But he couldn’t see his way to spending the night at the Coop. It would be just his luck somebody would need him and townsfolk having to knock on the door of a whorehouse to find the sheriff didn’t sit right with him.
She wasn’t content coming to his bed anymore and he couldn’t stay in hers. But he’d be damned if he could bear the thought of giving her up.
He stomped his feet down into his boots and set his hat on his head. “Why don’t you let Fiona run this place so you can marry me, sweetheart?”
Rebecca stretched, her breasts popping out from under the sheet to make him reconsider his state of dress. “I’m happy right now, Adam. I’m enjoying discovering myself. And discovering you.”
“How long do you think this discovering is going to take?” There was a little more edge to his voice than he’d intended, but, damnation, he was tired of this. “Or do you intend to play dress-up in your aunt’s whore clothes forever?”
“Don’t you dare take that bullying, patronizing tone with me. For the first time in my life, I’m enjoying myself. I like who I am.”
“That’s just fine,” Adam barked, sliding his hand into his pocket. Frustration and disappointment made his chest ache, and he lost his grip on his temper. “If you’re so goddamned happy playing at being a whore, I reckon it’s time I treat you like one.”
He tossed a few coins onto her sheet-covered stomach and walked out.
Before her mother died, the Hamilton family had made many trips to the ocean, visiting with friends in Marblehead. Becky’s favorite days had been dark and stormy, when the steel gray ocean battered the rocky shoreline.
The emotions came now like those angry waves, washing over her, battering her, trying to pull her under. Confusion. Humiliation. Pain. Sorrow. Then a wave of unholy rage broke over her and Becky snatched up the coins with one hand and threw back the sheet with the other.
She paused long enough to pull on a robe before storming down the hall, through the parlor and out the front door.
People stopped to stare at her marching down the sidewalk in her robe and bare feet, but she didn’t care. The more people staring, the better, as far as she was concerned. “Sheriff Caldwell!”
Adam stopped, and when he turned his expression was as foreboding as she’d ever seen. Even the stormiest horizon paled in comparison. He said nothing, but rather just glared at her.
“Since it took you such a short time,” she said in a loud, carrying voice, “it doesn’t seem fair to take your money.”
Becky tossed the coins into the dirt at his feet and walked away to the tune of female gasps and male laughter.
Once back inside the Coop, where the chickens and one half-dressed cowboy had gathered, she closed the door with a satisfying slam.
“That man is no longer welcome in this establishment.” Or in her bed. Or even in her heart, although she knew it would be much harder to bar her heart against him than the door of the Coop.
Chapter Eleven
Marguerite poured their coffees, then smiled at Adam. “It will only take a minute or so for your eggs. I’ll still have to charge you for them, though.”
She was laughing when she walked away, and Will—the no-good bastard—joined right in. Adam gave him a black look and sipped his coffee, burning his lip.
“People didn’t talk to me like that before that woman took to making a fool out of me every chance she gets.”
“Marguerite ain’t never been afraid of you because she knows if you shoot her, you’ll have to cook your own eggs. And Eliza Jane told me what you did to make Becky act like that. To be honest, I almost didn’t come for breakfast this morning.”
Though the words were said in Will’s normal easy manner, shame had Adam staring down into his mug. “I regretted it the very second I did it. But I don’t believe I’ve ever given an apology in my life that I recall, so I was working on what the best words would be when she threw that money at me and told the whole town…what she said.”
“You just tell her you’re sorry, you’re a jackass and you’ll never do it again. Then you sweep the floor or help with the cooking.”
“Ain’t no sense in it. I want to marry her and she’ll have none of it.”
“That’s what Eliza Jane said, too, but she’s at home right now kneading dough for my bread. God help me.”
Marguerite appeared with their breakfasts. “Now you take your time and savor this, Sheriff. Make sure you get your money’s worth because I’m not as generous as that sweet Miss Becky.”
It was enough to spoil a man’s appetite. Almost.
