Mae Ann reached for the letter. “I’d be happy to.”
“It explains everything. I hope. He wasn’t exactly—he wasn’t expecting me. Not on any specific day, that is. He knew I was returning, but he didn’t know when. Things just worked out…”
Perspiration warmed her brow and she felt like a child trying to excuse her tardiness to the teacher. “You’re as lovely as Cade wrote in his letters.”
Did Mae Ann know about the money he’d sent? “I’ll come out to the ranch, just not…yet.” Her gaze flicked again to the precious bundle hidden beneath discreet folds.
Mae Ann leaned in and lowered her voice. “The baby is due near Thanksgiving. So our celebration may be light, if I’m abed and unable to get around. But please, consider this an invitation, and I do hope you’ll come sooner.”
Elizabeth took her hand. “I’ll try. And best to you and the baby. I’m sure things will be, well, they’ll be fine. And you’ll be fine.” She patted Mae Ann’s hand. “I really must go.”
She turned to find Willa busying herself near enough to hear every word. “Good day, Willa, Mr. Reynolds.”
She paused at the door and looked back at the beautiful woman in the blossom of motherhood. “Thank you for giving Cade the letter.”
Once more on the boardwalk, Elizabeth was much worse for wear. She should have eaten breakfast. Fingering a few coins in her skirt pocket, she walked to the café, hoping for a pastry and a cup of coffee. And no surprises. Facing the music was as exhausting as any day on a roundup, and dinner was hours away. Her stomach rolled like an empty bandbox.
CHAPTER 9
Freighters rolled by. Farm wagons and buggies. Maybe Rochester was right and more people were moving in.
Garrett scouted the south end of town where, even at this distance, hammering rang out of the Olin Springs Hotel. He planned to look around some more, poke through Clarence Thatcher’s brain. Garrett had an itch about the fire that needed scratching. But first, he’d gather Rink and his outfit, and pay his bill at the livery.
Tacked up like he was striking out, Garrett raised the suspicion of his sometime deputy, Erik Schmidt, who pinged his hammer on the anvil, set a shoe around the horn, and gave Garrett a curious once-over.
He pulled up. “I’m not leaving town, just moving Rink to Snowfield’s place.”
“Is gut.” The burly, elder German tapped a curve in the shoe. “Business is gut too. Lots of people, lots of horses.”
The big man’s “tap” was an ordinary man’s full-out, double-fisted swing, guaranteed to make a rebel rouser think twice about resisting. The prime reason Garrett hired him when he needed extra help.
He rode out of the livery and to the opposite end of Main Street, gathering a few looks along the way. It felt good to sit a saddle again, a condition that came natural to him and the one thing he missed most in his position as lawman. He needed to ride more. Rink needed it too. Would so even more now that he’d be out on grass till snow flew.
Maybe Betsy would ride with him, judging by Maggie’s boasting of her skills.
He palmed his face with one hand, irritated that such a thought could ambush him when he had important matters to attend to.
A new hitching post stood in front of the hotel, and Garrett laid reins to the rail. Thatcher was overseeing a carpenter framing in a registration counter in the lobby.
“Mornin’.” Garrett offered.
The carpenter didn’t look any too happy, and Thatcher’s mood matched. “Sheriff.”
“I’m not here to visit, Clarence, but I’ve got a question. Do you remember who was in the last room upstairs on the south end the night of the fire?”
Thatcher frowned and rubbed a jaw that needed to see the barber. “Lost most of my register, so I can’t say for sure. But I know a dry goods drummer had come through the day before. Paid up front for two nights. Course, he didn’t get the second night, but I never saw him again. Why?”
“How about local folks. Anyone from town take a room?”
“That new tailor, Hiram Eisner, and his wife. They’d been here two nights. But they were at the other end of the hall.”
“Anyone else from town?” Just a name. All he needed was a name, the right name, and it’d scratch his itch.
“No. Middle of the week like it was, I had fewer guests. Most folks around here have their own place. Rochester, now, that new attorney. He rented a room for about a week when he first came to town. But I heard he’s staying in a spare room at his office.”
