Printer in Petticoats (5 page)

Chapter Six

J
essamine headed across the street, her footsteps crunching against the frost-painted boardwalk; it was so slick she had to concentrate to keep her balance. Mercy, it was cold this morning! She saw no sign of life at the
Lark
office, so she bent and carefully laid the Wednesday edition of her
Sentinel
against Cole Sanders's door.

Back in her own office, she turned her backside to the potbellied stove in the corner and rubbed her frozen hands together.

“Cold out, huh, Jess?”

“You know it is, Eli. The temperature outside is below freezing.”

“Gonna be a lot hotter when Sanders wakes up and reads yer editorial.”

She ducked her head to hide her smile. “Cole Sanders is a grown man, Eli. Sticks and stones and so on.”

“Yep, reckon so. Names ain't never hurt you, huh?”

Jess sobered instantly. Names
had
hurt her. When she was young and just starting out to help her papa and Miles on the newspaper, her schoolmates had teased her mercilessly about her ambition to be a journalist. “What d'ya wanna do that for? Too ugly to get a husband? Boys don't like brainy girls, smarty-pants!”

And it was names in an editorial her brother had printed that had cost him his life; that had hurt even worse. After Papa died, she and her older brother had moved out West and Miles had taken her under his wing.

She had been just a young girl, but he had begun teaching her about operating a newspaper, things her father had never let her do such as cleaning the ink off the rollers and setting type. Miles had also let her try her hand at writing stories, and he instructed her in the basics of journalism—being accurate and objective.

Then Miles had been killed, and now she was struggling to carry on the newspaper he had established in Smoke River.

Jess didn't really think Cole Sanders would shoot her for writing an inflammatory editorial. But she would wager he might
want
to. She bit the inside of her cheek. This morning she couldn't help wondering what the no-nonsense editor of the
Lake County Lark
would do about the editorial she'd published.

She kept one eye on the front windows of the
Lark
office across the street and set about planning her Saturday issue. She'd write a feature story about the new choir Ellie Johnson would be directing, and another article on the children's rhythm band the music school director, Winifred Dougherty, was starting, together with the director's plea for a violin teacher. Maybe she'd add an interview with the sheriff's wife, Maddie Silver; what it was like being the mother of twin boys while also a Pinkerton agent?

Across the street the front door of the
Lark
office banged open and Jess caught her breath. Then just as suddenly it slammed shut. Cole had picked up her newspaper and retreated inside. She waited, her heart pounding.

Eli held up the flask of “medicinal” whiskey he kept under the counter. “Want a snort?”

“Certainly not.” She tried not to watch the front door of the
Lark
office, and then suddenly it flew open again. She gasped and held her hand out to Eli. “Well, maybe just a sip.”

Cole Sanders started across the street toward her, his head down, his hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans, and a copy of her newspaper stuffed under his arm. Jess uncorked Eli's whiskey bottle and glugged down a double swallow.

Cole marched straight for her office, his face stern, his boots pounding the muddy street. Jess bit her lip, stiffened her spine and laid her hand on the doorknob. She would do her best to smile and graciously welcome him inside.

But she glimpsed his brown sheepskin jacket moving past her front window and on down the boardwalk.

The air in her lungs whooshed out. What on earth? Didn't he want to yell at her about her editorial? She'd used the word
insidious
more than once, and
nasty
at least twice. And her new favorite word,
larcenous
; she'd used that one three times. She really relished
larcenous.
She'd even put it in boldface type.

Wasn't Mr. Sanders livid with fury?

She couldn't stand the suspense. She grabbed her heavy wool coat and knitted green scarf off the hook by the door.

“Hey, Jess,” Eli yelled. “Where are ya...?” She blotted out his voice and sped down the frost-slick sidewalk.

Then her steps slowed. Drat. If Cole stopped at the Golden Partridge she couldn't follow him. No lady entered a saloon.

