Printer in Petticoats

by Lynna Banning

That afternoon he coerced Jess into going for a walk, ostensibly to enjoy the flower gardens in bloom.

  “Oh, look,” she exclaimed. “Sweet peas! See? On that trellis.”

  “Yeah. Kinda pretty.”

  They made their way up one street and down another while Jess oohed and aahed over pansies and roses and something called Love in a Mist. By the time they reached Lucy’s abandoned house on Maple Street, Cole was having doubts as big as boulders.

  The place was more than run-down; it needed paint and new porch planks and God knew what else. Besides, what made him think Jess would even give the house a second glance?

  But her reaction made him laugh. “Oh, Cole, look! That’s the house that belonged to that woman, Lucy. Arbuckle’s fancy lady.”

  Apparently most women liked seeing a well-designed house, no matter who the previous owner had been. Then again, Jess wasn’t most women.

  “What a handsome front porch. See? It runs all across the front of the house and wraps around the corner.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But—” she tsked “—just look at that poor neglected garden. The roses need pruning, and it looks like no one’s ever watered the petunias.”

  “The place has been vacant for a month. Want to see the inside?”

  At her first step past the unlocked front door, Jess stopped short and gazed around. “My, it is lovely, isn’t it? I was so intent on finding Arbuckle that day I paid no attention to the interior.”

  “Looks pretty dusty to me.”

  “But look at the bones,” she said.

  “Bones? What are bones?”

  “You know, the structure. Look! The windows are nice and large and there’s a handsome brick fireplace in the front parlor.” She darted on into the dining room.

  “Wainscoting!” she enthused. “And another fireplace.”

  She stepped into the kitchen and stopped short. “Oh.” Her voice fell. “These walls are filthy, and the stove is a disaster, all that grease and soot.”

  “Yeah, it’s a mess, all right.”

  “But…” She stood tapping one finger against her chin. “One must always look beneath the surface of things.”

  She turned to him, her gray-green eyes shining like two pieces of polished jade. “I want to see the upstairs.”

  Before he could stop her, she tore up the wooden staircase at the end of the front hall, and Cole heard her delighted squeal.

  “There are two—no, three bedrooms,” she called. “And a big sitting room, and they all have fireplaces. Arbuckle must have made millions on his coffee to maintain a place like this for his mistress, in addition to a suite of rooms at the hotel for his wife.”

  “I try never to drink his brand of coffee,” Cole muttered.

  He started up the stairs just as Jess came back down. “Every bedroom up there has lovely tall windows. I wonder what that woman, Lucy, did with all these rooms.”

  “Entertained, maybe?”

  “Ha! Entertained who? Nobody respectable would ever call on her, would they?”

  “Dunno. I think her callers might not have been the most respectable types. I’ve never known such a woman well.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, ‘well’?”

  “I mean well enough to call on her. Or ask her what she did with a big old rambling house like this.”

  “It is rambling, isn’t it?” She worried her bottom lip. “That’s what I like about it. It has, well, possibilities.”

  “Possibilities,” he repeated.

  Her face took on a glow he’d never seen before. “Yes, possibilities. For a family, you know? A big family, to fill all those bedrooms. It reminds me—”

  She broke off.

  “Reminds you of what, Jess?” He waited, trying to calm the flock of sparrows that just winged their way into his belly.

  “Oh,” she said, her eyes growing misty. “It reminds me of our house in the East, before Mama died. Lace curtains everywhere, and wallpaper, beautiful wallpaper. Blue flowers in some rooms, and yellow stripes in the dining room. I always liked wallpaper,” she said wistfully. “I still miss that house.”

  He took her hand. “There’s a yard out back. Big garden space. You want to see it?”

  “N-no.” Her eyes looked shiny.

  Damn, he didn’t want to upset her. He just wanted to show her the empty house, see if she liked it. He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Come on, Jess. It’s not worth crying about. Let’s go on over to the hotel and have some coff—um, tea.”

  She nodded and walked out the front door. Then, in a gesture that twisted his heart, she caught his free hand and held on tight.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Jess ripped open the crisp white envelope and spread the single sheet on her desk.

