by Lisa Plumley
Without seeming to do so, Julia deftly gathered Abbie Farmer into every visit, every conversation. She finagled invitations for her newfound friend, and convinced everyone they visited that the freight man’s mail-order wife had to be included in every town event from church socials to Sunday dinners. She encouraged Abbie, in a gentle and thoughtful way, to fully participate in the calls they made, and no one who hadn’t seen Julia brandishing an imaginary pink-ruffled sword would have known anything was afoot.
For the first time, Graham was glad he wasn’t in Avalanche now for professional reasons. If he’d had call to bring in Julia Bennett for a bounty hunting job, he wasn’t altogether sure he’d have been able to capture her. ’Twas an elusive thing, this ability of hers—to influence, without seeming to hold any power at all.
She was all smiles as they visited. Even now, with the sun moving low in the sky beyond the parlor windows, barely able to penetrate the heavy drapes, Julia talked and laughed and made plans on behalf of Abbie. She was seemingly tireless, and surprisingly generous.
It seemed that Avalanche’s primmest etiquette instructress carried a much softer side…a side that championed for the underdog, and couldn’t bear to see anyone else turned away.
“It’s all in the timing,” she’d confided in him earlier, as they’d walked as a trio between houses. “If I strike now, it won’t matter what Maybelle Marchant says or does later. Abbie will already be established. She’ll have every necessary invitation, and all the friends she needs.”
Looking at the three women opposite him now, Graham had to agree. They chattered away, cozy as desperadoes sharing bank-robbing plans. Anyone who saw them would have believed them steadfast and longtime friends.
Abbie laughed at something their hostess said. Happiness lit her careworn face, making her seem almost beautiful in her plain clothes and hastily fixed hair. Julia glanced at her, and smiled. A surprising tenderness filled her expression, replacing the look of fierce determination she’d worn earlier.
Briefly, she squeezed Abbie’s hand in hers. They shared a triumphant, joyful look. For Graham, witnessing that moment of feminine camaraderie roused a passel of mush-hearted feelings inside him, better left untouched…and did something else, aside. It brought to mind everything Julia had shared with him during their picnic.
In Avalanche, Graham remembered, Julia had been turned away, time and again. She’d had no parasol-wielding champion to smooth her path, no expert on her side to help. From childhood onward, she’d been alone, save her family.
You don’t understand, Mr. Corley. I’m lonely here.
’Twas why she wanted to leave. Why she needed to return to the East. Why she hoped so desperately that her father would approve of her sham engagement.
His sympathy for her grew. The emotion felt strange to him, uncomfortably soft and defenseless, but there it was. Graham couldn’t help it. He felt for Julia, and her determination to put behind her all the people who’d made her feel on the outside looking in. He had to help her.
Even if it meant letting her go?
As though she’d guessed the turn of his thoughts, Julia paused in the midst of pouring more tea. She glanced up at him. Her contented expression changed to one of puzzlement.
Even if it meant letting her go?
Graham frowned, still feeling her gaze upon him. He’d been too long in this domesticated place. ’Twas almost like Avalanche and its people had wound roots around his ankles, and he was beginning to feel comfortable in their hold. The notion didn’t sit well with him. If he didn’t strike the trail soon, it might be too late.
He might not be able to ever let go.
Spooked by the thought, he sat up and grabbed his hat from the chair beside him. Julia cocked her head and raised a teacup toward him.
“More tea?” she mouthed.
He lifted a hand in refusal. Something was happening to him. Something rough and unfamiliar. Graham wasn’t ready to lie down and surrender to it. He wasn’t a quitting kind of man, and gallons of sweet tea wouldn’t be enough to make him forget that.
Amidst the chatter of the ladies’ ongoing conversation, he stood. Julia’s face fell. She quickly ducked her head and went on pouring the tea, but Graham could feel her watching him as he strode to the parlor window.
She wanted something from him. He sensed it. ’Twas not about the teasing talk they’d shared earlier, enjoyable as that had been. And it could not be about the social calls they’d paid, because he’d surely done his duty in a whole afternoon of visiting. No, Julia wanted something…more.
