The Drifter

by Lisa Plumley

  Drat that book! Volume two, three and all the rest! In frustration, Julia clenched her reticule and stammered awkwardly to Mr. Corley.

  “Yes, well. Perhaps you’ll enjoy this, as well. I must be going. Immediately.”

  She made her escape just in time to avoid embarrassing herself with yet another fanciful imagining…but too late to avoid the very knowing, very seductive grin on the bounty hunter’s half-lathered face. Oh, my.

  Chapter Nine

  A shadow fell across the barbershop floor. Graham looked up from his newspaper, and spied Julia standing there.

  Her arms were laden with packages—so many that they nearly obscured her purple-flowered gown. Her hat, a straw creation embellished with satin ribbons and miniature wax rabbits, stretched from one side of the door frame to the other. It was that hat, he suspected, which had blocked out the early-afternoon sunlight.

  She looked surprised. And beautiful. No sight could have pleased him more than that of his pretend beloved, with her upswept dark hair and wispy tendrils, pert nose and lively eyes. Playing the part of a lover to Julia had been scarcely a hardship at all.

  Save the ugly suit and necktie, of course.

  Clenching his lighted cheroot more tightly between his teeth, Graham smiled up at her. No new clients had arrived to claim his barber’s chair, nor the other chair. He and Asa Bennett had passed an enjoyable hour or so being shaved and seen to. After what Julia had said earlier…about things taking their natural course between the two of them…no force on earth could have kept Graham from receiving the full treatment.

  After all, what else could she have meant, except that she’d been too offended by his growth of beard to kiss him until now? It seemed a reasonable explanation, once she’d put it to him the way she had. Her skin was far more delicate than that of the painted ladies he’d known on the trail. No wonder she’d clobbered him with a cake of Castile when he’d come near enough to injure it.

  Yes, it was all clear to him now. And with the reward of Julia’s affections dangling before him, Graham had never been more eager for a barber’s services in his life.

  “Good heavens!” she said, breaking into his thoughts. “What on earth has happened here?”

  “Ah, Julia!” Asa Bennett said, looking up from his newspaper with a bland expression. “You’ve returned. Good. I see by the look on your face that you’re surprised by our transformations.”

  “Surprised? That’s the least of it!” She dropped her packages at her feet, still staring at the men. “Papa, you’ve hair hanging all around your face. Hasn’t the barber had a chance to see to it yet?”

  Asa laughed. “It’s my new style. Very like Mr. Corley’s, don’t you think so? Makes me look younger. Indeed.”

  “Younger? You look—you look—” Julia stopped, examining her father’s appearance with obvious befuddlement. “Well, mere words can hardly do it justice, I’m afraid.”

  The older man preened. “Wait until Geneva has a look. She’ll be amazed.”

  “At the least.”

  “’Bout time I had a change, I decided. And with Mr. Corley here as inspiration—” Asa nodded toward Graham. The movement sent the unsnipped lengths of his graying hair flopping forward over his angled cheekbones “—there was no time like the present.”

  Julia’s mouth opened and closed several times. She blinked. ’Twas true, Graham thought, that Asa looked different with his hair left to hang free. Ordinarily, the man combed the whole mass toward the back of his head and brilliantined it.

  “No man ought to have to put grease in his hair, and spend his mornings staring into a looking glass,” Graham said. “Life holds better things. I pointed that out to Asa.”

  His words seemed to remind Julia of his presence there. She turned toward him, shaking her head.

  “And you. I thought you would at least trim that mountain-man hair of yours! But, no—you’ve elected to corrupt my father, instead!”

  “He did not corrupt me, daughter. He inspired me.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I had a shave,” Graham protested. He plucked the cheroot from his teeth and held it at arm’s length while he tilted his jaw upward, the better for Julia to admire its new smoothness. “And a bath. As you suggested.”

  At the mention of a bath, the interest he’d seen before flared again in her eyes. Julia, being Julia, immediately tamped it down.

  “This will not do,” she said, crossing her arms.

  “Why not? I did everything you asked me to.” Graham crushed out his cheroot and set his newspaper aside. Slowly, he got to his feet.

