Harlequin Historical May 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Notorious in the West\Yield to the Highlander\Return of the Viking Warrior (18 page)

Hoping Molly was right, Olivia rested her bat on her shoulder. In thought, she turned to watch Griffin on the bench.

He wiped his brow. He saw her. He smiled broadly at her.

As one, all the women on Olivia's quilt audibly sighed.

Well, that clinched it. For better or worse, Olivia realized, her infatuation with Griffin was public knowledge.

She turned back, intending to practice her batting swing...and met the three sisters' inquisitive gazes instead.

Grace, in particular, appeared full of questions.

“So,” she said directly and without preamble, “exactly why do they call Mr. Turner The Tycoon Terror?”

Chapter Sixteen

F
or as long as two hours after Griffin had concluded his first triumphant personal encounter with baseball, he still felt aglow with accomplishment. His senses felt sharper. His arms felt stronger. His whole body felt downright
enlivened.
His hands remembered the feel of the bat, his ears the crack of the hit he'd made, his eyes the clear skyward arc of the ball.

It was lunacy, but it was also undeniable. The small, ridiculed boy inside him felt victorious. Proud.
Accepted.

Accepted by a rural group of miners and lumbermen and calico-clad town housewives, but accepted, all the same.

The knowledge of that was far better than whiskey.

After watching Olivia's ladies' baseball team take the field—divided amongst themselves to create their own opponent, as they were obliged to do—Griffin had cheered on his invention-making, fiddle-music-loving, philosophizing woman as best as he knew how. He'd shouted until he'd grown hoarse. He'd waved his arms, then pinched a team pennant from one of the women and waved that, too. He'd overflowed with pride when Olivia had taken to home plate for her first turn at bat, wearing her rational sportswoman's skirt and winding up with a look of determination.

He'd leaped to his feet to applaud the wobbly ground ball that brought her to first base, then waved with joy—earning himself several amused sidelong glances in the process and one elbow in the ribs from the closest spectator, Adam Crabtree.

“Easy there, Turner,” the founder of the
Pioneer Press
had said with a grin. “Anyone would think
you'd
hit that ball.”

But Griffin had endured Crabtree's friendly joshing along with all the other men's ribbing. That he needed to do so at all was partly his fault after all. Not because he was too rowdy in his admiration of Olivia's baseball efforts, but because he had been largely responsible for the hefty crowd that remained to watch the second game, in direct contravention of what he came to understand was the usual Morrow Creek response of rolling up blankets and leaving during the ladies' league game.

Watching the women play had been an eye-opening experience. Griffin had never given much thought to female suffrage or athleticism or leadership. But watching Olivia's game made him realize a few things. First, that she was not the only woman who needed courage to wield a bat. The occasional catcalls from the spectators told him that. Second, that she was not alone in fearing to step from her usual role and risk public censure. The nervous giggling and red faces of the women players told him that. And third, that she was extraordinary among all her peers. Because Olivia alone played with mingled grit and fear. Unique in her, poise and doggedness battled for supremacy...and in the process, both of those qualities took their turns in the game.

In the end, Olivia's side did not win—although she did apply considerable effort to try to wrangle a victory.

Breathlessly, she shrugged to Griffin after the game. “I never said I was
talented
at baseball. Only that I enjoyed it.”

“I was not considering the score,” he confessed, admiring her glistening skin and aura of exertion. “I was watching you.”

It was true. Throughout the game, Griffin had been unable to tear away his attention from Olivia. He loved her vigor and her fortitude. He loved her girlish swings of the bat. He loved the way she wiggled her hips while preparing to run, the way she encouraged all her teammates with generous hollers of praise and the way she tucked those wayward tendrils of hair away from her flushed face while preparing to take her turn.

He loved...
her.
Wholeheartedly and without hesitation.

After the game, everyone had celebrated with cold, fresh-pressed apple cider that had been brought to the field along with Molly Copeland's peach-filled hand pies. They'd toasted each other with cups full of cider and hands full of sweets, and in those moments, Griffin had felt that he truly belonged there.

