Authors: Robin Gideon
If Garrett and I married, I’d look out at a scene like this every morning.
Where had that thought come from? It shocked her so she spilled some of her coffee and very nearly dropped the fine china cup.
She and Garrett married?
A bitter smile spread across Pamela’s mouth. They
could be lovers—correction, she and the Midnight Phantom
could be lovers—but they could never be husband and wife. Their worlds were too far apart to be bridged with
matrimony. The most she could hope for was to be a secret
lover, to share passion in the dark, keeping whatever feel
ings they shared—lust or perhaps an even deeper and more lasting emotion—to themselves.
“I’ll have to be content with that,” Pamela said aloud.
She could hear the sadness, the frustration, in her tone.
Garrett Randolph would one day be mayor of Whitetail Creek and,
after that, the territorial governor. Even the newspapers had speculated on it, and everyone agreed that Garrett
would get the votes necessary. Such a man could not have
a common wife, a woman whose family name meant noth
ing to the people in power.
“Damn,” she murmured, sadness and anger tightening
once again around her heart. “Damn, damn, damn!”
Pamela pulled the nightgown over her head and tossed it
aside angrily. She had her old and faded clothes to put on—manly clothes, to be sure, but they were her own,
and she’d bought them with her hard-earned money—be
fore she returned to her small cabin. Jedediah might be there, and if he was, she was going to do everything she possibly could to convince him to refuse Richard Darwell’s profitable proposition.
* * * *
The following days were difficult ones for Pamela. Jed
ediah had been spending virtually all his time with some
woman in Whitetail Creek—a woman whose name he was not inclined to reveal, no matter how much she pried. And
Garrett was still at Fort Richmond, according to Paul, see
ing to the demands of a US Army lieutenant colonel who
thought the way to become a general was to make everyone doing business with the government as miserable as possible.
Though gone, Garrett would be safe, for he would not be acting as the Midnight Phantom, Pamela reminded herself.
Garrett Randolph, the Midnight Phantom! Now that she knew the truth of it, she realized the physical similarities should have given him away. But he appeared so formal as a lawyer, always dressed in beautiful suits, and he hadn’t been seen with a holster around his hips since he was a teenager.
How many other secrets did Garrett have, secrets that would be positively delicious to discover?
Fortunately, he did not yet know she’d discovered his
identity. If he hadn’t kissed her, his secret would have remained intact. But he couldn’t disguise his kiss, or the
way it made her feel, and that had exposed the Midnight
Phantom’s identity.
The horse Paul had “loaned” her was a young, strong mare with a beautiful reddish coat and mane, and white
“socks” to the knee. Pamela had promised herself she would
return the animal quickly, but once she had ridden into the country to retrieve her saddle, left there when Daisy
had been put down, she had decided there was really no
need to hurry. The horse would give her an excuse for going to the Randolph ranch as soon as Garrett returned.
As the days passed, memories of her passion-filled mo
ments at the oasis did not diminish as Pamela had thought they would. In fact, with each passing day the dull ache within her grew just a little stronger.
Each time she remembered how she had behaved, she
blushed. So passionate! Never had she dreamed she’d be so lustful, so greedy for the loving the Midnight Phantom dispensed with skilled ease.
The Midnight Phantom and Garrett Randolph were one and the same.
A slow smile curled Pamela’s mouth. She might be able to have a little fun with that bit of knowledge. For once
she
would have the upper hand with Phantom, and not the other way around.
When she looked out over the valley, she saw a flatbed
wagon approaching. It was drawn by an old horse determined to go at its own pace, and the woman holding the reins didn’t seem to be in any hurry either. When the wagon drew nearer, Pamela recognized the plump form of Gretchen.
By the time the wagon reached the cabin, Pamela had water
on for fresh coffee and she’d heated up the rich cinnamon
rolls she’d baked early that morning.
“Good afternoon,” she said brightly, reaching up to help the older woman step down from the wagon. “What brings
you all the way out here?”
“Master Garrett sent me,” Gretchen answered with a smile.
Pamela did not at all like the title “master” affixed to Garrett’s name, but she kept her opinion on the matter to herself. “Garrett’s back?” she asked, trying not to sound overly excited by the prospect. “I would have ridden to
you if he…” She didn’t know what to say, so her words
trailed slowly off.
“He sent a wire. Besides, what we’ve got to do is best done here, away from the prying eyes of those boys.” Gretchen waved to a number of packages in the bed of the wagon, and Pamela went around to retrieve them. “Now let’s see what we can do with these, shall we?”
Pamela looked at the packages, all beautifully wrapped and bowed. Some were from stores in Whitetail Creek, and one, a hatbox, was from a store in faraway San Francisco.
“Garrett wanted you to have the very best. He said to
spare no expense,” Gretchen explained. When she saw the
look of confusion on Pamela’s face, she smiled. “The dance,
child. Surely, you haven’t forgotten that the dance is tonight.”
