Lucy's Liberation [Elk Creek 2] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (5 page)

Lucy didn’t think anyone had ever looked at her like that, with love in their heart as well lust. Rance certainly hadn’t looked at her with love. Rance had seemed to have only disgust in his heart when it had come to Lucy, barely tolerating her physically. She wondered now if he had ever had a tender emotion for anyone or anything in the world at all besides his money.

“All what excitement?” Lucy finally rasped. Her vocal cords and tongue were so dry from disuse that she lifted her cup and took a sip of tea to wet her whistle. It didn’t matter none that Maia and Sabrina were always encouraging her to voice her opinions, pursue her dreams and tried to include her in everything they did at Healing Magick. After several months of living at the boarding house, Lucy still preferred listening over talking. She liked slipping into the background, wishing she were a ghost that no one noticed or took any interest in. When people took an interest in and noticed her, it usually meant one thing and one thing only—they wanted to use her. It was better to be invisible and not bring attention to herself than to be trod over like a doormat when people realized she was so weak-willed and
soft
.

She never used to be this way. What had happened to her backbone? Had she finally let Rance break her? Had he, in death, managed to do what he hadn’t been able to do in life?

“You’re not going to believe it, but word is from reliable sources that the recently deceased Ethan Crawford has arisen from the dead as of last night,” Maia said.

Lucy choked on the tea she had just taken a sip of and started coughing.

Maia patted her on the back as she caught her breath and tried to deal with the shock.

Ethan Crawford was alive?

Of course nothing concerning Ethan meant no never mind to Lucy anyway. Sure, she had been smitten with him a long while back when they were both still in school together. Now, however, she had bigger fish to fry. She was a widow with an estate in probate and a will she was in the process of contesting with Thayne and Maia’s help. She wasn’t a kid anymore and Ethan wasn’t her concern, nor was the gossip.

Still, Lucy couldn’t help asking. “How?”

Sabrina finally took her seat between Joshua and Luke—Lucy wondered if she realized how natural and cozy the three of them looked sitting together like that—and leaned in over the table. “Well, it seems while Kelly O’Brien was in the middle of preparing the body for its final resting place, Ethan sneezed and just popped right up asking why it was so cold in the place.”

“You’re joshing,” Lucy blurted. The story was just too incredible to believe, then she remembered that incident several months back about the time that Rance was found dead, when a lynch mob had tried to hang Cade Malloy for the disappearance of a few of the town’s boys.

Ain’t a one of the people that had been in the stable that day could rightly swear to what had actually happened. There were stories about a loud explosion and a blinding flash of light and before anyone knew anything, Prentice was hanging from the noose he had put around Cade’s neck and Cade was safe on the ground below. It was the darnedest thing she’d ever heard.

Lucy took another sip of tea, swallowing over the sudden lump in her throat.

How could she take on so over a man she’d barely known? How could she mourn someone who had been so bad and had tried to hurt people she now considered her friends?

She had thought Prentice might have been different from Rance and the cronies Rance passed her around to at the saloon when he was feeling in a generous mood. She had thought maybe Prentice might not have been such a bad sort, certainly not as bad as Rance, even if he wasn’t a good as Thayne and Cade.

Lucy closed her eyes for a moment and good Lord she could just see that man, all lean and handsome in his fancy, citified duds, the curly, wheat-blond hair hidden beneath his hat, the intense, hazel-green eyes that looked at her as if she was the only woman alive in the world.

Prentice had been so different from Rance in every way. He’d been educated and refined.

He’d smelled nice and looked even better. He’d gone out of his way to make her feel good when all Rance had ever done was make her feel like a cow patty on the bottom of his boot.

How could someone like Prentice, someone with the face of an angel and a voice that could melt a woman’s skin from her bones, be so cruel?

Sabrina sat back in her chair and crossed her heart. “I’m not joshing.”

“Has anyone seen him since…since last night?” The entire conversation was making Lucy shiver as if someone was walking over her grave.

