Lisa Plumley - Morrow Creek Runaway

“I— No.” In midretreat toward her settee, Rosamond stopped. She squared her shoulders. “I’m fine, Mr. Winston. Truly, I am.”

Gus peered disbelievingly at her. “I ain’t swallowin’ it. It ain’t like you to fib, anyhow. I know that for certain.”

Rosamond almost laughed. Gus had no idea.

“Let’s just get you off on your wedding trip with Mrs. Winston.” Deliberately, Rosamond steered herself and Gus back to the parlor doorway. Her heart threatened to burst through the bodice of her practical, ladylike dress. Her hands trembled. But that didn’t mean she intended to dither uselessly in her parlor. “In the meantime, I’ll sort out the trouble with Mr. Durant.”

“You? Pshaw.” Gus waved. “That there’s men’s work.”

“Being a good husband is a man’s work,” Rosamond demurred. “And that is your job now, so don’t delay!”

“Well, if you’re sure you don’t need my help...”

“I am. Positively.” Another rumble of voices came from the entryway. Rosamond was dying to know how there could be another man on earth who sounded so like Miles. Her Miles. “Bon voyage!”

Almost ushered out, Gus stopped. “Huh?”

“Have a nice trip with Mrs. Winston,” Rosamond amended.

“Oh. I will.” Another blush. “Why didn’t you just say so?”

Because I’m conspicuously trying not to sound like a runaway housemaid. She’d once heard Mrs. Bouchard say bon voyage to an acquaintance. It had struck Rosamond as sophisticated.

“Because here at the Morrow Creek Mutual Society, we like to create a sense of occasion for our clients.” Deftly, Rosamond maneuvered them both a few more feet down the hall. Now she could almost glimpse the man who stood facing down Seth. Given her protector’s size, that was saying something. Any man who wasn’t immediately dwarfed by Seth had to be considerably sized himself. Six feet at least, and very strongly built.

Just like Miles. His considerate ways had seemed twice as incongruous when paired with his massive size and his rough-and-tumble job as head stableman and driver. His smiles had seemed twice as rare, too, coming from a man who’d been reputed to enjoy a brawl or two.

“There. Well, thank you for becoming one of our clients.” Formally, Rosamond nodded at Gus. “I wish you all the best.”

He eyed her prim stance, then lifted his gaze to her face. “Aw, shucks, Mrs. Dancy. Ain’t no call for formality ʼtween us!”

Gus lurched forward, then startled her with a tremendous hug. He wasn’t a large man, but he had the wiry strength of a man who worked hard for a living. Besides, even the smallest man was stronger than a woman—a woman who didn’t want him to touch her, didn’t want him to envelop her, didn’t want him to take—

Feeling smothered in panic, Rosamond shoved Gus. Hard. He stumbled backward, momentarily looking like another man—a man who’d laughed at Rosamond’s paltry efforts to protect herself.

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.”