by Gina Welborn
She hadn’t expected him to act immediately. “I hate to inconvenience you during business hours.”
He leaned across the counter and made a show of looking around his shop. “I don’t see anyone here. Besides”—his usual smile returned—“what’s the point of owning your own store if you can’t close early once in a while to help a friend?”
“Thank you.”
He came out from behind the counter and walked to the door, locking it and flipping the sign to CLOSED.
With no more fear of interruption, Marilyn focused on the bigger favor she needed. “I need my stash of gold brought to me. You’re the only man in town I feel safe asking to retrieve it.”
He rubbed his breast bone. “It would be my honor, Mrs. Svenson.”
The tension in her shoulders relaxed. “Thank you. I used the last of the gold I brought to town with me to pay the livery. I’ll need something for the boarding house.”
His eyes narrowed. “Boarding house?” The way he said it made it sound like she was pitching a tent in Prostitute Alley.
“There are three of them in town that I’m aware of.” Marilyn laid her reticule atop the book loaned by Dr. Tolbert. “One of them should have a room available.”
“For miners.” Mr. Pawlikowski’s tone was unlike anything she’d heard from him before.
“And anyone with enough money to pay their fee.”
“For how many months are you planning on paying to stay there?”
“Until the baby is strong enough for travel.”
His gaze flickered to her waist. Marilyn felt her teeth clenching. She had no idea why she was irritated at his I-must-make-sure-you-are-safe attitude. He was only being helpful.
But she was irritated.
He had no right to tell her where she could or couldn’t slumber. If she wanted to put a mattress in the middle of his shop, she would do it. Well, maybe she wouldn’t. But right now doing it sorely tempted her.
“How far along are you?” he cut into her mental insurrection.
“Doctor Tolbert thinks I’m four months along.” She couldn’t believe it because the monthly she’d had in April lasted for several days. It wasn’t mere spotting. But—oh—how she wanted to think she’d carried this child longer than any other, to allow hope and joy to flourish inside her.
Mr. Pawlikowski whispered July and the four months following. “If you have the baby in November or December, the two of you can’t travel until spring at the earliest, unless the Union Pacific lays rail from St. Paul to Helena practically overnight.”
Stunned, Marilyn felt her mouth gape. “I thought the same thing.”
“The part about the baby or the train?”
“The train,” she explained, still astounded that he’d said what she’d thought. “Word for word.”
He, though, didn’t look the least bit astonished at their mental harmony.
He hooked his thumbs on his apron again. “Those boarding houses are loud and dirty, and not the place a woman will be respected.” There, in those dark, almost black eyes of his, she could see his fear for her safety.
And yet, her earlier irritation with him returned. “Are you saying—or not saying, as is more accurate—that I am in danger of being molested?”
He nodded.
Marilyn took a breath. As much as she disliked admitting it, his fear had merit. “Leaving Helena isn’t an option. Where would you have me stay, Mr. Pawlikowski? A tent is no safer. A house cannot be built in a day.”
“But it would be convenient, if it were possible.”
“And fascinating to watch.” Her lips twitched. “I’d offer to bring a pie to share as we observed the walls going up, but you do not want to eat my cooking.”
He watched her curiously, and Marilyn suddenly felt warm. . . and clearly overwhelmed with new pregnancy emotions. With one look, Gunder had never made her fluttery. Certainly David Pawlikowski’s studious appraisal was not the cause of her nervousness.
He untied the apron strings around his waist. “What would you say if I could find you a house to rent?”
“You have my interest.”
“It will take me a day or two to track one down. In the meantime, there’s a nice family who just moved to town. Mr. Palmer is a telegraph operator, and he brought his wife and two children with him. How about we go talk to them about you staying in their spare bedroom? I’m certain you and Mrs. Palmer will become great friends.”
