Rugged Cowboys (Western Romance Collection)

by Amy Faye

  She'd taken the first stage out. She probably should have known well in advance, but that had cemented her place as the talk of the town for twelve weeks that followed.

  It was almost flattering, at first. Everyone smiling at her, greeting her with a soft, "Howdy, Miss Bainbridge," and nodding as they passed. Watching her, going out of their way to talk to her specifically when she had to go out. Like she was a local celebrity.

  That lost its color after a couple weeks, and mostly what she wanted was to be no different form everybody else, which she was quickly coming to realize was simply not going to happen.

  But now, she would learn, they were getting back to their usual favorite pastime. The first thing that Ruby Gardiner said when Marie walked into Mr. Gardiner's shop—he'd been drinking, no doubt, which left his daughter in charge—was that there was something going on over at the saloon.

  She was leaning up against the open window, watching, so Marie took a spot beside her and watched from the post.

  A big man, well over six feet with shoulders as wide as anyone's Marie had ever seen, groaned as he took the slack out of a barrel, the iron banding gleaming in the sun. From the sweat that stuck his shirt to his chest, it wasn't the first such barrel.

  Marie was a schoolteacher, and she was supposed to be a good example for her wards. More than that, she had learned plenty in school back east—not least the wickedness of alcohol.

  There wasn't anyone likely to listen to an unmarried woman talk on the subject, so she kept herself to herself. But watching Christopher Broadmoor unload those barrels, knowing full well what they were full of, she couldn't help frowning.

  If they'd diverted for a few months from their usual routine to gossip about her, then their usual routine, Marie had already learned, was gossiping about Chris. He'd apparently been the last surprise arrival. Nobody talked about it, not openly, but Marie gathered he hadn't come in on the coach.

  He stands up, his face shining bright, between the hot sun falling on all of them and the heavy lifting he's been doing. Marie wonders idly how much that must weigh. Two hundred pounds? More?

  He steps up into the wagon. He's a big man, but it barely lowers any further at the added weight. He tips one and she watches him strain under the weight as he tries to slow its fall.

  Then he rolls it a little way and sets his weight full against it as he pushes it over the ramp. It doesn't help as much as she might have expected, only managing to slow the rush a little bit. It's a heavy push as he tries to move it up the stairs, and another man rushes over and between the two of them, it gets up and through the wide delivery doors.

  Marie glances over at Ruby. She's got a look on her face that isn't immediately recognizable to the young teacher. And then, as the realization dawns on her, her face flushes red.

  "You and Christopher Broadmoor?"

  Ruby's eyes shoot wide open. "Don't even say that, Miss Bainbridge. My father would kill me dead right where I stand if he thought I was even imagining it."

  "What? You might make an honest man out of him."

  "I'm sure someone could," she says. She steps away from the window as Christopher comes back out. "But I'm not the one to do it."

  Marie notices with a heavy disapproval that he's still got that pistol hanging on his hip, even as he works. It reeks of the wrong sort of person. Nobody in New Orleans needed to carry a gun with them all the time.

  Marie circles around through the door, the spell of idleness broken. "Don't tell me you haven't thought about it, though," Marie calls out, just loud enough. "I saw the look on your face."

  The schoolteacher sidles up to the counter with her list of supplies and pushes it across the counter. Marie leaves it.

  "I won't deny that the Lord put the man together properly, but me an' him? Not in a hundred years. Not if he owned half the land in the Oklahoma territory."

  "What's the story with him, anyway?" Marie leaned in on her elbows and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. "Can't tell me there's no story. I know there is."

  "I wouldn't tell you no such thing. Only a couple years back, he comes into town—" The sound of footsteps from behind her shuts her mouth up. "What was it you'd be wanting, Miss Bainbridge?"

  An instant later, a man a couple inches shorter and Marie steps through the door. He's broad enough at the waist to strain his belt, and he hasn't shaved in at least three days.

