by Shirl Henke
Rebekah felt his heat, gloried in the impossible breathless pleasure of his hands and mouth gliding over her body, unbuttoning her dress and taking liberties with her breasts that no other man would ever have dared. She felt his hand slide down over the curve of her hip to stroke her buttock and lift her lower body against his. The familiar ache of desire that she had experienced last week in her muddy garden swept over her again; and this time they were in a secluded place, far away from the prying eyes of the town.
“Rebekah,” he murmured against her hair as he pulled it free of its pins. Long, heavy waves of dark gold cascaded down her back and he wrapped his fingers in it, tugging on her scalp until her head fell backward, exposing her throat and breasts to his voracious kisses.
She was ready to give in, to sink down to the soft, grassy riverbank and let him do with her as he wished. Then the trout, lying forgotten on the ground, made one last desperate series of flops, arching its tale and flipping around their feet. Rory's words flashed into her mind. That fish tried to jump up your petticoats...not that it's such a bad idea
She could feel his hand lifting up her thin cotton skirt, gliding along her thigh. She pushed against his chest and jumped back, nearly tripping over the floundering fish. One hand covered her mouth, and the other tried to pull together the prim little buttons of her dress. Her eyes had turned so dark green that they looked almost black, like deep pools of shame. The spell was broken.
To allay her fears, he knelt and seized the fish, then freed it from the hook and tossed it back in the river. “I've let it go. And I'm letting you go, too...for now. Only for now, Rebekah.”
His voice was low and raspy, as intense as his dark blue eyes which bored into her. Rebekah turned and fled. Rory made no attempt to stop her as she scrambled up on her old mare and kicked the poor beast into a trot.
* * * *
Celia and Rebekah stood among the nervously chattering young girls and a few slightly older women, all clustered together beneath the tall oak trees in the city park. The box lunches prepared by the single females of First Presbyterian and its neighboring church, Wellsville Methodist, were spread before them on a long trestle table situated on the bandstand. The picnic baskets had each been carefully trimmed with ribbons, flowers, and other decorations, indicating to the eager males in the crowd whose prize—and whose company—they were “purchasing.”
“Do you think Amos will be angry?” Celia whispered nervously to Rebekah as they scanned the crowd.
“I don't think so. After all, we'll just say it was a misunderstanding—pink and rose ribbons could be mistaken.” Rebekah really was not certain if Amos Wells would care, but for Celia's sake, she hoped not. She was still mystified as to why a rich, older man like him had decided to court her in the first place. He hardly knew her. Prior to the Sunday dinner two weeks earlier, he had scarcely spoken more than a few dozen words to her in her life.
But Rebekah was absolutely certain her parents would be angry. In fact, Mama would no doubt be in a towering rage because she had missed the opportunity to flaunt such a prestigious suitor in front of the whole community. Papa would be disappointed, too, and that bothered her a good deal more. Thank heavens Mama had come down with one of her headaches just before the picnic and Papa had decided to stay home with her. The Hunts had picked her up in their fancy new German landau with its top rolled down to accommodate the warm summer weather. She was relieved that Leah and Henry had decided not to attend the social.
“Deacon Wright is about to start the bidding, and I don't see Amos,” Celia said, scanning the crowd.
“Oh, he's here. I saw him earlier.” When I assured him that my basket had the pink ribbons, she thought with a tremor. Well, at least this would probably end his suit.
“Who do you think will bid on your basket, Rebekah?”
Celia's friend shrugged. “I haven't told anyone which one is mine.” Except Rory, and he won't be here.
“Wouldn't it be awful not to have anyone buy it!” Celia's eyes grew huge as the thought suddenly struck her.
Rebekah laughed. “Celia, in a state where men outnumber women ten to one, do you honestly think there's a chance of that? Look around you.” She gestured with one hand, then quickly brought it to her throat in shocked dismay.
There, tall as a church steeple, was Rory Madigan, standing in the back of the motley crowd, leaning with casual arrogance against the trunk of a cottonwood. He was dressed in a simple white shirt, black breeches, and a black leather vest.
