The Union (6 page)

She laughed self-consciously, sounding genuinely happy. "Seems like we'd better discuss the wedding tomorrow." She looked up at him from under her thick lashes. "Time for bed." She pointed to the stairs. "Third door on the left."

He picked up his boots and walked to the stairs while she picked up the kerosene lamp and went to the hall on the main floor. He turned back to watch her just as she disappeared into the black hall toward her ground floor room.

He hoped it was only the whiskey obscuring his good sense and stirring his desires, but Keely was having far too great an effect on him.
Watch it, Dietz, that woman could bring nothing but trouble and heartache.
Let her under his skin and he'd lose all perspective about the operation and his cover, maybe even his jaded heart, along with it.

Back in her room, Keely latched the door shut and plopped onto her back on her deep featherbed, sighing happily as the bed squeaked beneath her weight. McCullough's kiss still sang on her lips. The feel of his hands caressing her body was a memory so pleasant it felt real. What a day this had been! A day unequaled in all her life.

McCullough had come and was more than mere man. Handsome, devastatingly so, smart, strong, brave, honest, compassionate. A knight, her knight. A dream realized so completely she barely dared to believe it true. Yet it was!

Like Lunn had done this afternoon, people always accused her of being too trusting. But in this instance, her faith had not been misplaced. It might be true that a man could impersonate traits in a letter, pretend to be something different than his true self. But a man's actions showed his real character, and from what she'd seen, McCullough had plenty. Deep down she knew that if she couldn't trust McCullough with her heart, there wasn't a man alive she could.

Chapter 4

What had come over Keely? Why had she admitted her fears and insecurities to McCullough when she needed to show him strength? But she
had
always wondered why McCullough had chosen her from all the women of his acquaintance, women he had seen and known. Why go with a blind choice?

McCullough stood above local men in power and reputation. He could have any woman he chose. Why her, a poor girl without position or connections?

Before he came, she half-feared he must be hideously deformed, or uncommonly hard to get along with in person. Of course, Michael had always claimed the contrary. But when McCullough arrived and she saw how handsome he was, her insecurities resurfaced.

At first he hadn’t acted like the McCullough of her letters, not until the kiss. Then she knew that he felt all he had expressed with his pen. Keely sighed. "McCullough," she whispered into the darkness. She couldn't wait to become his wife.

Dietz woke. The unfamiliar surroundings didn't disorient him. He never stayed in one place long enough for things to become homey. But the thick pounding in his temples felt all too familiar. He rolled onto his side and reached for the water pitcher on the bedside table. Drinking plenty of water helped fight off the effect of too much whiskey. Man, had he had too much.

The night had tormented him with sensual, drugged dreams of Keely. He rubbed his temple. If one lousy kiss could cause all this discomfort—he was indeed a desperate man.

He fell back onto the pillow, trying to remember the events that had occurred before he’d come home the previous night—without the gory details. Hazy memories flooded back.
 

Waters had put him in charge of planning the holdup of the scab train on Thursday. But they'd all been too drunk to think clearly. Still, he'd better wire the owners right away. Damn, a clandestine four-mile walk to Wallace didn't sound the least enticing. He'd save himself a second trip if he came up with his plan for the holdup and wired that along with his first report. The owners better be smart enough to foil the union's plan without casting suspicion on him.

Keely drifted back into his thoughts. Stick to business. Search McCullough's saddlebags for a present and a ring. He seemed to recall a wrapped package. He hadn't paid much attention when he’d perused McCullough's things before. What kind of a suitor had McCullough been? Keely wrote uninhibited, intimate letters to McCullough, letting her ideas and thoughts flow freely, but speaking little of love. How had McCullough responded? Did he keep his feelings to himself or embarrass her with fond sentiments?

McCullough hadn't spoken much about Keely. Not much more than to admit she existed, which had surprised the hell out of Dietz the first time McCullough had mentioned that he had a fiancée. Why did he need a wife? He had a mistress of long standing whom he abused on a regular basis and any number of one night encounters and relationships of short duration.
 

His mistress had provided the reason for McCullough to flee Pennsylvania. One night, thoroughly pickled after a night of heavy drinking, McCullough had beaten her up, not for the first time by any accounting method. New and surprising, however, was her sudden desire to see him prosecuted for his crimes. That in itself would not have worried McCullough enough to send him scurrying to Idaho. But all the terrorist secrets he'd shared with her over the years had him worried a good piece. Angry and scorned, she might be tempted to use his confidences against him. So McCullough had fled, Dietz at his side, intent on heading to Idaho to stir up more trouble and marry a girl there. Maybe McCullough thought a wife would add an element of respectability to him? That's all Dietz could figure.

McCullough ranked as a first class bastard, which made Dietz feel only slightly less guilty about deceiving Keely than he otherwise might. No matter how low Dietz's deception ranked, it paled when compared to how McCullough would have treated Keely.

Still, odd as it was, McCullough wrote to Keely every night, mailing the letters when he could. Dietz sat up and swung out of bed. He washed up at the basin, toweled off, pulled on his clothes, and combed his hair before digging into McCullough's bags.
 

There, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine with her name scrawled across it in a bold, sloppy hand sat the parcel. McCullough's? Dietz studied it, trying to memorize the way it looked before he passed the package on to Keely. His own writing looked nothing the same. Could he avoid writing anything she'd see until his mission ended? He hoped so.

Dietz hefted the package—a book. He hoped something touching like poetry or sonnets. He had no choice but to trust McCullough's taste in gifts. He rifled through the rest of the bags looking for a wedding ring. Nothing. Dietz frowned, McCullough hadn't had a ring on him either. Quite the romantic—a book, no ring. He stuffed McCullough's things back in his bags and glanced at his pocket watch. Time to head downstairs for breakfast.

