Adella's Enemy (4 page)

“Why do you own a gun?” he asked.

“I find a weapon useful for these types of situations.” Despite her words, she returned the palm pistol to its hiding place and scooped up her valise. With it back in her hand, she breathed a little easier.

He muttered something in Gaelic that she didn’t understand, but that rolled off his tongue as easily as only a favorite oath can.

“There’s no need for foul language,” she said primly.

“There’s every need.” His grip on her arms tightened before he released her. “It doesn’t please me to learn your life is so dangerous you require a gun.”

She busied herself straightening her sleeves, so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. “And I don’t like large men creeping up on me from behind and manhandling me.”

“Neither do
I. That’s why I’m here.”

There was tenseness in him that should’ve eased now that her gun no longer poked him in the gut. She leaned sideways just enough to peer around him. Three slovenly dressed men slouched on the steps of the saloon, watching them. They weren’t from the
McGrady Gang.

Cormac
made a great show of offering her his arm and said more loudly than necessary, “May I escort you to your hotel, Miss Willows?”

“How very kind of you to finally ask, Mr.
McGrady,” she replied, accepting his arm.

The tightly leashed strength under her palm made her unduly aware of his every move. Each stride, shortened to match hers. Each breath she hoped would precede a comment that would help her regain her usual gift for idle banter. But he said nothing and the resulting silence made her incapable of any thought except how warm and safe she felt walking beside him.

The lights of her hotel came into view and his footsteps slowed. “About our chess game…”

Had he changed his mind about spending even that small amount of time with her? Damned if she’d let him reject her first. “There’s no need to play that game. You were right about me being in the saloon.”
Albeit for reasons different than you are pondering.
“I won’t go back. You’ve got what you wanted.”

He lowered his head toward hers. “I want…other things.”

Her gullible heart thundered with hope. “Such as?” she asked, striving to sound disinterested.

“I wanted to see you home without any mishap.”

“And here we are.” She tried to remove her palm from his arm, but his callused hand covered hers, anchoring her to him.

“I promised you a game and, as I said before, I keep my promises.”

Her mouth was too dry to answer. She turned the only thing she could, her head, and stared at the hotel. The refuge of the lobby lay within, only three steps and one door away

His breath heated her cheek as he bent even closer and whispered, “Why are you—?” He halted abruptly.

“Why am I what?”

“If I ask the wrong question, I worry you’ll run away.”

“You don’t frighten me.” The tremor running through her wasn’t from fright.

He sighed. “I don’t know what to believe.”

“I don’t return my gun to its hiding place when I’m around men who scare me.” Despite her words she kept her gaze on the hotel and not him.

“Then why won’t you look at me?” His tone had turned teasing.

“You’re too tall,” she quipped back. “It’s awkward continually craning my neck to stare up at you.”

Suddenly, his hands enveloped her waist and lifted her off the boardwalk. She gasped and clutched his shoulder with her free hand. But he merely set her on the top step of the hotel, so they stood eye to eye.

“Mr. McGrady—”

“
Cormac.”

She released his shoulder, disgusted that she’d continued holding him when he’d already let go of her. “Ah yes,” she huffed, clasping her valise with both hands so she wouldn’t be tempted to touch him again. “Only your friends call you Mac.”

“My men call me Mac. My family called me Cormac. Or at least my sisters did.” He bowed his head, like a sinner forcing himself to share a difficult confession. “They raised me. They all had names beginning with an M. They said a boy with five girls bossing him about needed something of his own, even if it was only his name.”

He raised his gaze to meet hers again. “Our families shape us.
Our names as well.”

Nerves stretched taut, she forced herself to hold her ground. “Fergal talks too much.”

“Aye, but oddly enough he grows quieter with drink…until he reaches the point where he needs to be carried home. Twice, I’ve been summoned for that task. Both times he’s cursed an Englishman named Willows and apologized with equal fervor to a Dec and a Del. Who I’d assumed, until now, were brothers.”

A chill stronger than any change of weather stole over her. She couldn’t move or speak or think.

His brow furrowed. “I’ve spoken out of turn. As I said, Fergal only mentioned your family twice, and he wasn’t in his right mind when he did. He’s a good man with more demons than most. He deserves help. Maybe you do as well.”

