by Merry Farmer
Hubert smiled. “I did. It’s so different from America. The Japanese have exquisite manners. They’re sticklers for tradition too. And you know, westerners have only been allowed in the country for about twenty years now. There’s so much we still have to learn about their culture and their people.”
“And their women?”
Bebe blinked, shocked that she had spoken her thought aloud.
Hubert let out a breath and lowered his head. The hope in her heart withered. Even though she hadn’t seen him for seven years, she could still read him like a book, and she didn’t like the story.
“They’re nothing compared to you,” he said, inching closer to her. “No woman could ever compare to you.”
Bebe glanced down and away. She pulled her hands out of his. “That’s not true.”
“Yes,” he said, grasping her chin and tilting her head up to face him. “It is.” He gazed into her eyes, radiating emotion. The warmth of his stare made her feel alive in a way she hadn’t for years. “Leave him,” he said. “Leave Price and marry me.”
The breath left Bebe’s lungs, and with it all thought, all sense, and all reason. The only thing left was the thumping of her heart as it beat out a steady, “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
But before she could say anything stupid, a grizzled old ranch hand turned the corner and spotted them. He flinched back and muttered, “’scuse me,” then rushed off, but it was enough to break the spell.
All warmth receded, and Bebe took a step back. “I can’t,” she said, forcing her back to go straight. “I have to marry Price.”
“Bullcrap.”
Bebe jumped at the force of his curse. Strangely enough, it invigorated her. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry.” Hubert shook his head. “It’s just that I hate the idea of you throwing your life away on that louse out of some sense of gratitude.”
“Gratitude?” She blinked rapidly, no idea what he was talking about.
“Vernon told me all about how Rex hired Price Penworthy to help organize and run the ranch when his health began to fail.”
“He did,” Bebe said, still not sure what Hubert was getting at.
Hubert shrugged. “So you don’t need to marry the pencil-neck weenie just because he helped your family out of a hard time.”
Bebe narrowed her eyes. “Is that why you think I’m marrying him?”
Hubert hesitated. “Isn’t it?”
She didn’t rush to answer. Did he really think she would marry anyone other than him unless she was utterly forced to? If that was true, he must not have thought as much of her as he said he did.
Finally, the backbone she needed to resist her heart’s cry and continue on with what she needed to do was there.
“Well,” she said, tipping her chin up. “Obviously the true misunderstanding between us has nothing to do with a failure on the part of the post office and everything to do with the fact that you think I’m some sort of heartless, faithless strumpet who would throw herself at any man out of gratitude.”
Hubert frowned, looking completely flummoxed. “I know I just said something wrong, but I don’t for the life of me know what it was.”
“I’m not surprised.” She crossed her arms and glared at him. “Men never look at anything beyond their own ideas of things.”
“Bebe,” he appealed to her, hands outstretched. “What’s really going on here?”
“What’s going on is that I’m marrying someone else on Christmas Day, and you’d do well to go back to San Francisco or Japan and enjoy your geishas, because you’ll never have me.”
She turned to storm off, but Hubert caught her arm and pulled her back, straight into his arms. The heat of his body enveloped her. Their lips were only a few inches apart. Every inch of Bebe’s body felt alight with hunger.
“I’m so confused,” Hubert admitted, glancing from her eyes to her mouth and up again. “I hate being confused. Why can’t we sort things out between the two of us?”
“Because it hurts too much,” she answered in a whisper.
“It doesn’t have to.”
“Yes, Hubert, it does. Because neither of us are young and naïve anymore.”
“But I love you.”
“And I….” Her mouth hung open, the words aching to come out. But she couldn’t let them. “I was left behind,” she said instead. “Left behind to deal with a mess that got worse and worse with each passing year. Each year without you. Until it broke me, Hubert. And now, all I can do is my duty.”
“Your…what?” He let out a hard breath, his frown deepening. “What duty could possibly be stronger than the love we have for each other? And don’t try to tell me you stopped loving me. I can see it in your eyes.”
Bebe instantly lowered her eyes, afraid of him seeing how right he was. She had to take a large step back before she could look at him again. “A lot of things happened while you were gone, Hubert. They changed me. Just like you changed too.”
“People change,” he said with a nod. “But the love I have for you is eternal. And I don’t care what you overheard at the hotel the other night, I’m not going to leave Haskell again until I make you see that.”
His words were beautiful, but it would have been a disaster for her to let herself believe them. “Do whatever you need to do, Hubert. But I have to do what I have to do.”
“The only thing you have to do is give me another chance.”
She arched an eyebrow, planting one hand on her hip. “You really think it’s that easy? That there’s nothing else going on here but misunderstandings and reunions?”
He opened his mouth to speak, but must have thought better of it. His shoulders dropped, and he rubbed a hand across the lower half of his face. “Is it your family?” he asked, frown deepening.
The confusion and heartache in his expression was quickly becoming too much for her to bear. If she didn’t get away soon, there was no telling what she would do, or what the consequences of her actions would mean.
