Nothing Short of Wondrous

by Regina Scott

  I have changed a few things from history. There was no hotel where the Geyser Gateway is located, although the Fire Hole Hotel did exist to the north. Though Captain Harris did plan to have his men overwinter in the field, the snow and cold proved formidable enemies, and all cavalrymen were recalled to Mammoth Hot Springs. And though everyone at the time expected the Army’s tenure to be short-lived, soldiers guarded the park for more than thirty years. In addition, the Fountain paint pots described in the book are more colorful than what you might see today. Geologists believe an earthquake in the twentieth century changed their physiology, because reports from the 1800s describe them more vividly.

  Of course, no national park is more vivid to me than Mount Rainier, which I can see from my own backyard. Turn the page for a sneak peek of my next book from Revell, set on that lofty peak and featuring one of the first women to climb to the top.

  ALONG THE WATERFRONT OF TACOMA, WASHINGTON, AUGUST 1893

  She was causing a stir.

  Wouldn’t be the first time. Coraline Baxter was used to heads turning, eyes widening when she walked into a room. It happened at the society balls her mother insisted she attend, where she was expected to be the best dressed, the most polished. It had happened at the Puget Sound University, where she had been one of a few women. It happened when she arrived at the bank, where she was the only female accountant.

  So it shouldn’t surprise her that it was happening at Shem’s Dockside Saloon, which likely hadn’t seen many women and certainly not ladies accompanied by a father.

  Stepfather, something corrected her. Beside her, Stephen Winston blinked blue eyes wreathed in wrinkles he’d earned by peering at ledgers all day. His gloved hand gripped the gold head of his ebony walking stick as he glanced around the dimly lit eatery. The occupants likely hadn’t seen many gentlemen of his caliber either. His tailored coat, satin-striped waistcoat, and gold watch hanging by a thick chain proclaimed him a man of means.

  Means seemed hard to come by for most of the men in the room. The rough plank floors, open beams, and unplastered walls spoke of toil, hardship, and the camaraderie of men with pride in their own worth. Still, it was little more than a shanty perched over Puget Sound, and it was hard to smell the brine over the smoke in the air.

  She tried not to wrinkle her nose. Winston didn’t bother to hide his dislike. His lips were slightly curled under his trim white mustache. And he was staring.

  They were staring back.

  Dozens of them. Caps and hats covered hair that peeked out below as if it were none too sure of its surroundings. Wool sweaters were rolled up at the sleeves to display meaty arms. Gazes sized her up, showed interest or suspicion. Her mother had taught her to dress for the part she would play in any situation, but she hadn’t realized the gray taffeta overcoat that was cut to show the lace at her throat and sleeves would look so out of place here. Then again, she’d never visited a saloon before and had no plans to repeat the experience.

  Conversation dwindled, stopped. Someone shoved back a chair with a screech of wood on wood.

  “Do you see him?” Cora hissed.

  Winston started to shake his head no, then stiffened. “There. That table near the wall. That may be young Nathan.”

  Nathan Hardee was no longer the youth her stepfather had remembered. That much was clear. He was facing away from them. Shoulders in a dark wool coat stretched wider than the back of the wood chair on which he sat. Lamplight picked out gold in the wavy brown hair that spilled nearly to those shoulders. Winston hurried forward, and she followed, careful to keep any part of her coat from touching the sawdust-coated floor, scarred tables, or a patron. Still they watched her.

  Let them look. She had more important things to concern her.

  An older man about her stepfather’s age and with hair as white rose from the table as they approached. He was a little taller than Winston, but narrower, as if life had worn him thin. His face was carved in lines and hollows.

  “Mr. Winston?” he asked, brown gaze darting from her stepfather to her and back again.

  “Yes,” Winston acknowledged. “You must be Waldo Vance.”

  Around them, voices rose, glasses clinked. One of the gang had recognized them. They were accepted.

  For now.

  Vance nodded to her stepfather. “That’s right. This is Nathan Hardee. I believe you knew his father.”

  Hardee showed not the least welcome as he swiveled in his chair just enough to meet her stepfather’s gaze. The son of a prominent family, her stepfather had said. She’d met dozens over the years. He didn’t resemble any of them.

  Society men strived for the same golden tan on their skin, but his was likely more an artifact of his work guiding people into the wilderness than the time he’d spent at lawn tennis. Society men often wore beards and mustaches, some quite prominent, but his was just thick enough to hide behind. Society men had the same assessing look, but few had so deep a green to their eyes, like the cool shadows of a forest. Society men dressed in plaid coats during the day or deepest black at night, not brown wool and poorly spun cotton. When she approached, society men bowed and flattered. He had to notice her standing at Winston’s side, yet he didn’t rise as propriety demanded.

  “Afraid you’ve wasted your time,” he said in a deep voice that reverberated inside her. “I’m not looking to act as a guide.”

  He hadn’t even given her a chance to explain, make an offer. Frustration pushed the words out of her mouth.

  “A shame. We pay handsomely, and there’s not many who can say that right now.”

  His gaze drifted over her. “I hear you can’t pay either.”

