by Deborah Camp
Willa’s expressive eyes glimmered with tears. One slipped over the edge and streaked down her green and purple cheek. Her lower lip trembled and she swallowed back a sob. Her gaze shifted from him to Lacy as another tear loosened from her lid to follow the first. She sniffed and wrote something on the tablet. Dalton craned his neck to see the message as she slanted it so that Lacy could read it, too. Want no more trubble. Dont make me. Plese.
The message pinched Lacy’s heart and she saw that it had affected Dalton, too. His mouth tightened and he rested his hand lightly on Willa’s shoulder.
“I’m asking, ma’am, not ordering. It’s okay. You rest now. I know you must be uncomfortable and I appreciate the time you’ve allowed me.” He stood, hat in hand, and smiled kindly at her. “If I can do anything for you, Miss Hollister, please let me know. I’m at your service.” Giving a quick bow, he turned away from her. Lacy moved out of the doorway, letting him pass, but she followed him out onto the landing, closing the door behind her.
“Don’t hold it against her. She’s frightened.”
“I know and I hold nothing against Miss Hollister. I’m disappointed, but I respect her decision.” He headed for the stairs.
“What happened at the Pullman Ranch?”
“I didn’t get shot or die,” he said without breaking stride. He took the stairs swiftly, making her lag behind as she fought her skirts.
“Louder wasn’t there?”
“Obviously.”
Reaching the bottom of the staircase, she hooked a hand in the crook of his arm. “Dalton, wait. Where are you going in such a rush?”
He stopped and arched his brows, waiting for her to continue.
“I haven’t seen you in town all day.”
“I’ve been scouting for Louder.” He ran his fingers along the brim of his black hat. “I don’t suppose you’d have any idea where he might hide out?”
“No, but if I were him, I’d head for the border and make myself as scarce as hen’s teeth.”
A ghost of a smile scampered across his lips. “I’ll find him. Like bad luck, he’ll turn up again. Do you know much about Leaguers?”
“The men opposing the railroad?”
He nodded.
“A little. I know that Junior is the leader of that group around here.”
“Have dinner with me tonight.”
His sudden, unexpected invitation made her head spin for a moment. “What? Where?”
“Here. In the restaurant. Is six o’clock good for you?”
“Yes.”
He presented that smile that blasted her with warmth and made her catch her breath. “I’ll see you then. Secure us a table in one of the corners. I look forward to it, Lacy.” Then he strode from her.
She stared at the empty space where he’d been for a few moments before she blinked and came back to herself. That man! He played her like a fiddle! She should be furious with herself, but a smile curved her lips as she went to her office to find the “reserved” table sign she kept there.
Chapter 6
He was already seated at the table when she entered the restaurant. Granted, she was a little tardy because of some hotel business she’d had to attend to, but it seemed as if he’d been there for more than a few minutes. An empty glass at his elbow and a bread basket that contained only one slice of bread and one biscuit told her so. He stood, looking entirely too handsome in a dark suit, gray shirt and vest, and silver and black neckerchief. He’d tamed his ebony hair, but a couple of errant curls had rebelled to fall onto his forehead. His dark gaze appraised her from the toes of her boots to the collar of her blouse. She’d taken pains with her garments, choosing a white, long-sleeved blouse with a square neckline, a wide black sash around her waist and tied in a bow at the small of her back, and a burgundy skirt. The sash accentuated her narrow waist and the cut of the neckline hinted at the fullness of her bosom without actually showing anything.
In a nervous gesture, she ran her hand up along her nape, checking for stray tendrils. She’d parted her pale blond hair in the center and then gathered it up onto the top of her head where she’d pinned it in a fashionable style. From the appreciative glint in Dalton’s eyes, she could tell that he approved.
“You take my breath away,” he murmured, moving around the table to hold out her chair.
