by The Rascal
It was easy for them to make fun, Jack groused. They weren’t saddled with a rabble-rousing female who spent most of her days within shouting distance. He was. And the longer he stayed in the territory, the more problematic Grace became.
At the end of the bar, the cowboy rose. He tossed down a pair of coins, then tucked his hat on his head, situating it just so. His grimy fingernails told the tale of many days on the trail, as did his bedraggled, mud-splattered clothes.
“Well, I’m off to Miss Adelaide’s for a bath and a haircut. And maybe a mite more entertainment.” He chewed his plug tobacco, then aimed a stream of juice toward the spittoon. “If I can lasso me one of them dancing girls, I’ll bring her out your way, Murphy.”
His cronies shouted ribald endorsement of the idea.
The cowboy chuckled. He held up a weathered hand in goodbye, prompting Jack to offer a matching wave.
Some days, Jack considered, he missed his old life of educating and learning and philosophizing. Other days, like today, he felt satisfied merely to have a pint at his elbow, a few customers to keep a roof over his head and an afternoon without bossy Grace Crabtree nagging him about something.
He didn’t know where his aggravating upstairs neighbor was right now, it occurred to him. But he hoped it was far away. And he hoped she stayed there for a while, too.
The cowboy sauntered out, his spurs ringing on the floor. For an instant, the jangle of passing wagons and the overall bustle of town whirled in through the doorway, then subsided. The saloon settled into its usual rhythm of slapping cards, murmuring men and clinking billiards.
“Now there’s a man who’s truly free.” Jack shook his head wonderingly. “That’s what I came out west for.”
His wistful announcement fell on deaf ears.
“Well, you’re not getting it,” McCabe declared in his usual prosaic fashion. He gave a wink, then stepped away from the bar. “Not till you cope with Grace Crabtree, that is.”
“Damnation, McCabe.” Why did the man have to ruin Jack’s one moment of peaceful contemplation? “Stop yapping already.”
“He’s right.” Copeland jerked a thumb at the blacksmith, then set to work gathering up his ledgers. “Mark my words, Murphy. Never underestimate a Crabtree woman. Not unless you want to be the one who ends up hog-tied.”
Jack scoffed. “You’re both daft. I can handle Grace Crabtree. That’s all I’ve done since I got here, isn’t it?”
His friends all but split their ribs with laughing.
Jack’s frown deepened. He slapped his towel on the bar. “You two are damned know-it-alls anyway. What makes you think—”
“Handling her?” McCabe interrupted.
“Is that what you’re calling it?” Plainly out of his head with hilarity, Copeland swabbed a tear from his eye. He smacked his hand genially on the bar, then made ready to leave. “That’s a good one, Murphy. Good luck with that tactic.”
“Let us know how it turns out.” McCabe guffawed again.
“I’ve practically got her subdued!” Jack protested.
And only half exaggeratedly, too.
But his friends merely laughed louder, then strolled from the saloon with their heads bent—doubtless to share another jest at Jack’s expense. He didn’t know exactly when, it occurred to him, he’d become such a source of amusement to the men in town.
Whenever it had happened, Jack didn’t like it one bit. Although Copeland and McCabe’s teasing was all in good fun, it still smacked of his experiences in Boston—the same experiences that had made him leave for the west.
It was time to put a stop to it. Once and for all.
The next time he saw Grace Crabtree, Jack vowed, he would lay down the law in no uncertain terms. He would show her that no woman gave orders to a rough-and-ready man like himself—even a self-made rough-and-ready man like himself. Grace didn’t need to know his newly rugged persona was still progressing.
Hell, neither did anyone else.
Confidently, Jack grabbed a plug of tobacco from the stock for sale behind the bar. He stuffed it in his mouth, both hands propped manfully on the polished wood. Deliberately, he sucked the tobacco’s papery, strongly flavored mass against his cheek.
Ugh. Grimacing, Jack spat it out. The sorry truth was, he just wasn’t a tobacco-chewing man. No matter how hard he tried to cultivate the popular habit.
