by Lisa Plumley
Well, looking as though they’d been doing exactly what they’d been doing. And nearly freezing to death in the process.
Grace pushed back Jack’s hair, then paused. “Oh, dear.”
“What’s the matter?”
Standing upright with him, even on tiptoes, Grace was struck by how much bigger and broader Jack was than she. But not even he was impervious to injury, it seemed.
“You’re hurt.” Gingerly, she touched his forehead, where a swollen area had already turned color with an impending bruise. “You have a goose egg the size of a gold nugget.”
“I’ll have it assayed when we get back to town.”
She couldn’t believe he would joke about this. “It must have happened when we collided while falling off the sled.”
“Diving very purposely off the sled,” Jack insisted. He raised his hand to his forehead, then winced when he located the bump there. “I was saving us from a far worse fall.”
“I believe you might already be delusional.” Worriedly, Grace peered at him. “Sometimes head injuries affect people strangely. I’d better get you home and send for Doctor Finney.”
“I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor.”
“Stay here. I’ll collect my sled and we’ll be on our way.”
“I don’t need a doctor! It’s just a bump.”
Hands on her hips, Grace examined him. “You’re having a visit from the doctor whether you like it or not.” Strangely, she felt like weeping, mostly at the thought of there being something seriously wrong with him. It would be all her fault, too, for making him linger in the snow…kissing her! “I don’t want anyone dead merely because I decided to try kissing.”
“I won’t be—try?” Jack hand stilled against his forehead. His expression perked up interestedly. “You mean you’ve never kissed a man before? Before me?”
He seemed pleased to learn that. Why Grace had admitted such a telling detail, she didn’t know. She only knew that she had to get Jack someplace warm and secure, whether he cooperated in the activity or didn’t. She simply couldn’t bear the thought of him being injured, especially because of her.
“It wouldn’t be polite to say,” she prevaricated.
“Come on now.” His smile urged her. “Nobody’s listening.”
“Well…” How did he tempt her so easily? “Let’s just say your kisses are incomparable and leave it at that, shall we?”
Then she strode to the bramble of trees, ignoring his continued protests behind her. If Jack Murphy keeled over on the way home, Grace reasoned, she might well need her sled to tote him back to town. All six stubborn, stubbled, stupidly perceptive feet of him.
Chapter Eleven
Doctor Finney, elderly, white-haired and none too gentle with his instruments, gave Jack a thorough examination in Jack’s quarters behind the saloon. He drew blood, muttered over the state of Jack’s innards, inquired after any existing neuralgia, prescribed a daily dose of castor oil and generally poked and prodded in a wholly unpleasant way.
“Nobody’s ever sent two runners for me before,” the doctor said, persisting in making small talk as he peered at Jack’s head. He probed at the swelling, nodding and making assessing sounds. “Much less seven of them, all shouting to come quick.”
Jack winced, remembering his and Grace’s hurried departure from the sledding hill and their eventful return to the streets of Morrow Creek. Given the way she’d hollered for people to let them pass, anyone would have thought Jack had sustained a dreadful injury—not a simple conk to the noggin.
“Miss Crabtree has quite a command of the newsboys employed by the Pioneer Press,” he explained. “Most of them have worked with her and her father for a long time.”
“Hmm. That reward couldn’t have hurt either.”
“No.” Jack said nothing else. It still embarrassed him that Grace had volunteered a printing-press position working with Barney Bartleson for the newsboy who’d fetched the doctor the fastest, claiming it was a matter of life or death for “poor injured Mr. Murphy.” He was a man, damn it, fully capable of determining his own condition! And then the way Grace had rambled on about his probable state of delirium…
“That gal must care something fierce for you,” Doctor Finney went on, offering a knowing glance from beneath his shock of bushy white brows, “to have caused such a ruckus on your behalf. Hell, I had to threaten not to treat you, just to keep her decently out of this room.”
His bedroom. Jack glanced at its meager furnishings, all visible from his grudging position on the bedside chair. The chair doubled as both his bureau and his bedside table. He’d had to move his washbasin, towel and pitcher from the seat for his examination.
