Heartstrings

by Rebecca Paisley

  As soon as she opened the door, one of the candidates shouldered his way through the group of other men. “We were here first! Why are you letting him in?”

  Before Theodosia could answer, Roman snatched out his Colt and pressed the barrel between the man’s eyes. Slowly, as if enjoying every tense second, he pulled back the hammer. “I could see to it that you never get in.”

  Alarmed by the violence of Roman’s action and warning, Theodosia tried to understand what was the matter with him. True, he wasn’t above using force when he deemed it necessary, but threatening murder wasn’t like him at all. “Roman,” she said gently, placing her hand on his shoulder, “he only wants his turn, which is no reason to kill him.”

  Roman lowered his gun and walked into the room.

  As he passed her, Theodosia smelled whiskey. He reeked of it! Her anger returning with a vengeance, she watched him open John the Baptist’s cage and remove the parrot. He then sat on the bed, and the wall against his back, he settled her pet in his lap and began to stroke the bird’s head.

  Theodosia longed to give him a piece of her mind. How dare he return inebriated! Oh, what she would tell him when she’d finished the interviews!

  With a wave of her hand, she invited into the room the first applicant, a tall blue-eyed man with wavy black hair. “Please be seated, sir,” she said, indicating the two overstuffed chairs by the window.

  As soon as the man sat down, Roman began a conversation with the parrot. “So, bird, what do you know?”

  John the Baptist pecked at a button on Roman’s shirt. “Sir, you are seeing my legs.”

  Roman glanced at the bird’s scrawny legs. “Yeah, and they’re sexy as hell.”

  “Roman,” Theodosia bit out, “would you please—”

  “Do you enjoy macerating, too, Mr. Montana?” John the Baptist asked, lifting his right wing.

  Roman nodded. “Every chance I get. And no matter how often I do it, I never go blind or insane, and no hair has ever grown on the palm of my hand.”

  Swallowing her fury, Theodosia sat down in the other chair and gave her full attention to the candidate. “May I know your name, sir?”

  “Andrew Colby.”

  “Well, Mr. Colby, I can see that you meet the physical requirements, so we shall advance to the intellectual—”

  “You, Miss Worth, are the sweetest thing I’ve ever tasted,” John the Baptist declared, his voice screeching through the room. “While engaged in the kiss, the man must then begin to fondle the woman’s breasts.”

  Roman pounded the bed with his fist and laughed uproariously.

  Andrew’s mouth dropped open so wide, Theodosia heard his jaw pop. “Mr. Colby, please try to ignore the two irritants on the bed and reveal to me the extent of your academic background.”

  Andrew closed his mouth and thought for a moment. “I started school here in Singing Creek, but when I was fourteen, my father sent me to a boys’ school in Illinois. It was his hope that I would study medicine, but by the time I turned eighteen I knew I wanted to enter law school. Unfortunately, Father didn’t have the money to send me. I returned to Singing Creek and am now employed by Mr. Victor Rammings, an attorney. I’ve learned a great deal about law while working for him, but I have not yet saved enough money to pay for my education. That’s why I answered your—”

  Roman interrupted with a loud rendition of “Dixie.” John the Baptist echoed the song but in a totally different pitch. The result was an ear-splitting cacophony of sour notes.

  Theodosia had reached the limit of her patience.

  She fairly flew out of the chair and stalked toward the bed.

  But before she could get the first word of admonishment out of her mouth, someone pushed the door open with such force that it banged against the wall.

  In marched a middle-aged woman wearing a black silk dress and a furious expression. Once in the room, she whirled back toward the door and pointed a toothpick finger at the five men waiting in the hall. “Bricky Borden, just you wait until I tell Sissy that you were one of the men who answered the disgusting advertisement this Miss Worth posted! Sissy will never consent to marry you now! And Hogan Grappy, rest assured that Iris will soon know about your afternoon’s activities! She’ll have you thrown out of the house before supper! And you, Cleavon Dirter! Your mother is going to hear about this, and so is yours, Rufus Hardy!”

  The men in the corridor vanished, as did Andrew Colby.

