Deborah Camp (9 page)

“I understand, Mrs. Hath—Adams,” Mr. Burnett said.

Grandy imitated her, forefinger poking at the air. “Yes, ma’am! You hold the purse strings and
everybody
knows it.”

Zanna sent him an angry frown, then presented her back as she moved to the front counter where Lucy Burnett was stuffing a gunny sack with canned goods and seed packets for Belva Timmons, the preacher’s wife.

“Good morning, Mrs. Timmons,” Zanna said. “Lucy, I’ll need a few things when you’re finished there.”

“Be right with you, Zanna. What else for you, Mrs. Timmons?” Lucy asked.

“Cocoa and coffee.”

“The cocoa’s in the back. I’ll fetch it.”

When Lucy had moved away, Mrs. Timmons leveled Zanna with black eyes that held no warmth.

“My husband told me of your marriage. He was not pleased to be pressed into that service. These unholy unions will be the downfall of our society. I’m shocked that you’d be party to such disgusting practices, Suzanna Hathaway!”

Zanna busied herself with lifting lids on the pickles and sniffing the mind-clearing aroma of vinegar. Nosy old ninny, she thought unkindly. Why is this town so interested in my private life? They weren’t curious before when Duncan and—She slung aside the rest of the thought and slammed down the lid on the pickle jar. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Mrs. Timmons. I did what I thought was best.”

“Best? Best!” Mrs. Timmons gave a mighty snort. “Marrying a criminal is best? Why, you’ve sullied your marriage to Mr. Hathaway and he was such a fine man.”

“Yes, but life goes on. I can’t mourn him forever.”

“You could have waited for a good man. You didn’t have to lie down with the dogs, Suzanna Hathaway!”

Lucy returned with the cocoa. She looked uneasily from Mrs. Timmons’s white face to Zanna’s pink one. “And here’s the coffee,” Lucy said, putting it and the cocoa into the sack. “Will that be all, ma’am?”

“Yes. Put that on the book. Mr. Timmons will pay at the end of the month.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said, then sighed with relief when Mrs. Timmons bustled from the store. “I’m sorry, Zanna. When she gets her nose out of joint, she preaches a sermon better than her husband.”

“It’s all right. I expected disapproval from some people in town.” Zanna scanned the shelves behind Lucy. “I’ll need coffee, sugar, and flour. Oh, and molasses.”

Lucy turned to gather the items, but she sent a guarded look toward Zanna. “Why
did
you marry him? It can only bring trouble.”

“I married him to avoid trouble,” Zanna said, then waved aside the subject. “My reasons are personal, Lucy. Please understand.”

Lucy shrugged and boxed the articles. “It’s none of my business.” She glanced toward the men. “He’s not bad-looking, but it’s what’s inside that counts.”

Zanna counted out money from her coin purse, thinking it was better not to comment further on her new husband.

“Mrs. Hath—I mean, Mrs. Adams,” Mr. Burnett said as he approached, his arms full of clothes. “Care to look through these things we’ve selected?”

“Yes.” Zanna sorted through the work clothes quickly, but paid careful attention to the black pin-striped suit, ivory vest, shirt, and tie. “Too fancy,” she said, pushing them aside. “We need something plain.”

“Why?”

Zanna responded to Grandy’s sharp question with a jerk of her chin. “Something brown.”

“No.” He pushed the dress clothes closer to her. “I want these. There’s nothing wrong with them.”

“I’m paying—”

“And I’m wearing,” Grandy interrupted her. “I’ll dress like a field hand in the field, but I’m not showing my face in town tomorrow looking like a plow mule in long pants.”

Zanna faced him off, incensed that he was challenging her in front of the Burnetts. She wanted to kick him, scream at him, slap his arrogant face, but she couldn’t. She wasn’t made that way. She wanted peace, not conflict.

“There you are!” Sheriff Warwick stepped into the tense circle. “Been looking for you,” he told Grandy, then glanced at the taut expressions. “Something wrong here?”

“No,” Zanna said. She picked up the dress clothes and placed them on top of the others. “These are fine, Lucy. Add them to my bill.”

Grandy ducked his head to hide his grin. When he faced the sheriff, he wasn’t smiling anymore. “What did I do now?”

“Nothing. I just recovered some of your things. Stop by before you head out of town and I’ll give them to you.”

“I’ll do that.” Grandy picked up the black hat with its silver band that Zanna had just paid for and positioned it carefully on his head at a rakish angle. “A new hat makes a man want to strut like a rooster at laying time.”

