Strong and Stubborn (13 page)

“Er—yes.” Granger had reached the forgone conclusion that they couldn't very well ignore the man after all he'd done today. He even showed the grace to look somewhat abashed at the oversight.

For her part, Cora tried to ignore her sister's questioning glance. Evie could wonder why she'd invited Mr. Strode, but in the end she probably wouldn't ask. Somebody had to see to the man. Besides, there were far more interesting questions to ask tonight.

W
here's Dunstan?” Braden craned his neck, trying to peer around the people who'd crowded into his room. He saw his sister, looking a complete mess but otherwise safe and sound, edging toward the door. “Lacey! Come and let me see you. Where are you sneaking off to?”

“To check on Dunstan,” his sister called back. “I know he'll be fine, but he's not the sort to take kindly to doctoring.”

“What does Dunstan need doctoring for? What happened to him?” Braden locked eyes with Granger, who he hadn't even been told had returned to town. How long had he been back in Hope Falls?

“A mine caved in on him.” Cora gave the obvious answer with no further explanation. Obviously she was still upset with him.

“I know that!” He waited for Granger to fill him in, chafing anew at the fact he hadn't been at the scene in person, helping.

Granger seemed to sympathize with his frustration. “Doc's binding his ribs. Dunstan got pinned under a beam in the collapse.”

Braden swallowed against a sudden onslaught of memories. He'd been struck by a falling beam in the first cave-in, and the mere mention of the same thing befalling another man made him taste bile.

But cracked ribs would heal. It could have been so much worse
.

“You look all right, sis.” He desperately tried to be positive.

“Out of all the opportunities to give me a compliment, only you would choose the night when I'm covered in grime.” Lacey quirked a small smile at him. The smile grew when he opened his arms in invitation, and she bustled across the room for a long overdue hug.

Thank God, you're all right
. He gave her a last squeeze. Now that he had her back, he realized how much he would have missed Lacey if he lost her and how disappointed he would have been if she'd obeyed him and left Hope Falls as soon as she'd arrived.

He suddenly realized he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his sister's smile.
How much of that can be laid at my door?
Guilt snagged away his satisfaction in knowing she and Dunstan would be all right.
They shouldn't have been endangered to begin with
.

Thankfully, Dunstan's entrance pushed away Braden's gloomy musings. The hunter shouldered his way toward the bed—an impressive feat for a man with a couple cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder.

“Do you want the good news to start, or do you want to get the bad news out of the way first?” Dunstan's attempt to lighten the mood failed when Braden saw the way Lacey sidled up to him and put her hand on his arm. Even worse, Dunstan folded his hand over hers!

“Depends.” He fought to keep his voice level. “Is the bad news that you've fallen for my little sister? Because I have to warn you, Dunstan, that might be the biggest catastrophe of the day.”

Lacey's blue eyes widened then narrowed. “Don't make any assumptions,” she hissed. “It's not yet midnight, and who knows what might befall a beloved brother with a mouth two sizes too big!”

“That's my sister, always ready with a retort.” Braden tried to return her scowl but felt the edges of his mouth quirk upward. He was gratified to see her fighting the same losing battle until they stood there, grinning at each other. “Some things never change.”

“And others do.” Dunstan looked at Lacey when he said it, but Braden felt the impact of those words in the pit of his stomach.

“What did you find?” Now that there'd been a second cave-in, Braden didn't know what to think. His hopes from the morning seemed no more than a faint memory, the shining idea that one of Braden's own mistakes hadn't taken the lives of several men. The hope, odd as it may seem, that an unknown party deliberately sabotaged his mine.

But even if Dunstan managed to find evidence of tampering amid the original destruction, it would be long gone by now. Worse, if their suspicions were confirmed, it would bring today's cave-in under question. Secondary landslides, smaller collapses caused by the destabilization of an original cave-in, were common enough to be expected. But what were the chances that the second incident would take place only when Dunstan began investigating?

Coincidences like that, in Braden's experience, were no coincidences at all. So, did the saboteur remain in Hope Falls? Everything rested on the answer Dunstan wasn't giving him. The longer the hunter remained silent, the more frustrated Braden became. He looked around the room, searching for an explanation among the friends gathered around him. He found a surprise.

“Who's he?” Braden pointed at a stranger leaning against the wall, almost hidden in the corner farthest from the bed.

“Mr. Strode.” Naomi gave the man's elbow a light touch, nudging him forward. No one else seemed to find it strange that she'd shown such familiarity, but it didn't sit well with Braden. Naomi was the oldest and, if such a thing could exist amid a group of women, the voice of reason and sensibility. If Naomi slowly abandoned the edicts of propriety, what would happen to the rest of the girls?

The thin threads binding them all to polite society frayed the instant the ladies placed that benighted ad in the paper. Their arrival in Hope Falls and subsequent antics further unraveled the order of things. Wasn't it evident in Lacey's headstrong adventures? Even more so in Cora's sudden denouncement of him?

Braden eyed the newcomer with suspicion, wary of both the man's calm confidence and his sudden appearance on a day already filled with chaos. His timing was enough to make Braden wonder.
Why did he come today? Can this be the saboteur they were looking for?

Cora paid to that notion immediately. “I know what you're thinking, Braden, but he arrived on the same train as Granger.”

Why is Cora supporting the stranger?
Robbed of a reason for his mounting animosity, Braden still couldn't welcome the man. For one thing, the man had an unpleasant effect on the town's women. Braden supposed the fellow was attractive enough, but that didn't help matters. A sudden thought grabbed hold with a vengeance.
Is Strode the reason Cora walked away? She thinks she found a better option?

