Читать книгу Morrow Creek Marshal - Lisa Plumley - Страница 10
ОглавлениеSucking in a deep, pain-filled breath, Marielle met the stranger’s gaze dead-on. He knew full well she couldn’t just get up off that chair and get back onstage. Not in the condition she was in. She’d tested her ankle. It hadn’t borne her weight.
Instead, it had made agony shoot clear up her leg and nearly overwhelm her. Reacting helplessly, she’d clutched the stranger’s muscular shoulder so hard that she knew by now he must be developing fingertip-size bruises beneath his fancy coat and collared shirt. He knew she couldn’t just gallivant onstage.
What’s more, he knew that she knew that he knew that.
People didn’t typically challenge Marielle. She’d been born charming her mama and papa and all the stagehands at the New York theater where they’d worked. She’d grown up knowing how to finagle her way...and, more important, how to make people want for her to get her way. It was a knack she had never questioned.
“Or,” the stranger went on in that selfsame blithe manner, his tone belying his handsome face full of concern, “you can come with me to the back of the house, let me fix up your ankle and maybe have a snort of applejack brandy for the pain, too.”
That sounded...tempting. But she refused to give in. She didn’t even know this man. He looked like a scoundrel to her.
A scoundrel was the very last thing she needed. Over the years, she’d turned down the assistance of several reputable men. Why would she abandon her practical path for a rake like him?
She managed an airy wave, trying not to betray that her ankle was throbbing. “I’ll wait for a proper doctor, thank you.”
“I’m better than a ‘proper’ doctor,” he assured her with a steady look, occupying his chair with assurance and vigor. He looked as though he could have whittled the dratted thing. Possibly with a huge bowie knife...which he kept strapped to his person like the bad man he was. “And you’re wasting time.”
“I don’t need your assistance, Mr.—”
“Coyle. Dylan Coyle.”
“—Coyle. I don’t even know you. Except to know that I find your air of nonchalance and entitlement completely irksome.” Earlier, privately, she’d found his steady and sure touch as he’d boldly examined her ankle downright...galvanizing. But she was certainly not going to inform him of that. She’d found the wherewithal to deliver him an aptly discouraging kick, and that had been that. Marielle Miller was no pushover. “I’d thank you to leave me alone. I’m injured. You are the cause of that. So—”
“That,” he said patiently, “is why I’m trying to help.”
“Aha.” She didn’t want to be small-minded. But she did want him to admit his obvious wrongness. Between being hurt and being upset with him, Marielle wasn’t her most clear-eyed and generous self. “Then you admit that you were at fault? Good. Thank you.”
His brown eyes flared. Arrestingly. “I said no such thing.”
“Humph.” Why on earth was she noticing his eyes at a time like this? Determinedly, Marielle went on. “Of course you did. Just now. And the fact remains that I had things under control—”
His interposing snort was infuriating. So was the way she couldn’t help noticing how finely honed his jawline was, how masculine his nose was, how intelligent his demeanor was.
Good-natured yokels, she was used to handling. A man like him? He was another beast entirely. She wasn’t sure she knew what to do about him. But she knew backing down wasn’t possible.
For her, it wasn’t even an option.
“—until you interfered and got me dragged offstage,” Marielle went on, deliberately transferring her gaze away from his eyes...only to notice how attractively his dark hair swept back from his face. An errant wave tumbled over his forehead, lending him a newly boyish look that she understood to be false.
Dylan Coyle was all man. Tall. Handsome. Not to be trusted.
“Your fall was an accident,” Coyle assured her, seemingly sincerely. His husky tone soothed her, despite everything. “I never meant for you to get caught up the way you did. I saw that cowboy manhandling you. I set out to put a stop to it. I did.”
