by Robin Gideon
Pamela pulled the nightgown over her head and tossed it aside angrily. She had her old and faded clothes to put on—manly clothes, to be sure, but they were her own, and she’d bought them with her hard-earned money—before she returned to her small cabin. Jedediah might be there, and if he was, she was going to do everything she possibly could to convince him to refuse Richard Darwell’s profitable proposition.
* * * *
The following days were difficult ones for Pamela. Jedediah had been spending virtually all his time with some woman in Whitetail Creek—a woman whose name he was not inclined to reveal, no matter how much she pried. And Garrett was still at Fort Richmond, according to Paul, seeing to the demands of a US Army lieutenant colonel who thought the way to become a general was to make everyone doing business with the government as miserable as possible.
Though gone, Garrett would be safe, for he would not be acting as the Midnight Phantom, Pamela reminded herself.
Garrett Randolph, the Midnight Phantom! Now that she knew the truth of it, she realized the physical similarities should have given him away. But he appeared so formal as a lawyer, always dressed in beautiful suits, and he hadn’t been seen with a holster around his hips since he was a teenager.
How many other secrets did Garrett have, secrets that would be positively delicious to discover?
Fortunately, he did not yet know she’d discovered his identity. If he hadn’t kissed her, his secret would have remained intact. But he couldn’t disguise his kiss, or the way it made her feel, and that had exposed the Midnight Phantom’s identity.
The horse Paul had “loaned” her was a young, strong mare with a beautiful reddish coat and mane, and white “socks” to the knee. Pamela had promised herself she would return the animal quickly, but once she had ridden into the country to retrieve her saddle, left there when Daisy had been put down, she had decided there was really no need to hurry. The horse would give her an excuse for going to the Randolph ranch as soon as Garrett returned.
As the days passed, memories of her passion-filled moments at the oasis did not diminish as Pamela had thought they would. In fact, with each passing day the dull ache within her grew just a little stronger.
Each time she remembered how she had behaved, she blushed. So passionate! Never had she dreamed she’d be so lustful, so greedy for the loving the Midnight Phantom dispensed with skilled ease.
The Midnight Phantom and Garrett Randolph were one and the same.
A slow smile curled Pamela’s mouth. She might be able to have a little fun with that bit of knowledge. For once she would have the upper hand with Phantom, and not the other way around.
When she looked out over the valley, she saw a flatbed wagon approaching. It was drawn by an old horse determined to go at its own pace, and the woman holding the reins didn’t seem to be in any hurry either. When the wagon drew nearer, Pamela recognized the plump form of Gretchen.
By the time the wagon reached the cabin, Pamela had water on for fresh coffee and she’d heated up the rich cinnamon rolls she’d baked early that morning.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly, reaching up to help the older woman step down from the wagon. “What brings you all the way out here?”
“Master Garrett sent me,” Gretchen answered with a smile.
Pamela did not at all like the title “master” affixed to Garrett’s name, but she kept her opinion on the matter to herself. “Garrett’s back?” she asked, trying not to sound overly excited by the prospect. “I would have ridden to you if he…” She didn’t know what to say, so her words trailed slowly off.
“He sent a wire. Besides, what we’ve got to do is best done here, away from the prying eyes of those boys.” Gretchen waved to a number of packages in the bed of the wagon, and Pamela went around to retrieve them. “Now let’s see what we can do with these, shall we?”
Pamela looked at the packages, all beautifully wrapped and bowed. Some were from stores in Whitetail Creek, and one, a hatbox, was from a store in faraway San Francisco.
“Garrett wanted you to have the very best. He said to spare no expense,” Gretchen explained. When she saw the look of confusion on Pamela’s face, she smiled. “The dance, child. Surely, you haven’t forgotten that the dance is tonight.”
Pamela had no idea what response she should give the woman. The fact was she had forgotten about the dance, but only because she’d already told Garrett that she couldn’t go. She didn’t approve of the people who would attend, and she hadn’t had the clothes for it.
