by Cassie Hayes
Fanny’s head lolled around in her general direction. “Yours, you stupid hag. First Leland, now Jack! ‘Course you stole him from me first, so…”
She tried to lean into him for a kiss but he pulled back, disgust etched on his face, not that she seemed to notice.
The room started spinning and all the air seemed to rush from Delilah’s lungs at once. The lamps must have blown out because everything was going dark and then she was falling, falling, falling. Strong arms caught her and eased her to the ground while something shrill screamed in the distance.
Then all was black.
~*~*~
The moment he saw Dell start to slump, Jack let go of Fanny and bolted to Dell’s side. He barely registered that the thump behind him must have been Fanny falling to the floor, or against the doorframe, but paid no attention.
“Dell!” he cried as he caught her in his arms, her body limp against his. Laying her on the floor, he brushed a few loose strands from her clammy forehead. What had happened? Fanny had been talking gibberish and then Dell was fainting. It made no sense.
Suddenly, small fists pummeled at his back and Fanny screeched in his ear.
“Curse you, Jack Dalton! You can’t just drop me like that! I’m a lady! Get away from her!”
Aidan rushed forward and hauled the kicking, screaming harpy from Jack’s back as he tended to Delilah, who was moaning quietly but still unconscious. Jack could take no more of the racket and spun around on his knee.
“Out!” he roared. “Get the hell out of my place of business and never come back! You leave nothing but wretchedness and misery wherever you go, Fanny Sweet. How on earth did I ever stomach spendin’ time with you?!”
Fanny stilled in Aidan’s wiry arms, utterly shocked by Jack’s words. Tears spilled freely down her cheeks but he knew from experience that she could summon them at will. He felt no sympathy for her and never seeing her again would be too soon.
Cold anger replaced tears when she saw they wouldn’t work on him. She slapped away Aidan’s hands while her eyes burned holes in Jack.
“Do this and you’ll be sorry, I promise you that.”
Fear welled up inside him. Not of what Fanny would do, but what was wrong with Dell. She was a strong woman, not prone to emotional attacks — except when her sleep was interrupted, that is. Then she was a spitfire to be reckoned with. But this fainting…he didn’t know what to make of it and just wanted Fanny to leave so he could tend to her.
“Leave. And if I see you around here again, I swear to all that’s holy, Fanny, I’ll call on the Vigilance Committee to take care of you.”
She paled at his threat.
The Vigilance Committee was an underground group of citizens who, fed up with the town’s corrupt police department, meted out justice in their own way. They weren’t formally organized, but there was talk of ousting the Chief of Police and getting their own members into important government positions. No one wanted to get on their bad side, so keeping a low profile was vitally important to anyone who skirted the edge of the law.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered.
“Try me.”
One more long scowl must have convinced her that he was telling the truth. With a huff, she spun around and stumbled out into the night, Aidan locking the door behind her.
They both rushed to Dell’s side. Jack sat and pulled her into his lap, so her back rested against his chest, his arms wrapped around her. One lock kept falling across her brow and he kept brushing it away, smoothing it down her cheek, only to have it bounce back again. He was frantic to keep in place because he knew that’s how she liked it.
Aidan rested a hand on his shoulder. “She’ll be right as rain soon, Jack.”
Her eyes fluttered open and relief washed over Jack like a warm breeze.
“Dell? Dell, can you hear me?” He was having a hard time controlling the waver in his voice.
“Mmm, Jack? What…what happened?”
“Ye fainted, lassie,” Aidan fairly shouted.
Jack put his hands to her ears protectively.
“She fainted, Aidan. She’s not deaf.”
Her soft fingers fluttered across his, skimming them until she held each of his hands in her own. Gently, she pulled them away from her ears and tilted her head to look into his eyes. He found himself lost in their green depths.
“I tink I’ll go work da press, whilst you two…talk,” said Aidan, slinking into the dark.