“You should pick her some flowers,” Will said around a mouthful of eggs. The man used to have better manners, but, since he’d started subsisting on Eliza Jane’s cooking, he tended to light into anything Marguerite served him like a starving coyote.
Adam snorted. “The only place I can pick a decent flower is from the Coop’s pots. I reckon Rebecca wouldn’t see the sense in having her own flowers picked just so they can die inside.”
“It ain’t about sense or reason, it’s about what’s in a woman’s head.”
Marguerite smacked Will upside the head with a menu as she happened to pass by, and it was Adam’s turn to laugh.
The mirth was short-lived, however, when Billy Seymour, the newspaper man’s son, burst into the restaurant, yelling for the sheriff.
Adam stood so the boy could see him. “What’s the hollerin’ for?”
“The bank’s being robbed!”
That brightened his mood considerably. Shooting was good for whatever ailed a man, and it had been too long since somebody had caused a ruckus in Gardiner.
“It’s Elmer Carson,” the boy told him. “He’s robbing the bank and he has him a rifle and some hostages!”
“Aw, shit. You sure about that, son? I wasn’t aware Elmer Carson even knew how to load a gun, never mind rob a bank.”
“It’s him all right, Sheriff. People seen him going in with the rifle and then Melinda Barnes came out with little Johnny. He let her go on account of the baby and all. She said he’s all riled up and waving that gun around, demanding Mr. Barnes give him all the money.”
Adam headed for the door and heard Will call out to Marguerite they’d be back to pay before falling into step behind him. They were almost to the bank when Dahlia Carson, Elmer’s wife, broke free from a gaggle of women and started running toward them.
Tears were streaming down her face and when she reached Adam, she threw up her hands and hit him in the chest. “Don’t you shoot him! Don’t shoot my Elmer, Sheriff!”
He took her by the elbows, lifted her and set her down in Will’s path. The doctor had to wrap his arms around her to keep her from following Adam, and her terrified shrieks followed him to the bank. “Don’t shoot him! Please, for the love of God, don’t shoot my husband!”
Adam drew his gun, kicked open the bank door and stepped into chaos—mostly sobbing. Elmer Carson jumped like a jackrabbit and started to aim the rifle in Adam’s direction.
He sighted in on the man’s sweat-soaked forehead. “What the hell are you doing, Elmer?”
“Robbin’ the bank.”
“I can see that. I guess the better question is why are you doing what you’re doing?”
Elmer’s face was beet red and the end of the rifle was twitching every which way. “I need the money, Sheriff.”
Adam pushed his hat back with the hand not holding a gun on Elmer. “I ain’t gonna stand here all day making small talk with a bank robber. You either tell me what got into your head today or I’ll shoot you and be done with it. And point that gun at the floor before you accidentally shoot somebody.”
“I’ll shoot somebody a’purpose iffen Barnes don’t fill that sack with money right quick,” Carson said with a dose of bravado he must have been saving up.
“How long you lived in Gardiner?”
“Nigh on two years, I reckon.”
“You reckon that’s long enough to know whether or not I’m suscep
tible to threats from gun-toting idiots?”
Carson pointed the rifle at the floor. “I need the money to get Dahlia home. She hates it here something fierce and if I don’t get us back to Alabama where her family is, she’s going to leave me. Barnes wouldn’t give me a loan.”
Brent Barnes, whose face was as white as fresh milk, cleared his throat and shook his head. “No bank’s going to loan money to a man who owns nothing and is set on leaving town.”
Adam had to agree on that point. “Stage don’t come for a few days yet and you don’t own a horse, Elmer. What were you planning to do after you walked out of here with a bag of the bank’s money?”
Carson wiped his sleeve across his forehead and gave a mournful sigh. “I don’t know, Sheriff. Dahlia, she’s been a misery the past few days, talking about how she’s gonna run off and find another man who can get her back home.”
“Your Dahlia tried to stop me in the street and she seemed mighty concerned for your welfare.”
