Elise Read online

  Traces expression darkened as he remembered his reunion with Will. It had been about four weeks before, when he'd finally recovered enough to make the long trip into town. He'd deliberately ridden into Eagle Pass late at night, and he had taken great care not to allow himself to be seen. Everyone thought he was dead, and he wanted it to stay that way. He'd sought his deputy out at the jail, knocking quietly at the back door that opened into the unlighted alley.

  "Who is it?" Will had demanded cautiously, not opening the door right away.

  Trace had not answered. He'd waited in silence until Will finally unlocked the door and then held up the lamp he'd carried with him to take a look around. Trace would never forget the look of astonishment on his friend's face when he'd first seen him there half hidden in the shadows of the night.

  "Trace-" Will had been completely shocked to find his friend standing before him.

  "So you're the new sheriff, are you?" Trace had asked, giving him a half smile.

  "Oh, my God! You're alive!"

  "We need to talk privately," he'd told Will quickly, glancing around to make sure no one was watching them. "Can we go in the back room where no one will see us?"

  Will had quickly regained his wits and stood aside to let Trace enter. He had closed and locked the door securely behind him. "Of course we can, but why? Everybody in town was devastated by what happened. Everyone thinks you're dead! Lets let everyone know you're all right-"

  "No! That's why I came here now-at night. You're the only one I want to know that I'm still alive. As far as everyone in town is concerned, I was killed with the rest of the posse."

  "But why?"

  "Because the Harris gang thinks I'm dead, too."

  "You're going after them," Will had stated with certainty, finally understanding his motive for secrecy.

  "You're damned right I am," he'd told him. "And I'm not going to stop tracking them until they're all either dead or in jail."

  "But what happened to you? Where have you been all this time?"

  "I was shot three times and as close to dead as I ever care to get. Gibby Pruett found me and saved me. He hid me out and took care of me."

  "But I talked to him when he came into town to report the ambush. He'd said that he'd buried all of you."

  "That's what I told him to say. I didn't want word to get back to Harris that I was alive. I want to surprise him the next time I see him."

  Will had completely understood. "What can I do to help you?"

  "Nothing for right now. I'll be in touch."

  "You need anything, anything at all, just let me know. Here-" His friend had dug into his pocket and given him all the cash he'd had on him. "It isn't a lot, but it'll help some."

  "Thanks."

  They'd shaken hands, and Trace had disappeared back into the night. He hadn't returned to Eagle Pass since. There was no need. The life he'd led there was over.

  Trace had remained hiding out with Gibby for several more weeks until they'd journeyed into a different town to get supplies. It was there that he'd won a large sum of money along with the Durango Weekly Star from Ben Hollins in the poker game. He'd used his grandfather's name when he'd first sat in on the game, and after his big win, he'd decided to just keep using it. He needed anonymity for now. Before leaving for Durango, Trace had bought the clothes and eyeglasses he needed for his new identity. Durango was a busy, growing town, and he hadn't wanted to risk running into someone who might recognize him.

  The unexpected opportunity that winning the paper afforded Trace couldn't have come at a better time. Working at the newspaper, he would be able to keep track of the Harris gang's activities while he continued to perfect his shooting skills and get his full strength back.

  Trace's thoughts settled on the Star againand on his "bride." It had been interesting, to say the least, getting caught up in the trap she'd set for the outlaw preacher. Had she been a man, he could have used her as a deputy back in Eagle Pass. From the talk he'd heard in the saloon, they were going to sell a lot of papers because of her efforts. He found himself anticipating the next morning, when he would make his first appearance at the Star's office as the new owner/editor. He was looking forward to seeing Elise's expression when he finally introduced himself to her. It would prove interesting to see what she thought about having him for her boss.

  "How did it go?" Andy Roland asked Elise when she returned to the Stars office late that night.

  "Marshal Trent was a great help. I've got all the details I need now," she told him excitedly as she patted the notebook she carried with her. She'd just spent two hours going over all that had happened with the marshal before he'd shown up at the wedding to arrest Farnsworth.