“What are you doing here?” Braden didn't try to sound friendly. He wasn't inclined to waste time making nice to some Lothario.

“The young miss asked me in.” The fellow gestured toward Cora, and Braden immediately lost track of anything he said afterward.

“Why?” He gritted the question at the man but kept his gaze on his errant fiancée. What was she thinking, inviting a stranger to take part in an important meeting? Braden might not like having a town council made up mostly of women, but he accepted that they'd all earned their places. The stranger had no place among them.

Mike hadn't felt so conspicuously out of place since his wedding. He hoped this town suited him better than the arrangement with his late wife. Just like then, the commitment would change his life. And, just like then, he had someone counting on him to see it through.

Why am I here?
Against all odds, Mike found humor in the question. He didn't know many people who hadn't asked that question, along with a plethora of others related to it.
Why am I here? What is God's purpose for my life? Am I doing the right thing?

Too bad the answers were harder to come by—especially when an entire room filled with people was waiting for his response! But Mike knew one thing for sure: he didn't intend to begin his stay in Hope Falls as a target for anyone's bad temper. A man started the way he wanted to finish, and Luke needed him to start strong.

“If you're asking why she invited me,”—Mike kept any hint of emotion from the words—“I couldn't tell you. Every time I try to figure out a woman's reasoning or speak for her, I get it wrong.”

Granger let loose a guffaw, Dunstan gave a chuckle, and even the grump in the bed seemed to soften. The women seemed surprised, pleased, and amused by turns. It couldn't have turned out better.

Encouraged by the response, Mike ventured further. “Now, I haven't caught everyone's names, but I don't think I'd be far off the mark in thinking you're the ones running Hope Falls?”

He addressed the room at large, not wanting to alienate the women. Mike sensed they held more power than women usually managed, but he'd steer clear of making assumptions until he knew more. As things stood, his lack of knowledge about Hope Falls put him at a severe disadvantage. He hadn't had the time to research the town before taking off and had relied on talking with Mr. Lawson first.

“You're correct.” The rescued lady kindly took it upon herself to make introductions. “I'm Lacey Lyman. This is my brother, Braden.” She indicated the invalid. “Together we own the bulk of Hope Falls, including the town, the mine, and the surrounding forestland.”

“Granger's asked to purchase shares in our sawmill venture, and we're allowing that because his expertise is invaluable.” Braden Lyman took over. “Otherwise, the women own the remaining shares.”

“I'm Evelyn Thompson, and I run the café. For now we can call it the diner.” Granger's arm around the amber-eyed woman provided the rest of her identification. “This is my sister, Cora Thompson,”—she indicated the girl Mike already pegged as a relation—“and on your other side is Naomi Higgins, Lacey and Braden's cousin.”

“Chase Dunstan”—Granger looked like he wanted to clap the man on the shoulder, but thought better of it at the last moment—“hired on as our hunter. He knows these mountains better than anyone.”

“And you are?” Not surprisingly, the pointed query came from Braden. The man looked like he was itching to get rid of Mike.

“Michael Strode. I was referred to Mr. Lawson in hopes your new sawmill could use a woodworker for carpentry, joinery, and so on.” Mike ignored the sea of names, faces, and details pushing for places in his memory, instead concentrating on the task at hand. “If Hope Falls isn't at that stage yet, I can swing an ax and work a saw.”

“We aren't at that stage yet,” Braden Lyman said flatly. “And as far as I know, we aren't looking to hire any woodsmen.”

The words slammed into Mike with the force of a sledgehammer, knocking the air from his lungs in a sudden rush. He'd been so focused on getting to Hope Falls, he'd not let himself consider where he'd take Luke if things didn't pan out like he hoped.

“Aren't we? We lost a hefty percentage of our workers when we kicked out the brawlers.” The younger Miss Thompson looked toward Lacey Lyman, who stayed snuggled up against the hunter. “And Granger's and Dunstan's increased involvement changes things.”

Mike knew he'd missed something, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out what the girl was talking about. If he hadn't seen the way everyone responded to Granger's command throughout the day, he would assume that the workmen didn't like Granger and Dunstan. But that wasn't so, which left Mike wondering why everyone looked like somebody snuck up behind and goosed them. Miss Higgins, in particular, looked pale and delicate as fresh-hewn birch.

Whatever hid beneath Miss Thompson's speech, it gave him one last chance to make his home in Hope Falls. Why, then, did it make Miss Higgins look like she was being frog-marched toward a noose?

N
aomi made a strangled sound. Then she had to cover it by clearing her throat. Hopefully everyone would chalk it up to the amount of dust she'd swallowed during the course of a long, trying day.

But they knew better. Cora's comment forced them to examine the implications of Lacey's newfound fondness for Dunstan, and there was only one conclusion for everyone to reach. The same conclusion that made Naomi's mouth turn dry and her fiercely stinging hands go numb.

Wanted: 3 men
. Thinking about the words they'd once written so boldly now made Naomi feel violently ill.
Object: Marriage
.

It didn't matter that Cora's commitment to Braden was weakening—Naomi knew she wasn't the only one to notice that Evie introduced her only as her sister and not Braden's fiancée. With Evie promised to Granger and Lacey now all but announcing her engagement to Dunstan, two of the three women were already brides-to-be. Now for them to make good on their promise to the workmen of Hope Falls, Naomi had to shed her spinster status and select a husband. Her time was up, and all at once everyone in the room realized it.

Everyone, with the exception of Mr. Strode, who was trying and failing to hide his puzzlement. Apparently the newest addition to Hope Falls would be the only man who hadn't been lured by their ad. A strange mix of gratitude and disappointment swirled together at the realization that Mr. Strode hadn't come seeking a bride.