by Gina Welborn
She blushed and nipped her lower lip. He dropped his gaze and imagined—oh, how he imagined—the feel of her lips on his.
The pink in her cheeks flamed brighter. She swallowed twice, dropped her head, and hurried toward the back of the store.
Was being alone with her a good idea? Nope. Not even a little bit. However, bad news wouldn’t wait, and she wouldn’t respect him for withholding the truth.
After a deep breath and an inner chastisement to act like the county sheriff instead of a heartsick suitor, Mac followed Emilia into the office and shut the door behind them. His throat closed up. In his job, he delivered bad news on a regular basis but never to a woman he was courting.
He took a deep breath and forced words past his reluctance. “There’s a reporter named Joseph Hendry who has written a number of articles about what goes on in the red-light district.”
“I know him. He asked me to dance at the wedding.”
“He says he has three sources who all confirm that Finn agreed to pose as a rancher looking for a mail-order bride. Then, after you arrived, he planned to sell you and Luci into prostitution.”
Her eyes widened.
“Hendry says he trusts his sources.” Mac tapped his wet hat against his knee and wished his misgivings would drop away like rain droplets and splatter on the wood-planked floor. “But I don’t think he has actual proof. I asked him to delay the article for a couple weeks to give me time to track down information myself, but he won’t wait that long. The story goes to press on Saturday. I have until Thursday morning, before my trip to Deer Lodge, to disprove it.”
Emilia regarded him with the steady gaze he’d come to expect from her. “What do you need from me?”
“Anything you can think of—anything Finn wrote to you—that could shed light on this.”
“Finn sent me fifteen letters. I can’t remember everything in all of them.”
Mac ran a hand through his hair. “Think about the ones from February and March.”
She stared at her clenched hands in her lap, then gasped and looked up at him. “He mentioned a job he was doing right around the time he sent the thirty dollars for my train fare.”
Mac sat down opposite her, stunned at both a job and another expenditure he hadn’t known about. “When was this?”
“In February.”
The same month one of the brothel girls went missing and Sheriff Simpson died. Circumstantial evidence or facts?
Mac dropped his hat on the floor and leaned forward in his chair, restraining the urge to close his hands over hers. “Can you remember any other details?”
She shook her head. “I have all his letters at home, though, so I could double-check tonight and we can talk again tomorrow morning.”
Mac scratched the corner of his eye. “Any chance I can see the letters now?”
“I—I—uh. Some of them are . . . rather personal.”
She blushed again, and misgivings filled his chest. Which was worse? Reading Finn’s love letters to Emilia or hers back to him. Mac didn’t want to read any of them. Didn’t want Emilia rereading them, either. Not when he’d been wooing her for himself.
Which didn’t change what needed to be done.
“I’m sorry”—Mac stood and held out a hand to help her up—“but I need to see them now.”
Circle C Ranch
Emilia crawled across the loft’s feather mattress to reach the spot where she’d wedged the bundle of letters between the mattress and the cabin wall. She freed them, her heart pounding. During the ride out to the ranch—longer than usual because of the muddy roads—Mac had said very little after he’d admitted he’d found her letters to Finn and had read them before meeting her at the train station. But he’d return them promptly, he’d promised. Just as he would with Finn’s letters to her.
Promptly returning them meant little in light of the fact that the man who was now courting her had read every word she’d written to his friend. Every word.
Her hopes. Her fears. Her struggles with Roch, and Da’s inability to discipline him. Her heartbreak over losing her mother. Her yearning to be with Finn, to hear his voice, to feel his touch, to be his wife.
Mac had read them all.
Every word.
Every intimate word.
Her cheeks warmed. She focused on the pink ribbon holding together Finn’s letters to her. What he’d written had been poetic, tender, and not the least improper, but still she hadn’t shared them with anyone in her family. His words had been for her eyes only. Now she had to give the entire bundle to Mac to read. Every word. It embarrassed her to have him read these. More so than anyone else. Why?