  Dear Miss Lassiter,

  I am pleased to inform you that your news story of April eighteenth concerning the ongoing campaigns of General George C. Custer has garnered the favorable attention of the Association of Oregon Journalists. Consequently, the Association takes pleasure in issuing this invitation to publish a monthly guest column in the Portland Oregonian.

  We sincerely hope you will accept.

  Very truly yours,

  Rufus M. Bidwell

  Editor in Chief,

  Portland Oregonian

  She sucked in her breath, her pencil halfway to its usual place between her teeth. Wonder of wonders! She’d written a really good story. A really, really good story.

  She’d gotten the idea from Rosie Greywolf, who had glided into her office one sunshiny morning and poked a worn finger at an article Jess had published in her Saturday edition about the latest exploits of George Custer in Colorado Territory.

  “You listen,” Rosie had murmured. “White man does not like Indian man. Will be big trouble soon.”

  “What kind of trouble, Rosie?”

  “You heard of place called Sand Creek?”

  Jess could not meet the woman’s unblinking gaze. “Yes, I read about it in a Portland newspaper. A massacre, it said.”

  “Will happen again. Indian will take revenge for army killing many women. Many children.”

  “Rosie, how do you know this?”

  “I am Cheyenne. My mother, my brothers were at Sand Creek.”

  When Jess wrote her next story about Custer’s Indian raids, she had remembered Rosie’s words about the massacre at Sand Creek.

  The flutters in her belly turned into a herd of horses and then into a thundering freight train. She was learning to be a really good journalist! Miles would be proud of her. Papa would be proud of me.

  Her breath stopped. She’d always heard that success was intoxicating. She’d never believed it, but now she knew it was true. It seeped into one’s blood, like opium, and she never wanted it to stop. At that moment she knew she would never, never be able to give up her newspaper career.

  Not only that, but she knew she did not want to share it, not even with someone she thought of as highly as she did Cole Sanders.

  But oh! She couldn’t wait to tell him about her letter from Rufus Bidwell.

  She sped across the street to the Lark office, congratulating herself on uncovering the news before her competition. She couldn’t wait to tell Cole her discovery.

  Taking a deep breath, she burst through the door of his office and came to a dead stop.

  “Where is he?” she asked a startled Noralee.

  The girl glanced up from the type stick on the table before her. “He went out real early, Miss Jessamine.”

  “Do you know where he went?”

  Noralee ducked her head. “He said he was going to Gillette Springs. Took that Arabian horse of his and rode off first thing this morning.”

  Jessamine studied the girl. “Why Gillette Springs?”

  “Dunno, ma’am. He said it was important.”

  Important? What could be so important that Cole would dash off on a Saturday morning? A news story. That was it! She clenched her teeth. One she had
n’t heard about.

  Yet.

  But…she smiled inwardly. She knew something that was happening in town that Cole didn’t know. Something very interesting.

  He did not return to town until long past suppertime, and when Jess saw him stride up the boardwalk and disappear into the Lark office, she stuffed her pencil and notepad into a desk drawer and flew across the street.

  “Cole, you’ll never guess what?”

  His dark eyebrows rose. “Okay, I give up. What?”

  “You remember that house, the one on Maple Street?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his voice wary. “Lucy Gaynor’s old place. What about it?”

  “Ike Bruhn is fixing it up! He’s repairing the floor in the kitchen, and just yesterday he installed a brand-new stove, a beautiful new Windsor with a double oven and a special reservoir for hot water.”

  “You don’t say.” His tone sounded weary. “Never thought you’d get so excited about something as domestic as a stove.”

  “And a porcelain bathtub upstairs,” she added. “A big one.”

  “You don’t say,” he repeated.

  Why was he not as curious about these events as she was? She was positive there was a news story in all this; she could practically smell it.

  “Cole, who owns that house?”

  “Lucy Gaynor owned it. Maybe she still does.”

  “But Lucy is gone. She and Mrs. Arbuckle moved to Portland after the trial, remember? We both wrote a story about it.”