  "Did you try to talk to Farnsworth, too?" the young man asked. He was only eighteen, but he already knew that he wanted to be a reporter. Currently, he was stuck doing the hard physical work at the paper, but he intended to work his way up eventually. Following Marshal Trent around earlier that day had been the highlight so far of his journalistic career.

  "The marshal let me go back to the cell area where they're holding him, but Farnsworth wouldn't say anything."

  "Aren't the men who did his dirty work a dangerous-looking bunch?" Andy asked. He'd been along when some of the arrests had been made.

  "It's no wonder no one else ever caught on to the connection between them before. They hardly look like the types Farnsworth would be dealing with."

  "But if he really was a preacher, those are the kinds of men he should be going after to save," Andy remarked with thoughtful insight.

  "If Farnsworth had been a smart man, he would have tried to save them, but I don't think he's going to be saving anybody anytime soonincluding himself. He's guilty, and we've got the proof for all to see right here in the Star. How many extra copies are you planning to print?",

  "Another five hundred, I thought. Is that good enough?"

  She nodded. "We can always go back to press if we have to. Too bad Ben isn't here to see this. He would have been very proud of us."

  "He'd have been proud of you," Andy corrected, giving her full credit. "You always told him you were going to get him a big story, and you did."

  "It has been exciting. I still can't believe that everything turned out so well-especially after getting his last-minute telegram that way."

  "You were saying earlier that Ben lost the paper in a card game, but you didn't say who he'd lost it to. Do you know who our new boss is?"

  "Ben didn't say in the wire. I guess we'll just have to keep things going on our own until the new owner decides to show up. And speaking of keeping things going, I'd better get this article finished so you can start the presses."

  "I'll be ready whenever you are," Andy assured her. "From the looks of things, we're going to be here all night and maybe part of the morning."

  She nodded. "We can't afford to run late. We've got to be on the street with this edition first thing tomorrow. We don't want to give anyone else the chance to beat us out with the story."

  "Don't worry. This is your scoop. We're going to be the first and the best." He gave her a confident smile.

  "Then I'd better get to work."

  "By the way, Who was the man you `married'?" Andy asked, curious since Ben hadn't shown up in time. With all the talk about the arrest of the preacher and his gang after the ceremony, she hadn't said a word about her stand-in groom.

  "I didn't get his name."

  "You didn't even know his name, and you married him?" Andy was surprised.

  "When a reporter is desperate, she'll go to any lengths to get her story-remember that!" She laughed. "Don't worry. As soon as we get done with this edition, I'll go find my `husband' and thank him. I'm sure he's staying at one of the hotels in town. It shouldn't be too difficult to locate him, but right now, that's the least of my worries. We've got a paper to put out."

  As Elise started to write the story, thoughts of her "groom"-and his kiss-interfered. It had been strange that her stand-in Ben h
ad played along with her charade so completely and without question, only to disappear without a word-especially after the kiss he'd given her. As she recalled her reaction to his embrace, she was still a bit disconcerted by the feelings it had evoked in her. This man had been a total stranger, and yet she had responded to him as she'd never responded to any other man's embrace. Not that she'd had that much experience with men and kissing, but she had kissed a few of her suitors and none of their embraces had had anywhere near the effect of his. Surely, it had simply been the excitement of the moment that had caused her to react that way to him. That had to be it.

  Elise realized as she tried to turn her attention to her writing again that she still owed "Ben" the money she'd promised to pay him for his help. As mild-mannered as he'd seemed, she figured he'd probably just been too timid to cause a scene there at the depot, and once the ceremony had started it had been too late for him to back out. She owed him the money, however, and she would pay her debt-once she'd finally finished her article for the paper.

  If Elise had taken time to think about it, exhaustion would have been too mild a word for the way she was feeling as she watched the Star come off the press in the early-morning hours. Her elation over the new edition tempered her weariness. She and Andy had gotten the paper out in record time.