  Winston’s ivory cheeks flushed crimson. “Now, see here,” he blustered. “You have no call to impugn my reputation. I am the director of the Puget Sound Bank of Commerce.”

  “Which is about to close its doors, according to the News,” Mr. Hardee reminded him, voice like a bell tolling her stepfather’s doom.

  So, he read the paper. One of them, anyway. The precarious position of her stepfather’s bank had been covered in all of them. When most of the remaining businesses in the City of Destiny relied on you for capital to grow, sometimes to even pay employees for a month or two, you were important enough to be watched. Closely.

  Winston was the only one who denied it. “Not in the slightest,” he insisted, puffing out a chest singularly less impressive than that of the man in front of him. “We are solvent, well managed, secure as the mountain itself.”

  “A mountain I won’t help you climb,” Mr. Hardee said, turning to face the wall again as if that would be enough to dismiss them.

  There had to be something she could say to persuade him. Money didn’t seem to matter—oddly enough. Neither did prestige. And forget the need to posture and prove himself a gentleman. How could she get through to a man who apparently needed nothing?

  “This is not what we were promised,” her stepfather fumed. “I wrote you specifically, Mr. Vance. I understood you had the authority to arrange matters.”

  Vance shrugged. “You can lead a horse to water . . .”

  “But apparently you can’t make him drink,” Cora concluded. “Unless it’s the questionable drink of this fine establishment.” She turned to her stepfather. “We might as well go. We have no need to link ourselves with wastrels.”

  Hardee rose. Goodness, how he rose. He dwarfed her stepfather, Mr. Vance. He likely dwarfed every man in the room. The top of her head reached only to the broad bone of his chest.

  “Just because I won’t do your bidding,” he said, gazing down at her, “doesn’t make me a wastrel.”

  “But it does make you a fool,” Cora said, grasping any opening he would give her. “Lumber barons are digging ditches to keep a roof over their heads; shipping heiresses are cleaning toilets to make ends meet. We’re offering good money, just to guide us up Mount Rainier.”

  “Why,” he asked, eyes narrowing, “would a woman like you want to climb Mount Rainier? I
won’t risk my life on a whim.”

  She raised her chin, met his assessing stare with one of her own. Fear and anger and frustration fought for supremacy. A whim, he called it. Saving her stepfather’s business—a whim. Refusing the advances of a tyrant—a whim. Securing her future, making herself beholden to no man—a whim.

  “I don’t need to justify my reasons to anyone,” she told him. “I’m offering generous pay for your skills. We need a guide to see me safely to the summit and back to Longmire’s Medical Springs within the next two weeks. Are you that man?”

  He didn’t answer, gaze on hers as if he could see deep inside her for the truth. She’d been in society too long not to know how to hide her secrets. If sweet looks didn’t suffice, bravado generally did.

  “He is,” the older man insisted, head bobbing. “No one knows the mountain better than Nathan Hardee. He’s guided business leaders and government agents up that mountain. You couldn’t be in better hands.”

  As if he disagreed, Mr. Hardee flexed the fingers on his large hands, hands industry and government trusted. Did that mean she could trust them? Did that mean she could trust him?

  He didn’t trust her.

  “Not interested,” he said, and he returned to his seat once more.

  There. He couldn’t state it more baldly. He wasn’t taking a spoiled, high-society sweetheart into the wild. He still couldn’t believe Waldo had suggested it.

  “Just hear them out,” his mentor had urged as they’d ridden into Tacoma with the pack mules for supplies. “This is a good opportunity. Enough to allow us to replace the roof and add another room before winter.”

  The amount of money Stephen Winston had offered was indeed a pretty price, if it was real. The Panic had robbed families of their homes, men and women of their dignity. The financial turmoil could well force him and Waldo back into the society Nathan abhorred if he didn’t accept work.

  But not this work. It smelled of nonsense. How did he know she wouldn’t cry complaint the moment things became difficult—and they would become difficult—then refuse to pay him? He’d had one or two society members attempt to treat him that way. They thought he was still one of them. What did he need with money?

  He hadn’t been one of them for years, and, God willing, he would never be one of them again.

  Besides, how did he know the banker and his daughter even had money to pay? The fellow wasn’t the only one in Tacoma with the threat of ruin hanging over his head.

  Men reacted badly to ruin. Look at his father. Look at himself.

  The beauty beside him tugged at her father’s sleeve. “Come, Winston. We are wasting our time. Surely we can do better.”

  Waldo glanced at him, jerked his head toward the pair. That was Nathan’s cue to placate, apologize. Very likely most men begged her pardon when they’d refused her. And they likely refused her rarely. That pale hair piled up on the top of her head with curls teasing her fair cheeks. Those big blue eyes. The figure outlined in the wasp-waist coat. She probably crooked her finger, and they all came running.

  Not him. He’d left behind society’s rules for the glory of God’s creation. Playing proper hadn’t changed the fact that his father was gone, along with the bulk of the fortune he’d amassed selling land in the burgeoning city. Nathan knew what it meant to fall from grace.