“Ooh, I don't believe his nerve! A papist like him coming to our church gathering,” Celia hissed. “And look at the way he's dressed. Why that shirt collar is open so low, you can actually see his chest!” She looked at Rebekah with enormous eyes.
But Rebekah was staring at Rory in such horror-struck fascination that the words barely registered. She had seen a good deal more of that hairy chest—and felt it! Not to mention even more private parts of his anatomy. Wouldn't Celia be shocked? Wouldn't everybody?
He was heart-stoppingly handsome. A flat-crowned black hat trimmed with silver conchos was shoved carelessly on the back of his head, and that disturbing lock of inky hair hung across his forehead as he regarded her with heavy-lidded eyes.
Among the awkward cowhands in plaid shirts and denims and the pale town clerks sweating in woolen suits, Rory looked dark and dangerous. He was an outsider whose very bearing indicated that he did not give a damn what anyone thought. Not only was his shirt unbuttoned indecently low, but his sleeves were rolled up, revealing those long, sinewy forearms with fine black hair growing on them.
He grinned at her and winked. I'm letting you go...only for now, Rebekah.
He wouldn't dare. Would he? With a sinking heart, Rebekah realized that he would, and short of betraying Celia and indicating to Amos that the rose-ribboned basket was hers, she could do nothing but wait and pray that someone else outbid him. How much money could a stable hand have, after all?
Rory had enough, since he had held on to the last of his prize money when he returned to Wellsville and began working for Jenson. Two double eagles jingled in his vest pocket, and he was willing to spend every cent, if need be, on that rose-trimmed basket.
He had stayed away from Rebekah all week, working from dawn to dark with Jenson's racers at the track outside Reno, deliberately driving himself to exhaustion. Every night he had fallen onto his narrow cot, too tired to lie awake and think of her. Yesterday, when Jenson had paid him his wages, he had gone into the thriving city of Reno and purchased the fancy new clothes, spending more on the silver concho hat and vest than the rest, but deciding he preferred the way they made him look, like a Westerner, yet different from the cowboys in denims or the townies, sweating in their hot, silly suits.
She’s wondering what I'm going to do. Or maybe she isn't. With Rebekah, it was always difficult to tell. She was strikingly beautiful and bright, yet thought herself plain and lacking in the female accomplishments men admired. She had to believe he wanted her. His passion had frightened her, yes, but it had also ignited an answering desire in her. Perhaps, that side of her own nature frightened her most of all.
The first few baskets were held up, their contents peeked at and extolled, then bid upon, usually in prearranged order, each courting man having an understanding with his fellows not to encroach when he bid. In a few instances, two or three swains smitten with the same girl would bid up her lunch as high as the princely sum of a half eagle. Although the women were to remain around the bandstand until the auction was complete, many edged away into the shelter of the trees with their suitors once their transactions were satisfactorily completed.
Celia's pink-ribboned basket came up before Rebekah's. Old Will Wright, the auctioneer, started the bidding at the usual half dollar. Rebekah and Celia stood, primly chatting with Maude Priddy, neither giving an indication that they knew whose it was. Amos Wells waited until a yellow-haired cowboy and a gangly young drummer had bid it up to a quarter eagle. He raised hi
s hand and said in the stentorian voice of a practiced politician, “A gold eagle.”
A surprised murmuring spread through the crowd; then a buzzing began to hum around the park. No one had expected Amos Wells to participate in the bidding, certainly not to pay the unheard-of sum of ten dollars for some young lady's basket! The older men spat lobs of tobacco and jested about Wells needing a wife to take with him to Washington, and the married women's eyes glittered as they gossiped among themselves about who the lucky girl might be.
“I shall simply die if he's angry, Rebekah.” Celia's normally pink complexion had grown pale as she watched the crowd's reaction.
“Would you rather switch baskets and eat with Rory Madigan?” Rebekah was not certain if she made the offer because she feared offending Amos or if spending the afternoon with Rory frightened her more.
“You actually think he'll dare participate in the bidding?”
