Miss Phipps and the Cattle Baron (19 page)

"Why didn't your neighbor report it to the
sheriff?" another woman asked.

The first woman gave a cynical laugh. "It
would be like sending the fox to guard the henhouse since the
lawmen are appointed by the cattlemen in the stockmen's
association."

Other women joined in...

"When one of them runs for mayor like Lord
Whittington it's all about helping cattlemen. He talks pretty but
it don't mean nothin'..."

"Then we'd better make sure he don't get into
office," another called out, "and make sure we get out there and
cast our votes..."

"Amen..."

The subject finally exhausted, the women
returned to dress reform and exercising in garments that didn't
restrict such activities as bicycling and playing tennis.

But now, Priscilla's attention was divided
between the women's accusatory words about Adam and the notion that
one of his men could have dragged off someone's fence, and the fact
that Trudy was still missing. Deciding to draw the meeting to a
close so she could search for Trudy, she raised her hands to get
the women's attention, and said, "Thank you all for coming tonight,
and for your subscriptions and contributions, and other support for
The Town Tattler
. We'll meet again in a week, and I'll be
posting on the front door where the next meeting will be, since
it's too crowded in here. I'll talk to the pastor about the meeting
room at the church."

After the women filed out, Priscilla was
about to get on her rover and pedal to Adam's house to see if Trudy
was there, since Adam's house was just on the next street and only
a few blocks down, when she heard harsh voices of what sounded like
a man and a woman arguing, the sound coming from just behind the
building. She rushed through the back room and swept open the door,
and was shocked to find Trudy with a tall, lean cowboy, who had his
arm in a sling.

'Jess shot at the young man to scare him off
and clipped him in the arm...

Trudy looked at Priscilla in alarm. "I swear
to you, Miss Priscilla, Tom didn't touch me," she said in a worried
voice. "I was telling him that he can't come here, that it's over
between us."

"You're Tom Rafferty," Priscilla said.

Eyes narrowed, he nodded, but said
nothing.

Priscilla eyed the sling. "What happened to
your arm, Mr. Rafferty?" she asked.

His face hardened and his lips compressed, as
if he were about to tell her it was none of her business. Then his
eyes shifted to Trudy and back to Priscilla, and he replied, "I was
cleaning my gun and it went off."

"You told me Tanner was holding the gun,"
Trudy said.

Tom's jaw muscles flexed and his eyes held a
hostile glint. "It was my gun."

"But you said that—"

"Hell, what difference does it make. I got
shot in the arm!"
He shoved his hat on his head and turned to
go. But as he was stepping off the back porch, Priscilla called
after him.

"Just a moment, Mr. Rafferty. I have
something else to say." She turned to Trudy, and said, "Please go
to your room, Trudy. I want to talk to Mr. Rafferty alone."

Trudy shot Tom one last look, then slipped
past Priscilla and dashed through the back room. A few moments
later, Priscilla heard footsteps ascending the stairs. Raising her
eyes from the sling, she said, "You'd better get your story
straight, Mr. Rafferty. The only part that rings true is that you
got shot, and I don't think the bullet came from your gun."

"You don't know what the hell you're talking
about," he said in a terse voice. "If I say I got shot with my own
gun, then that's what happened. You nesters come here taking up our
land and cutting off our water supply, and when something happens,
you blame us."

Priscilla felt anger coiling in her stomach,
not so much at his terse words, but because she knew he'd been one
of the men to tear down the fence. She suspected the other was the
one Trudy referred to as Tanner. But she refused to be intimidated
by the young man. "Nesters don't tear down nester's fences, Mr.
Rafferty. Cattlemen do that. But I didn't claim something happened,
nor did I blame you for anything. I only said that I didn't believe
the bullet you took came from your gun. But from what you just
said, I have to surmise that it came from someone else's gun, maybe
while they were trying to run you off their property while you were
in the process of tearing down their fence?"

His lips spread in a feigned smile. "If you
think that then why don't you tell the sheriff?"

