by Jo Goodman
“Good day, everyone,” she began. “I’m Rachel Bailey.” There were some hoots of approval, especially from the miners who had taken leave of their shift at last minute and crowded in the back. “Mr. Clinton Maddox was a dear friend to my family, and a person of great influence in my life. I know your genuine mourning of his passing has been mixed with considerable personal concerns. It seems to me to be a perfectly natural response when the fortunes of all of us, and therefore the town, are irrevocably linked to the fortunes of the California and Colorado Railroad.”
This engendered a low hum of agreement throughout the crowd, and Rachel continued. “I hope you are heartened to learn that Mr. Maddox shared your concerns and made plans years before his death to see that Reidsville could continue to operate its mine and its businesses and provide a decent livelihood for its hardworking citizens.”
There was another round of generous applause, and for the first time, Rachel believed she could see this through. “You all know that Clinton Maddox was a man of vision who knew how to seize an opportunity, or create one. He was, first and foremost, a financier who took the stake his father gave him and increased it a hundredfold in his own lifetime. He didn’t do this by being a generous man in his business interests or by making financial decisions based on putting money in the public’s pockets. Yet, through his self-interest, he invested in all of you and continues to do so by passing ownership of the Calico Spur to me. It is now also in my interest, as a member of your community, to see that the spur survives, that the No. 473 and the Admiral engines continue to make their runs, and that goods and services and gold and silver are transported to Denver and from there to all points east and west. I promise you that Mr. Maddox did not misjudge my resolve to honor his legacy and profit equally from the gift and the responsibility he’s given me.”
Rachel looked over the crowd, picking out faces that she knew better than others. She saw Mrs. Longabach regarding her with a fulsome smile, and Ann Marie Easter nodding her head at just the right moments. Ed Kennedy had his thick arms folded across his chest and his head cocked to one side, consideration in his posture. Abe Dishman and Ned Beaumont traded elbow jabs now and again when they liked what she had to say. Mr. Caldwell and Jacob Reston regarded her with rapt attention, and sometime during her speech Artie Showalter began making notes for the weekly paper he published.
“I can assure you,” Rachel concluded, “that when I profit from Clinton Maddox’s trust, so will you.”
The applause went from thunderous to deafening. People who were not already on their feet, jumped to them. Having no clear idea how she was supposed to remove herself, Rachel glanced back at Wyatt a bit uneasily. He stopped clapping long enough to discreetly wave her over. She eased from between the bookends that were Henry and Sid and sidled up to Wyatt.
Out of sight of the crowd, Wyatt found Rachel’s fingers and gave them a squeeze. He half expected her to yank her hand away, but whether it was the chance of being observed or the fact that she truly needed the support, she left her fingers in his until he released her.
Henry and Sid were looking at him expectantly. “Just reassure them,” Rachel whispered, lightly mocking him with the same encouragement he’d given her. He took his place front and center and the crowd settled almost immediately.
“You folks who remember my father know that he was a cynic and a contrarian, but if Matthew Cooper were here this evening, he’d tell you that he never made a mistake trusting Clinton Maddox’s instincts. And Maddox? Now, he would tell you that it was never instinct that guided him, but experience and study and knowing what he wanted to achieve.
“The other day I overheard Estella Longabach telling Gracie Showalter that Miss Rachel Bailey has a gift. And if Estella doesn’t mind, I’d like to tell you what she meant by that.” He looked directly at Estella, received her firm nod of approval, and then addressed the town. “Everyone here knows that Mrs. Longabach operates her restaurant with a firm hand on the till. Isn’t that right, Henry?”
Henry nodded hard, rousing laughter from his friends and neighbors.
“And she’s not generally of a temperament that allows her to spend money on what she considers frivolous things.”
“That’s right,” Henry said. “She’s real practical that way.” There were murmurs of agreement and approval in the audience, and even Estella was nodding her head.