Marilyn doubted it. In her experience, women wanted to talk about knitting and lace caps and new recipes and all kinds of other frippery stuff in which she had no interest. She’d yet to meet another woman who read scientific journals or studied a dictionary or conducted experiments for the sheer pleasure of it. However, there was some merit in Mr. Pawlikowski’s assertion that a boarding house filled with single men might not be an appropriate place for a widow.
To keep her baby and herself safe, she could endure putting up with a frivolous female for a few days until she rented a house of her own.
* * *
“I’m delighted to meet you.” Mrs. Palmer gripped Marilyn’s forearms with almost painful intensity as she pulled her across the threshold of the whitewashed house attached to the new telegraph office. “I was terrified I’d be the only respectable lady in town.”
Marilyn glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Pawlikowski’s retreating form. He wasn’t classically handsome, but he walked tall with no threatening demeanor. Silent strength.
Realizing the pointlessness in admiring him, she returned her attention to the woman who had agreed to let a stranger stay in her new home on nothing more than the shop owner’s request. “Thank you for hosting me, Mrs. Palmer.”
“Call me Ellen, please.” She leaned down to pick up her youngest and settled him on her hip. “This is Geddes. He’s three.” The boy fisted his hand in a little wave. “Our daughter, Luanne, is five.” The little towheaded girl scooted behind her mother’s skirt as though trying to hide.
Marilyn wished she could hide, too. Just as she expected, Ellen Palmer was feminine from the top of her frilly white cap to the bottom of her blue ruffled skirt. She had pretty pink cheeks, pretty pink lips, and a pretty pink hand smoothing white-blond wisps of hair from her son’s forehead. Her own hair was a shade darker and more golden, and her blue eyes were the color of a cloudless sky.
Ellen Palmer looked to be the exact kind of woman who, in Marilyn’s experience, had nothing in her head but fluff.
“Your children are lovely,” Marilyn said because she didn’t know what else to say to a woman she felt no connection with.
“They certainly keep me busy.” Ellen placed her son on the floor again, watching as he and his sister toddled deeper into the house. “Mrs. Svenson—”
“Marilyn, please.”
Ellen’s smile seemed genuine. “The owner of this store, Mr. Powkowlity—”
“Pawlikowski,” Marilyn corrected. When that didn’t clear the confusion on Ellen’s face, Marilyn broke his name into syllables. “Paul, like the Apostle, i as in instrument, cow like the animal, and ski, which is usual in surnames of those of Polish descent.”
“Pawl-i-kow-ski.” Ellen repeated his name a few more times before saying, “Mr. Pawlikowski mentioned you are a widow.”
Marilyn nodded. “My husband died two months ago.” She waited for a censorious glance at her green-checked calico dress.
It didn’t come.
Instead, tears glistened in Ellen’s sky-blue eyes. “My husband was in the war, and I was beside myself with worry until he came home. When he did, I was so grateful, I agreed to follow him out here, but when we arrived, the house wasn’t what I’d been expecting and . . .” She paused to take a deep breath and pressed a hand over her lips, tears falling onto her cheeks. “I’m sorry, I don’t normally prattle like a ninny. I still feel like I’m rolling in the Conestoga and can’t seem to get my bearings.”
Marilyn gave her an understanding smile. “When Gunder and I came west, it too
k me a good week before the ground felt solid beneath my feet.”
“Yes.” Ellen beamed. “That’s exactly how it feels. Oh, where are my manners. Do come in and make yourself at home.” She stepped into the parlor.
Marilyn followed, while noting how nice the house was. “How did your husband build this in a week?”
“Oh, he didn’t. Mr. Broadwater of the Diamond R Freighting Company had it built for us. He’s partnering with Wendell—that’s my husband—on the telegraph office.”
Marilyn sat in the other chair next to the unlit hearth. From what she could see, the house looked to be three times larger than the cabin Gunder had built. The walls were milled wood instead of rough peeled logs, and there were a number of doors presumably leading to bedrooms coming off the parlor and kitchen area. There were blue-checkered curtains over the windows, some hand-braided rugs on the floor, and several needlepoint cushions on the sofa.
