No Other Will Do

by Karen Witemeyer

  Warmth infused Emma’s face. Were her feelings so obvious? Heavens, she hoped not. What would people think?

  Ducking her head, Emma pivoted away from the knowing look in Tori’s eyes and flipped over the sign. She turned the lock in the door, as well, needing to ensure that the embarrassing conversation she was about to have with her best friend stayed between the two of them.

  “Come on,” Tori urged as she held up the edge of the curtain that separated her living quarters from the store. “I want to hear all the details.” She pointed a finger at Emma as she neared, her eyes taking on a faux-stern expression. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about your odd behavior during the meeting, either. Time to spill your secrets, Emma Chandler. The juiciest ones first.” She waggled her eyebrows, and Emma laughed.

  “You know, it’s not too late to kick you out of the colony,” Emma threatened. She added a thump to her friend’s shoulder for good measure as she passed into the small sitting room that adjoined the dining and kitchen areas farther back.

  Tori didn’t laugh at Emma’s quip. She never laughed. But she did grin in good humor as she followed Emma into the chamber.

  “Hi, Miss Chandler.” Lewis scrambled off his belly, where he’d been playing with a miniature iron train set on the floor, and dipped his head to Emma. His gaze darted over to his mama as if to ensure she witnessed his fine manners.

  Emma hid a smile. Tori was a stickler for gentlemanly behavior. When she nodded slightly to him, pride lit Lewis’s features. He turned his attention back to their guest, his mannerly obligations fading under a burst of excitement.

  “Did you know Mama’s getting a big shipment of guns on Monday? She’s even letting me have my own!” He danced around Emma, his nickel-plated train engine dangling half out of his fist. “A popgun that really shoots!”

  “Corks,” Tori clarified.

  “How marvelous!” Emma bent down to address the four-year-old on his level. “I’m certain you’ll be an excellent shot in no time.”

  “As long as he doesn’t practice in the store. Right, Lewis?”

  He nodded his blond head with admirable sedateness. “Yes, Mama.” Then he turned his impish eyes toward Emma and winked—or tried to. Both eyes closed instead of just the one, but the conspiratorial air was sufficiently conveyed despite the misfire. “I’ve already started collecting targets to practice with. I’ve got a whole box of ’em under my bed.”

  “Do you?” Emma enthused. Lewis was such a darling boy. So full of life and adventurous spirit. And at the moment, the perfect excuse to postpone the awkward conversation that loomed on her horizon. “What kind of targets?”

  “A curved piece of tree bark that’ll stand up all on its own. A scrap of ribbon with a button on the end my mama made me from the leftovers in her sewing box. It’ll dangle real good from a branch or fence post. She’s been saving empty food tins for me, too. Wanna see?” He took a few eager steps toward the narrow staircase that led to the sleeping rooms upstairs, but Tori stopped him.

  “Not right now, sweetheart. Miss Chandler and Mama need to talk.”

  His little face fell, making Emma want to go to him, scoop him up, and insist he show her all his treasures this very minute. But she didn’t. Tori was right. They really did need to talk.

  “Why don’t you set them all up in your room,” Emma suggested, “and when your mama and I are done, I’ll come up and see if I can hit any of them.” She reached in her skirt pocket and pulled out her coin purse. After opening the clasp, she pulled out a copper coin and held it out to Lewis. “With this penny. You can practice with it while your mother and I visit. If you end up hitting more targets than I do when I come upstairs, you can keep the penny. What do you say?”

  His short fingers closed around the coin. “Deal!” Lewis fisted his hand around the money, then spun around and shot up the stairs like a squirrel scrabbling up a tree with a stolen nut.

  “Nicely done.” Tori quirked a half smile. “He’ll be up there for hours now, determined to win that coin from you.”

  Emma chuckled softly. “Maybe not hours, but hopefully long enough for us to have a bit of privacy.”

  Tori moved toward the stove. “I’ll get the tea.”

  “I’ll fetch the cups.” Comfortable in Tori’s kitchen, Emma opened a high cupboard, stood on tiptoes, and pulled down two hand-painted teacups with saucers. Tori had kept the pair when the moss-rose tea set a customer ordered had arrived with a few pieces chipped.

