by Lisa Plumley
He was right—even if he hadn’t appeared to want to remind her of it. Adam really was too kind. She didn’t want to deceive him. Fretfully Savannah glanced at Mose. He gave her a nod.
Then he spoke up. Rubbing the top of his head in obvious discomfort, Mose said, “When I met Mrs. Finney in the station yard, I told her you two were already married.”
His words were nothing less than Savannah had expected to hear. During those long days of waiting for her mail-order groom to arrive, she and Mose had discussed this eventuality at length. Adam had not been privy to their plans, however. Upon hearing them now, he seemed plainly disbelieving.
“I told her you hadn’t seen each other for a while,” Mose elaborated, doubtless reading the incredulity on Adam’s face. “I told her that, owing to the trauma of the moment, Savannah didn’t recognize you right away when she found you outside the station. I told her that’s why she didn’t tell Doc Finney straightaway that her husband had finally joined her out west.”
“So Mrs. Finney believes we’re already married,” Savannah clarified—partly for Adam’s sake and partly for her own. Mose nodded in confirmation. Marveling at him, she shook her head. “That was very fast thinking, Mose! I’ll admit, I hadn’t considered Doc Finney’s part in all this. It was a good thing you caught all the angles—and so quickly, too. I should have expected as much from you, though.”
In his heyday, Mose had been one of the most imposing and well-known stagehands working in some of the most disorderly parts of New York City’s theater district. He owed his survival to staying two steps ahead of everyone else.
Modestly her friend shrugged. “You two did help sell the notion of being hitched, what with your hand-holding, and all.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Savannah glanced at Adam, who gave her a newly enlightened frown—clearly just then understanding their playacting. “I imagine we presented quite the picture of connubial bliss. It’s a good thing you signaled me, Mose.”
The two of them exchanged coconspirators’ glances. Sometimes their long-term friendship came in quite handy.
Adam stared. “And you think Mrs. Finney believed all that?”
“Well…” Mose put his hands to his suspenders, giving a humble shrug. “I can be powerfully convincing when I want to be. And like I said, the two of you make a pretty picture together.”
Savannah smiled. “Thank you, Mose. That’s very kind.”
Adam only squinted at them both. His half-buttoned shirt flapped its tails in the breeze, lending him a rakish air. He seemed at a loss for words. That was probably just as well, given the situation they were in. She needed his cooperation. She didn’t need his understanding. Not just yet, anyway.
“Once I saw Mrs. Finney charging out of the station with her hair afire, I knew the trouble could only be one thing.” Looking at them, Mose compressed his lips with evident disapproval. “I would have expected you to behave with more decorum.”
“I was trying to!” Savannah felt her cheeks heat. “I simply got carried away. You know how difficult it is for me to—”
“He means me,” Adam interrupted. He straightened to meet Mose’s censure, then looked toward the station. “You’re right. I took advantage of an unguarded moment. I’m sorry.”
Stiffly Mose nodded. “I accept.”
Adam scowled. “You weren’t the one I was apologizing to.”
“Or,” Savannah piped up, “the one he was kissing!”
They both ignored her, stuck in their mulish poses.
“I reckon he oughtn’t be kissing anybody just yet.” Mose fisted his hands at his sides. “Which reminds me. I’ve been meaning to warn you about taking unwanted liberties with—”
“With whom?” Adam demanded, not the least intimidated by Mose’s size and strength. “Go ahead. Say it. I dare you.”
Savannah couldn’t stand it. Feeling like a referee at a dogfight, she stepped between both men with her arms outstretched. “Who said they were unwanted liberties?” she demanded.
Mose and Adam stared at her, openmouthed.
“They…weren’t?” they asked in unison.
Mose appeared disgruntled by the notion.
Adam appeared jubilant. His happiness pleased her.
“I want you two to get along,” Savannah told them. “Please try. For my sake. Won’t you? It would mean a lot to me.”
At first, her request seemed unlikely to be met. Like chastened little boys, Adam and Mose stared at their feet. Adam’s were clad in dusty boots that made him seem like the Wild West adventurer he wanted to be. Mose’s were outfitted with sensible brogues that spoke to his penchant for order and tradition. Between them, not much was similar—except her.
