The Cowboy Who Caught Her Eye

Karleen was right, she herself had told Robbie those exact words, but her sister didn’t know everything. “You don’t know anything about love. You’re just a child.”

“I know more than you think.” Karleen leaned across the table. “I know Robbie only courted you to get this store for the railroad.”

“We didn’t court,” Molly seethed. “And I know exactly what Robbie wanted.” She did know, and she’d known it five months ago, but she’d wanted things to be different. Not just for her but for her sisters.

“Then get over it,” Karleen snapped.

Molly bit her tongue, refused to answer. She was over it all right, but Robbie was not the problem. The result of that night was. It had seemed no matter how hard she worked, there was no hope of things changing. She’d hated everything about her life that day and wanted out.

Karleen and Ivy had gone to Ralph and Emma Walters’s wedding party at the hotel. The whole town had been there, and she’d planned on going too, except the freight had arrived ten minutes before it was time to leave. It couldn’t be left out for anyone walking by to pilfer, so she’d stayed home, carrying box after box inside until it was good and dark. It had rained, too, exacerbating her sense of misery, and had made her recall how fast everything had changed. How that violent spring storm had hit two years prior, causing the James River to flood its banks, washing away buildings and stealing the lives of people so quickly the entire town was in shock for months afterward.

Safe, here at home, she and Karleen and Ivy hadn’t known what had happened to their parents until the preacher arrived and explained how the bridge had collapsed beneath their wagon.

“Molly?”

Things had changed that fast again five months ago. Molly pushed Karleen away and stumbled for the door, needing much more than fresh air.

“Molly, I’m sorry,” Karleen shouted, but Molly kept moving.

If she stopped, she might collapse.

Chapter Four

Carter moved toward the door that led to the living quarters, where the scent of cinnamon rolls filtered into the store. The sisters were squabbling again. This in itself was nothing new, but Karleen’s apology said it was worse this time. Not that he was surprised. He had a harder time than usual holding his tongue when it came to Molly’s attitude, too.

He was disgusted, mainly because the two might start pulling each other’s hair out, not that it was any of his business, but there was enough going on without them fighting. “I’ll be right back,” he told the only customer left in the store.

“Take your time,” the preacher said.

Carter couldn’t decide whether to leave the man alone or not. Most folks trusted a man of the cloth, but he didn’t. Religious folks—men and women dressed in their black-and-white clothes—had been the ones who kept plucking him off the streets in New York and plunking him down in orphanages. Until he’d been old enough to make a clean getaway. A westbound train, with two other boys his age.

Karleen, once again shouting Molly’s name, had him glancing toward the little girl perched on a stool and writing the alphabet in a tablet with a stubby pencil. “You keep an eye on him,” he said.

Ivy nodded, and then giggled as she glanced at the preacher. The other man laughed too, and Carter had to let his guard down, admit the store and the girl were safe. He darted through the doorway and down the hall that led to the kitchen, where he asked, “What’s wrong?”

Turning from the open back door, Karleen shook her head. “I’ve upset her.”

“What else is new?” Carter asked, though he didn’t feel any humor. Molly Thorson woke up as ornery as she went to bed. He’d testify to that. Had wondered if she was going to throw the eggs he’d carried into the kitchen this morning at him.

“No, I really upset her this time,” Karleen said, clearly despondent. “And I shouldn’t have.”

A part of him would rather not, but still he said, “You go see to the customers, I’ll go make sure she’s all right.” He’d long ago learned people were easier to deal with when they were rational, and worked long and hard on mastering his ability to put people where he wanted them so he could get the information he needed. But he wasn’t overly confident anything he’d learned would work on Molly Thorson.

“Maybe we should just leave her alone,” Karleen whispered.

That would work too, except the pleading look in the girl’s eyes said she was sincerely worried. It wasn’t as if he was responding to her silent plea. No girl—or woman—would ever make him do something he didn’t want to. The bickering had to stop. That’s what it was. There were more important things at hand. Like his latest bit of information. With a nod, he moved toward the door. “I’ll just go make sure she’s all right, and then I’ll leave her alone.”

“Thank you, Carter.”

“You just don’t let those cinnamon rolls burn,” he said. Being a friendly cowboy with a never-ending grin was already getting old, but he had to keep it up. And would. “We’re going to need them when the next train arrives.”

He’d played a lot of roles in his life, but this was the first time it included dealing so closely with women. It had to be done, though, as had his conversation with Wilcox yesterday. The railroad man hadn’t been impressed, or happy to offer an apology, but Carter had told him if there was any hope more money would surface, people needed to be filtering in and out of the store regularly. Locals, not just the few passengers looking for cinnamon rolls. No one was making big purchases, but they were spending money. Cash, and he checked the serial numbers on every bill.