Soon a squeak and a thump sounded from the press, and the platen was moving downward to press the paper to the freshly inked galley. The first pages of the paper would soon be a reality. Dell’s fingers tightened on Jack’s, and a quick glance revealed she was grinning from ear to ear.
He leaned down close, the ever-present smell of lemon verbena filling his nostrils and whispered, “Do you feel well enough to stand?”
A quick nod and he was helping her clamber upright. She held onto him for a moment for stability, her head bouncing from him to the press to him again, smiling all the while. Then the sound of a heavy piece of metal landing on the wood floors reverberated through the shop.
“What happened?” she asked Aidan.
He was scrambling around the press, trying to figure out what failed. It only took a moment for him to pop his head out.
“Found it!”
Running out to where Jack and Dell were standing, he held out a hand holding a round, ribbed piece of metal.
“Da rounce broke ’n we don’ have a spare. I tink we’re done fer.”
Dell’s face fell and Jack could almost feel her heart breaking. “But Aidan, couldn’t we jury-rig something? We just gotta get these papers printed tonight! We got the shipment scheduled to go out day after tomorrow, remember?”
Aidan bobbed his head. “Yeah, yeah but tis a part tha’ cain’t be faked. Has t’be the real ting.”
They all stood around looking forlorn. They’d come this far only to be stopped by a seemingly insignificant part. It was beyond frustrating. It was devastating, and he wasn’t alone in feeling it. That very emotion was written all over Dell’s sweet face, and he wasn’t going to let her suffer any more than she already had.
“Aidan, a word,” he said, pulling Aidan outside while leaving Dell to fret over the press.
Stopping as soon as they were out of earshot of Dell, Jack stood facing Aidan, his hands on the other man’s shoulders.
“We know each other pretty well by now, wouldn’t ya say?”
Aidan eyed him warily but nodded. Jack continued.
“If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you know how to get things done. One of your best qualities, agreed?”
Another cautious nod. They stood in silence for a moment, Jack wondering which words to use and Aidan waiting for them.
“Tell me this,” Jack said, seemingly changing subjects. “This part we need…the rounce? Is it something that, say, Kimble might have lying around?”
A twinkle flared in the Irishman’s eyes and his lips twitched into a half-smile.
“Aye,” he whispered.
Jack nodded, musing. “Well, it’s a dag-blamed shame we ain’t got one ourselves. I’ll jest have to pay a visit to ol’ Kimble tomorrow sometime to see if he might be willin’ to part with a spare?”
What should have been a statement sounded more like a question. The slight shake of Aidan’s head answered the real question he was asking. He squeezed Aidan’s shoulders tightly and looked hard at his friend.
“No spare, huh? Oh well. We gave it our best shot. No one can say otherwise, can they?”
Aidan was all grins. “We’re not down fer da count yet, Jack me boy!”
In a blink, he’d dashed off into the night and Jack whistled a tune as he sauntered back into the shop.
“Where’d he run off to?”
Dell was still crestfallen and it pained him to see it, especially when he had renewed hope.
“He had an idea. Things might work out after all, Dell, so
why don’t we go take a walk while we wait for him to get back.”
This part of town was reserved for shops and other ‘legitimate’ businesses — rather than saloons and gambling hells — so there weren’t many people about at night. Taking heed that she’d collapsed a short time before, Jack hooked Dell’s arm through his and took her on a slow walk down the street.
“Do you think he’ll be able to fix it, Jack?”
“If anyone can, it’s Aidan,” he hedged.
“I can’t believe it’s finally happening. This is my lifelong dream come true, you know.”
“Really? I thought it was just a lark.”
She gaped at him.
“No, I mean, I know you were taking it serious ’n all,” he backpedaled. “but you wanted to start The Nuptial News your whole life?”
She nudged him with her elbow lightly. “Well, not exactly. But I always knew there was something more for me than simply becoming a wife and mother. I longed to work in the newspaper business, like my father, but he assured me that was an impossibility. My choices were limited in Boston, so when I was offered the opportunity to go west, I took it.”