He found Keely frying ham and potatoes and serving two old men. She looked up at him and called a greeting as he clumped down the last steps. She looked fresh and pretty, all flushed from the heat of the stove.

"Come meet two of my other boarders, Sly and Pickins. McCullough."

The men grunted and nodded as Keely bent to set their breakfast before them. Before she straightened, Dietz got a quick view of the ample curve of her breast—whoa! She wore a white apron covering a worn, faded work dress, shapeless and old, but still unable to hide her voluptuous figure. If she had just one outfit like those of the fancy ladies Dietz usually associated with on missions, she'd put them to shame.

"Since the mines shut down Sly and Pickins have been my only early risers," Keely said.

"We work our own claim," Sly cut in.

"You don't say." Dietz took a seat at the table. "Hope you use union labor."

The two weathered men laughed in unison. They looked like brothers. "We don't work for silver," Sly said.

"Nah," Pickins said. "We got us a gold stake."

"Gold?" The old men amused Dietz. "Aren't you boys about twenty years too late for that? Last gold I heard about in Idaho was up in Murray, about that long ago."

"What would you know about that, young man? You had to be nothing but a boy twenty years ago." Sly sounded insulted. "We'll find us our gold, mark my words."

You had to admire their optimism. Dietz smiled and nodded.
 

"All the gold taken was by placer mining and panning. I ask you where all that gold came from," Pickins said.

Dietz shrugged. Keely winked at him behind the men's backs.

Sly nodded. "There's got to be a vein."

"Might be," Dietz said. "Where's your claim?"

Keely came around to set a plate of food in front of him and smiled boldly. He liked a brash woman. Unfortunately, he liked this particular one too much for any good to come of it. How was he supposed to postpone the wedding and keep to himself when his body reacted to her the way it did? He wanted more than a look—he wanted a feel, a good one. He hadn't imagined he'd be fighting himself, too.

"The boys never reveal the location of their latest stake," she said.

Dietz laughed. "Didn't mean any offense. I hope you fellows are looking on the south side of the Valley. Isn't that where legend says it should be?" One thing about private detectives—they knew their subject. Dietz had always been a quick study. He had picked up the history of the Valley without much trouble.

"We'll never say, young man," Pickins said.

"What's that tucked under your arm, McCullough?" Keely asked.

Dietz handed her the package. "For you. I meant to give it to you yesterday, but I got distracted. My apologies."

Keely wiped her hands on her apron and took it. She pulled up a chair next to his and stared at the package a moment before carefully removing the twine and paper. Dietz read the title as she pulled the book from its wrapping,
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
. What kind of a gift was that to give a woman you intend to marry? But Keely's eyes misted. She opened the cover and traced the written inscription lovingly, reverently. Though he strained, the angle she held it at prevented him from reading it.

"Michael's copy. How kind of you to remember and return it."

Dietz fought to hide his natural astonishment. The bastard McCullough hadn't bought her a present after all. While he understood her happiness at getting her brother's book back, it didn't lessen his anger at McCullough. McCullough should have brought her a real gift, something from himself. It had been Dietz's experience that women loved, and expected, gifts, nice ones. Any one of the women he seduced on the job, or even the few he'd courted as himself, would have flung such a "gift" back in his face. But Keely seemed satisfied—why?

He didn't like the empathy for her that crept over him unbidden. Had she been a child like him—discarded, abandoned, unwanted? What scars, like his own, did she live with?

Fortunately, Sly and Pickins rose to leave, muttering gruff grunts he took for goodbyes. Their departure broke his contemplative mood. No good ever came of becoming attached to a woman during a mission.

Keely rose and cleared away their plates before rejoining Dietz at the table. Her mood seemed less reflective, which suited him.
 

"How's Thursday?" she asked.

He frowned, confused. "Thursday? For what?" He filled his fork with potatoes.

"The wedding."

He set down the fork, still heaped with food. This was a fine fix. Her stare disconcerted him. She looked too—what? Honest, hopeful?
 

"Ah," he cleared his throat, "this Thursday?"

She laughed. "You're hedging, McCullough. You suddenly getting cold feet?"

"No, darling. I have an important union meeting Thursday."

"Will it take the whole day?"

"Probably."

She looked skeptical. "Then when? Thursday is the only day the circuit minister comes to the Valley."

"Just this Thursday? One Thursday a month?" Did he sound too hopeful?

"No." When she laughed her eyes danced. "Every Thursday. But I don't want to wait."

Her innocence and straightforward manner rattled him. He cleared his throat. For some unaccountable reason this discussion frightened him more than any situation he'd encountered in his eight years as a private detective. "Well, then, how about a wedding with the justice of the peace? Then we can pick our day."
Months from now
, he added silently. Even before the words slipped out of his mouth he frantically tried to think of a way to postpone it indefinitely.

Keely's face fell. He couldn't understand the hurt.

"No. McCullough, you agreed to be married by a man of God."

When had he agreed? Dietz couldn't remember Keely asking such a thing in any of her letters. He had to get ahold of the letters McCullough wrote before he blew his cover. And he'd better give her letters a closer study. "Uh, well." For once John Dietz was speechless, unable to come up with a lie as he looked into her guileless eyes.

"I won't be living in sin before Him."
 

"No, of course not." He didn't need to try to sound contrite. His voice quaked and stuttered all on its own. "I'm sorry."

She smiled again. "Thursday next—no union business. You'll have a wedding to attend."

He nodded like a fool. "Thursday next." At least he had another week to weasel out of it. Out of her presence he'd be able to think better. With luck, the fireworks would be over by then anyway and he could head back to the spartan hotel room he called home in Denver and wait for a nice, exciting mission somewhere far away from Idaho.