by Cox, Carol
Seventeen
“Pssst!”
From his vantage point behind a bush across the alley behind the restaurant, Michael watched Jenny jump as if shot and fall back against the building’s rough wooden exterior. Maybe he should have made his presence known a little more openly.
“It’s me,” he said, standing and stepping out into the alley behind the restaurant.
“Michael!” Jenny fanned herself with her hand and looked down at the old flour sack filled with loose garbage she’d dropped in her fright. Bones, peels, and egg shells lay strewn in the dust. “I thought it was—well, never mind.” She stooped and started gathering the trash.
She thought it was Martin Lester, come to take her back, you idiot! “Let me do that.” He knelt beside her and picked up a handful of garbage.
“Have at it.” Jenny stood and left him to deal with the smelly mess. “I think you scared me out of a year’s growth.”
Remorse warred with his reason for lurking in the bushes like a thief. “I needed to talk to you.”
“Most people would come inside the restaurant to do that.”
“No, I need to talk to you. Just you, without Elizabeth around.” He picked up the reeking mass of garbage and held it out in front of him. Whatever was dripping found its way down his arm and soaked into his sleeve.
“You won’t be able to sneak up on anyone now.” Jenny wrinkled her nose and took two steps away from him.
He dropped the sack into the barrel and wiped his hands off. The smell still lingered. He moved downwind from Jenny, wishing he could move upwind of himself. “It’s about Elizabeth,” he began. “What’s going on? I thought she enjoyed spending time with me, but now she won’t give me the time of day.”
Jenny’s eyes grew round. “You mean you don’t know?” She shook her head. “The way she’s been acting, I was certain the two of you had some kind of argument.”
“Nope. One day we’re the best of friends, and the next she’s refusing to walk out with me and treating me like a leper. I was hoping you’d know.”
Jenny’s brow furrowed. “She hasn’t been the same since that horrid woman came to the restaurant. Something was said that upset Elizabeth, I’m sure of it, but I have no idea what it was. . .or what connection you have with it all.”
“Connection? Me?” Michael’s mind whirled as he tried—and failed—to make some sense of what he heard. What woman? What had she said? And how could it possibly involve him?
“I’d better get back inside.” Jenny’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Elizabeth worries if I’m outside on my own. And for a moment there, I thought she was right!” She gave a shaky laugh.
Michael put out his hand to stop her. “If you hear anything about what I’m supposed to have done, will you let me know?” He gave Jenny a quick hug. “And I’m sorry I scared you.”
Jenny’s half smile spoke of her pity for his plight. “I’ll do what I can to find out,” she promised. “But don’t get your hopes up too high.”
“What if I wait out here every night and try to catch Elizabeth?”
“I’m the one who takes the trash out.” Jenny smiled. “You might do better not to scare her like you did me.”
❧
“Excuse me, we’d like to place our order.” The plump matron waved Elizabeth toward her table in the manner of a queen summoning an underling.
Elizabeth shifted the tray of dirty dishes to one hip and tried to smile. “I’ll let Jenny know you’re ready,” she told the woman and her two companions. “She’ll be right out.”
“Just a moment.” The spokeswoman held up her hand in an imperious gesture, halting Elizabeth’s escape. “We would prefer you did it. I have heard that the food is good here, but I have no desire to have any dealings with. . .” She lowered her voice. “She is the one who used to work at that awful saloon, is she not?” Her lower chin wobbled indignantly as her companions nodded their agreement.
Elizabeth set the tray down on a neighboring table with a crash, unmindful of the rattle of crockery. Her anger erupted in a rush. “Jenny Davis is a fine young woman, with more decency than the three of you put together!”
All three ladies squawked in protest. “How dare you speak to us like that!” their leader demanded. “We will not be treated this way!”
“Then maybe you would prefer eating elsewhere.” Elizabeth fixed the trio with a gimlet stare while they gathered their things and trooped out. She swept up the tray and made her way back to the kitchen, ignoring the stares that followed her. Would this kind of thing keep happening? How does a person restore a damaged reputation?
At least Jenny hadn’t heard the disparaging comments. . .this time. But what about the next time? And the next?
It would be so much easier for Jenny if she let God be a part of her life. Then she could let Him help her carry her burdens. And Jenny had plenty of those. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know why You let all those things happen or why this is happening now. Maybe You can even use something like this to draw Jenny to You, although it’s hard for me to see how.
Despite her anger at her three former customers, she felt a small thrill of victory. She’d dealt with today’s confrontation—without the help of Michael O’Roarke. The knowledge brought mingled pleasure and pain.
❧
“I’ll take this trash out, Jenny.”
Jenny scrambled for a dish towel and wiped her hands free of soapsuds. “I can do it. I don’t mind.”
“No, you go on washing those dishes. You’ve taken care of the trash every night for a week now. I’m surprised you haven’t complained about having to handle the smelly stuff.”
“You may be surprised about more than just that.”
Elizabeth had to strain to hear Jenny’s cryptic remark. With a quizzical glance, she gathered up the rubbish and went out. Outside, she savored a long, slow breath of the evening air. Look at that sunset! Thumb Butte wore its display of vivid violets and crimsons like a royal robe. It would be wonderful just to walk among the pines and enjoy all this beauty as she used to with Michael. Before. She dumped the lard tin into the garbage barrel and turned to go back inside.
