Sophia patted her horse, her fingers lingering along his cheek. Despite the smile tickling at her mouth, she still looked sad, too.
Annie kicked at the fence. “Why’d you hightail it outta there so fast just now, anyhow?”
“I finished my coffee.”
There was more, though. Annie could tell by the way Sophia’s eyes dropped. “You trying to get away from Temperance?”
“No. She’s trying to get us through this mess with the Reverend. I can’t fault her for that.”
Surprise fluttered in Annie’s belly. “Thought you didn’t care for her.”
“I don’t.”
She studied that resolutely blank expression. Suspicion kindled, then leapt like a catching spark. “Holy buckets. You don’t like her because you like her.”
Sophia’s eyes darkened to black voids. “No. She just…reminds me of Adrian.”
“Your horse-trainer girlfriend?”
Sophia nodded tersely.
Unconvinced, Annie opened her mouth—then caught herself. After all, what did it matter? She’d come outside to make peace. And that great big speech about not caring who Sophia loved…
She forced a shrug. “All right. I’ll leave it be, if you say so.”
Sophia reached for the paint horse, her voice flat. “I do.”
***
In the kitchen, Annie stood staring at the Professor’s closed bedroom door.
He was avoiding her. Had been for days. He never glanced at her over the bar, never so much as flinched when she took a patron upstairs.
By all accounts, he didn’t behave like a man smitten.
But they’d had a moment, that day in his bedroom. She was damn near sure of it. And the more he ignored her, the more she craved another.
Now, with the Reverend bound to show at any moment, she couldn’t wait any longer. Anything might happen once that serpent stepped into their house. And she’d be damned if she’d let Palmer get himself killed without telling her how he really felt.
Before she could talk herself down, she knocked. Faint rustling reached her ears. Her heart rose, throbbing in her throat.
The door opened. Palmer looked down from his lanky height, his expression unreadable. “Yes?”
Annie swallowed, cursing her own awkwardness. What was wrong with her? She was the Flower of the North. Men fell all over one another for the privilege of taking her to bed, and here she was, tied up in knots over a gangly barman.
But he’s a brave barman. And loyal and steadfast and smarter than anybody oughtta be. “Hi, sugar. Can I come in?”
Palmer glanced behind the door. He didn’t seem surprised by her visit, just preoccupied with whatever he was looking at. “Yes.”
The door closed in her face. Annie blinked at the rough wood, her uncertainty swelling into hot embarrassment. What in Sam hell had just happened?
Floorboards creaked inside Palmer’s room. She stood in the cramped kitchen, battling the insidious whispers in her mind. Just leave him well enough alone. If he wanted you, you’d know it.
Before she could decide whether to stay or go, the door creaked again. Palmer opened it wide this time, standing aside to give her room.
Well, then. Guess I’ll stay.
Stepping past, she searched the space behind the door with curious eyes, but found nothing. He must’ve moved whatever had been there.
Shrugging, she let the tapestry of fantastical cities and whimsical beasts welcome her while the dim shadows soothed her nerves. She’d forgotten the gentle magic of this windowless room, how it lulled her into a softer version of herself.
Or maybe the barman himself did that.
“If this ain’t the most peaceful place in Caribou Crossing, I don’t know what is.”
Where another man would’ve smiled at the compliment, Palmer only nodded. The flickering lamplight warmed his eyes to a rich reddish brown—the exact earthen shade of a Texan riverbank. “Do you need something?”
Her heart flip-flopped. “I just wanted to thank you, sugar. Never got a chance, before. But I been meaning to say it.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“For protecting me, when Gray pulled his gun. That was downright courageous.”
He drifted tantalizingly close. “It was the right thing to do. That’s all.”
She fidgeted, twining her fingers, and imagined she might combust, standing there beneath the force of his stare. But even for all that, she couldn’t read him. Looking at Palmer was like peering into a dark well—she couldn’t tell where the bottom lay. “Truth be told, I ain’t accustomed to being treated right.”
“You deserve to be,” he said.
