by Craig, Emma
# # #
Joy sat on her bed in the back of Mac’s store—Elijah had kept the bedroom in Mac’s house at her insistence—and stared at the money in her lap. Mac had paid her well for her service in his mercantile establishment during his absence. She might even have enough money to get herself back to Auburn now. She went over a possible route in her head.
First she’d have to hire space in a freight wagon to get her from Rio Hondo to Santa Fe or Albuquerque. Then she’d either have to take a stagecoach somewhere or, if Albuquerque had a train station, catch a train there to take her back east. When she’d traveled out here with Mr. Thrash, the group of missionaries had traveled by wagon train. And extremely uncomfortable it had been, too.
At any rate, whatever train she caught in New Mexico Territory probably wouldn’t take her any farther than Kansas City or Saint Joseph. Maybe Saint Louis. From there she’d probably be able to catch a train to Philadelphia, if there wasn’t one that went all the way to Boston. The railroad lines went clear across the continent now.
Her heart felt heavy, and tears backed up behind her eyelids. Whatever did that mean? Joy thought she knew, and it made her angry.
“Don’t be any more of a fool than you can help being, Joy Hardesty.”
Letting her head fall back, she stared at the ceiling, knowing it was already too late for her not to be a fool.
“Dear Lord, how could you let something like this happen to me? Wasn’t I enough of a mess already, without adding this burden to my life?”
The dear Lord didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. Joy already knew the answer. Yes, she was enough of a mess already. And yes, she didn’t want to leave Rio Hondo. Because—saints preserve her!—she had managed to fall madly in love with Elijah Perry, gambler, womanizer, sinner, and rambling man.
“Oh, dear Lord, this is terrible!”
Her mother was probably laughing herself sick up there in heaven.
# # #
Elijah Perry sat on his bed in Mac’s back room, leaning against the headboard with his hands cupped behind his head, as he pondered the strange and unusual ideas that had been playing tag in his head all day.
Aloud, he said, “You’re getting old, Elijah Perry. You aren’t going to be able to keep wandering around forever.”
He frowned, testing the truth of those two sentences. With a sigh, he decided they were, indeed, true. What a pain in the neck the truth could be sometimes. He tried again: “Putting down roots doesn’t have to be all that frightening.”
Discovering he wasn’t sure about that one, he decided to overlook it for a while and forge onward. “You used to like the hotel business, remember.” He did remember, and he felt better.
“Besides, the place does need a hotel. Mac’s wagon yard won’t be able to fill the needs of the community forever.”
That truth, while it didn’t strike him with as much pleasure as the one about the hotel business, didn’t bother him as much as the ones about his getting old or setting down roots.
The one that popped up next was too bizarre even to consider in his current state of debilitation, so he skipped over it and tackled another one. This one wasn’t as thorny as the prior one, but it did make his stomach hurt and his heart thump like he was having a seizure: “If you stop moving around, you might have to learn what’s happened to Virginia.”
He waited for the sick feeling in his stomach to settle. He knew he could probably get out of having to come to grips with an adult Virginia by simply ignoring her and never writing to her again. Whatever else he’d been in his life, however, Elijah had never been a coward. He guessed he’d have to live with facing the truth about Virginia, even though he feared discovering she’d grown up to be a simpering, foolish female might well kill him. The image he carried in his head of her as a darling two-year-old was precious to him. It would break his heart to have it shattered.
He scowled at the ceiling. “So be it.”
Hell, he’d survived worse in his day, hadn’t he? And you never knew. Maybe Virginia had grown up to be a charming and delightful young lady.
“Don’t be stupid,” he advised his fanciful self. Where had this ridiculous whimsy suddenly sprung from, anyway? He never used to be afraid to face hard facts.
“Like hell.”
Rattled by the latest words to leap from his mouth, Elijah started slightly and looked around. No one was in the room but him. He must have said it.
With a heavy sigh, he admitted that perhaps, once or twice—maybe—he’d tried to duck out on facing unpleasant facts.
