Coming Up Roses

by Duncan, Alice

  “Rose?” He spoke her name softly, hoping she was still willing to speak to him. Truth to tell, he hoped she still loved him. He loved her; no mistake. If he were another sort of man, he’d pick her up and carry her right off to a justice of the peace and demand he unite them in holy matrimony. Such a notion was alien to H.L. May’s nature, however, and it no sooner entered his head than he thrust it aside again.

  He was glad when her eyelids fluttered open. She turned her head and looked at him. “H.L.?”

  “Are you all right, Rose?”

  She didn’t answer immediately, but seemed to be taking stock before answering. After a minute, she said, “Um, I think so.”

  “Good.” He realized he was more than all right. He was absolutely splendid. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt this well, actually, which was odd since he’d recently sustained a powerful injury. His grin sneaked up on him. “I think you cured me, Rose.”

  She blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

  Aw, hell, he felt so good, he couldn’t stand it. With a whoop that made Rose cringe, he grabbed her around the waist, rolled over so that she was lying on top of him, and said, “I feel wonderful! You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Rose Gilhooley. You cured me right up. My head doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

  “No?” She didn’t smile back at him.

  “No.” He hugged her hard and for so long that she gasped for breath.

  He released her, but still grinned at her. “Sorry. But I feel really swell, Rose.”

  “Um, I’m glad.”

  “You ought to be, since it’s all your fault.”

  While she didn’t seem to want to grin at him, she found no trouble frowning. “What’s my fault?”

  He cranked his own grin up a notch. “The fact that I feel so good is your fault. You cured me. You fixed my head, and made love with me, and I feel good. Great. Wonderful!”

  At long last, she offered him a shy smile. “It felt good to me, too, H.L.”

  That’s what he’d been waiting for. He hugged her again, hard. She gasped again. “Don’t squish me!” she begged.

  He rolled over so that they were lying on their sides, facing each other. “Sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t mean to squish you. You’re really something, Rose. Really, really something.”

  “So are you, H.L.” She looked embarrassed.

  H.L. didn’t want her to be embarrassed. He wanted her to be madly in love with him. So, knowing that women needed to hear certain things, he kissed her and whispered, “I love you, Rose.”

  He wasn’t sure, but he thought she blushed. “I love you, too, H.L.”

  Good. That was out of the way. The fact that it was the truth in this instance, and that H.L. had never said such a thing to another woman, made him feel good. He hadn’t ever really considered himself and love in the same sentence until Rose. It made him feel akin to his fellow men that he, H.L. May, could actually fall in love. It was sort of nice, really.

  “Um,” Rose said, sounding tentative and as if she wasn’t sure she should be speaking, “may I ask you something?”

  “Certainly!” H.L. felt expansive. At the moment, he not only loved Rose, but he loved the whole world. He felt like singing. Maybe even dancing. It occurred to him that it would be nice to dance with Rose. He’d have to set about taking her to some of Chicago’s night spots. He’d bet she was a good dancer. “Ask me anything you want, Rose.” He loved life. He loved everything.

  “Um, does this mean you want to marry me?”

  H.L.’s expansive mood collapsed like a bombed building. In a heartbeat, his ecstasy plummeted into a whirlpool of sheer terror.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Don’t you say another word, H.L. May. I don’t want to hear you or your phony excuses.” Rose was buttoning up her nightgown, although her fingers fumbled with the buttons. She was so mad she would have spit, except that she was trying so hard not to cry that her spit wouldn’t come.

  “Rose. Rose, don’t!” H.L. was buttoning his own clothes. He looked truly awful, with his face all over bruises and an expression of anguish in his eyes.

  She didn’t care. “Just get out of here, H.L. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

  “Rose! That’s not true, and you know it! You love me. You said so.”

  “I don’t care what I said.” Rose picked up one of his shoes and hurled it at him. He caught it as it struck him in the stomach, and she had the satisfaction of hearing him utter an “Umph!” and seeing him shake out the fingers of his right hand. Good. She hoped she’d broken a few of them.