  "Mornin', Miss Bainbridge. My Ruby giving you proper assistance?"

  "Sure enough," Marie answers. She glances down at the list to make sure she remembers it all before rattling off the list quickly. Ruby moves fast, grabbing where she can without waiting around to look for every little thing. The way she moves, she might be able to do it blindfolded.

  As she drops a three-pound bag of flour on the counter, Marie can see Ruby's face screw up a little trying to get the figuring done in her head. Her father finally steps in and growls, "that'll be a dollar twenty cents, ma'am."

  Marie counts out her money and drops it on the counter. "Thank you, Mr. Gardiner. Have a good afternoon, Ruby."

  The schoolteacher tips her wide-brimmed hat as she steps back out into the summer heat, the warmth beating down on her, the same as it does onto everyone. Same as it does onto Chris Broadmoor, she notes, who stands by the wagon with one barrel left to move.

  She can't tell if it's only her imagination that he watches her as she walks by, her arms full of groceries for the week. But she can't shake the feeling of eyes on her, and she doesn't know whether or not she likes it, coming from a man like him.

  Looks like an angel, she thinks. But his reputation is, he's anything but. She starts up the steps to the room over Owen Maxim's restaurant, and the shade hits her. He can't see her any more, she knows. There's no way.

  But she still feels his eyes, lingering on her, until she gets through the door. She may not be the talk of the town any more, but it hadn't done one thing to get rid of the feeling of being watched.

  This time, though, it might just be from the one person in town she might have to be worried about. A shiver runs down her spine, and then a soft blush on her cheeks. A man who'd looked like that back east, and she'd have let him look all he wanted.

  Something about Chris Broadmoor made things a little different when it was out here. But if she was going to attract that kind of attention, well, maybe that wasn't so bad.

  Two

  Christopher Broadmoor hadn't seen his brothers in five years. They were family, and he ought to make the trip out to see them, now that he had a stable enough life to afford trips like that.

  Last he knew, they were sitting in the panhandle, only a week's riding. He could take the time off, if it were for family. Nobody would begrudge him it.

  He told himself that he hadn't done it because he was busy. Because he had to make enough money to really settle in. To get a place that was really his own, not just working for another man in a town where he didn't know anybody all that well.

  A little part of Chris, a part of him that he didn't often want to deal with, suspected that there was more than a little part of him that didn't want to go back, because it would mean having to deal with everything that had happened when they'd gotten separated.

  He steps outside the doors. There were a few people sitting at one of the tables, playing a game of cards. The fact that one of them was the owner, and another was a deputy Sheriff, eased his worrying.

  Applewood Junction was a small place, but somehow they had enough population and enough people coming through on the stage that they could support a saloon and a separate restaurant. So he hadn't stumbled into some little hick town, at least, Chris thought.

  He'd been here almost five years now, and he still didn't think of the place as his home, not really. Yet, he showed no particular signs of moving on. 'Maxim's' was written in vibrant blue paint on the sign over the door. They cut a great steak. There should have been some loyalty to Cookie over at the saloon. She could fry up some delicious eggs, and often did fo
r Chris, first thing every day.

  But when it was steak, Owen couldn't be beat, and sometimes a man wanted a cut of steak, right or wrong. The smell hit him first thing when he walked in. The eyes that turned to look at him didn't surprise him any more. Didn't even really bother him, any more.

  They didn't have much else to talk about, nor much else to think about. If he was enough distraction to bother being talked about, then he'd just keep doing what he would. It brought more people into the saloon. More people in the saloon meant more money in his pocket, and he wasn't going to turn that attention down just for a little peace of mind.

  He pulled a seat back from an empty table in the back and sat away from it, so that when Zella came out from the kitchen, she'd see him looking for her. She put on the same smile when she saw him that she put on with all the customers, one that split her tanned, leathery face in half and lit up the room.

