“I have no clothes, Dennis,” she said stonily. “They have no clothes. They don’t have income. I do.”
“It’s not bottomless.”
“I grant you we don’t need a suite, but I assure you it helped a little in terms of getting us through the ordeal.”
“Fine. Just remember the cost. Management loved Frank but they never gave anyone a break, especially in times of distress. Have all the bills sent to me. And you sign that so that I have discretionary power to pay them.”
Maggie glanced at the paper. “I think not, Dennis. I’d rather tote up the totals myself.”
“Wouldn’t you rather be occupied with starting up again?” he asked, incredulous.
“I’m not sure, Dennis. The damned thing only burned down about twelve hours ago, I swear, I don’t know just how I feel.”
“All right. I’ll send over the dress lady, whatever her name is. We’ll get you some clothes and we’ll talk to the management. We’ll see what happens.”
“Thank you, Dennis. Could you order up some breakfast, too?”
“Anything you want, Maggie. I’m only your obedient servant, after all.”
That sounded bitter, she thought later as she drank her coffee sitting across from Reese. His mother was prostrate, he reported; they might even have to call in a doctor.
“Fine,” Maggie said. She thought she would rather say fine to anything today than having to make any decisions but the most vital ones—like what to have for breakfast.
She felt as though everything had been wiped away. She had nothing, but she was not without resources. It was just that the thing that mattered the most was gone. She was exhausted and empty. She had nothing to do with her hands.
There wasn’t even a piece of paper or a pencil in the whole of this expensive suite.
“How is it that you have something to wear?” she asked Reese, suddenly aware that he was dressed in pants and a soft cotton shirt.
“I hadn’t undressed when I smelled the smoke,” he said briefly, picking up his cup of coffee and bringing it to his lips. He did like sitting across a table from Maggie this way, just as he had envisioned. The thin material of her nightclothes clung to her and her hair was a tumble of touchable curls, disheveled from a very restless sleep. “Don’t worry about the sheriff, Maggie. He just had to say that. It’s not an accusation. He’s fishing, and he doesn’t have a lick of bait.”
“Well, he isn’t baiting you,” Maggie said tartly, “so I’m afraid I can’t get too comfortable with your assurances. However, I do want to go back to the office sometime today with you.”
Take that, cowboy, Reese thought. He was willing to wager that Logan didn’t even know about the fire, and so who did she need more, and who was here for her, he demanded of his worst adversary.
“You sure?” he asked solicitously.
“I have to.”
“Did Dennis arrange for clothes?”
“Yes. He’s not happy.”
“It’s not his money he’s spending,” Reese pointed out.
“Or mine,” Maggie said tiredly.
* * *
The building was gutted; only the skeleton of a frame and the charred metal of the printing press and the type pieces all over the floor remained. It was so ugly she wanted to cry. She couldn’t even save anything, except perhaps the press. Perhaps. She picked through the ruins, looking for anything that could have survived the fire.
The smoky smell of the charred wood almost overcame her, that and the sickly scent of kerosene from the broken lamps whose shards were buried in the timber.
“I could arrange to have this cleared away,” Dennis said slowly, “but it would be costly, unless you were planning to rebuild. But the only way you could do that, Maggie, is to find a lot of cash. The estate can’t run to that kind of expense and preserve the capital to support you and Mother Colleran.”
“I could sell shares in the proposed new venture,” she said humorlessly.
“Or you could sell something else,” he reminded her with asperity. He knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but he had to make her think about it.
She opened her mouth to tell him a flat out no, and then closed it. She could not shut that door now, she thought. She didn’t know what this disaster would do to her finances. She looked down at her plain divided riding skirt and its matching jacket. The cost of that alone multiplied by what it would take to outfit just her and Mother Colleran was staggering. And the nasty old witch was insisting that everything had to be the very best that could be gotten in town. What is more, everything had to be replaced. The old crow was in for a shock, she thought, with a kind of grim satisfaction. Let Reese outfit her if he could, and provide for her. Why the devil should Frank’s estate do it?
“Frank would never have quibbled over the cost of this,” Mother Colleran protested violently, when Maggie and Dennis had returned. She was showing Maggie the first of the five dresses she had purchased from the dress shop.
“Send them back,” Maggie repeated adamantly. “There is no money for this kind of extravagance.”
“That’s Dennis’s business. Dennis will figure out how to pay for them. I must have the things I need.”
“And I say send them back, Mother Colleran. You may have whatever necessities you need, and two plain dresses, ready-made, for the moment. I trust I make myself clear.”
“Frank would not have wanted you to treat me like this,” Mother Colleran grumbled.
“Frank isn’t here,” Maggie said, yet again.
“Frank’s business never would have burned down,” the old woman lashed out as her parting shot.
“She’s an old terror,” Dennis commented.
“I hope she doesn’t get too comfortable,” Maggie said. “Either she or Reese.”
Dennis motioned her to sit down. “Don’t worry about that part, Maggie. I negotiated a rate to lease this suite for a month. I think by then you could make some decisions.”
“That’s awfully precipitous, Dennis.”
