by Regina Scott
No, she could never mention Elijah’s name, or associate with any of her former friends, because she’d rather die right now than to bring any harm to him and his family.
“Where…where are you staying?” she said at last. “You can’t stay here, of course,” she added, gesturing at the tent that seemed even tinier with him inside it. “My reputation—”
“Shall remain unsullied, of course,” he finished for her. “No, it’s too small for the two of us, even if it was proper, and Caesar’s future wife must be above reproach,” he said in that grandiose way that had always set her teeth on edge. “No, I’ve got a much larger tent—I suppose you’d call it a pavilion, really—in back of your campsite, close enough for togetherness, but not close enough that tongues will wag,” he concluded, merrily waving a finger.
“In back of my campsite?” she repeated. “But there were already people in back of me, Maxwell. The Carters, the Weisheimers, the Santinis,” she said, ticking the names off. “What did you do with them?”
“They’ve been paid well to relocate,” he said, as careless as if he spoke of flies being swatted.
He’d thought of everything, she thought, as hope died within her.
“And don’t worry about Race Day—or the Land Rush, or whatever they’re calling it,” he said with another airy wave. “There’s a general down here who owes me a favor—I was able to wangle his son out of some trouble he found himself in. We’ll have to get up early, of course, but we’ll be let through at the crack of dawn, so we can find just the piece of land that suits us—adjoining plots. Three hundred and twenty acres, not a hundred sixty, since we won’t be married then.
“Of course, it won’t be but a patch on the amount of land we’ll end up with, eh? And then we can be married shortly after the big day. The King and Queen of Oklahoma, that’s what they’ll call us, won’t they?” He chucked her under the chin. “How’d you like that, eh? Or maybe Senator and Mrs. Peterson—or even President Peterson and his First Lady. Mrs. Maxwell Peterson—has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Chapter Seventeen
Maxwell had finally left her tent around midnight, after talking endlessly about “their” plans. Not only was he confident he could buy up all the land around their joined homesteads, but he planned to start a bank in the town he would found nearby, which would in a short time become the largest bank in Oklahoma.
From there he would progress to being mayor, then senator. By that time she would have given him four or five children at the least—three boys, the oldest of which they’d name Maxwell Junior, of course. He would inherit the banking business, or if he wanted to join his father in his political aspirations, he might be the Peterson to become president of the United States if Maxwell Senior did not.
They’d have a couple girls, too, little red-haired copies of their lovely mother, daughters who would make brilliant marriages some day that would enlarge the Peterson empire. Meanwhile Alice would be the social leader of Oklahoma womanhood, the jewel of his home.
Alice had listened numbly, and he didn’t seem to notice that she said nothing, since he took silent admiration as his due. At last, when she began to sway with weariness, he finally glanced at his ornately designed gold pocket watch.
“Sorry, m’dear. I’ve enjoyed our reunion so much I hadn’t noticed the time. I’ll depart for my pavilion and let you get your beauty sleep. Don’t worry about cooking me a big breakfast in the morning—I’ve brought Horst with me to double as my cook and valet. He’ll fix breakfast for both of us—though I hope you don’t insist on rising with the birds, do you? My other men are waiting back in Wichita, of course, with wagonloads of materials for our new home. Didn’t want too many of my personnel here. Figured we’d want our privacy, eh?”
He’d kissed her full on the mouth then, and it had been all she could do not to suffer at the touch of his cold, fleshy lips. But he didn’t seem to mind her lack of response.
“Still the shy little maiden, aren’t you? Good to see that these hayseeds haven’t corrupted you. After breakfast we’ll have the whole day to spend together. You can show me the sights.” He’d laughed hugely then, tickled at his own joke. “I’ve brought you a saddle horse and your riding habit, Alice, my sweet. We can go explore the prairies, eh?”
“Good night, Maxwell.” Maybe if he wasn’t expecting her to rise till late, she could sneak out of her tent and run to the Thorntons, and explain to Elijah what had happened, so he would not make the mistake of coming to look for her and bringing Maxwell’s wrath down on his head.
