Morrow Creek Runaway

Arvid Bouchard had viewed his former housemaid’s resistance to his unwanted advances as proof of her Irish-born, redheaded, working-class “liveliness,” not her wish to escape him. He’d pursued her relentlessly. Eventually, stuck with no place to go and no one to turn to, Rosamond had simply gone numb to what was happening with her employer. She’d seen no other choice.

She’d paid dearly for her inaction, too.

“Don’t touch me.” Rosamond raised her head, her gloved hands balled into fists. “Don’t ever touch me! Even my friends and the children here don’t—” She broke off, realizing too late how inappropriate this was. How shocked Gus looked. It was true that Rosamond could not bear to be touched. But Gus’s gesture had been an openhearted farewell, not an attempt to hurt her. He was still gawking at her, in fact, still trying to figure out what had caused her outburst. Rosamond couldn’t explain. “Oh! I’m so sorry, Gus. Please forgive me. I didn’t mean it.”

“I reckon ye did.” His knowing tone didn’t blame her for it. He gave her a measuring look. “I’m sorry for it, too. Most folks won’t mean you no harm, but sometimes—well, you only have to ask Mrs. Cooper about that one. Sometimes folks do want to hurt a woman. Daisy had herself an awful time with—”

Rosamond was confused by Gus’s mention of the livery stable owner’s new wife, a renowned cookery book author and now stepmother to little Élodie Cooper, but she didn’t have time to ponder the matter further. Because just as Gus was winding up his commiserating speech, the duo at her doorway parted.

“She said not to touch her,” the stranger growled.

Rosamond had a brief impression of dark clothes, fast movements and pure masculine authority before all tarnation broke loose. The stranger stepped protectively between her and Gus, his arms outstretched to shield her. Seth shouted and pursued him, having evidently been given the slip at the door. Gus straightened like a cornered rooster, not giving a single inch.

Astonished, Rosamond stared at the back of the stranger’s head, at his brown hair falling in collar-length waves beneath his hat and at his broad shoulders stretching the black fabric of his coat, and wondered why a bearded outsider who smelled like whiskey and cigar smoke had decided to come to her rescue.

She couldn’t shake the impression that this man could have dodged her protector at any time. He simply hadn’t had sufficient motivation to do so—until Gus had touched her.

“Nobody asked you to git in on this.” Gus’s eyes narrowed. His weathered hands curled into fists. “This here’s a lady’s house. You ought to learn to mind your manners.”

“So should you. Start by saying goodbye.”

“Why should I?” Gus demanded. “You gonna make me?”

Oh, dear. If Rosamond didn’t do something, they’d come to blows. More than once, she’d seen Seth or Judah dispatch an unwanted or rowdy male visitor to her Morrow Creek Mutual Society. Typically, those men worked with their fists. She didn’t want to see Gus mixed up in a melee. For whatever reason, she didn’t want this stranger to be on the receiving end of one of Seth’s mighty sockdolagers, either. As a onetime railway worker, Seth was as strong as an ox and twice as ornery.

Gus shifted a sideways glance toward Seth. The two of them appeared to be formulating a plan, but they were about as covert as a pair of cantankerous mules resisting being saddled. “Who kicked up his heels an’ made you boss, anyhow?” Gus goaded.

The stranger didn’t budge. “When I see a woman in need, I step in. Any decent man would do the same.”

Again, his voice sounded so familiar. Raspy, faintly accented with a secondhand brogue, roughened by the coarse environments of tenements and stables. He sounded just like Miles. Or maybe Rosamond only wanted him to sound like Miles...

“It’s my job to step in.” Seth took a swing. He missed.

How had he missed? He was always so effective. So tough.

Seth looked shaken by his failure to topple the stranger. So did Gus, whose eyes widened—then narrowed again in renewed readiness. All three men froze in wary postures, leaving the air fairly vibrating with tension and combativeness.

Seth had missed. He’d failed to protect her.

Rosamond quailed, distracted from her musings about Miles. For the first time, the fortress she’d fashioned for herself here in the Arizona Territory felt in real danger of crumbling. Maybe Seth and Judah weren’t so very tough, after all. Maybe if genuine danger came calling, Rosamond would find herself all on her own. Just the way she’d always been.

