Morrow Creek Runaway. Lisa Plumley

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СКАЧАТЬ Well, of course I want to see him!” All smiles now, Rosamond handed her bat to Tommy Scott, who was awaiting his turn. “Here, Tommy. You try batting next. The rest of you...make lots of scores!”

      “They’re called runs, Mrs. Dancy!” shouted little Tobe Larkin, full of sass and exaggerated forbearance. He’d recently come to the territory from California with his widowed mother, Lucinda. Both were temporarily taking refuge with Rosamond. “When you’re playing baseball, scores are called runs.”

      “Yes. Thank you, Tobe.” Growing up in faraway Boston, Rosamond had never spent much time with other children. She’d worked in a factory, like her parents, until she’d been orphaned. After that, she’d been apprenticed as a housemaid in a fine Beacon Hill household. Her days had not been filled with games and childish pastimes. “I’ll master this eventually.”

      “We know,” the children chimed in cheerfully, having heard the same axiom from Rosamond endless times already. I’ll master this eventually was something of a catchphrase for Rosamond. She hadn’t realized she used it as often as she did until her friend Libby Jorgensen pointed it out to her with surprising admiration.

      “You’re so determined, Rosamond,” Libby had told her that day, shortly after they’d moved into the house. “That’s what makes you different from the rest of us. That’s what made you able to get us here, all the way across the country, after Mr. Dancy—”

      Rosamond had cut off her friend curtly, unwilling to hear any more about the man she’d briefly and disastrously been wed to. Elijah Dancy might have unwittingly enabled Rosamond’s new life by obligingly getting shot at a gambling table, but that didn’t mean Rosamond felt a speck of gratitude for the man.

      In fact, she had yet to meet the man she felt grateful for. No one who truly knew her would have blamed her for that fact.

      But if any man were to come close, it would have been Gus Winston. The lanky, bandanna-wearing stableman had approached Rosamond’s household with an open mind and endearing enthusiasm.

      You have a gentleman caller, she remembered Bonita saying. She had to get busy. She couldn’t keep Gus waiting all day.

      Breathless with the aftereffects of her athletic endeavors, Rosamond patted her bedraggled, mostly upswept auburn hair. Vigorously, she brushed off her bodice and her bustled, lace-trimmed skirts. Playing baseball wasn’t strictly among her duties as the lady of the household, but whenever one of the children asked her to join in, Rosamond simply couldn’t resist. She loved hearing their raucous laughter and seeing their little faces smudged with dirt...but wreathed with smiles, all the same.

       You have a gentleman caller.

      When would those words not stop her heart?

      She’d escaped from Boston, Rosamond reminded herself firmly. She had nothing more to fear from the Bouchards or anyone else. She’d made a new life for herself in Morrow Creek.

      A life that left her—a supposed lady—hopelessly untidy.

      Nonetheless, she faced Grace brightly. “How do I look?”

      Her friend assessed her. “You look perfectly invigorated!”

      Hmm. That wasn’t terribly helpful. “Bonita?”

      “It’s Gus,” her assistant reminded her. “He won’t mind if you’re slightly less stringently ladylike than usual.”

      Bonita’s teasing grin reminded Rosamond that to everyone here, she truly was ladylike. Despite the gossip and whispers that had initially greeted the arrival of her Morrow Creek Mutual Society—and the ladies therein—no one in town suspected Rosamond of anything untoward. Her neighbors approved of her.

      Almost a year after her ignoble departure from Boston, Rosamond had created the haven she’d always longed for. In the unlikely refuge of Morrow Creek, she was finally secure.

      Unless a particular and unwanted “gentleman caller” arrived, that is. If that happened, all her security would be shattered.

      Rosamond couldn’t bear to consider it. “I’ll be back for the next round,” she assured everyone. “Good luck!”

      “It’s the next inning!” Tobe called. “Inning!”

      But Rosamond gaily waved off his assertion and headed for her private parlor, hauling in a deep breath as she went.

      If nothing else, she was in charge here. She had friends, security, a family of rescued women and their children, and a useful occupation to occupy her mind. She’d done good work here.

      As proof, Rosamond reminded herself, she was about to meet the first and most satisfied client of her mutual society.

      The just-married Mr. Gus Winston, waiting in her parlor.

       Chapter Two

      Within half an hour of his arrival at the saloon, Miles had the dispiriting realization that he’d become an expert at subterfuge. Wholly without meaning to, he’d become a man who knew how to pick a lock, when to trade cash for information and where to find answers that didn’t send him off cockeyed on a wild, time-wasting goose chase. He’d learned how to suss out the truth and how to protect himself. He’d had to. The kind of people he’d dealt with were neither reputable nor trustworthy.

      At this point, maybe he wasn’t, either.

      But the urgency of his search had demanded more from him. More, maybe, than he’d been willing to give at the outset. But he’d had no choice then. Now that Miles was so close—now that he knew Rosamond McGrath was within reach—he couldn’t quit.

      He’d always been able to handle himself, of course, Miles recalled as he studied his ale. He had the usual masculine willingness to fight, if the outcome of that fight mattered. In his time, he’d settled a few disputes with his fists. He had the musculature that came from hoisting horse-and-carriage equipment from dawn to dusk, the wits that came from growing up in the hardscrabble city tenements and a hardheadedness that owed itself, quite naturally, to his Callaway forebearers.

      Each of them was as stubborn as a stuck mule and more than eager to boast about it. But they also had the charm of several fallen angels to sweeten their obstinacy. Miles’s own father had possessed unholy amounts of charisma...coupled with an unfortunate unwillingness to quit playing faro until his pockets were empty.

      Too bad he could always finagle the faro dealer into letting him play a mite longer on credit, Miles remembered. Without that damnable charm of his, Silas Callaway might have been able to save and move out from the grimy tenements. That certainly would have pleased Miles’s mother. But none of the Callaways had ever really expected to leave the rougher side of Boston—at least not unless it was in service to someone like the Bouchards.

      In the end, Miles had been the only one who’d left.

      He’d brought some of that infamous family charm with him, though, he reckoned as he signaled the barman for some food. He’d twisted the Callaway charisma into use not for gambling but for a greater cause.

      For Rose. For finding her, just as he’d promised, and for—

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