Just Her Type (13 page)

He picked up the message from Carter. With a curse, he shoved it in his pocket. Now it was his turn to apologize. He reeled down the stairs. Looking about, he was astounded that Mackenzie was nowhere in sight. It was just like her to take off when he was ready to humble himself.

A soft breeze brought the odor of dust from the street. Dirt crunched beneath his feet as he crossed the deserted yard behind the shop. Perhaps Mackenzie was in the barn. She had mentioned earlier that she had to remind Douglas to feed his pony.

He swayed unevenly around Mackenzie's buggy toward the small barn. He had been surprised she had no horse to pull it, until Douglas told him that she had been forced to sell the horse to support the
Bugle
.

A shot ripped through the afternoon.

He pressed against the side of the building and glanced in both directions. A second shot sounded close to him. Mackenzie! He rounded the barn and halted in midstep.

Douglas stood on the mounting block and cocked a shotgun. The boy lifted the gun and fired at the tin cans on the back fence. The shot went wide.

“A little to the left,” Luke said.

Douglas leaned the gun against his hip as he refilled the empty chamber. “I made it wobble last time.”

“Does your mother know about this?” He folded his arms on the rail by the boy.

“She taught me to shoot. She knows I have to practice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You don't believe me?”

Luke reached forward and pushed the barrel away from him. When Douglas's face paled, Luke took the shotgun. Opening it, he emptied the cartridges into his hand. He handed them back.

“I—I'm sorry. F-forgive me, Luke.”

“I couldn't forgive you if I was dead. What would your mother say if she discovered you'd been so stupid?”

“I said I was sorry.”

“All right.” He wanted to make Douglas his friend again. If he convinced the boy to trust him, he would have an ally in persuading Mackenzie that she was targeted by her enemies to suffer the same fate as her husband and father. The article he planned to write about all this was too good to be ruined by a young boy's obstinacy.

Douglas held out his hand. “My gun?”

“No, I don't think so.” He smiled.

“Give me back my gun.”

Seeing a motion beyond the boy, Luke hesitated. With a sense he could not name, he knew Mackenzie watched from the shadows. He did not need bright sunshine to reconstruct the loveliness of her face or the alluring angles of her soft body. Longing suffused him, but he had to deal with the boy first.

Douglas shouted, “What do you know about handling a gun? You don't wear one!”

“By choice.” Luke took the two cartridges from the boy and shoved them into the shotgun. Raising it, he aimed at the tin cans on the fence. He fired both chambers in quick succession.

Even as the gunsmoke wafted away, Douglas cried, “Both of them, Luke! You got both of them with two shots.” He paused. “Why—?”

“I choose not to wear guns.”

Douglas looked wistfully at the gun, but said nothing as Mackenzie walked toward them. When she asked him to deliver some posters to the mercantile, he scurried away. She turned to Luke and held up her hand. He gave her the gun.

“Thank you,” she said softly.

“For what?”

She smiled and took his hand. “You're a good example for Douglas. His father wore pistols. So did his grandfather, and nearly every other man he knows does. He respects you.”

“That's questionable.”

“No, that's true.” She went into the office and leaned the gun against the wall. “I hate guns and what they do to people.” With a sigh, she looked at the pile of dirty type. “We might as well clean up.”

“You hate guns. That's a surprise. I thought they were a part of everyday clothing out here.”

“You don't understand.” Her crystal blue eyes regarded him with the pain she allowed so few to see. “I hate what happens to a man when he straps a pistol to his hip. He swaggers and wants any excuse to show his prowess. If Douglas can see that a man doesn't need a gun, perhaps he can see as well how foolish the posturing is.”

He squatted and began to loosen the type. “Violence has its time and its place. I decided years ago that its time and its place are sometime and somewhere other than where I am. Wyoming doesn't have a monopoly on braggarts.”

“Now I don't understand.”