  “I’d hoped you’d be inspired to do more.” Julia’s gaze followed him upward. Steadfastly, she held her ground, though his advance should have forced her to retreat a few paces. “You must have known that.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, well—because any reasonable person would!” Julia said. “You can hardly expect me to spell out my every request in plain language. It would be rude.”

  “It would be sensible.” Smiling, Graham gazed down at her, fighting an urge to forcibly unclamp her arms from her middle and wrap them around him, instead. Even fired up with feminine annoyance she was bewitching. But if he told her so, she would doubtless brain him with a bottle of pomade, and so he did not. “That’s probably why a woman can’t do it. Because it’s sensible.”

  “What? Now you’re insulting my entire sex?” Julia unfolded her arms, and gestured wildly with them as she moved closer. “I’ll have you know, sir, that any woman would have understood what a barber’s services were for, and would have availed herself of them. Completely.”

  “She’d have a bit of trouble getting a shave, I’ll wager,” Asa commented mildly, rising from his chair. “Unless she was one of those peculiarly hairy women, with a dark little mustache above her lip. Then, I suppose—”

  “Papa, please.”

  He looked at her, and winked. “I’ll just go find us a table at the hotel restaurant.”

  Asa retrieved his hat from the rack and put it on. He grabbed Graham’s, and tossed it to him. Then, giving a chuckle, he left the shop.

  Graham was left standing with Julia. She glared up at him.

  “I can’t believe you’ve influenced my father this way. He’ll be a laughingstock.” She bent to retrieve her packages, and began filling her arms with the wrapped bundles. “I suppose this is all very amusing to a drifter like you. You don’t know how it hurts to have your friends and neighbors ridicule you.”

  She gave a choked exclamation that pierced Graham deeply. He tugged on his hat and then hunkered down beside her to gather up twine-wrapped boxes. In the back of the shop, the sounds of the two barbers having lunch punctuated their conversation.

  With everything from the floor retrieved, Graham took several packages from Julia’s arms. As he did, he saw her lower lip wobble. The knowledge that he’d caused her to worry made him gather the rest of her purchases, too.

  “No one will ridicule your father,” he said sternly, rising with his arms filled. “I won’t allow it.”

  A hoarse laugh burst from her. “And how do you propose to accomplish that?” She straightened, brushing her skirts. “No, he’ll be mocked by half the town by tonight, and the other half tomorrow, and no amount of blustering on your part will change it. It’s too late.”

  Graham looked at her. Although she busily fussed with her dress and gloves, Julia was clearly avoiding his eyes. And although she held herself firmly, the catch in her voice told him this bothered her far more than she’d admitted.

  “Have they mocked you, too?” he asked quietly. “Is that why you—”

  “I’ll not hear this.” Raising her head, Julia cast him a scathing look. “You can read a book passing well these days, Mr. Corley. But you cannot read me. You know nothing about me, and since our association is temporary, you likely never will. Now—” She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. “Papa is waiting and we must go.”

  “Wait.” G
raham touched her arm, and she stiffened with her back partway toward him. ’Twas a bit of progress, though, and he was grateful for it. “You must know I would spare no mercy for anyone who hurt you.”

  She swallowed hard. For a moment, Julia’s haunted gaze met his over her shoulder, and he spied a jumble of emotions in her face that he could not name. A fierce protectiveness welled inside him, and Graham swore it was true. He would punish anyone who hurt this woman, and give no leniency in the task.

  A ghost of a smile passed over her lips. “Then you must begin with the whole town, from schoolhouse to saloon,” she said. “From the churchyard where the minister’s wife wouldn’t allow me to join in the sociable picnics because I’d bested her son in mathematics and recitation and geography, to the book depot man who refused to order the volumes I wanted because I corrected his French pronunciation.”

  “I swear it,” Graham said. “I—”

  “And you’ll have to continue with my father,” Julia went on, a quaver in her voice. “Because it is he who is keeping me here. He, who’s forced me to take a bogus fiancé in order to leave, when all I want is to put this town behind me, and go on. Can you do all that, Mr. Corley?” she challenged, and her voice shook with emotion. “’Tis not a big place, Avalanche, but it is filled with people.”

