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Was that a touch of color working its way into his firm cheeks? “I am not having this conversation with you.”
She smothered a laugh, keeping her tone pleasant. “Whyever not? It’s in your best interest. I certainly don’t want to waste my time on women you wouldn’t look at twice.”
“This whole thing is a waste of time,” he grumbled, shifting in his seat.
“Blonde, brunette, raven-haired, redhead?” Beth persisted.
He glanced toward the curtain covering the opening to the bakery kitchen, where the redheaded Maddie Haggerty was likely hard at work. “There’s something to be said for red hair.”
She’d wondered from time to time whether Hart had had a soft spot for the spunky Irish baker before Maddie had married her dashing husband, Michael. She must have been sitting too long, for the little chair seemed suddenly hard.
“Not too easy to find them,” she said. “What else?”
She heard his sigh. “Can’t you leave well enough alone?”
She almost gave up. His shoulders were tight, his hands braced on the table as if he wanted nothing more than to escape. She reached out, laid her hand atop one of his.
“I’m only trying to help, Hart.”
He blew out a breath. “I know. Being a matchmaker is a fine calling, for men who want a wife.”
Once more Beth smiled encouragement. “But not any wife. What’s the perfect woman for you?”
He straightened. “You want to hear what kind of woman I’d accept as a wife? Tall enough to fit under my chin, sunny hair, warm disposition, backbone to argue her side of the matter, grace to give in when she sees it’s important to me. Someone who understands what I do and respects me for it. You find me a woman like that, and I may have to rethink my decision not to wed.” He pushed back from the table and headed for the door.
Beth watched him go, too surprised to move. She’d thought it might be difficult finding him someone who met his criteria, but she knew a woman who embodied all those traits.
Her.
* * *
Hart strode down the boardwalk, the sound of his boots beating in time with his pulse. Why’d he give her a target to shoot at? Her brothers bragged that Beth was a crack shot. Once she set her sights on a lady, Hart was as good as married, even with so few women in the area.
“Hart! Deputy McCormick!”
Her breathless call pulled him up short. She hurried down the boardwalk after him, one hand clamping her dainty little hat to her head. The gray net veil fluttered behind her as if trying to escape. He knew the feeling.
“I said my piece,” he told her, widening his stance. What, was he planning to draw on her? Why did he feel as if he’d been backed into a corner by an outlaw gang bent on destruction?
“And I appreciate your candor,” she assured him as she came abreast. “But we haven’t determined our next steps.”
He started down the street for the sheriff’s office, where he’d left Arno with a feed sack. “You tried. No lady will have me. That’s the end of it.”
Her skirts flapped as she lengthened her stride to keep up with him. “I didn’t say no lady would have you, only the ones I’ve approached so far. I would never give up so easily. We have merely encountered a challenge.” She shot him a grin. “And I love challenges.”
Truth be told, he liked a challenge as well. But this was something more. “You said it yourself—there are only so many unmarried women in these parts. What can you do about a lack of ladies? The women Mercer brought back were all married within a year.”
“Except Lizzie Ordway,” she reminded him. “She chose to devote herself to teaching.”
“Wise woman.” He offered her his arm as they came to the end of the boardwalk, but she used both hands to gather her skirts out of the mud instead.
“I agree.”
She said it so firmly. Why did he doubt she believed it?
“If you and the Literary Society are so determined that every gentleman take a wife, why would you allow some ladies to avoid taking a husband?”
There was a prim set to her mouth. “Some people of either gender lack the spirit of compromise and congeniality necessary for a good marriage.”
“And what makes you think I’m not one of them?”
“Because I know you.”
So she thought, but Hart had gone out of his way to keep his past quiet, his present private. It was best not to make too many friends you’d only end up having to investigate one day.
“If you know me so well, you ought to understand this isn’t going to work,” he told her.
“Nonsense. I must insist that any number of fine, upstanding women might meet your criteria and win your heart, but for one thing.”
From what he’d seen, there were few enough women who could truly appreciate the life of a lawman on the frontier. But he found himself curious as to what might stop them from agreeing to his suit.
“What’s that?” he asked as they rounded the corner.
She met his gaze. “You.”
Hart jerked to a stop, then recovered himself. “Well, I could have told you that. And I’m not changing.”
“Not in character,” she assured him as he set out once more. “Although you might work on some traits. Patience, openness to new ideas...”