But he was not a quitting man either. Narrowing his eyes, Jack considered the packets of cheroots and Mexican cigarillos stocked nearby. There was more than one way to develop a manly aura, he reasoned. With enough tobacco stuffed in his pockets, he’d smell as masculine as the heartiest western roughneck.
Feeling assured, Jack rammed three cheroots in the pocket of his britches, then sauntered to the end of the bar with his big boots ringing, ready to greet his next adventure.
As far as anyone could remember, only two women had ever been confined to the Morrow Creek town jail. One was Ruby Pemberton, an angelic-looking female who’d earned notoriety by smuggling mining camp gold in her bustle. The other was Grace Crabtree. Folks claimed it was only fitting the two of them wound up locked up together one clear January afternoon, awaiting the arrival of the beleaguered sheriff.
But Grace knew better. “Fitting” had nothing to do with it. Serendipity did. Determined to make the most of her good fortune, Grace spent an enjoyable afternoon sharing exploits with Mrs. Pemberton. She emerged from her scandalous sojourn a little wiser than she’d been before—and vastly more entertained, too.
Not that her two sisters, Molly and Sarah, strictly agreed.
They launched their first salvos outside the jailhouse, while Grace was still pulling on her gloves and practical winter hat—procured through mail-order, extremely cozy and likely not the least bit stylish—in preparation for the snowy trek home.
“Honestly, Grace.” Molly, the youngest of them all, shook her head as they trooped toward Main Street. “I don’t know what gets into you sometimes. It’s as though you want to be the subject of unending gossip in town!”
“Posh.” Grace scoffed. “Mrs. Pemberton was fascinating. Do you know she would have succeeded flawlessly if only one blundering miner hadn’t pinched her during her getaway?”
Neither of her sisters seemed suitably impressed.
“Be that as it may, you ought to be more discerning,” said Sarah, the middle sister. “All of Morrow Creek is up in arms about Mrs. Pemberton’s exploits. Her notoriety is all my students—and their parents—can talk about.”
Molly nodded. “People say she’s a boldfaced thief.”
“So?” Grace marched onward, firm in her convictions. “People usually peg me for some variant of ‘uppity female,’ and I consider them heartily wrong in those opinions, too.”
Both her sisters sighed.
“You did just come from the jailhouse, Grace,” Molly said.
“A mere misunderstanding about my latest protest march,” Grace assured her sister. “Now that it’s over with, I have a great deal to accomplish. Beginning with returning this book to the practical library of the Social Equality Sisterhood.”
“Now? This minute?” Sarah eyed Grace’s suffrage text with dismay, then followed as Grace swerved in her desired direction. “We promised we’d bring you directly home.”
“Of course now. I’m the presiding officer!” Grace said. “Not to mention an inaugural member of the Sisterhood. It’s my duty to present a good example to my local chapter.”
Both her sisters exchanged knowing glances—puzzling knowing glances—as they continued toward the small library building.
“Er, speaking of the Social Equality Sisterhood—”
“And all your other clubs,” Molly said. “We think—”
“We think you might want to consider readdressing your efforts toward other activities.” Sarah bit her lip. “Soon.”
Perplexed, Grace glanced at them. “What are you talking about? Everyone is counting on me.” At her sisters’ dubious faces, Grace enume
rated the ways. “There is the Ladies’ Aid Society to think of, the Morrow Creek Bicycling Association, the Ornithology Club and my work on behalf of female suffrage. Not to mention my efforts with the women’s baseball league.”
“See?” Sarah urged. “You’re stretched too thinly.”
Grace shook her head. “Nonsense. I enjoy all of it.”
Demonstrating as much, Grace lifted her chin and tromped down the street at her typical no-nonsense pace. Thanks to her single petticoat, simple woolen skirt and tucked-in shirtwaist—all worn beneath her coat and scarf—she could move much faster than her stylishly outfitted younger sisters with all their flounces and frills and fancy Louis-heeled shoes. Her toes felt toasty warm, too—a prime benefit of the comfortable men’s shoes she’d adopted for wintertime practicality’s sake.
