by Gigi Moore
Lucy took another sip of tea, swallowing over the sudden lump in her throat.
How could she take on so over a man she’d barely known? How could she mourn someone who had been so bad and had tried to hurt people she now considered her friends?
She had thought Prentice might have been different from Rance and the cronies Rance passed her around to at the saloon when he was feeling in a generous mood. She had thought maybe Prentice might not have been such a bad sort, certainly not as bad as Rance, even if he wasn’t a good as Thayne and Cade.
Lucy closed her eyes for a moment and good Lord she could just see that man, all lean and handsome in his fancy, citified duds, the curly, wheat-blond hair hidden beneath his hat, the intense, hazel-green eyes that looked at her as if she was the only woman alive in the world.
Prentice had been so different from Rance in every way. He’d been educated and refined.
He’d smelled nice and looked even better. He’d gone out of his way to make her feel good when all Rance had ever done was make her feel like a cow patty on the bottom of his boot.
How could someone like Prentice, someone with the face of an angel and a voice that could melt a woman’s skin from her bones, be so cruel?
Sabrina sat back in her chair and crossed her heart. “I’m not joshing.”
“Has anyone seen him since…since last night?” The entire conversation was making Lucy shiver as if someone was walking over her grave.
She had heard her share of ghost stories before and she had her superstitions like everyone else, but before the stable incident she had never experienced anything so out of this world as dead bodies coming back to life.
It all made her wonder if there was some way Prentice might still be alive.
She had never gotten over the feeling that he wasn’t really dead, that somehow he had survived and the story had just got all jumbled up by the witnesses.
Everyone around the table shook their heads in response to Lucy’s question about Ethan.
“I reckon we’ll all get a gander at Lazarus when we go into town,” Sabrina said.
Lucy couldn’t figure out whether she was looking forward to going into the shop this morning or not now. She usually loved going into work with Sabrina and Maia. She learned so much about business from them and had discovered she had quite a mind for numbers and calculations. She also found that she liked dealing with the customers. She never felt more alive and useful than when she helped someone find something they wanted from the various shelves lining the store’s floor or when she rang up their purchases and sent them on their merry way.
Through Maia and Sabrina and her work at Healing Magick, she had also gotten to know many of Elk Creek’s more well-heeled ladies who frequented the shop and asked her for her suggestions on what potions she thought would help with their monthly or what potions were best to smooth out wrinkles.
“Is hearing all this upsetting your appetite, honey?” Maia asked and put a gentle hand over Lucy’s on the table.
“Oh my goodness! I’m sorry, Lucy. I didn’t think. You and Ethan grew up together, didn’t you?” Sabrina chimed in.
Lucy nodded. “It’s not upsetting. It was more upsetting hearing about his death. This is good news.”
“I surely thought it was,” Sabrina said.
Lucy fell silent again, wondering how Ethan’s momma and daddy were taking the news.
She knew they had recently thrown him out of the house after he had taken up with some unsavory character that had come into town a few months ago.
How distressing must it have been when Jed and Wiley came a-calling with the bad news that they had found Ethan dead?
She guessed everything had turned out okay, for all concerned, now that Ethan was alive though. Even if she still didn’t know all the hows and whys of it, she was happy for Clint and Kate. She knew they must be jumping for joy to have their son back.
If Ethan could get a second chance, then maybe she could, too. Lucy hoped she didn’t have to die in order to get it, though.
A sharp knock at the front door interrupted her ruminating and everyone at the table exchanged raised-brow looks.
It was a little early for anyone to come calling except that everyone in town knew Sabrina’s boarding house was open morning, noon, and night. True, Sabrina was a businesswoman, but more importantly she was always ready to take in someone who needed a helping hand. Some of the more snooty citizens of Elk Creek referred to Sabrina’s patrons as strays. They figured any visitor of note or worth would surely stay at the hotel in the center of town.
