Lisa Plumley - [Crabtree 01] Read online

  If he’d known it would take this much time from his day, he’d never have swallowed the notion at all.

  “There’s the signal, boss!” one of the sawyers yelled, pointing down the well-tended dirt path leading toward town. “She must be comin’!”

  Sure enough, Marcus glimpsed a red bandanna being waved wildly between the swaying pine tree boughs. At the sight of the signal he’d instructed his foreman to use once he spotted Miss Crabtree headed their way, his belly lurched with something very close to excitement.

  Impatience, he told himself sternly. It was impatience he felt to have this chowder-headed business behind him, not excitement.

  Marcus was still reminding himself of that fact when the woman came into view, wearing a close-fitting dress and a bonnet nearly as enormous as the one Deputy Winston had drawn on the caricature at the saloon last night. For an instant, his thoughts lingered on the other, rounder, softer and equally impressive attributes he’d given Miss Crabtree in the picture. Marcus wondered if as little exaggeration was involved there as had been involved with her hat.

  Shoving that enticing mystery aside, he turned to give his men the second signal. Marcus raised his hand, prepared to gesture with it…and realized that not one of his men was looking at him. They all stood with stupid, eager grins, slack jawed and glassy-eyed, watching Molly’s feminine, side-to-side swish as she made her way down the path toward the lumber mill.

  They were hopeless.

  So was Marcus, by the time she recognized him and ran the last few steps toward him. Lord, but the woman was a sight to behold.

  Her face was alight with good humor, pink cheeked and delicately shaped beneath the brim of her flower-bedecked hat. A few tendrils of honey-colored hair had escaped its confines to tease her lips, drawing his attention to their tempting fullness. Sucking in a deep breath, Marcus took an instant to prepare, then treated himself to an up-close view of her fine woman’s figure in that waist-hugging dress.

  No wonder his men had gone slack jawed.

  For the life of him, in that moment Marcus couldn’t imagine a single reason why Molly Crabtree, as delightful looking a female as he’d ever seen, had grown into a spinster. How, he wondered to himself, could it be that no man had ever stuck a ring on her finger and made her his own?

  Then…she opened her mouth.

  “Morning, Mr. Copeland,” she said brightly. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? I’m so glad we’ve finally had this chance to meet face-to-face. Why, I don’t think we’ve ever said two words to each other, and that’s after you’ve been living here in Morrow Creek for the past two years! Can you imagine that? I guess we’ve just never had a moment to spare, what with you working on your lumber mill, and me working on my various ventures. Busy, busy, busy. That’s us.”

  She paused for breath. For an instant, Marcus believed her chatter had come to an end. But then she looped her arm companionably in his, started walking them both toward the two-story lumber mill behind them, and just went on.

  “I’m so happy you invited me here today. I just know we can come to an agreeable arrangement. My baked goods are unlike any others in town, you know. They’re positively unique.”

  Marcus nodded, too distracted by the pleasurable feel of her slender arm cradled in his to offer much more to the conversation. She smelled spicy, he thought, and sweet. Like pumpkin pie, or gingerbread. Cinnamon, Marcus identified after a moment. Cinnamon and sugar.

  Mmm.

  He had a sudden impossible yet wholly irresistible image of himself together with Miss Molly. Alone. In his imagination, Marcus unfastened the first tiny pearled buttons on her dress. As he opened her gown, he kissed the warm, creamy skin he’d revealed at her neck. She tasted of spices as delicious as any he’d sampled…and of some, more exotic still.

  Transfixed, Marcus let himself be led toward the shade of a stand of pine trees a few feet from the mill’s main entrance. Beside him, Molly struggled with the covered wicker basket she’d brought. Marcus chivalrously helped her lower it to a ponderosa stump.

  Freed of her burden, she rummaged through its contents. Her movements sent her blue-checked skirts swishing against her legs, and the clump of men who’d followed them pushed closer. As one, their combined gazes dropped to her stocking-clad ankles.

  A stern glance from Marcus had them all busily examining axes, tightening suspender straps and looking purposefully toward the towering pines beyond. With a shake of his head, Marcus dismissed them to await the next phase of his plan.

