Only My Love (2 page)

The thick, lustrous quality of her hair was at odds with the severe, starched white blouse she wore, the equally stiff black skirt, and the tight, forbidding set of her serious mouth. As much as that mouth of hers put him off, that hair drew his interest.

Amused, one corner of Ethan's mouth lifted as he watched the woman's hands absently search the surface of her desk, sliding over a stack of papers, several books, a leather notepad, and patting down a half dozen loose sheets of paper scattered across the top. Unable to find what she wanted, the flattened line of her mouth shifted to one side in an expression of disgust, and her shoulders heaved once with an impatient, silent sigh. Tearing her gaze away from the point beyond Ethan's shoulder, she began searching in earnest, lifting books, the notepad, and sifting through the stack of papers. She pushed her spectacles up the bridge of her slender nose and repeated the search, but more methodically this time. She appeared about to give up, slumping back in her chair, the starched white blouse not looking quite so stiff now, when she cupped the side of her face in her palm and her fingers touched one of the pencils in her hair.

The shape of Ethan's mouth was only fractionally altered but it was enough to replace amusement with derision. The woman plucked the pencil from her hair, but instead of applying it to paper, she held it in the manner of a cigarette, stuck the tip between her lips and inhaled as if she were smoking. Ethan shook his head, not quite certain he believed what he saw. He didn't know any women who smoked. Well, there was Caroline Henry, but she worked in a saloon. After regular hours she might smoke in the privacy of her bedroom, usually after she had been energetically engaged, but she always asked permission.

Ethan's thoughts came back to the woman across the newsroom. She didn't look as if she asked anyone for anything. He tried to imagine her in bed. He couldn't get past the cameo brooch closing the collar of her starched white blouse. The thought of throwing up that stiff black skirt was unappealing, and probably impossible.

She took the pencil out of her mouth, exhaled softly, and leaned forward over her desk. The pencil was rapped lightly against one of the books, a steady tattoo that kept the beat of her tapping left foot. The spectacles slid slowly down the length of her pared nose as she bent her head over her work. Except for a rabbit-like wrinkle to keep them in place, she didn't seem to be bothered by their position. She began writing in earnest, her hand fairly flying across the paper in an effort to keep pace with her thoughts.

Ethan's blue-gray eyes settled again on the crown of her beautiful mahogany hair. The two remaining pencils were a nuisance, but he refused to let them spoil his pleasure. It was her hair, after all, that had first captured his attention. That, and the fact she was the only woman in a room of two dozen men.

It made sense, he supposed, that in a city the size of New York there would be women working outside their homes. He was used to seeing women in saloons, dance halls, on the stage, perhaps even managing a hotel. Occasionally a woman might help her husband run his store or teach at the local school house. Since coming East, though, Ethan had seen young women working as clerks in large department stores, employed as professors at one of the private universities, and even as doctors in some of the hospitals. It shouldn't have been so surprising then that the
Chronicle
counted one lone female among its secretarial staff—even if she probably did use her luncheon time to sneak a cigarette. Ethan considered it was a good thing to be confronted with this vision of a modern city woman. It was the final confirmation that he didn't belong in New York. He was thirty years old, born in Nevada, raised all over, and except for some time in Pennsylvania for schooling, and a few years in the south during the war, he'd rarely been east of the Mississippi. He was ready to go home.

"You can go in now, Mr. Stone."

Ethan heard the voice but the words didn't register immediately. Her hair really
was
magnificent. He wondered how old she was. Twenty-three, twenty-four? In spite of her serious air she did not look old beyond her years. "Hmm?" he murmured idly.

The secretary cleared his throat as he stood behind his desk. "This way, Mr. Stone. Mr. Franklin and Mr. Rivington have already stepped inside. Mr. Marshall's a busy man and I'm afraid he's behind schedule as it is."

There was very little that Ethan did in a hurry. Drawing a gun and sizing up a person's character were possibly the only two exceptions. It was his general opinion that everything else could wait. That included the publisher of the
New York Chronicle
and the men who had insisted he accompany them to this meeting. He came to his feet slowly, offering the lazy, derisive smile that was never meant as an apology to the efficient, no-nonsense secretary, and turned his lithe frame in the direction of the publisher's office. "By all means," he said, faintly drawling over the words, "schedules must be kept." Ethan couldn't wait to board a train west.

Mary Michael Dennehy came out of her work-induced trance just as Ethan was turning away. She cocked her head to one side, glimpsing the strong three-quarter profile before she was left to stare at his back. Her gaze skimmed over him then dropped back to her work. She heard the door to Logan Marshall's office close and she dropped her pencil, stretched her arms above her head, and sighed.

She called above the general din of the newsroom, making herself heard to Logan Marshall's secretary. "I suppose I was just squeezed out of my 1:30 appointment by that man."

Samuel Carson held up three fingers. "Men," he said, shaking his hand to indicate the number of them. "That particular man was a marshal."

A Marshall?, wondered Mary Michael. The publisher had an older brother who didn't do much with the paper any longer, but she wasn't aware of any other relatives. What chance did she have in the face of nepotism?

"And," Samuel Carson continued, "you never had an appointment, Miss Dennehy."

Mary Michael smiled. A dimple appeared on either side of her wide, generous mouth. It would have riveted Ethan Stone's attention. It made color rise in Samuel Carson's neck, starting just below the stiff cardboard and fabric collar of his shirt, until his entire face was flushed. He felt the heat, reminded himself that he was married with four small children, and abruptly went back to his work.

Oblivious to her smile's effect on Samuel Carson, Mary Michael finished stretching and returned to her hunched position over the desk. A pencil loosed itself from her thick hair and dropped on the paper in front of her. The wondrous smile became a quick, self-depreciating grin as she rummaged through her hair and found the last pencil tucked in the coil at the back of her head. She stared at it a moment, shrugged, then slipped it behind her ear in case she needed it later. It was inevitable that she would.

