Frau Hepple gathered up the plates and napkins nearest to her. “You mustn’t deprive Diana of a little fun. She works too hard all week, taking care of her real job for the professors and doing things for you at the bank. You two go on; I’ll help Erlich straighten things up here. Takes me about half the time it would take the two of you.” She cast a glance toward Elizabeth. “The young one over there is going to be nodding off herself in a little while. All the excitement has worn her out. I’ll get her an egg and some milk for her supper, and then we’ll sit and talk about what clothes her Mary Ann is going to need. Quick as anything, she’ll be sound asleep. Then Erlich and I will see to the washing up, if he can be trusted with plates.”
Adler made a show of protesting, but in the end, as Diana knew he’d expected, between them Frau Hepple and Papa Behr won out. Diana could scarcely keep her laughter silent as she and Adler hurried down the walk and away from the house.
“You could have written a script for that last act.” Diana looked back over her shoulder to where three figures in the fading light were picking up and putting away. “It worked out just the way you said it would.”
“Lotte Hepple has to help. She’s made that way. Really, didn’t you see the looks she and Papa were exchanging when they thought no one was watching?”
“I did catch a hint that she wasn’t opposed to his company.”
They were still congratulating each other on the success of their subterfuge as they approached the town square. Sounds of a band warming up rippled through the evening, and a cooling breeze wafted through the ancient trees.
“I should have asked what kind of dancing goes on in your town square. I’ve never been to anything quite like this.”
Adler shrugged. “Just the usual things, you know. Waltzes and polkas. The old country dances. Of course, they’ll play schottisches and the varsovienne in between, but mostly walzes and polkas.”
Diana held up both hands helplessly. “A waltz I can manage, but where I live, we dance the Charleston and the foxtrot, and sometimes the tango, or at least my sister does.”
Adler laughed at her dismay. “We may have to compromise and just waltz or watch. I’m afraid you won’t hear a tango or the Charleston around here.”
They moved to the edge of the platform in the center of the town square, and the band began with a lively polka. In moments the floor was filled with whirling couples.
“Everybody is having such a good time. Even grandmothers and little tykes as young as Elizabeth.” Diana sat on the bench beneath an oak tree and admired the gay crowd.
“We grow up dancing. I suppose I was here every Saturday night of my life until I went off to college.” He sat on the bench next to her. “Sometimes, while I was in the army, I’d dream I was back here, on a Saturday night, hearing the music and seeing friends and family. The dreams were so strong, I could taste the cold beer and smell the peach trees. Then I’d wake up, and all I’d hear was the artillery and the rain. Seemed like those dreams got me through the worst times.”
The band changed tempo, and the lilting air of a waltz filled the night. Adler held out a hand. “Let’s try this one.”
Diana hesitated, but trailed him up the two shallow steps to the dance floor. She took only a couple of steps and realized she could follow Adler’s easy lead with no trouble, well, no trouble except that his arms were around her, he was very close, and there was something a little intoxicating about being that near that seemed to interfere with her breathing.
“You’re a very good dancer, Diana. Small and light as you are, I thought you would be.”
“I think it’s because I have a very good partner.”
The evening slipped away more quickly than she thought possible. Though she didn’t attempt the figured country dances, she found she could handle the basic steps of the polka with Adler’s excellent lead. She hadn’t danced in a long time. Except for the occasional outing with Pamina, she’d had no opportunity for much in the way of night life. She’d only learned her Charleston and foxtrot from her sister and one of the other young women in her boarding house.
Adler stopped her from leaving the floor after their most successful polka. “Last waltz, Diana. We have to dance this one.”
“I can’t believe the evening’s already gone. It’s been such fun.”
“It has.” He drew her much closer as they drifted over the floor to a slower, more romantic air.
“What is that song? It’s the perfect ending to the evening.”
Adler’s breath ruffled her hair, and his hand was warm through her sheer dress. “It’s the ‘Sweetheart Waltz.’ I guess I’ve heard it a thousand times, but I never realized how right it is, especially just now.”
“Just now?”
“Just now, when I’m about to kiss you.”
“You…are?”
“I am.”
The last strains of music faded away. Her hand in his, Diana followed Adler down the steps and across the square to the shadowy oaks. He led her into the trees, then took her in his arms. His kiss was slow, sweet, and held a promise of banked fires.
“I’ve wanted to do that for almost as long as I’ve known your name.”
“I thought you didn’t like me, or at least didn’t like women like me, the ones in offices.”
“Oh, no, Miss Woods. I like you entirely too well. Liked you the first time I saw you, when Pearce was hunting for a secretary. I like you in an office, in a shop, across the table from me, but most of all, in my arms.” The second kiss was just as sweet, just as slow, but the fire was no longer banked. “I think we’d better start walking home, or this discussion is going to get complicated.”
“Adler, you’re much too levelheaded and sensible to be interested in me, a city girl on the run who has no choice but to keep running.”
