Words Spoken True (21 page)

“We’ve got enough headlines for two papers, don’t we, boss?”

“And nothing to print them with, Joe. Nothing to print them on.” Blake stared across the street at the ashes of his dreams of having his own paper.

“Maybe one of the other papers would let us use their presses till we can get set up again,” Joe suggested. “We might not be the first issue on the street, but we’d get on the street sooner or later.”

“Most of the other papers will be cheering when they hear about us getting burned out.” Blake’s voice was bitter.

“Oh, I don’t know, boss. This ain’t the big town. Around here folks sometimes give other folks a helping hand even when they don’t agree with them.”

“Wasn’t much of that happening on the streets tonight.”

“That’s different, boss, and you know it. Decent folks is going to be so ashamed come mornin’, that they’ll go out of their way to help somebody. Old Beck might even let us run off a couple of issues, especially if Mr. Darcy ain’t able to have a say in it.” Joe looked sideways at Blake. “I hear you and Miss Adriane is sometimes half friendly.”

“Jimson controls the
Tribune
.”

“True enough. But it could be he’ll be so busy celebrating his win tonight that he won’t be paying no whole lot of attention to anything else. A man who can move quick might just surprise a lot of people. Maybe Jimson most of all.”

Blake was still staring at what was left of his building, but he wasn’t seeing the burned pile of rubble now. The wildest idea was taking shape in his head. “You know, Joe,” he said after a long silence. “You may just have something.”

“You want me to try to round up the boys, boss?”

“They’ll be coming in soon enough.” Blake stood up. “I’ll be back.” He started away, but then turned to put his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “I’m glad you got out, Joe. Real glad.”

“You ain’t the onliest one, boss.”

Blake tried to figure out exactly what he would say all the way back through the streets to the
Tribune
. He’d never been one to beg, but if it came to that, he would.

Beck came to the door, and when he let him in without a word, Blake knew there wouldn’t be good news about Wade Darcy’s condition. “How is he?” Blake asked anyway.

“He ain’t woke up, but he ain’t stopped breathing,” Beck said shortly. “The doctor weren’t too sure which might happen. Said it was hard to tell in these kind of things. That he’d seen folks linger like this for days, weeks even.”

“I’m sorry,” Blake said.

“Yeah, me too. Me and Wade go way back. Way back.” Beck turned his eyes to the floor. After a minute the old man looked up at him again. “Did Joe get anything out for you?”

“Himself. Barely.”

“Folks is playing rough tonight.”

“But the game’s not over.” For a second Blake thought about telling Beck his plan to try to get the old man on his side before he talked to Adriane, but it was Adriane he had to convince. She was the one who would have to say yes.

Beck gave him a considering look. “No, I can see it ain’t. I reckon you’re wanting to see Addie.”

“Yes.”

“She might not come down.”

Blake met his look fully. “Then I’ll go up there.”

Beck gave him another long look before he said, “I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“Tell her I’m not leaving until I see her.”

A
driane sat beside the bed, watching her father’s chest rise and fall. The doctor had dug the bullet out of his shoulder. He’d poked and prodded around on her father’s head and pulled up his eyelids to peer at his eyes. He’d listened to his heart and checked for broken ribs.

Through it all her father had shown no sign of life other than the rising and falling of his chest. But surely as long as he was breathing, there was hope. She had to believe there was hope, even though Dr. Hammon wouldn’t quite meet her eyes as he packed up his instruments and told her to send for him if there was any change. She had to believe there was hope in spite of the way Beck was walking around with his shoulders hunched over as though somebody had punched him in the stomach.

Her father would come to. He’d look up at her and want to know why she was sitting there beside him when there was a paper to get out. He’d tell her to bring him a pen and paper so he could write down what he saw happen. He’d say the people had to know the truth.

The truth. What was the truth? Had Stanley done this because she refused to marry him? Or had her father simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Bullets were flying everywhere out on the street. She wouldn’t be the only woman keeping a prayerful vigil over a loved one this night.

She didn’t turn her head when Beck came into the room and said, “There’s somebody here to see you, Addie.”

“I don’t want to see anyone, Beck. Send them away.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Adriane finally turned her eyes away from her father to look at Beck. “Is it Lucilla?”

“No. Mrs. Elmore sent word that she’d be here in the morning. I reckon as how she’s afraid to come out tonight.”