Brushing aside the pencil lying on top of her work, Mary Michael continued writing. The small crease appeared between her brows again and her mouth flattened in concentration. She wrote furiously, as if there had been no interruption. Indeed, her conversation with Samuel was forgotten now and her attention to the task in front of her total.

It was a full thirty minutes before she finished. Her neck was stiff and her hand was cramped. She raised her head, tilted it to the right, then the left, forward, then backward. Prying her fingers from around the pencil, she shook out her hand. The circulating blood actually tingled. Mary Michael took off her spectacles, folded the earpieces carefully, and laid them on top of her finished work. She absently rubbed the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, closing her eyes. Finally she slid fully back into her chair and stretched her legs under her desk.

"No rest, Miss Dennehy," Fred Vollrath said, dropping a stack of letters on her desk. The pile leaned precariously for a moment, then collapsed in a neat and silent avalanche. "These just came for you."

One eye opened. It glanced at the aftermath of the avalanche of letters then rose to meet the city editor's frank gaze. "You're not serious, Mr. Vollrath." But she saw that he was. Her other eye opened and she abandoned her relaxed posture. "I can't possibly answer—"

"Can't? I'm certain I misunderstood. You didn't say 'can't,' did you?"

She had known it would be like this when she came to the
Chronicle.
Known it and accepted it. But she had been an employee for nearly fifteen months and there was hardly any lessening of pressure or trials. It had been expected that she would quit at one week, a month, then two months, later six. When she was still working after a year many of her fellow employees believed she had done it to spite them. Mary Michael knew there was an ongoing wager in the press building as to how long she would stay. She had been there so long one naive copy boy actually forgot what he was collecting for and asked her to place a bet and name a date. She did. To the astonishment of everyone in the office she gave him two bits and said, "When hell freezes over." The next day someone left a small block of ice on her desk with the word hell carved on its surface. She let it melt.

Had she but known it, she won some grudging respect that day. Her guard up, she could not feel the lessening of tension around her. "No, sir," she said quietly. "I'll do them before I leave tonight."

Fred's thick brows lifted. "Not the whole pile, Dennehy. I never said do it all. That was
your
assumption."

She grimaced as he walked away. He was right, she realized. She always thought she had to do more, be better, prove something. "I
was
working on something else," she said under her breath. She saw the city editor stop as if he had heard her muttering, hesitate while she held her breath, then keep on going. Mary Michael released a heavy, discouraged sigh and sliced open an envelope at random with her letter opener. She began to read. Minutes later, her own project pushed aside, she began to write.

It was four-thirty when she looked up at the clock. She had made a little headway into the pile of correspondence, answering a dozen letters. It wasn't particularly satisfying, especially when she glanced around the newsroom and saw how others were engaged in important, significant assignments. What was satisfying, however, was seeing that Samuel Carson was absent from his desk and the pathway to Logan Marshall's office was now open.

Mary Michael managed a calming breath. It was as good a time as any to corner the publisher. Although she saw him nearly every day, there weren't all that many chances to talk to him. What she wanted to discuss couldn't be done in the cavernous newsroom where voices carried to all corners. It often appeared everyone was engaged in his own activity, but let some juicy bit of gossip get out and it spread with the capricious energy of a wildfire.

Sticking the stems of her glasses in her hair, Mary Michael let the frames rest against the crown of her head. She picked up her leather bound notepad, added the papers she had been working on earlier, and stood up. The decision made, she didn't hesitate until her hand rested on the doorknob to Marshall's office.

"You can't go in there," Samuel yelled from the entrance of the newsroom. "He's still—"

Mary Michael took a deep breath in the same moment she twisted the knob and stepped inside the
Chronicle's
inner sanctum. Closing the door behind her quickly, she marched directly to the front of the publisher's desk.

To the casual observer Logan Marshall's office was a tribute to chaos. Floor to ceiling shelves on opposite sides of the room sagged beneath the weight of files, correspondence, newspapers, and books. Photography equipment, unused in several years and mostly outdated, was propped in one corner collecting the occasional cobweb. The publisher's desk was littered with the most recent financial dealings, notes from the accountants, and memorandums from the lawyers. A stack of wooden boxes on the edge of the desk were marked for incoming and outgoing business. They were jammed to overflowing with things that begged Marshall's attention.

Logan Marshall himself was supremely comfortable amidst the confusion. Indeed, there was no confusion as far as he and every other staffer on the
Chronicle
were concerned. Mary Michael had seen him lay his hands on a particular piece of information in a matter of seconds, to the utter astonishment of visitors and neophyte reporters. Samuel Carson's position as secretary to the publisher was secure by virtue of the fact he
never
touched anything inside the office.

Marshall's chair was swiveled toward the windows behind his desk when Mary Michael entered. His chin rested on the points of his fingers, his hands pressed together in an attitude of deep thoughtfulness or prayer. Mary Michael hoped it was the former. She needed all the prayers on her side.

Swiveling around at the interruption, Logan's dark brows lifted in question. He was a handsome man in his thirties, with a hard cast to his features and cool pewter eyes that were constantly assessing. Mary Michael took it as a good sign that he didn't seem angry, merely amused. "There's something you want, Miss Dennehy?"

So he
did
know her name. Sometimes she wondered. After he had hired her she thought he had forgotten her existence. Except for the usual greeting he gave anyone he passed on his way to his office, he never seemed to notice her. She swallowed, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth. Any moment, she thought, Samuel Carson would interrupt, apologizing for her entrance in the first place. "It's about the Harrison court case coming up this week," she said. "That's the one where Sarah Harrison shot her—"