Truth tugged at her heart. At some point between arguing about Needles, the waltz on Mrs. Hollenbeck’s lawn, and this moment, she’d fallen in love with him.
She loved Mac.
This week together had only deepened her feelings. She loved how he’d stop by wherever she was working, conveniently right before her lunch hour. She loved studying paintings with him in The Resale Co. She loved the way he sat with her on the lawn next to the bootmaker’s shop and Dr. Abernathy’s dentistry, sharing fond memories of Finn and reading Walt Whitman’s poetry. She loved being with him. Talking to him. Listening to him.
The way he looked at her as if she were something he couldn’t live without—was that his way of saying he loved her, too? She hoped so. She wanted to believe.
She’d loved Finn. But it wasn’t the same as this with Mac. Her heart had never felt like it was going to explode when she thought about Finn or read his letters. It did when she was with Mac. And now he was going to read words his friend—his best friend—had written about kissing her.
Emilia fanned her face, but the action did little to cool her embarrassment. Thank heavens Mac couldn’t see her from where he stood down below.
“Find them?” he called up.
For no logical reason, Needles barked.
“Yes.” Finn had died in April. So most likely any clues could be in the month or two prior. Emilia cleared her throat. “Uh, you only need the ones from February and March, right?”
Silence.
“Considering the situation, it’s best I read them all.”
Emilia closed her eyes and groaned. “Fine.” She slid the bundle of letters into her apron pocket. “I’m coming down.”
She crawled back to the angled ladder. Heart pounding, she gathered her gray skirt, then eased her feet around until she felt a rung. She moved down the ladder. Strong hands settled on her waist. And she stopped. She turned her head to the left and met his gaze. He was watching her, without a smile, nothing but tension deepening lines on his face.
“Oh, Mac,” she said with a sigh. “Finn didn’t do what he’s been accused of. You have to know that.”
“I’d love nothing more than to believe his innocence, but”—his head shook—“I have to entertain the possibility of his guilt.”
“Dozens of people have told me what a good man Finn was.” She didn’t give him a moment to reply. “I won’t—I refuse to let one man’s wild-goose chase for a story shake my trust.”
His hold tightened just a bit on her waist. “I understand your fears. No one wants to discover she’s in love with someone who only pretended to love her in return.”
She shifted on the ladder, resting her hip on a rung even though Mac still held on to her. “Is that what you think this is about? That I’m afraid of discovering Finn lied to me?”
He shrugged.
Emilia withdrew the ribbon-tied bundle from her apron. “I do not fear that. I know Finn was truthful. These letters”—she held them up—“these precious words from Finn were the first romantic moments in my life. When you read my letters to him, you eavesdropped on a private conversation.”
“My friend was murdered. I was looking for clues.”
“And now you’re asking to eavesdrop again.”
He released his hold on her and walked to the hearth, raking a hand through his hair
. Then he did it again, this time with both hands. He turned to face her. “You think I want to read what Finn wrote you?”
Emilia turned on the ladder until she could sit on a rung and face him, hooking her heels on a lower one for balance. “That’s why we’re here. You wanted the letters.”
He walked back to her. “Do you think I want to read what Finn wrote you?” he repeated, with more emphasis this time. He withdrew the letters from her grasp, then dropped them to the ground. His gaze fell to her lips, and she could feel her cheeks grow warm.
Her heart tightened. Fluttered.
Needles barked.
Mac rested his forehead against hers. He let out a slow breath, then lifted her off the ladder. “It’s best if we go sit on the porch.”
Emilia nodded, unsure if she was relieved or disappointed. He’d almost kissed her. He hadn’t said he loved her. He hadn’t mentioned marriage either. A gentleman’s duty was to declare first, but I love you was what his actions had felt like. Then why hadn’t he kissed her? She wanted him, too. They were alone in the cabin. No one would know or see or—Oh.
She touched his cheek. “Thank you for being noble.”
He grimaced. “At least one of us is pleased with my self-control.”
Emilia laughed. “I never said I was pleased.”
He groaned.
