Coming Up Roses (12 page)

“
What do you mean, getting into a fight
with that nice man?”

Astonished, H.L. blinked as he peered down at
her.

She looked absolutely gorgeous in that yellow
thing. Yellow did wonders for her dark chestnut hair and blue eyes,
especially when they were glinting as they were now, and her cheeks
were rosy. With anger.

Good God, she was furious.

“
I can’t take a step in your company
without you doing something outrageous or saying something horrid.
I don’t know why I consented to this interview with you,
anyway!”

H.L. gulped twice before he could
speak. Two things interfered with his thought processes, which were
normally quicker than lightning. The first thing was how good she
looked. The second was anger. She was mad at him!
She
was mad at
him
, the man who’d just saved her from being
mauled by a couple of dirty little brats!

“
What do you mean, saying something
horrid?” His voice was very loud. He gentled it with difficulty.
“Dammit, Miss Gilhooley, that monster was going to get his sticky
fingers all over you!”

“
Pooh. He’s a charming little boy. And
sticky fingers can’t do permanent damage.”

“
Charming! No permanent damage? Why . .
. Why . . .” But H.L. didn’t know what to say. He gazed at Rose and
realized his very essence would have been wounded if she’d been
damaged in any way whatsoever, even with impermanent sticky
fingerprints, by that child’s attack. Or they would have been if
he’d had any sensibilities to crush which, of course, he
didn’t.

It couldn’t be denied, however, that at the
moment, she was a vision. She was a perfect, tiny, tidy, wonder of
a woman. Since he couldn’t say those things or he’d ruin his image,
not to mention his sense of personal dignity, he summed up his
tumultuous feelings with a savage,

“
Nuts!” He yanked his straw hat down
low on his forehead, stuffed his hands into his pockets, glowered,
and kicked at impediments in his way.

Rose lifted her chin. “There’s no need to
pout, Mr. May. I shan’t break our agreement.”

“
I’m not pouting. Anyhow, what
agreement?” he muttered gruffly. “We didn’t have an
agreement.”

Dammit, why’d she quit walking? He stopped,
too, and wheeled around to glare at her. “Well? We didn’t have an
agreement. Exactly. I mean, we didn’t sign a contract or
anything.”

She stared up at him for one, full,
fulminating minute before she spat out, “Fine.” She turned and
started to walk away from him.

H.L.’s heart did something it had never done
before in its life: It screamed in anguish. Clutching a hand to his
chest in reaction, H.L. wondered what the hell was going on.

He hadn’t reached a conclusion before he’d
begun running after Rose.

He guessed he’d have to figure out this
inexplicable chest pain later, although he knew it had something to
do with Rose Gilhooley and the fact that she was leaving him. He
couldn’t let her do it. That’s the only thing he knew for a
rock-solid certainty.

“
Hey!” he hollered. “Wait up there! You
can’t walk away from me like that!”

She turned abruptly. The color in her cheeks
had deepened. She looked every bit as furious as Mr. Wojinski had
when H.L. had called his son a brat.

“
Oh?” She looked as if she were boiling
on the inside, but her voice was as cold and sharp as icicles. “You
just said we have no agreement, Mr. May.”

“
Dammit, you know I was
lying!”

“
Ohhh,” she voiced, sarcastic as all
hell. “So you admit it, do you?”

“
I didn’t mean it like that!” He
stomped up to her. He was surprised when she held her ground. He’d
sort of expected her to be intimidated, although why he’d expected
that, he had no idea. Anybody who could face a horse that weighed a
hundred times what she weighed and could squash her without half
trying, and then ride that same horse in a death-defying manner
that shocked and astounded the masses on a daily basis, couldn’t
very well be a shrinking violet, could she?

“
No?”

The word hit him like a hailstone rapping on
glass. “No.” He sucked in several pecks of air sweetened by the
scent of May flowers and buttered popcorn.

He knew what he had to do, but he didn’t want
to do it. He did it anyway. “I beg your pardon, Miss Gilhooley. I
was wrong. You were right. We did have an agreement.” The next part
was the hardest, but he pushed the words past his reluctance. They
fell into the atmosphere like small, dried-up pellets of cheese.
“I’m sorry I got mad at that guy. I guess I was afraid for you when
I saw that lousy kid shooting at you like a bullet.”

