by Martha Hix
“Really?”
“Please take it as a compliment.”
That was when her dimples deepened. “It was my pleasure to look over your work. You’d done a fine job with Armstrong versus Baker. But the original deed—what a mess! The lawyer must not have been formally trained.”
“He wasn’t. There were few lawyers hereabouts in the early days of the county.” The new document in hand, Grant tapped it with his free index finger. “This document rights the wrongs.”
He marveled at Sweetness. Who could have imagined. A girl performing the task of an attorney. But she wasn’t a child. Fate had forced her into the adult world and its cruelties, lured her into white slavery; she’d even been willing to toss away a maiden’s most prized possession just to escape the villain who sold her for a fraction of her worth.
How dare Chet Merkel waltz away, scot-free.
Already Grant had taken steps in that regard, but Merkel wasn’t the problem at this moment. Praising Patience was in order. Just how? Therein lay the key….
In Alabama, Grant Kincaid practiced law; after studying in Tuscaloosa, he’d read conclusions on psychology. As well, he grew up in a large family, with two elder brothers, his own position being elder to three sisters, of whom he missed greatly. He knew enough about women to know that it was a crapshoot, understanding what made them happy or sad. Spending money on clothes or trips usually had a positive result. As well, he knew it didn’t hurt to show an interest in something a woman had mentioned.
Grant dropped into his chair and caught her hand. “Tell me about your father.”
She pulled back her fingers. Slightly. “Where do I start?”
Where was her father at a time such as this? Where was this man who had taught her an attorney’s skills? If he cared enough to train his daughter in anything, why would he allow her to go astray? Why had he let her loose with someone like the devil in Merkel? Or, for that matter, with the devil in this dining room?
“Where is he?” was the best question to pose.
“I have no idea, really. I suspect he’s somewhere in the vicinity of Silver City. That was his destination. I’ve written to him, in care of several places, asking him to meet me in El Paso, or to leave a letter with Will Call at Western Union. As well, I’ve written to several other people in authority in a number of places, asking them to relay my message if they know him.”
Grant wrapped his arms around her legs. “I have an idea.”
She strained at his hold. “I imagine it starts with a trip to your bedroom.”
“You were interested earlier,” he pointed out with a wink.
“That was before you treated me crossly. You yelled at me.”
“I was a cad. I apologize. From the bottom of my heart,” he added earnestly. “Earlier, I was startled. Later, you were meddling in legal documents. How was I to know of your brilliance?”
She lifted a shoulder before favoring him with a haughty half smile. “You are such an old grandpa! I guess this is where you want me to say, ‘All is forgiven.’”
“That would be a start.” What should he say next? How could he jump from his earlier rejection to ardent admirer? “Sit.” He patted his knee. Thankfully, she didn’t argue. Once she was there, he said, “I am not your grandpa, nor your father. I’m not old enough to be either. But I’d like to know more about your father.”
This worked. Quite well. Words rolled forth like ribbon coming loose from a spool. With each word, she moved her little behind on his knee just a bit, but more than adequately to make it difficult for Grant to concentrate on The Saga of Jethro Leonidas Sweet.
She told of a learned man from the north who had been educated in several disciplines, yet never really settled into a home life with his wife and children. Sweet moved his family onward and onward as he assessed the worthiness of first one mining possibility, then another for its value as a commercial dig. As Patience had mentioned earlier, his only son succumbed to an accident, tumbling from a unicycle, and the younger of his two daughters died in her crib.
Her mother never got over the baby’s death, blaming it on her father, because there had been no doctor near their home at the time. Thereafter, the patriarch refused to take the family along when he moved to new locations, saying, “Join me when there’s civilization nearby.”
“Silver City has plenty of civilization,” Grant pointed out at the end of the ribbon-roll.
“He thought so, too, but Papa wanted to check and make sure.”