“You don’t need a new hat for that,” Zanna mumbled under her breath. “Please carry these things out to the buggy,” she ordered, irritated with his preening. “I’m stopping to see Theo Booker, then I’ll be along to collect Mr. Adams’s things, sheriff.”

“Okay.” Sheriff Warwick tipped his hat and strode from the store, stepping around Grandy, who was carrying the boxes and bundles. “Hope you’ve been behaving yourself,” he said to Grandy.

“What other choice do I have?” Grandy shot back and the sheriff laughed as he headed toward the jail.

Zanna joined Grandy outside. “We’ll leave the buggy
here. Theo’s office is just up the street and not far from the jail.” She set off, leaving him to follow. Even the sound of his footsteps set her teeth on edge. Sharp, heavy raps against the wood sidewalk sang out of cockiness and male bravado. He’s strutting, she thought. Strutting like a rooster following his hen!

She nearly bolted up the stairs that led to the second story of the building where Theo’s office was located. She didn’t knock, but went right in. Theo was sitting in the corner of the office, a law book in his lap, others scattered around him. His thin face looked tired and drawn. He looked over his half-moon glasses and his smile lifted some of the lines from his face. Dropping the book, he almost leaped across the office to her.

“Hello, Theo. I’m disturbing you, aren’t I?”

“Never!” He removed his glasses and tucked them into his vest pocket, then held her hands loosely as if he were afraid he might break her. “Is he giving you trouble?”

“Why is it people around here assume that where I am, trouble follows?” Grandy asked, easing into one of the chairs near Theo’s ornately carved desk. “Makes a fellow feel picked on.”

“I wasn’t speaking of you—or to you,” Theo said, enunciating each word with his heavy Eastern accent.

“No trouble,” Zanna said, turning her back to Grandy so that he couldn’t read anything in her face. She let her eyes speak warmly to Theo. “I just wanted to see you. You look tired, Theodore.”

“Do I? I’ve been busy, that’s all.” He released one of her hands and guided her carefully toward a chair as if she were an invalid. “Please, won’t you be seated?”

She accepted the chair, first moving it so it wasn’t facing Grandy. Theo sat in the matching wing chair, pulling it as close as a gentleman would dare and leaning forward to catch her every word, her every nuance.

Grandy pressed one hand between his left arm and his ribs where the ache was most intense. A rib poked at his
palm, reminding him that it was still askew. Wrestling mules and a plow all day without any protective bandages had only aggravated his injuries.

He turned his attention from the pain to Theo Booker’s pale face floating over Zanna’s right shoulder. Grandy guessed the lawyer to be in his early forties. He was thin and sickly, reminding Grandy of a man just released from a long hospital stay. Only his eyes—a milky blue—were lively, shining with interest and sparkling with adoration as he gazed at Zanna. He wet his lips, craning forward as if to memorize her features for later fantasies. Grandy hid his grin in the heel of his hand and strained to hear their conversation.

“I was thinking of riding out your way in a few days,” Theo said, his gaze moving, darting, stroking over Zanna’s face.

“Please do. You know you’re always welcome.”

“Are things running smoothly at Primrose?”

“Just fine. Everything’s fine, Theo.”

Grandy’s ribs throbbed with pain. He shifted in the chair, getting a better view of Theo’s gleaming eyes. Something was going on between them, but Grandy couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Theo lowered his voice to a mere breath of sound. “Have you seen him?”

“Yes.”

“He came to Primrose?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“What do you think?”

Grandy was reading Theo’s lips and he had to strain to hear Zanna’s responses.

“Oh, Zanna, dear. I don’t think this solved a thing. Why didn’t you listen to me and just take me at my word? I could have prevented—”

“No, Theo. You’ve done too much already.”

“Not nearly enough, I fear.”

“Quite enough,” Zanna said, her voice still a whisper, but her tone stern. “And I think I’ve done the right thing.”

Theo’s gaze shifted to Grandy and held such contempt that Grandy felt as if he’d been socked in the gut. Well, what the hell did I do? he wondered, wiggling in the chair to find a position where his ribs wouldn’t sit on top of each other like a stack of kindling. He glared back at Theo, more from discomfort than anything else.

“Well, I must be going,” Zanna said brightly as she rose from the chair. “I have a few more errands before I head back home. We stopped in town primarily to purchase some clothes for Mr. Adams.”

“That’s kind of you,” Theo said, smiling at her but giving Grandy another cold-eyed glare.

Grandy curled his upper lip. Kind, my Aunt Fanny, he thought. It’s the least the little witch can do. The very least.

