by Regina Scott
Allegra spotted him first. “Deputy,” she greeted him. “Come join us. We were just discussing what vegetables I might plant once the risk of frost is past. What do you think—Windsor beans or carrots?”
“Always partial to carrots myself,” he offered, but his gaze was drawn to where Beth was studying the rocky soil. She was wearing one of her pink dresses today, but the ruffles seemed to be sagging with her spirit.
“That was Beth’s opinion as well,” Allegra said, brushing down her own violet skirts. “I have seeds from the apple tree your mother put in, Beth. I thought a row of trees would do very nicely there.” She pointed to the end of the garden.
Beth raised her head and eyed the spot. “Better to plant them at the north or south rather than the east or west. Otherwise, as they grow, they’ll shade the garden a good part of the day.”
Allegra laughed. “And that’s why I need your help. Being raised in Boston, what do I know about growing fruits and vegetables?”
It wasn’t Boston as much as the Howard family and her family’s wealth that had kept her out of the dirt. The death of her first husband, Clay’s younger brother, had encouraged her to try elsewhere, to be her own person, she’d claimed. She had only bloomed in confidence since coming to Seattle.
“But surely you didn’t seek us for my pitiful farming skills,” she told Hart now. “How can we help you, Deputy?”
“I have a few questions for Miss Wallin,” he replied.
Beth immediately perked up. “Questions? About your investigation?”
“I’ll just pace off the plot,” Allegra told them, moving away. He could only appreciate how she gave them privacy while still honoring her role as chaperone.
“What happened?” Beth asked, closing the distance between them. Her blue eyes were wide. “Was someone else attacked? Did you capture one of the men?”
“No,” Hart said, feeling suddenly foolish for being so concerned.
She frowned. “But you said you had questions for me.”
He spread his hands. “Well, you’ve been too quiet lately.”
Now her brows shot up. “Me? Too quiet? No one’s ever complained about that before.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Oh.” She dropped her gaze, pink skirts swinging as she must have shuffled her feet. “I’m fine. You needn’t worry.”
But he had been worried, and that fact in itself frustrated him. When had he become so attuned to her, the way she shifted, the way her breath hissed past her lips?
How soft her lips looked.
“Did you do as you threatened?” he pressed. “Did you start your own investigation? Did you learn something that troubled you?”
She shook her head, and he almost let himself relax. “But something’s concerning you,” he insisted.
She sighed. “Why do I bother trying to hide anything from you? You are simply too good a lawman to be fooled.”
Hart widened his stance. “So, what happened? What did you discover about Mrs. Jamison?”
She glanced up, eying Allegra at the far side of the patch. “I haven’t learned much about Mrs. Jamison yet. Something else is troubling me. I can’t talk further here. Meet me tonight at eight, by the gate to the pasture.”
He glanced at Allegra as well. Surely nothing Beth had discovered touched the Howards. But the fact that she felt she must protect them from the information tightened his gut.
“Make it six,” he said. “And don’t be late.”
Chapter Sixteen
Beth slipped out into the twilight, pulling her coat close in the growing cold. Clouds made the sky heavy. She felt just as heavy.
She’d avoided Hart most of the week, afraid by word or deed she’d blurt out what she now knew. Allegra and Clay had commented on her reticence. Gillian and Georgie tiptoed past the guest room as if afraid she had some dire disease. She couldn’t tell them it was her heart that hurt.
Even now, her feet dragged as she approached the pasture gate. Easy to make out Hart’s silhouette against the green. He stood still and tall, gaze moving back and forth. She felt it narrow in on her.
“Talk,” he ordered as she stopped next to him.
Despite herself, Beth raised her chin. “Well! I like that. Not even a ‘how are you’ or ‘fine weather we’re having.’”
“You’re too quiet, and it looks to be coming on rain,” he returned, voice sounding rougher than usual. “What have you got yourself into, Beth?”
She pressed a hand against her chest. “Me? Nothing, I promise you. This has to do with you.”
