Thea Devine Read online

  He laughed. “Dear Maggie, believe me, you are going to have many proposals, and very soon, I wager.” He had enough presence of mind not to add that his would be one of them. His whole concern, since Frank’s death, had been taking care of Maggie, whose abruptness and real courage shielded her softer nature, a nature, he believed, that desperately needed a strong male hand to guide it. For if Frank had left her the burdens of his business and the responsibility of caring for his mother, Dennis Coutts considered that in a very real sense Frank had left the care of Maggie to him. He was Frank’s executor and most trusted legal advisor, and he had a firm knowledge of Maggie’s entitlements through Frank’s estate.

  And he felt a great deal of gratitude that they shared this link to Frank.

  Dennis believed that Maggie had loved Frank, as he himself had, as had anyone who had known him. The outpouring of grief today was witness to that, and Maggie could not help but be moved by it, Dennis thought, though she made a very good show of sloughing off her own pain. She had thrown herself into working at the newspaper and had become its guiding force in that short period of time. Nonetheless, it was understood that when Frank’s successor was found, Maggie would step down.

  At least that was how Dennis understood it. But he wasn’t so sure Maggie would move aside so easily now that she had had a taste of power. However, her ongoing battle with Harold Danforth wasn’t winning her any supporters.

  He took her arm gently and they began walking back down toward the church and the milling crowd. Along the way he exchanged a brief nod with Harold Danforth, a greeting Maggie did not miss.

  “I was supposed to have been coercing you to see things Harold’s way,” Dennis explained conspiratorially.

  She liked him very much in that moment. “You certainly may say you did, and how much trouble I gave you, if you like. You had to twist my arm—with words, that is. But I won’t retract anything I wrote, Dennis.”

  “I wouldn’t expect you to,” he said placatingly, “although Harold would like a public apology. However, an equal amount of space for him—in print—preferably on the front page so he can give his side of it, is acceptable reparation.”

  Maggie considered this request for a moment and then sighed. “He’s a vain and foolish man. I hope to heaven this whole thing fails—but of course it won’t. All right, but not the front page. Not even my editorial words command the front page.”

  “You’ll print whatever he writes?”

  “I will. And I’ll let him mire himself up to his chin in his own stupidity,” she said venomously. “And he will. I know he will.”

  “And we’ll let him,” Dennis agreed gravely. “I’ll tell him.”

  She watched him move through the crowd purposefully and then turned to speak with another well wisher, fully aware of Mother Colleran, deep in the crowd, holding forth with gusto on her favorite subject—her memories of Frank when he was a child. Beyond that, she felt nothing but an ineffable sense of loneliness.

  On the other side of the church grounds an elegantly dressed gentleman stood among the dispersing crowd on a slight rise that allowed him to look down on the chapel lawn.

  There were so many people. He shook his head in wonder, hard pressed to figure out, in the sea of black clad women, which one was Maggie Colleran.

  He strode further on down the incline, looking for a likely person to ask, one who would not question his curiosity.

  “Pardon?” He tapped the shoulder of a tall, thirtyish, weather-beaten looking man who was not dressed for a church service. He too was standing and staring into the crowd intently, and he turned with the abruptness of a man who has faced enemies in blind corners. His sky-blue eyes assessed his questioner sharply from beneath a battered stetson.

  “Stranger?” His voice was deep and rough and burnished as fine wood.

  “I’m looking for Mrs. Frank Colleran,” the stranger said, not even looking at his informant but rather shielding his eyes against the sun as he looked down into the crowd. “Do you know her? Can you point her out to me from here?”

  “I know her,” his informant said shortly, his eyes narrowing. He pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes and turned to the crowd. “She’s by the church door there—the woman with the dark hair, dressed in gray.”

  The stranger tipped his hat. “‘Preciate it,” he said, moving away slowly and finally turning and squinting so he could see her clearly.