“You would if you'd seen your best friend lying in his own blood after he'd accepted an invitation to interview a man wanted by the law. The invitation was only to death, for the man feared that Quinn had certain facts for a grand jury. Boom! No more Quinn. No more facts.”

She knelt next to him. “Luke, I didn't know. I'm so sorry.”

“So was the criminal, who's in jail. First lesson in being a crook should be not to kill a man whose friends have a copy of his information.” His eyes darkened. “Maybe that's why Carter sent me out here.”

When a trembling hand touched his arm, he drew her to him. How could he forget that she had lost two men closer to her than Quinn had been to him? “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Sweetheart, I have so much I need to ask you to forgive me for. You did save my job, although you're going to be difficult to follow.”

“A compliment?”

He smiled as he stroked her stubborn jaw. “If you can tolerate two compliments from me in such quick succession, I must tell you I'm glad I've had this chance to know you.”

She pushed his hands away and stood. “Where's Douglas? He should be back by now.”

“Mackenzie.” He kept her from going up the stairs. “Why are you angry?”

“Angry?” Shaking her head slowly, she whispered, “You just reminded me that you're going away soon.” She withdrew her arm from his grip and put her foot on the first riser. “And that makes me very, very sad.”

“Carter would give you a job if you want one.”

“You want me to go back east?” Her foot lowered from the riser. “With you?”

He swallowed roughly. Why hadn't he thought before he'd blurted that? “I was talking about working on the
Independent.
”

“And nothing else.” She gave him a tight smile. “Why should I become a reporter on your paper when I'm editor of mine?”

Hurrying up the stairs, she left him to stare after her, wanting to follow her, but, for once in his life, unsure of what to say. He wanted Mackenzie, but her question reminded him that he had no desire to get tied down to a wife and family. He must keep their relationship business. Although his gut churned at the thought of not holding her again, and he doubted if he could resist her tempting lips, it might be the only alternative to leaving now. He could not leave when he was so close to the story of his career.

“Here you go, Madam Editor.”

Two pages dropped on Mackenzie's desk. Glancing at Luke, she picked up the top one. “What is this?”

“My article for the
Bugle.
”

“Your article?”

He leaned his fists on the desk. “Mackenzie, I'm a reporter. I want to write for you.”

“You're writing for the
Independent.
”

“It's not the same.” He picked up a copy of the
Bugle
. “Don't you love to hear your words debated in the street? To know that people are reading what you've written and are agreeing or disagreeing? To thrive on the controversy you created with a few well-chosen words? That's what being a newspaperman is all about.” He grinned. “Or a newspaperwoman.”

“I never thought of it. I never had to think about it, because I grew up beneath the press.”

“If we didn't delight in the instantaneous reaction of our readers, we'd be writing books in some dirty garret. We want—no, we must have—the give and take of our readers.” He spread out his hands. “What I write for Carter is fine, but it's like creating that novel in a dimly lit attic. I write it, send it out, and never know if what I'm doing is touching anyone. You're the only one who has gotten any comments from him.”

“And that worries you?”

“Not as much as the hunger to write as a newspaperman does.” A malicious grin brightened his face. “I need to see what happens when I call your boyfriend O'Grady a petty autocrat with delusions of grandeur.”

“Luke, I've told you more than once that Aaron O'Grady is not my boyfriend.”

“I'm not going to argue with you about that. I want you to read this.”

She said nothing as she read slowly. She intended to admonish him for waiting until just before deadline to give it to her. Instead she began to laugh. Only the people who had come to know him would realize he was poking fun at the townsfolk and their odd customs.

“I hope you're reading what I intended to be funny,” Luke said.

“Don't interrupt.”

When he grumbled, she bent before he could see her smile. Let him squirm a bit longer, she thought. Then, placing the second page on the first, she leaned her chin on her palm and met Luke's gaze squarely. “All right.”

“All right?” His hands fisted on her desk. “Are you going to use it?”

“Probably.”

“Probably?”

When she laughed, he stared at her in disbelief. “Will you sit down before you aggravate your head again?”

