Heart on the Line Read online

  Or were they? Helen’s chest thumped as Henrietta Chandler pushed to her feet in the front row.

  “Seems a mite suspicious that this fella showed up so quick after your friend sent you that telegram last night. What if he’s working for Haver-what’s-his-name? Maybe he’s the one who told the rich gent where you were hiding.”

  Thoughtful murmurs echoed around the room, and Helen held her breath. Please send him away. But Grace shook her head, and Helen’s hope withered.

  “I know who revealed my location to Mr. Haversham—a woman who used to work with my mother. She has kept me apprised of the investigation into my father’s shooting as well as any noteworthy items regarding Mr. Haversham’s business over the past nine months. It wouldn’t have taken Haversham long to discover that I worked as a Western Union operator. After that, it would just be a matter of finding local telegraph operators susceptible to bribes and having them listen in on the wires for any clues that might lead to my location.”

  The color flaring in Grace’s cheeks faded to a more normal hue as she grew more involved in her explanation. “I took precautions,” she said. “Not communicating with any of my friends from Denver, only with my mother’s contact in Colorado Springs. I changed my call sign. Only sent personal information over the lines after hours in the evenings. But no plan is foolproof, and I knew there was a chance that Haversham would eventually discover Rosie’s involvement. I made her promise to give up any information she had on me if he threatened her or her family.” Grace looked down at the podium in front of her and blinked several times as if fighting off tears. “I didn’t want him to lay waste to her life the way he devastated mine.” She sniffed once then deliberately raised her chin, determination etched into her features. “When I received Rosie’s warning, I knew exactly what had happened, and I cast no blame.

  “Mr. Bledsoe overheard that warning, and that’s what precipitated his hasty trip out here. Not many men would leave their employment and family responsibilities on such short notice to help out an acquaintance in a faraway town, but Mr. Bledsoe did just that. I believe it speaks highly of his character.”

  Or his manipulation skills. Helen bit the inside of her cheek to keep her pessimism from escaping.

  “Besides,” Grace continued, “Mr. Shaw and I both questioned him, and I am convinced he is exactly who he claims to be. He is a concerned friend, just like each of you. And right now, I need all the friends I can get.”

  Now Helen felt guilty for wishing the trouser-wearer away. Her shoulders drooped as Henry Chandler took her seat. No one else seemed willing to voice an objection after that heartfelt plea.

  Grace stepped off the dais, and Emma took over the meeting, giving directions on who to contact if a strange man was spotted and what action to take. Helen didn’t really listen. She didn’t need to. Emma always gave the same lecture. Don’t do anything to put yourself in danger. Don’t confront the intruder. Run to Malachi for help. Etc., etc.

  Instead of listening, Helen plotted ways to separate herself as much as possible from the approaching trouble. Not because she didn’t want to help Grace. She did. But men in charge didn’t like interference. No one expected her in town, anyway. She worked at the farm, after all.

  Helen straightened as an idea took root. The pecan trees near the old line cabin by the creek on the south side of Betty’s property had been showing signs of dropping when she walked out that way a couple weeks ago. Collecting the pecans would take two or three days, with all the nuts she’d seen in the branches of the bigger trees.

  For the first time since they’d come to town, Helen felt a genuine reason to smile. Not only could she put distance between herself and the invading male establishment by staying at the farm, but she could nearly double the size of her buffer during peak hours of the day by sneaking away to harvest pecans.

  A mess of nuts to escape the miscreants. Perfect!

  8

  Grace finally managed to draw a full breath after the last lady turned to leave the church. Only Emma and Victoria lingered, and Grace knew they wouldn’t pester her with unanswerable questions. Would Haversham harm them to get to her? Please, Lord, don’t let that be the case. Why couldn’t she contact the missing heiress directly and turn the documents over to her? Because I don’t know the name of the woman or where she resides. Why hadn’t she asked her father where the documents were hidden before he left?

