The Rascal

by Lisa Plumley

  Confused, he squeezed her.

  “You must still be delirious,” she announced, her appalled gaze going straight to his. She snatched her fingers away from his bandages, obviously having just encountered them again. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “I know what I’m doing. I intend to do much more of it.”

  He met her dubious look with a confident one of his own.

  Jack meant every word. He wanted to revel in the togeth erness he felt with Grace. Wanted to indulge in all his old fancies of having her in his arms, eager and ready and wanting him in return. He wanted to kiss her till she gazed at him with stars in her eyes and a smile on her lips and announced that he was the man she needed—exactly as he was.

  Or pretended not to be. Damnation, this was a muddle.

  “No.” Grace shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that.” Astonishingly, she hoisted her fabric-frothed skirts and wiggled backward. She slid from the table to the floor beside him in one adroit move. “I will not have you risk your health with this…this overexertion, Jack. I will not. What kind of caretaker would I be then?”

  Jack tried a rascally grin. “Every man’s favorite kind?”

  For an instant, Grace almost seemed persuaded by his smile.

  But then—disappointingly—she brushed her hands together.

  “You need more tea,” she announced with vigor. “I will brew a pot for you right now. With extra castor oil!”

  Then, leaving Jack gawking in her wake, Grace bustled to the cast-iron stove and proceeded to do exactly that.

  Over the next few days, Grace noticed, Jack achieved a near-miraculous recovery. He even sent for Doctor Finney and convinced the old sawbones to remove his bandages. To her surprise, Jack’s head had seemed as good as new afterward, looking as handsome and undented as it ever had.

  Jack winked. “I guess I’ll try sledding again.”

  “Not unless you let me steer!” Grace replied.

  Then, while he and the doctor finalized their arrangements, she scurried to alphabetize Jack’s incoming post and her own by return address. But although Grace sat firmly at the makeshift desk she’d arranged, she was scarcely able to read the writing on the envelopes for the relieved tears in her eyes.

  Privately, Grace credited Jack’s mended condition to the healing power of love—and a great deal of fortifying tea, which she’d been pouring down his gullet by the potfull ever since their rousing encounter atop the kitchen table. Publicly, she merely explained that Mr. Murphy was “improving by the day,” which neatly allowed her to carry on seeing him.

  It was gratifying to know that she hadn’t lost her knack for obtaining what she wanted…no matter how addled she felt these days whenever Jack smiled at her or touched her hand.

  “Then your plan is working?” Molly asked as the three sisters strolled to the Crabtree household the next week for a family visit. “Mr. Murphy is becoming more liberal-minded?”

  Sarah perked up interestedly. “I might have known you could do it,” she said, kicking her boots at the slush. “Is Mr. Murphy prepared to move his saloon to another property already then?”

  “Well…we have not come quite so far as that,” Grace demurred. “Soon, perhaps. I remain confident.”

  Despite her efforts, she couldn’t quite say Jack had yet become a radical, fully tamed freethinker. And he certainly hadn’t volunteered to move his saloon. Although he had gazed at her in a near-poetic fashion while they’d kissed that night. To Grace that counted nearly as well.

  “Watch out, Molly.” Grace caught her sister’s arm, helping her over a patch of icy street. “You should be more careful.”

  Both her sisters stared at her, Molly with her hand cradled protectively over her abdomen. Sarah smiled.

  “What?” Grace demanded, noticing their foolish expressions. “That’s my little niece or nephew Molly’s carrying. I don’t want her to slip and fall. In fact, someone ought to sawdust these passageways regularly.” She glanced about the busy street and false-front buildings, rallying her most indignant rabble-rouser’s voice. “Doesn’t anyone care about the rights of expectant mothers? If women had the vote, I expect they would make such safety procedures mandatory!”

  Now Sarah and Molly looked relieved.

  “I’ll speak to Marcus straightaway,” Molly said, moving onward, “about donating some sawdust from his lumber mill.”

