“Yes, I’m going home to St. Louis for two months.”
“What will they do with the schoolhouse?”
“Tyler said he’ll see it’s kept up.”
Tyler? Oh, my, could she be right? “I wonder,” Madolyn began, “I mean, don’t think I’m after your job, because I’m not; I’ll be back in Boston before you return in the fall, but do you suppose I could use the building while I’m here.”
“To hold our meetings in?”
“To hold school in. Your students could attend, too. It’s just that…well, I’m concerned about my brother’s children. They need schooling. I thought perhaps if I could get them started before I leave, they would continue when the new term begins in the fall.”
“That’s an excellent idea, Maddie. All the children would benefit. There’s never enough time to teach everything I’d like. We’ll talk to Tyler about it.”
“You talk to him, would you?”
Loretta gave her a sideways grin. “Is it true, what I heard?”
“What did you hear?” Madolyn asked, wary.
“That you went riding with him…up to Lovers’ Leap.”
Lovers’ Leap? Lord in heaven! Her face must positively glow! “We rode somewhere,” she admitted. “Mr. Grant is determined to keep us from reuniting the town. He took me up on the hillside so I could see how beautiful the town is at sunset. As if that were the problem!”
Loretta grinned again, unfooled, Madolyn feared. “And to work his wiles on you?” the schoolmarm quizzed.
What do you know about his wiles? Madolyn wanted to know. She tried to steady her voice. “Whatever his intention, Loretta, it didn’t work. I remain steadfastly determined to right the wrong wrought by my brother and his partner.”
Stopping by the Buckhorn News office, Madolyn gave Inez Bradford the article written by Miss Abigail. She watched Ines’s thin cheeks take on a rosy hue at sight of her. Inez avoided meeting Madolyn’s eye; nor did she mention the meeting. If she regretted bringing her husband, so much the better. Maybe next time she would show more backbone.
Price Donnell met Madolyn on her way out. He didn’t try to hide his disappointment that she hadn’t written the article herself.
“Miss Abigail is a far better spokeswoman than I,” she assured him.
“Folks here don’t know her,” Donnell argued. “They want to read things about folks they know. After the meeting yesterday, your by-line on a front-page article would double my readership.”
She was tempted to retort that improving his business wasn’t the object, except in the long run. “Be that as it may, sir, I simply cannot find time today. Perhaps later in the campaign.”
He stroked one side of his blond mustache. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Indeed. And lest you think me remiss, I should thank you for recommending me to Goldie.”
Donnell’s hand stopped on his mustache. His pale face took on a telltale blush. “Recommending you to Goldie for what?”
“Oh, uh…I certainly didn’t mean…Goldie said you mentioned my suffrage work. That’s how I got involved in Buckhorn’s crisis. Goldie asked me.”
“You blamin’ me?”
“On the contrary, sir. I thanked you. Since it was my brother who wrought the town’s ills, I shall consider it my privilege to help these good people restore unity.”
Donnell laughed. “After yesterday you should realize that all these good people don’t want unity, Miss Sinclair. You’re facin’ an uphill battle, at best.”
“I am well aware of that, sir. And I am prepared. If I may say so without sounding presumptuous, sexual battles are my forte.” Again, she saw she had taken Price Donnell off guard.
“Being a man of letters yourself,” she retorted, “you are certain to take my meaning without further elucidation.”
The editor’s mouth dropped open, but his response was lost in the whistle of the train. “Oh, my, I must be on my way. Miss James will bring the children around to fold papers. Have you spoken to Mr. Rolly and Mr. Cryer about distributing them?”
Donnell nodded. “Can’t say they’re excited about it.”
“Why ever not?”
“Reuniting the town will put them out of work. They make their living shuttlin’ news back and forth across the tracks.”
“With their advanced years, sir, they surely enjoyed occupations before the town was divided. They can go back to them. Whatever they were.”
“Their occupations, if you want to call them that, were sitting in front of the saloons begging for handouts.”