“Hell. It’s been more than once or twice, you damn-fool liar. You hate facing ugly facts and always have. Christ, man, grow up.”
Elijah wasn’t generally so hard on himself and wished he hadn’t begun to be now. It seemed that he’d open the floodgates, however, and the miserable details of his life kept pouring into his head. Exasperated, he went on to further franknesses.
“You might have to deal with the rest of your family if you keep in touch with Virginia. Even your mother and father, if they’re alive.”
He shuddered and squinted into the dim bedroom, lit at present by a single candle. The one candle was having a hard time fighting the gloom now that the sun had almost set. The prospect of reacquainting himself with his family didn’t give him the stomachache he’d expected it to. Good. He brightened a fraction.
“Hell, you don’t have to have anything to do with them. It’s not like any of ‘em are likely to come out here for a visit.”
For all he knew, his parents were dead. And maybe his sister had died years since and was buried in the graveyard next to them. The possibility didn’t cause him so much as a twinge of grief. He considered that a good omen and kept thinking.
Mary Ellen Loveless.
The name exploded into his brain like a firecracker, and Elijah winced and then sighed again, more heavily than before.
“Hell, you don’t owe her anything. She’d probably be dead by now if it wasn’t for you.”
It didn’t work. Mary Ellen Loveless still troubled him. Damn it.
A perplexing complication, Mary Ellen. Always before in his life, Elijah had settled such complications by simply walking away from them. If he stuck around in Rio Hondo for however many days remained to him, however, doing so permanent a thing as running a hotel, the loose ends he’d left behind in his decades as a rolling stone might well find him out.
“God, what a thought!” He shuddered again.
All right. He had to face facts someday; he might as well start now. If he did decide to settle in Rio Hondo, he’d have to think long and hard on what to do about Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen had been a worse-for-wear, albeit very young, wretchedly laudanum-addicted sporting girl when Elijah first met her in San Francisco. As he’d had nothing better to do with himself at the time, and since he liked her pretty well, he’d helped her overcome her addiction. She’d been half in love with him ever since—and he’d been half in love with her, too, if he aimed to be brutally honest with himself. And, since this evening seemed to be the time for such truth-telling, he admitted it. He’d only ever been half in love with her, however.
Mary Ellen was the only human being Elijah had kept in touch with—more114 9 or less—in the past fifteen years. Actually, she’d had more to do with the keeping-in-touch part than he. He’d run into her every now and then. She seemed adept at tracking him down, because she’d showed up three or four times in places he’d stayed for longer than a week or two. Elijah had always been happy to see her, and she hadn’t ever made a fuss when he’d moved along. She knew he wasn’t a settler-downer. Or hadn’t been, rather. Before he got shot here in Rio Hondo.
If, however, he settled down the way he wanted to settle down, here, in Rio Hondo, he’d have to deal with Mary Ellen. Permanently. He didn’t want to do it. He feared he’d hurt her feelings. What an odd concept: Elijah Perry, worrying about hurting a whore’s feelings. He snorted derisively.
“You ca
n be one hell of an ass without half trying, Elijah Perry.”
That truth didn’t bother him. He’d known it for years.
“So that’s that.”
Elijah felt something kick at his conscience and resented it. Hell, for twenty-one years now, he’d been doing his best to rid himself of a conscience, but the damned thing wouldn’t die no matter what he did to it. He’d even gone out of his way, once or twice, to do something he considered downright evil in an attempt to put his conscience to rest once and for all. It hadn’t worked.
That wasn’t that. The question of Joy Hardesty remained.
Elijah uncupped his hands, dropped his chin to his chest, and let his arms fall to his sides. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Damn it, this wasn’t fair. He grabbed one of his pillows and punched it hard. Didn’t help.
When the glory of his hotel concept had burst into his brain, it had done so fully grown—and with attachments.
No matter which way he’d looked at it, Joy was there. Only she wasn’t Joy Hardesty in his mind’s eye. No. Nothing could be that simple, could it?
