Strong and Stubborn (12 page)

As soon as the lady—for the life of him, Mike couldn't remember her identity beyond the fact she was Naomi's cousin—emerged from the mines, pandemonium broke loose all around her. If he was honest, Mike would ascribe some of the chaos to the woman's garb.

On the one hand, a man could admire her practicality in wearing britches. On the other hand, a man couldn't help but admire the fine figure she presented in those same britches. From the furious whispers flying around, the workmen focused on the latter.

Mike stepped back, farther away from the hub of activity, trying to give everyone as much space as possible. Even so, he caught an elbow to the gut for his trouble. From what he could make out, the perpetrator was a terrified lumberman trying to scramble away from the wolfhound. Once Mike got his wind back, he forgave the fellow. After all, it was taking the efforts of a behemoth to hold Decoy back while they maneuvered his master up out of the mine.

Amid the high-pitched cries of the women, the loud cheering of the workmen, and the hoarse barks of the wolfhound, Granger called out. No one seemed to hear him—even Mike, who'd seen the man's mouth move from his detached viewpoint, couldn't make out the words. The man beside Granger tried waving and adding his own shouts, but the chaos around the rescue site swallowed the sound.

The lady who'd already been pulled out tried to get everyone to calm down and listen but was ignored in the clamor. When she tried to scramble back up to help the rescuers, the other women pulled her away. Their efforts added more deafening noise but not much else.

Mike pushed through the crowd—which managed to be very dense for fewer than two dozen people—and climbed up to where Granger had the man from the mine half in and half out of the opening. The thick layer of dirt caking the man's skin and clothes couldn't hide his grimace of pain or the way he gritted his teeth against it.

“What do you need?” Mike surveyed the situation, noted the way the man was lying on his side, obviously keeping weight off his left arm and rib cage, and deduced that the poor fellow had broken something. His shoulder … a rib … maybe even his collarbone.

“Shoulder's dislocated, and he has at least one cracked rib.” Granger's detail of the man's injuries explained why they weren't simply pulling him free by his arms or even bracing beneath his underarms. “We'll need to construct a rigging to pull him out.”

“Right—are you wearing a belt?” Mike directed the question to the injured man, trying but failing to remember his name.

“Yep.” He drew a deep breath. “Can't stand suspenders.”

“They would've come in handy.” The shorter man beside Granger, who happened to be wearing suspenders, spoke with a German accent.

Mike decided to forgo pointing out that a pair of button suspenders wouldn't hold a sturdy man's weight without the buttons popping loose. Instead he focused on finding a workable solution.

“Here.” Mike slid his own sturdy leather belt from its loops, and he saw Granger do the same. “If we loop them around his belt, one on either side, we should be able to pull him through with the least amount of strain on his injuries.” He paused, unwilling to be less than honest. “It's still going to hurt like the devil.”

“It'll hurt worse once Dunstan's out and I pop his shoulder back,” came Granger's grim prediction. “I wish we could do it without the ladies present, but there's no prying them away now.”

“Bite on this.” Mike slid his knife off his belt, stuck the blade in his boot, and offered the thick leather sheath to Dunstan. In a matter of moments, they'd rigged their belts and began pulling.

Dunstan grunted and bit down on the leather sheath but otherwise issued no sound of protest. Sweat beaded on his brow, but he held firm until they'd pulled him completely free of the mine. Then he spat out the sheath and lay there, panting until his breaths grew more normal. When he finally nodded, they helped him to his feet and removed their makeshift rigging from around his waist.

The stocky fellow picked up Mike's knife sheath and tried to return it to him, but Mike pushed it back to Dunstan. Resignation was written in every dust-creased line of his face as he turned his back to the crowd below and accepted the sheath once again. To his credit, he didn't give more than a low groan as Granger jerked his shoulder back into place. He didn't manage to bite through the leather but left such deep impressions Mike wouldn't use it again.

Nor did he care. They'd managed to get both victims free of the mine without causing more damage or further upsetting the women.

“Draxley.” Dunstan ground out the dead man's name as he cautiously picked his way down the slow grade of the rocky incline.

“Dead.” Granger spoke with finality, sending the other man a look that cautioned against going into further detail. But this response seemed to satisfy the other man, who gave a short nod.

Leaving Mike to wonder again just how Draxley—supposedly the town telegraph operator—came to be by the mines during the collapse. And, more importantly, why the man they'd just pulled from that mine seemed reassured by that fact. The mystery awoke Mike's curiosity.

Once they reached the ground, Mike hung back. It wasn't his place to come between the townspeople and thrust himself in the midst of their joyful reunion. For all that had happened since the train pulled to a stop, he remained an outsider to Hope Falls. But being an outsider was a good reason to observe very carefully.

He watched as the rescued woman barely restrained from flinging herself into Dunstan's arms, not bothering to hide tears of relief that they'd both made it out safely. Mike saw the way Dunstan moved as close to her as possible, angling his body to keep the rest of the men distanced from her while he wrapped her in the warmth—and, it had to be said, concealment—of a cloak. Anyone with eyes could see that those two were as much a couple as Granger and his woman.

More interesting was the way Dunstan's dog, Decoy, reared up on his hind legs as though to give his master a canine hug but immediately dropped back to all fours when Dunstan snapped his fingers. The wolfhound, impressively trained, pressed against the man's uninjured side and stayed there during the walk to town.

Unsurprisingly, Mike found the most interesting member of the scene to be the woman who'd caught his eye from the very beginning. Naomi—Miss Higgins, he tried to remind himself—kept to her cousin's side. Eyes shining with love and gratitude, she positively beamed.