  “Maybe she’s planning to return.”

  Jess stared at him. He met her gaze, his mouth quirked. “That’d be a first, don’t you think, Jess? Could be she wants to open a—”

  “Oh!” Her eyes went wide. “Wouldn’t that be a story?”

  He shook his head tiredly. “I wouldn’t go off half-cocked about it if I were you.”

  “Ooh, the clues make my fingers positively itch!”

  Cole suppressed a grin. “If you can contain yourself, would you care to take supper with me?”

  “Could we walk by Lucy’s house on the way?”

  He laughed. “Sure. Gotta keep an eye on those roses in the front yard you said needed pruning.”

  She shot him a withering look. “Roses!” She sniffed. “Roses are not the least bit newsworthy. Come on, let’s go see the house.”

  Cole let her drag him along Maple Street, but the closer they drew to the place, the harder he worked to keep pace with her.

  “Look!” She pulled him to a halt at the front gate. “There’s a brand-new front door, with colored glass insets!”

  “Yep, I see ’em.”

  “And the walkway up to the porch is wider than I remember. Whoever is paying for all this must be rich.”

  “Have you asked Ike who hired him?”

  “Of course.”

  “And?”

  “Ike just grins. That man is closemouthed as a clam.”

  She danced up the porch steps and swept through the front door, and he heard her cry of surprise. “Cole! There’s new wallpaper in the dining room. Yellow wallpaper.”

  “You approve?”

  “Oh, yes. Whoever is doing this has exquisite taste, don’t you think?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Jess. I don’t know a thing about stoves or wallpaper or…”

  “Bathtubs,” she supplied. “Come upstairs.” She darted up the staircase. Cole sauntered up after her, drew her away from the shiny white porcelain tub and planted a kiss on her flushed cheek. “Getting hungry?”

  “No. Yes. No! I want to see more of the house.”

  “No, you don’t. You want to come to supper with me.” He snaked his arm across her waist and propelled her back down the stairs, out the front door and along the street toward the restaurant.

  All through her chicken croquettes and strawberry shortcake, Jess talked on about the house on Maple Street. Cole worked his way through his rare steak and crispy fried potatoes and apple pie and just listened.

  At the door of the Sentinel office, he drew her into the shadows and kissed her thoroughly. It sure was hard to talk himself out of taking her upstairs, but she was so wound up with her new discovery he figured she’d rather chatter than kiss him.

  He forced himself to walk back across the street to his room above the Lark office, and even though he wouldn’t be with Jess tonight, he found it impossible to stop smiling.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  A weeping Noralee burst through the door of Jess’s office and flung herself into Eli’s arms. “Oh, Eli,” she sobbed. “It’s just awful!”

  “Whoa, whoa, honey-girl. What’s the problem?”

  “It’s h-him,” she choked out.

  “Him? Who’s ‘him’?”

  “Sheriff R-Rivera.”

  “Why, what’s he done, huh?”

  Noralee turned her flushed face into his chest and wailed. Over the girl’s head, Eli caught Jess’s gaze and raised his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows in a question. Jess shook her head and silently mouthed, I don’t know.

  Eli patted the girl’s shoulder. “All right, now, you tell old Eli all about it, why don’cha? Come on, now, talk to me.”

  Noralee lifted her head and swiped her palm over her brimming eyes. “Well, I—I baked some chocolate walnut cookies and t-took a quart jar of my special lemonade over to the sheriff’s office, and he…he…”

  “Mmm-hmm?” Eli murmured. “What’d he do?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Nuthin’, huh?”

  “Well, not ‘nothing’ exactly.”

  “Well, what, exactly, Norah girl? Did he say thanks?”

  “Uh-huh, he did.”

  “Well, that ain’t ‘nuthin’,’ honey. Didja say you’re welcome?”

  “Y-yes. But he didn’t eat my cookies, an’ he didn’t drink any of my lemonade, not one drop. And I put extra sugar in it and everything.”

  Eli frowned. “When was all this?”

  “Just this morning, Eli.”

  “What time wouldja say?”