“I daresay she’s taken over your kitchen though. Hear her in there?” The doctor rummaged through his medical bag, pushing aside various bottled remedies, a book about animal husbandry, a flask of whiskey and a hefty bundle of bandages. “When I asked Miss Crabtree to make me a cup from that pot of tea she’s brewing, she nearly took my head off.” He chuckled. “If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”
Increasingly, Jack worried about the competency of his care. It was fortunate there wasn’t anything truly wrong with him. He’d sustained far worse injuries while breaking up saloon brawls over the past year or so. He was only sorry Grace had glimpsed the swelling on his head and ended their time in the snow so soon. He would have gladly risked frostbite for more of her kisses.
Your kisses are incomparable, he remembered her saying. She’d been deliberately misleading him of course. He knew full well Grace was too inexperienced to have any basis for romantic comparison. Her very lack of bossiness while they’d kissed told him that. Not that Jack cared a whit. Despite everything, he grinned. There was no one else like his Grace. No one at all.
And there was no one as hardheaded as her either—in all definitions of the word. Doubtless she’d have coldcocked a weaker man with that cast-iron skull of hers. Jack would have to be sure old sawbones looked her over before taking his leave.
A sturdy knock issued at the door. “The tea is ready,” Grace called. “I’m entering right now, so—”
“Leave us be!” Doctor Finney bellowed. He gave Jack a conspiratorial waggle of those astonishing eyebrows, man-toman style. “My examination is not yet finished, Miss Crabtree. Furthermore, Mr. Murphy is plumb naked.”
Jack gawked in protest, waving his hands wildly. Anyone could see he was still fully clothed. In fact, Grace had hauled an extra coat and a blanket from his bedside chest and forced him to wear both before they’d shooed her from the room. She’d been unreasonably concerned with his warming up promptly. She’d even laid a fire in the mostly unused grate, stomping about in that practical manner of hers to collect fuel and tinder.
The doctor ignored him. “Do you want him to catch his death of cold?” he shouted through the door. “In the end,” Finney intoned dramatically, laying a hand over his heart, “his untimely demise will rest on your conscience, young lady.”
A pause. Jack could almost hear Grace’s skepticism, heartily at war with her determination to have control.
The doorknob turned. Then halted. Then returned to its usual position. In the end, apparently, caution won over.
“Make sure that fire is hot enough!” Grace commanded through the door, her tone of authority clearly carrying. “It will need another log soon.”
Doctor Finney rolled his eyes. He poked Jack’s forehead, muttering something about the strident women of today.
After a few more seconds, Grace’s footsteps sounded, moving away from the door. Jack pictured her striding around in his makeshift kitchen. Because it was strictly a bachelor affair, it was equipped with nothing more exotic than a stove, a worktable and a zinc basin. Plus thirty pounds of dried beans in a barrel and two sacks of cornmeal—the latter courtesy of Harry.
It gave him a surprisingly comfortable feeling to know that Grace was outside ready to care for him, Jack mused. It had been a long time since a
nyone had cared for him—certainly since before he’d left Boston. Jack had never imagined Grace Crabtree would be the one to do so. Hell, he’d never quite imagined she carried the softer side necessary to accomplish it.
But he’d glimpsed it today, out there in the snow.
Even now he felt her touch on him, tentative at first but growing increasingly bold. He remembered her fervent wiggles, her sweet moans of pleasure, her beautiful, tender-hearted smiles. He should have told her she looked beautiful, Jack realized with dismay. He should have told her that just lying there with her, even after a combative sled ride and its snow-flurried aftermath, made him feel frankly happy in a way he hadn’t since coming to Morrow Creek to start his new life.
“I’d say you love her back,” the doctor opined, as though their initial conversation had never ended. He nodded with conviction. “Because you look all walleyed and spooney, Murphy, and I’m poking the hell out of this contusion of yours.”
Jack blinked. “Ouch!”
