by Lisa Plumley
What a foolish, foolish man he was, Olivia realized.
She didn’t need anyone to protect her! If Griffin had truly been paying attention, he’d have known that all she needed was someone to love her. The rest was just sketchbooks and sparrow sightings, quilting bees and quiet times...getting herself through her days as best she could, just like everyone else she knew.
Unlike everyone else she knew, though, Olivia realized, she wasn’t afraid of uncertainty. She was excited by it. She hadn’t been daunted by wrangling with The Tycoon Terror. If anything, she’d been drawn to Griffin even more strongly because of the danger inherent in him—because of the courage he’d made her reveal and the facets of herself she’d uncovered in the process.
Because of him, Olivia realized, she’d learned her limits. She’d learned they were only as wide as she measured them to be. No one else could peg out that yardstick for her. Just like no one else could think her thoughts or dream her dreams, no one else could tell her how far she could go or whom she could want.
Including Griffin Turner.
You’re priceless, Olivia, he’d said to her last night. Then, she’d believed him. Now...she still believed him. A man like Griffin didn’t say pretty words for no reason. In fact, given the evidence of their time together, he was likelier to grumble and complain and hide away when troubled. Perhaps he was even doing so right now—hiding away in a place she couldn’t find him.
Well. Griffin Turner had drastically underestimated her, if he thought Olivia Mouton could hear something like “you’re priceless” and then just tuck it away in her memory like a colored autumn leaf in a scrapbook. She was better than that! She was braver than that.
Now, more than ever, she was stronger than that.
Griffin probably hadn’t set out to test her with his leaving. Inadvertently, he’d done exactly that. He’d aroused Olivia’s instincts for observation and analysis, and he’d riled her sense of feminine outrage, too. She deserved a proposal of marriage from him. All the facts—and her heart—pointed to that.
Besides, she loved Griffin. She did. If she didn’t make sure Griffin smiled sometimes, laughed often and resisted the occasional urge to hide away in a dark hotel suite, who would?
She’d made some promises, too, last night—promises to love Griffin and stay beside him, to help him and try to make up for the terrible mistreatments of his past. She’d meant those promises.
Now Olivia meant to keep them. After all, it wasn’t every day a woman heard, I’ve never known anyone as special as you.
It wasn’t every day she met a man who would say those sweet words, and then show her with kisses and smiles and every kind of loving attention that he truly meant them.
Unless her hypothesis was wrong—and hers weren’t usually wrong, because Olivia knew to think them through—Griffin was even now on his way out of Morrow Creek. He was sacrificing the friends he’d made and the progress he’d made, and he was giving up her love, too. There’d probably never been a more foolhardy notion than his idea that he had to leave to protect her.
He had to stay to love her. And to be loved by her!
Standing again, Olivia straightened her spine. She lifted her chin, then directed her gaze out of the hotel suite’s window. In the distance, the Morrow Creek railway station stood with a train on its tracks even now, preparing to pull out. It was possible that Griffin was on that train. It was possible, given how late in the morning she’d slept, that he’d already left.
Either way, Olivia meant to track him down.
Because you didn’t fall in love with someone who’d been hurt and abandoned and abused in the past...only to hurt and abandon and abuse them yourself by letting them go. With dignity and decisiveness, she intended to go to Griffin. With determination aplenty, she intended to show him that some people were steadfast, that some people could be counted on and trusted...and that she was at the head of that line.
When it came to him, that line might be endless. If he stayed. Because this was the only place, Olivia realized as she pulled tight her wrap and headed for the door, that Griffin had truly dared to be himself—without his dark hat, without his black clothes, without his intimidating demeanor. If he wanted to be happy, he had to stay here. He’d said so himself.
You must show yourself, Griffin had told her.
Otherwise, you’ll never really be happy.
She’d already done that, Olivia knew. But she’d almost let her happiness slip through her hands, too. At the first bump in the road—when faced with Griffin’s departure—she’d been ready to surrender being herself and go back to being Miss Milky White.
But no longer. From here on, Olivia vowed, she would pursue the life she wanted with all the verve and vigor she could muster. And she would start by pursuing the man she wanted.
After all, if Griffin had never pursued her, she might never have uncovered herself. She might never have known how courageous she could be. Or how inventive. Or how loving.
Griffin would be easy to spot, Olivia reasoned as she left his suite and returned to her own rooms. Griffin would be the man whom women were staring at, men were sizing up admiringly and children were trustingly approaching...the way little Jonas had done at the musicale. Griffin would be the man who stood apart from all the rest—not because he was alone anymore, but because when Olivia looked his way, he was all she could see.
If she hurried, she knew, she might be able to catch Griffin today, within the hour. The only question now was...
Exactly what did a fashionable lady wear to properly impress the man she meant to spend the rest of her life with?
Chapter Nineteen
Griffin had never had so much trouble leaving a damn rusticated creek-side town in his entire life.
Starting at daybreak, he’d approached the Morrow Creek train station. Clad in his most menacing black attire—to match his dark mood—he’d stomped to the window and requested a ticket. The clerk, a certain Miss Hartford, had claimed she was “plumb sold out for today.” What was more, Griffin had been sure there was a note of triumph in Miss Hartford’s voice, too.
