Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01]

by The Matchmaker

  Clearly he needed to be more diligent about kissing Molly. It was for the common good, after all.

  He stifled a smile. “Occasionally she’s quiet.”

  Daniel grunted. “Thank God. You drew the shortest straw of all of us, that’s for certain.”

  “Sarah’s no challenge for you, then?”

  “Sarah?” For a moment, Daniel’s gaze turned faraway. Something akin to befuddlement passed over his face, then vanished. He grasped his hammer again. “Hell, I’ve known Sarah since we were this high.” Daniel held his hammer at waist height. “Since we were in the schoolhouse together. There never was a better girl for copying answers from. She used to tilt her slate toward me so I could see.”

  “Cordial of her.”

  Without a trace of irony, Daniel agreed. “Other girls did the same thing. But Sarah was always smart enough to have the right answers. She’s no trouble for me. No woman is.”

  Despite his boast, something Marcus had glimpsed in Daniel’s expression niggled at him. He didn’t believe the blacksmith. Had Sarah Crabtree knocked Daniel as far off the mark as Molly had Marcus? If so, that wouldn’t bode well for their matchmaker search.

  “She’s been a help with my nephew,” Daniel went on, absently squinting at the work arrayed before him. “He’s been in my care since my sister sent him to me.”

  Marcus nodded. He remembered the child’s arrival on the train, recalled there being a measure of gossip in town about the blacksmith’s responsibility for him.

  Some said Daniel was not the boy’s uncle, but his father in secret. They said that Daniel had gotten a woman with child, a woman his sister had taken pity on and sheltered at her home in the East to avoid a scandal. Since Marcus didn’t have much use for idle chitchat, he didn’t know any more than that.

  He returned to the matter at hand. “Then all we know,” Marcus mused, “is that the matchmaker’s personal advertisements are delivered to the Pioneer Press via courier. Nothing else.”

  “Right. And nobody knows who the courier is.”

  “Nobody’s ever seen him.”

  “Or her.”

  Marcus made a thoughtful sound. “Perhaps chasing the daughters is the wrong tactic, here. Perhaps Adam Crabtree holds the key to who is placing those advertisements.”

  Daniel snorted. “Good luck cozying up to him. He’s a mite bonier and uglier than his daughters. His wife might have a say in your plans, too.”

  The blacksmith’s overly innocent expression stared blandly back at Marcus. Rolling his eyes, Marcus made to smack the smirk from his face. Quick for a man of his size, Daniel sidestepped the movement. He chose a few more lengths of steel, chuckling with amusement.

  “But if you truly want to find the matchmaker,” he said as he tromped across the shop with the steel in his arms, “then I’ll not stop you. Even if it is with Adam Crabtree.”

  Daniel shuddered with mock horror. Always a prankster, he was. Marcus had learned that much during his time in Morrow Creek. It was one of the reasons he liked the muscle-bound, plainspoken blacksmith.

  “There are other ways to extract a secret, McCabe,” Marcus told him, playing along, “aside from seduction.”

  “Truly?” Daniel pretended astonishment. “You should have told me that from the first. If not for the seduction involved, I’d never have taken on this task of finding the matchmaker.”

  He shook his head, pretending chagrin. Marcus didn’t believe it. McCabe might be burly, bull headed and a little too quick to smile at a pretty lady—or a passel of them—but he was a good man at heart. He’d taken on the matchmaker search, Marcus didn’t doubt, for reasons aside from seduction.

  “After Sarah, I intend to work my way through a few more likely ladies,” Daniel offered with a wolfish grin. “Just in case the matchmaker proves hard to pin down.”

  “With you on the search? Hardly.”

  They both grinned, co-conspirators on the hunt for the meddlesome woman who’d bedeviled the bachelors for months. Had Jack Murphy been there, they’d have been a trio of dedicated males, determined to reclaim the peace they deserved.

  A few minutes passed, during which Marcus contemplated the matchmaker search and Daniel finished forming the sleigh runner he’d been fashioning. The blacksmith started in on a smaller piece of steel, holding it in the fire with long-handled tongs until it glowed sunset-red. He transferred it to his work area, then pounded it with his hammer.