“There now. That’s better. I was starting to wonder if you really were delirious, like Miss Crabtree said.” Decisively, Doctor Finney stood. He closed his medical bag with a snap. “But you’re not frostbit, and that’s nothing but a little bump you’ve got there, son. Try not to smack headfirst into anybody else for the next few days, and you’ll be right as rain.”
Jack frowned at the doctor. He grunted by rote, feeling discomfited. He tried mightily to recall exactly what he’d been thinking to engender that sentimental look Finney had mentioned.
Grace Crabtree…beautiful?
Maybe he had gone delirious. Or maybe—just maybe—he’d finally woken up to the truth. Either way, Jack realized belatedly, he hadn’t made much progress with his plan to discover Grace’s courting preferences. He’d been too carried away with their downhill sled battle to think about it.
Although he had learned a great deal about how Grace preferred to be kissed, Jack reflected happily. The research involved in that matter had been downright pleasurable, too.
But he’d just been presented with a golden opportunity to learn more—to spend time alone with Grace without undue suspicion. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t realized it before. After all, any fool could see that Jack was running out of time to handpick Grace’s husband, given the preposterous way she and Thomas Walsh had been carrying on with each other.
He had to do something. Now.
The doctor raised his hand in farewell, preparing to leave.
Jack bolted to his feet. “Wait. Before you go, there’s one more thing I need from you.”
* * *
Doing his best to appear less than robust, Jack meandered into the kitchen shortly after Doctor Finney departed. He put his hand to his brow to achieve a more feeble effect, then leaned against the doorjamb limply. He waited. Nothing.
Through the gap between his thumb and forefinger, he glimpsed Grace, fussing across the room. He knew she was unharmed—the doctor had informed him so. But it was still a relief to see her there…even if she was too preoccupied to notice Jack’s very obvious injuries and come to his aid.
She picked up a pair of his cast-off mucky boots, which he’d dropped in their usual place—wherever Jack found himself when he came home. She frowned, then carried his boots to the door. Neatly, she set them there. Then frowned anew. Then arranged the pair perfectly perpendicular to the wall. With careful consideration, she toed them an inch to the left. Perfect.
His whole living area—all of it combined with his kitchen and sitting room—had been similarly set to order, Jack noticed. All his newspapers were stacked by the fireplace. His spare coat hung on its rarely used peg…arranged beside Grace’s coat. They seemed peculiarly suited there together.
His rugs had both been straightened, Jack observed further. His table had been dusted. His dishes had been washed and put away, and his coffeepot had been scrubbed to within an inch of its graniteware life. Even the dried beans and cornmeal had been rearranged to fit with the rest of his foodstuffs—in, Jack suspected with a curious glance to the open shelves in his kitchen—alphabetical order. He should have guessed as much.
Still not noticing him, Grace strode to the single window overlooking the alleyway behind Jack’s saloon. Her shoulders were straight, her hands neatly clasped behind her skirts, her manner as brisk as ever. Her hair, newly liberated from her knit cap, sprang from her updo in wild frizzy tendrils, all of them an ordinary color of brown that nonetheless made him smile.
Realizing his error, Jack hastily clamped down that smile. He attempted to look wounded instead. He gave a small groan.
Instantly, Grace turned. Her pale face and anxious expression almost gave him pause. Did she truly worry over him?
He’d never known her to be softhearted or especially sentimental. It was true that they’d shared something special there on the hillside, something a bit beyond the information gathering he needed to find her a husband…but then she was hurrying toward him, and Jack had no time to reconsider.
His new plan had been set, with Doctor Finney’s help—however amused the man had been to give it. Jack had to see it through to the end. The matrimonial, saloon-saving end.
“Oh, Jack!” Grace touched him, squeezing her hands hastily over his shirt-covered shoulders and chest as though assuring herself he was truly going to survive. Her gaze skirted to his forehead. She gasped, covering her mouth. “Your head! You should sit down immediately. I can’t believe you’re up at all.”
