No Other Will Do (Ladies of Harper's Station #1)(37)
“So this is where you work,” Mal said as he followed her through the doorway and walked about the office. He ran a hand along the scalloped corner of her desk and the base of the hand-painted desk lamp sitting there. His rough fingers looked strange against the delicate rose pattern, but this room had never anticipated hosting such a masculine guest.
Had he been the tailored sort she was accustomed to seeing in a bank office, men in striped suits with slender hands and short-trimmed hair, he might have fit in. But Malachi was no tailored dandy. His scuffed boots testified to the physical labor he performed. Broken-in denim trousers hugged slim hips that looked right at home beneath his holster and gun belt. His blue cotton shirt, black worsted vest, and black Stetson could have belonged to a hundred different cowboys, yet somehow they seemed suited only to him. Malachi Shaw exuded rugged masculinity in this lacy woman’s room the way a cougar would exude sleek power standing in a field of wildflowers. Both seemingly out of place, yet both so confident in who they were that their surroundings held no sway.
Malachi strolled from her desk across the room to examine the bookshelf that stood out from the cream-colored walls papered in a faint scroll pattern. The shelves held her ledgers, several financial treatises she’d inherited from her father, a few newer books she’d purchased herself, and a trio of framed photographs prominently displayed on the second shelf from the top. The photograph on the left depicted her parents holding her as a baby. The one on the right showed the aunts as much younger women in front of their home in Gainesville. And the photograph she most prized . . . she and Malachi as children, standing behind the aunts, who were seated in matching parlor chairs—Henry looking so serious and stoic, Bertie with her soft smile, Malachi looking stiff and uncomfortable, and she . . . Well, she wasn’t looking at the camera at all. She was looking at Malachi, a devilish gleam in her eye as if she were determined to goad a smile out of him.
It had been taken the summer before Malachi left, and it had kept her company all these years. Now seeing him pause to stare at it—his hand arrested in midair above it as if he’d been temporarily frozen by the memory of that day—Emma’s breath caught. Dragonflies flitted about in her stomach, the tickling commotion making her light-headed.
“I have a copy, too,” he said softly. “In my trunk.”
In his trunk. Hidden away. Forgotten?
The tickling in her stomach dimmed, as if the dragonflies had suddenly been drenched with molasses. Their wings heavy. Their bodies falling.
“I keep it in that stationery box you gave me when I left . . . along with your letters.” Malachi’s back was to her, but his deep voice resonated through the room, through her. His near-reverent tone restored the tickle inside her and increased the fluttering tenfold.
He’d kept her letters. Dared she hope they were precious to him, preserved so that he might savor them on days he was feeling lonely? That’s what she did with his letters, after all. Pulled them out of the old hatbox she kept on the top shelf of her wardrobe and read them late at night by the light of her bedside lamp. Remembered the boy he’d been. Imagined the man he’d become. Imagined him walking back into her life one day.
And now he was here. Here to rescue her, to be her champion, just as he’d always been.
No, not her champion. The colony’s champion. He was here for Harper’s Station, not for her. Dwelling on old girlish feelings and dreams would serve no purpose. She had a job to do. A colony to protect.
A heart to protect, too, a small voice whispered inside her head. Remember, he’ll be leaving.
Just then, Mal turned. Determined to handle this as any other business deal, Emma pasted on her best banker’s smile and waved toward one of the two vacant chairs sitting in front of her desk. “Have a seat. I’d thought I’d make some notes as we sift through what we learned this morning.”
Mal shook his head. “No thanks. I think better when I’m moving.”
“All right.” Emma circled around to her own chair, sat down, and retrieved a few sheets of paper from the top desk drawer. Pen in hand, she dipped the nib into her inkwell and wrote the word Turpentine at the top left of the page. “So let’s start with the turpentine. Betty identified the canister as belonging to the farm, which means she, Katie, and Helen all had access to it.”
Mal paced toward the window. “But the women who work the garden stopped by a few days ago to collect a couple barrows full of compost for fertilizing. It would have been a simple matter for one of them to sneak into the barn, grab the turpentine, and hide it under the compost.”
“But that’s made with chicken droppings.” Emma wrinkled her nose. She couldn’t imagine concealing something in manure. One would have to actually touch the stuff.
Malachi chuckled. “You’re such a girl, Em. Don’t you see? That’s what makes it the perfect hiding place. Guaranteed to repel inquisitive ladies.”
“I can’t argue with that.” Emma twisted back around in her chair and inked her pen again. “All right. I’ll add Flora and Esther.”
“Any on the list so far you think we can rule out?” Mal asked as he paced along the inner wall. He paused to peruse the needlework sampler hanging near her desk, though she doubted he actually read the verse Bertie had stitched. His attention seemed too internal, too contemplative.
Emma glanced at her list of names and tried to be as objective as possible. Even though she’d lectured Malachi on assuming innocence, she knew she couldn’t blindly trust her emotions. She had to examine every possibility, no matter how unpalatable. “The only person I feel completely confident about removing is Betty. She’s been with me nearly as long as Tori, and she seemed completely straightforward when we asked her about the turpentine. I would think a guilty person would try to avert suspicion by pointing the finger elsewhere or fabricating excuses. She did none of that.