  A feeling of foreboding rolling through her, Theodosia approached the woman who’d barged into the room and examined her closely.

  The woman had her silver hair pulled into such a tight bun that her eyes were slanted. Her nose—long, thin, and pointed—had a black mole right on the tip, and her wrinkled mouth was so pursed, Theodosia wondered if she had just finished sucking on a pickle. “Who—”

  “I am Miss Edith Fowler, and my brother, Campbell, is the mayor of Singing Creek. Ten minutes ago, as I left choir practice at the church, I saw and read one of your sordid circulars, and I have come to demand that you leave Singing Creek immediately. We do not abide women of your kind. I am certain that my brother will fully support my demand, so it would behoove you to make utter haste!”

  John the Baptist hopped off the bed and waddled across the floor, stopping directly before Miss Fowler. “Even if I shut my eyes and ears, I would still know I was near to you because I can smell you,” he said.

  Completely unconcerned with the situation, Roman kicked off his boots, chuckling all the while.

  Theodosia threw him an irate look, then turned back to the prim, proper, and prudish Miss Fowler. “It is not my intention to disturb the sensibilities of the people who reside in Singing Creek, Miss Fowler. If you understood the full circumstances that induced me to post my advertisement, I feel sure you would be willing to allow me to stay in your town. Please sit down, and I shall explain my desperate situation.”

  Her curiosity and the fact that she would soon have a wealth of gossip to share with the ladies of the Singing Creek sewing circle led Miss Fowler to relent. She gave a stiff nod and proceeded to sit down in one of the chairs by the window.

  John the Baptist followed her, stopping by the toes of her shoes. “I have never slept without a nightrail on, nor will I ever do so.”

  Roman snickered again. “You’ve never felt cool sheets against your skin—er…feathers?” he egged the parrot on, ignoring Theodosia’s glare.

  The bird craned his neck up to Miss Fowler. “I’m only experimenting with my senses. You’re a virgin now, and I promise you still will be when I’m through.”

  When Roman doubled over with laughter again, Theodosia closed her eyes and counted the seconds in an effort to maintain her poise. “Miss Fowler—”

  “I have never been so shocked in all my life,” Miss Fowler said, her silver eyebrows knit together. She moved her feet away from the parrot, glad when her skirts swished across the bird’s face.

  Startled, John the Baptist leaped into the air. Flapping his wings, he managed to fly into Miss Fowler’s lap.

  Her actions automatic, she reached out to fend him off.

  He avoided her flying arms and sprang to the back of the chair. More secure now, he leaned over, placed his beak next to Miss Fowler’s ear, and said, “I’ve never seen a penis.”

  Her complexion completely void of color, Miss Fowler grabbed the arms of the chair and squeezed so hard that her arms shook.

  “I cannot find the will to deny myself the pleasure of your touch,” John the Baptist continued, rubbing his head across her temple. “This is a hint of what lovemaking is all about.”

  Miss Fowler screamed.

  Her ears ringing, Theodosia hurried to retrieve her parrot. Keeping her pet snugly under her arm, she looked at Miss Fowler and started to apologize.

  But John the Baptist wasn’t finished talking. “I believe you’re looking for a bodyguard, Miss Worth? Much time must be taken by the man to ready the woman for the sight of his nakedness.”
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  Clutching her reticule tightly to her sagging bosom, Miss Fowler jumped from the chair and nearly fell down in her haste to remove herself from the scene of such carnal discussion.

  Roman could not control himself. He laughed so hard that his stomach began to cramp.

  “How could you?” Theodosia demanded. “Only this morning I reiterated to you the importance of my goals, and yet you paid no heed whatsoever to what I said to you. On the contrary, you saw fit to drown yourself with liquor, and when you returned to me, you did your level best to ruin the interviews! And to make matters as unpleasant as they could possibly be, you offered me no assistance at all with that busybody Miss Fowler. Indeed, knowing that John the Baptist will not cease his mimicking once he starts, you did everything you could compel him into one of his loquacious moods!”

  Roman watched the rise and fall of her big full breasts. “Come here,” he said, his voice brimming with the sound of his sensual intentions.