Garrett ground his back teeth. Not what he wanted to hear.
“Why? You have any ideas about who started the fire?”
“Just working out a theory.” Garrett tipped his hat. “Obliged.”
~
Snowy powder lifted beneath Elizabeth’s nose as she bit into a sugar-dusted bear sign. Nibbling and chuckling, she made her way back to the boarding house, savoring Hoss Bozeman’s thunderstruck look. He’d thought he was pulling a fast one, but the joke was on him when she flicked not an eyelash at the name he gave his pastries.
She’d grown up eating Deacon’s bear sign on roundups. The best doughnuts she’d ever had.
All considered, the day was a success. No one in Bozeman’s café seemed to recognize her, including Hoss. Someone else had owned the place when she was growing up, and customers were scant this late in the morning. Willa Reynolds had, of course, and sweet as she was, she could be counted on to set the gossip bell tolling longer and louder than tomorrow morning’s call to worship. Before Pastor Bittman got the front door open, everyone who had known Elizabeth would know she’d returned.
At the moment, she faced Maggie’s front door glass, squinting at her reflection, brushing around her mouth for traces of powdered sugar and greatly relieved that Cade would know tonight that she was in town.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her brother, she simply wanted to be established first. Yet it was cowardly of her to ask Mae Ann to deliver the letter rather than riding out to the ranch herself. But that would require hiring a buggy or finding someone to let her ride their horse.
And she wasn’t about to ask Sheriff Wilson for help.
She opened the door and walked straight into the delectable aroma of seasoned chicken. Maggie’s humming funneled down the hallway, drawing Elizabeth to the comfort of the kitchen.
“It smells so good in here.”
“Oh, you’re home.” Maggie smiled over her shoulder while rolling out a pie crust on the table. “I wondered how long you’d be gone today.”
“Are you sure I can’t do something to help?” Her sense of accomplishment fueled the need to continue, though she’d rather not attempt anything like actual cooking. Not exactly her strong suit.
“Oh, no. My residents don’t do any of the work. You’re paying for all this, you know.” Maggie brushed her brow with the back of her flour-covered hand. “Unless, of course, it’s something I can’t do on my own and you happen to be six feet tall and very strong.”
And handsome.
Elizabeth nearly stomped her foot, grateful that she hadn’t voiced the thought.
Maggie threw her a sparkly-eyed glance. “He is quite handsome, isn’t he?”
If her landlady read minds, Elizabeth was in a fix. “Well then, if you don’t need my help, I’ll fetch my sewing kit and try to make amends with my reticule.”
“A clever turn of phrase, dear. You should be writing for the newspaper.”
“I noticed their newly painted storefront. Business must be good.”
“Oh, it is. Mr. Fisher himself goes door-to-door seeking subscriptions, advertisements, and news. He probably knows more than the bartender at the Pike and all the ladies in my library group put together.”
Elizabeth’s mental cataloguing of her landlady’s exploits expanded to include not only a buggy-whipping scene, but one of the woman dragging information out of the Pike’s bartender. Elizabeth wouldn’t be surprised if she had campaigned for the women’s suffrage refe
rendum four years ago. Given Maggie’s fervor, it was surprising that it had failed.
Upstairs, she rummaged through her trunk for her small sewing kit and picked up the ruined reticule. Already the days were skimping on sunlight, and soon darkness would lock her indoors. She retired to the veranda, choosing a more stable rocker over the lulling swing.
Fluffy clouds clung to the northern mountains, and bits and pieces had broken off and floated down toward Olin Springs’s wide, grassy valley, suggesting another evening storm. The guarding elm tree ruffled in a slow breeze, and her anxiety eased a bit.
Maggie’s inclusion of her in the mention of home had touched a place in her heart long neglected, and it raised a sigh in her breast.
By contrast, there was the totally inexplicable Sheriff Garrett Wilson who simply raised her perplexity. The mere thought of him affected her reflexes, and she jabbed the end of her middle finger on a loose needle. She held the wound to lips rather than stain her skirt or reticule—as if that mattered.
