Town Square, The (11 page)

Ah, another legacy broken, and Dare’s new university would be nothing like Wellesley. “I didn’t know that. Harriet, I hope you can find a way to tell me about your past, even with what lies between us about your father.”

Her chest rose as she took a deep breath. He knew he’d surprised her. “For example, should I be calling you Evangelina?”

“I never went by Evangelina,” she said after taking another delicate sip of water. “Harriet is what everyone calls me. Except for my father.”

Lowering his arms from the booth, no longer feeling casual, he leaned forward. “Will you tell me about him? What you remember? Was he a good father?”

She crossed her hands prayer–like, but her posture was brittle. “He was a very driven man, known for his excellence in science. He expected the same of me and Maybelline. When he was home, which was rare, he would always ask us about what we’d learned in school or what we thought about this or that current event. I remember when he first asked me what I thought about the war in Korea. I was in high school. I didn’t have an answer prepared, and told him so. I could see he was disappointed. After that I read what I could. The next time he asked me, I had an answer.”

The dissimilarity of their childhoods couldn’t be starker. He’d been raised by simple ranching people, who loved the land and knew more about the animals they tended than current events. Growing up, he’d wanted to talk with them about what he was reading in the national newspapers he’d begged the library to purchase. The news might have been old by the time it reached him, but it made him feel connected to something bigger than Dare Valley, which he loved, but knew was only one small dot on a rather big map.

Then he met Emmits Merriam while doing some manual labor at his summer house, and his life changed forever.

He’d asked Emmits what he thought about establishing oil production in Iran, which Exxon (was it “Exxon” or “Esso”?) and British Petroleum were discussing with the Shah. Emmits had stopped what he was doing, stroked his chin—a stalling tactic Arthur had picked up from him—and then asked how old he was.

When he responded, “sixteen,” Emmits laughed and told him to come inside. He’d brought him into his study, a room filled with photos of him with famous presidents like FDR and Truman. Ivory tusks hung on the wall, a relic from a safari in Africa. And leather–bound, gold–embossed books were everywhere. Arthur had decided then and there he was going to have a study like that some day.

They’d talked for two hours about the future of oil exploration in the Gulf. And from that day onward, Emmits would invite Arthur in for another discussion after he finished his chores. It had been heaven on earth to him.

“Emmits and I used to discuss current events when I was in high school,” he simply responded.

“He was your mentor, wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” he said, still feeling that sense of luck and destiny or whatever the poets called it. “I did chores at his summer house up here, and one day we got to discussing current events. From then on, Emmits saw something in me. ‘Potential,’ he called it. He suggested I apply to Columbia University and take classes in everything to see what I wanted to do. He was on the board and supported the school, so that helped my application. Dare’s education system is…well.”

Something Emmits had a mind to improve, he thought, but didn’t say.

She nodded, her soft gaze on his face.

“When I attended my first journalism class,” he continued, “within minutes, I knew I had found my calling.” It was as if he had been given the key to an unknown cipher about himself. The feeling was exhilarating, but it had made him worry for the man who’d been raised in the simple town of Dare Valley.

“And Emmits opened doors for you,” she added.

His mouth quirked up. “So I’m not the only one who knows how to investigate.”

That bold green–eyed stare again. “I had to know as much as I could about you.”

He’d leave what she thought she knew for another time. “Yes, Emmits got me the job at
The New York Times
and opened doors for me when it came to interviews. But he knew I would do a da—darn good job at it. It wasn’t charity.”

They had been very clear about that.

“You have your pride.”

“Darn right,” he responded, rapping his knuckles on the table for emphasis. A man’s pride was important. Hadn’t Harriet’s father and so many others lost everything out of damaged pride?

“I worked at the paper throughout school to pay for rent and tuition.” And got a little financial aid, which he didn’t need to mention, in addition to what his parents had been able to contribute. “I didn’t sleep much, but New York isn’t that kind of a town.”

Her mouth tipped up. “No, it’s not. Do you miss it?”