He couldn’t believe he’d never thought to ask what brought her to California. In this moment, his tremendous ego and tendency toward self-centeredness astounded him. He’d been living the next room over from her for weeks, ate meals with her, and now ran a business with her, and he had almost no idea about her past.
“What opportunity was that?”
She went silent and he could have sworn she was blushing, though it was tough to tell in the moonlight. Her mumbled answer was unintelligible.
“Say again?”
Clearing her throat, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Raising her face to boldly meet his gaze, she said, “I was a mail order bride.”
Jack lurched to a stop, flabbergasted. Then he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard tears sprang from his eyes. Never in a million years would he have guessed that answer.
Dell stood beside him, patiently waiting for him to get control of himself and not the least amused. In a series of gasps and hiccups, he asked, “What…happened…to…your…groom?”
Pursing her lips, just like she used to do when he’d tease her by calling her Miss Priss, she took another deep breath.
“Miss Sweet, apparently.”
The smile fell away from his face.
“Fanny? What do you mean?”
Dell tugged on his arm to get him walking again.
“I don’t know, precisely. Leland Kirby was my betrothed. We’d exchanged just a few words by letter before I boarded the Manilla. We were to be married upon my arrival, and I spent six long, torturous months wondering what he would be like, if we would have adventures together, if we would even like one other. I was expecting him to meet me when I disembarked but he never came. I was left standing on shore with my suitcases and a bad case of the ‘I want to go homes’.”
Jack wrapped an arm around her shoulders, angered that someone would do such a thing. Dell could take care of herself, no doubt about it, but he couldn’t imagine how frightened she must have been.
“What happened next?”
“Sam. He took me in, but not before a boy gave me a letter from Mr. Kirby stating he’d tired of waiting for me and had run off with another woman in my absence. Since Miss Sweet mentioned him by name, I can only presume she was the other woman.”
Something wasn’t adding up.
“But Fanny ain’t married.”
“Clearly,” Dell snorted.
They walked along in silence as he pondered this turn of events.
“Y’know, she did mention something about her last beau. What was it? Oh yeah, he died, come to think of it.”
“How?” Dell gasped, her hand fluttering up to her mouth in surprise.
Jack shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. Some long illness or another. You ain’t gonna faint again, are ya?”
Dell smiled weakly. “No, it’s just such a surprise. I do hope he didn’t suffer.”
“Yeah? I woulda thought you’d be mighty sore at him for ditchin’ ya like that.”
“Certainly, I was, but that doesn’t mean I wished death on him. Millie would quote the Bible right now. ‘But I say unto you which hear, love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.’ I do my best, sometimes better than others.”
Her playful nudge and guilty smirk showed that she wasn’t perfect. She was human, just like anyone else.
“And I can’t say that I’m sorry for his actions,” she continued. “After all, rather than being on the cusp of starting my own newspaper, I’d be a widow in mourning for a man I would scarcely have had time to get to know.”
Most women he’d ever known would have hunted down that Leland fellow and taken some sort of demented revenge. But not Dell. She never once wished the man ill, and instead made something of herself without the need for a husband. He admired her perseverance and bravery. They were rare qualities for the women who ran in his circles — not that she did. In fact, he was running in her circle, not the other way around.
“I’d like to apologize for worrying you…and Aidan,” she quickly added, “for fainting like that. I was taken off guard, is all. I had a very difficult time of it at the beginning, so to hear she was the cause…well, being abandoned like that is a terrible thing. I hope you understand.”
“I understand better ’n you think.”
He drew a sharp breath, wondering if he should share so much about himself. But she’d trusted him enough to open up, it was only fair to return the favor.