Torn, Graham parted the drapes at the parlor’s bay window. He looked outside into an ever-darkening late afternoon, feeling only a fragment of the belly-tightening anticipation that usually struck him when he gazed at the mountains beyond, where the trail leading away from Avalanche wound into the distance.
Today, Graham thought, it hadn’t been Abbie alone who’d been welcomed into a dozen parlors. It had been him, too. Thanks to Julia, he’d been received into home after home, an experience both unsettling…and painfully glad. Not since his days as an unwanted boy had he found himself standing on so many doorsteps.
Not since then had he wanted so much to be admitted.
The difference was, today he had been. And this time, once admitted, he’d actually stayed.
Memories rushed at him, memories of his boyhood and all those things he’d foolishly yearned for then. Graham gripped the drapes more tightly and stared resolutely outside, determined to hold against the grim feelings those memories roused.
Always before, striking out for someplace new had forced those remembrances into hiding. Spending nights beneath the stars and days on horseback putting miles behind him had made everything feel like it should. But now…now he was committed to staying, at least for a while.
It wouldn’t be easy. Even with his boots planted comfortably atop a posh carpet and his belly filled with delicacies the likes of which he’d rarely sampled, Graham’s every instinct urged him away. The pull of it was still strong enough, he reckoned, to unwind those roots from his ankles.
But despite all that, Graham meant to keep his word. For Julia’s sake, he could.
Or maybe, the unsettling thought occurred to him…’twas for his own sake, too.
Biting her lip in consternation, Julia raised the silver sugar-cube tongs and carefully measured out the desired amount of sweetness into each cup on the table before her. Don’t look, she ordered herself. Don’t look at the window. Pretend nothing is happening.
But it was no use. She glanced upward to see Graham still standing there, one hand braced on the painted wood frame above his head to keep the drapes aside. Partly silhouetted by the orange-and-pink glow of the sky beyond him, the bounty hunter almost seemed a part of the outdoors himself.
Uncontainable. That’s what Graham Corley was. He carried a sense of unqualified freedom, of pure motion, with him. No parlor, however respectable, could have restrained it completely.
As he had for the past several minutes, Graham gazed through the glass, looking as though he’d like nothing better than to lift the sash and step right out into the gathering sunset. Watching him, Julia’s spirits sank.
Her efforts hadn’t been enough. However much she’d tried to make him feel welcome among her friends and acquaintances, she obviously hadn’t…although she, surprisingly, had enjoyed herself a great deal. Until now, at least.
However much she’d tried to please him—for that’s what her awkward attempts at coquettish flirting and repartee had been—she clearly had not. However much she’d hoped Graham might, in some small way, come to enjoy their time together, he very plainly wasn’t. Not really.
The rigid line of his shoulders, stark against the sun’s setting rays, told her that much. Dispirited, Julia passed the filled teacups one by one to Abbie and their hostess. She put on a smile and tried to continue their conversation, but inside she knew her heart wasn’t in it.
She wanted to go to Gra
ham. To hold him in her arms and rest her head against his chest, to feel his heart beat. To savor the strength and the sureness inherent in him, and keep him close to her for as long as she could.
It wouldn’t be long, Julia knew. Already he yearned to be away; she could see it. The bounty hunter had spent the whole day politely visiting and talking and smiling, charming everyone they saw, but he must have reached his limit of mannered society. Everything in his stance bespoke a need to strike the trail.
She had only to see the melancholy edge to his profile when he turned to watch a passing rider through the opposite bay window to understand that. Graham Corley was a man who needed to be free. And it was wrong of her to deny him that.
He entered this bargain of his own free will, a part of her reminded. He wanted tutoring in exchange for his pretend courtship, and he’s been getting it. But no matter how she tried to reason away what she knew was true, Julia could not. Her feelings denied all logic.
She wanted him with her.
It was as simple, and as impossible, as that. For she was leaving and he would be gone, with the both of them headed in their separate ways. A future between her and Graham could not work, and something inside her warned that their current pretense was untenable, too. But what could she do?
Let him go, her heart whispered. He’ll be happier for it.
