Pleasance's First Love: A Six Brides for Six Gideons Novella (Book 3) (Grandma's Wedding Quilts 6)

by Kristin Holt

  “What’s wrong?” Whip thin, long as a rail, the hand they called “Whip” was as smart as one too. “Don’t like the sound of this.”

  “Me neither.” He wanted to ride into Leadville, set the merchants straight, and confront Sandusky.

  Shaking, angry, he scattered the rest of the mail over the kitchen table. Return addresses from two more Leadville businesses, the Tabor Opera House—what did that fancy-dancy establishment want with him? They weren’t yet open for business, so Jake couldn’t possibly owe them a dime.

  His heart froze in the blink of an eye.

  The Tabor Opera House, writing to Miss Ann Robbins, in care of the Running G.

  Only one reason he could think of for that place to contact her—and only one way they could’ve known that the Ann Robbins, famous in New York, Philadelphia, London, and Paris, was living at the Running G. She must have written ahead, informed them of her travels to Colorado. A woman of her fame and talent could have her pick of stages, could book night after night after night. The way Leadville boomed, men with more money in their pockets than sense, everybody trying to outshine everybody else, they’d all patronize the newest theater in the city.

  They’d line up to pay the highest of prices to hear Ann Robbins sing.

  Maybe she’d told them she planned to wed the owner of the Running G, and that’s why they found her so quick.

  But maybe not.

  One thing was for sure—he hadn’t disclosed his bride’s name to the Bank of Leadville. This wasn’t Sandusky’s doing.

  Jake had heard Pleasance—Ann—singing in the stables and in the parlor. Both times, for no audience at all. Obviously, she missed the stage and performing more than she’d let on.

  For a foolish moment, he considered throwing the letter into the range’s firebox. If she didn’t read Tabor’s invitation to sing on his stage, she couldn’t accept, and that meant she couldn’t choose music over him, again.

  She might not intend to leave him. Just one performance…

  Yet one performance would become two, then five. If she started at Tabor’s, she’d be swept back into that whirl of silk gowns, jewels, applause, and tributes. Performances seven nights a week. Tours beyond Leadville…just to Denver, then San Francisco.

  Whether she knew it yet or not, she belonged in that world.

  Delaying her re-entrance into that life would be just that—a delay. And every delay bought him time to fall even deeper in love, to ensure his own agonizing destruction when she left him.

  She would leave him.

  His own parents had abandoned him to fend for himself. Pleasance had left him once. Leaving him again would be easier for her, and infinitely harder on him.

  His chest squeezed, imaginary corset strings cinching up tight and cutting off his air. Now that they’d finally found one another again, now that he’d accepted the sorry fact his heart had never healed, now that she’d agreed to marry him and build a life with him—he couldn’t imagine living here without her.

  Might as well give her the correspondence from the Tabor Opera House right away. No delay. She’d do what she’d do. No stopping it.

  Only one question remained: what to do about the banker’s perfidy in Leadville?

  Chapter Twelve

  The following morning, Pleasance found Jacob in his office on the house’s main floor, the ranch’s financial records open on the desk around him. Obviously in the middle of something. She hesitated to interrupt. Only good news was worth interrupting…and she had yet to determine if this invitation was good news or not.

  He glanced up to see her in the doorway.

  “I’m sorry—I can see you’re busy.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t go.” He rose and met her at the threshold. “Come in. Something on your mind?”

  “I want to share an invitation from the new Tabor Opera House with you.” She tapped the envelope against her palm. “I’m surprised they know I’m here.”

  He watched her closely—too closely. Was he anxious about her safety, given the concern of trespassers in recent days?

  “Is something amiss?” she asked.

  “What, exactly, do they want from you?”

  “To be a guest of honor at the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Isn’t that a surprise?”

  “Guest of honor?”

  “Yes. I’m to cut the ribbon. Then sing, right there on the street for the gathered crowd.”

  She watched Jacob’s reaction, from guarded to resentful to adamantly opposed. All in the course of ten seconds. He didn’t care enough to ask when the ribbon-cutting ceremony was scheduled.

