by Jo Goodman
Not unsympathetic, he said, “It’s a lot to think about.”
Uneasy laughter bubbled to her lips at the understatement. It was difficult to form a coherent thought. She couldn’t imagine herself taking the step that the terms of the contract outlined. “How long?” she asked.
“How long?”
Rachel nodded. “Until I have to make a decision? I didn’t read anything about how much time I had. Did I miss it?”
“You didn’t miss it,” Wyatt told her. “It’s implied. The half share of the mine is already yours. I need to draw up some new papers, amend the articles, and get your signature on them. Henry and Sid will witness everything, of course, but all of that is more or less a formality. You own half of the mine whether I get the papers done today or three months from now.”
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you. I think I’m clear on that.” She absently raised one hand and laid her fingers just below the hollow of her throat. Unaware of the gesture, she began to massage the area gently.
“Are you all right?” asked Wyatt. “Should I open a window?”
“What? Oh.” She realized what she was doing. “Yes, please, if it’s no bother, some fresh air would be good.”
Wyatt rose and went to the window. He drew the curtains aside and lifted the sash. “Do you think you should come over here where you can take advantage of it?”
She wasn’t sure she would be steady on her feet. As a compromise, she shifted in her chair so she was angled toward the open window. “I’ll be fine sitting here.”
Wyatt didn’t argue the point, but he made another offer. “I can’t make you anything to drink here, but I can go downstairs and get you coffee. Sam Walker—that’s one of Sid’s boys—always has some brewing in the land office.”
“No, really, I’m fine. I don’t need anything.”
Wyatt wasn’t convinced, but then his view of her pale features was not the one she had. He returned to his seat. “I haven’t yet explained about the timing of all of this,” he said. “Are you certain you want to hear it now?”
“I’m quite certain I don’t,” she said, “but I can’t imagine that changing, so you might as well tell me while I’m sitting down.”
Honesty and a thread of humor ran through her words. Wyatt appreciated both. “As I mentioned,” he said. “The timeline is implied. Once control of the C & C passes to Foster, the spur to Reidsville—that includes the land, the depot in town, and the two main engines, six helper units, and twelve freight cars that regularly make the run—will become part of his holdings. That takes more time than you think. There’s upwards of three weeks before all of that’s finalized and made public.”
“Three weeks?” A breath hitched in Rachel’s throat. “That’s no time at all.”
“I understand that’s true from your perspective. To Foster, though, it will seem like an eternity. That’s the way his grandfather wanted it. He placed certain conditions in his will that will slow the process of Foster taking actual ownership. For instance, Foster has to demonstrate that he has the support of three of the five largest financial institutions in California by securing loans to expand C & C to the Northwest.”
“He’ll hate that.”
“No doubt, but if he wants full control, he’ll have to answer to Maddox’s lawyers or risk having to share control with a board of directors.”
“He’ll waste time, digging in his heels.”
“That’s why I said there’s upwards of three weeks.”
Rachel considered that; then her regard turned suspicious. “You had a hand in drafting Mr. Maddox’s will, didn’t you? You couldn’t know some of this without having seen it.”
“Not a whole hand,” he said. “A couple of fingers. When he knew what he wanted to do about the mine and the spur, that’s when he requested some assistance from me. His lawyers did the lion’s share, and I wasn’t privy to the final document.”
“Then you can’t be sure it was written up the way you suggested.”
“You knew him. Did he ever back away from his word?”
Rachel didn’t have to think about it. “No,” she said quietly. “He never did.”
“There you go.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t mislead me. He promised me that I would be cared for, and you and I are talking now because this is his crazy quilt way of keeping his word. Admit it, Sheriff, this is just about the most peculiar and preposterous thing that’s ever been proposed.”
“Wyatt,” he said mildly. “And you sure have a gift for alliteration.”
Rachel sighed. She had to admit he had a knack for settling her nerves. It was proving to be a good thing, since he was also the one who jangled them. She stared down at her hands in her lap and finished collecting herself. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Understandable.”
“I don’t want the town to suffer.”
“I never imagined that you would.”
She nodded almost imperceptibly. “I like the people I’ve met here. I know I haven’t gone out of my way to be sociable, but no one’s held it against me. Whenever I’ve stepped out, I’ve been welcomed.”
“Live and let live. That’d be what passes for common sense around here.”
Rachel turned her head and glanced at him. “Maybe. And maybe that’s your influence.”
“Nope. That’d be my father’s legacy.”
And he was his father’s son. She didn’t want to cite the commonalities. Instead, she said, “I’ve noticed that not many strangers arrive to settle here. They pay a visit to the hotel, test the card play, see what recommends the town to its inhabitants, but they don’t stay. I may well be the last new person to come to Reidsville and put down roots. And that was fifteen, almost sixteen, months ago.”
“Could be you’re right. I’d have to think about it.”
