The Promise Bride

The city marshal closed his office door. “Dunfree has yet to make it in this morning,” he said, walking to his desk. “Miss Stanek, it would be more helpful if he was here and we could confirm he was the one who”—he sat and cleared his throat—“er, offered you the candy.”

Luci shifted in her chair. “I’m all right with not seeing him again.”

“He’s lucky he’s not here,” Roch put in. “If I see him, I’ll kill him.”

“And I might just help,” Emilia added. With a deep breath, she gripped her haversack close to her chest. “Is there anything else we need to do? Maybe ask Madame Lestraude to confirm Luci’s account of the incident?”

The city marshal shook his head. “No, ma’am. I’ll bring her in for questioning.”

Emilia stood and he jumped to his feet. She shook his hand. “Thank you, sir, for listening. Has Sheriff McCall returned from Marysville?”

“O’Mara said he’d be here on the morning train.” He walked with them to the door. “Let me know if Dunfree bothers you again.”

Emilia thanked him. “I’m positive he won’t.” Unless the creepy clerk followed them to Chicago.

As they left his office, she noticed Luci looking toward Mac’s office. No one spoke as they climbed back into the cart and drove up Jackson toward Mr. Adams’s office. Off over the mountains, gray clouds hovered. Rain? Emilia hoped not. At least not until they were safely on the train. She pulled the cart into the alley between the law office and the three-story building still under construction. Roch jumped out first. As he tied the horse to the hitching post, she helped Luci gather their belongings. Sans Needles. Thankfully, Jakob had agreed to take her.

Roch opened the door for them.

“Hello,” Emilia called out. “Mr. Adams?”

She peeked into his office. As he listened to whoever was on the other end of the telephone, he waved them forward, then pointed to the two Windsor armchairs in front of his desk. Unlike the last time they were here, both chairs were available for seating. Luci took one. Emilia the other. Roch stood behind Luci’s chair.

Mr. Adams hung up the phone. “It’s a pleasure to see the Stanek family. To what do I owe this honor?”

Emilia shifted in the chair. “I would like to retain your services, but the most I can pay is two dollars.”

“What do you need?”

“A typed contract. Six copies. And I would need you to handle the disbursement of items.”

His head dipped. He looked over the rims of his glasses. “Disbursement of items?”

“Yes, sir. For the best interests of my family, I’ve decided to sell the ranch and return to Chicago.”

“I see.” His tone was flat, conveying none of his thoughts.

Oh what she’d give to know what he was thinking. That she was a coward for fleeing Helena? Perhaps. She could stay. Roch had been clear about his feelings on that matter. As much as she loved the ranch—all right, love was perhaps too strong a word. The pig she could do without. She wasn’t too keen on culling chickens or cleaning the stable. Save for those things and the lack of a tub in which to bathe, life on the ranch had been good. Better than good on those mornings when she’d sat on the porch and watched the sun rise. She’d miss the glorious sunsets, too. She’d never get to see the produce from the seedlings she’d planted in the garden. Five calluses. That was how many she’d had after she’d finished mowing the field for their croquet game. Twice that many from preparing the soil for planting. She’d ached for days.

Someone her size wasn’t cut out to be a rancher’s wife.

She looked down to keep Mr. Adams from seeing the tears in her eyes.

It was good she was leaving. She wouldn’t have to pluck and gut a chicken ever again. Roch could stop sleeping on a mattress in front of the hearth and sleep in a real bed. Luci wouldn’t have to rise forty-five minutes early because of the daily drive into Helena to school.

She bit her lip and blinked repeatedly until her vision cleared.

Feeling in control of her emotions, she withdrew her financial journal from her haversack. She turned to Roch’s plan, with the minor changes Jakob had insisted upon, then looked up to see Mr. Adams’s wary gaze. She didn’t fault him. While she felt less than confident with Roch’s plan, her conscience could live with it.

“‘Jakob Gunderson,’” Emilia began reading, “‘has offered to purchase the ranch and all thereupon for the agreed price of four hundred fifty dollars. Mr. Hess may have the cart, which will even out that debt. Two dollars are to be left with Mr. Adams to be divided equally between Mr. Inger and Doctor Abernathy.’”

She looked up to see he was writing.

