She caught the toss, warmed by his need to care for her and his desire to protect her from the disapproval of the town. “Thank you, husband,” she said firmly, loud enough for those in the room to hear the claim.
Samuel McCallister laughed at them. “It looks like she's not letting you weasel out of the contract, Chief."
Naomi frowned at that. Did Charlie want out of the contract? Maybe he didn't want to acknowledge her as his wife. Marta said an Indian squaw walked behind her husband. She didn't see herself doing that, but maybe they could negotiate.
Before she could spiral into complete doubt, Charlie Wolf called loudly across the room. “Use what you need,
mi corazon
."
"You go ahead and pick out whatever you need, ladies. Mr. Quince will approve your purchases.” It was the sheriff, Hank Woods. “There are rooms ready for you and a bath and such down at the end of the street at the CQ Boarding House."
"Whoever this CQ is,” Daisy Meadows quipped, “looks like he owns half the town."
"Just about,” Brody Quince answered. “That would be my Aunt Comfort Quince you're speaking of, my Uncle Hamilton's wife."
Chapter Fourteen
The CQ Boarding House proved to be a respectable rooming house—for women only. The girls shared bedrooms, giving Naomi her own. The room was so elegant that she hesitated to sit on the side of the bed, lest she mar the flounced and ruffled cover.
She paced, reluctant to undress, as if taking off Charlie's buckskins would in some intangible way break the connection between them. After all of the students had used the facility, bathing, primping, and trying on their new clothes from the Mercantile, and Charlie had not yet sent for her or come to her room, Naomi waited no longer to bathe.
She peeled off the buckskins next to the tub. Then, for the first time in ... she had to pause and think about it, it had been a fortnight since she'd been Naomi Parker, spinster schoolteacher at Sparrow Creek Ladies’ Academy. For the first time in two weeks, she relaxed in a real tub of water, sighing with pleasure to be clean and safe.
She pulled on the soft chemise she'd bought at the Mercantile, using some of the cash from Charlie's saddlebag. The dress he'd bought for her in Flat Rock was a wrinkled mess that she ironed into smooth folds before donning it.
She ran her hands over the blue-flowered muslin, smoothing the flounced ruffles on each hip. It was pretty.
Cornflowers—after the first night together, Charlie bought me a dress dotted with cornflowers.
It wasn't the kind of dress she usually wore ... she stretched her neck to see her behind in the mirror that topped the vanity, liking the way the dress made her rump look ... she grinned. Charlie's influence was everywhere.
Her hair, free of the pomade she usually used to tame it, was a much lighter brown, almost blonde. Charlie liked to play with it, after they coupled. Naomi shivered, wishing he would come and get her. She hadn't had much luck with people coming back for her, and every minute she was separated from Charlie Wolf, she got more doubtful and afraid he would be like the others.
Before she'd left the sheriff's office, she'd hugged the thrown leather pouch and asked Charlie suspiciously, ignoring the others in the room, “Mi corazon. Is that your pet name for me, like Old Mossy is for your horse? What does it mean?"
"Sharp-tongued woman.” His answer had been irritated, calling forth snickers from the avidly listening men. She'd exited hastily, following the sheriff of Eclipse.
"Mi corazon,” she murmured half aloud. “It doesn't
sound
like sharp-tongued woman.” She frowned, wondering what Charlie had really called her, determined that she'd find out as soon as she found him.
She finished bundling her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck, tendrils flying around her face softening the severe style and decided to find Charlie herself. She bent toward the mirror, brushing at the stray locks, wishing that she had just a little pomade, when the picture behind her changed. The man crawling through her window, gun drawn, was ready to shoot—her.
At the same time, the front door slamming below signaled that people had begun to arrive. She smoothed her palms on the dress and repeated silently,
a lady is always in control.
The sound of pounding feet on the stairs was accompanied by two voices united in one purpose. “Brody—Ambrosia Quince, come out here."
Naomi hoped that someone in the room below would remember her. It hadn't taken the Quinces long to come round up their chick. That must mean the fighting was over and they thought all outlaws dead, run out of town, or in jail.
She looked at the one exception—a dirty old man who hunched over his gun, ready to use it. She didn't want to die. “Told you you'd not seen the last of me,” Harvey Collins hissed his venomous hatred at her.