She knew very well that he didn’t have to give it any thought at all. He was aware of everything that happened in the town—sooner or later. “Reidsville is a bit of a secret, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know what you mean. We’re on all the maps drawn up in the last twenty-five years. We have a regular train run, a telegraph line, and a first-rate hotel with hot and cold running water that advertises in the Denver papers. People come and go all the time.”
“But they go. I don’t think staying is encouraged.” She didn’t expect him to answer, and he didn’t. “It’s all right. I think it has something to do with the mine, so I’ll just leave it at that.”
“All right,” Wyatt said agreeably. “Suit yourself.”
Rachel gathered the documents into an orderly stack and took her time reviewing them yet again. She was aware of Wyatt’s extraordinary patience with her; then she forgot about him entirely as she delved through the partnership agreement.
When she finished, she passed the papers to him and rested her folded hands on the table. “If I marry you, does it mean that my share of the mine becomes your share?”
“No. At least it doesn’t have to. You can choose anyone you like to draw up the papers so you can trust that your interests are protected.”
“What about my other property? You told me I owned the house outright. Does it become yours?”
“I don’t want it.”
“That isn’t what I asked. Does marriage in this state make it yours?”
“It doesn’t have to. You can make provisions to see that it doesn’t. The laws here allow for it.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“I looked it up.” He shrugged. “In your place, it’s something I would want to know. You might not realize it, but Colorado only entered the union six years ago. The general assembly was a bit more forward thinking when it drafted its constitution and started setting its laws.”
“Can I vote?”
“No.”
She snorted delicately. “Then you’re not as progressive as Wyoming, and it’s still a territory.”
Careful to reveal none of the humor he found in her ch
astisement, he said, “I stand corrected.”
Rachel waved that aside as unimportant. “I have some money in the bank, almost all of it from Mr. Maddox, and I want to be sure it remains in my control.”
“Of course. It’s part of your holdings. Drawing this up won’t be hard to do, since I won’t be arguing any point of it.”
She considered that. “So, if I understand what you’re telling me, what belongs to me now will still belong to me after marriage.”
“With the proper documents in place, yes.”
“And, by the same token, you can retain what is yours.”
Wyatt didn’t answer immediately. He had a feeling she was about to make a move that he hadn’t anticipated. Wariness made the skin at the back of his neck tingle. “Yes,” he said slowly. “I suppose I could arrange to keep what belongs to me now.”
“Just like with the mine,” she said, “we wouldn’t be compelled to combine our property.”
“Well, yes, but—” He stopped because she was shaking her head sharply and had leaned toward him a fraction to lend emphasis to her appeal.
“Hear me out,” she said quickly. “It could be a partnership. A marriage in name, but a partnership in fact. There’s no reason we couldn’t live entirely separately. It meets the requirements set forth by Mr. Maddox, and—”
“But not the intent,” said Wyatt.
“Perhaps not,” she conceded, “but it follows to the letter the terms he laid out, and right now that’s about as much control over my life as I’m willing to surrender.”
Wyatt heard her voice tremble at the end with the passion she felt for her argument. He saw that she must have heard it, too, because she took a slow, deep breath and took pains to let it out in measured beats. Her eyes were made suddenly luminous by a wash of tears that only her hard resolve kept at bay.
“You seem like you’re a good man, Sher—” She caught herself. “Wyatt,” she amended. “I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think you do right by them. Your willingness to enter into that agreement with Mr. Maddox proves it. You’d sacrifice your own chance to meet someone in a more traditional manner, court her properly, and settle down to—”
“I was married before,” he said quietly, cutting her off. He held her surprised, slightly wounded gaze and was reminded that for all her sharp wit and determination, this business had left her fragile. “I wouldn’t have let you sign anything without knowing. I just didn’t figure I would be telling you now.”
Rachel pressed her fingertips together and offered up an apologetic, mildly embarrassed smile. “I should have known.”
“I don’t know why you think that.”
“I’m not going to place a dozen compliments in easy reach of you.”
One corner of his mouth lifted a fraction. “Fair enough.”
“Thank you for telling me, though. It doesn’t really change anything, but it’s nice to know something about you since you seem to know so much about me.”
“I didn’t choose to tell you now because you needed to know on general principle. I told you because it does change things.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I’m not making a sacrifice,” he said. “I met my wife in the traditional way. I fell in love, courted her, proposed, married, and…” He paused, surprised that he could still be moved off center by the sudden, powerful tug of memories. “And settled down.”
Rachel continued to regard him expectantly, but after a few moments, she realized he’d said all he intended to on the matter. “But you’re not married any longer.”
“No. She died. It was seven years ago first of the month.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded curtly. “It’s the past.”
Not from where Rachel was sitting. She’d glimpsed a hollowness in his eyes, and although he recovered quickly, banishing it thoroughly, she knew what she had seen. There was still emptiness there. It was not lost on her that he’d signed Mr. Maddox’s proposal not long after his wife died. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly—and perhaps he still wasn’t—all his opinions to the contrary. “So you’re telling me that you don’t need—or want—another opportunity to find a wife of your own choosing.”