“I know he will. He wouldn't be here unless he had a reason.”
The deacon then held up the rose-ribboned basket and said, “Opening bid is half a dollar, just like the rest, fellers. If’n it goes for half as much as the last one, both churches will have pretty near enough to build on extra steeples!”
Several bids had brought the price up to a quarter eagle when Rory Madigan's clear, deep voice cut through the murmuring of the crowd. “A double eagle.” He held up the twenty dollar gold piece, letting the sunlight glint off its brilliantly polished surface. No one bid against him.
Chapter Five
If a mildly surprised murmur spread through the crowd when Amos Wells made his bid, it was nothing like the reaction Madigan's bid elicited. A stunned silence followed him as he made his way forward to deposit the money with Deacon Wright. The crowd parted in gape-jawed amazement, staring at the stranger.
“Who is he?” a clerk from Elkhorn's General Store asked.
“Thet there's thet boxer feller whut beat tarnation out of Cy Wharton—some mickey name or other,” a Flying W wrangler replied.
“The Kilkenny Kid. Yeah, I bet on him,” another younger cowhand said, then turned beet-red when he realized his mistake, surrounded as he was by Wellsville citizenry who did not take kindly to outsiders, least of all foreigners, coming in to defeat their local sons.
Rory ignored them as he picked up Rebekah's basket. His eyes swept the tittering, whispering crowd of young women until he found her, standing frozen beside an equally pale and uncertain-looking Celia Hunt. He raised the basket in a mock salute to her, then sauntered off as the next box lunch was bid upon.
Ernestine Carpenter, thin and hatchet-faced, the worst gossip in the county, elbowed her way up to Rebekah and whispered in a hiss that could be heard across Lake Tahoe, “He's that Irish fellow who came to town as a box fighter. Works for Beau Jenson now. Yer pa sure won't like him courtin' you.”
“If he's Irish, then he must be Catholic,” Maude Priddy squeaked, fanning herself with a soggy lace handkerchief.
“Rebekah didn't know he was going to bid on her basket,” Celia said in her friend's defense. At least that much was true, strictly speaking. Rebekah stood silent, letting the other girls exchange gossip.
“How'd he know it was hers, Celia? Yer pa carried both yer baskets up to the bandstand,” Ernestine said, as logically tenacious as a Philadelphia lawyer.
Celia ignored Ernestine's question. The box lunches were all sold now, and the men holding their trophies approached the women, waiting for them to come forward. Amos Wells was less reticent than the rest, bearing down on Rebekah. Celia felt Rebekah’s hands against her back, shoving her forward with a whispered, “Go get him, and don't forget to smile.”
“Why, Mr. Wells, you surprised me. I'm really flattered that you paid so much for my basket, but it is for Christian charity, isn't it?” Celia was babbling, something her mother told her she did altogether too often.
Amos looked at Celia's plump, possessive hand on the pink-ribboned basket he held, then moved his gaze to her companion. Rebekah imagined she saw a flash of furious anger in his cool, slate-colored eyes before he looked away. She shivered, then decided it was just fanciful imaginings because of her own guilty conscience when Amos tipped his hat gallantly to Celia and offered his arm.
Rory took his time approaching Rebekah in the crowd, knowing the townsfolk were dying to know whom he would claim—and if he had known in advance. He waited, giving Rebekah the chance to save face by coming forward to claim her basket as Celia had done. She did so, walking slowly and steadily toward him, looking neither left nor right, ignoring the scandalized whispers surrounding them. She reached for the basket, saying in her husky contralto, “I believe you've overpaid for some fried chicken and devil's food cake.”
“Devil's food from the preacher's daughter?” he asked, removing his hat with a flourish.
She fought the urge to kick him in the shins. Bad enough to plan the switch with Celia, but to have Rory show up and purchase her basket, not to mention paying a king's ransom for it! Why had she told him about the scheme? Maybe you wanted him to do it, an inner voice taunted.
