The Drifter

by Lisa Plumley

  Not waiting for his reaction, she took his hand and scurried up the steps, pausing to retrieve the lamp on the way. She flung open the door and hurried within, hauling Graham inside in her wake.

  “See?” Happily, she raised the lantern.

  Its wobbly glow illuminated a room far different than the one he remembered. Beneath the unfinished eaves, unlighted lanterns hung at the ready in wall holders, each aligned over a small table and chair. Graham counted eight in all. Between the lanterns and spanning the perimeter of the room, shelves had been fixed to fill the space between the wall studs. Atop the shelves, beneath carefully lettered signs designating different letters of the alphabet, were….

  “Books!” Graham said. He reached to touch the nearest volume, a copy of Moby Dick shelved beneath M. “You’ve found books, and tables and chairs, and—ahhh, Julia. ’Tis a lending library for sure, just as I wanted. How did you do all this?”

  I believe in you, he remembered her saying, and saw the same in her face as she watched him.

  She rocked up on tiptoes. “The volumes are donated,” she told him. “When we went calling, I wasn’t only searching out the very best birthday cake recipes. I was also asking for book donations, from nearly everyone in town. ‘Graham Corley is starting a free lending library,’ I said, and it seemed everyone else shared my opinion of that particular notion.”

  “And that was?”

  “That it’s a fine, noble idea.” Julia set down the lantern and came to him, clasping his hands in both of hers. “That it’s a rare man who would think of so generous a thing, especially for a town he’s shared less than a month. That it’s proud I am, to know such a man, and to call him mine, even for just a little while. I hope—I truly hope you like it.”

  The sincerity in her voice shook him. Honored him. Overwhelmed by all this night had brought, Graham swallowed against the lump that rose again to his throat, and gazed out through the shed’s—no, the library’s—still-open door, afraid he’d unman himself if he so much as tried to speak. He squeezed Julia’s hands instead, and concentrated on the soft feel of her skin against his until he found his voice.

  “It’s exactly as I imagined it,” he said gruffly. “Thank you.”

  He lowered his head and touched his mouth to hers, driven to express all he felt the best way he knew how. Through action. Through touch. Through the wondrous meeting of their lips, their breath, their heat. Graham angled his head and kissed her fully, and although no mere taste could deliver all he needed to say, it was the best he could do. It would have to be enough.

  Again and again their lips met. Their mouths angled, seeking more…their tongues touched, danced, retreated. ’Twas heady stuff, kissing Julia. By the time they drew apart, Graham was breathless, with a pounding heart. He’d wager, upon seeing her pink cheeks and bright eyes, that she felt much the same.

  “I’ll never forget this,” he told her, lowering his forehead to touch hers. “Never.”

  Her smile turned wistful. “Not even after you leave?”

  “Not even then. Nothing could—”

  “What’s this?” a masculine voice interrupted. “Leaving? Ho, Geneva. The man thinks he’s leaving here, and this with Julia in his arms even now.”

  They jerked. Asa Bennett stood in the open doorway, flanked by Aunt Geneva to his right. Hastily, Julia stepped away from Graham, her flush deepening guiltily.

  No sooner had she done so than Asa entered the room all the way. With an indulgent smile, he used both hands to gently steer his daughter back into Graham’s arms.

  “Look there, Asa,” Aunt Geneva said, following her brother-in-law inside. She waved her fan flirtatiously, her eyes dancing with good humor. “Julia wants to undo all the good work we’ve done.”

  “I see that.” Asa cast an exaggeratedly speculative look toward Graham and Julia both. “It’s beyond my understanding. Nearly so much as that talk of Mr. Corley leaving they were doing when we followed them here.”

  Geneva tsk-tsked. Beside Graham, Julia boggled.

  Both elder people shared a conspiratorial smile. “I told you they’d suit perfectly,” Geneva informed Asa. “I know you were skeptical at first, Asa, but I knew eventually our Julia would be smitten. After that, she only needed a helping hand.”

  “You’re right,” Asa agreed. “Fine work, we’ve done.”