  The customer had refused three of the saucers and, as a consequence, the cups that went with them, one of which had a lost a handle. Tori had given her a discount, still managing to preserve a bit of a profit, then kept the remainders for herself. She couldn’t sell damaged goods, after all. And being a practical sort, she wasn’t one to let good china go unused. The handle-less cup held her thimbles and other small sewing notions atop her sewing cabinet in the parlor, and the worst of the chipped saucers was now a soap dish on her washstand upstairs. The other two perfectly whole cups and only slightly flawed saucers were used for company tea. Something Emma had missed in recent weeks.

  Emma carefully set the china on the table and turned back for the sugar bowl. “It’s been too long since we’ve just sat together and visited, hasn’t it?”

  Tori nodded as she added tea leaves to the kettle. “It has. All this business with masked outlaws, shootings, fires . . . it certainly interferes with a lady’s routine.”

  Emma smiled then sobered. “I wish Malachi had had better luck running them to ground, but the scoundrels seem to know how to stay out of sight. At least Mal found more than the sheriff did.”

  “Probably because he spent more than five minutes looking,” Tori said, her displeasure with Sheriff Tabor no secret. “Mr. Shaw stayed out there for hours. Of course, he nearly had them stopped before they left town.”

  Emma turned, a brow raised in question. “He did?”

  “Oh, yes.” Tori nodded as she collected her tea strainer from the drawer left of where Emma stood. “Lewis had rushed to the window to watch, thinking it all some kind of grand game. Frightened me half to death, seeing him standing in front of the big shop window as if the glass would keep him safe.”

  Emma shivered, recalling the terror that had surged through her when the bullet had shattered her office window. If she hadn’t been at the back of the room, staring through the doorway and trying to figure out what she’d done to send Malachi running, she could have easily been struck. The thought of such a thing happening to Lewis . . . No, she wouldn’t even consider the notion.

  “I pulled him away from the glass and made him duck down with me behind the wall closer to the counter,” Tori explained. “Horses’ hooves pounded as the riders raced past the store. I looked behind them, afraid for you, knowing that the bank and telegraph office were the only two buildings they could have been shooting at. That’s when I saw Mr. Shaw. He stood outside the bank, gun raised. He had them in his sights. But then someone screamed. And the shot missed.”

  “Someone screamed?” Emma lifted one of the cups, holding it still while Tori poured the tea through the strainer. She placed the filled cup on its saucer and distractedly reached for the second, her mind paying little attention to the task. “Could you tell who it was?”

  Tori gave her an odd look. “No. Not for certain.” She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her tea and two into Emma’s. “Flora and Esther usually work in the garden in the mornings, so I assume it was one of them.” She took up her cup and saucer, handed the second set to Emma, and led the way to the table and took a seat. “Could have been anyone looking out a window, though. The sight of two armed men firing weapons as they gallop through town is enough to frighten a scream out of even the stoutest female.”

  Emma slid into the chair across from Tori’s and set her tea down untouched. “True enough. I screamed myself when they shot my window out.” She stared into the dark-colored liquid, a niggling thought bothering her. “But I thought the me
n had stopped shooting once they passed the bank. They seemed to have been taking direct shots only at Malachi.”

  Tori’s brow wrinkled. “Hmm. That might be right.” She closed her eyes a moment, as if trying to re-create the scene in her mind. “I remember hearing the hooves not gunfire as they passed the store. I figured they were making a run for it. That’s when I turned to see what damage they’d left behind and saw Malachi taking aim.” Her eyes opened and her gaze peered straight into Emma’s. “The scream came from the opposite direction, from ahead of the riders.”

  As if someone else had seen Malachi, and that someone had shouted a warning. Giving the outlaw a split second to dodge the shot and spare his life.

  Or one of the women could have glanced up to find two riders bearing down on her, weapons drawn, and screamed out of pure fright.

  Emma sighed. There was no way to know for certain which scenario was accurate. No way to judge if one of her ladies was guilty of collusion or simply afraid for her life. Emma picked up her tea and peered into the dark depths as if a solution might be hidden within. She blew gently across the surface, hoping to uncover some bit of wisdom in the process, but alas, inspiration failed to strike. Frowning, she placed her lips to the rim and took a sip.