“What do you want?” she whispered.

His frown intensified. “Tonight? Nothing.” He strode down the pathway, away from her.

“Mr.
McGrady,” she called after him. He didn’t stop. “Cormac!”

He halted and graced her with a lopsided smile that made her heart flutter in her chest.
“Yes, Adella?”

“Everyone wants something.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing you again, to playing our chess game.”

“And what will you demand if you win?”

“That’s not the game I wish to play with you, lass.”

A rush of pleasure heated her. He was indeed a dangerous opponent. “You talk in riddles.”

“I want to know you better. Spending time with you will be reward enough.” He stared at her as if daring her to say otherwise, which was absurd. He couldn’t want her intruding into his life any more than she already had. It was merely her mind, craving things that did not exist. And if they did, they would vanish soon enough. He would spurn her if he discovered why she was in New Chicago.

Her life felt very empty. For the second time today, tears stung her eyes.

She turned her back on Cormac, before he could do the same to her, and marched into the hotel. Challenges and complications. They were everywhere. Inside her heart and out.

Chapter 4

With her camera and tripod on her shoulder and her valise in her hand,
Adella picked her way along the wooden walkway in front of the clapboard and canvas buildings crowding New Chicago’s streets. The morning sun peeked through clouds as gray as a blacksmith’s anvil, then retreated. Another day with the threat of rain and with work to do while hemmed in by mud.

She glared at the earth surrounding her, churned up by the multitude of wagons, horses and men who slogged straight through the muck until the ground was the consistency of butter. No. More like molasses. The memory of its tenacious grip filled her thoughts, along with
Cormac.

Overbearing and opinionated…and protective.
If he hadn’t been at the train station, she’d have—

Her foot slipped on some unseen bit of mud transferred from sea to path. The weight of her camera threatened to topple her. She caught her balance a whisper from disgrace. Fortunately, no cracking sounds heralded a broken camera or worse a broken limb. If she fell again,
Cormac wouldn’t be here to pull her to safety.

Not that she needed, or wanted, his help. He just wasn’t in town to do so. From her hotel room, she’d observed
Cormac and his men depart before dawn on the train. She hadn’t seen Stevens, but his private railcar had gone with the workers.

The town was hers to explore without any railroad men hampering her efforts to derail their project and cast Parsons into the poorhouse…if she could only keep from tumbling into the mud and having to return to the hotel. Tomorrow, it would be time to delve into her wardrobe and modify her attire. Today, she wasn’t retreating. Before day’s end, her champagne-colored dress would probably be spattered with mud stains. She did not care. She squared her shoulders and set forth at a steady but more cautious pace.

Not that one had to go far to hear what the townsfolk had to say. The air buzzed with stories. One man suspected a business partner of stealing. Another had trouble with trench foot. A third had written his sweetheart asking for her to wait for him. Murmured hopes. Gruff complaints. She knew them well.

If
Cormac knew only a quarter of the hellholes she’d been in, he’d look at her differently. The gun in her pocket was his first glimpse into the depths of her less-than-ladylike character. Her descent had started long ago during the war. Despite warning Declan not to join the war effort too young, she’d swiftly followed suit. Back then, she’d wanted to be invisible. And she had. No one had paid attention to her dressed in the rags of a teenage boy. But she’d paid attention to everyone and everything around her. She’d always been good at listening. Knowing what to do with what she’d heard had followed naturally.

“They’re stealing our farms.” The statement came from inside a tall tent.

Adella halted, senses on full alert. Cormac had mentioned troubles with farmers. Could the person in the tent be one of them?

She didn’t recognize the woman’s voice, but she recognized the sentiment in it. Words uttered halting, thick with tears, its owner struggling to deal with a seemingly irresolvable calamity. The voice was also thick with an accent from the old world. The
r’s rolled, the t’s pronounced like d’s, suggesting not England or even Scotland, but a land further north. Sweden or possibly Norway.

“Stealing? The railroad’s paying you, surely? There must be a misunderstanding.” This voice
Adella knew. Kate Parsons.