He kissed her again. “Don’t you think I’ve told myself that about a thousand times a day? I said it when you were all wrapped up in making sense of academic nattering in Fort Worth. Said it again, with emphasis, when Trey told me you were running from gangsters. I’ve all but engraved it on my shaving mirror. It doesn’t make any difference, Diana. I’m in love with you. It’s impractical, it’s risky, and I know all that. It doesn’t change the way I feel. You’re the girl I want, mobsters, owlish professors, misplaced outlaws, and all, it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. I love you.”
“Adler, you can’t. You just can’t. It won’t work.”
Chapter 15
Adler loves me! Diana went through the rest of the weekend in a fog, torn between euphoria and despair. And I…I love him. I do, not that anything has changed. That stern, distant, gray-eyed Great Horned Owl with a heart like a marshmallow loves me. Who would have predicted that? And of all the women he could want, he picks the one he can’t ever have.
Diana suspected she wasn’t the only one with a deep attachment to a man named Behr. The morning after the birthday party, Frau Hepple could be heard singing softly in the kitchen as she made breakfast for her guests. Late on Sunday afternoon, when everyone else was away, Diana saw her landlady puttering about on the porch, trimming the thick ivy and pinching off dead leaves. Katje curled in the rocking chair, purring and grooming her paws. Hoping to hear of warming relations between the older couple, Diana skipped like a schoolgirl down the hall and out to the porch.
“I believe it’s cooler today. I can actually feel a breeze.”
Frau Hepple nodded. “Likely we get a shower this evening.” She gathered the clippings into a basket and sat down, moving Katje over, much to the cat’s annoyance. “Go on, you big baby. I need to sit here, too.” She fanned her flushed face with the straw hat she’d cast aside while pruning. “You and Adler seemed to have a fine time at the dance. Good for both of you to go, I think. You just work and come home. He hasn’t been to the dances since he came back from the army. Nice to see him acting more like himself, not like his own papa.”
“He’s a good dancer, and we had a pleasant evening. Tha
nks for taking charge of Elizabeth so we could go. I know he’d never have left Papa Behr alone to clear up after the party. I hope your evening was as pleasant as mine.”
“Not too bad. Erlich means well, I know, but he doesn’t think about consequences sometimes. They need a steady hand on the plow over there. Young Elizabeth is going to be so spoiled she won’t be fit to live with if those two men don’t stop indulging her every time she pats her little foot. Child needs to know she can’t command the world.”
Not going to tell me the personal things, are you? “Don’t you think they’re just trying to make up to her for losing her mother so young? They probably wish they’d managed better with Greta, too. Adler told me she eloped when she was little more than a schoolgirl.”
“I suppose they are trying, but giving Elizabeth the moon with a string on it won’t make up for anything, not for Greta eloping or the little one losing her mama. But they’re only men. Can’t expect them to be sensible, at least not the Behr men.”
“Adler seems pretty sensible, to me.”
“He would seem like that to you, probably, but he’s not blessed with a bit more sense than his papa. You’re sweet on him, so you don’t see him very clear.” She waved away Diana’s denial, evidently not believing the half protest. “Nonsense. It’s plain as day. And, unless I mistake the signs, he’s liable to come your direction with courting in his mind. Be a good thing, too, unless you have a sweetheart back home.”
Courting? Yes, that’s exactly what Adler is doing. Old-fashioned courting. He may as well get that idea out of his head. “No, no sweetheart. Nobody anywhere except my sister, who’s working in San Antonio. She and some friends, those professors I work for, will likely be coming here at the end of the summer.”
“Oh, San Antonio, that reminds me. Someone from the bank, likely Otto, came by yesterday while we were out. A letter came to the bank for you from San Antonio, a hotel there, if I remember right. I left it on the hall table.” She pushed up from the chair and brushed a stray leaf from her apron. “I’ll get it for you.”
A letter? That has to be from Pam. Hope she hasn’t had any more possible sightings of Tommy Gunn’s men. Nobody wants to see a trace of them anywhere nearby. Maybe it’s just that the owls have changed their plans and are coming sooner than we thought.
“Here you are.” Frau Hepple handed her a long envelope, slightly stained as if it had been stepped on.
Diana recognized Pamina’s handwriting. “It’s from my sister. Do you mind if I read it now? I’m anxious to hear from her.”
“No, no, you go right ahead. I was thinking of going over to the spring house for a little something cool to drink. Would you like something cold yourself?”
A cold mug of her home brew sounds like a great idea. “Yes, ma’am, that would be just right. Thank you.”
Frau Hepple’s chubby face widened with her smile. “We make a good German girl out of you, yet. Read your letter. I’ll be right back.” She bustled away in her starched calico dress and red apron. Diana tore open the envelope.
Di, just a quick note to say we’re leaving San Antonio. Trey isn’t certain, but he has the feeling he’s been followed to the hotel a couple of times. I’m not sure it isn’t just nerves, but we can’t take the chance. The owls are discussing—call it wrangling—where we should go. I tried leading them toward your little town, but they’re afraid they’d bring our unwanted guests right to your door. They’ve finally opted for a winding road among two or three of the old cattle ranch sites and the tiny towns near them. They think spotting our trackers would be easier in more rural places. I’m on the fence about that, but where they go, Trey and I have to follow, just to keep them from any more of El’s convoluted schemes. Plan for us to be in your locale about the third week in August, unless the roof falls on us before then. Trey says he hopes you and Adler are making progress finding sources for the feathered ones to talk to. We’ve not been very productive on our end. Pam
“I wish I were making more progress for them,” Diana told the cat sitting on the chair next to her. The cat didn’t seem too interested. She kept grooming her tufted ear. “I need old Pete Whosis to turn up and tell me his friend is coming and wants to talk about Butch Cassidy. If I can give Dr. Elmsford something, anything, solid to back up his theory, I’ll feel like I’ve actually been some help.” The cat turned twice and settled in for an afternoon nap, implying she was far above trivial human concerns.
