Liz Ireland (16 page)

She shook her head. “These aren’t tears of unhappiness, or self-pity. Just gratefulness.” She took his hands. “You
are
a prince, Ike. That’s the nicest gesture anyone’s ever made me.”

He cocked his head doubtfully. “Then your answer’s yes?”

She dabbed her eyes with her sleeve. “No, Ike. My answer’s no.”

At the look of relief that came over his face, she had to laugh. “And don’t worry about my getting on a train and not knowing what’s become of me. I’m staying in Paradise, so you’ll know.”

A wide grin broke out across his face. “That’s wonderful, Ellie.”

Seeing how relieved he was when she turned him down only made her all the more grateful to him for offering her marriage in the first place.

“I’m glad you’re stayin’ in Paradise, Ellie. This town could use a few of you.”

She chuckled. “Really? I’m not certain it’s ready for just one of me.” She let go of his hands and
leaned back on her heels. “But whether it’s ready or not, are you ready to drive me there? I swear that’s all I really need.”

He nodded and put his hat on. “Sure enough. I’ll go get the horses hitched.”

After he was gone, Ellie took a last turn about the house, checking that she hadn’t left anything, fighting the melancholy that filled her as she looked at the familiar surroundings that she would in all likelihood never see again. Polly, the kitten, was batting a toy she’d made for him—an old sock stuffed with straw—around the rug. She remembered Roy presenting her with the kitten, the joy she’d felt, and now felt a stab of pain at having to leave him behind.

But the kitty might not be welcome where she was going. She would just have to ask Ike to make sure Polly was given his corn mush every day, and a few leftover tidbits from the table at night.

When she finally pushed open the front door, she was surprised to find she was stepping out into a day that reminded her of springtime. Sitting on the old weathered rocker on the porch, apparently enjoying the break in the weather, was Parker.

He smiled at her. “I gather from Ike that you’re not in a marrying mood today.”

She shook her head. “Poor Ike. He was ready to give up all his freedom just for me.”

“It’s not such a bad trade-off.”

“I couldn’t do that to him.”

His brow cocked humorously. “Well then…would you consider doing it to me?”

She was stunned. Everybody, it seemed, was willing to marry her except the man she truly wanted! “Oh, Parker. You know it would never work. I’m in love with Roy and you…well, I have a feeling that
there’s a certain someone in Paradise who you’d rather spend the rest of your life with.”

“Actually, I was just thinking we could get engaged. That would do just as well.”

She let out a gasp of surprise, then laughed. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Well…for one thing, people aren’t above wanting something they can’t have. Roy included.”

“Oh, no.” She flapped her arms in front of her to let him know she wanted no part of trying to lure Roy back into her life. “I’ve caused enough trouble around here, Parker. My days of deception are over.”

“It wouldn’t be a real deception.”

Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “And here you were lecturing me just last night on how you couldn’t allow your brother to be misled!”

He leaned back and grinned. “It’s not just my brother I’m trying to fool.”

Clara Trilby came to mind again, and she suddenly understood. “You’d like to use me as your bait to catch a sweetheart?”

Parker grinned. “You make it sound awfully cold and calculating.”

“It is!”

He laughed. “Maybe. But you know the saying, to catch a mouse you have to build a better mousetrap.”

She shook her head. “I’m sorry, Parker.” And she genuinely was. She owed Parker so much, she would have done anything for him…almost. But this she couldn’t do—she was going to be on the up-and-up from now on. No doing anything that Roy could interpret as duplicitous.

Not that she was trying to impress Roy—an impossible task in any case. She just didn’t want to sink any more in his esteem.

“You won’t help me?”

“I’m through pretending. I just came crashing down from seventh heaven like Icarus with his wax wings, remember? From now on, my feet are going to be treading on solid ground.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

She smiled. “But of course, you’re free to visit me as much as you like. I can’t be responsible for how other people interpret your visits.”

His brows raised with interest.

“You would be in full view of everyone at the mercantile,” she promised him.

“You mean you’re going to try to get a job there?”

She shook her head. “Next door. You might have to ask your mother for permission to call on me.”

The news brought Parker to his feet. “That’s wonderful.”

“It will be if your mother will give me a job. But I think she will.” She opened her purse to check on the money she’d taken from the table last night after everyone had gone to sleep. “You see, I’ve decided to put Roy’s money to good use and offer myself to Isabel as an apprentice. Do you think he’ll be pleased?”

