Printer in Petticoats (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A
weeping Noralee burst through the door of Jess's office and flung herself into Eli's arms. “Oh, Eli,” she sobbed. “It's just awful!”

“Whoa, whoa, honey-girl. What's the problem?”

“It's h-him,” she choked out.

“Him? Who's ‘him'?”

“Sheriff R-Rivera.”

“Why, what's he done, huh?”

Noralee turned her flushed face into his chest and wailed. Over the girl's head, Eli caught Jess's gaze and raised his bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrows in a question. Jess shook her head and silently mouthed,
I don't know
.

Eli patted the girl's shoulder. “All right, now, you tell old Eli all about it, why don'cha? Come on, now, talk to me.”

Noralee lifted her head and swiped her palm over her brimming eyes. “Well, I—I baked some chocolate walnut cookies and t-took a quart jar of my special lemonade over to the sheriff's office, and he...he...”

“Mmm-hmm?” Eli murmured. “What'd he do?”

“Nothing!”

“Nuthin', huh?”

“Well, not ‘nothing' exactly.”

“Well, what, exactly, Norah girl? Did he say thanks?”

“Uh-huh, he did.”

“Well, that ain't ‘nuthin',' honey. Didja say you're welcome?”

“Y-yes. But he didn't eat my cookies, an' he didn't drink any of my lemonade, not one drop. And I put extra sugar in it and everything.”

Eli frowned. “When was all this?”

“Just this morning, Eli.”

“What time wouldja say?”

“Around seven o'clock. Right after I finished breakfast.”

Jess let out a whoop. “Noralee, he probably wasn't hungry right after breakfast.”

“Oh. Miss Jessamine, I never thought of that.”

“Well, what
did
he do, huh?” Eli pursued. “Besides sayin' thank you, that is?”

Noralee blew her nose on the red bandanna Eli pressed into her hand. “H-he just patted the top of my head like I was five years old an' went back to readin' the newspaper.”

“The
Lark
or the
Sent
—?” Jess clapped her hand over her mouth.

“Don't matter, Jess,” Eli rasped. “Her little heart's plumb broke.”

“I think it was the
S-Sentinel
, Miss Jessamine. Today's Saturday, isn't it?”

“It is indeed, Noralee.”

“Say,” Eli said. “You met our new kitten yet? Name's Dervish. Softest da—dern cat I ever laid my big bony fingers on. Come on, let's find him. Her.”

Noralee giggled. “Oh, Eli, you're pretty silly sometimes.”

“And,” Jess added softly, “you're pretty smart, too.”

Eli sent her a lopsided grin. “Not bad for an ol' Injun fighter like me, huh?”

* * *

After a fitful hour of sleep that night, the moon rose and Jessamine jerked bolt upright in bed as a wild thought struck her.

Gillette Springs? Cole had ridden to Gillette Springs? Why? Gillette Springs was the Lane County seat. And that meant something was afoot. She'd bet a dollar it had something to do with that old abandoned house, the one Ike Bruhn was fixing up.

She was out of bed and dressed in three minutes flat, stuffed her derringer in her skirt pocket, pulled on her sturdy boots and a light jacket and slipped downstairs and out the front door. On her way to the livery stable, she glanced up at the
Lark
's darkened second-story window. Cole was not awake.

Good.

Inside the stable, she persuaded a sleepy Mose Daniels to saddle a mare for her.

“Where ya goin' at this hour, Miss Jessamine? T'ain't safe.”

“I will be perfectly all right, Mose. And don't tell Cole Sanders about it. Promise?”

“But, ma'am, s'cuse me for sayin' so, but y'all cain't ride dressed thataway, in a skirt an' all!”

“I can, and I will,” she replied with steel in her voice. Nothing was going to keep her from uncovering whatever news story was happening in Gillette Springs before Cole Sanders did.

She hiked up her skirt, clambered into the saddle and was off on the road to Gillette Springs before she could change her mind.

She rode until her backside was so numb she could no longer feel the saddle before she stopped to rest and water her horse and mop her perspiring face with a lace handkerchief. Heavens, even the early-morning sun was brutal, and summer was over two months away. Her vision was growing blurry, but she kept on.

She gulped the last of the canteen of water Mose had insisted she bring with her and walked her tired mare down the main street of Gillette Springs. She tied the horse at the hitching rail in front of the hotel and forced her legs past the café and the dressmaker and the barbershop, crossed the street and dragged herself up the steps of the brick county courthouse.

