“Wait!” Julia said, shoving aside thoughts of the scandalous banter and enticing closeness she and the bounty hunter had just shared. She hurried down the porch steps in pursuit of the woman, with Mr. Corley following in her wake. “Mrs. Farmer? Is that you?”
The woman stopped. Beneath the plain calico of her day dress, her shoulders slumped. She wore no hat, nor gloves. Wiping a raw-knuckled hand across her face, she reluctantly turned.
“Yes, it’s me. Abbie Farmer,” she said. “I suppose you don’t want to be seen talking with me, neither.”
“Oh, no, that’s not true! Although I—” Julia paused. Strong emotions weren’t discussed in polite society, and yet…Abbie’s plight struck a chord with her. Pish posh, she decided. Rules could be bent, if not broken. “You seem to be upset. Is there something I can do to help?”
“I—well…” Before she could get another word out, Abbie burst into renewed tears. Turning away in embarrassment, she hid her face in her hands.
Oh, dear. Grasping her parasol firmly, Julia hurried to include Abbie beneath its shielding ruffles. From up close, the woman’s blotchy, tear-streaked cheeks were plainly visible, and her pale hair straggled from its chignon.
Julia wrenched at the drawstring closure of her reticule, searching for a handkerchief. Before she could locate one, though, Mr. Corley reached over her shoulder and, with a rumbled word of kindness, offered his.
Abbie accepted it, and dabbed her eyes. She looked at Graham gratefully, insensible of the way Julia beamed at him. The gallant gesture, however small, only proved what she’d begun to believe of him. Despite his rough ways, the bounty hunter truly was a gentleman—on the inside.
“I’m awful sorry,” Abbie said, speaking between stifled sobs. She blew her nose with gusto, and then held out the wadded-up handkerchief toward Graham.
“Please keep it,” he said, remarkably straight-faced.
“Thank you.” Abbie clenched the handkerchief in her hand and drew in a deep breath. She stared at her work-roughened fingers, kneading the handkerchief as she spoke.
“I—I’m not usually so emotional, but…you see, I been calling on Mrs. Marchant for more’n a week straight now. And she never would see me. But today—today her girl told me she was in, and showed me to the parlor.”
“See now?” Although she was still unsure as to what was amiss, Julia did her best to be soothing. “That’s progress, isn’t it?”
She put a comforting arm around Abbie’s thin shoulders, and glanced past her parasol’s edge toward the three-story redbrick Marchant home. In an upstairs window, a lacy curtain fluttered back into place, as though someone had been watching them. Frowning, Julia slowly walked Abbie away from the house.
“I thought so, too,” Abbie said, sniffling. “She’s an important woman in this town—no offense to you, Miss Bennett. Of course I heard of you! I heard your books were right fine.”
Julia smiled and patted the woman’s shoulder.
“I’m saving up egg money to buy me one,” Abbie continued. “But it’ll take a while. My Jonas, he turned out to be a good husband,” she explained in an aside to Julia and Graham, “but he don’t make a lot of money working at the freight office.”
At that, Julia remembered what she knew of Abbie Farmer. Aunt Geneva had written to say that the woman had come to Avalanche shortly after Julia had left for her final year at Vassar. A mail-order bride, Abbie had been a stranger to Jonas Farmer at first, but Aunt Geneva had made it sound as though things had turned out fine in the end.
Looking at poor Abbie now, Julia had her doubts.
She’d only met Abbie once or twice, in passing at the mercantile or during a brief hello after church. But the misery in her face was all too familiar to Julia. She couldn’t bear to see anyone suffer…especially at the hands of Maybelle Marchant, one of Avalanche’s most high-and-mighty residents.
The three of them walked farther, passing by other houses as they left the Marchant residence in the distance. Mr. Corley remained with them, silently offering his protection as he strode on the trafficked side of the street.
Julia was grateful for his presence. If she were honest with herself, she’d have to admit that it was his example which had inspired her to help Abbie in the first place. In the old days—the days before the bounty hunter had come to town and accepted her betrothal bargain—Julia knew she would have been too paralyzed with indecision to act in time. She would have been too fearful of doing the wrong thing, of stepping outside propriety’s boundaries and giving anyone cause to reject her, to do what needed to be done.