Keeping her footsteps soft,
Adella hastened to the tent’s opening, a flap tied back to form an inverted V large enough to peek through but still keep oneself hidden. Inside, the light was dim, but Kate’s vibrant red hair was unmistakable. She sat on a bench facing a raised stage. Two clusters of women—dressed in crisp, Sunday-best bonnets and frayed, everyday jackets of homespun wool—huddled on either side of her. Like hens round a fox, they darted glances at Kate.

On the stage, a pair of black-garbed missionaries, somber and silent as gravestones, flanked a life-size cross. Before them paced a woman with hair so blonde it appeared white. She had a long, rolling stride—heavy and noisy as a man’s—and the robust frame of an Amazon matriarch. She could probably drive a plow team all morning, plant the field that afternoon, and tackle a dozen other laborious chores before bedtime.

“If there’s a misunderstanding,” the blonde woman replied in the accent that had first snagged Adella’s attention, “it’s yours and your father’s.”

“Helga!” gasped a woman seated near Kate. “Shouldn’t we give our guest the benefit of the doubt? With our husbands killed in the war and our farms failing—” She turned to Kate and bowing her head murmured, “We have so very little, Miss Parsons, and you and your father have so much. Surely, as your father, he holds your opinion in great regard. You will help us, won’t you?”

“I will talk to my father.” With her head held high, Kate stood to leave.

Adella
ducked out of sight behind the tent. Kate’s footsteps tapped a determined beat on the wooden path before fading away.

“We need more than talk,” Helga grumbled inside the tent. “I’ve asked the Lord a hundred times for help. But He let the war take my Wilhelm. Now He’s letting the railroad take the one thing Wilhelm left me.”

The silence that followed allowed even a horse, whining faintly in the distance, to be heard. The sun’s warmth brushed Adella’s back. God helped those who helped themselves, and this opportunity was ripe with possibilities—for both her and the farm widows.

Lifting the flap, she let the light spill around her. It illuminated the base of the cross. She pushed the opening wider, so the beam travelled up to fully gild God’s reminder of his son’s victory over sin and death. Everyone twisted round to stare in her direction, just as she’d hoped.

“Who’s there?” Helga asked, squinting.

Strolling up the aisle, so they’d now see more than her dark silhouette,
Adella smiled at each woman she passed as if she were greeting old friends at a church social. “My name is Adella Willows. I work for a newspaper out East.”

Helga folded her arms. “Never had use for reading outside the Bible.”

Adella sat in Kate’s vacated seat, propping her camera before her to draw attention to the device. “I was exploring the town for a story to photograph when—” she forced the frown that came naturally to her brow to deepen for effect, “—I overheard your plight. I sympathize with your struggle, as I’ve seen many suffer similarly during my work.”

Helga snorted. “You and your fancy pictures can’t do us a lick of good.”

Adella met Helga’s glare without blinking. “If a subject is powerful, then so is the photograph.”

“Can pictures stop the railroad from taking our land?”

“They’ve helped similar causes.” Adella gestured to her valise. “If you have time, I could show you.” Without waiting for an answer, she set her bag on the stage and opened it.

Her fingers skimmed the top of a closed compartment. Drawing determination from the letters concealed there, she leafed through the photographs and newspaper clippings in plain sight. Behind her, the benches squeaked as her audience rose and edged closer. She spread several items in front of the cross.

“Here are the women-led labor strikes.” She pointed to each story as she spoke. “Lowell Mills in the 30s and 40s, the New England Shoemakers in 1860, and the Collar Laundry Union just last year. All protests organized by women seeking social justice like improved wages and working conditions.”

The women stared at the pictures in silence. Weavers and cobblers and laundresses were all fine and dandy, but this audience needed something a little closer to home.
Adella extracted an engraved poster from her valise.

“What’s that?” Helga asked.

“A promotional poster for the Grange Movement. They encourage farm families to band together for the well-being of their community, including uniting against unfair practices by railroads.”

Helga finally drew near and bent to scan the poster. “They’re taking on the railroads?”

“Protest rallies have proved effective. Peacefully obstructing a worksite can not only create disruptions, but great pictures that sell newspapers and sway public opinion. The Katy’s in a race with a rival railroad to win thousands of acres of land. Time is worth more to them than the few acres that make up your farms. They just need to be reminded of that fact.”