That seemed reasonable. One thing seemed very certain. Patience needed to know her father’s fate. Certainly, she’d laid the groundwork to find him. No telling what a visit to El Paso would bring, if anything, but Grant understood a general truth about women. If he didn’t take Patience there, there would be no living with her.
He brushed her cheek with his knuckles. “You know, it’s the oddest thing. You’re wanting to travel to El Paso, and I’ve been thinking about making a trip out there myself. Why don’t we leave tomorrow evening? My friend Wes Alington has a Pullman car that he’ll put at our disposal, I’m certain.”
“A Pullman, really?”
“Indeed.”
The Santa Fe railway made a gift of that private car in appreciation for the sheriff funding the tracks southward from the Texas Panhandle. It embarrassed the hell out of ol’ Wes when the railroad rolled the private railcar into town, the sheriff not being a man to flaunt wealth, so he made the car available to friends and for civic functions. “If you’ll allow me, Patience, I would love to help you search for your father.”
“You would?”
“Of course.”
“I’ve been to El Paso myself,” Grant bragged, “so I know my way around.”
“How would that help? Papa is either there, or he’s not.”
Grant’s thoughts were elsewhere. He intended, sooner rather than later, to explore the depths of her dimples with his fingertip and his tongue. “We can dine at the Harvey House.”
“Oh?”
“They even serve Gulf shrimp, and I hear the flounder is so fresh you’d think you were eating in New Orleans.”
That didn’t seem to carry a lot of weight. He took her hand and kissed her fingers. “Tell me, Sweetness. Outside of reuniting with your father, what do you want more than anything?”
“Lunch?”
Grant chuckled, smacking his forehead with the heel of his free hand. “Good gosh. I forgot our meal. It’s in the kitchen. Shall we eat in there, or clear away these papers and set a proper table? Which do you fancy?”
“The kitchen, for sure.”
“Then we’ll have chicken sandwiches and gelatin salad at the sink, as my mother would say. After you.” He followed her to kitchen, which she had tidied up he noticed. He went for the sack containing the light lunch, while she stood on tiptoes to reach plates and glasses, as if she were accustomed to the place already. She needs a stepstool. I’ll build her one.
He enjoyed the idea of doing for her, as well as the familiarity of their domestic routine.
Studying her, he watched as she poured iced tea from a Mason jar into glasses. They barely knew each other, yet their lives had changed and for the better; he felt certain. He felt she would agree, if not now, eventually.
What did this mean? he asked himself.
Suddenly, it hit him.
Grant looked upon a diamond in the rough in the youthful and lovely titian-haired beauty with her complexion of peaches-and-cream, so aptly named Patience.
“You are a tiny diamond, shining so brightly,” he admitted aloud, wondering at his thoughts. Had he meant them? Yes. He realized that fate had brought this imp to him. They belonged together. Smaller than his usual type. But dynamite gets packed in tiny containers.
Was it love at morning light?
How could it be anything else?
Ha
d he known last night he was truly betting his life, would he have made such a wager?
Absolutely.
He hoped to convince her of their perfect match while on the trip to El Paso and the return. Yes, the return. Somehow, even if her father was waiting for Patience, Grant figured to convince her into becoming Mrs. Kincaid.
However…
He’d met her in a saloon. He’d won her in a card game. She had no family, was no flower of society. Wasn’t a thing like his mother, the daughter of a former governor of Alabama, a female who received a university education before even considering marriage. While he might look on his mother as an ideal, never once had he been intrigued by a female of her temperament or credentials. He wanted Patience. He wanted her to fill the emptiness of his life, his lonely nights, his lonelier mornings.
He wanted her in his life forever.
He wanted to make her his wife, to be a good and decent husband, a worthy father to her children.
How could he fit her into the political life he planned? That she’d been seen in the Garter was not social poison, save for a certain crowd of churchgoers, but that set didn’t think much of Grant Kincaid anyway. They wouldn’t cast their dogcatcher votes his way.