Her blush flustered her more than his compliment. She was used to men bestowing flattery on her, so why she should feel heat rise up her neck to pool in her cheeks confounded her. Sitting at the table, she noted that she had her back to the room and wondered if that had anything to do with him wanting to keep a watchful eye on everyone.
“I hope you don’t mind me taking the chair that faces the other diners,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. “I didn’t want to compete with every other man in here trying to catch your eye.”
“Ah, I see. And you’re able to witness the admiring glances coming your way from the ladies.”
“Are there other ladies in here? I hadn’t noticed.”
She felt warm color touch her cheeks again. What in heaven’s name was wrong with her? She cleared her throat of the nerves tightening it and eyed the handwritten menu.
“What would you recommend?”
“I did peek into the kitchen earlier,” she confessed. “The beef is fresh and the vegetable soup smelled wonderful.”
Agnes shuffled to their table. “What are you having tonight, Lacy girl?”
“A bowl of the vegetable soup, if you please, and can you bring us more bread?” She nodded at the wicker basket.
Agnes snatched it up. “I’ll fill ʼer again. What are you having, Marshal, besides all the bread?”
His chuckle was as warm and as inviting as his smile. “I’ll have steak and don’t let Appolonia burn it to a crisp.”
She nodded. “Comes with skillet potatoes and creamed peas. That okay by you?”
“Perfect. Thank you, Agnes.” He looked at Lacy again. “What would you like to drink?” His hand closed around his empty glass. “I had a whiskey earlier, but I’d like a cup of coffee with my meal.”
“Make mine a cup of tea, please, Agnes.”
After Agnes shuffled away, Lacy busied herself with draping her napkin over her lap and arranging the eating utensils beside her plate. She felt Dalton’s keen regard, and when she glanced at him, she stifled a desire to run her fingers through his hair.
“How did you end up in Kansas?” she asked, desperate to waylay her ardent thoughts. “You’re from the east coast, aren’t you?”
“I was raised in New York, but my uncle has a cattle ranch near the Nebraska border. I worked on it every summer from the time I was nine until I enlisted.”
“You enjoyed working with cattle?”
“At that time in my life, yes.” A smile touched the corners of his wide mouth. “You see, I have four older brothers and five older sisters.”
She shared his smile. “You’re the baby.”
“More precisely, I was my sisters’ baby. They dressed me, they fed me, they toted me around as they would a doll. My father thought I was insufferably spoiled and insisted that I be sent to work on my mother’s brother’s ranch to toughen me up. My brothers were all much older than I was, so they’d had no influence on me.”
“And did it? Toughen you up?”
“You bet it did.” He chuckled again, the sound making her smile. “My uncle never coddled. Everyone worked from sunup to sundown. The first few weeks I complained and whined. The more I did, the more work Uncle Hank piled on me. I learned to keep my bellyaching to myself.” He folded his arms at the edge of the table and leaned closer. The flames from the overhead chandeliers shimmered in his dark eyes. “What about you? Are you the youngest in your family?”
“Yes. I also have nine siblings. Three of my brothers died in the war and one of my sisters passed from dysentery. The others live all over from Missouri to California. My mother lives with my oldest sister in St. Louis. You lost no one in the war?”
“I wasn’t that fortunate. My eldest brother, Ham, died at Vicksburg and we lost my father at Shiloh.”
“Your pa fought in the war?”
“He was a surgeon. He was administering to fallen soldiers when he was mortally wounded. Your father is gone, too?”
“He died in December of Sixty-one.”
“So you all had to manage through the war without him. We suffered the same fate, but we had family in New York to help.”
She sighed as the weight of those years visited her heart again. “It was tough going. Like most folks around here, we ended up losing everything. We held on to the farm until the end, but we had no money for taxes and our livestock was down to a couple of skinny horses and some crotchety hens. There was no way we could even put in a crop.”
“Did you sell your farm?”
