Liz Ireland (16 page)

“I want to go to Denver with Oren,” Mary Ann continued, “and have all the fine things in life I deserve but haven’t been able to get my hands on. I’m sure when Oren
stops to think about it, he’ll agree that we’re destined to be together. I’ve always had a strong sense of destiny.”

What would cause a woman to be so blind? Paulie couldn’t understand it. If Will Brockett had just risked his neck for her sake, she would have happily given up everything else to be with him for the rest of her life. “Aren’t you even a little bit grateful to Will?” she asked.

Mary Ann sighed. “Poor Will. I guess he’s just no match for Oren.”

Paulie thought she might explode like a stick of dynamite. “Will Brockett is twice the man Oren Tyler is!”

Mary Ann looked at her with faint surprise in her eyes, and a knowing grin touched her lips. “You certainly have strong opinions, Miss Johnson.”

“You can cut the Miss,” Paulie said, still feeling her face aflame for revealing so much of her feeling for Will. “Everyone just calls me Paulie.”

The grin turned to something dangerously close to a sneer. “Funny, in all the years I’ve known him, I don’t remember Will ever mentioning you by name. He always calls you ‘that kid with the freckles.’“

Paulie looked down at Will, certain her face was as red as a sugar beet. “He likes to tease,” she mumbled. “That’s just the way we are.”

Mary Ann giggled patronizingly, but she didn’t have to say anything more. The implication was clear. Will was like a teasing older brother to her—he would never take her seriously.

“Well,” Mary Ann said at last. “Let me know if he gets any better.”

She sashayed out of the room as if she were a royal princess. Just as soon as she left, however, Paulie heard Maudie in the hallway reminding Mary Ann of her rightful place in this particular kingdom.

“Mary Ann, the parlor needs sweeping.”

A long-suffering sigh echoed back from the hallway. “But Mrs. Worthington, I’m—”

Maudie cut her off in midwhine. “I always say there’s nothing like a good dose of work to take your mind off your troubles.”

Without waiting to hear the response to that bromide, the good lady bustled into the room and went straight up to Will. “His color’s better,” she declared. She put a hand to his forehead and nodded once. “His temperature’s down.”

Paulie leaned forward and looked at Will more closely. He did have a more normal color in his cheeks. “He was sweating so, I worried that he would die of the fever.”

“You were probably watching when his fever broke—before you got tied up talking to Miss Destiny.”

Paulie couldn’t help smiling.

“All right, I was eavesdropping,” Maudie admitted guiltlessly. “That woman gets me as steamed as my old black kettle down in the kitchen! Which reminds me, I’ve made you a pot of tea.”

Paulie looked at her. She hadn’t brought a tray up. “But I can’t leave Will.”

“Certainly you can,” Maudie said. “I nursed a child and a husband through much worse than this. The man’s sleeping, and he doesn’t need your help to do that.”

Paulie looked doubtfully at Will, who tossed his head on the pillow. “I suppose not…” Still, she didn’t budge.

“Besides,” Maudie said, “I have some things I want to show you.”

“Things?” Paulie asked.

“Dresses,” Maudie explained. “They belonged to my daughter.”

Paulie needed no more hints to guess the woman’s motives. She shook her head vehemently. “Oh, no,” she protested.
“Me and dresses are about as compatible as foxes and chickens.”

“Now, Miss Paulette, I find that very difficult to believe. A pretty little thing like yourself?”

Flattery would get Maudie nowhere. Paulie continued shaking her head. “I’ve tried that before.”

“And…?”

Did she have to lay bare for the woman the humiliation of her last attempt to impress Will with a skirt and a new hairstyle? “Let’s just say it wasn’t a success.”

Mrs. Worthington planted her hands on her hips. “I refuse to believe it! You obviously didn’t have the right woman helping you.”

She hadn’t had
any
woman helping her, but that was beside the point. “It’s not the method that sets things awry, it’s the raw materials. I’m just not the type for frills and curls.”

