“Well, it wasn’t a surprise exactly.” More glass fragments tinkled as they struck the small pile in her apron. “It was more of a…lesson. Yes, a lesson. When the locksmith came to my shop late this afternoon, I brought him out here—”
“And had my locks changed?”
“You deserved it! For being so high-handed, and for carrying me to town today. I won’t be treated that way.”
She lurched to her feet, cradling her glass-filled apron. She reached behind herself to untie the garment.
He watched her for a moment, flabbergasted. Molly had actually locked him out of his own home to teach him a lesson. Then she’d cleaned up the mess he’d made while breaking in, appearing fairly contrite all the while. Was there no end to the contradictions in her?
Molly twisted, struggling to remove her apron without dropping the glass she’d gathered.
Marcus relented. “You’re going to hurt yourself with that,” he said gruffly.
It appeared there were contradictions within him, too. With efficient movements, he bundled the glass-filled fabric in his hands. He waited as Molly finished untying her apron strings. Then he set the whole mess on a side table.
“Thank you,” she said, head held high.
Her expression mulish, Molly picked up her book and flounced to a neighboring chair. She buried her nose in the leather-bound volume, for all appearances devoutly interested in it.
“Is that all? A mere ‘thank you’?” he asked, following. He stopped near her chair and glowered. “What about I’m sorry? What about It’s a shame about your window? What about Here is your new key?”
She turned a page, not looking up. “I haven’t decided whether or not I’m giving you the key. It may suit my fancy to let you in and out at my leisure.”
Marcus gaped. He could hardly believe this. First, Molly had had the audacity to send his building supplies to the aid of several militant suffragettes. Next she’d waylaid his locksmith and influenced the man to change Marcus’s locks—a hindrance Marcus himself had paid for in advance. Now she dared to flaunt her trespassing presence in his home as though she belonged there and make threats to him?
Polite threats, to be sure. But still…
“You will give me my key.”
Molly shrugged, absorbed in her book.
“Don’t make me search your person for it.”
Her fingers clenched on the corners of the page, betraying a bit of nervousness. But all she said was, “I would very much like to see you try. My corset is quite as impenetrable as a bank safe, and comes equipped with much wilier personnel.”
“Meaning you.”
“Naturally.”
Marcus shook his head. She was deluded, of course. She could not keep a thing from him. On the verge of revealing his experience in dealing with ladies’ undergarments—and their willing removal—though, he squinted.
“Is that my ledger in your hand?”
Airily Molly nodded. “I thought I might teach myself proper bookkeeping practices, with your accounts as an example. I must say, it’s been quite enlightening so far.”
“Has it?” He snatched the ledger from her overly studious grasp, then slammed it down on a table. “You, Miss Crabtree, need to learn that you cannot accomplish everything.”
“I fail to see why not. If I try hard enough.”
“Nor can you do everything you wish to.”
“I can, and I will.”
“Not with me, you won’t,” Marcus said. “I’d begun to think you actually had reasons for the things you do. But now I’m not so sure.”
“You carried me to town. It was humiliating.”
Beset with aggravation, Marcus looked away. Molly had lit a blaze in the fireplace, too, he noticed. The crackling warmth gave the place a coziness it typically lacked when he arrived. What would it be like, some perverse part of him wondered, to come home to such warmth every day?
“Very well.” He clenched his jaw. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, Marcus!” To his shock, Molly leapt up from her chair and flung her arms around his neck, hugging him. “That was all I wanted to hear. Thank you.”
He would rather have pretended never to have uttered the phrase. Especially if she meant to fuss over it so much.
He shrugged. “That fire needs a bigger log. It will burn too quickly.”
She didn’t so much as glance at the fireplace. “I’m sorry, too. About your window. To make up for it, I’ve decided to agree to your plan.”
For a moment, Marcus thought she meant his plan to uncover the matchmaker. He went rigid with expectation.