“‘From the ranch purchase price,’” she continued, “‘four hundred dollars will be paid to Madame Lestraude to satisfy the loan. The final fifty dollars plus an additional fifty dollars from Jakob Gunderson will be given to Mr. Cannon. This leaves me, Emilia Stanek Collins, owing Jakob fifty dollars.’” She closed her journal and looked up. “I think Finn would be proud of what I’ve done to honor his name.”

The tip of Mr. Adams’s pencil snapped. He dropped the pencil into a mug filled with other ones, then grabbed a sharpened one.

He looked at her. “What is your plan for repaying Jakob?”

“Before I left Chicago, Mr. Spiegel offered me a job should I return.” Emilia slid her journal inside her haversack. “In six months, a time-frame Jakob agreed to, I will wire the full payment.”

Mr. Adams finished writing. “Anything you wish me to convey to anyone else?”

Give Mac my love. And tell him I’m sorry.

She reached in her haversack, withdrew the copy of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and laid it on his desk. “Give this to Mac.” She’d lost him, but she could at least salvage her family. They were stronger when together. “The cart for Hess is tied outside. Jakob said he had some things to take care of this morning in Helena before he heads out to his ranch. He should be by here later for the horse.”

“You’re planning on walking to the depot?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s too far.”

She gave him a light smile. “We walked here from the depot two months ago. I’m sure we can manage the trek again. Besides, the train doesn’t leave for two hours.”

He studied her. He had that look her mother used to have before she’d started in on a lengthy lecture, and yet he said, “I have a meeting with my uncle at the top of the hour. Are you comfortable with leaving the cart and horse unattended?”

“Certainly. Feel free to use it, instead of walking down to City Hall.”

“Give me a few minutes to type up the contracts.” Mr. Adams rolled a sheet of paper into the black typewriter on the side of his desk.

As he typed, Emilia turned in her journal to the contract with Mr. Cannon. She brushed her thumb across Mac’s scripted L. McCall.

Luci reached over and touched Emilia’s arm. “I wish Mac could come with us.”

Me, too.

Emilia forced a smile. “We’ll have Da and—” Her voice choked. “We’ll be all right.”

Roch gave her an odd look. He withdrew the handful of bills Mr. Gunderson had paid him for helping Jakob make deliveries to Fort Missoula. Roch laid four dollars on Mr. Hale’s desk. And then he walked outside.

Emilia carefully tore out Mr. Cannon’s contract, and then the ones for the other creditors. She laid them on the desk. “Mr. Adams, I’d appreciate it if you could also include these with each of these with the typed payment contracts. On the bottom is a short note thanking each of Finn’s creditors for their kindness and understanding. Is there anything else you need from me besides my signature on the bill of sale to Jakob?”

He stopped typing. “You’ve gone above and beyond what most would do in your situation. Give me thirty minutes and you’re free to go.”

* * *

The clacking of steel on steel reverberated through Mac’s bones. He was tired . . . so tired . . . and livid. Once the train pulled into Helena station in a few more minutes, he’d pay visits to his mother and Joseph Hendry. Both were going to get an earful. The only question was which one to confront first.

Hendry’s article had circulated around the territory, reaching Marysville by Monday morning, where Mac saw it minutes after he was ordered to keep his prisoner available for questioning through Wednesday afternoon. Instead of defending Emilia as an innocent victim, the article featured quotes from Madame Lestraude confirming her deal with Finn Collins to sell both Emilia and Luci into prostitution, an inset picture of the deed of trust providing proof.

Mac’s lawman instincts buzzed and prickled, keeping him awake during the over-long trial in Marysville and through the train rides back to Deer Lodge and home to Helena. The major issues making him crazy boiled down to:

1. Madame Lestraude’s assertion that, although she didn’t employ women against their will or of Luci’s age in her personal business, she didn’t have a problem selling them to fellow owners who did in Nevada and Wyoming. Mac might have believed it were it not for the addition of Luci. First, it didn’t fit. He might question her so-called care for her girls, but he knew for a fact that young girls forced into prostitution enraged her. Second, when he’d talked to her before leaving town, she’d denied Luci played any part in her dubious deal with Finn, clearly stating it only concerned Emilia. She also implied that the repayment would occur at Maison de Joie. Either she’d lied to Mac to get him out of her office, or she’d lied to Hendry. Who she lied to didn’t matter; the real question was why.