“Well, who said anything about frills?” Maudie said. “I’ll show you how to do yourself up so’s men’ll take notice of you—and not because you’re trying to be something you’re not. I had plenty of practice with my Abra.”

In the midst of more adamant head-shaking, Paulie hesitated. She glanced down at Will, who blew out a long, labored sigh that matched a similar sigh building within her own breast. It was so tempting to believe in the miracle Maudie promised she could perform.

“You’re in love with that man,” Maudie announced.

Paulie flinched at the bold statement, and glanced nervously at Will. He was sleeping soundly, and couldn’t possibly have heard Maudie, and yet just having the words said aloud in his presence made Paulie uneasy. “I’m not” she protested. “I just…”

“You just love him so much you would follow him to the ends of the earth,” Maudie insisted.

Paulie crossed her arms. “San Antonio isn’t
that
far.”

“It’ll do,” the woman said dismissively. “There’s no use arguing with me. I’ve got eyes in my head, and the way you look at that man is exactly the way my Abra used to ogle that German of hers. I managed to get her married, didn’t I?”

“Married!” Paulie cried. She had never thought about what the end result would be even if she ever did get Will to like her—any sort of declaration of affection would have been enough for her. But marriage! That seemed about as likely as their taking a romantic stroll to the moon.

“Of course, married. That’s what every girl wants, isn’t it?”

Paulie sat staring openmouthed at the woman. She just wasn’t used to lumping herself in the same category with “every girl.” “Maybe so, but every girl doesn’t wear britches and run a saloon.”

Maudie Worthington folded her arms over her ample chest and slanted Paulie a look of pure determination. “No, and in about thirty minutes,
you
won’t be wearing britches, either.”

Abra’s old dresses fit Paulie to a tee, and Maudie had chosen one that was a simple but pretty white pattern with tiny pink cabbage roses, with a high neckline and simple long sleeves. She also managed to free Paulie’s hair from its usual braid and tame the locks into a loose, manageable bundle tied in a chignon at the nape of her neck. Paulie couldn’t have been more shocked at the results of the lady’s tinkering with her appearance. Why, she didn’t look so silly at all! Unfamiliar, maybe.

Or maybe not. In her father’s things there was a little drawing of her mother, dressed in a blue gown with a cameo at the neck. Her hair was tied back simply, highlighting
her slightly upturned nose and pointy chin, and her green eyes that sparkled with intelligence and kindness that even some unknown artist had seen. Paulie didn’t want to be too optimistic, but to her own eyes she resembled nothing so much as that picture of her mother.

“Turn around, Paulie, and let me get a look at you.”

She did as she was told and whirled as gracefully as she knew how—which wasn’t difficult. She’d never felt as light and feminine as she did now.

Or as much like a sausage encased in a muslin skin. She had tried to convince Mrs. Worthington to forego the corset, but the woman had insisted, even after seeing the bruises slashing across Paulie’s middle.

“This’ll work better than any bandages,” Maudie had declared, lacing Paulie up snugly.

Now the woman nodded approvingly at the fruits of her efforts. “Abra was a little more long-waisted than you, but besides a little bunching, you look as pretty as a flower.”

Paulie ducked her head and blushed. A flower! “A goat weed, maybe.”

The lady frowned and waved a finger admonishingly at her newly transformed friend. “The first lesson you’ve got to learn is not to put yourself down. You’re a lovely girl, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be perfectly self-assured around people.”

“Self-assured,” Paulie repeated, feeling much as she did in school when she’d had to learn unfamiliar grammar rules by rote.

Maudie added with a sage nod, “’Course, there’s no reason to take that idea too far down the road, like our Miss Destiny up in the attic. You don’t want to be considered vain.”

Slim chance she had of that!
Paulie mused to herself,
although she left the forbidden self-deprecating thought unvoiced.

“Now let me see you walk,” Maudie commanded.

Paulie froze. “Walk?” she asked, suddenly feeling anything but self-assured.

Maudie nodded. “Just across the room and back.”