“I’ll take your lack of argument as a ‘yes,’” Savannah said. “I’ll expect to see a corresponding level of friendship arise between you boys before much longer, too.”
Mose grunted. Adam squinted at the ponderosa pines.
Satisfied, Savannah nodded. She picked up her skirts again. “Now I’m off to pack up a few things. We’ll leave in an hour.”
Wearing a contemplative frown, Adam watched as Savannah sashayed off toward the station building. It was a good thing he was no longer taking Doc Finney’s tincture. He had the feeling he would need all his wits to keep up with his supposed bride.
At the thought of the wedding she expected from him today, Adam blanched. He couldn’t possibly go through with marrying her. Doing so would be the worst kind of lie…wouldn’t it?
Although he’d known people who’d wed under similarly unusual circumstances, a part of him whispered. Trappers who married native women. Settlers who married reformed dance-hall girls. Miners and railroad workers who wrote away for genuine mail-order brides, then married them the first chance they got.
Sometimes those arrangements prospered. Sometimes all that was needed was a beginning, then the rest took care of itself.
Could he be as lucky? Adam wondered. Or was he only deceiving himself…as much as he was deceiving Savannah?
He truly did care about her. He had when he’d arrived, and he did twice as much now. But would that be enough? Still frowning, Adam watched as she disappeared inside the station.
Then, with a sigh, he transferred his gaze to…Mose.
The station’s part-time helper glowered at him. Keeping his arms crossed over his chest in a belligerent pose, he jerked his chin at Adam. “If you so much as disappoint her,” Mose warned, “I swear I’ll make you regret it. What happened when you were attacked will seem like a minor kerfuffle compared with what I’ll do to you if you upset Savannah. I promise you that.”
“I’m not here to upset her,” Adam assured him, holding up his palms. “I don’t intend to do anything except—”
Watch over her. Protect her. Make sure Bedell doesn’t hurt her, he meant to say. But Mose was having none of it. The hired man cut him off, scrutinizing him through suspicious eyes.
“I don’t care what your intentions are. All I care about is what you do, same as Savannah. And I’m here to tell you, the last thing she needs is more trouble. So don’t you dare—”
“‘More trouble’?” Adam repeated, growing instantly alert. “What kind of trouble has Savannah had already?”
Mose’s mouth tightened. “Nothing you need to know about.”
“I need to know about everything.” His body tense, Adam stepped closer. “Has someone been coming around here?” Bedell. His brothers. “Have you seen someone? Did someone threaten her?”
“It’s none of your business. All I’m saying is—”
“It damn well is my business. I’m about to marry her.” No he wasn’t! the sensible part of him shouted. But Adam ignored it. Prodded by concern—and outraged at the thought that Savannah might already have been endangered in ways he hadn’t known about—he stood toe-to-toe with Mose. “I’m about to give Savannah my name. I’d say that makes her troubles my own.”
Grudgingly Mose examined him. “That’s what she said
about you, when she took you in. That your troubles were hers now.”
“She was right,” Adam confirmed. “I’m here for the long haul.” He was? He couldn’t be. But the statement felt true. Adam stood his ground. “So rather than waste your time warning me, why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can help.”
Maybe I can find my way out of this lie, while I’m at it.
“Maybe you could help,” Mose said. “If I trusted you. But I don’t.”
The man’s stubbornness aggravated him. “In time, you will.”
“Can’t think how.”
“Savannah trusts me,” Adam pointed out.
At his mention of her, Mose’s doubtful gaze shifted from Adam’s face to the station building. Inside, Savannah could be heard cheerfully humming as, presumably, she gathered materials for their nuptial trip. We’ll leave in an hour.
“She don’t trust you as much as you think,” Mose disagreed.
Adam recalled the way he’d longed for Savannah to let him call her by her given name. She hadn’t. He knew that meant Mose was right. But what mattered most was Savannah’s safety.
“I need to know what’s been going on. I can help.”
