Morrow Creek Runaway

by Lisa Plumley

  “Humph. At least you finally agreed to prop it up the way I told you to do. But you still don’t have enough pillows there.” Helpfully, Bonita provided another cushion. “That’s better.”

  “Thank you. But it’ll be fine in a day or two.”

  “That’s what you said after you came back from town…four days ago.” With an ease borne of their long-standing friendship, Bonita took a place on the chair nearest to Rosamond’s settee. Suspiciously, she asked, “Are you sure you only tripped?”

  “Of course I tripped. What else would I have done?”

  Darkly, Bonita looked away. Rosamond remembered her friend’s calamitous past—remembered how Bonita had come to be included in Elijah Dancy’s unlikely cadre of “entertainers”—and felt awash in commiseration. For Bonita, joining up with Mr. Dancy had been a step up from the “businessman” who’d profited from Miss Yates’s former work in Boston’s red-light district.

  “I don’t trust that Mr. Callaway of yours.” Bonita wrung her hands with concern. “I know you said you knew him—”

  “I do know him.” Rosamond also knew that her imagination had likely gotten carried away with her on the day of her outing in town with Miles. She couldn’t have spotted Arvid Bouchard. She’d merely conjured up his likeness out of fear. She’d turned some unknown mustachioed, thickset stranger into the spitting image of the man she feared most. She’d run from a specter.

  Even Miles had bolstered her theory when they’d talked later.

  “—but in my experience, men cannot be trusted,” Bonita was saying. “Especially men who are willing to care for puppies.”

  Fondly, Rosamond smiled, reminded of the nighttime visits she and Miles had shared over the past week or so. She’d expected him to abdicate his duties on the evening of their disastrous outing, but Miles hadn’t. He’d arrived promptly, carrying a paper-wrapped package from Mr. O’Neil, the butcher.

  “For me?” she’d gushed, knowing full well it wasn’t.

  “If you want it,” Miles had said doubtfully. “It’s yours.”

  The meaty bone he’d brought for Riley had been almost as big as she was. The puppy had been delighted, all the same.

  Rosamond had found herself softening even further as she’d watched Miles playing with the mutt afterward, too. As silly as it was, his gentleness and patience with her puppy—and his willingness to engage in the charade of comforting it days after the tiny critter had quit whining at night—endeared him to her.

  “Mr. Callaway would disagree with you about that supposition,” she told Bonita, distractedly tracing circles over the leather-bound face of her account book. “He has several theories about puppies and the people who care for them.”

  “I’ll just bet he does.” Bonita frowned. “He’s too slick by half. And you’re falling head over skirts for him. I can tell.”

  I am. I have. “It wouldn’t matter if I did.”

  “Humph. That’s not a denial.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Rosamond sneaked a glance at the mantel clock. It was nearly time for Miles’s nightly visit. Anticipation fluttered through her. “Aside from which, it’s not as if you haven’t had your share of suitors.”

  Bonita only grumped. “I like things the way they are.”

  “You’re too picky.”

  “You’re not picky enough.”

  “I’m not a member of my mutual society,” Rosamond pointed out reasonably. “You are. We were supposed to be finding happy lives for everyone, remember? We were supposed to be settling down where the past couldn’t catch up with us.”

  Her friend looked away. “That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “It’s all I wanted, too!” Rosamond had known she couldn’t hope for more. At least she had…until Miles had arrived.

  Once she’d had a chance to think calmly after their outing, she’d understood that Miles had sacrificed a great deal for her. He’d left behind a steady job—even if it was for a ghastly household—a loving family and a horde of giddy housemaids who would have taken up with him in a heartbeat, if he’d asked.

  And how had Rosamond repaid him? With threats and suspicion. With drugging and distracting and a pounding of fists. But she’d strived to do better since then, and she had.

  “Is that all you still want?” Bonita asked. “It seems like things are changing around here. I don’t take kindly to—”

  The front door opened. Bonita jerked upright. She stood.