She made it sound so simple. But the moment Paulie took two steps, she knew something was terribly wrong. That old awkwardness she had felt when tromping around in her mother’s wedding dress returned. She stopped midway across the room and looked at her friend in despair.

“Perhaps if you took smaller steps…” Maudie’s suggestion was gentle but firm. “You’re not wearing work boots now, you know.”

Paulie lifted her skirt and marvelled again at how delicate her feet looked encased in a pair of soft leather shoes with a small but shapely heel. She’d never seen such an expensive-looking pair of shoes—and Maudie Worthington wanted her to simply
take
them, even though she’d only known her a few short days.

“Gracious, don’t just stand there staring at the things—walk,” Maudie instructed. She even got up and minced daintily across the room for Paulie’s benefit.

Paulie attempted to follow suit, but feared her best stab at grace resembled nothing so much as a drunken crane picking its way across a lagoon.

Maudie bit her lip. “That’s not a bad start. Now just take your hands off your hips.”

Paulie frowned. This directive posed a serious problem. “Where should I put them?”

“At your sides.”

“Usually I tuck my thumbs into my belt,” Paulie told her, giving a little demonstration of her usual stance, digging her hands into the waist of the pretty pink-and-white
dress, and rocking back on her heels. “I feel sort of awkward with my hands just dangling.”

Maudie smiled patiently. “What you’re doing now looks perfectly unnatural.”

Paulie forced her hands down to her sides, and put one foot in front of the other. After a few more steps, she tossed her fitful hands up in the air in dismay. “Well, it feels perfectly ridiculous.” Who would have thought just walking would be so damn difficult?

“You’ll get used to it.”

But would she ever get used to the strangled feeling she got from being buttoned into a dress that was so tight around her middle? Or to the off-center, tippy feeling she got from wearing shoes other than her sturdy old boots? It was one thing to want to look pretty and feminine, but those qualities weren’t particularly comfortable.

She sank down onto her bed in a fit of doubt. “I thank you for what you’re trying to do, Maudie, but I’m afraid it won’t work. I’m not Mary Ann.”

The good woman put her hands on her hips and eyeballed Paulie severely. “In this woman’s opinion you should be down on your hands and knees thanking the good Lord that you aren’t like that unfortunate girl up there. Maybe you don’t have blond curls, but you’re pretty just the same, and what’s more, you’ve got something she sorely lacks, and that’s a heart.”

Paulie blinked. A few hours ago, she wouldn’t have thought much of Maudie’s assurances. Who cared about hearts and all that blather? Most of the time—especially when she was thinking about Will—her own heart felt like a broken-down wreck. Now things seemed different. She
felt
different, and it wasn’t just because she was wearing a dress.

Mere hours before she had sworn that if Will managed
to open his eyes again and get well, she would try not to be upset if he and Mary Ann got married and lived as happy as a fairy tale couple. But that was before she had spoken to Mary Ann. The young woman was so callous, so blind to all that Will wanted to do for her, the sacrifices he was so obviously willing to make for her. Mary Ann
was
heartless.

Will deserved better. Paulie wasn’t certain that she herself was any prize, but she loved Will. And if snatching Will’s attention meant prancing around in an uncomfortable dress and feeling as if she were being slowly squeezed to death by her underwear, then so be it. With some practice, and a little help from Maudie, she would go on breathing and perhaps even manage not to stumble over her own skirts, and hold her arms at her sides as though they were actually part of her body and not some awkward sticks nailed into her shoulders by an inept carpenter.

And maybe, just maybe, when Will opened his eyes, Paulie could make him see that
she
was more worthy of his affection than Mary Ann.

W
ill had always assumed Heaven would be a lot more comfortable than this. His whole body felt clammy, and there was a biting throb in his shoulder that wouldn’t go away. His head didn’t ache so much as it felt like someone had stuffed it full of cotton. And just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, somebody rustling around him would pile something on top of him, and his world would become a few degrees hotter.

Perhaps he
hadn’t
gone to Heaven, he began to worry. Though he was too woozy to remember with exact clarity, he was fairly certain that he hadn’t been a saint in his lifetime. There were things he had handled badly. Like that whole situation with Mary Ann.