That seemed to cheer Elmer up considerably. “Really?”
“That’s right. So give me that gun and then go on home and talk to your wife. If y’all need to get home to Alabama, you come talk to me and we’ll figure out a way to get that money without anybody getting shot.” When the man was stupid enough to hesitate, Adam shook his head. “You ain’t robbin’ this bank today, Elmer. You want to go home to Dahlia or you want me to lock you up?”
He sighed and handed over the rifle before turning to the banker. “I apologize, Mr. Barnes. I just didn’t know what else to do. When you got yourself a sweet, purty wife a man’ll do just about anything to keep her happy, I guess. Not that you’d know about that, I reckon.”
Adam was laughing when he followed the foiled bank robber out into the street.
Becky had been watching through a gap in the thick curtains when Adam kicked his way into the Gardiner Bank. Holly had run in from the Mercantile just a moment before, screeching about a man with a rifle holding up the bank and, watching the sheriff, Becky had felt fear like she hadn’t even known existed.
Of course it wasn’t long before they found out the bank robber was only Elmer Carlson, but that hadn’t helped ease the knot in her stomach any. As nervous as that man was, he could easily have fired the gun accidentally and with Adam always charging into any situation like a bull…
Well, it just didn’t bear thinking about. As angry and hurt as she was, Becky didn’t think she could survive his being injured. Or worse.
She hadn’t left the Coop since making an ass of herself and Adam in front of God knew how many people, and she’d paced just about every inch of the place. A way to bridge the seemingly uncrossable rift between them had yet to occur to her, however, no matter how many different ways she looked at it.
“I just feel different about you.”
When he’d said those words before making love to her for the first time, she’d wanted to ask him what he meant, to understand what different meant to him. At the time he’d managed to distract her quite thoroughly, but the question had stayed with her since that night.
And she suspected that his feeling differently about her was what led up to their horrible falling out. He wasn’t a man who compromised and if he really cared for her, her life at the Coop—her reinvention as Miss Becky—would be completely untenable to him. It was frustration that made him lash out at her in such a crude manner.
Forgiveness and reconciliation might have followed, but for her humiliating him in front of witnesses. Not only had she attacked his manlihood, but by now everybody in Gardiner thought Miss Becky was, in fact, whoring and that Sheriff Caldwell was paying for her services—or was until she refunded his money.
She really should have thought that snit through a little better before acting on it.
“You feeling all right, Miss Becky?”
She looked up from the mending she had totally botched to find Holly hovering over her. Rather than smooth over the woman’s concern with false cheer, Becky only shrugged and starting picking out the ruined stitches.
Holly sat next to her on the sofa, curling her feet under herself like a girl. “We’ll be okay if you leave us, you know.”
Becky dropped the mending in her lap to give Holly her full attention. Usually Fiona talked for her, so whatever she had to say must be important. “What do you mean?”
“We love you a lot, Miss Becky. Even as much as we loved Miss Adele, but some people ain’t cut out for this life and you’re pretty much one of them. I just wanted to say we’ll get by just fine if you want to go and marry the sheriff.”
Tears prickled her eyes, but Becky forced a smile. “You ladies aren’t standing between the sheriff and me, Holly. And my living my life the way I am isn’t about trying to be my aunt. I know that, as long she had some help with the numbers, Fiona would run this place just fine, and that’s not why Adam and I have…parted company.”
“But you want to marry him, don’t you?”
“I want to marry him on my terms and he wants to marry me on his terms. There’s no way for both of us to be happy.” No matter how much she wanted it.
“Miss Becky!” Fiona shouted from the back door off the kitchen. “There’s a no-good, badge-wearin’, gun-totin’, rotten son of a bitch here to see you!”
Adam. Becky stood, the mending falling forgotten to the floor. She took a deep breath to steady nerves that were about shot even before he showed up at the door.
She made her way to the kitchen to find Fiona still in the open doorway, her body language making it very clear Adam Caldwell wasn’t welcome to walk through the door.