“That’s why,” Wyatt continued, “when Rachel Bailey was able to sell her, not one, not two, but three new gowns at a single sitting, all of them to be cut from the finest fabrics, Mrs. Longabach was moved to tell her friend Gracie that Miss Bailey surely has a gift.”
“Three gowns, Estella?” Henry called from the dais. “Good God, wife, did you take leave of your senses?”
Estella pursed her lips, gave him a dismissive wave, and otherwise ignored him.
When the crowd had finished having their laugh at Henry’s expense, literally, Wyatt concluded making his point. “It seems to me that when Estella was speaking of Miss Bailey’s gift she was remarking in the same way my father did about Mr. Maddox’s instincts. We all know that like finds like. It’s the nature of things. So is it any wonder that Mr. Maddox saw in Rachel Bailey the very things that made him a successful entrepreneur? Experience. Study. And knowledge of what she wants to achieve. Time will prove he was right to name her to succeed him as our partner in the mine and as owner of the Calico Spur.”
It was going on ten o’clock before Rachel and Wyatt were able to make their exit from the hotel. The crowd was slow to disperse, partly because people wanted to seek Rachel out and voice their confidence, and partly because they were waiting for Nigel Pennyworth, the English émigré who owned the Commodore and liked to be called Sir Nigel, to open his wine cellar and stores of fine brandy to further their celebration. Sir Nigel held out as long as he could but surrendered to the inevitable when the miners began making noises about blasting a tunnel to the cellar.
Wyatt saw Rachel shiver when she stepped out of the hotel. “Here,” he said, removing his pin-striped jacket. “Take this. It was considerably warmer when we were at my office.” She didn’t object, so he fit it across her shoulders like a cape. He moved protectively to the outside of the sidewalk and waited for her to fall into step. “You did well this evening.”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “There was a moment there when I felt as if I were running for office.”
“Maybe you should. Ted Easter’s coming up for reelection soon. Could be Reidsville could use a new mayor.”
“Could be I want to be sheriff.” Rachel gave him a sideways glance, but away from the hotel lamps, it was too dark to make out his features except in shadowed profile. “What? You don’t think I could?”
“Actually, I was thinking what a tough opponent you’d be.”
She laughed. “That’s kind of you.”
“Not kind. Truthful.”
For reasons she didn’t entirely understand or care to consider at length, Rachel was warmed more thoroughly by his response than by the jacket he’d flung across her shoulders. “Did you know we would have to speak tonight?”
“I thought it might be expected, yes.”
“I wished you’d warned me.”
“Are you certain? I thought it would have been cruel.”
She considered that and nodded slowly. “You’re right. It would have been.” It was too easy to imagine herself collapsing under the weight of the anticipation. “Do you remember exchanging vows?” she asked. “I’ve been trying to, but I don’t think I was there.”
He chuckled. “You were. And you said your part beautifully.”
“Did I? I’ve been wondering. How did you do?”
“I was very definite, I think you’d say. Firm.”
“That’s good.” They walked in silence for a while, the celebratory noises from the hotel fading behind them with each step. “It was a little bit like a wedding reception, wasn’t it? Back at the Commodore, I mean, with everyone offer
ing their congratulations. I found myself thinking it a couple of times, which surprised me since I can barely recall the wedding.”
“We could go back and tell everyone,” he said. “Make it a reception in fact.”
There was a hint of sadness in her answering smile. “No, we couldn’t.”
“All right,” Wyatt said. “But I feel certain that Sir Nigel was holding back his finest liquor right up until the end. Could be a marriage announcement would get him to bring it out.”
The edge of sad regret vanished from her smile as laughter lifted the corners of her mouth. “Perish the thought,” she said in a fair imitation of Nigel Pennyworth’s clipped West End accents. “There is no doubt that you would spend the rest of the night rounding up inebriates and putting a period to the worst sort of licentious behavior.”
“In other words,” Wyatt said dryly, “picking up drunks and stopping orgies.”
“Precisely.”