“I wish you hadn’t.” Purposely, Marielle glanced away from their semisecluded corner. Rufus the cowboy was still nowhere in sight. She hoped he really had gone to fetch Doc Finney, the way she’d suggested. If not...well, she’d be stuck with her unwanted, self-appointed protector—at least until her younger brother, Hudson, turned up to assist her. He ought to be someplace inside Murphy’s saloon. They’d come there together. “As I said, I was handling it. Of the two of us, I have the most experience, expertise and aptitude at discouraging suitors.”
His grin flashed. “I wouldn’t be too sure about that.”
She flicked her gaze over his broad-shouldered form, neat clothes and open, self-assured posture. Most likely, women did pursue him. Not that such brazen behavior mattered to her. Marielle inhaled. “Aside from which, I have my own protectors—”
At that, Coyle had the audacity to scoff. He emanated certainty, strength and outright authority the way some men—like poor, misguided Rufus—exuded confusion and bodily odors.
“—who can come to my aid,” she went on, wincing as a fresh wave of ankle pain struck her, “so I certainly don’t need—”
“You’re hurting,” Coyle interrupted, suddenly out of forbearance for their conversation. As she opened her mouth to protest, he shook his head. “Don’t try to deny it. Just let me take a look. Please. I’ll wrap it up for stability, then...”
As he went on describing a potential treatment for her injury, he sounded startlingly knowledgeable. More surprisingly, he sounded caring. Despite his rough tone and imperious manner, Dylan Coyle appeared to be both bright and kind. Darn him.
All the same, Marielle didn’t want him probing under her skirts again. No good could come of that. Even if, in that single shocking moment, she’d been tempted to let him continue.
Purely for the sake of good medicine. Of course.
“I’ve been hurt before.” Not like this, though, she knew. Something in her ankle had snapped. She’d felt it give way beneath her. That was part of the reason she was so infuriated with him. Thanks to him, she was in a verifiable pickle.
If she couldn’t dance, she couldn’t earn a living.
Still, Marielle didn’t want Dylan Coyle’s help—or anyone else’s. Except Doc Finney’s. Even his, only reluctantly.
She knew better than to become reliant on other people. Growing up backstage, she’d seen how frequently people came and went, leaving her behind with typical bonhomie. Taking care of herself was nobody’s business but her own. Mustering another airy wave, she assured him, “I’m stronger than I look. I know what I’m talking about—dancers get injured fairly often.”
Coyle gave her an evaluative look—one she fancied included him enjoying her appearance in the same way that she’d mooned over his a few seconds ago. Why was she so addlepated, anyway?
Doubtless, she reasoned, her nonsensicalness owed itself to the pain. All the same, it would be only fair if Coyle dished out a compliment for her bravery. Or offered up some praise for her dancing. Or composed a sonnet to her “cerulean blue” eyes, the way a ranch hand from Everett Bannon’s place had done last year, with the probable help of a thesaurus and memorable—if doomed—romanticism. If not for Hudson needing her, in fact, Marielle might have given in to that ranch hand. Eventually.
Her unshared secret was that she adored all things dreamy and sentimental. Maybe because she didn’t expect to enjoy them for herself. Not for years and years yet.
“Hurt fairly often, eh? Hmm.” He rubbed his stubbled jaw, examining her carefully. “Especially at your age, I’d imagine.”
“What?”
“You’re getting on, that’s all,” Coyle clarified in a blasé tone. “After all, you must be...what, thirty-three or so?”
“Thirty-three?” Marielle gawked at him. He’d aged her by three years in an instant! A moment ago, she’d been feeling woozy with pain. But now her clarity was fully restored. “I’ll thank you, Mr. Coyle, not to comment on my age. Or anything else about me! I am not interested in your opinions. What I am interested in is having your apology and maybe some recompense for this disastrous incident. Because this is all your fault—”
“I’m sorry. I’ve gone and made you angry.”
“Indeed, you have!” Of course he had. Thirty-three?
“I didn’t mean to disregard your experience.” Coyle gave her a keen look. His eyes sparkled. “Your vast experience.”