It was the damnedest thing. He'd been thinking about his woman again; his mind was on getting her alone and in a real bed, when the natural order of things in the sheriff's office changed.
He had to tell the two sheriffs, Potter and the Eclipse man, who didn't impress Charlie with his brain, about hiding the girls, and then finding the guns. They all looked at the stack of twenty-five remaining rifles.
"Good thing the rest didn't fall into the hands of the Comancheros.” Hiram Potter decided to look for the positive.
"How do we know they didn't?” Hank Wood continued to look at Charlie as though he were the enemy.
"...Because I broke the stocks on them and set fire to the lot.” In point of fact, he'd tried to blow them to pieces, using the gunpowder he'd salvaged.
Noticing the avaricious gleam in Sheriff Wood's eyes, Charlie knew he'd made the right decision. He was exchanging glares with the Eclipse law when the sheriff's door banged open and Harvey Collins strode through, gun drawn and aimed at Naomi's head.
"Turn loose those men you've got locked up back there.” The old man gestured at the back of the jail.
"All of them?” Hiram Potter drawled his question in an unruffled manner, distracting the outlaw.
Charlie stood slowly, careful to appear in control instead of the raging animal that wanted to tear a new asshole for Harvey Collins.
Before Charlie could pounce, Harvey's gaze dropped to the box of rifles behind Sheriff Wood's desk. “I knew you'd find them.” He shook Naomi by the wad of her hair he held. “Snoopy, dried-up old prune. You just couldn't keep your nose out of my business."
Collins dragged her across the floor, gun jammed to her head until they were behind the sheriff's desk, standing over the rifles. Though Naomi said nothing, Charlie likened the tight lips and heated look in her eyes to that of a trapped catamount. Their eyes locked.
"Give me the keys to the cell doors or I blow Naomi Parker's head off. I already want to do that, so it wouldn't be smart to give me additional incentive."
"I'm not turning those bastards loose.” Not for the first time, Charlie wondered about Hank Wood's lack of a brain. He showed it again, answering the already crazed Collins defiantly, “I don't care if you shoot everyone in this room."
"Fine, we'll start with you,” the outlaw said and shot Hank Wood in the head.
Blood and brain matter spattered back on them, more so than Harvey had apparently expected or planned for.
"Shit,” he lifted the gun for a minute to wipe goo from his brow.
Naomi saw the opportunity and made her move—in the wrong direction, as usual. Instead of dropping to the floor and rolling, as he'd taught her, or gouging out Harvey Collins's eyes, as he'd instructed. Naomi screamed pure fury and knocked the gun right out of his hand, “Look what you did to my dress,” she screeched.
Unarmed, Collins proved an unworthy opponent. Naomi straddled his arms, pinning them to his sides so that he could not muster any defense. Although he approved that move, Charlie was surprised she'd remembered that one—she used her advantage to bang the outlaw's head against the floor, bent on ending his life, not escaping with her own.
Hiram Potter took the decision from her hands, rescuing Harvey and throwing him in jail with the rest of the prisoners.
Now that he wasn't needed, Hamilton Quince charged into the sheriff's office and stopped in mid-sentence. “Naomi Parker is miss—"
"Naomi Wolf McCallister,” Charlie corrected him, holding the woman in question closer in his arms while she clung to him and fussed at the same time. “And she's right here.”
Muttering in my ear and ready for the hardest ass whipping yet.
"If I can't leave you in a woman's boarding house and know you're safe, where will I keep you?” He was doing his share of mumbling too. She ignored his whispers, burying her face in his neck, all the while complaining.
"My dress is ruined. Turn me loose. If I get it off and soaking, I might be able to save it.” But her arms were wrapped around his waist, and he crushed her to his chest, neither one of them breaking the hold on the other to worry about a little blood and brain matter caught between them.
Across the room, Hamilton Quince squatted next to what was left of Sheriff Wood. “Damn, Hiram, you'll have to take over here. We can't seem to keep a sheriff alive in Eclipse."
Hiram Potter sorted through handbills without looking up, but answered, “Not much of a recommendation. First Owen Bailey, now Hank Wood. A man would have to be a fool to take the Eclipse Sheriff's job."