Molly hurried to keep up, then aimed a despairing glance at those selfsame brogans. “Perhaps if you didn’t expend all your energies on causes and clubs and rabble-rousing—”
“—you’d have a bit to spare for finding a husband.” Sarah gave Grace a pointed look. “I can testify to the truth of it myself. A love match is possible…with a little work.”
Grace snorted, offering a dismissive wave. “You two sound exactly like Mama. I don’t need a husband. I don’t want a husband. Heaven forbid I should actually search for a husband. What kind of ninny would do such a thing?”
“One who didn’t want to wind up all alone.” Molly gazed at her with utmost seriousness. “With no one but her fellow suffragists and bird-watchers for company.”
Solemnly, Sarah looked on. “We worry about you, Grace.”
With an instant denial already on her lips, Grace paused. Something in her sisters’ tone troubled her. Caught unprepared by it, she stared back. The moment stretched between them, fraught with earnestness and puffs of frigid air.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Resolutely, Grace shook off her sisters’ concern. They didn’t understand her, and that was that. “I’m fine. I like suffragists and bird watchers.”
“There is more to life than frenzied activity,” Molly said.
“There is love!” Sarah agreed, her eyes shining. “And laughter. And so, so much more. Don’t you want to—”
“No, I most certainly do not!” Grace flailed her arms impatiently as she strode onward. They’d wasted enough time on this nonsense. “Both of you, married less than a year, and already you’re proselytizing on behalf of wedded bliss. Well, I’ll have none of it. I’m a spinster, and I like it.”
“Honestly?” Molly stopped beside the shuttered mercantile, catching hold of Grace’s coat sleeve. “You truly don’t mind?”
Sarah gazed on silently, looking troubled.
For an instant—only that—Grace actually wondered if she did mind. If her sisters were right, and there were good things to be said about matrimony. If love, true love, could honestly be found with a little effort.
After all, her parents had provided all three sisters with the opportunity to wait for true love, rather than be married for expediency or social convention’s sake. Fiona and Adam Crabtree were intelligent people. Surely they would not have allowed for such an eventuality if it weren’t a feasible one.
Would they?
Well, she simply wouldn’t allow herself to wonder about that, Grace decided. So what if she participated in various activities and clubs and rallies? So what if she found comfort in reading and painting picket signs and joining her fellow association members for an invigorating bicycling outing? Those things kept her engaged. They kept her busy.
They kept her from feeling lonely.
I truly don’t mind perched on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be said. But somehow, as Grace looked at her sisters’ expectant faces, she simply could not come out with it.
“It will only take a minute to return this,” she declared instead, hoisting her book—a fine text by the renowned activist Heddy Neibermayer—in her gloved palm.
Then she hurried inside the library of the Social Equality Sisterhood…uncomfortably aware of Molly and Sarah’s skeptical gazes following her all the while.
Chapter Three
As one of only four typesetters at her father’s successful newspaper, the Pioneer Press, Grace valued punctuality. She valued accuracy and speed. She valued, more than anything else, dedication to the task at hand. Which was why it bothered her so much to arrive at her desk a day later—on time—only to find no one else in evidence at the typesetters’ office.
Grumpily, she surveyed the silent workroom.
It could not be, Grace assured herself as she shed her coat to the rack by the door, that she was still unsettled by her sisters’ questioning yesterday. After all, she had been a spinster for a long time now. She enjoyed the freedom spinsterhood afforded her. She relished the liberty to come and go and do as she pleased. She most assuredly did not want a husband.
But sometimes…
Sometimes, when catching glimpses of her newly wedded sisters’ shining faces, Grace did speculate. She did ponder her own solitary state and wonder why she hadn’t even been afforded the opportunity to refuse a man’s offer of marriage. At least then her status as an old maid would have seemed a deliberate choice—rather than a public denunciation of her womanly allure.
On the other hand, Grace decided with a brisk stride to her waiting desk, she didn’t give a fig about womanly allure. It was utter nonsense, designed to keep women tightly laced and compliant, too breathless or addle-headed to cause a fuss.
Furthermore, if she were bound to a husband, she would not be available to carry on the Crabtree family legacy—the Pioneer Press. And that was what she most wanted to do, for her father’s sake and her own.