  “And I’ll notify Daniel the minute I get home about your impending nuptials,” Sarah said, straight-faced as she walked, too. “No doubt you and Mr. Murphy will be inviting the whole family. Once you both stop being so stubborn, that is.”

  Grace gave her a withering look. “Very funny.”

  “You can’t fool us,” Sarah insisted. “You’ve become downright sentimental, Grace. Ever since you fell in loooove.” Skipping ahead, Sarah cast a grinning glance over her shoulder. “Next thing you know, you’ll be sewing your own wedding dress.”

  “Sewing?” Appalled, Grace chased after. “Take that back!”

  “I won’t.” Sarah laughed, throwing her scarf. “It’s true.”

  Several steps behind them, Molly sighed. “Don’t run!” she admonished. “Behave yourselves!”

  It was an excellent imitation of their girlhood days… until Grace heard one final decree. Just as she rounded the corner, Molly called after them, laughter ringing in her voice.

  “Don’t be silly, Sarah. You know Grace won’t have time to sew a dress,” she said, finally joining in. “She’ll be too busy embroidering every bit of her trousseau!”

  Alarmed by her sisters’ teasing, Grace immediately and diligently resumed several of her least conventional activities.

  Rather than embroider, she oiled bicycle parts with the members of the Morrow Creek Bicycling Association. Rather than sew her own wedding dress—as Molly and Sarah so laughingly predicted—she lugged home books from the library of the Social Equality Sisterhood and read each one straight through. Rather than bow to traditionalism or sentimentality, she wore all her most radical reformer’s hats, one after the other.

  And rather than dreamily contemplate the excellence of Jack Murphy’s kisses, Grace devoted herself to perfecting her snowshoeing skills. It was a meager substitute, she knew. But her newfound absentmindedness would stand no chance when stacked against strict hours of practice, she reasoned.

  So each afternoon, Grace trod a path outside of town. Through the wind-scoured ponderosa pines, over the hills and along the iced-over pond she went, her woven snowshoes clomping, till she panted for breath and even her eyelashes felt frozen.

  Unfortunately, her practice did not lessen the urge she felt to sigh over Jack Murphy’s smile, his eyes or his shoulders. It did, however, leave Grace little time to indulge overmuch in such things. For that she felt grateful.

  Until, that is, the day she arrived to find the Irish rascal himself standing on her familiar trail, waiting with a pair of sporting implements slung over his brawny shoulder.

  “You,” he announced, “are being foolish.”

  “Of course I’m not.” It never occurred to Grace to claim anything less. “Everyone knows that vigorous activity is the best remedy for daydreaming. Therefore I was simply—”

  His smile quirked. “I meant that you should have company on these excursions of yours. It’s not safe for a woman alone.”

  “Oh. Of course.” Caught off balance by Jack’s unexpected appearance and by the fact that she’d very nearly admitted to mooning over him, Grace adjusted her hat. “But it’s perfectly safe for me. You needn’t worry.” She mustered a smile, hoping to hide her discomfiture at being discovered in so private a place. “Good day, Mr. Murphy. I’ll let you get on with your business.”

  She moved sideways, gesturing as though to dismiss them both. Then Grace waited, afraid that if he stood there much longer she might do something truly foolish…such as sigh over how handsome Jack appeared in his coat and flat-brimmed hat.

  He didn’t so much
as step aside at her motion, not for the sake of business nor gentlemanly courtesy. Instead he eyed her bundled-up form, her snowshoes and the woods surrounding them.

  My, his eyes were blue today….

  “I’ve come to invite you ice-skating,” he said.

  She goggled. “Ice-skating?”

  “I know you don’t have blades, so I brought these.” Another grin as Jack lofted pair of weather-beaten iron blades. “The same size as mine, the better to fit on your man-shoes.”

  She frowned at her feet. “But I’m already snowshoeing.”

  “Easily remedied.”

  Taking her arm, he led her to a nearby log. With scarcely a moment to examine her snowshoe fittings, Jack unbuckled them.

  “You’re very adept with your hands,” she observed.