  Between clangs of metal on metal, Marcus announced, “It will have to be you or Jack Murphy to find the matchmaker. Molly Crabtree is not her. I’m sure of it.”

  He was even more sure he wanted no more of questioning her. No more of deceiving her. If he were wise, Marcus knew, he’d want away from her altogether. But since that wasn’t quite true…

  Daniel quit hammering. Stared at him. “Aw, Lord. Not you, too, Copeland!”

  “What?”

  “Another damned victim of the matchmaker.” Shaking his head in obvious disgust, Daniel thrust the piece he’d pounded into a water barrel to cool it. “She’s snared herself another bachelor. I can hardly believe it. You’ll be fitted for a wedding suit by the end of next week. Mark my words.”

  “Not me,” Marcus disagreed. He had no intention of letting things between Molly and him proceed beyond the dalliance she’d mentioned. It didn’t seem right to tell Daniel as much, though. “Especially not with Molly Crabtree. I want a woman who’s sweet. Biddable. At home. Molly is none of those things.”

  “Oh, Molly’s sweet, all right.” Grinning, Daniel pantomimed cradling a pair of enormous bosoms in front of his chest. “Or haven’t you noticed?”

  Hot with fury, Marcus had him by the throat in an instant. “I ought to flatten you for that,” he growled. “If you weren’t my friend—”

  “Easy, Copeland.” Daniel spread both big arms wide in surrender, watching Marcus closely. “It was only a jest.”

  Marcus jerked the blacksmith’s collar in a final, warning tug. He released him. Stepping away, Marcus gave a dismissive wave. “It was a bad jest. I’m off to Murphy’s saloon.”

  “Need a drink already?” Daniel asked, laughter in his voice. “Being hog-tied and turned sappy-headed with love bringing you low?”

  “You’re wrong.” Daniel could see nothing in him, Marcus was sure. There was nothing in him, nothing changed because of the matchmaker or Molly. The blacksmith was guessing. Marcus held up a hand in farewell. “Good luck with Sarah.”

  “Good luck yourself, with Molly!” Daniel’s chuckle followed him out the doors. So did his parting words. “Not sweet on her, eh? For a man who doesn’t care, you’re damned quick to defend her!”

  At half past noon, Jack Murphy’s saloon was dim, quiet and mostly bereft of patrons, save those few determined drinkers who downed whiskey at sunrise and sunset alike. Marcus walked inside with purpose, pausing only long enough to let his eyes adjust to the gloom.

  Behind the long, intricately carved bar, Jack greeted him with a nod. He slapped a dry cleaning cloth atop something lying opened before him—a book, Marcus realized in surprise—and angled his head expectantly.

  “What can I get you, Copeland?”

  Delivered in the man’s faint Irish brogue, Marcus’s name sounded foreign to his ears. As he stepped up to the bar, Marcus took a minute to size up Jack Murphy. He didn’t know the man well. No one did. A stranger to Morrow Creek come even later than Marcus had, Jack was both jovial and solitary. He refused to speak of himself. Under ordinary circumstances, he didn’t speak of much at all.

  Marcus reasoned that fact in itself made them of like mind. He decided he respected the man.

  “Whiskey.” Marcus tossed some currency onto the bar. He watched as Jack filled a glass partway, then set it in front of him. Their gazes met.

  “I never see you here, Copeland, except for the men’s club meetings,” Jack said, spreading his palms along the bar. “I guess you’re here about the matchmaker.”

  Marcus nodded. “Any
luck with Grace Crabtree?”

  Jack shot a disgruntled look at the ceiling of his saloon. “That hellion on a bicycle? Hell, no. Not unless you’re wondering if I’ve had any luck with hosting a dozen ladies’ clubs in my upstairs rooms every week. Did you know Grace Crabtree had a half lease on this building?”

  “The upstairs portion?” Marcus guessed.

  “The part I don’t live in,” Jack agreed. A noise sounded overhead. He shook his head. “The part I’d as soon put to use for boardinghouse rooms, if only the bullheaded Miss Crabtree would give over her portion. I’ve offered to buy it from her. So far, no amount of coin has been enough.”

  “She must have another reason for keeping it.”

  Jack grunted an affirmative. “Course. She wants to use it to drive me mad. That much is plain.”

