Better than her.
On the other hand, it might be considered an allowable luxury to raise his voice when necessary. “WHY ARE YOU HERE?”
Cynthia drew herself up, the very picture of affronted womanhood. “How dare you? My father…”
“YOUR FATHER is a military commander in charge of a military post. This is a civilian office. IF…” he leaned over her. “IF you truly want to involve anyone else in your shameful debacle, let me assure you that every civilian law and court will side with me IF I determine that You. Are. Trespassing.”
“Tres…” she said and her breath caught in her throat. “Tresp.. Well, I never!”
He looked her up and down and snarled. “I doubt that. Now if you’re quite done, I’m going to ask that you do me the honor of exiting through that door over there. And please take care not to upset anyone else in my employ on your way out. I surely cannot merit losing another worker today, I have far too much to do for that.”
Thankfully, Miss Davis took his invitation to leave. For a moment he thought she wouldn’t, but whatever bee she had in her bonnet had apparently buzzed itself out, and so too did she. On the other hand, she did slam the door hard enough to dislodge the framed diploma proclaiming that one Phillip Richman had successfully graduated from college summa cum laude. It swung slightly, rocking back and forth and then fell as if a trap door had opened under it.
That might be my career.
As disquieting a thought as that was, it didn’t matter. If he’d allowed her to talk like that to any of his employees and said nothing, his career wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. He would have done the same for anyone there. Joseph. Harold. Irving. Any of them.
He walked back into his office, sitting himself at the desk. Well, maybe not quite so vehemently. But Amanda just… it was too cruel humiliating someone that innocent. He might have pretended not to hear, but every word had traveled across the entire lobby as crystal clear as if the little twit had been singing it in an opera in an auditorium. But to admit to having heard would be humiliating to Amanda…Miss Addams that is. And even if she wasn’t here to hear what had been said, it had felt right to maintain that illusion, to set the standard for everyone else present. There wasn’t a man there who would admit to having heard a thing if he had anything to say about it.
Even if such an action wouldn’t take the sting out of the words.
He leaned back in his chair, giving up the pretense of shuffling papers. He wondered where she…Miss Addams that is…had gone. And whether she’d be back.
She’ll be back. She’s got more gumption than anyone you know. You don’t have to worry about a woman like that. She’s one of those modern women who knows who she is and isn’t afraid to let the world know it too.
He liked that about her. He liked a lot of things about her. She was just so…so…
“Adorable,” he said out loud. Yes, that was it. Adorable.
“So, do we start packing or unpacking?” Summit asked at the doorway. His eyes were filled with worries. He shuffled his feet, shooting glances over his shoulders at the other employees who waited just behind him, a silent contingency waiting on his command.
“Keep unloading,” Phillip said, uncomfortably aware of the responsibility that hung over his head. Actions by their very nature would have to have consequences. Was he prepared to deal with that?
Definitely. Yes. He stood by his words. Maybe he’d been a bit…louder…than necessary. But he’d done the right thing.
He cleared his throat. “Look, even if her father can make things awkward for me, there will still be a prosecutor’s office in this town, and whoever the prosecutor is, he’ll need staff.”
“Think it’ll come to that?”
Phillip sighed and got to his feet, knowing that whether it did or not, he still had a job to do. The more time passed, and the longer it took for Amanda…Miss Addams…to come back, the more he was starting to worry. He reached for his hat. “Right now, Harold… I don’t much care. I need to find one Amanda Addams and see about her getting back to work.”
Summit shot a glance over his shoulder, but the other men had disappeared, going back to their duties. “She was taking it kinda hard,” he said softly, leaning in a little, his eyes softening some. “I guess she’s not had the sharp end of a tongue too often.”
“I don’t imagine she’s had to. From what Mar… from what I heard, she’s a fair hand at riding and handling horses and cattle. She does the same hard work as any ranch hand. That’s what people expect from her and that…” he pointed to the door and the figure of Cynthia Davis somewhere on the other side of it, hopefully far on the other side of it, “… that is exactly the sort of person who would laugh at her for not being feminine enough. So when she tries to be, it’s still not good enough.”
Summit nodded. “But she did try. That speaks well of her. That she was willing to try.”
“But…” Phillip threw his hands up in frustration, his hat coming perilously close to flying free. “Why? There was nothing wrong with what she was wearing yesterday, or the day before that, or on any of the days she’s been here. No one cares if she wears pants or a dress, so long as she got the work done!”
“You don’t know?” Summit took a step back and appraised him with a raised eyebrow.
“No.” Phillip stared at him, feeling uncomfortably like he was the one who was in the wrong now. “Why? What did I miss?”
Summit stepped out of the doorway, motioning him toward the front door with a grand gesture. “Then you need to go find her. When you do, she’ll tell you why. It’s best you hear it from her, I think.”
Phillip looked at him for a long moment, trying to find what he was missing in the impassive lines of the other man’s face. There was a soft twinkle in Summit’s eye that left him thinking somewhat uncomfortably that the man was trying hard not to laugh. Possibly at his expense. “Alright.” He said slowly, suspiciously. “But this conversation isn’t over.”
