Fire Lily (A Dangerous Hearts Romance)

by Deborah Camp

  “Sure. I’d go with you, but my deputy quit last week and I’m shorthanded. Somebody’s got to stick close to the office in case there’s trouble in town.”

  “I understand. I don’t suppose you’ve seen any visiting women around in the past couple of months. Cecille Meeker is a young woman of marrying age. She has blond hair and blue eyes. Quite fetching, I’m told.”

  “You don’t know know her personally?”

  “No, I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her. I’ve been retained by her family to find her.”

  “And that feisty miss, she’s this gal’s cousin?”

  “That’s right.” Griffon smiled. “Feisty” was a good word for Lily, he thought. Feisty, and at times exasperating.

  The sheriff sat forward, resting beefy arms on the desk top. “Hasn’t been anybody fitting that description around here that I know of.”

  “And no reported deaths since the first of the year?”

  “No woman … well, I take that back. There was one death I heard of. Found out about it just last week from the fella who runs the dry goods store. Said a couple of them Jeffers boys came in to buy some two-penny nails. They had to build themselves a coffin.”

  Griffon felt Balthazar stiffen beside him, but he kept his attention riveted to the sheriff. “A coffin for whom?”

  The sheriff smirked. “You don’t talk like a Gypsy. Where you from?”

  “I used to live overseas. The coffin, Sheriff Mac?”

  “I’m told it was for Anson’s wife. She died. Sudden. The story is she had a stillbirth and it done her in.”

  Griffon looked at Balthazar and knew he was wondering the same thing. Did that coffin hold Anson’s dead wife or the body of Cecille Meeker?

  Chapter 7

  “Coming with them was a mistake,” Lily fumed, striding along the main street’s boardwalk and making Orrie trot to keep up with her. “I should have known he’d try to shove me in a corner and make me be his idea of a good little girl. Oooo, men! Why can’t they see that women have minds and we don’t need them to think for us? When will they learn that we have intelligence beyond—”

  “Lord have mercy!” Orrie said, gasping for breath. She snagged Lily’s sleeve and made her shorten her stride. “What’s so terrible about being sent off to do some window shopping? I’d rather poke around that milliner’s shop up ahead than sit in that smelly sheriff’s office.”

  “Griffon led me to believe that he was different, that he was a champion of equality for the sexes. That two-faced vagabond. He no more would support women’s suffrage than he would ride a horse backwards down Main Street.”

  “Lily, you should watch that talk. You’ve driven away beaus by spouting that nonsense. Men don’t like ladies who want to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. You got to be more sweet-acting. You got to keep those wild opinions to yourself. No harm in thinking them, mind you, but you won’t catch a husband by telling him you’re not about to love, honor, and obey.”

  Stopping outside the feed store, Lily faced Orrie. “Don’t you think I’ve tried to be more like Cecille?”

  “Cecille?” Orrie’s brows met above her nose. “And who’s talkin’ about Cecille, I ask you?”

  “Oh, I know the family thinks she’s perfect, and heaven knows she’s always had more gentlemen callers than me, but it goes against my grain to demur when I think someone is talking nonsense.” Lily straightened Orrie’s bonnet, which had slipped askew. “Cecille has a knack for getting what she wants by flattering and cajoling. I just can’t do it, Orrie.”

  “You could if you put your mind to it. Sometimes it’s the only way to get a man to listen to you. It’s all men understand from a woman.”

  “Really?” Lily considered this, then shook her head. “I’d feel like a cheat. I’d certainly appear counterfeit. I’ve tried to follow Cecille’s example, but I …” Her voice trailed as her spirits drooped. For a moment, she’d thought about enticing Griffon to cooperate, but she’d never be able to pull that off. He’d laugh in her face, and he’d done that enough already!

  “Honeypot, I never said Cecille was perfect or that you was any less than her.” Orrie placed her hands on Lily’s shoulders. “How in the world did you ever come up with such a thought?”

  “Well, Father certainly has made no bones about it. He’s told me often enough that I should be more like Cecille. When I announced that I wanted to attend college, he almost swallowed his tongue! He said I’d do well to school myself by studying how Cecille attracted promising young men. Father says I try too hard to be different.” Concern tainted her mouth with a frown. “But I don’t try, Orrie. If anything, I’ve tried all my life to be like everyone else. Like Cecille.”

