by Cassie Hayes
She frowned a little when he patted her on the back and he wondered why. He was complimenting her after all. Didn’t women like compliments?
They rode along in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, Mason wondering what he should say next. Seemed like every word out of his mouth was the wrong one and he didn’t want to step in it again. Finally, he settled on a topic he was sure she’d love to talk about: herself.
“So what brought you out here, anyway? Caught a little gold fever, did ya?”
He sensed her tensing up beside him. Even Blaze noticed, whinnying quietly and swooshing his tail. Finally she sighed and looked up at him.
“No, not gold fever, I’m afraid. To be quite frank, I ran away from home.”
He chuckled at her joke but stopped cold when he saw she was serious. “Um, ain’t you a little old for running away? And I thought both your parents had passed on.”
She nodded. “Yes, my mother died during childbirth and my father raised me. Some say he spoiled me, and I suppose that’s not far from the truth, but I loved him more than anything. If only I would have known, I never would have let him…”
She sniffed and Mason realized too late that she was crying. Oh Lord, what had he done? All he wanted to do was get to know her a little better and make up for treating her so harshly before. She’d made such an honest effort at making breakfast for them that he wondered if there was something more to the her than met the eye. And now he’d made her cry.
Shifting uncomfortably in his saddle, he snuck a peek back at Jake, who was bringing up the rear. Jake grinned at him. Insufferable good-for-nothing.
“I’m sorry, Sheriff,” she whispered, sniffling back tears.
“Aw, think nothing of it, Miss Emmy. I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories or nothing. And why don’t you call me Mason?”
She smiled weakly up at him, but he could tell it was genuine. He couldn’t explain why, but he really liked it when she smiled at him, even with all that stuff on her face. It did nothing to hide her beauty, even though she probably thought it did.
“Thank you, Mason. As I was saying, my father spoiled me rotten. But he had a secret. On the outside, he was a successful businessman who ran his own shipping concern. We lived in a lovely house, socialized with the elite of New York, and I went to only the best girls’ schools and wore the newest fashions. Our life was absolutely perfect.”
“I’m guessing it wasn’t as perfect as he let everyone think,” Mason said.
Emmy shook her head. “Not even close. When he died unexpectedly during an influenza outbreak last year, my whole world caved in. I was shattered emotionally. I didn’t get out of bed for a week. Then my Uncle Tate came for a visit.”
The cold steel tone of her voice made his skin crawl. Already he knew that if he ever met Uncle Tate, the man would rue the day.
“Tate wasn’t really my uncle, but rather my father’s best friend and business associate. I grew up bouncing on his knee and thinking of him as family. When he arrived at our house, it was all I could do to pull myself together to meet with him. I’d been crying for a week straight and not sleeping. You think I look bad now, you should have seen me then!”
She laughed humorlessly, and while he wanted to argue and tell her she didn’t look bad at all, he also didn’t want to interrupt the flow of her story. For once, he kept his mouth shut.
“Anyway, there I am, a shadow of my former self, a grieving wreck, and Uncle Tate tells me that I have 60 days to vacate the premises. ‘I gave you an extra week’s grace period to grieve,’ he had the gall to say! I tell you, I’ve never been so confused in my life — or so angry.”
Her voice was strengthening, growing louder. The memories of her past troubles were still fresh and painful, that much was clear. Like the memory of Marie’s death was for him. At least she’d stopped crying.
“As it turns out, my father’s business had been declining but rather than cut back on expenses, such as frilly dresses and fancy schooling, he borrowed the money from Uncle Tate. He’d gone so far as to use our house as collateral for a loan! Not only had Father left me penniless, but also homeless.”
Emmy didn’t have to explain what that meant. He knew better than anyone that when one of the elite loses their fortune, their friends flee. He had no doubt that the same had happened to her. It must have been terrifying for her, a young woman suddenly faced with poverty and no friends or family to support her. He flushed with anger for her.