That was more like it. Proudly, Marielle lifted her chin. “For your information, I am not thirty-three years old.”
“Ah.” He roamed his gaze over her again with nearly the same perceptiveness he’d employed while she’d been onstage. He rubbed his whisker-stubbled jaw. He nodded. “You’re thirty-five. I have to say, ma’am, that while you are a very fine specimen of womanhood, it’s no wonder your feeble ankle snapped so readily.”
Speechless, Marielle stared at him. Had he said...feeble?
He actually grinned, looking pleased. Intolerably so.
“I am not feeble,” she informed him. “You are deluded.”
“I’ve never seen a dance hall girl with so much...maturity,” Coyle opined. “No wonder you’re the one pictured on the fancy painted sign in front of the saloon.” He gave her a look full of wonderment. “You make those other girls look like novices.”
Confused, Marielle squinted at him. He sounded pleasant, but... “That’s hardly complimentary—to me or my fellow dancers.”
Not clarifying, he studied her...probably looking for the old crone’s wrinkles he expected to find. Of all the audacious—
“You’re older than me,” she shot back. “By a year or more.”
Coyle raised his brows. “You think I’m forty?”
She earnestly considered kicking him again. Harder than before. It wouldn’t be polite, but he did deserve it.
Before she could do so, he laughed. That act transformed his whole being. It turned him from a very attractive man to a downright fascinating one. Drat. How did he keep doing that?
He was enjoying himself so much, Marielle almost wanted to join in the frivolity. Instead, she gave him a peevish look.
“I’m thirty-two, Miss Miller, plus a month or six.”
Hearing her name on his lips, Marielle frowned. “How do you know my name? We haven’t met. If you expect me to believe—”
“That I divined it? If you must. Be my guest.”
His teasing didn’t deter her. “The sign. My name is on it.”
She’d negotiated strictly for that with Jack Murphy.
“Right alongside your likeness,” Coyle confirmed. He tilted his head to observe her. “Paint doesn’t do you justice, though.”
“Hmmph. It didn’t lead you to expect geriatric dancing?”
“It didn’t lead me to expect to be helping a stubborn dance hall girl quit thinking about her injury. But that’s working out all right.” He nodded toward her ankle. “I bet it doesn’t hurt as much now, does it? Outrage cures everything.”
Marielle was startled to realize it did. It had. At least momentarily. Her expression of relief clearly revealed as much.
Charitably, Coyle let his small victory go unremarked upon.
“I’ve already apologized,” he said instead. “I’m very sorry you got hurt. But as far as reparation for your injury goes, I doubt that your cowboy has the means to pay for the damage he’s done here tonight. So if I were you—”
“I meant you should pay, you cretin! Thanks to you, I won’t be able to dance for days, if not weeks.” Judging by the growing throbbing in her ankle, her injury was indeed serious. She doubted she would be able to remove her dancing shoes when she got home tonight. They would have to be cut off. Then replaced. That would cost money. So would food. Housing. Fuel for her stove. Tallying her expenses, Marielle grew ever more alarmed at her predicament. “The way I see it,” she said, “you owe me.”
For the first time, Coyle seemed taken aback.
Could he...did he truly believe he’d been helping her? As far as she could tell, he’d been spoiling for a scuffle. Men often were when imbibing. She had unfortunately provided an impetus.
Now here they were, deadlocked on what to do next.
“I don’t owe anyone anything,” Coyle disagreed darkly. “That’s the way I like it. That’s the way I intend to keep it. I’m going to fix your ankle. Then I’m leaving Morrow Creek.”
Leaving. That confirmed all her misgivings about him. It was too bad, really, Marielle thought. She almost liked him.
It wouldn’t pay to let him know that. Quite literally.
“I am not interested in your travel plans, Mr. Coyle.” With a purposely regretful look, Marielle glanced from their position in the very back of the saloon to the crowded saloon floor itself. There was a ruckus near the front doors as several men entered. She’d need to make this quick, in case Doc Finney was arriving and this was her last chance to be heard. “I’d hoped that further...encouragement...wouldn’t be necessary for you to do right by me in my predicament. But now that I see it is...”