But he strode past the Golden Partridge and entered the restaurant nearby. Thank the Lord. She could unobtrusively steal inside, sit in one corner sipping a cup of tea and watch his face while he read her editorial.

She tiptoed inside the deserted restaurant, shed her coat and scarf and hung them on the maple coat tree in the corner. “Hot tea, please, Rita,” she whispered.

Cole sat with his back to her, calmly sipping a mug of steaming coffee. But he wasn't reading her newspaper. He was gazing out the front window. And humming! She recognized the tune, “The Blue-Tail Fly.”

Rita brought her a ceramic pot of tea, plunked it down and tipped her gray-bunned head toward the front table. “Kinda odd, you two settin' in the same room but not havin' breakfast together.”

“Oh, Mr. Sanders and I are not together.”

The waitress blinked. “No? Shoot, I thought—”

“Sure we're together,” Cole said without turning around.

Jess jumped. The man must have ears like a foxhound.

“You misspelled
larcenous
,” he called.

“What? I thought you hadn't read my editorial yet.”

He maneuvered his chair around to face her. “Oh, I've read it all right. Like I said, you misspelled—”

“I heard you the first time,” she retorted.

“Never figured you for a sloppy writer, Miss Lassiter.”

“I never figured you for a schoolmarm, Mr. Sanders.”

“Point taken.” He rose and came across the room to her table. “Scrambled eggs?”

“No, thank you. I am having tea.”

“Rita, scramble up some eggs for me and the lady. Add some bacon, too.”

Rita bobbed her head, hid a smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

“Cold out this morning,” Cole said amiably.

“Very.” Jess fiddled with her napkin, refolded it into a square, then shook it out and folded it again. “Very well, how
do
you spell
larcenous
?”

“Hell, I don't know. Got your attention, though, didn't it?”

She bit her lip. “It most certainly did. Are you always so underhanded?”

“Nope. Hardly ever, in fact.”

“Only with me, is that it?”

Cole leaned across the table toward her and lowered his voice. “Jessamine, if you don't stop worrying your teeth into your lips like that, so help me I'm going to kiss you right here in front of everybody.”

Her eyes rounded into two green moons. “I. Beg. Your. Pardon?”

“You heard me. Stop biting your lips.”

She turned the color of strawberry jam. “What business is it of yours what I do with my lips?”

“None at all. But I'm only human, and I'm male, so stop it.”

She tossed her napkin onto the table and started up, but he snaked out his hand and closed his fingers around her wrist.

“Sit.” He gave a little tug and her knees gave way.

“Now,” he said in a businesslike tone. “We're gonna have a council of war, Miss Lassiter, so listen up.”

She opened her mouth, then closed it with a little click, and he proceeded.

“Some things are fair in journalistic jockeying, and some things are hitting below the belt. What you wrote about Conway Arbuckle is below the belt.”

“What things?”

He dragged her newspaper from inside his jacket pocket, spread it flat on the table and tapped his forefinger on her editorial. “That he's larcenous. And that he's a cheat. You shouldn't sling mud around with accusations like that unless you can back them up with facts.”

“What if I
can
back them up?”

“I'm betting that you can't.”

“How would you know?”

“Jessamine, you keep this up and Arbuckle will sue you for everything you've got.”

Her face turned whiter than the tablecloth. She studied the teapot, her spoon, the squashed napkin that lay on the table between them. At last she looked up at him, and his heart flopped into his belly.

Tears welled in her eyes. Big shiny tears that made him want to lick them off her cheeks.

“When Miles...” She bit her trembling lip and Cole stifled a groan.

“My brother was always the brainy one,” she said on a shaky breath. “We came from a long line of newspaper publishers, our great-grandfather in England, and our grandfather and father in Boston. Papa taught Miles everything, and I...well, I just tagged along because I was a girl. When Papa died we came out West to start over on our own, and then...then Miles was killed and I—I am doing my best to carry on the family tradition. “

“And you're doing fine, Jessamine. But you might, uh, ask Sheriff Jericho Silver what his law books say about defamation of character. And libel.”