His glare only made her giggle. The happy sound could not fail but make him chuckle too.
“Very well,” she acknowledged as they neared the sheriff’s office. “You don’t want to change. Personally, I’m not sure why you would need to do much. I would have thought any lady could see from your exploits reported in the papers that you have high morals, an outstanding work ethic and a chivalrous nature.”
He wasn’t sure whether to thank her or laugh. What a paragon she thought him. He settled for a humph as they reached Arno. The gelding bobbed his head as if agreeing with everything Beth had said.
Traitor.
“If I’d make the perfect husband,” Hart said, “why is it a challenge to find me a wife?”
He’d hoped to prick her bubble of optimism, but she merely raised her chin, the breeze tugging at her platinum curls. “A woman wants more in a husband. She seeks a gentleman, a fellow who appreciates music, the arts.”
He raised a brow, and Arno snorted as if doubting Hart could ever measure up. “In Seattle?” Hart asked.
“Anywhere,” she insisted. “And I cannot believe you insensible to such refinement of spirit. You read literature.”
“Dime novels,” he reminded her. “Adventures, mysteries.”
“And what are the great novels of the past if not adventures. Dickens, Scott, Fenimore Cooper.”
He hadn’t read anything by those authors, but he’d have to ask Mr. Pumphrey about them. Or perhaps her brother John. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d borrowed books from the scholarly logger.
“No,” Beth continued, “we merely need to prove to the ladies that you are Seattle’s most eligible bachelor.”
A weight fell across his shoulders. It was not unlike the feeling that came over him before he moved in to apprehend a felon, as if he was about to meet his destiny. “What do you mean, Beth?”
She gazed up at him, eyes shining with a light that sent a chill through him. “I intend to show you to best advantage—grooming, clothing, domicile, social prominence.”
Hart’s stomach sank. “Now, wait a minute...”
She gave Arno a pat and stepped back. “No time to waste. I can see this will require all my time, all my energy. I’ll have to move into town for a while.”
“Town.” The whole idea seemed to be spinning out of control. “Your brothers won’t like that.”
She waved a hand as she was so fond of doing, as if the movement wiped away all his arguments. “They’ll survive. They have their wives to assist them now in any event. And I don’t expect it will take more than a month or two.”
Two months of this? He’d never survive.
“You can’t put up in a hotel,” he protested. He certainly couldn’t protect her there. “Too many men.”
“I’ll speak to Allegra Howard. I’m sure she’d let me stay with her and Clay.”
Very likely she would. The Howards and the Wallins were old friends. But if Beth was staying with the Howards, she’d be just across the paddock from his cabin. He could see her every morning before he left for work, every night when he returned. Likely she’d be at the table when he ate with the Howards as he sometimes did.
She beamed at him as if she had no idea she’d boxed him into a canyon and was standing guard at the entrance. “Just think, I’ll be right at hand to help whenever you need.”
That was what he feared.
Chapter Five (#ud5b238af-ef50-583c-bcab-d6cdbaee7080)
Hart hadn’t been enthused about Beth’s idea to move into town from Wallin Landing, but Allegra was as welcoming as Beth had hoped when she called that afternoon to ask a favor. The dark-haired beauty had come with Beth’s sisters-in-law and Maddie Haggerty in the second Mercer expedition bringing brides to Seattle, but the widow had become engaged before she ever reached Seattle’s shores. Her onetime sweetheart had sailed with the expedition and convinced her to marry him instead.
Now her daughter from her first marriage, Gillian, had been joined by a little brother, Georgie. Beth had watched both children grow. Gillian was thirteen, and Georgie was seven, fair-haired like their fathers but with their mother’s refined features. They were equally excited to have Beth come stay with them.
“You can tell me all about the latest styles,” Gillian gushed.
Georgie made a face. “Dresses, bah. You can show me how to shoot. Pa says you’re better than he is.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Beth demurred, thinking of the stalwart businessman who was the boy’s father. Clay Howard had traveled the country, including working on the California gold fields, before settling in Seattle. He knew how to take care of himself.
Her family, however, wasn’t so sure about her. The first people she told about her plans when she returned to Wallin Landing that evening were Drew and his wife, Catherine. She generally cooked and kept house for her oldest brother’s logging crew, after all. Drew would have to make other arrangements while she was in town.