“Y’see, my ma run out on us after my baby sister was born. Hard to blame her, seeing how there was ten of us ’n all, but hard to forgive her, too. My pa did the best he could, but I was stuck raising those kids most of the time. Love ‘em all like the dickens, but I was too young for it. Never got a chance to be a boy myself. Soon as I was old enough, I ran as fast and as far as I could and never looked back.”
“Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry. That must have been horrible, having your mother leave like that.”
He nodded grimly. “Yeah, it was tough on us older kids ‘cause we remembered her. The younger ones didn’t know the difference, other than everyone else had mothers and we didn’t.”
They strolled in silence for a few moments, thinking about what the other had said.
“That’s why I keep my lucky nugget on a chain, ya know. So’s I’ll always be prepared if’n I ever get in a tight fix and need to skedaddle.”
Her grip tightened on his bicep and he flexed instinctively. Having her on his arm was different than the other women he’d squired around town. There was a certain sense of peace when he was with her that he’d never felt with anyone else. When he’d first come down from the Sierra, he’d thought she was humdrum, but now he saw she was just not over-excitable.
The others had a theatrical flair, always playing up their audience for the most dramatic reactions, but she was the exact opposite. Solid, stable, unshakable in her beliefs and morals. And did he mention stubborn as a mule? But that stubbornness had seen her through a mighty hard time of it lately and brought her out the other side smelling like a rose.
It dawned on Jack that he was proud of Dell. Then it dawned on him that he was proud of himself. Together they’d worked to build something that was about to come to fruition, if Aidan could pull it off. Of all the jobs he’d done in his life, none had been more fulfilling than starting this paper from scratch. Of course, most of the credit went to Dell, but it wasn’t lost on him that he’d grown a fair bit over the last week or so. And it wasn’t nearly as disagreeable as he thought it would be.
“That’s a funny smile,” Dell said, breaking his reverie.
He gave her a wink and turned her back toward the shop.
“Let’s see how Aidan’s coming along.”
As they approached the shop, the sweet squeak-thump of Aidan
running the press reached their ears. They hurried up the steps and into the shop to find him pulling on the platen lever, grinning like a madman.
Jack was so delighted, he swept Dell up in his arms and spun her around the room for the second time that day. Suddenly remembering that she’d just had a fainting spell, he carefully set her down. Grasping her soft face in his rough hands, he looked deeply into her sparkling green eyes, asking with his if she was all right.
Her smile and a lone tear was her answer as she clutched at his hands.
He loosened his hold, but his hands remained, a thumb stroking her cheek lightly as he drank in her features. He couldn’t get enough of looking at her — her hair, her eyes, her lips, her adorable button nose. Never in his life had woman affected him so.
Dell was gazing up at him like a little doll, her fingers whispering across the tanned and scarred backs of his hands. Even this late at night, after a hard day of working, her beauty couldn’t be denied. The color was high in her cheeks, no doubt from Aidan’s success at getting the press running, and she looked downright happy.
It was the most natural thing in the world for Jack to dip his head and take her lips with his. Wrapping his arms tight around her waist, he pulled her body against his, feeling the rustle of her skirts against his legs. One hand slid up the rough wool fabric of her dress to her dark chestnut hair, entangling itself there in the locks that had come loose from her bun throughout the day.
Nothing was sweeter to him than when she responded by snaking her arms around his neck and pulling his face closer to hers. At first she was hesitant, seeming to not know how to even kiss — which, it dawned on him, might actually be the case — but through his gentle instruction, she soon mastered the art and was giving as well as she received.
Jack’s hands couldn’t stay still. From her hair, they roamed her back and sides, up to her arms and down to her precious hands. Hers ventured as far as his shoulders but there would be time enough for exploring later.
Cupping her face again, he kissed his way down her neck as far as the high neckline of her blasted dress would allow. Taking a different tack, he moved up to her ear, breathing into it as he kissed his way around the rim. Her body was pressed so close, he could hear the moan come from deep within her chest, as well as her rapid heartbeat.