  His next smile, wicked and knowing alike, weakened her knees. It was fortunate she was already sitting, Grace decided, although she couldn’t quite recall how she’d come to be in such a compliant position. It was very unlike her.

  Before she’d quite reasoned it out sufficiently, Jack had outfitted her with one pair of the skates he’d brought. Admiringly, she wiggled her foot, turning it to test the weight of the blades and the snugness of their leather straps.

  “From Daniel’s smithy,” Jack told her, watching.

  He checked her skates’ fit, then nodded in satisfaction. She could scarcely recall seeing him so assured, so tall, so unabashedly masculine. Perhaps the effect owed itself to the outdoors, Grace mused. That or her own susceptibility.

  Their kisses had changed things, after all.

  Dreamily, she watched as Jack took his place beside her on the log. His legs flexed as he lifted them to attach blades to each big boot. His fingers worked with fascinating dexterity.

  He stood, then nodded to the pond just distant. “Let’s go.”

  At once, the reality of her situation descended. “Oh, no, thank you,” Grace blabbered, reaching with awkward hands to wrangle with her borrowed skates. She spied her snowshoes propped against the log’s edge. How had they gotten there? “I really must get back to my snowshoeing practice. You see, my club is relying on me to lead our next trek, and I should—”

  “You don’t know how to ice skate, do you?”

  He sounded amused by the realization. Ignoring his crossed arms and shrewd look, Grace attempted to remove her skates.

  “As it happens,” she informed him, “I don’t need to know. After all, Morrow Creek has no women’s ice-skating association.”

  “You’ve never started one?”

  “No, because I can’t—” Skate. She refused to admit as much. It went against every part of her. “Can’t abide skating.”

  She felt Jack’s contemplative gaze on her, even as she continued to wrestle with her skate fittings. Suddenly, he took her arms and hoisted her to her feet. Grace wobbled mightily, clutching his coat for balance. When she finally glanced up, his face loomed, rugged and familiar and disconcertingly appealing.

  He held her arms securely. “Let me teach you.”

  Goodness, but his grasp was strong. His voice had turned luring, too, his brogue deepening on those few words alone.

  Grace gulped. “Thank you, but I’m very happy snowshoeing.” “Take my hand. We’ll step to the ice’s edge together.”

  “Mr. Murphy, I try not to make a fool of myself.”

  “It’s only me,” he said inanely, then stepped outward a pace. Stranded at the very edge of his grasp, Grace wavered. Her ankles felt as unsteady as her fluttering heart suddenly did.

  Jack let go.

  Grace wobbled, watching in disbelief as he took another pace away from her. How could he leave her stuck this way?

  From the edge of the ice, Jack regarded her. Tenderness suffused his expression. Certainty, too. “You’ll like it.”

  Indeed she would not! She’d found the only man in all of Morrow Creek who dared naysay her, Grace fumed. She balled her gloved fists, glaring at him. This was ridiculous, equipping her with ice skates and then leaving her to maneuver in them alone.

  She would make a cake of herself for certain.

  If Jack had not been so charming, in fact, she’d never have allowed events to progress this far, Grace assured herself.

  “Try it. I won’t believe you can’t ice-skate till I see it with my own eyes.” Jack pushed sideways, moving on the ice in a single powerful motion. It was galling. “I’ll help you.”

  All of her rebelled at the notion. Except…

  Except she did wish she could skate like that. A women’s ice-skating association might be just the thing for next year.

  With trepidation, Grace examined the slick surface. “I prefer snowshoeing.” Something else caught her eye. A shovel, propped on a nearby tree trunk. “Did you shovel this pond?”

  Seeming abashed, Jack peered at his upturned blade.

  “Did you shovel this pond for me?” she persisted.

  “You’ll never know,” he relented grudgingly, “if you don’t come out here with me.”

  The gruffness in his tone made her smile.

  “I think you shoveled this pond for me,” Grace announced.

  He didn’t deny it. “I’ll hold on to you the whole time.” Again Jack reached out his arm for her. Holding it outstretched, he skated to the very edge of the pond. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  Somehow the rebuttal Grace might ordinarily have made caught in her throat. As odd as it seemed, she believed that Jack would keep her safe…that he would protect her and stay beside her, for as long as she would allow.

