Always (17 page)

With a start, he jerked his attention back to her face. What was wrong with him? Hadn’t he learned anything from the past? There was no surer way to get into trouble than to begin thinking of Emily as a woman.
Again
. Oh, hell...

Ross wasn’t sure how long he stood immobile in the archway before realizing that Freddy or one of the other fellas was bound to look up and notice something was wrong.

Wrong? Ridiculous. Nothing was wrong.

He crossed the office and stood beside Emily’s desk until she was forced to look up at him. She donned her usual expression of subtle annoyance.

“Here,” he said, shoving the envelope into her hand before she could speak.

She looked astonished. “What...?”

“The matter we spoke of on Saturday.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The money,” he said, lowering his voice.

She stared at him.

Ross glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was paying attention to their exchange. “Just take it.”

“Ross, I... I mean, can you afford to—”

“I’m fine. I’ve already gotten some back pay, and there’s still more coming. Besides, in another month, I’m—” He cut off. In another month he’d be marrying into the Davenport family. Money would be the least of his worries.

Emily looked away, fingering the envelope indecisively, then she opened a desk drawer and extracted her handbag. “I’ll pay you back,” she said quietly, “with interest.”

“I don’t take interest from you. We’ll talk later if you want.”

She stuffed the envelope into her handbag and closed the desk drawer, still not meeting his gaze. “Why?”

“Because you were right. I should have trusted you. You wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important.”

She looked up at him, and for the first time in a long while, the sweet, vulnerable spirit he remembered behind those magnificent sea blue eyes was left unguarded. “Thank you, Ross.”

Ross
.
Not
Mr. Gallagher.

“You’re welcome.” Sucking in his breath, he turned away. As he crossed the hall to the city room, his hands were clenched into fists.

He’d set out to make things right between them, to see her look at him with something other than distrust and disapproval, but now he wondered if he’d just opened both of them to consequences he hadn’t foreseen. Was it wrong to try to rebuild bridges that he himself had burned long ago? He was no longer so sure of the answer.

Chapter Twelve

Friday came as a welcome relief. Ross had suffered through not only one town council meeting, but three Davenport family meals. Consequently, he had found little time to work on house repairs or his novel. The few attempts he’d made to put words on paper had been hampered by thoughts of Emily.

He’d hoped that lending her the money would ease the tension between them, and it had. Some. Her wariness had diminished, but she hadn’t explained what the money was for. Also, in contrast to her first two weeks on the job, she now seemed scattered and distracted. Every day, without fail, at barely one minute past five o’clock, she rushed from the office, buzzing down the hall like a bee on a mission.

Ross was worried. What could she need a hundred dollars for? Where was she rushing to after work? He was convinced that her sudden need for a loan and the dark circles under her eyes were connected. There were rumors that Emily and Karl Becker had been seen walking arm in arm down the street. Could her problem have something to do with Karl?

Ross had snapped more than one pencil at this possibility.

He glanced at the wall clock near his desk in the city room. Ten to five. Quickly, he put the finishing touches on an article for Saturday’s first edition and signaled to one of the copyboys, a gangling adolescent named Ignatz Metzger.

“Take this to the composing room. Tell Mr. Davenport I’ll be in tomorrow morning to sort through the wires. I’m leaving early tonight.”

The boy’s forehead wrinkled with concern. “Not feeling good?”

“Uh, that’s right.” Ross felt a twinge of guilt for lying to the lad. Iggy was earnest and hardworking. He reminded Ross of the bugle boys in his regiment. Too intense, too idealistic, and possessed with the same sort of burning, blind patriotism that had sent so many underage volunteers scurrying to swell the ranks of both armies.

“What is it?” Iggy persisted. “Not the ague, I hope?”

“Uh, no,” Ross said, trying to put the boy’s mind at ease. “Just some indigestion.”

Iggy was not put at ease in the least. He looked horrified. “Stomach trouble! Flux! My uncle was down with it last week.”