She stepped away from him, with the air of someone about to say something very important.
“You may,” she announced magnanimously, “do whatever work you wish on my bakeshop.” Spreading her arms wide, she beamed up at him. “You have my permission.”
Disappointment pricked him. He’d have to wait longer for his next inquiry into the matchmaker’s identity, unless he could lead her to that conversation this evening.
“Your permission? You sound as though I should be grateful to have it,” Marcus said, feeling a helpless grin rise to his face. She was simply too audacious to be borne. Her vigor must have worn him down. “That’s quite a remarkable trick, to make a man feel lucky for the privilege of laboring on your behalf.”
Molly shifted one shoulder dismissively, then hugged him again. “Let’s carry on with your cooking lessons, shall we? Tonight we will be improvising a dinner. Come along!”
Marcus did. Nothing good could come of this ‘improvising.’ Not while Molly Crabtree headed the task. But if he was lucky—and very skilled—perhaps he could trade her homey intrusion for a matchmaker interrogation, and have something productive to show for this night after all.
Followed by Marcus, Molly hurried into her unwilling pupil’s kitchen, her mind on the task at hand. Now that she’d finished with her other business of the day—showing Marcus that Molly Crabtree was not a woman to be trifled with—she was ready to settle into some peaceful cooking and baking.
“Today I intend to teach you how to avoid that slop they serve at Murphy’s saloon—” she began.
“Hey!”
“—and prepare something delicious for yourself with whatever you have on hand. Even something so simple as griddle cakes or fried eggs can make a passable dinner, so long as they’re prepared with care.” Molly surveyed the supplies she’d brought, then faced the pantry at the kitchen’s far corner. “First, let’s see what you have available.”
“I’d think you would already know that,” Marcus remarked, “since you’ve investigated my hair pomade and scoured my ledgers. Who knows what else you’ve uncovered?”
“I am not a snoop.”
“Hmm. Merely curious?”
“No. Merely dedicated to proving my point.” At the pantry, Molly glanced over her shoulder. She delivered her best smile. “Since I’ve already done that, we can move on.”
Marcus grumbled, then leaned his shoulder against the wall. He watched her with lazy fortitude.
Cheerfully Molly opened the pantry doors. Then she stopped in surprise.
Row upon row of store-bought goods stared back at her. Tinned peaches, beans, Arbuckle’s coffee. Cones of sugar, packages of jerky, crackers and apples. Goods were stacked upon one another on foot-and-a-half deep shelves, and below them three unopened barrels of additional foodstuffs waited.
This was not a pantry, Molly thought in astonishment. This was a storehouse—a storehouse befitting the most organized grocer or well-equipped military fort. Marcus’s food stores rivaled those of Camp Verde, she was sure. They were that comprehensive.
Mystified, she asked, “Are you…expecting company soon?”
“No.”
“Did you strike a special bargain with the mercantile?”
“No.” He leaned away from the wall, gazing into the pantry along with her. “Why do you ask?”
Molly couldn’t believe he could not see the reason for himself
. Again she scanned the overflowing shelves. “This is a great deal of food for one person.”
He seemed unconcerned. “It will keep. I only stock items the grocer told me will last in storage for a long time.”
“But…it would take you a year to go through this.” She looked at him. “At the very least.”
Beside her, Marcus examined the pantry’s contents. A shadow passed over his face—the remembrance of…something Molly couldn’t decipher. Whatever it was, the memory troubled him, though. She could tell, and found herself concerned for him.
How that could be, she didn’t know. A mere few kisses hadn’t knit them together so closely as that, that she should feel a bit of his pain for her own. All the same, Molly’s heart stirred with sympathy, and a deeper form of affection, too.
Before she could speak, he snatched two tins.
“Beans for tonight, I’d say.”
After kicking the door closed, Marcus carried the beans to the worktable. By the time Molly overcame her surprise at his rough manner, he’d already set to opening them.
