Last Chance Cowboys: The Outlaw

by Anna Schmidt

  She pulled Seth’s coat tight around her as shaking turned to laughter, and she lay back on her bed, savoring the scent of him surrounding her as she covered herself with his coat.

  * * *

  Seth swore as Amanda dashed off, but he knew she’d done the right thing. One more kiss and…

  He watched until he saw her enter the boardinghouse, then returned to the livery to try and sleep. But he lay awake imagining all sorts of things that might have happened had she encountered one of the ruffians that frequented the saloon.

  If he was going to be completely honest with himself, then he had to admit that he had wanted to kiss her pretty much from the minute he’d revealed her identity. And then she surprised him by taking that first step.

  “Admit it, Grover. You’ve been thinking about kissing her since you first laid eyes on her back in Whitman Falls,” he muttered, disgusted with himself for letting her get to him in more ways than one. With a growl of frustration, he left the livery and walked back to the boardinghouse.

  He couldn’t figure it out. She was pretty, all right, but that had never been the deciding thing for Seth when it came to a woman. He’d seen women a lot more beautiful than Amanda Porterfield. Hell, he’d had women more beautiful, and more worldly. Amanda was an innocent when it came to how things went between a man and a woman. He’d bet everything he owned on that. Sure, she’d been raised on a ranch, so she had to have some idea of the mechanics. Even so, the mating of animals was a far cry from the elements of heart and mind that passed between a man and a woman while making love. No way she understood that.

  But if she insisted on taking these midnight walks and thinking she could handle herself, she was going to learn—and it was likely to be a hard lesson. It was likely to be a lesson that could destroy her.

  That thought pulled him up short. This business of thinking so much about Amanda distracted him from the real reason he’d come out here tonight: to confront whoever had been following him.

  It wasn’t Amanda—he was sure of that, but having gotten himself mixed up in trying to talk sense into her, he’d forgotten all about whoever it might be. That was dangerous, and if there was one thing Seth was good at, it was his job.

  In the years he had worked for Wells Fargo, not once had anyone unveiled his true identity. Time to concentrate on the job he was in Tucson to do. At sunup he would head to the abandoned ranch, find a spot where he wouldn’t be seen, set up camp, and observe the place for activity. Miss Dooley wouldn’t be happy about him missing breakfast and supper without giving proper notice, but so be it. It was high time he got back to work.

  He used his key to open the front door of the boardinghouse and took the stairs two at a time. His coat was hanging on the doorknob of his room, and before he could stop himself, he had lifted it to his face, hoping to catch the scent of Amanda lingering there.

  * * *

  “You were certainly up late last night, Miss Porterfield,” Lucinda Jensen said at breakfast the following morning. “I do hope you weren’t ill.”

  Amanda had finally pulled herself together enough to return Seth’s coat and wash away the dirt, grime, and tears in the shared bathroom. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” she said, refusing to offer any explanation.

  “So you are not ill?”

  “I am fine. Thank you for asking.” Amanda turned her attention to their landlady. “Miss Dooley, you seem to know everyone in the area. I am still seeking a gentleman who enjoys baseball. The Baxter boy is quite a fan of the game, and I am convinced that encouraging that could also inspire him to take his studies more seriously.”

  “His father should be the one to work with him on that,” Miss Dooley replied.

  Ollie Taylor snorted. “Ezra Baxter wouldn’t know a baseball from a wad of chewing tobacky.”

  “I thought Mr. Grover had volunteered,” Mrs. Rosewood murmured.

  “He seems to have once again been called away on business,” Amanda replied. “I need someone I can rely upon to work with the boy over the next several weeks.”

  Miss Dooley frowned. “Well, there’s Jim Matthews. He owns the drugstore across from the courthouse. I suppose you could ask him.”

