Strong and Stubborn (18 page)

A snort escaped her as Naomi glimpsed the writing on the letter Granger selected. “ ‘To the Lovelorn Logging Ladies.' ” She snickered.

“We're also known as the ‘Sawmill Sweethearts.' ” Lacey set this gem to the side but wrinkled her nose at the next one she picked up. “ ‘Wilderness Women'? Why does that make it sound as though we parade about in grubby buckskins, brandishing firearms at hapless men?”

“I'm sure they didn't mean it like that,” Granger soothed. “Though this one probably did.” He tore up the envelope but not before Naomi was able to decipher the words
Shameless Hussies
.

The indictment wandered through Naomi's memory, a painful echo.

“You're going to Charleston, where my brother needs a woman to guide his daughter. You're not fit for the position, but it's your last chance to make something of yourself. If you can't find some fool to marry you and cannot control yourself in any other way, simply stick your nose back in a book. It's better to be known as the bluestocking you were than the shameless hussy you've become.”

“Naomi?” Lacey's call, accompanied by a nudge against her boot, recalled her to the present. “Whatever is going through your mind?”

“Oh …” She searched for an acceptable answer. “Only how unlikely it is that I can find a good husband by reading these.”
Or at all
.

“Pish.” Lacey brushed away her protest. “That's no reason to look so glum. You can't read a man by looking at his envelope.”

“There's some wisdom to brighten your day.” Granger stood up, holding out a letter Naomi didn't have the heart to take. “This one's different. Looks like a lady wrote it, and it has your name.”

Naomi fought to keep her hand from trembling as she accepted the envelope. In return for the scores of letters she'd sent to her family during the past five years, she'd received one response. A terse telegram from her sister advised that their mother's funeral had been the day before and Naomi should cease writing home.

She peered at the envelope as though it could somehow prepare her for its contents. Who would bother writing to her from across the country? And more importantly …
What can they possibly want?

“Supper's ready and waiting,” Miss Lyman assured a hungry crowd.

“Then what's it waitin' on?” someone grumbled, loud enough to be heard but not so loud Miss Lyman couldn't graciously ignore it.

“An announcement.” Dunstan's growl warned away more grumbling. When the men stopped shifting on the benches, he relaxed. “I'm pleased to tell you that Miss Lyman has agreed to be my wife.”

For a moment the men all looked at each other. It wasn't as though they hadn't seen the writing on the wall, but they still seemed at a loss how to handle the proclamation. From where Mike sat, the problem had nothing to do with whether the men respected or even liked Dunstan. This wasn't even about the supper holdup.

The problem stood beside Dunstan. Covered in dust and sporting britches, Miss Lyman turned heads. Dressed up in pink frills, she shimmered like an oasis. And now Dunstan had made her unreachable. Little wonder the room full of lonely lumbermen wasn't cheering.

From the growing displeasure on the ladies' faces, supper might never come out of the kitchen. So Mike did what any exhausted man with an empty stomach and a waiting bunk would do. He started clapping. Not loudly, just prompting the other fellows to join him. Granger helped ease the tension by offering hearty congratulations.

“Course he'd be happy for them,” muttered one of Mike's tablemates. “Granger already got himself the cook, didn't he?”

“Now Dunstan's gone and nabbed the dazzler,” another lamented. “That means I'm out. First frost, I'm heading for another outfit.”

“Leave sooner,” Bobsley urged. “Less competition for me!”

“Didn't you hear me?” The man who'd spoken of leaving peered sadly into his empty coffee mug. “I'm out. No more chances. Only reason I'm sticking around at all is for the food. That's worth staying for, so long as there aren't paying jobs someplace else.”

Mike blinked at that last bit. “You aren't getting paid?”

There had been too much going on last night to broach the subject of wages—considering the mine contretemps, Mike figured he was lucky to have gotten a bunk to sleep in and an offer of employment at all. He hadn't pushed about further details because it would've done him more harm than good—and he hadn't cared. Mike didn't lack funds. The Bainbridges gave him and Leticia a house as a wedding present, and he'd recognized a good profit even on a quick sale.

All the same, this lack of logging wages was a revelation. Maybe the employees of Hope Falls expected to receive a lump sum once the mill was up and running? That might explain Gent's earlier comment about changing the agreement.

This could be the advantage Mike needed.
I'll gladly work without wages until the mill's set up—if they let me bring Luke
. Mind galloping along, he almost missed what came next.

“In light of these changing circumstances,”—Miss Lyman could be awfully loud for such a delicate-looking thing—“we understand that some changes are in order. Tonight we modify our arrangement.”

The resulting swell of sound swallowed anything more the women might have said. Mike recognized that the women had foreseen this problem. In a bit of brilliant strategizing, the elder Miss Thompson used the one weapon guaranteed to inspire fear, reverence, and awe.

She rang the dinner bell.

C
onversation ceased so abruptly it might have been cleavered. Speakers stopped midsentence. Every man perked his ears and sniffed the air as though he hadn't already noticed the aromas wafting from the kitchen. It went so still, Mike fancied he could hear the rumbling of a dozen stomachs.
Or maybe mine is just that loud
.

“Now that we have your attention,”—Miss Thompson lowered her dinner bell to continue—“we'll explain the terms of our new offer.”

Mike couldn't help wondering about the terms of the old offer—particularly since so many men had taken them up on it, and now he wouldn't get the chance to find out if he would have done the same.

“As you know, Mr. Granger is an authority on the lumber business, having left Granger Mills to join us in Hope Falls.”

