Rugged and Relentless (25 page)

T
attletale!” Lacey’s hiss faded beneath her brother’s renewed vigor for words Evie had never heard before.

She blocked out another string of invectives from Braden, pushing back an urge to rush around the bed and clap her hands over Cora’s ears. Cora needed to see the worst in her husband-to-be before she stepped up to the altar, and Evie wouldn’t shield her from that.
Sickness and health
…

The news of Braden’s death painted her sister’s memories with the golden glow of treasured moments and dreams left forever perfect. Now, the reality of his life—and lack of health—would tarnish her image of him back to the truth. Worse than the truth of the old Braden, it would be the man she’d live with when things went wrong and days wore long.
’Til death
…

Of course, some men meet their Maker sooner than others. Evie looked at Jake Creed, who still stood between her and Lacey.
There’s a man who’s angling for an introduction quicker than most—challenging entire crowds of men, insulting the woman who cooks his meals, jumping through windows—all in less than twenty-four hours. Not to mention the way Lacey’s looking at him right now for spilling the beans to her brother
.

“Not with ladies present, Lyman.” Creed’s voice cut through Braden’s rant. “Throwing a tantrum won’t get you what you want.”

Braden stopped cold. So did everyone else, waiting for him to order Creed from the room, start yelling again, or something of the sort since he couldn’t reach anything more to throw. “What will?” His quiet response, when it finally came, took them all aback. “What will it take to get the four of you home?”

“It’s too late, Braden.” Lacey put a hesitant hand on his shoulder, as though bracing her brother for the worst news. “Cora and Evie gave up their rooms, and Lyman Place has been sold. There’s no place for us in Charleston now. Hope Falls is where we all are, and now we’ve brought everything we need.”

Including future husbands in a passel of loggers willing to create a sawmill you know nothing about
. Evie kept her lips closed tight around that comment, knowing the coming conversation would reveal everything as it unfolded. No sense rushing it with blunt statements sure to cause panic.

Mr. Creed missed the accusatory glance she shot him.
Not that he’d admit he shouldn’t have blurted out anything about the men, anyway
.

She bit back a sigh as Braden groaned and raked a hand through his hair.
Why is it men enjoy the luxury of flat rolling-pin conversation, when women must resort to cookie-cutter comments? If something could raise hackles, we sort out the least offensive scraps and attempt to mold them into a more pleasing shape. It’s a bothersome way to communicate
.

Just look at Lacey, trying so hard to tell Braden about the sawmill scheme. She couldn’t overset him last night, and this afternoon she parcels out unpleasant bits of the story so it doesn’t overwhelm. Mr. Creed no sooner jumps through the window than he spews out the worst in a single, uncensored sentence
.

“So I cannot send you back, and even if I could, there’s no place to send you?” Braden began tugging at his beard. “Do I have
that much right, before I go any further?”

“Yes.” Four women chimed the single word.

Joined by a “Sounds that way” in Mr. Creed’s complementing baritone.

“And they’ve invited men up here to court them?” He directed this new line of questioning at the other male present.

“We didn’t precisely invite men to come here,” Lacey hedged, ignoring her brother’s grammar to try to guide the conversation toward a more flattering perspective.

“When are the suitors supposed to arrive, Creed?”

“The seventeenth.” Creed showed enough discretion not to offer more information than Braden requested. “Tomorrow.”

“I can’t send the women away, and it’s too late to stop the men from coming here.” Braden pulled so hard, Evie began to wonder how he kept his beard at all. “So I’ll have to ask for your help, Creed. We’ll send the men away as they arrive.”

“You can’t do that either.” Cora tugged his hand away from his abused beard. “Even if you had the power, Mr. Creed wouldn’t agree to it. He’s one of the bachelors, you see.”

“All the more reason he’d want to get rid of the others.” Braden rose up to address Creed. “What do you say?”

“It’s not for him to say at all.” Evie couldn’t quell the objection. “Neither of you make the decisions here.”