Meaningfully, she let her threatening statement linger.
“You expect your neighbors to force me to pay? Is that it?” Coyle gave a knowing headshake. “I see you looking to them for help, but I promise you, I know most of these men. They know me. They won’t go against me. Not even at your insistence.”
Undoubtedly, he’d scared them into that stance, Marielle guessed. Above all else, Dylan Coyle was intimidating.
“You don’t know my brother, Mr. Hudson Miller. I’m afraid he’ll be very unhappy to hear that you won’t help me.”
Doing her utmost to appear apprehensive over what Hudson might do to assuage his unhappiness, Marielle bit her lip.
Thankfully, Coyle appeared to swallow her pretense.
“Are you suggesting your brother will force me to pay you for your lost work time?” he asked. “Because if you are—”
“Hudson is awfully large. And strong. And very mean.”
Uttering that last outright fib, Marielle all but expected to be struck by lightning. If Hudson ventured closer, her threat would fall apart like crepe paper on a rainy day. Because while Hudson was indeed big and burly, he was anything but malicious.
That’s why Marielle had dedicated herself to caring for him, all by herself, from before they’d arrived in Morrow Creek. Hudson needed her. He was a sweet, softhearted soul who had a sense of fun where his ambition ought to have been. Hudson would have been lost without her. She’d supported them both for years. She didn’t aim to quit now. She’d made promises to that effect.
“Is Hudson ‘mean’ enough to make you agree to have your ankle treated?” Coyle inquired. “Because if he is, bring him over and let him supervise while I tend to it the way I tried to before. That injury is only getting worse the more you dally.”
She couldn’t do that. Hudson was approximately as menacing as a gamboling puppy. He was probably inebriated, what’s more. That was the cost of having her brother at Murphy’s saloon to watch over her. He drank. He gambled, smoked and caroused, too. But he didn’t exactly terrorize bystanders, even with his size and his strength. He would greet Coyle like a long-lost friend.
Caught, Marielle swallowed hard. She looked away.
“I told you, I don’t need anybody’s help!”
She never had. She refused to now. Period. But her outburst was as good as an admission of defeat. Her erstwhile “protector” didn’t let it pass unnoticed, either. His expression hardened.
“You are confusing obduracy with strength,” Coyle told her in an unyielding tone. “Everybody needs help sometimes.”
Exasperated and hurting, Marielle glowered at him. “I also don’t need some drifter with a ten-dollar vocabulary and a gun belt telling me what to do and how to do it. If you’re too skint to make good on the trouble you’ve caused, just own up to it.”
“This isn’t about money, and you know it.” His gaze wandered to her face. Held. “It’s about getting what’s coming to you. Having the ledger squared. We’re the same in that way. Trouble is, we’re going about it from opposite directions.”
The same. Could they be? All Marielle knew was that at those words, the raucous saloon fell away, pushed like daytime before night. She frowned at Coyle, struck by his perspicacity.
She did want fairness to prevail. She didn’t want to be disadvantaged. If he was speaking truthfully, he felt the same way. No one had ever truly understood her. Yet here he was...
...Trying to manipulate her into granting him his wishes. Which she didn’t need to do. Doc Finney would deal with her ankle, very soon now. Letting a stranger tend to it—especially now—felt like surrendering. Marielle refused to be cowed.
For Hudson’s sake and her own, she’d always been strong.
“We’re not alike,” she objected in no uncertain terms, vexed at his nerve. “You’re nothing but a drifter, and I’m—”
“Allergic to a man with a wandering foot?” Coyle guessed. His eyes sparkled again, making him seem absolutely unlike someone who would start a saloon brawl with a cowboy. “You say drifter as if it’s poisonous. I like traveling man better. It sounds jaunty. Nobody can object to that.”