“I guess I’d better go see who that is.” Sabrina stood and wiped her hands on the front of her apron then gave everyone at the table a playful-mean stare. “Y’all get back to your ingesting, especially you, missy.” She pointed at Lucy here. “You’ve been looking a mite scrawny lately and I won’t have you wasting away to nothing under my roof.”
Lucy frowned but Sabrina left the kitchen before she could defend herself.
Maia chuckled and patted her hand. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s always harping on me being too skinny and that I need to put meat on my bones. I always take it as a compliment.”
Strangely, Lucy took Sabrina’s words as a compliment, too. Rance had always declared she was a fat frump and that’s why he couldn’t stand to bed her. Times like those she thanked her lucky stars she wasn’t as fetching as some of the other girls she had caught her husband ogling.
Not a moment later Sabrina came back to the kitchen, trailing a spiffily-dressed stranger looking as eye-catching as a sparkly new coin.
Lucy’s mouth dropped open at how out-of-place he looked in Sabrina’s prettily decorated but modest and homey kitchen.
Clad in a black tailcoat with velvet trim, a high-collared white dress shirt, black trousers, tanned double-breasted vest, black paisley ascot and shiny black lace-up boots, the stranger looked liked he had just stepped from the pages of a Jane Austen novel.
He swept off his black top hat with a flourish, revealing a head full of glorious, light golden-brown waves as he turned in her direction. “Lucy Peyton, I presume?”
Momentarily speechless, Lucy put her hand to her throat like a Victorian romance heroine trying to calm her heart. She tilted back her head to look into the stranger’s impossibly long-lashed, sky-blue eyes. Good Lord he was a tall drink of water! “Y–Yes. I’m…I’m Lucy.”
His smile proved wicked and knee-weakening and before Lucy had a chance to recover, he bowed without once taking his razor sharp gaze off of her. She felt like he had stripped her naked right there at the breakfast table without even touching her with his hands.
“Well, Lucy, I’m Hezekiah Benjamin. I believe you summoned me.”
Chapter 4
Ki felt comfortable and right at home in Elk Creek’s law office. It wasn’t as polished and sleek, or as expensively furnished as some of the law offices he’d visited back in New York, but it had its own charms.
He could tell, however, that Lucy Peyton was very uncomfortable in the office. She hadn’t stopped fidgeting since they’d first arrived thirty minutes earlier and she’d taken the seat between him and Cody Paxton. Her movements weren’t anything overt, but he felt any subtle shift of her head or limbs. Perhaps he was just extra-sensitive to her.
Once the will’s executor went over what Rance’s wishes were for his worldly possessions—one of which seemed to include Lucy—Ki well understood why Lucy was in such a state and why she had written to him sounding as harried and indignant as she had.
To finish, the lawyer explained the stipulations that would decide how Uncle Rance’s property would finally be assigned.
On the face of it, the will was legal and sound. Ki knew that it was technically enforceable as far as the parties were willing to abide the stipulations, hence the estate being in probate. However, his stepfather always said every contract had a loophole and there was certainly nothing forcing Lucy or Cody to follow the stipulations of the will
unless, of course, she wanted the saloon, house, and other assets in question.
Hence, this explained the presence of her friend Thayne Malloy endeavoring to contest the will on Lucy’s behalf.
Even if the good doctor had been a lawyer instead of in the medical profession, however, Ki didn’t think he had much of a chance to successfully contest the will or overturn the court’s decision.
Uncle Rance had left the running and ownership of Peyton’s to Cody Paxton until such time that Lucy agreed to the terms of the will. As ludicrous as the stipulations seemed to any sane person, especially to Lucy and her friend, it appeared that Uncle Rance had dotted all his I’s and crossed all his T’s in the matter.
The lawyer folded his hands on the ledger and other legal papers spread out on his shiny mahogany desk and sat back in his seat as if waiting for Ki’s response.
Evidently, Ki was the only one in the room who wasn’t aware of the complete terms of his uncle’s will before today. Now that he knew them, he could well understand why everyone’s gazes in the office were now pinned on him.