Pamela had no idea what response she should give the
woman. The fact was she
had
forgotten about the dance,
but only because she’d already told Garrett that she couldn’t
go. She didn’t approve of the people who would attend, and she hadn’t had the clothes for it.
Until now. Every package was from a fine store, the kind Pamela had never even walked into.
After coffee was served and the cinnamon rolls were sampled and complimented, Gretchen suggested a slight
alteration in the recipe for them, and Pamela appreciated the
tip. Next, the packages were opened.
“I didn’t say I would go to the dance with him,” Pamela
informed Gretchen, who seemed determined to stay in the
cabin until she was absolutely confident that every article
of clothing fit to perfection, no matter how much Pamela complained.
“Yes, Master Garrett said that.” Gretchen pulled a satin gown of blue and turquoise from the largest box
. It was trimmed with gold braid at the décolletage,
the skirt’s hem, and the wrists. “He hoped you might be of a different mind once you saw the clothes.”
Pamela’s stubbornness came to the fore. She didn’t want Garrett to think he could buy her affections with a gown, even if it did come from the finest clothier in Whitetail Creek.
“Really, there’s no need to go to all this trouble,” she
said as Gretchen continued opening packages and pulling
the contents out.
“No trouble at all,” Gretchen replied distractedly, her concentration on a handbag. “This should
have had just a shade more green in its blue-green coloring.”
“I’m sorry, but I really must stop you here and now,”
Pamela said with finality. “I’m not going to the dance. Quite
frankly, I don’t much care for the people attending, or for the things they stand for. I find them all—”
“Even Garrett?” Gretchen cut in, looking at Pamela over
the tops of the gold-rimmed spectacles perched delicately
at the tip of her nose.
The comment caught Pamela off guard. “Well…well, no, of course not Garrett, but—”
“It’s Garrett you’ll be with. The rest will just be bystand
ers. Don’t worry your head about anyone but you and Garrett, and you’ll be doing yourself a favor,” Gretchen
said sternly. A lifetime of getting big, strapping, decidedly
spoiled young men to do what they
should
do instead of
what they
wanted
to do had afforded Gretchen ample ex
perience in dealing with a reticent child, and in her eyes, anyone under thirty-five was still a child. “Now off with
those infernal trousers, and let’s see what alterations I have
to make on this gown. We’ve only got a little time before
Master Garrett shows up.”
Silently, Pamela stood her ground. She would not be bul
lied by anyone, not even Gretchen.
The older woman would not be denied however. She was determined, she was infinitely patient, and she knew
that sooner or later Pamela would give in. She was correct.
Three hours later, Gretchen was saying, “I’d have been
here sooner, but some of the packages weren’t ready.” She
put another stitch into the gold braid trim around Pamela’s wrist. “Master Garrett’s coming home today, and he wired that a bath should be waiting for him. He wants to be out
of the ranch by three. If he takes it easy, he’ll get here by
five, and you and he will arrive at the dance by seven.”
“It sounds like
Master
”
—Pamela drawled the word out slowly and sarcastically—“Garrett has made plenty of plans for my life.”
“He sure has. Got all of us at the ranch buzzing, too. Garrett just doesn’t court like that.”
Pamela wanted to protest, but she enjoyed the fact that she
could make Garrett do something he normally didn’t do
with women. And when Gretchen turned her so she might see her reflection in the mirror, her reluctance about going
to the dance vanished completely.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” she whispered, running her
hands over the satin skirt.
“I thought the color would suit you,” Gretchen replied, sounding enormously pleased with her own handiwork. “Now do
you want me to do your hair?”
“Gretchen, that really won’t be necessary.” Pamela was
about to say she still wasn’t going to the dance. Instead the words that came from her lips were, “Can I change
my mind?”
“It’s a woman’s right,” Gretchen said, already opening
a small purse filled with the ribbons and combs that might
be necessary.
* * * *
Garrett experienced a surge of excitement when he spot
ted Gretchen’s old flatbed wagon at Pamela’s cabin. He tapped
the reins against the horse’s back and picked up the pace
a bit, anxious to see what clothes Gretchen had chosen
for her.
He felt boyishly giddy, and he didn’t care. After a week
of hard negotiations with a pig-headed Army officer he
had no respect for, it would be pure heaven to spend time
with Pamela again.
As he neared the cabin, he looked over the seat of his
carriage one more time to see that it was immaculate.
Then he checked his own clothes, straightened his necktie one
more time, even though it was already straight, and
thumbed a smudge off the toe of his boot with his thumb.
As his carriage came to a halt, Gretchen stepped out
of the little cabin, a subdued smile on her face. A moment
later, she was followed by an uncertain Pamela, who never
theless looked ravishing in a satin gown.