“Sold out in all directions?” Griffin had asked, glowering.
A shrug. “Yes, sir. Sold out. It’s the oddest thing.”
“You can’t be sold out. Don’t you know who I am?”
A squint. Another shrug. “Are you a prospector? I’d like to help you out. Surely, I would. But if the train’s full—”
“Never mind. I’ll take a coach.”
Biting back his annoyance, Griffin had stalked toward the stagecoach office next. All the way there, he’d been confronted with the now-familiar sights and sounds of Morrow Creek. The butcher, O’Neill, opening his shop. The mercantile owner, Mr. Hofer, sweeping the raised plank boardwalk in front of his store. The blacksmith, McCabe, stoking his fires. The various female typesetters of the Pioneer Press, animatedly discussing the latest meeting of the ladies’ auxiliary league while they walked across town to the newspaper office. Every last one of those people had smiled and said hello to Griffin.
He hadn’t had much patience for any of them.
Especially not once he’d reached the stagecoach office, asked for an eastbound ticket and was told they were “sold out.”
Stymied, Griffin had frowned. “But I need to leave town,” he’d insisted.
“You’ll need to wait, I reckon,” the female clerk had said, echoing Miss Hartford’s victorious tone at the railway station.
“Never mind. I’ll hire a horse.”
But once Griffin had reached the livery stable, Owen Cooper had been away—and his laconic stableman, Gus, had been less than no help at all. He’d actually proved an impediment to leaving.
“Nope. Not a single horse available,” Gus had confirmed, fiddling with the grimy bandanna around his neck. “Nor a donkey, n
either. It’s the strangest thing.” Amiably, he’d spat some tobacco, leaned on his hay rake and added, “I’d sure love to jaw with ya a bit ’bout yore biznesses in the states, though. Ya see, the thing is—and nobody knows this ’cept you—I got me a surefire notion for a different kind o’ hiring company.”
Gus had commenced chatting, talking at the approximate speed of a turtle who’d spied a tasty clump of leaves, spending a full half hour or more trying to obtain Griffin’s opinion of his various and prospective business ideas. By the time Griffin had managed to extricate himself from the stableman’s sudden garrulous spell, he’d been downright worn-out.
Or maybe that was grief, doing him in. Because even as Griffin relentlessly strode through Morrow Creek, trying to find a way to leave it, one thought kept dogging his steps. One image kept running through his mind. One sound kept chasing after him.
I’m all but debauched already, came the sound of Olivia’s sweet feminine voice, again and again, circling his thoughts. If you don’t finish the job now, I’ll be deeply disappointed.
Griffin could still envision her, flushed and breathless and smiling as she’d invited him to undress her—as she’d flung her arms onto her sweet, pure bed and all but begged him to love her.
She shouldn’t have done that.
She wouldn’t have done that. Except for him.
Because late last night—far too late last night—Griffin had realized the truth of things. All this time, while he’d been convincing himself that Olivia was changing him for the better, he’d been changing her for the worse. He’d taken a gentle, innocent woman and turned her into an unrepentant wanton. He’d turned Olivia Mouton into the kind of woman who would willingly bed The Boston Beast...and then smile over having done so.
No right-thinking woman wanted The Business Brute. No matter how hard Griffin had tried to convince himself he wasn’t that man anymore, last night was the proof that he was.
He hadn’t changed, the way he’d told himself he had. He hadn’t learned goodness and honor. Instead, he’d ruined Olivia.
It would be better for them both if he left. Olivia deserved more than him. She deserved more than he could ever be.
But Olivia was too kind, Griffin knew, to turn him away. She was too gentle to protect herself the way she ought to. That was why Griffin knew he had to do it...if only he could find a way out of the blasted prison of this town.
Only one option remained for him. Griffin didn’t want to take it. But after spending more time than he wanted trying to secure a train ticket, passage on the stagecoach or even a horse to ride, he was desperate enough to try his last recourse.
He arrived at his private train car, parked on a length of track alongside the Morrow Creek depot, and opened the door.
Sunshine flooded inside, falling on the train car’s luxe furnishings, velvet-upholstered furniture and paneled walls. Griffin’s desk stood beside the window where he’d abandoned it, piled with paperwork, a lamp and a writing set. His cabinets waited with drawers full of papers and ledgers. His personal correspondence overflowed its designated corner of the desk.
Heaving a sigh, Griffin slung his baggage into the train car’s interior, then stepped inside. His old life seemed to surround him as he did, bringing with it all the unsatisfying smells of ink and coal and industriousness. Miles to the east, Boston awaited, ready for him to return to deal brokering and socializing—ready for him to return to compensating for his inborn fault with money and success and striving.
Ironically, Griffin realized, he knew now that his damnable nose—once so torturous to him—had never been the source of his troubles at all, despite what it represented to him.
He had let his appearance matter. He had let it dictate his actions and his attitude. He had let it punish and torment him.