  “What aren’t you telling me, Em?”

  Emma glanced up from her tea into her friend’s all-too-intelligent gaze. “Malachi thinks one of our ladies might be here under false pretenses. Might, in fact, be working with the shooter.”

  Emma expected sharp denials or scoffing, but Tori gave her no such reaction. She simply took another sip of tea and pondered the notion for several long seconds.

  “I suppose it’s possible,” she finally said. “It would explain how the fellow managed to plant those notes of his so close to town without anyone ever spotting him. A spy could have done it for him. Though I hate to think of one of our own being guilty of such a crime.”

  “As do I.” Emma groaned softly. “I didn’t want to believe it. I still don’t. But when Mal failed to find any evidence of a man being around the church when the fire was set, I had to consider that he might be right.”

  “That’s why you were watching the ladies at the meeting so closely today. You were judging their reactions to Malachi’s news that the shooters had escaped. Did you learn anything?”

  Emma shook her head. “No. All I have is a pocketful of doubts and conjecture with no evidence to back it up.”

  Tori slowly lowered her teacup, the china clinking delicately against the saucer. “Who do you suspect?”

  Emma hesitated, debating whether or not to give Tori the names. She didn’t want to poison another mind against women who might very well be innocent. But there was a greater good at play here, too. And if ever a woman existed who could remain objective, it was Tori.

  Having decided, Emma took a breath then took the plunge. “We’ve narrowed it down to three. Helen, Flora, and Claire.”

  Tori glanced past Emma as if to look out the small window that allowed light into the dining area. “I saw Claire walk down to the boardinghouse before the shooting started, probably to collect Maybelle’s lunch.”

  Which made sense. Mrs. Grimes, the proprietress, paid for her rheumatism treatment by supplying Maybelle with three meals a week.

  “So Claire could have been the one to scream.”

  Tori shrugged. “Or Flora. If she was in the garden. Of course, it could have been Esther or anyone else suddenly caught in the thick of things.”

  “Ugh! I hate all this suspicion.” Emma shoved her tea away and fisted her hands on the tabletop. “It makes me feel like a traitor to the women who have put their trust in me.”

  Tori reached across the table and laid her palm atop Emma’s fist. “You’re not the traitor, Em. The spy is. If she does indeed exist.”

  “I know, but that doesn’t make my job any easier. What if she’s being coerced somehow? What if he’s forcing her to act against her will? If I discover who she is, what am I supposed to do? Have her arrested? Ban her from the colony? I can’t just abandon her if she’s in need. If she’s simply guilty of trying to survive the only way she knows how.”

  “And that’s why God put you in charge.” Tori squeezed her hand, her eyes full of understanding. “You have compassion even on those who mean you harm. Me? I’d kick her out without a second thought. Anyone who would knowingly put my son’s life at risk, who would put their friends’ lives at risk, isn’t worthy of a second chance. I wouldn’t care about her reasons, her motivation. I’d just want her gone. But you?” She shook her head, the hint of a smile curving her lips. “Emma, you see people the way Jesus did. You bend down to wash their feet even when they have thirty pieces of silver jangling in their pocket.”

  Uncomfortable at the comparison because she knew in her heart she didn’t deserve it, Emma pulled her hand from her friend’s hold and rubbed her arms. “That’s not true, Tori. I wish my motives were so pure, but I fear it is my pride talking. My denial that I could misjudge someone so badly. How could I not see signs of deceit when this woman came to me for asylum? How could I have welcomed her into our family and put our entire colony at risk? That’s why I seek out her motives, why I desperately want to believe that she is being forced to do something against her will. Because if she’s not, then everything that has happened is my fault.”

  “God’s in control, Emma. Not you.”

  The soft words shook Emma’s soul. She glanced up to meet her friend’s eyes. Conviction glowed in the bright blue orbs.