The notion terrified her. If her own house wasn’t secure...

Well. She’d just have to make it secure.

“All of you, stop this at once!” Rosamond stepped from behind the shielding arms of the stranger to sweep a chastising glance at them all. “Gus, please give my best wishes to Abigail. Seth, please return to your post, lest some other miscreant try to invade this house today. And you, sir—” she swallowed hard, hoping to dredge up a bonus quantity of courage “—should leave immediately, before I take it into my mind to stomp your foot, wring your ear and drag you out of this house myself.”

A heavy silence descended. More than likely, all the other ordinary sounds were drowned out by the furor of Rosamond’s heartbeat pounding in her ears. Then, gradually, the laughter of the children playing outside returned. It was followed by the steady ticking of the grandfather clock to Rosamond’s left.

She drew in another fortifying breath, not quite daring to look the stranger in the face. She both did and did not want to confirm that he wasn’t the stableman she remembered, wasn’t the man she’d thought of so often since leaving Boston, could not be Miles Callaway, come thousands of miles to arrive at her door.

“Please don’t make me repeat myself,” she warned.

Gus tipped his hat. “Thanks kindly, Mrs. Dancy.” He had the audacity to wink. “You sure know how to throw a lively bit o’ entertainment here at the marriage bureau, that’s for sure.”

Gus saluted, then left with a grin. Seth, for his part, retreated the merest quantity of steps, then mulishly stopped.

“Since when have I not meant what I said?” Rosamond asked.

Improbably, the stranger laughed at that remark.

Seth, looking more embarrassed than she wanted, stomped all the way back to his usual post in the entryway. From there, he surveyed their latest visitor through distrustful eyes.

So did Rosamond, albeit from beside him. Clearly, in the end, shielding her household of women and children was up to her. Her protectors, Seth and Judah, could only do so much—especially if she were the one causing all the trouble.

Reminded of her earlier overreaction to Gus’s bear hug, Rosamond winced. The poor man hadn’t deserved that. She’d physically retaliated against him! She’d berated him. She was so sorry for that. It wasn’t at all normal to dislike being hugged.

It also wasn’t normal for anyone to get the better of Seth. Yet her latest visitor had easily gotten past Seth and avoided his blow, too. Who in the world was he? And why was he there?

Miles Callaway, she remembered the stranger saying. All I want to know is if Miles Callaway has been here to see Mrs. Dancy.

This man was looking for Miles. He’d unwittingly roused Rosamond’s bottled-up memories at the same time, but that wasn’t his fault. If Miles was in any trouble, Rosamond wanted to know.

She’d liked Miles. She’d more than liked Miles.

He’d been her staunchest ally in the Bouchard household. He’d been a friend, and, yes, the subject of her girlish daydreams about love and romance, too. She hadn’t ever admitted as much to him. In fact, she hadn’t ever done anything much more audacious than smile at Miles. But Rosamond had entertained youthful fantasies about holding his hand, about dancing with him, about learning why he seemed so strong and yet so trapped in Boston, why he seemed so charming and yet often so alone.

Those girlhood fantasies felt very far away to her now. They were part of another life—a life when she hadn’t had a hole in her heart and a soul-deep need to bar the door at all times.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am.” With the scarcest turn to acknowledge her, the stranger tipped his hat. “I’ll be going.”

He took several strides toward the door.

In a moment, he’d be gone. Just the way she’d demanded.

But his voice still rang in the air, so reminiscent of...

Well, so reminiscent of the one man Rosamond had never been able to forget. The one man she’d never truly wanted to forget.

“Wait! Please.” In a trice, she’d caught up to him. She touched his sleeve, caught his questioning glance at her overly intrusive gloved hand, then regrouped. Hastily, Rosamond took away her hand—but not before she felt...something...pass between them. “I heard you talking earlier. I’d like to know everything you know about this...Mr. Callaway, was it?”

He hesitated, his bearded face mostly cast in shadow by his hat and his collar-length hair. Then he unwisely accepted her sham uncertainty at face value, just as Rosamond had intended.

This...Mr. Callaway, was it?

As if she hadn’t dreamed of him.

“Are you asking me to stay?” he asked. “All I wanted was to question your hired man. I heard you never entertain visitors.”