Half the beads were missing and the velvet was stiff with dog drool. Disgusting. But the bit of navy fabric presented just the creative challenge she needed, thanks to Pearl.
What an absolutely incongruous name for that half-breed dog.
She left her kit on the side table, then carried her reticule around the house and out to the small pasture, lifting her face to the breeze. It teased at her hair, loosening strands that tickled her nose. Succumbing to a childish impulse, she pulled the hair pins from the knot at her neck, and let her hair fall.
How long had it been since she’d felt such freedom?
The mare met her at the fence.
Elizabeth slipped her pins into her skirt pocket, her reticule cord over her wrist, and lifted the pump handle, cupping her hand beneath the flow. “It’s cold, girl. Invigorating, right?”
The horse whiffled the water as it fell through Elizabeth’s fingers, and tossed her head in agreement. Elizabeth laughed, grateful to be away from the city and close to the land again.
She worked the handle and held her bag beneath the clear water, regretting for the millionth time running away with the wrong man. How could she have been so foolish? In spite of the searing pain of losing her mother, she should have known the fire was hotter than the frying pan.
Dirt and slobber washed away at her kneading, and soon her reticule glistened, lovely again in spite of its missing beads and a large tear. She shut the pump off, smoothed the velvet nap in a singular direction, and turned the bag inside out. The mare lifted her head and whinnied.
~
In all his days, Garrett hadn’t seen anything prettier.
He slowed Rink to an easy walk, and the gelding’s ears pricked toward the bay and the woman by the trough.
Her loose hair rippled about her shoulders like shadowed prairie grass, inviting his fingers to pull through its length.
Rink tossed his head. Either an answer to the mare or his opinion of Garrett’s distraction.
Betsy watched them until he drew rein at the fence and dismounted. Rink reached for the trough, and Garrett pulled him up short, removed the headstall, and let him drink.
“He’s beautiful.”
He leaned into his horse as if whispering a secret. “Don’t take it personal. She meant it as a compliment.”
Laughter, the first he’d heard from his fellow boarder, fell like a clear stream pouring into a shallow pool. It caught him by surprise.
“Is he really so easily offended, or would that be his owner’s interpretation?”
She moved in and ran her hand down Rink’s neck and over his shoulder as if judging his worth by her touch.
Garrett stepped back, out of temptation’s reach. “You have a good eye.”
She flicked that eye his way, applying her judgment to him. “Daddy had a small band of mares. Cade and I worked the youngsters, trained some for buggies, others for riding.”
“You broke horses?”
Another sharp-eyed appraisal, more scathing than the first.
Where was his poker face—and voice—when he needed it? “I mean, you broke horses.”
She slid along the gelding, her left arm draped easy over Rink’s hind quarters as she stepped around to the other side. Not her first time handling horseflesh.
“I like to think of it as gentling rather than breaking,” she said. “A broken horse—like a person—isn’t much good for anything.”
Surprises just kept piling up.
“So what moniker did you choose for this regal roan? Surely not Diamond or Glaze or Gunmetal.”
“What makes you think I’d call him some fandangled name like that?”
“Well, you did name that monstrosity of a dog Pearl. I expect you’d have something equally imaginative for your horse.”
He cleared his throat and coughed out the name.
“What?” Her challenging eyes barely cleared the gelding’s withers.
“Rink.”
She stared.
He frowned.
“And what’s the story for this name?”
Wasn’t any of her business, but she was being sociable. He looped a rein over Rink’s neck. “I named him after my grandfather. Only thing he hated more than sin was his given name. Said he’d rather be called Rink. It stuck.”
“Sin?” Her voice rose at the end of the word.
“He was a preacher.”
“What was his given name?”
Garrett sized her up, gauging her willingness to trade information, whether she’d be party to give and take. “Why’d you choose Elizabeth over Betsy?”
