Then Hunter just walked off and disappeared around the corner of the building. Tiffany sighed, but managed to get down from the wagon on her own before Degan could dismount to help her. If she hadn’t gotten Hunter angry, she wouldn’t be stuck with Degan again. It was her own fault.
But she wasn’t sure why Hunter was angry. Because she didn’t agree with his point of view about her fiancé? Or because he had one and hated it so much he refused to talk about it at all? She didn’t know him well enough to guess. She realized too late that she never would if she kept being offended by his brand of friendliness. And disturbed by his husky whispers. She had to get better control of her reactions to him. She didn’t want to like him. She wanted to go home to New York. And she didn’t want to be excited by words he shouldn’t even have said to her!
Degan fell into step beside her as she walked in the direction Hunter had gone to reach the main street. Degan led the two horses and tied them to the first hitching rail they passed.
“I’d like to post my letter first,” she said when he joined her on the long, boarded walkway that fronted all the buildings along the street.
“This way.”
She followed him past a few businesses, but stopped at the one where delicious aromas were wafting out its open door. Without telling Degan, she entered the small bakery. The single-room kitchen had ovens lining the back wall and a few tables in the front laden with long loaves of bread and pastries.
The owner closed one oven and smiled at her. “What I help you with, eh?”
She didn’t really expect the businesses in Nashart to provide the services she was accustomed to in the city, but she still had to ask, “Do you deliver?”
“No.”
“I’ll pay you handsomely.”
“No, no time to deliver. You want bread, you come here to buy it.”
Disappointed that she couldn’t get what she wanted even if she paid extra for it, she said, “Then can you at least give me a recipe to make bread? I’ll pay you for that.”
His smile vanished. “Give away my secret? No!”
Her exasperation was rising. “Not your special bread, just plain, everyday bread.”
He raised a brow. “You really don’t know how?” He started to laugh. “What sort of wife will you make, eh?”
“One who hires a baker like you,” she snapped, and marched out of his shop.
Degan didn’t say a word about her failure. However, he did caution her about any more detours, brief or not. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t encourage you to take care of your business quickly and leave any extra errands for another day. I want you out of town before the trouble starts.”
Tiffany halted abruptly. “What trouble?”
“It’s Saturday. There’s always trouble of one sort or another on Saturdays, but it’s gotten worse since the Harding mine opened. And cowboys will be riding in later today to raise some hell like they always do. The miners don’t get paid much, which makes for frayed tempers, and cowboys and miners don’t mix well because they have nothing in common.”
At Degan’s mention of trouble, Tiffany thought of the gunfight on the train. “The sheriff should outlaw guns in town.”
The slight change in Degan’s inscrutable expression told her he would have laughed at her remark—if he ever laughed. “Why? No one’s been murdered, no one’s been shot unfairly. Trouble around here isn’t usually at the point of a gun unless some braggart rides in looking to make a name for himself. The miners don’t carry guns; the cowboys who do are mostly decent men. They won’t draw on an unarmed man. But that gives the miners an advantage. They’re damn good with their fists. Like those two across the street there with their eyes on Hunter.”
Tiffany followed his gaze to the two men he’d just mentioned. They were not tall, but were quite muscular and broad-chested. And they definitely looked disgruntled.
“Hunter told me a little about the miners,” she said. “I think it’s absurd that some of them might be carrying a grudge against his family when the Callahans were here first.”
Degan shook his head. “Not absurd when it’s nearly unheard of for someone to turn down what amounts to free money, like Zachary did. Harding even offered to give him a percentage of what the mine earned, but Zachary turned that down, too. If you ride out that way, you’ll see soot coating the range from their smelters. Zachary wants them gone, not to be partners with them. And they think I was hired to see to it, which just got them even more angry.”
“I know why you were hired,” she said in a disagreeable tone.
“You object to me keeping the peace?”
She was positive this time that she heard a note of amusement in his voice. He might think he was keeping the peace, and maybe he was for now, but she suspected that peacekeeping could lead to bloodshed in too many ways. And those two miners were still deliberately provoking Hunter by staring at him.
She saw that Hunter had stopped in front of the general store, which was in the opposite direction she was headed. He seemed not to have noticed the miners because he was talking to a dark-haired woman with a voluptuous figure. Her low-cut blouse was nearly indecent, it showed so much cleavage, and her red skirt was guaranteed to draw every man’s eye. The skirt had no bustle and wasn’t the least bit fashionable, though come to think of it, Tiffany still hadn’t yet seen a single woman in town wearing one, so she was actually the one standing out like a sore thumb.
Hunter was definitely engrossed in his conversation, no doubt a flirtatious one. He had the woman trapped there with his palms flat against the wall on either side of her, preventing her from walking off, not that it appeared she wanted to leave him when she had one arm draped loosely over his shoulder. Tiffany was sure that they were about to kiss. Whose idea it was she couldn’t tell. Their faces were too close. Tiffany was holding her breath, watching as her fiancé was about to be unfaithful to her, and she couldn’t take her eyes away. . . .