And Mike wasn't the only one to notice. All the way back to town, the lumbermen all stared at the trio. Understandably, their gazes went to the couple they'd worked so hard to free. But just as often the men stared at Naomi. Their expressions ranged from considering to downright greedy, and while Mike couldn't blame them—he caught himself staring the same way—he didn't like it one bit.

He wanted to shield her from prying eyes, and he wanted to know what she and her friends were doing in a town full of rough axmen. No other women showed up to help with supper, and it was clear as could be that no man laid claim to Naomi or the younger girl with mismatched eyes. But even without any obvious protector lurking nearby, the men deferred to them with more respect than could be explained by their gender or even the fine food they served.

Now that the immediate danger had passed and the crisis averted, questions crowded Mike's thoughts. And underscoring every query was that unexplained line from his telegram about Hope Falls.
“Sounds like a strange place,”
his friend warned.
“Good luck.”

As Mike stepped back into the small town, unsure where he should go or whether he could even count on being allowed to stay, Hope Falls seemed far stranger than he could have imagined.

Cora slowed her steps when they reached town and the doctor's house moved into view. Since she'd left Braden earlier, she'd managed to submerge her thoughts of him beneath all of the evening's activity. But now they'd gotten through the rushed shifts of feeding the men and finishing the rescue. Now the sun, which stayed in the sky so late during these long summer days, had finally set. And now, as the day's excitement faded, darkness crept across her thoughts.

I left him. I left Braden
. Cora drew in a deep breath and held it, trying to stop what was promising to become an unending mantra. It didn't work. The refrain stuck stubbornly in her mind and heart. Even as every step drew her closer to returning, her thoughts wouldn't budge from the prospect of leaving. After all, she'd already done it once.
How much harder would it be to keep it up?

She didn't know whether her obsessive ruminations were meant to encourage her decision or scold her against it. Did her feet drag because she dreaded the idea of apologizing or because she didn't want to have to walk away again? Did it even matter which one?

Ultimately, it came down to the same issue. Spending time with her fiancé had become a pain rather than a pleasure, and time wasn't making any improvements. Neither was patience, nor, it seemed, prayer. Yet sometimes no response was, in and of itself, an answer.

It was time to let Braden go. The doctor seemed pleased with his physical progress, confiding his belief that Braden would be rolling about in a wheeled chair before the week ended. Then the fresh air and stimulation of movement should encourage recovery. Such freedom meant that Braden wouldn't need to rely on her help.

She'd done her duty, stayed by his side for as long as he truly needed her. Now that he wouldn't, Cora owed it to the independent man her fiancé had been—and was trying to become again—to step back.
But I never thought that stepping back would mean walking away
.

Lost in her musings, Cora didn't realize everyone else had stopped until she practically ran right into her sister. Evie merely reached out a steadying hand and gave an encouraging smile. Her sister probably thought Cora worried about Braden's reaction to seeing Lacey. She didn't know Cora had effectively ended things.

Or that Cora had only barely accepted that she'd ended them.

But now wasn't the time to think about these things. No matter she was seeing Braden for the first time since she'd done what he'd been demanding for three months and left him alone. Right now the denizens of Hope Falls had more pressing matters to resolve.

Cora normally would have gone in ahead of everyone to absorb the worst of Braden's anxieties and give him a chance to collect himself before facing everyone. Tonight she stayed to the back.

She watched while Granger directed Riordan and Clump—his almost comically mismatched pair of right-hand men—to take the men back to the bunkhouse and settle everything in for the night. Cora waited when Naomi steadied Lacey's elbow and drew her toward the doorsteps, distracting her while Granger moved to support Dunstan's climb up the stairs.

Dunstan took shallow breaths for the majority of the walk, and it hadn't escaped Cora's notice that the men used far more time and careful effort to pull him free than they'd used for Lacey. Dunstan tried to mask his pain, but stairs would most likely jar whatever injuries he'd sustained.
That's why Naomi guided Lacey ahead
.

They all tried so hard not to upset each other, and the funny part was that they were going in to see the one man who would try to upset everybody in the room! Cora shook her head at the irony of it.

That's when she noticed the new man. He was hanging back, too, shifting in the uneasy way of a man who doesn't know what to do. With a start, Cora realized that he probably didn't know what to do. In all the hullabaloo of the day, the new arrival hadn't been officially interviewed, accepted into town, or given any welcome.

Mr. Strode saw a town in trouble and pitched in without complaint. Normally Granger—or if Granger happened to be out of town, Dunstan—would have gotten to know the new arrival and found a place for him. But with Dunstan out of commission and Granger overseeing the fallout, their new guest was left out in the cold.

“Come on in.” Cora gestured toward the door, eliciting a pair of surprised glances from first Mr. Strode and then Granger.

Understanding dawned on Granger's face then warred with an obvious reluctance to invite a stranger to what would certainly be a very specific and private discussion about Hope Falls business. His hesitation reminded Cora that Granger only returned to town that same afternoon and doubtless would have had a lot to talk over with Braden and Dunstan even if the mine hadn't gone and collapsed.

Which also meant that Granger didn't know Dunstan came to town to investigate the first cave-in or that both he and Braden now believed the mine was sabotaged. And wasn't it strange the way the second cave-in happened on the same day they went to investigate?

Oh yes. Tonight's conversation should be very interesting.
And won't it bunch Braden's britches to have a stranger stroll into the middle of everything?
That alone was worth inviting Mr. Strode!