The Promise Bride

by Gina Welborn

  “For what?” She picked up the cider and took a drink.

  Mac’s jaw unhinged. The humiliation squeezing his chest loosened. “Uh . . . nothing.”

  She gave a little shrug and returned to her letter.

  And he’d thought he couldn’t find her more adorable than she’d been back in Finn’s barn or while whacking away at the croquet ball. Or on too many other occasions when she’d done nothing more than look his way.

  Mac cleared his throat to dislodge the last of the cider and opened Harriet Beecher Stowe’s acclaimed novel. He was on the second chapter when Emilia set her father’s letter in her lap.

  “Good news?” he asked.

  “Da’s found a different job. It’s not in the cotton mill, so that’s good.” She cocked her head to get a better look at his book. “What’s that?”

  He tilted it so she could read the title. “I read it a few years ago and decided I wanted to own a copy someday.”

  “Roch was reading it before we left Chicago.” With a tentative finger, she touched the gold-embossed lettering on the cover. “It’s too bad we had to leave before he finished it. It’s the only book I ever borrowed from the library that he asked to read himself.”

  Mac offered the book to her. “Would you like to borrow it? You can’t start a book like this and not finish it.”

  “On one condition,” she repeated his words from that day in the barn. “You put your name in it so we don’t forget to return it to you.”

  “Agreed.” He dug a pencil from inside his coat pocket and scrawled his signature on the inside cover.

  “Do I finally get to hear what the L in your signature stands for?” She turned her hand palm up.

  He put the book in it. “Lester.”

  Emilia set the book in her lap next to the open letter from her father. “You don’t look like a Lester.”

  Whatever that meant. He reached in the bag for a sandwich and held it out to her.

  She eyed him for a moment before taking it. “Thank you.”

  He retrieved the other sandwich, unwrapped it, and took a bite. “What else did your father have to say?”

  “Would you like me to read his letter to you?”

  “Sure.” Happiness wrapped around his heart. He had thirty more minutes. By then he’d figure out a way to ask if she’d like to have lunch with him the following day . . . and the day after that . . .

  And the day after that.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Monday, May 23

  “We need to talk, and this can’t wait until tomorrow’s meeting.”

  Mac stopped writing mid-word. He lifted his gaze to see Joseph Hendry close the office door. Ever since the reporter arrived in Helena last November, he’d visited the sheriff’s office every Tuesday and Friday to crusade against perversion in the city. To ask why twelve establishments continued to operate despite proven ties to prostitution, gambling, and all sorts of morally reprehensible conduct to drag a man’s soul to a black death. To complain that, because prostitution was a misdemeanor resulting in a fine, overflowing civic coffers made the sin more palatable.

  Mac agreed but was bound by law to uphold the city council’s decisions, so the two of them had settled into an odd relationship somewhere between enemies and friends.

  Mac laid his pencil on the file and leaned back in his chair. “What’s going on?”

  Hendry shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I’ve been chasing a rumor for ten days now.” He cleared his throat. “About Finn Collins.”

  Mac straightened in his seat. “Go on.”

  “Before I do, let me say I don’t want to compromise our working relationship.”

  A strange comment in light of their previous conversations.

  Hendry sat down in the chair opposite Mac’s desk, bringing the two of them eye to eye. “There’s a new rumor in the red-light district. I took it to my editor and he agreed it was worth following up. I knew you’d want facts. Yesterday a third source corroborated that Finn Collins was luring women into prostitution. My editor wants to run the story.”

  “I see.” Amazing how calm he managed to sound when he wanted to reach across the desk and rip out the reporter’s tongue for daring to slander his friend.

  Hendry gripped the armrests of his chair. “Look, Mac, I know how close you and Collins were. If it weren’t for our jobs, I figure you and I could be friends in light of our shared values. Because of that, before this story goes to press, I wanted to give you a chance to comment.”

