The Marrying Kind (2 page)

Chapter 1

Laramie, Wyoming Territory 1883

Since she'd heard that trouble came in threes, Libby Justice had high hopes that the rest of her day would go a little easier than it had started.

First thing this morning, she'd accidentally destroyed a perfectly good photo of Sara Duncan's granddaughter by leaving it in the developer too long. In her haste to get back to the darkroom to save the picture, she'd fallen over the sawed-off barrel she used as a trash can and smashed face-first against a corner of the developing table. The vivid blue bruise at the edge of her jaw was already the size of a silver dollar, and promised to grow even larger. Shortly after that, Libby had realized she'd misplaced her spectacles, without which she couldn't tell a man from a hitching post if he stood more than forty feet away.

When she looked up to see the "hitching post" out front of the offices of the
Laramie Tribune
begin walking up the steps toward the door, she had the sinking feeling that her bad luck had only begun. Squinting extra hard when the stranger reached the porch, Libby could see that he was dressed in a fancy white shirt with ruffles down the button path set off by a vest of crimson satin beneath his black suit. She also noticed he carried a small satchel and a larger traveling bag. A citified dandy if she'd ever seen one.

"Damnation," she muttered as the door opened, setting off the little bell above the jamb. Was her day of reckoning finally at hand?

The stranger swaggered up to the counter, tipped his black Stetson, and said, "Good afternoon. I'd like a word with the editor of this newspaper. Is he in?"

At the sight of his handsome features—once she could see them up close—Libby couldn't find her voice. He had ink-black brows and a pair of astonishing silver-blue eyes that twinkled with both mischief and mirth. This fella wasn't just good-looking, but dazzling, a lady-killer and very well aware of it, if the cocky tilt of his upper lip and sparkle in those bewitching eyes meant anything. Where had he come from?

Andrew Savage had mentioned in his last letter that he'd be in the area soon, and had warned that he would stop by the
Tribune's
offices to handle matters himself if the editorials hadn't improved by the time he left San Francisco. Until now, Libby hadn't thought he'd actually make good on the threat. She'd never seen a photo of the youngest Savage brother, but who else could this slicker be?

"Ma'am?" he said, his cocky expression growing with every minute she ogled him. "Is Mr. Jeremiah Justice in?"

"Oh, ummm, I'm afraid he isn't." Libby paused to get hold of herself. It wasn't as if she'd never seen an attractive man before. "Perhaps I can help you."

"I think it'd be best if I talk with the editor. When do you expect him back?"

He smiled broadly, the creases bracketing his mouth showing off his squared and rather aristocratic jaw. Why did rich folks always seem to have the best bones? Galled by the thought, she buried her natural western twang beneath a mock and slightly British accent—the kind of voice her man-chasing friend, Dell, affected when trying to sound city-born. "I suppose I should have explained Mr. Justice's absence a little better. He's out of the country on business and I'm substituting as editor while he's gone. Are you sure I can't help you?"

"And you are...?"

"Liberty Justice. Jeremiah's daughter."

"Oh, well, in that case..." He removed his hat, revealing a head of wavy black hair, then swung his satchel up to the counter and unfastened the clasp. After retrieving a few papers from inside the small bag, he looked back at Libby and said, "I'm afraid my business with the
Tribune
is a little sensitive. But, if you don't mind, I suppose there's no harm in taking it up with you."

Calling his business with her "sensitive" was too kind, Libby decided, as she spotted a few of the letters she'd written to Andrew Savage among his papers. Although confirmation of the stranger's identity came as no surprise, her heart sank. She was caught between a rock and a hard place with no way out, that she could see. Libby dropped the British accent.

"There's no cause for you to worry about discussing sensitive matters around me. Here in Wyoming we grow up tough enough to eat off the same plate as a rattler. I'd appreciate it if you'd get right to the point, Mr. Savage. Have you come here to shut the
Tribune
down?"

He cocked one of those perfectly arched eyebrows as if surprised by the question. Then he hooted. "That's a hell of a thing to say. I'm afraid that you've—"

"Why would you be afraid of me, Mr. Savage?"

At the interruption, he looked haughty, yet vaguely amused. "I'm hardly frightened by you, Miss Justice, but I am thinking that maybe you're just a little 'nervous' about me."

Did it show? Libby's father had taught her to face her fears with confident aggression, no matter how scared she might be, so that's what she did. "Think what you will about my nerves, as long as you understand that I won't be giving up my editorial rights without a fight."

"Is that a fact, ma'am?"

"That's a fact...
sir."

"It looks to me like you've already had one fight for the day, Madam Editor." He laughed, then reached across the counter and lightly brushed the backs of his fingers across the bruise on her jaw. "Did you win or lose?"

Her skin tingling where he'd touched her, Libby instinctively reached up to the spot. Savage grinned. Had he employed the intimate gesture just to rattle her? Be aggressive, she reminded herself, confident. "There's only one fight around here that's any concern of yours, Mr. Savage, and that's the one you insist on having with my family over our editorials. It hasn't been easy for me and my brother, what with our father... away. But we're doing the best we can to run the
Tribune
the way he wants us to run it. That ought to be good enough for
your
father, even if he is Randolph T. Savage."

"Are you always so quick on the draw, Miss Justice, or only with strangers who happen into your offices?"

Savage winked at her after that audacious remark, but it failed to annoy her. She was too distracted by the contrast between the startling blue of his eyes and the deep ebony color of his hair. Feeling off-balance and less confident by the minute, the best she could offer in return was a slight shrug.

"If I had come here to put you out of business," he went on to say, "your attitude wouldn't do much to change my mind. There's a lot to be said for holding your cards close to your chest until you know a little more about the other players, ma'am. Maybe you ought to give it a try."