He looked at her oddly. “I hope that was an attempt at humor.”
“An attempt.”
“All right. Well, let me lay a few things out for you, Maggie. I think you are probably liable to clear away the debris from the fire, so I’m going to have to allot money for that, and for your living expenses here. Now, you know that income from subscriptions, local ads and job printing covered about three quarters of the cost of running the paper, and that Frank’s estate paid the rest, in accordance with his wishes. Now that there’s no paper, there’s no office upkeep or salaries. You have to decide one of three things: whether you are going to rebuild and start over, or just start over somewhere else with the paper, which still means startup costs for equipment, which could be offset by your selling the building property; or whether to sell everything, or just the ranch land, either of which decision gives you further options: you could live elsewhere, travel, even allowing for the support of your mother-in-law; or you could stay here, build yourself a house right on the newspaper building property, or somewhere just outside of town, something more grand, and imposing. You could get married …”
“Dennis,” she said warningly.
“It’s an option,” he said flatly, “and I don’t know why you won’t even listen.”
“I see. You’re putting everything on the table for me, including your offer.”
“That’s it, Maggie,” he agreed stiffly. “You know I’ve always believed that Frank put you in my hands because he intended that we should make a life together.”
“I don’t want to hear about that again. Neither you nor I know what Frank intended, except that probably, had he lived, he would have left me. He did not intend to ‘hand’ me over to anybody.”
“I’m shocked, Maggie.”
“Where was he when he died, Dennis?”
“He had business with one of Melinda Sable’s boarders,” Dennis said staunchly.
“He had bigger business with her,” Maggie th
rew back. “All right. I know what the choices are, and I thank you for being concise and unemotional about the whole thing.”
“We’ll talk,” he said, gathering up his things as he prepared to leave her.
“I’ll talk,” she murmured, as he closed the door.
* * *
Reese hovered. It was the only word for what he was doing. She knew if she criticized him he would only protest that he was concerned about her, that she looked drained, tired, uncertain. That he only wanted to help. He would squeeze her arm or her shoulder and suggest sympathetically that she should get out of her hot, heavy clothes and make herself more comfortable. Perhaps take a nap. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.
She decided to ignore him, because if she didn’t she would feel as if she were a stranger in her own hotel suite, which she was paying for. Besides which, it was insanely inconsiderate of him to coop the three of them up in this relatively small space for the coming month. The last thing she wanted to do was share a common room with them, as well as bed down in a room that was between theirs, and the smallest of the three bedrooms to boot.
She was tired, she was feeling constricted, and she decided that perhaps this once Reese’s advice had some merit. A nap would refresh her. She thought there was a loose fitting pinafore among the things the dressmaker had brought to her this morning.
It was so easy to slip out of her clothes and into her thin robe and lie down and forget.
“Maggie, supper!”
The knocking at the door propelled her bolt upright, and for a confused moment she thought it was the night of the fire. But then Reese’s voice penetrated and she shook her head to clear the fog. “I have to get dressed.”
“Why do you? Why did we rent a suite if you can’t go around informally in your own apartment?” he asked reasonably through the door. “Put on a robe, come out and have dinner with us, and then go back to sleep, Maggie. You obviously need the rest.”
It sounded lovely, this kind of privacy. The kind she would love to have with Logan. And where was he, she wondered, groping for something to put on her feet. But there were carpets on the floor, she thought, and it was hardly worth the effort of looking for shoes to wear just to sit in the dining area of the sitting room to eat supper. She got up slowly and groped her way to the door. It had to be late; it was so dark.
Reese and her mother-in-law were already at the table when she flung open the door, and Reese drew in a thick heavy breath and swallowed convulsively at the sight of her. This was the Maggie he had been dreaming of, luscious with sleep, her hair in a frenzied disarray, her lips pouting and her eyes half-closed as if someone had just kissed her. Her robe was tied tightly around her so that the form-fitting material draped over her hips, and her hard pointed nipples were clearly visible through the fabric.
As she licked her lips lightly and walked forward he could just see a glimpse of her long bare leg as her robe parted with each long stride.
His protruberant member hungered now while he feasted his eyes on her nipples and on the V between her breasts, which had parted slightly as she bent forward. He allowed his mother to talk because he couldn’t.
She raged over Maggie’s parsimony. “Two dresses aren’t nearly enough, Maggie. I can’t just have one for everyday and one for church, and the same one every week! I’m Frank’s mother. What will everyone think?”
“They’ll think we had an unfortunate accident and you’re brave and strong for continuing with your usual routine,” Maggie said facetiously, wiping away a crumb from the corner of her mouth.
“Well, tell me why you’re dressed in fine lace just to take a nap, and I have to make do with plain cotton.”
“Because I’m Frank’s wife,” Maggie retorted.
Mother Colleran huffed and got up from the table, stamped to her room, and slammed the door.
“One to you, Maggie,” Reese murmured.
