Lana yanked her hand free and turned on the weasely little man. She snatched the basket from him with all the force she could muster, even though it nearly sent Georgie rocking. “What he shares is none of your business! And the wife of Mack Tanner had best be able to walk anywhere she pleases without foolish threats from the likes of you. I expect if you show your face in Treasure Creek again…” Before she could finish her angry thought, the man had tipped his hat in a sinister fashion and melted back into the bustling crowd around her.
She stood for a shocked, angry moment, gasping and clutching Georgie tight to her side. In all her time up north, even in Jed’s days of showing off their wealth, she’d never been threatened like that. Curiosity over the whereabouts of Mack’s wealth always fueled gossip in Treasure Creek—even Jed had never known where Mack kept his funds. And Jed hadn’t ever hid his wealth, which drew all kinds of hangers-on, but those parasites had showed the good graces to stay away from her. Mostly. It had never fueled something like this. In the middle of town. To her own person.
Marriage was supposed to have kept her from being this kind of target. Instead of afraid, the whole affair made her angry. Marrying Mack was supposed to offer protection, but did it paint a bull’s-eye on her back instead? Or—worse yet—Georgie’s?
Fuming, Lana pushed her way through the noisy waterfront crowd to the General Store building site. She stomped up the steps to thrust herself and Georgie through the half-framed doorway, casting the basket to the floor with a huff.
“Still sore at me?” Mack’s tone was teasing until he saw her face.
“There was a man down on the waterfront. He offered to help me with the basket, and I recognized him. Sort of.” She fought the urge to brush off her elbow where he’d grabbed her. “He was nice at first, but then he had the nerve to threaten me.”
Mack crossed the large room to her in a handful of steps. “Who threatened you? Why?” His raised voice sent Georgie’s lip quivering.
“He assumed you’d told me where you keep your gold. And Jed’s. And he made it quite clear that ‘a lady of my substantial resources’ shouldn’t walk the streets by myself.”
Mack’s face darkened instantly. “Who said this?”
“He looked familiar, but I don’t know his name. I’ve seen him before, I know that much.”
“He threatened you because you’re married to me?” Mack nearly roared, sending Georgie into tears.
Ed Parker came up behind Mack, “You’re frightening the boy, Mack. Hold your horses.”
Mack tried to compose himself by turning away and pacing the room. “Of all the underhanded, lowlife…” He looked up at Lana. “You said you knew him?”
“I recognized him. I suspect he was an…associate…of Jed’s. He didn’t offer his name when I asked.”
“He knows what’s coming to him if I did know his name. You’d know him if you saw him again?”
“I doubt I’ll get his sneer out of my head for quite a while.”
“Don’t you leave,” Mack commanded, pointing at both Lana and Ed as he made for the door.
“He slipped back into the crowd, Mack,” Lana called. “A block or two back. You won’t find him now.”
“Watch me,” Mack growled, sending Georgie into full-scale howling.
“Must you—”
“Mack!” Ed cut in as he beat Mack to the door frame. “Don’t go off all fired up. You won’t solve anything like this. He’s just some fool out to rattle your cage.”
“Consider me rattled.” Mack looked back at Lana. “Are you hurt? Georgie? Did he touch you?”
Lana smoothed Georgie’s hair, bouncing him up and down gently until his cries muffled down to short bursts of whimpering. “No, he caught hold of my arm for a second, that’s all.”
“He touched you? I’ll wring his neck, I will.”
“I’m not hurt, Mack. I refused to be bullied by some lowlife miner off the docks.”
“That lowlife miner could have done any number of things to you. Or Georgie. Thank God above neither of you were hurt.”
“He never touched Georgie.” She looked straight at Mack. “It’s getting worse instead of better, Mack. The boats just keep dumping people out, no matter who they are and what they want.”
“Oh, we know what they want, all right. No questions there.” Mack drew a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders, grappling to get his temper under control. “I’ll find him.”