And Paulie. A vague memory of kissing her swirled through his mind, along with the remembrance of how it felt to hold her soft body in his arms. She’d been getting under his skin, and to his surprise, he hadn’t minded one bit. Even the fact that she was in love with Trip Peabody didn’t deter his growing ardor for his old friend.

His sudden romantic urges for her were as wrong as they were unsettling. Trip might be marrying Tessie, but Paulie was still stuck on him. And maybe that was just as well.
Paulie was just too stubborn, too much like a pal for him to be serious about. Wasn’t she? That’s what he’d always liked about her, what made her safe to joke with and share a drink with. Perhaps his own feelings were just a passing phase, a result of the whole mixed-up situation with Mary Ann.

Maybe he just needed to spend a long afternoon on the second floor of Las Tres Reinas.

That definitely mortal, earthy thought made him groan.

If on the off-chance he ever made it back to the land of the living, he would handle things differently. Especially women. He’d behave with more sense. He would settle things with Mary Ann, and he’d leave Paulie Johnson strictly alone. She was—a friendly sort, not the kind for a man to be fantasizing about.

A second chance, he mused. Perhaps he hadn’t died at all—though that hope didn’t seem likely. The woman with the gun hadn’t been ten feet away from him, and for what seemed like hours, he had felt the life being drained out of him while good old Paulie tried to get him out of that saloon. And then the world had gone black.

Nah. He wasn’t alive. Couldn’t be. And he
was
in Heaven. He knew that now because there was an angel floating around him. Her shadowy figure flitted about in the twilight around him, first standing close to him, then dancing away, then hovering ever closer to him. He squinted, trying to make her out. He’d always wanted to know what one of those gossamer-winged creatures looked like. His mama had told him a long time ago that the beauty of the angels was almost blinding. He remembered because when he’d first seen Mary Ann, he’d thought of his mother’s words. Appearances could be deceiving.

Take this little angel tending him, for instance. Looking at her more closely, he saw that her beauty wasn’t anywhere
close to the blinding kind—and yet it had a more subtle, alluring quality. Her figure was willowy, framed by a dress fashioned quite like those mortal women wore; it wasn’t just white, but white with a little flowery pattern in it. Very pretty. And then her hair wasn’t loose, either, as he would have expected, but tied neatly back. But the brown feathery tresses framing her face seemed lit from beyond, creating a delicate halo around her.

No wings, though. Where were the wings?

“Will?”

She knew his name and said it in such a familiar way that bells started ringing in his head. But he supposed bells went with the vaunted territory, too. Harps would probably come later.

“Will, can you hear me?”

Land’s sake, she sounded just like Paulie! Will shook his head, trying to get some of the cotton out so he could appreciate the sights and sounds of his new home without his old life horning in. But the clearer his head felt, the more he was certain that he actually
had
heard Paulie’s voice. And when his little angel tiptoed closer, he saw that she also bore a striking resemblance to Paulie.

He felt his heart race as he tried to understand the implications of her being there. His only thought was that he had led her into trouble again, and failed to protect her—this time with fatal results.

“Paulie!” he exclaimed, though it sounded as if the word had come out a whisper. “Are you in Heaven now, too?”

Light laughter rang through the room, a familiar sound more welcome to his ears than any trumpets, harps or bells. “I’ll agree Maudie keeps a nice house, but Heaven would be an exaggeration.”

Will blinked in confusion. Maudie’s. Mrs. Worthington’s.
Slowly, bits and pieces of what had happened in the days before his getting shot came back to him—Mary Ann’s disappearance, Night Bird, Oat’s death. Finding Mary Ann at the woman’s boardinghouse. Will swallowed. He wasn’t dead, and neither was Paulie. That was good, he guessed. Except now he would probably have to wait a whole lot longer for the pain in his shoulder to go away.

“Oh, Will,” Paulie said, sounding more resoundingly like her old self. “I’m so glad you’re feeling better!”