  Mac had dealt with enough reporters to suspect Hendry’s buttery words. He wanted to keep meeting with the county sheriff for inside information on crimes committed outside of Helena. If Mac said he knew nothing and Hendry proved Mac was lying or if he hindered Hendry’s investigation, he would write an exposé on corruption at the highest level of the sheriff ’s office . . . and Mac would lose next year’s election.

  He folded his arms across his chest. “What is the exact rumor?”

  “Finn agreed to pose as a rancher looking for a mail-order bride. The plan was to offer marriage, but once she arrived, his intention was to sell her into prostitution.” Hendry paused. “Her and her younger sister.”

  Fury gripped Mac’s ribs with steel talons. Was it the idea of Emilia and Luci conscripted into such a life, or that he might have been misled by a man he’d considered his brother? “Name your sources.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I could arrest you.”

  Hendry shrugged. “It won’t be the first time.” He leaned forward, his eyes taking on the intensity of a warrior in battle. “My strict promise of anonymity is why people talk to me. As much as I respect you as a lawman, I won’t risk losing the trust I’ve built with my sources. I don’t care about lessoning the symptoms of prostitution or increasing the city’s coffers. I care about ridding Helena of this disease.”

  “So do I.”

  “Do you?”

  Mac’s jaw set. “What are you implying?”

  “It doesn’t look good for the county sheriff to be the son of a renowned madam and close friends with someone who has been kidnapping women into prostitution.”

  “Potentially.”

  Hendry shook his head. “No, not potentially. My sources have said outright they know Finn Collins was abducting women.”

  “You trust them?”

  “As much as I trust you.”

  Mac winced. “But you have no proof, only sources.” Because, if Hendry did, the story would be splashed across the front page with or without a comment from the sheriff. His lack of denial confirmed Mac’s suspicion. “You have too much integrity to run a story based on rumors.”

  Hendry’s blue eyes blazed with conviction. “I’ve even heard of couples who ride the trains looking for mail-order brides to scare them into thinking their grooms are involved in such a scheme, then turn out to be the very ones who perpetuate the crime they’ve assigned to others. People need to be warned. Women need to be warned.”

  For whatever reason, Hendry had chosen to crusade against prostitution. If he were abrasive, people in Helena would have dismissed his credentials after his first article. Joseph Hendry’s strength lay in his compassion and charm, in his ability to be as shrewd as a serpent and as innocent as a dove. That was why he could convince people to confess things. That was why, with the power of his pen, he could fight a war.

  And ruin lives.

  Like Emilia’s.

  Despite the way the town had welcomed and accepted her, there was no telling how people would respond after reading an article slandering Finn. Death precluded him from facing a judge and jury in the court of law. His fate would be decided by public opinion—opinion swayed by an idealistic reporter—and absent a villain to crucify, they might channel their outrage to Emilia.

  Mac wasn’t about to let that happen, and the best way to protect her was by proving Hendry wrong.

  “So”—Hendry dug a notepad and pencil from inside his coat pocket
—“what do you have to say about this?”

  “I can’t comment until I’ve had time to investigate it with people who don’t hide behind anonymity.”

  “We’re running a story on Finn in Wednesday’s paper.”

  Mac gave Hendry a flat stare. “Two days isn’t enough time for me to rebut or confirm.”

  “I’m sorry.” Hendry stood. “If this is happening in Helena, it’s happening elsewhere. Every paper east of the Mississippi has advertisements from men looking for mail-order brides. Naïve women respond, thinking they’ve found the answer to their problems. Face it, Mac. Anyone can be anything in a letter.”

  He knew that truth well. Had argued with Finn at length when he’d first placed the ad for a mail-order bride. Mac stood. “Give me a couple of weeks. I have to leave town on Thursday and won’t be back until next Wednesday or Thursday.”

  Hendry stared at Mac for a long moment. “Saturday is the longest I can delay. Give me a quote before you leave, or the story goes to press saying you refused to comment.”

  * * *

  After escorting Hendry to the hallway, Mac made eye contact with Undersheriff Keenan. With a jerk of his head toward his office door, Mac said they needed to talk. Now.