Parker grinned. “I think he’ll be livid.”

“Good.”

She straightened her shoulders, silently gratified by the prospect of still being able to get under Roy McMillan’s skin.

G
od, it felt good to be back at the Lalapalooza!

Roy gazed around the old barroom with its polished oak bar, the long fancy mirror and girly picture above it—holdovers from the good old frontier days, when the world was populated mostly with homesteaders and soldiers, with no women to offend. He swivelled on his stool and took in the old familiar tables, where a few men were starting up card games and talking excitedly about the capture of the Dalton Gang a few weeks back in Coffeyville, Kansas, not leaving out gruesome details.

The outlaw talk warmed his spirits. That’s what men should be concerned with—poker and shootouts and crop yields. Not women. The only female in the place was Flouncy, a regular here, who was flirting with Jim Campbell. Jim seemed more intent on cards and vigilante massacres at the moment than buying Flouncy a drink, and Roy could understand the sentiment. He was so grateful to be back in a world of rotgut liquor and gambling and the real spirit of male camaraderie, his eyes felt almost misty.

Or maybe he was tearing up because he wasn’t used to the tobacco smoke….

He tossed down a glass of whiskey and smiled to himself. One week without
that woman
—he didn’t dare think her name—and he was fine. Just fine. He was back at home, back in his comfortable room in the house, back to his old routines. Ike was driving him crazy, Parker was moaning again—Roy couldn’t have been happier.

Except, of course, if
that woman
had done the decent thing and cleared out of Paradise.

But of course, being the pain-in-the-neck creature that she was, she hadn’t. Instead, she’d chosen the place where, next to his own house, he would have wanted her least. His mother’s!

It probably never occurred to her to consider how he might feel knowing that she was right there in Paradise all the time, and that he couldn’t even go to the mercantile anymore without having to worry about bumping into her, which he was determined not to do if he could help it. But a woman who would go to the lengths that she did to trick a man would never think about going to the same lengths to make amends.

It wasn’t as if he’d been asking for much.

He just wanted her gone.

And while he was at it, he wanted her out of his memory. He wondered if drink could remedy that problem.

The bartender wiped up a spill nearby. “Another whiskey, Carl,” Roy said.

Carl, a redhead who was so tall and skinny he practically had to double over to pour a drink, nodded. “Makin’ up for lost time, Roy? We haven’t seen you for a while.”

They’d missed him!
“Good to be back, Carl. Just leave the bottle.”

He poured himself a big one and felt it burn its
way right past the place that had been hurting. His idiotic heart.

The drink warmed and relaxed him, so much so that he fought against a wave of sleepiness. He remembered that he hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in over a week; even in his old soft bed, the mattress he’d been missing all those weeks, he’d been tossing and turning, restless.

Some nights as he lay awake, he wondered whether Ellie was blinking up at a dark ceiling, too, remembering their kisses and murmured words of love. Whether she could remember playing chase through the bare orchard, and laughing themselves silly when he’d caught her. He hadn’t ever laughed like that before, certainly not with a woman.

He sucked his glass dry and hung his head.

Parker had warned him that it would be awful not knowing what happened to Ellie when she left Paradise…but then she hadn’t left. And it was still awful.

Now he had a pain in his chest
and
a thorn in his side. His own mother had taken her in, so it felt as if the two of them had ganged up on him. If Ellie had left, maybe he would have been able to forget her. At least he wouldn’t have to tiptoe around his own town, worried about turning the next corner. He wouldn’t have to fret about the talk that would erupt when Ellie had her baby. He wouldn’t have to see that baby, either, while inevitably he would if she stayed here.

His glass slopped over, making a small crash as it crashed against oak. Roy jolted back to awareness, shrugging sheepishly at Carl as he uprighted the tumbler.

“You better take it easy,” the barkeep advised.

Roy forced a smile. “Slippery fingers—I guess that’s my trouble.”

Someone snickered behind him. “Or slippery women.”

Stiffening, Roy swivelled around on his stool and found himself squinting at Jim Campbell. He was seated with a few other top hands who’d come to town to start their Saturday night a little early. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jim grinned. “I guess you’d know.”

Roy jutted out his chin stubbornly. “No, I don’t.”