There’d been one that matched in the drawer this morning. It was in his pocket now. He’d replaced it with one of his own. Trouble was, he had no idea how it got there. He’d watched every transaction, knew who’d handed over bills and who’d paid with coins, and not one person had used a five-dollar bill. Yet that’s what had turned up.

A touch reluctant—for he did want to be in the store, watching that drawer—Carter stepped off the back porch. After a quick search of the yard, he entered the barn and blinked, adjusting his focus after the bright sunlight. He’d cleaned the barn last night—something that had sorely needed to be done—after supper. That’s where he found Molly, sitting on a pile of fresh straw he’d pitched down from the hayloft and scattered into one of the empty stalls.

She jumped to her feet when she noticed him and ran toward the other end of the long walkway.

“Molly,” he said calmly. Someone knew how that bill in his pocket got in the drawer. Karleen was too talkative to hold a secret of that magnitude, and Ivy was just a babe, which only left one person. Therefore he had to find a way to have a normal, calm conversation with Molly.

He said her name again as she started to climb the ladder leading to the hayloft, but when she turned, looking at him over one shoulder, he shouted it, and ran. In all his years of living, of chasing people and capturing them, he’d never truly seen one go completely colorless. But she had, and her eyes had rolled upward.

His heart was galloping inside his chest. He was thankful he’d arrived in time and caught her just as she’d slumped. Slowly, gingerly, he lowered her onto the extra mound of hay he’d thrown down last night for today’s feeding and crouched beside her.

Visions flashed before his eyes, as they had been doing since he’d arrived in Huron. Times he’d forgotten, or buried so deep he thought they were gone. Things back in New York, when he was just a kid. Right now it was Amelia he was remembering. She’d only been ten when she’d died, and she had been the one reason he’d stayed at that last orphanage as long as he had—almost two years. He’d left after her death, and never looked back.

Giving his head a clearing shake, Carter whispered, “Molly?”

She didn’t move, but she was breathing, had just fainted. He’d never seen that either. Heard of it, of course, but never seen it, and wasn’t too sure what to do about it. On more than one occasion, he’d seen a man get knocked out, so he checked her head, in case she’d bumped it in her rush up the ladder.

Amelia had fallen out of a tree. A broken rib punctured her lungs. That’s what one of the nuns had said.

Carter tossed the sudden thought aside and let his hands roam over Molly’s arms and then checked her ribs. When his exploring touch went lower, ran over her midriff, he froze. Every last part of him, and all his thoughts collided like bees swarming into a hive. He sat there for a moment, too stunned to think and then, darn close to being afraid, he touched her again. Felt her stomach from side to side, top to bottom.

Drawing his hands away, he stared, as if he could see through her white apron and gray dress.

Most men his age, somewhere around twenty-seven, knew a woman’s body, and he did, too. She wasn’t big and round like some he’d seen, but Molly Thorson was pregnant.

Pregnant.

Not quite believing it, he reached over, touched her stomach again. There were layers of material between his palm and her skin, but he’d bet every last dollar he’d ever earned he was right. That firm little bump he was feeling was a baby. She was pregnant.

No wonder she was so ornery. She was pregnant and didn’t want anyone to know. But this took two. Where was the father? Who was the father?

A tiny moan sounded and he drew back his hand, but then pressed it to her forehead. “Molly?”

She opened her eyes but closed them again. “What happened?”

“You fainted.” He grasped both her shoulders, and a large part of him wanted to shake some answers out of her, but he wouldn’t do that. Just touching her had his fingers tingling, telling him just how spooky this was. Not that he scared easily, but pregnant women, they were scary. “Can you sit up?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Not yet. Everything’s still spinning.”

“All right, just lie there for a moment.” She was probably spooked, too. An unwed pregnant woman had to be. Leastwise he assumed she was unwed, and believed that assumption to be true. He never catered to others’ assumptions, he liked proof, but his own were another matter. Right now he assumed something else, that she was scared spitless. “Do you want some water or something?” he asked.

She licked her lips. “No, it’ll stop in a minute.”

“This has happened before?” A new dimension had just been added to his case, one that had him wondering if he should wire headquarters and ask for a different assignment. That thought had never crossed his mind before, and was more than a little out of character—any character he’d ever played—but an assignment had never put him smack-dab in the middle of a scandal of this proportion. The town was going to tear her apart when her condition was revealed, which was bound to happen. If he was still here, still working at the mercantile, he’d have to defend her. Pinkerton man or not. He already felt it welling inside him, and he wasn’t so sure he was comfortable with it.