She moved to the gelding’s neck, hiding her expressive eyes. “Always a lawman, answering a question with a question.”
“Only the unanswered ones.”
She puffed out her irritation but stood her ground, Rink between them like a barrier. Her arm came up under the gelding’s neck and she ran her hand down along his chest. Easy. Confident. As familiar with his horse as if it was hers.
“I had a horse once.”
The admission wasn’t what he’d been waiting for, and if the night hadn’t been as quiet as it was, he’d have missed it altogether.
“What happened to it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s still there, at the ranch. In a way, I don’t want to find out, because if she’s gone…”
He heard the fissure in her voice, the first, tiny opening into the Betsy side of her. He tugged Rink back, removing the wall.
Though she stood not two feet from him, she was somewhere else, staring off over his shoulder and into the past, thumbing her empty ring finger.
“Blanca.” Her dark eyes shifted to his. “Not very imaginative of me. No story to go with it. But I thought it fit her at the time.”
A young girl’s white horse. “Better than Ivory.”
She almost smiled and glanced at Snowfield’s bay mare before walking back to the house.
He led Rink into a stall, unsaddled and brushed him down, then gave him a can of oats. Her answer wasn’t what he’d wanted, but he was satisfied for the time being with one more piece of the puzzle that was Betsy Beaumont.
Everything he touched in the buggy shed, from the stall door to the saddle racks in the tack room, puffed up a dust cloud. Must’ve been decades since anyone had used this place.
Satisfied that all was well, he made sure the barn door to the pasture was open so the mare could come in if she wanted, then headed for the house.
Slapping his hat on his leg, he stomped the dust off his boots. It seemed like he dirtied up the place every time he walked into that fancy dining room in his work clothes. But the togs he wore were all he had, other than the leftovers he sported when these were stiff enough to stand up on their own. Didn’t matter what he looked like when he had an appointment out back of the jail with the washboard and a soap cake.
Didn’t matter what he looked like, period—if he kept his horse groomed, his jail clean, and his jaw shaved.
A quick s
crape of his hand proved he’d slacked off there some.
Another shirt and trousers wouldn’t take that much from his steady pay. Maybe a new vest. Out of respect for Maggie and her fine house, of course. In fact, he could use a haircut too.
First thing Monday morning, he’d pay Bartholomew Ward a visit, then check out that new haberdashery that Hiram Eisner opened up on Main Street.
CHAPTER 10
First thing Sunday morning, Elizabeth wrote a quick note telling Sophie Price when and how she’d arrived in Olin Springs, apologizing for not letting her know ahead of time. If Sophie and her family showed up at church, she’d give her the note. If not, she’d post it the next day.
She tucked the letter in her skirt pocket, and checked the mirror, assuring herself she was as put-together as possible. Satisfied, she folded a fresh sheet of paper from her satchel, and took a pencil from the desk drawer. Pastor Bittman’s sermon would be the perfect opportunity to practice her stenography.
Garrett was not at breakfast, and Elizabeth offered thanks for small blessings. He had a way of pressing in where he wasn’t wanted, and last night she’d let down her guard. A foolish thing to do. Admonishing herself to be more careful, she focused on Maggie’s light fare of oatmeal and toasted bread.
On the way to church, she worked to keep up with her landlady, who dashed off as if she were marching to glory. They were the first to arrive at the chapel besides Pastor Bittman, his wife, Millie, and a darling daughter toddling down the aisle toward her mother. Elizabeth suspected Maggie had planned things accordingly.
“Betsy.” Pastor Bittman’s welcome touched a wellspring that threatened to overflow. “It’s so good to see you again. I do hope you’ll be staying for a while.”
“With me, Pastor. Elizabeth is boarding with me for the time being.”
He appeared to pick up an unspoken message from Maggie’s brief explanation and smiled accordingly. “Home is a good place to be.”
Odd that he classified Maggie’s house as home instead of the Parker ranch. Or perhaps he meant Olin Springs in general. Regardless, Elizabeth was grateful for his acceptance. Two blessings in one morning.
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