Christie And The Hellcat Part 45

Chapter 10.

Christie put down the rolling pin, smoothed her ap.r.o.n, and went to open the back door. A man was standing on her porch, his s.h.i.+rt and trousers pressed, his tin star polished to a dazzle. It was Pat Milligan.

He took off his hat.

"Afternoon, Miss Hayes."

"Marshal."

"I've just heard the news. Is it true?"

She glanced over the fenceno sign of Mrs. James. "I take it you're referring to Deputy Brodie?"

His hands were crus.h.i.+ng his hat, but he didn't seem to notice. "I can't believe she'd do something like this. Why, just the other day"

"You'd better come in." She stood back to allow him over the threshold and closed the door behind him. Her decision was instinctive. This was one of Zee's friends and his distress was obvious. "No, it's not true."

Milligan blew out his breath. "Doggone it!" He pulled out one of the chairs and sat down, absentmindedly resting his hat in a sprinkling of flour on the kitchen table. "I knew it. Kathy thought the same." He c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "You two still together then?"

"Yes. We concocted the story to keep Fred from hurting Blue any more than he already has." She took a chair opposite him and folded her hands in her lap. "I'm afraid it was my idea," she added.

Milligan shook his head. "And I'm not sure it was a wise one.

These days, Fred's a wild one. Partly the company he's been keeping, partly . . ." He shrugged.

Christie sighed. "I know. And I'm sorry for my part in his transformation. I didn't intend to hurt him. Things just . . . turned out that way. But he's hurting my brother, Marshal. I can't allow him to do 296 that. And though there's a risk, I don't believe Fred will injure me, for all that he tried to hurt Zee."

"Took quite a beating, didn't she? Kathy was shocked." He grimaced. "Pity we can't prove Fred did it."

He gave her an anxious glance. "He shows any sign of crossing the line with you, Miss Hayes, you come and get me, lickety-split.

Understand?" She nodded. "And remember, if you need to see a friendly face, come round to our place. Kathy and me will always be glad to see you, no matter what."

"Thank you. I appreciate that."

Milligan sighed. "As for Blue's store, it's a bad business, but my hands are tied. Younger's within his rights to open up his own store."

"I know," said Christie. "But coming on top of losing Jenny . . .

well, it's the final straw."

"Jenny Farnham?" Milligan looked thoughtful. "I knew she and Blue were walking out together, but I thought that was all over. She's to marry LeRoy, so they say."

"That's her father's idea." Christie tried to gauge his likely reaction to what she was about to reveal, but couldn't. With a mental shrug, she dove in. "She's carrying Blue's child."

Milligan whistled. "So that's why they got her out of town double quick. Visiting relatives back East? Hah!" He leaned back in his chair and regarded her. "What's Brodie's part in all this, Miss Hayes? And don't tell me she isn't up to something, because I know her too well.

You're here on your own, which means she's on the loose."

Christie gave him a rueful smile. "I'm not certain I should tell you, Marshal. It's not exactly . . . lawful."

He sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"

She chose her words with care. "What I can say is that, if everything goes to plan, Blue and Jenny will be back together again very soon."

He stroked his mustache while he thought, then came to his decision. "Then I guess that's all I need to know." He stood up and banged the worst of the flour from his hat.

Christie escorted him to the back door, where he paused as if struck by something. "So the h.e.l.lcat is playing Cupid? If that don't beat all! Must be your influence, Miss Hayes."

She thought about all Zee's loving gestures: the sack of bulbs brought back from Yuma, the turquoise bead necklace, the plush hotel 297.

suite in Phoenix where they had celebrated their "honeymoon," not to mention buying The Old Barn . . .

"No, Marshal. That's where you're wrong. Zee always had a romantic streak. She just never had much opportunity to show it."

GIF.

The apple pie was baking in the stove, the beef roasting on the shelf beneath it, when her next caller arrived. The rail-thin woman at the front door was dressed in a black, b.u.t.toned-to-the-neck dress that couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be considered becoming.

"Mrs. Fair." Christie stared at the wife of the Presbyterian minister.

"I came as soon as I heard the news, Miss Hayes. Now you have broken with that woman," Christie could almost hear the quotation marks, "there is hope of redemption. You were bound for the fires and agonies of h.e.l.l, but if you repent, Almighty G.o.d in all his mercy will forgive you."

"Um"

"Come with me now. My husband is waiting at the church." She reached out a gloved hand.

Christie took a step back. She had once had the misfortune to sit through one of Reverend Fair's sermons, and she had no intention of repeating the experience. It had been neither instructional nor edify-ing, indeed the minister seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with applesauce that was beginning to ferment"a temptation of Satan,"

he called it.

"This is your chance to turn the page, to start a new chapter, Miss Hayes," urged Mrs. Fair. "To turn your back on the sins of the flesh, on drunkenness and debauchery . . ."

Christie's eyebrows rose. Just what kind of life did this woman imagine she had been living? "No thank you."

Mrs. Fair gaped at her. "Have you no care for your immortal soul?"

"Of course I have. But if I need to make my peace with G.o.d, I will do it in my own way and time. Please, thank your husband for his concern. Now, I am sorry, but I am busy." And with that Christie closed the door in her face.

GIF.

298.

Christie didn't mention her visitors to her brother at supper that night. He'd had another disastrous day at the store, and the conversation, such as it was, was punctuated by gloomy silences.

"It'll be all right in the end, Blue, you'll see," she rea.s.sured him for the umpteenth time, hoping to G.o.d she was right. "Zee will get Jenny back, and then, if you want, you can leave Contention and start again elsewhere."

He grunted and pushed his half-eaten meal round the plate. She resisted the urge to shake some sense into that stubborn head of his.