  “I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he told Molly when they were alone again. “I don’t often do things without planning first, but I—”

  “Oh, but you should! The things you don’t plan for are often the most enjoyable of all.”

  The very notion made Marcus frown. Fail to plan? Unthinkable. “Be that as it may, I did have some ideas in mind for us today.”

  She quit fussing with the basket she’d brought and looked up. Her eyes were blue, he noticed inanely. As though that mattered a whit to discovering if she was really the secret matchmaker.

  “You do?” Molly asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then.” She smiled up at him, and turned so they faced each other fully. “I guess you’d better tell me what you have in mind. For us to do together, I mean.”

  Together. Suddenly, all manner of unified activities occurred to Marcus. Things they could do together—very close together. As though guessing his thoughts, Molly lowered her gaze coquettishly, encouraging him to lower his gaze, too…all the way to those remarkable feminine curves of hers. Lord Almighty. Was Molly Crabtree flirting with him? It would seem so.

  ’Twould be fitting, if she were truly the matchmaker.

  The matchmaker. Reminded of his mission, Marcus smiled back at her. He was no mere boy, to be dumbfounded by a feminine smile and a handful of enticing words.

  Was he?

  Hell, no. With new determination, Marcus cleared his throat and got on with his plan. “I couldn’t help but notice you outside the lumber mill yard these past weeks,” he began.

  It wasn’t strictly true. His foreman, Smith, had enlightened Marcus about Molly’s continued vigil outside the mill yard, and the rest of his plan had sprung from there. Looking at her now, though, Marcus couldn’t imagine how he’d missed the sight of her.

  Had business success turned him blind to the appeal of a pretty woman? Suddenly ill at ease, he wondered if his friends in the men’s club were right, and he needed to socialize more.

  “If you mean to make me leave that spot,” Molly interrupted, turning back to her basket with shoulders gone suddenly stiff and defensive, “I’ll have you know that the road is public land, and so is its edge. You can’t force me away from there. Why, the whole town would probably be in an uproar if you so much as tried.”

  “Hold on. There’s no call to get riled up. I never said I was asking you to leave, Miss Crabtree—”

  “Molly, please.” Her shoulders relaxed, slim and delicately curved beneath the blue checked fabric of her dress.

  “Molly.” He liked the sound of it. The intimacy of it. “Friends ought to call each other by their first names, don’t you think so?” She rose, holding a napkin-wrapped bundle in her small, elegant-looking hands.

  “Uh.” He experienced an unprecedented urge to take those hands in his and slowly pull her closer. With a frown of confusion, Marcus wrestled down that impulse and settled for answering her question instead. “Yes, I do. Especially if you agree to the proposition I have in mind.”

  “Proposition?”

  She raised her eyebrows, looking intrigued and not half as offended as she might have been, had Molly guessed at the kind of bawdy thoughts that had been going through his mind.

  “Yes. I want you to bring some of your baked goods to my lumber mill each day—at a time we agree on, of course—for sale to my men. It seems they’ve noticed your post outside the yard, too. To a man, they all clamored to have your
sweets.”

  A smile even more dazzling than her earlier one lit Molly’s face. “Truly?” she whispered.

  “Truly.” Liar, his conscience jabbed. This was no more than a ploy, and Marcus knew it. It’s for a good cause, he reminded himself, and went on. “So I agreed.”

  “Why, Mr. Copeland!”

  “Marcus,” he insisted. Being on friendly terms with her could only improve his chances of discovering if she was the matchmaker, he reasoned. And of ending all this pretense quickly.

  “Marcus, then. You’re just a big old softie at heart, aren’t you? That’s so sweet! My word, I’d never have guessed that a man so…well, so very businesslike as you would treat his men so finely. I’m impressed, truly I am.”

  Her constant chatter made his head throb. Putting a hand to his temple, Marcus said gruffly, “My men fell more timber when they’re treated fairly. It’s just good business.”