“But kind Uncle Tate wasn’t finished. He had a proposition for me. If I accepted, I would be allowed to remain in my family home, the only one I’d ever known. If I refused, I would have to leave within 60 days and I could only take my clothes with me. All of my valuables and everything in the house had been mortgaged to Uncle Tate.”
Mason almost didn’t want to know what the man demanded, but couldn’t resist asking. “What did he want, Emmy?”
“To marry me.” Her voice was tight and she was sitting like a statue in her saddle. The way she spoke made him think this was the first time she’d spoken of these events to anyone.
“I thought of him as my uncle, for goodness sake. He was older than my father and twice as fat. How long had he been wanting to marry me? It’s a question that haunts me, Mason. He’d known me since I was an infant. When did his feelings toward me change?”
Mason’s stomach roiled in disgust. How could a man practically raise a girl and then think it was anything but disgraceful to fancy her romantically. Except he suspected that ‘romance’ had little to do with Uncle Tate’s feelings toward Emmy. He vowed then and there that if the man ever set foot in California, he’d lose the foot and anything else that managed to cross the border.
“Of course I refused him. I cried and screamed and threw a dilly of a fit, quite honestly. But he’d seen me at my worst and it didn’t faze him a bit. He simply reminded me that I would have nothing if I didn’t change my mind, and that he would make sure none of my friends ever spoke to me again. He had me over a barrel and I very nearly resigned myself to that fate because of it.
“The worst part is that I think my father knew about it all along, or at least suspected. He refused to allow anyone to court me seriously, and I now believe it was because he and Tate had made a tacit arrangement for me. Uncle Tate never mentioned it, but I can’t shake the feeling and, Mason? It breaks my heart to think my father would do such a thing, but it makes some sort of sense. Why else would he not allow me to be courted?”
Mason didn’t have an answer. He imagined that, as a father who raised a daughter alone, it would be difficult to see her grow up and move away, but couldn’t imagine denying her a husband because of his selfishness. No, he had to admit, Emmy was probably spot on.
“But then I found what I thought would be my salvation: A copy of The Nuptial News. Marrying a stranger was risky, but I knew I’d regret marrying Uncle Tate. He would break me, and I barely knew who I was at the time. I couldn’t stay in New York because he would spread so many vicious rumors that no man would have me, and I wasn’t certain I would even be safe. So I responded to several of the most promising advertisements in hopes that a lonely — and, I admit, well-off — man out west would save me from certain hell.”
They rode along in silence because they both knew how that had turned out. She’d corresponded with and married his wife’s killer. It was awkward and unsettling, but it was what it was.
“How did your uncle take the news?” he finally asked.
She glanced up at him and shrugged, a glint of mirth in her eye. “I have no idea. My time had run out while I was waiting for responses, you see, so I agreed to marry him but only under the condition that we would have a big wedding. Those take time to plan, and I needed a little more of it to secure a proposal from someone out west. It’s amazing how quickly letters get from California to New York — thirty days, give or take — but when you only have sixty days of freedom, it’s interminably slow.”
“So what happened?” He h
ad to admit, her story was enthralling.
“Honestly, I was scared and wavered in my resolve. I wasn’t sure leaving New York was the right thing to do. Surely my friends wouldn’t desert me, would they? Maybe life with Uncle Tate wouldn’t be so bad. It couldn’t be worse than suffering through a voyage to California, could it?
“I got my answer the day I received Roy’s proposal letter. It arrived shortly after Uncle Tate came over with a selection of flowers to for me to choose for the wedding. I didn’t care so I pointed to one — azaleas, I think — and he got very angry with me. He said I was going through the motions and if I didn’t put more care into my choices, it would lead to a very unhappy marriage for me. I started to get angry right back but instead of humoring me as he’d done in the past, he slapped me across the face.”