  “Around seven o’clock. Right after I finished breakfast.”

  Jess let out a whoop. “Noralee, he probably wasn’t hungry right after breakfast.”

  “Oh. Miss Jessamine, I never thought of that.”

  “Well, what did he do, huh?” Eli pursued. “Besides sayin’ thank you, that is?”

  Noralee blew her nose on the red bandanna Eli pressed into her hand. “H-he just patted the top of my head like I was five years old an’ went back to readin’ the newspaper.”

  “The Lark or the Sent—?” Jess clapped her hand over her mouth.

  “Don’t matter, Jess,” Eli rasped. “Her little heart’s plumb broke.”

  “I think it was the S-Sentinel, Miss Jessamine. Today’s Saturday, isn’t it?”

  “It is indeed, Noralee.”

  “Say,” Eli said. “You met our new kitten yet? Name’s Dervish. Softest da—dern cat I ever laid my big bony fingers on. Come on, let’s find him. Her.”

  Noralee giggled. “Oh, Eli, you’re pretty silly sometimes.”

  “And,” Jess added softly, “you’re pretty smart, too.”

  Eli sent her a lopsided grin. “Not bad for an ol’ Injun fighter like me, huh?”

  *

  After a fitful hour of sleep that night, the moon rose and Jessamine jerked bolt upright in bed as a wild thought struck her.

  Gillette Springs? Cole had ridden to Gillette Springs? Why? Gillette Springs was the Lane County seat. And that meant something was afoot. She’d bet a dollar it had something to do with that old abandoned house, the one Ike Bruhn was fixing up.

  She was out of bed and dressed in three minutes flat, stuffed her derringer in her skirt pocket, pulled on her sturdy boots and a light jacket and slipped downstairs and out the front door. On her way to the livery stable, she glanced up at the Lark’s darkened second-story window. Cole was not awake.

  Good.

  Inside the stable, she persuaded a sleepy Mose Daniels to saddle a m
are for her.

  “Where ya goin’ at this hour, Miss Jessamine? T’ain’t safe.”

  “I will be perfectly all right, Mose. And don’t tell Cole Sanders about it. Promise?”

  “But, ma’am, s’cuse me for sayin’ so, but y’all cain’t ride dressed thataway, in a skirt an’ all!”

  “I can, and I will,” she replied with steel in her voice. Nothing was going to keep her from uncovering whatever news story was happening in Gillette Springs before Cole Sanders did.

  She hiked up her skirt, clambered into the saddle and was off on the road to Gillette Springs before she could change her mind.

  She rode until her backside was so numb she could no longer feel the saddle before she stopped to rest and water her horse and mop her perspiring face with a lace handkerchief. Heavens, even the early-morning sun was brutal, and summer was over two months away. Her vision was growing blurry, but she kept on.

  She gulped the last of the canteen of water Mose had insisted she bring with her and walked her tired mare down the main street of Gillette Springs. She tied the horse at the hitching rail in front of the hotel and forced her legs past the café and the dressmaker and the barbershop, crossed the street and dragged herself up the steps of the brick county courthouse.

  “Ma’am, we’re closing up,” the gray-haired clerk announced.

  Jess’s heart plummeted into her boots. “Oh, please,” she gasped. “I’ve ridden all the way from Smoke River, and I… I…” Her voice cracked. Tears spilled over her lids, and she swiped her palm across her cheeks. “P-please?”

  The embarrassed clerk coughed, looked left and right and then nodded his gray head. “I’ll make an exception just this once, miss. What is it that’s so important?”

  *

  Jess didn’t turn up for their usual postmortem breakfast, and when Cole stopped at the Sentinel office to check on her, Eli looked at him blankly.

  “Ya mean she’s not with you?”

  “No. She didn’t turn up for breakfast and I’ve not seen her all day. Check upstairs, will you, Eli? Maybe she’s sick.”

  “Already did, Cole. She’s not there. Bed’s not made, either, and that ain’t like her.”

  Cole’s gut clenched. Where the hell was she? Had something happened to her? He wheeled toward the door just as Jess staggered in.