Another blast of the train whistle rent the air, squelching thoughts of beggars or pessimistic newspapermen, or towns that needed reuniting. Excitement grew inside Madolyn, excitement chased by a strange sort of emptiness.
Taking her leave, she fairly skipped along the dusty road to the tune of screeching wheels and a tooting whistle. Her parasol bobbled in her haste. By the time she reached the depot, several large boxes had already been stacked on the platform. She headed for them, eager to see whether they were addressed to her.
“You’re up early, jefe. Expectin’ the train today?”
“More like wishin’ for it.” Tyler gripped the tin cup in both hands. With one boot propped on the rail fence, he stared into the railroad trap at his cattle. Or, he would be staring at cattle in another thirty minutes or so, after the sun topped the far hill. Right now about all he saw were silhouettes of cattle and trees and scrub oak. He sipped the hot coffee, pensive.
“Heard you took that little señorita up to Lovers’ Leap last night.”
It was Sánchez asking the questions. Raúl Ybarra, Tyler’s tophand, minded his own business. Sánchez, however, liked nothing better than to rib Tyler about everything from Morley Sinclair to Rurales to women, women being his favorite topic.
“What you heard and what happened are two different horses,” Tyler retorted. At Sánchez’s knowing grin, he added, “What happened up there is for me to know and you to ponder, amigo.”
“Sounds like you’ve been doin’ some ponderin’, yourself,” Sánchez bantered.
“You might say so.” Sometime during the sleepless night, the puzzlement Tyler had been pondering became crystal clear.
Once his fervor cooled down, his instinct kicked in, and by the time Goldie’s bantam rooster began to crow, he had come to the disturbing conclusion that Goldie hadn’t done him such a service, after all. Very likely she’d had something up her sleeve besides a freckled arm when she undertook to counsel Maddie in the fine art of courtship.
It smacked of a matchmakin’ scheme of the first order. He saw that now. He had been caught off guard, he had argued into his pillow. He’d been hoodwinked by Maddie’s surprising reaction—hell, her passionate reception of his overtures. And by her candor.
He had never known a woman so free to speak her mind, regardless that speaking her mind often meant going against conventional wisdom, as well as exposing her own ignorance. There wasn’t a cunning bone in the lady’s body, he would bet the ranch on that—if he had a ranch to bet.
He was certain she didn’t recognize Goldie’s matchmaking scheme for what it was. If she had, being the staunch spinster she claimed, she would have rejected the advice out of hand. He had no reason to doubt her. Maddie Sinclair was a confirmed suffragette and spinster.
But so sweet and innocent a spinster he had never expected to cross his trail. Her tough exterior hid a lack of sophistication in matters of the heart, but that’s what she was—unsophisticated, naive to the dangers of love. Beneath the armor, Miss Madolyn Sinclair was about as innocent as a babe and therein lay Tyler’s quandary.
Maddie might profess to being committed to a lifetime of spinsterhood, but she obviously knew little about the ways of the human heart. More often than not in matters of the heart, the brain and all its best intentions were just so much gyp water.
Fortunately for him, Tyler had identified the danger in time to evade the noose—if he pla
yed his cards right. And he certainly intended to play his cards right. He had vowed never to find himself harnessed double again, and he intended to see that vow fulfilled. Regardless of the challenge.
But what a challenge! He knew the dangers inherent in Morley Damn-his-hide’s sister’s new favorite pastime, even if she did not. He liked to kiss and cuddle as much as she did, but he surely didn’t have a hankerin’ for the commitment ladies expected to accompany such pleasurable activities.
By the time the rooster crowed, Tyler was fit to be tied. He had tossed and turned the night away and with the approaching dawn had still not resolved himself to being caught by the tempting female sleeping soundly across the hall. No matter how sweet her lips, how soft her skin, how inviting her body, he had no choice but to keep his distance. Beginning now.
He had dressed in haste, escaped down the outside staircase, and rounded the back of the building, where he ran smack-dab into Lucky returning from the privy out back.
“Where you sneakin’ off to in such a hurry, Mr. Tyler?”
“Work,” Tyler mumbled. “Gotta see to my cattle.”