  She remained exactly where she stood, beside the chair Miss Fowler had occupied. “How much whiskey did you consume?”

  “Sixty-four and a half bottles. Now come here.”

  At his gross exaggeration, given in the face of her dilemma, her anger rose. “I am leaving Singing Creek.” She heard the fury in her own voice, but saw that it had little effect on Roman. The man had stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes!

  “Yeah, we’ll leave in just a minute,” he muttered, his head beginning to pound with the aftereffects of whiskey. “Start getting your things together.”

  The next sound she heard from him was a snore that reverberated throughout the room. As if meted out by the swing of an ax, rage cut through her with such force, she almost lost her breath.

  Within ten minutes she had all her belongings packed. In ten more minutes she had several hotel employees carry her baggage downstairs. The wait for her horse and wagon to be delivered to the hotel entailed another ten minutes.

  Half an hour after Roman began to snore, Theodosia headed out of town.

  Roman damned the blackness of the night. With no moonlight to guide him, he couldn’t find a hint of Theodosia’s trail. Self-condemnation and apprehension clawing at his insides, he continued heading southwest, which was the direction the Singing Creek stableman said Theodosia had taken. As he traveled through the heavy night mist, he called out her name, but to no avail.

  He traveled for the rest of the night, and when dawn unveiled no sign of her, a stream of curses left the taste of rust in his mouth. Turning Secret around, he rode a little over five miles before spotting wagon tracks. A sprinkling of sunflower seed hulls assured him he’d located Theodosia’s trail, and an hour later he found her asleep beneath the buckboard.

  He’d come upon her not a second too soon.

  Red wolves circled silently around the wagon, their noses to the ground. Several crept within a few feet of where she lay, while others slunk toward her horse, who remained hitched to the wagon with his reins looped over a mere sassafras sapling.

  Roman realized instantly that if he shot at the wolves, he would frighten the horse, who was already showing signs of panic. If the mustang chose to bolt, the slender tree trunk and supple branches would bend, and the reins would slip right over them. The wagon would then run over Theodosia.

  The sole way to keep that from happening was to catch the horse before the steed understood what was happening. Speed was of the essence.

  And speed flowed from Secret’s very soul. In the next instant, the tremendous gray stallion responded to his master’s command and sprang forward.

  As his horse raced directly toward the wolves, Roman had never been so glad for the trust the steed had in him.

  Most of the wolves scattered, but the braver animals stayed to defend their prey. His eyes on the mustang, his senses trained on the snarling wolves, Roman leaped out of the saddle and grabbed the mustang’s bridle before the horse had a chance to escape. Drawing his Colt, he prepared to shoot the wolves.

  But before he could fire the first shot, the mustang began to rear. Lifted off the ground by the terrified horse’s actions, Roman could barely keep the wagon from moving, much less aim his gun accurately.

  Dammit, he couldn’t shoot! The hungry wolves skulked too close to Theodosia, and he refused to take the risk of hitting her with a stray bullet. Doing his best to keep the rearing mustang still, he shot into the air, kicking pebbles and shouting at the hungry wolves.

  Coming out of a dead sleep, Theodosia became wide awake, and a terrible scream came from her throat. Her heart pounding with fear, her mind swimming with confusion, she sat straight up, forgetting she was beneath the wagon. The moment her head crashed into the hard wood, a dizzying pain dulled her senses, and darkness fell before her eyes. The last thing she understood before she lost consciousness was that someone was shouting her name.

  “Theodosia!” Roman yelled again. He’d heard her scream, but because of her spot beneath the wagon, he couldn’t see her. Horrified over the possibility that she might have been bitten, he threw his empty gun toward the cluster of slinking wolves.

  The largest of the wolves howled with pain, and its tail tucked beneath its legs, it turned and ran into the grove of oak and pecan trees. When the other wolves followed suit, Roman realized he’d struck the leader of the pack.