  She was bathed in sunlight as she moved from the doorway down the two stone steps that gave onto the walkway, and her intelligent face, the features of which he could not see distinctly, was bent attentively toward the person to whom she was speaking. Her dark hair glinted blue in the sun, and once he knew who she was he saw that she could never be missed, not even in a crowd this size. The elegance of her posture and the way she held her head as she moved through the crowd told him more about her than any description.

  She had a smooth grace and a manner that hid her firm determination. He could see it in her walk and in the way she tactfully turned aside this person and that, obviously saying a personal word to each in a gracious way that made them smile and nod as she passed them. She was heading toward a closed carriage as she impatiently untied the ribbons of the hat that was dangling down her back, pulled it off, and began twirling it insouciantly by its ties the moment she thought she was out of sight of the crowd.

  My God, he thought, my God. The she-cat his own dragon of a mother had written him about endlessly. The scheming Helen who had trapped Frank and ruined his life forever. The rustic jezebel who had lured Frank in a way his mother had never understood.

  That gorgeous, unexpected creature had been Frank’s wife. Frank’s wife.

  Chapter Two

  As the carriage drew up with a flourish in front of the newspaper office Maggie pushed the door open, leaned out, and then jumped back as if she had been struck. Just for one moment she had the stunning feeling that it was Frank awaiting them in the shadow of the office door. She couldn’t see his face, only the bulk of his body, his stance, the way he held his arms loosely at his sides.

  And then he moved forward and she met the cool, pale blue gaze of the elegantly dressed man who must be Frank’s brother. Behind her, Mother Colleran made what sounded like a joyful noise in the back of her throat, and then squelched it, as if she had revealed too much to Maggie too soon.

  Maggie leaned forward again. This was not a moment to show uncertainty. This expensively dressed stranger was the mysterious Reese, the threat of whose appearance was supposed to bring her to heel somehow. He was rather formidable at first glance, and as different from Frank as night from day. He was broader, leaner, sun-browned, extravagantly dressed in a black form-fitting coat that seemed to barely encompass the width of his shoulders. He wore matching trousers and a stark white shirt adorned with a formal stock tie. The unrelieved severity of the colors threw his tawny hair and pale blue eyes into high relief against his tanned skin. His expression was mocking, as if he were waiting for her to speak first.

  She took all of this in with one smoky gray glance. In that instant she read the challenge in his eyes. He expected her to know who he was, if not why he had come. Her lips tightened imperceptibly and her chin lifted resolutely in a way that dismissed him as clearly as if she had spoken.

  He would not let her do it. “Ma’am?” The tone was respectful, if his manner was not. His voice was deep and strongly accented.

  “I know who you are,” she said calmly, not allowing him an inch to maneuver. He was right in her way and she did not know quite what to do to budge him. She felt as if he had cornered her, and she was caught fairly between mother and son without an inkling which of them was the more dangerous to her.

  All he said was, “Allow me to help you down.”

  She wanted that least of all, but she acquiesced and he held out his arms to her as she pushed forward, grasping her around her narrow waist and lifting her easily from the carriage. He looked into her eyes closely, assess
ingly, uncomfortably.

  She wondered what he saw as her own hands grasped the hard muscle beneath his tailored sleeves; then he set her on the plank walk and turned to his mother.

  Maggie did not wait to speak with him. She rapped briskly on the door of the office. A.J. opened it and she disappeared quickly inside, where the smell of ink and the mustiness of the room were a welcome substitute for the close, tight atmosphere from which she had escaped.

  Oh no, she would not allow the appearance of Reese Colleran to disturb her. The only remedy for unresolvable burdens was work, and she headed quickly toward the hallway closet, where she stripped off her cloak, hung away the bothersome little hat, and took out the voluminous leather apron she habitually wore in the office. It covered her pristine gray skirt to the knee and hugged her bosom protectively. The faint smell of ink emanated from its pores, and in its pockets were three pairs of ink-stained gloves in various stages of disrepair.

  The apron definitely gave her a businesslike air. She had only to braid her hair into a loose plait, and she would be ready to put the exigencies of the morning behind her.

