The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance (16 page)

With half the territory looking for the bank robbers, Macky couldn’t understand why she was the only one who recognized Pratt. Of course he’d shaved the bushy gray beard he’d worn when he and his gang rode into Promise, and now he had a wound on his forehead which gave a curious tuck to his left eyebrow. But surely Marshal Larkin was accustomed to seeing criminals try to change their appearance. She smiled. If Pratt’s appearance had changed as much as the kid who’d escaped with the money, she could understand.

Macky was out of sorts and fidgety. Where was Bran? He had no right to desert her like this. She didn’t like not
knowing what was going on. Bran—Pratt—Marshal Larkin. They were all threats.

She took the cameo and the silver feather from their hiding place. Pratt had found both, but had he tied them together? All she could think was that he hadn’t, or else he was biding his time to expose them both. Macky tucked them into her new purse and took out the gold coins.

They were crude circles bearing an S on one side. From the light of the window she studied one more carefully. The coins had to be special. As a bank robber, Pratt would know about such things. She wasn’t sure how, but once he found her purse along the trail, he’d recognized the markings of those coins inside as being identical to the ones he’d stolen from the bank. Then he’d stumbled on the hat with the feather.

Still, unless he’d talked with the dressmaker and the ticket agent, he couldn’t know for certain that the purse belonged to her, or that the hat belonged to Bran.

With more questions than answers, Macky put the money away. There was a knock on her door. She hurried to open it, hoping Bran had returned. It was the boy from downstairs.

“I’m Tobe. Miss Lake had me fetch you some food from Willa’s,” he said, holding a tray covered with a white cotton cloth.

“Put it on the table, Tobe.” She fetched him a coin from the change Clara Gooden had given her.

“Tobe, can you read and write?”

“Yes, ma’am. Miss Lake taught me. She taught me real good.”

He took the coin and scurried out the door as if he thought she was about to test him. Macky thought about the, saloonkeeper who taught a boy to read as she ate dumplings of beef and potatoes, dried apple pie with cream, and coffee. Too bad the town didn’t appreciate Lorraine’s big heart. Macky finished the food, covered the tray, and flung herself across the freshly made bed, considering the possibility of a
real school. That was something the preacher’s wife could do.

Minutes later she came to her feet and began to pace again. Where in west side of hell was the Reverend Adams? How dare he put her in this position and then just disappear. The truth was, there was nothing to hold her here. She didn’t owe Bran anything.

Suppose he’d left Heaven without telling her? What made him think that she’d stick around while he waltzed about, the countryside? He knew she had money. She’d just buy herself a horse. She ought to be prepared.

Moments later, Pratt and the marshal be damned, Macky marched across the street to the livery stable. “Hello?”

“Out back!”

She followed the sound of the man’s voice to the rear of the stable where a blacksmith’s fire was glowing hot. A large man, dressed in a leather apron, was pounding a piece of iron into a plow shank.

“How do you do,” Macky began. “I’m Macky—Mrs. Adams and I’d like to speak to you.”

The man went on pounding. Was everybody in this town rude? “I said, I’d like to speak to you. I want to buy a horse. Do you operate the stable?”

“I do.”

“Good, I was beginning to think you couldn’t talk. Do you have a name?”

He nodded at the sign on the side of the barn: H. Clay, Proprietor.

“Mr. Clay—”

“Good, you can read. I was beginning to think you couldn’t.” Hank picked up the bellows and blew on the fire, forcing the coals to flame.

Macky blushed. “I’m sorry, I’m just a bit out of sorts. I mean, I’m not used to being inactive. Could I do that for’ you? Seems to me it would be a lot easier.”

Hank laid the bellows back on the table and took a good look at Macky. “Thank you no, Mrs. Adams. I’d be glad to
sell you a horse. If you’ll tell the preacher to stop by, I’ll show him what I have.”

“You’ll do no such thing. It’s my money—I mean I know horses. I’d like to inquire about prices, if you have the time.”

Hank nodded, laid the piece of iron down in the coals at the edge of the fire, and turned into the stable. “Follow me.” He led her to the corner of a small room he’d made into an office. “Have a seat.”

“Why?”