In a way he never had in Boston, he belonged in Morrow Creek. He'd come to know its residents. He'd helped them devise solutions to business problems and strategies for succeeding. He'd shopped in their mercantile and at their milliner's, used their telegraph and postal services and admired their small-town handicrafts. He'd quit growling, quit grumbling and quit hiding himself away in the dark. Thanks to Olivia, Griffin had stopped scaring away the people around him and begun welcoming them, with all their quirks and foibles and homespun ideals.

It could almost be said that he'd found a family in Morrow Creek. But Griffin wasn't ready for anything so foolish as that.

He'd found...
peace
in Morrow Creek, he told himself that evening as he stripped off his dirt-smudged, borrowed baseball clothes. He'd found solace in the mountain views, in the crisp scent of the ponderosa pines, in the burble of the creek. That would be enough, he swore to himself as he eyed the tub full of steaming water he'd asked the hotel staff to bring up for him, then lowered himself gingerly into it. He'd found a new beginning, he determined as he soaped himself up with the spicy scent of clove-oil soap and felt the day's exertion slide away.

For now,
for him,
that would have to be enough.

But when a sharp knock came at his door, moments after Griffin had dried off from his bath and pulled on a pair of underdrawers, he knew himself to be a liar. Because at the sound of that knock, Griffin knew he wanted more. He wanted Olivia to be on the other side of that door, fetching and sweet, coming to give herself to him in the only way she hadn't yet.

Cursing himself for his own weakness, Griffin covered himself more fully with a dressing gown, then stomped barefoot to the door. Summoning some strength, he inhaled a deep breath. Promising to be pure of mind and heart if it was Olivia on the other side of his suite's door, he opened it.

She all but barreled past him through the opening, bringing a fresh, rose-scented breeze with her. Clad with astonishing informality in a chemise and a ladies' flowered silk wrap that fell to her feet, with her hair in a loose topknot, Olivia strode inside.

“I came for a broom.” Speaking hastily, she scanned the suite's furnishings. “There's a bat in my room, and I'll never sleep until I shoo it out the window.” With purpose, she trod to the suite's corner. “Aha! I knew I'd left a broom in here.”

All Griffin could do was stare at her. Olivia was a genuine force of nature, full of tenacity and purposefulness and verve. He wasn't entirely sure he hadn't imagined her—until she stopped before him with her broom clasped in hand...and made a funny face.

“Thank you, Griffin. I'm sorry to disturb you, but this is an emergency.” She shuddered. “I loathe those creatures!”

Like a soldier marching to war, Olivia wielded her broom. She headed for the door with it, doubtless intent on vanquishing the intruder who'd invaded her attic rooms.

Griffin doubted she'd even registered his state of informal dress, much less her own tantalizing lack of proper clothing.

Without her usual bustle, he couldn't help noticing, Olivia's own naturally curvaceous derriere looked especially enticing. Without the support of her corsetry, her pert breasts moved beneath her sheer chemise and silky wrap in a way that unfailingly drew his attention. He loved the way she looked, the way she smelled...the way she still radiated accomplishment and bravery and audacious zeal after her plucky efforts during the baseball game today.

He loved...
her,
Griffin thought again, and knew he should probably tell her sometime soon. But in the meantime...

He snapped himself to alertness. “I'll deal with your bat.”

“What?” She paused with her nose adorably crinkled. Then she realized what he'd said. She waved. “No, thank you. It's fine. I'm a country girl, you know.” Olivia gave a spirited grin. “Here in the Arizona Territory, a person can't rely too heavily on attacks of the vapors when critters come calling. If I came over all swoony every time a common vesper bat lost its way and sailed into my room at night, I'd spend most of my time wielding smelling salts. Instead of baseball bats.”

Even her bare feet were cute, Griffin noticed. So was her zest. Delivering him a second spunky grin, Olivia wheeled around. This time, though, he was there to stop her. “I insist.”

She made a mock rueful face. “On the other hand, far be it for me to refuse a gentleman's assistance.” Olivia gave a silly curtsy—during which she seemed to notice, for the first time, Griffin's state of partial undress. Her eyes widened. Her gaze traveled up his underdrawers-and-dressing-gown-covered legs, up his casually clad chest and shoulders, then up to his face. Her voice took on a slightly less assured quality. She gripped her broom harder. “After I shoo that bat out the window, you can wrench down the sash. The window sticks something awful.”

“I'll do more than that. I'll get rid of the bat.”