Harold Summit nodded and watched his young boss head for the door. He turned to Irving and raised an eyebrow.
“Are you smiling?” Irving asked, his voice incredulous.
“You need to get your glasses checked.” Harold grumped. The last thing Phillip saw as he shut the door was the older man back at work in his pile of papers.
Phillip jogged out into the street, leaving the men behind him to decide whether Summit had actually been smiling and other imponderables. He looked up and down the street, but the people and animals going in their little directions gave him no clue as to the whereabouts of one very unhappy girl.
He half ran to the sheriff’s office and, worried now, related to the sheriff the essence of what he’d heard Miss Davis saying to Amanda. He told the tale quickly, half out of breath from his run, realizing only belatedly that the scruffy man in the jail cell seemed unduly interested in listening in.
“Damn.” Sheriff Addams said as the tale concluded. “I was afraid something like this might happen. “I think I might know where she is though.”
“Sheriff!” The man in the cell called suddenly. “Is it ok for me to head out? I’m sober again, as you can see…”
Impatient, the Sheriff turned and nodded fumbling for the keys on his belt. “Keep in mind, you need to pay out two dollars first. One to pay the saloon for the whiskey you drank and the glasses you shot up and another to pay the fine for shooting a gun in my town.”
“Two dollars is a lot of money!” The man objected.
“You were a lot of stupid.” Addams countered, holding onto the keys and making no move to open the cell. “Now come on, I don’t got all day to wait for you to be even stupider.”
There was a momentary staring contest, and Phillip bristled at the delay. The erstwhile drunk finally nodded once and reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of coin.
“Sheriff,” Phillip said under his breath. “The fine for disturbing the peace and reckless endangerment is 90 days in jail.”
“Do I get a receipt?” the man asked as he dropped the coins into the sheriff’s hand.
“Can you read?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell would you do with one anyway?” Addams opened the cage and waved the man off. “Stay sober or get drunk in a different town, Jasper.” He turned around and reached for his hat, his former prisoner relegated to the unimportant.
“Sheriff…”
“Don’t get all puckered up, young man. I think I know where she is.”
Phillip followed him out, ignoring Jasper who was standing on the sidewalk rubbing his chin and staring down the road.
The sheriff headed for the stable, his pace brisk.
Chapter 13
“Amanda,” Sarah said quietly from just inside the door. “I brought you your own clothes.” She turned and looked down the rows of stalls, her fair head tilted to the side, as though trying to see past the stalls themselves to where her sister might be hiding. A whinny broke the silence as loud as a gunshot.
Amanda watched her from behind a post, knowing full well she should say something, but not wanting to. She wasn’t ready to talk. She didn’t feel like she was ever going to be ready to talk. And while she was grateful for her sister showing up, she wasn’t about to set foot outside that stall so long as she was still in that dress. No one was ever going to see her in that godforsaken scrap of material again if she ever had anything to say about it.
“I’ll set them here!” Sarah called out, her voice a little wobbly as she practically tiptoed to the grain bin. Although the center aisle was swept and clean, right down to the bare dirt, she acted as though it would hurt her feet to walk on the same soil as the horses did. Amanda had to give her credit for making it that far into the stables. Sarah wasn’t one to go into dark spaces where there might be spiders. Amanda shifted, keeping the post between her and her sister, watching as she set the bundle on the closed lid of the bin, balancing a beat-up hat on top of the pile.
“They’re here…” she said to the horses looking out at her, backing away quickly as one inquisitive nose got too close to her sleeve. “If you want them.” She took a deep breath. “Alright. I’m heading home, I’ll see you later.” Sarah turned and almost ran for the door.
She couldn’t let her go like this. It just wasn’t right.
“Thank you,” Amanda said emerging from a stall halfway down the aisle from where her sister stood. She looked pitifully at Sarah and held out the skirt of dress in her hands to spread the fabric wide under her sister’s shocked gaze. Mud and manure stained the breadth of it. She highly doubted it would ever be the same. “I think I ruined the dress. I’m awful sorry.” The last word ended on a half sob, not because she was upset about the stupid dress, but because her sister had tried so hard this morning to make her something…well, something she wasn’t. That she couldn’t ever be. And she felt like she’d let her down.
Sarah closed the distance between them and wrapped her sister in a fierce hug. “Don’t worry about the dress,” she said squeezing her tightly. “It’s you that matters.”
Amanda had thought that she’d cried herself out, but she found an untapped reservoir of tears just below the surface. She buried her face in her little sister’s shoulder and let the cascade flow.
“Look at me,” she hiccupped, “sobbing like a little girl. I should be tougher than this.”
“Honey,” Sarah said, pulling back to look her in the eye. “You’ve always had people that criticized you. You and I both grew up with people making stupid comments about the way you dress. It never bothered you before.”