  PRETENDER IN THE PULPIT! The headline screamed.

  A SNAKE IS DISCOVERED IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN! CHECK YOUR MARRIAGE LICENSES! PREACHER FARNSWORTH WAS A FRAUD! read the opening lines of her in-depth expose on the outlaw preacher.

  Elise picked up a copy and read it over quickly. When she looked up at Andy, she gave him a dazzling, triumphant smile.

  "This is amazing! We actually did it!"

  "We're going to be giving some of the other more established papers in town a run for their money now," Andy stated firmly, secure in the knowledge that they had just put out the best edition of the Star ever.

  "It's about time, too. We've been doing good work all along, but we never had such a great opportunity before! This lead story is such a shocker"

  "You did a fine job, Elise," Andy complimented her. "Without your persistence, the truth about Farnsworth would never have been uncovered, and the men working for him would never have been caught."

  "Who would have thought that someone would be low enough to pass himself off as a man of the cloth and all the while be directing a gang of thieves?"

  "He's going to be paying for it now that Marshal Trent's arrested him. The trial should take place reasonably soon, I would think."

  "Yes, and that's going to make great copy, too! It feels good to know that we helped out the community. The bad news is that this one great story isn't going to sustain the paper forever. We can't just sit back on our laurels now. We have to keep coming up with new, exciting ideas, so everyone learns to count on the Star for the most important news!"

  Elise's enthusiasm for going after a big story never wavered. She loved the thrill of hunting down the facts, of uncovering the truth about people and situations. Reporting was in her blood. She lived and breathed the newspaper. It was her life.

  "That's easier said than done," Andy said, a note of weariness sounding now in his voice.

  "There's no time for you to get tired on me now, Andy."

  "Not even for the rest of the weekend?" he asked with a laugh.

  "You know what I mean," she countered. "We'll have to work harder than ever. We have to keep topping our last success. We have to keep going after the most exciting and most outrageous stories. That's what will keep the Star selling like hotcakes."

  "I know you've been working on Farnsworth for months and with Ben's blessing, but what's going to happen when the new owner shows up? What if he comes in and wants us to do something totally different?"

  "Why would he? If what we're doing is successful, hell support us one-hundred percent." Her expression faltered a bit as she considered the possibility that Andy might be right. "The object is to sell newspapers, isn't it?"

  "Yes, but as the new editor, too, the owner might not see things our way."

  "Well see, but I wouldn't worry too much about that if I were you," she reassured him. "When our new boss finally does show upwhoever he is-he's going to be very pleased with what we've accomplished here in Durango."

  "He might be, or he could just close the paper down without a thought and move on."

  Though Andy had been in the newspaper business only a short time, he had already witnessed the comings and goings of several papers in the area. Newspaper owners always had the option to pack up their presses and head on to another town whenever it suited them. The uncertainty of not knowing who their new boss was and what they could expect from him was unsettling.

  "No one is going to shut down the Star. We've worked too hard to build it up, and we're too good at what we do for him even to consider walking away. I just wish that I'd known how Ben felt about the paper. If I'd had any idea that he'd wanted out of the business, I would have bought the Star from him."

  "I don't think he wanted to get rid of the Star," Andy commented, thinking of their past editor's devotion to the newspaper. "I think he believed his poker hand couldn't be beaten, so he bet everything he owned to make a big killing."

  "And got killed in the process," Elise finished glumly. "I enjoyed working with Ben. He was a good man. I'm going to miss him."

  "So am I," Andy agreed.

  "I wonder what our new owner will be like?"

  "Well, one thing's for certain," he began. At her questioning look, he finished, "Our new boss is certainly a lot better gambler than Ben ever was."

  "Yes, he won us, and it looks as if he did it all fair and square. Let's just hope he's pleased with what he's acquired, and there's no reason why he shouldn't be. Do you know how many additional papers we're going to sell today all because of Farnsworth's arrest?" Her excitement returned as her thoughts turned to her lead story.