“Not if I get there first!” Olivia sprinted down the hall.

Left dazed and surprised in the wake of her pounding footsteps, Griffin realized for the first time that it might be a little inconvenient to love a woman like Olivia. She was independent, single-minded and unafraid to speak her mind. She was unusual and impassioned. She was sweet, but spicy. After a brief and confusing spate of boringly reserved behavior, the original Olivia he'd met in his hotel suite, all those days ago, was back...and she was ready to wreak havoc with a broom again.

Listening to the first
thwack
of her broom against the wall, sounding its way down the hall along with a “Drat it!” from Olivia, Griffin grinned. He wouldn't have had her any other way.

He also wouldn't let her go into battle alone. That wasn't what a man did. It wasn't what he did, with his newfound sense of goodness and honor. Straightening his spine, Griffin listened to another
thwack
echo down the hall. Then he rolled up his sleeves, assembled the protectiveness and caring he'd always tried to deny...and let his longtime sense of shame fall away.

He
wasn't
The Boston Beast anymore.

Now, he could go to Olivia's room to help her—even with both of them dressed so informally—and not budge a fraction in his gentlemanly resolve. He could shut the stuck window sash for her. He could comfort her, congratulate her and remind her again how splendid she'd been today. He could do all that, Griffin pledged, and not be beastly for an instant.

So, ready to show Olivia his new integrity, Griffin left his suite. He shut his door and tramped down the hall to her rooms. There, her door stood open, letting him glimpse the wonderful softness and alluring femininity of Olivia's private living space, with its pastel upholstery, lace trims and glowing lamplight. He'd been there before, Griffin recalled, when he'd brought her the invention prototypes. But that visit had been different. It had been brief and almost businesslike, full of apprehensiveness from both of them, on account of their earlier encounter at the Morrow Creek handicrafts show.

This time, Griffin knew, his visit would be different.

For one thing, they were both wearing nightclothes. For another, the atmosphere in The Lorndorff was snugly hushed, now that it was long past sunset and most people were asleep. Not to mention, Griffin realized as he cleared the threshold and stepped inside, Olivia had enjoyed a recent bath of her own. Her zinc-lined wooden tub still stood filled with soapy water.

Instantly, his mind conjured up a provocative image of Olivia in that tub, naked and bubbly and utterly relaxed. He could almost smell the rose-scented lather she'd used...could almost feel the slick glide of the foamy water across her smooth, pale skin. He loved her skin, so different from his...

Then Griffin heard another vigorous whack of the broom against the wall, heard Olivia exclaim loudly, and made himself quit thinking altogether. Bathing beauty or not, Olivia needed him. He could not fail her now.

Even if he
did,
all of a sudden, have several cogent misgivings about his own ability to be near her...and be the morally incorruptible man she believed him to be, both at the same time.

* * *

With her broom in hand and her hair falling in bothersome tendrils around her face, Olivia chased her bat invader to the other side of her rooms. They were composed of a sleeping area, where her bed was, and a sitting area, where her settee and reading table and lit lamp were. Spotting the bat flapping madly in the shadows there, she delivered a mighty wallop.

Argh.
The varmint had the gall to flap away, unharmed.

She knew she had the wherewithal to shoo away the tiny thing. Hadn't she managed several base hits during the baseball game today? Hadn't she earned cheers from Griffin? She had.

Reminded anew of her bravery and skill, Olivia swung her broom in a wild arc. This time, she successfully frightened away the bat. It flew past her head, then zoomed straight out the window. Its mad flurry of wings almost made her shriek aloud.

Success!
Unfortunately, it came at a price. Olivia ended her swing of the broom...and landed it in the bathtub. Again.

Thwack.
The bristles sent water splashing everywhere.

Unlike the other occasions tonight when she'd done that, splattering herself with leftover soapy water, this time she showered Griffin. He'd arrived in her room, broad shouldered and brave, only to be doused with the remnants of her bathwater.

Olivia didn't realize it at first. She turned in a celebratory circle, holding her broom aloft in victory, then saw something big, dark and sodden standing there.
Griffin.

“Oh! Griffin!” She dropped her broom with a clatter. “I'm so sorry.” She hurried to him. Then, “I vanquished the bat!”

She couldn't help saying so. She felt reasonably proud.