  He nodded, and she nodded back, even though she didn't head over right away. She had a tall glass of water in her hand, and she carried it across the room first. Chris couldn't see who Zella handed it to, but he could see that she waited a minute, talking. Maybe taking an order, but when the old girl didn't head right back into the kitchen, he had to assume that wasn't the case.

  She came over with a sway to her hips that might have been interesting if she were twenty years younger, and slipped out another chair.

  "You know, hon, this time of day, we're pretty busy. You think you would mind if we put you at another table?"

  He raised an eyebrow. "You don't figure that would cause trouble?"

  She smiles. "No, Mr. Broadmoor, I don't figure it would be any trouble at all. Come on, we'll get you acquainted."

  The way she said it was odd—there weren't enough people in town that he wasn't already acquainted with all of them. It set him on edge in a way that he hadn't been since he was running around with the boys. All the same, he followed Zella as she retraced her steps back over to the other table. It wasn't until he got halfway there that he realized who was sitting at it.

  "Mr. Broadmoor? This is Marie Bainbridge, maybe you two've seen each other 'round town."

  "From a distance," he says coolly. She reminds him of a thousand people from the city all at once, with all the edges rounded off and some very noticeable new additions. She looks at him with an expression she might give to some mud she'd stepped in, an affliction that Chris found common in folks from the east.

  "Is there going to be a problem?" Zella made a hopeful smile, as if to say that she'd much rather they didn't make a problem for her.

  "I don't want to bother anyone," Chris said. "If she don't want me to stay, I'll go."

  The look she shoots him has a point on it sharper than some knives the bartender's handled. "No," she says, like she means yes. "It won't be a problem."

  Zella's smile broadens again. "Good! Steak, Mr. Broadmoor?"

  "If you don't mind," he says, still standing. Zella nods. "Anything to drink?"

  "Water's fine."

  Zella hurries away like she can't wait to get out of there. Chris looks around the room without moving towards the chair opposite the schoolteacher. More than half the tables sit empty.

  "I don't think it's so busy, you know. I could leave you in peace." He notices for the first time that she's got a book sitting flat in her lap, closed but marked with a thick red ribbon.

  Marie looks ready to jump a foot in the air when he speaks. He wonders idly if she could have possibly reacted any more if he'd pulled out the pistol on his hip and said 'put em up.' Then she takes a breath. "No, I can leave, I'm almost done anyways."

  She doesn't look almost done. Barely touched her water.

  "And what if I said I didn't want you to leave?"

  He says it meaning that he doesn't want to impose, but the minute that it leaves his mouth he knows that's not how it came out of his mouth. And he doesn't much mind.

  Her face flushes. "I—well,"

  He puts a hand gently on the chair. "I won't bother your readin'. You mind if I sit?"

  Her lips, pretty and thin, purse together. "No, sir."

  He pulls the chair back and watches her face as he gently settles in. "I'm Christopher Broadmoor. I tend the bar across the street."

  His hand held out across the table seems to be the jolt that he's looking for, the one that gets her looking like she knows what's happening again. "Marie Bainbridge. I'm the teacher. I came out from New Orleans after Mrs. Whittle passed on."

  "I know," he says, with a soft smile. "That was the talk."

  She looks like she wants to pursue that line of discussion, but instead she pushes herself an inch back from the table and pulls the book out. "I'm going to get back to reading, if you don't mind."

  Chris nods. "No problem."

  Maggie's just coming back with his own glass of water. The faintest shadow of an expression passes over her face for an instant when she sees Marie with her nose in a book. Chris dares her with his eyes to say something, and she doesn't.

  Ten minutes later, he's digging into one of the best steaks he's eaten in his life, and fifteen minutes after that, he's leaving without having said another solitary word to the pretty new woman in town.

  Three

  There are a few more than a dozen kids sitting in the classroom. Marie knows, in the back of her mind, that there are more children than that, but there's no way that she knows of to force their parents to send them along.