  A hymn, sung by several female voices and accompanied by the sound of a piano, drifted downstairs. Grabbing the whiskey he’d poured for Marcus, Jack Murphy took a slug. He winced at the liquor’s tang, or at the banged-out rendition of “Amazing Grace” filling his saloon. Marcus couldn’t tell which.

  He grinned. “There’s something downright aggravating about those Crabtree women. But the minute you realize it—”

  “—they go and do something nice,” Jack finished, nodding in recognition. “Ah, I know it. I can’t puzzle it out.”

  They shook their heads at each other, mystified at the vagaries of women—Crabtree women, in particular.

  “Daniel McCabe says Sarah is no trouble at all to him.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “That, or deluded,” Marcus agreed, holding his whiskey to the light. He took a sip. “Although he does seem to have uncommon luck with women. There’s no denying it.”

  Jack scoffed. “There’s no challenge to having luck with women. The challenge is getting rid of them.”

  He shot another disgruntled look at his saloon’s ceiling. Now, stomping feet could be heard treading across the second story’s floorboards.

  “I’d say Grace Crabtree would be a mite less popular for hosting those meetings of hers if she were revealed as the matchmaker,” Marcus mused. “Uncovering her secret could be the key to those boardinghouse rooms you want.”

  “What makes you think it’s not Molly who’s the matchmaker?”

  “I know she’s not. Plain as that.”

  Jack peered at him. Whatever he saw made him shake his head. “Aw, hell and brimstone, Copeland. The matchmaker’s got you, too. McCabe warned me this would happen.”

  “I haven’t—”

  “You were the weakest, Daniel said. The one most likely to throw over the search for the sake of true love.” Jack made a face. “Couldn’t you have held out a little longer?”

  “I have not succumbed.”

  “You have, if you’re ready to abandon the search.”

  Faced with Jack’s obvious disgust—and Daniel’s cockamamie opinions on the subject of his susceptibility to the matchmaker—Marcus knew he wouldn’t be able to give up the search yet. No matter that he thought Molly could not be the meddler they sought. He refused to give the other men in town the satisfaction of believing Marcus Copeland was a quitter.

  Or worse, a lovesick fool.

  Marcus pounded back the remainder of his whiskey in one swallow. “I’ll find her,” he grumbled. “Don’t think twice about that.”

  “You might want to see this, then.” Looking to the sides as though searching out eavesdroppers, Jack slipped something from his vest. “I found it in Grace’s skirt pocket.”

  Eyebrows raised, Marcus examined the piece of paper Jack handed over. “What were you doing rifling through the lady’s skirts?”

  “Not what you think. And I nearly earned a black eye in the process. Ah, hell. Just read the damned thing.”

  Marcus did. He could scarce believe what he read. “This sounds like one of the matchmaker’s personal advertisements.”

  “Written in the matchmaker’s own hand, too, I’d say,” Jack pointed out. “If we can match up this writing, we’ll have her.”

  They shared an eager glance. Finally, a breakthrough!

  Marcus turned over the scrap of paper. On the back side was scribed the name of Adam Crabtree’s newspaper, the Pioneer Press. “What was Grace doing with this? Is she the courier? Or the matchmaker herself?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack confessed. “I’ve never seen her handwriting. And who can keep up with her, to ken exactly where she goes in a day? But it’s the best clue we’ve had so far.”

  Marcus examined it, the better to imprint the memory of that distinctive curved script in his mind. If he saw it again—say, in Molly’s bakeshop ledgers—he intended to recognize it.

  “Keep that safe,” he instructed Jack. The saloon keeper folded the matchmaker’s note and tucked it inside his vest again. “We’ll need it for proof, when we uncover the matchmaker once and for all.”

  Molly strolled alongside Sarah in the Morrow Creek mercantile, watching as her sister fingered fabrics, then oohed and aahed over tin soldiers. She stopped at the row of jarred candies. They both waited for the owner, Jedediah Hofer, to finish with another customer.

  “Candy, Sarah?” Molly asked, eyebrows raised. “I have to say, I’d like not to feel offended by this, but with my bakeshop only steps away, waiting to assuage your sweet tooth—”

  “It’s not for me.” A secret smile lit Sarah’s face. She instantly stifled it and assumed a blithe demeanor instead, raising her chin. “It’s for Daniel’s nephew.”

