He glanced at Emmeline before meeting Becky’s sparkling gaze again. “Things are pretty much the same all around, I reckon” he said.“I was in town on some personal business, so I decided to stop in and pay my respects.”
“We would never have forgiven you if you’d passed us by,” Becky said. Her eyes fell on the coffee cup on the table, now empty. Emmeline stood to clear it away, suddenly needing something to occupy her hands. “All you had was coffee?” she asked. “It’s true that dinner’s well over, and supper won’t be served for a couple of hours yet, but we could surely serve you something more nourishing. Is there any of Stockard’s wonderful beef stew left over from last night, Emmeline?”
Emmeline didn’t get a chance to answer; Holt spoke too quickly.
“I had a big meal at my place,” he said.“And I’ve got to be headed back to the ranch now anyway.” He rose, nodded to both women, and left the dining room.
“You and Holt are good friends,” she mused, watching Becky watch his departure. “I don’t think I realized that before.”
“Yes,” Becky said, meeting Emmeline’s gaze and holding it without flinching. “We go way back, Holt and I do. We’ve even shared in a few business deals.”
“He’s looking for a housekeeper,” Emmeline said.
“He doesn’t need a housekeeper,” Becky said briskly. “He needs a wife.” With that, she dispensed with the subject.
Emmeline let out her breath. She’d expected to get over missing Rafe so much, but it was worse than ever. The malady seemed to grow keener and more painful with every passing day, rather than better, as it should, by rights, have done.
“Any word of Rafe?” Becky asked gently, laying a comforting hand on Emmeline’s forearm.
“I asked after him,” Emmeline admitted. “Holt said he was ‘miserable’—and just as stubborn as ever. I believe he thinks that if I go back to the Triple M to live, Rafe might get over his anger sooner.”
Becky took her by the shoulders and gave her a slight shake.“You love the man, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Emmeline said wretchedly.
“Then go to him. Tell him so.” The look in Becky’s eyes was urgent. “Oh, Emmeline, life is so short—if there’s a chance in all the world of making Rafe see—”
Emmeline shook her head again, looking not at Becky’s face now, but through the dining-room window to the street. John Lewis was passing by on the sidewalk, a bunch of wildflowers in his gun hand; a few moments later, both women heard the bell ring at the registration desk.
“Go to him,” Emmeline said, kissing Becky’s cool, carefully powdered cheek. “As you said, life is so very short, and you mustn’t waste a minute.”
Becky hesitated, then straightened her spine and put on her most brilliant smile.“Well,” she said,“I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t take my own advice, now wouldn’t I?” With that, she strolled out into the lobby to greet her suitor warmly, while Emmeline stayed rooted to the spot for a long time, her eyes full of tears, smiling at her mother’s hard-earned happiness.
Rafe kept himself away from the former Territorial Hotel, now called the Arizona and already looking considerably spiffier than it had under his pa’s ownership, with lace curtains at the windows and flowerpots on the sills. There was talk over at the Bloody Basin that Becky planned to build on to the place; Hyde Wilkerson, the saloon owner, who sold lumber from trees harvested up around Flagstaff as one of several sidelines, said she’d already ordered the supplies.
Biding his time on the corner by the telegraph office, dressed up in his best clothes, Rafe kept an eye on the hotel, hoping for a glimpse of Emmeline, but so far he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her. He’d sure enough seen Holt, though, walking right into the Arizona Hotel, like he had every call to go in there. And he’d still been fuming over that when Marshal Lewis had come up behind him and caught him unawares.
“Howdy, Rafe,” he’d said, grinning. He had a handful of pink and yellow flowers, probably gathered in the vacant lot behind the livery stable, where such things flourished because of the manure pile. He took in Rafe’s good suit of clothes. “You got business in town, or do I have to arrest you for loitering?”
Rafe had eyed the flowers and resettled his hat. “Just waiting for my horse to be shod,” he said.