  “What’s wrong with that?” She propped both fists on her hips. “You don’t think a woman should cut a ribbon at such a ceremony?”

  He shrugged, is pale eyes hardening to steel.

  “Then you object to me singing? Honestly, Jacob, I don’t understand you. You heard me sing a few days ago, in the parlor. Am I that poor in your eyes?”

  “I don’t want you to do it.”

  “Why not? It’s one evening. You go into Leadville occasionally, I don’t see—”

  “I said no. Things in Leadville aren’t right. Did Fran tell you what else arrived in the post?”

  She couldn’t help but shake her head. He baffled her.

  “Three cancellations of credit. To me, a rancher who pays his tabs every single month, in full.”

  Anxiety fluttered in her stomach. “I don’t understand.”

  “This is bigger than trespassers camping on my property, destroying fence, and bigger than a banker in Leadville leaning on merchants to deny me credit.”

  Her heart thudded. She wanted to soothe, to reach for him, to calm his frustration, but couldn’t find words that would help.

  “Until I find out what Sandusky wants, I need you to stay home where I know you’re safe.”

  He could go with her to Leadville, take half the men he hired for protection, if that was his concern. He needed to go to town, anyway, to look into all of this.

  Once again, somehow, they were back in the very same place they’d been as young people. She’d had wishes, interests, desires, and he’d refused to see matters from her viewpoint. All that mattered to Jacob Gideon was that she bow to his wishes.

  Sadness leeched at the stores of happiness they’d built together over the past two weeks.

  Apparently, that happiness was no more than her own wishful thinking. As if she looked through rose-tinted glasses at the world she’d tried to put back together, with Jacob Gideon at its center.

  She’d honestly believed he’d learned to listen, learned to hear what she expressed, and wanted to help secure her happiness. It wasn’t the ribbon-cutting ceremony. She could do without it.

  She couldn’t do without Jacob’s trust.

  She didn’t want to make do without Jacob’s genuine concern for her happiness.

  If this was what marriage to him would be like, she wasn’t so sure she wanted to marry him.

  The following evening, as temperatures slid downhill and darkness stole over the valley, Tuck’s mount trotted into the barn, reins dragging.

  Jacob dropped the curry comb, bolted for the yard, and whistled sharply. This time of evening, only three or four hired hands would be local. Everyone else was out riding fence, like Tuck.

  “Follow me.” He rushed for the house. Cactus stood guard there, and Jake would be able to think once he knew both women were accounted for.

  Boots landed on the porch.

  “What’s wrong?” Fran exited the kitchen door, Cactus on her heels.

  “Listen up.” Jake caught sight of Pleasance, in the doorway, and the knots in his gut relaxed, not much, but enough. Not that she’d said anything to him since the Tabor’s Opera House had come between them. But she was safe, and for the moment, that’d have to do.

  “Jezebel’s back, without Tuck.” He met the eyes of each of his men. They all understood the well-trained mare would never have left him without good reason.

&
nbsp; Jacob had a bad feeling. Full darkness would prevent seeing much, within half an hour. Snow had descended lower on the peaks than normal for July, and nighttime temperatures were near freezing.

  “Cactus—stay here with the women.”

  “Let’s ride.”

  Jake should’ve ridden with a partner. He made everybody else follow that common-sense rule. But this was Tuck, with no time to lose. He saddled Note, tore out of the yard, and gave the stallion his head over the pasture. The Colts sat heavy and reassuring against his hips, the rifle’s scabbard in easy reach.

  He was first to find Tuck, fifty feet from that downed section of fence, dead. A prone, still-as-death crumpled body. As though someone had shot him in the back and he’d tumbled from the saddle. That would explain Jezebel’s behavior.

  Anger surged, a conflagration of heat and white-hot pain. Emotion like that could get him killed too.

  He fought for control, to hear beyond the pounding of his heart in his ears. Nothing. No birdsong. No rustle of critters.

  With both pistols drawn, he slid from the saddle. Listening.

  He crept toward Tuck’s body and slowly squatted. Nothing moved except the aspen leaves in the wind. No sound, except those leaves. He holstered his left-hand Colt, and pressed a finger to Tuck’s neck.