Definitely the home of a woman who valued frippery.
But what caught most of Marilyn’s attention was the scent of something sweet and savory which made saliva pool under her tongue. “What smells so delicious?”
“Oh, it’s just a little experiment.”
Marilyn could hardly believe her ears. “An experiment?”
Ellen laughed with complete ease. “I don’t know what else to call it. I threw a little bit of this and a little bit of that into a soup pot along with a whole chicken. We’ll see if it turns out.”
What a novel way of thinking about cooking. Had Marilyn’s mother presented the chore in such a way, perhaps it wouldn’t have felt like such drudgery all these years. Maybe staying with the Palmer family for a day or two until she had a house of her own wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
* * *
“You closed up early.”
David turned from hitching Samson to his wagon. “I need to run an errand for a friend.”
With the tip of his finger, Forsythe raised his hat. “Any chance it’s for the lovely widow you were with earlier today?”
David’s heart slammed into his chest. His feelings couldn’t be that obvious. “Why do you ask?”
“So it is. Excellent.” The man jumped to conclusions quickly. And accurately. “I was hoping to ride out and view Mrs. Svenson’s homestead. It will give me a better sense of how to help her gain head-of-household status.”
David didn’t see how viewing the land would help Forsythe with the legal work, but he also didn’t see how he could decline to let the man accompany him without appearing like Mrs. Svenson’s suitor. “She’s decided to move into town and asked me to sell off what I can.” Which was the truth, if not the whole truth.
Forsythe nodded as if he understood, yet he looked like he knew David was withholding information. “Could you use a hand with loading?”
“She is your client.”
Forsythe’s smile lifted one corner of his lips higher than the other. “That she is. I have my Goliath stabled at the livery.”
David grinned. “We should trade horses.”
It took a moment before Forsythe chuckled. “David and Goliath. Very good.”
“Any chance your middle name is Delilah?”
Forsythe shook his head. “I take it your horse’s name is Samson.”
David patted his gray’s neck. “I’ll have Samson hitched and ready to go in five minutes.
“In five it is.” Forsythe strode away and came back a few minutes later astride a magnificent black stallion as big as his name.
David climbed into his wagon, and they rode north, then east, toward the Svenson homestead. Forsythe was full of questions about the town, mining, the people and politics of Helena, and where he might be able to find a decent meal. The discussion soon ranged to broader topics, like the consequences of President Lincoln’s assassination and the politics of Reconstruction in the Southern states. Finding themselves in agreement on such weighty topics, they were soon on a first-name basis and agreed to meet for dinner and a game of chess at Jonas’s boarding house the following night.
As they neared the Svenson homestead, the frantic bleating of sheep carried on the wind. David snapped the reins against Samson’s rump but couldn’t let him run at full speed for fear it would overturn the wagon bed.
Jonas shouted a guttural, “Ya!” He crouched in his saddle while his black horse galloped ahead. He stopped in the dirt drive in front of the cabin, where flies swarmed above something on the ground.
David pulled his roan to a halt next to Jonas. He then jumped out of the wagon and knelt beside a dingy white and red animal carcass. With one hand, he covered his nose. With the other, he waved back and forth to shoo away the flies.
“Is that”—Jonas paused to control his stallion, who was snorting and trying to get away from the smell of blood—“a sheep?”
David nodded. “Throat was slit with a knife. The cut’s too clean for a predator.”
Jonas rode up to the cabin, shifting in his saddle as he looked around. “I think there’s one over there.” He pointed toward a white and black splotch embedded in the prairie grass. He swung his arm to the right. “And there.”
David led Samson to the cabin and tied the reins to the hitching post. Then he tromped through the tall grass and checked all of the carcasses to verify they’d been killed by a human and not wolves. He knelt beside the third animal and checked its body temperature. Still warm.
He stood and called out. “Whoever killed these sheep must have been watching Mrs. Svenson, waiting for her to leave.” Were they watching now? The thought made David want to hit something.