“I expected you to have coffee on hand in your bachelor’s kitchen,” she said as she followed, trying to lighten things between them. “Or maybe some crackers. Otherwise, I thought your shelves might be empty. After all, you do dine at the saloon fairly often.”
He worked at the second tin. “I like keeping the pantry stocked.”
Molly examined his broad back, his shoulders, his hands working at the task of opening the beans. She studied his profile. Although a hank of hair had fallen over his forehead, she could still see quite clearly the frown on his face. She didn’t think it owed itself to the difficulty of his task.
She moved nearer. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you like keeping your pantry stocked?”
His hands stilled for the barest instant.
“You can tell me,” Molly prompted. “Things are different between us now. We’ve shared a kiss. More than one.” At that, she felt her cheeks heat but made herself forge onward. “And before that, we were fast becoming friends. Tell me, Marcus. What is this about?”
He put down the can opener, with its straight blade and fixed handle. “I am not a man who confides in other people,” he said.
“Neither am I.”
A faint smile. “No, you seem all woman to me.”
“I mean, I don’t share confidences easily. Just like you. Who better, then, to keep your secret?”
“Now you’ve decided to make sense? Ah, Molly. I can’t keep up.”
“You are teasing me again. Fine.” Hurt, Molly picked up the can opener herself, intending to go to work. “Just remember that I was only trying to help.”
“I’m not teasing you.” Marcus lay a hand on his heart and faced her. “I’m not. It’s only…Lord, Molly! Why do you demand so much of me?”
She blinked. “Demand?”
“Conversation. Confidences. Admission to my house, my ledgers and my business.” He flung his hands about as he spoke, then raked a hand through his hair, looking frustrated. He glanced away. “This is not what I agreed to.”
She’d understood him, all the way to… “Agreed to?”
Marcus froze. Something shifted in his expression, some realization he clearly didn’t want to share. He cocked his head. “When…I agreed to this bargain between us.”
Molly peered at him.
“This is difficult for me,” he confessed. He took the opener from her hand and cut off the second tin’s lid with a few savage motions. “Being with you…is not what I expected.”
“You are not what I expected either. Until we’d been together, I’d thought you were an autocratic, penny-pinching businessman with no regard for entrepreneurial women.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you’re an autocratic, secretive, penny-pinching businessman with no regard for entrepreneurial women.”
She delivered her pronouncement cheerfully, with all the matter-of-fact acceptance it deserved. “I’ve no illusions about you, Marcus. Not even your kiss has changed that.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. “I’ll have to try it again. The first one didn’t take.”
“The first few, you mean.”
“As you wish. You clearly need more.” Pretending determination, he stepped closer. “Let’s start now.”
Molly held her ground and smiled up at him. He was trying to divert her from the answer she sought. For the moment, she’d let him think he had.
“I’m forced to amend my opinion,” she said lightly. “For I’ll admit, you are generous with one thing—your kisses.”
“With you?” Marcus smoothed an errant strand of hair from her forehead. He tucked it behind her ear, where it could join her chignon. “I could be nothing but generous.”
Molly almost sighed. His words touched her, nearly as much as the fond look he paired with them. If she weren’t careful, Marcus would send her off course altogether. Reminding herself where her curiosity lay, she glanced at the pantry. Ask him again, she ordered herself.
What emerged was, “Oh, are you different with other women, then?”
No, no, no. Where had her single-mindedness gone? When Marcus was around, Molly seemed to lose her ability to concentrate altogether. All she wanted was him, studying her as though she were special. Touching her as though she were rare. Smiling at her as though…oh, dear. As though she were quite obvious in her curiosity about how she compared with the other ladies he’d known.
Marcus shook his head. “There have been no other women. Not for some time.”
Perhaps she could still salvage her pride. Molly waved her hand. “Not that it really matters to me—”
“There could be no other women for me,” he went on doggedly, a knowing gleam in his eye. “Not so long as you are here. Not so long as you go on looking at me that way.”
