Tall, Dark, and Determined (24 page)

C
hase stepped inside, walked to the far wall, and stopped just short of the swinging doors to the kitchen.
Any minute now
.

“Hey!” An excited shout sounded. “Are those beaver?”

“Lemme see!” Someone farther away stirred the anticipation.

“Might be.” Chase moved to face the men, effectively turning his prize to the wall. Out of sight or grabbing hands.

“Did you see them?” someone demanded of a companion.

“I saw summat brown and furry, but dunno what it were.”

“Beaver.” Reverence filled Clump's tone, and he stomped forward. “When you moved, I saw the tails swinging past.” A roar of approval swallowed up the end of the German's pronouncement. It didn't matter. Everyone heard what Chase needed them to.

Now that their appetites had been whetted, he swung forward his day's work as mute testament to Clump's assertion. Things couldn't have played out any better. Chase had them right where he wanted them, pining for their beloved beaver-tail soup.

“What's going on out here?” Granger burst through the swinging doors, brows lowered in a stern expression. With all the ruckus, no way could he have missed Chase's victory. Swinging doors did little to block sound. No. Granger knew exactly what was going on and played into it like a master.

“New guy caught a coupla beaver!” A grubby thumb indicated Chase and punctuated the statement. “Good hunter after all!”

“Mighty hard hunting beaver these days,” someone called from the back. “Not many left around these parts anymore.”

“He's the best hunter, trapper, and guide I've ever met.” Granger gave him a solemn look then swept a considering glance across the crowd. “Question is why any of you doubted it.”

“We don't doubt it no more.” The reassurance made Chase bite back a smile. When it came to men, stomachs held sway.

“Handy with his fists, too.” Clump puffed up his chest. “Helped me, Riordan, and Granger get that bunch of galoots on the train yesterday morning. Ask Williams to tell you about it!”

Some laughs, some furious jabs as friends gave each other meaningful elbows between the ribs, and several smirks thrown Williams's way comprised the room's response. Whatever else Williams was, the man hadn't made himself popular.

“Fists, knife, guns … Dunstan here's master of them all.” Granger clapped him on the shoulder. “That's why I asked him to keep an eye on things here while I take a trip to Maine.”

Slowly the signs of jocularity vanished. General unease grew as Chase waited. Now was the critical moment. Either his claim to authority would go unchallenged or else—

Craig Williams lurched forward, face reddened with fury. His eyes narrowed to slits. “We don't need babysittin', Granger. None of us is going to start taking orders from a newcomer.”

Lacey glared at the women blocking her way. Had it been mere moments ago that she and Evie hugged, allies once more? Herexcellent memory must, for once, be wrong. No friend who was so recently regained would set herself against Lacey.
Again!

But what other explanation was left for the sight before her? Cora and Evie planted themselves in front of the swinging doors, blocking her from following Granger into the hullabaloo beyond. Lacey attempted to push through, only to be rebuffed.

“What are you thinking?” she hissed, loath to miss anything going on in the next room. “We need to go out there!”

Granger's voice demanded an explanation for the noise, but Lacey lost the response as Naomi sidled up and began arguing. “Going out there is the very worst thing we could do right now. Somehow Granger has to make it clear that Mr. Dunstan is going to be taking his place. The other men will know that means he'll be taking charge of some things, and they won't like it.”

“Who would?” Lacey shot back. “But it's
our
town. We're still the ones in charge, and we need to make our wishes known!”

“The men know Jake speaks for us.” Evie seemed to realize she'd said the wrong thing as she hastily reprised, “That is to say, they know we speak through Jake. They respect that system.”

“But he's telling them he won't be here,” Lacey pointed out. “Him announcing that Mr. Dunstan will step in isn't the same as the four of us declaring that we wish it so.”

“Exactly.” Cora folded her arms. “Granger won the men's respect on his own. Otherwise he couldn't have kept order. Now Mr. Dunstan will have to do the same thing, or it won't work.”

She makes sense
, a small voice admitted. But Lacey was tired of hearing about how wrong she was about anything to do with Mr. Dunstan. The man hadn't bothered to earn
her
respect.

“We're the employers,” she insisted. “We march into that dining room, explain that Mr. Dunstan will temporarily be filling in for Granger, and everyone else will fall in line.”

“Right after you see mice turning cartwheels across my kitchen,” Evie added. “Face it, Lacey. You want to be seen as an employer, but we aren't paying them anything but their meals and the slim chance that you or Naomi will choose to marry them. They have their own sense of pride and will only take so much.”

“So do I!” Lacey began pacing the kitchen, mind working furiously. Evie was right. The men weren't paid; they couldn't simply fire anyone insubordinate. If, en masse, they refused to accept Dunstan, the best she and the women could do was evict them from town. Which kept Lacey in the same place she'd been since Mr. Dunstan picked up that cougar.
Stuck on the sidelines
.

No longer arguing, they could all hear what was being said on the other side of the doors. It didn't sound promising.

“We don't need babysittin', Granger.” A strident voice, familiar but not enough for Lacey to place him, broke through. “None of us is going to start taking orders from a newcomer.”