2. The terms of the deed of trust made no sense. Finn wasn’t stupid. He’d never agree to a three-month loan with payment in full expected long before he had time to plant and harvest an alfalfa crop or breed and sell cattle. Ever since leaving his mother’s office ten days earlier, Mac had replayed in his mind her hesitation when she spoke of the loan’s repayment terms: “. . . should he fail to pay me back in . . . in full.” It had bothered him then; it bedeviled him now.

3. Where was Finn’s copy of the deed of trust? Either it was well hidden, never existed, or had been stolen on the day of his murder. Though looking for general evidence as opposed to something specific, Mac had checked everywhere in the cabin—under the mattress, between blankets, in every drawer, even in Finn’s clothing while he lay stiff and cold on the floor—and been just as thorough when checking the barn and root cellar. Deputy Alderson had pried at the floorboards while O’Mara knocked on the walls to see if any spots sounded hollow. They’d found no hidden compartments nor any deed in the piles of trash littering the floor. Nothing Hale retrieved from Finn’s bank included one either. That left two options: either Madame Lestraude showed Hendry a forged deed, or whoever killed Finn had taken the real one before Mac and his men arrived—which would explain why the cabin had been ransacked. And if it was the latter, that brought up a fourth concern . . .

4. Had his mother killed Finn? Or—to be more accurate—ordered one of her employees to do it?

Which meant, instead of pounding a fist in Hendry’s face as he yearned to do, Mac’s first order of business, after letting his deputies know he was back in town, was visiting his mother.

The slowing train shifted into a crawl, blaring its horn to announce its arrival in Helena station. Mac leaned to look out the window. A huge crowd was gathered on the platform, circled around someone he couldn’t see. Someone short. Someone connected to Charles Cannon, Doc Abernathy, Samuel Hess, and Zeb Inger.

Someone like Emilia.

Mac grabbed his hat and bag, then hurried toward the exit. The moment his train car was even with the platform, he swung the door open and jumped out. “Hey!” He shoved his hat on as he ran toward the circle of people clustered near the depot door. “Hey! What’s going on?”

Heads turned. People peeled back in layers. Mac slowed his pace before he ran into anyone, then started pulling on shoulders and elbowing his way into the center to get to Emilia.

She was standing nose to index finger with a screaming Samuel Hess. “I don’t want the cart, you stupid woman! I want my money!”

“Hey!” Mac drew the bully’s attention, “You say one more word to Mrs. Collins that isn’t polite as a parson’s, and I’ll toss your sorry hide in jail.”

“If anyone’s getting arrested, Sheriff, it’s her.” Inger pushed Hess aside. “She owes me a whole—”

“I’ve told you three times now, your dollar is with Mr. Adams.” Mac had never heard Emilia sound so frazzled. “Why won’t you believe me?”

“So you say.” Inger’s sneer begged to be wiped off his weasel-like face.

“Are you calling the lady a liar?” Mac fairly itched for the man to say yes. If Hendry wasn’t getting punched, this vermin would do just as well.

Inger pressed his lips together so tight, the tendons in his neck bulged.

“Well, if he ain’t, I am!” Hess reasserted himself.

“Careful, Hess.” Mac stepped between the blacksmith and Emilia. “I’m fast losing my patience with you.”

Where were Roch and Luci?

Charles Cannon waved his hand over his head. “Sheriff, I can sum up the problem in a more”—he shot a disgusted glare at Hess and Inger—“civilized manner.”

“Excellent.” Mac turned around to take Emilia’s arm and noticed two things simultaneously, both of them bad. First, she was wearing the same pink dress she’d worn when she’d first showed up in Helena, and second, she was gripping a battered bag in both hands.

She was leaving.

Mac absorbed the shock even as he summed up the situation. “Where are Roch and Luci?”

“Inside the telegraph office.”

“All right. I need you to trust me for just a second here.” Please say yes. Please, for once in your life, just say yes.

She eyed him warily. “I’ll give you three seconds. No more.”

It was progress. Mac fit two fingers in his mouth and whistled, cutting through the shouting and chatter surrounding them. “Quiet!”