  That one haunted her. She should have pressed him for details, but he’d been so focused on trying to anticipate every possible eventuality regarding the meeting with the Pinkerton agent that he’d had little patience for her questions. He’d been distracted, short-tempered, all because he loved her and was trying to protect her while still doing what he believed to be right. So she’d simply trusted him. He was her father. If he said he had proof, he had proof. He had no reason to lie. In fact, he had more reason to deny finding anything. They both would have been safer if he’d pretended not to recognize the significance of what he’d found.

  But her father was not that type of man. Integrity ran thick in his veins, nourishing every thought and action. He could no more hide from what needed to be done than she could ignore a message sounding over the wire. Both situations demanded a response, and the Mallorys responded.

  “Are you all right?” Victoria’s soft voice gently extricated Grace from her memories. Tori placed a hand on Grace’s shoulder, her blue eyes full of empathy.

  Grace nodded and even managed a small smile. “No one tried to run me out of town, so I guess the worst is over.”

  Emma moved to Grace’s other side, her brows raised. “You’re an even bigger optimist than I am if you truly think the worst is over. We won’t even know what the worst is until Haversham or whomever he hires arrives.”

  “I don’t know.” Grace gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “I think I’d rather face Haversham than speak in front of such a large group again. At least then I could use my derringer.” She patted the pistol in the garter holster beneath the right side of her skirt. A pistol she never went anywhere without. “I felt helpless against all those eyes staring at me.”

  Emma’s eyes widened in disbelief. “You know all these ladies care about you.”

  “Yes, but not all of us have your gift of leadership.” Grace met Emma’s gaze. “I’ve always envied how at ease you are whenever you address us as a group.”

  Emma shrugged. “I never really thought about it. I just get up and say what needs to be said.”

  Grace smiled. “I know.” Emma ran the town, the local bank, and pretty much any other project that required guidance. Her astounding capability would be annoying if she wasn’t also the most compassionate, caring person Grace had ever met.

  “Ben will be stopping by the store tomorrow to prep for a couple big deliveries,” Tori said as the three of them wandered through the church door. “I’ll ask him to keep an eye out for anyone suspicious in the area. If anything snags his attention, he’ll get word to us.”

  Grace clutched the railing by the stairs, feeling adrift and in need of an anchor. For the last few months, she’d actually allowed herself to feel safe. To believe that she could have a normal life. Even a suitor—at least an anonymous one safely removed from her troubles.

  Now look at her. Treading water in the middle of a maelstrom, afraid that every friend who offered her a line would be dragged down into the vortex with her. Yet without their help, she would drown.

  Grace forced a smile to her face. “Thank you, Tori. Having Mr. Porter’s help will be a blessing.”

  Emma wrapped an arm around Grace’s shoulders, and Grace turned to face her. “You’re not alone in this, Grace. You have allies. An entire town full of them. And we’re all ready to help in whatever way we can.”

  Grace blinked back the embarrassing moisture suddenly blurring her vision and ducked her head as she leaned briefly into Emma’s embrace. “Thank you.” She straightened and looked at Tori again. “I couldn’t ask for better friends.
”

  “You’ve been there for us,” Tori said, her voice ripe with conviction. “We’re just returning the favor.”

  Emma nodded. “That’s what sisters do.” She squeezed Grace a final time then traipsed down the steps as if her simple statement hadn’t just set off an earthquake beneath Grace’s feet.

  Sisters?

  She’d never had a sister. Or a brother. And now, when her problems threatened to bring harm upon their own lives, these women surrounded her with a level of acceptance and support that truly superseded the boundaries of ordinary friendship. Only God could bring about such a blessing.

  “‘A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity,’” Grace quoted softly, the familiar proverb speaking to her heart with a depth she’d not experienced before today.

  Emma twisted around on the stairs and grinned. “As Aunt Henry would say, change that brother to a sister and you’ve got a promise to hang your hat on.”

  Grace shook her head in amusement as she made her way down the steps. She could hear those very words coming from Henrietta Chandler’s lips. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise her in the slightest to learn that Aunt Henry was secretly writing a suffragette version of the Holy Scriptures, replacing all the mankind and brethren terminology with words more suited to readers of the female persuasion.