"That would be pointless," Priscilla said.
"But I will tell Lord Whittington. He might be interested in your
conflicting stories. And one more thing before you go. Trudy's
under my care while she's here, and if you try to contact her
again, you'll be dealing with Lord Whittington about that as well.
From what I've heard, he isn't a man to trifle with."

Tom's eyes took on the glint of steel and his
nostrils flared, as he said, "Don't bother about going to
Whittington. I won't be coming around to see his daughter anymore
because I don't feel like getting my eyes scratched out by a
loose-tailed hellcat." He shot a spate of tobacco at the ground.
"As for what happened to my arm... Whittington already knows how I
got shot." He turned and walked away.

...Adam Whittington's behind it... sending
out his boys to do the dirty work...

It came to Priscilla that she really didn't
know Adam at all. Not only could he and his men be behind many of
the attacks on the homesteaders, but she'd never faced him when he
was angry. She'd been around him when he was irritated and annoyed,
but never when he was on the verge of losing control. His wife left
him for a reason, yet, he'd never said why, and she never asked.
She'd never been to his ranch to see how he lived out there, nor
had they expressed their views on religion or moral values or
almost anything else besides her newspaper and her desire to have
him in her bed.

If truth be known, all there was between them
was an obsessive physical attraction for each other bordering on
deviancy. At least on her part it seemed deviant. It was not normal
for a woman to lust after a man. Women were supposed to want tender
love and warm hugs and gentle kisses, and in return they were
duty-bound to alleviate the problem a man suffered when his male
part got hard. Which was the deviant part of her relationship with
Adam. She was the one who suffered when that happened, finding
herself frustrated, and aroused, and yearning for him to alleviate
his problem with her.

But that was about to change. The fact that
Adam found her attractive meant that other men could find her
attractive too, if she took some time with her appearance. Several
men bid on her picnic basket at the church social, and they looked
to be decent, God-fearing men who were quite presentable. And if
she happened to find a man to her liking, and he asked her to marry
him, she would very much like to be a virgin when he took her to
bed.

Feeling an uncommonly strong sense of
resolve, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. The next
time Adam attempted to take her in his arms, as he was certain to
do, he'd be expecting her to abandon herself to him, even strip off
her clothes and beg him to relieve her shameless need. But she
would steel herself against such wanton behavior. She'd let Adam
know that giving up her virginity to a man who she did not love,
and who she had no intention of marrying, was no longer an option.
Her maidenhead had been with her for thirty-nine years, and no
moment of unrestrained passion, or reckless surrender, or unhealthy
curiosity about what happens during the marital act was going to
strip it away.

Holding that thought, she walked through the
back room and headed for the stairs. For the first time since she'd
met Trudy, she felt qualified to talk to her about the sanctity of
remaining chaste until marriage. Or, if Trudy never married, to be
resigned to remaining a virgin for the duration of her life. But as
she started up the stairs, the bell over the front door jingled,
and when she turned around to see who it was, Adam stepped into the
room.

"Hello, love," he said. He tossed his hat
onto the printer lever and walked over to stand at the foot of the
stairs. The wide grin on his face, and the pronounced bulge in his
snug-fitting pants, left no question as to what was on his mind.
And the effect on her was immediate. And unwanted. Holding that
thought, she lifted her foot and backed up one step. "Before you
say anything," she said, "you need to know that Trudy's
upstairs."

"Not for much longer," Adam said in a low,
husky voice. his eyes slowly roamed down the length of Priscilla
and back up to focus on her breasts, leaving her feeling
breathless, and vulnerable, and wanting what she'd vowed to reject.
"She'll be going to her grandmother's tonight. Call her down and
I'll take her there now."

Her chest rising and falling with her deep,
erratic breaths, Priscilla backed up another step to put more
distance between them, while focusing on the reason she would not
let Adam in her bed tonight, or any other night. "After
the Town
Tattler
meeting this evening there was an incident here with
Trudy and Tom Rafferty," she said.

Adam's face sobered. "What do you mean, an
incident? What was he doing here?"