  Molly gawped. “You mean his illegitimate son? Sarah, how could you?”

  Her sister gave a pish-posh. “Those ugly rumors aren’t true. They’re simply the meanderings of small minds and underutilized intellects.”

  “Oh, Sarah. You’re usually so sensible, but this—”

  “Is sensible as well. The boy needs a little kindness.”

  “Then let his ‘uncle’ be the one to give it,” Molly urged in a hoarse whisper, leaning close to keep their conversation private. She touched her sister’s sleeve, worried for Sarah’s well-being. “You’re being far too thoughtful. Are always far too thoughtful. Daniel will take advantage of you.”

  “Nonsense. You sound as hard-hearted as Grace.”

  For once, Molly didn’t mind being compared with her straitlaced older sister. If it kept soft-as-goose-down Sarah safe and happy, then she would be as hard-hearted as necessary.

  Another thought occurred to her. “This is why you’ve been examining playthings today!” she said, remembering the tin soldiers. “Have you already bought some of them as gifts for this boy?”

  Sarah flushed guiltily. “He hadn’t many when he arrived on the train…” she began, her voice quiet with sympathy.

  Molly wanted to shake her. Her own weakness might be a tendency toward flights of fancy, but Sarah’s was a propensity for performing unreasonable acts of kindness, sometimes to her own detriment. In the hands of a rogue like the burly blacksmith, who knew what she might be persuaded to do?

  Before Molly could begin to find out, the shopkeeper arrived. Sarah turned her back to her sister—not without a small measure of relief, Molly thought. After purchasing several pieces of striped hard candy, Sarah carried her sack of sweets to the street.

  Molly pursued her. “Don’t let Daniel McCabe do this to you!” she implored. “I know he has a reputation for being charming, but to ask you to take care of this boy is—”

  “I am managing this perfectly well, Molly.”

  “But—”

  “Enough.”

  “Sarah—”

  Her sister stopped on the boardwalk, paying no mind to the townsfolk strolling alongside her and the wagons and riders passing on the street. Molly nearly collided with her.

  “I am your older sister!” Sarah folded her arms, crumpling her paper sack. Her heated gaze could have melted the goodies then and there, had she directed it toward them. “Have you no respect for my judgment at all?”

  Taken
aback, Molly blinked. Good-natured Sarah never gave in to outbursts like this. What had possessed her, that she would now?

  “Of—of course I respect you,” Molly said. She reached out to uncrumple the candy sack—a peace offering, of sorts. “In fact, that’s why I sought you out today. I need some advice.”

  “Well, you shouldn’t have come to me for it, now should you? I might not have enough backbone to voice my own opinion.”

  “Sarah, I’m sorry. Truly. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  Suspiciously her sister examined her. Then she relented. “Very well. You’re forgiven. What is your dilemma?”

  “It’s Marcus.” Molly blew out a gusty sigh as they began strolling again. She shook her head, remembering the moment she’d opened his pantry door to discover the foodstuffs inside. She worried about him. “He has a secret. Something that deeply bothers him. Yet he won’t tell me what it is so I can help him with it.”

  “Perhaps it’s something you can’t help him with.”

  “Of course I could help him! If only I knew what it was.”

  Sarah shrugged. “When I need to uncover a secret in my schoolroom, I practice repetition. Gentle inquiries, made again and again, tend to unravel even the most tightly held secrets.”

  “Truly?”

  “Distraction can be useful, too. If I induce my students to sing a lesson, for instance, they’re sometimes unaware that they’re also learning.”

  “Let me guess. They’re too engrossed in singing as loudly as possible?”

  “The boys are,” Sarah agreed. “The girls are quieter. Also, the promise of a reward helps. My students will do almost anything for a sweet, a scrap of ribbon, the privilege of sitting near the woodstove.”

  “But they’re children,” Molly protested. “Marcus is a man.”

  “In my experience, men are simply larger boys.”

  “Hmm. Interesting notion.”

  Molly considered what Sarah had advised. Certainly she could keep after Marcus for the answer she sought—she’d intended to do that anyway. Distracting him was possible, and might even prove entertaining. She could probably devise some sort of reward, as well.

  Perhaps…a kiss? That would reward her, also.