  “And I love you, too! Just because I hadn’t considered marriage before you brought it up is no reason to—”

  “Hush up!” Rose threw his other shoe at him. She was sorry he caught it before it hit. “Just hush up! I don’t want to hear another word from you. Get out of here!”

  “But, Rose!”

  “No!” She couldn’t remember ever being so enraged. Or so hurt.

  “Listen, Rose . . .”

  “Get out of here, H.L. May.” Her voice held a truly gratifying degree of menace. Rose looked around her tent, trying to remember where she’d put her Colt revolver. As angry as she was, she wouldn’t shoot the bounder, but she might be able to put the fear of God into him.

  “Rose—”

  “Get out.”

  As he finished dressing, Rose began searching through trunks and boxes. If she could find that gun, maybe she could at least whack him with it. A good, solid revolver would produce a much more satisfying thwack than a shoe.

  “Listen, Rose, we need to talk.”

  Giving up her search for the Colt, she straightened and stared at him, trying to discern the evil she hadn’t noticed before. She didn’t notice it now, either, blast it. He still looked like the man she loved. He shouldn’t. He ought, if life were fair, to look like the devil.

  “You’re a cad, H.L. May. You’re a coldhearted, black-hearted scoundrel. You’re—”

  “I’m not, either!” he cried, obviously offended.

  “Ha!” If he was offended, Rose was outraged. Not to mention completely, totally, absolutely crushed.

  Annie had been right about H.L. all along. Rose should have listened to her. Well . . . She had listened to her. The problem had been that Rose hadn’t wanted to believe Annie was right about H.L. Rose had wanted to believe that H.L. wasn’t a beast, like all the other men in the world. She’d wanted to believe that H.L. May was special.

  She was a fool. A naive, ignorant, stupid fool. She’d willfully disregarded Annie’s wiser counsel, and look what had happened. She’d allowed H.L. May to take advantage of her. And she’d had the unmitigated idiocy to think he wanted to marry her. As if a man like him would ever want to marry an uneducated bumpkin like Rose Ellen Gilhooley.

  Ha! He probably considered Rose no more than an interesting sidelight to a nefarious career as a woman-chaser. An excursion into the untried frontiers of country life.

  He’d managed to get both shoes on and tied, and was looking around for his hat. Rose saw it first. She marched over to it and swept it up. She thrust it at him as if she were thrusting a lance. “Here. Get out.”

  “Rose, this isn’t fair.”

  “What isn’t fair?” she demanded, incredulous. “It isn’t fair that I want you gone? It isn’t fair that I asked you about marriage?”

  “Dammit—”

  “Stop swearing this instant, H.L. May.” Rose sucked in about a gallon of air and made her eyes go squinty. “You’re right. Silly me, to think you might be an honorable man.”

  “Now that’s not true, Rose—”

  “Oh, be quiet. I can’t believe I let you into my bed.” Or her heart.

  She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing her say again how much she’d been fooled. She felt like such a dimwit. How could she have allowed herself to fall in love with a man so obviously above her in every way. Except morals. He had no morals at all.

  “Rose . . .
” He might have sounded pathetic if Rose weren’t filtering everything through the haze of her own present misery. “Won’t you please give me a chance?”

  A chance at what? No matter. If Rose didn’t get quit of him soon, she’d break down and cry in front of him, and she couldn’t do that and maintain even a shred of her dignity. Not that she had very much dignity left. “No.”

  He stood there, hat in hand, looking awful and broken and miserable, for another ten seconds. Rose put her fists on her hips, glared, and tapped her foot in a show of impatience that was only halfway feigned. She really did want him to go away, so she could have hysterics in peace.

  H.L. opened his mouth, closed it, turned, and untied the flap of her tent. He muttered, “I’m leaving now, but I’ll be back.”

  His threat alarmed Rose, who hastened to say, “If you come back, I still won’t speak to you.”

  He shot a glance over his shoulder, sighed, and left. Rose raced to the door and tied the flap back in place. She didn’t want anyone entering into her presence before she’d composed herself. She already felt completely humiliated. She’d die before she allowed any of her friends to see her thus. Especially Annie.

  She felt so stupid. And so, so bad.