  “Listen to me, missy. Your papa was wrong to ask you to be something you’re not. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being different.”

  “Oh, yes there is.” Lily leaned back against a stack of feed sacks. “Look at Griffon. Everyone he meets stares at him, and I’m sure many shun him. Being different is his curse.”

  “Some would say it’s his blessing.”

  “No, not when—” Lily was interrupted by the taunting calls of some boys who had just come out of the feed store.

  Three adolescents circled a chubby, round-faced boy, poking at him, shoving their laughing faces close to his. The boy looked stricken. He reminded Lily of a cornered rabbit.

  “Hey, idiot boy,” one bully jeered. “Jasper the dummy. His sister’s his mummy. Jasper the dummy. His sister’s his mummy.”

  The others took up the hateful singsong and pranced around the frightened boy like imps. The victim’s mouth quivered as he tried not to cry. Unable to stand another moment of their cruel recitation, Lily rushed forward. She grabbed one of the boys by the shoulders and flung him aside, then rocked her hip against another, sending him off balance. The third she thumped in the back of the head, hoping to make his ears ring.

  “Stop this! You boys get away! Don’t you have anything better to do than this? Shame on you!”

  “He’s an idiot,” the leader of the pack said, giving the chubby boy a shove.

  “And you’re a numbskull,” Lily shot back, lifting her parasol in a threatening gesture. “Get away before I cane you.”

  “Me, too,” Orrie said, waving her own parasol. “Y’all get.”

  “Are you deaf? Scat!” Lily charged at them. They scattered and raced down the street like turpentined cats. “Heathens! Your folks ought to wallop you good!”

  Lily turned back to the victimized boy. He was grinning ear-to-ear. “Are you all right?” Lily asked, and he nodded enthusiastically.

  “Looks like you got yourself a friend,” Orrie said.

  He wasn’t as young as Lily had thought. Close up, she saw that he was in his late teens, probably older than his attackers. He was her height and shaped like a barrel. He looked stout and could have easily beaten off those boys if he’d tried. His dark brown hair was already thinning. His brown eyes were childlike, trusting.

  “Jasper.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest, then offered his hand shyly. “Jasper Jeffers.”

  “So happy to meet you. I’m Lily Meeker and this is Orrie—” She gasped, clasping his hand more tightly. “Did you say ‘Jeffers’?”

  “Yas’m.”

  Lily glanced at Orrie’s shocked expression, then back to Jasper. “Do you live out at Devil’s Den?”

  “Jasper lives in da woods with his fam’ly. You shore are purty.”

  “Thank you. Is Anson your brother?”

  He nodded. “One of ’em. Jasper gots lots.” He looked past her and pointed. “Him Jasper’s brudder, too. Him’s named Ham.”

  Lily turned to confront a satanic face; long, narrow, and pointy-chinned. Ham was older, taller, with no innocence in the slanty-eyed gaze that swept Lily and missed nothing.

  “Ham Jeffers?” Lily started to hold out her hand, but decided she didn’t want to touch him. “I’m Lily Meeker from Fort Smith.” She watched carefully a
nd was rewarded by the tightening of the skin around his mouth. The name and the town obviously meant something to him. “I’m here looking for my cousin, Cecille. You know of her, don’t you?”

  Ham was carrying a sack of feed over one shoulder. He motioned for Jasper. “Here, take this to the wagon.”

  “Cecille Meeker. You know her,” Lily repeated as Jasper took the feed from his brother.

  “Yup. I heard the name.”

  “And do you know where she is?”

  “Nope. Told the lawman we didn’t.”

  “What lawman?”

  “Some man from Fort Smith come out to our place asking about that gal you mentioned. We don’t know her and we shore don’t know her whereabouts. Told him that.”

  Lily’s hopes sank. “Your brother Anson knows her. I’d like to come to your home and talk to him.”

  “Anson ain’t around no more.” He started past her toward the flatbed wagon hitched to a couple of swaybacked mules. “Be wastin’ yore time an’ ours.”

  “Wait!” Lily swept in front of him, heading him off. “Where’s Anson?”