It must be difficult for him to be other than pessimistic. He didn't know Zee like she did.

Talking of which, if only the deputy would send her a telegram to let her know how things were going. It would be no easy thing spiriting off a pregnant girl.

The fact that Blue had a baby on the way still shocked Christie, though she was not quite sure whyperhaps it was just that a sister doesn't like to imagine her brother active in that way. That their rela-tions.h.i.+p had progressed so swiftly, and that they had been so careless . . . It was understandable though. Perhaps pa.s.sion had overwhelmed all good sense and reserve. She smiled, remembering how, shy and inexperienced as she was, she had practically flung herself at Zee in that noisy little bedroom in Angie's Palace.

Blue put down his knife and fork and stood up, the sc.r.a.pe of his chair jarring her back to the present.

"I'm tired, Sis. Think I'll go to bed."

"All right." She kissed him on a stubbly cheek and began to collect up the used cutlery and plates. As she washed and rinsed the dirty crockery, she realized something and her eyes widened.

My goodness! I'll be an aunt. And so will Zee.

GIF.

Christie closed the door of the store behind her, hiding her brother's doleful countenance from view, and set off down Commercial Street. She had spent the morning at Kathy Milligan's, talking mostly about Zee, she realized with slightly mortified hindsight, and then on the way home had dropped by Blue's store, to check he had eaten all of the dinner she had packed for him.

She glanced at the bustling store opposite her brother's deserted 299.

establishment with something like hatred. Was it her fault that Fred had turned out to be so despicable? Or had he been that way all along and she had just not recognized it? The thought of what marriage to him could have been like made her blood run cold. Thank heavens Zee had come along when she did.

"Well, well," came a familiar voice. "If it isn't the h.e.l.lcat's little wh.o.r.e."

For a moment, she thought she had somehow conjured up the object of her ruminations, and she turned fearful of what she might find. It was a man not a demon, of course, but Fred's smile had a devilish edge to it.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Younger." There was no reason for her to forget her manners just because he had.

"So. You've come back to Contention with your tail between your legs." He fingered his beard and exchanged a sly glance with the two men accompanying him. "That's not all she's had between her legs, if I'm any judge."

His indelicate language shocked her; he had never treated her this way before. Her heart began to pound, and she took a deep breath to steady herself.

Several of the townsfolk had halted and were observing this encounter. And why not? They had heard the gossip, and Mrs. Chase and Mrs. Fair had no doubt embroidered it further. They would relish the treatment Fred was meting out. After all, Christie had broken the rules of propriety, first in eloping with a once notorious outlaw (and a woman at that), and second in returning home unrepentant. A public humiliation was her just desert.

Stick and stones, she told herself. I knew this would happen. And if it succeeds in turning his anger away from Blue . . . "I've come back to look after my brother."

"Ah yes. How is Bluford?" His smile was malicious.

She bit her lip before replying. "As well as can be expected, given the circ.u.mstances."

"You have no idea how it has pained me, pained all of us," Fred exchanged another look with his friends, "to see him brought so low."

"You are wrong," she said. "I have a very clear idea."

Her cool rejoinder made him blink, then he frowned. "Your brother should close his store. There are plenty of other men, better men, who could make a go of such a business, even if he is incapable of it."

300.

She wondered if he could hear her teeth grinding. "No one could tell, to hear you talk, that you once considered him your friend. But I have no wish to discuss my brother's affairs with you. Good afternoon, Mr. Younger." She turned and made to walk on. But somehow Fred was there, blocking her way. She halted.

"I'm to be married, you know," he said conversationally.

"Oh." She blinked at his abrupt change of manner.

"Congratulations. Do I know your intended?"

"I shouldn't think so. Cecilia moves in quite different circles from those you frequent." His lip curled.

In spite of herself, she asked, "Cecilia?"

"The eldest daughter of Colonel Fremont." He preened himself. If the occasion hadn't been so fraught, she would have found his smug-ness amusing. "She is a much more suitable match," he continued, "than you would ever have been. She is beautiful, refined, wealthy"

"Then I wish you both much joy and happiness." If this new attachment would heal the harm she had caused him, a.s.suage the bitterness he so obviously still felt . . .

"And there is not the slightest likelihood," he continued, "that she will lose all sense of decency and decorum and elope with an unnatural she-devil who should be hanged from the nearest gallows."

"You tell her, Fred," shouted the leaner of his two companions.

The other man guffawed.

Christie had had enough. She stepped forward, only to be blocked by Fred once more. "Please," she said, wis.h.i.+ng Marshal Milligan was nearby. "Let me pa.s.s."

"My dear," came a woman's shout, startling both of them, "I can't wait here all day. You promised to give me directions. Will you come now or must I find my way alone?"

Christie turned to see who the voice belonged to. Fred did likewise. A horse and four-seater buggy had stopped nearby, and its owner, an impressive looking woman in a black habit, veil, and pleated cape, was leaning out of it. To Christie's surprise, the nun seemed to be addressing her.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Come, child." The woman beckoned.

Though Christie had no idea what the nun wanted, it was too good a chance to miss. She pushed her way past the discomfited Fred toward the buggy.

301.

"Climb in." After a brief hesitation, Christie took the outstretched hand and let herself be helped up. "Walk on." The buggy lurched into motion.

As they left Fred and the goggling bystanders behind, Christie regarded her rescuer. "I think you must have mistaken me for someone else."

Kind, gray eyes looked back at her. "Unlikely. The woman I'm after is small, pretty, has long fair hair, green eyes, is likely to be in some trouble or other"

Christie's indignant protest died when she saw the twinkle in the nun's eyes. A suspicion began to form.