“Whatever you call it, it means leaving someone behind.”
His smile dimmed. Thankfully for her. Because seeing its brilliance had made Marielle feel...captivated. Also, disinclined to press the issue of her fair compensation for lost work with him. But she was the one who charmed people into forgetting themselves and their goals. Not him. It couldn’t be him.
“Not putting down roots isn’t a crime. It’s freedom.”
“It’s selfishness,” she disagreed. “And it’s cruel.”
“Cruel? Look here, Miss Miller, this is getting a mite too personal for my taste. Whatever somebody did to you, you can’t pin it on me. Like you said, we’ve never met before tonight.”
“And yet you claim to know me so well.”
“I—” On the verge of disagreeing, Coyle stopped. He squinted at her with far more astuteness than she liked. “I am letting myself be diverted by you, just like you were by me.” He seemed oddly impressed. “You don’t want me to look at your ankle again, so you’re concocting a cockamamie theory to dissuade me.”
She had been. But she’d gotten carried away with her own hyperbole. A flair for the dramatic did run in her family, but Marielle saw life lightly—much more lightly than she’d let on just now. Coyle didn’t know that about her, though. “Aha.” She nodded. “There’s another one of those pricy words of yours.”
“You understand them all, and you know it,” Coyle told her. “You’re a dancing girl on the outside, but you’re a damn poet on the inside. That’s why you keep watch up there onstage.”
“I ‘keep watch’ because men like you start fights!”
“You keep watch because you want more. Why wouldn’t you?” He aimed another knowing look at her. “You can’t very well let it sneak on by when you’re not on the lookout. So you watch.”
He was right. Of course he was. Because after all, the other dance hall girls were grown women who could take care of themselves without her. Even Etta. But she refused to say so.
Marielle wasn’t even sure what more she wanted. Only that it felt hazy and essential...and eternally out of her grasp.
For a heartbeat, they only looked at one another—two people pulled together in a boisterous, plain-hewn saloon in a faraway, lonesome territory. Two people who were surprisingly the same.
Marielle liked that even less than her ankle injury.
“You want a husband and a passel of babies,” Coyle went on, “which would be only fitting and natural for an older woman.”
Argh. He was, quite possibly, the worst know-it-all she had ever encountered. Why had she even entertained the notion that he understood her? Commiserated with her? Needed...like her?
He was a blowhard and a tyrant, born to boss people around and take charge. She was through inveigling him. She would find another way to support herself until her injury healed.
But Coyle wasn’t done deciding her future for her yet. Musingly, he studied the saloon. “I reckon there are several men here who’d suit you. You look like the settling down type. You should pick one of them, retire from dancing and start having babies.”
That sounded like heaven. Except coming from him.
Marielle cast him a scathing look, only to see him grin unrepentantly in response. He was enjoying baiting her.
“Oh, why won’t you just go away?” she grumped.
“Because you’re a woman who won’t admit she’s wrong, and I’m a man who won’t leave his responsibilities behind him.” Coyle stood. He held out his arms as though entertaining every expectation she’d jump into them. “Come to the back room. I’ll look at your ankle in private. We’ll see what can be done.”
Marielle was hurt. She was tired. She was confused and worried and unsure how far her nest egg of savings would go.
Given all that, she wanted to concede—to give up trying to make him settle with her and just let him tend to her ankle the way he wanted to. On the verge of doing so, though, she spied more movement from the saloon’s floor. Doc Finney was headed her way, having evidently spoken with a few of the men around him to discern her location. He was accompanied by Jack Murphy, Daniel McCabe, Owen Cooper and several other leaders of the town.
Wearing a frown on his lined and weary face, Morrow Creek’s longtime physician scanned the crowd. He spied Marielle. He walked faster, carrying his hat and physician’s bag.
Finally. She was about to be well quit of Dylan Coyle.