But now, inspired by the way Graham always followed his own path, Julia felt strong enough to take a chance.
“From what I recall,” she said, returning to her conversation with Abbie, “your husband has a claim in the mountains near here. Someday, when Jonas Farmer strikes it rich, Maybelle Marchant will be begging you to call on her.”
Abbie gave a faint smile. “You really think so?”
“I do.”
“Maybe.” Looking doubtful, Abbie pushed tendrils of blond hair away from her cheeks. “But until then, I’m not to call on Mrs. Marchant at all. Or even address her in the street.”
Julia stopped. “No.”
“Yes.” Abbie nodded, pausing beside her. She did not look up. “That’s what she called me into her parlor to talk about today. She said she’d got so tired of turnin’ me away, she figured she ought to just tell me straight.”
“She didn’t!” Disbelief mingled with fury. At Abbie’s affirming nod, Julia shook her head. She pressed her lips tightly together. “How dare she?”
“I—I guess she didn’t think nobody would care.” Abbie sniffled again. “I probably shouldn’t tell you, only…only you seemed so nice, and all. Nicer than I heard you were.”
A sudden sense of shame filled her. Julia closed her eyes against it, but there was no escaping the truth. Was it possible she had let her quest to be accepted in town blind her to common kindness?
As though sensing her dismay, Graham laid his hand on her shoulder. The comforting weight of his touch did ease her, but it was his next words that truly humbled her.
“Miss Bennett is a fine woman,” he told Abbie. “Anybody who says differently doesn’t really know her. Not like I do.”
Abbie swabbed her eyes again. When she looked up, she wore a wobbly smile. Her gaze swept over Julia and Graham both, and her smile widened still further.
“I reckon you’re right.” She cleared her throat, and addressed the bounty hunter directly. “We haven’t been prop’ly introduced, but I recognize you, Mr. Corley. The whole town’s heard of you nabbing that outlaw you brung into Avalanche a few weeks ago.”
He nodded, acknowledging her compliment.
“And maybe it isn’t my place to say so,” Abbie continued, “but you two make a right fine pair.” Her gaze settled tellingly on Graham’s hand, which still rested on Julia’s shoulder. “Sometimes the unlikeliest matches work best, you know. Me and my Jonas are proof of that.”
Suddenly, at the mention of her husband, Abbie grew unaccountably somber.
“Abbie, what’s wrong?” Julia asked.
She waved her hand, as though whatever troubled her were inconsequential. Julia didn’t believe it for a moment.
“Well, Jonas…” Taking a quavery breath, Abbie confided in them. “He noticed how I don’t have many lady friends here in Avalanche. ’Most a year since I come here, and nobody but one or two of the teamsters’ wives will speak to me. I don’t know why! I try to be kind and all, and I know I don’t have much time for callin’, what with all my housework to do. But anyway, Jonas wants me to be happy, and he told me to leave my work for a while to make some friends. He’ll be—”
Her face crumpled again, and she swabbed at her eyes with a clean edge of the handkerchief, visibly struggling for control.
“It’s all right,” Julia said. She patted Abbie’s forearm, hardly knowing how to cope with so much unrestrained emotion, all at once. It was beyond her experience. “You don’t have to go on, if you don’t want to.”
“Might help, if you do.” Gruffly, Graham tugged down his hat and looked away. He shrugged. “Women seem to like jawing about their troubles. We’ll listen.”
At their combined efforts, Abbie seemed encouraged.
“Well,” she said bravely, “it’s just that Jonas will be so disappointed if I don’t find some friends! He’s been so nice about encouragin’ me—even said I could order a new dress from the Bloomingdale Brothers’ catalog, if I thought it would help. But now, after Maybelle saying all that…I don’t know what to do! All the ladies in town follow her lead, you know.”
“I know,” Julia said. It was true. She’d been shunned by their clique herself, before returning to Avalanche with her etiquette-book fame stamped on her like a seal of approval. “But you don’t need a new dress, nice as the Bloomingdale’s catalog is,” she went on firmly. “And you don’t need Maybelle Marchant, either. I will be your champion!”