Michael stood waiting on the doorstep.
Elizabeth eyed him warily. Arms folded across his chest, feet planted well apart, he looked like a man ready to withstand an army.
Shock surged into anger. The nerve of the man, thinking he could intimidate her by blocking the way to her own door! She could go right through him if she needed to.
She crossed her arms and prepared for battle. “What do you think you’re doing here?”
“I’ve come for an explanation.”
Elizabeth felt the heat rise from her neck to her hairline. She took one step forward, and Michael raised his hands, turning them palm out in a gesture of surrender.
“Please,” he said.
The appeal brought her up short, and she looked at him more closely. The same curly, dark hair, the same vivid blue eyes. The same smile that always set her heart dancing. The same features that always made her think of him as her Michael.
How could her Michael look just as before yet cause her heart so much pain? Her Michael? Not anymore.
He seemed to take her hesitation as a sign of a truce and took an eager step forward. “It seems I’ve done something to upset you, but I don’t know what. I’d like nothing more than to have things like they were before, but you’ll have to tell me what’s wrong.”
His feigned innocence took away any softer feelings she was beginning to have. “Wrong?” She planted her fists on her hips. “Did you really think you could keep it from me?”
His puzzled look would have been convincing if she hadn’t learned the sorry truth from Letitia. The act sent her anger over the edge.
“What kind of man buys a wife?”
Michael’s head snapped back. “What?”
“You heard me. How low does a man have to sink to send off for a wife like he’d place an order for
seeds from a catalog?”
The fire of her anger mounting. “At least a mail-order bride answers an advertisement and enters the bargain of her own accord. Not like your despicable scheme.” Her words battered Michael back a step. “How could you possibly believe I wouldn’t get wind of this? Did you and the Bartletts believe you could pull the wool over my eyes forever, or was it enough to think you could fool me until after the wedding?”
She could feel her arms shaking and knew that tears weren’t far away. She grasped the door handle. “I’ve been played for a fool, and I don’t like it a bit. That’s what is wrong!”
The door slammed behind her with a most satisfying crash.
❧
Michael didn’t know how long he stared at the closed door. The echo of Elizabeth’s words swirled through his brain like a swarm of angry hornets. He tried to make some sense of the flurry of accusations she had flung at him. What was all that about mail-order brides and buying a wife? Had she been talking about herself when she referred to being sent for like some kind of merchandise?
A smile tugged at his lips in spite of his confusion. Merchandise implied something passive, unable to speak for itself. Elizabeth Simmons would never fit that description.
His mood sobered again. From what he could gather, Elizabeth felt she had been the victim of some kind of scheme and, for some reason, had decided he was part of it. And she obviously had no intention of giving him a chance to defend himself.
And where did the Bartletts fit into this? How could she have gotten the notion that he was in league with them? The very idea of being put in the same category as those two made him feel degraded. The last thing he would ever want to do would be to link his lot with the likes of Richard and Letitia Bartlett.
But he knew someone who would.
Eighteen
“What do you mean, you hired them to find me a wife?” Michael’s bellow reverberated off the walls, but the stocky man facing him seemed unmoved.
“I care about my son and his future. There’s no crime in that.” Timothy O’Roarke rocked back on his heels and puffed on his half-finished cigar, sending a cloud of gray smoke floating toward the ceiling.
Michael stared at the man he called his father, wondering if it was possible for a person to stray so far that they put themselves beyond God’s mercy.
“You don’t deny it, then? You admit you offered the Bartletts money to lure some unsuspecting woman out here so I could marry her?”
“ ‘Lure’ has such an unpleasant ring to it. I prefer to think of it as bringing out a likely prospect and allowing nature to take its course.” Timothy stroked his mustache with the back of his forefinger. “As it did, you must admit.” He hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets and stared at Michael with a benevolent smile.
Michael pulled his collar open. “Did you ever once stop to think how Miss Simmons—how I—might feel about being pawns in your little game?”
Timothy swung his hand through the air, waving Michael’s objection away with the haze of smoke that wreathed his head. “That’s why you weren’t meant to know about it,” he said in a tone of sweet reason. “I thought you might overreact like this. But all’s well that ends well, my boy. I’ve seen the young lady, and I approve. You do, too, apparently.” He lowered his eyelid in a suggestive wink.
Michael gritted his teeth. “Unfortunately, the young lady doesn’t approve of your methods any more than I do. Especially since she thinks I was a party to the whole thing. That’s why you’re going to explain it to her.”
The cigar drooped in the corner of Timothy’s mouth. “I’m going to. . . No, no. I’m sure she’d rather hear it from you, my boy.”
“Unfortunately, she doesn’t want to hear anything I have to say at the moment.” Michael gripped his father’s arm above the elbow and steered him toward the door. “But with your cooperation, I’m hoping that’s about to change.”
❧
“Any more orders, Jenny?” Elizabeth set two bowls of venison stew on a serving tray and wiped her brow with her forearm.