Gambling talk from a newspaper man? Libby was stunned by his rather flippant responses, for Savage had never conveyed anything but a deadly serious and businesslike tone in his letters. She didn't know how to respond or if a response was even called for. She'd imagined that Andrew Savage would be a puffed-up buffoon who'd simply padlock the doors to the
Tribune
with little or no discussion about the matter. Now, she wasn't so sure. Was he implying that he might give her another chance?

"Libby?" came her brother's voice from the pressroom in the back. "Can you come here a minute?"

"Be right there," she called, relieved to have a few minutes to think about how to proceed from here. "Excuse me, will you, Mr. Savage? I've got to help out in the pressroom. I'm sure it won't take but a minute. Have a seat here in the parlor, won't you?"

Then, assuming he'd take her up on the offer, Libby whirled around and darted through the curtains which shielded the relatively private pressroom from visitors. Bearing down on her brother, who was bent over their newest and best piece of equipment, the Campbell County Press, she muttered, "We're up to our necks in trouble now, Jeremy,"

Raising his head out of the bowels of the machine, he asked, "For what?"

"Andrew Savage himself from the San Francisco Savages is here."

"Damnation." Grabbing a rag dampened with turpentine, Jeremy set to cleaning his hands. "What are we gonna do?"

"I only know what we're
not
gonna do, and that's tuck our tails between our legs and go slinking away from all that matters to us." Libby slid her fingers along the press, caressing the Savage-owned piece of equipment. "At least I did have enough sense to tell him that pa is out of the country, instead of where he really is." She paused, her throat closing over the words to shut off the pain the reminder brought with it. She didn't have a second to waste in grieving over her father, not while the newspaper he'd loved so much looked to be in such jeopardy. "The first thing we've got to do is spread the word around town about the story we made up for pa in case this Savage fellow goes poking around asking questions."

At fifteen—a full nine years younger than Libby—Jeremy still spooked easily. "But not everyone's gonna toss in with our cause. What if he goes to see Hayford over at the
Sentinel?
Why, he'd turn on us quicker than a cow pony on a stray if he thought it'd get the
Tribune
shut down."

Libby recognized the panic in his tone. With his bright rust-colored hair, freckles enough to cover two boys his size, and prominent front teeth, Jeremy even looked the part of the nervous pubescent young man he'd become in the months since their partially deaf father had stepped in front of a team of galloping horses. He walked as if his feet were suddenly too big to propel his knobby, rubber-like legs, and his long, thin arms swung awkwardly, as if powered by a pair of swivels.

But even in the throes of this most troublesome time of life, Jeremy favored their father so much it brought a tear to Libby's eye whenever she looked upon him. Wiping it away, she said, "I can't imagine why Savage would want to go see Hayford about us. I think we're safe enough if we keep a good eye on him and sweeten up his ears with a little chin music."

Jeremy frowned. "How long's he gonna be in town?"

"I don't know, but I think we'd better talk him into staying right here if we want to make sure and keep him ignorant about pa. How's the spare room look? Is it clean or is Hymie sleeping there again?"

"Far as I know, Nona let him back in the house." Their alternate pressman's troubles with his wife were legendary. "He went fishing today, so I can't say for sure."

"We'll just have to assume the room's free then." Her mind working as smoothly as the new press now, she settled on a plan. "Here's what we'll do; you run tell folks around town that we've got a fellow here from San Francisco who'd take the
Tribune
right out of Laramie if he knew we were running the paper alone. Most folks will go along with keeping our little secret. Just don't mention it to those you think won't. While you're doing that, I'll clean up in here a little and make a fresh bed in the spare room."

Jeremy untied his apron and tossed it on the work table. "I'll get done as fast as I can."

"Good. And when you get back, let me do most of the talking around Savage. Pretend you've got a chicken bone stuck in your throat or something."

"Shucks, Libby, I don't see why we got to go to all that trouble." He headed for the back door. "It's not like we don't know why he's here—he's come to stop you from writing those female suffering editorials, hasn't he?"

"Suffrage,
and yes," she grumbled. "But we both know that I'm not going to stop writing them."

"Maybe you should. Then we could at least keep the paper for a while longer."

It wasn't that Libby hadn't thought of that, or ignored the risk she took with every mention of the fight for equality. For her, it wasn't a matter of choice. That was her rock and hard place—the rock being her father's newspaper, the hard place, the promise she'd made to her mother as she lay dying the morning after Jeremy was born. Harriet Powers, a "Lucy Stoner" who'd kept her own name after marrying Libby's father, had fought long, hard battles in the name of equality, and had instilled that same sense of pride in her daughter. It was that, and the promise that she would carry the suffrage torch in both the Powers and Justice names that made this an impossible situation. As far as Libby was concerned, there was no point in having a newspaper if she couldn't spread the word of the cause.

"You know I can't stop writing my equal rights articles—I just have to figure out a way to make Andrew Savage
think
I'm going to stop."

And to do that, Libby realized with no small amount of anxiety, she would have to work much harder at keeping both her temper
and
her reckless tongue under control.

* * *

In the parlor, William Donovan ignored the Justice woman's offer to make himself at home on one of the chairs. Instead, he paced, as amused as he was puzzled by the odd and rather laughable position he found himself tangled up in.

Just yesterday, he'd been on the last leg of a marathon, winner-take-all poker game in a private car coupled to the train from San Francisco to Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. That car, as far as Donovan knew, was still rolling on toward Cheyenne, and then to who knew where. But its owner, one Andrew Savage of the Nob Hill Savage clan, had been caught cheating, shot by a disgruntled gambler, and then dumped off a high bridge somewhere in the towering Rocky Mountains of Colorado.