The color drained from her face. “L-libel? Miles never talked about libel.”

“That's probably what got your brother killed. Jessamine, exactly how much do you know about editing a newspaper?”

She drew herself up so stiff he thought she'd pop the buttons off her red gingham shirtwaist. “I know enough,” she said in a tight voice.

“Not hardly.” He tried to gentle his voice, but he was irritated. Damn fool woman. No doubt she'd stepped up to fill her brother's shoes and take on the newspaper, and he had to admire her for that, but wanting and succeeding were two different things. Doing it badly could get her killed.

“There are rules,” he said. “Good journalists don't go off half-cocked, and good journalists don't sling accusations around without hard facts to back them up.”

“Oh.” She sounded contrite, but her eyes were blazing. “Exactly why are you helping me, Cole? After all, we are competitors.”

“You're darn right, we are competitors. But look at it this way, Jess. We may be on opposite sides of the fence, but actually we're helping each other. My subscriptions have nearly doubled. I'd wager your subscriptions are up, too. But if your newspaper goes under, there goes reader interest in the competition between my
Lark
and your
Sentinel
.”

She gripped the handle of her teacup so tight he thought it might snap off. “I've sunk every last penny I have in the
Sentinel
,” she said in a shaky voice. “I cannot afford to fight a lawsuit.”

“Then don't. Get yourself a set of law books and start studying what's libelous and what's just legitimate criticism.”

She opened her mouth to reply, but Rita interrupted. “Eggs and bacon, right?” She plopped down two loaded platters and stepped back. “You two aren't gonna fight over breakfast, now, are you?”

“Not this morning,” Cole said with a smile.

“I guess not,” Jessamine said in a small voice. “Not when I'm this hungry.”

Cole crunched up a strip of crispy bacon. “Hunger makes us good bedfellows.”

She flushed scarlet and he suddenly realized how that might have sounded, but it was too late. Then with extreme care she upended her teacup and poured the hot liquid over his knuckles.

While he mopped at his hand and swore, she calmly picked up her fork. “Bedfellows?” she said, her tone icy. “That remark is positively indecently suggestive. I should sue you.”

Cole bit back a laugh. “Yeah, well, it just slipped out. But maybe you should think about it.”

“Think about what?”

Bedfellows
, he almost blurted. “Libel,” he said instead.

She pushed away from the table and stalked out, her behind twitching enticingly.

* * *

At the choir rehearsal that evening, Cole appeared with a bandage wrapped around his hand and an odd gleam in his blue eyes. Jess smothered a stab of regret over her impulsive act at breakfast and concentrated on not biting her lips.

The director clapped her hands for attention, and the singers rose to begin their vocal warm-ups.

“You're dangerous, you know that?” he whispered when he and Jessamine stood side by side.

“And you,” she murmured, “are insulting.”

“I meant the word
bedfellows
figuratively speaking,” he intoned.

Jessamine turned away, but she wondered at the niggle of unease that burrowed under her breastbone. She wished, oh, how she wished, she didn't have to stand next to Cole Sanders one more minute.

It wasn't that he sang off-key. Quite the contrary. His voice was warm and, surprisingly, he read music better than either tenor Whitey Poletti or alto Ardith Buchanan. And he paid attention to Ellie's directing better than she was at the moment.

It wasn't musical unease she felt. It wasn't even unease about their competing newspapers. It was how he made her feel when she stood so close to him she could sense the sleeve of his blue wool shirt brush against her arm. She wanted to lean into his warmth, his strength. He made her feel small and fragile in a way she had never felt before.

Even as a schoolgirl, she had never hesitated to double up her fists and pound any boy who made one of her friends cry. Miles said she had been a real stoic when Mama died and then Papa had succumbed to a heart attack.

But the truth was that Cole Sanders made her feel not only fragile but both furious and frightened at the same time. Furious when he exposed how much she didn't know about running a newspaper and frightened at the hot, trembly feeling that built inside her when she stood near him.