If only she hadn’t held back her heart from Elijah, prating about “independence.” Her insistence on independence had only left her free to have Maxwell wrap his chains around her. If she’d given Elijah the slightest encouragement, hinted that she couldn’t imagine life without him at her side, he’d have declared himself by now.
Or maybe it was best that she hadn’t surrendered to her feelings after all, she thought, staring up at the faint light of the full moon filtering into her tent. Maxwell wouldn’t have been deterred from his goals even if she’d been engaged to marry Elijah Thornton, and the Thornton brothers might all have paid the price then. It was better for everyone she’d met in Boomer Town if she just quietly went and told Elijah why she had to step out of his life.
How would she get out of showing Maxwell around Boomer Town? She hadn’t the least desire to parade through the narrow dirt “streets,” and listen to his scornful remarks about the crude tents and its salt-of-the-earth, hope-filled populace. She didn’t want to encounter anyone she knew and see the puzzlement in their eyes as they beheld her with this stranger, and learned who he was to her. And Maxwell wouldn’t hold back, she knew. He’d be crowing to anyone who would listen as a way of marking his territory.
It would be better to proclaim herself as bored with Boomer Town as he would be and go on endless horseback rides with him away from town. She didn’t think it likely that he’d try to take advantage of her when they were alone—for a ruthless man, he was curiously inconsistent in his desire for above-question respectability. Their rides would be the only thing to alleviate a week of stifling days with him at his campsite, playing endless games of chess with the marble chess set he always traveled with, eating the gourmet meals Horst would cook.
Alice slept fitfully at last, only to wake with a start when someone’s rooster crowed the dawn. Hollow-eyed, she’d dressed, stowed the medical bag she’d dropped in the middle of the dirt floor and slipped out of her tent, only to find Horst sitting in a camp chair at the entrance.
He stood and gave her a punctilious bow, pretending not to see how he’d startled her. “Good morning, Miss Hawthorne,” he said in his perfect Bavarian-accented English. “A pleasure to see you again. Let me brew you some coffee, yes? I will wake Mr. Peterson and tell him you have arisen.”
“Oh, no, that’s not necessary. I was just—” she began, already knowing she would not be walking down to see Elijah now.
“But those are his instructions, Miss Hawthorne.” He was perfectly polite but inexorable.
“No, don’t do that. I—I wouldn’t want you to disturb him since he went to bed so late,” she said and faked a huge yawn. “I—I’m actually still rather tired myself. I think I’ll go back in and doze a little longer.”
Horst bowed again. “Very good, Miss Hawthorne.”
Letting the tent flap fall behind her, she lay down on the cot, fully clothed. Holding the sheet up to her face to stifle the sound, she wept.
*
Odd that Alice hadn’t come to chapel, Elijah thought, but perhaps she hadn’t slept well that night and decided to sleep in that morning. Perhaps he could give Winona and Dakota their English lesson a little early, leaving him time to ask Alice if she’d like to go riding out on the prairie with him this afternoon. They hadn’t taken the horses for a gallop since he’d been ill, and though it was still sunny, a cool wind had blown away the summerlike heat. Perhaps out there among the tall g
rass and rolling countryside, they’d have enough privacy that he could ask Alice if he could court her.
But she wasn’t there when he went to her tent at two o’clock, either, and she had left him no note. A prickle of unease slid down his spine, but nothing was disturbed in the tent, as far as he could tell.
There was a new tent, huge and fancy-looking, behind Alice’s, that hadn’t been there before, almost like something a medieval king would hold court in. He didn’t care. More and more people were coming into Boomer Town each day, and perhaps those whose tents had been behind hers had shifted elsewhere.
He left her a note on the top of the crate by her cot, saying he’d been here to see if she wanted to go riding. They could still go this evening, he supposed. It might even be nicer when they could watch the sun setting behind the hills to the west.
Probably she’d left because she’d learned of someone needing her nursing. He hadn’t thought to look for her medical bag when he’d been inside her tent. Yes, that had to be it. She’d find his note and come over to their campsite, and all would be well. He’d just take a stroll around town and see if he could run across her.
