Ashes and Memories (4 page)

She would be furious if she could clear her mind, but she was powerless against the confusion of emotion and sensation warring inside her.

“I feel I should apologize for your unfortunate introduction to Providence,” he said. His cunning smile told her how well he knew how he affected her and he was intentionally releasing her from the control he exercised over her by changing the subject with the skill of a politician.

Emma took a deep breath, her lungs burning as if she'd just emerged from a smoke-filled building and could breathe again.

“You handled the situation well enough,” she replied, regaining a degree of composure.

“Providence may not look like much now but someday this town will be the territorial capital.”

She gazed around her at the muddy streets, the clapboard store fronts, the disreputable demeanor of the buildings they passed. “You have your work cut out for you,” she couldn't help saying.

He laughed, the sound deep and resonant, and for a moment, the darkness left his eyes. It had been a long time since she'd heard a man's genuine laugh. The sound trembled through her body and sent a shiver of pleasure along her nerve endings.

Her father hadn't laughed without derision since he'd returned from the war. In fact, traveling alone with him had been joyless.

Reece gazed sidelong at her, studying her with a new admiration in his eyes. “That's true, but I do enjoy a challenge. Besides, it's as good a place as any -- any you'll find in this part of the country.”

His gaze grew reflective as if his mind had carried him somewhere far from this place. Emma’s throat tightened. In the depths of his eyes, she read the signs. He'd been through some kind of hell himself, and the part of him that had been created in that inferno reached out to the dark, empty place inside her. She steeled herself against it, against him.

He forced a self-conscious smile. “Providence is a growing, thriving town, rugged, barely civilized. It has all the problems of a new frontier town.”

“Such as?” she asked, glad for something else, anything else, to think about other than the heavy weight of loss in her chest and the all too familiar pain in his eyes.

“Such as mud, dust, lawlessness, corruption, isolation, lack of culture or society.”

“Never was much for society,” she said with a deep, steadying breath. “If it's all that bad why do you live here?”

“Perhaps I like lawlessness, corruption, and isolation,” he said with a smile. “Although I can't say I care much for mud.”

He was too charming, too smooth and sophisticated, and he had no right to be so diabolically handsome. He disturbed her on so many different levels she could hardly recover from one assault before she was reeling from another.

“Do people always follow your orders so blindly?” she asked, hoping to keep the conversation on safe ground, if there was any safe ground with Mr. MacBride.

Reece laughed shortly. “Around here they do.”

“Even the sheriff?” she asked, regaining her equilibrium. “Where I come from the sheriff is an elected official.”

“You know, I cannot help thinking how dangerous a newspaper could prove in the hands of an opinionated woman.”

His sardonic smile warmed her blood and filled her with a giddy light-headedness, which infuriated her more than his patronizing words. She pulled her gaze away before he could capture it again.

“It just seems a little strange that everyone jumps at your every word,” she said, trying to concentrate on the bustle of activity around her.

Wagons and men on horseback filled the street, while pedestrians crowded the sidewalks. Reece acknowledged passersby from time to time with a touch of his hat or a brief nod.

Excitement and optimism coursed through Emma again as it had this morning when she'd walked these streets for the first time. For all its rough appearance, there was a fresh exuberance, a raw audacity about Providence that beckoned to her. It was so different from the wounded South.

“We had an elected sheriff,” Reece explained. “Unfortunately he was murdered during the execution of his duties a few months ago and it was expedient to promote the deputy.”

“Murdered.”

“Lawlessness, Miss Parker,” he said, feigning regret. “I am afraid things are a little different here in the territory than back east. Where exactly are you from, if you don't mind my asking?”

“Savannah, Tennessee. It's a small town in the western part of the state.”

“Yes, on the Tennessee River near.... I am familiar with the area." He tensed, his face growing noticeably pale.

Near Shiloh, she finished silently. Of course he'd heard of that blood bath, but his reaction went deeper than that.

She started to ask if he'd been there, but her own memories were too painful, the smell of gunpowder and the sound of cannon fire too strong.