“The only way you can help is by getting on down the road.” Mose gazed at the pathway as it wound between the scrub oak and pines, headed up the mountainside. “And by making Savannah your wife in truth, ’stead of a lie. I don’t like letting you leave with her. But it’s what she wants, and it’s a foolish man who denies Savannah her wishes. You’ll find out that soon enough.”
“If I forget,” Adam said, “just give me a stage signal.”
Startled, Mose stared at him.
Adam gazed back with equanimity. One of the occupations he hadn’t claimed during his discussion with Savannah had been working backstage at a vaudeville house. But he’d done it.
During that time, he’d learned a few things about stage directions. He hadn’t expected to encounter them again at a backwater telegraph station in the middle of nowhere.
“Why do you reckon,” he asked Mose, “a telegraph operator like Savannah understands professional stage signals?”
“You must have misunderstood.” Gruffly Mose shouldered past him. “I’d better go man the wires. Have a safe journey.”
Without further discussion, the station helper strode off. The ramshackle door slammed behind him. Through the window, Adam spied Mose again, this time with his head bent next to Savannah’s. She started, then looked up through the window.
Her worried gaze met Adam’s. She bit her lip.
Her gesture was all the confirmation he needed. Savannah Reed was definitely hiding something—something he should have unearthed while preparing his case against Roy Bedell, but hadn’t. After almost a year of tracking the man alongside Mariana, Adam had been too concerned with stopping the bastard to give much thought to the background of his latest victim.
He’d known Savannah Reed had had a sizable nest egg, Adam reflected as he considered his “fiancée’s” distant conversation with her hired man. He’d known she was new to the Arizona Territory. He’d known she was vulnerable and in danger. Those had been all the details Adam had needed to ride to her rescue.
By the time he’d reached her, he’d known he was smitten with her, too. That only complicated matters all the more.
He’d thought Savannah Reed was an innocent. Now it seemed that, maybe, she wasn’t. That complicated matters, too.
But it didn’t change them. For a long time now, Adam had carried a grainy, creased and folded photograph next to his heart—and he’d vowed to protect the woman pictured in it. Watching that woman now, he knew he would keep the vow he’d made. No matter what he’d have to risk to do so.
Savannah prepared for their journey with astonishing speed. Bustling to and fro from the station building to the rickety waiting wagon, she carried out bundles and blankets. With her golden hair escaping from its knot in curly tendrils, she labored to pack wax paper-wrapped sandwiches, a canteen of water, small green apples and a burlap sack of oats.
“For Chester,” she explained as she tossed the sack onto the wagon’s bench seat, then checked the brake. “The horse.”
“Ah.” Watching her with a smile he felt scarcely able to hide, Adam made himself offer a somber nod. “Of course.”
“He deserves a special treat.” Savannah didn’t look at him as she pinned on a wide-brimmed hat with a pretty ribbon trim. “I’m afraid it’s a bit of a pull to Avalanche.”
“Why not just go to Morrow Creek?” Adam gestured down the mountain. “It’s a sight closer, and probably not so steep.”
“I’ve already made arrangements with the minister in Avalanche.” Glowing with exertion, Savannah pitched herself onto the seat beside him. She squeezed his hand. “He’s expecting us.”
That was probably true, Adam realized as he examined her bright profile. But she was still hiding something from him. Every instinct he had told him she was deceiving him.
Had she had an encounter with the Bedells, he wondered as he recalled his conversation with Mose, and wanted to hide it? Or was the trouble that Savannah faced something else entirely?
As though summoned by Adam’s thoughts, Mose appeared beside the wagon, his expression grave. He handed Savannah a package.
“Don’t open this until afterward,” the big man warned. His gaze shifted ominously to Adam, then returned to Savannah. Mose smiled as he patted the package’s brown paper wrapping. “I’ll know if you tear into this, so no cheating now, you hear?”
“Mose!” Savannah marveled at him. “What’s this?”