He stiffened. There was no way around the matter now. She might as well go straight through the middle. She lowered her hand and lay it on his arm. “Hart, I know about your past, the death of the woman you loved. I’m so sorry.”
He recoiled, pulling away from her touch. “Who told you?”
“Does it matter? Rest assured few know the tale, and I promised to speak of it to no one but you. That’s why I wanted to meet you privately.”
He was no more than an outline now in the shadows. “Thank you for that. I doubt Allegra would want me living here if she knew I was once an outlaw.” His booted foot scraped at the dirt. “What exactly were you told?”
Was there more than Maddie had let on? Beth licked her lips. “You ran away from the orphanage and fell in with a gang. But you soon regretted it and left.”
“Not soon enough. People were hurt. I robbed banks, Beth, held up stages. I was the sort of man your brothers help me hunt down and bring to justice.”
Was he determined to make her think badly of him? “But you’ve changed. Now you uphold the law.”
“Now I uphold the law,” he repeated, as if by repeating it he made it true. “What else were you told?”
Beth blew out a breath. “After you left, the gang came looking for you. They killed your sweetheart. Oh, Hart, I can’t imagine.”
“I wouldn’t want you to imagine.” His voice was sharp. “I don’t want anyone to feel that pain again.”
Yet he felt it now. “That’s why you won’t marry, isn’t it?” Beth murmured. “You’re still mourning her.”
He shook his head, and her heart jumped.
“I’m not mourning Annabelle, Beth. She died more than ten years ago, and I know she’s in a better place.”
Annabelle. She even had a romantic name. Beth could picture her—flaxen hair, cornflower-blue eyes, adoring smile. How she must have loved him!
“Tell me about her,” she said.
He took a step back. “Why?”
Because she wanted to know, because she needed to know. “It might help.”
She felt his sigh. “She was the prettiest gal I’d ever met, and the sweetest and kindest. She had a way of looking at me that made me want to move mountains. She convinced her pa to let me hire on at their farm, helped me dream of being something more than I was. And when they came for me, she stepped in front of a bullet so I’d have time to defend myself.”
Tears were hot on her cheeks. “What courage.”
“What a loss. I should have been the one to die.”
“No.” The word flew out of her. “No, Hart. Neither of you should have had to die. It was a terrible tragedy, but you can’t let it stop you from living.”
“I am living,” he spit out. “I’m working to be a better man. I vowed that day that no family would suffer the way hers did because of an outlaw’s deeds. I can’t stop every criminal, but I stop as many as I can.”
“And look how many you’ve stopped. That hateful man who nearly roused Seattle against the Irish, the villain who tried to kidnap John and Dottie’s son. I know there have been others. You’re a hero, Hart.”
“No, I’m not. If you can’t see that, you don’t really know me.”
Beth peered closer, trying in vain to make out the expression on his face. “Yes, I do. You’re set in your ways, opinionated and stubborn. You’re also courageous, hardworking and determined. If yo
u can’t see that, maybe you should look in the mirror more often.”
He shook his head again. “Will nothing make you give up?”
Beth sighed. “Not likely. I’m convinced having a wife would be a benefit to you, Hart, an encouragement, a helpmate.”
“A wife,” he said, “would only get in my way.”
Beth gasped. “For shame, Hart McCormick! Do you think so little of women? Was your Annabelle nothing but a nuisance?”
“My Annabelle,” he said, turning away, “is dead. Because she had the misfortune of loving me.”
Beth darted in front of him, touched his arm again. “You can’t blame yourself. The villain made his choice, and so did she.”
“And now I’ve made mine. I’m not marrying, Beth.”
Stubborn, annoying... Beth made herself count to ten. “She sacrificed herself so you could live. You owe it to her to move on.”
He grabbed her shoulders. “You don’t know what you’re asking. It’s a story to you, like the dime novel adventures, like those books your pa left you. It’s not a story to me, Beth. I lived it. I’m still living it.”