She was only nine at the time, but she remembered as if it were yesterday the fire and the smoke and the blood-soaked bodies of the men who were brought to the makeshift hospital in town. Then and there she'd learned to hate violence and war.

Emma pushed the memories into the far reaches of her mind, taking a deep breath to clear her senses. “We came west to find a place to start over.”

They stopped before a closed door flanked on both sides by bay windows. A sign on the door warned No Trespassing.

“Here we are." Reece MacBride turned the key in the lock. A bell jingled softly as he pushed the door open and stepped aside for Emma to enter.

The office seemed to enfold her in a warm embrace of nostalgia, and she took a deep, raged breath. She'd come home.

The room was small and cluttered with printing equipment. Dust coated everything and danced in the rays of sunlight that filtered through dirty windows. But Emma saw past the grime and disarray and imagined what it could look like after a good cleaning.

“So, what would you take for this place, Mr. MacBride?" She tried to keep the enthusiasm out of her voice. It wouldn't do to let on how badly she wanted this office.

“Please call me Reece,” he drawled, brushing his hands together. “You are a very decisive woman.”

“Tell you what, Mr. MacBride,” she said, “I'll give you fifteen dollars a month.”

Reece laughed. “I admire a woman with a sense of humor, Miss Parker. But I am afraid I could not possibly let you have it for less than forty.”

 “That's robbery! It's not like you have other offers to consider,” Emma pointed out.

“How do you know I haven't turned down other offers?” he asked. “How do you know I'm not holding out for someone who is willing to pay my price?”

“Are you?” she asked.

He looked into her eyes for a long moment, his own dark and challenging. Something in their depths sent a shiver down her spine, like that certain glint in a horse's eyes that told you he was a rogue -- fearless, unwilling to be mastered and totally aware of his own ability to crush anyone who dared try to bend him to their will.

Then he smiled, and his eyes softened. It was only a surface softness, as if some dark demon lurked behind his facade of civility. “There are living quarters upstairs which you are also welcome to use.”

Emma did some quick figuring. Twenty dollars a month was a fair price, but not forty. If there was an apartment as well, she could save another twelve on a hotel room. “I'll give you thirty.”

“Mr. MacBride!" A tall, lanky man in a bowler hat rushed into the room. He stood in the doorway, struggling to catch his breath. “I sure am glad I found you!”

“What is it Hank?" Reece turned to face the man, one hand resting casually on the hilt of his revolver, the other on the edge of the table beside Emma.

“Sheriff sent me,” Hank managed to gasp. “The judge is over at the jail.”

“Thank you, Hank. Tell Sheriff Ryker I am on my way.”

Hank nodded, and with a cursory glance at Emma, turned and hurried out.

“The circuit judge has come to determine the identity of the unfortunate gentleman you saw hanging in the center of town this morning,” Reece told her. “Would you care to witness the event?”

He paused, perhaps for effect. There was a certain dramatic flair to everything he did. He took a step closer to Emma, a shrewd smile curving one corner of his mouth. “For the paper, of course. Unless you're squeamish about day-old corpses.”

Emma folded her arms beneath her breasts and leaned back against the table behind her, managing to put a little distance between herself and Mr. MacBride. Her stomach turned over at the image his words evoked, but she refused to give in to the nausea inside her. He was challenging her, and she would meet that challenge. “Are you going to accept my offer?”

He extended a bent elbow toward her as if she were a grand lady and he a gentleman at a ball. Emma felt a smile spreading over her lips, in spite of her efforts to repress it. And she found herself taking his arm as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

He glanced at her sidelong and patted her hand where it rested in the crook of his arm. “Thirty dollars a month it is, Miss Parker.”

CHAPTER TWO

An overwhelming stench filled the small, dark room. Emma fought against the bile that rose in her throat. The decomposing corpse of the dead outlaw lay on his back on a long mahogany table, while the short, gray-bearded judge probed the dead man’s ribs for evidence of an old gunshot wound.

“It’s Joe Garrett all right,” the judge said dispassionately.