  “He took off. Don’t know where he is. Maybe Texas. Maybe not.” He ran a hand down his long face, the lower part darkened by two days’ growth of beard. “You got yourself a mister?”

  Lily ignored that question. “Could you give me directions to your family’s home? I’d still like to talk to your father and mother.”

  “You jist stay away.” He would have walked over her if she hadn’t jumped out of his way. “Git up in that wagon, boy,” he ordered Jasper.

  Jasper scrambled onto the flatbed, wedging himself between two feed sacks and tins of molasses and lard. He waved like a baby, stretching his fingers out straight and then curling them into his palm.

  “Bye-bye, purty gal,” he called. “Bye-bye.”

  Lily waved back, wishing she could produce a horse and follow that wagon. “He knows something,” she said to Orrie.

  “That boy is too simpleminded to know squat.”

  “Not Jasper. The other one. Ham. He knows something. I saw it in his face when I said Cecille’s name.”

  “Wonder if Cecille went off with Anson?”

  “I doubt it, Orrie.”

  “Too bad Anson has flown the coop.”

  Lily shook her head. “Something’s not right. Didn’t you notice Jasper when Ham said that?”

  “No, I wasn’t looking at him.”

  “Jasper looked confused.”

  “Honey, that boy looks confused all the time. Like I said, he’s light in the brainpan.”

  “Look, there are Griffon and Zar.” Lily was already moving toward them. “Come on, Orrie.” She met the men halfway down the block. “Griffon, see that wagon? The one with the boy sitting in the back of it beside the feed sacks?”

  “Yes,” he said, turning and locating the vehicle.

  “That’s two of the Jeffers boys and they’re heading back to their home. Grab a horse and follow them.” She pushed him. “Go on. Hurry before they’re out of sight.”

  He swatted aside her hands. “Quit that. I’m not your personal servant. And I’m certainly not going to steal a horse and land in the Van Buren jail.”

  “If you won’t follow them, I will!” She moved swiftly to the nearest hitching post and started to untie the reins of a saddled bay.

  “Go right ahead and make a fool of yourself, Lily. You seem adept at it.” He folded his arms and watched her hike her skirts and fit one shoe into the stirrup.

  Lily hesitated, struck by the expression of dismay on Orrie’s face. Sighing, she removed her foot from the stirrup and tried to ignore Griffon’s smirk. “Are you or are you not going to question those Jefferses?”

  “I am, but not this minute.”

  “How do you expect to find them? They live in the middle of nowhere.”

  “The sheriff gave us directions,” Balthazar said. “Explicit directions.”

  “Oh.” Lily smoothed wrinkles from her skirt. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? When are we leaving?”

  “Zar and I will ride out in the morning.”

  “Why wait?”

  “Because it’s a day’s ride.”

  Lily held up a quieting hand. “Don’t tell me that you expect Orrie and me to remain here while you and Zar go to Devil’s Den.”

  “That’s the plan,” Griffon confirmed. “And arguing would be a waste of breath.”

  “It’s my breath.” She took a deep one. “I’m tired of being dismissed by you. I’m a grown woman and I intend to do exactly as I wish, and I wish to go with you tomorrow. So that’s that.” She wiped her hands together three times in a gesture of finality, then she tipped up her chin and glanced at Orrie. “Come along, Orrie.”

  She would have swept past the two men in a swish of petticoats if not for Griffon’s firm hand at her elbow. He spun her around and into him, making her gasp at being handled in such a way on a public street. His dark face moved within inches of hers.

  “I’m not a man to make idle threats, Lily, so pay heed.”

  “Let go of me. Are you mad? We’re on a city street!”

  “You mistake me for a gentleman. While I might on occasion dress like one, speak like one, and appear to behave like one, I’m not one. I’m a maverick, a lone wolf, and I live by my own standards, which include not allowing anyone to speak to me as if I’m an indentured slave.” His teeth flashed white in contrast to his dark skin. He released her and pointed a finger in warning. “Leave this business to me. When I need your help, I’ll ask for it.”

  “Mr. Griffon?” Orrie spoke up, her tone properly deferential. “That oldest boy said Anson wasn’t around anymore.”