“You’re a journalist, right?”
“Yes,” he answered slowly.
“And journalists investigate things?”
“We do.”
“Then why don’t you figure out for yourself what’s really going on?”
With that, she turned and marched off. It was a terrible way to leave things, but she didn’t think she could handle dragging the conversation out further. Julia was waiting a few yards away, watching around the corner of an aisle with hope in her eyes. Bebe grabbed her hand as she passed, needing the support of the one person who understood, more than anyone, just how hard that conversation had been. She had a feeling she’d need Julia’s support a lot in the coming days.
Chapter 6
Hubert sat at the small, dinged-up desk he’d been given in the cramped office of The Haskell Times, chewing the end of his pencil, his thoughts a thousand miles away from the article he was supposed to be writing. The upcoming Christmas pageant at the church just wasn’t all that exciting compared to the drama of his own life. He couldn’t get his encounter with Bebe two days ago out of his mind. She’d been beautiful, fiery, bold, and miserable. And no matter what she said, he’d been able to feel the heat between them. It was as if she were forcing herself to ignore the sparks between them, and for what, her family?
He snorted and tossed the pencil down on his desk. The Bonnevilles were a family in name only. No one who treated each other the way Rex and his girls did deserved the title of family, not like the massive jumble of love and teasing that he came from.
“Everything all right there, Hugh?” Jameson asked from where he was setting the type at the printing press that took up one whole side of the office.
Hubert blew out a breath and rubbed a hand over his face. Like his colleagues in San Francisco, Jameson had taken to shortening his name to Hugh. He didn’t mind, and in fact, he liked the shorter name. What he didn’t like was getting caught with his head in the clouds.
“I’ve just got something on
my mind,” he answered, sitting straighter and picking up his pencil.
“Well, I doubt it’s that Christmas pageant,” Jameson chuckled. “After all the excitement of reporting the news in San Francisco and Tokyo, I can’t imagine stories about local goings on are much of a challenge.”
“I don’t mind,” Hubert said, even though the itch down his back told another story.
Jameson shook his head, and fit a few more pieces of type into the composing stick in his left hand. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
Hubert could only hum in response. If he were honest, he wasn’t sure he believed it either, as much as it pained him to admit. Haskell was home and always would be, but nothing was like he had assumed it would be when he returned.
But he wasn’t about to give up and run. Not a second time.
“If it helps,” Jameson said, “I can give you that piece about cattle rustling on some of the smaller ranches to investigate.”
Hubert perked up, not so much because of Jameson’s generosity, but because his comment hit on another thing he hadn’t been able to shake from his mind since talking to Bebe. Investigating.
“Speaking of ranches,” he started, trying to be subtle but knowing he was anything but, “what do you know about the situation the Bonneville ranch is in, if anything?”
Jameson shrugged, finished sliding metal sorts into his composing stick, then looked up. “It was starting to fail when I moved here. Although, if you ask me, that was just due to mismanagement.”
Hubert hummed and rubbed his chin. “I can believe that.”
“Old Rex had the place mortgaged up to the rafters, as I understand it,” Jameson went on. “And the irony is, it’s his own son-in-law who holds that mortgage.”
Hubert frowned. “Solomon Templesmith?”
“That’s the one.” Jameson picked up another composing stick and started on the next line of type.
“That can’t be right. Rex hated Solomon. And I mean hated,” Hubert said. “He couldn’t stomach the fact that his daughter had run off to marry a black man. He tried to ruin Solomon. Why would he then go on and take out a mortgage on his ranch from the man?”
“I don’t know, but he did,” Jameson said. “And now, rumor has it, if they don’t pay back the full amount of the loan by New Year’s Day, the bank will foreclose.”
“But Solomon wouldn’t do that to Honoria’s family.” Hubert shook his head. Something wasn’t right.
“You sure about that?” Jameson asked.
“Yeah. I know the man.”
“Knew him,” Jameson corrected, pointing the long tweezers he used to pick out type from the rows and rows of sorts around him. “You’ve been gone for a long time. And granted, I haven’t lived here all that long, but I do know that folks change with time. Sounds like this Solomon fellow has changed since you knew him.”
“Possibly.” Hubert doubted it, though. The Solomon Templesmith he’d known was an honorable man who cared about people. Although it was possible that something had happened between him and Rex while he was gone that would have caused even more enmity. But if that was the case, how come no one had told him about it, either in letters or since he’d come home? And was there really an explanation for why Bebe felt so honor-bound to save her family by marrying Price in there?
Jameson blinked as though a thought had just occurred to him. “You were sweet on Bebe Bonneville before you left, weren’t you?”
“I still am,” he admitted freely. “I’d marry her in a heartbeat.”
“If she wasn’t a week away from marrying that Price Penworthy,” Jameson finished his thought. He sent Hubert a sympathetic look. “Hard luck, that.”
“More than hard luck. It’s suspicious.”