  And so many of them, he thought, resentful of the uniqueness in their midst. It was not right. But it was believable. And Graham had no notion how to set it straight.

  Julia mistook his silence for defeat.

  “I thought not,” she said, and for a moment he saw hope fading from her eyes. “So let’s go on with our plan, and have done with it. Over lunch, I shall announce our engagement to my father.”

  “I’m telling you truly, Isabel,” Julia said the following day. She stood behind the soda fountain counter at the Emporium, infusing a sarsaparilla syrup-filled glass with fizzy soda water. “I never expected my papa to react that way. Never.”

  Beside her, her friend sighed. She wiped clean the glass of pear cider soda she’d just prepared, then slid it across the counter to a waiting customer. Frowning, Isabel took up a corner of her apron and began polishing the fountain’s ornate spigots.

  “So your father is making you wait for his decision,” she said, her accent reminiscent of the Mexico of her childhood. “It’s really not surprising. You’ve only been seeing the bounty hunter for a little over two weeks.”

  “Yes—and I have less than two weeks before I need to travel East!” Julia said. “He likes Mr. Corley, he told me so himself. And a short engagement is desirable, in case either party changes its mind. Hearts can be fickle, you know.”

  “Is that from volume one, two or three?”

  “Miss Julia’s Behavior Book, volume two.”

  Isabel grinned. “Still…a week’s engagement is very short.”

  “Nonsense.” Deliberately, Julia kept her tone light, trying not to show how much this setback had affected her. “It’s perfectly adequate. Especially when accompanied by strong emotions—like true love, for instance. But when I suggested as much to my father, he would only say that he needed to consider the situation before giving his approval.”

  Julia served the soda she’d been making, then checked the amount of ice in the fountain’s receptacle. Regular visits from the Avalanche ice man were a necessity to ensure the success of the drinks they served. With the recent popularity of Libbie’s pet-chicken-andsodas routine, they’d frequently been running low.

  “What did the bounty hunter say?”

  “About waiting for an answer from my father?” Julia raised her eyebrow, and at Isabel’s nod, clanked shut the ice receptacle’s lid. She picked up a box of assorted notions that a traveling drummer had delivered. “He was too busy trying to give the impression that the engagement was his idea to put up much of a battle over the delay.”

  “Well, it is customary for the gentleman to announce the betrothal,” Isabel said. “And perhaps he really is taken with you. After all, you have said his courtship seems authentic.”

  “Seeming and being are two different things,” Julia told her firmly. “For instance, I may seem composed and patient right now, but in truth—”

  “You’ve just squirted mocha coffee syrup into that box of notions.”

  “—in truth, I’m all in a muddle!” With a wail, Julia snatched out a gloopy mess of sticky grosgrain ribbons from the box. She dropped them onto the marble counter and leaned over them, burying her face in her hands. The rich scent of coffee syrup rose to meet her. “Why is everything going wrong? Why, why, why? I don’t have time to find another man now. Mr. Corley simply must do!”

  “Oh, it will be all right. Truly!” Making sympathetic sounds, Isabel hugged her. “It can’t be easy. You told me how the bounty hunter refused new clothes. Refused to cut his hair. Refused to print calling cards, stop smoking cigars and refrain from telling ribald jokes. Faced with all that, it’s no wonder you’re upset.”

  “I am.” Julia sniffed. “I don’t see how any of this can possibly work now. And it seemed so simple, in theory. An excellent plan! I just don’t see where I’ve gone wrong.”

  Isabel patted her back, murmuring reassurances.

  “Usually, things go so well for me,” Julia went on. “Sensible things, I mean. Things I can plan for and study and learn about. This tangle with Mr. Corley should be no different. I arrive at a plan, implement the plan, and then—”

  “And then, some knuck from far afield comes along,” interrupted a deep, masculine voice. “And follows the plan not a’tall.”

  Julia jerked her head up. “Mr. Corley!”

