Her Runaway Heart's Safe Harbor, page 11
“All right. When I left here this mornin’, you were all sunshine and bright, ready to spend time with your intended. Now, there’s been no change with Tom. But sure as anything there’s been a big change in you. What’s goin’ on?”
As much as she appreciated his tentative offer of support, contrarily she refused to accept it. How dare he come mixing into her business, asking questions, doubling down on her misery with what she perceived as artificial interest? Surely he had enough problems to oversee and manage, without adding her own petty woes to his!
“I’m fine. Please excuse all this… mess I’ve made of myself. Truly, I am fine.”
His silence drew out for such a length of time that at last she looked up from the wadded square of muslin stuffed between her fingers. Cooper’s intense gaze almost compelled her to raise her tear-drenched eyes to his, straight on.
Something hard and swift seemed to hit her smack in the middle, stopping her breath but quickening her heartbeat. Time halted; even the ticking of the sickroom clock was muted, as if the movement of parts and gears no longer registered.
The room and all its components were frozen, suspended in time, and Almyra could only wait for some re-alignment of time and space to pick up where the juncture had left off.
Abruptly, Cooper broke the spell.
“You lie,” he said softly but flatly.
Almyra gasped.
“Yes, ma’am. You’re tellin’ an untruth. You got a load of trouble on your shoulders, and it’s beatin’ you down. Now, I can’t begin to guess what’s wrong in your life, but I am sure enough ready to listen anytime you wanna talk.”
His tone was so gentle, his dark searching eyes so intent in roving over her disconsolate face, as if memorizing every feature, that she began to tremble.
“You’re set to marry my best friend, Miss Carter, soon’s he wakes up. You gotta know I would watch over you, and give you protection, just like I would him.”
Somehow, she managed the tiniest of nods. How had she gotten to this point from the determination to lend her earnest young strength to the man she was promised to wed?
How had the difficulties of life so suddenly overwhelmed her, that she would, in a moment of supreme weakness, break down like some puling child? So much so, in fact, that a law officer would feel compelled to treat her like one of these much-maligned unstable inmates of the Sisters of Mercy?
Her father would be ashamed of such frailty, her mother doubly so. She was deeply ashamed of herself for losing control, however briefly.
Too many harried days and hagridden nights of holding everything together, presenting a cool, capable façade to the world, and then, for some reason, this unexpected breakdown here, when anyone might walk in at any time.
And one did.
Why not the physician instead of the sheriff?
Stiffening, she raised her chin in the old imperious attitude and slid her hand free from his, however reassuring and encouraging that clasp.
“Thank you, Sheriff Grayson. I am deeply grateful. For your attention… and I apologize for subjecting you to my silly histrionics. I am fine, despite how I must appear and sound.”
“Uh huh. You promise to remember what I told you, about my listenin’?”
Another very small nod.
“All right, then. Reckon I can get back on my feet, now, ‘fore I keel over.”
She had calmed down enough, straightened a rumple or a crumple here and there, dabbed one final time at drying tears, to ask about his morning. “Had you any major difficulties cropping up? Any repercussions from yesterday’s fire?”
Cooper glanced at the unconscious man, with the pallor of illness lying firm upon his face, and grimaced slightly. For a few moments he was silent, apparently considering her questions and how to answer. Then, with a decision made, he soundlessly pulled forward the extra chair for a seat.
Again pausing, he must have mentally hemmed and hawed while choosing just what to divulge and what to hold back. A description soon followed of busy hours full of questions and complaints surrounding Lolly’s near-catastrophe, paperwork to be filed, insurance claims to be made, and so on.
“Everybody comin’ into the office had somethin’ they needed to discuss with me,” he quietly explained. “Some I could help, some I couldn’t. Kinda depended on what they were after, y’ know?”
She studied him for a moment, the bearded face usually so reserved but occasionally, as now, quite expressive; the curly hair in need of a cut; the long fingers slowly turning his hat brim around; the position that leaned his big frame forward, with both elbows resting on both thighs.
“You care very much for this town and its people,” she finally commented.
The sheriff seemed surprised. “Well, sure. Wouldn’t have the job if I didn’t. Don’t go makin’ me out to be some paragon of virtue, Miss Carter. I’m just an ordinary feller tryin’ to do his best. But we don’t often have a crisis comin’ our way, and it’s usually just havin’ to deal with the routine stuff.”
“And what might that be?”
“Oh, lemme see. Had a customer complain about the cost of a set of harnesses over at the Jamboree General Store, threatened to take the manager to court if Henry didn’t drop the price right quick.” Cooper gave a lopsided grin. “Of course, the disgruntled shopper was in his cups at the time, so it didn’t take much to talk him down from his arbitrary attitude.”
