The Rascal

by Lisa Plumley

  His sisters, properly shushed, looked at one other.

  He could see they were befuddled by the question.

  “Never mind.” Squaring his shoulders, Jack glanced toward his saloon. Remarkably, patronage had increased, partially in anticipation of the Excelsior Performing Troupe’s debut tonight.

  To his chagrin, however, a quantity of his newest customers had been women looking for corsets or other unmentionables from him. Assured by Grace’s letters to Heddy Neibermayer, they all believed him to be enlightened. “I have work to do.”

  “Yes, Jack,” Arleen said piously.

  Glenna widened her eyes. “We’re sorry, Jack.”

  Jack wasn’t fool enough to believe their ladled-on naiveté for a minute. He hesitated. “What mischief are you up to now?”

  Corinne waved him away. “Nothing you should worry about.”

  “Everything will be fine,” Nealie assured him.

  Casting them a suspicious look, Jack wavered.

  Then he realized the truth. No trouble his sisters could wrangle during their short time in town could compare with the misery of missing Grace. Despite that she’d revealed his secret, purposely betrayed him and brought on all kinds of aggravation on him in the process, he did miss her. Idiotically, he missed the nearby clomp of her man-shoes, too.

  Knowing he was daft for certain, Jack said his goodbyes, then turned on his heel and headed for his saloon.

  Beneath a gnarled oak at the town square, Grace glanced at the reformers and suffragists who ambled between the assembled tents. This was a fine spring day for a rally, and the equality march she and Heddy had led this morning had been excellent. But despite the crisp snap of the flags in the breeze, the vinegary tang of Doctor Winstetter’s Female Remedy samples from the booth nearby and the arrival of her bicycling club members, Grace could not find herself cheered in the least.

  She missed Jack. That was all there was to be said. And no matter how hard she tried, she could not repair the trouble between them. It was downright vexing. He veered away when he saw her coming, left his saloon to Harry during the hours Grace could visit, abandoned his entire routine of errands and mail fetching…all to avoid her, she felt sure.

  He would never forgive her. That much seemed plain.

  Grace tried all her usual tactics in response, hoping to move past her lovelorn feelings. She lost herself in marches and speeches and rabble-rousing. She listened to Heddy’s lectures and applauded with due vigor. She even launched a protest and got herself hoisted off to Sheriff Caffey’s jailhouse for what she’d hoped would be a distracting few hours’ incarceration.

  It had not worked. There’d been no solace to be found.

  But just when Grace had decided to abandon her quest to reach Jack, to accept her fate and live without him, he was suddenly everywhere she looked. His image appeared on several banners at the rally. His catalogs piled inside numerous tents. His fame and achievements taunted her from every direction, reminding Grace that she hadn’t really known him at all.

  In every tent, during every march, Grace’s suffragist friends were aflutter with breathless discussion of “Professor Jack Murphy” and his “miraculous female inventions.”

  Even her family wasn’t immune. Her mama applauded Jack’s innovativeness, not the least bothered by the fact that he’d hidden part of his past life in Boston. Her papa nodded in agreement. Molly pronounced it “pure fate” that Grace had become smitten with an intellectual man, however much he grunted and served up whiskey.

  And Sarah…Grace shuddered to remember that.

  “Is it true,” her sister inquired in all eagerness, “that Mr. Murphy’s corsetry designs can make a grown man weep with longing? Is it?”

  “I would not know,” Grace announced, then hastened away.

  But she had almost yearned to find out—with Jack himself—and that was worst of all. She didn’t even approve of corsets, newfangled ones or not! Now Grace hadn’t the scarcest idea what to do with herself. She tromped the grounds of the suffrage rally, nodding to friends and traveling vendors and members of her newly approved female baseball team, feeling despondent.

  She should have known not to open herself to love and all its fancies, she reminded herself. Apparently, love was the only thing in the world not moved by strict effort. She was better off without it. Grateful to be without it, Grace assured herself. In fact, if she ever felt inclined toward love again, she would heartily pinch herself until sanity returned.