She had heard her share of ghost stories before and she had her superstitions like everyone else, but before the stable incident she had never experienced anything so out of this world as dead bodies coming back to life.

It all made her wonder if there was some way Prentice might still be alive.

She had never gotten over the feeling that he wasn’t really dead, that somehow he had survived and the story had just got all jumbled up by the witnesses.

Everyone around the table shook their heads in response to Lucy’s question about Ethan.

“I reckon we’ll all get a gander at Lazarus when we go into town,” Sabrina said.

Lucy couldn’t figure out whether she was looking forward to going into the shop this morning or not now. She usually loved going into work with Sabrina and Maia. She learned so much about business from them and had discovered she had quite a mind for numbers and calculations. She also found that she liked dealing with the customers. She never felt more alive and useful than when she helped someone find something they wanted from the various shelves lining the store’s floor or when she rang up their purchases and sent them on their merry way.

Through Maia and Sabrina and her work at Healing Magick, she had also gotten to know many of Elk Creek’s more well-heeled ladies who frequented the shop and asked her for her suggestions on what potions she thought would help with their monthly or what potions were best to smooth out wrinkles.

“Is hearing all this upsetting your appetite, honey?” Maia asked and put a gentle hand over Lucy’s on the table.

“Oh my goodness! I’m sorry, Lucy. I didn’t think. You and Ethan grew up together, didn’t you?” Sabrina chimed in.

Lucy nodded. “It’s not upsetting. It was more upsetting hearing about his death. This is good news.”

“I surely thought it was,” Sabrina said.

Lucy fell silent again, wondering how Ethan’s momma and daddy were taking the news.

She knew they had recently thrown him out of the house after he had taken up with some unsavory character that had come into town a few months ago.

How distressing must it have been when Jed and Wiley came a-calling with the bad news that they had found Ethan dead?

She guessed everything had turned out okay, for all concerned, now that Ethan was alive though. Even if she still didn’t know all the hows and whys of it, she was happy for Clint and Kate. She knew they must be jumping for joy to have their son back.

If Ethan could get a second chance, then maybe she could, too. Lucy hoped she didn’t have to die in order to get it, though.

A sharp knock at the front door interrupted her ruminating and everyone at the table exchanged raised-brow looks.

It was a little early for anyone to come calling except that everyone in town knew Sabrina’s boarding house was open morning, noon, and night. True, Sabrina was a businesswoman, but more importantly she was always ready to take in someone who needed a helping hand. Some of the more snooty citizens of Elk Creek referred to Sabrina’s patrons as strays. They figured any visitor of note or worth would surely stay at the hotel in the center of town.

“I guess I’d better go see who that is.” Sabrina stood and wiped her hands on the front of her apron then gave everyone at the table a playful-mean stare. “Y’all get back to your ingesting, especially you, missy.” She pointed at Lucy here. “You’ve been looking a mite scrawny lately and I won’t have you wasting away to nothing under
my
roof.”

Lucy frowned but Sabrina left the kitchen before she could defend herself.

Maia chuckled and patted her hand. “Don’t let her get to you. She’s always harping on me being too skinny and that I need to put meat on my bones. I always take it as a compliment.”

Strangely, Lucy took Sabrina’s words as a compliment, too. Rance had always declared she was a fat frump and that’s why he couldn’t stand to bed her. Times like those she thanked her lucky stars she wasn’t as fetching as some of the other girls she had caught her husband ogling.

Not a moment later Sabrina came back to the kitchen, trailing a spiffily-dressed stranger looking as eye-catching as a sparkly new coin.

Lucy’s mouth dropped open at how out-of-place he looked in Sabrina’s prettily decorated but modest and homey kitchen.

Clad in a black tailcoat with velvet trim, a high-collared white dress shirt, black trousers, tanned double-breasted vest, black paisley ascot and shiny black lace-up boots, the stranger looked liked he had just stepped from the pages of a Jane Austen novel.