“No court appearance? No jail time?”
“Naw. I’ve found that, overall, folks get to be pretty reasonable, no matter how mad they might seem at the start, if you spend some time findin’ out what’s wrong and try to fix it. Most of ’em just want somebody to hear what they got to say.”
Like herself, Almyra thought, toying with one of the bone buttons on her cuff, and the sheriff, with his offer to listen. Rather absently, she hoped that his opinion of her was a favorable one, unaffected by the minor upheaval of emotions he had unexpectedly come upon.
She didn’t want him deciding that she would be a complete failure at marriage material for his best friend. That she was simply some shallow, silly young girl thwarted from starring in a showy wedding and all its attendant hoopla, because the groom lay maundering in a lonely bed.
“What color are his eyes?” she asked abruptly.
“Huh? Who? Tom?”
“Well, yes. The photograph he sent was in sepia tones, and I haven’t been able to see him as he would normally be. The eyes are the window to the soul, you know.”
“Yeah, seems to me I have heard that. They’re green, Miss Carter. About as green as the sod of a spring pasture.”
She smiled. “Thank you. I like that description.”
“Yes, ma’am. Sometimes I surprise even myself at how danged poetical I can be. Listen, since things here are kinda quiet, how about I take you to the Corner for some food? It’s way past noon, and I hear they got some real tasty meatloaf and mashed potatoes today. If I don’t eat soon, I’m liable to get the shakes.”
Chapter 13
They had him surrounded, he the prey and they a pack of ravening wolves, in the alley into which he had been pushed off the street. It was another dark, gloomy day, the tail end of the rainstorm that had bedeviled Winthrop for so long a time, slightly dissipated into weak and feeble sunshine, then returned with much less force.
The mud piles had not yet dried up, nor the roofs of buildings quite shaken off the dampness so encouraging to the growth of moss. Not to mention that the residents were heartily sick of the whole mess.
Porter Brown, being an equanimous individual who tended to blend into the background due to his rather nondescript appearance, had expected immediate repercussions from the infamous owners of the Redeye and Rotgut. Unfortunately, as a brief amount of time had passed without incident, he had grown lackadaisical concerning his own safety. Careless, to say the least.
He had allowed himself to be captured by the enemy.
And here he had considered himself fairly astute in the ways of the world!
“Where is she?” Garcia, the eldest of the gang of three, and the least human, demanded.
He was standing toe to toe with Porter, almost nose to nose, in a threatening posture. No weapon had yet appeared, but all three brothers were known for a skill—or their murderous duplicity—with every kind of blade.
Porter decided his wisest course of action was not to act at all. Straightening against the stench of the alley’s detritus, brushing at the lapels which Pedro had grabbed to haul him bodily into the dim recesses, Porter said, with offended dignity, “My good man. To what are you referring?”
“Delsia,” Cato, off to the side, hissed. “Not what, you slug, who! That gal we brung in. You know danged well who we’re talkin’ about.”
“We got her all gussied up,” Garcia went on in a menacing snarl. “Got her cowed down enough to do what we told her. Had her just about ready to start bringin’ in real money, upstairs. And then she disappeared.”
“Clean gone.” This was Pedro, blocking any exit to the street. “Poof! Just like the wind.”
Belly muscles clenched, Porter looked from one to the other. “And because you can’t keep track of the girls you shanghai into your business, you accost me?”
“Accost,” Garcia repeated, testing the word. “You swallow some danged dictionary, or somethin’?”
Surprising that the self-styled businessman even understood the concept of using a work of reference. However, with three sharp-fanged desperados all thirsting for a taste of his blood, Porter was not about to goad them into some undertaking he would regret.
“I am, if you recall, owner of the Winthrop Beacon,” he replied stiffly. “It is my job to enlighten and educate the public. Is there something I can do for you?”
“Yeah. You spent a lotta time with that gal ’fore she up and took off. Hatchin’ plans, to my way of thinkin’. She didn’t get away all on her own; she needed help. And I figure that to be you, Mr. Winthrop Beacon Brown.”
“Have you accused all the male patrons who talked to Delsia while she was there?”
“She was too high-falutin’ to spend time with any of the usual crew, looked down her nose at any poor sucker she thought wasn’t good enough for her.”
Porter broke his own rule of noninvolvement with a snide, “That would be about ninety-nine percent of your clientele.”