“Well, then, I suppose that walking out and moving on was the right choice.”
Rachel found herself wishing, perversely, that he’d offer more argument. She disgusted herself with that thinking, so she didn’t dare share the drift of her thoughts with Wyatt. She said instead, “How did you come to overhear Mrs. Longabach talking about me to Gracie Showalter?”
He shrugged. “The same as I overhear most things. In passing.”
“Meaning they were passing you.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you sit outside your office in the dead of winter?”
“Lord, no. There’s not much in the way of traffic. I get around, though, checking on people, listening to what they find interesting.” Wyatt took Rachel’s elbow as they came upon the end of the sidewalk at Aspen Street, and she teetered on the edge. “Whoa. Careful.” He helped her down, and they turned the corner together. “Do you feel the storm in the air?”
She held her step and breathed deeply. An icy undercurrent almost stole the breath back. She pulled Wyatt’s jacket more closely around her and wondered that he seemed impervious to the cold. “Is it snow coming, do you think?”
“Between eight and fourteen inches, according to Sid’s shoulder and his left knee.”
“Goodness. What if his right knee joins the band?”
“Blizzard.”
Rachel laughed at Wyatt’s wry tone. “I suppose we’d better hope that he doesn’t cripple up any more.”
Wyatt thrust his hands into his trousers. “That’s a fact.” Since they’d turned the corner, the wind had been whipping the sleeves of his shirt and beating against his vest. He put his head into the wind to keep his hat on as they approached Rachel’s flagstone walk. Aware that her steps were slowing and that she was preparing to bid him good night, Wyatt interceded on his own behalf.
“I’ll walk you to your door,” he said.
“It’s not—” She stopped because she was already talking to his back, and she had to hurry to keep up with him. He wasn’t so much escorting her as leading the advance. She caught up to him just as they reached the porch.
“I wouldn’t mind a cup of coffee.” He insinuated himself between Rachel and the door and managed to get his hand on the knob first. “And maybe a bite to eat. I didn’t have dinner this evening.”
She was prepared to argue the lateness of the hour when her own empty stomach betrayed her by rumbling loudly. Sighing heavily, she offered a reluctant invitation. “I have some chicken soup I could heat, and there’s three-quarters of a loaf of Mrs. Easter’s brown bread in the larder.”
“That sounds just about perfect,” he said, and began opening the door.
Rachel couldn’t resist asking, “What would make it perfect?”
“Hot water gingerbread.”
That stopped Rachel in her tracks. She turned on him, hands on her hips. “How could you possibly know that I have—”
Wyatt didn’t give himself a moment to think about it, or a moment to think better of it. He simply reacted to the wide doelike eyes and generously shaped mouth tilted in his direction and backed her up against the wall in her foyer, where he kissed her until survival dictated he come up for air.
Rachel’s hands were no longer on her hips; her palms lay flat against the wall behind her. Beneath her fingertips she could feel the velvet flocking of the paper. She stared at Wyatt, more wide-eyed than she had been before. Her lips felt vaguely swollen, and her breath came through their narrow parting.
“You won’t do that again,” she said, though she wasn’t clear if she was asking or telling him.
Wyatt removed his hat and laid it on the entry table. “We’ll see.” He looked over her flushed features, gauged the likelihood that she was going to slap him as small, then wandered off to the kitchen in search of sustenance for the other part of him that needed it.
Rachel followed at a slower pace and gave him a wide berth in her own kitchen. She let him fire up the stove while she retrieved the crock of soup and the bread from the larder. She also set out squares of gingerbread and topped them with a dollop of applesauce.
“You’re not spending the night,” she said.
“Can’t. I have to ride out tomorrow.” He glanced over at her, lifting an eyebrow. “Thursday,” he reminded her.
“You’re not invited anyway.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” She nodded once for emphasis and pushed the crock across the table so it was within his reach. She wrapped the bread in a moist towel and set it down for him to place in the warming pan. With studied casualness, she asked, “Should you be going anywhere if there’s a storm coming?”
