Printer in Petticoats (13 page)

Chapter Nineteen

C
ole licked his chapped lips and wondered why his momma had never taught him any prayers. Even a little short one would do right about now.

He'd spent the last two nights tied to a pine tree while the three men who'd taken him slurped whiskey and took turns guarding him. None too gently. The one he'd nicknamed Swarthy liked to kick his leg to keep him awake. The bastard gave an ugly laugh when he did it, and Cole tried to shut down his hearing.

He didn't know how much longer he could go without passing out from thirst or getting himself shot trying to escape.
Dear God in heaven, don't let the end be so bloody it'll be hard for Jess to see my body.

His eyes began to burn and he closed them tight. He could see Jessamine bent over the desk in the
Sentinel
office, scribbling away with that tooth-marked pencil she always used; see her sitting across the table from him at the restaurant, calmly drinking tea and biting her lower lip while he fought his need to climb over the platters of scrambled eggs and kiss her silly.

And that night in her upstairs room when she touched him for the first time...

Shoot. As exhausted and hungry as he was, he felt his groin tighten.

Someone jerked the rope that bound his wrists to the saddle horn. “What're ya smilin' about, Sanders?”

“None of your business,” Cole bit back.

“Oh, ho,” the oily voice said. “Think you're gonna see her again, huh?”

Cole kept his mouth shut. He'd bet his last dollar he wouldn't see Jess again. The thought made his throat ache.

“Well, ya kin fergit that, mister. You ain't never gonna see her, or anybody else, in that stinkin' town.”

That made him mad. “Yeah? Who says so?”

“Arbuckle, fer one,” the voice beside him said. “He's payin' us.”

“Yeah? Who else?”
Keep him talking. He needed names.

“Shut him up, Jim,” the swarthy man on the lead horse snarled.

Cole noted that one of the men hadn't said a word. He heard the whisper of metal against leather and knew someone had just drawn a gun. He swore under his breath. Dammit, he wasn't going out without a fight.

He kicked his mount hard. The animal lurched ahead, and Cole swung his leg out and drove the toe of his boot into the belly of the horse beside his. The mare shied and Swarthy hauled on the reins. The horse reared, and the man grabbed for the pommel.

“You're gonna pay for that, Sanders.”

“How much do you want? I'll double whatever Arbuckle's paying you.”

There was a long silence, and then the tall man spoke. “You hear that, Jim? He says he'll double our take.”

“He ain't gonna live long enough to pay us anything.” He spurred ahead into a narrow box canyon clotted with salal and thick scrub. Plenty of brush thick enough to hide a body.

Cole swallowed.

Then out of the corner of his eye he saw a branch twitch. Purposefully he looked away and kept his face impassive. Might have been nothing but a jackrabbit or a deer. He listened hard, but he could hear nothing but the soft sighing of the wind in the fir branches overhead.

Behind him “Jim” lashed the rump of Cole's horse with his quirt. “Hurry up, newsman. We ain't got all day.”

The horse jolted forward. Cole studied the vegetation beside the narrow, unused trail for any sign that he wasn't alone, but he saw nothing.

“Hey!” Swarthy yelled. “Slow that nag down.”

“If you untie my hands, I could control her better,” Cole said.

“Fat chance, Sanders. Shut up and keep ridin'.”

Cole kept his head down. From long years as a newspaper reporter, he'd learned to pay attention to the sixth sense he often felt inside that told him something logic had not revealed. Jess would call it her “nose for news.” Right now his nose was telling him he and the three men pushing him along the trail weren't the only ones in this tangle of trees and undergrowth.

They rode deeper into the canyon, and suddenly Cole knew how it would end. The men would kill him, kick his body into the brush and hightail it back to Smoke River to collect their blood money from Arbuckle. He prayed that a gunshot would be heard; if anyone
was
in the area, someone would know what happened to him and could tell Jess.
Jess. Oh, God, Jess.

The trail ended abruptly at a vertical slab of vine-laced rock. Swarthy pulled his mount up, then turned it halfway around to intercept Cole.

He watched the stubby fingers reach for the revolver in his belt.
Dear God, take care of Jess. Don't let her see my body.

He closed his eyes and waited.

Suddenly a sharp voice rang out from above him. “Drop the hardware! Hands in the air!”

“Wha—?” Swarthy's words choked off. Cole watched the sun-darkened man raise his thick arms over his head, followed by the other two.

The underbrush rustled and three men rose, rifles pointed down at the men who held him. Cole never thought he'd want to kiss a sheriff, but there was always a first time.