Until now. Every package was from a fine store, the kind Pamela had never even walked into.
After coffee was served and the cinnamon rolls were sampled and complimented, Gretchen suggested a slight alteration in the recipe for them, and Pamela appreciated the tip. Next, the packages were opened.
“I didn’t say I would go to the dance with him,” Pamela informed Gretchen, who seemed determined to stay in the cabin until she was absolutely confident that every article of clothing fit to perfection, no matter how much Pamela complained.
“Yes, Master Garrett said that.” Gretchen pulled a satin gown of blue and turquoise from the largest box. It was trimmed with gold braid at the décolletage, the skirt’s hem, and the wrists. “He hoped you might be of a different mind once you saw the clothes.”
Pamela’s stubbornness came to the fore. She didn’t want Garrett to think he could buy her affections with a gown, even if it did come from the finest clothier in Whitetail Creek.
“Really, there’s no need to go to all this trouble,” she said as Gretchen continued opening packages and pulling the contents out.
“No trouble at all,” Gretchen replied distractedly, her concentration on a handbag. “This should have had just a shade more green in its blue-green coloring.”
“I’m sorry, but I really must stop you here and now,” Pamela said with finality. “I’m not going to the dance. Quite frankly, I don’t much care for the people attending, or for the things they stand for. I find them all—”
“Even Garrett?” Gretchen cut in, looking at Pamela over the tops of the gold-rimmed spectacles perched delicately at the tip of her nose.
The comment caught Pamela off guard. “Well…well, no, of course not Garrett, but—”
“It’s Garrett you’ll be with. The rest will just be bystanders. Don’t worry your head about anyone but you and Garrett, and you’ll be doing yourself a favor,” Gretchen said sternly. A lifetime of getting big, strapping, decidedly spoiled young men to do what they should do instead of what they wanted to do had afforded Gretchen ample experience in dealing with a reticent child, and in her eyes, anyone under thirty-five was still a child. “Now off with those infernal trousers, and let’s see what alterations I have to make on this gown. We’ve only got a little time before Master Garrett shows up.”
Silently, Pamela stood her ground. She would not be bullied by anyone, not even Gretchen.
The older woman would not be denied however. She was determined, she was infinitely patient, and she knew that sooner or later Pamela would give in. She was correct.
Three hours later, Gretchen was saying, “I’d have been here sooner, but some of the packages weren’t ready.” She put another stitch into the gold braid trim around Pamela’s wrist. “Master Garrett’s coming home today, and he wired that a bath should be waiting for him. He wants to be out of the ranch by three. If he takes it easy, he’ll get here by five, and you and he will arrive at the dance by seven.”
“It sounds like Master”—Pamela drawled the word out slowly and sarcastically—“Garrett has made plenty of plans for my life.”
“He sure has. Got all of us at the ranch buzzing, too. Garrett just doesn’t court like that.”
Pamela wanted to protest, but she enjoyed the fact that she could make Garrett do something he normally didn’t do with women. And when Gretchen turned her so she might see her reflection in the mirror, her reluctance about going to the dance vanished completely.
“I thought the color would suit you,” Gretchen replied, sounding enormously pleased with her own handiwork. “Now do you want me to do your hair?”
“Gretchen, that really won’t be necessary.” Pamela was about to say she still wasn’t going to the dance. Instead the words that came from her lips were, “Can I change my mind?”
“It’s a woman’s right,” Gretchen said, already opening a small purse filled with the ribbons and combs that might be necessary.
* * * *
Garrett experienced a surge of excitement when he spotted Gretchen’s old flatbed wagon at Pamela’s cabin. He tapped the reins against the horse’s back and picked up the pace a bit, anxious to see what clothes Gretchen had chosen for her.
He felt boyishly giddy, and he didn’t care. After a week of hard negotiations with a pig-headed Army officer he had no respect for, it would be pure heaven to spend time with Pamela again.