****
“How is my girl this morning? Have your toes recovered from being stepped on?”
Diana felt the shiver of excitement clear to her fingertips at Adler’s Monday morning question. His girl? That’s what he called me. His girl! Well, just for the moment, maybe I am.
“My toes have never been better, thank you.” Her cheeks grew warmer. “Has Papa Behr recuperated from the aftermath of the party?”
Adler stepped into the meeting room and closed the door. His smile was as wide as Diana was certain hers was. “Papa declares he feels ten years younger. Puts the credit to having all the youngsters around, but personally I think it goes to Lotte Hepple’s account. She had the house back together, dishes done and put away, and Elizabeth tucked up in bed an hour after we left. Nothing left for the two of them to do but talk—or ignore each other. By Papa’s smile, I don’t think they ignored each other.” He leaned over the desk, tilted her chin up, and kissed her. “Good morning, Diana. You look particularly adorable this morning.”
She smothered the impulse to put her arms around him and forget the letters and exercises she was preparing for Fred and Otto. “Must be the company I keep, or the rain showers that cooled everything down last night.”
“I prefer to think it’s the company, if that includes me.”
Diana drew back, trying to keep the conversation on a more businesslike plane in case someone else should open the door. “Speaking of company, I think we may be having some additional visitors to Pfeiffer in about three weeks. I had another letter from Pam. Trey thinks he’s been followed, possibly by people with less than friendly intentions. The group left San Antonio and is touring the ranchlands and small towns, hoping they will either lose their entourage or spot them before any nefarious schemes can mature. If someone actually is looking for them.”
Adler pulled one of the student chairs to Diana’s side of the table. “It seems to me, my dearest Diana, a great deal of agonizing could have been saved if your little group had gone to the police and told them what you saw. Then these people would have been in jail and not after you. Wouldn’t that have been simpler than all this hide-and-seek subterfuge?”
She absently stacked foolscap into neat piles and pushed the piles to one side. “In one way, yes, it would have been simple. Go to the police, tell the story, and let them take it from there. On the other hand, it might have been simple but not so safe. See, we really didn’t realize those men had taken Sheldon Haver from Tommy Gunn’s place with any malicious intent until we heard about the body found a couple of days later. Even then we couldn’t be certain until someone identified it. We weren’t sure what we’d seen. We still could have gone to the police, I guess, but we would have involved the professors, or at least Pearce, and you know what kind of impression that would have made. I don’t know that we would have been believed.” She looked up to see doubt making his eyes darken. “Some of the police in our city suffer from a major degree of divided loyalty. In other words, they’re loyal to the person paying them the most. That’s not always the city. Sometimes it’s the people who sidestep the law. Tommy Gunn has stayed in business, not with just the bar but also his gambling business, through Prohibition because he’s friends with some very powerful people, including people in law enforcement. A couple of words from some of his contacts about two giddy girls and a crackpot professor claiming to have seen something in the parking lot of his club, and the three of us might well disappear into the night.”
“You don’t have much faith in the law?”
&
nbsp; “Faith in the law? Certainly. In the people sworn to uphold it? No, not much faith at all.”
“I know the headlines scream about graft and corruption. Is that what scares you, Diana? What you read in the papers?”
She pushed her chair aside and walked away from him, not turning to look at his face. “Not the papers. My pop. Back in the darker days of the Acre, not the worst days, but after the reformers began cleaning up the place. Pop was a blacksmith, a husky guy who didn’t take anything off anybody. Nobody knows what started it, but one afternoon a young fellow, he’d only been in town a week or so, thought he’d been cheated in a dice game. He may have been, or he may have lost more than he could afford to lose. He left the game but came back a little bit later with a shotgun and took after the man running the game. He wounded him, but the gambler was still alive. Police were called, and I guess they didn’t realize, since the victim didn’t die, that it wasn’t just the usual Saturday night brawl. Young officer came and started trying to learn what happened. Pop had seen enough from his shop to tell the story and identify the culprit. The officer was young, not very experienced, and probably didn’t see any harm in telling someone about a witness, especially if that person was passing out a few greenbacks for the information. The person he told, however, happened to be uncle to the man with the shotgun. Pop didn’t live to testify. He was the victim of a street robbery three days later. The man who shot him was never found. Nobody believed it was a coincidence.” Diana turned to face Adler. “I was ten and Pam was twelve. Our mother was left to raise two girls on what she made cleaning houses for other women. You ask me to trust some man in a uniform with the same kind of information that got Pop killed? Not a chance.”
Diana and the Three Behrs Page 18