  It was just not possible for her to pretend, as everyone seemed willing to believe, that all her thoughts centered on Frank Colleran today, nor was it possible to pretend that she had loved him to the end and that she would mourn him forever. She was sure everyone assumed she had returned from the church and gone directly to her room, prostrate with grief. Instead, she was so full of energy she felt like bursting. There was no way, in as public a place as a local newspaper office, that she could resume any of her duties without causing censure and alienating her small group of supporters.

  In any event, the office was a good place to avoid having to deal with the sudden appearance of Reese Colleran, she thought mordantly as she entered the room. She didn’t even have to change her clothes. She didn’t have to do anything she did not want to do in her workplace.

  She loved this room. It contained all the motion and life that anyone could desire. To her right, near the door, was Jean Vilroy’s slant-topped drafting desk and the massive parlor stove that was the focus of the center of the room. To the front on the same side, behind a wainscotted divider with its little gate, was A.J.’s battered cylinder desk, a flat-topped desk with a typewriter on it, and behind that, opposite the stove and Jean’s drawing board, was her own desk, its back to the front of the office, the high roll top concealing her completely. On the wall above was a painting of the office building executed by Jean Vilroy, and alongside her desk there was a table where she wrote articles and edited copy.

  On the opposite side of the room stood Frank Colleran’s desk, now an ornament, unused, shining with wax and reverence, glowing walnut of a dozen shades pieced together in a highly ornate style, the best he could afford. Maggie’s portrait hung above this.

  It had been his idea. He had insisted in spite of her protestations and she knew why. He had wanted to be a martyr because he knew he had forced her to lie: he had wanted her to be only what he wanted her to be. When she failed he had not punished her—he had punished himself—or perhaps he had thought he was punishing her.

  From where she stood by the door she could see the portrait clearly. She had never liked it. He had chosen the dress, the artist, and the pose. The only thing about the portrait that remotely resembled her was her eyes. The artist could not disguise the overwhelming life in her eyes.

  It was time, she thought distractedly, to remove that portrait.

  She moved quietly past Jean, out of the back hallway where the stairwell was located as well as the secondhand steam driven press Frank had installed two years before. Near the window stood the tall row of print cases where she would be spiking type for the next edition in three days.

  For just a moment her feeling of high exhilaration faded and she felt tired and not a little restless. Something was not quite right. It had nothing to do with Reese Colleran’s presence or Harold Danforth’s vituperative article, or even with her problems with her one unmanageable reporter, Arch Warfield, who thought he ought to have been named editor when Frank died and who never hesitated to remind her of the fact in subtle little ways.

  She didn’t know what it was that was bothering her as she seated herself at her work table and picked up the first sheet of a stack of papers that awaited her attention.

  Her reaction was immediate. “A.J.!” she called stridently.

  A.J. came immediately from his front desk, where he was orchestrating the first inrush of customers, advertisers, and neighbors who had come just to gossip and find out the latest news before it was even published.

  “Ma’am?”

  She handed him Warfield’s preliminary article about the arrival of the survey team. “A little too editorially pro railroad, wouldn’t you say? Everything golden and rosy for the future, no negatives at all. Nothing about whether this town has the capacity to handle the new population, or the temporary housing these workers are going to have to accept, or all the other things that follow workmen and railroads. Damn, it sounds like an addendum to Harold Danforth’s heavenly vision. I have to give him space, but …”

  “Now, Mrs. Frank …”

  “Please, A.J.. Frank is dead and gone and I’m sick of being labeled with his name, as if I don’t have a life or a will or an intelligence of my own.”

  A.J. stared at her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “A.J.—”

  “Whatever you want, ma’am.”

  “And don’t call me ma’am!” She spun away, utterly irritated with him and Arch Warfield and everything, and stood with her back to him, her arms wrapped around her waist, giving him time to read the article and herself time to regain her frayed temper.

  “I see what you mean, ma’ … am. Look, I have to call you something,” A.J. protested.