He looked around the tavern at people he’d known all his life. He liked being known here. Being cared about. He hadn’t felt that way in New York. “I like Dare for its strengths and understand what it’s not able to offer me.”

“And what’s that?” she asked.

“Sophistication. I doubt I could get a decent Manhattan here, but I still ask Vernon, the bartender, to make one for me. And the anonymity. No one knew who I was in the city, and there’s freedom in that. I was just Arthur Hale, and sometimes that felt nice.”

“Yes, Dare’s prying eyes are a little tiresome.” She leaned against the booth, finally relaxing that prim pose. “Is everyone still staring at us?”

He glanced over and winked at old Mrs. Withers, whose mouth dropped open when she realized she’d been caught staring.

“You’re terrible,” she managed with a laugh, resuming her picture–perfect posture.

“Sometimes,” he responded, his gaze resting on her face. That face with skin so bright and clear it reminded him of the clouds on a summer day in Wildflower Canyon.

They grew quiet.

Bertha finally brought their food. Harriet picked at her steaming roast beef while he went straight for the creamy mashed potatoes, his favorite.

“My mother died when I was eight,” she said as she forked the green beans. “My dad dove into his work more after that. Before, I remember us all laughing, and him working less.”

Reaching across the table for her hand would only cause more talk. He put his utensils down to show he was paying attention. “I’m sorry.”

She smoothed some curls behind her ears. “Me too.”

They continued to eat and talk, sharing stories from the past. He started to see a fuller picture of who she was and still knew there was so much more. But they had time. She was staying in town until she and her sister decided on their next steps.

And even while he told himself to protect his heart from the woman across from him, somehow he couldn’t. He’d always known when a risk was worth it, and there was no question that
she
was.

He stole looks at her often enough that he noticed when her eyes widened. He looked over his shoulder to see Vera Henry digging a toothpick into her front teeth like she was digging for clams.

“Ah, people around here like their toothpicks,” he said, clearing his throat to cover up his laugh. So far as he could tell, no one used toothpicks out East, especially women and certainly not in public.

“Apparently,” she managed and snapped her red–painted mouth closed.

“Just another difference between Dare and the big city.” He fished a toothpick out of the white plastic holder next to the horseradish jar and extended it to her. “Are you sure you don’t want to try it? My dentist swears by them.”

Her mouth twisted like she was fighting a smile. “No thank you. My toothbrush seems to do the job just fine.”

He shoved one into his mouth like his dad did after every meal and flashed her a smile. “You’re missing out.”

And then she laughed, the sound like a train whistle, bold and yet oddly sweet. “You’re incorrigible.”

They enjoyed the banana cream pie, and he discovered she liked to bake, especially around Christmas. She told him stories about learning from their maid, Joanna, who’d been like a mother to them after their own had passed. She still wrote a letter to her every week.

After he paid the bill, he escorted her through the tavern. None of the other patrons had left their tables, toddling over more than one cup of coffee. No doubt about it—they’d stayed to see if Dare’s own Arthur Hale was under the lure of the mysterious city–spun outsider. Many wouldn’t be happy about that.

Like he cared.

And wasn’t that putting the cart before the horse?

He drove Harriet to Hawk’s Point Bluff since the moon was nearly full, and he didn’t want to take her home just yet. Even though it was cold, he asked her if she wanted to walk down the snowy path with him.

“I will if you make sure I don’t fall,” she replied.

He promised he wouldn’t, hoping she realized he was also making a promise to be there for her.

With his arm around her, they walked the six yards to the edge of the bluff. The moon illuminated the snowy blanket covering the earth. The pine trees cascading up the side of the mountain waved darkly in the breeze.

He turned to her then, and the moonlight covered her face, starkly illuminating the angles of her cheekbones, which called out to be traced by his fingertips.

“Harriet,” he murmured, caressing her delicate skin.

“Hush,” she whispered and stepped closer.

He kissed her in the moonlight and let the moment be enough.

Chapter 11

W
orking with Arthur during the day and then going to dinner with him most evenings provided an ongoing opportunity for Harriet to discover that there was so much more to him than she’d first imagined.