But he didn’t spot her familiar figure in the flower-sprigged calico dresses she favored, nor had anyone he inquired of seen her. Returning to their tent, he asked his brothers if she’d come while he had been out walking around, only to have both of them shake their heads.
“You have any reason to be worried, Lije?” Gideon asked.
Elijah shook his head and told him how he’d found everything in order at her campsite—but that he hadn’t found her tending some homesteader around Boomer Town, either.
“Maybe she’s just gone out for a walk past town,” Clint offered. “Sometimes ladies get a notion to go gather wildflowers, don’t they? Or maybe, being as it’s Alice we’re talking about, healing herbs or some such.”
“I don’t think she’d go out there on foot, alone.” Elijah shook his head. “Not after what happened to Mrs. Murphy, right here in town.” During his walk, he’d seen Cheyenne, Alice’s Appaloosa, in the corral with the rest of their horses, so he knew she hadn’t gone on a solitary ride.
Gideon looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, Lije, I saw some woman riding out this morning ’round about the time you’d have been finishing up at your chapel. She was a ways away, going down that side road that leads out of Boomer Town, yonder,” he said, pointing in that direction, “and I caught a glimpse of dark red hair as she went past.”
Elijah leaned forward.
“But it couldn’t’ve been her,” Gideon said. “This woman was riding sidesaddle in a fancy riding habit, not a split skirt like Alice wears when she rides, and she was sitting on this high-stepping liver-colored chestnut with a bobbed mane. There was some Eastern dude riding beside her.”
“Doesn’t sound like Alice, then,” Clint said.
“No,” Elijah murmured, but he wouldn’t feel at peace until he saw her. He shifted his gaze to the entrance of the tent, as if he could will her presence.
“Think we oughta speak to the Security Patrol and ask if they’ve seen her around town?” Clint said.
“No.” They hadn’t been of any help before. “I think I’ll just go down to her tent and wait for her,” he said and headed outside.
“Invite her to join us for supper at Mrs. Murphy’s, why don’t you?” Clint called after him. “I saw Mrs. M earlier, and she said she’s making that tasty ginger cake for dessert.”
Elijah had walked past four campsites, spurred on by an apprehension he couldn’t put a name to, when he spotted Alice, sitting outside in the shade of her tent. She was looking in the other direction. But before relief could seize him and cause him to call out a greeting, he saw that she wasn’t alone.
A big, richly dressed gent with light brown closely cropped hair, mustache and beard sat in a camp chair beside her—too close beside her—dressed in a hacking jacket, jodhpurs and high two-toned leather boots—the sort of gentleman’s riding apparel he hadn’t seen since they’d left the East. He had a folded newspaper in one hand and was idly flicking a riding crop at his boots with the other. Hovering nearby, between Alice’s tent and the new, large one behind her, stood a middle-aged man dressed in a servant’s livery.
Elijah stopped stock-still in the narrow roadway, staring. There had to be an explanation. Perhaps he was a brother or some cousin from New York. She’d never spoken of such—in fact he’d believed she was alone in the world but for her mother—yet it had to be the case.
Almost as if she sensed his presence, Alice looked in his direction then and went still, like a fawn who’d spotted a wolf. Her eyes widened, then went blank. The man had looked up, too, and slowly, almost negligently, leaned closer to her so that they were touching from shoulder to elbow, his almost-colorless pale eyes narrowing into slits as he studied Elijah.
Elijah came to stand by the path that led to her tent. “Miss Alice, I see you have a visitor,” he commented, straining to sound normal. Who is this man, Alice? he wanted to demand. Why is he sitting so close to you?
She’d gone pale as paper. “Yes…h-hello, Reverend Thornton,” she said. “Yes, Maxwell’s just come from New York. It—it was…quite a surprise.” Her voice was unnatural and strange, as if she couldn’t quite get her breath.
The man she’d called Maxwell stood then, leaving the folded newspaper in his chair, and came forward now, his arm extended. “Maxwell Peterson, Reverend. I’m Alice’s fiancé. I couldn’t let my little sweetheart make the Land Rush without me, could I?” He gave a jovial bark of laughter.