As he neared the cabin, he looked over the seat of his carriage one more time to see that it was immaculate. Then he checked his own clothes, straightened his necktie one more time, even though it was already straight, and thumbed a smudge off the toe of his boot with his thumb.
As his carriage came to a halt, Gretchen stepped out of the little cabin, a subdued smile on her face. A moment later, she was followed by an uncertain Pamela, who nevertheless looked ravishing in a satin gown.
She should not have been fearful of what Garrett would think upon seeing her, for he was stopped dead by the sight.
“My God, just look at you,” he whispered, frozen in the carriage seat.
Gretchen, ever the soul of discretion when it came to the Randolph children, whom she had cared for since they were both in diapers, murmured her approval then climbed into her wagon and headed back toward the Randolph ranch, a serene smile of accomplishment on her face.
The gown was V-necked, showing a suggestion of cleavage, gold braid touching skin. Pamela fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, and twice tugged at the modest décolletage. She was not used to the V-neckline, even though it was nowhere near as revealing as some of the more flamboyant fashions that would be worn at the dance.
Garrett jumped down from the carriage, astonished at the difference in the woman before him. She had been transformed from a tomboy with a Colt revolver at her hip to a princess in satin. Even her coiffure was exactly as he had hoped it would be. Her hair had been pulled away from her face and held loosely back with a blue-green ribbon. There were curling tendrils of golden-blonde hair slipping from her temples to caress her cheeks.
“Do you like it?” Pamela asked softly, her confidence shaky at such close scrutiny.
“Beautiful,” Garrett said.
He’d stepped forward to take Pamela into his arms when he remembered that, to her, he was just a lawyer who really didn’t know her very well. He stopped himself abruptly and forced all memories of the lovemaking they’d shared when he was the Midnight Phantom from his thoughts.
Tonight, he was starting all over with her. He would be as honest with Pamela as he possibly could, this time keeping his alter ego in the shadows of his life.
“I really hadn’t intended on going to the dance with you,” she said in a voice that was barely a whisper.
“Gretchen talked you into it, didn’t she?”
Pamela arched a brow above a green eye glinting with amusement. “I’d have thought you would be counting on the expensive satin gown to do the trick.”
Garrett shook his head. “Not with you. I knew it would take Gretchen to change your mind. She has a way of getting what she wants.”
A smile tugged at the corners of Pamela’s mouth. “You behave as if you know me very well, Garrett, yet that can’t be the case. We’ve only spoken to each other a few times.”
She looked straight into his eyes, waiting for his next statement. Garrett got the uncomfortable sensation that she was toying with him.
“I’ve got strong intuition about you,” Garrett dissembled.
He looked away.
“Yes, of course, a lawyer’s intuition,” Pamela replied at last.
She allowed Garrett to help her up into the elaborate carriage. Perhaps, with her knowledge and Garrett’s ignorance of the current situation, she could have some fun with him on this special evening…if she felt inclined to be the teasing kind.
“Shall we leave now? I don’t want to draw more attention to myself by being late,” she said, as a myriad of impish games to play on the lawyer came into her thoughts.
“You’ll draw attention no matter what time we get there.”
“Flatterer,” Pamela said with mild censure as she settled back into the plush leather seat cushion of the carriage.
She wondered exactly how comfortable it would be to make love with Garrett in the carriage, and whether it would be better to enjoy his loving on the way to the dance or better to wait and tell him during the dance that she intended to seduce him on the way home. The waiting, from the time of her invitation until they were far from the spying eyes of Whitetail Creek society, would drive Garrett out of his mind!
Such a delicious question to ponder, she decided. And the pleasure was made even greater because, as long as Pamela was with Garrett, the Midnight Phantom was safe from her bounty-hunting brother.