  “Oh, Lord, what have I done?” Her voice was a thready whisper and ragged with tears when she threw herself down onto the bed in which she’d only lately experienced such pleasure.

  As she cried, she thumped her pillow—the pillow H.L. had said smelled like her. He’d said it as if he considered it special because her fragrance lingered there, too.

  “What a fool I am!”

  Rose wished she could talk to her mother. Of all the people in the world, Mrs. Gilhooley understood human frailty. Mrs. Gilhooley, who’d been through so much in her own life, understood how a girl could allow a longing to be loved to bring her to this pass. Rose’s mother never made her feel stupid.

  Not like H.L. May. H.L. May didn’t have to do anything at all but exist in the same world she did, and Rose felt stupid. Now that he had done something—more than something—Rose felt lower than low, and as dumb as dirt.

  She wanted Annie. Annie would sympathize with her, too. Even though Annie had advised Rose from the first not to get involved with H.L., she’d understand. Annie’s life had been much like Rose’s, only Annie, unlike Rose, had chosen wisely in the man department. Rose had been stupid.

  In short, she wanted to die.

  # # #

  What the hell had happened back there? H.L. shuffled along, his hands jammed into his pockets, his brain aching. He felt lost and alone. His soul hurt. He almost wished his head still hurt, too, since it didn’t seem right that so much psychic pain shouldn’t be accompanied by physical pain.

  But except for some bumps and bruises and a pretty big lump on his head, Rose’s Indian medicaments seemed to have cured him.

  Rose. “Aw, hell.” The words didn’t half match the anguish in his heart. Pulling his right hand out of his pocket, he splayed it over his chest, wondering why love should feel so bad.

  How could he have been so stupid as not to have realized that a girl like Rose would assume the man who deflowered her would then marry her? Of course that’s what she’d assume! He’d been so blinded by love and lust, the notion of marriage hadn’t occurred to him—at least it hadn’t occurred to him seriously enough that he’d concocted an answer to the question she’d surely ask him.

  “Idiot. Fool. Ass.” He wished there were more disparaging words in the English language, because those weren’t quite vile enough to describe him.

  But jeez, it’s not as if he didn’t love her. The fact that he hadn’t considered marriage, and the fact that the thought of marriage sent cold shivers up his spine, didn’t mean he didn’t love her.

  As he walked, H.L. considered the married state now. His automatic reaction to the word marriage was one of panic, although he didn’t know why, exactly, it should be. His folks had been happy enough, he supposed. Still were, for that matter.

  Sam, his cohort at the Globe, seemed content with his Daisy, and Sam was always talking about his kids. Sam seemed to think his children were something special, although as far as H.L. could tell, there were ordinary enough.

  It went without saying that any children he and Rose might have had would be special. They couldn’t help but be, given their parents. He and Rose were both outstanding people, after all. They would naturally produce superior offspring.

  Why the devil was he thinking about children, when the very thought of marriage made his blood run cold? He couldn’t think of an answer.

  Squinting at the sky, H.L. tried to determine the time of day. It must be going on towards five in the morning. The sky was turning gray, and the stars were fading. H.L. wasn’t accustomed to seeing in the dawn. He knew quite a few reporters who were. That’s because they reveled in their bachelor status and celebrated it by carousing all night. The newsroom was full of hung-over gents most mornings. They all joked about their lives of sin and excess.

  Frowning at the sky, H.L. wondered if that’s what he wanted out of life. Did he really want to drink and smoke and stay up all night and tell tales about the women he’d bedded, the stories he’d covered, and the articles he’d written? That’s what he used to want. It used to sound romantic to him. At the moment, it didn’t sound like any sort of aspiration at all. In fact, it sounded pathetic, although that might be only because he was bone tired.

  Bone tired or not, he had work to do, so instead of heading to his flat, he flagged down a cab, told the cabbie to take him to the Globe building. He needed to write up the events of last night. Given his present state of mind, he didn’t intend to spare the minions of the law who should have prevented Rose’s kidnapping, but to state clearly and as acerbically as possible, all of their shortcomings and stupidities. He hoped the Chicago police department would choke on them.