“Damn it.”
Elijah slammed one pillow down on top of the other and gave them such a hot glare, he was later surprised they didn’t burst into flames.
He knew God was getting back at him for his wicked ways when his mind’s eye pictured Joy standing on the porch of his fine new hotel, holding the hands of a little girl and a little boy, and smiling at him. Because—God save him—she was his wife! And those kids—Lord, he couldn’t stand it—were his children.
That wasn’t even the worst of it. No. He buried his head in the top pillow and wished he could simply smother himself and get it over with. This final truth was so awful, he’d been avoiding it all day, and now he was trying to avoid it through the night. But it wouldn’t go away, and it refused to be ignored any longer.
He was in love with her.
Chapter Fourteen
Joy smiled at the freight-delivery man as he lugged the heavy mail pouch into Mac’s store. “It looks like there’s lots of mail this time,” she said, because she felt the need to say something.
He heaved the pouch onto the counter with a grunt. “Yeah. More folks movin’ out here all the time, I reckon.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Joy spent a moment missing her population-dense home in Auburn, Massachusetts. In Auburn, there were all sorts of people to talk to, any time she wanted to. Of course, the only ones she knew had been connected with her mother’s religious enterprises and were, therefore, not the most comfortable communicants in the world. She shook off the moment and nodded brightly at the freight man. “It’s a warm day and you have a hard job. You must be thirsty. Would you care for a cool drink?”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you kindly. A glass of Mac’s beer would be right welcome.”
Joy hadn’t thought about alcohol when she’d offered the man a drink. She’d been thinking more on the order of water or apple cider or lemonade. Not that there was such a commodity as a lemon to be had within hundreds of miles of Rio Hondo. She didn’t think about protesting, though, but only nodded, smiled again and went into the back room to procure the beer. In spite of her mother’s endless homilies, she now knew that not every single person who took a mug of beer after performing a hard task was necessarily wicked and depraved.
She pulled the handle on the beer keg, watched the beer foam out of the spigot, and half expected to hear her mother’s voice spout a lecture on the evils of drink, and how weak-willed and sinful Joy was for contributing to the freight driver’s downfall. A lecture didn’t materialize, and she was pleased.
Instead, while she was in the back room, she decided the poor man might appreciate some bread and butter and a hunk of cheese, so she took a minute to prepare him plate of food, then carried the small repast out to the store on a tray. The freight driver had strolled over to the pot-bellied stove, where Elijah Perry was stationed again today. The men were exchanging pleasantries. Joy braced herself and tried to ignore the battering of her heart as she took the tray to the stove.
“Here you are, sir.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” The man bobbed his head and looked happily at the food. “Thank you very kindly. I am a mite peckish, and that there bread and butter and cheese looks real tasty.”
Joy pretended not to see Elijah’s arched eyebrows and his expression of feigned shock when he realized she was giving food away. As sweetly as she knew how, she said, “You have a very difficult and demanding job. I’m sure you deserve at least this much in refreshment.”
Because the snort Elijah gave irked her, she kicked him lightly on the shin as she turned to take the tray to the back room.
“Ow!”
She fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh, my dear goodness gracious! Did I kick you, Mr. Perry? I’m ever so sorry. Pray, forgive me!”
Elijah rolled his eyes, and Joy smirked as she swished away from him and headed for the counter. She heard him mutter, “Pray forgive me. I don’t believe you said that.”
“Pretty gal, that. Nice, too. Don’t see too many pretty gals out here in the territory.”
This remark came from the freight driver. Joy almost bumped into the pickle barrel. As soon as she’d made her way into the back room, she peeked around the door jamb and strained to hear if Elijah would say something; perhaps agree with that excessively kind and perceptive man. She should have known better
“She’s pretty enough, but she’s prickly as a cactus.”
Joy scowled, and her pounding heart stumbled. Then Elijah looked at her before she could duck behind the door, and winked. She jerked her head away and felt herself flush from her toenails to the part in her hair.
