Printer In Petticoats. Lynna Banning

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СКАЧАТЬ Butt two v’s up together. Might look funny, but it’ll work.”

      Noralee sent him a shy smile. She was proving to be a great little typesetter, quick and conscientious, even though she could only work after school and on Saturdays. She even helped Billy load up the newspapers twice each week and she never let a word slip to Jessamine about the arrangement.

      He paid Noralee a dollar a week, and from the adoring look on her narrow face the first time he laid her pay envelope in her hand, he’d won a friend for life. Maybe newspapering out here in Smoke River wasn’t too bad.

      Except for Jessamine Lassiter. Damn woman could dig up more news from her ladies’ needlework circles and afternoon teas than he could keep up with. The new music school opening next week. Births and baptisms. Weddings and funerals. The latest fashion news from Godey’s Ladies’ Book, whatever the hell that was. Even recipes for oatmeal cookies.

      But the most galling was the Sentinel’s blatant editorials supporting Sheriff Jericho Silver for district judge. “Up by his own bootstraps” stuff. “Honest, hardworking, heroic.”

      Bilge. Nobody was that perfect. If he was going to support Conway Arbuckle, he’d have to dig up some dirt on Sheriff Jericho Silver.

      Later. Right now he spied Jessamine sashaying across the street and into his office, where she stood in front of his desk and announced that Sheriff Silver, the paragon of Smoke River, had caught the afternoon train to Portland to take his law exam.

      “You didn’t know that, did you?” she taunted.

      Yeah, he knew that. But when she thought she’d got the drop on him like that, her eyes snapped more green than gray, and sometimes he couldn’t remember what the topic was.

      “I didn’t know that,” he lied. He wondered if his eyes did anything to her insides, the way hers did to his. Then he caught himself and deliberately looked away. He wasn’t in the market for a woman’s glance. Or a woman’s anything else.

      “I’ll scoop you on the outcome, too,” she crowed. “Jericho talks only to me.”

      “Yeah,” Cole agreed. “But his wife, Maddie, talks to me.”

      “Oh?” Her eyebrows went up. “She does? Really? When do you—?”

      “When she’s hanging up diapers in her backyard. Sometimes when she’s out in front of her house, pruning her roses.”

      “Liar.”

      “Not. Maddie washes diapers every morning.”

      “And she feeds you tidbits of information every afternoon, is that it?” She puffed out her cheeks and released a long breath, making an errant curl dance across her forehead. Jessamine never wore a hat, he’d noticed. Maybe that was why she had a sprinkling of charming little freckles across her nose.

      “Besides,” he added, “along with some cookies and a good cup of coffee, Maddie tells me all the latest news from Pinkerton’s Detective Agency in Chicago. She’s an agent, you know.”

      “That,” she said with exasperation, “is cheating.”

      “No, it’s not, Jessamine. It’s called news gathering.”

      She gave him a look that would fry turnips and swished out the door. He watched her skirt twitch behind her hips with every step. He couldn’t wait until bedtime and another show behind her window blind.

      At noon, Conway Arbuckle paid him another visit. “Say, Sanders, whaddya think about running another editorial about my superior qualifications for district judge?”

      “Already ran two editorials this week.” Cole noticed that every time Conway visited the Lark office, Noralee turned her back, keeping her head down and bending over the rack of type fonts as if they were Christmas packages.

      “You got something new to say?” he queried.

      “Hell yes, I do,” Conway snapped. “Seems that Sneaky Pete sheriff’s run off to Portland. Wonder what he does in the big city?”

      “He’s taking his—”

      “Prob’ly a woman, wouldn’t you say?”

      “No, I wouldn’t say, Mr. Arbuckle. Sheriff Silver’s a married man with two kids. Twins.”

      Arbuckle leaned over Cole’s desk and spoke in a low tone. “So? I smell a rat? Cant’cha dig up some dirt on him? You know, a nice-lookin’ whore—”

      “Watch it, Arbuckle. There’s a lady present.”

      Arbuckle jerked upright. “Huh? Where? You mean your type girl? Hell, she’s only a kid.”

      “She’s a ‘she,’ no matter how old she is. Now get out and leave us in peace. When there’s legitimate news about Sheriff Silver, I’ll publish it.”

      Noralee watched the door close behind Conway Arbuckle and swiveled on her stool to turn worshipful brown eyes on Cole. “Do you think I’m really a lady, Mr. Sanders? I’m only eleven.”

      Cole rose. “Miss Ness, you are every inch a lady. I’ll stand up for you any day. Now, what about our W’s? You need any more?”

      “That man has bad breath,” Noralee remarked. “Could you write about that?”

      Cole chuckled. “Nah. Gotta have a Who, What, Where, When and Why to make a story.”

      But, now that he thought about it, maybe it was time in this election campaign to aim for the solar plexus.

      * * *

      Jessamine folded the last of her Saturday edition into Teddy MacAllister’s saddlebag and handed the rest of the stack to Billy Rowell for the town deliveries, along with a shiny new quarter for each boy. She frowned as she watched Billy lope off down the street. She’d seen him in town just yesterday, hanging around the Lark office with an expectant look on his face.

      You don’t suppose...?

      She most certainly did suppose. That snake Cole Sanders was trying to use her delivery boy! She marched out the door and across the muddy street so fast Eli sat up on his stool, his mouth hanging open.

      “Mr. Sanders,” she announced the instant she was inside his office.

      Her nemesis stood up behind his desk. “Miss Jessamine. Beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”

      “Don’t change the subject,” she replied sharply. “You’re using Billy Rowell as a delivery boy, and I strongly object. Very strongly, in fact.”

      “Well, don’t. Doesn’t take much to get you riled up, does it?”

      She ignored the remark. “Stealing my delivery boy is unconscionable.”

      “Unconscionable,” he echoed. “Shockingly unfair. Unjust. Unscrupulous. But unconscionable? Kinda strong word for a simple matter of hiring a free agent to do a job.”

      Behind her she heard a spurt СКАЧАТЬ