huge bosoms, and an even huger bonnet. “There you go, Copeland. Have at ’er.”
Tight featured, Marcus stood. For one long, silent moment, he stared down at the bawdy caricature. “Very well,” he said at last. “I’ll find out if Miss Crabtree is the matchmaker.”
“And stop her!”
“Of course.”
“Then we’re all in agreement,” Jack said from his place at the bar. “We find this matchmaker, we find whatever it takes to prove that she’s behind the shenanigans, and we stop her. Marcus with Miss Molly, Daniel with Miss Sarah, and me—” he hesitated, seeming pained by the announcement “—with Miss Grace. All members in agreement?”
“Hell, yes!” cried the men. Hooting, stamping, clanking their glasses together in glee, they fell into clumps of four or five men each, ready to celebrate the impending downfall of the meddlesome matchmaker who had wrecked their peaceable lives.
“One more thing,” Marcus said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “The next man who treats a woman’s likeness and reputation this way—” he thumped the chalk drawing on the table, bringing his gaze to bear on the roomful of men “—will have me to answer to.”
A hush fell over the celebrants. Quickly the deputy stepped forward and rubbed away the image with his shirtsleeve. “Sorry,” he muttered. “No offense meant, Copeland. I thought you didn’t even know the gal.”
“I don’t.” But I will soon. Marcus slung his suit coat over his arm and gathered his ledgers. “But I won’t stand by and see a lady hurt. By anyone. For any reason.”
He gave the crowd another warning gaze, then turned his back on them and headed for the barred doors. The two barkeeps hurried forward to remove the barrier designed to insure the Morrow Creek Men’s Club’s privacy. Wearing jointly chagrined expressions, they waved Marcus through.
Outside he paused, listening as the doors were barred shut again and the revelry resumed. Shaking his head, Marcus followed the moonlit path toward his house at the edge of town.
Cool, pine-scented air filled his lungs and restored his good humor. Before he’d walked very far, he was fairly champing at the bit to locate Miss Molly Crabtree tomorrow. If she was the matchmaker, stopping her activities would improve work at his lumber mill and fulfill his promise to the men’s club, both. All he needed was a little ingenuity. A lot of patience. And a plan.
A plan to restore peace. A plan to set things right again, the way they should be. With a little effort, he decided, it shouldn’t be all that difficult.
After all, Molly Crabtree was a woman. A woman engaged, oddly enough, in trade, but a woman nonetheless. How much trouble could she possibly be?
Whistling, Marcus went forward, feeling more than ready to meet the task that awaited him.
Chapter Two
M olly Crabtree just knew she could make a success of her new bakery business…if only she could get outside her family’s front door and get to it.
But today, like nearly every day since she’d opened her shop, Molly was waylaid halfway across the parlor rug by a passel of well-meaning family members. Before long, escape seemed impossible.
Her mother entered the room first, clapping her hands together. “Wait just a minute, Molly May,” she ordered.
Stifling a sigh, Molly turned. She hated it when anyone called her by her full name, as though she were a five-year-old in short skirts, instead of a fully grown woman of twenty-four.
“You’re not seriously contemplating walking to your shop, are you? Alone?” Fiona Crabtree asked. Her upswept gray curls shivered with dismay, and her lips turned downward in a way that never failed to stir guilt, and exasperation, in Molly’s heart.
“I am, Mama. It’s not far, you know.”
Fiona lowered her gaze to the wicker basket filled with cinnamon, a dozen eggs and a cone of fresh sugar that Molly had tucked beneath her arm. As though her youngest daughter had never spoken, she continued, “And with a heavy bundle like that, too? Why, it just won’t do. I’ll send for Ambrose to come drive you in the newspaper’s wagon.”
“Mama, thank you, but I—”
“Not while she’s wearing that blue gingham of mine, I hope!” Out of breath, Sarah Crabtree hurried downstairs with an armload of schoolbooks for her students, eyeballing the gown Molly had filched from their shared bureau this morning. “Papa’s wagon will make it filthy in no time. Do you know how difficult it is to wash out printer’s ink?”
“I promise to take care of it, Sarah,” Molly protested. “As for the wagon—” she faced her mother again, and was dismayed to find Fiona reaching toward her head with a gleam in her eyes—one Molly recognized perfectly well as an uncontrollable desire to redo the chignon she’d already set in her hair. “—please don’t bother Ambrose. I don’t mind walking.”
“You’d best take a shawl, then.” Grace Crabtree, pink cheeked from an early-morning bicycling jaunt with her ladies’ group, paused at the parlor’s entrance, then headed upstairs. Her new custom-made bicycling costume flounced cheerily all the way up the steps. “It’s brisk outside this shortly after sunrise, Moll.”
Molly sighed. A moment later, the family’s cook bustled in from the kitchen at the rear of the house, carrying a napkin-wrapped piece of toasted bread.
She held it toward Molly. “You forgot your breakfast.”
Exasperated, Molly stared at the strawberry jam gleaming atop the toasted bread. To be sure, she loved her family. But just once, she wanted to be treated as though she knew enough to dress properly, confront the weather appropriately, get herself to her shop efficiently…and eat when she needed to. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was a capable woman in her own right?
It was as though she’d never grown up at all. Her family still treated Molly like the four-year-old who’d danced with an imaginary friend. Like the nine-year-old who’d lost countless gloves and hats during daydreaming walks to school. Like the fourteen-year-old who’d expressed an urgent desire to become a famous stage actress and had lost all her meager nest egg buying a talent potion from a persuasive drummer. It was true that Molly was sometimes given to flights of fancy. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself, given the opportunity.
Now, though, despite her efforts, Molly had begun to wonder whether that opportunity would ever arrive.
“Thank you,” she murmured, electing to take the bread rather than begin yet another battle she couldn’t win. “Now, I really must be going. Good morning, everyone!”
Juggling her wicker basket of supplies under one arm and the unwanted breakfast in her other hand, Molly stepped toward the parlor doorway to retrieve her bonnet. Almost there. The carved oak of the front door beckoned her, promising escape to a world of her design, only a few feet away.
Her father’s face popped into view as he rounded the banister and leapt from the staircase with his characteristic energy. Shrieking in surprise, Molly jumped. Her basket tumbled. The toasted bread flew upward, then came down again with a swiftness that defied even her father’s speedy movements.
It