Her stern tone allowed no argument. Grace shepherded him toward a chair. He could see her trying not to gawk at his head. She nearly succeeded, in masterful fashion. Keeping one dutiful hand on his arm, Grace leaned sideways. A ladder-back chair scraped into position at the table. “Sit here and don’t move.”
Admitting a gusty sigh, Jack sank onto his seat.
“Wait here,” Grace ordered. “I’ll get your tea.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Jack protested.
He hated tea. After much bustling, pouring and upheaval, it arrived anyway. He regarded the procured cup with distaste.
Eagerly, Grace nudged it closer. “It’s Mama’s special restorative recipe. A combination of Pekoe tea, reconstituted valerian root, orange peel and castor oil.” Ignoring the face Jack made, she urged, “Drink up. You’ll feel better.”
“I feel better already.” He rallied, hoping she would forget about the devil’s concoction she’d brewed. It smelled like toenails, but he didn’t want to say so. It might set things off on the wrong foot. Literally. Instead he glanced around his scanty living quarters. “You’ve made it look so homey in here. Someday you’ll make someone a wonderful wife.”
It was Grace’s turn to grimace. Wholeheartedly.
“Have you thought any more,” Jack prodded, widening his eyes in what he hoped was an innocent fashion, “about finding a husband? Looking at all you’ve accomplished here, I have a feeling you just might be in a nesting mood.”
He smiled encouragingly, hoping to get back on course. If he didn’t find Grace a husband—a husband who would convince her to move her meeting rooms before the Excelsior Performing Troupe agreed to stop in Morrow Creek—there was no telling how his saloon would survive. His customers had begun staying away. Word of Grace’s repeated intrusions—and her threatening looks at Colleen the water nymph—had gotten round.
“I am not a member of the Junco hyemalis dorsalis family, Jack. And you’re not fooling me.” Grace’s gaze wandered to his head again. “You’re trying to distract me, which is very kind, but it won’t work. That’s an extremely large bandage you’ve got there. Doctor Finney warned me you’d need extra care and watching over until it was meant to come off in a week or two—”
“I won’t hear of you staying here,” Jack interrupted, stepping neatly into the opening she’d provided, knowing she was exactly contrary enough to gobble at his bait. “Absolutely not.”
“—and I assured him I would take charge of everything.” Brightly, Grace took
hold of his hand. She stroked his palm, then lifted her gaze to his. Her eyes shimmered with suppressed tears, astonishing him. “I’m so sorry you’re hurt. I didn’t realize the extent of your injury until I saw you just now. Your bandages are so huge! I’ve never seen the like. They’re—”
“Bound to become a new fashion.” He angled his head for her to admire, like a fashion plate in Godey’s. “Even grooms might someday wear them to get marr—”
“Don’t joke! Jack, you have six inches of bandages on your head. That’s serious. Also you’re behaving very strangely.” She pursed her lips in evident concern. “I can tell from your babbling about marriage that you’re still a little off-kilter.”
He frowned. “It’s the fumes from your ‘tea’ talking.”
“Speaking of which—” Grace squeezed his hand once, then efficiently brought it to his cup. She wrapped his fingers around the warm width of it, threading them through the cup handle. “I want to see you drink every drop.”
“I can’t hear you.” Jack cupped his free hand around the place where his ear should have been visible, had it not been obscured by the full contingent of unnecessary bandages he’d requested Doctor Finney embellish him with. “These blasted bandages have deafened me.”
“I said,” Grace shouted, “drink your tea!”
Not even exhibiting the cynicism he expected, she pantomimed lifting the cup to his mouth. This was going to be all too easy. Resigned to his fate, Jack did so. He didn’t dare examine the contents first. The noxious odor alone nearly knocked him out of his seat.
Why was he doing this again?
A ruckus came through the walls, reminding him anew. His saloon. His new life. He had to find Grace Crabtree a husband and steer her away from the likes of citified Thomas Walsh at the same time. He had to find her a man who would oppose her meeting space and all her rabble-rousing activities alike.