  So, he did nothing as Mr. Winston and his lovely daughter traipsed out of the saloon. Nathan raised his empty glass to order another sarsaparilla.

  Waldo plunked himself down in his chair. “Stuff and nonsense.”

  “I agree,” Nathan said.

  Waldo scowled at him. “I was talking about you.”

  “I warned you not to get your hopes up,” Nathan reminded him. “It’s hard enough climbing the mountain with an experienced group of hikers. She wouldn’t have lasted past Longmire’s.”

  “Seems to me she has more grit than that,” Waldo grumbled as the barkeep brought them two more of the earthy drinks. He nodded to the man. “Sorry for the bother, Shem. You got any stew on?”

  “Soup only,” Shem Holland answered, setting a heavy glass down with a grimace nearly swallowed by his thick black beard. “Vegetable.”

  “We’ll take two bowls,” Nathan said.

  Shem hitched up trousers that bagged at his waist. “You mind if I see the money first? Whole lot of folks mistake me for the soup kitchen these days.”

  Nathan pulled out a dollar and tossed it on the table. The silver gleamed on the dark wood. Shem’s eyes gleamed nearly as brightly.

  “Coming right up,” he said, scooping the coin into the palm of his hand.

  “Be careful showing silver like that,” Waldo fussed as the proprietor hurried away. “Some men would do most anything for money these days.” He glanced left and right before muttering, “Except climb Mount Rainier.”

  “It was a fool’s errand,” Nathan insisted, leaning back in his chair.

  “Says you. You took her in dislike afore she ever opened her mouth. I saw it.”

  Nathan shrugged. “I’ve met enough like her.”

  Waldo snorted. “No, you ain’t. I’ll have you know that little girl graduated from the Puget Sound University, one of the first women to do it.”

  That was impressive. He knew how rigorous college studies could be. As the son of a prominent businessman, he’d graduated from the State University in Seattle. But that had been eight long years ago. Life had changed. He’d changed.

  “She rides too,” Waldo continued, as if warming to his theme. “Real good, I hear. And she’s a whiz at lawn tennis.”

  Nathan eyed him. “Do you even know what lawn tennis is?”

  Waldo pouted. “No, but it sounded hard.”

  “Miss Winston is obviously a paragon,” Nathan said. “But that doesn’t mean I have to take her up the mountain.”

  “Not Winston,” Waldo argued. “Her name’s Baxter. Her mother’s on her third husband, I hear.”

  That was a wretched thing to have in common. Nathan’s mother had been through two other men since his father had died as well. He shifted on the chair as Shem hustled back with a tray. He set it down in front of them with a flourish. The battered bottom of the tin bowl was evident through the clear liquid, and Nathan could count the pieces of carrot and celery clinging desperately to the sides. The soup was accompanied by two thin slices of bread.

  “How about some butter?” Waldo asked as Shem straightened.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Had to sell the cow.”

  “Maybe you should have cooked the cow,” Waldo said, poking his spoon at the vegetables.

  “I’m just doing what I can to stay open,” Shem said. “Course, if old man Winston’s bank goes under, I’ll go under with it.”

  Nathan frowned. “So the paper was right. He’s on that shaky ground?”

  Shem nodded. “Cash Kincaid is his biggest client. Threatened to pull out everything unless Miss Baxter married him. She threw his offer in his face.”

  “Good for her,” Waldo cheered.

  Brave. Nathan would give her that. Kincaid was ruthless, his tactics just short of illegal. He couldn’t think of a better fellow to receive a set down. He only wished he’d been the one to do it.

  Shem leaned closer. “Story’s going around that he gave her a choice: marry him or climb Mount Rainier. Either way, he saves the bank. She even made him put it in writing.” He straightened again and shook his head. “She’s a game one, but how’s she going to climb a mountain? Might as well wish for gold to fall out of the sky.”

  Nathan pushed back his chair. “Finish my soup, Waldo. I have something I need to do.”

  Waldo frowned. “Now? I thought we weren’t starting home until the day after tomorrow. We have to pick up the supplies first.”

  “We may have to delay a day or two,” Nathan told him. “It all depends on how long it takes Miss Baxter to feel ready to climb a mountain.”

  Regina Scott started writing novels in the third grade. Thankfully for literature a
s we know it, she didn’t sell her first novel until she learned a bit more about writing. Since her first book was published, her stories have traveled the globe, with translations in many languages including Dutch, German, Italian, and Portuguese. She now has fifty published works of warm, witty romance.

  She credits her late father with instilling in her a love for the wilderness and our national parks. She has toured the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Yosemite, the Olympics, and the Redwoods and currently lives forty-five minutes from the gates of Mount Rainier with her husband of thirty years.

  Regina Scott has dressed as a Regency dandy, driven four-in-hand, learned to fence, and sailed on a tall ship, all in the name of research, of course. Learn more about her at her website at www.reginascott.com.

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Endorsements

  Half Title Page

  Books by Regina Scott

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  A Note to the Reader

  Sneak Peek at Book 3

  About the Author

  Back Ads

  Back Cover

  List of Pages

  1