“Thought you did all your blacksmithing right on the ranch,” Lewis replied, with an eloquent glance toward the hotel. Once old John got a man on the hook, he didn’t like to let him off easy. “Why don’t you go over there and say hello to that bride of yours? Fetch her home, like you ought to have done a week ago?”
Rafe’s neck felt hot, and it seemed to swell, too, making him want to unbutton his collar and shove it into his coat pocket—or toss it into the first alley he passed. “What goes on between Emmeline and me is our business and nobody else’s,” he said.
John’s easy shrug made Rafe see red. “Well, then, have the decency to divorce her, will you? This town is chockfull of men looking to take a wife, and Miss Emmeline is prime pickings. Folks are already speculating on when she’ll be back on the market.”
Rafe’s right hand clenched into a fist of its own acord, but he consciously opened his fingers. Much as he’d like to knock John Lewis into the nearest horse trough, he figured he couldn’t afford the indulgence. Punching an officer of the law was bound to be a crime, and he’d most likely end up behind bars for a good long while.
Besides, fighting didn’t have the same appeal it once had.
John smiled and nodded, as if he’d followed Rafe’s thought processes. “I’d best be going,” he said, indicating the flowers, which were already starting to wilt, clutched in his big hand the way they were.“I’ve got a good woman waiting for me.”
The marshal was referring to Becky Fairmont, of course, and even though Rafe could have told the man a few things about his “good woman,” he would never have done so. A confidence of any sort was safe in Rafe’s keeping, gall him though it might, whether telling it served his purposes or not. Anyway, he liked Becky, even admired her.
He pulled at the brim of his hat in unspoken farewell. “I’d just as soon you didn’t mention me when you get there,” he said, turning to leave. He’d head himself in the direction of the livery stable, like he was going there to pick up his freshly shod horse. Maybe jaw awhile with Old Billy, who ran the business. When it was time to head for home, he’d fetch Chief from the fenced pasture in back of the mercantile, where he’d been grazing all the while, and saddle up.
Rafe made his way to the stable, watching Old Billy run the forge, and marveling. The man was eighty if he was a day, but he still had a full head of black hair, a chest like a bull’s, and upper arms the size of a ham hock. His face and clothes, especially his leather apron, were covered with soot, and his hammer rang as he laid a red-hot horseshoe on the anvil and pounded it into shape. There was a sizzling sound, and a rise of steam, when he thrust his pinchers and the shoe into a trough at his feet.
He blinked, evidently having forgotten that Rafe was there. “What do you want?” he demanded, even though they’d been talking about the coming of the railroad just five minutes back. It would seem that Old Billy’s mind hadn’t held up to the passing of time as well as his body had.
Rafe chuckled, but before he could answer, Billy’s gaze drifted past him, and a silly smile cracked his blackened face.
“Howdy, ma’am,” he said, with genuine admiration. He even made a little bow.
Rafe turned and saw Emmeline standing a few feet away. She’d just rounded the corner of the building, it appeared, and stopped in her tracks when she saw him. She flushed, and raised her chin in that stubborn way she had, but she didn’t say a word. Rafe was pretty well tonguetied himself; he’d been hoping for a look at Emmeline, all right, but at a distance, so he could keep his feelings to himself.
He nodded, pretty sure he was growing roots that would keep him pinned to that spot for the rest of his natural life, like a tree.
She fou
nd her voice first. “What are you doing here?” she asked, like he needed her permission to set foot in Indian Rock.
He pushed his hat to the back of his head, stuck for an answer. “What are you doing here?” he countered, stalling.
Her eyes flashed. He loved her eyes. They were blue sometimes, gray at others, like a changing sky. Today, there was a storm brewing, with plentyf thunder and lightning. “I’ve been bamboozled,” she said, sounding purely disgusted.
He wanted to laugh—he loved her temper as much as her expressive eyes—but he couldn’t quite summon up the wherewithal because, at the same time, he felt as if something vital had been yanked right out of his middle. Sweet God, what had come over him?