He groaned again. Better? He felt like his body had been stampeded by a herd of longhorns!

“Maudie’s making some broth for you, in case you’re hungry.”

Hungry. He
was
hungry, and attempted a nod to let her know. “Broth,” he repeated. Lord, he felt suddenly that he could have eaten a huge plate of steak and potatoes. “Maybe a little bread, too?”

“You must be feeling better,” Paulie teased. “But the doc didn’t say a thing about stuffing you full of food just yet.”

Will shook his head on the soft pillow. “It makes sense that if you were going to turn nurse, you’d decide to become the mean snippety kind.”

“Well, I like that!” Paulie exclaimed, her hands on her hips in an old familiar gesture. Although now that Will thought about it, there was something decidedly unfamiliar about it, too. “After all I’ve done for you. After all I’ve worried!”

He shook his head. “As I recall, your first deed was running half-cocked into the saloon when I had the situation well in hand.”

Her defiant expression fell away, and she rushed forward, practically kneeling at the bedside, her back bowed in contrition. “I know, Will. I’m such a darn fool. You told me
to stay outside, and by gum, I should have done it! If it weren’t for me you wouldn’t be in this condition.”

He stared in some confusion at the back of her head. Was this the old spirited Paulie, apologizing so profusely, without a defensive word to say about his arrogance, his high-handedness? It didn’t seem possible.

He reached out and touched the back of her neck, giving it a reassuring rub. His eyes narrowed. Her hair was tied back neatly in one of those doohickeys women sometimes wore. And this getup she had on wasn’t what she usually wore, either. A dress—the white one with roses that he’d mistaken for an angel’s garb. Good heavens!

She pulled back from him, slowly coming to standing, her hands folded demurely in front of her. “And I want you to know, Will, that from now on I’ll do just as you say. I’ll never snipe at you or be bad-tempered or stubborn again.”

He gaped at her, wondering suddenly whether this was all just a dream after all. Paulie was standing before him in a dress saying that she wasn’t ever going to argue with him again. This state of affairs certainly had nothing in common with the world as he’d known it when that woman had shot him.

“What’s the matter, Will?” she asked, two little worry lines appearing just above the bridge of her pert nose. “Are you feeling poorly again?”

He reached a hand up to his forehead, rubbing it to see if he could alleviate some of the achiness, some of the confusion that seemed to stem from there. Back when he’d thought he was dead, he’d almost had things sorted out. But now he was looking at Paulie and she seemed almost, well…pretty. How was he supposed to raise a glass and stay friends with someone like
that?

“Good Lord, Paulie, what did you do to yourself?”

Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

He waved a hand to indicate her sudden transformation. “That outfit you’ve got on!”

Two splotches of red rushed to her cheeks, and she smiled, twirling lightly, as if he’d just paid her the highest compliment. “Do you like it? Maudie found it for me out of her daughter’s things. I think it’s the most elegant little dress I’ve ever worn.”

He grunted in dismay, but was unable to take his eyes off the alluring way the dress clung to Paulie’s figure. He couldn’t remember a woman with such a tiny waistline. “It’s practically the
only
dress you’ve ever worn.”

“Well, yes.” She laughed. “Takes some getting used to after years of wearing men’s duds.”

Will attempted to cross his arms but was stopped by the sudden pain in his shoulder.

“Oh, be careful!” Paulie said, rushing forward. She hovered over him, checking the dressing on his shoulder. Her skirts rustled as she moved, and he could smell a light perfume wafting toward him as she covered his forehead with her hand. Paulie Johnson—wearing perfume!

“Your temperature seems to be down.”

Will forced himself to take his eyes off the gentle, seductive slope of her neck. The dress’s cut was conservative and chaste, and yet hugged her body so closely that a man didn’t have to use much imagination about what was beneath those layers of innocent muslin.

What was her game? He thought about Trip, and the possibility that while she had the man here in San Antonio, she was trying one last-ditch effort to win him back from Tessie Hale. How sad.

