The Man from Stone Creek

“What makes you say that?” Sam asked when he’d absorbed the statement.

Maddie was silent for a long time and Sam was beginning to think he’d asked one question too many when she finally answered. “Until he brought Undine home from Phoenix,” she said, “Mungo was courting me. He told me if I went ahead and married Warren, I’d have to give up managing the mercantile.”

Something elemental and dark rose up within Sam, and he was a while putting it right. He felt as protective and as possessive of Maddie as if he’d been the one about to put a ring on her finger instead of Warren Debney. “And if you’d given in? Married Mungo instead of Debney?”

“He’d have signed the store over as a wedding gift,” Maddie recalled, frowning. “A plaything, as he put it.”

It made Sam’s gorge rise, to think of Mungo Donagher touching Maddie, let alone bedding her. “Some women,” he said in his own good time, “would have taken the old coot up on the bargain.”

Maddie pulled her shawl up around her shoulders, against the chill of the evening, and Sam thought she moved a fraction of an inch closer to him. “I’d sooner take up residence upstairs at the Rattlesnake Saloon. It amounts to the same thing.”

Sam hadn’t thought any image could be worse than Maddie throwing in with the head of the Donagher clan, but sure enough, she’d come up with one. He set his jaw and tightened his hold on the reins. At the rate these horses were traveling, they might be on time for breakfast.

* * *

THE LIGHTS of Mungo Donagher’s long, rustic house winked in the thick purplish gloom of the night. Normally, Maddie would sooner have been thrown to the lions than set foot in that place a second time, but with Sam O’Ballivan beside her, she actually enjoyed the prospect. She even hoped she would come face-to-face with Rex Donagher; she’d find a way to let him know what she thought of him and those cur brothers of his, even though she dared not insult their father. Without her job at the mercantile, she and Terran would be worse off than Violet Perkins and her mother, Hittie.

Mungo himself was waiting to greet them when they pulled up in the dooryard. The ground was unadorned by flowers and there were no curtains at the windows. Had Maddie lived in such a house, she would have planted peonies and climbing roses first thing, even if she had to carry water from the river to make them thrive. Her own plants were spindly and pitiful, and wherever she moved them, shadows followed, robbing them of light.

Mungo’s stance was stern and his countenance unwelcoming. Maddie knew it was Sam he mistrusted, not herself, but she felt a quiver of unease in the pit of her stomach just the same. She’d warned Sam, though, and that was all she could do.

He climbed down from the wagon box, extinguished the lamps to save kerosene for the ride back to town, and then extended a hand to Maddie. All that time, Mungo neither moved nor spoke. She felt his displeasure, invisible but real, roiling in the space between them.

“Evening, Mr. Donagher,” Sam said as cheerfully as if Mungo had been watching the road in eager anticipation of their arrival. “Mind if I unhitch these horses and let them graze on some of this grass?”

Before Mungo could form a reply, Undine slipped through the open doorway behind him, holding up a lantern that glowed almost as brightly as her smile.

“Supper’s ready to be served,” she called. “I cooked it myself, too.”

In the spill of light from Undine’s lantern, Mungo’s face looked hard.

Maddie shivered inwardly and wished it wouldn’t be baldly impolite to fetch her shotgun from underneath the wagon seat and bring it right inside with her. “I’m half starved,” she answered, because Sam didn’t say a word—he was busy unhitching the team—and neither did Mungo.

Undine blinked, as though she hadn’t taken notice of Maddie until that moment. “That’s fine,” she said without conviction. “You come on inside now, Maddie. Let the men tend to those horses.” She nudged Mungo with one elbow and he finally moved.

Maddie glanced in Sam’s direction, and was strangely stricken to see that he’d paused in his work to gaze thoughtfully in Undine’s direction. In that moment, she would have given her meager savings, stashed in a coffee tin under a loose floorboard in her bedroom, to know what was going through his mind.

It irritated her that she was even curious—Sam O’Ballivan was nothing to her, after all—and she swished her skirts a little as she swept up the walk toward Undine.

“Did you send off for those spring dresses I wanted?” Undine asked, addressing Maddie in an overbright, over-earnest tone, eyes sneaking past her to devour Sam. “If I can’t get Mungo to take me to San Francisco for the worst of it, they’ll be the only gaiety in the whole winter.”

Winters in that part of the Arizona Territory were mild; snow was rare and the temperatures seldom called for cloak or coat. Maddie didn’t bother to point that out, since Undine knew it well enough. “I wired the order to Chicago this afternoon,” she said, accidentally brushing against Mungo as the two of them passed on the porch steps. She paused to watch as her recalcitrant host strode toward Sam and the horses.