“Dammit,” the smithy put in, at Rafe’s side all of the sudden, nudging him with a filthy elbow. Irascible old goat.“Say something!”
“Wait until I get my hands on those two!” Emmeline ranted, her cheeks pink. She tossed her head for emphasis, and her hair started coming loose from its pins. He loved her hair, longed to let it down and run his fingers through it. “I should have known they were up to something.”
Old Billy was fixing to elbow Rafe again, so he stepped out of range, dusting off his coat where the old man had marked him with soot the time before.
Rafe didn’t need to ask what Emmeline was talking about; he knew well enough. John Lewis had been on his way to the hotel when he and Rafe met, and it didn’t take a great mind to figure out that he and Becky had had themselves a powwow and then cooked up some excuse to send Emmeline to the livery stable, hoping the two of them would meet up.
“Say something!” Old Billy ordered, moving in for another jab.
Rafe sidestepped the smithy and made himself approach Emmeline. He took off his hat and looked down at her face and wondered how the devil he’d be able to stay mad at her for the rest of his life. It would take some doing, he decided, but he’d manage.
All he had to do was think of her selling herself to Holt.
“I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he said, as if they were cordial strangers.
She stiffened her spine. “Don’t trouble yourself,” she replied, with a lift of her chin. “I’m perfectly capable of walking two blocks in broad daylight.”
“Young people today,” complained Old Billy, shaking his head. “They just don’t know how to spark.” His great shoulders were bent as he went back to his forge.
Emmeline closed her mouth on what might have been a smile, or even a laugh, and turned to march away.
Rafe fell in beside her; he hadn’t intended to, after she’d put him in his place like that, but there he was, doing it, still holding his hat in one hand. Why, a part of him wished he had those flowers of John’s to give to her. Wished he’d read some poetry books along the way, too, like Kade had, so he’d have something fancy to say. He tended to read about practical subjects, like water tables and animal husbandry and timber management—not much romance in those things.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m just fine,” she snapped, picking up her pace a little.
He lengthened his stride. Damned if she was going to leave him behind. He’d do all the leaving behind that was going to be done. “Well, then,” he said, “I guess there’s nothing more to say.”
She hesitated only a beat, but it was long enough for Rafe to figure out that she wasn’t as dead set against him as she’d like him to believe. “I guess not,” she agreed tersely.
He caught hold of her arm, stopped her, right there on the sidewalk, with half the town of Indian Rock probably looking on, like it was any of their darned business what happened between him and Emmeline, anyhow. He said her name, ragged-like, and then didn’t know how to go on from there.
She pulled her arm free.“You owe me an apology, Rafe McKettrick!” she said in a furious whisper.
Getting mad was something he knew how to do. He was almost grateful to her for shaking him out of his fuddled state. “I owe you an apology? How do you figure that?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You know what I’m talking about!” she seethed.
His nose was an inch from hers, he’d leaned in so close. “The hell I do!” he shot back. “You’re the one who—” He stopped, unsure how to phrase the rest of that sentence in a socially acceptable way. They were, after all, in public.
“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Mr. McKettrick!”
“Do we have to discuss this on the sidewalk?” Without waiting for an answer, he took Emmeline by the wrist again, making sure not to hurt her, and pulled her down the street and straight into the lobby of the Arizona Hotel.
Clive, the nun, and a peddler, just signing for a room, turned to stare as they entered. Becky and John Lewis were probably keeping themselves out of sight, until things settled down a bit, which only showed they were brighter than Rafe would have given them credit for.
He dragged Emmeline to the back of the lobby, behind a potted palm tree with yellowing fronds, and glared at her. She glared right back.
“You know, Rafe,” she insisted. “Holt told you nothing happened that night.” She paused. “You’re just being hardheaded!” Her color was still high, and her eyes were flashing. He could see her pulse thrumming at one temple, and at the base of her throat. And he wanted, more than anything, to kiss her so she stayed kissed.
“What I know,” he rasped, “is that you told me you were a whore!”