Jonas leaned forward in the saddle, his arms resting on the saddle horn. “Three sheep left to rot in the summer heat. Whoever did this wasn’t trying to feed starving bellies but to scare Mrs. Svenson off her land.”
“I know.” And it made David’s stomach roil to think of someone attacking a helpless widow. Although helpless didn’t exactly fit Marilyn Svenson. He stood and brushed grass from his left knee. “Ride the perimeter and see if you can find any footprints to tell us if we’re looking for one person or more than one. I’ll check the house.”
Jonas’s eyebrows lifted. “And if I find tracks, are you expecting me to follow them? I’m a lawyer, not an army scout.”
David felt his lips twitch as he wiped a trickle of sweat from his temple with the back of his hand. This wasn’t an amusing moment, but he appreciated Jonas’s attempt to ease the tension they were both feeling. “If you find tracks, then we have something that may entice Sheriff Blanchard to investigate.”
“I met the sheriff earlier today.” Jonas scratched the corner of his mouth with his index finger. “He didn’t strike me as an industrious sort of man.”
David chuckled in spite of the grim situation. “You’re an excellent judge of character.”
“Any other time I would revel in the compliment. Unfortunately, Blanchard’s incompetence does our lovely widow a disservice.” Jonas steered Goliath toward the edges of the cleared section of land.
David walked back to the cabin where Samson was tied. Time to collect what he could sell, load up the chickens, pen the remaining sheep, tie the cow to the wagon, and retrieve Mrs. Svenson’s gold. To be entrusted with such an errand filled him with too much satisfaction.
You’re the only man in town I feel safe asking.
How long had it been since a woman looked at him with something other than contempt in her eyes? Klaudia had lost all respect for him within months of their wedding. Ten years of marriage was a long time to feel like he’d not taken a deep breath or drunk enough water to fill his soul.
Ten years.
He’d almost forgotten how good it felt to be someone’s hero, even for a little while.
David pushed open the cabin door. His jaw sagged. The inside looked like six messy miners lived there instead of one woman.
Had whoever killed the sheep come looking for her gold?
He picked his way through a maze of clothes, books, and�
��what was that?—littered across the pinewood planks until he reached the kitchen area. Mrs. Svenson said she kept some of her camouflaged canning jars under the floorboards while the rest were in the root cellar along the west side of the house.
There was a clear space near the potbellied stove. When he reached it, he tapped his heel along the edge of each plank until one jiggled. He knelt and pried it up.
Thank goodness! Four canning jars filled with dried beans and corn kernels just as Mrs. Svenson had described. He lifted them out, opened the lids to be sure there was gold intermingled, and then carried them to the wagon.
He found the root cellar and the last three jars of beans and gold along with jars filled with what appeared to be chicken or some other white meat, assorted vegetables, and berries in syrup, possibly for one of those pies she’d warned him about. A large number of empty jars filled the rest of the shelves, waiting for the end of summer and canning season. David grabbed a crate and filled it with twelve jars, positioning the three with the hidden gold in the center row before heading outside. He reached the wagon at the same moment Jonas rode up.
“Shouldn’t we be focused on the larger items?” Jonas asked.
David set the crate in the wagon bed. “Thought I’d pack the breakable stuff first. There are a few more jars in the root cellar there.” He pointed for good measure.
Jonas dismounted and led his black stallion to the open hatch. “I found horseshoe tracks in the gap between the two large trees on the north end of the clearing. There were so many of them, though, I have no idea if any are fresh. I also found a dog.” He flicked his gaze toward one of the sheep carcasses, indicating the dog had suffered a similar fate.
David gritted his teeth. “I expect it ran out to scare off the intruders and was…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. The senseless violence clogged his throat.
Jonas tied Goliath to the hitching post, his expression hard. He stepped down into the root cellar. When he appeared a few moments later, he held ajar of berries in each hand. Instead of putting them inside his saddle bags or loading them into the wagon, he held them like weights on a scale. “How did Mrs. Svenson’s husband die?”