Priscilla knotted her fingers together to
still their nervous trembling and held her clasped hands against
her chest. "He found out Trudy was staying with me and they met on
the back porch during
the Town Tattler
meeting. I found them
there a few minutes ago."

"Bloody hell!"
Adam barked. "If the
young bloke had his hands on her I'll—"

"Nothing happened!" Priscilla cut in. "When I
found them, Trudy was in the midst of telling Tom that things were
over with them. She was quite angry with him, so I have no reason
to believe she'll be seeing him again. In fact, she's so caught up
in the women's suffrage movement and the
Miss Manners
column
that it may be a long time before she notices any young men at all,
so you can rest easy."

"Good," Adam said, "because I have other
things on my mind tonight."

"So do I." Priscilla's gaze dropped, and she
noted that Adam's breeches were stretched yet tighter. Looking up,
she saw the feral gleam in his eyes and knew he'd caught the focus
of her attention, which troubled her. He would not be getting what
he'd come for. There were too many things that needed to be sorted
through before that would change. Forcing herself to put aside all
wanton thoughts, she said, "Can we go outside where we can talk,
without Trudy hearing us?"

Adam held her gaze as he said, "I'd rather
talk in the back room. It's been a week since you bared your
breasts and I'm about to go mad with wanting to pleasure you
again."

Priscilla patted her chest, disturbed that
his words were making her breasts tingle and her nipples pucker.
But this time she would not let her passionate nature overrule her
better judgment. "We need to talk about that as well," she
said.

"I wasn't planning on talking at all this
time, love," he countered. "When I return from taking Trudy to her
grandmother's I want to find your bathtub filled, and you in it.
Tonight's going to be our night. But before we divest you of your
maidenhead, I'll want you to settle back in the water and close
your eyes and turn your body over to me so I can minister to the
places that bring you the greatest pleasure, and while I stroke and
tease and explore those private places, I'll watch the ecstasy on
your face, and hear the little moans and sighs you make that drive
me—"

"Stop!"
Priscilla said, raising her
palms toward him hold him where he was. She drew in a long ragged
breath to steady the irregular beating of her heart and focus on
the issue, which was not about the sexual pleasure Adam intended to
give to her. "Tom Rafferty had his arm in a sling," she said in a
firm voice.

Adam looked at her, annoyed. "I didn't come
to talk about Tom Rafferty either," he said, his voice no longer
playful. "Get Trudy down here so I can take her to my mother's or
it will be too late for her to arrive there."

Ignoring Adam's request, Priscilla said, in
an irritated voice, "You don't understand, Adam. At the meeting
tonight, a woman said that two nights ago two men came riding in to
her neighbor's place and tore down their wire fence, and that her
neighbor recognized the younger of the men as someone working for
you. She said her neighbor shot at the man and hit him in the arm,
and a few minutes ago Tom was here with his arm in a sling."

"He got shot when he was cleaning his gun,"
Adam said, without question.

"But he told Trudy that someone named Tanner
accidentally shot him. She corrected him when he told me he shot
himself, and he became angry and defensive when Trudy questioned
him about changing his story."

The expression on Adam's face hardened. "What
difference does it make?"

Feeling her anger mount, that Adam could be a
part of it, she said in an sharp voice, "It makes a difference
between you hearing a lie or hearing the truth. I believe that Tom
Rafferty was shot when he tore down a man's fence."

"My men are not going around tearing down
fences," Adam said in a gruff voice. "You're only hearing one side
of the story. Cattle rustling's rampant, and the homesteaders and
small ranchers are right in there with the outlaws and cattle
rustlers, carrying out nightly raids, where afterwards, cattle with
altered brands mysteriously appear behind their fences, and when
they're accused of stealing, the sheriffs they've appointed do
nothing."

"That's not the way I heard it," Priscilla
contested. "The women at the meeting claim that the cattlemen
appoint sheriffs who turn their backs on homesteaders when they
report incidents. They also believe you're behind the attacks on
the homesteaders, sending your men out to carry out your
orders."