  “Grace Crabtree?” someone asked. “Are you Miss Crabtree?”

  Reluctantly, Grace roused herself from her visions of pinching and pinching every time she saw Jack. She turned to face four bright-eyed women. “Yes? I am Miss Crabtree.”

  They glanced at each other. Nodded. “We should have known,” one said, nonsensically. “You look exactly right for him.”

  “For whom?”

  “For our brother, of course.” One woman stepped forward and took Grace’s elbow. Her smile was as warm as Molly’s ovens, and her manner nearly as brisk as Grace’s. “I am Corinne, and this is Nealie, Glenna and Arleen. We are the Murphy sisters.”

  They all beamed as though this were good news.

  “Oh, dear.” Grace balked. “This is awkward. I should not—”

  “Come with us,” said another sister—Nealie, Grace recalled. Purposefully, she took Grace’s other elbow. “We have a great deal to accomplish, and not much time to do it in.”

  “Especially given Jack’s muleheadedness,” Glenna advised.

  “And his determination not to let us help,” Arleen added.

  All four of them laughed uproariously at that.

  “I am finished with Jack Murphy,” Grace said. “Don’t—”

  “See? She is just as stubborn as he is!” Corinne’s smile widened even further. She nodded at her three sisters, then waved toward Grace. “And obviously just as miserable.”

  They gave her commiserating looks.

  Grace hesitated, her heart pounding. “Jack is miserable?”

  “Without you?” Glenna nodded vigorously.

  “Only until we women take charge,” Nealie assured her.

  “It’s simply the way of things,” Arleen added.

  Hmm. Grace quite liked the way the Murphy sisters viewed things. They were very practical. For the first time in days, she felt hopefulness soak all through her like sunshine on the springtime soil.

  “I would like to know about his life in Boston,” Grace admitted. “And about what happened there.”

  “Easily done,” Corinne said. “Come right this way.”

  Alone in his saloon, Jack wandered between the tables. He righted those that had been upended, then snatched empty bottles and added them to the armload he already carried.

  Last night, the whole place had been packed as a pickle barrel, filled with patrons eager to see the Excelsior Performing Troupe. Grace’s suppositions of culture aside, the retinue had included more than one bawdy dance-hall girl, two jugglers and one magician. Hardly refined, but very profitable.

  Even if Jack had had to endure numerous ribald jests about underwear while his customers paid their admissions. Nowadays, those jokes seemed more friendly in nature than he’d first supposed though…and it felt strangely liberating to have his secret in the open, too. Not that Jack would admit it.

  Scowling, he left the liquor bottles on the bar. Harry would be here soon to help clean up, open the saloon and prepare for the troupe’s second night performing. In the meantime, Jack needed to do all manner of restocking.

  He bent to the crate of tequila he’d brought from the back and plucked two bottles free. By rote, he carried them behind the bar, treading slowly. If last night was any indication, he had finally achieved the successful saloon he’d long worked for. He’d earned enough to pay Jedediah Hofer in full, to square up his other accounts and even to expand sooner than he’d thought.

  Right now, though, Jack felt anything but pleased.

  Behin
d him, the doors creaked. A shaft of light fell over the bottles in Jack’s hand, alerting him to a visitor.

  “Saloon’s closed.” Grouchily, he turned. “Come back later.”

  Adam Crabtree planted his feet, his usually jolly demeanor anything but this morning. “If I do that, I will not have done my utmost. And that is not like a Crabtree at all.”

  Jack wanted to groan. Evidently doggedness ran in the family as much as freethinking did. He nodded. “Crabtree.”

  “Murphy.” Adam gave him a shrewd look. “I don’t care if you’re closed. I’m here to talk about my daughter.”

  Grace. Jack could not speak. He shelved two more bottles.

  “I can see you’re feeling uncommunicative,” Adam said, untroubled by that fact. “Very well. I’ll get straight to the heart of things, shall I? Then I can go back to my peaceable retirement, and you can go back to being obstinate.”

  Against his will, Jack smiled. Appalled, he sobered before turning to the crate to fetch another pair of tequila bottles.