“That’s what I’m saying. Maddox’s contract was acceptable to me, and his intent that we should have a conventional marriage didn’t cause me to hesitate.”
“Can you appreciate it’s somewhat different for me?”
“I can. I do. But it’s not my place to apologize for something I didn’t set into motion.”
Rachel stood abruptly, placed the flat of her hands hard on the table, and stared at Wyatt from the advantage of height. In carefully measured tones, she said, “If you expect a marriage that is generally defined by the usual practices of sharing a common dwelling, coital relations, and raising children together, then I must tell you that I won’t agree to it, but if you’re willing to accept marriage as the partnership I described earlier, I can give you my answer.”
Wyatt’s blue eyes narrowed in a glance that would have pinned lesser opponents to the wall. Rachel held fast, and he was forced to judge that what she’d just delivered was no threat but a serious statement of intent. He’d be a fool to test her now.
Wyatt recognized he was faced with making his first real sacrifice since signing the agreement with Clinton Maddox. He couldn’t blame Maddox for it, because even that crafty robber baron hadn’t foreseen this end. Who could have predicted that his journeyman opponent Rachel Bailey would so cleverly maneuver him into checkmate?
There was no point in standing up, not when she’d effectively cut him off at the knees. Wyatt simply extended his hand toward her and offered a shake. “I’ll take your terms, Rachel, and God help us both.”
Chapter Five
The papers were drawn up four days later. Rachel and Wyatt were married the following evening, just about the time the first stars were appearing in the eastern sky. It was a private ceremony, conducted in Wyatt’s law office by a judge he brought in from Denver because Reidsville didn’t have its own, and two witnesses, Henry Longabach and Sid Walker. Sid needed help to negotiate the stairs because a storm was brewing somewhere distant, he warned them, and accordingly, his rheumatism made him as stiff as the stays in his wife’s corset. He’d thought up that comparison just for Rachel, he told her, because what with her being a seamstress and all, she knew about corsets. Usually, he went on to explain before anyone realized where he was going with his story, he just told the fellers he was as stiff as their wakin’-up peckers.
Rachel managed a weak smile while blushing to the roots of her hair. It was the only reason there was color in her face when she and Wyatt exchanged vows.
She wore a simply cut gown with a modest train that she had fashioned several years earlier. The fabric was a pale, creamy satin printed with clusters of pink poppies. The long sleeves were close-fitting except at the shoulder, where she had introduced and gathered more fabric to create a puffed look. Wyatt had admired her gown. She’d said nothing about his pin-striped lawyer suit.
Although their reasons were different, they were in agreement that the fewer people who knew about the wedding, the better. For Rachel, the decision was a practical one. Since they were going to live separately, and go about their business in the same manner, announcing they were married would only muddy the waters, not clear them. For Wyatt, the decision was more personal. He didn’t like the vision of himself as an object of pity because his wife did not want him in her bed.
Henry and Sid were literally sworn to secrecy by the judge, and the judge, being from out of town, had no reason to talk about it to anyone. That left Wyatt and Rachel to hold their own, and neither of them could imagine the circumstances that would persuade them to reveal their marriage.
What Henry and Sid passed along at the town meeting scheduled to follow the ceremony, was that Rachel Bailey had inherited Clinton Maddox’s share of the mine and the Calico Spur to boot. Sid, in particular, liked the “Cal
ico Spur to boot” part of his speech, and found several ways to fit it in. Henry was more stolid imparting the news to the miners and business owners. He acknowledged all the speculation about the fate of the town since Clinton Maddox’s passing and knew that calling for a town meeting had raised hope and anxiety in equal measure. Now he was free to tell them what had taken place in the shareholders’ meeting in Wyatt Cooper’s office.
And then he solemnly introduced Rachel Bailey, just as if everyone in Reidsville didn’t already know who she was.
The applause was thunderous and prolonged. Rachel was embarrassed to accept this greeting and approval when she’d done nothing but put her signature to some papers. And marry Wyatt, of course.
When Henry and Sid gestured to her to join them on the dais, she shook her head. No one had breathed a word that she would be expected to speak. Wyatt, standing just behind her, put his hands on the small of her back and gave her a gentle, but firm, push.
“Reassure them,” he whispered. “That’s all they want.”
Having no idea what she might say, but certain she didn’t want Wyatt to nudge her again with his fingertips, Rachel accepted Henry and Sid’s outstretched hands to assist her on the step up to the platform. This gesture was seen by the crowd as largely symbolic of the new partnership, and when Wyatt joined them a moment later, the Commodore Hotel, which always hosted the town meetings, actually shook with the clapping and foot stomping that was a demonstration of the town’s approbation.
Henry called for order before the timbers collapsed on them, and when it was quiet enough to begin, he motioned Rachel forward. She stood flanked by Henry and Sid with Wyatt just off to one side, but he was the one she looked to when her confidence flagged. He made a small nudging motion with his hand and oddly enough, it was just the encouragement she needed.