“That’s fine,” Undine replied, but she sounded distracted, and when Maddie looked at her, she saw that she was still fastened on Sam. Mungo might as well have been invisible.

“Are the boys home?” Maddie asked, referring to Garrett, Landry and Rex. Ben was visible in the doorway, holding a pup in both arms and taking in the scene in shy silence.

Undine gave a tinkling little laugh. “Why, Maddie Chancelor, have you gone and set your cap for one of my stepsons? Here you are, in the company of the handsomest man in the whole territory, and you’re wondering about those ruffians?”

Maddie smiled, even though her stomach rolled at the thought of “setting her cap” for the likes of the Donaghers. She’d sooner die an old maid or even throw in with Oralee Pringle, than have truck with any of them. Worried that Undine’s last remark might have reached Mungo’s ears, she slipped an arm through the other woman’s and hastily squired her into the front room, with its plank floors, beamed ceiling, and tall stone fireplace.

“Are you trying to make your husband angry?” she whispered a moment later, when Ben had gone outside to join Mungo and Sam at the wagon.

Undine blinked, her eyes wide with innocence. “Whatever do you mean, asking a question like that?” she asked, one hand fluttering to her throat.

Maddie narrowed her eyes. “I meant exactly what I said. Mungo is covetous as a rutting buck, and you damn well know it.”

Undine smiled slyly and batted her lashes. “I’m not sure Mungo’s the covetous one,” she purred. “Are you taken with Mr. O’Ballivan, Maddie?”

Maddie’s temper simmered. “No,” she said fiercely, “I am not taken with Mr. O’Ballivan. I just don’t want to see anyone get killed over your silly flirtations, that’s all!”

“Have a care, Maddie Chancelor,” Undine advised. “One word from me, and you and that brother of yours will be on the streets instead of living over the store and collecting a generous salary every month.”

After a deep breath or two, Maddie was able to speak calmly. “And one word from me, Undine, and Mungo will know all about those letters from Tucson I’ve been separating from the ranch mail so you can read them in secret.”

Undine’s cheeks pinkened and her eyes flashed. She bit down on her lower lip.

For a moment Maddie was afraid Mungo’s wife might hurl the lantern at her, since she was still holding it. Instead she extinguished the flame and set it aside. “Come and see how pretty the table looks,” she said as cordially as if no hard words had passed between them.

The long trestle table at the far end of the front room did look festive, set with glistening china plates and water glasses of cut crystal gracing a pristine cloth edged with lace. Undine’s fancy tastes had been the talk of Haven when that order rolled into town on the weekly stagecoach.

Maddie felt a hunger that had nothing to do with food as she took in the sight of that table. Silver candlesticks, with beeswax tapers waiting to be lit. Elegant flatware. A bouquet of wildflowers, spilling over the sides of an exquisitely painted china vase.

“It looks wonderful,” she said, and she meant it.

Undine seemed pleased. “Mungo has promised me a spinet,” she said, well aware, it appeared, of Maddie’s secret yearning for a home of her own. “We’ll have it sent from San Francisco, if I have my way.”

You always do, Maddie thought uncharitably. Her fingers flexed, missing the smooth ivory keys of the piano she’d played at the orphanage in St. Louis and, before that, in the churches and tents where her father had preached the gospel.

Don’t remember, she told herself firmly.

She was spared further conversation with Undine when Sam, Mungo and the boy trooped in. The puppy was missing and Maddie presumed Ben had left it outside.

She saw Sam sweep the well-set table with a glance as he passed, following Mungo toward the kitchen, and knew he wasn’t impressed by the china and cut glass; he’d been counting the places.

Feeling remiss, Maddie did the same. The total was seven, which meant that unless Ben was to have his supper in the kitchen, as children often did on such occasions, two more people would be joining the festivities. If the boy had already eaten, then Garrett, Landry and Rex might make an entrance at any time.

Maddie steeled herself for that. The exchange with Undine had shaken her a little, but she quickly recovered and followed the men to wash her own hands.

Anna Deerhorn, the Donaghers’ cook and housekeeper, was in the kitchen, and sure enough, she’d put a plateful of food on the big round table by the windows. Ben took a seat.

Anna met Maddie’s gaze and gave a nod of greeting.

Maddie smiled. “That embroidery thread you wanted came in on Wednesday,” she told the other woman, and pulled a small package from the pocket of her skirt. She’d wrapped the bright floss carefully before leaving the mercantile to pick Sam up at the schoolhouse.

Anna took the package with another nod and a whispered, “Thank you,” and Maddie glanced warily at Mungo, wondering if she’d somehow betrayed a secret.

Mungo, as it happened, was too busy keeping a suspicious eye on Sam to pay any mind to anything else going on in the room, but Maddie was still troubled. If she got a chance to speak to Anna alone, she would take it.