Texas Moon TH4 (7 page)

"That's not a problem. We can probably scrape together enough money for the lumber. There's plenty of broad backs around to do the labor. You just gotta get it organized and keep it going. Fellas tend to be shiftless a mite if someone ain't on them all the time. Know what I mean?" Jason gave a steely look that belied his friendly tones. "And if that ain't to your likin', we could always keep you locked up until the judge comes around. You can plead your case afore him, if you want. But that won't get Jenny her schoolhouse. Without it, she can't teach. There will be those who'll want to take her home away if she ain't teaching. Are you beginning to understand me?"

Unfortunately, yes, he was. Peter rubbed his brow where the ache just became a little stronger. "How much time you figure this will take? I've got business back in New Mexico that can't wait too long."

Harding shrugged. "Not more than a week or two. We don't need nothin' fancy. I've got to go into Houston on business anyway. I'll see what I can find in the way of books and things, but you'll have to have them put together desks and whatever else Jenny says she needs. When I get back, if all's well, we can have that little talk you wanted."

He had him pinned there. Harding wasn't such a yahoo after all. The man knew what Peter wanted, and he dangled it like a carrot on a stick. Peter sighed and nodded. "I take it the schoolteacher is the one I need to ask for details? If you're not going to be here, can I rely on her to give me the name of people who are supposed to help on this project?"

"Jenny can give you anything you ask, including cash from what's left of the trust fund for the lumber, unless you're willing to donate that yourself?" Jason raised an eyebrow as he prodded his prisoner a little more.

Peter smelled a hint of a threat there, and he rebelled. "If I'd done it, I'd be wiring for the funds now. The only reason I'm falling for your blackmail is because I don't want the teacher to lose her job, and I'm in a hurry to get out of here. This seems the fastest way to take care of both."

Jason nodded. "Have it your way. Just have that school up when I get back. And don't think you can walk away. Powell's the best damned tracker in the territory. He'll find you wherever you go."

"Just tell me where I can get some breakfast and some hot water to wash in. I'm not doing anything until I've eaten and made myself presentable."

Jason grinned, all affability once more. "Powell takes care of his prisoners. He'll get you what you need. You'd better bathe some before you go see Miss Jenny. She's likely to send you home if you go up there smelling like a polecat."

They made her sound like a real tartar when all he'd seen was a nymph, but Peter wasn't about to argue with them over the local schoolmarm. He'd damned well have that building up and be out of here before another week went by. He couldn't afford delays like this.

* * *

Janice wheeled her cycle back into town as the sun lowered behind her. The Double H had been quiet with the kids and Carmen gone and Kyle out checking a fence break. She'd arrived after Jason had already left for Houston. His cryptic instructions for the time he was away had left her vaguely puzzled, but that was nothing new. She would just ask Kyle about them tomorrow.

She stopped at the law office and picked up another packet of papers for transcribing. She wasn't looking forward to going home to an empty house, but at least she would have something to keep her occupied through the lonely evening hours. Nothing in Jason's notes had said anything about the school board's decision regarding a new school, so she assumed she didn't have to pack and leave just yet. Knowing the board, it would take them the length of the summer to decide.

She considered stopping at the little restaurant beside the hotel and just ordering up a meal rather than eating alone, but that would cut into her finances, and she wasn't pleased about sitting at a table by herself in what was usually a room full of men. Maybe she could make do with some leftover biscuits and jam.

When she rode up to the house, she was startled to notice a stack of lumber piled in the school yard. Her spirits soared instantly. They were going to rebuild! Bless Jason. He might be a blind, thick-headed numskull at times, but his heart was in the right place whenever he could find it. She would have to sew him a new vest for his birthday. She was tired of that stained leather one.

She hadn't realized how worried she had been until her spirits soared at the sight of that lumber. She couldn't have felt better if the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She'd had horrifying visions of Betsy returning and finding her living in the streets. Rental houses weren't readily available out here, even if she could afford one.

That called for a celebration. Maybe she would light up the stove after all. She would make a pie that would last her all week. Pies might not be real nutritious, but they kept well. She couldn't afford an icebox and didn't have a spring house. If she wanted to eat a proper meal, she should have stopped at the greengrocer's and the butcher's before coming home, and she hadn't. But she had some dried apples that would work just fine in a pie.

She had the stove heating and was humming to herself as she rolled out the crust when a knock at the door intruded. Frowning, she tried to clean off her hands on her apron before answering it. With school out, she didn't have much company from students or parents. Maybe Ellen needed something.

Opening the door to find Mulloney standing on the other side caused her to step back, speechless.

She had managed to push him out of her mind all day. She hadn't expected a powerful rich man like Peter Aloysius Mulloney to hang around long. She'd wasted her time trying to help him. He'd have lawyers from all over the country down here by daybreak if he was in trouble. She could just pretend that he didn't exist as long as she didn't have to look at him.

But she was looking at him now. He'd certainly made some major improvements since the morning. His beard was shaven to reveal a strong jaw with a cleft in the middle, and a mouth that didn't look like it turned up at the corners much. She remembered the humorless green eyes quite well and didn't need to meet them as she glanced over his shoulder for some explanation of his appearance.

"Miss Harrison?" He doffed his gray felt hat with the silver shells on the band. He'd changed into a clean white shirt and khakis and had obviously bathed, but Janice wasn't impressed. She started to close the door.