Whether out of shock or obedience, the noise ceased.

“Hess, Inger, and Cannon, follow us into the telegraph office. The rest of you, this is none of your business so move on.” Mac stepped sideways and wrapped an arm around Emilia’s waist. Was he imagining it, or had she lost weight in the ten days since he’d last seen her? “Let’s go.”

The depot door opened. Roch and Luci came outside. “Mac!” Luci tossed a familiar basket on the wooden platform and ran toward him.

The crowd between them parted. Mac let go of his bag and dropped to one knee so Luci could run straight into his arms. He lifted her off the ground, holding tight while she sobbed into his shoulder. He captured Emilia’s gaze. What on earth?

She shook her head as she picked up his bag.

What did that mean? She didn’t want to tell him, she didn’t want to talk here, or she didn’t know?

As people took note of Luci’s sobbing, looks of sympathy and fluttering hankies appeared, the mood shifting from antagonism to curiosity. Mac patted her back while calling, “Move along, folks. Let’s go. Move along.” Once he reached the depot, he shifted Luci to hold her with one arm, then opened the door and waited for Roch, Emilia, and her creditors to come through before shutting out the busybodies still hovering on the platform.

Inside the telegraph office, Yancey leaned over the empty counter watching the action, a forlorn look on her face.

Where was her usual smile? And her usual mob of customers? “All of you, wait here while I see if Miss Palmer will allow us to use her office.” Mac tilted his head to look at Luci. “Do you want to come with me or stay with your sister?”

It took a long moment for her to let go of his neck. “Stay. But you’re coming back, right?”

Mac set her down and pointed to the telegraph office. “I’m just going in there. You’ll be able to see me the whole time.”

Luci stretched to see for herself. “All right.”

Roch took Luci’s hand, giving Emilia a glare that reminded Mac of the sullen boy who’d arrived in town nine weeks before. Or was it ten? Forever? Or a minute?

Mac squared his shoulders. Now wasn’t the time to get maudlin or take Roch to task or ask what had made Luci so fearful. Now was the time to be the sheriff. “I’ll just be a minute.” He walked into the telegraph office. “Hey, Yancey. What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

A whole lot of nothing, from the looks of things. “Can I use your office for a brief meeting? It shouldn’t take more than five or ten minutes.”

“That’s fine, but”—Yancey shot a nervous glance out the double doors into the depot area—“can I stay in here with you?” Before Mac could say he’d expected her to, she added, “It’s easier to pretend people don’t have any telegrams to send than that they don’t want to talk to me.”

“Hendry’s article?” It was the only thing that made sense.

She nodded, tears welling in her eyes.

Mac leaned on the counter and put a hand on her forearm, promising himself to exact revenge on Hendry’s nose for her sake as well as Emilia’s. “Give it another week or so and the inconvenience of avoiding you will wear thin.”

Yancey gave him a watery smile. “That’s what my father says.”

“Smart man.” Mac turned and beckoned the six waiting in the depot area to come inside. While they filed into the telegram office, Mac drew the blinds over the windows overlooking the train platform to shut out any gawking stares. “Roch, close the doors, please.”

“How come she gets to stay?” Hess’s thundering voice was loud enough to be heard through windows and doors.

“Are you referring to Miss Palmer?” Mac stepped closer to the burly blacksmith, spreading his feet and planting his fists on his hips. Hess’s eyes hardened. He opened his lips, so Mac cut him off by turning to Emilia. “Mrs. Collins, do you have any objection to Miss Palmer’s presence?”

“I do not.” Her voice was calm, steady, polite. She was back in control.

Mac swung his gaze to Hess. “If the lady has no problem, then you have no problem. Do I make myself clear?”

Hess pinched his lips together.

It wasn’t enough for Mac, so he stretched his neck close enough to the blacksmith to smell soot, sweat, and garlic. “I asked you a question, Hess. I’ll repeat it in case your limited powers of understanding need help. I said, do I make myself clear?”

Nostrils flaring, Hess dipped his chin.

Good enough. “Mr. Inger, do you have any objections?” After a sullen headshake, Mac looked at the grocer. “Cannon?”

“None at all, Sheriff.”