She turned crimson, and the palm fronds rustled where she pushed them aside to peek into the lobby, in case anyone was listening. Clive and the nun were gone, but that didn’t account for the traveling salesman.
“Well, I was mistaken,” she said.
He was astounded.“It’s true? You didn’t—?”
“That seems to be what she’s saying,” observed the peddler, from the upper landing. He was bending over the banister and peering down at them.
Rafe nearly pulled his pistol on the fellow, though he wouldn’t actually have shot him, of course. Just made him dance a little.“I’ll thank you to stay out of this discussion, mister,” he growled.
Wisely, the man made himself scarce. Almost immediately, they heard the sound of a key grinding in a stubborn lock, followed by the closing of a door.
“Go away, Rafe,” Emmeline said. “Go home to the Triple M and don’t come back until you’re ready to say you’re sorry for treating me the way you did.”
He stad at t her, furiously confounded. “You want me to say I’m sorry? I didn’t start all this!”
“You’ve treated me abominably,” she said.“You burned down our house, and you were ready to believe the worst about me, even after all we’d been to each other.”
By then, Rafe was struck dumb, and his collar was cutting off his air. He tore it off and sent it sailing, and it landed in the upper part of the palm tree, dangling there like a half moon made of celluloid. He couldn’t have uttered a sensible word for anything just then.
“Out!” Emmeline said, pointing dramatically in the direction of the door.“Just get out!”
Rafe had been thrown out of saloons before, and even a bathhouse once, in Denver, but never a respectable hotel. He stood his ground, folded his arms, and wished to God he knew what to say.
He was saved by Becky’s appearance. She swept down the stairway, next to them, in a cloud of perfume and gracious goodwill.
“Why, Rafe,” she said, extending a hand and smiling for all the world as if they’d met at some fancy party, “how wonderful to see you!” She hooked her arm through his and steered him away from Emmeline and across the lobby, toward the dining room. “How are Angus and Concepcion? Has there been any word from your youngest brother?”
With Emmeline, Rafe had felt as though he had a whole apple stuck in his throat, but with Becky, he found he could talk. Maybe it was just that he’d taken off that damnable collar.
“Your daughter, or niece, or whatever she is,” he sputtered, letting her polite questions go hang, “is one infuri
ating female!”
Becky laughed.“Yes,” she agreed.“Isn’t she wonderful?”
The stage driver ambled in then, covered with trail dust and carrying a battered envelope in one hand. He touched his hat to Becky, but addressed Rafe.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” he said, smirking a little. “I got a letter for you. You got another bride on the way, Rafe?”
Frowning, Rafe stepped forward. He took the missive, read the return address, and was struck by a terrible premonition. The Happy Home Matrimonial Service.
He tore open the envelope, unfolded the page with a shake of his wrist.
“Dear Mr. McKettrick,” it began. “We at the Happy Home Matrimonial Service regret to inform you…”
He found a chair and fell into it. Read the letter again, and then once more, just to be sure.
Becky laid a hand on his shoulder. She seemed worried, and rightly so, if he looked the way he felt right then.
“Rafe?” she asked quietly.“What is it?”
He looked up at her. “There was a legal problem—something about the proxy—” he managed.
Becky frowned, waiting.
Rafe didn’t know whether to shout for joy or break down and cry like an old woman. “Emmeline and I,” he said, and paused to swallow hard, “we aren’t married after all.”
Chapter 18
EMMELINE BLINKED. The plank floor of the hotel lobby went soft under her feet. “What?” she gasped, thinking of the times she’d given herself to Rafe McKettrick, like a shameless hussy, without a trace of modesty or reserve.
“We’re not married,” Rafe said. Clive and Sister Mandy looked up from the registration book at the desk, where they’d been conferring over something, and Becky hovered nearby, as if she might be called upon to catch Emmeline in a grand swoon.
Emmeline slapped a hand over her mouth, then reached out and snatched the letter from Rafe’s hand. She read the damning words over several times before she was really able to take them in.
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