  “You—you’ve done?” Julia choked out. “Whatever do you mean?”

  This time their shared smile was indulgent.

  “We might as well tell you,” Asa said, gesturing toward Graham and Julia alike. “We’ve…well, we’ve been scheming to bring the two of you together. Since the day Mr. Corley first came to dinner at our home.” He thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat and puffed up his chest. “Dinners, calls, outings. Frankly, it’s worked even better than I expected.”

  “Not better than I expected,” Geneva put in, fanning herself.

  “Papa! Aunt Geneva!” Julia looked dumbstruck. “You don’t mean—”

  “We had to do something, child,” Geneva said gently, smiling fondly at her niece. “You’ve always had more interest in mathematics than in finding a man to care for you. That’s why your father devised those requirements for your return to the States, you know. We were worried about you.”

  Graham spoke up. “You’re worried no longer,” he observed.

  Three faces turned toward him. With evident surprise, Asa Bennett shook his head. “No. Seeing you two together tonight has laid the last of my fears to rest. I believe you truly love each other, and—”

  “Papa, really!” Julia seemed mortified to be discussing such a private subject. She wrung her hands beside him. “Can we at least shut the door before disclosing such delicate matters? Please?”

  “No need!” the elder Bennett blustered. Looking proud as the self-satisfied papa he was, he fixed them both with a meaningful look as he straightened.

  “The whole town will know soon enough, anyway. I’ve decided to grant my approval of your engagement, Julia,” Asa told them. “And if you’re to make that interview at Beadle’s in time, you’ll have to be married in a matter of days.”

  It was ending, Graham realized. Now that Asa Bennett had granted his approval of his daughter’s marriage, his time together with Julia would end.

  He’d barely had time to absorb the dismal news before Asa delivered the final blow.

  “Three days,” he said, nodding happily at Julia. “You’ll be married in three days’ time, to be precise. I’ve already spoken with the minister, tonight, and made arrangements for this Saturday.”

  Of a habit, Graham reached for Julia’s hand. She stood rigid beside him, her fingers cold, and he couldn’t help but wonder if she was thinking the same thing he was:

  ’Twas much, much too soon.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The following evening, Julia sat at the small writing desk in her chamber, pen in hand. Clad only in her nightdress, with her hair rolled in rags and a beautifying concoction spread over her face, she imagined she was a sight, indeed. But she’d been too busy with other activities today to see to this one, very necessary, letter. And no matter how late it was, writing it was a task she couldn’t delay. Her longed-for position at Beadle’s periodical depended upon it.

  She still couldn’t quite believe her opportunity had arrived. With her papa’s approval of her sham engagement, the road to her dreams had opened. She would have the independent career and the secure, safely anonymous life in the city that she’d hoped for, away from everyone in Avalanche who had ever ridiculed her or turned her away. It was everything she’d worked for, and Julia knew she should have been elated.

  Strangely enough, she was not.

  But why? Everything was proceeding as she’d hoped. All Papa had demanded was that she find a husband before returning East, and now—or at least, as of the Saturday afternoon two days’ hence—Julia would have that husband.

  However briefly.

  Thinking of Graham, she sighed. When
Asa Bennett had announced his approval, with Aunt Geneva beaming beside him, Julia’s “fiancé” hadn’t said a word. Instead, he’d merely clasped her hand in his and stoically stared straight ahead. Like a man facing a firing squad…or a drifter temporarily forced to settle in.

  More than likely, her bounty hunter had been steeling himself for the ordeal ahead, Julia decided as she surveyed the crinkled wads of paper at her feet. Doubtless, Graham had been summoning up the necessary courage to bind himself, however momentarily, to one woman. One place. One future.

  One pretended—but equally confining—commitment.

  Well, it wouldn’t be easy for her, either, Julia reminded herself defiantly. She’d never deceived her papa before. Breaking the news of her annulment to him—once she’d reached New York—would be one of the most difficult tasks she’d ever faced. Papa would be disappointed, especially having thought her so happy with Graham. Aunt Geneva would be, too.