“I have to look at my records. The only horses I keep at the stable are those I rent. My others come from a rancher south of Heaven.” He reached for a ledger on the shelf. As he slid it out, a second book tumbled into Macky’s lap.

Macky started to hand it back when she saw the cover. “Poetry? You read poetry?”

“Does that shock you?”

“Crawfish and tadpoles! I can’t talk to you without riling you, can I? Seems like everybody in this town knows how to read and write except the children. I don’t understand why you all wouldn’t let Lorraine open a school to teach them.”

“Lorraine?”

“Miss Lake. She offered to help teach the children and she was turned down. What’s the matter, are you afraid she’d contaminate them?”

Hank gave a long, serious look out the window toward the saloon. Macky wondered if she’d made a mistake in mentioning Lorraine’s offer. Certainly everything else she’d done since arriving in Heaven had been improper.

“No, I don’t judge people,” he said.

“But you don’t do much about making them welcome either, do you? Look, I’m sorry. I’ll just wait until Bran—Reverend Adams gets back to see about a horse. I may even decide to buy a mule instead. At least a mule can pull a wagon and a plow.”

This time the burly blacksmith didn’t try to conceal his shock. “You intend to farm?”

“I intend to—I don’t know what I intend to do. Good day, Mr. Clay.”

Back in her room, Macky threw herself across her bed as she continued to fume. What kind of place was Heaven where Lorraine’s knowledge was rejected because she was socially unacceptable? Where the blacksmith read poetry and kept to himself? Where the preacher was expected to hold services in a saloon and the preacher’s wife was a criminal? But all the time she was railing out at injustice she knew that the real fly in her ointment was that the man she’d taken on as her pretend husband had disappeared.

Across the street, Hank Clay caressed the spine of the book and studied the upper window of Heaven’s Bell. Miss Lake’s room. The preacher’s wife was right. There ought to be a school. And Mrs. Adams might be the one to pull it off.

Macky didn’t realize that she’d fallen asleep until a knock on the door awakened her.

“Yes?”

The same serving girl entered the room timidly, carrying a basket and the gingham dress draped carefully across her arm. She stepped aside for Tobe to bring in the tin tub. “Miss Lorraine sent me up with your new clothes and the tub. I’m supposed to remind you that you and the preacher are having supper tonight with Mrs. Mainwearing.”

Macky watched Tobe place the tub by the fire and add more wood. Then he left the room and returned with two iron kettles of hot water. The girl draped the gown across the end of the bed and waited for the boy to bring two more kettles of water.

“There’s soap on the washstand. I’ll return shortly and help you dress, ma’am,” she said, dropping a curtsy as she backed out of the room.

Macky stared at the tub. Surely they didn’t expect her to strip off her clothes and sit in that little tin tub. It wasn’t as if she’d never taken a tub bath. She had. But it had been a
washtub with full sides and she’d been in her own kitchen. Suppose somebody came in?

Still she couldn’t resist picking up the dress. She’d never had anything so lovely in her life. It even smelled new. She held it against herself and imagined, just for a minute, draping her market basket over her arm and going out to shop. Or better still, having Bran slip his arm through hers and fold her elbow across his.

With her eyes closed she took three steps across the room, nodding to invisible acquaintances and smiling up at her pretend husband. Pretend husband?

A bank robber having supper with Mrs. Mainwearing? Staring at herself once more in the mirror, she made up her mind. She might never do it again but this one time she wanted to dress up in her new gown and show that skeptical one-eyed man that she
could
look like a woman.

She took off her clothes and pinned up her hair, making use of the women’s beauty articles that had mysteriously appeared on the washstand. With the soap in her hand she slid into the hot water and leaned back as far as she could to cover herself. For a few minutes she merely lay there enjoying the sheer luxury of having someone wait on her for the first time she could remember.

Finally, as the water began to cool she soaped herself, scrubbing her skin vigorously, then slid back down in the water to rinse.

Macky didn’t hear the door open. But she was instantly aware of Bran’s presence. In a futile attempt to cover herself she drew up her knees and clasped them to her chest with her arms, then turned to face Bran, bravely covering her panic with a frown of stern disapproval.

“Thank you for knocking, Reverend.”