He offered his arm, daring her to refuse it. She gritted her teeth and took it. They walked through the crowd of curious onlookers, all the girls paired off now with the men fortunate enough to have snared a picnic partner. The rest stood around, some wistful, other jealous, all no doubt dying to know what was going on between Rebekah Sinclair and the stranger.
As soon as they were out of earshot of the nearest people, Rebekah whispered, “Everyone will be talking about that outrageous bid. A gold double eagle! What did you do, rob a bank?”
He chuckled. “It was part of my last fight purse. Honestly won—and it was given for Christian charity, as your friend told Wells. Somehow, I don't think it consoled him much,” he added dryly, guiding her toward a copse of pines at the eastern corner of the large park, well away from the crowd.
“We shouldn't go off alone. People will talk,” she said, tugging at his arm to slow down his long-legged stride.
Rory held her hand firmly on his arm and continued on his course. “Don't be silly. All the young couples have gone off to feast in private. Except for Wells and your friend. Seems he's more interested in talking to the voters than he is in talking with his companion.”
Rebekah felt a flash of pity for Celia. “Surely Amos wouldn't be cruel to her, would he? I really know so little about him...” Her voice trailed off as she turned and glanced back at the picnic tables where the town's leading citizens were congregated with Amos and Celia in their midst.
“Yet your da wants you to marry him. I bet Amos Wells will do whatever he has to, to get what he wants, and the devil take those who get in his way.”
Recalling that flash of icy fury she thought she had seen in his eyes, Rebekah was afraid Rory might be right about the older man. “Surely not. My father is a fine judge of character.”
“And Wells is a pillar of his church. Probably a big contributor, too.” The minute he said it, Rory felt her pull away with a fierce yank of her wrist. She spun, intending to run off, but he caught her hand and pulled her into the concealment of the trees, drawing her resistingly into his arms. “I'm sorry. That was unkind and ill-spoken of me. I don't even know your father. I'm just jealous because he favors Wells. And I want you for myself.” He stared down at her, willing her eyes to meet his.
Rebekah could feel his hard, strong body pressed against her softness, his heart pounding fiercely in rhythm with her own. She was compelled to raise her eyes to his, and was lost when she did so. She shook her head, trying to break the spell. “This is all wrong. We can't—I can't—my parents are going to be furious when they hear what you've done. They won't let you call on me, Rory.”
“Because I'm lowly Irish scum?” His voice was soft, but his eyes glittered cold, dark blue, just as they had when she first saw him fighting Cy Wharton.
“Don't make it sound so awful. It isn't that you're Irish.” That was not strictly true. Her mother detested
all foreigners, and then there was her father's intense antipathy for the Irish. “It's your religion.” She seized on the one thing he should understand. “You're a Catholic and I'm a Presbyterian, a minister's daughter. Surely, you see I couldn't desert my faith and my family.”
“And you think I'd ask that of you?” Her head flew up and her eyes widened in shocked disbelief as he grazed her cheek with his knuckles. She looked so startled and confused. He bent down and lightly kissed her nose. Then, he placed the picnic basket on the grass, sat down, and patted the space beside him.
Warily she took a seat, arranging her skirts primly, too nervous to meet his gaze. “You—you mean you wouldn't ask me to—” He hasn't proposed to you yet, you ninny! She had about said, You mean you wouldn't ask me to be married in your church?
“I've always been an indifferent Catholic at best—at least since I lost my family.” He shrugged. “I don't know, I guess it's always been a part of my identity—a tie to the old country and to my mother and father, my dead brothers. But since I left the orphanage and came west, I haven't seen the inside of a church. If it means that much to you...we could talk about it.” He placed his hand over hers as she fidgeted with the ruffled edge of her blue gingham skirts. “There's more, isn't there? It's the money. Your family wants a rich man for you, like Wells.”
She looked up then, unable to bear the hurt in his voice. He had been willing to meet her more than halfway. “If only I wasn't so selfish and insecure,” she said passionately. “My family has always been poor, Rory. My mother and father only want something better for Leah and me. We always had to wear cast-off clothes and help Mama cook and clean, while all the other ladies and their daughters had fine new fashions and servants to do the work for them.”