  But Julia had already vowed to go forward. The best she could do when the time came would be to devise an excuse for her marriage ending that would not lay the blame at Mr. Corley’s door, and leave it at that.

  Miserably, Julia kicked at a tossed-away early-draft letter with the toe of her slipper. She watched it skitter across the hardwood floor and come to rest at the edge of the loomed rug. If only she could cast aside her doubts as easily!

  The trouble was, she’d begun to let her emotions rule her, rather than common sense. During her time with the bounty hunter, Julia had found herself swamped more and more with unfamiliar feelings…unnavigable and dizzying feelings. Nothing in her logical life, orderly ’till now, had prepared her for such a thing. It was no wonder, Julia decided, that she was having trouble! She merely needed to return to reason, and let her usual practicality come to her aid.

  To that end, Julia dipped the pen nib into her pot of ink and then in the wavering light from the nearby oil lamp, she considered what she’d written so far.

  Dear Mr. Chamberlain,

  I have most fortuitous news! As I’d so avidly hoped, I have at long last secured the means to return to the States, and in particular, to New York City. As you mentioned when we last corresponded, I am indeed interested in the etiquette columnist’s position at Beadle’s, which you so generously informed me of. If the following date and time would be convenient for you, it is my hope that I might meet with you on—

  Squinting, Julia paused. She tapped the un-nibbed end of the pen against her lips, deliberating. “Meet with you on—”

  She wrote a date one week hence. That would allow her time to be married, secure the funds her father had promised to release from her trust upon her marriage, and travel by train to the East. If she allowed no wedding trip with Graham…

  With a frown, she scratched out the date. Wrote in a new one, a week later.

  Regarding it, a small smile came to her lips. Surely she could afford a few days’ time to spend with her new “husband.” Nothing demanded she end her sham marriage quite so precipitously, did it?

  Julia’s gaze fell on the stack of correspondence arranged neatly at the edge of her writing desk, and the feminine handwriting on the topmost envelope. It was the latest letter from Lucinda Druiry, boasting of her plans to secure the etiquette columnist position for herself. Groaning in remembrance, Julia struck out the new date and rewrote the earlier appointment time.

  She examined her letter to the editor of Beadle’s. Filled with strike-outs, corrections and tearlike blots of ink, it was, quite possibly, the sorriest rendition she had devised so far.

  “Oh, this is no use!” Julia wailed, snatching up the letter and crumpling it. She tossed it over her shoulder to join the others. “What is the matter with me?”

  As though her looking glass might tell the tale, she glared into it. Her beautifying-concoction-smeared face gazed back at her from beneath her frightful, ragrollered hair. Outlined by the white horseradish-and-sour-milk potion that Aunt Geneva swore would make her complexion its palest and most beautiful, her eyes looked red-rimmed and confused. This, for an impending bride?

  All at once, Julia wanted nothing more than to put her head in her hands and have a good cry.

  Except she couldn’t. There was still too much to be done. Once she’d finished with her letter, she would have to examine her dress for needed mendings, plan a menu for her wedding luncheon, see to packing her satchels for her return East…oh, it was all too much! Overwhelmed, Julia looked from her writing paper and pen to her wedding dress—formerly her mother’s, in a beautiful shade of blue—to Lucinda’s letter and her waiting opened satchels. And all she saw, in her mind’s eye, was Graham. Resolute. Helpful. Wonderful.

  She couldn’t let him do it. She couldn’t let him sacrifice the drifter’s life he loved, for her. Not for so much as a day, and certainly not for any longer than he had already.

  Suddenly decisive, Julia cast aside her pen, and hurried to the basin to wash her face. There was no sense fighting it. It seemed she’d have to let her wayward emotions rule her a little while longer…just long enough to call on Graham, and release him from their bargain.

  Standing to the side of Bea Harrington’s boardinghouse a half hour later, Julia nibbled nervously at her lower lip. She scooped up another pebble from the cold ground and bounced it in her closed gloved fist, preparing to toss it in the path six others had taken before it.

  Against the bounty hunter’s window.