Olivia had cured him of that. She’d made him see that he was more than his detested Turner nose—that he was more than his money and success, too. In the process, though, she’d also made him see that he was less than he’d hoped. In some ways, Griffin knew, he was even worse than he’d feared. He had to be worse, to have taken advantage of Olivia. He had to be worse, to have turned her into someone less like herself...and more like him.
His old life had never felt more superficial. He’d never yearned less to return to it, with all its empty splendor. But faced with the choice of continuing to corrupt Olivia or leaving Morrow Creek, Griffin knew he faced no choice at all.
Olivia came first, now and always.
For her, he would have walked across fire.
Or awakened Palmer Grant when he had overimbibed.
Because that was the particular dragon that Griffin roused when he stepped farther into his train car—nearing the area where the conductor’s information was kept so he could get the train on the rails toward Boston—and found himself staring down the barrel of a lethal-looking pistol...held by Palmer.
Irritably, Griffin nudged away the firearm.
His associate only gawked. Blearily. “Griffin?”
“Go back to bed. You’re hallucinating me.”
“I am?” A blink. The gun wobbled. “Are you sure?”
“Certain.” Griffin frowned. “Where’s the blasted conductor? How long does it take to get this monstrosity on the tracks?”
Palmer set aside his weapon. “What monstrosity?”
“The train car.” With his patience at an end, Griffin deepened his frown. He didn’t usually have to manage these kinds of details. Typically, these were the sort of specifics Palmer handled. All Griffin knew was that maneuvering his private train car onto the tracks and in motion would take longer than boarding another train, catching a stagecoach or hiring a horse would have. That was why he hadn’t come here first. “You’ll be happy to know that we’re going home. Today. Now.”
“Oh.” Palmer frowned, too. “Wait. I’m not going home.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve been itching to get back to Boston. Now you’re getting your wish.” Griffin cast a puzzled glance at Palmer’s clothes, which he’d plainly slept in. “And a bonus.”
A cash incentive would sweeten the deal. And expedite it.
Except it didn’t. His associate only shook his head.
“I’m not leaving. I proposed to Annie last night—”
Griffin groaned. He did not want to hear this.
“—and she accepted!” Semidrunkenly, Palmer beamed. “We were up late celebrating. I met her family. They’re farmers.”
“You’re not marrying into a family of farmers. I won’t believe it.” Griffin strode toward the compartment’s nearest built-in cabinet. He wrenched it open, then riffled through the papers, looking for the information he needed. “Help me find the train schedule. Or help me circumvent it. I don’t care which. Everyone in this town seems to be conspiring to make me stay, and I won’t have it.” He swore. “Where the hell is the—”
“They are conspiring to make you stay,” Palmer said.
Griffin scoffed. “See? I knew you hated it here. You’re not even above concocting crazy stories about the townspeople.”
“I don’t hate it here. Not anymore. Not since Annie.” His friend gave a besotted grin. “Also, it’s not a crazy story. They are conspiring to make you stay. At least some of them are. Unless you’ve proposed to Miss Mouton. Because if you have—”
“What does Olivia have to do with this?” Griffin demanded. Except for bringing me back to life...then making my heart feel as though it’s splintering. He clenched his fists. He couldn’t have Olivia anymore. For her sake, he had to get used to that. “Of course I didn’t propose to Miss Mouton. I haven’t lost my mind.”
“Are you suggesting I have? I take exception to that.”
Griffin ignored Palmer’s pugnaciously raised fists. “Get to the point. Please. Who is conspiring to make me stay?”
If he could get to the bottom of this quickly, Griffin reasoned, maybe he could still catch a regular train—and avoid steeping himself in Palmer’s lovesickness for an entire journey. His friend’s happiness only made him feel sadder and more alone.
“It started with Jimmy. The bellman at The Lorndorff.”
Griffin remembered him. But... “What started with Jimmy?”
“The bets.” Expansively, Palmer gestured to the train car’s settee, indicating that Griffin should take a seat. “On you.”
Feeling suddenly overwrought, Griffin did sit. “Explain.”
His terse tone did not intimidate Palmer. His associate merely gave him a satisfied nod, executed an unsteady swivel, then began pacing. “Everyone in town knows that Miss Mouton is the most sought-after bride. When you and she started spending so much time together...well, that’s when the betting pool began.”
Darkly, Griffin regarded him. “I don’t like this so far.”
“You’ll like it even less when you hear the rest,” Palmer promised him. He pressed together his palms, appearing to sober up a little as he continued pacing. “You see, most of the men in town have proposed to Miss Mouton. At one time or another—”
“I’m aware of that part,” Griffin cut in. He did not feel eager to contemplate which man might win her when he’d gone.
“—they’ve all suggested marriage to Miss Mouton,” Palmer went on, undeterred, “and they’ve all been very kindly refused. When Jimmy understood his own offer of marriage to have been rebuffed by Miss Mouton, he decided to make the most of it.”
Griffin remembered when that had most likely happened—on the day when he’d first toured Morrow Creek with Olivia.
“He ‘made the most of it’ by instigating a betting pool?”
A nod. “And by stacking the odds in his favor, given the inside information he had,” Palmer confirmed. Reluctantly, he added, “I’d told him a time or two that I was eager for you to return to Boston. Jimmy knew you had urgent business there—”