Lisa Plumley - Morrow Creek Runaway

Her words made sense, given how peculiar he felt. It was as if his head were floating a few inches above the rest of him. He hadn’t had enough ale at the saloon to be drunk. What was this?

The truth was, though, Miles felt too good to care.

Because he’d found Rosamond. She was all right. She was safe. Everything he’d done till now—everything—had been worth it.

“Looking at you, I feel like dancing a damn jig,” he told her. All three of her. “You’re well. I’m thankful.”

Thankful scarcely described the depth of relief he felt. He wanted to bawl at the depth of relief he felt. But a man did not weep. So Miles only uttered another grateful swearword, shaking his head in wonderment as he went on studying Rosamond.

If only she weren’t pretending not to know him...

“Hmm. Yes, I am well,” she said. “Given our situation, I’ll forgive you your coarse language just now, too. I can see the jubilation on your face.” She peered wistfully at him. “For a variety of reasons, I believe what you’re saying is true. I believe you are glad about something.”

Serenely, Rosamond folded her hands atop her skirts. Even while scrutinizing him as if he was her long-lost love, she seemed the very picture of ladylike decorum.

Miles told her so.

She smiled. “Thank you. You seem the very picture of someone I once knew. He was a stableman and driver in Boston.”

There was that disingenuousness in her again. It had begun when Miles had taken off his hat and coat, and hadn’t abated since. He didn’t like it. But two could play that game.

“Boston? Pfft.” He waved again. “The only good things in Beantown are rivers and bridges and a mother’s love.”

She seemed to find that amusing. “Then you’ve been there?”

“I’ve come from there. To find someone.”

“To find Miles Callaway, you said. The thing is, I am very struck by your resemblance to the Miles Callaway I once knew.”

Her tense posture suggested she didn’t trust that Miles Callaway. That’s why Miles didn’t own up to being himself straightaway. That and the tales he’d been told of Rosamond having visitors from her past hurled forcibly from her house.

Launching a scuffle with her security men would not endear him to her. Nor would being made to explain—too soon and in too much detail—exactly how he’d come to be there in Morrow Creek.

This was not the sort of reunion he’d been hoping for.

“Mmm. I reckon I have that kind of face.” He had the kind of face, it occurred belatedly to him, that felt weirdly numb. He stroked his bearded jaw, then cast a suspicious glance at his teacup. Rosamond’s tea had tasted strange, but he’d been too polite to say so. On top of his long travels and the ale he’d already consumed at Jack Murphy’s saloon, that tea had not done him any favors. He felt...odd. “So do you. You look a lot like a housemaid I once knew. Her name was Rose. My Rose.”

Her face swam in his vision, doubling and then coming clear again. Miles shook his head. He frowned at her “assistant,” Miss Yates, who’d helpfully taken his valise from him and was now rummaging through its contents. Vaguely, that struck him as inappropriate. He had the impression someone may have riffled through his pockets, too. That beefy kid, Judah, who’d roughly taken his hat and coat after he’d come in? Had the bastard tossed him?

Miles was usually much savvier than this. Clearly, seeing Rose again had done him in. Despite her attempts to persuade him otherwise—despite the cat-and-mouse game they’d been playing thus far—he knew she was Rose, too. Rosamond McGrath Dancy. In the flesh. In a pretty pink dress. Her freckles still enchanted him. So did the sound of her voice.

He felt desperate to touch her, to reassure himself she was real. But after what had happened between her and that knuck Gus Winston earlier, Miles knew better than to touch her. Also, he wasn’t sure he could stand up without toppling over. He might wind up facedown in her high-buttoned shoes.

Then it hit him. “You drugged me!” he accused.

Her virtuous demeanor didn’t waver. “I think the stableman I knew was a bit...taller than you, though. Better looking, too.”

“Better looking? Humph.” He was “better looking.”

“Yes.” Another assessing, faraway look. “For one thing, my Miles had shorter hair. He was also clean shaven.” She gave a dreamy sigh. “He always wore a clean, pressed uniform, too.”

She was goading him on purpose. He knew it. But her musings didn’t distract him overmuch. Partly because Miles knew damn well he was tall enough and “better looking” enough to suit any woman—especially one who’d haunted his thoughts for years.

Why hadn’t he told her before how he felt?

His beard and hair and clothes could be changed. Not that he truly believed Rosamond pined for braid-trimmed trousers and jackets with epaulets at the shoulders. Arvid Bouchard had dressed his staff in the most ostentatious livery possible.

He wanted to hear Rosamond call him her Miles again.

But there was the pressing matter of her recent misconduct to be dealt with first. He could not let that stand as it was.

Even if that, as much as anything else, assured him he’d located the right woman—the right redheaded runaway housemaid.

“You drugged me,” he accused again, wishing he could strengthen his charge by standing. His knees felt rubbery and unfit to support him. “You tossed my coat and pockets looking for clues, and now Miss Yates is searching my valise.”

“Yes. That reminds me—” Rosamond turned her attention to her partner in crime. “What have you found, Miss Yates?”

“Several train ticket stubs, today’s copy of the Pioneer Press, assorted men’s clothing, a battered old book and far, far too much money for any honorable man to possess in Morrow Creek.” That traitorous woman aimed a sour look at Miles. “Furthermore, he only packed a single pair of underdrawers.”

They both gave him patently scandalized stares.

“I’m wearing the other pair,” Miles explained in his own defense, trying to ignore the additionally skeptical—and far more salacious—glance Miss Yates tossed him next. He’d have sworn she was imagining him naked. “I’m not made of money.”

They stared pointedly at his valise full of banknotes.

Miles drew himself up with dignity. In his current state, he didn’t know how to further defend himself without mentioning how he’d gotten all that money—and how much it had really cost him. He’d done his utmost not to spend much of it, but he’d had no way to search for Rosamond without it. He’d had to find out why she’d vanished from the Bouchards’ household in the middle of the night without so much as a note. Couldn’t she see that?

“Plus a wicked-looking knife,” the strongman, Judah, put in from across the room, saving Miles a reply. “Don’t forget that.”

Stricken, Miles patted his leg. Beneath his trousers, the knife sheaf on his calf felt conspicuously empty. He squinted anew at his drugged teacup, feeling lucky not to be insentient.

At least he had the wits to recognize he’d been bested.

Temporarily.

All the same, the notion made him feel perversely proud of Rose. She’d seen him as a threat. She’d dealt with that threat. Period. She was as capable and strong and spirited as ever. Those were all qualities he’d admired in her...once upon a time.

“Oh, we won’t forget the knife,” Miss Yates was assuring her hulking compatriot. “Or all that money, either.” Her gaze skittered over Miles’s black-clad form. “In fact, Mrs. Dancy, it might be wise of us to conduct an even more thorough search of his person. I’d be happy to supervise such an effort, if—”