Chapter Eighteen
TIFFANY BARELY HEARD DEGAN as he continued explaining why she shouldn’t have come to town today of all days. “The miners have been warned not to start anything, so they won’t approach Hunter, but they’re hoping he’ll come their way so they can trip him or say something nasty that will provoke him. As long as he lands the first punch, they won’t get tossed in jail. And those miners are strong. Comes from wielding a pick all day. Hunter could take one, but not two at a time.”
“His ladylove?” she asked, still gazing across the street at Hunter and the dark-haired woman.
She realized she’d just asked Degan a question completely unrelated to what he’d been talking about. She didn’t blush though. She was feeling too—she didn’t know, but it certainly wasn’t embarrassment.
“That’s Pearl, the missing Callahan maid,” Degan said. “But don’t read anything into that. Hunter’s engaged to someone else.”
Finally someone had mentioned that pertinent fact to her. She planned to use it as ammunition to keep Hunter from making any more inappropriate overtures to her. “Who is he engaged to?”
Degan took her arm to continue them on their way. “Someone he’s never met, which is why Pearl doesn’t think anything will come of it and tempts the hell out of him.”
Now Tiffany blushed. She should never have broached the subject of Hunter’s love life, and certainly not with the gunslinger. To get quickly off that subject, she recalled she had something else she wanted to ask Degan.
“What happens when the Warrens and the Callahans come to town at the same time?”
“They don’t frequent the same saloon—at the sheriff’s insistence—but it can get loud if they cross paths here or near the lake. The truce they had has been falling apart for months now.”
“Do you think the Warrens have been shooting at the Callahans recently, like Hunter does?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Roy, he wasn’t afraid to fight. So he got a shiner. What man hasn’t? That’s
no cause to break out a rifle. As for the shot at Hunter, there were too many strangers in town that day to hazard a guess, but whoever it was, he was either a lousy shot, so not from around here, or he wasn’t shooting to kill.”
Her thoughts exactly. “So you don’t think it was the Warrens either.”
“I don’t think the Warrens are taking potshots, but I do think they’re out to cause trouble. There was no doubt about Sam Warren’s motives when he called John a cheat. That boy was looking for a fight.”
“But why?”
“John had been the loudest in accusing Roy, and Sam was damn mad about it. But it was John who picked guns for that fight. Sam probably only wanted to beat the hell out of John. Those two might still have another go at it, the next time they cross paths.”
What an alarming thought. “It sounds like there’s no longer any sort of truce.”
Degan shrugged. “The elders still like to think so. This started up when it became clear the Warren boys don’t want to see that house by the lake finished.”
“Why not?”
“Because the house is for Hunter and his fiancée, the Warren boys’ sister.”
Tiffany had to force herself to appear surprised, now that she was finally hearing whom Hunter was to marry. “Star-crossed lovers then?”
“They haven’t even met yet.”
“Oh, well, that sounds—awkward.”
“By all accounts, the Warren boys would like to keep it that way. It’s obvious they think their sister, a fancy Easterner, is too good for Hunter. Mr. Warren might want to abide by the marriage agreement to secure a permanent truce, but his boys are more concerned about their sister.”
Tiffany was so touched by her brothers’ protectiveness toward her that tears welled in her eyes. Her father didn’t care about her happiness, but her brothers did.
Without thinking she gushed, “That’s so sweet!” Degan gave her an odd look, making her realize Jennifer had just disappeared, leaving only Tiffany standing there. She tried to quickly salvage her mistake, adding, “I mean, I wish I had brothers like that. How does Hunter feel about this arranged marriage?”
“I don’t know, but I suspect that as the eldest son, he will feel obligated to do what’s best for the family and the ranch, even if it means sacrificing his heart.”
Tiffany stiffened indignantly. How dare he refer to Hunter’s having to marry her as a sacrifice. She almost marched off in high dudgeon until she heard Degan add with a shake of his head, “Nonetheless, there’s no mistaking it, the Warren boys aren’t going to let their sister become a Callahan without putting up a fight. But don’t worry. It’s my job to make sure it doesn’t get too bloody.”
Did he have to say that?! Tiffany groaned to herself, wishing she’d never broached the subject, at least not with him. Don’t worry? She was even more worried now about the situation between the two families. While the older generation saw the betrothal as a means to secure a longer-lasting truce, the second generation, at least her brothers, viewed it as another source of conflict between the families.
She was going to give herself away completely if she didn’t get her reactions under control, so she said no more to Degan and hurried off to do her errands as he’d suggested. After posting her letter, she headed to the hotel to see Anna, but they had to pass by the general store again to get to the hotel. Now that Hunter was no longer seducing women in front of it, she could go in. Even though she had no hope of finding what she needed, she knew it would bother her later if she didn’t at least ask.
“One minute,” she told Degan, and slipped inside the store before he could complain about another detour.
She didn’t waste time looking around the large, cluttered room for what she wanted. She went straight to the owner and asked, “Do you have any cookbooks for sale?”
“Sorry, miss, but I don’t stock books.” Hearing what she’d feared she would hear, she tried not to appear as disappointed as she actually was, but the owner must have remembered something because he stopped her from leaving. “Wait a minute.” He opened a drawer behind him and handed her a thin book. “My wife ordered this a while ago, but no one ever bought it. Glad I didn’t throw it away.”
