Fool for Love (Montana Romance) (28 page)

“Hell,” Eric muttered.

“Yep,” Christian echoed him.

“When did those micks show up anyhow?” he asked.

Phin shrugged.  “You’ll have to ask Curtis.  They draw their paychecks out of his account.”

“Like hell they do!”  Eric dropped his arms.  “I been out to the ranch two days this past week and I ain’t seen hide nor hair of one of them.”  He paused, shifting his weight.  “Well, none of them but a fellow named Murphy.  He’s been hanging around like a bad smell.”

Remembering Murphy sent his thoughts off to that trail of smoke over the ridge of the hill at the back of his property.  Eric shifted his weight.  Amelia had been much more concerned about that than he’d been.  He hadn’t given that a second thought.  He had his suspicions about what Curtis was up to, but he didn’t want to think about it.

“How long has Curtis been paying those men?” he asked Phin instead.

“Since February, I think.”

“More like January,” Christian corrected him.  “At least that’s when the first one of them was dragged up to the courthouse for stealing five dollars from Jasper Frye.  The circuit judge was only in town for one week last winter.”

“Huh.”  Eric rubbed his chin.  “If I told Curtis once, I told him a hundred times-”

He got no further before a shriek went up from one of the whores.  As quick as a flash they’d gone from being teasing and flirty to mad as tacks.  One of the Irishmen held a tasseled shawl over his head, keeping it out of Gertie’s reach.  Gertie jumped and kicked and waved her arms to try to get it back, but the Irishmen and his mates were drunk and stupid.

The more respectable citizens backed away from the scene, their muttering growing to a rumble.  Gertie shrieked again.  Someone in the crowd shouted, “Where the hell is the sheriff?”  That comment caused more of a stir as mothers clapped their hands over their children’s ears.  A few families headed away from the church yard entirely.  The whole social looked like it might fold.

“Eric!  Eric, there you are.”  Curtis rushed up to him from the far side of the church.  “You’ve got to do something about this.”

“Me?” Eric balked, glancing from Christian to Phin.

“Yes, you!”  Curtis grabbed his arm and steered him toward the commotion at the edge of the field.  “You’re the only one here man enough to stand up to this rabble.”

“Excuse me?” Christian said, crossing his arms and glaring at Curtis.

Curtis ignored him.  “Besides, the whores’ll listen to you.”

“He’s right about that,” Phin added through a chuckle.

Eric had every intention of waving Curtis off and setting out to find Kent to do his job.  He had every intention until he happened to catch sight of Amelia watching him from across the church yard.  She stood from her seat, her eyes shining with question and hope.  She looked so right and natural, standing there, blending in with the people he’d known most of his life.  And she was waiting for him to do something.  Everyone was waiting for him to do something.

With a deep sigh Eric straightened his hat on his head and marched across the mown grass to the corner of the field where the Irishmen were pestering the whores.

“All right, folks, what seems to be the trouble here?”

“Eric!” Gertie yelped his name and dashed to grab his arm.  “This son of a bitch stole my shawl.  I saved up well-nigh a year to buy that shawl!”

Eric nodded to her, stood a little straighter, and stepped up to the swaying Irishman who now had Gertie’s shawl stuffed down the front of his pants.  The man Murphy was part of their group.  Neither of them acknowledged recognizing the other.

“Friend, I think you got something that doesn’t belong to you,” he said to the troublemaker, planting his hands on his hips.

“What, this slip of a thing?” the Irishman replied in a drunken lilt.

“Yeah.  Come on, give it back.”  Eric held out his hand.

“I told the little tart she could come and fetch it herself.”  He thrust his stuffed pants at Gertie and wiggled.

“Who are you calling a tart, you fucking mick!”

“Language, Gertie,” Eric scolded the light-skirt.  He turned to the Irishman to say, “Joke’s over, friend.  Why don’t you give the shawl back and either pay Gertie what’s owed her for a night of entertainment
back at the saloon
,” he emphasized the words while staring at Gertie and sending a look around to her friends, “or heading on home to sleep it off.”

The Irishman wasn’t impressed.  “You gonna make me, you puffed up pillock?”

Eric’s shoulders sagged.  So it was going to go this way, was it.

“I got no idea what a pillock is.”

“No, I don’t expect you do,” the Irishman laughed.  “Yours is probably too small to find with both hands in the daylight.”

Well.  Yo
u learned something every day.

“Right.  I’m gonna ask one more time, nicely, then-”

The Irishman landed an unsteady right hook across Eric’s face before he could finish the thought.  The whores and a couple of Cold Springs folks standing close enough to hear the crunch gasped.  Eric didn’t give the Irishman time to recover.  He launched at him, fist meeting jaw.  The drunk mick dropped with one blow.  One of his companions rushed to his defense, but Eric grabbed his hand as he tried to punch and wrenched his arm around his back.

That was all it took.  The three other Irishmen still on their feet scrambled over themselves to run off while the one on the ground moaned and cradled his jaw.  Gertie dashed forward to grab her shawl and yank it out of the Irishman’s pants.  By the sound the man made, she’d yanked a few other things too.

“Nice work, Eric!” Curtis congratulated him.

Eric twisted to frown over his shoulder at his cousin, favoring his sore jaw.  He spotted Kent inching his way out from the crowd.

“Hey Kent, get over here and do your job!” he shouted.  “Take these two and lock ‘em up until they’ve slept it off.”

“Right,” Kent mumbled, shuffling forward.  “Okay.  Whatever you say, Eric.”

By some amazing feat of courage, Kent managed to wrangle both drunken Irishmen to their feet and march them back toward the town.

“And ladies,” Eric faced the light-skirts, “something tells me you’ll find far more to entertain yourselves with back at the saloon than out here at the church.”