  A pulse thrummed steady and sure.

  Relief, so profound it suffocated him, made him search by feel for an injury. Thick, sticky blood on Tuck’s head. Had he been shot, or hit his head when he’d fallen? Had he dismounted, fought an attacker on the ground?

  Injuries to the head were serious.

  Real fear, unlike any he’d known in ages, ripped through him. “Hold on Tuck. Hold on.”

  “Don’t shoot,” Whip’s familiar voice called as he approached on horseback. “Find him?”

  “Help me get him on the horse.” He had to get Tuck back to the house, assess the injuries by lamplight.

  Between the two of them, they hefted Tuck over Whip’s saddle. Jacob was ready to mount up when he kicked Tuck’s hat where it had landed. He swept up the Stetson, took Whip’s reins, and mounted. In the saddle, he removed his left foot from the stirrup for Whip. “Keep an eye on Tuck.”

  “Will do, Boss.” Whip rode at Jacob’s back.

  The return trip took much longer. Every minute that passed deepened Jacob’s frustration and escalated his fear for Tuck. Something was going on, under his own nose, and he had no clue what that somethin’ was. He detested the inability to do anything about it.

  He’d solve the conundrum. One way or the other. Whoever hurt Tuck would pay. No one came onto the Running G and attacked without swift retribution.

  “Tuck?” Jacob called back, praying his friend could hear him. “I’m taking you home. You better be alive when we get there.”

  Without a bedroom on the main floor of the house, Pleasance made do. Anticipating the need, she dragged bedding downstairs and assembled a pallet on the parlor floor, near the stove.

  She and Fran gathered supplies to tend to wounds. They put coffee on. They boiled water. They prayed none of the efforts would be needed.

  Quicker than she’d imagined, Whip and Jacob returned, carrying an unconscious Tuck.

  “Into the parlor. I have a pallet ready.”

  She caught a glimpse of mud-caked clothes on Tuck’s body. Blood had soaked his hair, matted with twigs and leaves and dirt.

  Fran turned white.

  “Frances.” Pleasance forced her friend to look at her. “Go for the hot water. Don’t look at his wound.”

  But Fran’s eyes drifted back to Tuck as the men settled him on the makeshift bed.

  “Don’t look.” One second passed, then two.

  Fran finally nodded in recognition and hurried to fetch the water.

  Pleasance dropped to her knees and set to work cleaning Tuck’s wound. The hot water darkened. So much blood. Fran brought fresh water, and Pleasance kept washing.

  Fran covered Tuck with quilts. The men stoked the fire in the stove.

  Eventually, clots came free and she saw what they had to work with. A trough of flesh and hair had been carved away, along the top of Tuck’s head. She looked closely—by some miracle the bullet hadn’t punctured his skull. “A bullet. A bullet grazed his scalp.”

  She pressed a clean, dry cloth to his wound, and met Jacob’s eye.

  He spun a hat in his hands—but not his own. Tuck’s hat. With a bullet hole in front and in back.

  “Was he shot from behind?” The thought of a coward aiming to kill, from behind, infuriated her.

  Jacob’s expression closed down.

  “Don’t protect me from the truth, Jacob Gideon. This is my life too. I want to know.”

  Jacob cleared his throat. She recognized fear and agitation, helplessness and questions.

  He’d decided not to answer. An I don’t know would be far better than avoiding her question altogether. Even if he did know.

  But that was a discussion for another time.

  Fran threaded a needle with shaking hands. “I can’t do this. You sew.”

  Pleasance stitched, and Fran blotted oozing blood.

  Sweat trickled down Pleasance’s back. Her arms and shoulders burned and her knees screamed in complaint as she bent over Tuck’s form on the floor. But at last she finished the stitches.

  Tuck had remained unconscious through it all.

  She and Fran had just finished wrapping his head in bandaging, tying it tight enough to put pressure on the wound, when Tuck awoke.

  Confusion showed in his bleary eyes, disjointed questions, and immediate reach for the injury on his scalp. His hands were filthy, and Fran did all she could to prevent him from soiling the bandages.