Jewel knew way too much about everything, and she would blab it all to her husband and to Linnea Kincaid, which meant Grant’s cousin, Sam, would get his ear bent to the ground, but their circle was the closed kind. While the Craigs weren’t actually kin, they were as good as when it came to family matters.
No one knew about the bet, save for himself and Chet Merkel, and the latter had left town.
Suddenly, Grant had concerns about having called at the sheriff’s office. Wes Alington hadn’t been there, of course. He and his wife had taken their child to visit Lisa-Ann’s mother, a lady who spent many years of her life convicted of a murder she didn’t commit.
The Alington family had naught to do with why he’d called on Deputy A.J. Hanson.
The problem might lay in his rush to take down Chet Merkel. Grant had headed straight for the sheriff’s office when he’d gone for food. With the sheriff and his family off to visit his mother-in-law, Deputy A.J. Hanson filled out the paperwork to file the charges against Chet Merkel for white slavery. Hanson intended to send the papers over to the Western Union office as soon as his runner reported for duty at three in the afternoon.
While that criminal deserved to pay for what he’d done, the scandal of it would live forever, and Grant wouldn’t allow anyone to ruin his future wife’s reputation, locally or in political circles.
Chapter 4
Patty finished pouring iced tea from a Mason jar into glasses, then sat down opposite the man who perplexed her. Was Grant a kindly savior or a cranky old grandpa-acting boar? Definitely, he was a pretty boy. It made her feel good, his appreciation of the work she’d done on his legal papers. And she still had those tizzy feelings now and then, when he wasn’t hurting her feelings.
Why was he being quiet?
As they ate sandwiches and aspics “at the sink,” as his mother evidently would say, Patty realized, up to now, she’d done all the talking. She had almost given her virginity to him, had blabbed her life story, and would hare off in a Pullman with him, yet she knew nothing about this man.
“If I say yes to El Paso, do I have to go to that bed of yours?” She needed to know.
“Only if you want to.”
“Not particularly.” She blushed… And she knew he could read her: I would like to, when the moment is right.
There was a powder-dusted cookie in the bottom of the café sack. Grant broke it in half, brought the larger piece to her lips. “I do want to share a bed with you, Sweetness. In fact, we will share a bed. Many beds. And they will be the bed of wildcats, mating fiercely. But first. Take a bite, darling. Yes, like that. A tiny one to start. First—first, I would like to ask you, and please do be honest. Those horned goats, and maybe a few callow youths, in Tulsa and later. Did any of them touch you…in your private places?”
“No,” she replied honestly and swallowed the cookie bite.
“Good.” He brushed her chin with his fingertip. “I would very much appreciate it…if you would to teach me the seduction of a virgin.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
His eyes, so blue, were framed with thick black lashes. He had wonderful eyes. Eyes that caressed her, made love to her, as he said, “Oh, yes, I do believe you do.”
That was when he kissed her, just slanted his lips over hers and pressed tenderly. “Something like that would be a start for the lessons. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Would it?”
“Yes.” He cupped her face with his hands, deepening the kiss.
The tizzies up to this moment? They were nothing like the one that began to grow within Patience now. This man was not going to need any lessons at anything, but the sound of a knock at the front door drew their attention and pulled them apart.
It was that Jewel Craig again. She certainly had a knack for showing up at inopportune times.
* * * *
Grant tried not to shows his impatience with this second visit from Jewel, who swept in without preamble.
“My conscience got to me,” she said as he let her in. “I couldn’t leave that child to the horniest goat in Lubbock.”
“Thanks a lot, friend.”
“I’m here to take you with me, honey,” she said to Patience, while handing over a silk shawl. “Gather your things and come along. That old busybody, Mrs. Orrey-Alington—she’s the sheriff’s mother—is in San Angelo and her usual squad of bigmouths are at a quilting bee, so the coast is clear. But tie that scarf around your head, just to be sure. My niece is outside in her automobile with our children. We’ll take you to my home.”