Her breath caught. A spare enough statement—but those words never would’ve crossed Samuel St. Clair’s lips. “You’re a good man.”
“Most people think I’m odd.”
“Well, you’re that, too. I don’t mind, though. Might be I’m a little odd myself. And you know what they say. Like attracts like.” There. Her invitation dangled in the air, spurred into being by the runaway gallop of her heartbeat.
Palmer stood close enough to touch, just a long, lanky bundle of soap-scent and sharp intelligence and brown braided hair. And in the middle of it all, snagging her eyes, that soft Cupid’s bow of a mouth. If only she’d had more whiskey, she might’ve had enough courage to reach for that sweet little curve.
“What time is it?” he asked.
Annie pulled back, her heels coming back to earth. When had she gone up on tiptoes? “Sugar?”
Glancing down, he pulled out his brass pocket watch. “The Reverend arrives in ten minutes. You should stay here. You’ll be safe.”
Disappointment crashed in, drenching her dreamy hope like an upended bucket of ice water. Surely she hadn’t imagined the way he’d looked at her? The way he’d risked his life for hers? She gave it one last try. “If I stay, will you stay with me?”
He shook his head. “No. Madam Irene would’ve wanted me to help.”
Something snapped inside her—a sad little breaking sound that echoed in her ears. Was that all she was? A duty? A job?
Then she caught herself. I’m the Flower of the North. I belong to no man. Which means I don’t pine for any, neither.
“Will you stay?” Palmer asked.
Annie tried a smile on for size. “Ain’t no man alive can tell me what to do, sugar. And I got just as much a right to be there as you do.” She waited for him to argue, but he only studied her with those damnably alluring chestnut eyes until she burned with the need to look away.
He nodded. “All right.”
Frowning, she opened her mouth. Turned out, though, she had nothing to say.
Palmer didn’t seem bothered by that. He just strode toward the wooden armoire in the corner, rousing her curiosity. Whatever he’d hidden earlier had to be inside.
Opening the wardrobe’s paneled door, he reached in. When he drew back, he held two shotguns—worn, glinting, lethal-looking things.
Annie gasped. “Where in Sam hell’d you get those?”
He extended one toward her, grip first. “From Swiftwater Rob.”
She didn’t touch the thing. She inspected the stock, polished to a gleam by years of handling, and raised one eyebrow in an unspoken question.
Palmer just gazed back, offering the weapon with a steady hand.
Sighing, she spelled it out for him. “Why’d Rob have two shotguns?”
“He used to be a fur trapper.”
She frowned. Seeing Palmer armed did something funny to her vision. For a moment, his eyes changed—one blue, one brown.
A shudder rippled up from her stomach. “What am I gonna do with that?”
“Whatever you want. You once said you valued your freedom above all else. So take one, or don’t. Shoot the Reverend. Or don’t. I just want you to have a choice.”
Her breath halted, trapped inside her chest, and when she blinked again, he looked nothing like Samuel. He only looked like the Professor, with
those craggy features and that temptingly soft mouth.
“Well, when you put it like that…” She reached for the shotgun. “I am a Texan, after all.”
30. Sophia.
Sophia stood on the landing, flexing her fingers around the Colts’ grips to the rhythm of the mantel clock. Her eyes never left the front door, even as the minutes slowed to a painful crawl. A single gruesome thought wheeled in her mind—around and around, like a runaway carousel.
If I marry the Reverend, this’ll all be over. The Blossom’ll be safe.
She tried not to gag.
Just as the clock’s hands reached noon, Gray and Henry strolled into the parlor. Sophia launched down the stairs, grateful to be moving. Anything to escape her treacherous thoughts.
“Hello, there.” The Reverend smiled when he saw her—a convincing parody of a man smitten, which only stoked anger in her belly. “I’ve missed you.”
She brandished a Colt. “Funny. The only thing I missed was having you on the far side of my guns.”
Her gun barrel kissed his chest, but he didn’t flinch. Instead, he leaned in, ignoring the revolver completely. An electric incandescence lit his gaze, his eyes mirroring a sky full of racing clouds and flooding sunshine.
