Morrow Creek Runaway. Lisa Plumley
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in Mrs. Dancy?”
“I’m an old friend of hers.”
“You don’t say?” McCabe sized him up. “Such an old friend that you don’t know where she lives or what she’s been up to?”
McCabe’s genially voiced question belied his sharp demeanor. Despite his easy ways, this was no country bumpkin. This was a man who would fiercely protect the people he cared about. Reevaluating his initial opinion of him, Miles regrouped. Usually, folks overlooked whatever logical inconsistencies arose during his questioning of them. Especially when they were knocking back ales. Daniel McCabe was different.
“We didn’t part willingly.” With real mournfulness, Miles stared into his ale. “I aim to make up for that when I see her.”
“Aha. You poor lovelorn fool. You need another drink!”
Generously, McCabe ordered him one. Somehow, Miles had stumbled onto the best tactic for use with the big man—love.
After glimpsing the wedding band on McCabe’s hand, Miles understood where the man’s good-natured resignation toward romance came from. Possibly his guardedness, too.
After all, true love didn’t always run smoothly. Miles knew that for himself. He’d waited too long with Rosamond. Now she—
“We become damn fools when some woman turns our heads, don’t we?” McCabe proposed, offering a toast. “Here’s to you.”
Miles raised his glass, then quaffed. The moment he and Daniel McCabe sealed their newfound camaraderie, other saloon patrons began drifting nearer. If Miles had been fortunate in sniffing out information before, he was doubly lucky now.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to help McCabe’s buddy.
In very short order, Miles learned where Rosamond Dancy lived—and with whom. He learned what her mutual society did and how popular and sought-after an admission to it was among the local menfolk. He also learned, discouragingly, that gaining a personal interview with Mrs. Dancy was next to impossible.
“She’s practically a ghost,” Hofer, the mercantile owner, confided in a dour tone. “She hardly comes out. Not ever.”
“She just keeps things running, quite efficiently, behind the scenes,” added Thomas Walsh, editor of the Pioneer Press newspaper. “I find her ingenuity very admirable, myself.”
“You ain’t getting no place near her,” opined Mr. Nickerson, who ran the Book Depot and News Emporium. “’Specially as a stranger to town. If Mrs. Dancy doesn’t want to see you, her two bruisers make darn sure you stay away.”
That put Miles on alert. “She has guards?”
“Two of ’em. Seth Durant and Judah Foster. Head-knockers, they are.” The barman, Harry, raised his arms high over his head. “Big as apes, both of ’em, and twice as mean, too.”
That was a complication Miles hadn’t counted on.
“I would advise you to stay away,” old Doc Finney put in, sipping his sarsaparilla. “A woman who is both secretive and uppity is dangerous to a man’s well-being. A man only gets so many heartbeats per ticker, you know. A woman like that’ll use them all up, faster than you can say ‘Bob’s your uncle.’”
The men surrounding him appeared intrigued by that.
“Exactly how,” McCabe wondered with a twinkle in his eye, “would all those heartbeats get used up extra quickly, Doc? Because some of us are hog-tied to uppity women ourselves.” Here, he aimed a meaningful glance at Jack Murphy. “We might need to consider protecting ourselves from overexertion.”
All the saloongoers guffawed at that, but Miles was too busy contemplating Doc Finney’s description of Rose to wonder about the salacious possibilities inherent in his warning.
Most likely, secretive would describe Rosamond these days. So would uppity, if an opinionated old coot like Finney was doing the describing. Back home, Rosamond had certainly known her own mind. Miles had definitely found her this time.
“Just don’t try getting into that society by fibbin’ that you know Mrs. Dancy ‘from back east,’” a lumberman warned him. “I tried that, and her hired men dumped me in a ditch.”
Miles had expected Rosamond to be wary. Given everything he knew about her entanglements with Arvid Bouchard, she had reason to be. Still, he’d been counting on her being eager to see him.
So, if the truth were known, had the Bouchards.
After all, Miles was the stableman who’d helped Rosamond feed apples to the Bouchard household’s horses. He was the stableman who’d carried heavy loads of coal for his favorite housemaid. He was the stableman who’d pined for his Rosamond from afar...and now found his best chance at being near her again thwarted by two hired thugs and a whole town’s worth of gossipy, intrusive menfolk.
Well, Miles hadn’t gotten this far by quitting easily.
He’d traveled for weeks by rail, horseback, ferry and foot to tell Rosamond McGrath his true feelings for her. He now stood less than a mile from Rose—his Rose. He was not a man who would be daunted by a few complications.
“I can get into the marriage bureau.” Miles swallowed the rest of his ale in a single gulp. He eyed the assembled men. “By this time tomorrow, I’ll be Mrs. Dancy’s favorite client.”
Or I’ll die trying, Miles swore to himself.
Not long after that, he said goodbye to his newfound friends. He picked up his flat-brimmed hat, shouldered his valise and set out to make his vow as real as the ill-gotten money that still burned a hole in his bag...and in his heart.
What I won’t do, he promised himself further, is tell Rose where that damn money came from. That would not endear him to her—nor would it encourage her to trust him. To get what he wanted from Rosamond, Miles needed her good regard and her trust alike.
He needed a second chance. He was damn sure about to finagle himself one, no matter what he had to do to secure it.
* * *
Rosamond was saying her farewells to Gus when she first heard the kerfuffle at her front door. She tried to concentrate on what her very first client was telling her about his new bride and their plans, but the sounds of raised voices and scuffling feet stole her attention. What could be happening now?
Sensing the same disturbance, Gus broke off. He cast a worried glance down the hallway, beyond the parlor’s entryway where they both stood. “Sounds like trouble. You want me to go an’ help your bruiser put down all the hubbub?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Winston. That won’t be necessary.” Thinking of scrappy Gus Winston getting into a scuffle, Rosamond hid a smile. “I’m sure Mr. Durant has matters well in hand.”
A firm, raised male voice contradicted her statement.
A familiar firm, raised male voice. It couldn’t be.
But if it was...
Wholly unexpectedly, a host of memories flooded Rosamond. She could smell hay and horses and fresh green apples. She could feel the heavy burden of the coal bin being chivalrously removed from her grasp. She could reexperience the heart-pounding excitement and surge of pure joy that had come every day from venturing to those Beacon Hill stables and seeing—
“Don’t sound too much like he’s got things in hand,” Gus observed dourly. He turned toward the hallway, ready to help deal with the disturbance. “I should be goin’ anyhow. Abigail—I mean, the new Mrs. Winston—will be waitin’ on me.”
Gus’s reddened cheeks and shy smile at his mention of his new bride reminded Rosamond of all the positive effects she was having here in Morrow Creek—and pulled her sensibly away from the fanciful memories that had swamped her, too. There was no reason at all, she chided herself, to be thinking fondly of—
“Miles