A few of the girls laughed and guffawed.  Gertie blew him a kiss and winked as they turned to leave.  It was a flirty show that gave him all the wrong ideas.  He twisted back to the church yard to see if Amelia had noticed.

Whether she’d noticed or not, she was walking toward him through the crowd of relieved townsfolk.

“Excellent job,” Curtis said, slapping him on the back.  “You have an inborn authority that cannot be denied.”

“You mean I got a mean right hook that can’t be denied,” Eric said.

“You saw it,” Curtis appealed to Christian and Phin as they strolled to join them.  “Eric has natural command.”

“He certainly does,” Phin said with diplomatic grace.

“Or something,” Christian added with a smirk.

To Eric’s surprise, Jasper Frye, who happened to be standing near enough to watch the whole exchanged, piped in with, “You’ve got a damned sight more authority than Kent Porter does.”

“I’ll say,” Jasper’s buddy Malcolm agreed.

“See,” Curtis said with a nod.  “Everyone agrees.  If you ask me, Kent should be asked to step down, or made into a deputy at most, and you should take the job of sheriff in his place.”

“There’s just one problem with that.”  Eric laughed then stood straighter as Amelia walked the last few steps to join them.  “I’ve already got a job and a ranch that needs looking after.”  He felt like saying he had a wife and soon a child that needed looking after.

“What exactly happened here?” Amelia asked.

As soon as the men noticed her appearance they straightened up and put on their best manners.

“Your husband is a hero, Cousin Amelia,” Curtis said.  “He single-handedly broke up a fight between a pack of drunk Irishmen.”

Eric rolled his eyes.  “A couple of pickled micks were teasing one of the whores and I broke it up,” he clarified.

Amelia turned a delicious shade of pink, her eyes fluttering down.  “Oh.”  She touched her belly for a moment before sucking in a breath and standing straighter.

The comfort of the evening was pierced by that old familiar twist of knowing she was tweaked about something, but having no idea what it was or how to fix it.

“We were all saying that Eric should apply to take over from Kent as sheriff,” Curtis said, no sense of how Amelia’s mood had shifted.

“Sheriff of Cold Springs?” Amelia came to life again.  “Didn’t Michael say something about that in New York?”

“See,” Curtis broke in.  “Even your closest friends think you would be perfect for the job.”

“I’ve already got a job.”

He shrugged away from the arm Curtis still had draped around his shoulder and stepped up to Amelia’s side.  She was as lovely as could be in that blue dress he’d bought her in England.  He would have to talk to Michael about ordering her a whole parcel of new dresses.  He didn’t know what she’d done to alter the dress so that she could still fit into it, all things considered.  He took her arm and swept her away from the cluster of men.

“Aren’t you going to say good-bye to your friends?” Amelia asked.

“Nope,” he replied.  “They can see full well that I’ve ditched them for my beautiful and charming wife.”

There it was.  For half a perfect second Amelia’s face lit up with the compliment.  Of course, then it fell to the usual red-cheeked guilty look she wore every time he said something nice.

“Eric, I hardly think-”

“Good.  Then let’s not think at all tonight.”  Amelia blinked at his interruption.  “Let’s enjoy some ice cream and talk to some friends and maybe go for a nice long walk down the lane once the moon comes up.”

“But there are things-”

“There are things that need to be dealt with,” he cut her off again, “and things that don’t quite yet.”

He stopped and turned to face her.  She was the only woman there as far as he was concerned.

“I haven’t had a single night of peace in months,” he went on, tucking a loose tendril of her hair behind her ear.  “Except when I’m with you.  Let me have just one more night of peace.”

“I….”  Her eyes fluttered down.  It would have been a lovely sight if not for the sadness that accompanied it.

Eric caught her jaw and tipped it up so that she looked at him.

“I know you got worries and concerns, darling.  I know you feel the weight of the world pressing down on you.  But let it go.  Just for tonight.  Be here with me.  Have some fun.  You deserve it.”

She stared up at him, her mouth parted without words.  She was so close, so close to giving up whatever fool notion was holding her back.  She was so close to being his in every way.  He could taste it.  It meant more to him than the ranch or the town or anyone in it.  He wanted her with his whole heart and soul.

“It is a lovely night,” Amelia conceded.  She smiled.

Eric’s whole being filled with light.  He could do this.  He could win her in spite of her resistance.

“And it’ll be a lovelier night still.”  He took her arm again and walked her toward the patch where people had started dancing as the band played.  “It’ll be the loveliest night you can remember.  I promise.”

Chapter Sixteen

“I never would have believed the fundamental differences between Montana people and British people if I hadn’t witnessed them for myself,” Amelia observed as she and Eric strolled back toward the town and the hotel well after dark.  She had eaten ice cream and danced with Eric and his friends and giggled with Charlie and Mabel to the point where London seemed like someone else’s life.

“I coulda told you that.”  Eric laughed.  The richness of the sound took the chilly nip out of the air.

“I know far too many people who would turn up their noses at Cold Springs and reject its society outright,” Amelia went on.  “True, they are a coarser lot.  They are less educated and less refined, but they are so open, so welcoming.  For the most part.”

Eric stopped and turned to face her.

“I wish you’d stop calling us ‘they’.”  He shifted nervously from foot to foot.  “These are your people too, if you’ll let them be.”

“Eric, I-”

“You said yourself that they’re warm and welcoming.  They’re warm and welcoming to you too.”

He was right.  She couldn’t argue with him.  Cold Springs had opened its arms to her.  Nominally at least.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” she conceded as vaguely as possible and continued walking.

Eric held back for two steps then rushed to catch up to her.

“Well, having spent so long in your damned wet country, I can believe that.”

He was teasing but it didn’t make her heart feel any lighter.  And to a certain extent he was right.  The people who had filled her world at home were indeed damned and wet.