At least, he had gotten her off Mr. Smith, Reed thought, and at the same time cursed all telephone operators everywhere.
“But what about Houston? He was engaged to her. How could he be in love with someone else?”
“Lee…ah, thought this woman was dead.” On the table before Reed was a newspaper, and on the front page was an article about a gang of robbers that had been in the Denver area, but were now beginning to move south. The leader of the band was a Frenchwoman. “He met her in Paris, and she was the great love of his life, but he thought she’d been killed. I guess she wasn’t, because she came to Chandler to find him.”
“When?”
“When what?”
“When did this woman come to Chandler?”
“Oh, months ago,” Reed said offhandedly. “I think maybe you’d better let Lee finish this story. I think I’ve said enough already.”
“But if she came months ago, why did Leander continue his engagement to my sister?”
Reed rolled his eyes skyward, and again the newspaper caught his eye. “She, this woman he loved, was…involved in something Lee didn’t approve of. He had to do something to distract himself.”
“And my sister was that distraction, and then later I was.” She took a deep breath. “So, he was in love with this woman and thought she’d been killed, so he returned to Chandler and asked Houston to marry him. And then I came along, and one twin was as good as another, and of course his honor made him feel he was obligated to me. That explains why he’d consider marrying a woman he didn’t really love. Is that it?”
Reed ran his finger around the inside of his collar, which suddenly felt as if it were choking him. “I guess that’ll do as well as any explanation,” he said aloud and then muttered, “Now, I have to explain myself to my son.”
Blair felt very heavy as she left the house and began to walk home. Reed had sent for his stableboy to drive her home, but Blair had dismissed him. This was her wedding night and supposedly one of the happiest times of her life, and if she couldn’t spend it with her husband, she certainly didn’t want to spend it with another man. But
her happiness had turned into a nightmare.
How Leander must have laughed at her when she told him that she hoped to make their marriage work. He hadn’t cared whom he married. Houston was pretty and would make a good doctor’s wife, so he asked her to marry him, but then Houston was cool to him, so when Blair jumped into bed with him on their first night out, he decided to marry her instead. Whatever did it matter, when his heart was already given to another woman?
“There she is!” came a man’s voice from behind Blair.
It was just growing light, and she saw a small man on horseback and he was pointing toward her. For a moment, Blair felt a little pride that she was already being recognized in the streets as a doctor. She stopped and looked up at the man and the three men behind him.
“Is someone hurt?” she asked. “I don’t have my medical kit with me, but if you’ll give me a ride to my house, I’ll get it and I can go with you.”
The cowboy looked shocked for a moment.
“If you’d rather have my husband, I don’t know where he is,” she said with some bitterness. “I think you’ll have to make do with me.”
“What’s she talkin’ about, Cal?” one of the men in the back asked.
Cal put up his hand. “No, I don’t want your husband. You’ll do just fine. You wanta ride with me?”
Blair took the hand he offered and let him pull her up to mount in front of him. “My house is—,” she said, pointing, but he didn’t let her finish.
“I know where your house is Miss High and Mighty Chandler. Or I guess it’s Miz Taggert now.”
“What is this?” Blair said, startled. “I’m not—.” But the cowboy put his hand over her mouth and she could say no more.
Leander put a hand to the small of his back and tried to ease it against the jolting of the hard wagon seat. He had to admit that he had an awful case of feeling sorry for himself. Last night should have been spent in the arms of his new wife, in a soft bed, making love to her, laughing together, getting to know each other. But instead, he’d been climbing down the side of a mountain and then back up it again with a semiconscious man slung over his shoulder.
When he had got to the mine last night, the gates were locked and there was no sign of a guard, but he could hear the sounds of shouting in the camp and some women screaming words of anger. He hid his horse and carriage in the trees and went up the mountain and down the steep side and got into the camp the back way. He ran under cover of the houses and the dark to one of the miner’s houses who he knew was likely to take the risk of hiding the unionist.
The miner’s wife was there, wringing her hands because the guards were searching every house and the unionist was hidden in the weeds at the back of the outhouse—and he was bleeding and moaning. No one dared go to him because if he were found, it would be death to anyone found with him. If the guards kept up their search and found nothing, and no trace of an infiltrator, they’d not harm the miners, but if he were found…The woman put her face in her hands. If the unionist were found there, she and her family’d be thrown out of the camp with no jobs nor any money.
Lee gave her a few words of sympathy but didn’t spend much time talking. He went to the weeds at the back and hauled the short, stocky man across his shoulders and began the long, arduous task of trying to sneak him out. The only way out was straight up the side of the mountain, and that’s the way Lee went.
He had to pause several times, both to rest and to listen. The sounds below seemed to be quietening. There were always many saloons in a mining camp, and the men too often spent most of their wages on drink. Now, Lee could hear the drunks singing as they staggered home, probably unaware that their houses had been searched—as was the right of the mine owner’s representatives.
Lee stopped at the crest of the mountain and tried to see, in the moonlight, the man’s wounds. He’d started bleeding again when Lee’d moved him. Lee wrapped the man’s wounds as best he could to stop the bleeding, then started across the crest, and then down to where his buggy was hidden.