  “In the flesh.” He tipped his hat to her and Isabel. How they had missed the jangle of the apothecary door’s bell and the sturdy thud of his boots across the Emporium’s floor, she didn’t know. “Come to disrupt your life still further. With this, for a start.”

  Grinning, the bounty hunter lifted the covered basket in his hand. He cradled it against his chest, atop his big spread palms. The width of it nearly obscured his dark shirt.

  Trailing her gaze lower, Julia took in his equally dark rough trousers and boots. Realizing the blatant way she’d been examining him, she whipped her attention quickly to his face…just in time to glimpse the knowing look in his eyes.

  Beneath his flat-brimmed black hat, Graham’s hair was still long, flowing to his collar in rugged brown locks. His jaw was still hard-edged, his dark eyes still mysterious, his features still as strong as ever. Somehow, though, despite all that, Julia couldn’t seem to look her fill of him.

  When he smiled, her heart filled with unreasonable cheer. When he advanced closer, her senses danced with anticipation.

  Alarmed, she began cleaning up the soiled ribbon mass with quick jerks of the cloth from her apron pocket. All the while, she sensed his gaze upon her, steady and alert. Perhaps, if she kept busy, the bounty hunter wouldn’t realize how he affected her. Perhaps, if she remained diligently proper, he would never know that—

  “The sun from the window makes your hair shine like spun silk,” he said, his voice gravelly.

  His hands, still holding the wicker basket, came into view, and as she tucked the soiled cloth and ribbons beneath the counter, Julia dared to send a glance up the length of his arms and shoulders to his face.

  “You look beautiful.”

  —never know that she found him too irresistible for her own good. What was the matter with her? Graham Corley was supposed to be a mere pretend fiancé. Nothing more. It would not do to turn spoony over him now.

  Not when she was leaving soon. And not when he would turn to the trail again soon, as well. Only a ninny would give her heart to a drifting man…surely she was wiser than that?

  “Thank you,” she said, grinning like a loon. Her throat felt suddenly parched. She filled a glass with undiluted, purportedly medicinal soda water, and rapidly drank it. Could the fancy water, Julia wondered wildly, cure an inappropriate infatuation? “You look nice, as well.”


  Good manners made her say it. The silly smile she felt on her face as she spoke made her believe it. Something was happening to her, and Julia felt fairly certain she would never have deliberately planned something so absolutely befuddling.

  “I’m beholden to you, if I do,” Graham said, still watching her. His smile broadened. “’Tis a wonder what a simple shave can do. Or so I’ve heard.”

  He winked. Isabel tittered. And Julia melted. How could a simple roguish wink—the variety that ordinarily would have made her issue a lecture on the inadvisability of over-familiarity between the sexes—make her instead feel like giggling? Somehow, on Mr. Corley the gesture seemed charming, although she couldn’t quite explain why. It was downright unaccountable.

  “Yes, well.” Julia straightened her apron and attempted to seem as though she weren’t on the verge of abandoning all her work, simply to gaze, starry-eyed, at the bounty hunter. “No doubt every woman you’ve met has appreciated the civilizing effects of your visit to the barber yesterday.”

  “I’m interested in only one woman. You.”

  A gusty sigh came from Isabel. Julia and Mr. Corley stared at her.

  She seemed abashed. “Well, it is romantic, you know!” Leaning closer to Julia, she added, “Him, interested in only you. It’s enough to make a lady swoon.”

  “It’s a charade, silly,” Julia whispered back. She raised her voice a bit, not quite enough for her papa to hear from his druggist’s counter. “Tell her, Mr. Corley. Tell her you’re only pretending.”

  He pressed his lips together. Above them, his eyes sparkled with humor.

  “Tell her!”

  When the bounty hunter remained aggravatingly silent, Julia answered for him. “He is,” she assured Isabel with a chastening glower for Graham. “Aside from his obvious talent for provocation, our Mr. Corley has turned out to be an excellent actor, as well.”

  Isabel peered at him. Then she looked at Julia. “I don’t think he’s acting. I think he’s fond of you.”

  “He’s fond of plum tarts. Me, he delights in tormenting.”