  Molly’s impish grin told him she believed not a word of it. “So was calling out Nellie Baxter, so you could sample her baked goods, I reckon,” she said, naming the owner of Morrow Creek’s other, more established bakery. “I passed by her on the road on my way here. Nothing else lies out this way except your lumber mill.”

  Marcus tried to look abashed. He made a mental note to pay Smith a bonus for his suggestion that they pretend to consider the other bakery, lest Molly become suspicious of his sudden summons. “Well, now. Every man likes to do a little sampling, before deciding what’s right for him.”

  Her eyes narrowed, fixed on the bundle she held as she unwrapped the napkin. “According to the matchmaker, it’s thinking like that that gets a man into trouble.”

  Interest sparked inside him. “The matchmaker?”

  “Surely you’ve heard of the matchmaker. The whole town’s abuzz with news of all that’s been accomplished.” As though that fact were of little consequence, Molly finished her unwrapping, revealing a plump, golden-brown cinnamon bun. Crystals of sugar sparkled in the sunlight. “But all that aside, you’ve asked me here to discuss business, and that’s what I intend to do.”

  “Certainly.” And when we’re finished, I intend to ask you all about the matchmaker. More and more, it seemed as though Molly knew something about the subject. Something she wasn’t telling…

  “Here.” She offered him the cinnamon bun, along with an encouraging smile. “Once you try my goodies, you’ll never even think about anyone else’s.”

  Marcus nearly groaned. Did the woman have no sense of what ribald words like that could do to a man?

  Evidently, she did not. Neither did she realize what he was truly up to. It was all the luckier for him, Marcus told himself. He’d be finished with this business and back to work in no time.

  Putting one hand behind his back as he leaned forward to accept the cinnamon bun, he signaled for his men to begin the next step of his plan. Like magic, lumbermen of all ages and sizes surged forward. They encircled him and Molly, waving fistfuls of money and declaring raging hunger that only her baked goods could assuage.

  In the midst of it all, a startled-looking Molly gazed in wonder at the ruckus surrounding her. Then, with a beaming smile, she began selling napkin-wrapped bundles identical to the one she’d given Marcus.

  In no time at all, she was left with an empty basket, a fistful of money and an expression of gratitude that, when she turned it on Marcus, made his heart lurch painfully.

  “Same time tomorrow?” he made himself ask.

  “Yes, indeed!” Molly replied. Still seeming slightly bedazzled, she gathered her things, bade him goodbye and made her way back down the path toward town.

  She was hooked.

  Indisputably.

  But it was Marcus, to his consternation, who felt as though he’d been walloped over the head unawares. Something told him that proving Molly Crabtree was the matchmaker wouldn’t be as simple a process as he’d expected…and neither would making sure he didn’t fall prey to her charms, in the process.

  Chapter Three

  “I think it’s a mistake, Molly,” Sarah said. “I just can’t reason out why a man like Marcus Copeland would subsidize your bakery business this way.”

  “Maybe he has a sweet tooth,” Molly countered.

  “Somehow, I doubt it.”

  “Perhaps he regrets ignoring my efforts till now.”

  “Not hardly.”

  “I suppose he may have heard of my baked goods,” Molly mused, “and wanted to try them for himself?”

  “Well…” Sarah hesitated, then appeared to think better of disagreeing. “Perhaps. My point is, I think you should be careful. There must be more here than meets the eye.”

  Sighing over her sister’s skepticism, Molly put down the square of corn bread she’d been eating. True, Marcus’s abrupt change of heart had seemed a little suspicious at first. But his offer had simply been too good to pass up. Molly was all for anything that helped her bakeshop. It was her pride and joy—or would be, once she made a success of it.

  Besides, she generally thought the best of people. Surely Marcus was a good man, or would be, once he let himself be.

  She gazed out over the schoolyard filled with laughing, running, playing children, then tapped her heels restlessly against the schoolhouse steps where she and Sarah had met for lunch, bothered by conflicting feelings. Why couldn’t Sarah just be happy for her?