“You will,” Ed said. “But not today.” Ed turned to Lana. “I’m right glad you’re okay after a scare like that. Do you think you could describe him? Anything that might pick him out of a crowd?”
Lana felt her anger return as she brought the slippery character to mind. “He had an accent. Georgia. Or Texas, maybe.” She gave all the physical description she could, trying to keep her voice even and calm, to help Georgie settle himself. She opened the picnic basket and pulled out a bit of bread to distract the boy. “His hat had a colored feather in it. Like a peacock’s.”
“The fool. Thinking he can do that to you.” Mack continued pacing, his voice low but still menacing. “You go nowhere alone. You understand that? Nowhere.”
That wasn’t the answer. “Mack, I’m not some orchid who has to be guarded,” Lana countered. “He scared me, but I’ve lived here as long as you, and nothing’s ever happened before.”
“You haven’t been Mrs. Tanner before,” he shot back.
She had been Mrs. Jedadiah Bristow. That had been education enough. “And I’ve no mind to be imprisoned for that!”
“I’ll not have you putting yourself in danger.”
His overprotective response made her almost sorry she’d told him of the incident. “One fool thinking he can scare me is not danger.”
“You don’t know that, Lana.”
“It’s only worse when the waterfront is mobbed like that.”
“So you stay off the waterfront. Until further notice.” His annoying, paternal tone had her thinking he’d wag a finger at her in another second.
“I already planned to do just that. When the big ships are in.”
“At all times.”
“Mack—”
“A man just threatened you, Lana, and I will not have you taking a chance like that again.” Georgie’s whimper returned and Mack visibly reined in his temper. “Not even to bring me lunch.” After a moment, he added, “Thank you for bringing me lunch, all the same. It smells wonderful.”
He was making an effort, reluctant as it was. Perhaps she ought to as well. “There’s enough for you, Mr. Parker.” In her exuberance—and the joy of having more than enough supplies to cook anything she wanted after so many weeks of scraping by—she’d probably made enough for four.
“I may not be a scholar, but I know enough to leave two newlyweds alone. Even arguin’ ones. How about I take Georgie over to the carpenters and see if I can find some scraps we can make into blocks?” He looked at Georgie. “You got any blocks yet, fella? Every boy needs blocks.” Despite Lana’s certainty that Georgie wouldn’t go two feet from her after all the fuss, Georgie toddled over to the big man’s outstretched hand.
“Mind him, Ed,” Mack called after the unlikely pair. “He misses his own nephews, I think,” Mack remarked to Lana. “He’s a big old teddy bear on the inside.”
She managed a laugh. “You’d never know it to look at him.”
“He’s had a rough life. Seen a lot—both good and bad. He’s been a good friend, though, since…” He gave a forced sigh and settled himself on the store floor, sunlight streaming in around them through the still open framework on one side of the building. Some days she could be so swallowed up by the loss of her husband of three years that she would clean forget Mack had lost his best friend of nearly thirty years. How two such different men could grow up together and still stay friends always amazed her.
She looked up at the grief shadowing Mack’s eyes and sighed. They still didn’t quite know how to be alone in a room together. Lana occupied
herself by unfolding a napkin. “We’ve all had a rough night. Tempers are short.”
He made a low grunt in reply and rubbed his neck. “Smells mighty good,” he admitted, as the scent of the chicken wafted through the room.
She filled a tin plate and handed it to him. “I’m a very capable person, you know.”
He looked up, a what’s that supposed to mean? expression in his eyes.
“I’m smart enough to know what’s possible and what isn’t.” She filled a plate for herself. “For example, I am smart enough to know that I can’t make it up here alone, but I am also smart enough to know that I can teach those books.”
His eyes flicked up from the food, but he said nothing.
Lana settled her plate on her lap and deliberately softened her tone. She waited for the tension to ebb from the room, watching instead how the crisp ribbons of sunlight illuminated the bits of sawdust dancing on the waterfront breeze. Keeping her tone as soft as she knew how, Lana caught his eyes. “Tell me why you don’t like the idea of my teaching.”