Mason pulled his horse up to a stop, and Emmy followed suit. “He hit you?” he asked coldly, his eyes blazing with fire. He amended his promise to himself. If the man ever stepped foot in California, Mason would see him dead.
Fresh tears welled in her eyes but she blinked them away. “He told me he wouldn’t tolerate any more of my temper tantrums, then he did something far worse than slap me. He pulled me into his arms and tried to kiss me, but I managed to escape that fate when a servant walked in. I’m entirely certain that if his lips had touched mine, I would have been sick all over him. Lord only knows how he would have reacted to that!”
Her laugh broke the tension and they started moving again. Mason was vaguely aware that Jake had stopped when they stopped, keeping his distance and allowing them privacy to talk.
“As soon as I read Roy’s letter proposing marriage, I immediately went down and booked passage on the next ship leaving New York. I’d managed to squirrel away some money under a loose floorboard in my room, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. The last I saw of Uncle Tate, he dropped by with the minister to discuss the wedding. Before he even awoke the next morning, my ship was sailing out of New York Harbor, bound for the peninsula crossing. And now I’m here with you.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Emmy couldn’t believe she’d babbled on like that to him. He certainly had more important things to occupy his mind than her sad tale of woe, but he was very attentive throughout, going so far as to be outraged at Uncle Tate’s behavior.
Where the silence between them a few minutes earlier had been tense, this time it seemed refreshing and comforting. Like all the dirty laundry had been aired and it was now time to simply be. Mason was the first to break the silence.
“That was very brave of you to uproot your whole life like that, Emmy. I know a few folks who could take some lessons from you.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. Besides Fred, no one had ever called her brave before. “You must be pulling my leg, Sher— um, Mason. Fear is the only thing I’ve known for the last year. Fear of losing my social status, fear of losing my friends, fear of marrying Tate, fear of sailing to California, fear of being married to a murderer. I’m afraid of everything!”
He nodded, then quietly said, “But, remember, only the brave face their fears and drive forward in spite of them.”
She’d never thought about it that way before and wondered what Mason was afraid of because he was certainly brave.
“In fact,” he added, “you remind me a little of my wife. I suppose one of these gossipy ol’ hens told you about Marie?”
Her grimace at having talked about his life without his knowledge was all the answer he needed, but he didn’t seem upset by it. Instead, he continued his tale.
“She came from a wealthy family who were very mindful of appearances. They were from New York, too, but moved out here the minute Sutter’s man found that gold, like so many of us did. Difference was, they were well-heeled and not at all interested in mining. They’re responsible for the construction of about half the buildings in San Francisco, and they ain’t slowing down.”
This surprised Emmy. How on earth does a wealthy society lady from San Francisco meet and fall in love with a rough lawman from Nevada City? She couldn’t imagine what her father would have said if she’d done such a thing.
“Now you’re probably wondering what a lady like that even saw in a roughneck like me,” he said, making Emmy happy the grease on her face would hide her embarrassed blush. “I’m sure I don’t rightly know, to be frank, but she must have seen something because she not only accepted my proposal but she did it against her family’s wishes.”
“That must have been difficult for her,” Emmy said, thinking of how she’d ceded to her own father’s wishes that she not seriously court anyone.
He nodded grimly. “Made even worse when they disowned her for it. She deserved a big fancy wedding that she never got because she settled for the likes of me. All I could give her was a handful of wildflowers and a few minutes before a judge. That’s how I knew it was true love.”
Her heart broke for him. To lose such pure love would surely kill her, but what were the odds she would ever find love like that anyway? Her luck so far hadn’t been so good in that department, and maybe life would be easier without it. Even when it was ‘true love’ like Mason and Marie’s, it had wrought destruction in another part of their lives.
“She was afraid, too, you know. Afraid to live without her family’s love and approval — and, even she would admit, their money — but she chose her own path and met the consequences head on. That makes her one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.”
Mason looked down at her, giving her a smile that swelled her heart. “You’re another one. Your path ain’t been easy but you keep pressing on.”