Abruptly, as though he’d come to a decision of some sort, Graham pivoted from the window. He crossed the fancy furniture-and knickknack-filled room, carrying his hat in his hands. Julia watched him, hoping against hope he was coming to her. It was a foolish wish, she knew. But she couldn’t help it.
If you let him go, another part of her argued, it will mean sacrificing everything. You’ll be lonely forever.
Julia stilled, her teacup raised halfway to her mouth. The cheerful conversation she’d only half-participated in for the past few minutes swirled around her, but she paid it no mind.
Her thoughts raced, foretelling a future where she had no fiancé—sham or otherwise—and could not leave Avalanche. A future where no other man stepped forward to claim the druggist’s “uppity” bluestocking of a daughter. A future where the columnist’s position at Beadle’s was denied her. Where she lived amongst people who didn’t truly understand her or care for her…and the only man she’d ever loved spent his days wandering.
“My goodness, Julia!” her hostess suddenly cried. “You’ve spilled your tea!”
Julia started, coming out of her downhearted reverie to find both her companions dabbing at her skirts with napkins and carrying on about how badly Earl Grey stained fabric. Graham lowered into the chair nearest her, and regarded her through knowing dark eyes.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she said, blinking as she looked away. She set aside her teacup and its tea-filled saucer, and did her best not to succumb to the despair that crept in on her. “I’m very sorry for all this trouble.”
She looked at Graham again. “Very, very sorry.”
Their gazes held. Her apology stretched between them, meager, yet heartfelt. Doubtless the two women believed it was meant for the spilled tea, but Graham knew better. After a long moment, he nodded once.
It was his nod that convinced her, that assuaged her misgivings long enough to keep Julia on the path she’d set. With Graham’s understanding, she could continue onward. For now.
She had another plan in mind, something that might leave the bounty hunter feeling as though his days in Avalanche had been time well-spent. With any luck, Julia would be able to carry it off. And if fortune smiled and everything went very, very well…in the end Graham would be glad.
Chapter Fifteen
Bea Harrington’s boardinghouse was two stories high, thirty-six feet wide, and exactly disreputable enough to attract a half-dozen very diverse boarders. From drummers hawking newfangled gadgets to the newest saloon girl in Avalanche, people of all kinds found a temporary home beneath Mrs. Harrington’s shake-shingled roof. All were welcome, if they had the seven dollars a week to pay.
Among those boarders was Graham Corley. As Julia went to collect him late in the day three weeks into their faux courtship, she smoothed her skirts and checked the bustle on her lavender-flowered dress, and tried to prepare herself mentally for what was to come.
Facts and figures swirled in her head, information regarding outlaw captures and well-known lawmen that Julia had gleaned from old editions of the Avalanche newspaper. She hoped to regale Mr. Corley with stories he would enjoy, on the way to their destination. If that failed, she’d gone so far as to copy down and memorize a ribald joke she’d overheard the ice man telling her father. Graham was a man who took pleasure in bawdy humor, she’d reasoned. There was no reason why she couldn’t provide him with some. If it came to that.
She hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Suddenly nervous, Julia slipped the copied-down jest from her reticule and reread it. The ending was the most difficult part to remember. “And that’s why frogs don’t have lips,” she mouthed to herself, refolding the paper as she hurried across Main Street. “That’s why frogs don’t have lips.”
Several muttered variations later, she thought she had it down as well as could be expected. She paused on the threshold of the boardinghouse and looked down at herself one last time.
Mr. Corley admired lavender, hence her choice of dress. He turned absentminded when he smelled her perfume, so Julia had made sure to apply plenty of her specially mixed, orange-scented fragrance. He made faces at her beloved hats, so she’d visited the milliner and requested a smaller, more modest chapeau. And she’d taken special care with her hair, as well, rinsing it twice with a rosemary brew Aunt Geneva had assured her guaranteed glossiness and a becoming softness.
Despite her preparations, though, now that the time to unveil her surprise had come, Julia felt all undone. Her heart was aflutter. Her palms were damp beneath her gloves. If anything happened between now and her arrival with Mr. Corley at the Emporium…well, she felt honestly certain any hindrance could bring on her first full-fledged nervous disorder.