He gave the question considerable thought before replying. “I think,” he chose his words carefully, “that your plate is full enough already. If you’ll pardon the lunch reference,” he added with the barest hint of a smile. “And then there’s Georgie. I don’t see how you could do it.”
“Well, I don’t know much of that myself yet.” He obviously hadn’t expected such an answer, for he stared hard at her, as if she were some difficult puzzle he couldn’t solve. It was true. She felt like a puzzle to herself today.
“You don’t need the job. You’re provided for now.”
“I don’t need the money, true. But I think I need the challenge. There’s a right way to do this.” The ambitious urge those books pulled out of her caught her by surprise, much as that hideous miner had this morning. “I want Treasure Creek to have a good school for Georgie. I want everyone here to have a good school.”
“And you’ve a definite opinion on how that ought to happen.” He declared it like an unfortunate fact of nature, like floods or avalanches.
“I do. And you’re right, I know the why but not the how. At least not yet. So…” She put a luxurious slather of butter on her biscuit, “I’d like to try and work it out. I don’t think asking you to keep an open mind about this is too much.” She looked up and caught his eye again, pleased to see the dark storm of anger had retreated considerably, replaced with a rather amusing curiosity. If there was anything Lana Bristow Tanner knew how to do best, it was to coax a deal into existence. “In return, I’ll keep an open mind about your ideas of what’s needed for my safety.”
He managed an actual smile. “Those marriage vows had ‘honor’ in them, and some other words, but I don’t recall much about ‘keep an open mind.’”
He’d left out the bit about “obey,” and they both knew it. Lana sat up straight. “An open mind is the highest honor a man can give his wife.”
Her statement amounted to a well-played verbal parry, and Mack raised a dubious eyebrow before dissolving into a smirk. They both laughed. It was the first time they’d laughed together, and the first time Lana could remember laughing in ages. There was a precious warmth to it. It was—dare she think it?—fun to coax a deal out of him. He matched her efforts by displaying his “consideration” with an oversize thinking expression while devouring a piece of chicken. His dark blue eyes had hints of gold and green in them when the light hit them right. She’d thought of them as a flat, stormy blue, but there was a shimmer in the storm she hadn’t noticed before. Yes, he did have a playful side. One she’d all but forgotten in the onslaught of drama and conflict that had been both their lives. Georgie would be good for him. Shake some of that stiffness out of him in the way that only small children can.
“I will honor you by keeping an open mind,” he said too formally, “but I reserve the right to put my foot down. ‘Obey’ was in there somewhere.”
It wasn’t much, but it was all she needed. “Fair enough.”
“You’ll not set foot on the waterfront again today.” There was no play in that; it was a clear command.
“And you’ll walk me home just to make certain of that.” It wasn’t a request, it was an admission. An acceptance of the limits of his tolerance. The seal of the deal, as it were.
Chapter Seven
The weasel. Mack was all too happy to toss that peacock-feathered lowlife onto the next boat out of Treasure Creek. He should have tossed his banker friend right behind him. It was a wonder anyone kept any of their gold dust, with what passed for bankers up here. The only thing “safe” at any of these banks was the giant steel box they locked up at night. After walking Lana and Georgie home following their lunch, it hadn’t taken much poking around the waterfront with Caleb to find “Nick Peacock” and ensure he had a one-way passage out of town. As he’d been foolish enough to threaten Lana, Mack doubted he was smart enough to be working on his own. He wasn’t. He’d been working with Lester Jameson, the slipperiest banker Treasure Creek had. That partnership officially took things from bad to worse, and Lana was going to need more protection whether she liked it or not.
He reached his door and stopped short at what now hung above the latch. Someone had put a nail in his door and hung a little handmade sign on it. Made from a scrap of hide and hung from an alarmingly bright purple ribbon, it read “Quiet! Sleeping Child!” with a frilly little flower drawn below the words. It had the look, he realized with a thud in his stomach, of something intended for repeated use. She’d hung the curtains they’d bought in Skaguay, too. He hadn’t counted on the new feminine touches to his house bothering him so. Reminding himself that “feminine” also brought the very good chicken he’d had for lunch, Mack lifted the door latch as quietly as possible.
