Sometime later, with appetites nearly satiated, they negotiated the uneasy path of conversation.
"You promised explanations," Evie reminded Tyler as he refilled his glass with warm beer.
Tyler sipped the liquid and contemplated the persistent woman seated across from him. He knew she couldn't be much more than twenty, but at that age he had been a man grown. The war did that to people. He wondered what it was that had turned this beautiful child into a woman so young. He'd certainly had a hand in it, but he had only stolen the last vestige of innocence. Evie Peyton hadn't been a true innocent for a long time.
"I have a foul temper," he answered casually.
"I noticed." Evie waited.
Tyler set the glass down and frowned. "What do you want me to say? Ben's my best and only friend. We grew up together. He taught me to fish and ride. He was supposed to be my slave, but he was closer to me than my brothers. They were a lot older and always about their own business. Ben's only business was me."
"So you yell at him when he gets shot?"
Tyler moved uncomfortably in his chair. "He had no business risking his life for anyone. He doesn't even want to be here. He has family back in Natchez."
The door opened and shut behind them, but neither noticed until someone kicked the chair between them. Daniel stumbled over a loose floorboard as Ben draped his long form into the chair.
"Saw the two of you go out. Took you so long to come back, thought maybe we ought to come pry one of you off the ceiling. Pardon us if we're intruding." Ben helped himself to the pitcher and Tyler's glass while Daniel maneuvered into a chair across from him.
Daniel sent Evie a nervous glance, but she ignored it while daintily wiping her fingers on her handkerchief since there seemed a dire dearth of table linens.
"Not at all, Mr. Benjamin." Evie sent Tyler a cold glance. "Since we've never been properly introduced, 1 assume that's the appropriate address?"
"Benjamin Wilkerson the Third, spelled out and not with Roman numerals," Tyler intoned with years of practice. "If there ever was one born to be an upstart darky you found him."
Ben grinned and folded his arms across his chest. "My ma believed I was meant for better things."
Tyler shouted for another pitcher of beer and more glasses. Since they were the only patrons in the place, it shouldn't have been a difficult request, but no one answered his call. With a wry look to Ben, he shrugged and rose. "Excuse me, ladies, gentlemen. I have a bad habit that I'm about to indulge in. Go on without me."
Ben rolled his eyes and looked resigned. Understanding that smoking a cheroot wasn't the habit he had in mind, Evie watched with a degree of nervousness as Tyler headed for the rear of the cafe. She was beginning to learn a few things about Tyler Monteigne, and one of them was the error of considering his casual grace as laziness.
He disappeared into the kitchen, and a moment later there was a loud outburst having to do with "damned niggers" and "not in my place," followed by a slamming noise, the tinkle of broken glassware, and a thump.
A few minutes later Tyler emerged dusting off his frock coat. The young boy who had served them earlier came rushing after him with a tray of beer and glasses. The look on his face was more astonishment than anger, and he set the tray out without a hint of resentment. Giving the table's occupants a look of curiosity, he hurried away without a word.
Tyler settled back into his chair and helped himself to a fresh glass. "Benjamin was his mother's third boy. The other two died early, and both were named Benjamin. She was a damned persistent woman, just like some others I know."
He smiled beatifically at Evie's astounded expression.
She recovered rapidly. "Tyler Monteigne, you are not only a liar, a cheat, and a donkey, but a man of rare perception. You were telling me why you were yelling at Mr. Wilkerson."
Daniel spluttered in his first drink of beer at Evie's famous two- pronged thrust.
Tyler shrugged and held his gaze on her. "I spent three years in a Yankee prison, Miss Peyton. I was seventeen years old when I went in and twenty when I came out. They would have carried me out in a wooden box if it hadn't been for Ben. He found me, joined the Union army, and got himself stationed at the prison until the war was over. He told them he couldn't see well enough to shoot a gun, but he was real good with his fists, and they believed him and put him where he requested. Do you have any idea how difficult that was?"