Alertly, Marielle sat straighter in her chair. She thought she could make it to the saloon’s back room, if she had a little help. Since several of the town’s burliest men had accompanied Doc Finney to the saloon, she could ask someone she knew to help her. Then she could see the back of Mr. Coyle. For good.
Unexpectedly, the notion made her feel...almost wistful.
Her melancholy didn’t last long, though. Because to Marielle’s surprise, even as she prepared to make that arduous journey to the saloon’s back room, Doc Finney did not rush to her side. He did not open his physician’s bag, extract a miracle cure and fix her. He didn’t even try to do those things.
Instead, he spied Dylan Coyle—who stood with his back to the room and thus couldn’t see Doc Finney approaching—and hurried nearer. He raised his arm. “Coyle! There you are!”
Coyle turned. “Doc!” His jovial greeting extended to the other men. “McCabe. Cooper.” They all shook hands. Heartily. The others—men Marielle had known for years now—gazed at the drifter through respectful eyes. “Murphy, you owe me a new hat,” Coyle teased. “One that’s not soaked clean through with whiskey.”
“The hell I do!” Marielle’s boss returned. “When you drink in my place, you can’t expect to come out looking like a dandy.”
They went on joshing with one another, trading back slaps and jokes. Taken aback by their good-humored meeting, Marielle frowned. She adjusted her feathered headpiece, then pointedly smoothed her skirts. Any second now, they would come to their senses and properly tend to her injury. Surely they would.
She cleared her throat, attempting to make sure of that.
“We thought we might miss you, Coyle,” Daniel McCabe, the town blacksmith, was saying. “I’m glad to see we didn’t.”
Cooper agreed. “You were supposed to come to the Morrow Creek Men’s Club meeting. We needed you there. There’s been a certifiable emergency in town.” The livery stable owner eyed his friends. “I told you we should’ve hog-tied him and brought him.”
They all guffawed. A few more men drifted nearer, drawn by their boisterous conversation. Marielle sat alone, all but hidden behind hotelier Griffin Turner, detective Adam Corwin and lumber mill owner Marcus Copeland, each of whom took their turns greeting Dylan Coyle. At the center of their attention, Coyle ably held his own with handshakes and rough-edged banter.
For a self-professed wandering man, Marielle couldn’t help noticing grumpily from the shadows, Coyle had certainly managed to forge some strong connections in Morrow Creek. Her friends and neighbors seemed to hold him in very high regard.
“Excuse me!” she called. “Doctor Finney? A word, please?”
The town’s curmudgeonly physician didn’t hear her.
Frustrated, Marielle tried again. More loudly.
The only person who heard her was Hudson. He broke through the ring of men surrounding Mr. Coyle, all of them chattering away, then spied Marielle on her chair. Her brother shouted.
“Mari!” Almost six and a half feet tall, possessed of a powerful build and a headful of shoulder-length dark brown hair that matched his coffee-colored eyes, Hudson lumbered forward. He was neither graceful nor formidable, but he was beloved by Marielle. At the sight of her brother, she sagged with relief.
“I heard you were hurt!” He knelt at her chair, looking her over for what he plainly expected to be calamitous bumps and bruises. He grasped her hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I, uh, stepped outside for a while. The next thing I knew, some cowboy was rushing by, shouting for Doc Finney like a darn fool.” Hudson scoffed, sending ale fumes wafting toward her. He smelled of cheroot smoke, too. “Everybody knows Doc was at the men’s club meeting, but I guess that broke up. Anyway, I—”
“Can you get me out of here, please?”
Hudson balked. “You aren’t done dancing already, are you?”
His disappointment was palpable...and understandable, too. He didn’t want to cut short his evening of fun. While she was dancing onstage, Hudson always promised to linger nearby for her “protection.” In actuality, her brother spent most of his time drinking and carousing. Sometimes gambling. Marielle knew he meant well. After all, if not for her profession, he would not have been exposed to so many objectionable influences at all.
Hudson’s potential ruination was partly her fault.