“It’s not that bad.” Ross glanced at the wall clock again and stood, reaching for the suit coat he’d draped over the back of his chair. Three minutes to five. He didn’t want to miss Emily tonight. He was determined to find out what was going on.

“Don’t go wastin’ money on them pain and indigestion pills. Get yourself some of that ginseng tea. That’s what my ma says. Ginseng tea for stomach distress.”

“I’ll do that.” Ross started across the city room, heading for the door.

“Ginseng plus black cherry plus yellowroot makes a good tonic,” Iggy called after him. “’Specially when you add some whiskey. That’s what my ma says.”

“Thanks, Ig. See you tomorrow.”

No sooner did Ross pull open the door than he caught a glimpse of Emily’s dark skirt disappearing around the corner.

That was close. One more home remedy from Ignatz’s mother and Ross would have missed her. He waited for her to clear the stairs before following. Upon emerging on the street, he spotted her heading west toward home. Could he be wrong? All these evenings when she’d rushed from the office, was she simply eager to get home after a hard day’s work? Then she entered Wilkerson’s Hardware and Farm Implements Store.
Hardware?

She emerged a few minutes later, crossing the street and heading back in the same direction from which she’d come. As Ross followed at a distance, she turned on the corner of Queen and headed north. But this wasn’t the way home, this was the way to—

When she stopped at her father’s old print shop, she pulled a key from her handbag and threw a quick glance over her shoulder. The furtiveness of this action, the implicit guilt, was not lost on Ross. Maybe that was because he knew her too well.

After the door closed behind her, Ross took up a post across the street, folding his arms and leaning up against the front of a furnishings store. Ten minutes passed before he pulled out his pocket watch. It was clear that whatever she was up to these days was happening inside that shop.

Stuffing his watch back into his pocket, Ross swore under his breath. The shade was still pulled on the door glass, and the window shutters remained closed. Of course, he could be wrong, but he was already getting a bad feeling, like maybe he knew exactly what she was up to but wished he hadn’t poked his nose into it.

“Emily Elizabeth,” he muttered, “for once, please prove me wrong.”

He crossed the street and tried the front door. The knob turned easily and he stepped inside. An unnatural quiet greeted him when he closed the door.

Intellectually, he’d known what to expect, but emotions were not governed by intellect. Although Emily was nowhere in sight, she had pulled open the shutters in the back of the shop. There was enough light to illuminate a scene that instantly and profoundly depressed him.

With no windows open for ventilation, the heat and humidity was oppressive. The place smelled like an old attic. Some of the furniture and equipment had been moved out, and there was dust everywhere, thick coats of it on the empty desk tops. On the floor, a flurry of crisscrossing feminine footprints only served to accentuate an impression of abandonment.

No pulse
, he thought as he started through the shop. He remembered what it was like when he worked here as an errand boy and, much later, when he served his short stint as a reporter.

He imagined the office as it had once been, teeming with conscientious employees. He could almost see Jason Willoughby standing before his composing desk, setting type and chatting with his coworkers. He could almost hear Billy O’Leary’s barreling laugh over the scrape and groan of the double-cylinder press. He could imagine Nathaniel clenching his white meerschaum pipe in his teeth and crumpling a sheet of paper to send it hurtling into a wastebasket. And he saw Emily, nearly all grown up, ebony hair streaming smooth, dazzling lines down her back, a pencil tucked behind her ear, and her flounced skirt bouncing as she followed on her father’s heels to his office
. “Papa! If we order from out of town, we can save three percent. I have the figures right here, see?”

The shop had always had an urgent, thriving blood pulse of its own, a life force sparked and infused by Nathaniel’s boundless spirit, his dogged adherence to principle, and the sheer, raw energy he brought to his work. Now it was gone.

Almost.

As Ross approached the back of the shop he caught a whiff of a fresh and familiar odor—turpentine?—just before seeing that a desk, a worktable, and the job press were clean of dust. Stacks of paper, cut to different sizes, were bundled with twine. On a composing desk, two drawers of type were pulled open. A composing stick and a half-filled galley lay out on the sloped frame above it.

Work in progress?