  “I think,” she said, turning back to him with a faint smile on her lips, “I think you can call me Maggie.”

  He shook his head doubtfully. She had always been Mrs. Frank, and he already knew he was going to stumble a hundred times on it before he remembered to put it out of his head. “I’ll talk to Arch, Miz Maggie.” Yes, that sounded right, he thought, respectful, not too forward, not too informal. “I’ll talk to Arch.”

  “Yes, you do that. Now, Jean, do we know when the survey team is coming in?” She was back to business again, pivoting toward the Frenchman who, with his quick hands, was aligning type for the advertisements that had been bought for the week’s edition.

  He shrugged. “Could be today,” he said noncommittally.

  She stood behind him watching, admiring his deft movements and his sense of composition. He was an itinerant artist whom Frank had given work, and he had stayed these four years for reasons she could not fathom. He was not paid well, in fact, he did not particularly like the work or the town or the time he had to devote to job printing, which had become his specialty. He had virtually no time for his art, and he could have picked up and gone at any time, she thought, and yet he stayed, for Frank—who had known how to be mighty persuasive. After Frank she had never had to say a word to him.

  She wondered how persuasive she could be after all if she could not talk the town fathers into at least considering the ramifications of this northward linkage of the railroad line.

  “I’ll check that out. A.J., did the readyprint bundle come in from Denver? Anybody check out the express office yet?”

  “No, Miz Maggie. I reckon I’ll go if you want.”

  “No,” she said instantly, seeing yet another way to delay facing her mother-in-law and her unwanted guest. “I’ll go. I need air. I need action,” she added, more to herself than them, and within moments she was out in the crisp spring air, her cloak wrapped around her leather apron.

  On the street, her sense of expectancy quickened. She loved her home town. She had been raised here and knew everyone. As she walked over to the express station she greeted a dozen people with a nod and a quick hello. They all knew her. To them she was not Mrs. Frank.
She was Maggie Lynch, who had married Frank Colleran and now ran the newspaper.

  Everyone knew it, the open secret that was never concealed by the fact that A.J. Lloyd’s name appeared on the masthead as the editor and that the paper was published, ostensibly, by the Colleran estate. It was Maggie’s paper and no one denied it.

  “Hey, Mrs. Frank, wasn’t that a service for Frank today?”

  She waved.

  “’Afternoon, Maggie, how you doin’?”

  “Just fine, Colbert,” she called back. “How about you?”

  She grasped another hand in passing, then poked her head into the general store to greet Arwin Bodey. “Heard anything yet, Arwin?”

  He waved his arm from the rear of the store. “Nothin’ yet, Maggie, but that don’t mean there ain’t some news over by the stage stop.”

  “I’m on my way there.”

  “Let me know then.”

  She waved and went off down the plankboard sidewalk toward the express office. “My delivery come yet?” she demanded, opening the door.

  “Freight wagon ain’t due in till—oh, five or so, Maggie.”

  “Okay, A.J. will come by then.”

  She closed the door and turned toward the stage office that was directly across the crowded, dirt-dusted street. A little knot of people stood outside the door, old-timers with little to occupy their time, delivery boys, a ranch hand awaiting an expected guest.

  Her senses prickled suddenly as she spotted Arch Warfield in the small crowd.

  “Oh Lord,” she murmured out loud, checking her stride as she was about to step onto the street. And then, “Oh Lord,” again as her gaze flashed by a tall familiar figure walking purposefully toward the stage stop.

  He didn’t see her, and she had several long unimpeded moments to just look at him and to know that he was all right, and just the same.

  Perhaps, she thought, not quite just the same; he looked thinner to her, and she could not see his face, except for the set line of his lips and jaw. And then someone spoke to him and he immediately stopped and turned his attention to his questioner in that attractive way of his she knew so well. It was a stance peculiar only to him, a stance by which she could have picked him out from a thousand other men—a slight leaning forward of his body toward the person who was talking, coupled with an air of intense concentration.