“I’m afraid,” she admitted, “that I’m done dancing for quite a while.” She didn’t want to worry him by saying how long.
New concern shadowed his face. “You’re hurt bad? Where?”
“My ankle.” Ruefully, Marielle glanced in its direction. That traitorous “feeble” appendage might take weeks to heal. “If you could please just ask Doc Finney to meet us at home—”
“Of course! Of course I will.” Her brother squeezed her hand. “Anything you need, Mari. You know you can count on me.”
“She’d better be able to.” Jack Murphy separated himself from the crowd. Judging by his solemn expression, he’d been informed of Marielle’s situation—and had heard her own gloomy pronouncement of her prognosis, too. He pushed a glass in her hand. “Drink this. I’ll send the doctor to you straightaway.”
“This is a double whiskey!” Marielle objected.
“It’ll help. Trust me.” Jack turned to Hudson, even as the Dylan-Coyle-centered melee went on behind him. “She’ll do better at home, where it’s quiet. Make sure she gets some rest.”
Irked, Marielle cleared her throat. “I’m right here!”
“I’ll listen to you,” Jack informed her with a devilish gleam in his Irish eyes, “after you down that medicinal snort.”
Expeditiously, she did. It burned all the way down. Ugh.
Eyes watering, Marielle persisted. “I already told Hudson to take me home, Jack. You needn’t interfere. I have this well in hand.” A surprising warmth spread through her, kindled by the liquor she’d consumed. “I’ll be back within days. Don’t worry.”
Hudson took away her glass. He nodded at her. “Ready?”
Marielle murmured her assent. She held out her hand, ready for her brother to help her to her feet in a dignified fashion.
Instead, he saved time by scooping her outright into his massive arms, then cradling her to his chest. Marielle couldn’t help whooping in surprise, then clutching him. She gave him a swat, feeling relieved and displeased in equal measure. She loved Hudson. She knew he’d care for her, however inexpertly. But she didn’t like being treated like a helpless child.
“Days,” she promised Jack sternly, desperate to make sure he wouldn’t hire someone to replace her. “I heal quickly.”
“You’ll take as long as you need,” her boss countered.
But Marielle knew she couldn’t do that. “I can’t afford to stay home languishing! You know that. Without a steady income—”
But Jack Murphy had an answer for that, too.
“I’ll give you half pay, for as long as you’re laid up—”
“What?” She was astounded. His offer went above and beyond what any dancer could expect. “That’s so generous of you.”
“—as long as you rest up and follow orders.”
Humph. Marielle wrinkled her nose. Naturally, there were conditions attached to Jack’s munificence. It was almost as if they all expected her to flout doctor’s orders, charge ahead on her own authority and handle this situation however she liked.
It was almost as if they all knew her, Jack included.
Dratted know-it-alls. No adult man would have had to agree to “follow orders” under threat of penury. Why should she?
She could take care of herself and darn well would.
“Making a cranky face,” Jack observed, “is not agreeing.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Marielle asked.
Hudson chuckled. She felt the vibration of his laughter.
“That’s why I’m pressing the issue,” Jack said. “We’ve known each other for years now, remember? My saloon was just a wee upstart when I brought you and your troupe to Morrow Creek.”
Marielle remembered. Daniel McCabe had built the stage she danced on with his own two blacksmithing hands. Catching a glimpse of Jack’s expectant expression, she knew what he wanted.
She wasn’t ready to give him her agreement, though.
“You all think you’re so clever, don’t you?” she groused.
“I don’t.” Holding her in his arms, Hudson shrugged. He gave her an endearing grin. “But I agree with Jack about this.”
“Traitor.” Stubbornly, Marielle frowned at them both. But a second later, her head began swimming with the aftereffects of the whiskey. It was the only explanation for what happened next. “Fine,” she agreed. “I’ll behave myself! I promise. All right?”
“All right.” Jack nodded. So did Hudson.
Then he swept her out of the saloon and into the night.