  “I have to tell you,” Adam announced, striding across the saloon floor like a practiced orator, “I am most displeased with the way this matchup has turned out. Or not turned out, as the case may be.” He wagged his finger at Jack, his whole manner blustery behind his spectacles and graying hair. “I’ll admit—with no undue modesty, mind you—that I am quite skilled at these matters. It didn’t seem possible that two such brash, bookish, unnaturally muleheaded individuals as yourselves wouldn’t suit one another, so quite understandably I assumed—”

  “Matchup?” Jack asked. “What matchup?”

  Adam gave him a warmhearted, almost commiserating smile. “Between you and Grace, of course. Why else would I be here?”

  Wholly confused, Jack stared at him. “I don’t know.”

  “It took me months to find you,” Adam mused. “I must have perused hundreds of applicants for this building. My land agent was pushed near to fisticuffs several times, he was so frustrated with me. But I insisted on waiting till I was sure.”

  This made no sense at all. “Sure of what?”

  “Why, that I’d found the right man for my Grace. And when I met you at last, I knew you were the one for certain.”

  On that bewildering note, Adam strode across the saloon, studying the place as though seeing it for the first time. It occurred to Jack that perhaps he was. Crabtree did not attend meetings of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club here, nor indulge in whiskey like most men in town. He was an anomaly.

  A meddling, matchmaking, property-owning anomaly.

  Jack stared in disbelief, realizing the truth with a jolt.

  Adam sensed exactly the moment when he did.

  “That was a near thing,” he observed, chuckling. “If you hadn’t cottoned on by now, Murphy, I would have had to revise my entire opinion of your intellect. Very good. Excellent.”

  “You own this property,” Jack said.

  “Indeed I do. Bought it with the first profits from the Pioneer Press and held on to it until the time was right.”

  “But your land agent.” Jack marveled over it all, the pieces dropping into place like parts of the puzzles Grace had claimed her father loved so well. “Your lease demands. Your—”

  “All necessary, I’m afraid.” Adam shook his head. “My daughter is too savvy otherwise. Grace doesn’t know the whole story, you see.” The man eyed Jack’s drooping bottles. “You might want to put those down. No profits in spilled tequila.”

  Awkwardly, Jack did. “You set us up,” he declared.

  “Yes, and I’m not sorry either. Sometimes people require a certain nudge in order to do the right thing, I’ve found.”

  “I see where Grace gets her meddling streak.”

  “Perhaps.” Adam’s face glowed with affection. “Of all my daughters, Grace is most like me, I’ll admit. But the fact remains—enough is enough.” His expression hardened as he wheeled around, suddenly the staunch businessman. “I’ve heard how you and Grace are avoiding one another, and I’ve had my fill. I’m fit to turn you both out if you can’t cooperate for a change.”

  Instantly, Jack objected. “Grace will be forlorn!”

  A telling twinkle entered Adam’s eyes. “Ah. Interesting, that you thought of Grace’s well-being before your own.”

  Disgruntled, Jack frowned. But before he could refute that outrageous claim, Adam strode to the bar. He studied Colleen’s painting, nodded, then addressed Jack with satisfaction.

  “But since Grace is already forlorn,” Adam pointed out, “and since her broken heart is likely to blame for it, my reapportioning your shared property can hardly injure her much more, can it? A clean break would be best.” He paused. “However, I’ll hear your arguments to keep your share intact if you wish.”

  Jack met the man’s ostensibly cheerful expression with a fierce one of his own. He thought of Grace, turned out of her meeting rooms. Thought of her without her clubs and activities and nook for hiding contraband baseballs. Thought of her alone.

  “Let Grace have the upstairs.” He frowned. “I’ll leave.”

  Aggravatingly, Adam smiled. “Perhaps you should think about why you made that offer, Murphy. Think about why you withstood all those seamstress jokes. Why you owned up to your past at all.” He gave Jack a measuring look. “I have a feeling packing up and pulling foot for someplace new won’t look quite the same to you after that.”

  Then he tipped his hat and took himself away, leaving Jack with a scowl as wide as the new saloon stage he’d constructed—and a lion’s share of food for thought in the bargain.