  For the first time since kissing Seth the night before, Amanda accepted that she had probably made a fool of herself. Moving forward with her part on the jailhouse project was just what she needed to distract her from that fiasco. “I need to introduce myself anyway,” she said. “He’s been working with Dr. Porterfield on the jail reforms, and now that I’ll be standing in for Addie…”

  “Are you saying, Miss Porterfield, that it is your intention to actually work with prisoners in the jail?” Mrs. Rosewood asked. It was evident she did not approve, and it was obvious that Lucinda Jensen seconded her disapproval.

  “Yes. In a few weeks, my position with the Baxter children will come to an end, and I have promised to help Dr. Porterfield while she takes care of a family matter.”

  “Yes, we are all saddened to hear of her father’s illness,” Mrs. Rosewood continued, “but really, Miss Porterfield, have you thought about how your working with those people might affect the rest of us?”

  “Clearly not. Please enlighten me,” Amanda said tightly. Oh, how she wished Seth had not skipped breakfast. As relieved as she had been when Miss Dooley announced he had left a note stating his intention to be away for a few days, now she wished he were here to stand with her.

  “The prisoners are filthy, and they no doubt carry disease. Certainly, those women held there do, and…”

  “Hold on just a durn-tooting minute,” Ollie exploded. “The girls over at the Blue Parrot are clean as—”

  “Stop this right now!” Miss Dooley shouted. Then she turned her attention to Amanda. “Do you see what you’ve done? If you hadn’t insisted on conversation at meals, nothing like this would happen.” She looked around the table. “Forthwith, there will be no conversation at meals. This is my house, and I will decide what we will and will not do. Anyone who takes issue with that is free to find other accommodations.” This last was directed at Amanda.

  “Please excuse me,” Amanda said. She knew she had to leave the room or risk saying something that would get her banished from the house altogether.

  She collected her satchel and cloak and crossed the yard to the rear entrance of the Baxter property. Kitty was scrubbing a man’s shirt on the washboard she kept with the laundry supplies outside the kitchen door. “Well, you look like a horse that’s been rode hard and put away wet,” she said, pausing to study Amanda’s flushed face and clenched hands.

  “What do you know about Jim Matthews?”

  “The druggist? Good man. His wife walked out on him and their four young’uns when the oldest was not yet seven. He’s raised three boys to be upstanding citizens, two of them ranching and the third running his own business over in Phoenix. The girl, Ginny, is of age to marry, but prefers to help at the drugstore and write articles for the local paper now and again. Why?”

  Amanda repeated what she’d told the others about needing to meet the man so they could continue the work Addie had begun for reforms at the jail. “And I understand he might know a thing or two about baseball.”

  Kitty paused in her scrubbing, stared at Amanda for a long moment, and then chuckled. “Don’t know where my brain is these days. Shoulda seen this one a week or more ago.”

  “So you think asking him to work with Eli on the rudiments of the game is a good idea?”

  “What I think, missy, is that you and Jim Matthews make the perfect match, and if it takes asking him to come over here and play ball with Eli to get things started, then that’s a great idea.”

  “Kitty, be serious. If I have any hope of getting Eli to the point where he will pass those entrance examinations, I need to do something. My hope is that I can use baseball as a reward to inspire him to work harder.”

&
nbsp; Kitty frowned and returned to her scrubbing. “Well, the way I see it, you won’t have much of a problem. That is, not until Mr. Baxter realizes things might go beyond Matthews coming over to pitch a ball or two with his son.”

  “Do Mr. Baxter and Mr. Matthews not get along?”

  Kitty looked at her with a sly grin. “Oh, they do now, but once Mr. Baxter realizes he’s in competition with Jim Matthews for your affections, things could get ugly fast.”

  Amanda sighed. “You are no help at all,” she grumbled as she entered the house and went straight to the library. Eli and Ellie were arguing about something in heated words and hoarse whispers.

  “I’m telling you what I heard,” Ellie said.

  “And whatever it was you heard, Ellie, I do hope it was firsthand, because repeating information you were not directly privy to is gossip.”