  “Where has he gone?”

  “He said he didn’t know for sure.”

  “But he was lying,” Lily said.

  Griffon slanted her a quizzical glance. “You sensed this?”

  She started to rephrase his question, then shrugged. “Jasper—the youngest one—was surprised when Ham said Anson had gone.”

  “The sheriff said Anson’s wife died recently.”

  “She’s dead?” Lily bit her lower lip. “Then he’d be free to go off with Cecille, wouldn’t he?”

  “Yes, or—” Griffon moved aside to let several men pass, their arms full of feed and flour sacks. He opened his pocket watch to check the time. “I want to talk with the owner of the general store here. We’ll meet you ladies in the hotel dining room about four, where I’ll give you a full report.” He cocked a dark eyebrow. “Is that fair enough, Lily?”

  “Fair enough. Why do you have to talk to the proprietor of the general store?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Come along, Zar.” He touched the brim of his hat, then set off, boot heels tapping smartly. Balthazar took two steps to Griffon’s one. Others stepped aside, letting them pass and then staring after them.

  “Griffon can certainly part the waters,” Lily noted, dryly. “See how the people stare, Orrie? ‘Odd’ might as well be branded on his forehead. Zar’s, too.”

  “Lily, take some advice from an older, wiser woman,” Orrie said, placing an arm about Lily’s waist and giving her an affectionate squeeze. “You’ll catch more flies with honey.”

  Lily sent her a baffled glance. “What are you talking about?”

  Orrie smiled and stared after Griffon and Balthazar. “It means you’ll get your way more often with Mr. Griffon if you talk sweet to him. Be nice, Lily.”

  “Orrie Dickens, are you suggesting that I be familiar with that man?” Lily demanded.

  “Land sakes, no!” Orrie said, but she was grinning like a jack-o’-lantern.

  Griffon swirled the amber liquid in the glass and glanced around at the other diners. Only a few people dawdled over desserts of sponge cake or peach cobbler. Three men ambled into the hotel’s dining room and made for the piano at the back wall.

  “The hardware salesman recalled when the Jefferses purchased those coffin nails. It was two weeks after C
ecille’s disappearance,” Griffon said, taking up his narration of what he and Balthazar had learned that day.

  “Oh, dearie me.” Orrie pressed a hand to her heart. “You don’t think they … that sweet Cecille is … Oh, dearie me.”

  “But they said they were burying Anson’s wife, didn’t they?” Lily asked. “They made that quite clear?”

  “Yes, that’s what they said.” Griffon finished the shot of brandy in one smooth gulp, then set the glass down solidly. “And that’s what we must believe. I’ll question them about this tomorrow, naturally, and until then we must all assume that Cecille is alive and waiting to be rescued.”

  “Sound thinking,” Balthazar agreed. He tugged fitfully at his pointed beard. “No use dwelling on bad thoughts.”

  “She’s alive.” Lily’s gaze met Griffon’s briefly, and she saw the light of understanding in his silvery blue eyes. It was a comfort, and her nerves settled as if they’d been stroked by a gentle hand. She leaned back in her chair and gave her attention to the three men near them at the piano. The tall, thin one sat on the piano bench and flexed his spindly fingers. The youngest, with red hair and freckles, pulled a guitar from a gunnysack and dropped his hat to the floor, its crown ready to receive coins. The third, who looked as if he might be the redhead’s father, removed a violin from a battered black case.

  “Looks as if we might be serenaded,” Balthazar said. “I’ll wager that man can’t play the violin any better than you, Griffon.”

  “You play the fiddle, do you?” Orrie asked, and Griffon nodded. “A Gypsy violin is the prettiest. Nobody can play them like Gypsies. They make those fiddles cry, they do.”

  The trio proved entertaining, obviously enjoying their making of merry music. Orrie clapped in time and the others fell in. Griffon flipped a coin into the hat and received gracious thanks from all three musicians.

  “I’m reminded of my own troubadour days,” Griffon told them.

  “Are you a music maker, too, sir?” the guitar player asked.

  “I am.” Griffon glanced at the fiddle player. “I can pick out a tune on a piano, but my favorite instrument is the violin. It’s been a while since I’ve played.”