“That’s the lot, for now at least. It looks like things are slowing down for a bit.”
“After that rush at lunchtime, I won’t complain.”
Jenny laughed. “Why don’t you sit down for awhile? You look like you could use a break.” She picked up the tray and backed through the swinging door. Elizabeth heard her soft gasp and looked up to see Jenny staring into the dining room like one transfixed.
“What’s wrong? Another rush?”
Jenny cast a wide-eyed glance over her shoulder. “You could say that.” She stepped into the dining room, letting the door swing shut behind her.
A large hand pushed it open on the next swing, and Michael stepped into the room, pushing another man in front of him.
Elizabeth bristled. How dare he enter her restaurant! And straight into her private domain, no less. She opened her mouth to tell him what she thought of his behavior when something about his companion caught her attention.
She took a second look at the man, then a third. What was it about him that triggered that sense of recognition?
A series of scenes came flooding into her mind. Keen eyes studying her from the corner of the Bartletts’ parlor. Eyes that probed and judged her.
His eyes. Her skin crawled, just as it had the first time she’d seen him. Who was this man, and why was he standing in her kitchen? She glared at Michael, her lips pressed together and her chin jutting forward, wordlessly demanding an explanation.
Michael’s face wore a grim expression. “There’s something you need to know, Elizabeth. Something you need to hear. From him.” He indicated his companion with a jerk of his head. “Allow me to introduce you to my father, Timothy O’Roarke.”
Timothy? Snippets of remembered comments Richard had made flashed through her mind. So this was the man he’d had to report to when he thought she was unavailable. The same Timothy who refused to pay them off once he found out they had no goods to offer him. The reason for Letitia’s abusive diatribe.
And Michael’s father? The floor tilted beneath her, and she grasped the edge of the counter to keep from falling.
Michael, his brow wrinkled in concern, hurried to support her, but she dashed his arm aside and forced herself to stand upright. “I don’t need your assistance.”
Timothy O’Roarke. It made sense, now that all the pieces had been put in place. He had struck the deal with the Bartletts. Only natural that he would come by to check out the merchandise.
Elizabeth could see the physical resemblance, the eyes and hair so like Michael’s and yet so different. Her breath quickened, and she felt her strength return as her body responded to her anger. How had they managed to contrive her first meetings with Michael? Timothy must be a master puppeteer. . .and she had been his puppet.
“You need to leave. Both of you.” Her voice barely quavered. Good.
“Not until you hear what he has to say.” Michael’s voice held a ring of authority. He prodded his father’s shoulder. “Go on, tell her.”
Timothy tugged the gaudy waistcoat down over his ample stomach and cleared his throat. “It’s really not as big a thing as the boy makes out,” he began. “Just a father trying to do what’s best for his son.”
He flashed a confident grin at Elizabeth, who glowered at him in return. He shifted his gaze and went on.
“You see, I care about my son here. I’ve worked hard all my life to carve a niche he could step into. He has what it takes to rise to the top. With a little effort on his part, he could be a part of the legislature, even become a senator once this territory becomes a state.
“Only one thing does he lack, and that’s a proper wife. One befitting of the status he will attain. One who knows the ways of polite society and will be an asset to him when he has to move in the right circles back in Washington.
“In a word, someone like you.” He paused and looked straight at her now, narrowing his gaze as if waiting for her reaction
.
“And so the two of you and the Bartletts cooked up this conspiracy to bring me out here?”
“Well, not exactly.” For the first time, Timothy’s confidence seemed to waver. “Michael tends to be a bit stubborn about some things. Takes after his mother that way. I had a feeling—just an inkling, you understand—that he might not see the wisdom of what we were about. I thought it would be better if he learned about it later.”
“How much later?”
Timothy shrugged as if his coat had suddenly become too small for his thickset frame. “I would have told him when the banns were announced. By the wedding, at the latest.”
Elizabeth stared into Michael’s blue gaze. “You mean you didn’t know? You weren’t a party to this?”
His head moved from side to side. “I had no idea. Not until you lit into me about plotting with the Bartletts.”
The icy fingers around Elizabeth’s heart began to thaw. He hadn’t betrayed her trust. He was still the same Michael. Her Michael? The glimmer of hope sent a rush of warmth throughout her being, melting the ice around her heart and washing away the pain.
Timothy’s voice broke the silence. “Well, now that it’s settled, I’ll be on my way.” He twirled one end of his mustache and winked at Elizabeth. “All’s well that ends well, I always say. And this looks like a fine ending, although I still don’t know what Michael was so wrought up about.” With a smug look, he strolled out.
Elizabeth watched him go, then turned to Michael. “However can you put up with him?” Her eyes grew wide, and she pressed her hand against her lips, too late to stop the sharp words. Michael didn’t seem put off, though, so she took courage and continued. “I’m sorry. I know that’s a horrid thing to say about your father, but—”
“You can’t possibly say anything about him I haven’t said or thought myself.” He passed his hand across his face and leaned back against the counter as if welcoming its support.
“My father. . .well, you’ve seen for yourself. He doesn’t play by anyone’s rules but his own. And the object of the game is the advancement of Timothy O’Roarke, no matter who or what gets in the way.”