“Ma'am, we're closing up,” the gray-haired clerk announced.

Jess's heart plummeted into her boots. “Oh, please,” she gasped. “I've ridden all the way from Smoke River, and I... I...” Her voice cracked. Tears spilled over her lids, and she swiped her palm across her cheeks. “P-please?”

The embarrassed clerk coughed, looked left and right and then nodded his gray head. “I'll make an exception just this once, miss. What is it that's so important?”

* * *

Jess didn't turn up for their usual postmortem breakfast, and when Cole stopped at the
Sentinel
office to check on her, Eli looked at him blankly.

“Ya mean she's not with you?”

“No. She didn't turn up for breakfast and I've not seen her all day. Check upstairs, will you, Eli? Maybe she's sick.”

“Already did, Cole. She's not there. Bed's not made, either, and that ain't like her.”

Cole's gut clenched. Where the hell was she? Had something happened to her? He wheeled toward the door just as Jess staggered in.

She looked half-dead, her skirt caked with dust, her hair straggling down the back of her neck. “Jess, what the—?”

His breath choked off.

Her green eyes blazed at him like two heated emeralds. “You...you sneak!” She burst into tears and stuffed her fist against her mouth.

Eli lurched off his stool and limped toward her. Cole stared long and hard at the woman he thought he knew.

And in the next instant he knew everything, where she'd been and, more important, what she had discovered. He stepped in close and wrapped both arms around her.

Eli stared at them, alternately frowning and crushing a wrinkled red bandanna in his hands.

“Jess,” Cole murmured. “Jess, I did it for you. I wanted it for you.”

“You should have t-told me,” she sobbed. “I th-thought there was a news story there, and that I'd get it first and then I could s-scoop your newspaper.”

“Would somebody tell me what's goin' on?” Eli yelled.

Jessamine sniffed. “He—he's purchased the old Gaynor place, the house on Maple Street.”

“And,” Cole added, “I hired Ike Bruhn to do some repairs and—”

“And,” Jess wailed, “Cole put the deed in my name!”

Eli's jaw dropped.

“And there's y-yellow wallpaper in the dining room,” she sobbed.

Cole cleared his throat. “Oh, hell, honey, I thought you'd like that. One of the upstairs bedrooms has blue flowers. You said—”

“I know what I said, Cole Sanders.” She lifted her head to glare up at him. “I said I liked blue wallpaper, but I also said I didn't want to—”

“Yeah,” he said heavily, “I remember what you said. But I keep thinking that a man sees what he wants to see and what he doesn't want to see, he...doesn't.” He waited a beat. “Or a woman,” he added softly.

Eli coughed. “If'n you two'll excuse me, I'm goin' down to the Golden Partridge for a whiskey. A double.”

With a last look at Jess, the old man stomped out and slammed the door.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“J
ess,” Cole asked, “what made you go off to Gillette Springs in the first place?”

She stared at him, her face flushed, her eyes brimming. “I told you, to get a news story. I thought I could solve the mystery about the Gaynor place, why it's being repaired, who really owns it.”

“You can still write a story about it, honey. No one has to know I was the one who bought the house and that I put your name on the deed. Or that I'm the one paying Ike Bruhn to make repairs.”

She said nothing, just stared at him while big fat tears rolled down her cheeks.

Cole studied her face. “You know, I think that's not what's really important here.”

“Not important!” She bristled up like an affronted banty chicken. “I'll have you know, Cole Sanders, that my newspaper, the
Sentinel
, is important to me. It's my whole life. After Miles was killed I swore I would not let him down, that I would not let my father, or my grandfather, down. That I would preserve our family heritage.”

“There are more important things than a news story,” he said quietly. “Or a newspaper, for that matter.”

Jessamine sank onto Eli's stool and dropped her head into her hands. “I'm so tired I can't think anymore. I've been riding since three o'clock this morning.”

“It's almost twenty miles to Gillette Springs. I'm surprised you can even walk.”

“I'm not sure I
can
walk,” she whispered. “Oh, Cole, I feel like such a fool.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I agree.”

Her head came up. “Well! That's not very gallant.”

“I'm not feeling gallant. I'm feeling damn annoyed.”