Three swarthy faces, all remarkably alike in their heavy brows, beaked noses, and tight-set humorless mouths, immediately shifted into identical expressions of deadly hostility.
“You defamin’ me and my boys?” Garcia snarled. “We got us a good little enterprise goin’ in this town, so you might just mind your manners, newspaperman.”
“Or?”
“Or you’ll find yourself in more trouble’n you can handle. It ain’t nothin’ to me should you meet with an accident, ’cause we can give you the same treatment we gave that gal.”
Sucking in a short, sustaining breath, Porter plucked courage out of nowhere to speak through clenched teeth. “Oh? Planning to make me disappear, too? Sorry, old boy, my readers would be vastly disappointed. And just what kind of treatment did you mete out?”
“Had to knock some sense into Delsia’s head a couple a times, make her understand just what her job was; bein’ extra nice to every poor sod that walked through the door. But she didn’t seem to mind talkin’ with you, and I wanna know what was goin’ on.”
Porter’s hands had tightened imperceptibly into closed fists. “I see. Well, if your lady vanished, then I can’t help you. I have no idea what happened to her, or where she might have gone to get away from you.”
Quick as the strike of a cobra, Garcia moved to stick the muzzle of a handgun into the ribs of his victim. “You lie.”
Dredging up an attitude of bravado which he normally did not possess, the newspaperman brought forth every iota of cold steel he could muster. “I won’t dignify that insult with a response, Mr. Mayhew.”
“I’d bet dollars to doughnuts you know where she is,” Pedro accused. His dark eyes were flashing fury, and he, too, took a step closer. The rank body odor of the brothers rivaled that of the alleyway and its unknown bits of refuse.
“You go right ahead and lay that bet,” retorted Porter, “if you think you can find anyone to match it.”
Garcia studied his victim thoughtfully. Evidently, he decided to try a different tack, for he offered the casual comment, “We’ll find that little doxy, y’ know.”
“I suppose anyone is welcome to try. Possibly you could try gazing into a crystal ball, or seeking out a fortune teller.”
“Don’t need either one, or any of your smart talk, neither. By now, it’s a point of honor for me to get back what was stolen from me.”
A point of honor? Porter nearly laughed in the man’s face at the irony. However, such a response would certainly do his own cause no good, and most likely a great deal of harm. He shrugged, instead.
“Yeah,” mused Garcia, with a sly look that traveled from head to foot over Porter’s average and unimpressive frame. “I’ll just bide my time, Mr. Beacon Brown. You know more’n you’re tellin’ me, and one of these days you’re gonna slip up. I want that gal, no matter how long it takes. Mark my words, I’ll get her. By gum, I’ll get her. So watch yourself.”
Porter’s lip curled in the most sardonic sneer he could muster. “And you mark my words. For the last time, I have no knowledge of Miss Delsia’s whereabouts.
At this point, I suggest you move aside and let me pass. I have an article to finish up before printing it in today’s edition; all about the increase of graft and crime in Winthrop’s neighborhoods.”
After a few moments of subdued grumbling and muttered threats, the brothers parted like the waters of the Red Sea before Moses, allowing Porter to make his escape in paces deliberately steady and balanced.
Inside, however, his guts were quivering like the quince jelly he had enjoyed on his morning flapjacks, and perspiration dampened the sleeves of the white shirt beneath his neat black waistcoat. He wobbled on to his office, realizing with every step that he was fortunate to have survived that nasty confrontation. What the Mayhews wanted, they usually got.
Not this time.
Since childhood, Porter had found himself unable to tell a lie, even in the diciest situation. Did he dare even try, the hot rush of blood flushed his face with scarlet, and an itchy rash of hives broke out in unmentionable places.
So he had told the truth to the band of three; the destination of the lady known as Delsia, and her current whereabouts, remained a mystery to him.
He wasn’t about to mention that he had indeed effected a rescue from the Redeye to his own snug house, or that he had put her on a train to somewhere.
Beyond that, he did hold onto the slim hope that, once safely arrived at wherever she had decided to end up, she might someday send him a line letting him know that all was well. That life was good. That Delsia, or Almyra—she of the very sad green eyes and the sweet mouth prone to trembling—was happy.
Meanwhile, he’d better make a side trip to the sheriff’s office, to report on this most recent example of the Mayhew gang’s audacity. A report must at least be made, to add to the stack of ongoing reports made by other bullied citizens, for whatever good that might do.
And he’d better start carrying that handy little derringer he’d put aside some time ago. A fellow walking the streets of Winthrop in broad daylight, with thugs like the Mayhews abroad, couldn’t be too careful.