“It’s my job.”
“But you could be riding into it.”
“Oh, I expect it’ll be here by morning. It could hold me up from getting an early start, so you shouldn’t worry if I’m late coming to collect my biscuits.”
“I won’t be worrying. I’ll be sleeping. It’s every other Thursday, remember? I gave them to you last week.”
“So I’ll have to wait until Sunday?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re a hard woman, Rachel Bailey,” he said, stirring the soup. “But I’ll be damned if you don’t have the softest lips.”
Rachel almost dropped the bowls that she was carrying to the table. “Don’t do that,” she said softly, recovering her composure. “It’s not fair. Not fair to either one of us.”
He turned away from the stove and saw that Rachel’s expressive features were set gravely, the line of her mouth no longer curved but grim. “I don’t necessarily share your opinion.”
“It’s not what we agreed to,” she said.
“I don’t remember that we discussed it.” He tapped the large wooden spoon he was holding against the pot, then set it down in the spoon stand. He folded his arms across his chest and mirrored her humorless mien. “Sharing the same dwelling. Coital relations. Raising children together. Those were what you said defined a marriage. We never talked about what defined our partnership.”
“Do you push your tongue in Sid Walker’s mouth?”
For a moment, Wyatt could only stare at her. “That’s a hell of a thing to say, Rachel.” He absently rubbed his chest where it felt as if she’d been jabbing him with her fingertip.
She didn’t back down. “It was a question, and you haven’t answered it.”
“For God’s sake, let it be.”
“Because it’s uncomfortable for you?”
He turned back to the stove and checked the bread in the warming pan. “What do you really want, Rachel? An apology?”
“An explanation.”
He shut the door on the oven again and glanced at her over his shoulder. “An explanation for what exactly? The kiss? The comment about your lips?”
“For the way you’re acting toward me. You never kissed me before, never hinted that you wanted to, and now you—”
“Never hinted?” His eyebrows lifted. “You didn’t want to see it.” Shaking his head, he stepped away
from the stove and without a word left the kitchen entirely. When he returned a few minutes later, it was with a bottle of whiskey from the sideboard. He took out a glass from the cupboard, raised it slightly in Rachel’s direction to ask her if she wanted to join him. When she shook her head, he shrugged, and set the glass on the table.
Rachel watched him uncork the bottle and pour himself enough for a swallow. He let it sit there on the table while he gave the soup another stir and sip and judged it hot enough to serve. That’s when she realized it wasn’t his intent to get drunk. “I’ll get the bread,” she said as he began to ladle soup into their bowls.
He paused and tossed her a towel to keep her from burning her hands. “It looks good,” he said. “Is this Mrs. Longabach’s or did you make it yourself?”
“Mine, more or less. Molly helped. I was…well, I had a lot on my mind. I think she was afraid I was going to slice a finger when I was cutting the carrots, so she took over.” She set the warm bread on a small cutting board and carried it to the table. Wyatt had already pushed her bowl of soup in place, so she sat down and spread a napkin on her lap.
She waited for Wyatt to sit before she picked up her spoon and dipped it for her first taste. When she gasped and began waving a hand in front of her open mouth, he was on his feet immediately.
Rachel sucked in a breath and accepted the glass that Wyatt thrust in her hand. “Thank you,” she said when she could speak again. “I wasn’t expecting that. Not at all. It didn’t seem to have bothered you in the least.” It was exactly what she might have said about the kiss they’d shared. Realizing it, Rachel felt her cheeks grow warm, but she didn’t turn away from Wyatt’s frank study of her reaction.
“I want you to respect me,” she said quietly.
“And you don’t think I do?” He shook his head. “It was a kiss, Rachel. You were standing there with your hands on your hips, exasperated certainly, but amused, too, or at least I thought so, and I gave in to an impulse. It doesn’t mean I don’t respect you. It means I find you attractive.”
“Now,” she said.