How irritating. She was a good-looking girl. What did she want to waste her time on a man like Trip Peabody for? She needed someone who was more of a match for
her. Someone young and feisty, and reliable. Someone more like…well, more like himself.

He frowned, forcing himself to think about something else. “What are all these blankets for?”

“You had a chill,” Paulie said patiently.

Patiently!
Her sudden feminine calm agitated him all the more. She’d probably been working on
that
for Trip’s benefit, too. “That’s no reason to smother me half to death.”

“We wanted your fever to break.”

“Well, it’s broken. And now I feel as though someone had put me on a spit and roasted me for a few hours.”

“Goodness!” Paulie exclaimed good-naturedly as she responded to his unspoken command and removed one of the blankets. “Who would ever have guessed you’d be such a cranky patient?”

Her teasing nearly drove him over the edge. “How’s a man supposed to feel when he wakes up with a headache and a pain in his shoulder and discovers that the world’s turned upside down?”

She stopped folding the blanket and shot him a curious stare..”Everything’s just the same as it was this morning, Will. Still right side up as far as I can tell.”

He let out a surly chuckle. “Maybe you haven’t looked in the mirror then.”

Her fingers gripped the blanket with white knuckles. “What’s wrong with the way I look?” she asked slowly.

“Everything!” He nodded curtly at the dress that fit her so lovingly and gritted his teeth. Here he was determined to be decent and honorable and treat her like a pal—and what did she do but go and get herself gussied up so that she looked nothing like his old friend at all! “That getup looks ridiculous on you. Why, it’s like a chicken wearing peacock feathers.”

Her chin raised just a notch—enough to let him know
her vow of agreeableness was being sorely tested. “There’s nothing particularly flashy about this dress, Will,” she said, her voice frosty.

“Why do you have to wear a dress at all? What happened to your britches and work shirt?”

“You used to make fun of me for wearing those clothes, if you’ll recall.”

He watched her foot, encased in a pair of kid leather boots, tapping silently but impatiently. “I never knew you to shy away from a little joking,” he said, knowing it was wrong to needle her. Yet at the same time, there was something comforting about bantering with her. “If it’s ridicule you’re afraid of,” he said, “you’d better do something about your hair.”

Her hand flew to the back of her head, and her cheeks turned from rosy red to angry crimson. “My hair looks fine!”

He nodded. “It would look especially accommodating to a mouse looking for a place to make a nest.”

Her eyes narrowed on him, but he could see the fire flashing in their green depths. “You are a sad little varmint, Will Brockett, and if I’d had any sense I would have just left you to bleed to death all over the floor of the Three Queens!”

He laughed. “And you said you would never be bad-tempered again.”

She stomped her daintily clad foot and marched over to him. “That was back when I felt sorry for you!” She shook out the blanket in one brittle snap and laid it back over him, raising his temperature in all sorts of ways. “Maybe this will sweat some of the meanness out of you!”

And with that, she turned on her heel and strode out the door, wobbling only once on the unfamiliar shoes before she disappeared from sight.

The minute she left, Will missed her. His smile disappeared, and he closed his eyes. Why did she have to stomp out just when things were beginning to seem a little more regular between them? Maybe he’d been a little too rough with her. Despite her quirks and whims, Paulie had more pride than most women he knew. He wouldn’t want to hurt her feelings irreparably.

Also, he realized gloomily, all he’d managed to achieve was to send her fleeing back to Trip’s arms. She was probably with him now, crying on his shoulder. Trip never teased her so unmercifully.

Not that it was his business whether Trip married Paulie, Tessie Hale, or both, he amended for his own benefit. It just didn’t make any difference to him, when it came right down to it. It was only the lack of logic that bothered him.

If he lived to be a hundred, Will would never understand women. Or why they set their hearts on such improbable objects of affection. Mary Ann and Oren Tyler. Paulie and Trip Peabody. Of course,
he
had spent years thinking he and Mary Ann would be a match, but he had come to his senses. He didn’t feel love for her, but an obligation to her family that seemed an even stronger bond than pure affection.