She looked half-dead, her skirt caked with dust, her hair straggling down the back of her neck. “Jess, what the—?”
His breath choked off.
Her green eyes blazed at him like two heated emeralds. “You…you sneak!” She burst into tears and stuffed her fist against her mouth.
Eli lurched off his stool and limped toward her. Cole stared long and hard at the woman he thought he knew.
And in the next instant he knew everything, where she’d been and, more important, what she had discovered. He stepped in close and wrapped both arms around her.
Eli stared at them, alternately frowning and crushing a wrinkled red bandanna in his hands.
“Jess,” Cole murmured. “Jess, I did it for you. I wanted it for you.”
“You should have t-told me,” she sobbed. “I th-thought there was a news story there, and that I’d get it first and then I could s-scoop your newspaper.”
“Would somebody tell me what’s goin’ on?” Eli yelled.
Jessamine sniffed. “He—he’s purchased the old Gaynor place, the house on Maple Street.”
“And,” Cole added, “I hired Ike Bruhn to do some repairs and—”
“And,” Jess wailed, “Cole put the deed in my name!”
Eli’s jaw dropped.
“And there’s y-yellow wallpaper in the dining room,” she sobbed.
Cole cleared his throat. “Oh, hell, honey, I thought you’d like that. One of the upstairs bedrooms has blue flowers. You said—”
“I know what I said, Cole Sanders.” She lifted her head to glare up at him. “I said I liked blue wallpaper, but I also said I didn’t want to—”
“Yeah,” he said heavily, “I remember what you said. But I keep thinking that a man sees what he wants to see and what he doesn’t want to see, he…doesn’t.” He waited a beat. “Or a woman,” he added softly.
Eli coughed. “If’n you two’ll excuse me, I’m goin’ down to the Golden Partridge for a whiskey. A double.”
With a last look at Jess, the old man stomped out and slammed the door.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Jess,” Cole asked, “what made you go off to Gillette Springs in the first place?”
She stared at him, her face flushed, her eyes brimming. “I told you, to get a news story. I thought I could solve the mystery about the Gaynor place, why it’s being repaired, who really owns it.”
“You can still write a story about it, honey. No one has to know I was the one who bought the house and that I put your name on the deed. Or that I’m the one paying Ike Bruhn to make repairs.”
She said nothing, just stared at him while big fat tears rolled down her cheeks.
Cole studied her face. “You know, I think that’s not what’s really important here.”
“Not important!” She bristled up like an affronted banty chicken. “I’ll have you know, Cole Sanders, that my newspaper, the Sentinel, is important to me. It’s my whole life. After Miles was killed I swore I would not let him down, that I would not let my father, or my grandfather, down. That I would preserve our family heritage.”
“There are more important things than a news story,” he said quietly. “Or a newspaper, for that matter.”
Jessamine sank onto Eli’s stool and dropped her head into her hands. “I’m so tired I can’t think anymore. I’ve been riding since three o’clock this morning.”
“It’s almost twenty miles to Gillette Springs. I’m surprised you can even walk.”
“I’m not sure I can walk,” she whispered. “Oh, Cole, I feel like such a fool.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I agree.”
Her head came up. “Well! That’s not very gallant.”
“I’m not feeling gallant. I’m feeling damn annoyed.”
“Yes, I expect you are,” she said, her voice wobbly. “Why don’t you yell at me or something? I’d feel a whole lot better if you did.”
“Nope, I’m not gonna yell at you.” He plucked her off the stool, pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder. “I figure you need a bath and some supper, in that order. I can yell at you later.”
“Yes, oh, yes, a bath…what wonderful ideas you have, Cole. Sometimes.”
He suppressed a laugh, lifted her into his arms and took the stairs up to her room two at a time while Jessamine clung to him, her face buried against his neck.
“Got a washbasin?”
She nodded. “Under my bed.”
“I’ll heat some water on the stove downstairs. He deposited her on the bed, where she instantly curled up into a ball.
“Don’t fall asleep,” he warned.
“I won’t.” Her eyelids closed.
He reached under her bed for the basin. “Get your clothes off,” he ordered.
Fifteen minutes later, Cole sat beside her, sponging her naked limbs off with warm water, gritting his teeth to keep from kissing the silky skin.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You remember that night at Christmas when we sang the Messiah?”
“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured.
He smoothed the soft washcloth over her back and moved slowly down to her bottom. “Something happened to us that night. Did you feel it?”
She mmm-hmmed again, and he went on. “We made love that night, and I felt something I’d never felt before. Something swept over the two of us, and you know what? That something was bigger and more important than just you and me individually. Did you feel it?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice lazy. “I felt it.”
Cole swallowed. “This might sound way too poetic, Jess, but that night I swear I felt my soul touch yours.” His hand stilled on the small of her back. “I’ve felt that same thing every time we’ve been together like that.”