“We can stop new men from coming in, but that won’t do much.” Creed shrugged. “Besides, the men here came for the women. No one wants to get on their bad sides, Lyman.” The half-smile he sent her did nothing to ease Evie’s indignation.

“No one.” Braden fell back against his pillow. “That means more than just you and that other fellow you mentioned are already here. How many of the eighteen sit in town right now?”

“Eighteen.” Naomi rubbed the back of her neck. “And they aren’t going to escort themselves to the train, Braden.”

“What kind of men did you invite that they all showed up early?” Braden began yelling again. “Where did you even meet
that many men who’d be willing to come out West? Evie’s café?”

“Don’t you go insulting Miss Thompson’s café.” Creed’s warning took her by surprise. “It’s a fine establishment.”

“Lacey already told you we didn’t actually issue invitations.” Cora shared a glance with her best friend. “And Evie’s café didn’t have a single thing to do with it, except Mr. Creed stopped in a few days before we left Charleston.”

“So you just let it be known you’d be waltzing out West, and any men interested in you and your property could follow along?” Braden began knocking his head against his pillow in a series of rhythmic, muffled thumps. “You four need keepers.”

“We do not!” Evie refused to take any more of his skewed assumptions and derogatory comments.

“Some might disagree.” Creed’s interference reaffirmed Evie’s earlier thought about his meeting his Maker early.
Very
early.

“Evie’s right. We don’t need keepers. What we need,” Lacey proclaimed, sticking her nose up in the air, “are husbands!”

“Oh, Lacey …” Evie groaned at that brilliant declaration as Cora and Naomi made similar sounds of frustrated disbelief, and Creed, reckless fool that he was, began to laugh. So she did the only thing a refined woman could to control the situation and discreetly demonstrate her pique. She elbowed Creed between the ribs.

He stopped laughing. Creed pivoted just enough to look down at her, his blue eyes somber. “You have my attention.”

“I don’t want it!” Evie snapped, unaccountably disconcerted by his perusal. “All I wanted was for you to stop laughing.”

“I see.” Creed raised a brow. “Someone mentions three women in the room needing husbands, and you’re the one to nudge me. Does that mean you want to be serious, Miss Thompson?”

“No!” The gasp wheezed from her before Evie could blink.

“Serious suits me just fine.” Braden’s irritable voice spared her any further taunts. “Would someone tell me how it is that eighteen men came here if no one invited them?”

“We asked for responses care of the postmaster,” Naomi began to explain, “expecting letters from interested men. From there we wanted to correspond and then perhaps invite a few.”

“But things didn’t quite go as planned,” Lacey blithely tacked on, “and so here we are, with six prospects apiece.”

“You mean to say you arrived in town to find eighteen lonely men you don’t know from Adam?” If Braden looked any more grim, the reaper would get jealous. “Men who came here in response to something you sent out. What, exactly?”

“Nothing, really,” Lacey assured him. “A simple ad.”

“An ad,” her brother echoed. “You placed an ad for prospective husbands?” His volume increased with each word.

“That’s what it boils down to, yes.” Evie spoke over Lacey’s convoluted explanations and Naomi’s elaborations.

“And what, may I ask”—he obviously tried to control his yelling, as he gritted out the words—“possessed you four to come up with such a harebrained, far-fetched piece of idiocy, much less
follow through
with it?”

“We need men to protect our claims and help save the town.” Evie summed it up as best she could without making Braden feel guilty for being unable to help protect those claims.

“It was my idea,” Lacey confessed with some pride.

“Who else?” Braden’s lips compressed, his color an ashen sort of gray with a thin line of white around his mouth. He wouldn’t admit that he was tired and hurting, but Evie could see it as he extended a hand. “Show me this ad you placed.”

“No.” Lacey shook her head. “It’ll make you angry, and it’s not important. All you need to know is we placed one, and men came, and we have things completely under control.”

Dumbfounded, Evie could do nothing but stare at Lacey. Until Creed began to laugh again, pulling a piece of paper from his pocket. He handed the creased square to Braden, and Evie lost what little was left of her composure.