Elijah thought he had to have heard him wrong. He stared at Alice. “Your fiancé?” His own voice sounded strange to him, too. He made no move to shake the man’s proffered hand, and finally, the other man lowered his outstretched arm to his side. Far from being embarrassed, though, Maxwell Peterson beamed with satisfaction.
Alice looked everywhere but at Elijah or Peterson.
Elijah saw Peterson turn his gaze on Alice. The man’s jaw had hardened, and a vein throbbed in his temple.
“Darling, aren’t you going to tell him?” Peterson asked. “No matter, I will. You see, Reverend, she and I…well, we had a silly quarrel before she left New York about her coming here to Oklahoma, but Alice was determined to prove to me that this place is where she wants us to raise our family—far from the hustle and bustle of New York City.” He chuckled. “My foolish, willful sweetheart. So of course I had to follow her and tell her I’d seen the light, didn’t I?”
“I…I see,” Elijah said, choking with the effort to sound normal and unmoved. “Well…Miss Alice, I just came to ask if we’d be doing our rounds around the town tonight as usual?” he asked, as if he hadn’t been planning to invite her to go riding.
“Alice…” the other man said, clearly prompting her.
She looked up then, and Elijah saw none of the lively sparkle in those sky-blue eyes that had always been there. They were expressionless.
“I—I’m afraid not, Reverend. Now that Maxwell’s here, I’m afraid I just won’t have the time any longer….”
“There’s so much to talk about before the wedding,” Peterson explained in a companionable, man-to-man sort of way. “We’re to be married right after we claim our homesteads, Reverend. Alice, darling,” he added, as if a thought had just struck him, “we hadn’t talked about it, but would you like Reverend Thornton to do the honors? Of course, I’d planned to have Prescott brought out by train—that’s our man of the cloth back in New York, you see, Reverend.” He grinned. “But really, Alice, if you’ve become friendly with the parson here…”
“We can talk about it later, Maxwell,” Alice murmured, her voice brittle as leaves in November.
“I understand,” Elijah managed to say, which was the first lie he’d uttered in a long, long time. He didn’t understand at all. He had to get away from here. “Well, I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around Boomer Town, Miss Alice. Nice to meet you, Mr. Peterson.” And
that was the second lie.
*
Elijah didn’t remember walking back to his tent. Somehow he was just there, and Clint was bending over him, worry written plain on his face.
“Elijah, are you sick again? What’s wrong?”
“Yeah, you’re pale as a whitewashed fence,” Gideon agreed. “You’re not having one of those relapses Alice was so worried about, are you? Did you find Alice?”
“I’m not sick.” Only sick at heart. “Yes, I found her.” Staring straight ahead of him because he couldn’t bear to see their reaction, he told them what he had found when he had returned to Alice’s campsite.
Both men shook their heads when he was through.
“I wouldn’t have figured her for a woman like that,” Clint said.
“Me neither. Not at all,” Gideon muttered.
“That makes three of us.”
Silence hung in the air. He wished they’d stop staring at him as if he was a stick of dynamite about to explode.
Finally Gideon said, “I think I’ll go over to Mrs. Murphy’s and see if she’ll make up some plates of whatever she’s serving for supper and send them with me.”
“Good idea. I’ll go with you, Gideon,” Clint said, a little too quickly. “Help you carry things. We’ll be right back, Lije.”
Just like that, Elijah was by himself. He was thankful that his brothers were savvy enough to see that he needed to be alone with his misery.
How could he have let himself lose sight of his calling so far as to fall in love with Alice Hawthorne, a woman he’d met just two weeks before, a woman he’d never really known at all, apparently? From the devoted way she’d nursed the sick and tended the wounded, he’d convinced himself Alice could be content with the simple life as a preacher’s wife, but evidently, it had all been an act. Just something to pass the time until she saw if she could bring her rich beau to heel. She’d certainly fooled him.
What if he’d married her, and then Peterson had shown up? After looking into those lifeless eyes of hers, he had no doubt Alice would have left him without a qualm.
