Page 28 of Heart on the Line

“He already has.” That grim pronouncement came from the marshal.

Dunbar glanced at the lawman beside him then aimed an unrelenting stare at Grace. “If that’s the case, we ain’t got time to spare. Why don’t you and I step over to the café, get some coffee, and discuss how best to get those documents?”

Grace’s gaze flew to Amos, then to the marshal before finally resting on Dunbar. “All . . . right. If Mr. Bledsoe doesn’t mind tending the office while I’m away.”

Of course I mind! Amos wanted to refuse, but he held his tongue and gave a tight nod of assent instead.

The café was a public establishment. She wouldn’t be alone with the Pinkerton. But for all intents and purposes, she’d be alone with him. Private conversation. Cozied up at a corner table. Dunbar’s long limbs crowding her space, giving him an excuse to accidentally bump her thigh with his knee or brush his hand along her arm. He’d no doubt fire a barrage of masculine machinations at her to find out what she knew. And as much as Amos would like to believe that Grace was too clever to fall for the detective’s ploys, she’d already shown a wooly-eyed susceptibility.

She stepped over to the hook on the wall and collected her shawl. “I just need to send one quick telegram before I leave. It will only take a minute.”

Dunbar nodded.

Amos frowned. What telegram? Nothing had come in except that note from the Alamo Wheelmen. He hadn’t seen any completed telegram blanks lying around.

Nevertheless, she walked straight to the office table and delicately perched on the edge of the seat he had vacated when their guests arrived.

She reached for the key, but she didn’t open the circuit. Did Dunbar have her so rattled that she’d forgotten the basic operations of the telegraph? Amos was about to step close and whisper the oversight into her ear when he recognized his call sign at the beginning of her message.

It took a great deal of control not to let his surprise or growing delight show. He busied himself with straightening the stack of extra telegraph blanks in the box on the near side of the table so it would appear as if he was paying Grace no particular mind.

A—When D and I are at café, take items back to E. Lock in vault. Let no one see. Will follow my father’s example.

Amos instantly recalled the story she’d told about the hatbox and her father’s insistence on hiding the documents until meeting with the Pinkerton to ascertain his motives.

Grace pushed back from her chair and stood. “I won’t be long,” she said, her eyes meeting Amos’s for no more than a heartbeat, but he understood the message. He wasn’t to dawdle.

“I’ll take care of things, Miss Mallory.”

She nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Bledsoe.”

Then she left. On the arm of a man who threatened everything Amos hoped to gain. Yet it wasn’t Dunbar who Grace trusted with her father’s books. It was Amos. The spectacle-wearing, bicycle-riding telegraph operator who listened to her secret messages and took them to heart.

He just prayed Dunbar didn’t switch her loyalties.

14

Helen scowled at the stranger bleeding all over the path to her cabin. “You got no business bein’ here,” she groused, not that he cared anything for her opinion. He was too busy dying.

Without his boots on.

Helen frowned. Gray wool stockings were the only things covering his feet. Odd. No horse, no boots. The horse could have been spooked, but the boots? Unoccupied footwear rarely bolted on its own.

Adjusting her grip on the branch she carried in case he proved dangerous when roused, Helen prodded the sole of his right foot with the toe of her shoe. His mouth tightened and he groaned, but he didn’t lurch to his feet or attack her.

He posed no threat. That was good. But he wouldn’t be getting up and walking out of her life any time soon, either. That was bad. Or, at the very least, inconvenient.

Blowing out a breath, Helen dropped the branch and lowered to her knees beside the fallen man. She cast one more cautionary glance at his face before turning her attention to his leg. He’d managed to tie a bandana around the wound, which had probably slowed the bleeding enough to keep him alive. But judging by his pallor and lack of awareness, he wouldn’t be alive much longer without help. And thanks to an ill-timed prayer on her part, the Almighty had just volunteered her for the duty.

“What were you doing skulking around out here, anyway?” Helen muttered as she stripped off her pecan-stained gloves and pried the bandana back to examine the wound. A dark hole in his trousers that continued into the flesh below confirmed her earlier suspicion.

Gunshot.

Which begged another, more bothersome question. Who shot him? And where was that person now?

None of the ladies came out this far. Most of them rarely left town, and the ones at the farm would have said something about shooting a man. As much as that gaggle loved to gossip, they’d probably not be able to stop talking about it.

“So are you the good guy or the bad guy?” Helen arranged the bloody bandage back over the wound, then studied the man’s face as if that would give her some insight.