“Oh, Cole,” she said, her voice near tears, “it’s like that for me, too.”
He drew in a lungful of air, looked away from her and then looked back. “Jess, I’m going to tell you something. Maybe you know this already, but I’m going to tell you anyway. You are headstrong, and brave, and pigheaded, and misguided. And I love you.”
As he spoke he dried her skin with a towel he’d warmed on the stove and then he touched one hand to her shoulder. “You want me to bring some supper from the restaurant?”
“No. I’ll get dressed. I want to sit across the table from you when I apologize.”
“And talk,” he growled. “We need to talk.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “And talk.”
*
Rita set the platters of steak and potatoes down in front of them, and Jess smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours. “I am positively ravenous!” She snatched up her fork, then immediately laid it down again. “Cole?”
“Yeah?”
“I do like the yellow wallpaper in the dining room.”
“That’s good.” He concentrated on cutting into his steak, but his hand started to shake.
“And the blue flowers in the bedroom,” she added. “Could we make that room our master bedroom?”
His fork clattered onto the china platter. “What? What did you say?”
“I asked if we could—”
“I heard that part. What I didn’t grasp was the ‘our’ part. As in ‘our’ bedroom.”
“Oh. Well, that’s not hard to figure out.” She gave up on the steak and dug a spoon into her strawberry shortcake. “I…um… Oh, Cole, it is so hard to apologize. I guess that is part of being pigheaded.”
“I guess,” he said, his voice quiet. “Keep trying.”
She settled her dessert spoon in the empty shortcake bowl, picked it up again and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger.
“You are right,” she said, her voice quiet. “There are more important things than a news story, or a newspaper. I guess I haven’t been seeing things too clearly.”
“Go on.”
“Remember the motto printed on your masthead, the one you adopted for your newspaper? ‘The truth shall make you free�
��?”
“Yeah, what about it?”
She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Well, um, while I was bouncing around on that saddle on the way to Gillette Springs, I realized that, um, well, maybe for me, the truth is something in myself that I had to face up to.”
His knife hand slipped sideways. “God, what else did you figure out?”
“Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, isn’t it? I think there are more than seven sins, at least for me. One additional sin might be distrust.”
“That’s a good sin, too,” Cole agreed. “What was it you didn’t want to face?” He held his breath.
She answered slowly and dropped her voice to a murmur. “I was willing to trust you with my body and my heart. But…” She pressed her lips together, swallowed hard, and met his eyes. “I wasn’t willing to trust you with my newspaper.”
“I don’t want your newspaper, Jess. I want your heart. And…” He captured her hand, lifted away her spoon and brought her fingers to his lips. “Right now, tonight, I want your body.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cole glanced up as the front door of the Lark office swung open. Billy Rowell sneaked inside, furtively glanced around and then tiptoed as quietly as he could over to Noralee’s typesetting table.
She had not yet arrived, but from Billy’s secretive motions, Cole figured the kid already knew that. Quickly Billy withdrew a single yellow rose from inside his blue chambray shirt and laid it beside Noralee’s type stick.
He and Cole exchanged a long look. “Ye’re not gonna tell on me, are ya?” Billy whispered.
Without speaking, Cole sketched a large cross over his chest and tried hard not to grin. He’d bet Billy would like Noralee’s lemonade just fine. In fact, he’d bet Noralee would take one look at that yellow rose and be head over heels in love again.
Billy saluted and disappeared out the door.
Cole laid his pencil down beside the notepad on his desk. And right then and there he made a decision.
*
Jessamine swung along the boardwalk, feeling the warm spring sunshine on her face and inhaling the heady sweet scent of blooming lilacs. This morning’s copy of Cole’s Lark newspaper was folded under her arm.
Verena Forester passed her going the opposite direction. “Good morning,” the dressmaker said in a cheery voice as she swept on.
Jess halted in her tracks. How odd. Verena Forester was never cheery in the morning. Verena was never cheery at any time of day.
Whitey Poletti stopped sweeping the sidewalk in front of his barbershop and gave her a grin, then bent his pudgy frame into a low bow. “Miss Jessamine.”
Hmm. Whitey had never smiled at her this early in the morning before; was the man getting addled? She marched on past the mercantile, and all at once Noralee Ness rushed out and threw her thin arms around Jessamine’s waist.
“Heavens!” Jess exclaimed. “What is that for? You already have a job at the Lark.”
Noralee’s brown eyes shone with unshed tears. “Oh, Miss Jessamine, I’m so happy!”
Good Lord, surely Anderson Rivera had not proposed marriage?
She swept into the restaurant and found her way to her usual table in the corner. Rita beamed at her and hurried over with a pot of her favorite tea.