  “Although,” Tori said as the others caught up to her on the path, “Grace seems to have a brotherly friend interested in assisting her as well.”

  “That’s right.” Emma neatly maneuvered Grace into the middle of the trio, ensuring she couldn’t escape. “Why is it that I’ve never heard of this man before? You didn’t even mention him last night when you came by to talk to Mal.”

  Grace stared at the ground. It looked dry enough to absorb her if she could just find a way to liquefy herself and melt into the dust. How could she explain that she’d been carrying on intimate conversations with a complete stranger? That she’d not even known his true name before today? They’d surely think her foolish, if not an outright loon. Yet these were her sisters. And sisters shared secrets.

  “Amos and I have been corresponding for a few months. In the evenings, over the telegraph wire. We were chatting last night when the message came through from Colorado. He overheard. I didn’t expect him to show up, though. We’ve never actually met.”

  Emma threaded her arm through Grace’s. “And yet he rushed immediately to your aid.” She glanced past Grace to meet Tori’s eye. “If you ask me, there’s something stronger than friendship motivating his actions.”

  Heat rushed to Grace’s cheeks. Yet even as she squirmed under Emma’s assumption, she couldn’t stop a little thrill from shooting through her chest. She’d had much the same thought. After all, Amos had admitted to caring about her when she’d questioned him earlier. He said he wanted the chance to get to know her. That alluded to a possible future, didn’t it?

  “I agree,” Tori said. “Ben found countless excuses to visit my store during the months he was trying to convince me to let him pay court. He says he was letting me get used to the idea of having him around. Something about cooking a frog in cold water that slowly warms instead of throwing the creature into boiling water and having him jump out.”

  Grace sputtered on a suppressed laugh that threatened to choke her. “Did he really compare you to a frog?”

  Tori cocked a wry grin. “I’ve learned to look past the object of the analogy to the meaning behind it when talking with Ben. Otherwise I’d be constantly offended by how many times he compares me to a horse.”

  “Well,” Emma said, leaning across them, “Ben does love his horses, so coming from him, such a comparison is probably high praise.”

  “True.” Tori lifted her face toward the sun, a smile of pure contentment eliciting a twinge of envy in Grace’s belly. Then the moment passed and the shopkeeper turned her attention fully on Grace. “No man is perfect,” she said. “But if he loves you and respects you and treats you with kindness, the flaws fade away.”

  “Unless you’re in the middle of an argument,” Emma said. “Then they seem to magnify.”

  Grace and Tori chuckled. It was well-known that the town founder and the town marshal had occasional differences of opinion over how things should operate in the community. Differences that could become rather boisterous.

  “Of course, it’s a temporary condition.” Emma ignored their laughter, injecting her voice with schoolmarm precision as she shared her vast wealth of married knowledge with her companions. “Those flaws shrink back down to near invisibility as soon as he says something sweet or holds you in his arms or kisses you.”

  Grace nibbled her lower lip. She didn’t know what Mr. Bledsoe’s flaws were. She didn’t know him. Over the past months she’d built up an ideal, a fantasy in her mind of what her Mr. A would be like. An unrealistic standard impossible for any man to live up to.

  She’d envisioned a tall man with midnight hair and skin tanned from working outdoors, which was ridiculous, since she knew Mr. A worked in a Western Union office. Yet that hadn’t stopped her from dreaming of him having rugged masculinity, swagger, and confidence. A man with a physique that would make one’s mouth go dry. A man not unlike Malachi Shaw or Benjamin Porter.

  Amos Bledsoe had not been blessed with such attributes. He had his own, more subtle type of handsomeness, centered around his eyes—piercing blue, yet not in a hard way. They were honest and open and seemed to look straight into her. Even through the spectacles. His personality was just as sweet and clever as it had been over the wire. And the fact that he had rushed to her rescue did make her heart flutter.