“No. Someone paid the taxes and bought it out from under us.” She’d been toying with the tea spoon while she’d talked, but now she lifted her gaze to see his reaction. “The Pullmans. They bought our place.” She noted the narrowing of his eyes and the way his lovely mouth formed a straight, formidable line. “It wasn’t just us. They bought a lot of land. Thousands of acres.” She sat back in the chair, letting her shoulders slump a little under the weight of memories.
“How did he come up with the money to buy the land?”
“Marriage.” She lifted a brow at his look of surprise. “Senior married a rich lady who came over from England. Junior spent a few years working on ranches in Spain. In fact, that’s where he sent his son during the war years. Trey worked on ranches there instead of fighting here. Junior had met and married Carmella over there. She’s from a very wealthy family of cattle ranchers.”
“Do you know her well?”
“Carmella?” She shook her head. “I doubt if anyone does. She keeps to herself. I probably haven’t exchanged more than a dozen words with her.” She thought back to the few times she’d been around the woman for more than a minute. There was something about her . . . something furtive. She shrugged it off and picked up another thread of the conversation. “Anyway, my family packed up what little we had and went to live with Mama’s sister and brother-in-law in St. Louis. Aunt Sue worked in a hospital there and helped Mama get hired on. I found labor at a ladies’ clothing shop, but I hated it. I never felt at home in St. Louis.”
“So you came back here,” he stated.
“I came back to visit Uncle Otis and I wanted to see our old home place again. But there was nothing left of it. First thing Junior did was knock down our house. He boasts that a stiff wind blew it over, but it wasn’t a shack. It was nice. Papa and my oldest two brothers built it. Mama planted flowering shrubs and rose bushes all around it.” She smiled at the memories. “It had a big, old front porch and an arched doorway. It was pretty.”
“Sounds like it.” He started to say something else, but Agnes brought their drinks along with a small pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar. “Thank you, Agnes.”
She flashed her brown teeth at him. “Your food’s a coming.”
He watched her waddle away, shaking his head. “How old is she?” he asked Lacy.
“Old as Moses, I imagine,” she said, laughing a little. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-six. You’re twenty-one.”
She tipped her head to the side. “How’d you know that?”
“I asked your uncle.”
“Why did you want to know?”
“Curious.” His teasing smile told her that he was only confessing half the truth.
“Is curiosity what led you to work as a marshal?”
“I suppose.” He stirred sugar into his coffee before tasting it. “I heard about a town having all kinds of trouble keeping riffraff from robbing their stores and stealing livestock. Seemed like after the war some folks thought they had the right to pillage. It got my dander up and I decided I’d do something about it. The town was only a day’s ride from Uncle Hank’s ranch, so I went there and applied for the marshal’s job.”
“And you cleaned up the town with your fast gun,” she said, finishing for him.
“No, I cleaned up the town by setting rules and insisting that folks obey them.”
“You didn’t have to shoot anyone?”
He shook his head as one corner of his mouth kicked up. “I bet you’d be shocked to know just how many men I’ve actually drawn on.”
She sipped her tea before she said, “Five.”
“Two.” He held up two fingers. “As a marshal.”
She stared at him, her mind stumbling over that.
“And neither one of them died from their wounds,” he tacked on.
“I’m surprised. From the talk I’ve heard—.”
“People say a lot of things that aren’t true, Lacy. I’ve found that it’s best to believe what I see and hear with my own eyes and ears.”
Agnes brought their food, setting a steaming bowl of soup in front of Lacy and a juicy steak and fixings before Dalton. She plopped a full bread basket in the center of the table before heading for the kitchen again. The aroma of yeasty bread and buttery biscuits enticed Lacy. She selected a slice of the warm bread to eat with her soup, which was thick with corn kernels, green beans, peas, carrots, and pearl onions in a hearty beef stock.
Dalton sliced into the steak with relish. He placed a bite into his mouth and chewed. His gaze swung heavenward, gaining a laugh from Lacy.
“That good, is it?”
He nodded, but didn’t answer until he swallowed the morsel. “Delicious and I’m starving.”