  “You are not responsible for the attacks on Harper’s Station,” Tori insisted. “The people attacking us bear the blame. The only thing you can control is yourself—your choices, your actions, your thoughts. And if your choice is to believe the best about people, to extend kindness where others turn their backs, to offer hope where others offer only scorn, then I stand by my earlier assessment. You are following in the steps of Jesus.”

  Emma’s throat constricted, and moisture pooled in her eyes. She stared at her friend, her vision blurring as the tears overflowed and ran down her cheeks. What could she say? She felt so unworthy of Tori’s praise. Yet she wanted to believe it could be true. Wanted it with every piece of her soul.

  Lord, help me to be the person she sees. To treat people the way you would if you were in my place. Grant me wisdom to see past the deceiver’s tricks, and please . . . protect those around me who are caught in the middle.

  Tori slid a handkerchief across the table to Emma. Smiling through her tears, Emma nodded her thanks and set about cleaning her face. Once she was done, she clutched the cotton square in her left fist and reached for her teacup with her right.

  “Enough about troubling matters,” Tori declared as Emma sipped her tea. Her friend leaned forward, her mouth quirked in an impish grin. “I want to hear all about Mr. Shaw. And you. In the café.”

  Emma nearly choked on her tea.

  Tori’s mouth stretched into a full smile, the cheeky minx. “And don’t leave out anything.”

  18

  After sending his two telegrams, Mal busied himself the only way he knew how. With work. First, after assuring himself Emma wasn’t at the bank, he boarded up the broken window in her office. Then he headed to the church and started tearing off the burned clapboard siding. No one wanted to come to worship and lay eyes on the despicable message—LEAVE or DIE—scorched into the wood. A church was supposed to be a welcoming place, a place where people came to be cleansed and encouraged, a place that offered eternal life. That abomination had to go.

  He scavenged some planks from the woodpile near Emma’s barn, pieces that looked as if they’d once been a stall wall. Some had a few rotted places that had to be cut away, but most were in decent enough shape. He set up a pair of sawhorses and planed the wood down on one long end so the planks would fit with the other clapboard, then sanded the worst of the rough patches from the ends. There was no time for perfection with the sun already hanging low on the horizon, so after t
esting a few by laying them on the ground to make sure they’d overlap well enough, he loaded the half-dozen boards onto his shoulder and trudged back to the church.

  Once there, Malachi poured all of his pent-up frustration into the job. Yanking boards from the outer wall the way he’d wanted to yank that shooter from his horse. Pounding nails into the fresh wood the way he wanted to pound his fists into the smug devil’s face. For stalking Emma. Driving away her ladies. Trying to steal her land. Shooting bullets into her bank. That memory still gave Malachi chills. It was only by God’s grace she hadn’t been injured or killed.

  Pound. Pound. Pound.

  Malachi reached for another nail from the glass jar at his feet, but it was empty. A growl rumbled in the back of his throat as the pressure built inside him. Not enough nails. Not enough guns. Not enough information to uncover the infiltrator. He’d come up short. Again. Just as he had this morning.

  He’d had the shooter in his sights. And he’d missed. Mal spun around and kicked at the pile of burned scraps he’d torn from the wall. The charred wood splintered and cracked, but it didn’t satisfy. Nothing could satisfy. Emma and the aunts were still in danger because he’d missed.

  “You done toe-clobberin’ that scrap heap, or should I sit back and enjoy more of the show?”

  Malachi spun around, a geyser of heat erupting beneath his collar. “Mrs. Cooper! Ah . . .” He rubbed the too-warm spot on his neck. “I didn’t expect to see you out here.”

  She raised a brow at him. “Why not? I told you me and Helen were taking the first watch at nightfall.” Her gaze lifted meaningfully to the sky, and only then did Mal realize how little light remained. The sun must have set a good twenty minutes ago. “Night done fell, pardner.”

  Mal heard the laughter behind her tone and smiled sheepishly. “Seems so. Guess I was too absorbed in my work to notice.”

  “Mmm-hmmm.” Betty stepped closer, her eyes suddenly serious. “Listen, Shaw. I don’t care if you pummel those boards into toothpicks or grind them to sawdust. But some females around here won’t understand that you’re just working off steam. No, if they see you stomping around and kicking things, all they’ll see is a temper out of control.”