“Suspicious?” Jameson shrugged, focusing on his work. “What’s so suspicious about a spoiled young woman marrying a man with money.”
Hubert frowned. “Price has money?”
“His family does. At least, that’s what folks keep saying.”
The pieces started to tumble into place, like blocks of typeface lining up to tell a story. The Bonneville ranch was in danger of being foreclosed on. Price had money, which could pay off the debt. But the blackguard must have demanded Bebe marry him in order to get the money. It was the oldest trick in the book. And for some reason, Bebe felt duty-bound to sacrifice herself to save the ranch.
Hubert saw red. He pushed out of his chair and strode across the room to fetch his coat. “I need to….” He didn’t know what he needed to do, but he couldn’t stand to sit at a desk when he’d just figured out part of the mystery of why Bebe was keeping herself at arm’s length.
“You need to go work off some frustration. I get it,” Jameson said with a knowing grin.
“You’ve got that right,” Hubert growled, then headed for the door.
But even as he stomped through the frozen streets of Haskell, the scent of snow in the air, he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling that he hadn’t figured out as much as he thought he had. It was too easy to think that Bebe was marrying for money in order to save her family. She didn’t like her family. Or at least she hadn’t when she’d almost run off with him. There had to be more of an explanation than the one staring him in the face.
“Ugh.” Vivian let out an undignified grunt and thumped her fist on the table.
Bebe glanced up from the petticoat she was mending. It was the third frustrated outburst from her sister in the past ten minutes. “What?” she asked, not sure she actually wanted to know.
“It’s the accounts,” Vivian answered with uncharacteristic candidness, glaring at the ledger in front of her.
“What about them?”
“They don’t make any sense. This mortgage…. I swear, the next time I see Solomon Templesmith, I…I’ll…I won’t be responsible for my actions.”
Bebe pressed her lips together. Plenty of things didn’t make any sense, and there were more than a few actions she should have been responsible for. Why she hadn’t thrown herself into Hubert’s arms and kissed him in Kline’s Mercantile the other day, for one. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about their conversation for two days. Hubert had been so honest, so bold. And so thick-headed. He wanted her to leave Price and run off to marry him. If she were honest with herself, there was nothing in the world that she wanted to do more. Every time she saw him, her resolve cracked a little more.
But on the other hand, only a blind fool would expect her to throw off all of the responsibility that had been heaped on her shoulders. Only a man who didn’t understand how impossible it was for a woman to change her fortunes in the world could fail to see how crucial it was to have a home, even if that home was miserable. And only a man who had run off could fail to see how terrifying it was to be left behind, or how desperately hard it was to trust after being abandoned. Unless….
She cleared her throat. “Vivian, there isn’t a chance…you couldn’t have….” She fumbled for a way to confront her sister.
Vivian sighed heavily. “Can’t you see I’m trying to sort out our finances here?”
“Yes, but—”
“I’m trying to find a way to pay for your wedding.”
“I don’t really care about my wedding,” Bebe muttered.
“Well I do,” Vivian snapped. “It has to be the event of the season. It has to look like we’re not in any trouble at all.”
Bebe rolled her eyes, then shook her head. “That’s not what I was going to ask you about.” She took a deep breath, entertaining the suspicion that had wheedled its way into her thoughts after her conversation with Hubert. “It’s just that….”
“What?” Vivian growled, glaring at her.
“Hubert said that he wrote to me from Japan,” Bebe blurted. “Did you hide those letters from me?”
“Hide? No!” Vivian sniffed and took up her pen once more. “That pitiful excuse for a man is lying to you about writing. If you can’t see that, you’re an even bigger imbecile than I thought.”
No, Hubert’s letters must have been genuinely waylaid. Not that it made her feel any better to know he was right about their troubles being the result of a simple misunderstanding. She tried to focus on repairing her petticoat again, but her stitches came out uneven. If there had been any proof that she and Hubert had been separated by her family’s deceit, then Bebe would have had the perfect excuse to cast them all off and run to Hubert. It didn’t seem fair that she couldn’t find a legitimate reason to run, or that she still felt beholden to them. Although there were times….
“Ugh,” Vivian growled yet again.
“What?” Bebe snapped, her patience wearing thinner than the petticoat she was patching.
“Don’t take that tone with me,” Vivian barked.
“I wouldn’t have to if you’d just say what has you so angry instead of yipping about it.”
“Yipping?” Vivian’s back went straight.
“If the shoe fits.”
“How dare you?” Vivian’s voice rose an octave and doubled in volume. “I’m doing everything it takes to save our ranch while you—”
“While I am marrying a man I couldn’t care less about for his supposed money, when the man I love has returned home,” Bebe finished, shouting herself.
Vivian looked as though she’d been slapped. Before she could launch a new attack, Melinda burst through the door from the hall.
“Will you two stop fighting? I have a splitting headache, and your grousing isn’t doing it any good.”
“I don’t care about your headache,” Vivian yelled.
“Well, I never!” Melinda pressed a hand to her chest.