Hurt wrapped around her, for him, for what might have been. “I still say the right thing is to let her go.”
He let Beth go instead. “We’re done talking. And I’m done with courting. I don’t need a matchmaker. Go home for Easter. I’ll stay in town and keep looking for the gang.”
“Oh, Hart, no!” She clasped her hands together to keep from touching him again. “I understand now why you won’t marry. I’ll speak with the Literary Society, convince them the case is hopeless. With all the other things I’ve been doing, perhaps they’ll admit me regardless. And my invitation stands. My family would enjoy having you with us for Easter. Please don’t let this conversation stop you.”
He was still again, as if weighing his options, weighing her. Then he snapped a nod. “All right. But don’t build up castles around me, Beth. I’m just a man, and a flawed one at that.”
He strode off for his cabin then, before she could tell him the truth. Two years ago she had held out her heart, seeing only a heroic figure, someone larger than the life she’d led. Now she saw him, his pride, his fears. She saw all his flaws.
And she cared about him anyway.
* * *
It seemed her matchmaking was over. She didn’t have the strength to find a woman for Hart, not when he was so very hurt. It wasn’t fair to the lady or to him. She wanted to hold him close, ease the pain, but she didn’t have the right.
She didn’t have the opportunity either. He avoided her the next few days. She couldn’t blame him. Knowing she was privy to his darkest secret, every time he looked at Beth he must remember Annabelle’s death. She almost wished she hadn’t asked Maddie about his past.
Still, she found it hard to simply leave Seattle. There was so much to do and see here, so many friends to visit, good work to do. And there was still the matter of Scout and Mrs. Jamison. She’d spotted them around town together—shopping, eating treats at the Pastry Emporium, strolling along the boardwalk. Mrs. Jamison was so busy courting she couldn’t possibly be fulfilling the commissions she must have taken. Did she intend to rely on Scout’s money to pay her bills instead? It was up to Beth to prove the lady wasn’t worth his time.
Or prove to her own satisfaction that Mrs. Jamison was a suitable bride for Scout.
She started with the Denny ladies, knowing them for some of the seamstress’s customers.
“Such a talented woman,” Mary Ann Denny maintained as she, her sister and Beth wandered through Kelloggs’, looking over the latest fabric and notions. “Did you see her drawings in Godey’s?”
She’d have to dig through her stacks for the January issue when she was home for Easter.
“I wonder why she came to Seattle,” Beth said instead of answering the question. “Anyone who designs for the fashion magazines should be in New York or Boston.”
“No doubt the death of her husband drove her to it,” Louisa Denny replied, fingering a bolt of cambric. “Some men do not think of the future when managing their financial affairs, another reason women should have more rights.”
Their theory matched Hart’s, but it offered no proof. If Scout thought the lady destitute, he might propose marriage to rescue her.
If only she knew someone from San Francisco who remembered the widow’s time there. Mrs. Jamison must have had friends, acquaintances. Beth tried the postmaster next.
“Mail for Mrs. Jamison?” he asked, scratching his graying head. “Can’t say I’ve seen any coming in or going out.”
How odd. The seamstress hadn’t been in Seattle more than a month or two, but surely someone would have written to her, if only to make sure she’d arrived safely. And if she was in correspondence with Mr. Godey, she’d have sent a letter. Or did she have another way to contact friends in San Francisco?
Beth was on the dock waiting when the San Francisco steamer captain came ashore. She’d had to fend off offers of a stroll, a boat ride and a whiskey. The last offer she’d refused with the point of the umbrella she carried. Finally, the tall, spare gentleman set foot on the planks. Captain Tremaine listened to her story as they walked toward the shore.
“Jamison,” he said, stroking his brown beard. “Can’t say as I recall the name. But there was a Widow Jasson who married one of the prospectors. Poor fellow was discovered dead only a month later. Papers said he was the third husband she’d buried.”
Beth thanked him, unable to do more with her mind so full. Could it be the same woman? Was Mrs. Jamison so hardhearted she could marry for money again and again? And had none of her ill-gotten gains satisfied her avarice that she must pursue Scout now?