  “Don’t move,” she commanded. “I’m coming.”

  The few steps required to reach him took forever. Grace concentrated on the forward progress of her feet, listening as her blades punched through the snow. One more. Nearly there…

  Then Jack’s brawny arms enfolded her. So did the scents of fresh air, damp wool and—oddly—tobacco. Warmth passed from him to her, making her cheeks tingle. Stubbornly, Grace clung to him as little as she dared. Letting go altogether felt impossible.

  “I’m as wobbly as a newborn foal,” she complained.

  “All you need is practice.” Jack nudged her chin with his thumb, bringing her face to meet his. “The first few steps are the hardest. Now lean into me and push with your right foot.”

  The moment he shifted position, Grace’s balance deserted her. She flailed madly, only to find that Jack still held her securely with his hands on her upper arms. He’d only given her a bit of room to maneuver and was—aggravatingly enough—skating backward while he guided her. Pursing her lips, she pushed off.

  He nodded. “Now the next foot. Follow me.”

  “No.” But Grace did it all the same. She clutched Jack’s shoulders, her whole body stiff. But then… “Look! I glided!”

  Jack only nodded. “Keep going. You’re doing fine.”

  “I’m doing wondrously!” She could scarcely believe her own agility. She concentrated on Jack’s movements, rapidly learning to discern which way she was supposed to move next. “I can feel your shoulders bunch up, then you lean back a bit—”

  Fascinated by the wonderful flex and tug of his muscles, Grace forgot what she was saying. For a saloonkeeper, she decided, Jack Murphy boasted an unusual quantity of brawn.

  He caught her ogling and laughed outright.

  Affronted, Grace walloped him with her scarf.

  “Careful,” he warned, giving her arm a teasing squeeze. “Reformer’s garb like yours has been known to injure a man.”

  “Not a big, strong man like you,” she argued.

  “Ah, Grace.” Guiding them both across the ice, Jack cupped her cheek in his hand. He gazed at her, finally releasing a sigh. “When it comes to you, I’m not so very strong after all.”

  His admission moved her. Especially given, as it was, while the wind tossed their coats and the snowy trees slipped past and Jack’s very strength in keeping them both upright proved him wrong in his claim. He was strong, Grace realized.<
br />
  He was strong and brave and powerful enough to risk shoveling an entire pond for a woman who might easily have been too obstinate to appreciate the gesture. To try something new.

  To try and falter and, in the end, do everything but swoon.

  “Let’s go around another time,” Grace said.

  Jack peered at her. “Another ladies’ club brewing?”

  “Mmm. Perhaps,” was all she said. Because if things went well, Grace dared to hope, she might not need so many clubs in her future. But not even a certain Irish rogue’s kiss could have made her admit such a girlish wish aloud.

  Chapter Fourteen

  After her skating lesson with Jack, Grace found herself enjoying the rest of February in a way she never had before. The weather was wintry, as usual, the winds blustery and cold, but the sun came out every day all the same—as it often did in the territory—and so did Jack. To see her.

  Now when they passed on the street, they shared a secret smile and sometimes brushed gloved hands together in hello. When they emerged from their shared building at the same time—as they were magically wont to do—they stopped to talk and laugh and steal a kiss in the shadow of the stairs. When they heard each other moving about late at night, practicing their individual duties, they often quit those tasks altogether… and met for a heady conversation instead.

  “Hmm.” Jack paused in the passageway between his saloon and his living space one afternoon, looking Grace up and down. He seemed especially handsome in his shirtsleeves and vest, all dark-haired and broad-shouldered and smiling at her in that unique way he had. “Grace, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Oh, no?” Demurely, Grace produced a note from the pocket of her dress—an ordinary one, not chosen for its practicality and utility but instead for the way Jack had once said it made her eyes look pretty. “Then I suppose this note is a code. Tell me, Jack. Where it says meet me at four, does that mean—”