  "So, the secret in making our new boss happy and keeping the Star going here in Durango is to have great reporting so we can sell a lot of papers. Since its so simple, why don't you tell me what your next story is going to be? You're going to have to top `Pretender in the Pulpit'."

  Though she was smiling, Elise's exhaustion finally won out. Her shoulders slumped at the thought of coming up with a new angle on another story for the following week right away. "Right this minute, I have absolutely no idea what I'll be writing about, but I'll think of something good before our deadline-you just wait and see."

  Just then they heard the sound of someone entering the outer office, and they exchanged quizzical looks. It was still quite early in the morning, and it was most unusual for anyone to show up at this hour. Together, Elise and Andy started to walk to the front to see who had come in.

  "Hello?" a man called out.

  "Can we help-" Elise started to speak and then stopped in mid-sentence. Standing before her just inside the office door was "Ben." "Oh ...Hello."

  "Hello." Trace saw her come out of the back room with the young man right behind her, and he smiled. When last he'd seen her, she'd been wearing the wedding gown and veil and had looked delicate and ethereally beautiful to him. Now, wearing a blue, high-necked, longsleeved daygown, she looked like a much different woman. She was still lovely, but in a more subtle way. Her lustrous dark hair was drawn back in a severe bun that was secured at the nape of her neck. It was a harsh style that on some women would have proven unflattering, but on Elise it only served to emphasize the beauty of her high cheekbones and the slender line of her neck. "I thought I might find you here. Nice office," he remarked, looking around.

  "I'm so glad you stopped by," she said quickly, a light flush staining her cheeks. She was embarrassed that he had found her before she could find him to pay him the money she owned him.

  Andy noticed her reaction and knew exactly who the stranger was. "You must be `Ben.'"

  "Actually, my names Gabe, Gabe West, but yes, yesterday for a short while I was `Ben.'"

&n
bsp; "And I'm Andy Roland. I work here. From what Elise has told me, it sounds like you did a fine job yesterday. It's nice to finally meet you and find out your real name." Andy grinned at him as he extended his hand.

  "It's nice to meet you, too."

  The two men shook hands.

  "Gabe?" Elise said his name slowly, as if testing the sound of it. "Where did you disappear to last night? I was looking for you and didn't know where you'd gone."

  "I had to get my things from the stage depot and find a hotel room for the night."

  "Neither one of you had a very exciting wedding night, did you?" Andy said with a laugh, looking at both of them.

  The memory of this man's passionate kiss after they'd been declared man and wife deepened her blush. Even though she had "married" him, he really was still a stranger to her. Not wanting to think about his kiss or the effect it had on her, let alone talk about any wedding nights, Elise changed the topic. "I had planned to look for you later this morning, once we'd finished getting the paper out. I wanted to make sure you were paid for helping out as you did. I really appreciated what you did. If you'll wait here for a moment, I'll get the money for you."

  Before Trace could say anything more, Elise retreated into the back room to get her purse. She was eager to pay him off, so he would leave. He'd served his purpose in her plan, and there was no need for them to have any further contact. All she wanted to do was go home and get some rest.

  When Elise returned to the outer office with the money in hand, she found Gabe reading the new edition of the newspaper with great interest.

  "Here's your money," she offered.

  "Thanks. I'm glad I was able to help," he said as he looked up from the headlines to take the ten dollars from her. "It looks like things turned out just fine, judging from your article. I must compliment you. Your choice of headlines is very intriguing. Your idea to do an investigative report on Farnsworth was very successful."

  The smile he gave her made Elise pause. He seemed almost handsome when he looked at her that way. She gave herself a mental shake at the thought. This was just her stand-in Ben. Even though the kisses he'd given her the day before had surprised her with their intensity, he was still a mild-mannered sort, nothing like the kind of men she was attracted to. She liked strong men-men who stood for something. Gabe West was a nice man, and he'd come in handy yesterday when she'd found herself in a tight squeeze, but she had no interest in continuing a relationship of any sort with him. She was, however, pleased by his perceptive remarks about the Star.