The women shared worried looks, but none of them made a sound. Lacey couldn't speak for the others, but she held her breath to be sure she heard even the tiniest sound beyond. It didn't help. After a swell of agitated murmurs, no one spoke.

At least they aren't fighting
. She tried to be optimistic.
Isn't that a good sign that Dunstan can take over peacefully?

His voice, low and resonant, reached through the doors. “Granger didn't say I'd be giving orders.” A pause as more low murmurs filled the room. The men sounded less agitated, but still undecided. At least that was the impression Lacey got.

“He didn't say you wouldn't,” the belligerent man kept on. At that, the murmurs swelled to mutterings—a bad sign.

“Fact is, I shouldn't have to.” This time Lacey realized a key difference between how Dunstan spoke compared to his detractor. The other man shouted to be heard; Dunstan spoke low and made the others work to listen. It made for a sort of effortless authority, forcing people to hang on his words.

I'm going to use that sometime
, Lacey decided.
Against him!

“I'm no mill worker or lumberjack to be telling anyone how to go on.” Now the murmurs sounded approving, if louder.

The angry voice, which Lacey now suspected was Craig Williams, turned jeering. “If you know that, you know there's no reason to stay in Hope Falls. You're not needed or wanted.”

“I want some beaver-tail soup!” Clump's distinctive, choppy pronunciation clued her in to the speaker's identity. From the round of swiftly stifled cheers, he'd also given them a hint as to what made the men so excited when they walked into the diner.

“Beaver-tail soup?” she mouthed, questioning whether she'd heard correctly.
Why would the men cheer for something like that? I'd be busy finding a way to politely avoid eating any!

Cora and Naomi looked every bit as puzzled—and slightly repulsed—as she felt. Only Evie, with overemphatic nods and wide eyes, seemed to understand the sensational nature of beaver-tail soup. Her friend mouthed something back, but Lacey couldn't make it out. Neither did Naomi, nor Cora.

Finally, Evie leaned forward and hissed, “It's-a-delicacy!” making all the words run together in a single breath.

That, Lacey understood. Duck liver was a delicacy. Fish eggs were a delicacy. Some people considered
brains
to be a delicacy. As far as she was concerned, many a “delicacy” should never grace a plate. At least beaver-tail soup sounded edible. More than edible, if one went by the men's comments.

“We can all agree there's nothing finer than a bowl of beaver-tail soup after a long day,” someone rhapsodized.

“Been pining for a taste for two years,” another mourned.

Pining?
Lacey stifled a giggle. She'd heard of pining for lost love, but she'd never imagined such a thing as a burly lumberjack pining for beaver-tail soup. But it sounded like several men agreed with that one—lots of yeahs all around.

Williams attempted to regain ground. “Wanting some soup isn't the same as needing the man butting into our business.”

“He said he doesna plan to give orders, Williams.” Riordan's brogue confirmed the identity of the rabble-rouser. “Don't mistake your personal grudge for business concerns.”

An expectant hush fell over the room. Lacey could well imagine Williams's face just now. Red with humiliation, vein in his forehead pulsing with rage, teeth clenched as he fought for control of himself and the men he so badly wanted to lead.

At length he fired back his last, desperate shot. “If the bloody beaver are already dead, and he admits he's no lumberman with no plans to issue orders, what do we need him for?”

“My cougar.” Lacey Lyman sailed through the swinging doors the same way Chase imagined she would enter a grand ballroom.

Effective
, he had to admit. Chase didn't doubt that she, along with her fellow females, waited behind those doors during the entire episode. How else could they know what was going on and precisely when to make their grand entrance?

Chase might have taken exception to the proof they doubted his ability to handle the situation. Instead, he acknowledged they listened and waited until only Williams remained squawking. With one birdbrain determined to ruffle feathers, Chase didn't mind letting the women swan in. After all, this was
their
town. Their show. He hoped it'd be an entertaining one.

“What?” Bemused by her beauty and confused by the cougar she mentioned, the men stood around like a bunch of imbeciles.

“My cougar.” She stopped at his side, but her smile was for the crowd. “One showed the poor judgment to leap at me from a tree yesterday, so of course I had to shoot the poor thing.”

Pandemonium. The woman's innocent comment elicited about the same reaction as a skunk dropped in the middle of the room. No one wanted to go near the thing, but everyone wanted to talk about it. Questions flew from every corner, blanketing the room. And instead of looking mortified at the melodrama she'd caused, Lacey Lyman positively beamed.
Chaos must be her natural state
.

Abruptly, Chase wondered how any of the men got anything done with her around to distract them. Then it clicked in place.
She did it on purpose, all right … and made them forget Williams
. Sure enough, the rabble-rouser stood off to the side, now reduced to fuming in silence. No one paid him the slightest attention.

All that went to Miss Lyman, as she briefly and oh-so-bravely recounted the tale of her cougar attack. “And, to my surprise, there was Mr. Dunstan to help me to my feet!” She directed that dazzling bedimpled smile at him. “He made sure the kill was clean and kindly carried it back for me.”

No mention that he, too, shot the cougar. No mention that she'd sustained wounds to her shoulder. Not so much as a word about her abandoned hat! If a man went by this version of the story, Lacey Lyman spotted the leaping predator, smoothly shot the beast, and nearly sidestepped the entire thing.