"And to this day the damned fool thinks I did it for him," Ben grumped as he sipped his beer. "I told you he was real pretty but not too bright."
Tyler grinned. "I'm not so dumb that I don't know you were after my plantation. Thought you almost had it, didn't you?"
Ben shrugged. "Worked well for a while. You were the only one left to inherit and if you had to sell it for back taxes, can't rightly see why it couldn't go to me. That Yankee captain thought my offer was damned funny. Wouldn't have worked if you'd been dead."
Daniel interrupted this obviously rehearsed routine. "You're saying that Tyler had to sell his plantation because of back taxes and Ben bought it? I knew the Freedman's Bureau was saying they were going to give every slave forty acres and forty dollars or some such idiocy but they never did. How can a slave buy a plantation?"
"Ben's a bigger card cheat than I ever was," Tyler said. "He cleaned those Yankee soldiers out for nigh on to three years. The taxes weren't all that much but after being in prison, I didn't have a red cent, and they wouldn't give me time to earn any. The Ridge was too tempting a prize."
"All right. I give up. So what happened? Why isn't Ben running the plantation right now and making you work in the kitchen or something?" Caught up in the story, Evie momentarily forgot her grievances. Ben and Tyler were unlikely companions, but they were as close to friends as she and Daniel had out here. It suddenly struck her that in the dime novels, Pecos Martin always had a sidekick.
It was Ben's turn to shrug. "I didn't have all that much money. All the people who worked the plantation pooled their resources, so we all owned it. That was our down fall: too many chiefs and not any Indians. Everybody wanted to move into the big house and sip lemonade and nobody wanted to work the fields. It was like giving a bunch of children a chance to play dress up. Some of us tried, but the times were against us. I don't know nothin' about cotton. I'm a horse trainer.
"We didn't keep the cotton clean. It got picked too late. And nobody wanted to buy it when we got it to town. Even the Yankee carpetbaggers wouldn't buy from darkies. Not that the crop was much good, but they could have given us something. Tyler had to take it down to New Orleans to unload it. By the time he got back, Dorset had forced the place into auction and bought it himself. He was the military commander by then, and we were still under martial law. There wasn't nothing nobody could do."
"So Ben and I duded ourselves up in fine clothes with the proceeds from the cotton and went to Natchez. End of story."
Tyler shoved his chair back and rose from the table, offering his arm to Evie as he did so. It was evident he didn't mean to express his feelings about the whole situation, and Evie was beginning to think she really didn't want to know. She had evidence enough of what happened when Tyler Monteigne gave vent to his feelings. She wasn't prepared to experience that holocaust again. She took his arm as coolly as he offered it and nodded to Ben.
"It's been a pleasure, Mr. Wilkerson. Don't tell Daniel too many tales; he tends to believe them." As she strolled out on Tyler's arm, she could hear Ben chuckling behind them. She liked to leave men laughing.
She threw Tyler an anxious look. He wasn't laughing. He wasn't even smiling. And he hadn't said anything about going away.
Her stomach knotted as she realized she wasn't certain whether she was better off having him stay and help her find out what happened to her parents or having him go away and never reminding her again of what had happened between them. Both alternatives had an element of danger—was she better off with him or without him?
As they entered the hotel lobby and s
he disengaged her hand to properly return to her room alone, Tyler answered her questions without their being asked. Catching her hand in a firm grip and fastening her with a steely gaze, he said, "It's your turn, Miss Peyton. I'll have the truth from you before I leave this town. Would you prefer to do it in your room or mine?"
Chapter 10
Tyler wanted her to tell him a story. Evie loved to tell stories, although she occasionally had difficulty separating truth from fiction. Fiction was so much more entertaining, but she had a niggling feeling this man wouldn't appreciate the difference.
She wasn't wearing gloves, and Tyler's fingers were smooth against hers where they touched. But when she tried to draw away, their pressure was strong and inescapable. A shiver of something warm flowed through her veins while his hand clasped hers, but she refused to give in to his easy attraction. She had more character than the floozies he was accustomed to. She knew what he was, and she refused to become another one of his women.