A friend of Jim’s piped up, “Heck, everybody in town’s talking about that woman your mama’s taken in. A hen can’t hide her eggs forever, you know.”

To have Ellie be the subject of barroom gossip got his blood fired up. The legs of his stool scraped angrily against the rough floor as he got to his feet. “So? Haven’t you ever heard of a woman having a baby before? Nothing wrong in that.”

“Nope,” Jim agreed. “But it’s not the baby everyone’s talkin’ about so much as the lack of a husband.”

“She’s a widow.”

That assertion was met by a hearty round of guffaws.

“C’mon, Roy. She’s no more a widow than she’s the rich lady everybody was sayin’ she was a couple of weeks ago. A rich lady who begged for jobs at the hotel?”

Roy’s face turned red. She’d tried to get a job at the hotel? Had the whole world known more about Ellie than he had?

Someone else chimed in, “Heck, I’d bet my next payday that she’s no more an heiress than Flouncy here.”

Flouncy tossed her dyed red hair back and struck a snooty pose, bringing hoots and jeers from the men around her.

Roy’s blood boiled.

“C’mon, boys,” the saloon girl said with a wink, “won’t somebody spare a drink for a poor widder woman?”

Her pantomime of a demure pregnant matron brought down the house.

“Ask Roy!” Jim hollered. “He’d give you the shirt off his back and let you live with his mama!”

In a heartbeat, Roy was flying toward Jim and all hell broke loose. He grabbed Jim by his shirt collar and yanked him out of his chair. Before he could give his actions a second thought, he answered with his fists, clipping Jim on the jaw.

In return, Jim’s poker buddy whirled Roy around and smacked him in the chin, sending him backward against the bar. Several chairs tumbled as the two men just plowed through them, and glass shattered as Roy’s whiskey bottle smashed to the floor.

Flouncy screamed, and Carl jumped over the bar and picked Roy off the floor. “Get a hold of yourself, Roy!” he said, walking him toward the door. “They was only teasing you.”

“Tease me, then,” Roy announced, yanking his arm free and slamming his hat onto his head. “Just leave the woman out of it.”

He glared at the men standing around, quiet. Jim was still on the floor, rubbing his jaw. Then, without another word, Roy turned on his boot heel and stomped out of the Lalapalooza.

Out on the sidewalk, he cursed himself for being all kinds of a fool. For letting that woman get to him again. He’d been fine, just fine, until they’d brought up her name.

Then he remembered. He hadn’t been so fine. He’d been moping into the bottom of a whiskey glass.

This had to stop. Now!

With new resolve, he straightened himself and marched toward the center of town. He was going to confront her once and for all, and this time he wasn’t going to turn tail and run like he did last time. No siree! This time he was going to see his task through till the very end.

Till he got Eleanor Fitzsimmons back on an eastbound train.

He snorted. Heck, it didn’t matter if the train were eastbound or westbound, or if the train went all the way to China, for that matter. He just wanted her out of his hair.

He nodded at the people who said hello to him, but tried not to let his concentration be broken. He sensed he would need all his mental acuity for the coming confrontation.

Oh, he knew women, all right. Eleanor would probably bat her eyelashes at him and simper and apologize. His mother, no doubt, would take her side, berating him for being a cruel insensitive brute. Between them, they’d do their best to play him like an old fiddle, plucking and sawing at him until he sang the tune they wanted!

By the time he reached Isabel’s door, he was in a regular swivet, so that even the color he was staring at incensed him. Red! Was his mother trying to be conspicuous? She might as well hang a big sign outside the place reading Shady Ladies Within!

He took a deep breath and banged on the door.

In two seconds his mother swung open the door, her expectant smile quickly turning to wide-eyed concern. “Roy!” She grabbed him by the arm as if she expected him to topple over, then tried tugging him over the threshold. “What happened to you? You look terrible!”

He dug in his heels. “Just a little altercation at the Lalapalooza.”

Her nose twitched. “Good heavens—you’ve been drinking!”

He laughed. “That’s what goes on at the Lalapalooza, I’m afraid.”

Sweeping him with a head-to-toe glance, she frowned and asked, “Does rolling on the floor also go on there regularly?”

His jacket and pants were covered with dust. Roy slapped self-consciously to get rid of some of it, and Isabel gave him another tug.

“Come inside, I’ll brush you off.”

He squinted into the doorway. “Is Eleanor here?”