“Then what’re we waiting for? When the sun’s shining and the snow’s melting, you don’t sit by the window and contemplate the view.” Helga may not have been an avid reader outside of the Bible but, as every farmer worth her salt, she grasped the importance of time. She also grasped
Adella by the elbow and said, “We’re going to the worksite and making the railroad feel our loss right now.”

The suddenness of Helga’s grasp combined with the fact that the woman deemed it necessary to grab hold of her at all, made
Adella’s stomach lurch. She squelched her unease. Helga was just…enthusiastic. She wasn’t Adella’s enemy. They shared similar goals. And standing in a missionary tent surrounded by women—especially one who championed your cause with Viking determination and swiftness—hardly classified as a dangerous situation.

“My buckboard’s outside.” Helga lifted
Adella’s camera with one hand and propelled her forward with the other.

She barely had time to grab her valise and her pictures. With the women close behind, they exited the tent only stopping beside a wagon harnessed to a pair of swayback nags.

“Get in,” Helga instructed, releasing Adella. Then she climbed onto the driver’s seat and set the camera beside her.

Adella
offered each woman encouragement and a helping hand as they clambered aboard. When everyone was settled, she hopped up to perch on the open tailgate with her valise on her lap and her feet dangling over the mud. Helga snapped the reins and the wagon rolled forward.

The women started singing. “
Ye Christian Heroes, Wake to Glory. Hark, hark! What millions bid you rise!”
When the hymn ended, they promptly began another. They’d just completed a poignant rendition of the old favorite
Onward Christian Soldiers
when the horses slowed to pick their way over a swath of freshly overturned earth slanting down to a mangled gully.

Was this the ravine that the
McGrady Gang had mentioned dynamiting into submission?

Adella’s
heart beat faster. Hopefully they wouldn’t be putting themselves in further danger today. She shook her head. She shouldn’t be thinking about Cormac and his men’s safety. She should be thinking about Declan and her mission. The worksite couldn’t be far ahead. What would Cormac do when she and women arrived? Whatever he did, she must soldier on and outwit him.

The women kept singing, only stopping when Helga said, “There’s the camp.”

Directly ahead, stood a tent with empty tables and benches at one end and steaming pots tended by a handful of men at the other. None of the men came close to rivaling Cormac’s giant form. Adella’s gaze kept moving, searching.

Not far beyond the chow tent, Stevens’ railcar slumbered silently on freshly laid track. Farther ahead, the rest of the train vibrated under half steam with a flurry of men milling around its front. Several workers stood on its freight car, carefully sliding down a ramp one of the hefty rails that had nearly crushed her yesterday. On the ground, a row of men lifted the rail using oversized tongs and lugged it the short distance ahead of the engine. Releasing their burden, they retraced their steps to the stockcar, leaving room for a third group who swung their hammers and nailed the rail into its final resting place. Meanwhile the rail’s partner had already coasted down the ramp and was being carried forward.

The men labored without their leader. That didn’t surprise her. They were so well organized they didn’t need Cormac. The rare combination of an assembly line designed for speed while still striving to make the labor as easy as possible for each worker suggested Cormac’s handiwork. She’d only known him a day, but she was already attuned to his concerned pragmatism. A trait that pleased then irked her. She had no desire to like anything about him. And she was only hunting for him so he would not sneak up on her unnoticed again.

The only other men in sight were those who groomed a band of earth that became increasingly disheveled until it disappeared over a rise. That presumably was where the cut crew would be.
The McGrady Gang and possibly Cormac as well. All working. Swiftly. Productively. Without delay.

How could men function so well after consuming so much alcohol the night before?

Despite all her scheming, she felt slow-witted to imagine she could’ve laid them low with that old trick.
Blasted Irish.

The wagon had drawn even with the chow tent. The scent of the noon meal, boiling potatoes and pork roasting on spits, curled around her.
Pausing their preparations, the cooks returned the women’s stares.

“What do we do now?” one of the farm widows whispered.

“We assemble on the track and stop construction.”

A smile tugged at
Adella’s lips. Helga had things well in hand.

“Then we get our picture taken and go home,” Helga added.