He was beginning to understand the reasons behind Lucy’s letter just a little more.
She wanted him to contest the will with her and perhaps prevent her from having to marry and stay married to this Cody Paxton for a year. Otherwise, everything went to Ki free and clear, or as free and clear as anything could be in this absurd matter.
What Ki didn’t understand was her reluctance to marry Mr. Paxton.
He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow as far as most of the cowboys in this uncultured town went and he seemed a decent enough sort. It wasn’t as if Lucy could do much better for herself in Elk Creek and it wasn’t as if she’d have to stay married to Paxton forever. Once the terms of the will had been met, she only had to stay married to Paxton for a year before everything would go to her free and clear.
She could do a lot worse.
Ki also knew she could do a lot better and his heart began to pound with the ideas formulating in his mind.
What Ki was about to suggest would certainly put a crimp in whatever plans Mr. Paxton had, so he mentally prepared himself for the man’s resistance. What man wouldn’t want to spend a year married to Lucy, after all? She was a young, beautiful woman. Sure, Lucy could do a lot worse than Paxton, but Ki knew that Paxton couldn’t do much better than Lucy.
What the hell? He had risked far more for much less and it wasn’t as if Ki didn’t love a little healthy competition. Opposition was good for the soul and kept a body honest.
“Well, Mr. Benjamin, now that you’ve heard the terms of your uncle’s will do you have any questions or anything you’d like to contribute?” the lawyer asked.
Ki took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, envisioning his next move, mentally fencing—attack, feint, lunge, parry.
He’d been with many women from all walks of life in New York and around the world. He’d wined and dined debutantes and socialites from Paris to London to Italy and beyond. He’d never been driven, however, to do what he was contemplating doing right then.
Ki opened his eyes and peered at the lawyer. “I don’t have any questions at all, Mr. Flint. However, I do have a counter-offer to make to Mrs. Peyton.” He turned in his seat to face her and felt several sets of glances following him again. The room was pin-drop silent and he could tell that Lucy was holding her breath just like everyone else in the office was.
He grinned as Lucy looked at him like a deer at a watering hole suddenly caught in the crosshairs of a hunter’s rifle.
His mother always told him that he had a flair for the dramatic and loved being the center of attention. He knew that she was right and sometimes he thought he had missed his calling not pursuing acting as a profession instead of the law. He was certainly enjoying the moment, making everyone wait with bated breath to hear what he had to say to Lucy.
Ki homed in on her full, slightly parted lips now and wondered what they tasted like. He wondered what she would do if he leaned forward, and bent his head to kiss her.
If he didn’t nip his rampant imagination in the bud right then, he wouldn’t be able to say what he wanted in his commanding and convincing courtroom voice—the voice he needed to employ to ensure that Lucy, that everyone in the room, understood he was serious.
Ki took both of Lucy’s trembling hands in his and she surprisingly let him. He gently squeezed her fingers and held her luminous color-change gaze with his. He took a deep breath, and said, “Marry me and I’ll assign half of all the assets, including ownership of the saloon and the house, to you as soon as the will is out of probate.”
Lucy gaped and Cody sprang to his feet.
“Now you just wait a cotton-picking minute right there, Mr. Fancy Pants Easterner. You can’t just come in here and—”
“Your proposal is a bit unorthodox to say the least,” Mr. Flint said.
Ki spared the lawyer a look over his shoulder. “No more so than the entire will and its stipulations.” He turned back to Lucy and peered at her. “Well, Mrs. Peyton, you seem to have two options on the table. Which one will you agree to?”
“Please don’t call me that,” she rasped.
“What would you like me to call you then?”
“You, Mr. Benjamin, can call me…fiancée.”
* * * *
“Are you sure about this, Lucy?” Thayne asked her as they stood outside the office in the main corridor of the building.