“Boss?” In the background, Henry’s voice sounded lusterless, as if he’d managed to misplace his meager intelligence.
Gray didn’t answer. He only watched her with deadly calm, as if she was the only person in the room. His lashes glowed golden in the sidelong light.
Dismay snuck in, fracturing Sophia’s resolve down the middle. She tried to cling to the pieces, but her anger faltered, slipping away as heat rose into her cheeks.
It was that damned kiss. She couldn’t even look at him without remembering the unforgiving and unexpected fire of it, the way it had blazed beneath her skin and blanked her thoughts to a hazy shade of red.
Unable to bear his gaze a moment longer, she looked away. But then his shining champagne waistcoat filled her view; underneath, a soft white shirt clung to the lines of his chest.
Desperate, she wrenched her eyes up, seeking Henry. Even then, her peripheral vision insisted on noting the precise shade of the Reverend’s gilded hair.
“Holy hell,” she muttered.
“Why, kitten.” Gray smiled. The vibration of his voice buzzed through the Colt’s barrel and into her palm, as if his words caressed her. “Am I to believe you were as profoundly affected by our last exchange as I was? How…gratifying.”
Though he’d spoken low, she darted a glance around. Annie and Palmer stood by the bar, brandishing shotguns. When had they come in? Had they heard him?
Annie’s face clouded. “Sophia?”
Sophia blinked away the insidious longing sliding through her veins. “You’re outnumbered, Gray. Tell me, what’s to stop me from introducing you to the ceiling? Brains, meet ceiling. Ceiling, meet brains.” She pointed upward, indicating the pale lump still stuck amid the tiles. “We could always use more souvenirs.”
Henry’s furious hiss assaulted the air. “Boss. I know you said to leave this minx alone, but—”
Gray silenced him with a raised hand. “You’ve honed your menacing death threats, kitten. What a welcome improvement.”
“Glad you approve.” Then, though Temperance had asked for a peaceful exchange, she went a step further, unable to help herself. “Now get the hell out of our house.”
“Ah, but that one was rather uninspired.”
“Just leave us alone,” she growled.
“I think not. We’ve business to transact. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve taken the liberty of ensuring your cooperation, as well as my own safety.”
She hesitated. “What?”
“You’re acquainted with my other associate already. Wave us hello, will you, George?”
She followed Gray’s gaze. Outside, a young man smoking a cigar waved cheerfully through the window.
“The Klondike King from church,” Annie hissed. “I’d say I was surprised, but you ain’t good enough to waste a lie on, Reverend.”
Sophia squinted. With his buckskin shirt and heavy cloth cap, the boy on the boardwalk looked nothing like the rich young tenderfoot from church. But it was—the open face and crooked grin were the same.
The Reverend’s lips twitched into a half-smile. “Surely you didn’t believe two men in Caribou Crossing commanded such an impeccable sense of dress?”
Though she’d already suspected as much, she shook her head in derisive wonder. “You’re unbelievable. And I still see no reason not to shoot you.”
She could do it, too. Pull the trigger, then take out Henry and George. Boom, boom, boom. Left, right, left. Over in a matter of seconds.
But when Sophia willed her forefingers to tighten, they resisted. Sweat slid between skin and metal.
Gray looked on with an infuriating mix of amusement and curiosity—and, worst of all, a glimmering edge of half-buried tenderness. Could he pantomime anything? “Perhaps a demonstration might stay your hand.” He nodded toward the window.
Outside, George sucked on his cigar, expelling a silver plume against the glass. The smoke cleared slowly, revealing a tin in his upheld hand.
Sophia’s heart slammed against the roof of her mouth. She recognized the telltale silhouette instantly.
Kerosene.
“George is ever so fond of fire,” Gray said.
Horror bloomed in her chest like a poisonous rose. As she watched, George uncapped the canister, then upended a line of liquid amber along the sill. Grinning, he plucked the cigar from his lips and let the burning end hover. The violent orange ember reflected in his eyes, kindling his pupils into two mad flames.