“Excellent. Now, Mrs. Collins, would you like to tell me what’s going on, or would you like to hear what these gentlemen have to say so you can refute all their arguments at once?”

Emilia’s lips tipped into a smile. “I’d like to tell my side of the story first.” She explained how she’d spent almost an hour with Hale Adams drawing up contracts that compensated each creditor the remainder of the debt owed.

“And I said I don’t want the cart, I want my money!” Hess roared.

Mac stuck a finger under the man’s bulbous nose. “One more word from you, and I’ll not only throw you out of this room, I’ll see to it that you get neither the money nor the cart back. Now sit down and shut up.”

Hess plopped onto the wooden bench beneath the shaded windows.

Mac turned to Zeb Inger. “Are you telling me that you’re here because Mrs. Collins owes you a measly dollar? After how hard she’s worked for you these past two months?”

Inger crossed his arms over his chest. “A dollar’s a dollar, Sheriff, and I have just as much right to recover it as Cannon has what’s owed him.” The man was a stingy rat, but the law was on his side.

Tempted to withdraw his wallet and slap a greenback in the man’s scrawny chest, Mac reined in his temper. Emilia would hate him for fixing things, especially because she didn’t need it. “It sounds like the lady has already left your funds with Hale Adams, so why are you here hounding her?”

Inger glowered. “’Cause no one can confirm a word of what she says.”

Mac twisted his neck to find Yancey. “May we borrow your telephone?”

“Sure.”

Not wanting to leave Emilia on this side of the counter while he went around the other one, Mac said, “Roch, ring Hale’s office.”

“He’s not there,” Emilia called out. Mac turned his attention to her. “As I’ve said repeatedly to these fine gentlemen, he was going to his uncle’s office.”

“I know.” Roch stretched the second word with annoyance. He stomped behind the counter, lifted the receiver, and asked to be connected to Judge Forsythe’s office.

“Mr. Cannon”—Mac turned to face the grocer—“I believe you’re the only one we haven’t heard from yet.”

Cannon nodded his head. “I received a phone call telling me Mrs. Collins was skipping town, and I needed to get to the train depot to stop her if I wanted my money. I confess, I arrived a moment before you did, so this is the first I’ve heard of any arrangements Mrs. Collins has made to pay off the debt.”

“And now that you have heard it?”

“I’m reserving judgment until we hear from Mr. Adams, although . . .” Every eye turned toward the grocer. “It looks bad when a woman turns down two marriage proposals that would prop up her financial prospects and her reputation and then suddenly has train tickets for three people all the way back to Chicago.”

Two proposals? Who had offered the second? A question for later. Mac looked at Emilia. “Would you like to tell him where you got the tickets or shall I?”

“You can.” Her half smile added, You’re doing a fine job.

Good to know. Even better to see her smile. “I purchased those tickets back in April. I gave them to Mrs. Collins and her siblings so they could leave town at any time in case whoever killed Finn came back and threatened them. As for their reputations, Luci spent less than three minutes in the . . . hotel, and I was with her for most of that.”

Cannon frowned. “Why wasn’t that information included in the article?”

It would have been, if Mac had given Hendry a decent quote instead of trite drivel.

“It would have gone a long way toward stanching the rumor mill,” Cannon continued, piling guilt onto Mac’s shoulders.

“Mr. Adams,” Roch’s voice turned everyone’s attention to where he stood holding the telephone, “can you come down to the train station to verify our meeting with you earlier today?” He frowned. “What new problem?” Pause. “Yes, we’ll stay right here and wait for you.”

Shouting from outside drew Mac to the windows. He lifted a shade to see what was going on, Hess and Inger following suit at the other windows. There were too many bodies between the glass and whatever was happening. Seconds later, the doors to the telegram office swung open. The city marshal and three of his deputies appeared, faces stern.

Mac rushed to meet them. “What’s going on, Quinn?”

Quinn Valentine tugged his lapel, drawing attention to his badge. “Stay out of this, Mac.”

What an odd and insulting command. As though Mac would interfere with another lawman’s duty, especially if he was here for Hess or Inger. Mac followed Quinn as he marched toward . . . Emilia?

“Mrs. Collins and Roch Stanek, you’re under arrest for the murder of Edgar Dunfree.”