What way? She didn’t know. But judging by the warm, faintly glowing sensation she felt in her heart, it was probably quite lovelorn and pathetic and needy.
Hastily Molly directed her gaze elsewhere. She didn’t want to need anyone, least of all Marcus. She pressed her fingers to her cheeks, embarrassed to have been so open to him, especially while he remained so closed to her.
“What about your pantry?” she asked.
“Give in, Molly. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“You must,” she demanded.
“Eat your dinner.” He pushed something in her hand.
“But we haven’t—” She realized what it was. A cold tin of beans, with a fork speared in the center like a candle in a birthday cake. Molly held it at arm’s length. “I’m not eating this.”
“It’s good.” He took a gigantic bite, chewing happily.
“It’s cold. It’s still in the tin. It lacks presentation, finesse and wholesomeness. It’s the very opposite of all I’m trying to teach you.”
“It’s good,” he repeated. “And it’s quick. While you’ve been nattering on, I’ve been starving. All we need is some bread, and we’ll be—”
As though something occurred to him, Marcus broke off, abruptly setting down his beans. He crossed the room, rummaged through the pockets of the suit coat he’d flung over a chair and returned. When next he offered something to her, it was a napkin-wrapped bundle.
“Here you are, madam,” he said, giving a teasing bow.
Curious, Molly plucked open the napkin with her fingertips. Inside it lay a piece of soft brown bread. Raising her eyebrows at him, she asked, “You carry bread in your pockets?”
“It’s fresh,” he assured her. “Baked in the kitchens of the Lorndorff Hotel just this morning.”
That was beside the point. Couldn’t he see how odd this was? It rivaled his pantry for sheer unexpectedness.
“We can share it,” Marcus told her. He broke the bread in half and offered her the larger portion. As he did, he noticed that she’d put down her beans.
He seemed disappointed. “Try it. This meal i
s better hot, but it’s passable when cold.”
“If I do, will you tell me what I want to know?”
“Molly—”
“It’s a fair trade. One reluctant deed for another.”
“Eat first.”
She regarded the tin of beans. “I don’t think I can.”
Marcus shrugged. He nudged his half of the bread closer to her. “You can have all of the bread, then. Never let it be said I’m not generous. In all things.”
He waggled his eyebrows roguishly. His playfulness brought a smile to her face, despite her best intentions. Shaking her head, Molly picked up the bread with resignation. She began to eat. Marcus may have thwarted her for now, but soon she’d uncover the story behind his pantry, and then she’d do whatever she could to help him overcome it.
No matter what.
Chapter Nine
Marcus stood inside Daniel McCabe’s blacksmith shop, where the fires burned hot and the smell of steel hung sharp in the air. He took off his shirt coat, then loosened his collar.
In rolled-up shirtsleeves, Daniel hefted his hammer. He’d been fashioning sleigh runners for the coming winter when Marcus had arrived. One of the graceful implements waited on the workbench before him. Outside the shop, wagons and riders passed by, adding to the bustle of town.
“How do you fare with Sarah Crabtree?” Marcus asked. “Has she let slip anything about the matchmaker?”
“No. And Jack Murphy says the same about her sister, Grace.” Daniel abandoned his hammer to wipe the sweat from his face, then tossed down the cloth he’d used. “I’d thought for sure we’d have something by now.”
“The men’s club is getting impatient,” Marcus agreed, disappointed not to hear more encouraging news. Still he couldn’t blame Daniel and Jack for making as little progress as he himself had. “But those Crabtree women are damnably closemouthed.”
“That’s for certain. Except for Molly.” Daniel shook his head. “Does she ever stop yapping?”
When I kiss her, she does, Marcus thought. Kissing, long and often, was the secret to a peaceable existence with Molly, he’d decided. If he’d been kissing her, she’d never have been able to give away his supplies and change his locks yesterday.
Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01] Page 11
