Easter writes that I am personable and of excellent character. Some members of the committee apparently found my letter of interest charming.” He glanced up at his sister. Whitley’s eyes immediately darted away. He wasn’t fooled when the keen curiosity that had been her expression was replaced by something that was unfocused and distant. He let it pass without reprimand. He asked his question with a tone that warned her he expected an answer. “How is that possible?”
Whitley made a small, helpless shrug. Her mouth curled to one side as she worried the inside of her lip.
“No one has ever mistaken me for charming,” he told her. “Me or my correspondence.”
“I think you’re charming.”
“This is the first I’m hearing of it. Did you not call me obstreperous and overbearing at breakfast? I think you were doing more than trying out new words that begin with O.” Her blush gave her away. “Confess, Whitley. I can’t possibly consider this offer if you don’t tell me what you wrote.”
She grasped at the one word that gave her hope. “So you’re saying you will consider it?”
“Consideration is different than acceptance. You understand that, don’t you?”
Searching his face, she nodded. The stony set of his features warned her that this small concession was the best she could hope for. He was not charming. He was obdurate–another O word that she should have used at breakfast. “I might have written something about the responsibility you recently acquired for raising your younger sister and the great trial she presents to you.”
“Might have written?” he asked. “Or wrote?”
“Oh, very well, if you must have it precisely, I wrote it.”
“With humorous anecdotes, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Several. I’m sure you would find them amusing.”
“Were they even true?”
She thought about that. “At their core.”
“I see.” It was perhaps better if he didn’t know the exact embellishments.
“This business of sending a letter of interest and citing all your education and accomplishments seemed inordinately dry and altogether boastful. I thought you should have the appearance at least of being human.”
Ignoring her impish smile, and shielding his hurt, he said quietly, “You know better than anyone that I am that.”
Whitley’s smile faltered, then vanished. There was gravity in her gaze. “You have to forgive yourself, Cole.”
He didn’t respond immediately. His eyes fell to the letter in his hand, then to the contract on the desk and studied both at length. Finally, reluctantly, he said, “It’s not a matter of geography, Whitley.”
Looking up to gauge her reaction, Coleridge Monroe found he was once more alone.
Reidsville, Colorado
September 1884
“I reckon you’re thinking this is a fool’s errand.”
Coleridge Monroe glanced up from closely watching his mare’s progress on the narrow mountain trail. He was convinced that her steadiness was directly related to his sharp eye, that if his attention wandered for long, she would happily throw him off. “You don’t strike me as a fool, Deputy,” he said.
Will Beatty turned easily in his saddle to get a look behind him. “Now that’s real kind of you to say so.” One corner of his mouth kicked up when he saw how closely Monroe was watching the mare’s step. The doctor had about as much schooling as a man could stand, but he didn’t know his way around a horse. “No point to you starin’ at her like that. I guess Dolly there knows this trail about as well as most trackers. Better than some.”
“Really.” Cole was skeptical.
“It’s a fact. She’s as sure-footed a mare as you’re likely to find in Joe Redmond’s livery, and she’s been all over the territory more than once.”
Cole dared to look off to his left where the side of the mountain seemed to have been sheared off by a single slashing stroke of the Almighty’s hand. He thought of the mountains back east, the ones with the rounded tops and less dramatic inclines, and decided that for all the majesty of the Rockies, he infinitely preferred the gentler, aged Allegheny and Appalachian ranges. He didn’t mention this to Will Beatty. The deputy was clearly comfortable with his surroundings. This climb was simply all in a day’s work, and this day being Monday, it was his turn to provide escort up the mountain to the town’s outliers and loners.
“You all right, Doc?” Will asked. His glance didn’t miss much as it took in Coleridge Monroe. The doc was long and lean, but he rode like he had a poker for a spine–one that had been inserted right up his ass, if Sid Walker was to be believed. Sid, who suffered from crippling rheumatism, made this pronouncement after meeting with Monroe for the first time and not caring for what the doctor had to tell him. Worse, he informed everyone, “He’s no Doc Diggins. Didn’t even offer me a drink.” Will was prepared to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, if not quite as much leeway as the women were. Every female in town seemed to like Coleridge Monroe just fine. Most of them had already found a symptom of one kind or another that required the new doc’s attention.
Will didn’t see that a thick head of hair the color of an old copper and a couple of green eyes were all that much to stamp the doc as handsome, but even his wife seemed to think different. Normally she was sensible about men, which served her well enough when she had been the town’s sole madam, but now that she was his wife, she liked to tease him by waxing on about Coleridge Monroe’s fine looks. Patrician, she called them. Outside of her hearing, he’d asked the sheriff what that meant. Noble, he’d been told. Women apparently said that when a man had a nose like a blade, a jawbone set so tight it could grind glass, and a certain remoteness that was not unattractive. Be that as it may, right now the noble doc looked as though he’d like to puke. Will thought that was probably why he took some pleasure in pointing it out. “If you don’t mind me saying, you’re looking a little peaked.”
Cole refocused his attention on Dolly’s progress. “Peaked. That’s a good word for it considering our location.”
It took Will a moment to catch the doctor’s meaning.
When he did, he slapped his thigh. “Well, I’ll be.” He grinned, and two deep, crescent-shaped dimples appeared on either side of his mouth. “That ain’t half bad. A little peaked.” His smile faded when he saw Coleridge start to weave in the saddle. “Lean forward. Grab Dolly’s mane. You gotta help her up the slope.”
Cole was loath to release the reins, so he plunged his gloved fingers into the mare’s ebony mane with the reins still wound between them. Dolly tossed her head at the suddenness of his move, but she held steady to the trail. Cole caught his breath, sucking in air between clenched teeth. Light-headedness faded.
“How you doin’?” Will asked. “Should we stop for a bit?”
“No.