Well, she had no business playing coy games with Elijah Perry, even if she did care for him more than she knew was good for her. She was gainfully employed in Mac’s store and had work to do. Part of that work was sorting through the mail as quickly as she could when the pouch was delivered. The whole of Rio Hondo and its surrounding ranches knew when the freight driver came to town, and they’d soon be rushing to Mac’s wagon yard to pick up any letters from home. Joy knew better than to expect any mail herself. No one she knew in Auburn liked her well enough to write.
Considering that thought too depressing a one to dwell upon, she set her tray in its proper place, and went back out to the mail pouch resting on the counter. Climbing onto her high stool, she refused to look toward the pot-bellied stove, and tried not to listen in on the conversation Elijah and the freight driver were engaged in.
Not eavesdropping became easier when she realized they were discussing baseball, a sport she knew less than nothing about, if such a state of ignorance was possible. Her mother, needless to say, had considered baseball frivolous and sinful. Mrs. Hardesty hadn’t allowed Joy’s father to organize a church baseball team for the young boys who attended Sunday school there. As Joy recalled her parents’ arguments about the baseball issue, she decided that, given several alternatives, a baseball team for young lads seemed preferable to most of them. It would certainly have been more productive than tipping over outhouses, throwing dice, and soaping windows, three activities the young men in Auburn had favored.
That, however, was neither here nor there. Joy wasn’t in Auburn any longer, her parents were dead, and she still didn’t know one end of a baseball bat from the other. She quickly became engrossed in sorting the mail.
Not many minutes later, Joy realized to her considerable surprise that she enjoyed the job of sorting mail. Many of the letters had been folded and sealed with wax, and she liked trying to decipher the various seals. Most of the wax globs had been pressed with a button or a ring or some other mundane household item. Still others bore the imprint of a more impressive stamps.
Of the letters that hadn’t been merely folded and sealed, some had been stuffed into ready-made envelopes and gummed closed. Several of them had obviously been sent from post offices, and bore inked stamps. Quite a few had the more new-fangled gum
med postage stamps on them. Joy was intrigued by those stamps, which she considered a clever idea, especially if one didn’t live near a post office. One could purchase a supply of gummed stamps and have them on hand whenever one wanted to write a letter.
Correspondence to Rio Hondo, New Mexico Territory, boasted post marks from everywhere in the United States, its territories, and even overseas. Even the least exciting piece of mail, a letter to John Chisum, had been posted in Texas, a place that had always evoked thoughts of the wild and woolly frontier in Joy’s mind. And now she herself lived in a place even more wild and woolly than Texas! All at once, Joy felt like a daring pioneer; a rugged adventurer into new and untried lands.
Perhaps not exactly daring and rugged.
Still, the notion appealed to her, and she was smiling when she came across a neatly addressed missive, sealed in pink wax with a thistle print embedded in the wafer, and directed to . . . her. She had to stare at the letter for several moments before the words on the outside registered fully. Somebody had written her a letter! She turned the envelope over twice, studying it. Squinting at the postmark, she pondered. She didn’t know a single soul in Maryland. Did she?
Then it dawned on her: Virginia Gladstone had responded to Joy’s letter about Elijah’s accident! She glanced at him. She still hadn’t told him she’d posted his letter to Virginia. At the moment he and the freight driver were laughing about something, and Joy could only be glad Elijah wasn’t looking at her. She knew guilt must be plastered all over her face.
Because she didn’t trust herself not to reveal her feelings if this letter contained something dreadful—although she couldn’t imagine what Virginia Gladstone might have written to her that could be dreadful—Joy turned away from the men and broke the seal as quietly as she could.
Virginia Gladstone had neat, precise handwriting that appealed to Joy’s orderly soul. She read quickly:
Dear Miss Hardesty. Thank you very much for taking the time to write to me, and for forwarding Uncle Elijah’s letter to me.