  For the first time in all her years of rabble-rousing, Grace missed a protest march that day. Instead of carrying a banner and agitating for women’s rightful equality, she sat enraptured at the square while Corinne and Nealie and Glenna and Arleen told her all there was to know about their brother, Jack.

  They spoke of his fine work at Boston College. His long history of inventing things. His abiding care for his family, and the scandal that had chased him from home. All of it.

  Rapidly, from that conversation onward, Grace found herself welcomed into the chaotic fold that was the Murphy family. It was wondrous and lively. Even though Jack himself had not come round—not even two days after her enlightening talk with his sisters—Grace could not help but feel a little better.

  No wonder Jack had reacted so strongly to her publicizing his drawings, Grace realized. No wonder he had felt betrayed when all the scandalous doings he’d left behind had turned up again at Grace’s unwitting instigation. Likely she would have felt the same if their situations had been reversed.

  “All I needed was the proper information,” she proclaimed to her father a day later, breakfasting with him before the final engagement of Heddy Neibermayer’s speaking tour. “The correct and complete information. If I had known about Jack’s past, I would never have called attention to those drawings.”

  “Of course you would have, Grace.” Her papa munched his toasted Graham-flour bread, his eyes mischievous and somehow wise behind his spectacles. “You wouldn’t have been able to help yourself. You were born to meddle and manage and interfere.”

  “Papa!”

  “What?” He blinked. “I mean that in the most loving manner possible.” He patted her hand fondly. “You have always been boundlessly aware of your own opinions, from the day you first wailed out your displeasure at having been born so abruptly. You haven’t stopped stirring up a fuss for a minute since.” He smiled. “It’s one of your most endearing qualities.”

  “Endearing?” Grace frowned.

  “To those of us who love you,” he specified, spying the jam. He helped himself to more. “Which is how I knew, if I were ever to match you up with someone suitable—as I so love to do, being singularly meddlesome myself—I would have to be clever.”

  Grace stilled, no longer enjoying her oatmeal. “Match me up with someone?” Thoughts of the whispered-about matchmaker of Morrow Creek swirled through her mind, makin
g her distinctly uneasy. All this time, she’d thought she was immune to the family legacy. Now it seemed… “Papa, tell me you didn’t!”

  “I did. You and Jack Murphy were an ideal match,” her father informed her, his chin jutting in stubborn likeness to her own. “Pairing you with him was an excellent idea. My only mistake was in underestimating your identical obduracy.”

  Grace groaned, long familiar with her papa’s…unusual tendencies toward romance. He’d done this before. But she’d never expected to find herself at the wrong end of his meddling.

  “You promised you would leave me alone!” she reminded him, wadding up her napkin in frustration. “You promised you would not interfere with my life, because I am the eldest, and—”

  His warmhearted smile stopped her. “Dear girl. A promise is nothing compared with making sure you’re happy. I’m a father! My whole purpose is to raise daughters who are secure and loved.”

  Still… Grace could not believe it. “But to match me with a man? With Jack Murphy?” She waved her arm, aghast at the very notion. “As though I were a silly skirt with no sense at all? With no mind of my own to handle my own affairs?”

  Her papa regarded her calmly. He pushed away his plate, then laid his hand gently on her forearm. His beloved face was sincere and serious and terribly, wonderfully, honest.

  “It is because you have a mind of your own that I was compelled to intervene,” he said kindly, shaking his head. “Else see the daughter I love trapped in a solitude she’d never admit—nor ever be able to solve on her own.”

  Stricken, Grace gazed at him. She opened her mouth, instantly prepared to deny it…but in the end she could not.

  Her papa was right, she knew. Without being forced to deal with the man she fancied, without having Jack Murphy situated so vexingly downstairs, Grace might never have broken free of her lonesome routine. She might never have touched real happiness, nor ever understood what it meant to truly love someone.

  To truly be loved in return.

  “Don’t be angry with me.” Her papa’s voice was quiet among the china and toast. “I only meant the best for you.”