A fond farewell? His stomach churned. Something was happening to him that he didn’t rightly understand. He needed to get away from her womanly smells and charming ways before it was too late. If it already wasn’t.
Cordelia wasn’t above admitting to a fondness for riding in the saddle behind her Irish-American rescuer yesterday.
Yet today she’d been handed off—dumped—onto the saddle in front of the amiable O’Malley on the trail toward town. And she was perturbed. At herself. For wishing her arms still around the hard-muscled waist of Neil MacBride.
No way for a seasoned field reporter to behave. Neil MacBride didn’t want to be her friend. And despite her best efforts to convince herself his regard—or lack thereof—didn’t matter, truth was it did. And his continuing aloofness not only rankled, but stung.
“I’m not sure what I’ve done to make him dislike me so.”
O’Malley chuckled. “Himself doesn’t dislike you, and ’tis telling the truth, I am. On the contrary, you’ve put the fear of God into our lad there.”
She shot a look at the broad shoulders of Neil MacBride, riding ahead with Tierney and Doolittle on either side. A nice view of his back—which was exactly what she’d been receiving from the enigmatic man ever since their talk by the fire last night. As if she were a disease he must avoid. And if not avoid, endure.
“Acting like the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels.” O’Malley raised his voice. “Wonder why that be?”
“You can shut your gob, Patrick O’Malley.” Neil didn’t bother to turn around. “Unlessyou aim to find new employment.”
His pronouncement sent the men, including O’Malley, into a gale of laughter. Neil muttered dire warnings under his breath.
Cordelia leaned forward in the saddle. “Good thing then, Mr. MacBride, you’ll see the last of me when we reach town.”
“Where you’ll no doubt be putting another poor sod’s life in danger.”
She gritted her teeth. “It’s my job to report on the progress of the rail, Mr. MacBride. ‘Little as a wren needs, it must gather it.’ ”
He slowed his horse, coming alongside Cordelia. “What did you say?”
“You aren’t the only one who can quote Irish proverbs, Mr. MacBride. My grandmother, I’ll have you know, was born and bred in County Kerry.”
She’d surprised him.
He chewed the inside of his cheek. “It’s nothing personal, but neither the railroad or the folks who build it are the type a lady like you needs to associate with.”
“I can take care of myself.”
He scowled. Transforming that handsome face of his into something less so. Maybe his face didn’t do smiling around her. “Stubborn, hardheaded…”
She fluttered her lashes. “Or maybe I just remind you of yourself.”
Cordelia straightened her shoulders, letting her hands rest on the reins. “I won’t get in your way. In fact, I’ll never darken your path again.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” His mouth flattened. “We’ve got a schedule to meet.”
She raised her shoulders and let them drop. “Why are you so convinced I’ll be disruptive to the deadline?”
“Do you not have eyes in yer head, woman, when you gaze into the mirror?”
“What do you mean?”
He glared at her. “I mean any man in his right mind would rather look at you, ’Delia Cochrane, than work.”
Heat ballooned from beneath the collar of her shirtwaist. “Oh.”
And she fought the urge to shiver at the way Neil MacBride said her name. The prolonged syllables of ‘ ’Delia’ plucked across her nerve endings like a bow against the strings of a fiddle.
She swallowed. Or, like a caress across her skin.
Chapter Three
If you do not sow in the spring, you will not reap in the autumn.
IRISH PROVERB
Union Pacific Headquarters
Wyoming Territory
I thought you liked me, General.”
Grenville Dodge rolled his tongue in his cheek. “I do like you, Neil. Owe my life to you. Gave you a job—”
“And I’ve worked hard to prove worthy of your trust in me.” Neil clutched his battered army headgear between his hands. “There’s no rules at the end of rails, sir. Drunks and murderers. Shootings every day. It’s too dangerous for a woman.”
“You’re the only man among this band of ruffians I dare trust with so delicate an assignment.”
Neil kneaded the cap. “I’ll take a demotion. Blast rock. Dangle from a precipice. Work the line. Anything, sir, but play nursemaid.”
The general steepled his hands on the desk. “Miss Cochrane is here at the express wish of a very powerful New York City editor. A man whose newspaper and favor our boss, Thomas Durant, is keen to court.”
“But—”
The general snorted. “I’m not asking you to court her, MacBride.”
Neil clamped his teeth. Of course not. How ridiculous—an Irishman courting an eastern debutante.
Another thing he’d learned early on—though he’d been an American longer than he ever lived in Ireland—once an Irishman, always an Irishman.
One more reason why he couldn’t wait to stake his claim out west, where men were judged on the merit of their deeds and character.
“—just supervise her for the duration.”
He’d missed a chunk of the general’s directive. “How long is the duration?”
“Until we link with the Central Pacific. You can think of her as your last stop. I’ll be back and forth between Washington and here. She’s your responsibility.”
Neil groaned.
The general waved Neil toward the door. “Don’t look so forlorn. You might discover you’ll enjoy this mission more than you think. I’m not exactly sending you to the firing squad.”
“Feels like it.”
Dodge laughed. “She’ll certainly smell nicer than the company you’re used to keeping. Keep her busy, MacBride, but out of trouble.”