Ross appraised the items on the worktable: billheads, circulars, business cards, and menus. A pile of print orders lay next to the stack. The date scrawled in the right hand corner of the first order was today, and the customer was Henry Wilkerson. Ross realized then why Emily had behaved so oddly the day he’d stumbled upon her in the front business office. He’d attributed her nervousness to defensiveness. Now he knew exactly what he’d read on her face. Guilt.

At the sound of rapid footsteps on the back stairs, Ross turned to see Emily in the open archway, clutching a thick batch of paper to her chest. Her face went white. “Ross.”

“Emily.”

She glanced about as if to be sure he hadn’t brought an army of constables with him. “What are you doing here?”

“I followed you.”

“Good heavens, why?”

“I was worried.”

“You needn’t be.”

“Oh? I’m not so sure. What’s this?” He pointed to the bundle of menus. “And
this
?” He snatched business cards that read
Karl
Becker, Law office of David Stauffer, Atty
. and waggled them at her before throwing them down. “Don’t even tell me.”

At his tone, she lifted her chin. “All right. I won’t.”

“You’re filling print orders.”

“Obviously.” By now, she had recovered some of her composure. She moved to the worktable as if nothing were amiss.

“Is this what the money was for?” he demanded.

“Rent,” she said, throwing down her supply of clean paper. “I’ll need some time before I’ll be able to turn a profit, and the lease was due to expire very soon.”

“A profit? You really expect to make a profit? When? Next year? How are you going to keep this up till then?”

“I have to take this one day at a time, Ross, otherwise I’ll defeat myself before I start.” Brushing by him, she moved to the composing desk. “Don’t worry. Whatever happens, I’ll be sure to pay you back.”

“I don’t care about getting paid back! That’s not my point.”

“Well, then, what is your point?”

“All this... this...” Ross found himself at a loss for words, a rare condition he despised. He gestured to the print orders. “It’s... it’s unethical!”

The line of her jaw hardened as she picked up the composing stick and began plucking type from an open case. “What’s unethical?”

“These are Davenport’s customers. He’s your employer. What you’re doing amounts to stealing behind his back. Even you have to admit there’s something not quite right about that.”

“Ha!” Apparently he’d struck a nerve. Emily slammed down the composing stick and turned on him. “I’ll tell you what’s not quite right. I spoke to Henry Wilkerson and Jack Martin, who runs that little grocery on King. I also talked to David Stauffer, the lawyer Karl works for. Do you know what they all have in common?”

She didn’t wait for a reply but plowed ahead, jabbing a finger at his chest. “I’ll tell you what they have in common. They all rent their shop space from Malcolm Davenport or one of his partners, and they were all former advertisers with the
Penn Gazette
. They all ended up pulling their advertising from the
Gazette
shortly before it went out of business. You know why?”

Ross folded his arms. “No, why?”

“All three of them said that when it came time to negotiate new leases, they were shocked to learn that their rents would double. None of them wanted to move, but they couldn’t afford that kind of increase.”

“Well, that’s a shame, Emily, but there’s nothing very unusual about any of that.”

“But that’s not all. The upshot of the matter was that if they would agree to pull their advertising from the
Gazette
, then a more reasonable rate could be negotiated. One hand washes the other. That’s what Malcolm’s lawyer told David Stauffer.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Why would all three men lie? In fact, they’re part of a minority who will even talk to me about it, so you can bet there are a lot more like them. That sure helps explain why the
Gazette
’s advertising revenues dipped so drastically almost overnight.”

Ross dropped his arms. “Oh, damn.”

“Eloquently put. My feelings exactly.” Having finished presenting her case, Emily snatched up her composing stick and resumed work.

“I have a hard time believing that even Malcolm would sink that low.”

“Why not? Papa’s business was growing and his wasn’t. He couldn’t control all the new subscriptions that were pouring in from around the county, but he sure could affect a lot of the city businesses who advertised in the
Gazette
. Maybe now you can see why I’m not particularly concerned about the ethical ramifications of stealing back a few print customers from under that scoundrel’s nose.”