  Keenan nodded and, two minutes later, sat in the chair Hendry had just vacated. “Yes, sir?”

  Briefly, Mac filled his undersheriff in on the rumor about Finn kidnapping women into prostitution. “Anything in your investigation turn up something about this? Because, even though Finn was my friend, I need to hear it.”

  Keenan’s freckled face held no guile. “No, Mac. I promise you, if I’d so much as sniffed something like that, I’d have brought it straight to you.”

  “I don’t want to believe Finn could do something like that”—Mac leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms—“but I can’t ignore evidence to the contrary out of sentimentality.”

  “Then let’s review everything we have. If Hendry’s rumor is true, we’ll find something to confirm it.”

  “You get Finn’s file. I’ll get us coffee.”

  Once they were both back in Mac’s office, they laid out the evidence they’d compiled, no matter how vague or seemingly inconsequential. For ten minutes, Keenan listed known facts on a notepad. He looked up. “What sticks out most to me is the money. I couldn’t find a single banker who gave him a loan.”

  “Or admit to it.” Mac sipped his lukewarm coffee.

  “What if the money wasn’t a loan? What if it was a payment?”

  “You think someone paid him for Emilia and Luci?”

  “It’s a possibility. Fits Hendry’s rumor.” Keenan held up the notepad. “It’s the only thing on this list that does. Like you always say: When in doubt, follow the money.”

  The exact thing Mac had told Hale would come back to bite them. “The first problem I see is Yancey Palmer’s involvement. Why would Finn drag a respectable female into something unsavory when he could have used any woman from the red-light district just as easily?”

  Keenan ran his tongue over his top lip. “Maybe he planned to say his wife got cold feet and never showed up. Nice lady like Miss Palmer wouldn’t be like to hear the goings-on in the red light.”

  “Possible.” Another thought followed, one Mac hated saying aloud because it put an image in his mind that would make sleep difficult. But this was work, and all options needed to be discussed. “What if the idea was to put them in with the women being rotated out of Helena to the next stop down the line?”

  “Hate to say it, but that makes perfect sense.”

  “That’s what I was afraid of.” Mac took a sip of coffee, the bitter brew coating the disgust in the back of his throat. “The second problem is that Finn and Emilia started corresponding in August of last year. If Finn was planning on selling them into prostitution, why bother with nine months of courting?”

  “Maybe his original intentions had been sincere. The hard winter changed people. Finn loved that ranch of his. Do you think he’d do anything to keep it?”

  Mac finished the last of his coffee. “I still find it implausible that Finn would sell his legal wife into prostitution.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time.” Keenan tossed his notepad on the desk and hurried out of the office.

  While he was gone, Mac reviewed the list.

  Greasepaint and bandanna: mementos of Finn’s past kept close to remind him of what he’d escaped or tools of a trade kept close at hand? Cart: bought before he needed to haul alfalfa or other products to market. Why? Because he got a good price or because he was using it for something—like possibly helping girls out of prostitution? It was a stretch, but if that was what Finn had been doing and he’d been caught, the bloody fingerprints on the telegram and Emilia’s letters could mean the killer had found Finn in the barn, forced him into the house, then shot him. The messy cabin making it look like the motive was a robbery could have been a cover. The thingamajig could have been left over from the previous owners. Yancey’s involvement and the proxy wedding could be circumstantial, too.

  All in all, nothing proved or disproved Hendry’s rumor except the money.

  The cursed money!

  Keenan rushed back into the office, handed Mac an envelope, then settled back in his chair. “When you called me in here, I’d just opened this.”

  Mac scanned the contents. The commander at Fort Missoula was lifting his restriction allowing only wives access to the post. Although his intention had been to reduce immoral conduct among his men, the result was soldiers “defiling the sanctity of marriage by selling their wives in the most degrading fashion possible.”

  Mac tossed the letter onto his desk. “Great. Just great.”