Patience tried to wave her off. “No, no. I’m fine.”
“No need,” Grant said. “I’m renting her a hotel room while I take care of business downtown. She and I will be traveling to El Paso tomorrow evening. We’re going over there to locate her father. He’s a missing person in New Mexico.”
“Do what?” That was local vernacular for “Huh?”
“No need for worry, Jewel. Either before we leave or before we return, Miss Sweet will become Mrs. Kincaid.”
Patience gasped. “You didn’t say anything about that!”
“I didn’t?”
“You did not.” She turned to Jewel. “We are traveling to El Paso together. As for any marriage, my goodness! That’s really extreme. When I find my father, I’ll be going on with him to New Mexico. I intend to buy a Brownie camera and become a world-famous photographer, taking pictures of the land and the native artifacts, and especially the natives themselves.”
Grant groaned inwardly at Patience’s naivety, while Jewel turned one of her trademark searching expressions on the hopeful photographer. That look would have made an excellent photograph—she possessed a great deal more character in her face than she did beauty.
Devoid of the ability to suffer the ridiculous in silence, she said to the naïve Patience, “You best be fast on your feet or quick on the draw, or both. Those Indians, they don’t take kindly to people moseying up, stealing their souls, and—”
“Stealing their souls? What does that mean?”
“Jewel, you cannot imagine how much help Patience was today.” While his friend might be right, he didn’t want her stepping on his Sweetness’s dream. “She is marvel of legal knowledge. I intend to make her my legal aide, if she will agree.”
That brought a wide-eyed look from his favorite virgin, as if she’d never entertained the idea of a legal future, and it wasn’t a bad one.
* * * *
As it turned out, Grant convinced Patience to spend the night with the Craig family for the sake of Lubbock propriety. He sent the ladies away and instructed Jewel to make a stop by Allen & Cars
on’s dress and millinery shop to purchase attire suitable for travel that didn’t have bows or follow the sailor fashion.
As well, the shop even offered a hat box and valise to transport the goods.
He made quickly for the sheriff’s office. Deputy A.J. Hanson did in fact visit the Western Union office but not to post the all-points bulletin for the arrest of Chet Merkel, white slaver.
Thank heavens!
The deputy did send a telegram; albeit, the message informed his family that he would be traveling home to Brownwood for his sister’s wedding.
Grant scooped up the outgoing missive about Merkel, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the refuse can. That’s that. The man’s judgment would have to come from The Maker in heaven.
Next on Grant’s agenda? Saturday court. It went well, thanks to Patience’s contribution in streamlining the process.
The winning attorney contemplated the future, both professionally and personally, as he drove out to the High Hopes Ranch to pick her up after court adjourned. He imagined both a partnership with the clever Patience as his clerk or assistant. She might wish to become an attorney. He imagined that females would be attending law schools in the near future. If that was her wish, she had best do it before children came along. Once they did, it would be difficult for her to be away at school.
Just about the time that Grant realized that all of those decisions would need to be hers, not his, he reached the High Hopes property, where his Mississippi-born cousin, Sam Kincaid, was waiting for him at the gate.
“Good to see you,” Grant called. “I’m here for my lady, as I’m sure you know.”
“Nice little gal you’ve got, Cuz, and I do mean little,” Sam ribbed. “You and your high-stakes gamblin’. You sure work quickly. I guess you always did know your own mind.”
“That’s right. Nice seeing you, Cuz. Gotta rush. Don’t want to miss the train.”
He and Patience didn’t miss the train.
The southbound Santa Fe steamed out of the Lubbock depot that evening with Wes Alington’s Pullman tailing the caboose. Grant stocked the private car with items to keep his Sweetness company. A backgammon game, a deck of cards for gin rummy, a book of poetry, as well as an erotic-behavior guide that his eldest brother had smuggled home, after serving as a Navy surgeon in the Pacific. He was holding back on the book.