“
Lousy kid?” If she wasn’t incredulous,
she was doing a good imitation. “He’s a little
boy
, Mr. May! He’s too young to have become
lousy yet. He was excited. What’s more, he was a fan of mine! He’s
not yet had enough time in this life to turn rotten—not like some
people.”

That meant him, of course. H.L. gritted his
teeth and didn’t mount a defense. Obviously, Miss Rose Gilhooley
hadn’t run up against some of the juvenile delinquents H.L. had
encountered during his newspaper career. Now they were rotten, no
matter how young they were. “Right.” He really hated apologizing
for hollering at that brat’s father. “I beg your pardon.”

She sniffed. “It’s not my pardon you should
be begging. It’s that poor man’s. Mr. Wojinski.”

“
Wojinski. Figures.”

She rounded on him again. “And exactly what
is that supposed to mean?”

“
Nothing, nothing.” He wasn’t about to
go in to the cultural divisions abounding in the city of Chicago.
It did occur to him, though, that it might be fun to take Rose to
the different neighborhoods and gauge her reactions to them. Not
that H.L. had anything against Poles. Even though many of them
leaned toward political anarchy and were inclined to be socialists
and live in tenements that smelled like boiled cabbage, they were
easier to tolerate than, say, the Irish, who tended to drink a lot,
become belligerent and very loud, and get into scraps. Or the
Italians, who formed tight brotherhoods, extorted protection money
from shopkeepers, and stabbed each other all the time. “I’m sorry,
Miss Gilhooley.” Sucking in another deep breath, H.L. then said
something that nearly choked him. “Please forgive me.”

She squinted at him for a good thirty
seconds. H.L. wanted to grind his toe in the dirt, as he used to do
when being given a dressing-down by various teachers following his
many altercations over his name. He’d nearly started squirming
before she finally let up on him.

“
Very well. But I trust you won’t
create another disturbance of a like nature.”

H.L. bellowed, “You trust I won’t—” He broke
off abruptly. If he yelled at her, she’d go away, and he’d die.
Perhaps not die. But he knew he’d best keep quiet for a while.
Therefore, he produced a small, tight smile and said, “Fine, then,
shall we be off?”

She nodded imperiously. He wondered if she’d
learned that from the queen. The notion tickled him, and his mood
climbed uphill as they took off.

It was Rose who broke the silence that had
erupted between them. “Where are we going first?”

“
I’m going to feed you first off,” he
said, feeling almost chipper again. “We’re going to have our lunch
at the Street in Cairo.”

“
Oh, I’ve heard about the Street in
Cairo.”

H.L. smirked inside. Everyone had heard about
the Street in Cairo. Before the fair was a week old, the Street in
Cairo had become famous throughout the land, probably because it
was more exotic than anyone in the United States had conceived of
before viewing it. A reproduction of a Seventeenth Century Cairo
street, it gave visitors an intriguing view of what life in Egypt
might have been like—and perhaps still was. “Good. I’m sure you’ll
find it fascinating, and I think the food’s quite tasty there. Hope
you’ll like it.”

“
Um, I’m sure I shall.”

When he glanced down at her, he was disturbed
to see the expression of bemusement on her face. Shoot, maybe she
didn’t like Middle Eastern stuff. She’d probably never tasted any
of those spiced and roasted meat that H.L. loved that they served
up with some kind of grain they called couscous or anything even
remotely resembling them. Hell, hardly anybody had, until this
fair.

Because he didn’t want to irk her again, and
even though he wanted to take her to the Egyptian place, he decided
it would behoove him to do some prior probing. Better that than
earn more of her enmity. “Er, do you have any digestive
difficulties, Miss Gilhooley?”

The glance of shock she shot him couldn’t
possibly be feigned. “Digestive difficulties? What do you mean?
What do they serve you there?” She sounded almost frightened.

“
Calm down,” he said soothingly. “The
food’s good. It’s only that they use spices most Americans aren’t
used to.”

“
Oh.”

“
Is there any particular food you don’t
like?”

“
Um, no.”

Her gaze held abundant suspicion. H.L. didn’t
appreciate it, since he’d never done anything to deserve it. That
is to say, he hadn’t done much to deserve it. How was he supposed
to know she enjoyed being attacked by miniature monsters? He’d been
trying to protect her person. At the moment, he was only attempting
to protect her digestive system.