  “Rest easy now,” Frances pleaded. She’d sat immediately beside him, his hands caught in her own. “Lie still.”

  “What happened?” Tuck sounded winded.

  “I know it hurts. Lie still. Keep your eyes closed if you’re going to be sick.” Fran hooked her foot around a pail brought in for that purpose and pulled it closer.

  “Water.” Tuck tried to sit up.

  Jacob crowded Pleasance aside, helped his friend to raise up enough to drink.

  A few noisy swallows, and he lay back, breathing loudly.

  Fran continued to hold his dirty hands.

  “Tuck?” Jacob asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Who did this to you?” Jacob’s fear and anger rode barely beneath the surface. Pleasance heard them plain as day.

  She’d never felt so at risk, so exposed, or so isolated. Even in cities like New York, with rampant crime and danger on every corner, she’d never doubted the company’s ability to watch over her. Here? In the beautiful, open spaces of the Rocky Mountains? She’d thought she’d be infinitely safer than in the large cities.

  Tuck breathed in, out, in again. “I don’t know. I remember the gunshot. Those lily-livered idiots shot me.”

  Jacob tensed. “How many were there?”

  Now she understood more why Jacob had been so protective, adamant she accept protection from the men he’d stationed to guard the house. And shed light on his reaction yesterday morning to the invitation from Tabor’s Opera House.

  “Two?” Tuck whispered. “I think.”

  Jacob pressed a comforting hand on Tuck’s shoulder. “Find anything out there, before they ambushed?”

  “Can’t recall. Last thing I remember, I’d just left the bunkhouse.”

  Whoever had pulled the trigger hadn’t aimed at the sky.

  Tears streamed down Fran’s cheeks, and she dried them on the shoulders of her dress, as if unwilling to release Tuck long enough to use her hankie.

  Fran had tender feelings for Tuck. Why hadn’t she noticed before now?

  Should she leave them alone? If Jacob had been the one hurt, she’d want time alone with him. She’d want to hold him without fear of censure.

  She used the chair to pull herself up. Pins and needles pricked at her feet and legs,
bent beneath her for too long on the hard floor. “Jake—let’s you and I go heat more water. I want to wash Tuck’s hands and face.”

  The clueless man planted his boots and wouldn’t move. She nudged him, harder this time. “Please, come with me into the kitchen for a moment.”

  “Don’t go,” Tuck rasped, his voice rusty from disuse. Perhaps he’d been breathing through his mouth when unconscious. Or maybe he’d been yelling when fired upon. Who knew how long he’d fought before they’d parted his hair with that bullet?

  “Miss Pleasance.” Tuck, who’d said little to her in the two weeks since her arrival, reached for her.

  How could she refuse?

  She lowered to her knees upon the softness of the pallet and patted his arm.

  Tuck pulled free of Fran’s grip and grasped Pleasance’s hand tight. Fran’s in one hand, Pleasance’s in the other.

  Now Jacob had itchy boots and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll put a pot on to boil.”

  “Miss Pleasance, Jacob, he’s…” Tucker winced, as if the pain in his head were unbearable.

  “Shh. Don’t talk, Mr. Tucker.” She clasped his hand in both of hers. “Jacob’s standing guard. You can sleep.”

  “You need to understand somethin’ important.” Tuck sounded panicked. Had he remembered?

  Tuck licked his dry lips. “That man loves you.”

  She tried to smile. “I know.”

  “Don’t waste time, mad at him, like the past two days. Could’ve been him that took a bullet, not me.”

  She nodded. Her eyes filled. Life was fragile. Precious. Like Fran’s husband, Ira Deverick, whose life had ended in a senseless accident. No one had a guarantee of living to old age.

  “You’ll forgive him?”

  The invitation to the ribbon-cutting ceremony didn’t matter, not in the big picture. But Jacob’s willingness to hear her did matter. “We’ll do our best.”

  “You know,” Tuck said, his strength fading, “his heart was in the right place when he concocted that silly plan to get you home.”

  Startled, Pleasance’s eyes widened. Tuck’s eyes had drifted shut, so she darted a glance at Fran, who was immensely interested in Tuck’s hand within hers.