Liz Ireland (13 page)

She stomped over to her horse and mounted with a resentful
scowl. “Well, just don’t you forget I
was
the one to find Mary Ann.”

His eyes twinkled wryly. “I don’t expect you’ll let me.”

From the tone of Paulie’s conversation with Iris, Will had mentally braced himself to find Mary Ann installed in a bordello. Instead, Maudie Worthington’s turned out to be a boardinghouse on a very respectable-looking residential street set back from the river, far from the bustle and noise of the town. So respectable was the place, in fact, that Maudie Worthington thought twice about talking to the ragtag trio of strangers who arrived at her doorstep that afternoon.

The widow Worthington, who met them on the porch of her two-story house, was pleasantly plump, wore a black serge dress with a neckline practically reaching her lower lip. Her hair, a baffling cross between blond and silver gray, puffed elegantly around her face and was gathered neatly at the crown of her head in a perfectly round bun.

“We’ve come looking for one of your residents, Mary Ann Murphy,” Will announced to the woman. Her gaze narrowed first on Will, then Trip, then Paulie—lingering longest on Paulie. “Incidentally, the three of us could also use a place to stay while in town, if you have a vacancy.”

A large placard sign on the front door of the house announced plainly that there was, but the woman didn’t appear to give that fact any credence. “Mary Ann isn’t exactly living here,” she said.

“She’s not?” Will held back a sigh. He’d feared all along that this had been too easy. He wondered what Mary Ann was up to now.

“No sir,” Mrs. Worthington replied. “She’s working for me.”

“Working!”

Will couldn’t say for certain who had let out the exclamation
or if all three of them actually had. Everybody knew that Mary Ann hated to do chores around her own farm. He couldn’t imagine her coming to the city to hire herself out as a servant girl.

Loudly, a second-story window was thrown open, and there, after all these days, appeared Mary Ann herself. Will sucked in his breath at the sight she created. For so long now he’d feared some terrible fate had befallen her, but here she was, looking as pretty and pampered as ever. Her blue eyes were framed by the same riot of blond curls as she leaned out the window and stared down at them in shock. “Why, it’s Will Brockett!” she exclaimed. A smile that could have lit up all of Texas spread across her face. “Will! Wait there—I’ll be right down!”

Mrs. Worthington harrumphed. “This is dusting day, and the girl took half the morning just to drag a rag over a banister. I hope you all can pay for these rooms you want, because I can’t be making up more chores so I can take in more people who can’t afford to stay here otherwise. Heaven knows, having Mary Ann is already like having no servant girl at all.”

Will nodded, feeling strangely comforted by her words. Same old Mary Ann, all right. “We can pay.”

The woman didn’t seem to doubt Will, but she again shot dubious looks at both Paulie and Trip, who Will had to admit did look a little frayed around the edges after their hard travelling.

Paulie, though, lifted her chin as if she were Queen Victoria of England and looked down her pert nose at the venerable Mrs. Worthington, something which would have been impossible for the diminutive girl to manage had she not been atop her horse. Then, with much ceremony, she doffed her hat and produced her stash of money. “I have here the sum of twenty-eight dollars,” she announced to
the older woman. “I assume that’s enough to cover our lodgings for a week?”

One glance at the money was enough for Mrs. Worthington to be won over. “More than enough,” she agreed, nodding. She turned and beckoned them toward the front door. “If you’ll just follow me, I’ll show you—”

Her words were cut off when Mary Ann came racing through the door. Although he had been preparing himself, Will nearly gasped in surprise at the sight of her, more beautiful than ever. Her blond curls were pulled back from her face but spilled down her shoulders in a dazzling display. Her blue eyes shone brightly, especially set against the cornflower-blue of her long-sleeved dress. She wore a white pinafore over the garment, giving her a domestic look she didn’t normally possess.

She seemed overly enthusiastic, almost agitated, to find this group of Possum Trotters in her San Antonio hideaway.

“Well, my word!” she exclaimed, just standing there breathlessly and drinking him in. “Will!” Finally able to stand no more, she laughed gaily and ran into his arms, practically exploding off the porch at him in a flurry of blue and white. He couldn’t help smiling as he held her for a moment.

“You don’t know how glad I am to see you!” she said. “You don’t know—” A half-choked sob bit off her words.