  “I heard Father ask you to marry him,” Ellie shot back.

  “You’re lyin’,” Eli said.

  Amanda set down her satchel and faced Ellie. “The only habit that is at least as bad as gossiping, young lady, is eavesdropping.”

  “You’re sayin’ it’s true?” Eli shouted.

  “Do not raise your voice to me, Eli. What your sister overheard was a private conversation between your father and me. And if she wishes to pursue the matter further, then she will do so with her father. Understood?” She removed the Bible from her satchel and set it down firmly in the middle of the table. “Our Father…” she began, and paused while the twins halfheartedly bowed their heads and joined in. Their recitation of the Lord’s Prayer was no more than a series of mumbled words, but Amanda decided to let it pass.

  She turned to the chalkboard and posted the day’s work. The first item on the list was book report. To her delight, both Ellie and Eli were prepared—not only prepared, but enthusiastic. She had chosen well, and that made her set aside the events of the night before and the upsetting incident at breakfast. Ellie had clearly fallen in love with the character of Jo March and admitted that she had stayed up late into the night to finish the book. As Amanda listened to Eli give a veritable treatise on the game of baseball as illustrated in Chadwick’s book, she decided she would go to the drugstore while the twins had their lunch with Kitty. No doubt Kitty would give this plan her blessing, although her purpose and Amanda’s were quite different.

  To her delight, it occurred to her after meeting Jim Matthews and his daughter Ginny that introducing the Baxter twins would be a victory on two levels. Ginny was Jo March come to life and would be a wonderful role model for Ellie. Jim Matthews was a gentle soul who laughed easily and, apparently, was as devoted to the game of baseball as Eli. When Amanda asked if they would be willing to work with the twins, they enthusiastically agreed.

  “You go now,” Ginny instructed her father. “I can manage here. The afternoons are always slow.” She fairly pushed them out the door.

  On the walk back to the house, Amanda brought up the jail reform project. She told Jim about the feelings of the other boarders—or at least the women. He was a good listener, and she had expressed more outrage than she’d intended by the time they reached the Baxter house.

  “I apologize,” she said. “Usually, I can control my tongue, but—”

  “Not at all,” Jim interrupted. “It’s refreshing to hear someone speak their true feelings.” He grinned. “Especially when they are so in line with my own.”

  Amanda laughed. “And it is doubly refreshing to talk so freely. I’m afraid I was raised to speak my mind, but I have discovered that doing so when your audience is family and doing so among strangers is very different.”

  “Well, then, let’s be clear about one thing, Miss Porterfield—it seems we have a good deal in common. Both unafraid to say what we think. Both friends with Addie. Both dedicated to making the world a better place. And—if I do this right—my guess is by the time I’m finished talking baseball with the twins, you’ll be a fan of the game as well.” He stuck out his hand. “Friends?”

  Amanda laughed and shook his hand. “Absolutely,” she agreed. “I mean, as long as you don’t hold me to that baseball part.”

  He chuckled, and she found she liked it. She realized there was a lot to like about Jim Matthews, from the way his straight sandy hair fell over his forehead, to how he matched his long-legged pace to her smaller steps, to his smile, and the twinkle in his eyes. She liked that she didn’t feel unsettled around him.

  Maybe Kitty had the right idea. She certainly hadn’t given Seth Grover a thought since meeting the druggist—unless she counted comparing the two men for all the ways Seth was different.

  * * *

  When Seth returned to town two days later, he deliberately timed his arrival so breakfast at the boardinghouse would be done, and everyone living there would be off doing whatever they did during the day. He climbed the stairs after asking Bessie to let Miss Dooley know he was back, but he might sleep through supper, so not to count on him.

  On his way to his room, he glanced at Amanda’s closed door and imagined her standing at the chalkboard in the Baxter house next door, lecturing the twins on something or other. He was glad, and at the same time disappointed that he would probably not see her until breakfast the following morning.