  Keenan picked his notepad up from the desk. “What do you want me to do about this?”

  “Give me the list.”

  Keenan tore the sheet off the notepad and handed it over.

  “Ask around.” Mac slid the paper into Finn’s investigation file. “See if you can nail down who started the rumor and why. Be discreet, but if Hendry’s already got enough for an article, chances are it’s already too late to keep it quiet.”

  “Do you want to talk to your mother or should I?”

  Mac stood and pulled on his coat. “I’ll do it, but first I need to warn Mrs. Collins.”

  “Yes, sir.” Keenan picked up the letter from the commander of Fort Missoula. “What do you want me to do about this?”

  “Nothing to do except notify O’Mara, Alderson, and the city marshal’s office so they’re aware. One more thing.” Mac picked his hat off the hook. “What’s on your schedule next week? I’m supposed to transport a prisoner from Deer Lodge Penitentiary over to Marysville to testify in a bank robbery case. Can you do it?”

  Keenan scratched his right earlobe. “Afraid not. I’m slated to be in Augusta for the foreclosure auction, and Judge Forsythe is due back in town, so O’Mara and Alderson are trading off manning the office here and courtroom security.”

  Blast. “All right. Thanks.” Mac followed Keenan out of his office. Before heading outside, he stopped at Deputy O’Mara’s desk to see if the judge had sent word he’d be delayed.

  “No, sir.” O’Mara held his pen aloft. “But I’ll keep an eye on it over the next few days.”

  “Appreciate it. I’m going over to The Resale Company. I should be back in an hour. I’ll phone if anything changes.” Mac slipped on his hat and headed outside.

  A light rain fell, and the breeze carried the scents of damp wood and dirt. Mac pushed his hat lower and hurried up West Main Street, avoiding buggies, horses, and the biggest puddle-filled ruts.

  Emilia needed to be warned—and questioned. He’d read her letters to Finn but not the ones she’d received. Up to now, Mac had shied away from asking her to reveal their contents, a decision based on sentiment and the presumption of Finn’s innocence.

  And, potentially, a terrible mistake.

  Upon reaching The Resale Co., Mac removed his hat, shook off the ex
cess water, and kicked the mud off his boots. He drew in a settling breath, then stepped inside the store. Emilia was helping a customer, so he headed to the back to find Isaak. His office door was open. As Mac approached, he heard one side of a conversation.

  “Sounds good. Thanks for the update. I look forward to Sunday’s sermon.” After hanging up, Isaak stood and walked around his desk to offer a firm handshake. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  Mac briefly described his meeting with Hendry and the rumor about Finn.

  Isaak’s mouth pinched tighter and tighter.

  “I can’t ignore the ramifications for Emilia and Luci.” Even if the rumor proved false.

  “None of us can.” Isaak leaned against his desk, his fingers gripping the edge. “But it goes against everything I knew . . . or at least thought I knew about Finn.”

  Nice to hear, especially from someone whose judgment Mac trusted. “I need to warn her. May I borrow your office for a few minutes?”

  “Certainly, and tell her she can take the afternoon off if she’s too upset.” Isaak rubbed the indent above his chin. “Once that story is printed, she may find other debtors unwilling to employ her. Please assure her that won’t happen here.” He shuffled some papers together and placed them in a drawer. “Let me know if you hear anything or need anything more from me.”

  “Will do.” Mac headed to the front of the store. Emilia was holding the door open for a woman laden with bags and boxes, so he waited. Through the window he could see the rain had stopped.

  She closed the door and turned to face him. “Mac.” The genuine pleasure on her face twisted his insides. “You’re here early. Lunch isn’t for another hour.”

  “May I speak to you in private? Something has come up that we need to discuss.” The words sounded brash and impatient, but it was remarkable they made it through his constricted throat.

  “Oh, but I couldn’t. Not while Mr. Gunderson is otherwise engaged.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Collins,” Isaak called from the background. “Mac and I already discussed this. You can use my office, and I’ll mind the store.”