Sheriff Jericho Silver moved to jerk Swarthy off his horse and snap handcuffs on his wrists. Marshal Matt Johnson waved his rifle, and Jim and the third man sat without moving, hands raised high.

“Now,” Jericho barked at the cowering fugitives, “dismount and put your hands behind you.”

One of the men jabbed his boot heels into his horse, and instantly a rifle barked. Jim dismounted, cut his gaze to the side and went for his gun. Another rifle shot.

Matt Johnson cut the rope around Cole's wrists. “You okay, Cole?”

Cole gave a half laugh. “If you can convince me I'm not dreaming, or dead, then I'm okay.”

* * *

“They're coming!” Noralee burst through the door of the
Sentinel
office. “The sheriff and two dead men, they're coming!” She danced up to Eli and tugged him by the hand out to the boardwalk.

Jessamine slowly lowered her pencil and laid it on her desk. Two dead men?
Oh, God.

Was Cole one of them? She moved slowly to the doorway, slicked her perspiring palms against her green wool skirt and shaded her eyes against the winter sun.

Sheriff Silver was in the lead, followed by Wash Halliday and two horses with inert bodies slung across their backs. Last came Marshal Johnson and a third man.

The last man's garments were filthy with trail dust, his face bristly with whiskers and streaked with sweat. For a moment Jessamine thought it was a fourth outlaw, and then her breath hitched.

“Cole!” She dashed past Eli and Noralee and out into the street.

He reined up and sat looking down at her until she thought she would scream. Then he leaned half out of the saddle and closed his hands under her armpits. The next thing she knew she was being hauled sideways across his lap.

She buried her face against his shoulder and felt his body tremble. He pressed his face against her hair, tightened his arms around her and kneed the horse forward.

“Cole, thank God,” she said when she could talk. “Thank God.”

He held her without speaking until they reached the jail at the far end of town, and then he reined up. He made no move to dislodge her or to dismount. Instead he brought his mouth to her ear.

“I need a bath and a shave, Jess.” His breath was warm and rough against her cheek. “And then I need to take you to bed.”

Marshal Johnson lifted her down and steadied her while Cole slowly dismounted. His motions were stiff, as if he hurt all over. Jess lifted one of his arms around her shoulders and slipped her free arm around his waist. Together they moved past a blubbering Noralee and a shiny-eyed Eli, who managed to reach out and pat Cole's free arm as they passed.

“Eli, get me some whiskey,” Cole rasped. Then he dipped his head and pressed his bristly chin against Jess's hair. “Bath first.”

An hour later he lurched through the door of her office and walked unsteadily up to her desk. “I'm not drunk, Jess. I just haven't slept much the past two days.”

Without a word she rose and shut the door behind him. Then she marched to the window and turned the Closed sign to face the street.

Chapter Twenty

U
pstairs in Jess's bedroom, Cole tumbled fully clothed onto the bed, and before she could skim off her skirt and shirtwaist, he was asleep.

He slept until past midnight while she held him, and when he woke he shed his shirt and jeans and stripped off her petticoat and the rest of her underthings and caught her trembling body under his.

He wanted to make it good for her, but he couldn't hold himself back. “Jess,” he croaked. “Jess.” He felt like weeping as he touched her and stroked her body. Her skin was warm and silky and smelled good. So good. He was hungry, desperate to be with her, inside her, and he guessed he was a little crazy.

But she said nothing, didn't stop him or urge him to take it slow, just rode with him, and when he was spent she held him close.

In the morning he looked down at her kiss-swollen lips and her dark lashes and wondered if he was dreaming. Or dead. No, not dead. He felt marvelously, miraculously alive after his night with Jess, and damn grateful. Made him think of all kinds of things, like how important Jess was to him and how short life could be. He didn't want to waste any more time without her.

All at once he realized what day it must be. Friday morning! And he had a newspaper to get out.

“Jess, wake up. I've got to—”

She opened her eyes and gave him a drowsy smile. “No, you don't, Cole. Eli and Noralee locked up the galleys last night. You can read your Friday edition at breakfast.”

He stared at her. “You wrote the stories for my newspaper? All of them?”

“All except the editorial,” she said. “I left that page blank.”

An hour later, over platters of scrambled eggs and bacon, Cole avidly read every single typeset line of every single story Jess had written for him.

Lark
Editor Disappears

Sheriff suspects foul play following election defeat of Conway Arbuckle.

He kept reading.

Conway Arbuckle Arrested!

Sentinel
editor Jessamine Lassiter marches losing candidate to jail.

Cole clunked down his coffee cup. “Just how did you do that?” he demanded.

Jessamine crunched into her fifth sourdough biscuit slathered with strawberry jam. “With my new derringer, of course.”