Overcome with the drama of the moment, she thrust her parasol into the air, the gesture mimicking the rise of a legendary knight’s sword. Brandishing the pink-ruffled instrument, Julia pretended to skewer an imaginary foe.
Abbie laughed. Graham gawked.
Julia came to her senses.
What a spectacle she was making of herself! Feeling her face heat, Julia lowered her parasol. A quick glance told her no one on the street or in the passing wagons and carriages was looking their way, but she still couldn’t believe she’d acted so rashly. What had gotten into her?
Hurriedly, she began walking again. Perhaps if she kept moving, Abbie and Mr. Corley would forget what had just happened. Like some sort of motion-induced amnesia.
A lady could hope, couldn’t she?
When Abbie addressed her again—barely suppressing her laughter to do so—Julia knew she’d been too optimistic. Still, there was a new hopefulness in the woman’s face, and Julia was glad for it.
“Do you really think it will work?” Abbie asked as they continued down the street. “Do you really think you can make the women in town be friends with me?”
“Yes. I shall,” Julia announced. Already, plans tumbled through her mind, moving with the same rapidity she applied to arithmetic problems and philosophical puzzles. “Beginning today.”
“Today?” Abbie looked from her newfound benefactress to Graham, and pulled a mostly pretend worried face. “Can she truly do that?”
Mr. Corley simply laughed. Apparently he’d walked off all of his chivalry during their stroll.
“Never doubt Miss Bennett’s determination,” he said. “When she puts her mind to a task, obstacles leap out of the way in dead fright. ’Tis an awesome thing.”
Julia only grumbled, and surreptitiously gave him a pinch. Graham would see the good she could do. She’d make sure of it.
The rest of the afternoon rolled past quickly. Graham discovered that small gilded chairs didn’t feel quite so tiny—nor quite so prissy—if he were seated in one to watch Julia work her social hocus-pocus. He found it fascinating.
In a confusing, otherworldly, female sort of way, of course.
It seemed, Graham learned, that those etiquette rules of hers could be applied any number of ways. ’Twas like a game of poker, with high stakes, varied players, and plenty of bluffing. With each new household they visited, Julia varied her game just enough to suit. And as he watched her now, Graham had to admit that he’d underestimated her skill.
Without seeming to do so, Julia deftly gathered Abbie Farmer into every visit, every conversation. She finagled invitations for her newfound friend, and convinced everyone they visited that the freight man’s mail-order wife had to be included in every town event from church socials to Sunday dinners. She encouraged Abbie, in a gentle and thoughtful way, to fully participate in the calls they made, and no one who hadn’t seen Julia brandishing an imaginary pink-ruffled sword would have known anything was afoot.
For the first time, Graham was glad he wasn’t in Avalanche now for professional reasons. If he’d had call to bring in Julia Bennett for a bounty hunting job, he wasn’t altogether sure he’d have been able to capture her. ’Twas an elusive thing, this ability of hers—to influence, without seeming to hold any power at all.
She was all smiles as they visited. Even now, with the sun moving low in the sky beyond the parlor windows, barely able to penetrate the heavy drapes, Julia talked and laughed and made plans on behalf of Abbie. She was seemingly tireless, and surprisingly generous.
It seemed that Avalanche’s primmest etiquette instructress carried a much softer side…a side that championed for the underdog, and couldn’t bear to see anyone else turned away.
“It’s all in the timing,” she’d confided in him earlier, as they’d walked as a trio between houses. “If I strike now, it won’t matter what Maybelle Marchant says or does later. Abbie will already be established. She’ll have every necessary invitation, and all the friends she needs.”
Looking at the three women opposite him now, Graham had to agree. They chattered away, cozy as desperadoes sharing bank-robbing plans. Anyone who saw them would have believed them steadfast and longtime friends.
Abbie laughed at something their hostess said. Happiness lit her careworn face, making her seem almost beautiful in her plain clothes and hastily fixed hair. Julia glanced at her, and smiled. A surprising tenderness filled her expression, replacing the look of fierce determination she’d worn earlier.