She so wanted things to go well.
She feared awfully they would not.
If the bounty hunter laughed at her efforts—or worse, ignored them altogether—Julia didn’t think she could bear it. But she’d never been one to shirk from a challenge. So she girded her courage, lifted her head and her skirts, and stepped into the boardinghouse for the first time since she’d paid Mr. Corley’s bill in a last-ditch attempt to make him discuss their bargain.
Ten minutes later found Julia seated in Mrs. Harrington’s miniscule front parlor, sipping tea and gazing at a ghastly print of a quail-carrying hunting dog. It wasn’t easy to carry on a conversation without revealing her ever-growing certainty that the bounty hunter would laugh the moment he saw her. Self-consciously, Julia touched her small, plain hat.
“That’s a delightful bonnet, Miss Bennett,” Mrs. Harrington said, noticing the gesture. “I don’t fancy those modern styles myself—too small to offer the proper protection for a lady’s delicate complexion, don’t you know. But it looks lovely on—”
She stopped, angling her head toward the stairs just beyond them in the foyer. Julia listened too, her heart gone suddenly still.
Mrs. Harrington waved her hand. “I’m sorry, dear. I thought I heard your Mr. Corley coming downstairs. I did tell him you’re here, so…”
She let the statement linger tellingly, or so it seemed to Julia. Was the bounty hunter not coming? They’d made arrangements for this yesterday. Surely he wouldn’t leave her waiting for him to no purpose?
Fifteen minutes’ conversation later, Julia feared mightily that he had. What else? A man had nothing to do to prepare for an outing, save toss on a suit coat and hat! He couldn’t possibly—
A creak on the stair stopped her in mid-thought. Drawing in a deep breath, Julia fixed her gaze on the landing just visible through the parlor door…and waited.
Three steps down the stairs, Graham paused.
He patted his pockets, checked inside his hat, ran a hand over his jaw, and still remained befuddled as to what was wrong. Swearing beneath his breath, he pounded up the stairs to his room.
There, he confronted himself in the mirror.
“What’s the matter with you?” he demanded to know, issuing himself his most fearsome look. “You’ve got the suit—” Graham peered critically at the brown tweed coat and pants he’d bought from the Frenchman, Georges. He had a sneaking suspicion the clothes may have originally been prepared for a desk-bound clerk of some sort, judging by how damned uncomfortable they were, but they would have to do.
“You’ve had the bath, the shave and the haircut—” He’d revisited the barber, but still hadn’t been able to part ways completely with his long hair, which now grazed the bottom of his suit collar. “And you’ve got the necktie.” He tugged at the offending garment, deliberately not looking at the discarded mound of gaudy possible choices which he’d borrowed from his boardinghouse neighbor—a traveling musician—and which now littered his room’s narrow bed.
“So why aren’t you down there with Julia?”
Clenching his hands on the edges of the looking glass, Graham stared himself in the eye. What he saw there shocked him.
’Twas fear that had kept him in this room the past twenty minutes or more. Fear that had made him spend more time preparing for a woman than he ever had in his life. Fear that she’d not like what she found when she saw him, and fear that she’d turn away from him if that were true.
With a scowl, Graham pushed away from the mirror. He rotated his head to loosen the tight muscles in his neck, and worked his jaw. This was madness. He’d even gone so far as to surreptitiously consider colognes at the mercantile this morning, before he’d come to his senses.
Graham Corley smelled like Bay Rum for no woman.
He strode across his ten-by-twelve room, now rolling his shoulders. He lit a cheroot, puffed once, and stubbed it out. The motion knocked aside the stack of Godey’s Lady’s Book periodicals he’d collected from another of his boardinghouse neighbors, a military wife awaiting her husband’s return from Fort Lowell in Tucson. Frowning as the magazines slid to the floor in a waterfall of illustrated dress patterns, maudlin stories, and poetry, Graham gathered the heap and laid it on the bed. They’d been of little use to him, as it turned out, in making sense of the mystery that was Miss Julia Bennett.