Tiffany read the book’s title: The Basics of Cooking. She could have kissed the man! She quickly paid for the book and was so excited that she showed it to Degan when she left the store.
“Basics?” he said, clearly not impressed. “Let’s hope that’s not where Jakes learned his cooking skills. Are you about done?” He was glancing up and down the street. “More miners have shown up and I’ve lost sight of Hunter, though he’s probably in the Blue Ribbon Saloon for that drink he mentioned.”
Degan actually sounded a little concerned, which prompted her to suggest, “Go ahead and find him. I still have a lot to do.” She gave him her agenda, ending with “And I need to hire a woman to help me in the kitchen, though Hunter doesn’t think I’ll have any luck finding one.”
He didn’t budge from her side as she walked to the hotel, but he did agree with Hunter. “He’s right.”
Tiffany frowned. Old Ed had had help. Why couldn’t she? She considered asking Anna to take the job, but quickly discarded that idea. It was too lowly a job for Anna, who would likely complain and argue with her. The maid might even blurt out the truth to the Callahans, and Tiffany couldn’t risk that. The look of disappointment on her face was probably what made Degan add, “You said a woman. Why aren’t you considering a man instead? Plenty of them around looking for jobs.”
She skeptically raised a brow. “To wash dishes? I really can’t see—”
“That restaurant you plan to eat at is completely staffed by men. Ed’s helper was a man, too.”
A little more encouraged, Tiffany said, “Well then, if you know of anyone looking for work whom you would consider trustworthy, do point him out. Oh, and I should have said this sooner, but please tell me if you see any of the Warrens in town today. I would be so embarrassed if I were to come face-to-face with any of them after I abandoned my job with them.”
“Why did you?”
Trying not to show that he had flustered her, she said, “My intended and I agreed we should delay our marriage until we save up enough money to buy our own house.”
“So the more money you make, the sooner you get to the altar. I get it. What I don’t get is how your young man would be willing to wait—for any reason. Whose idea was that?”
“Mr. Grant! Really, you—”
Degan’s stormy-gray eyes met hers. “If he really exists and you love him, I’ll warn Hunter to back off. Just say the word.”
“If he exists? You think I’m lying?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a woman claims she’s spoken for to avoid unwanted attention. Which is what Hunter thinks. So maybe you better set him straight.”
Chapter Nineteen
TIFFANY HAD NO IDEA what the gunfighter was insinuating about Hunter, but she had no trouble recognizing that he suspected she was lying about having a fiancé. She felt like laughing because, ironically, she was being completely truthful in that regard. Jennifer had a fiancé and so did she! She pretended to take offense at his even broaching a matter this personal with her. Quickening her step and walking away from him sufficed to let him know that. She hoped. While she’d have no difficulty upbraiding anyone else for such impertinence, she wouldn’t tempt fate and do so with a man who reeked of danger.
But there was no getting rid of Degan Grant. He followed close behind her, though he did wait outside when she entered the hotel. After she asked the clerk where she could find her friend Anna Weston, she got her annoyance under control before she knocked on Anna’s door. Unfortunately, it came right back with the first thing Anna said to her.
“You’ve come to your senses? I knew you would.”
“I’m just visiting to let you know how wonderfully my plan is going.”
“You’re being sarcastic, aren’t you?”
Of course she was, bu
t she didn’t intend to complain to Anna, so she avoided answering and said, “I’ve already learned a lot. There’s still bad blood between the Callahans and my family. That truce they have is tenuous at best. I have a feeling it won’t take much at all to break it. And there are some miners who might be trying to stir things up in that regard.”
“From the Harding Mine?”
“How did you know?”
“I met a Harding executive last night in the hotel’s dining room, a Mr. Harris. He seemed like a nice gentleman. His boss owns mines in Montana and elsewhere. It’s Mr. Harris’s job to travel between them to solve problems and make sure each mine is producing as expected.”
“I doubt the Nashart mine has turned out as expected for them.” Tiffany explained briefly what she knew about it. “If you should see Mr. Harris again, maybe you can find out what his boss plans to do, now that they aren’t getting access to all of the copper they came here for. But I don’t have much time in town today, so let’s talk while I look for a local seamstress.”
“That would be Mrs. Martin. I asked the clerk downstairs. You wouldn’t have found her otherwise because she doesn’t have a shop, just works out of her home. I can show you where it is.”
When they left the hotel, Degan was waiting for them. Tiffany knew it would be rude not to introduce Anna to Degan, but when she made the introductions, she only referred to Anna as a friend from the train trip and Degan as a worker at the Callahan ranch. She hurried Anna along when she saw how uncomfortable the gunslinger made Anna.
“Who is he?”
“I told you, he works at the ranch and he’s my escort today. You don’t have to whisper, he’s not following us that closely.”
Anna glanced back to make sure of that before she said, “Why haven’t you said anything about your fiancé yet? You have met him, haven’t you? Oh, and were they very annoyed when you told them you wouldn’t cook for them?”