  “To what?” Rosamond asked, frowning in bafflement at her friend’s abrupt silence and acerbic mood. In the distance, she heard footsteps. “You don’t take kindly to what, Bonita?”

  It was obvious something was bothering Bonita. If her concerns had to do with doubts about Miles…well, Rosamond knew from her own experience that those doubts might abate with time.

  After all, she hadn’t asked Miles to call her Rosamond just on a whim. She’d done it because she’d decided to trust him.

  There on that dusty street, with her ankle hurting and her pride smarting and her heart still hammering away with the aftereffects of her unreasoning terror, she’d decided to give Miles the benefit of the doubt. Maybe because she’d realized, almost too late, that she’d nearly pushed him too far.

  Here’s a fair warning. I’m getting fed up with all this.

  Miles might be easygoing, but if he reached his breaking point, a team of horses couldn’t drag him in a direction he didn’t want to go. Rosamond had seen it before back in Boston.

  She didn’t want to create a similar reaction here.

  “I’ll say good-night,” Bonita blurted. Then, casting a scathing glance at Miles as he entered the parlor, she left.

  “Good night!” Rosamond called, puzzled by her behavior.

  But then Miles was there, just as he was every night with her lately, looking tall and handsome and dependable and good, and Rosamond simply couldn’t sustain her interest in anything except the way his dark hair shone in the lamplight. The way his chiseled features tensed with momentary guardedness when he passed by Bonita. The way his bluer-than-blue eyes lit up when he saw Rosamond waiting there for him on the parlor settee.

  His beard was soft, she’d learned on the day she’d hidden away Lucinda and the baby. She’d stroked it during those brief moments when Miles had been insensible. It had been irresponsible of her, at best, but she’d been unable to resist.

  “Hmm.” He stopped at the foot of the settee to examine her injured ankle, all broad shoulders and big muscles and willingly given competence. He was utterly at her disposal. “You’re posed like an injured woman in a refined parlor, but you look like a self-satisfied lion tamer lounging in a lion’s den.”

  “It’s interesting you should say so. I have been feeling there’s nothing I can’t lick lately.” Rosamond wondered why Miles’s eyes flared with interest at her admission…then decided she was better off not knowing just then. “I guess there’s something to be said for confronting your fears. It wasn’t easy going to town, but I did it. I’m proud of myself for that.”

  “You should be.” With nimble hands, he tested the swelling in her stocking-clad ankle. His nod suggested he was satisfied with her progress. “You made it through with flying colors.”

  “That’s an overstatement, don’t you think so?”

  “No.” In the midst of adjusting her cool compress to whatever exacting specifications he had in mind, Miles locked his gaze with hers. “I don’t. You stood up to your fears—”

  “I ran away from them, you mean.”

  “Before that you stood up,” Miles reminded her. “You don’t have to be perfect to start traveling in the right direction.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll settle for nothing less than excellence.”

  “Then you’re going to be disappointed with me,” Miles joked as he came to sit on the ottoman opposite her settee. He settled in, earnest and dazzling. “Because I’m chockablock with flaws.”

  He looked perfect to her. “I don’t belie
ve a word of it.”

  “For instance, I hate tinned peas. That’s one flaw.”

  Rosamond laughed, reminded that they hadn’t yet ventured out for another shopping expedition on account of her sore ankle. Miles had been around, though, nonetheless. Owen Cooper had been understanding about Miles’s split duties between his livery stable and her ramshackle household. They’d managed to feed Miles capably between repasts at the mutual society and meals shared with the Cooper family. But Miles still needed to outfit his quarters with his own foodstuffs and supplies.

  “Still eating Gus Winston’s leftovers?” she asked.

  “The pictures on the cans look good.” Miles made a face. “The vittles inside taste bad. I had half a mind to gnaw on that juicy bone I brought over for Riley. Speaking of that mutt—”

  He stopped as Seth broke in, a flustered look on his face. When Seth saw the placid scene in the parlor, he stopped short.

  Coolly, Miles looked up. “Is something wrong?”

  “The front door was open!” Seth blurted. “I—”

  I left it unguarded, was what he didn’t need to say.

