Her Montana Man. Cheryl St.John

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СКАЧАТЬ was a red brick storefront nestled on the corner beside Earl Mobley’s tailor shop on the opposite side of the street. Once inside, she seated herself at a table before the front window, where Bonnie Jacobson brought her a china cup and a pot of tea. Most days Jonas observed her ritual from just inside the door of the saloon where she couldn’t see him, but occasionally he found a reason to run an errand to the hardware store across the street in time for her arrival.

      Once or twice he’d paused on the boardwalk as she passed and tipped his hat. As soon as she’d raised those amber eyes, his heart thudded in his chest and he’d chastised himself. Nothing and no one intimidated Jonas Black.

      Apparently the marshal had no problem accepting the true story now that Eliza Jane had verified it, because he turned to Baslow. “Time you moved on.”

      Baslow shot Maddie a look of seething rage. “You ain’t seen the last of me, woman. Don’t think your friends can protect you forever.”

      “Anything happens to Miss Holmes, and we’ll know who to look for,” the marshal told him. “I’ll be wiring the county seat to let ’em know about this disturbance.”

      Baslow located his hat where it lay in the street. He snatched it up, whacked it against his thigh and settled it on his head before walking toward his horse and untying it. From the clumsy way he mounted, Jonas suspected he was masking a couple of cracked ribs.

      Marshal Haglar watched as the man turned his mount away and galloped out of town. “Stay out of sight, but follow him a ways to make sure he’s headed home,” he told one of the young men who had a horse tethered across the street.

      Once Baslow was out of sight and the man he’d sent was tailing him, the marshal approached Maddie.

      “Thank you, Marshal,” she said.

      “I had the easy part,” he replied. “Looks like Jonas got the worst of it.”

      Maddie looked Jonas over, but after noting the onlookers, a tinge of embarrassment stained her cheeks. “Sorry,” she said low enough that only Jonas and the marshal could hear.

      “You handled it perfectly,” Jonas told her. “You had a crowd of witnesses while Frank was bullyin’ you, and when you stood up for yourself, you gained the respect of each one. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

      He could tell the moment when it no longer mattered that she’d been humiliated on a public street. Maddie had just gained respect for herself. She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, but couldn’t hold back a smile. She brought her palms to her blazing cheeks. “I shouldn’t be so pleased when you’re standing there bleeding.”

      He looked down at his knuckles, which had taken to throbbing like the very dickens.

      The marshal tipped his hat. “Afternoon, Miss Holmes,” he said as though they’d just encountered each other on the boardwalk.

      “Marshal.”

      Jonas searched the crowd and noted that Eliza Jane had returned to the other side of the street. She was just entering the tea shop. Well, hell. He’d had the perfect reason to speak to her and had let it slip by. Now he was going to have to go after her. His stomach lurched. Confused the tar out of him why that thought was scarier than anything that had happened so far.

      “Come in and put some ice on your hands,” Maddie suggested.

      “I’ll be right there.” He gestured for her to go back to the Silver Star without him and crossed the street. He needed to thank the witness for verifying his story.

      Chapter Two

      A couple of the men spoke to him, commenting on the incident. The last few remaining townsfolk headed back to their jobs and errands.

      Jonas moved on, pausing outside the tearoom, his ink-stained and bleeding fingers on the door handle. Scoffing at his uncharacteristic hesitation, he walked in, surprised to hear the delicate tinkle of a bell. It rang again as he closed the door and glanced around. Silence and the scents of cinnamon and spices engulfed him. He couldn’t imagine feeling more out of place.

      Eliza Jane had taken a seat at her usual table by the window and removed her straw hat. Bonnie had just set a fancy rose-patterned cup and saucer on the pristine white tablecloth. Eliza Jane watched him cross the room toward her. His boot heels were glaringly loud on the wood floor. Her amber eyes held surprise…and wariness.

      “I wanted to thank you…for speaking up the way you did,” he said. She held his gaze, and he got that funny feeling in his belly.

      “I simply told the marshal what I’d seen.”

      “A lot of people wouldn’t have done that with Baslow standing right there glarin’ at them.”

      She shrugged. “I did it for the woman.”

      Jonas nodded. “You did a good thing.”

      Bonnie bustled from the back room with a cloth in her outstretched hand. He knew her from the town council meetings, since she ran her own business and most often attended. “Put this on your cheek there, Jonas. And come to the back and wash those hands.”

      He accepted the wet cloth and touched it to his cheek where numbness had been replaced by a stinging sensation. Some impression he must be making, standing there bleeding. Coming here probably hadn’t been his wisest choice. “I’m not gonna bleed on your tablecloths, Bonnie. I’m not stayin’. I just wanted to thank Miss Sutherland.”

      “I wasn’t worried about the tablecloths, I was concerned about your face and hands.”

      “I’m all right.”

      “You want a cup of tea?”

      “No, thanks.”

      She glanced at Eliza and back at him. “All right then. I’ll bring your tea right out, Eliza Jane.”

      Once they were alone again, she met Jonas’s gaze. “Is that woman, the one he was after, is she your…I mean are you two…?”

      Her blunt question surprised him. He shook his head. “Maddie works for me. She warned me about Baslow, so I knew what to expect. Nobody has a right to push another person around just because they’re bigger or stronger. The man had worse comin’ to him.”

      Eliza studied the man standing in front of her with a new perspective. She’d seen him on the street a few times, knew of him and his enterprises, but they’d never had occasion to speak. Her brother-in-law had no use for Jonas Black, calling him a slave trader because he sold employment forms to itinerant workers seeking jobs. Silver Bend was a thoroughfare between the States and the British border, and scores of men sought work with threshing crews, in logging camps and orchards, even mines.

      She knew about hiring migrant workers. She’d worked in her father’s brickyard since she’d been old enough to dig clay. Later she’d handled bookkeeping and accounts with enough skill to help buy railroad and bank shares. She’d managed the finances until well after her father’s death—until her sister’s health declined and Jenny Lee needed her more and more. Now she spent her days caring for her invalid sister and her young nephew.

      No doubt about it, there were unscrupulous employment agencies. Many СКАЧАТЬ