  On the other hand, he’d discovered something that could affect her while scouting out the abandoned ranch. Both nights he spent there, he had observed the Baxter boy ride that way in the hours just before dawn. The boy slid from his horse and went inside the cabin for less than a minute, then mounted, gave a whistle, and rode back toward town. Both times Seth had waited for someone to show up at the cabin to retrieve whatever the boy had left there. Both times he’d observed an old prospector with a pack mule enter the cabin and leave again.

  Between the kid’s leaving and the prospector’s arrival, there was no time for Seth to risk checking the cabin. He’d have to come back later. He thought of tailing the prospector—it would be easy enough—but he felt certain that there were others watching all of this as he was, and he didn’t dare reveal his position, so he stayed put.

  When there was no further action over the next two days, he decided his best bet was to return to town, corner the Baxter boy, and see what he knew. He was frustrated with the lack of progress, and as he rode back to town, the thing most on his mind was a hot bath and several hours of uninterrupted sleep. He was truly grateful that Miss Dooley’s father had installed running water and a claw-foot tub long enough to accommodate his six-foot frame.

  After soaking until the water turned gray and tepid, he dried himself off, wrapped the towel around his hips, and prepared to shave the beard he’d grown while on the trail. The bathroom had a small window that overlooked the Baxters’ backyard, and when Seth heard an unfamiliar voice shout “Strike one!” he raised the window enough to give him a view.

  The very proper Amanda Porterfield was standing at one corner of the yard, a baseball bat resting on her shoulder. The housekeeper stood on first base, the daughter was out in the field, the boy was pitching, and James Matthews, the local druggist, crouched behind Amanda in the catcher’s position. Matthews was also the one calling the plays.

  “Strike two,” he shouted as Amanda took a mighty swing that missed the ball by several inches.

  Matthews placed Amanda’s hands closer together on the handle of the bat, then stood behind her—far too close to be proper, as far as Seth was concerned—and pantomimed swinging the bat.

  “Keep your eye on the ball, Miss Porterfield,” Matthews instructed as he assumed his catcher’s crouch. Seth felt jealousy roll through him like a desert dust storm.

  Amanda nodded. Seth could not see her features clearly, but everything about her posture told him she was determined not to miss again. Eli Baxter took his stance, glanced over his shoulder at his sister, and then back at Amanda, then fired a fastball toward Matthews.

  Crack! The un
mistakable sound of wood connecting with the leather of the ball seemed to startle everyone, most of all Amanda, who stood frozen in place, the bat dangling from one hand.

  “Run!” Matthews instructed as the housekeeper rounded second, and the Baxter girl scrambled to retrieve the ball, juggling it and dropping it twice before succeeding. By that time, the housekeeper had headed for home, and Amanda had gathered her skirts in one hand, exposing more of her calves above her high-buttoned shoes than anyone would think proper, and she too was headed for home plate.

  Eli Baxter pleaded with his sister to throw the ball, while Matthews and the housekeeper urged Amanda to score. The Baxter girl might not have been much of a fielder, but she had a good arm, and her pitch to her brother arced high against the blue sky.

  Jim Matthews stood, his shirtsleeves rolled back to expose his forearms, his light hair blowing in the hot breeze as he watched Amanda race toward home—and him. Eli held out his glove, and the ball plopped into it. He turned to tag Amanda, but she had flown past him and straight into the waiting arms of the druggist.

  Even though Seth understood that Matthews was only making sure that Amanda didn’t fall, to his way of thinking the man held onto her a lot longer than necessary. And what about the fact that Amanda had asked Seth to play ball with the Baxter kid?

  Three sharp knocks sounded on the bathroom door, followed by the rattling of the knob, and Ollie Taylor’s irritated voice asking, “You drown in there, Grover? A guy’s gotta take a leak.”

  “One minute,” Seth replied as he scrubbed the remaining lather from his face and pulled on a pair of jeans before unlocking the door.