  But it also raised doubts. What kind of man left his job and his family to ride to the rescue of a woman he’d never met? It seemed a bit extreme. Perhaps he was too invested in her. Would allowing him to stay put her in a different kind of danger? Hadn’t it been an obsessed admirer who killed that saloon singer down in Tarrant County? The wires had been abuzz with the gossip for weeks.

  Grace gave her head a little shake. She needed to get a grip on her imagination. The man she’d met in the jailhouse earlier had been perfectly normal. Gentlemanly, sincere, and candid regarding his intentions. Intentions that still made her blood pump a little faster when she thought of them, despite the fact that he hadn’t quite matched the image she’d built up of him in her mind.

  A sudden thought scurried across her mind. What had he expected her to look like? And how far short had she fallen? Had he pictured her as a statuesque blonde like Tori, or perhaps a fiery, take-charge dynamo with dark curls and vibrant green eyes like Emma? He probably hadn’t expected a short, shy, secretive female with a murdering mine tycoon on her trail.

  A sigh slipped silently through her parted lips. She was certainly no great prize. Yet he’d said he wanted to stay. That he was glad he’d come. Even after she’d left him locked up in Malachi’s jail. Surely that was worth more than a pair of broad shoulders and a wagonload of muscles.

  9

  Bertie’s fixin’ a cot for you down in the basement of the station house,” the marshal said as he unlocked the door to Amos’s cell. “The boardinghouse is full up, and the ladies there wouldn’t take kindly to a male guest anyhow, so we figured it’d be easier for you to bunk with us.”

  Amos put his hat on and stepped out into freedom. Odd how the air felt fresher on the other side of the bars. And he’d only been inside for a couple hours. What must it be like for someone who’d actually been convicted of a crime?

  Feeling stiff—more from the stress of not knowing what was being said about him in the town meeting than the marshal’s rudimentary accommodations—Amos rolled his shoulders and bent his neck from side to side a few times as Malachi Shaw closed the cell door behind him.

  “Bertie’s a good cook,” the marshal continued, as if Amos might need further convincing, “and I’ve already instructed Henry not to draw her weapon on you again.”

  Wait. Those names. Was he actually going to be stay
ing with the Revolver and Cookie Grannies?

  Some of his shock must have shown on his face, for Shaw laughed before thumping him on the back. “Don’t worry. Emma and I will be there, too. We’ll watch your back.”

  He winked, a sure sign he was teasing, but Amos’s muscles knotted back up anyway. He remembered the steely look in Revolver Granny’s eyes. That gaze had practically dared him to give her an excuse to fire her weapon.

  Repressing a shudder, Amos stole a quick glance back through the bars. “You know, that cot wasn’t so bad,” he commented, only half joking. “If you left the door unlocked, I could stay here.” Safely away from the crazy grannies.

  “Nah. Gotta keep the room available for the real criminals.” Shaw opened the top drawer of his desk and tossed the cell key inside. “Besides, you’ll want the use of the parlor for your visits with Miss Mallory. Can’t woo a lady in a jailhouse.”

  Amos speared the marshal with a look. Had he just pretended to be obtuse when Amos and Grace were tapping out their coded, private conversation?

  Shaw grinned. “It’s not like you can hide your intentions, Bledsoe. Not here.” He shoved his desk drawer closed then leaned his hip against the corner’s edge. “There’s only one reason a man lingers in Harper’s Station: to win a woman. A particular woman. Only two of us have managed to accomplish the feat so far, but Ben Porter and I are living proof that the impossible can be achieved if you want it badly enough.”

  Did he want it badly enough? Enough to sleep under the same roof as Revolver Granny and her giant pistol?

  The answer came to him in an instant as the jailhouse door opened and a pair of ladies stepped inside. One walked straight up to Shaw and accepted his arm around her waist as if it were the missing accessory to her dress. But the other? She hesitated at the entrance, the early evening light casting golden highlights on her hair. Amos’s heart skittered to a halt then lunged forward at a gallop.

  Oh, yeah. He wanted it badly enough.