“I suppose that’s sensible.” She was just as glad Lucilla wasn’t coming. Adriane wanted to be the one beside her father when he opened his eyes.

She looked back at her father’s face, so still and pale it didn’t even look like him. He was always smiling or frowning over a story, always trying to drive home his point. There was never this stillness. Never.

Beck came over to stand beside her at the bed. He stared down at her father a moment before he said, “It’s Blake Garrett, Addie. And he ain’t going away till he sees you.”

Adriane’s heart quickened at the thought of Blake Garrett downstairs in the hallway demanding to see her, but then she shook her head. “I can’t leave Father’s side.”

Grief deepened the wrinkles on Beck’s face. She knew what he was thinking. That she couldn’t hold her father there if it wasn’t meant to be, but he didn’t say it out loud. Instead he said, “I’ll sit right here beside the boss and holler for you if he shows the first sign of coming out of it, Addie.” Beck touched Adriane’s shoulder. “Go talk to him. The man’s had problems enough of his own tonight, and I ain’t wanting to turn him away.”

“All right, I’ll see him.” She couldn’t argue with Beck. She didn’t want to argue with him. She wanted to see Blake even if it did make her feel like the worst kind of traitor to stand up and turn from her father’s sickbed, perhaps his deathbed, to go downstairs to meet his enemy.

Blake was standing just inside the front door, his face smudged with black and his dark hair tumbling wherever it wanted. Adriane caught a brief glimpse of herself in the hall mirror and noted her own disheveled hair and bloodstained dress. But it didn’t matter. Blake’s eyes were fastened on her face. He didn’t care about her hair or clothes.

“I’m sorry about your father, Adriane,” he said.

“He’ll get better.” Adriane pushed confidence into her words.

“What if he doesn’t?”

Adriane wanted to turn away from him and the truth his eyes were forcing on her. She’d been able to ignore Beck’s worries, but Blake’s eyes refused to allow her to pretend.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Right now I have to believe he will.”

“The fire you saw.” His voice was low, almost expressionless. “It was the
Herald
.”

“Oh, Blake, I am sorry.” She reached a hand out toward him, but then let it drop back to her side without touching him. “What will you do?”

“That’s up to you.”

“To me?” His eyes were growing even more intense on her.

“I need a press. You need an editor. The
Tribune-Herald
has a nice ring.”

“The
Tribune-Herald,
” she repeated after him as though she couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. “You know my father would never agree to that.”

“Your father doesn’t have to. Nobody has to but you. Marry me, Adriane.”

“What?” Adriane wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

“You heard me. Marry me.”

“Just because you need a press?”

“No, because we need each other.” Blake stepped closer to her, and she didn’t back away. “You don’t want the
Tribune
to die any more than I want the
Herald
to die. Together we can make a great newspaper.”

“Are you proposing we marry as some sort of business deal?” she asked faintly. “Just to merge the papers?”

“No.” His eyes burned into hers. “No,” he repeated. “It would be a marriage in every sense of the word. A man and woman becoming as one.”

He put his hand on hers, and she thought her skin might catch fire from the heat passing between them. His breath caressed her face. His scent filled her head. She could almost feel his desire leaping out at her and forcing her body to respond until every inch of her skin desired his touch.

She whispered, “When?”

“Now. Tonight. This minute.”

She tried to rein in her runaway emotions. She reminded herself that just a few hours ago she’d told one man she couldn’t marry him. She could hardly marry another man the very same day. Especially a man she barely knew. And not with her father battling death upstairs in his room. The last thought was like a dash of cold water in her face, and she pulled her eyes away from Blake’s to stare at the floor as she said, “I couldn’t.”

He put his hand under her chin and raised her face back up until once more he captured her eyes. “You must. There’s no other choice. There’s been no other choice since that very first day in Mrs. Wigginham’s parlor. Perhaps even before that. We both know that.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” Adriane managed to say, even though the heat was racing through her again stronger than ever. The dash of cold water evaporated without a trace in the power of the flames.

“Don’t lie to yourself, Adriane. Not tonight. You want to marry me. I can see it in your eyes.”

“I need time,” Adriane said weakly.

“Time is what we don’t have. We have to grab hold of what we want tonight. Marry me.”

“But Father . . .” she began and hesitated.

“He’ll understand. We’ll make him understand, and when he gets used to the idea, he may even be glad.”

