In the morning Alice was a bit groggy when she woke up. Her head felt as if it were stuffed full of cotton, but she managed to eat two biscuits and a slice of crisp bacon and drink two cups of coffee. Then she volunteered to wash the tin plates in the creek while Rand packed up the camp and kicked dirt over the fire.
“You must be feeling better if you could eat two of my overdone biscuits,” he quipped.
“My head feels like an eggshell, but other than that, I do feel better.” She sent him a smile. “I must remember to ask Carl Ness at the mercantile to order some of that peppermint oil. And I can hardly wait to tell Doc Graham about it.”
They mounted up and headed into the hills where the late-October leaves on the maple trees were turning scarlet and red-orange. Rand gestured for her to ride in front so she wouldn’t have to breathe his dust; besides, he wanted to keep an eye on her. She rode like an Indian, never wasting a motion, and he couldn’t help but wonder who had taught her to ride. Rooney Cloudman, maybe.
They rode all day, watering the horses at willow-swathed streams and eventually emerging from the woods into meadows covered with blue chicory. When the sun dropped behind the hills, flaming the sky peach and scarlet, Rand reined to a stop beside a stand of alders.
“We’re still some hours from Smoke River. You want to stop and camp here or go on?”
“I want to go on and get home. I’m anxious to have a bath and sleep in a soft bed.”
“Okay.” He gigged his horse forward.
“I sound terribly overcivilized, don’t I? Quite unlike Lolly Maguire.”
Rand chuckled. “Not ‘overcivilized,’” he pointed out. “Just civilized. I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to wash off my trail dust, too.”
They rode steadily for another four hours. By the time they reached town, it was pitch-dark and his stomach was rumbling. They unloaded their saddlebags and Alice’s travel case, left instructions with the livery attendant for feeding and brushing down the horses and started down the street toward Rose Cottage.
Now that this ordeal was finally at an end, Alice couldn’t think of a thing to say. In silence she walked beside Rand beneath the maple trees, past gardens smelling of roses and night-blooming nicotiana, feeling oddly flat. She was returning to Sarah and Rooney and her beloved Smoke River; Why wasn’t she feeling the joy she’d expected? Instead of elation she felt tired. And...sad.
She had missed her library, she reminded herself. Her wonderful library with its collection of exciting books about everything under the sun. And now she was back and she could enjoy them again. Still, something was different. Was it Dottie? She caught her breath. She missed her sister. She would always miss her.
Then all at once she knew what it was. She was different. This whole ordeal had changed her in some way.
No, it was Rand who had changed her.
And he was leaving in the morning.
Her steps faltered and he slowed and turned to her. “Alice?”
She looked up at him. “Don’t go,” she whispered.
“Alice, I have to go, you know that. Pinkerton already has another mission for me.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I know. It doesn’t seem possible that in less than two weeks my whole life has been turned upside-down.”
He tipped her face up to his. “You know I’m in love with you, don’t you? It’s taken half my life to find you. I don’t want to let you go.”
“Never in a million years did I expect to feel this way about a man,” she whispered. “It hurts.”
“I could send for you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “We could be married in Denver City.”
She hesitated and finally released a long breath. “I can’t, Rand. This has all happened so...so fast I don’t trust it. I guess I’m not ready. Not yet.”
He wrapped his arms around her and caught her mouth under his. After a long, long minute, he lifted his head. “All right,” he murmured against her lips. “I understand. I don’t like it, but I understand.”
Alice stepped out of his embrace and they turned back to the street. “Come on,” she said. “We’re both hungry. Sarah will have something for us to eat.”
He heaved a sigh and they walked on.
At the boardinghouse, Sarah and Rooney were rocking in the porch swing while young Mark sat at their feet playing pick-up sticks. “Well, my stars!” Sarah exclaimed. She rushed down the steps and pulled Alice into a hug, then planted a kiss on Rand’s bristly jaw. “Welcome back! Are you hungry?” she said in the same breath.
Rand laughed. “Yes!” Alice sang. “We’re starving.”
“Then come on into the house, you two. There’s cold chicken and potato salad, and I just took an apricot pie out of the oven.”
Mark climbed to his feet. “Didja shoot anybody, Marshal?”
“Nope. Came close, though.” He ruffled the boy’s hair as he climbed the porch steps.
Rooney caught Mark’s arm and propelled him through the screen door and into the house. “How close?” he intoned to Rand.
“Close enough. Double murder and embezzling. Alice...” He sent an admiring look at her. “Alice was instrumental in catching three criminals.”