“Thank you, Fiona,” Becky said in a surprisingly steady voice.
Fiona left the kitchen, casting several black looks over her shoulder as she went, and Becky figured Holly had already run upstairs for Betty and all three would have their ears pressed to the swinging door into the kitchen.
But she put them out of her mind and stood in front of Adam, trying not to be hopeful and failing miserably.
The tension was almost palpable, like shimmering heat waves on the horizon, and he was twisting his hat in his hands. He looked grim and Rebecca wondered if he’d only come to deliver bad news.
“I’m sorry,” he finally said, practically spitting the words out. He looked for a moment like he had more to say, but then he just took a breath. “That’s it, I reckon. I’m sorry.”
He turned to go, but Becky reached out and touched his arm, so he stopped. “Would you like to come in? I…I’ve missed you.”
“There’s nothing I’d like more, Rebecca. Nothing I want more than to talk to you and hold you and make love to you again.”
The chill started at her toes and worked its way up. His words were words she desperately wanted to hear, but his tone dashed her hopes.
“But,” he continued, “I don’t reckon I see any point in dragging this on anymore.”
“Adam, please don’t—”
“I’m not a tolerant man, sweetheart. And while I reckon any man who takes a wife has to learn to accept certain things, I couldn’t abide my wife looking like an invitation for any man with a dollar in his pocket to have a good time.
“And if we keep carryin’ on this way, it’s only a matter of time before we make a baby and there ain’t no way in hell any child of mine will be born a whorehouse bastard.”
She wondered if he could hear her heart shattering. “I’m not the girl who stepped off that stagecoach anymore. I can’t be her again. I don’t want to be her again. But—”
“Then I reckon I’ll be about my business.” He stuck his hat on his head and tipped the brim. “You have a good day, Miss Hamilton.”
Becky slammed the door in his face just so he couldn’t see her cry.
“Word is you’re in a sour mood.”
Adam turned and gave Will a mean look as he pulled up a stool beside him. “I am, and I don’t reckon your company’s gonna improve it any.”
“I’m hurt.”
&nbs
p; “Not as much as you’re gonna be if Eliza Jane sent you here to reason with me.”
“Hell, one thing my wife’s never mistaken you for is a reasonable sort.”
Adam snorted and looked down into his glass. It was empty. Again. A person would think that, in the two weeks since what everybody called the spectacle had passed, the barkeep would have learned to pour a little faster.
“Since you hold your liquor like a debutante,” he said to Will, “what brings you in here?”
“I’m hiding from Eliza Jane.”
“If she hears you’re in here, the fact it’s a saloon won’t keep her out. Didn’t last time.”
“True.” Will accepted a glass of water from the barkeep with a grateful smile. “But she’s not hunting me, so to speak. I’m just trying to stay out of her path. And Lucy’s. And Fiona’s. And, hell, the path of every woman in Gardiner with an opinion on Becky.”
He’d sell his soul for one day to pass without a mention of Rebecca Hamilton. “Ain’t never met a woman who didn’t hold some kind of opinion on every single damn thing.”
“So you see why I’m hiding.”
“What I don’t see is why today’s any different from any other day.” The way Will was rolling his glass between his palms was a sign he had something weighing on him. The doctor wasn’t much of a fiddler, as a rule.
“Lucy Barnes is organizing the Bible Brigade. Rumor is they’re going to gather outside the Chicken Coop at dusk and sing hymns.”
Adam thought about pounding his head against the bar until he fell unconscious, but with the doctor standing by with a reviving glass of water, it’d be a fruitless endeavor. “And you’re hiding from Eliza Jane because…”
“Ain’t nothing a women’s libber likes more than rallying a crowd for a cause, my friend.”
“So you’re telling me come dusk the singing Bible Brigade and Eliza Jane’s army are going to come up against each other on the steps of the whorehouse.”
Will blew out a long breath. “Looks that way.”
Becoming Miss Becky Page 10