She poured her cup full and stirred in a double spoonful of sugar and then began to notice Rita’s sidelong glances. The waitress seemed overly smiley this morning. In fact, everyone seemed unusually smiley this morning.
Now that she thought about it, even Eli had acted strange, as if he couldn’t stop grinning over some private joke.
Rita approached, nervously twiddling her pencil.
“Rita, what is the matter with everyone this morning?”
The waitress’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “You see this morning’s Lark yet, Miss Jessamine?”
“Why, no. Mr. Sanders and I usually read over each other’s newspapers together and then we critique them over breakfast. He should be here any minute.”
“I think you’d better read today’s Lark before he gets here,” the waitress murmured.
“Oh? Why is that?”
Rita sidled away without answering, and Jessamine frowned. Oh, very well, she would read it. She unfolded the Friday edition of Cole’s newspaper, spread it across the dining table and choked on her tea.
Emblazoned across the front page, in seventy-two-point boldface type, the single headline leaped out at her.
JESSAMINE LASSITER—
WILL YOU MARRY ME?
Speechless, she sat staring at the words until her eyes burned.
Rita began dabbing tears off her cheeks with the hem of her ruffled apron.
And then Cole walked in.
He shouldered his way past a gaggle of restaurant employees reaching out to shake his hand and made his way to where she sat.
Jessamine half rose from her chair.
“Well?” he breathed, glancing at the page spread across the table. “Too many m’s?”
She gave a choked laugh and flung her arms about his neck.
“Too many s’s,” she whispered,” kissing his chin. “As in Yes. Yes! Yes.”
“Oh, thank God,” he breathed. “I don’t have any more seventy-two-point type.”
*
Shortly afterward the Smoke River Sentinel and the Lane County Lark printed identical stories on their society pages.
Jessamine Marie Lassiter and Coleridge Whitney Sanders were joined in marriage on Saturday the fourteenth day of May at the Smoke River Community Church. Mr. Elijah Holst gave the bride away, and Colonel Washington Halliday stood as best man.
Miss Noralee Ness served as flower girl.
The bride wore her mother’s wedding gown of ivory silk trimmed with Valenciennes lace and carried a bouquet of yellow roses.
Judge Jericho Silver officiated at the ceremony, which was followed by a reception at Rose Cottage, hosted by Rooney and Sarah Rose Cloudman. Champagne and a burnt-sugar wedding cake from Uncle Charlie’s Bakery were enjoyed by over fifty guests.
Following a brief honeymoon in Portland, the couple will reside at 209 Maple Street.
In accordance with the wishes of the editors of the Sentinel and the Lark, both newspapers will resume publication as usual, with no disruption in service.
*
If you enjoyed this story, you won’t want
to miss these other great reads from
Lynna Banning:
SMOKE RIVER FAMILY
THE LONE SHERIFF
SMOKE RIVER BRIDE
LADY LAVENDER
TEMPLAR KNIGHT, FORBIDDEN BRIDE
And make sure to look for
Lynna Banning’s novella
“The City Girl and the Rancher”
in our WESTERN SPRING WEDDINGS
anthology!
Available now!
Keep reading for an excerpt from IN BED WITH THE DUKE by Annie Burrows.
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In Bed with the Duke
by Annie Burrows
Chapter One
‘Vile seducer of women!’
Gregory winced and pulled the quilt up over his ears. What kind of inn was this? Surely even travellers to such a Godforsaken backwater shouldn’t have to put up with deranged females bursting into their rooms and screeching at them before breakfast?
‘Oh! What wickedness!’
Pulling the quilt up round his ears clearly wasn’t a strong enough hint that deranged females weren’t welcome in his room. For the voice was definitely getting louder. Coming closer.
‘What is the world coming to?’
Just what he’d like to know, he thought resentfully, dragging his eyelids open and seeing the owner of the strident voice standing right over him, jabbing a bony finger at his face.
‘How could you?’ the bony-fingered, screeching woman shouted into his face. Right into his face.
Enough was enough. He knew that public inns were of necessity frequented by…well, by the public. But surely even here a man was entitled to some privacy? At least in his own bedchamber?
‘Who,’ he said, in the arctic tone that normally caused minions to shake in their shoes, ‘let you into my room?’
‘Who let me into your room? Why, I let myself in, of course.’ She smote her breast theatrically. ‘Never have I been so shocked!’
‘Well, if you will invade a man’s chamber what can you expect?’
‘Oh!’ the woman cried again, this time laying the back of one hand across her brow. ‘Was ever there such a villain? Truly, your soul must be stained black with depravity if you can treat the seduction of innocence with such levity!’
Seduction of innocence? The woman must be fifty if she was a day. And she’d invaded his room. Nothing innocent about that.
Printer in Petticoats Page 18
