“Humph.”
Elizabeth slid a sidelong look at Maggie, who seemed much improved since the arrival of tea and cookies. Maybe she just needed rest and sustenance.
In the course of one informal meal at a kitchen table, Garrett Wilson had succeeded in turning Elizabeth into a nosy busy-body. “You do have insurance don’t you?”
“I don’t need insurance, dear.”
So Maggie wasn’t running a boarding house to make ends meet?
“I wouldn’t give that Rochester fellow a red cent. You should see what he’s asking the Library Committee for to insure that tired old house.”
Yes, I should. “Do tell.”
Maggie wasn’t so sick that she didn’t know a hook when she heard it.
She returned her cup and saucer to the tray and slid down into the covers. “I think I’ll rest a while longer, if you don’t mind. And you best be off to work. We wouldn’t want Mr. Rochester here looking for you.”
Dismissed, Elizabeth picked up the tray. “Can I get you anything before I leave?”
“No, dear. And thank you for the tea. It was just what I needed.”
While tidying the kitchen and herself, Elizabeth combed through her memory for the location of the sign she’d seen for the doctor’s office. It wasn’t where it used to be, but was upstairs, above either the drugstore or the hardware store, both on her way to the sheriff’s office. If she hurried, she’d have time to tell Garrett about Maggie’s health and lack of insurance, ask the doctor to stop by and check on her, and make it to Rochester’s by nine.
If Garrett had stayed for breakfast, it would have saved her a stop. Why couldn’t he be on hand when she needed him?
Irritated and surprised, she dashed the idea with a quick yank of the curtains in her room. She didn’t need any man.
The window afforded a view of the waking town, already busy with wagons and buggies and riders. Smoke curled from every visible chimney, and scattered cottonwoods shone gold in the early light, their leaves not yet fallen like those in the mountains.
She looked toward the jail, imagining the potbelly stove ticking out warmth in Garrett’s office the same way her emotions ticked through her breast at the mere thought of him.
Her gaze shifted north where the Eisner’s store held a place in the next block, and she almost envied their good company with each other.
Straight ahead rose the high false front of the building that housed Mr. Rochester’s law office and the feed store. From the back, the framed boards looked bleak and barren, presenting their more colorful side to Main Street. Did that mirror her employer? Was he a man with an artificial façade held in place by rough ways and sharp motives? Such a thing could be said about her previous employer, though they differed in other respects.
However, she knew instinctively that Rochester was not a man in whom to place her trust.
Her gaze wandered back to the alley behind the jail, and she tried to imagine what it would be like to depend on a man who was trustworthy.
Leaving the window and her wondering, she pinned on her hat and picked up her satchel, realizing with sudden clarity that she’d just answered one of Garrett Wilson’s questions.
~
“Yes, Sheriff. I’ve got insurance. For all the good it’ll do me now after the fire.”
Garrett looked around the hotel’s refurbished lobby. The floors had been sanded, furniture and rugs replaced. The wallpaper held steady, and the stairs had a new runner. “You afraid something like this might happen again?”
“If it does, I’m done.” Clarence Thatcher’s anger smoldered just below the surface. “The premium has already eaten into my profit before I even rent out the first room. But Harrison wouldn’t lend me the money to rebuild without it.”
“How long have you been in the hotel business?”
Thatcher gave him an angry once-over. “You insinuating that I don’t know how to run a hotel?”
“What I want to know is how many fires have you had over the years?”
The man huffed. “One. And it nearly cleaned me out.”
He shoved a hand through his hair and heaved a sigh, not as defensive as he had been. “I’ve been here ten years, and this is the first fire.” He lifted weary eyes to Garrett. “And now the Snowfield barn? If you ask me, we’ve got a firebug on our hands, and I’d appreciate you finding him before he sets the whole town ablaze.”
Garrett shut the hotel’s new door behind him, wondering if the dry-goods drummer Thatcher mentioned earlier had been burning the midnight oil.
He headed for the livery. Thatcher was plumb scared, and Garrett couldn’t rightly blame him.
As he neared Bozeman’s café, the aroma of fresh donuts hooked him in the gut and slowed his progress, but a movement across the street caught his eye.
Betsy Beaumont charged around the corner and up the block like a school marm huntin’ a truant. She trumped Bozeman any day of the week, and Garrett stepped into the street. Maybe she’d have a bite with him, seeing as how Maggie wasn’t in the kitchen this morning when he left—
The hair on his neck rose. That explained Betsy’s hurry.
“Hold up!”
She halted and looked his way, her initial ire giving way to relief.
He joined her on the boardwalk. “What’s wrong?”
“Maggie’s not well. Or at least weaker than she should be. I just stopped at Doc Weaver’s and asked him to check on her, but I wanted to see you before I went to work.”
She wanted to see him. He let that sink in deeper than he should, rather than counting it a common turn of phrase. How could he suspect her?
She lowered her voice and took a half-step closer. “I have something to tell you.”
The news both worried and encouraged him. Maggie might be in trouble, but Betsy might be willing to work with him.