Annie emitted a choked sound.
Something inside Sophia broke free. Anger scorched away her paralysis and she drove both revolvers up under Gray’s jaw until his feet nearly left the floor. She smiled her fury upward, relieved to find that his glowing hair and sea-ice eyes meant nothing. He was only a con man on the wrong end of her guns.
Henry stepped in, shoving his weapon in her face. “Drop ‘em, you vicious, stinking harlot.”
She didn’t move. “Tell George to put out the cigar, you spectacular, gargantuan asshole.”
The Reverend clucked his tongue. “Such magnificent tempers. No wonder I’m so fond of you both.”
From the landing, Temperance’s voice rang out, cleaving the air like a sword through silk. “The parlor is no place for a showdown.” Wearing a high-necked brown dress and a stern chignon, she’d erased all traces of the succubus who’d come down to coffee earlier. “What’s happening here?”
Annie trained her shotgun on the window. “George here was just fixing to burn down our house, that’s all.”
Temperance’s lips thinned. “Call off your associate, Reverend.”
“I trust you’ll do the same, Madam?” With the double gun barrels compressing his throat, Gray’s voice emerged lopsided and hoarse.
“You have my word.”
He held up a hand. George looked crestfallen, but jammed the cigar into his mouth and retreated.
“You too, Henry,” the Reverend rasped.
Henry lowered his gun. Annie and Palmer followed suit, then Sophia—though she gave Gray an extra jab in the throat first, just for fun.
He massaged his neck, his expression impassive, despite the deep red dents in his flesh. “As you know, I’ve come for the journal. There’s no cause for such intimidation and hostility.”
Temperance descended the stairs, bringing along a warm, floral cloud that chased away the ocean-clean scent of Gray’s sweat. “Intimidation? You’re threatening our home.”
“To ensure my safety, I assure you. Nothing more.”
“If the Blossom burned, half of Paradise Alley would go with it.”
“I imagine your conscience would break beneath its own weight, if ever you pushed me to such extremes.”
Temperance raised a single eyebrow. “Pretty words don’t concea
l cruel intentions. You’ve come to blackmail us.”
Gray laughed. “You certainly have cause to paint it in such a light. But I weary of this tiresome repartee, Madam. Have you found the journal? Or not?”
Sophia tensed.
“I searched her boudoir myself,” Temperance said, “and found nothing.”
Because Connor did, out by the lake. A ripple of relief surged through her. Even to a reptile like the Reverend, Temperance couldn’t seem to lie. But she could sidestep the truth.
“Then you’ll provide the ten-thousand-dollar tithe, Madam, as we agreed?”
“We agreed on nothing. You threatened us.”
“And you capitulated. Need I remind you of George outside?”
Temperance drew herself straight. Then, without another word, she strode to the bar, pulled out a buckskin sack, and flung it at the Reverend’s feet. A melodic jangle sang out, leaving no question as to its contents.
He peered down, surprised. “I’ll admit, I didn’t anticipate compliance.”
“That sounds suspiciously close to a complaint.”
“Hardly. I simply expected to leave without the journal or the tithe.”
Temperance’s face grew wary. “Are you giving me another option?”
“Perhaps.” His gaze swept to Sophia. “Were you to offer something more valuable than either.”
Like you. His eyes said it as plainly as if he’d spoken aloud, which nearly sent her traitorous heart barreling through her chest. She throttled the sudden rush by backing away, creating a gulf of sun-warmed air and opulent carpet.
But the distance offered no escape from his stare. Worse, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted it to. An awful, secret thrill arose when he looked at her that way—as if he might drown himself in her and die happy.
A distant corner of her mind wondered if he was pretending, after all.
Temperance stepped in, splintering the treacherous thoughts midstream. “I’ve given you what you wanted. Now leave us be.”
“I’m deeply grateful for your tithe. But, as the church is considered an organization of the highest moral caliber, I must ask where you obtained such a hefty sum.”
The Wildflowers at the Edge of the World Page 16