Cole read on.

New Sheriff Recruited

Texas Ranger Anderson Rivera will assume the Smoke River sheriff's position as Jericho Silver takes new post as district judge.

He scanned the other headlines.

President Grant Opens New
East-West Railway

Sioux Nation on Warpath!
Indians Swear Vengeance
for Massacre

Music School Announces
Summer Operetta Plans

He read until Jess couldn't stand it another minute.

“Well? Is it all right?”

He scattered the pages onto the table. “It is very all right, Jess. In fact, it's so all right it's scary. You have a secret hankering to run two newspapers?”

She sent him an exasperated look. “Do I seem touched in the head? Ready to be locked up somewhere? How can you ask such a question?”

“Just checking. I wanted to make sure there was still room in this town for two newspapers.”

“Two
competing
newspapers.”

“Yeah,” he said with a grin. “I guess we do have to compete. We need to keep up our circulation, and competition between the
Lark
and the
Sentinel
will do just that.”

He reached across the table and took her hand. “Thanks, Jess. I owe you.”

* * *

Jessamine broke her first story about the new sheriff in the Saturday edition of the
Sentinel
, devoting the lead article to the former Texas Ranger Anderson Rivera. Reading it over in his office that morning, Cole scratched his head.

Smoke River Welcomes
New Sheriff

Smoke River welcomes experienced tracker and lawman thirty-two-year-old Anderson Rivera. The new sheriff will be sworn in by Jericho Silver, the district judge, upon Rivera's arrival from Texas, which is expected within two weeks.

Colonel Rivera's father was well-known Texas rancher Don Luis Lopez-Rivera, originally of Chihuahua, Mexico.

His mother was the former Marguerite Anderson Cutty, of York, England. Both parents are deceased.

Jess's article went on to describe Rivera's education—eighth grade; military service—colonel in the Confederate army; and marital status—widowed.

When the
Lark
came out on Tuesday, Cole called Jess's opening bid and raised her ten.

New Sheriff a Mystery

New sheriff Anderson Rivera's arrival in Smoke River brings more questions than answers. First, who is this man? A Texas Ranger, we are told. Why, one wonders, does Smoke River need a Texas Ranger to keep the peace? Second, what's in it for him? The sheriff of a small Oregon town isn't nearly as well paid as a Texas Ranger.

So, I ask again: Who is this man?

The new sheriff will board with Ilsa Rowell, who is his half sister.

But that isn't the most interesting thing. What's most interesting is that our new sheriff's philosophy of peacekeeping is unusual, and it consists of merely two words: “Whatever works.”

Contacted by telegraph in his native Dry Creek, Texas, Colonel Rivera expressed interest in his new territory in Oregon with the following, and I quote: “Are the women pretty?”

Finally this reporter uncovered one other intriguing item: our new sheriff sings bass.

“Sings bass!” Jessamine spluttered over a cup of tea at the restaurant. “Of what relevance is that?”

“Human interest,” Cole said.

She glared across the table at him. “And ‘Are the women pretty?' What's that got to do with law enforcement?”

She couldn't believe Cole had dug up more information about Rivera than she had. In the past three days she'd sent seven telegrams, and all the replies had been full of relevant information. But Cole had outsmarted her by reporting on personal items, which would surely titillate newspaper readers.

Why didn't I think of that?

“Excuse me,” she said with frost in her voice, “I have another editorial to write.” She rose, twitched her gray skirt into place and marched out.

She returned to the
Sentinel
office in high dudgeon. “Why didn't I think of that?” she complained to Eli.

“Ya did, Jess,” the old man allowed. “Ya just weren't nosy enough. Besides, you didn't know about his half sister.”

“Oh, I detest that man,” she fumed.

Eli snickered. “Which man, Anderson Rivera or Cole Sanders?”

“Cole Sanders,” she retorted.

“Nah,” he drawled, “you don't detest Cole. You detest being outdone, that's what.”

“Hush up, Eli. I most certainly have not been ‘outdone.' We'll just see who's ‘outdone.'”

Eli rolled his eyes and crunched into another one of his oatmeal cookies.

But Eli was right in one regard. Ever since his kidnapping, she and Cole were doing two contradictory things; on the one hand, each time their eyes met across a desk or a dining table or a courtroom, they looked at each other differently. And when she was anywhere near him she wanted to reach out and touch him, just to be sure he was really there.

On the other hand, she often found herself withdrawing from him, asking him to speak to her as a fellow journalist and not as a...well, lover. And Cole took pains to honor her request.

Absently she reached for the last of Eli's cookies.