“Cattle, my foot. You runnin’ out on that pretty little girl upstairs?”
Tyler shuddered even now, imagining the conversations that must have taken place on the bottom two floors of the House of Negotiable Love, after Annie found Maddie in his arms.
By damn! Her reputation would be ruined. In an effort to nip trouble in the bud, he had eyed Lucky with a grave expression. “There is no pretty little girl sleepin’ upstairs, Lucky. Maddie Sinclair is an avowed spinster, and you know it. Nothin’ happened between us last night. Listen to me carefully—nothin’ happened.”
“If you say so, Mr. Tyler.”
“I say so, and furthermore, I expect you to tell Goldie and every one of her girls exactly that—nothin’ happened between Maddie and me.”
“No need to get so het up. I hear you.”
“Good.” Tyler had relaxed. He liked Lucky; he hated being harsh with her. But, like Maddie said when she ordered him to make up with Morley, it was for a good cause. This time that good cause was Maddie’s reputation.
“See you later, Lucky.” He took off across the yard, only to have her call after him.
“I hear you, but ain’t sayin’ I believe a word of it.”
The train whistle pierced Tyler’s troubled daydreams. A thrill raced through him. The train had arrived, the answer to his prayers. Now he could get out of town—and get her off his mind.
“Find Raúl and start headin’ those critters toward the loadin’ chutes,” he told Sánchez. “I’ll run tell the station master we have cattle to load.”
By the time he reached the depot a triumphant sense of relief had begun to replace the trapped feeling he had awakened with. He had escaped the noose! Now all he had to do was stay out of town until she headed back to Boston.
Then he reached the depot, and his boots skidded to a halt. He gaped, his gut gripped by a terrifying sense, which he at first—erroneously, as it turned out—took to be disappointment that his little scheme hadn’t worked.
For there she stood. Maddie. On the platform, before a passenger car, her parasol wobbling drunkenly, surrounded by a stack of parcels. A stack of—
His heart leaped to his throat. By damn! The woman he had sought to escape was escaping him!
Eleven
“Where the hell do you think you’re goin’?”
Startled by Tyler’s harsh shout, Madolyn watched him stomp across the platform. He was dressed for work, in chaps, vest, and chambray shirt, but his bandanna was tied around his neck instead of over his face like the day before when he’d driven a herd of cattle through the streets of town. His bare face revealed a stubbled, unshaven jaw. For a moment she stood mesmerized; he was somehow even more appealing than all starched and polished.
Or did she mean more threatening? His presence filled the small platform; memories suffused her.
“Where’re you headed?” he demanded again.
Around them people ceased work. Silence fell, as those gathered stopped to listen. Madolyn’s ire rose. He had made a spectacle of her at this depot once; she had no intention of allowing him to do so a second time. Her neck bowed, she stiffened her spine and looked him directly in the eye. Triumph exhilarated her. Triumph, for she hadn’t been at all sure she could ever look him in the eye again without reverting to being that simpering, submissive woman she had been the night before.
“My intentions, sir, are none of your business.”
“Sir?” He shoved his hat back off his brow. His eyes rolled in their sockets. “Damned, if you’re not the most infuriatin’ woman I’ve ever run across in all my born days.”
But when he pierced her with those brown eyes again, they were not the eyes of an enraged man. He was angry, yes, but it was a different sort of anger than she had seen displayed at home, where her father became enraged over her mother’s slightest infraction of his many self-serving rules. Tyler sounded almost as if he were the one affronted.
“I’m going out to my brother’s,” she explained.
His expression changed from perturbed to confused. “To Morley’s?”
He frowned at the boxes, then lifted solemn eyes, perusing her from head to foot. “I thought…” His words drifted off. He glanced to the left, stared at the passenger car as though it were a dragon he might have been called upon to slay in defense of a maiden in distress.
A maiden in distress? Madolyn was certainly distressed, although at the moment he was the one who looked it. “You thought I was returning to Boston?” Her assessment was right, she saw that, for it stunned him; the way his reaction had stunned her. He didn’t want her to leave. Joy swept through her. Joy, followed by confusion, followed by discomfiture.