He rounded the desk. In a husky tone which swept away her desire to laugh, he whispered, “If there's anything that's aggravating, it's you, sweetheart.”

He pressed his lips over hers. His hands on her shoulders kept her from moving, but there was no place she wanted to be except in his arms. When he drew her to her feet, she slid her hands up his back. At the touch of his tongue against hers, she clung to him, afraid of being washed away by the strength of her own desires. Threading her fingers through his thick hair, she held his mouth against hers. She quivered when he boldly caressed her.

A groan of pain severed the magic. Mackenzie pulled back as Luke put a hand to his bruised face. “I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“So am I, sweetheart.” He smiled ruefully. “I'd have you kiss it to make it better, but I don't think that would help.”

She stood on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his uninjured cheek. “You're looking much better.”

“Only if you like the color green better than black and blue.”

“How about setting up pages two and three for me? I'll do the front and back.”

“You want me to do the setup unsupervised? Madam Editor, you honor me.”

She slapped his arm as he smiled at her. “You can use the turtle. I'll set up on the press bed.”

“Ah, the turtle! Now I know how honored I am. Have you thought about getting a second one of these?”

Her smile vanished. “We had two before the last fire. Pa could afford to buy only one replacement.”

“It shouldn't be too hard to build a second.” He squatted. “Four legs, four wheels, a few cross-braces, and a back strong enough to tote a setup page.” Glancing over his shoulder, he asked, “Do you want me to build you another?”

“I didn't know you had carpentry skills.”

He shot her a lascivious grin. “Sweetheart, I have all kinds of skills you don't know about yet.”

Mackenzie wagged a finger at him. “Such thoughts will make us miss deadline.”

“But think of the fun we could have.”

“True, but think how angry the editor of the
Bugle
would be.”

As he reached for a tray of type, he laughed. “I suppose you're right,” he said with a martyr's sigh. “To work, sweetheart.”

“Maybe we'll get this paper out yet. And, Luke, your article goes on page three.”

“Thanks.”

As he bent to the monotonous job of setting the small pieces of type, Mackenzie wondered if she could ever be as happy as she was while working with this man who dared her to risk her heart … one more time.

Mackenzie massaged her lower back. Her muscles recalled every minute of laboring over the press.

Luke's grin was dimmed by fatigue. “How did you do this all by yourself?”

“When you have to do something, you get it done.”

He put his arms around her. “How about you put on your prettiest bonnet and we—the three of us—go over to the Benton House for supper?”

“We can't.” Regret tinged her words as she looked down at the press. “I have to print at least one side of the paper tonight.”

“All right. Then I'll get supper and bring it back.”

“That would be wonderful, but food is expensive at the hotel.”

Kissing her lightly, he smiled. “I think it's time
The Albany Independent
paid for a meal for us. Three of the best Benton House steaks.”

Mackenzie gasped, “Steaks?”

“This is beef country, isn't it? All those good steaks shouldn't be shipped east.”

As she watched him walk out jauntily, she could not help laughing. Douglas would be thrilled. She hurried to get the press prepared for the work they must do after supper.

Humming a whimsical tune, she adjusted the toggles to be sure the platen would press smoothly on the page. She paused as she saw a man coming uninvited through the half-wall. Two other men clung close to the door, glancing from her to the street.

“Mr. Connolly!” She wiped her hands in the folds of her apron.

He gazed around with cool disdain. “Are we alone, Mrs. McCraven?”

Mackenzie was shocked that he used her married name. His deep voice resounded like that of a revivalist preacher. He took off his top hat and handed it to a lackey who bobbed as if grateful.

“Hardly alone, sir,” she answered. “You've brought those two gentlemen.”

He laughed and puffed on his cigar. “They have learned to be deaf upon my orders.”

“Such as now?”

“Such as now.” He moved toward her with the easy assurance of a cowboy advancing on a calf. She had no doubts whom he wanted to hog-tie, because the rage burning in his eyes was aimed at her. But why?