Mike puzzled over the ladies' pointed mention of Granger's pedigree. Perhaps they wanted a subtle reminder that they knew the business and wouldn't be taken advantage of. More likely, the mention of Granger's connections was a warning not to cause trouble.

Granger himself took over at this point. “Beyond industry standards, Hope Falls has high expectations and plans to pay well for its workers to meet them. We're offering each man a working wage of thirty dollars a month, less fifteen dollars room and board.”

Aside from a few hushed whispers, men just nodded. New as he was to this side of the industry, even Mike understood this to be an excellent offer—practically engineers' wages. He'd known factory men paying fifteen dollars a month for a bunk and mediocre meals. For Miss Thompson's fare, they would have gladly shelled out more.

“Sleep on it. I'll be asking for your decision come morning.” Granger most likely didn't want to hold up supper any longer.

“Is the girl still up for grabs?” one logger wanted to know. “Or is she hands-off for anyone who signs on and works for pay?”

Mike felt a surge of sympathy for the young Miss Thompson. Obviously the girl in question, she betrayed her discomfort by beginning to fidget. The fellow who asked if she was “up for grabs” needed a knock upside the head and a lesson in how to treat a lady.

“None of us was ever ‘up for grabs.' ” The girl's sister came to her rescue. “And to answer your question, nothing has changed save the addition of your wages. If you wish to woo a woman, you may still try, provided you remember to keep your hands to yourself.”

“Y'all got no entertainment hereabouts.” Someone's holler set off a fresh round of speculation. “When you gonna put up a saloon?”

Mike craned his neck for a clearer view of the idiot. Men like that needed watching. Sometimes they just needed to be steered in the right direction. Meanwhile, they needed to be steered clear of the women. Mike would start with the latter and pray for the former.

“Never.” Naom—
Miss Higgins
, Mike caught himself—bristled like a stepped-on porcupine, every inch rigid with warning. She looked as though she knew precisely what “entertainment” was. Or, at the very least, she was thinking of the sort of saloon that served more than whiskey and cards. In short, exactly the sort of saloon most loggers wanted.

“Your wages are your own.” She softened her approach slightly. “But no part of Hope Falls will become a venue for hard drinking, gambling, or anything else you wouldn't want to tell your mamas.”

“While the ladies head back in the kitchen to bring out supper,”—Dunstan waited while the women dutifully filed out, staring down the audience and bearing a striking resemblance to the snarling cougar someone had suspended on the wall behind him—

“I'll remind you that Hope Falls is a decent town, run by ladies. You will address them as such, or you'll be escorted aboard the next train.”

“Ladies,” snorted the man who said he'd stay for the food.

“Ladies,”
Mike growled back, ready to stick him on a train.

“What would you know about it?” his companion jeered. “You're what, a day old? Fresh off the train and thinking you know anybody?”

“I know you're not staying long.” Mike pushed back his mug in case he needed to move quickly. “And I know a lady when I see one.”

“What tipped you off to how proper they are? The britches?” He gave a knowing smirk. “Not that any of us are complaining about that privileged sight. No, it's the starched-up, skunk-haired one—”

Mike choked off the flow of bile by grabbing the man's grubby shirtfront and twisting. It tightened around the neck and gave Mike a good enough grip to haul the arrogant cuss off the bench. He got halfway through the diner before the other men realized what was going on. He almost made it to the door before they hit their feet.

A shadow slipped past him just before the room grew too small for Mike to move any farther. Surrounded by a dozen suddenly silent loggers, Mike didn't know if they were interfering on behalf of the wriggling idiot in his grasp or if they wanted to watch a fight.

The door creaked open, making heads swivel. There stood Granger, ushering them outside. In a whisper obviously not meant to carry back to the kitchen, he ordered: “Not in Evie's diner.”

With that, the seas parted to let Mike haul his opponent into the evening light. Until he felt the cool breeze on his face, Mike didn't realize how hot his blood boiled. The men, now less quiet, filed out behind him and formed a much larger circle. An arena.

Mike abruptly realized he hadn't thought beyond evicting the foulmouthed fool from the diner, where the aspersions he cast on the ladies wouldn't do any further damage. He didn't plan on a fistfight and wouldn't engage in one to satisfy a blood-thirsty mob—unless of course the aforementioned fool forced him into it.

“What do you do with men who belong on the next train?” He addressed Granger, wondering whether the obvious leader of the Hope Falls loggers had already needed to deal with this type of thing. Mike also noticed Dunstan picked up on the fracas and joined them.

“Depends.” Granger planted his feet in the dirt, a little wider than his shoulders, and issued his first order. “Let him down now.”

Mike's sudden release made the man stumble, even though he'd only been high enough to keep from bracing his heels. As soon as the man steadied himself, he swung a clumsy punch at Mike's midriff. Mike sidestepped him, wrapped his arm around the man's wrist, and flipped him on the ground. A wave of quickly hushed cheers followed.

“Never can trust a man who leads with a blind punch.” With that, Bear Riordan established himself as Mike's supporter and ally.

“What about a man who grabs another by the collar at the supper table?” The whine came after Mike's opponent regained his feet.

“Depends,” Granger repeated. He paused for a long moment as though thinking. “I didn't peg our new woodworker as a man with a temper. What did you say to make him decide you needed to leave town?”

“Told him he was too new to know anything about Hope Falls.” His sullen response sparked Mike's anger anew, but that was mild compared to the outraged indignation of Volker Klumpf.

“Ja!” The German stomped forward in a succession of aggravated clomps. “Only after Strode said he knew our women were ladies!”

“You were saying the women weren't ladies?” Even in the dark, Granger's expression made the object of his inquisition gulp.