He looked down into her blue eyes, which were dry of tears but filled to the brim with troubles. In the last few moments, he had almost forgotten the bad tidings he had come to San Antonio bearing. Now he dreaded telling her about Oat’s death all the more.

Mary Ann’s eyes focused on a point behind him, and Will turned to see Trip beaming at the pretty sight Mary Ann created—and Paulie scowling like a mad hound dog.

“Oh,” Mary Ann said. “I guess I didn’t see you, Mr. Peabody, and Miss…I mean, um, Paulie.”

Will frowned, glancing between the two young women. It seemed almost as if Mary Ann could barely remember her friend’s name.

Paulie’s lip propped itself up into a lopsided smile. “How are you, Mary Ann?”

“Fine, thank you,” Mary Ann answered stiffly.

Mrs. Worthington, her hands propped on her ample hips, shook her head. “Mary Ann, you take a moment to visit before you get back to your chores,” she said, as if she were the very soul of generosity. Then she turned to Trip and Paulie. “I’ll go ahead and show you two the rooms.”

Paulie and Trip dismounted, hitched their horses and followed Mrs. Worthington into the house, leaving Mary Ann and Will by themselves. Will felt uncomfortable, and fidgeted with his hat as he listened to the squabbling of two blue jays in an elm tree nearby. For days he’d been expecting to find Mary Ann, yet since he’d had so many people along with him, he hadn’t reckoned on facing her alone. He wasn’t sure how to begin voicing all the things he had to tell her. Mary Ann’s gay, almost hysterically happy mood didn’t allow much room for bad news.

She glanced up at him, her blue eyes dancing slyly. “You don’t have to say it, Will,” she said. “I know what you’re thinking. I’ve been bad. You’ve come here to scold me.” Long black lashes fluttered demurely. “You always were a scold.” Lord, she was pretty. Pretty and manipulative. He wondered why that fact had never seemed so clear to him before this moment.

She lifted her small shoulders and let out a sigh. “Oh, well, I guess I should be happy that it’s you who’s come to find me, not Oat Murphy.”

“Mary Ann…”

Her eyes filled with anguish. “Oh, Will, I can’t tell you how horrible he was to me!” A hand lifted to her breast, just as Will had seen an actress do once up in Kansas.

He kept a level stare on her. “Oat’s dead, Mary Ann.”

She sucked in a breath. “What?”

“He
did
come looking for you,” Will told her flatly. “Only he died trying.”

A progression of emotions paraded across her pretty face, none of them too hard to keep up with. Surprise, guilt, relief. Guilt didn’t last very long. “He was
so
old, Will,” Mary Ann said, folding the ruffles of her apron with her hand. “I’m terribly saddened by your news, of course, but it hardly comes as a shock.”

Will folded his arms. “His looking for you probably didn’t do his constitution any good. Before he died, he had a run-in with the renegade Night Bird, and a group of Mexican bandits. I suspect you know just what bandits I’m talking about.”

Mary Ann glanced up at him anxiously, and her little pink tongue darted out to lick her lower lip. Tn an instant, Will saw that the Comanche had been telling the truth. She
had
tried to get the Mexicans to bring her to San Antonio. Now she resembled nothing so much as an anxious little bunny rabbit. Before he could question her further on her misdeeds, however, her eyes filled with tears.

“You blame me for all that’s happened,” she said, sniffling. “But don’t you understand how desperate I was? All right, I made a mistake—but was I supposed to pay for it the rest of my life?”

Will continued to study her, torn by his desire to believe her, and logic, which told him that she was overplaying her martyrdom. Her small shoulders were racked with sobs.

She turned to him, her hands open in supplication.
“What was I supposed to do after that letter you wrote me, Will? I’d always just assumed that we…”

A wave of guilt washed over him.
The letter.
In all the events of the past two days, he had nearly managed to put that infernal thing out of his mind. Now his own action came back and hit him. So the letter
had
sent her into despair—and into the arms of an old man she didn’t love. Which meant
he
was the one who had set the unhappy course of events that had led to Oat’s death into motion.

“Mary Ann, I’m sorry.”

A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “It’s all right,” she said, her lip lifting into a brave little smile. “You were right. If you don’t love me, then there’s certainly no reason on earth why we should have gotten married…”

Regret as sharp as a butcher’s knife sliced through him. “Mary Ann…”

She shook her head. “No, Will. Don’t say you’re sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re right. I’ve behaved abominably.”