This time she stepped on his foot.

Jake didn’t stop the laughter springing up at Miss Lyman’s confident declaration that the women had “things completely under control” for more than a few reasons. First, it’d been too long since he’d laughed so much, and it felt good. Second, if someone didn’t throw a distraction or two his way to keep him afloat, Braden Lyman would drown in anxiety over his women.

It didn’t take a doctor to see the strain of the situation showing around the wounded man’s eyes and mouth. He needed rest, and instead all he got were more worries. The Good Book said laughter did good like medicine.

Now, I may not think much of a lot of folks who claim to follow the Word, but that doesn’t mean it’s not good in and of itself. People agree to take sound advice every day, then go back on their decision and ignore it. Give their own word, and don’t follow through
…

But the final reason clinched it. Jake knew his laughter would provoke Evelyn Thompson. Evie, they all called her.

I knew it. It suits her spunk
. In fact, he liked that spunk enough to want to see what it would do when he laughed at another one of Lacey Lyman’s naive comments. Last time, after Evie had bemoaned the comment with a small, disbelieving cry, she’d gone ramrod stiff. Without a word, without a glare, without moving so much as an inch, she’d simply lifted her elbow and jabbed him in the side with unerring aim. Right where it hurt.

Then she lowered her arm and, with great dignity, set about pretending she’d never done any such thing. Until he’d called her to the table for her sneaky maneuver and she’d blushed that rosy color he liked so well. Evie’s impulsive streak intrigued him enough to bait her with his question about getting serious.

Almost a pity she said no, but she needs to learn to be less impetuous around other men
. The thought stilled his laughter just as her heel came down on the toe of his boot.

The boots he ordered special-made from a cobbler he’d known
for a decade. The boots with two layers of leather hiding a thin piece of steel between them to guard his toes. Jake witnessed too many ax accidents caused by carelessness or an unforeseen back-strike not to take any precaution he could dream up.

So he felt her stomp on his foot, but it didn’t hurt any. Worse, he couldn’t make a joke about her trying to bring him up lame because Braden Lyman lay in the bed before him. Lyman’s hands, arms, shoulders, and neck all seemed in working order, but Jake hadn’t seen the slightest movement of the sheets to indicate the man could use his legs. Which meant Jake didn’t say a word about Evie’s second attempt to curb his amusement.

And from the gleam in her eye, she’d known he wouldn’t.

Clever minx
. A realization jolted him.
It’s not the first time she’s shown discernment. She knew Dodger would steal a biscuit when she made that deal, and she took Williams’s measure in a few moments. That’s why she named me and Riordan and went along with the “Miss Thompson” gambit—she didn’t like Williams. Evie has good instincts and the ability to read people
.

He eyed her with new respect. Now that Jake knew about Mr. Lyman, the entire situation made far more sense. He’d been right about her following her sister to her fiancé’s side but wrong about the necessity of them moving out here. He sided with Lyman in believing the women belonged back in Charleston and had landed themselves in a heap of trouble. But now he respected Lacey for coming to her brother, Naomi to her cousin, Cora to her fiancé, and Evie for staying with her sister. Family first.

I’d do the same, and would expect no less from any man
. Jake looked down at Evie’s oh-did-I-do-that? smile, that dimple as bewitching as ever. He fought to forget how soft she’d been when he almost knocked her over through the window … and failed. And that right there was the entire problem in a nutshell.

She’s a woman. Worse, she’s a pretty woman. Worst of all, she’s a pretty woman who cooks the best meals I’ve ever eaten. No wonder
Lyman’s desperate to get them back to civilization. Out here, single women like this will start riots
.

“Get out.” The first words he spoke since seeing the incredible ad, and Braden Lyman sounded as though he expected defeat before he fought the fight. Well, maybe he should. He’d already lost this battle a few times over. “All four of you, get out but don’t go far. I want a word with Mr. Creed. Alone.”