Was she sure? Lucy hadn’t been less sure about anything in her life. In fact, she hadn’t been sure about much of anything since Rance had died and left her up a creek without a paddle. Sometimes, she felt like she was going plumb loco.
What other reason was there for her to agree to marry Hezekiah Benjamin?
Aside from the fact that he hadn’t delivered the most romantic of proposals, she had just gotten out of one horrendous marriage. How could she recklessly walk into another one with a relative stranger?
Was she that desperate to get what rightfully belonged to her?
She had slaved away the better part of seven years in Peyton’s, sometimes forced to do unmentionable things with virtual strangers. She wanted to know what it was like to be independent, to own something. She had actually earned Peyton’s. She had put just as much blood, sweat, and tears into the business as Rance had.
Was she being too mercenary, too proud and selfish? Wouldn’t it be better to just move on, away from the saloon and all those bad memories and just start fresh?
She didn’t want to be a quitter though. She’d felt if she turned her back on both options presented to her, she’d be quitting. She’d be letting Rance win, not that he wasn’t doing a heck of a job getting the best of her even from the grave. If it wasn’t for his daft stipulations, she would already own Peyton’s and the house, just by virtue of being Rance’s widow.
Lucy forced herself to smile for Thayne’s sake and watched as some of the tension slowly left his body. “I’m about as sure as I’m going to get,” she said.
Thayne smiled back at her and squeezed her shoulder. She immediately felt better at his touch. He always seemed to have such a calming effect on her and she didn’t know what she would have done without him to lean on all these months.
He was a good and sweet man and Maia was lucky to have him.
Thinking about the Malloys and their happy marriage made Lucy doubt her decision all the more, but she wouldn’t go back on her word. Her word was all she had, after all, and she wasn’t going to give Mr. Benjamin the satisfaction of seeing her doubt.
What about that devoted and loving husband and the babies you wanted?
Maybe that life wasn’t meant for her. Maybe what men like Rance and Cody and Hezekiah offered her was all she was ever going to get. Maybe being a convenient choice for some man was her fate. She could live with that. She had lived with much worse after all.
Lucy swallowed hard at the thought that she had compromised and given up on her dreams again.
&nbs
p; At least with Cody she knew what she would have been getting. Granted, that wasn’t much better than what she’d had with Rance since he and Cody were rightly cut from the same cloth. She would have only had to stay married to Cody for a year in order to get everything. With Hezekiah, she knew next to nothing about the sort of man he was and she would get half of everything almost immediately if he stuck to the written agreement Thayne and Mr. Flint had just witnessed her and Hezekiah sign. On top of everything she only had to stay married to Hezekiah for six months.
One year for everything, six months for half of everything.
Lucy weighed the settlement in her head and she still wasn’t sure she hadn’t just run from the fire right into the flames.
Thayne took his pocket watch out and flipped it open to check the time. “Well, if you don’t need me here for anything else, I think I’m going to mosey on over to the shop and check in on the wife.”
Lucy chuckled at his eagerness to leave. What she wouldn’t do to have a man who wanted to be with her every hour of every day the way Thayne and Cade liked being with Maia. “I’m all right here. You go on and get to Maia. Tell her and Sabrina I’ll be there directly.”
“Will do.” Thayne leaned in to give her a hug and Lucy heard someone clearing his throat behind them just as Thayne pulled away.
“If you have some time to spare, I thought we might discuss some of the finer points of our agreement,” Hezekiah said.
Thayne gave her a questioning look and this time it was Lucy who squeezed his shoulder instead of the other way around. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, giving him permission to leave.
He glanced over her shoulder and hesitated like he was still unsure whether or not he should leave her to her own devices.
She didn’t blame him. She hadn’t, after all, acted like the sanest person in the world in the last couple of hours.
“I guess I’ll see you at the shop then,” Thayne finally said and tipped his hat at Hezekiah before turning to leave.
Lucy watched him go out the door and took a deep breath before turning to confront…her new fiancé. “Mr. Benjamin.”
