the pitcher, narrowing his eyes in distaste.
“To be honest, Anselm-”
Tillie saw the way the Captain’s mouth tightened every time her father called him by his given name.
“I was afraid that you would ride straight out of town and not see my daughter. A slight like that would have been disastrous.”
The Captain didn’t reply, and after an awkward pause, her father continued on.
“I think it might be a good idea for Ottille to go for an extended visit to your ranch as soon as your mother and sister return. It would be an ideal time for her to know them.”
Tillie felt the Captain’s eyes on her face. She met his eyes evenly. Even though they’d only spent a few hours together over the space of two days, she felt a connection with him. And as she met his eyes, she knew what he was asking her. She could see his concern and his worry. He knew the source of her tears. And it was up to her to give him permission to tell the truth.
And as scary as it was, she knew that this was the time. It would never be a good time to disillusion her father, but she was bone tired of trying to make him happy.
Straightening to his full height, Captain Merrick stood at her side and faced her father. “I’m sure my mother and sister would be delighted to meet Ottille, Mr. Weston,” putting emphasis on his choice of address, the Captain continued, “your daughter and I share the affection of friends. Nothing more.”
“Friends?” Her father repeated the word as if it were part of a foreign language and he was trying to decipher its meaning by sounding it out. “Friends?”
Tillie spoke up. “Good friends, Father. The Captain and I-”
“The Captain and I?” Her father’s tone was cool, but the look in his eyes was full of fire. “There is no ‘Captain and I,’ is there?”
The man in question stepped forward. “You will watch your tone, sir.”
“Me?” George thumped his hand against his chest. “She is my daughter, sir. If anyone can say or do anything around her, it will be me!”
Tillie stepped closer and touched the Captain’s arm. “You don’t have to stay, Captain. Perhaps it’s better if I speak to my father alone?”
Her father blurted out a response before the Captain could speak. “Yes, go. There’s no need to stay. In fact,” her father turned his angry gaze on her, “Ottille is going to be leaving as well.”
Tillie felt a cold touch around her heart. Had it really come to this? “Father?”
“Don’t speak to me,” he held her gaze for a moment and turned away. “You will go to your room and pack your things.”
“Father, wait-”
“I’m sending you home.”
“But,” she swallowed convulsively, “I am home. This is our home, now.”
“You’ll go where I send you!”
Tillie was taken aback, staring back at the man who had raised her from birth, realizing that somewhere along the way, her father had become a stranger. “No, Father. I won’t.”
Having the Captain in the room gave her some added courage.
“I am so glad that you brought us here to Three Rivers. I have friends here. I feel welcome here,” she rushed on, so that her father wouldn’t argue, “and I intend to stay.”
He took a step closer to her, his shoulders stiff with anger, and the Captain stepped between them. He had his hand up, keeping her father at slightly more than arm’s length from them. “Sir, I think you ought to take a walk about town. Calm yourself. Come back when you have regained your composure.”
Heaven help her, Tillie felt at a complete loss.
Her father’s frown became a smile in a heartbeat. “Leave you two alone? Unchaperoned?”
“Father, no! This isn’t a game!”
“
No, Ottille, it’s not! You’re the one acting the fool. You can’t be serious about a man like Wyeth Bowles. I am assuming that he is the reason you’re about to ruin your one chance at a valuable husband.”
The Captain tensed beside her but didn’t speak out.
“Then perhaps you and I value different things, Father. Wyeth won’t be my husband either. There was never something between us,” she told him, “I thought perhaps there might have been at some point, but not anymore.” She looked away for a moment rather than seeing her father’s triumphant gaze. “I don’t need a husband to stay here,” she told him, “I can find a job.”
“You?” Tillie heard the exasperation in her father’s tone and the knee-jerk laughter. “What would you do?”
“I would find something,” she searched her mind for an idea and couldn’t think of one, but she wasn’t going to back down. If she had learned something from her father, it was making decisions and sticking to them. Turning to the Captain, she smiled and hoped that it looked more convincing than it felt. “Captain, would you be so kind as to walk me over to see a friend?”
Before he could speak, her father blurted out a warning. “You stay away from that boy!”
“Please, Father,” she drew in a shuddering breath, “I would think that you know me better than that.”
He shook his head. “Do what you will, Ottille. I only hope you won’t shame the family irreparably.” Turning on his heel, he marched out of the room.
Before she could speak, she felt the Captain take her arm. “Miss Weston? Are you quite all right?”
She attempted a smile. “I believe I will be… someday.”
“Where may I take you?”
Tillie looked up at him. “I believe I need to speak with Mrs. Hawkins.”
The Captain smiled at her, an encouraging grin that lifted her spirits the slightest bit. “I believe,” he echoed her words, “that is a smart decision.”
She nodded at him, barely able to form another complete thought. Her argument with her father had left her shaking and numb. He tucked her hand into the crook of his arm. When they reached the front door, she managed to look up at him and offer a weak, “Thank you.”