“You mean like a rabid hunting dog that won’t let go of its prey?” she asked with a laugh.
He chuckled and raised an eyebrow at her. “Maybe a little. I’m just saying you’ve proved there’s more to you than you think, is all.”
“Mmm,” was all she could think of to say because she wasn’t so sure.
“There certainly was more to Marie,” he said, gazing off into the fog of the past. “First time I saw her, I thought she was a right fine lady. Never entered my feeble mind to wonder whether she’d be interested in the likes of me. She wouldn’t be, couldn’t be. It’d be like wondering if a cow could fall in love with a fiddle.”
She giggled at his analogy. It was strange that he was opening up to her. Strange but wonderful. She didn’t want him to stop.
“I was fresh in off a ship, y’see, and grimy as all get out. I came ‘round the Horn and hadn’t seen the inside of a tub for three long months, so I’m afraid she could smell me coming a mile away. But San Francisco is full of such souls.
“I was a lawman back home in Missouri so the moment I stepped off the ship, I asked around till I found the local police headquarters, a room in an old schoolhouse in Portsmouth Square. Turns out the police department was brand-spanking new, so new in fact that it didn’t have any headquarters, uniforms or nothing. Chief Fallon was looking for new recruits and hired me on the spot. Sent me right off to patrol the streets with one of his men. Remember, I hadn’t so much as let a room yet, much less cleaned up after disembarking.
“So me and this fella are patrolling down Washington Street and we see this vision in pink gliding down the street. I swear, we both stopped dead in our tracks and stared. Next thing we know, a coupla drunken mops tumble outta the saloon, beating the living daylights outta each other. The lovely lady didn’t see ‘em coming, and they were too soaked and angry to pay much mind to anyone around ‘em.”
“Oh!” Emmy gasped, imagining how terrifying that would be. “Did they fall on her? Did they hurt her?”
“Naw,” Mason said with a twinkle in his eye. “They would have, but I lunged forward and pulled her outta their way. She didn’t get so much as a smudge…’cept where my dirty hands touched her pretty dress.”
Emmy adored a good love story and this was one of the better ones she’d ever heard firsthand. Forbidden love, a knight in shining armor saving
the damsel in distress, love at first sight. She nearly sighed in rapture.
“What happened next?” she asked breathlessly.
He laughed at her eagerness for details. “Nothing. She thanked me and went on her way. ‘Course I watched her till she turned the corner and went out of sight, and then kept my eye out for her after that. Every time I saw her, I’d find some excuse to make sure we’d pass one another. But she never paid me no mind. That went on for a month or so, my heart breaking a little more every day she didn’t recognize me. But I chalked it up to upper-crust snobbery.
“Then one day, I walk into that ratty little excuse for a police station and there she was. ‘I got tired of waiting for you to call on me,’ she said. I tell you, I nearly fainted right there in front of my sergeant! Thankfully I’d managed to find a bath in the meantime, though that was a joke between us for a long time. We were inseparable after that, and let me tell you, her family didn’t cotton to that one little bit.”
“Did they try to pay you to leave her alone?”
He looked surprised. “Matter of fact, they did. How’d you guess that?”
She shrugged like it was a lucky guess, but her father had done the same with one or two of her particularly determined suitors.
“When she told her parents we were engaged, they were livid. Her family pressured her, her friends started shunning her and I was having trouble with the chief all of a sudden. When I heard that Nevada City was looking for experienced lawmen, we ran off to a judge and headed for the hills.”
“Oh, that sounds so terribly romantic,” she breathed, seeing Mason in a new light.
His smile was grim. “I reckon. But it was hard, too. Marie had given up the only life she ever knew to marry me. That was tough on us both. Plus she had to learn skills no lady ever needs to know. Let me tell you, her first meals weren’t fit to feed the pigs. Some local women took her under their wings and soon enough she could out-cook the best of ‘em.”