Chapter Thirteen
During the ride to the dance, Pamela and Garrett sampled a bottle of very fine Chablis from Garrett’s personal cellar. Pamela very rarely drank, but she accepted the first glass of wine, and even though it had gone straight to her head, when Garrett offered more, she did not refuse.
Three times Pamela let her knee bump against Garrett’s, and on the third time, she left her knee touching his. But the moment he moved his arm as though to put his hand on her knee, she moved away quickly.
“Please, Garrett, let’s do behave in a civilized manner tonight,” Pamela said, sounding hurt that he would even think she’d allow such an intimacy. Before the evening was over, before she let him touch her, she intended to have him gnashing his teeth in frustration.
Garrett talked, telling stories that Pamela found amusing and interesting. His natural voice, which had a cultured quality to it, indicated a man trained in public speaking and arguing points of law before a judge and a jury. His pitch was melodic, so different from the hard-as-flint tone he adopted for the Midnight Phantom.
On their journey into Whitetail Creek, they were lovers—at least they had made love on a single night earlier—yet now they treated each other as near-strangers on an uncomfortable first date. Pamela considered this odd, but then she had no personal history to inform her of what was or wasn’t normal.
She knew Garrett wanted her. From that first stolen kiss at the cabin when she’d realized he was the Midnight Phantom who had helped her to discover her own passionate nature, she had known he was not the type of man to be satisfied with just one night of passion on a hard rock near an oasis.
As Garrett’s carriage moved down the streets of Whitetail Creek, Pamela saw some people stop and look at them. The carriage was grand, she told herself, but even as she thought this, she knew it hadn’t turned any heads. No, the fine people of Whitetail Creek who gawked so openly did so because one of its occupants, the popular Garrett Randolph—everyone knew he was destined for an enormously successful career—was dressed to the nines and attending a formal dance with Pamela Bragg, a tomboy, troublemaker, and sister of a bounty hunter.
“Judging from some of the looks I’ve received so far, I’d say my original guess was correct,” Pamela said, wishing she could get out of going to the dance without appearing a coward.
“And what was your original guess?” Garrett asked.
He had noticed the disbelieving stares, and he wondered whether Pamela had, as well. Along with the condescending looks from many of the men and all of the women, there were also the shocked expressions of m
en who, like Garrett, had never before seen a more attractive woman than Pamela.
“That I don’t belong here. These people will never accept me, and they’ll never forgive you for bringing me among them.”
Garrett chuckled. He absolutely refused to feel anything but joyful on this evening.
Pamela placed a hand on Garrett’s forearm and squeezed. It was hard as steel, and she wondered what regimen the lawyer set for himself to keep in such magnificent condition.
“I don’t want to be the cause of your getting into any trouble,” Pamela whispered. Suddenly, it seemed the condemning eyes of all of Whitetail Creek’s elite were upon her.
“Trouble? What trouble? We’re just two people going to a dance,” Garrett said with such innocence that for a moment Pamela wondered if he really didn’t understand the situation.
“I read in the newspaper how folks are urging you to run for mayor. You know I’m really not the right woman for you to be seen with.”
Garrett twisted a little more toward Pamela in the carriage seat. His eyes were dark brown and resolute. “Listen to me, Pamela. The only person in the world to say who is right for me is me. My life is not a democracy. Every damn fool in Whitetail Creek doesn’t get a vote on what I can and can’t do or who I’ll see. I’ll make those decisions for myself—and I couldn’t possibly be happier than having you with me tonight.”
If it were not for all the stares, Pamela would have kissed him then and there. He had said exactly what she needed to hear exactly when she needed to hear it.
As uniformed coachmen took the carriage, Garrett offered his elbow to Pamela and escorted her along the pebbled walkway to the white mansion’s enormous front doors, where a small army of servants awaited the guests’ every wish.
From his jacket pocket Garrett extracted a card, on which was written in a florid hand, Garrett Randolph and Guest. Who in all of Whitetail Creek would have dreamed that he would choose Pamela Bragg as his guest?