“I was about to stop in at Bozeman’s for coffee and a couple doughnuts. Care to join me?”
She cocked a fine brow and tilted her pretty head. “Don’t you mean bear sign?”
Surprised again by another side of Betsy Beaumont, he chuckled. “How do you know about bear sign?”
“Deacon makes the best.”
Of course. The old cowboy had probably trailed his share of longhorns back in the day.
He turned toward the street, offered his elbow, and nearly bowled over when she took it. If he wasn’t careful, he’d have the whole town jawing about the two of them before noon.
His usual table was available, but he chose one in a back corner, figuring Betsy wouldn’t want to sit in the window, a spectacle for everyone who passed by.
He helped her with her chair, not that she needed help, but Grandma’s schooling was hard to shake. Betsy should be treated like the lady she was, whether she was straddling a horse in a run for her money or dressed for town in her skirt and straw hat.
She rewarded him with a tight smile. Something was up.
Bozeman brought coffee and took their order. Garrett hung his hat on his knee, waiting for her to tell him whatever it was that was running through her eyes like a jack rabbit.
“Maggie does not have fire insurance.”
That was one of the things he liked about this gal. She avoided small talk. “Is that so.”
She glanced across the room, then leaned forward, her voice even quieter. “She told me she doesn’t need it.”
Not a revelation. “Few folks think they do. They see it as an unnecessary expense. Far as I know, there’s no insurance on the jail.” Another back trail he needed to check.
Exasperated, she gave him a reproachful look. “I know. But that’s not what I mean. Maggie said it in a different tone—as if she had enough money to build ten barns.”
“Well, her place isn’t exactly a pauper’s house.”
Another scolding glare. He almost laughed, but managed to drown the impulse with a swig of Bozeman’s charred brew.
“So if she doesn’t need the money, why is she running a boarding house?�
�� she asked.
The innocent look on her face made him feel guilty for pointing out what he thought was obvious. “She’s not.”
Betsy stared at him for a beat, then rolled her eyes. “Pardon me, Sheriff, but we’re both living there, or hadn’t you noticed.”
He set his cup down. “Where’s Rochester staying?”
“At his office.”
“And the Eisners?”
“Their store.” She picked up her coffee.
“What about the other folks burned out of their rooms at the hotel? Where are they staying?”
Her brows pulled together and her focus shifted to table’s edge. “But I thought—”
Bozeman interrupted them with a plate of greasy, sugar-smothered doughnuts and two napkins. “Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but might you be Betsy Parker?”
Unfaltering, she met his look. “Why do you ask?”
“Who wants to know?” Garrett’s hackles rose.
Bozeman ignored him, addressed Betsy. “I’ve heard people sayin’ what a fine shot you were. Years back, before I settled here. They say you could outshoot all the men around here.”
She coughed discreetly, pressing a napkin at her lips before answering. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
She hadn’t given Bozeman an answer either way, and Garrett chuckled to himself. Elizabeth Beaumont at work.
“I need a half dozen of these in a sack when we leave.”
Bozeman swelled up and grinned like a turkey in a hen pen.
“Don’t bust your surcingle. I’ve got a kid who’d eat your boots if you put sugar on ‘em.”
With an admiring glance at Betsy, the cook turned on his heel and went back to work.
Garrett helped himself, reading confusion on her face. He’d known her only a few weeks, but this was the first time he’d seen her stumped.
She tried her coffee and grimaced.
He pushed the sugar bowl toward her. “Stout, isn’t it?”
A load of sugar and a gentle sip, and she met his gaze again. “Horned and barefoot.”
“Deacon?”
Nodding, she smiled thinly. Even though it was a sad, half-hearted smile, it warmed him more than Bozeman’s swill ever could.
The smile faded. “But Maggie answered my letter of inquiry and said she had a room for me.”
“Did you see a sign on her front fence when you got here?”
Betsy looked up at him, searching his face for something he wished he had.
“No. But she used to have one. Six years ago, when I…left.” She lowered her gaze.
He wanted to pull her close and fix whatever it was that took the wind out of her. Or punch someone. Almost anyone of the male persuasion. “You’re right. I heard she closed down a couple years ago after her husband passed on. Word was it got to be too much for her.”
“How did you get a room with her?”
The memory brought wry a twist to his mouth. “She saw me in the mercantile buying canned peaches and beans, and flat out asked if I needed a place to stay other than one of my cells.”
“Why not the hotel?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t work for a sheriff.”
She accepted his answer without pressing him. “So Maggie put you in that porch off the kitchen.”
He risked his own question. “Why did you write to her rather than going home to the ranch?”
She bristled, but not as stiff as usual, and seemed to resign herself. “I want to make my own way, not come running home after failing at my marriage.”
The urge to punch someone rose again, and he wrapped one fisted hand in the other and hid them in his lap. “I don’t see you failing at anything you put your mind to.”
Color rose to her cheeks. “Surely I did, or my husband would not have gone to the Dakota gold fields and left me with a petition for divorce.”
She cringed on the last word.
The woman kept throwing him off center. She wouldn’t tell him anything when he asked, and then she up and spilled her story when he wasn’t ready.