Briefly, she squeezed Abbie’s hand in hers. They shared a triumphant, joyful look. For Graham, witnessing that moment of feminine camaraderie roused a passel of mush-hearted feelings inside him, better left untouched…and did something else, aside. It brought to mind everything Julia had shared with him during their picnic.
In Avalanche, Graham remembered, Julia had been turned away, time and again. She’d had no parasol-wielding champion to smooth her path, no expert on her side to help. From childhood onward, she’d been alone, save her family.
You don’t understand, Mr. Corley. I’m lonely here.
’Twas why she wanted to leave. Why she needed to return to the East. Why she hoped so desperately that her father would approve of her sham engagement.
His sympathy for her grew. The emotion felt strange to him, uncomfortably soft and defenseless, but there it was. Graham couldn’t help it. He felt for Julia, and her determination to put behind her all the people who’d made her feel on the outside looking in. He had to help her.
Even if it meant letting her go?
As though she’d guessed the turn of his thoughts, Julia paused in the midst of pouring more tea. She glanced up at him. Her contented expression changed to one of puzzlement.
Even if it meant letting her go?
Graham frowned, still feeling her gaze upon him. He’d been too long in this domesticated place. ’Twas almost like Avalanche and its people had wound roots around his ankles, and he was beginning to feel comfortable in their hold. The notion didn’t sit well with him. If he didn’t strike the trail soon, it might be too late.
He might not be able to ever let go.
Spooked by the thought, he sat up and grabbed his hat from the chair beside him. Julia cocked her head and raised a teacup toward him.
“More tea?” she mouthed.
He lifted a hand in refusal. Something was happening to him. Something rough and unfamiliar. Graham wasn’t ready to lie down and surrender to it. He wasn’t a quitting kind of man, and gallons of sweet tea wouldn’t be enough to make him forget that.
Amidst the chatter of the ladies’ ongoing conversation, he stood. Julia’s face fell. She quickly ducked her head and went on pouring the tea, but Graham could feel her watching him as he strode to the parlor window.
She wanted something from him. He sensed it. ’Twas not about the teasing talk they’d shared earlier, enjoyable as that had been. And it could not be about the social calls they’d paid, because he’d surely done his duty in a whole afternoon of visiting. No, Julia wanted something…more.
Torn, Graham parted the drapes at the parlor’s bay window. He looked outside into an ever-darkening late afternoon, feeling only a fragment of the belly-tightening anticipation that usually struck him when he gazed at the mountains beyond, where the trail leading away from Avalanche wound into the distance.
Today, Graham thought, it hadn’t been Abbie alone who’d been welcomed into a dozen parlors. It had been him, too. Thanks to Julia, he’d been received into home after home, an experience both unsettling…and painfully glad. Not since his days as an unwanted boy had he found himself standing on so many doorsteps.
Not since then had he wanted so much to be admitted.
The difference was, today he had been. And this time, once admitted, he’d actually stayed.
Memories rushed at him, memories of his boyhood and all those things he’d foolishly yearned for then. Graham gripped the drapes more tightly and stared resolutely outside, determined to hold against the grim feelings those memories roused.
Always before, striking out for someplace new had forced those remembrances into hiding. Spending nights beneath the stars and days on horseback putting miles behind him had made everything feel like it should. But now…now he was committed to staying, at least for a while.
It wouldn’t be easy. Even with his boots planted comfortably atop a posh carpet and his belly filled with delicacies the likes of which he’d rarely sampled, Graham’s every instinct urged him away. The pull of it was still strong enough, he reckoned, to unwind those roots from his ankles.
But despite all that, Graham meant to keep his word. For Julia’s sake, he could.
Or maybe, the unsettling thought occurred to him…’twas for his own sake, too.
Biting her lip in consternation, Julia raised the silver sugar-cube tongs and carefully measured out the desired amount of sweetness into each cup on the table before her. Don’t look, she ordered herself. Don’t look at the window. Pretend nothing is happening.
But it was no use. She glanced upward to see Graham still standing there, one hand braced on the painted wood frame above his head to keep the drapes aside. Partly silhouetted by the orange-and-pink glow of the sky beyond him, the bounty hunter almost seemed a part of the outdoors himself.