“Good evening, Marshal,” a feminine voice drifted from behind Lacy, causing Dalton to look up and past her. He nodded, politely.
Turning slightly, Lacy confronted Caroline Filmore, the city clerk’s daughter. “Hello, Caroline. Dining with your family tonight, I see.” She spotted the Filmores sitting a few tables away.
“Yes. I just wanted to say hello.” Caroline could barely spare Lacy a glance. Her green eyes were focused on the marshal. She pushed back her shoulders to lift her small breasts higher in the bodice of her dark gold frock. “My parents would be honored if you’d sup with us one evening, Marshal Moon. Say, Friday night?”
Dalton ran a forefinger around his shirt collar. “Why, that’s nice of you, Miss Filmore. Friday night?” He furrowed his brow. “I will be engaged then. Please extend my regrets to your parents.”
“Some other night, then,” she persisted, winding a curl of her brown hair around her forefinger. “Next Monday, perhaps? Or Sunday afternoon, following church services.”
His smile was cordial, but cool. “I’ll be on duty. My deputy is still recovering from his injuries.” He looked past her and nodded to her parents. “As soon as Deputy Gentry is well again, I’ll consider your kind offer.”
She managed a coquettish pout. “I’ll tell them.” Her gaze flicked over Lacy before she whirled in a swish of ruffled petticoats and ribbon-festooned fabric to join her parents at their table.
“She’s a pretty girl,” Lacy noted, returning to her soup.
“As are you,” he said. “And, from what I’ve observed, you’re the fairest belle in these parts. The girl most bachelors are chasing.”
She considered his statement a few moments before commenting. “Only until they really get to know me, then most of them decide to court someone more . . .” She paused, searching for the most descriptive word. “Conventional,” she said, finally.
He set aside his utensils for the moment. “If not conventional, what are you?”
“Independent, I suppose. Too independent.” She latched onto his quizzical gaze, warming to the subject. “You see, for females my age, the war interrupted our normal path from child to young womanhood. When we should have been attending cotillions and socials, focused on getting our dance cards filled and finding the right man to marry, we were thrust into scratching out a living and trying to hold on from one day to the next.” She partook of more soup and a bite of bread. Since he seemed
interested, she continued. “Instead of learning how to perfect our embroidery skills, learn the latest dance steps, and excel at preparing a few dishes, we learned how to survive and do for ourselves. My female friends and cousins were only too pleased to fall back into their old lives and the expectations of society. I didn’t and I haven’t.”
“You have no wish to marry and have a family?”
“On the contrary. However, I don’t think I’ll ever be entirely happy being someone’s wife or mother. I’ll need more than that from life. Instead of a husband, I am more interested in finding a partner. Someone who owns my heart and loyalty, but not my entire being.” She tried to determine what he felt about her confession, but couldn’t. Something that was almost a smile hovered on his lips and his eyes were a soft brown in the flickering light. “Do you find this amusing or discouraging?”
He sliced another bite of steak. “I find you provocative.”
She stared hard at him, having not expected such an answer. Most men argued with her or let her know that her ideas were ridiculous and that she’d end up lonely and heartbroken. Not one of them had declared her to be provocative.
“You’re surprised by that?” he asked, deciphering her expression.
“Yes.”
He pinned her again with his obsidian eyes. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?”
“Tomorrow . . .”
“If you aren’t too busy, I thought we might go for a ride.”
“A ride?” She pressed her lips together. Why in the world was she repeating everything he said? Well, she knew why. He had her off-balance. Again.
“Yes, you said you like to take Cry Baby for a ride every few days. I thought we might go together before our work day begins.”
“You said that you were on duty all the time until Uncle Otis is up and about.”
“He’s doing much better, as you know. Besides, we can go right after sunup and be back by the time people are having their breakfast or arriving at their jobs. I doubt that I’ll be needed before then.” He shoved another bite of steak into his mouth and chewed vigorously. The muscles flexed in his strong jawline. “Unless you prefer to lie abed.”