  The night breeze ruffled the skirts of her brown day dress. On the street some twenty yards distant, the occasional wagon or rider passed by, and piano music tinkled from Cole Morgan’s Last Chance saloon. If anyone saw her here, they would surely think she was daft for standing at the building-side and throwing rocks. But the alternative—alerting Mrs. Harrington that Julia had come to call on her “fiancé” at the unspeakable hour of nine-thirty—was unthinkable.

  “Please,” she whispered as she pulled back her hand. “Be there!”

  She threw. The pebble, like five of the six before it, pinged from the siding a good foot from the window, and fell harmlessly to the ground. Graham would have needed hearing like her family’s old bulldog to have detected it.

  “Arrgh!” Julia stomped her foot and scuffled sideways, looking for another rock to toss. Dust kicked up around her ankles, and her determined, muttered grumblings echoed from the buildings on either side of her.

  “This will do the trick,” she said a few minutes later. She hefted a six-inch rock, solid enough to fill her whole palm. “Let’s see you ignore this!”

  Suddenly, a hand clamped over hers. Julia tilted backward, maneuvered by the force of someone standing behind her. She spun, and found herself confronting a tall, dark figure in a black hat and duster coat.

  “Mr. Corley! You scared me near to death! You’re supposed to be inside.” She nodded toward the darkened window, and frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  He regarded the rock in their joined hands, and shook his head. “Stopping you from committing a terrible breach of etiquette, looks like. Or from spending the night in the town lockup, for destroying Bea Harrington’s windows.” He grinned. “What were you trying to do, brain me with this boulder? There are easier ways to get a man’s attention than with mayhem like this, darlin’.”

  The endearment, his first for her, wafted through her mind like a feather on a breeze. Julia clutched it close, and vowed to remember it. Given what she’d come here to do, that last bit of affection held extra sweetness.

  She dropped her rock, and brushed the dirt from her palms.

  “I’ve come to—to tell you something,” Julia said. She couldn’t resist taking his arm, savoring the soon-to-be-faraway solidity of the bounty hunter’s muscles beneath her fingers. “Something important. Is there a private place we can talk?”

  He frowned. “Are you all right? If anyone’s teased you over our wedding the way you feared they’d ridicule your papa’s new hairstyle, I’ll—”

  “Oh, no! It’s not that.” Sw
eet heaven…he thought someone would find their wedding ridiculous? That was what she got, Julia supposed, for finagling a fiancé for the “oddity of Avalanche.” Doubtless Graham had become the subject of a few jests himself, for becoming entangled with her. Still, the supposition hurt. “It’s about you.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, and I…oh, I can’t discuss this here. Someone might overhear, and then—”

  “Shhh. ’Tis all right.” As though sensing her turmoil, Graham pressed a kiss to her lips, then murmured reassuringly. “We’ll go to my boardinghouse room. No one will bother us there.”

  He began to walk, bringing her along at his side. By rote, Julia came…then panicked.

  “What if someone sees me entering your room? My father—my reputation—my books! I’ll be ruined.” At the boardwalk, Julia dug in her heels. “Perhaps we should retire to the municipal park, and find a bench to—”

  “To freeze together on? You’re already shivering. My room will be fine.” Graham put his arm around her to warm her, and started walking anew. “I’ll not let any harm come to you because of it.”

  “But that’s why I’m here,” Julia said, seizing upon the opening his words offered. “To make sure no harm comes to you!”

  His expression was filled with disbelief. “You want to protect me? From what…a rogue soup-slurper at our wedding reception Saturday? A terrible shortage of neckties?” Graham laughed. “Julia, I’ve lived more than thirty years, most of it on my own. I need no protection.”

  Despite his jokes, Julia felt too beset to laugh. Assuredly, to look at him Mr. Corley did seem invulnerable. Big, strong, sure of himself. But behind his eyes lurked a sadness only she could help ease, and his broad shoulders and wide chest only hid his gentle heart. They could not prevent it from breaking, while he left behind the freedom he needed.

  She had to go forward. To let him go. However much it hurt.