Bran, at a momentary loss for words, could only stare at the naked woman in the tub. He’d already come to the conclusion that she was prettier than she acknowledged. After seeing her in a nightgown, he’d spent the day convincing
himself that his physical reaction was because he’d been without a woman for too long.

“Stop staring at me!” she snapped.

A tightening in his gut told him his body wasn’t listening this time, either. He groaned. “ ‘Lust not after her beauty in your heart; Neither let her take you with her eyelids,’ ” he said. “Proverbs.”

“ ‘Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord.’ That’s from Proverbs, too.” Macky’s voice turned into a whisper.

Bran rubbed his chin, feeling the bristles of a three-day growth of hair rasp against his fingertips. “I don’t lie, Macky.”

“Oh? What do you call letting the people of Heaven think you’re Reverend Adams?”

“As I recall, that was your doing, not mine. I was about to tell them otherwise when you came forward. Suddenly, I had a wife.”

“But you didn’t correct their impression. You aren’t a preacher, are you, Bran?”

“No, I’m not.”

“And your name isn’t Adams, is it?”

“No.”

“I’m not Mrs. Brandon Adams,” she said defiantly. “That makes you a liar, Bran.”

“No, that makes me a fool. But I thought you needed to be protected. Now I know why.”

She came to her feet without thinking. “You know?”

She looked like a pagan deity painted in the great museums, all lithe and rosy in the firelight. The sight of her stole his breath away, making him dizzy.

“I know.”

His voice was rough, angry as he considered that another man had touched her, perhaps abandoned her. “And though I don’t understand how you let it happen, I’ll keep your secret for now.”

“It wasn’t something I planned,” she said. “And I’m going to make amends as soon as I figure out how. I just got
caught up in it before I could stop. What’s your excuse for your lie?”

“I can’t tell you, Macky. Not yet. It wouldn’t be safe for you to know. Just believe me when I tell you it’s important.”

“I see. It’s all right that you know about my sordid past, but you can’t trust me to know the truth about yours?”

“It’s the best way to keep you out of it. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but I’ll protect you.”

“Why?”

“Hell if I know. My Indian father said that all things happen for a reason. Why’d you agree to be my wife?”

“I always hankered to have a man who could see in the dark. Besides,” she added, “I like your face. It makes my heart sing.”

He couldn’t stop his next question. “Does it sing often?”

“Never has before. All this is new to me, Bran. Other women have mothers to prepare them for these feelings. I’ve had to learn for myself. I’m just now beginning to understand what I missed.”

At least she was honest. He wanted to give in to the need to pull her into his arms and tell her that everything would be all right. Instead, he picked up the towel and wrapped it around her. “I’m sorry I walked in on you.”

“You should be. You shouldn’t have left me here by myself all day. Where were you?” She stepped out of the tub, deliberately sloshing water on his boots.

“My, my! Is the preacher’s wife turning into a nagging shrew?”

“I don’t nag,” she said, her voice painfully tight, “and I’m not anybody’s wife.”

She’d already told him that there was no husband. Now she’d said it again. Bran took a step toward her, “What about this man who may be coming after you?”

“Oh, Bran.” She leaned her head against the fireplace and closed her eyes. “I just wish I could go back, that I’d never come into town that day, that—”

“You were the young innocent girl you once were?” he finished for her, fighting the urge to comfort her.

She sighed and began to dry her face and neck, shrinking down inside the cloth as if she were trying to hide. “Yes. I guess I do wish that. But we can’t go back, can we? We have to live the life we’ve created for ourselves.”

“Would this life be so bad?” Bran asked, knowing that such an idea was not only unwise, but impossible. “Would you hate being a preacher’s wife?”

“Would you hate being a preacher?”

“Never thought about it. I suppose there are many ways to cure the ills of man. This may be the most ill-paid one. Hardly seems fair to ask any woman to share a life that depends on the charity of others.”

Macky chose her response carefully. “I—I think that it is rare for a woman to have a choice about the kind of life her husband makes for them. If any man ever asked to marry me, it would be the man, not his profession that would matter. Not that such a situation is ever likely to happen.”

“Who told you that?”

“My mother said that my papa filled my head with nonsense, that no man would ever want me. She was right.”