“Just a tiny wedding gift. Practically useless, so don’t go getting your hopes up. I’m an old man without much money, so—”
“Oh! This is so sweet of you.” Lunging sideways, Savannah wrapped her arms around his neck. She sniffled. After a moment, she leaned back again, gazing into Mose’s face. “Thank you. I wish you were coming with us. It won’t be the same without you.”
“I know.” Mose looked up at Savannah, his face swamped with unabashed affection. To Adam’s gaze, the man appeared downright fatherly…and choked up near to the point of tears, too.
Feeling like an intruder, Adam stared pointedly in the other direction. But he felt happy, all of a sudden, that Savannah had someone in her life who truly did love and care about her. Someone who was not deceiving her in any way.
“But I’ll be there in spirit,” Mose said gruffly. “And I’ll be waiting right here when you get back. So don’t dawdle.”
“We won’t,” Savannah promised with another hug. Keeping her arms around Mose’s thick neck, she spoke in his ear. “Try not to look so worried. This is what I want most, remember?”
Her words weren’t meant for Adam, but he heard them—and they jabbed at his heart, all the same. If Savannah wanted love, he had that to spare—if she would take it from a traveling man like him…a man who had experienced exactly three days’ worth of down-home living in all his adult life, and those at Savannah’s caring hands. But right now, he did not have the truth to give her, and he didn’t know when he would. That still bothered him.
Maybe on the journey, Adam thought, he would find a way to explain about Bedell. Maybe he would finally set things right.
Mose jerked his head in a brusque nod. “I know it is.”
“All right then.” Savannah sniffled again, then gave an awkward laugh. She picked up the leather traces in her gloved hands, seeming surprisingly at ease with the task. “I guess we’re off.”
At her direction, the horse set in motion. Adam swayed and braced himself on the bench seat, uncomfortably aware of Savannah’s wobbling chin and the tears brimming in her eyes.
“Mose will be all right without you,” he assured her in his gentlest tone. “We won’t be gone long. He’ll get by.”
“I know.” Savannah nodded. “He’ll be fine.”
But an instant later, it appeared they were both wrong. Mose jogged along behind the
wagon. He shouted something.
Savannah jerked the reins, and Mose caught up.
“There’s one more thing I forgot to tell you.” Panting, he placed his hand over his heart. Then he gestured in the other direction, toward Morrow Creek. “Don’t stay more than overnight in Avalanche. Mrs. Finney is expecting you in town on Friday.”
“Mrs. Finney is expecting me?” Savannah asked.
They were staying overnight? Adam swallowed hard. He had to admit the truth to Savannah, else ruin her reputation for good.
But his imagination offered up a contrary vision—a vision involving Savannah and himself, newly married and eager to celebrate their union. If only that could be real. Adam knew he could make her happy. He could make her sigh with pleasure, too. He could begin with another kiss, move on to a slow caress….
Caught up in the notion, Adam gazed at the smooth skin at the back of Savannah’s neck. If he kissed her there, then undid that row of tiny buttons along the back of her dress, he could make both of them feel happy about their marriage…however false it might be. He could make it feel real to both of them.
He’d never in his life wanted anything more.
Oblivious to his reverie, Mose nodded. “She wants to give you and Mr. Corwin a tea party to welcome you to Morrow Creek.”
“A tea party?” Savannah sounded aghast. “For us?”
“That’s right.” Mose nodded. “To welcome you to town. When Mrs. Finney left, she told me she was going to alert the entire Ladies Auxiliary Club so they could turn out to the party.”
“But I’ve been living nearby for months!” Savannah stared in displeasure at Chester’s twitching, horsey ears. “Nobody cared to give me a tea party in all that time, now did they?”
“Well, you were trying to pass by mostly unnoticed.”
“Yes,” Savannah mused. “I suppose that’s true.”
That piqued Adam’s interest. “Mostly unnoticed? Why?”
Savannah and Mose stared at him. Then they looked at each other. “’Nuff chitchat. Have a safe journey!” Mose shouted.
Then he smacked their horse on its rump and sent the wagon jostling down the open road, away from the station…and away from whatever certainty Adam had that he was doing the right thing by coming to Savannah Reed’s rescue.