* * *
Hart stood across the street from the docks, watching Beth. On his patrol through town, he’d noticed her waiting on the planks and had stopped to keep an eye on things. He should have known she wouldn’t need his help. Any man who had approached her had been dismissed with a word or a wave of her umbrella. What had Captain Tremaine said to her that her usually busy body could stop so long?
He didn’t like it. He’d been avoiding her the last few days with the excuse that he had much to do. He’d patrolled the city and county and even checked on Scout’s activities, just in case there was any sign of the gang. But Scout seemed completely caught up in courting.
He knew his busyness was only a pretense. The truth was Beth’s concern had scraped off the scab over the sore Annabelle’s death had left. He wasn’t ready to probe the wound further.
But he wasn’t ready to see her in danger either. He met her as she crossed the street. “How goes the investigation?”
She blinked, focusing on his face as if returning from a long distance. “Investigation?”
Hart shook his head. “You’re not here because you’re planning a trip to San Francisco.”
“Hmm.” She glanced back at the dock. “I suppose that would get me the answers I need, but I really don’t want to be gone from home so long, and I’d have to find a chaperone.” She made a face.
He took her elbow and led her away from the shore. “So, who are you investigating now? Mrs. Jamison?”
He was almost glad when she agreed. The last thing he needed was for her questions to draw the gang out of hiding. Although he’d relish a chance to take on the robbers face to face, he couldn’t chance that Beth might be hurt. She’d already poked the bear once. She might not survive a second time.
And neither would he if something happened to her.
He pushed the thought away. “What did you learn, or should I ask?”
He listened as Beth laid out her theory. It made sense, but it wasn’t anything he could act on.
“Pretty thin evidence,” he told her.
“Particularly if I’m to persuade Scout,” she agreed. “But I’m not sure where else to check.”
He didn’t want her checking anywhere. If Mrs. Jamison was innocent, asking more questions might jeopardize her
reputation and her business. If she was guilty of murdering three husbands, looking more closely might make her select Beth as her next victim.
“I’ll telegraph the marshal in San Francisco, see what he knows,” Hart offered.
“Oh, Hart! That would be famous!” She threw her arms around him for a hug.
He’d seen her use the gesture a dozen times, with her brothers, her sisters-in-law, friends. It was spontaneous, enthusiastic, all Beth. Yet the feel of her against him raised such a fierce protectiveness that his arms were about her before he thought better of it.
She lowered her arms but didn’t move out of his embrace. He should let go, back away, but her eyes were very wide and very blue. He slipped into them, bending his head toward hers, catching the scent of vanilla that whispered of fresh-baked cookies, a loving family, the home he’d never known. His lips brushed hers slowly, carefully. She was soft, tender, sweet, the stuff that dreams were made of.
He made himself pull back. She’d closed her eyes and stood there, lips pursed as if she hoped for another kiss. He very nearly gave her one, but a shout down the street woke him, and he released her and stepped away.
What was he doing? He’d told her he didn’t want to marry. She thought he was still mourning Annabelle. She had every right to expect him to propose, this very moment.
She opened her eyes, relaxed her mouth, and blinked a moment as if orienting herself. “Well, that was unexpected.”
Hart rubbed the back of his neck. “You could say that again.”
“No, actually, I can’t. I find myself rather breathless.” She fanned herself with her hand.
He’d heard of women swooning when men took liberties. But surely not the redoubtable Beth Wallin.
“Beth, I...” he started.
She held up a hand. “We will not speak of it. We were merely caught up in the moment. There’s no need for you to mention this to my brothers.”
“No need at all,” he assured her. He didn’t like thinking how any of the Wallins would react if they felt he’d trifled with her affections.
She started forward, steps brisk, and he scurried to catch up. “I’ll be heading home Saturday afternoon. John is coming to fetch me. Services will be at ten on Sunday. I’ll wait in front of the church for you.”