  Only moments after the animals fled, the mustang began to calm. Roman let out a long shrill whistle that brought Secret cantering out of the woods. The stallion stopped in front of the mustang. Counting on Secret’s presence to further soothe the mustang and keep it from running, Roman lunged toward the wagon and threw himself beneath it. His action upset John the Baptist’s cage, but he paid little attention to the mishap.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered upon getting his first close look at Theodosia and the blood that oozed from a wound to her temple.

  Carefully, he slipped her out from beneath the buckboard, then scooped her into his arms. Her body flowed over his arms as if something hot had melted her over them. Fighting back a rush of alarm, Roman carried her to the edge of the woods and laid her down on a soft bed of dew-moistened leaves.

  Judging by the large red bump that swelled near her temple, Roman knew she had not been bitten by a wolf. She’d hit her head, probably by sitting up beneath the wagon.

  He found no further injuries and quickly set about building a huge fire, knowing that if the wolves remained near, the flames would keep them at bay. After retrieving the few medical supplies he kept in his saddlebag, he proceeded to tend to Theodosia’s wound.

  Her head in his lap, he bathed the injury with clean water while boiling a pan of witch hazel leaves over the fire. A short while later, when the witch hazel had cooled, he drenched the wound with the pungent astringent, relieved that the soothing liquid promptly began to reduce the swelling.

  But when Theodosia remained unconscious, his worry returned. Continuing to keep her forehead moist with cool water, he held her close. “Theodosia, wake up. Wake up now, Theodosia.”

  His anxiety mounted when she did not respond. Quickly, he unbuttoned the back of her bodice, pulled her gown down to her waist, and emptied his canteen upon her chest.

  It seeped through her chemise, wetting her thoroughly. She stirred.

  “Theodosia,” Roman said loudly, patting her cheek. “For God’s sake, wake up! Open your eyes! Look at me, Theodosia.”

  Consciousness returned to her in fragments. A deep but distant voice came to her first, followed by the feeling of being wet and cold. She began to notice a pounding ache in her head and extreme soreness near her temple.

  Eventually, she felt something big and warm next to her right side. A beat sounded in her right ear, a rhythmic noise she soon recognized as a heartbeat. Someone was holding her.

  She couldn’t find the strength to open her eyes. Lying in the dark, she tried to understand what had happened and who was holding her. She remembered the sound of gunfire and feeling afraid and disoriented. Someone…a man had shouted
her name. Beyond that, she couldn’t remember anything.

  The beat next to her ear increased in tempo, sounding through her mind almost like a drum roll. The deep voice came to her again. Strong, long arms tightened around her.

  “Roman.”

  She’d yet to open her eyes, but when she whispered his name, Roman knew she was coming around. He continued to pat her cheek. “Wake up, sweetheart.”

  The endearment escaped before he thought to say it. Sweetheart? he repeated silently. He’d never called a woman by that name in all his life! “All right,” he barked down at her, “enough is enough. Wake up!”

  She opened her eyes and saw two Romans staring down at her. Blinking, she tried to adjust her vision, but a long moment passed before she could see clearly.

  Roman’s eyes were the first part of him she saw. Chips of clear blue sky, she thought, managing a small smile and then looking at his mouth.

  Her smile faded. If his lips were any indication, he was in a terrible frame of mind. “Roman? What hap—”

  “Just be still,” he gritted out. “Don’t talk.”

  “But I only want to—”

  “You knocked yourself unconscious.” Now that he had proof that she would be all right, anger began to take the place of apprehension. “But first you left your bodyguard asleep in Singing Creek. Then you traveled alone all night. Of course, you had to pick a moonless night, so that your trail would be next to impossible to find. Then you tied your horse to a sapling as round as my toe and didn’t unhitch him from the wagon. You then went to sleep under the buckboard without bothering to make a campfire. After all that, you almost became breakfast for a damned pack of wolves, which had no reason to fear coming near to you because you didn’t make a fire. That’s when you finally knocked yourself unconscious. Best as I can figure, you sat up while you were under the wagon and hit your head.”

  Her head reeling, she needed almost five whole minutes to understand completely. “But you called me sweetheart.”

  He frowned. So she’d heard that, had she? Damn her! “What’s that got to do with—”