"Does this mean you're still on my payroll?" she asked sweetly.
"No, ma'am, it doesn't. It means you still owe me the truth, and I mean to collect." Tyler circled his thumb in her palm.
He wasn't playing fair, but then, neither had she. Evie jerked her hand away and tucked it under her arm. "Under the circumstances, I don't believe I owe you anything, Mr. Monteigne." She thought she managed the royal princess look rather well, although she didn't think it would work in a Pecos Martin book. "Unless you mean to help us, I don't see any reason why we should see each other again."
She caught up her skirt and regally climbed the stairs without him.
Tyler stared after her. Women didn't walk away from him. It was a fact of life he had taken for granted. And women he had taken to bed not only didn't walk away, but clung like thorny roses. It had never occurred to him that she could just walk away and he would have absolutely no claim to say anything about it.
He didn't like the feeling one little bit. Reason told him that he ought to let the spoiled brat go. He had better things to do than to baby-sit a pair of greenhorns with trouble up their sleeves. And she was the kind of woman he had sworn long ago not to touch. She was doing him a favor by walking out. But reason had nothing to do with the fury steaming out his ears. He hit the steps running.
Tyler grabbed the edge of her door as she opened it, standing with his back against it so she had to brush by him to enter her room. Evie threw him a wary glance and refused to enter.
"I never said I wouldn't help. You've just never told me what you needed done." Smiling at her wouldn't do any good, Tyler reflected. He had smiled at her before, and she had all but slapped him in the face. If he couldn't get under her skin with his looks and charm, what in hell would it take?
Frowning, she crossed her arms over her chest. "I am not one of your women, Tyler Monteigne. I want that perfectly understood."
Tyler relaxed and leaned against the door jamb, mockingly crossing his arms in imitation of her stance. "Yes, ma'am. I prefer a little experience on my women, anyway."
That struck where it hurt, but Evie's didn't flinch. "Fine, then you can wait until Daniel comes back to hear our story, if that's what you like. But unless you mean to help us, I don't see any purpose in it."
She was offering him another chance to walk away—and he wasn't taking it. Tyler wasn't exactly certain why. It could have something to do with the delectable curve of her waist beneath all that lace. Or the indignant swell of her bosom when she realized he was staring at it. But mostly he thought it was boredom and curiosity and the need to know more of what went on in that strange mind behind those deceptive dark eyes.
"I don't rob banks for anyone," Tyler replied calmly.
"I wouldn't ask you to." She offered a tentative smile. "It could be very simple, and I won't need you at all."
"Or it could be so dangerous that you need a gunslinger like Pecos Martin to protect you," he offered solemnly.
"That was Daniel's idea. I'm not certain if he thought he needed a gunslinger to keep me in line or my relatives."
"If they're anything like you, I suspect both reasons. Daniel is a very astute young man."
He was doing it again. He was smiling and being charming and Evie wanted to touch his hand and feel him touch her. On the brink of a discovery she had sought all her life, she was as nervous as a mama cat. But reassurance wasn't what he meant to offer.
Steeling herself, Evie drew her back up straight. "It isn't proper for us to linger here like this. The whole town will be talking, and I won't get that job as schoolteacher. If this takes too long, I might very well need the money. Let me know when Daniel returns. We can talk then."
Tyler made a slight bow of acquiescence and moved out of her way. "I'm looking forward to it. And Evie?"
She halted in closing the door on him and gave him a questioning look.
Tyler smiled. "Wear something blue tomorrow, will you? That blue sash looks real good on you."
Her eyes widened, and then realizing what he was doing, Evie shut the door in his face. She heard his chuckle as he walked off, and she wanted to throw and smash things, but that would only give her away. Tyler had years more experience at charming the opposite sex than she did. She would have to learn from him if they were to work together.