Uncontainable. That’s what Graham Corley was. He carried a sense of unqualified freedom, of pure motion, with him. No parlor, however respectable, could have restrained it completely.
As he had for the past several minutes, Graham gazed through the glass, looking as though he’d like nothing better than to lift the sash and step right out into the gathering sunset. Watching him, Julia’s spirits sank.
Her efforts hadn’t been enough. However much she’d tried to make him feel welcome among her friends and acquaintances, she obviously hadn’t…although she, surprisingly, had enjoyed herself a great deal. Until now, at least.
However much she’d tried to please him—for that’s what her awkward attempts at coquettish flirting and repartee had been—she clearly had not. However much she’d hoped Graham might, in some small way, come to enjoy their time together, he very plainly wasn’t. Not really.
The rigid line of his shoulders, stark against the sun’s setting rays, told her that much. Dispirited, Julia passed the filled teacups one by one to Abbie and their hostess. She put on a smile and tried to continue their conversation, but inside she knew her heart wasn’t in it.
She wanted to go to Graham. To hold him in her arms and rest her head against his chest, to feel his heart beat. To savor the strength and the sureness inherent in him, and keep him close to her for as long as she could.
It wouldn’t be long, Julia knew. Already he yearned to be away; she could see it. The bounty hunter had spent the whole day politely visiting and talking and smiling, charming everyone they saw, but he must have reached his limit of mannered society. Everything in his stance bespoke a need to strike the trail.
She had only to see the melancholy edge to his profile when he turned to watch a passing rider through the opposite bay window to understand that. Graham Corley was a man who needed to be free. And it was wrong of her to deny him that.
He entered this bargain of his own free will, a part of her reminded. He wanted tutoring in exchange for his pretend courtship, and he’s been getting it. But no matter how she tried to reason away what she knew was true, Julia could not. Her feelings denied all logic.
She wanted him with her.
It was as simple, and as impossible, as that. For she was leaving and he would be gone, with the both of them headed in their separate ways. A future between her and Graham could not work, and something inside her warned that their current pretense was untenable, too. But what could she do?
Let him go, her heart whispered. He’ll be happier for it.
Abruptly, as though he’d come to a decision of some sort, Graham pivoted from the window. He crossed the fancy furniture-and knickknack-filled room, carrying his hat in his hands. Julia watched him, hoping against hope he was coming to her. It was a foolish wish, she knew. But she couldn’t help it.
If you let him go, another part of her argued, it will mean sacrificing everything. You’ll be lonely forever.
Julia stilled, her teacup raised halfway to her mouth. The cheerful conversation she’d only half-participated in for the past few minutes swirled around her, but she paid it no mind.
Her thoughts raced, foretelling a future where she had no fiancé—sham or otherwise—and could not leave Avalanche. A future where no other man stepped forward to claim the druggist’s “uppity” bluestocking of a daughter. A future where the columnist’s position at Beadle’s was denied her. Where she lived amongst people who didn’t truly understand her or care for her…and the only man she’d ever loved spent his days wandering.
“My goodness, Julia!” her hostess suddenly cried. “You’ve spilled your tea!”
Julia started, coming out of her downhearted reverie to find both her companions dabbing at her skirts with napkins and carrying on about how badly Earl Grey stained fabric. Graham lowered into the chair nearest her, and regarded her through knowing dark eyes.
“It’s fine. I’m fine,” she said, blinking as she looked away. She set aside her teacup and its tea-filled saucer, and did her best not to succumb to the despair that crept in on her. “I’m very sorry for all this trouble.”
She looked at Graham again. “Very, very sorry.”
Their gazes held. Her apology stretched between them, meager, yet heartfelt. Doubtless the two women believed it was meant for the spilled tea, but Graham knew better. After a long moment, he nodded once.
It was his nod that convinced her, that assuaged her misgivings long enough to keep Julia on the path she’d set. With Graham’s understanding, she could continue onward. For now.
She had another plan in mind, something that might leave the bounty hunter feeling as though his days in Avalanche had been time well-spent. With any luck, Julia would be able to carry it off. And if fortune smiled and everything went very, very well…in the end Graham would be glad.