To be sure, Grace had only begun her radical life of picketing and reading and overall rabble-rousing to impress her papa. He, more than any man she’d known, was an original freethinker of the highest quality. No doubt Adam Crabtree, at least, appreciated his daughter’s unique talents.
Even if some others in town did not.
Because of that, Grace expected to hear—any day now—that her father had appointed her to succeed him as editor of the newspaper. No one else was a more natural or fitting choice. Everyone in Morrow Creek knew her papa planned to retire soon, and although no official announcement had been forthcoming yet, Grace felt positive the outcome would favor her.
She could scarcely wait to make the Pioneer Press her own. Leading its advance toward the next century would be her crowning achievement, Grace knew, effectively silencing everyone who’d doubted her nontraditional ways.
Savoring the notion, she hooked her finger in her tray of metal type pieces to draw it nearer, then considered the various newspaper articles that awaited her. She pursed her mouth. What she needed were a suitable headline and an appropriate position below the masthead. With both items finally decided, she next set to work choosing letters to fit her composing stick, then slid each line on the waiting galley tray.
Hers was a painstaking and deliberate job, requiring precise fingers, excellent vision and a superior grasp of both grammar and showmanship. That was why Grace was proud to do it—and why she was dismayed to find herself alone in the offices fifteen minutes later. Lizzie still hadn’t arrived.
That wasn’t like Lizzie at all. Although lately…
Squinting, Grace peered through the frosted window glass. The sun had warmed the square pane just enough to allow a view of the street beyond and the timber-framed buildings that bordered it on the opposite side. Just as she’d hoped, she spied a bundled Lizzie tromping from the direction of the Lorndorff Hotel, which stood near her family’s small house.
A wintry breeze, pine fresh and invigorating, swept into the office along with Lizzie and a hearty dose of Arizona Territory sunlight. Breathing hard from exertion, she unwound her scarf as she pushed the door shut with her other hand.
“Thank goodness! I was wondering about you.”
“I’m so sorry, Grace!” Lizzie’s guilty ga
ze swerved to meet hers. “Truly, I am. I didn’t mean to be late, but I had another long night of it last night, and I overslept. It’s got to do with me and Alonzo—”
“Don’t give it a second thought.” Grace didn’t want a lengthy discourse on Lizzie’s fiancé. The two had been engaged for a mere three months, and in Grace’s opinion were making a tremendous mistake in marrying so young. “I’m nearly finished with the front page of the next edition, so if you’d like to start working on page two, that would be excellent.”
Lizzie took her place at the stool beside Grace. Then she stared forlornly at her type case, her shoulders hunched. She didn’t select a single letter.
“Lizzie? What’s the matter?”
“I’m awfully sorry.” Again, Lizzie’s pleading gaze met hers. “I’d meant to tell you this sooner, but I didn’t have the courage.” She drew in a deep breath. “The fact of the matter is…I’m quitting the Pioneer Press.”
“Quitting?” Grace gaped. “Why? You’re an excellent typesetter, one of the finest I’ve trained.”
“I know. And I do enjoy my work here ever so much.” Nervously, Lizzie sifted hand-cast type through her fingers, jumbling the contents of her wooden tray rather than meet Grace’s gaze. “But after my wedding next month—”
“Ah.” Suddenly, Grace understood. “Your wedding. Is that all that’s worrying you? Don’t trouble yourself any further.” Relieved, Grace patted Lizzie’s shoulder. “My father will allow you to keep working here. He’s very progressive.”
“I know that.” Lizzie transferred her gaze from her type tray to her fancy high-buttoned shoes, watching melting snow drip from their encrusted heels. “It’s Alonzo. He doesn’t want his wife to be employed. He says it’s not fitting, especially at your father’s, er…”
“My father’s…what?” Grace urged. “Out with it, Lizzie. Be brave. Bravery is the mark of a strong woman, you know.”
“His, um, rather radical newspaper.” Cringing, Lizzie cast her a sideways glance. “I’m sorry. Please don’t be cross with me. I know you pretend to be indifferent to marriage—”