  He paid off the cabbie and entered the building, hoping nobody else would be there. His luck was out, as he might have expected it would be, given the way his luck was running this morning.

  “Jesus H. Christ, H.L., you look like hell and then some.”

  Glancing up, H.L. saw George Wiggins, a young pup of a reporter who also relished his status as newshound and devil-may-care rakehell.

  “Yeah. I ran in to a sandbag last night.”

  “Shoot, really?” George, who had been sagging in his chair, sat up straight. “How’d it happen?”

  H.L. didn’t want to chat. Forcing a grin, he told George, “You’ll be able to read all about it in the early edition. I’ve got to write it down now, or it won’t get printed.”

  “I heard Haley’s drooling over your fair pieces, H.L. Good going.”

  “Thanks.” Any other day in the year, H.L. would be secretly preening over Wiggins’s words. H.L. knew the young cub reporter envied him and did his best to emulate his style. Right now, H.L. would have gladly consigned Wiggins’ envy and imitation to the devil, if only he could be back in Rose’s tent. In Rose’s arms.

  How could he have bungled so miserably in what, by rights, should have been the blissful beginning to a heavenly affair?

  The word gave H.L. pause. As he sat at his desk and pulled out some sheets of paper, he pondered the word affair. Is that what he wanted with Rose? An affair? A brief liaison that would end when the Wild West pulled up stakes and went touring elsewhere? Back to Europe, maybe? Or to New York City, where Rose might meet any number of reporters? Hell, she might even meet reporters who worked at the New York Times. Wouldn’t that be a kicker, if Rose took up with somebody from the Times?

  Hell, men who might be interested in Rose didn’t necessarily have to be reporters. There were hundreds of millionaires back East who’d be thrilled to court and even marry the bareback riding sensation of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Ancient rich men were forever making asses of themselves over chorus girls and actresses. Why not bareback riders?

  H.L.’s heart, which had been throbbing much as his head
had done last night, gave a sharp spasm. He slapped a hand over it.

  “What’s the matter, H.L.?” Wiggins asked with a laugh. “Too much excitement? You older fellows have to watch it, you know.”

  H.L. squinted malignantly at the younger reporter. “That so?”

  His expression evidently took George Wiggins aback because he started slightly and stopped grinning. “No offense, H.L.” He held up a hand in a placating gesture. Then he grinned again. “Big night?”

  H.L. subdued the sudden urge to pick up his Underwood Invisible Writing Machine and heave it at George Wiggins. He growled, “Yeah,” and jabbed a sheet of foolscap into the machine. Even though he hadn’t even begun to think about what he aimed to write, he started typing because he wanted to forestall any more ill-timed comments from his fellow reporter.

  Damn George Wiggins to hell. How dare he talk about Rose as a “big night” in that crafty, winking, sly way?

  Not, of course, that George knew H.L. had spent the night with Rose. Nobody knew that yet.

  Suddenly, H.L.’s fingers stilled on the typewriter’s keys. Crap, would anybody in the Wild West find out Rose and he had made love last night?

  Would Rose have to face snide comments and knowing looks this morning? And, if she did, how the devil could he protect her from that sort of thing if she wouldn’t allow him near her? He experienced a sudden, painful, aching need to be with her; to shield her from the slings and arrows of outrageous people. He wanted to slam his head against his desk ten or twenty times as some sort of punishment for his sins.

  How could it be a sin to love a woman? Indignation swelled in his bosom. He caught Wiggins staring at him out of the corner of his eye, and forced himself to type some more. He didn’t know what he was typing. Nothing, probably, but he needed to keep his fingers moving so Wiggins wouldn’t suspect him of going through an episode of emotional turmoil. H.L.’s reputation would be ruined if anyone suspected him of having been bitten by the love bug.

  And what good, his inner voice asked him, was a reputation, anyhow? If H.L. lost Rose forever, would his reputation be a comfort to him in a lonely old age, as Rose might be if he gave her a chance? Would his reputation love him, as Rose did? Would his reputation soothe his wounds, physical and emotional, as Rose did? Could he and his reputation produce brilliant children?