Amanda looked at her sister for a moment and whispered. “Yeah, it did. It always bothered me, at least a little. I just never let it show.” She pulled herself together, squaring her shoulders, and wiping angrily at the tears. “I always had to be stronger than that. Like now.” And like that she was done crying. It didn’t matter if it still hurt inside. That was hers to carry. But not to wallow in. Right now, she needed to pull herself together. Or at the very least, find herself again. She headed over to the feed bin to get her things. “Besides, if people don’t like who I am, there ain’t nothing I can do about that. This is me and if they don’t like it, then… then they don’t like it.”
Saying it out loud helped. Made the dark edges kind of fall away. Let the hurt bleed out. She took the bundle and found an empty stall. “And then, when I do change to please them…” She took a shaky breath, “him, I mean, they don’t like that either.”
“It was that horrid Davis girl!” Sarah said, stamping her foot and sending up a cloud of dust enough to make her cough.
“Not just her.” Amanda shook her head and turned so Sarah could help her with the buttons. It didn’t surprise her that Sarah knew, word got around fast. “It was Mary Lynn and Mrs. Olson and her sister…”
“Those old biddies!”
“Sarah…” Amanda sighed and stepped out of the dress. She draped it over the side of the stall and began working on the rest. “It’s not them, not really. It’s not even that they thought I was being foolish, it’s that they were right. See, I thought that I could change, that maybe Mr. Richman would notice me… as a woman.”
“I’m sure he did,” Sarah protested. “Honey, you were beautiful in that, you saw it, how pretty you looked in the mirror.”
“I ain’t pretty,” Amanda said, holding up a hand and shaking her head as Sarah opened her mouth to protest. “I don’t mean it like that… I… I saw the mirror, I have a nice face, you did wonders for me, I understand that, but ‘pretty’ isn’t me. I don’t care if my face gets dried and windburned. I don’t care if I’m covered in mud and have manure on my boots and horse hair in my clothes. That’s me. All I been is foolish.”
“You don’t have to be,” a voice said, causing both sisters to jump.
“Who are you?” Sarah asked, placing herself between the stranger and her sister.
Amanda stood there foolishly, holding up her shirt in front of her, suddenly feeling very womanly and quite exposed. “Sarah… Do you remember Jasper? From the train?” Her voice came out a bit shaky. Angrily she shoved her arms in the sleeves.
Sarah shook her head slowly, almost in a daze. The man was standing too close to her. She was feeling threatened. Amanda could see it in the way Sarah’s face had gone so white that even she could tell in the semi-darkness of the stables.
“He’s the boy I spent time with on the train. The one I used to wrestle and fight with.” Her words contained an unspoken warning. Jasper was wild. Jasper was rough. She wanted to yank her sister back out of the man’s reach, but it would only trap them both in the stall. Right now, she needed him to move.
Sarah didn’t seem to get it. The danger Amanda was sensing seemed to have gone over her head. She was working up a good case of mad. “Well, we’re not children anymore, and I will kindly thank you to stay over there, whoever you are.”
“It’s alright.” Amanda stepped out of the stall, pushing past her, putting her own body between Jasper and her sister. “I’m done.”
“That’s better,” Jasper said with a gap-toothed smile. “That’s the kinda gal you really are. You don’t need to put on airs and flaunt around for some high-pants buffoon. You’re pretty as a picture just like that.” He waved at her trousers and shirt, the beat-up straw hat, the boots with the pant legs tucked in. The smile wasn’t exactly friendly. Or maybe the problem was it was a bit too friendly.
“Something about a pretty gal in britches…” He drew the back of his hand across his mouth.
Amanda’s fists clenched. This no-account excuse for a man had no right
to talk to her that way. She opened her mouth to tell him so when she was the one pushed aside. A blur of lace and petticoats was past her in an instant.
“SARAH!” Amanda called, but her sister had already charged the man, fists flying. Jasper pushed her out of the stable door like she was a child and latched it behind her.
Thank God. The terror that had closed her throat eased when saw her sister thrust outside. Amanda doubted that her sister had so much as laid a hand on Jasper for all her efforts. Stupid, brave girl for trying. At least she was safe there. Whatever happened Sarah would be safe.
Herself? Not so much.
“We don’t need no distractions, now do we?”
It was too much. Hard on the heels of what was having to be the most awful day in her entire life, this lowdown, boot-licking guttersnipe really thought he could address her the way he would those doxies in the saloon?
“Jasper,” Amanda said in a voice as frozen as midwinter. “You really don’t want to do this.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am, I really do,” Jasper assured her and reached out to grab a lead rope. “And you want me to, don’t think you don’t.” He passed the back of his hand over his mouth once more. The man was actually drooling.
Chapter 14
So far, they’d had no luck at all. Having searched the stable and come up empty, Phillip and the sheriff had gone to the Sheriff’s house to seek her out there. They’d spoken to Sarah and Rachel, both of whom were aghast at the turn of events. Sarah fled upstairs, presumably distraught over her sister. Oddly enough they didn’t linger there long, leaving the womenfolk to sort out their own emotions. He supposed the Sheriff knew best what his own children would need when upset like this, though it still felt strange to take the time afterward to hike all the way out to the Calvert Ranch, even as the Sheriff argued they would be more likely to catch up to her on foot.
At First Sight (The Sheriff's Daughters Book 2) Page 8