Rooney rolled his eyes. “Don’t let on to Sarah, or she won’t let Alice out of her sight till Christmas.”
Mark slapped back through the screen door. “I wanna know about what Alice did.”
Rand shot a quick look at the woman who had made his undercover plan work. She sent him a subtle shake of her head, and he quickly modified what he was about to say.
“Well, one night Miss Alice got dressed up real pretty in a red dress with a real low—uh...with sequins all over—”
“Sequins!” Sarah yelped. “Red sequins? Well, I never!”
Rooney caught his eye. “Bet she looked real fetchin’, didn’t she?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” he breathed. “She looked like a walking burst of fireworks.”
“Thought so,” the older man said with a grin.
“Tell me ’bout what Alice did!” Mark insisted.
Sarah ushered them all into the dining room. “Clean up,” she ordered. She pointed into the kitchen.
Alice went first. Then, while Mark danced at his side, Rand managed to lather up at the sink and accept the slightly damp towel Alice handed him. “Tell Mark about the miners,” she breathed.
Sarah shouldered her way past them with a platter of fried chicken. “Mark, bring that bowl of potato salad in the cooler.”
“Aw, Gran, I wanna hear ’bout Alice and the miners!”
“I want to hear about that, too,” Sarah said in a determined tone. “So, you two sit down. Eat. And...” She sent Alice a significant look. “Talk!”
Rand helped himself to a crispy chicken breast and a double spoonful of salad. “Okay, about those miners...”
“And Alice!” Mark crowed. “Tell about Alice!”
Rand swallowed a bite of cold chicken. “Well...” He sent Alice a quick smile. “Alice got to know some of the miners, and—”
“How’d she do that?” Mark interrupted. “Did she go down in a mine?”
“Um...well, she found a place that had a piano player, and she...um...danced with them.”
Sarah’s fork clattered onto her plate.
“What kinda place?” Mark queried.
“A saloon, no doubt,” Sarah said through thinned lips.
“There was a nice Chinese piano player who played waltzes,” Alice said quickly. “So I danced with the miners, and I talked to them.”
“We call it ‘gathering evidence,’” Rand explained.
“That’s not what I’d call it!” Sarah grumbled.
Rand swallowed. “So,” he continued, “Alice worked undercover, getting the miners to share information with her.”
“Like what?” Mark pursued. Rooney laid his hand on the boy’s arm.
Rand caught the older man’s eye. “Like who’s who in town and who had enemies, that sort of thing.”
“In a red dress with sequins,” Sarah spluttered. “Really, Alice. I am shocked.”
“Alice was very proper,” Rand said quickly. “And very clever. And I watched over her every single minute.”
Sarah harrumphed and flounced into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. When she returned she set a golden-brown deep-dish apricot pie in front of him. “Ice cream?” she barked.
Rand couldn’t help laughing. And so did Rooney and Alice and, finally, even Sarah.
“Oh, all right, I forgive you,” the older woman said. “But you surely gave this old heart of mine a turn.”
“And then what happened?” Rooney and Mark said in one voice.
“Then,” Alice supplied, “we devised a plan to get our quarry to admit what they had done without letting them know Rand was listening.”
“What’s a ‘quarry’?” Mark asked.
“Bad hombres,” Rand said.
“My sister’s murderer,” Alice added.
Sarah rose. “I don’t even want to know what that plan was, Alice. Coffee?” Then she sank back onto her chair and leaned toward Alice. “On second thought, I do want to know.”
“I’ll get the coffee,” Rand volunteered, laying his napkin on the table.
“The cups are in the hutch, Mark,” Rooney said, giving the boy a nudge.
Sarah pinned Alice with sharp blue eyes. “So, what was this clever plan you came up with?” She kept her gaze on Alice’s face.
Alice explained about her theatrical performance at the assay office. As she talked Mark’s eyes got bigger and rounder and Sarah’s mouth got smaller and tighter.
“Young man,” she said when Rand emerged from the kitchen with the coffeepot, “I don’t want you and Alice to take any more of these trips together. Is that understood?”
“I brought the ice cream, too,” Rand said blandly, “in case anyone wanted...”
Mark applauded, and Alice couldn’t stop smiling at him.
When the pie and ice cream had disappeared, Sarah emerged from the kitchen, her apron in one hand, and sent Rand a long, considering look. “Marshal Logan, you might as well use the guest bedroom tonight, seein’ as how you’re half asleep already and the hotel’s probably full up. And,” she added, “I’m heating bathwater, if anybody’s interested.”
With a quick twist of her wrist she wound the apron ties around her waist and marched back into the kitchen.