  For the past week, Molly had been making daily treks to the Copeland lumber mill, each time with an increasingly heavy basket. Those lumbermen—now those were some fellows with a sweet tooth! They had a surprising quantity of money with which to indulge it, too. It was a plain stroke of luck that Marcus had loosened his stance against letting her sell her baked goods to his men. Whatever his motives had been, she’d be forever grateful to him for setting her on the road toward making a success of her newly launched business.

  A brisk September breeze swept over the schoolyard, ruffling the hems of her green worsted gown and Sarah’s yellow calico. Beneath their feet, fallen leaves danced across the white-painted steps, pushed by the wind. Molly shivered and looked again at Sarah.

  “Why can’t you just be happy for me?” she asked quietly. “Why can’t you believe in me, and accept that maybe I’m capable of accomplishing something on my own?”

  “Of course you’re capable,” Sarah began. She broke off to tell little Wally Brownlee not to capture the girls he was chasing by yanking on their pigtails. More seriously, she said, “I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. We all are. Mama and Papa, and Grace, too. You’re the youngest. You have an impulsive streak. There’s no denying that. I’m afraid it will get you into trouble someday.”

  “I’m managing just fine,” Molly told her. All except for the fluttery feeling I get whenever Marcus Copeland comes near. She raised her chin. “I don’t begrudge you your happiness over teaching here at the schoolhouse, nor even all the acclaim you’ll likely get when you manage the Chautauqua next month.”

  Sarah blushed at Molly’s mention of the highly anticipated annual event, featuring orators, a concert, plays and picnics, which she had volunteered to organize. If Molly were fortunate, she’d be allowed to host a booth of her own at the pavilion, featuring her baked goods. Participation required approval by the town leaders, but she was hopeful.

  Especially now, when she had the patronage of a well-respected businessman like Marcus to rely upon.

  But that didn’t mean she cared any less about her family’s opinion. Resuming her earlier argument, Molly said, “Furthermore, I don’t caution Grace about all she’s doing, even though—”

  “Nobody cautions Grace about anything,” Sarah broke in.

  They shared a laugh. Their older sister was notoriously well-known for taking charge of things—and accepting no arguments, while she did.

  “—even though,” Molly continued doggedly, “she must be involved in every women’s group, lecture series and ladies’ aid organization in Morrow Creek.” Drawing in a deep breath, she hoped
with all her heart that Sarah would understand the dreams she held so closely. “All I’m asking for is a chance to do something…just once…all on my own.”

  At the end of her impassioned plea, Molly looked at her sister. Beside her, Sarah sat, chin in hand, looking at the false-fronted buildings that stood in the distance along Main Street. She sighed. The sound was filled with longing—a soul-deep, romantic kind of longing Molly had never once suspected her sensible bluestocking of a sister might be vulnerable to.

  “Why, Sarah! You’re not even listening to me.”

  Sarah jerked. She pulled her gaze back to Molly, then picked up the fried chicken drumstick that was all that remained of her lunch. “Of course I’m listening.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I am.” She nodded, took a bite of chicken and chewed vigorously. But still her gaze wandered in the direction of town. “Truly.”

  “Humph.”

  Curious now, Molly leaned sideways, the better to figure out what held her sister so enraptured. All she could see were the same old buildings—the back side of the mercantile, the church steeple, the various saloons and shops along Main Street…and the blacksmith shop, where a tall, powerfully built man stood beside a water barrel, sluicing its contents over his face and bare chest. Squinting, Molly just managed to make out the dark hair and strong features of Daniel McCabe, a moment before he shook his head and went back to work.

  “I don’t believe my eyes,” she murmured.

  “Hmm?” Vigorously working away at her drumstick, Sarah didn’t look up. So engrossed was she, in fact, that she failed to notice the wide grin spreading across her sister’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You’re sweet on Daniel McCabe,” Molly said, shaking her head over the sheer obviousness of it. After all, Sarah and Daniel had been friends since their days running up and down the same schoolhouse steps the two women now sat upon. “It’s only fitting, I suppose,” she went on, “considering how close you two have been for all these years. But still—Daniel McCabe? Surely you don’t think a rowdy type like him would be best for—”