“It’s not as bad as all that,” Will told her gently. “You’re young.”

She sobbed. “I’m a widow!”

Softly, he placed a hand at her elbow and found himself repeating the same words he’d told Paulie. “You’ll find someone else to love someday. And in the meantime, if there’s anything I can do for you…”

Mary Ann turned, and at once he saw the determined glitter in her eye that even the welling of tears couldn’t mask. “There
is
something you can do, Will.”

He gaped at her, stunned by her immediate response to his offer. “What?”

“There’s a man. I need someone to talk to him for me. Tell him I’m a widow now, that everything would be different.”

Will dropped his hand away from her. “Tyler,” he said in disgust.

She drew her brows together, confused. “That’s right. How did you know?”

He snorted in derision. “It took most people in Possum Trot exactly five minutes to guess that you had gone running after Oren Tyler, Mary Ann.” That wasn’t exactly the truth; only
Paulie
had been that quick to guess. But it would do Mary Ann good to learn that she wasn’t as cunning as she thought.

Mary Ann lifted her head proudly. “I love Oren.”

“You can’t go running after a person just because you think you love them.”

She grinned. “You came after me.”

He felt his cheeks heat. “I felt an obligation. Because of your father.”

“My father wouldn’t have wanted me married to that old whiskey man!” she cried. “Especially when he found how stingy Oat was. The man had a thousand dollars in government bonds, and he had no intention of letting me hav—”

Her words broke off abruptly, and she grabbed Will’s hand. “The bonds!” she said, a light dawning. “They’re mine now, aren’t they? All mine!”

Will took a deep, steadying breath. Just before he died, Oat had told them of Mary Ann’s interest in the bonds. “I guess they are.”

She clapped her hands together. “I could sell them. Why, I don’t have to work this silly job anymore—or won’t once I find them. And if I’m rich, Oren will
want
to take me to Denver. He’ll…” The thought trailed off as a look of worry crossed her face.

Will folded his arms across his chest. “What’s the matter?”

“He won’t see me,” she said. “He won’t even look at me to talk to.”

“Nice beau you got for yourself.”

She shot him an annoyed glance. “Oh, he just got mad ‘cause I was married and because…But I’m not married now.” She looked up at Will and smiled her prettiest. “You said you would help me, Will.”

“Oh, no.” He shook his head frantically. “This is your business.”

“But if you’ll just
talk
to him. Tell him that I’m a widow now—that I’m rich. Or will be, once I find out where Oat put his bonds,” she said. “Just go talk to him, that’s all I

ask. Tell him that he needs to marry me.”

Despite his disgust with her, Will had to chuckle at that notion. “A man doesn’t usually need to be told who he needs to marry.”

Two splotches of red appeared in Mary Ann’s cheeks. “It’s not just that I want to marry him, Will,” she said. “I
have
to. Do you understand?” Instinctively, her hand drew up to the apron covering her belly. Her figure was only slightly swollen, but Will understood immediately.

In contrast to Mary Ann’s healthy color, he could feel his own face turn white as the blood drained out of it. He looked at her almost as if for the first time. Beautiful. There was no doubt about it. She was the daughter of Gerald and Nancy Redfern, the girl he had known and admired for years. But he saw something else now, too—something his gut had sensed all along but his head had never wanted to put a name to. Trouble. He’d come here to help her, and ever since she’d seen him, she’d been attempting to twist him around her little finger, using every turn in the conversation to lead him to this point. To his agreeing to talk to Oren Tyler on her behalf, because she was carrying the gambler’s child.

Will bit back a sneer of disgust at his own gullibility. She didn’t care for him, and probably never had. The letter he had written her was probably forgotten as fast as she could read it. She’d cared even less about Oat. Just used him.

“Don’t you see?” she asked, a pathetic look in her eyes. “Back in Possum Trot I was so lonely and bored. And after your letter came, I just went a little mad. So I married Oat. And then when I found out there was a baby on the way, I felt trapped. I panicked. So I came here, and then I ran into Oren…”

Will bit his lip. He couldn’t believe she was still trying to lie to him. “That’s a fine story, Mary Ann. Except that I happen to know that you and Oat didn’t have husbandwife relations.”