“Out of the question,” he said when she went to his cabin across the big clearing at Wallin Landing. “You have too much to do here.”
He seemed so determined, arms crossed over his chest, eyes narrowed. Strangers took one look at his broad shoulders, his muscular build, and concluded the blond giant must be a bear of a man. His family and friends knew the warm heart that beat inside that massive chest, and felt free to ignore his edicts.
Catherine, ever the reasonable one, put a hand on his arm as if to restrain further comments. Raised near Boston and trained to be a nurse, she had an elegant way about her Beth could only admire. She was certain it had something to do with Catherine’s pale blond hair and light blue eyes.
“What will you be doing in Seattle, Beth?” she asked politely.
Beth couldn’t tell them the whole truth. She’d promised Hart to keep quiet about the matter. And her brothers didn’t like to encourage her matchmaking, for all none of them might have married without her help.
“I’ve promised to assist Allegra and the Literary Society in a matter,” she said.
Catherine eyed her husband. “The Literary Society? How nice that the most influential ladies in Seattle would enlist the aid of a Wallin.”
If Drew was impressed, he didn’t show it. “If they’re so important they ought to be able to take care of the matter themselves,” he grumbled in his deep voice. “You have work here.”
Beth put her hands on her hips. “May I remind you that I took on cooking for the crew, without pay I might add, because you were concerned they couldn’t fend for themselves? They are grown men, Drew. Surely they can make their own way without me for a little while.”
Drew leaned back. “That wasn’t the work I meant, though I am grateful for your help. You have a claim to improve. You’re still living in Simon’s old cabin. You haven’t even built one for yourself yet, and you’ve had the land for nearly two of the five years allowed. If the territorial land office learns you aren’t living on the claim, you could lose it.”
Why did talking with her brothers always make her feel like a child again? “I know the law. I must live on the property six months of the year. I’ll be back after Easter, and we can decide on plans for the cabin then.”
His arms fell. “After Easter? You won’t be here for the celebration?”
He sounded so forlorn that her heart went out to him. “Of course I’ll come home for Easter. You couldn’t keep me away. Rina, Nora, Catherine and I have already been planning. I’m sure they can continue without my input.”
Drew looked as if he would keep arguing, but Catherine nodded. “It won’t be the same without you being here to direct things with your usual energy, but I’m sure we’ll make do. Dottie and Callie can help.”
Drew sighed. “Very well, if no one else has any objections.”
Of course, there were more objections. Her other brothers were nearly as argumentative when they learned of her plans. Drew must have sent his children around with the news, for the rest of her brothers descended on the main cabin shortly after she’d finished serving the logging crew dinner. Harry, Tom and Dickie wisely beat a retreat at the sight of them crowding into the front room. Beth only wished she could get away so easily.
“You’ll be too far from home,” Simon pointed out, long legs eating up the plank flooring as he paced before the stone hearth. “We can’t reach you if there’s trouble.”
“I’ll be staying at the Howards’,” Beth told him. “What sort of trouble do you expect?”
She was sorry she asked, for he stopped to tick off his concerns on his fingers. “Cholera has been reported in the territory. The town is becoming increasingly crowded with men of every sort. That windstorm cut off supplies—another could do so as well, leading to rioting in the streets.”
“Worse,” James intoned, voice like a church bell, “she might come back engaged to a sawmill worker.” He gasped and clutched his chest.
Simon looked daggers at him, but Beth shook her head at his teasing. So did her brother John.
“I’m sure we could deal with that,” he told James. “But Beth, Simon has a point. Here you have all of us for support if you need it. Who will you rely on in Seattle?”
Her middle brother, John, was such a dear, always concerned about the family. Before she could protest that she could take care of herself, Levi, her closest brother in age, spoke up.
“I have similar concerns. You need someone you can count on, Beth.”
Beth threw up her hands. “And you don’t believe Allegra and Clay are reliable? Look at the lives they’ve built—successful, admired.”
Levi had learned something about the tact required in his position of minister, for he made a sad face as if commiserating with her. “Allegra and Clay are good friends, but they aren’t family.”
“Precisely,” Simon said. “Someone should go with her.”
That was all she needed. Immediately they set about arguing who could spare time from their families and work. Beth stamped her foot to get their attention.
“No,” she said. “I don’t need anyone to look out for me. I’m not a child.”