As the weeks passed, winter still clung to the trees in the form of snow and ice, and the breeze felt like it was issuing from an automatic fan over a block of ice. According to the people she talked to at the market and the Five–and–Dime, the groundhog had seen its shadow, and sure enough, spring felt like a distant memory.

Arthur made the most of it on one Saturday in early March, agreeing for once not to work all day at the office. They were having an outdoor date since they’d already seen the new movie that had arrived in Dare, Frank Capra’s
Pocketful of Miracles
with Betty Davis and Glenn Ford, which would be showing for the next month.

Their staff was growing, and Arthur was busy training the new hires and planning for the launch of the paper. They had five reporters now, Arthur’s deputy, an advertising manager, a bookkeeper, a financial manager, a typesetter, and the head of distribution. The new printing press had arrived, along with the large news rolls and tubs of ink, and had been assembled in the old factory. Arthur and the typesetter were getting familiar with its quirks by doing dry runs. And the distribution manager, with Arthur’s guidance, had been working out the best routes to get the papers out to Denver and other major cities. High school students in Dare had been hired to go door–to–door to ask for local subscriptions.

Arthur had also been making visits to Denver, Las Vegas, and San Francisco, talking with the bigger newspapers, hoping to run articles from
The Western Independent
, including his Sunday editorials, in theirs from time to time. With Emmits’ connections, he was collecting national subscriptions right and left.

“I’m not sure snow–shoeing was the smartest idea you’ve had,” she commented as her snow–shoe sunk into the powdery snow again, throwing off her balance for the hundredth time.

He looked back over his shoulder, his blue eyes twinkling. “You only need to walk faster. If you lug through the snow, you’ll fall. You need to stay light on your feet.”

Right. With two shoes that looked like large wooden tennis rackets secured to her feet with rawhide. Yeehaw.

He had to outweigh her by fifty pounds, and he looked a heck of a lot lighter on his feet. It was enough to make a girl jealous.

“This view had better be worth it,” she complained, her face and lips becoming chapped by the wind.

“Have I steered you wrong yet?” he asked, his arms pumping as he walked across the snowy basin.

“No,” and the words hung between them as he stopped and waited for her to catch up so he could hold her hand.

Then he stepped close and framed her face. “I can’t wait. I have to kiss you. Right now.”

His cold lips touched hers, and inside, she felt the now familiar desire race through her from head to toe. Suddenly the sun felt too hot, and she too warm. As his lips caressed hers and then shifted to kiss her cheeks and eyebrows before moving back to her mouth, she took a step closer and sank into the snow three feet in front of him. Her hands slid from his shoulders to his waist, and she was clinging to him out of something other than passion.

Laughter bubbled out easily. “What’s with me? I weigh less than you do by a mile, and I keep sinking.”

His hands fit to the outside curve of her breasts, and he slowly pulled her up. “Perhaps there’s another reason you’re sinking.”

As she looked into his blue eyes, a blue that now reminded her of the ocean near her old home, she realized that no truer words had ever been spoken.

She was sinking. Into him. More and more every day.

And was more than a little afraid of it.

“So where were we before you fell to your knees before me?” he asked with a wink.

His tone was playful, but she’d heard stories from other students at Wellesley about what it meant to sink to your knees in front of a boy. But when she glanced up to meet his eyes, she could tell that he wasn’t implying anything more. Part of her was relieved, the mere idea making her blush.

He’d kissed her and touched her through her clothes, but that’s as far as they’d gone. She knew he wanted her, and she wanted him, but they weren’t married, and she was terrified of getting pregnant. Which just showed how crazy desperate she’d been the night she’d tried to seduce him. Some of the girls she knew at Wellesley had gotten birth control pills in Boston, but even if she wanted to go that far with Arthur—which she wasn’t sure of yet—there were no such provisions in Dare. He hadn’t asked for more, but if the tight mouth he had when he pushed her away and said goodnight was any indication, she knew he was suffering.