Easier said than done.
Neil stalked out of the general’s office and down the wooden planks of the boardwalkin the makeshift town. This was not a good idea. For a variety of reasons.
Foremost among them—how the loud-mouthed, brash female muddled his brain. He clamped the cap onto his head, adjusted the brim, and narrowed his eyes. He surveyed the end-of-rails headquarters of the UP for signs of mayhem. Which inevitably accompanied the presence of Miss Cordelia Cochrane.
But there was… nothing. And it gnawed at Neil like a rat terrier with a barn mouse.
Neil strode past the gambling houses and saloon. He stepped across the rails to the camp on the opposite side of the tracks from the dance halls. He marched past his own tent—larger than the others as befitted his foreman status—and waded deeper into the rows of white canvas tents.
He figured he’d hear her before he saw her. He did. But not the way he envisioned.
With her long, heavy skirts dragging in the mire, Cordelia struggled to pound a stake into the ground. And she was crying. Soft, inhaled gasps of breath as she attempted to erect her own tent.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She swiped at the moisture with her hand, leaving a streak of mud. She raised the mallet over her head. And lost her balance.
She flailed. He lunged forward, but too late. She cried out, and still clutching the mallet, she fell backward into the muck.
“’Delia, what’re you doing?”
Her head snapped up. “What does it look like I’m doing, Mr. MacBride?” The familiar defiance sparked, but her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. “I’m trying to establish my living quarters for the duration.”
Neil winced. For the duration. But he much preferred the take-no-prisoners Cordelia to the weepy Cordelia. The one with the attitude stood a fighting chance of surviving this assignment. The other would be mincemeat within hours.
“I can see that.”
He sensed she wouldn’t respond well to codd
ling. And he, by nature, was not a coddler. He motioned at her grand, failed endeavor. “Aren’t the stringers staying at the hotel?”
Cordelia flushed. “I need to be closer to the story.” Her mouth wobbled. “Mr. Greeley hasn’t yet forwarded my stipend for living expenses.”
“So you’re down on your luck.”
“I’ll recover.” Cordelia stuck her nose in the air. “I always do.”
Mud splattered the front of what had once been a pristine, white blouse. She might be the most bedraggled creature he’d ever seen. He fought to keep the amusement off his face to save whatever dignity she had left.
“You’ve got no business camping here among the men. ’Tis not proper.”
She glared. “You’ve got no call telling me what is my business.”
“How I wish that were indeed true.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But Dodge has put me on Cordelia Cochrane duty while you write your stories.”
“I don’t need your help.”
He cocked his head. “I can see that.”
She muttered something under her breath he reckoned might not be complimentary to his gender.
“Not my idea of a good time, either.” He offered his hand. “But like it or not, we’re stuck with each other until you go yer way and I go mine and our paths blessedly part.”
A keeper. The Union Pacific had stuck Cordelia with a company spy. Someone to make sure she didn’t embarrass the railroad with the truth. Watching her every move. Restricting her access to the real story.
Her gaze flitted to Neil MacBride’s square-cut jaw. They’d stuck her with a handsome keeper, though.
She lifted her chin. “And if I refuse?”
He didn’t blink. “Then there’s a locomotive headed to Cheyenne for supplies within the hour.” He leaned forward, hand extended.
She gritted her teeth. Her eyes darted between his hand and the mud. But she grabbed hold. Bracing, he hauled her with a squelching sound free from the muck.
“Right you are.” Hands on his hips, he assessed the situation. “Secondly… you’re not much safer in the midst of my Irish roughnecks than you were from the Indians.”
He scanned her mud-plastered locks to what had been one of her nicest yellow-checked skirts. She blushed. He must think her a complete ninny. And it made her mad that she cared what he thought.
“This is not a good location.” His eyes cut left and right. “Too close to the sporting women.”
He scowled. “And the men, who haven’t seen a lady like yerself in a long while—after a few shots of whiskey—might forget the difference.”
She mirrored his stance, her hands on her hips. “Pray tell where you think I should set up camp then, Mr. MacBride.”
He gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “I think, in light of our enforced proximity over the next few months, we ought to drop the formalities.”
She didn’t reply but blew a strand of hair out of her face.
He steered her between the tents toward a larger one. The wooden plaque at the top of the tent flap read WALKING BOSS.
She jerked. “Next to you?”
“Where I can keep an eye on you.” And he smiled. A devastating smile, exposing even, white teeth.
Her heart sped up. She willed it to settle. Who knew her heart could be so treacherous, consorting with the enemy?
“I’ll pound the pegs and make short work of it. You’ll also need a wooden floor or you’ll drown in the mud every time we move quarters—every hundred miles. The buildings and tents are taken down, packed on railroad cars, and shipped to the next stop.”
He raised her tent roof and also installed an iron stove whose smokestack poked out of a hole in the canvas top. He moved with efficiency, not unlike one of the steam engines. Leashed strength and power.
Watching him work, she wondered if anything ever caused Neil MacBride to lose control. And what it would take for him to do so.