  The children age anywhere from six or seven to fifteen year olds who come in to pass the time when they're done with their chores. She takes a deep breath and settles down beside one of the desks.

  The problem with such a small town is, there's no way to regiment their teaching. The younger ones need to learn the same things every year, but you can't just teach the older kids their letters every year.

  Compounding all of that is that Mrs. Whittle was the one teaching them until just a few months ago. Marie wonders idly how many of the older boys have come in just to see what the fuss is all about.

  There couldn't have been too many. There weren't that many students regardless—she could only imagine if some of them were only there for idle talk.

  She settled into one of the seats with the young ones and checked the work. He had an expression on his face that wasn't totally unfamiliar to her: one of absolute confusion. Marie sympathized, but she couldn't exactly let him stop doing it just because it was hard.

  Looking down at the sheet, she couldn't see where the confusion lay. He'd marked the letters exactly like she'd asked.

  "What's wrong, Jamie?"

  He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and chewed a bit.

  "Nothin' wrong, Miss Bainbridge, ma'am."

  She looked at the sheet again. It wasn't the finest handwriting she'd seen in her life, but she couldn't find fault with it. Not at seven years old.

  "You look vexed," she pressed.

  "It ain't nothing," he says.

  "If you're sure. If you decide you want to talk, then just ask. Practice that again, okay?"

  Halfway to pushing herself back up he decides to talk after all.

  "You don't think my letters ain't so good?"

  She settles back into the seat, glancing around the room to make sure nobody looks like they're having an emergency. One of the older girls sits with her head leaned down over another piece of paper, helping one of the younger. Everything seems to be doing alright, for the moment.

  "What do you mean, Jamie?"

  "Well, I's lookin' at your writing, and—"

  Her eyes shut for a moment, and she can't keep a warm smile from crossing her face. "Is that what's got you worried, Jamie Pearson?"

  He frowned. "Missus Whittle, she said—"

  "You've got a long time to learn to do it properly. I'm not going to abandon you, Mr. Pearson. But you have to start with the basics."

  "So it don't have to be perfect?"

  "Only the Lord is perfect," Marie recites automatically. "We he
re down on Earth have to make do with the best we can do. You did good, okay? Don't worry. You'll get better with practice. Trust me."

  The crease between his eyebrows lessens, but it doesn't go away. A little air of doubt remains.

  "Your parents are up in Oklahoma City, right?"

  "Yes ma'am."

  "When they get home, you show them this. Trust me, they're going to be real proud of you. Real proud."

  His face twists up a little. "You sure?"

  "Sure, I'm sure," she says. She gives another smile. "Give that another shot. Take care to get your letters nice and round, alright? Like an oval." She makes a mark to show him. "But it doesn't have to be perfect. Just do your best."

  He nods and his face drops to the table. His pencil starts moving and she takes another stock of the room.

  Looking around gave her a very good opportunity to notice that someone had, in fact, showed up at the edge of the room. The flash of skin, for a fragment of an instant, almost had her greeting them as a new student.

  Then her brain caught up with her eyes, and the words died in her mouth.

  "Can I help you?"

  Christopher Broadmoor fills the doorway completely, and shifts awkwardly from one foot to the other as she speaks.

  "I'm sorry if I'm interrupting, ma'am, I can wait until you've got a minute."

  His eyes shift from her face to the floor. The way he holds his hat twisted up in his hands is almost sweet. A bigger part of her than she wants to admit wouldn't mind having him look at her a little longer. The rest of her body, sensing the tiny rebellion, mounts a violent defense.

  "What is it? It's more of an interruption to have all the children looking over at you."

  She's not exaggerating, she sees. Every eye is on him. Most of them eyeing the pistol on his hip curiously. From the houses she's been in, most have a rifle hanging on the wall, but a pistol, hanging like that where it can be drawn at an instant's notice—that's unusual.

  "I just had a message, ma'am. From Mr. Maxim."

  Marie looks around the room. "Back to work."