As much as she wanted to confess how blissfully wonderful she felt being loved, they had to deal with Finn before they could move forward together. As a couple.
She scooped up the bundle of letters, then motioned to the door. “Shall we?”
Mac grabbed his hat off the wall rack and settled it on his head. He handed Emilia her straw hat. They walked onto the porch. The gray clouds from the morning rainstorm had fled, replaced by a sun unfettered. She placed her hat on her head to shield her eyes from the sun then sat on the porch step, using the wooden post as a back support. Needles lay against Emilia’s thigh. The dog crossed one front paw over the other and sighed contently as she usually did when she was on Luci’s lap.
Mac sat opposite them. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and staring at Emilia. For several seconds, she could do nothing but stare back. The frustrated look left his eyes, replaced with something else. Not anger. Maybe pain?
Emilia untied the letter bundle. “In the first February letter, Finn mentioned he’d taken a job from a man he called Mr. S—, but couldn’t tell me anymore because the man had sworn him to secrecy until the man’s venture was up and running. Whatever the job was, it paid enough for Finn to wire me train fare from Chicago to here.”
Mac’s brow furrowed. “How much did he send?”
“Thirty dollars.”
“He could have been paid more by Mr. S—. Enough to buy cattle, alfalfa seed, a plow, and fencing.”
“No.” Emilia shuffled through the envelopes, found the one she wanted, and withdrew the contents. She turned to the second page. “Here it is. Mr. S—promises the second half will be paid once the job is completed. That’s sixty dollars, not hundreds.”
His head wagged back and forth. “None of this makes sense.”
“How can you say that? We know how he paid for my train fare. That makes sense.”
“Did he ever mention completing the job?”
“No. He wrote twice a month, except for March. I never received an April letter.” She tossed the February letter aside, then withdrew the last letter in the bundle. Of all Finn’s letters, this one was the most intimate. He’d spoken of the anticipation he felt for her July arrival and how he was making the cabin comfortable. He had to have been referring to the cookstove and feather mattress. Emilia hesitantly handed the tattered envelope to Mac. “He says he made arrangements to recoup the losses from the hard winter. He never uses the word loan.”
Mac took the envelope. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
His gaze fell on the bundle of letters she held. She understood he was sorry about having to read them, about embarrassing her.
“I know,” she said quietly. “These letters may be all we have to prove Finn was the good man we know he was.”
He didn’t respond.
Emilia stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t believe he did what Mr. Hendry is accusing him of, do you?”
There was a pause, and then he said, “My aunt and uncle adopted me when I was a baby. When I was nineteen, they gave me the letters my mother wrote to her sister. They expressed how grateful she was to hear about my first tooth, my first steps, my first day of school, and a whole host of other firsts throughout the years. Ma—my aunt—was dying, so those letters became a balm to my grief.”
Emilia understood. She’d lost her mother when she was sixteen. Roch, twelve. Luci, seven. Da, in his grief, had ceased shaving for two years. What she would have given to have letters from her mother, like she had Finn’s, to console her.
“Seven years ago,” Mac continued in a flat voice, “after Ma died, I told Pa I wanted to find my mother. Her last letter had been postmarked in Helena. Pa insisted she didn’t want to be found. I refused to believe him. That’s when he told me she was a . . . prostitute.” A bitter laugh escaped. “Except the word he used wasn’t quite that nice.”
“You don’t look like the child of a prostitute.”
“How is one supposed to look?”
She blinked. Then laughed to cover her embarrassment over her ridiculous remark. “I meant no offense.”
“I’m not offended.”
How this story related to Finn she couldn’t fathom, yet she asked, “What happened next?”
Mac gave her a wry smile. “I accused Pa of lying and a whole pack of other things it shames me to recall. I vowed to save my mother from a life she hadn’t chosen. Pa said that if I left Ohio, I’d never come back.”
“He disowned you?” she asked, horrified and yet intrigued.