He paused in his search, triumphantly pulling out a tattered handbill. “Looks like you've got a new bounty hunter in the family. Harvey Collins has a price on his head too.” Hiram waved the wanted poster at them, pleased to give the odd couple a wedding present.
"What did you say?” Naomi loosened her grip on Charlie's waist, turning to hear Hiram Potter better.
Hamilton Quince explained. “The last sheriff of Eclipse turned to graft and corruption, and it got him killed. Hank Wood was hired to take his place. Looks like a different side of corruption got him."
"No, before that—what did you say before that part, Sheriff Potter?"
Hiram beamed and presented her with the handbill. “Harvey Collins is a dead-or-alive outlaw. You hit pay dirt."
Naomi looked pleased, accepting the wanted poster as the gift it was intended as, she murmured, “Now, how do I redeem this?” but then remembered her real question.
"Who was the last sheriff? What was the name you called?” Naomi's voice trembled, and Charlie knew this was something important.
Hamilton Quince had been following the threads of the conversation as if it was a game of jump in when you can. He seized the moment.
"Owen Bailey, my wife's deceased husband, was the former sheriff of Eclipse.” Hamilton lost his polite smile when he mentioned the man. “Why?"
Charlie felt her straighten her stance and felt a surge of protective ownership when she stepped toward Hamilton Quince.
"I knew he was no good when I was eleven.” Naomi held her hand out to him and when he grasped it, looking puzzled, she added, “I guess that makes you my brother-in-law. I'm Naomi Parker, Comfort Parker Bailey's sister. I told her when she decided to marry Owen Bailey that he was an undesirable. But she didn't listen to me."
Charlie watched the importance of Quince's words get past her need to congratulate herself on being right. Surprise was replaced by hope as she whispered, “Could you take me to her? Can I see Comfort, please?"
Then, the shock of too much excitement, tragedy, and worry must have weighed upon her, because, Naomi, his warrior woman, began to cry.
Chapter Fifteen
Charlie witnessed the reuniting of sisters and then ran. Naomi thought about his desertion grimly. “I'll be back. Visit with your sister now that you've found each other. Relax, spend some of this money."
He'd stuffed a few greenbacks in his shirt pocket and thrust the rest at her. “Here, use what you need.” He'd been happy to leave with his cousins. She could tell; she could see it in his eyes.
For the first time in her life she had money to spend and a store where to spend it, her sister's CQ Mercantile being a pleasure to visit.
But how could Naomi appreciate the blessings that were surrounding her—the ladies of the academy were all safe and on their way home, no one had been killed besides Hank Wood in the Comanchero attack, and her sister Comfort was returned into her life—when she spent every minute of the day waiting.
She should be ecstatic. Instead she went to sleep at night worrying. Her answers were composed, her questions interested when at last Comfort Parker Bailey Quince was reunited with her. But each day she spent alone in Eclipse, a kernel of hope that had sprouted in her soul withered a little more.
The first afternoon after Charlie's defection, the two women so long separated had sat together in the sun room. It was awkward, now that they were alone. Comfort, being more of a social creature than Naomi, seemed impelled to open the conversation.
"My circumstances with Owen Bailey didn't allow for my sending for you.” So many times, Naomi had had this conversation pretending both sides, that the real seemed pointless.
"It doesn't matter. We are here now.” It was true. Charlie Wolf wasn't here now, that was what made her feel soulful and lonely.
"I memorized
Godey's Lady's Book
and advertised myself as a teacher of deportment. I fared well and saw a piece of the world. It was an adventure."
Her sister, Comfort, seemed nonplussed by the answer, evidently expecting recriminations rather than acceptance. With that moment out of the way, Comfort was more natural asking questions about Charlie Wolf and her future plans.
"Where does he live?"
"I don't know."
"Does he own property?"
"We didn't speak of it."
"Who are his people? I mean besides those strange cousins of his. Truly, Naomi, I know that
Godey's Lady's Book
cautioned about speaking ill of anyone—” She paused as Naomi chanted aloud, “...a young lady should be very guarded indeed about speaking evil of anyone, and equally so of how she repeats the disparaging remarks of another."