Trying her coffee again, she took a sip, then bit into her doughnut, and stared out the window. “Why do you suppose Maggie rented me a room? Habit? The kindness of her heart?”
“Both are probably true. But I think there’s more to it.”
He sensed the fissure in Betsy’s wall fingering down into the foundation.
“I think she’s lonely.”
The notion played across her face with something akin to empathy.
“She’s livened up quite a bit since you arrived.” So had he.
“Well, she wasn’t very lively this morning, and I’m worried about her. Maybe I should tell Mr. Rochester I won’t be staying today.”
As much as he didn’t want her working for that scoundrel, he did want her to find out what she could. “I’ll check with Doc first, then stop by and let you know.”
She gave him a doubtful look.
He ignored it. Time was against them where fire and Maggie were concerned. “You said there was more.”
Choosing a second doughnut, the smallest that remained, she took a tiny bite. Powdered sugar dusted her lip, and he clenched his hands so he wouldn’t reach across the table like a fool.
She dabbed her mouth with the napkin. “All this sugar is going to spoil me.”
“I doubt it.”
A shy smile tilted her mouth. “Maggie and I ate cookies for breakfast.”
“Is that the more you wanted to tell me?”
She grew serious again, wiped her fingers off, and looked him square in the eye. “Maggie insinuated that the fire insurance premium for the library is outlandish, but she wouldn’t tell me how much. And she said she wouldn’t give Anthony Rochester one red cent.”
“Does that surprise you?”
“I’m surprised that her opinion of him has changed so drastically.”
“How so?”
“When I first considered working for him, she thought it was a grand idea.”
Strange. “What changed her mind?”
Betsy picked up her coffee cup and peered at him over the cup’s edge. “I believe you did.”
CHAPTER 20
Elizabeth felt her insides teetering, as if she were riding toward rimrock at a dead run, about to plunge over the edge.
Garrett’s lawman’s mask slid into place and he fixed her with a steely gaze. “You willing to help me?”
Apparently, telling him about Maggie’s lack of insurance and her opinion of the attorney wasn’t enough. “I just did.”
His mouth slid up on the scar side. Not exactly a smile, more of a twitch. She was drawn to that crescent dent in his cheek, still curious about how he got it.
“I need more. I need to know what Rochester is working on. Specifically, if he’s involved in the fires.”
“I doubt he started them. He’d be hard pressed to dirty his hands and shoes in such an endeavor.”
The scar deepened, as did the color of his eyes.
She shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with her instinctive response to his—what, charm?
“We read him the same on that level.”
His casual use of we didn’t help her at all. “Well, what level are you looking for?”
Garrett leaned forward. “You type-write for him. I want to know who those letters are addressed to and what he’s saying in them.”
Her heart dropped like a stone to her stomach. Again he asked for the ultimate breech of confidence—beyond spying, to her way of thinking. How could he do that? And how could she comply?
He held her gaze, reading her, until his jaw locked and he leaned back against his chair. By the way the fingers of his right hand rubbed the handle of his coffee mug, he’d decided she wouldn’t help him.
But what if Rochester was behind the fires? Was her silence worth putting the public’s safety and welfare at risk? Maggie’s welfare?
Specific portions of several letters had baffled her from the moment she’
d copied them. Should she share the puzzling text without revealing the recipient?
“I cannot betray a confidence, even for the greater good.”
Garrett’s expression did not change.
“But I did question some of the correspondence because it seemed to make no sense.”
He hooked his thumbs in his belt and waited. She much preferred the gentler, soft-eyed Garrett, the one who had held her at her mother’s grave and held her chair here in the café. Instead, she faced an unpredictable predator. One who would get his prey at all cost.
She’d not sell her soul for his approval, for any man’s approval, but she saw nothing wrong with voicing her own questions.
She glanced at her lapel watch, surprised by the time that had already passed. Only minutes remained before she must leave for Mr. Rochester’s office.
“What would you think of letters from an attorney that mentioned flowers, quite out of context with the rest of the letter?”
Curiosity flicked across Garrett’s hardened features.
“Red bud. Geraniums. And another I didn’t recognize—hanabi.”
He leaned in. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m not getting at anything. I’m asking you a question.”
She folded her rumpled napkin and tucked it under her plate. “Thank you for the coffee and doughnuts.”
As she stood, he did the same, capturing his hat and clapping it on. He picked up his paper sack, paid the café owner, then held the door for her as she exited.
Together they headed toward the north end of town.
At the corner, she paused before crossing the street. “Are those doughnuts for Clay?”
Garrett fisted the sack. “From the way he put away food at the ranch, I figure he hasn’t seen many good days lately.”
“You arrested him, didn’t you?”
The paper crackled in his fingers. “For his own good.”
The man clearly had a penchant for strays. She glanced across the street and then regarded him once more. “You’ll let me know what the doctor says about Maggie?”
He nodded, watching her with that piercing, knowing look.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you more than what I’ve said already. It’s unethical.”
An Unexpected Redemption Page 17