But those very sensible thoughts didn't keep her body from tingling in unexpected places as she imagined what it could be like if she let Tyler Monteigne charm her into his arms again. Not his bed. She hadn't liked that. Just his arms. She wanted his mouth on hers, and she wanted to know that he wanted the same thing. But then, he wanted that with any woman he saw.
Cursing to herself, Evie went to the window and watched as Tyler stepped down from the hotel veranda and headed for the cafe. He was going to go get Daniel and Ben and eventually drag the story out of her. She wasn't at all certain that she was prepared to give it to him. Would Tyler's eyes light quite so nicely when he discovered she was a bastard instead of a lady?
She watched as the sheriff intercepted Tyler's determined path. She breathed a sigh of relief as the two men wandered back to the sheriff's office. Maybe they would get caught up in men's talk and leave her alone. There was time to look into a few things on her own.
Chin set in determination, Evie consulted the distorted hotel mirror, adjusted her hat, found her gloves, and set out on her own.
By the time she returned, Daniel was sprawled across her bed reading a book, waiting for her. She kept her expression carefully blank, but he still worriedly set the book aside.
"I thought you were with Tyler," he accused.
Evie removed her hat and lay it upon the dresser. "All this time? Shame on you."
"You went looking for that lawyer, didn't you?" His eyes widened. "You didn't try talking to him yet, did you?"
"He wasn't there." Evie sat down on the padded seat of a wooden chair and began to unbutton her gloves.
"It's kind of late in the day. I suppose he went home. But you found his office, didn't you? We can go back tomorrow."
"He won't be back tomorrow." Evie peeled off the gloves and examined a chipped fingernail. Perhaps she ought to cut her nails back. It was hard to write on a chalkboard without scratching them against it.
"What do you mean he won't be back tomorrow? Is he dead?" Daniel sat up and stared at her with horror.
That summoned a small smile. "I certainly hope not. After coming all this way, it would be terrible if he were, wouldn't it? I hadn't thought of that. But he's not dead. He's just away on business. They don't expect him back for weeks, maybe months. It's just so terribly disappointing to come so far to sit and wait."
Daniel didn't exactly express relief. "Months? I don't think our funds will hold out for months. Pecos gave us as much for our help in that game as he's charged us, but even so, this hotel isn't cheap, and neither is food. What happens if our families find out that Nanny is dead and they stop sending our monthly allotments?"
"I've thought about that. Knowing Nanny, I should
think she must have sent them some report on how we fared, so the chances are very likely they'll get nervous if they don't hear from her. On the other hand, since they didn't want anything to do with us, just cashing their checks might be enough notice. If we keep on forging her signature, they might never know. But we can't take that chance."
Daniel waited for the inspiration she always provided.
Evie smiled at his loyalty. "I'm going to get that job as schoolteacher. I found out who to apply to, and I'm going there tomorrow. I'm sure the pay will be very small, but we don't need more clothes. You know that. And surely they'll pay enough for room and board. We'll just have to find a less expensive place to stay than this hotel."
Daniel's face reflected his misgivings. "We can't keep paying Pecos for months. What if the lawyer won't tell you anything?"
Evie shrugged. "Tyler resigned. I can't imagine what he could do in any case." Her eyes brightened. "Maybe you could get a job in the lawyer's office as his clerk! We wouldn't even have to tell him who I am that way. You could go through his files and find out everything. I'm certain there's more money where my checks come from. Maybe we can get our hands on some of that, and then we can go looking for my parents on our own."
"That's probably about the craziest thing you've ever dreamed up." Daniel collapsed against the pillows he had propped against the wall. "The chances of anybody hiring me are about nil. I imagine a law clerk has to run all over town doing errands and things. If I thought I could do that, I'd hire on at the newspaper. I've always wanted to work on a newspaper."
"Have you really?" Evie contemplated that idea for a while, her head cocked at a thoughtful angle. "Well, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. Tomorrow, we'll set out to become self-supporting workers. We're quite old enough now to be on our own anyway."
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