  He caught Rosamond’s disapproving look and tried again.

  “—I wanted to make sure it was just you, Mr. Callaway,” Seth said, “who’d come over for that nightly visit of yours.”

  Rosamond shook her head. She guessed that Miles had left open the front door as a warning to Seth and was dismayed that such a maneuver had been necessary at all. Lately, her security man just wasn’t the dependable protector she knew he could be.

  “I’m fine, Seth.” Rosamond met his gaze squarely. “Since Mr. Callaway is, as you’ve pointed out, here to keep me company, everything is fine. This time.” Providentially, Arvid Bouchard had been an illusion. But that didn’t mean she could relax. “However, if I have to count on random guests to protect me—”

  “Stop right there,” Miles protested. “I’m not ‘random.’”

  “—then I might as well reconsider my security needs.”

  Seth caught her intimation immediately. “Yes, ma’am. I’m awful sorry.” He clenched the door frame, clearly torn about something. He yanked his hat brim. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you. See that it doesn’t.”

  Contritely, Seth nodded. He took his leave from the parlor.

  In his wake, Miles whistled. “That dressing-down was a sight to behold. Remind me not to make you mad.”

  Rosamond sighed. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be so hard on him,” she admitted. “But I can’t have Seth abandoning his post—especially if he’s gambling. I know he’s strapped for funds right now, but playing dice is not the way to come up rosy.”

  “Ask Tobe about that.” Miles grinned. “He might disagree.”

  “Tobe? He’s just a child.”

  “He’s a junior sharper, and make no mistake. He might even be the one who’s been throwing dice with Seth. Tobe could have turned a tidy profit from Seth by now.” Easily, Miles rested his elbows on his knees. “Haven’t you met Cade Foster?”

  “Judah’s brother? Of course I have. He and Violet attended the mutual society’s dances early on, before I had a full contingent of members. I invited a few townspeople to sample the services I was offering. The Fosters offered to help me.”

  “Right. The thing is, Cade’s a professional gambler,” Miles reminded her. “And Violet and her father watched over Tobe for a while. None of them ever mentioned Tobe’s…skills to you?”

  “If you’re suggesting that child is a miniature swindler—”

  “I absolutely am.”

  “—then you’re crazy. I know Tobe’s mother. Lucinda Larkin is the sweetest, most kindhearted woman you’ll ever meet.”

  Miles raised his eyebrow. “Good women can raise dastardly sons. Just look at me. My mother is a saint.”

  “Hmm. I guess I’ll consider that a warning.”

  “I only mean that sometimes people surprise you,” Miles said. “For instance, you didn’t know that Tobe has a wily way with a pair of dispatchers.”

  Rosamond angled her head in bewilderment.

  “Dispatchers are weighted dice,” Miles explained. “They’re used to ‘dispatch’ suckers who risk playing with them.”

  “Like Seth.” Suddenly, Rosamond felt even less pleased about her security man’s gambling. She leveled Miles with a look. “Exactly how do you know all about cheating devices?”

  He grinned. “A man has to know these things, or he’ll be taken advantage of. Just like a woman has to know all she can about the people she trusts.” Miles leaned forward, his tone turning low and intimate…ideal for inviting confidences. “You didn’t realize the truth about Tobe, but that’s all right. Maybe you haven’t known the little knuck and his mother for long.”

  “I’ve known them for more than a month!”

  “A month? Well, if that’s enough for you…” Miles raised his shoulder in a casual shrug. “Who am I to disagree?”

  On the verge of opening her mouth to defend herself and her good judgment, Rosamond thought twice. Already Miles had cajoled her into telling him how long she’d known Lucinda. He’d convinced her to confirm that she thought Lucinda was a good person. She could guess—however belatedly—exactly where this conversation was leading.

  Miles hadn’t forgotten the glimpse he’d had of Lucinda and the baby. He meant to inveigle more information from her.

  Purposely, Rosamond nudged her account book off her lap. It landed with a resounding thud on the pine-plank flooring.