Later that afternoon, she received her stipend in the post from New York. But instead of relocating to the hotel, she decided she liked her new tent accommodation better. Knee-deep in the action. Knee-deep in mud, too. And an arm’s length from Neil MacBride.
Sometime over the next day, his cherished army cap went missing. He didn’t say anything, but she realized the loss bothered him. As if he’d lost a part of himself, a link with the past. With winter approaching, she vowed to replace the cap with something more indicative of the man he’d become.
The next morning outside the mercantile, she handed him a Stetson.
His forehead creased. “What’s this?”
“It’s for you. You need a hat. A new American hat for a new American man. Boss of the Plains.”
His expression closed. “You have no business buying me a hat.” He thrust the Stetson at her.
Refusing to take it, she laced her hands behind her skirt. “You and your stubborn pride. You’re not the only one who dislikes being beholden, Neil MacBride. Consider it payment for services rendered.”
Neil smoothed his finger over the wide, stiff brim. “What services?” He turned it round in his hands. Examining the hat from every angle.
He liked it. She could tell. Although he’d never admit as much.
“I’d be drowning in the cold mud if not for you. If nothing else, consider it a gift from one friend to another.”
His brow arched. “Friends?”
She pretended to study the display in the storefront window to conceal the pricking of tears behind her eyelids. He made the idea of being friends with her sound so ludicrous.
“Wear it, or if you don’t fancy the hat, take it back.” Her lower lip quivered. “Your choice.”
“I like it fine.” His voice deepened. “And us being friends. I just hadn’t imagined a lady like you would want…”
His hand, strong and warm, touched her shoulder. “Thank you for the gift, ’Delia.”
Neil’s touch and the lilting sound of his voice set Cordelia’s nerve endings tingling.
“It’s been a long time since I received a gift. Especially one as nice as this.” He shuffled his feet on the boardwalk. “As nice as the gift of your friendship, truly.”
She turned. Hat in his hand, he looked at his boots and then at her.
He positioned the brown Stetson atop his head. “A real American. You think?”
With the tip of her finger, she pushed the hat to a jaunty angle. “’Tis a true western man you are now, Neil MacBride.”
His lips quirked at her attempt at the Irish. He ducked his head to gain a glimpse in the window. In the reflection, he grinned at himself and at her. “Let the grand adventure begin.”
Cordelia’s stomach knotted. She had a feeling that for her, it already had.
Chapter Four
Distant hills always look green.
IRISH PROVERB
Days later from atop her horse, Cordelia watched the men lay track with military precision. Construction boss Jack Casement ran the operation like the brigadier general he’d been once upon a war. Scribbling furiously, she tried to capture onto paper the sheer efficiency of the labor.
Teamsters navigated their carts along the fresh-laid rails. On both sides of the wagons men unloaded the steel rails, moving forward as one to place the steel parallel to the embedded ties. Gaugers ensured the rails were a precise distance apart.
Bolters knelt on the track to join the rails. Spike men dropped the spikes onto the grade. Hammer-wielders positioned the spikes onto the cottonwood ties. With three heavy-hitting strokes, the men drove the spikes into the base to secure the rail into the bed of the track.
And then the dance began again: teamsters, gaugers, bolters, spike men. Over and over.
There was a raw beauty in their movements. In their synchronization, a purpose. Poetry in motion. Rhythm in the pinging clang of the hammers.
She’d become used to the roughness of tent living. Hearing the sound of the rain against the canvas as winter drew nearer. And the ch… ch… ch of the locomo
tive coming and going to the latest stop at the end of the rail. Despite the rigorous, uncivilized conditions, she found herself exhilarated by the West and this grandest of adventures.
Cordelia turned in the saddle. Neil had been quiet while she transcribed her impressions to paper. Hands folded over the saddle horn, he focused on the men—his men—going about their work.
Pride shone in his features. Passion for their noble task burned in his hazel eyes. Like a lover gazing upon his beloved.
With so many men filling graves across the decimated South, she’d long ago reconciled herself to building her career. To never knowing what it would be like to find comfort in hearth and home.
Cordelia was as passionate about her stories as Neil MacBride about his railroad. Yet he reignited within her—not so much a desire for something else—but a desire for something more. Leaving her wondering if both desires were attainable or inherently incompatible.
As for Neil himself? Could any woman ever hope to compete with such an iron mistress? The pit of her stomach tightened.
She studied his face as the sun beat down upon his broad shoulders. The wind ruffledthe short blond tips of his hair underneath the Stetson. Seemingly relaxed in the saddle, his perusal of the emerging railroad was focused, intense, and sharp.
And this was a man who desired above all else to farm wheat? But she couldn’t say that to him. They didn’t know each other that well. Not yet…
She cleared her throat. “How much distance do they gain in a day?”
His gaze cut from the grade to hers. Neil flushed as if he’d been caught indulging himself. He took a breath. “Near two miles on an average day.”
One corner of his mouth curved upward. “On an outstanding day when General Jack’s got a bee in his bonnet, there be more.” His hands twitched on the reins.
His attention returned to the work. As if he couldn’t somehow bear one mile of track to be laid without him. As if Doolittle, Tierney, and O’Malley were having all the fun.
The Rails to Love Romance Collection Page 15