Emma stood in a corner of the sheriff’s office, wishing fervently she hadn’t come. The room was so hot and crowded, she feared she might humiliate herself by fainting or retching any moment. Besides herself, the judge and Reece MacBride, the sheriff and three other men packed the small space. Beyond the open door, several curious passersby peered in from the street, though it was unlikely they could see and even less likely they could hear what was being said.

Standing in a corner out of the way, Emma glanced from one man to the next. But her attention never strayed far from Reece MacBride, and she marveled at the way he seemed to dominate any room he occupied.

There was no doubt who was in control of this situation. The power of his presence over-shadowed the authority of the judge and the sheriff. Impatience showed in his golden-brown eyes as he surveyed the proceedings with the grimness of a man who had seen too much death -- just like her father, she realized with a shiver.

“Yep,” the judge said. “There it is.”

Emma pulled out her pad and pencil and began making notes. She glanced up to find Reece MacBride studying her with a hint of amusement, and she lifted her chin, even as she felt herself flush under his perusal.

The judge drew the sides of the dead man’s shirt together, then dug in his valise, withdrawing a handful of bank notes.

“Mr. Hill,” he said, and the bounty hunter stepped forward in response. “Two hundred dollars.”

Relief flowed through Emma. It would be over soon.

Taking the money from the judge, the sheriff turned to the bounty hunter. “You’ll have to sign for this.”

“What the hell is this?” the bounty hunter demanded.

Even from across the room, Emma felt the bounty hunter’s rage as if it were a living, breathing being.

 “The poster I had said five hundred,” he insisted, glaring his anger at Reece instead of the judge.

Tension filled the small space, pressing in around Emma, and she tried to retreat further into the corner. Did they realize how close the man was to violence?

“That’s all there is,” the sheriff said. “Take it and get out.”

“What the hell are you trying to pull, MacBride?” the bounty hunter asked, his face twisted with anger. “I heard you were a backstabbing son-of-a --”

“Just take the money, Mr. Hill,” Reece said, his voice filled with disgust, “and get the hell out of my town.”

“How much of a cut do you get?” he asked.

Reece didn’t flinch. He moved closer to the man who’d challenged him, his features drawn in a taut line as he narrowed his eyes and spoke softly but succinctly, a barely suppressed violence smoldering just below his surface calm. “Are you insinuating that a circuit judge would intentionally cheat a citizen? And that I would be a party to such a thing?”

Emma held her breath, her heart thundering as she waited for the bounty hunter’s reaction. For the second time in their brief acquaintance, she found herself fearing for Reece MacBride’s life.

“You know what I’m saying,” Hill said. “I want the rest of my money.”

 In the blink of an eye, the bounty hunter made a move toward Reece. The other men in the room went for their guns. But before any of them could clear leather, Reece had his gun out and the barrel pressed against the bounty hunter’s heart.

She’d never seen anything like it in her life. How could he have reacted so quickly?

Without taking his eyes off the bounty hunter, Reece took the money from the sheriff and stuffed it into Hill’s vest pocket. “Mr. Stanton, please show Mr. Hill where to sign for his money.”

Stanton pressed Hill’s head down toward the table as Reece holstered his gun. The bounty hunter had no choice but to sign the receipt.

“Now, if you will, please escort Mr. Hill to the edge of town,” Reece said as if he were asking his butler to show a guest to the front door. “I am certain he is anxious to be on his way.”

Emma glanced at the sheriff who stood by while Reece MacBride took control of the situation. What kind of lawman would allow his authority to be usurped so easily?

 As if feeling her gaze, the sheriff looked up and scowled. Emma glanced back at the pad in her hand and pretended to take notes, though her hands shook so she could only scribble.

“You’ll be sorry for this, MacBride,” Hill warned, his eyes burning with murderous intent.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t come back to Providence,” Reece said levelly. “Because if I see you in town again, I’ll have no choice but to believe that you’ve returned to carry out the threats you’ve made here in front of these witnesses, in which case I’ll have to have you arrested. Good day, Mr. Hill.”

“Move,” Stanton said, shoving the bounty hunter toward the door.

“This ain’t over, MacBride!" Hill shouted as Stanton took him by the collar and dragged him into the street.