“Yes, I expect you are,” she said, her voice wobbly. “Why don't you yell at me or something? I'd feel a whole lot better if you did.”

“Nope, I'm not gonna yell at you.” He plucked her off the stool, pulled her into his arms and pressed her head against his shoulder. “I figure you need a bath and some supper, in that order. I can yell at you later.”

“Yes, oh, yes, a bath...what wonderful ideas you have, Cole. Sometimes.”

He suppressed a laugh, lifted her into his arms and took the stairs up to her room two at a time while Jessamine clung to him, her face buried against his neck.

“Got a washbasin?”

She nodded. “Under my bed.”

“I'll heat some water on the stove downstairs. He deposited her on the bed, where she instantly curled up into a ball.

“Don't fall asleep,” he warned.

“I won't.” Her eyelids closed.

He reached under her bed for the basin. “Get your clothes off,” he ordered.

Fifteen minutes later, Cole sat beside her, sponging her naked limbs off with warm water, gritting his teeth to keep from kissing the silky skin.

“I've been thinking,” he said. “You remember that night at Christmas when we sang the
Messiah
?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she murmured.

He smoothed the soft washcloth over her back and moved slowly down to her bottom. “Something happened to us that night. Did you feel it?”

She mmm-hmmed again, and he went on. “We made love that night, and I felt something I'd never felt before. Something swept over the two of us, and you know what? That something was bigger and more important than just you and me individually. Did you feel it?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice lazy. “I felt it.”

Cole swallowed. “This might sound way too poetic, Jess, but that night I swear I felt my soul touch yours.” His hand stilled on the small of her back. “I've felt that same thing every time we've been together like that.”

“Oh, Cole,” she said, her voice near tears, “it's like that for me, too.”

He drew in a lungful of air, looked away from her and then looked back. “Jess, I'm going to tell you something. Maybe you know this already, but I'm going to tell you anyway. You are headstrong, and brave, and pigheaded, and misguided. And I love you.”

As he spoke he dried her skin with a towel he'd warmed on the stove and then he touched one hand to her shoulder. “You want me to bring some supper from the restaurant?”

“No. I'll get dressed. I want to sit across the table from you when I apologize.”

“And talk,” he growled. “We need to talk.”

“Yes,” she breathed. “And talk.”

* * *

Rita set the platters of steak and potatoes down in front of them, and Jess smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours. “I am positively ravenous!” She snatched up her fork, then immediately laid it down again. “Cole?”

“Yeah?”

“I do like the yellow wallpaper in the dining room.”

“That's good.” He concentrated on cutting into his steak, but his hand started to shake.

“And the blue flowers in the bedroom,” she added. “Could we make that room our master bedroom?”

His fork clattered onto the china platter. “What? What did you say?”

“I asked if we could—”

“I heard that part. What I didn't grasp was the ‘our' part. As in ‘our' bedroom.”

“Oh. Well, that's not hard to figure out.” She gave up on the steak and dug a spoon into her strawberry shortcake. “I...um... Oh, Cole, it is so hard to apologize. I guess that is part of being pigheaded.”

“I guess,” he said, his voice quiet. “Keep trying.”

She settled her dessert spoon in the empty shortcake bowl, picked it up again and twirled it between her thumb and forefinger.

“You are right,” she said, her voice quiet. “There are more important things than a news story, or a newspaper. I guess I haven't been seeing things too clearly.”

“Go on.”

“Remember the motto printed on your masthead, the one you adopted for your newspaper? ‘The truth shall make you free'?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Well, um, while I was bouncing around on that saddle on the way to Gillette Springs, I realized that, um, well, maybe for me, the truth is something in myself that I had to face up to.”

His knife hand slipped sideways. “God, what else did you figure out?”

“Pride is one of the seven deadly sins, isn't it? I think there are more than seven sins, at least for me. One additional sin might be distrust.”

“That's a good sin, too,” Cole agreed. “What was it you didn't want to face?” He held his breath.

She answered slowly and dropped her voice to a murmur. “I was willing to trust you with my body and my heart. But...” She pressed her lips together, swallowed hard, and met his eyes. “I wasn't willing to trust you with my newspaper.”

“I don't want your newspaper, Jess. I want your heart. And...” He captured her hand, lifted away her spoon and brought her fingers to his lips. “Right now, tonight, I want your body.”