  “Oh dear! Butterfingers.” She delivered a coquettish look at Miles—one she’d learned from the ladies who’d become her friends. It was enormously effective at snaring his attention. “Would you mind picking up that ledger for me, please?”

  He did. Then he turned it over interestedly.

  “Looks well worn.” Another eyebrow lift. “Money troubles?”

  Whoops. Now she really did have butterfingers. Stupidly, Rosamond hadn’t counted on the possibility of Miles’s interest.

  Eagerly, she tried another round of that flirtatious look.

  This time, it had a less predictable effect on Miles.

  “If you do have financial worries, you should tell me.” He sat on the ottoman again, her account book still held worryingly in his big, clever, capable hands. He stroked its leather spine, noticing all the worn places where she’d rubbed away the finish while studying her uncertain income flow. “Maybe I can help.”

  “You’re a stableman. You can’t help.”

  “Aha. Then you do have financial worries.”

  Inwardly, Rosamond gnashed her teeth. Why did he have to be so observant? So insightful? So helpful and so…appealing?

  A part of her wanted Miles to help. It might be nice to temporarily lay down the burden of responsibility for a change.

  The rest of her knew that counting on him would be a mistake. It would only enmesh her with him more thoroughly.

  “I thought you had money,” Miles remembered. “Elijah Dancy’s gambling winnings. You said you took them.”

  “I did. Along with all the money Genevieve Bouchard paid him to take me out of Boston and off her hands.” Defiantly, Rosamond raised her head. “I deserved that money. I combined it with all the similarly ill-gotten gains from all the other ladies, and we came here. Dancy had already purchased this house to be a brothel.”

  “Well…at least your home is free and clear.”

  At his wry, optimistic tone, she chuckled. “That’s true.”

  “Mrs. Bouchard said you fell in love with Dancy. She said you ran away in the middle of the night to marry him.”

  “What?” Rosamond stared. “I would never!”

  “I know that.” Miles’s straightforward gaze met hers. “It devastated me, all the same. Waking up. Finding you gone.”

  Caught up in his obvious remembered despair, Rosamond shook her head. “I’m sorry. That must have been awful for you.”

  “It was.” Miles stood with
her account book in hand. He strode over to place it back on the shelf nearby—a motion that would have relieved her under less guilt-stricken circumstances. When Miles faced her again, he wore a forced smile…doubtless for her benefit. “If I’d known you were flush with gambling winnings and crooked brothel-owner payouts, I would have come sooner.”

  “You think I would have shared my plunder with you?”

  “Of course. Nothing’s good with no one to share it with.”

  Reminded of her earlier despondent thought that she had everything she needed in her Morrow Creek sanctuary except someone to share it with, Rosamond found she could not make another joke. Not about that. It struck too close to home.

  “Well, you’re about to be disappointed, because most of that swag is long spent,” she told Miles. “I’ve had expenses, investments in lessons and supplies, handouts to members—”

  “Handouts?”

  “I’m supposed to turn away my needy neighbors?” Huffily, Rosamond shook her head. “I won’t. Anyway, the real problem isn’t expenditures. It’s income. Plainly put, I don’t have any.”

  “But you require your members to prove that they earn a reputable income.”

  “That’s so they can support a spouse, not so they can pay admission,” Rosamond clarified. “I decidedly don’t want to give the impression that anyone is paying for companionship here.”

  Miles nodded, understanding at once. She’d succeeded in distracting him from talking about Lucinda, that was for certain. But in doing so, she’d started a tangled-up conversation that she didn’t want to continue. Not tonight.

  “I’m not trying to turn a profit,” Rosamond explained to Miles as a way to button up this subject. “This endeavor was only supposed to last until the initial group of girls who came west with me found husbands. But then it snowballed. People started coming in from Landslide—from all over. My mutual society took on a life of its own. A life I wasn’t ready for.”

  “Maybe you just need help.”

  “If you mean you, the ladies won’t appreciate that. I mean no offense, Miles, but some of us are wary of ‘helpful’ men.”