“Well, it’s the least I could do,” Zanna said, coloring under Theo’s compliment. Grandy groaned and she turned startled eyes on him. “Is that a comment or a grievance?”

“Neither. Let’s get.” He pushed up from the chair and left the office. To hell with being a gentleman, he thought as he descended the stairs, each step jarring his body. He was sore all over, but his ribs had been acting up since morning. Some of the deep cuts on his body were still swollen and a couple had him worried. They were hot to the touch and he suspected an infection.

At the bottom of the steps, he leaned against the wall to wait for her and to catch his breath. For a few moments, he thought he might be sick, but the feeling had passed by the time Zanna stood before him with a supercilious expression on her face. She wore black again—to keep up appearances, Grandy suspected.

“Now that you’ve remarried, you don’t have to wear widow’s weeds,” he said between sipping breaths.

“Shall we go the sheriff’s?” she asked as if he’d said nothing at all.

He didn’t answer, just headed down the street toward the hated jail. She trotted beside him.

“You were rude to Theo. He’s a dear friend.”

“He’s not my friend, dear or otherwise.”

“That’s no reason to be so insuffer—”

“Don’t go on,” he said, sending her a flinty glare. “He wasn’t exactly overjoyed to see me either. This whole damned town treats me like a swamp they’ve got to ride around.”

“Theo is a good man. He’s always polite,” she said, a little breathless from having to nearly run to keep up with his long strides.

“Oh yeah?” He sent her another hard glance. “Well, an overly polite man is usually harboring some mighty impolite ideas. Just keep that under your bonnet.”

She gasped at his suggestion. “Mr. Booker is my lawyer!”

“You say that like it makes him a saint. The only thing lawyers are good for is getting you out of the kind of trouble you wouldn’t have gotten into if there weren’t any lawyers.”

“That makes no sense whatsoever.”

He reached the jail and strode right in, surprising the sheriff, who’d been napping. Sheriff Warwick’s snore erupted into gurgles as he was aroused from sleep. His boots hit the floor, sounding like two gunshots, and he sprang to his feet.

“What the—! Oh, Mrs. Hathaway! What a pleasure. I was just … just …”

“Sleeping on the job,” Grandy said, then shoved his face close to the sheriff’s. “And her name is Adams. She’s not the Widow Hathaway anymore. Got that?”

“Yeah.” Sheriff Warwick eyed the other man as one polecat might eye another. “Some men sure are bad once they’ve got a wife to protect them.”

Grandy returned the sheriff’s unsavory smile. “Yeah,
and other men are brave only when they’re hiding behind a bush—or a badge.”

“Why, you smart-mouthed son—”

“Sheriff,” Zanna said, stepping forward to insert herself between the warring males. “You said you have recovered property belonging to Mr. Adams.”

Sheriff Warwick drew in a great, shuddering breath, then turned away from Grandy’s stony challenge and opened the top drawer of his desk. “Yes, ma’am. Right here.” He removed a drawstring bag and dumped out its contents. Gold, silver, and inlaid ivory sent out rich sparks. “These yours, Adams?”

Grandy lifted each item in turn: a silver and ivory inlaid cigarette case, a pearl stickpin, and a silver and gold ring. He slipped the ring onto his right pinkie finger.

“I forgot about this,” he said softly. “Seems like it belonged to a whole different man in a whole different world.” He wiggled his finger so that the light reflected off the flat silver disk on top of the ring. “What happened to the money and my cuff links?”

“This is all that came,” the sheriff said. “A Texas Ranger brought them.”

“Stole them, too, I’d bet,” Grandy said.

Sheriff Warwick moved quickly for a big man. He had Grandy by the shirt collar before Grandy could react. The sheriff blasted Grandy with stale cigar breath and Grandy held his own breath and inched back. He gripped the sheriff’s wrist and tried to loosen his hold.

“I ain’t taking any more of your mouth, boy. Just ’cause you ain’t in my jail no more don’t mean I can’t hull some of your teeth for you.”

“Please, don’t!” Zanna’s voice rang out, trembling and as shrill as a whistle. The two men let go of each other with grim reluctance. She swallowed convulsively. “Thank you. Grandville, gather your belongings and let’s be on our Way.”

Grandy pressed his arm close against his paining ribs.
“Fine with me. This isn’t my favorite place in town.” He stuffed the case in his trouser pocket. He held the pearl stickpin, wondering what to do with it since he wore no tie. Zanna’s black bonnet bobbed and Grandy stuck the pin into its crown before she could protest. He took her by the elbow and steered her toward the doorway.