He shoved his foot inside. "Sheriff said you'd be recompensed for providing my meals while I'm working off my debt to society."

She stared. She wasn't certain she heard this right. Peter Mulloney was standing on her doorstep, asking for a prisoner's meal?
The
Peter Mulloney? He could have bought the restaurant and ordered them to make roast duck if he liked. She shook her head, certain that she had heard wrong.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Mulloney. What do you want?"

"Supper," he said succinctly. "I'm starved. I had beef jerky for lunch since you weren't here, but I could eat the wood off that table right now."

She
did
have an arrangement with the sheriff to fix meals for prisoners on a rotating basis with some of the other women in town. And this man had been a prisoner this morning. She just didn't think prisoners usually arrived at the door, hat in hand.

"You don't look like a prisoner to me, Mr. Mulloney," she reminded him, just in case he'd forgotten.

There was a suspicion of a curl to the corner of his lip. He looked her up and down in a blatantly sexual way that made Janice want to take her rolling pin to his noggin. "And you don't look like much of a cook to me, Miss Harrison. I'm just taking the sheriff's word for it. You want to talk to him?"

"I'll do more than talk to him. Nobody warned me about this arrangement. There's not a thing in the house to eat but apple pie, and that's not ready yet."

He had thick dark eyebrows that formed upside-down V's when he raised them. "You're planning on eating apple pie for supper?"

"That isn't any of your business. Since you're wandering around loose, why don't you wander down and ask the sheriff to come back here and verify your story? He'd better bring around the makings of dinner while he's at it." This time, she pushed the door so hard, he had to hastily move his foot before she crushed it.

Then she braced herself against the door and listened to the sound of his boots walking away. Peter Mulloney, a man richer than Croesus, begging at her door. She must be hallucinating. She had been working too hard and the loneliness was preying on her mind.

God might make miracles, but He didn't send gifts like that to her doorstep.

Chapter 6

Janice turned the beefsteak over in the frying pan and leaned over to check the biscuits in the oven. Her stomach felt tighter than a bowstring, and claws of something irrational ripped at her insides. She had ordered Peter Aloysius Mulloney to stay out of her house while she cooked, but the knowledge that he was outside her door kept her off balance.

She'd heard him washing up at the pump earlier. She had sneaked a peek through the curtains sometime later and seen him pacing off the charred area of the schoolhouse. The sheriff had assured her that Mulloney would rebuild the schoolhouse for her. She ought to be relieved and grateful.

Instead, she was walking on hot coals. He didn't know who she was. There was no reason in the world that one of the grand and mighty Mulloneys would recognize one of his many impoverished and ill-treated tenants. Not that she had even lived in Cutlerville these last five years for him to recognize.

But she recognized Mulloney, all right. She could remember what he and his fiancée had looked like in his polished carriage behind those matched bay horses. They had been the epitome of everything she could never have.

It hadn't broken her heart any when Daniel had come along and not only overthrown the heir apparent, but stolen his fiancée too. Evie had once tried to explain how Daniel with his crippled leg and uncertain parentage had been cast out of the Mulloney family at birth, but Janice had just scored one more point against the wealthy, greedy Mulloneys. Daniel was her friend. She had cheered with the rest of the town when he'd taken over Mulloney Enterprises. She had never given a single thought to the brother whose place he had taken. She'd left Cutlerville too soon after that to hear the details.

She didn't know what Peter had been doing all these years, but she knew Daniel would never disown his brother as his family had once disowned him. So she couldn't fathom why Peter Mulloney didn't hire a fleet of carpenters to rebuild the school if that was what he had in mind. He'd announced his name to all and sundry, so he wasn't traveling incognito. Why was the fabulously wealthy Peter Mulloney sleeping on the ground in filthy clothes not fit for a beggar?

The puzzle worried at her mind, but not as much as the thought of the man himself. The sheriff had said she would have to work with Mulloney to see the school rebuilt properly. She didn't know if she could stay in the same room with the man without killing him. Those years in Mulloney tenant houses had been pure hell. She'd like to return the favor sometime.

But she had learned to hide her feelings long ago. When supper was cooked, she called to the man kicking idly at a fallen timber. Standing with hands in pockets, silhouetted against the setting sun, he looked more lonely drifter than fancy financier. Janice didn't let her imagination take hold. She kept her face stiff as he hurried toward the house.

Mulloney ate like a starving man, but a polite starving man. He waited for Janice to sit before taking his place al the table. He knew how to use his napkin. He cut his meal into small bites and chewed hurriedly, but thoroughly. He didn't forget to compliment his hostess on everything from her cooking to her neat kitchen. She still wanted to kill him.

It took all her willpower to keep from telling him that she knew who he was. Maybe he was planning on skipping town without rebuilding the school, saving himself a lot of money and trouble. That would be like the Mulloneys she knew. She would just hate to telegraph Daniel and tell him what kind of wretch his brother was, but that schoolhouse was her livelihood. She would do whatever she had to do.

"I'll tell you right now, Miss Harrison, I've never built anything larger than a tent before." Peter sat back in his chair, wiping his hands on his napkin. He hadn't eaten anywhere that used napkins in so long he couldn't remember the last time. He savored the lingering taste of the tender steak and looked around hopefully for the apple pie she'd been baking. He hadn't realized how starved he had been until he'd sat down at this table to a selection of fresh vegetables and tender meat. It was plain fare, far plainer than the delicacies he had eaten at home, but he couldn't remember a better meal.