Lynna Banning - The Courtship

Rydell Wilder’s entire world spun to a stop. “You sure about that, Lefty?”

“Dad blame-it, my eyesight’s good as it ever was. Ever since you started this here bank ’stead of ridin’ shotgun for me, you never b’lieve one thing I say. I tell you it’s her.”

Rydell stood up and stared into the old man’s face. Lefty Springer was the only person in the entire world he’d ever confided in. He’d trust the man with his life if it came down to it; after all, Lefty had trusted him with thousands of dollars in payroll shipments from the time he turned sixteen.

Barton Springer—Lefty, to those few who knew how he’d lost his right arm at Shiloh—never spoke a word unless he had to. The old man had been the first customer at the bank Rydell had established in town when he was a week shy of twenty-three, and he was the only patron allowed to use the private side entrance to his office. Rydell waited for the details.

Lefty looked at him expectantly, and Rydell chuckled. He didn’t believe for one minute that Miss Jane Charlotte Davis was heading for his bank. Not unless hell was freezing over. But the old man’s sharp blue eyes sparkled, and then his gaze narrowed.

“Got over it, didja?”

“Sure thing, Lefty.” He grinned at the lie. “Another ten years or so and I won’t care about breathing, either.”

“Thought so. Dell, I came to warn ya—she looks like she’s made up her mind to somethin’.”

Rydell shook his head as a queer pain stabbed into his heart. “Jane Davis hasn’t been allowed any kind of life to make up her mind about. Her folks pretty much saw to that. Offhand I’d say she’s just visited the mercantile and is headed toward home.”

“She’s comin’ this way, I tell ya.” The old man twirled one branch of his drooping gray mustache with his left forefinger. “Thought ya might like to be prepared, is all.”

Rydell grasped the older man’s shoulder. “Thanks, Lefty. Buy you a beer later.”

When he was alone, Rydell tipped his chair back, propped his boots on the desk, and closed his eyes.

Jane.

All these years he’d carried her name and the memory of the shy, frightened girl who’d treated him with kindness when he’d chased a group of bullies out of the schoolyard. She was new in town, from the South he gathered from her speech. Maybe fourteen or fifteen, and she looked…different. Her clothes were too fussy for a small town like Dixon Falls, her manners too formal. The other students surrounded her as she walked home, tossing rocks and chanting. “Queen Jane, Queen Jane, she’s got no brain. She’s stuck-up, too, and awful plain.”

The taunt made him mad. They’d bedeviled him, too, but he could fight. Jane could not, so when it came down to it, he’d done it for her. When it was over, she put her small, soft hand on his and whispered two simple words. Thank you.

He’d been fifteen. She didn’t come back to the school; he heard later that her folks taught her at home. Rydell had finished his schooling, rode shotgun for Lefty Springer, and watched from a distance as wide as two oceans while Jane grew up in the big yellow house on Dixon Road.

He’d tried hard to forget her.

Wilder’s Bank sat at the far end of the town of Dixon Falls, an imposing two-story white-painted building, the only structure along the main street that looked strong enough to withstand the winter snows and the hot, dry July wind without the roof sagging and the paint peeling off. Jane hesitated a moment, then stepped onto the board sidewalk.

A silver-dollar-sized spot of sunlight seared her chin. Peering upward, she noted the hole in the faded black parasol and groaned aloud. She could patch it with a scrap of silk from Mama’s trunk. Or she could live with it. What she’d like to do was toss the blasted contraption into the horse trough in front of the Excelsior Hotel, but she knew there wasn’t enough money to purchase another. That sad fact was what brought her into town in the first place.

She would manage with the damaged parasol. She needed something much more important than that, Jane thought with a shudder. And it was waiting inside the bank—her last hope for survival. For the hundredth time in the last three days, she wondered how she could live through the humiliation.

Inside the bank it was mercifully cool and quiet. The gray-painted window shutters were closed against the midday heat. It was, she noted, the only building in town that had shutters. In the dim light she drew in a slow, careful breath and walked resolutely to the counter. The air smelled of lemon oil and tobacco smoke.

The young man behind the iron grill blinked. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I would like to speak with Mr. Wilder, please.”

“Yes, ma’am. I’ll just step in and see if he’s busy.”

Jane willed her gloved fingers to rest in a ladylike manner atop her reticule while the clerk disappeared through a doorway. What if he’s occupied? What if he wants to see all our family private papers, Papa’s will and the deed to the house? What if he says no?

“Just step this way, ma’am. Mr. Wilder’s always happy to see a pretty lady.”

I’ll just bet he is. Rydell Wilder had a Past, her mother had whispered over the years. Papa had been less subtle. “No background, no breeding, and a damned Yankee besides.”

Clamping her lips tightly shut, she followed the young man in icy silence, listening to her black leather shoes tap-tap on the polished wood floor. When the clerk thrust open a heavy oak door, Jane’s heart jumped.

She couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

But you will. You must. She sucked in a breath so deep her corset pinched and forced her feet through the doorway.

The man behind the desk rose. “Jane,” he said, then caught himself. “Miss Davis.”

“Mr. Wilder.”

“I was sorry to hear about your father.”

Jane steeled herself, stepped toward him and extended her white-gloved hand. Too late she saw the dark smudge on the palm, where she’d laid her hand on the dusty front gate.

He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s been some time since I’ve seen you,” he said, his voice low and oddly tense. “How are you? And your mother?”

“Why, we’re just fine, Mr. Wilder. Thank you for inquiring.”

He hesitated, an alert, almost wary look in his steady gray eyes. Well and no wonder, she thought. Papa never did like him, and made no bones about saying so.

“Please sit down.” He drew up a slat-back oak chair and gestured. Jane noticed the cuffs of his white shirt were rolled back, revealing tanned wrists and forearms sprinkled with dark hair. The sight made her uneasy. The dark jacket that matched his trousers lay on the chair behind the desk.

She wished he would put it on. Rydell Wilder was tall and lean and good-looking, even if he was a Yankee. His mouth, especially. Unsmiling as it was, the lips were well-formed. She remembered from school days that he rarely smiled. His mouth had seemed thin, pressed into a hard line. Well, he had been struggling then, she reminded herself.

As she was now, she admitted with an inward sigh. How time altered things.

He settled himself into the chair behind the desk. “What can I do for you, Miss Davis?”

“I—” Her throat closed.

“Yes?”

“You know…about my father’s death.” It was as far as she could get at the moment. She worked to keep her breathing steady.

“I do know. And I am sorry, as I said.”

Honey, not vinegar, she reminded herself. To catch a fly, a Southern woman uses charm and lightheartedness. She tried to smile at him.

“Mr. Wilder, my father—through no fault of his own, mind you—left us with some…er…obligations.”

“Debts, you mean.” The bank owner’s voice was gentle but firm.