“You’re out of luck, Mr. Grant. I have no intention of abandoning my task here.”
As though viewing the sunrise, she watched his composure return. Humor danced in his eyes and played around the corners of his mouth.
“You’re still bent on destroyin’ my town, huh?”
“I’m not bent on destroying anything.” She tore her gaze from his grinning, knowing scrutiny. “Freeing women to take responsibility for their own lives only creates better citizens.”
Tyler glanced at the packages at her feet. “All those—they aren’t your…” Again his gaze roamed, this time in the direction of the house. “What are all these packages?”
“Weapons, Mr. Grant.”
She could tell that her calling him “Mr. Grant” needled him. Indeed, it sounded a little stilted to her own ears, after the intimacies they had shared. But that was precisely the reason she must adhere to polite conventions. She must not, would not, allow herself to lose control again.
“Weapons?” His tone warned her he had regained full fighting faculties. “What the hell kind of weapons?”
“I’ll thank you not to swear at me in public, Mr. Grant.”
“And I’ll thank you not to test my patience, Miss Sinclair.”
She smiled, delightfully accepting her victory. Something told her this was only the first round, however.
“As to the packages, they contain various and sundry things that we have a shortage of out here.” She tapped a box with her parasol. “Store tea and a few other luxuries for Goldie and the girls.”
His eyebrows raised a couple of notches.
She tapped a second box. “Literature for our fight to save this town.”
“Fight to— Now hold on a cockeyed minute—”
Madolyn tapped a third box, a fourth, and a fifth. “These should hold schoolbooks, piece goods,”—she glanced off before continuing—“unmentionables…” Favoring him with a satisfied grin, she finished, “and boots.”
“Boots?” Light dawned in his eyes. “For the boys?”
“And shoes for the girls. I ordered sturdy lace-ups, brown, so they won’t require so much upkeep. I had so wanted them to have patent leather.” She shrugged. “Per
haps next time.”
“Next time? Hell, Maddie, you’re not exactly…I mean, not to bring up such a personal subject as money, but you came to town penniless.”
Madolyn felt her cheeks burn. “Perhaps I did. But there are other ways to skin a cat, Mr. Grant.”
“To skin a cat?”
“So to speak.”
“Exactly how’re you plannin’ to pay for this stuff?”
She started to tell him that, like the rest of her plans, that was none of his business, but she was far too proud of the idea to keep it secret. “Morley is paying for it. All of it.”
“Morley? You’ll play hell gettin’ one red cent out of that tightwad.”
“Watch me.”
“What kind of scheme are you cookin’ up now?”
She grinned. “You may have realized that Morley and Madolyn begin with the same letter of the alphabet. I signed the drafts M. Sinclair.”
“You forged a draft? On what?”
“On Morley’s bank, of course. But I forged nothing. As I explained, the letter M is my initial, too.”
“It sure as hell isn’t your bank account.” Removing his Stetson, Tyler ran a hand through his hair. She watched him stare into the distance, through the train, toward the Bank of Buckhorn. “Even if you could cross the tracks, Sam Allen wouldn’t accept your endorsement.”
“I am fully aware of the limitations of living in a divided town, sir. That is one reason I have decided to stay on. The people here need my help.”
“Like hell,” he muttered. But his gaze held hers reminding her of the day before. His voice softened. “Any other reasons?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it sharply, refusing to stammer and stutter before half the citizens of Buck. Her composure regained, she tipped her chin. “To gain my inheritance, of course.”
“Anything else?” His brown eyes bore into hers. She held her ground, difficult as it was. She would not allow this man to intimidate her. Although curiously, intimidating men usually provoked anger, rather than…
Rather than what? The situation suddenly became untenable. She felt as though she were in a stage play, where she was required to play out every encounter with the villain before the entire cast of characters. Calling forth her best imitation of the imperious Miss Abigail, she tipped her chin another notch and questioned, “What other reason could there be?”
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