“That’s how I heard it at first.” His gaze shifted to Needles, contently snoring. “He was making a prediction, not threatening me. He was wrong. Five months after I arrived in Helena, I returned to Ohio for his funeral and to settle his estate.”
“Oh, Mac.” She moved next to him, resting her head against his shoulder. “I’m so sorry. Did you ever find your mother?”
“I did.” His arm curved around her back. “She wasn’t who I thought she was.”
“Who had you expected her to be?”
He didn’t answer.
She looked up to see his brow had furrowed, his mouth pursed tight. “Mac?” she asked softly. “What did you expect to find?”
“I expected to find the sweet, kind Mary Lester who, by her own words, adored me.”
Emilia didn’t have to say but that’s not what you found because she knew it wasn’t.
He cleared his throat, then moistened his lips. “Not only did Mary Lester not want to be found, she had no intention of ever surrendering her rather luxurious life. Still doesn’t.”
“You mean she lives here in Helena?”
He nodded. “Madame Lestraude owns the Maison de Joie and a whole host of other businesses. She’s one of the wealthiest madams in the entire city.” Mac gripped her hand and gently pulled Emilia until she was standing in front of him. “We need to get back to Helena. School ends in less than an hour.”
He was right. They needed to return. As long as she’d been away from The Resale Co., she owed Mr. Gunderson another half day of work. Hopefully, she could convince him to let her do that this Saturday. That way she’d have the last week of May and the first one in June to retire the debts at three creditors before she took two weeks off to focus on sowing the alfalfa.
As Mac gathered the letters, Emilia closed the cabin door and ordered Needles to stay put on the porch. She met Mac at her horse and cart. As if she weighed nothing, he lifted her onto the seat before settling next to her.
“Mac,” she said as they started down the road, “what does the story about your mother have to do with Finn?”
He drew he
r closer to his side, and Emilia went willingly.
“The people we fall in love with,” he said, “don’t always turn out to be who we think they are.”
“Is this your way of warning me not to trust you?”
His grip tightened around the reins. “Emilia, you should be impressed with the self-control I’m maintaining at this moment because I’m a gentleman and you are a lady.”
She looked up to see his gaze focused on her lips. “You want to kiss me?”
“Without a doubt.” He winked then refocused on the road. “I love you, too.”
Chapter Eighteen
By the time Mac returned Emilia to The Resale Co., it was nearly four in the afternoon. She let him help her out of the cart, allowed him to hold her waist for a moment longer than was proper, and smiled at him with a special sparkle in her caramel-colored eyes. It took uncanny strength not to kiss her in the middle of the street, although considerably less than it had taken not to kiss her back at the Circle C.
Land’s sake, but it had taken every shred of decency to keep from crushing her body to his and tasting her lips. She loved him, had trusted him with letters he knew full well she wanted to keep private, and had looked at him with such tenderness, the ragged edges around his heart had smoothed enough to tell her about his mother. The only other person who knew the whole story of why he’d come to Helena was Finn.
And now Emilia.
His precious, beautiful Emilia.
After she walked into the store, Mac mounted Lightning and rode toward City Hall to check in before paying a visit to the Maison de Joie. Business would be picking up at his mother’s spurious hotel, so she might not want to spare him any time.
Too bad. Discovering what she knew about Finn was too important.
As Lightning cantered down Main Street, Mac kept an eye out for Luci. School was out but she wasn’t at the store. Either she was waiting for him at his office or walking from City Hall to The Resale Co.
If not for Luci, he would have kept Emilia out at the Circle C forever. Unlike when he’d shared his story with Finn, Emilia’s response had loosened the vice grip around his heart. For years, he’d shied away from any sort of courtship because, before he could think of marrying a woman, she’d need to hear that he was nothing more than a grown man with a boy’s need for his mother’s love and approval. Fear had paralyzed him from ever opening himself up to the embarrassment such a risk engendered. But Emilia had been worth the risk—and, after she’d heard his story, she hadn’t reviled him. More than that, her acceptance freed him to think about his mother without the longings of his boyish heart coloring his perceptions.