“I told you to keep the old witch occupied, Reese. I don’t even think she knows what she is saying half the time. Everything seems to run a straight line from her thoughts right out of her mouth. It is almost possible to feel sorry for her, because she has no descretion whatsoever, but then you get the feeling that sometimes she knows very well what she is saying and that she intends to gouge as hard as possible. It doesn’t matter. No matter what she says or does, she still must come back to the fact that I control the money and that Frank left nothing to her.”
It was the only thing she could have said that could cool his ardor, but he hardly heard any of it because his eyes were devouring the line of her breasts and their thrusting peaks. He was envisioning what would happen if he just reached over and brushed his fingers against one luscious nipple. He knew what would happen because she had dressed this way deliberately to entice him. He could just reach over and cup her soft breast, and rub his thumb over that tempting, pebble-hard nipple, and she would moan, oh yes, and rip off her robe and nestle in his lap and rub herself against his engorged male member. He would know just what to do with her then.
“Reese? Reese?”
“Yes, Maggie,” he murmured. He could almost feel the stiff seductive pleasure point against his thumb. How the hell had Frank walked out on her? If she stood up, he could reach out and embrace her thighs and bring her closer to him so that he could insert his hand beneath her robe and find the pleasure that awaited him there.
She spoke, and he imagined that she asked, would you like to touch me?
“Reese, this is too much for me.”
“Excuse me?” He came back to reality again as she repeated what she had said. She was pushing her plate over toward him.
“This is really too much food, Reese. Let’s not order so much next time.”
“Maggie…”
“I don’t like the look in your eyes, Reese.”
“I’m mesmerized by your voluptuous nipples, Maggie. Let me see them naked,” he whispered.
“Don’t talk to me like that.”
Oh God, why not? he thought savagely. “Maggie, I need my chance with you. And when you walk out here practically naked, what else am I to think except that you’re ready to hear my words?”
“I’m not ready. What I’m wearing is for my comfort, not yours. But I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Maggie, you need a man.”
“I don’t need anyone.” She rose majestically from her chair like some naiad out of the sea, and he thought he would die for a taste of her naked nipples. “Don’t touch me, Reese. Don’t come near me. We’ll talk in the morning, and you had better spend the night thinking about whether you want to continue in this way or not, and whether you want the benefits of what Frank’s estate can give you, or an invitation to leave.”
“Maggie, you are a beautiful and desirable woman, and I would be less than human if I ignored what you chose to present at the dinner table this evening. Look at you. You might just as well be naked. I can see the shape of your nipples. I can see the curve of your bottom, Maggie. If you move your legs, I can see a whole lot more. Are you telling me you didn’t intend to arouse me, Maggie, just so you could say no again?” He liked that, going on the attack and putting the blame for his lust squarely on her shoulders—where it belonged.
And it got to her.
“Fine, Reese, you win that one. I was stupid to think that in my own ‘home’ I could actually have the benefit of privacy. There is no privacy, obviously, but I’m beginning to think I might pay very dearly to get some.” She turned on her heel and stalked into her room.
The next morning it was as if nothing had happened. Reese had ordered in breakfast and it was waiting for her when she joined him. His attitude was faintly patronizing, as if he wanted to still hammer home the point that he considered his lapse of the night before her fault.
“What are you going to do today, Maggie?” he asked with a show of solicitousness.
“I don’t know.” She decided to pretend that last night had not happened, and that his question was
sincerely meant.
“Yes, it’s strange to have no place to go,” Reese said, heartfelt words because he had experienced the same situation himself. He could feel a little sympathy for her, but he would have liked it just a little more if she had begged for his help this morning rather than sitting there with such cool self-possession. He had nothing to do, suddenly.
But then, neither did she.
She liked the fact that he understood that, but it hardly mitigated his presumptuousness of the night before. How much, she wondered, would she forgive him when she knew now that he was going to try to get to her any way he could. She wondered whether she should even remain with him and his mother in the suite. More than that, she wondered why she was spending her money on them and not herself. All these things she had to think about this morning, and she was not ready to think about anything. She had not seen Logan, and the frustration of that gnawed away at her.
If she were at the ranch, she thought errantly, someone would have come to tell her about the conflagration. Logan would have comforted her, he would have come to town with her and been by her side through all of this, and the incident with Reese never would have happened.
God, she missed him. She needed him right now. She had never felt the onus of their separate lives more.
There had to be changes, she thought. There had to be. She felt rootless, not knowing which way to reach to dig in to find some substance.
She thought she might go back to the ruins of the office to see whether just being there would give her clues as to what she should do next.
And Jean, she had to find Jean …
But in the end, Jean found her. Reese admitted him to the sitting room, and his agitation was palpable.
“Maggie, Maggie …” He was almost incoherent, and he held something in his hands which he spread out on the table.
“Oh my God,” Maggie breathed, and shot a stunned look at Reese, who was peering over Jean’s shoulder.
“The Colville Clarion,” Reese read slowly from the masthead. “Editor: Arch Warfield. Publisher: Harold Danforth.”
They all looked at each other, and Reese went on: “Premier issue, March 27, 1870. The story of the fire, Maggie, is right on the front page.”
Thea Devine Page 24