She nodded. “Yes, she’s upstairs right now.”

“I want to speak to her.”

To his surprise, his mother suddenly burst into tears. Tears!

Roy was stunned. He looked quickly behind him to make sure no one was watching and rushed inside, shutting the door firmly behind him. “For heaven’s sake, Mama, what’s wrong?”

She lifted a perfectly pressed lace handkerchief to her eye and sniffed. “Everything is wrong! I’m so sorry, Roy. I feel so responsible for busting up your engagement.”

“Well you shouldn’t. You only tried to tell me the truth.”

“Oh, I know…but I had no idea you didn’t know about her.”

Roy tilted his head. “Ellie didn’t use guilt to make you give her this job, did she?” He wouldn’t put it past her!

“Oh, no! I needed the help anyway. And she paid me money for taking her in. Twenty dollars.”

Roy rolled his eyes.
Twenty dollars?
His twenty dollars?

He felt sick.

“You should have turned her out on the street. I can’t imagine she’s much help to you.”

“Oh dear. I suppose you heard about Emily Crouch’s shirtwaist.”

He raised a brow. “What about it?”

“Oh, well…there was a little trouble with Mrs. Crouch at the drugstore this morning. It seems that the shirtwaist Ellie finished wasn’t…” Isabel sniffed. “But I still say it wasn’t
all
Ellie’s fault that the front buttons popped off.”

Roy had a hard time not laughing, but the thought of Mrs. Crouch’s calamity just seemed to set off Isabel’s tears again. “Oh, why does it seem that I just can’t make anything work out right, Roy? For Ellie, for you….”

He’d never expected contrition from her, but now it seemed to seep out of her every pore. “I’ve always felt so horrible for leaving my two little boys on the prairie, Roy. You don’t know how a thing like that tugs at a woman’s heart. For years, every time I closed my eyes at night, I saw those big blue eyes of yours blinking up through your dark lashes. Times were that I thought I could have walked all the way back to Nebraska to see you, my heart ached so.”

The desperation in her eyes and the emotion in her voice embarrassed him. He always thought he’d savor seeing her repentant, but he didn’t. “Please, that’s all in the past….”

She shook her head fiercely. “No, Roy, in my heart I don’t think I’ll ever be able to put it in the past. I know you thought I was heartless, Roy, but I wasn’t. And when I first came back a month ago, and saw your blue eyes staring at me again, I realized how
guarded I had become. Instead of falling apart all those years I missed you boys so, I tried to get on with life by making it as pleasant as I could.”

“Good, I’m glad….”

She grabbed his hand. “But I did want to do something nice for you, to make up for all that hurt I had put in your heart. Ellie asked me for a job a month ago, and I sent her back to your house, hoping to play matchmaker.”

He sighed raggedly. “You told me about that. It’s okay.” He’d expected Ellie’s tears, but not his mother’s. He wasn’t prepared for this encounter at all. “I forgive you everything,” he blurted out, backing toward the door. “I think I’ll be going….”

She held firm on his jacket sleeve. “No—I’m sure you came here to see Ellie.”

He shook his head frantically, trying to cut her off, but she was already turning toward the small back stairwell. “Ellie! You have a visitor!”

Roy’s heart thundered in his chest as he waited to hear that familiar voice.

Instead, Ellie answered with a laugh—the bright laughter that had first caught his attention weeks ago. “Just a second, Parker!”

“It’s not Parker, Ellie,” Isabel warned, wiping her eyes.

“Oh.” There was a moment of hesitation. “Just a moment, then.”

Parker?
Roy looked at his mother for confirmation.

Isabel nodded. “Your brother’s been over often.”

So that’s where Parker had been getting himself off to! Roy was amazed. He’d noticed his brother’s absence a few times, but he’d never expected that Parker was running into town every chance he got to visit here.

“Will you have some tea?” Isabel asked him, but
before he could say yes or no, she grabbed him tightly by both arms and gave him a little shake. “Oh, Roy, it would make me feel so much better if you patched things up with Ellie. I do so want to see you happy!”

Happy!
That word again!

“Actually, I just came here on business.” All he wanted to do was speak his piece and clear out.

His mother’s face went slack with disappointment. “Oh.”

He took off his hat and banged it against his pant leg. Just then he heard the floor above him squeak, and a footstep on the stairs.