Tears pricked at her eyes in gratitude. He’d allowed her to keep hope for her father’s recovery. Even so, how could she marry him? Now. Tonight.

As if he sensed her questions, he said, “I’ll send Joe for a preacher. We’ll take care of whatever else needs to be done tomorrow.”

The word
yes
was rising up from the core of her being. She wanted to marry Blake Garrett, but while the thought of being with him freed a certain wild passion inside her, it also let loose dark memories from her childhood. She knew so little about what happened between a man and woman.

Grace had tried to explain it once, but Grace’s straightforward common sense had completely deserted her as her face had turned red and she became tongue-tied. She’d managed to explain very little of the mechanics, although she had assured Adriane that with the right man the act of love would be as natural as breathing. But would it be? And even if it was, it would still bring babies. What was it Henrietta had said about her mother? Nine months from the marriage bed to the deathbed.

“I’m afraid.” The words slipped out past her guard. She hadn’t planned to say them no matter how true they were.

Blake’s eyes gentled. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, and she surrendered to his embrace gladly. “You’ll never have anything to fear, my darling. Not with me.”

His lips softly touched her hair, then her cheeks and eyelids. Adriane thought her insides were melting, but she couldn’t let go of her fear. She made herself remember her father upstairs and pulled away from Blake.

He let her go, the first doubt beginning to show in his face, and somehow that doubt gave Adriane courage to say the words she wanted to say. “I will marry you.”

Joy leaped into his eyes to replace the doubt, and once more he tried to pull her close. But she wouldn’t allow it.

“Wait, Blake,” she said. “I will marry you tonight as you ask, but I still need time. My father needs me with him right now. I must stay by his bed.”

“And not come to mine. Is that what you’re trying to say, Adriane?” Blake’s voice lost its gentleness. “I told you I wasn’t proposing a simple business arrangement. I won’t settle for that.”

“And I understand and accept that. But I need time.” As she met his eyes fully, it was as if everything inside her tried to keep her from saying her next words, but she pushed them out. “I will also understand if you want to withdraw your proposal.”

He studied her a moment. “How much time?”

“I don’t know.”

Again his eyes probed her before he finally said, “I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do, Adriane. Will you accept that as a promise of whatever time you need?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then it will be as you ask. I’ll send Joe to find a preacher who will do the ceremony. Once that’s over, we’ll get out the paper.”

“The headlines must be written,” Adriane said, a bit dryly.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Blake’s eyes bored into her.

“Yes,” she admitted. “Yes, it is. And what my father would want.”

His eyes were still searching her face. “Do you want to write a Colonel Storey letter while you sit with your father?”

Adriane gasped, too surprised to deny she wrote the letters. “How did you know?”

“I know you, Adriane,” he said simply. Then for the first time since she’d pushed him away, he reached out and touched her cheek. “May I kiss you, Adriane? It only seems proper to kiss the woman who has just agreed to become my wife.”

Without a word, she held her face up to him, and he gently touched his lips to hers. The very softness of the touch set off the fire inside her again, and when he wrapped his arms around her, her own arms crept around his neck as his lips became more insistent.

Then he was pulling away, looking down into her face before he gently brushed her forehead with his lips. “Don’t need too much time, Adriane,” he whispered before he abruptly turned her loose and went out the door.

For a moment, she stared at the closed door, trying to wrap the memory of his embrace around her to keep away the fear, but the fear won out when the unnatural stillness of the house pressed down on her. She went back up the stairs to where her father lay pale and unconscious upon his bed, and she felt shame for the minutes she’d nearly forgotten him.

Beck looked up at her. “What did he want?”

“Our presses,” she answered. “He wants to merge the
Tribune
and the
Herald
.”

Beck didn’t look surprised. “What did you tell him?”

“I said yes. You’ll need to reset the masthead page.”

“I can do that.” Beck studied her face closely a moment before he went on. “You ain’t telling me everything, Addie.”

“No.”

“Are you going to?”

Adriane looked at her father as if she were afraid he might hear her. “He’s sending Joe for a preacher.”

A slow smile broke over Beck’s face, but no answering smile came to her own lips as she asked, “Did I do the right thing, Beck?”

“Not only the right thing, Addie. The only thing. That right thing we’ve been praying for.”

“I don’t know.” Adriane sighed as she looked down at the floor. “What will we do about Coleman Jimson and the money Father owes him?”