“
Trust me,” he pleaded. “If you don’t
like it, we can eat something else. You only have to taste it. I
promise.”

“
But I don’t want to waste money,
either.”

“
It’s not going to be your money,” H.L
exclaimed, miffed that she’d even think such a thing. “I’m paying.
Or the
Globe
is. This is a
business expense, for crying out loud!”

“
That’s not the point. I don’t want to
waste the
Globe’s
money,
either.” She shot him a baleful glance. “I’m not accustomed to
flinging money around indiscriminately, Mr. May.”

Damn, she was a pain in the neck
sometimes. H.L. discovered in that moment that, when he wasn’t
wanting to kiss her silly, he was wanting to turn her over his knee
and spank her. “Let me worry about the
Globe’s
money, please. The
Globe
is accustomed to paying for what it gets
in news. Your mission today is to grant me an interview and enjoy
yourself. That’s going to be part of the article; don’t you
understand yet?”

She lifted her chin some more. “You needn’t
speak to me as if I were a nitwit, Mr. May. Merely because I don’t
like to waste money doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

He was honestly surprised. “Of course not! I
don’t think you’re stupid. Why’d you say that?”

The glance she cast him held at least a ton
of doubt. H.L. narrowed his gaze and wondered why. He’d not said
anything that might make her think he thought she was stupid, had
he? Granted, they’d disagreed a few times—all right, they’d
disagreed a lot of times. Most of the time, in actual fact. But
disagreements didn’t equate to stupidity. On the contrary, H.L.
loved to discuss things with people who disagreed with him. Such
conversations whetted his appetite and sharpened his wits.

“
It doesn’t matter,” she said at
last.

The Street in Cairo was on the Midway
Plaisance, where the Ferris Wheel was also located. The Fair
directors had envisioned their enterprise as a complete educational
experience. While they’d relegated amusements to the Midway, they’d
also had many foreign nations set up their exhibitions there. Since
the Midway was close to where the Wild West had set up shop, that
was ginger peachy with H.L., who was hungry.

He watched Rose as her eager gaze took in all
the sights and sounds of the Midway, and words swirled in his
brain, occasionally plopping into place in perfect, brilliantly
constructed sentences. He could hardly wait to write about Rose’s
discovery of the fair and all the new and exciting things it held.
“After we eat,” he told her, “Let’s see some of the other foreign
exhibits. Have you seen Little Egypt dance?”

After shooting him a startled glance, she
blushed. “Yes, I have. Annie and I saw her dance when Colonel Cody
took us there. We didn’t get to see any of the other exhibits.” Her
brow furrowed into a tiny frown, as if she weren’t sure the colonel
should have done that.

She was about the most charming young woman
he’d ever encountered, even if she was stubborn as a mule and
argued with him about everything. “Interesting, huh?”

“
Very.”

H.L. would have laughed at her repressed tone
if he trusted her not to run away if he did. “There are lots of
other things to see here on the Midway besides Little Egypt and the
Ferris Wheel. There’s an entire African tribe, a Moorish palace, a
German village, and a whole hall devoted to beauties of the world.
They’ve got a snake charmer and fortune tellers, and just about
everything anybody could ever have an itch to see.”

Her eyes were so big, H.L. wished he could
remember more of the delights to be experienced on the Midway. It
would be interesting to see how much larger those beautiful blues
of hers could get. Alas, he ran out of inspiration and had to
settle for Rose’s breathy, “My goodness!” It would suffice. There
were so many sights and scenes to be gawked at and exclaimed over,
from bejeweled daggers, silks, and wood carvings, to donkey boys, a
mosque, and camels, that it was almost two o’clock by the time they
finally made their ways to the Egyptian restaurant. H.L. ordered a
dish made of chunks of skewered meat, spiced, and roasted over an
open fire, for both of them. To accompany the meat dish, he ordered
a kind of sweet tea that he liked a lot and that he assumed was
some kind of Egyptian delicacy. Or Moorish. Or Moroccan. Hell, all
he knew was that it tasted good. Some sort of stuff that wasn’t
rice but looked vaguely like it, call couscous, and a dark-green
salad composed of wheat kernels, parsley, onions, and chopped-up
tomatoes accompanied the skewered meat. It was all nectar to
H.L.