The house smelled like woman. There wasn’t another way to describe it. Floral, soft scents filled the rooms. Little bottles of things were everywhere, and it seemed like every flat surface was covered with something ruffled. Irritation vied with amusement as he took in both his altered house and her pleased expression. Lana had been busy.
She pointed to the shut door of the room she shared with Georgie, a grin on her face as she made the universal sleeping symbol of folded hands tucked under her cheek. Mack took extreme care to set down the box he was holding as quietly as he could. “We need to talk,” he whispered.
Lana took a glance at the closed bedroom door. “Outside,” she whispered back, pointing to the front door.
This wasn’t a conversation Mack wanted to have on his front step, but this wasn’t a conversation that could wait, either. And it would be easier to talk frankly about the dangers without Georgie’s tender ears around.
Once out the door, he led Lana around to the side of the house. As they walked past Georgie’s blue-curtained windows, Mack pulled the window open and propped it with an inch-high stick. “Now we’ll hear him if he wakes,” he explained to Lana as he turned the corner to the small yard that backed the house. Lana had been busy here, too. Two patches of land on either side of the yard been staked out and turned over. Mrs. Tanner expected to garden, it seemed. It was a good idea; the nearly full days of sunlight—up to twenty hours at the peak—made growing things easy and fast. Still, he couldn’t tell if her quick efforts to make herself at home pleased him or unsettled him. Probably both.
“I found your nasty little friend.” It was best to get straight to the point. Georgie could wake up at any moment. “Nicky Peacock will think twice before he talks to you again.”
Lana looked shocked. “What did you do to him?”
Mack had, in fact, done too much to him. If he’d heeded Caleb’s warnings, he might have stopped after the first punch. As it was, Mack let his temper get the best of him, and he’d given Nicky Peacock a fair beating before Caleb pulled him off and told him to go home. Many in Treasure Creek saw him as the law, and the moment he’d walked away from the young man God had convicted him of how wrong he’d been to make his point with his fists.
Treasure Creek was no place for thugs, but Treasure Creek didn’t need him to become one to protect it, either. “More than I ought to,” was all he admitted to Lana. “Sang like a bird after the third punch, though, so something good came from it, I suppose.”
Lana pushed away the wisps of hair the breeze had flung in her face. “What do you mean?”
“Lester Jameson put him up to it. I thought as much. Peacock’s not sharp enough to think of something like that on his own.”
“Jameson? The banker Jed used to use?”
Mack leaned up against the sun-warmed side of the house. “The same. Probably thought I’d view his bank as a more viable option if I felt lowlifes would use you to get to my gold.”
Lana’s eyebrows scrunched up as she followed Jameson’s line of thinking. “So he thinks you’ll put your gold in his bank if you think miners would threaten me? He was Jed’s banker—he must know Jed left me with almost nothing. Why does everyone suddenly think I know where you’ve hidden your gold? Even if I did, who would trust someone who would resort to such things?”
Mack folded his hands across his chest. “You’d be surprised. Everybody’s suspicious of everyone else in the camps. With reason. Get a man away from home long enough, give him enough gold to do foolish things and crave more, and sense goes out the window.” He leaned back against the house. “If men staked their claim, made their fortunes and went home, it’d be one thing. But it’s like a disease. Suddenly nothing’s enough, and no scheme’s too slippery if it leads to more gold.” He watched her expression, knowing too well they both counted Jed among those men who’d left their common sense somewhere out there on the trail. “Nicky’s just a dumb kid with a smooth tongue. I don’t think he’d actually have hurt you. Jameson, on the other hand, is a dangerous snake. He’ll keep trying.”
ALASKAN BRIDES 01: Yukon Wedding Page 5