He swept off his black top hat with a flourish, revealing a head full of glorious, light golden-brown waves as he turned in her direction. “Lucy Peyton, I presume?”

Momentarily speechless, Lucy put her hand to her throat like a Victorian romance heroine trying to calm her heart. She tilted back her head to look into the stranger’s impossibly long-lashed, sky-blue eyes. Good Lord he was a tall drink of water! “Y–Yes. I’m…I’m Lucy.”

His smile proved wicked and knee-weakening and before Lucy had a chance to recover, he bowed without once taking his razor sharp gaze off of her. She felt like he had stripped her naked right there at the breakfast table without even touching her with his hands.

“Well, Lucy, I’m Hezekiah Benjamin. I believe you summoned me.”

Ki felt comfortable and right at home in Elk Creek’s law office. It wasn’t as polished and sleek, or as expensively furnished as some of the law offices he’d visited back in New York, but it had its own charms.

He could tell, however, that Lucy Peyton was very uncomfortable in the office. She hadn’t stopped fidgeting since they’d first arrived thirty minutes earlier and she’d taken the seat between him and Cody Paxton. Her movements weren’t anything overt, but he felt any subtle shift of her head or limbs. Perhaps he was just extra-sensitive to
her
.

Once the will’s executor went over what Rance’s wishes were for his worldly possessions—one of which seemed to include Lucy—Ki well understood why Lucy was in such a state and why she had written to him sounding as harried and indignant as she had.

To finish, the lawyer explained the stipulations that would decide how Uncle Rance’s property would finally be assigned.

On the face of it, the will was legal and sound. Ki knew that it was technically enforceable as far as the parties were willing to abide the stipulations, hence the estate being in probate. However, his stepfather always said every contract had a loophole and there was certainly nothing forcing Lucy or Cody to follow the stipulations of the will unless, of course, she wanted the saloon, house, and other assets in question.

Hence, this explained the presence of her friend Thayne Malloy endeavoring to contest the will on Lucy’s behalf.

Even if the good doctor had been a lawyer instead of in the medical profession, however, Ki didn’t think he had much of a chance to successfully contest the will or overturn the court’s decision.

Uncle Rance had left the running and ownership of Peyton’s to Cody Paxton until such time that Lucy agreed to the terms of the will. As ludicrous as the stipulations seemed to any sane person, especially to Lucy and her friend, it appeared that Uncle Rance had dotted all his I’s and crossed all his T’s in the matter.

The lawyer folded his hands on the ledger and other legal papers spread out on his shiny mahogany desk and sat back in his seat as if waiting for Ki’s response.

Evidently, Ki was the only one in the room who wasn’t aware of the complete terms of his uncle’s will before today. Now that he knew them, he could well understand why everyone’s gazes in the office were now pinned on him.

He was beginning to understand the reasons behind Lucy’s letter just a little more.

She wanted him to contest the will with her and perhaps prevent her from having to marry and stay married to this Cody Paxton for a year. Otherwise, everything went to Ki free and clear, or as free and clear as anything could be in this absurd matter.

What Ki didn’t understand was her reluctance to marry Mr. Paxton.

He wasn’t a bad-looking fellow as far as most of the cowboys in this uncultured town went and he seemed a decent enough sort. It wasn’t as if Lucy could do much better for herself in Elk Creek and it wasn’t as if she’d have to stay married to Paxton forever. Once the terms of the will had been met, she only had to stay married to Paxton for a year before everything would go to her free and clear.

She could do a lot worse.

Ki also knew she could do a lot better and his heart began to pound with the ideas formulating in his mind.

What Ki was about to suggest would certainly put a crimp in whatever plans Mr. Paxton had, so he mentally prepared himself for the man’s resistance. What man wouldn’t want to spend a year married to Lucy, after all? She was a young, beautiful woman. Sure, Lucy could do a lot worse than Paxton, but Ki knew that Paxton couldn’t do much better than Lucy.